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diff --git a/old/64255-h/64255-h.htm b/old/64255-h/64255-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index c153b34..0000000 --- a/old/64255-h/64255-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,17081 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of The City of Comrades, by Basil King. - </title> - - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - -<style type="text/css"> - -a { - text-decoration: none; -} - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -h1,h2 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -h2.nobreak { - page-break-before: avoid; -} - -hr.chap { - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - clear: both; - width: 65%; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -div.chapter { - page-break-before: always; -} - -ul { - list-style-type: none; -} - -li { - margin-top: .5em; - padding-left: 2em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -p { - margin-top: 0.5em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: 0.5em; - text-indent: 1em; -} - -table { - margin: 1em auto 1em auto; - max-width: 40em; - border-collapse: collapse; -} - -td { - padding: 0.25em 0.25em 0.25em 2.25em; - vertical-align: top; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -.tdc { - vertical-align: bottom; - text-align: center; -} - -.tdpg { - vertical-align: bottom; - text-align: right; -} - -.ad { - margin: auto; - max-width: 30em; -} - -.blockquote { - margin: 1.5em 10%; -} - -.caption { - text-align: center; - margin-bottom: 1em; - font-size: 90%; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.center { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.larger { - font-size: 150%; -} - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - right: 4%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; -} - -.poetry-container { - text-align: center; - margin: 1em; -} - -.poetry { - display: inline-block; - text-align: left; -} - -.poetry .stanza { - margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em; -} - -.poetry .verse { - padding-left: 3em; -} - -.poetry .indent0 { - text-indent: -3em; -} - -.right { - text-align: right; - margin-right: 1em; -} - -.smaller { - font-size: 80%; -} - -.smcap { - font-variant: small-caps; - font-style: normal; -} - -.titlepage { - text-align: center; - margin-top: 3em; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -@media handheld { - -img { - max-width: 100%; - width: auto; - height: auto; -} - -.poetry { - display: block; - margin-left: 1.5em; -} - -.blockquote { - margin: 1.5em 5%; -} -} - - </style> - </head> -<body> - -<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The City of Comrades, by Basil King</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The City of Comrades</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Basil King</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 11, 2021 [eBook #64255]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CITY OF COMRADES ***</div> - -<div class="ad"> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Books by</span><br /> -BASIL KING</p> - -<ul> -<li>GOING WEST</li> -<li>THE CITY OF COMRADES</li> -<li>ABRAHAM’S BOSOM</li> -<li>THE LIFTED VEIL</li> -<li>THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS</li> -<li>THE LETTER OF THE CONTRACT</li> -<li>THE WAY HOME</li> -<li>THE WILD OLIVE</li> -<li>THE INNER SHRINE</li> -<li>THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT</li> -<li>LET NO MAN PUT ASUNDER</li> -<li>IN THE GARDEN OF CHARITY</li> -<li>THE STEPS OF HONOR</li> -<li>THE HIGH HEART</li> -</ul> - -<p class="center">HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK<br /> -<span class="smcap">Established 1817</span></p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus1"> -<img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="500" height="650" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">“’Sh!” was the first sound that came from her. “Don’t -make a noise or you’ll frighten my friend. She’s -nervous already.”</p> -<p class="caption">(<a href="#Page_32">See p. 32</a>)</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="titlepage larger"><i>The</i><br /> -<span class="larger">CITY OF COMRADES</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br /> -BASIL KING</p> - -<p class="center smaller"><i>Author of</i><br /> -“THE INNER SHRINE” “THE WILD OLIVE”<br /> -“THE WAY HOME” “THE HIGH HEART” ETC.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>I dream’d in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>I dream’d that was the new City of Friends;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest;</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>And in all their looks and words.</i></div> - <div class="verse right">—<span class="smcap">Walt Whitman.</span></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter titlepage" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/torch.jpg" width="100" height="130" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="titlepage">HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br /> -<span class="smaller">NEW YORK AND LONDON</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller">Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers<br /> -Printed in the United States of America</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -</div> - -<table summary="List of illustrations"> - <tr> - <td><i>“’Sh!” was the first sound that came from her. “Don’t make a - noise or you’ll frighten my friend. She’s nervous already.”</i></td> - <td class="tdpg" colspan="2"><a href="#illus1"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>“Didn’t you ever see any one put these pearls into his pocket - before?”</i></td> - <td class="tdpg"><i>Facing p.</i></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus2"><i>204</i></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>“You’re going home to marry me.” “How can I be going home to - marry you, when—when I never knew till within half an hour that - you—that you cared anything about me?”</i></td> - <td class="tdc">”</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus3"><i>290</i></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>“That you should ’ave come back to this—and me believin’ the war - ’ad done ye good—lifted you up, like. Not but what you was the best - man ever lived before the war—”</i></td> - <td class="tdc">”</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus4"><i>344</i></a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p> - -<h1>THE CITY OF COMRADES</h1> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER I</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“No?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>In the slow swirl of Columbus Circle, at the southwest -corner of Central Park, two seedy, sinister individuals -could hold an exceedingly private conversation without -drawing attention to themselves. There were others like -us on the scene, in that month of June, 1913, cast up from -the obscurest depths of New York. We could revolve -there for five or ten minutes, in company with other elements -of the city’s life, to be eliminated by degrees, sucked -into other currents, forming new combinations or reacting -to the old ones.</p> - -<p>In silence we shuffled along a few paces, though not -exactly side by side. Lovey was just sufficiently behind -me to be able to talk confidentially into my ear. My own -manner was probably that of a man anxious to throw off a -dogging inferior. Even among us there are social degrees.</p> - -<p>“Yer’ll be sorry,” Lovey warned me, reproachfully.</p> - -<p>“Very well, then,” I jerked back at him over my shoulder; -“I shall be sorry.”</p> - -<p>“If I didn’t know it was a good thing I wouldn’t ’a’<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span> -wanted to take ye in on it—not you, I wouldn’t; and -dead easy.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care for it.”</p> - -<p>“Ye’re only a beginner—”</p> - -<p>“I’m not even that.”</p> - -<p>“No, ye’re not even that; and this’d larn ye. Just two -old ladies—lots of money always in the ’ouse—no resistance—no -weepons nor nothink o’ that kind; and me -knowin’ every hinch of the ground through workin’ for -’em two years ago—”</p> - -<p>“And suppose they recognized you?”</p> - -<p>“That’s it. That’s why I must have a pal. If they’d -git a look at any one it’d have to be at you. But you -don’t need to be afraid, never pinched before nor nothink. -Once yer picter’s in the rogues’ they’ll run ye in if ye so -much as blow yer nose. You’d just get by as an unknown -man.”</p> - -<p>“And if I didn’t get by?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but you would, sonny. Ye’re the kind. Just look -at ye! Slim and easy-movin’ as a snake, y’are. Ye’d go -through a man’s clothes while he’s got ’em on, and he -wouldn’t notice ye no more’n a puff of wind. Look at -yer ’and.”</p> - -<p>I held it up and looked at it. A year ago, a month ago, -I should have studied it with remorse. Now I did it -stupidly, without emotions or regrets.</p> - -<p>It was a long, slim hand, resembling the rest of my person. -It was strong, however, with big, loosely articulated -knuckles and muscular thumbs—again resembling the -rest of my person. At the Beaux Arts, and in an occasional -architect’s office, it had been spoken of as a “drawing” -hand; and Lovey was now pointing out its advantages -for other purposes. I laughed to myself.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p> - -<p>“Ye’re too tall,” Lovey went on, in his appraisement. -“That’s ag’in’ ye. Ye must be a good six foot. But lots -o’ men are too tall. They gits over it by stoopin’ a bit; -and when ye stoops it frightens people, especially women. -They ain’t near as scared of a man that stands straight -up as they’ll be of one that crouches and wiggles away. -Kind o’ suggests evil to ’em, like, it does. And these -two old ladies—”</p> - -<p>As we reached the corner of the Park I rounded slowly -on my tempter. Not that he thought of his offer as -temptation, any more than I did; it was rather on his -part a touch of solicitude. He was doing his best for me, -in return for what he was pleased to take as my kindness -to him during the past ten days.</p> - -<p>He was a small, wizened man, pathetically neat in spite -of cruel shabbiness. It was the kind of neatness that in -our world so often differentiates the man who has dropped -from him who has always been down. The gray suit, -which was little more than a warp with no woof on it at -all, was brushed and smoothed and mended. The flannel -shirt, with turned-down collar, must have been chosen for -its resistance to the show of dirt. The sky-blue tie might -have been a more useful selection, but even that had had -freshness steamed and pressed into it whenever Lovey -had got the opportunity. Over what didn’t so directly -meet the eye the coat was tightly buttoned up.</p> - -<p>The boots were the weakest point, as they are with all -of us. They were not noticeably broken, but they were -wrinkled and squashed and down at the heel. They -looked as if they had been worn by other men before having -come to the present possessor; and mine looked the -same. When I went into offices to apply for work it was -always my boots that I tried to keep out of sight; but it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span> -was precisely what the eye of the fellow in command -seemed determined to search out and judge me by.</p> - -<p>You must not think of Lovey as a criminal. He had -committed petty crimes and he had gone to jail for them; -but it had only been from the instinct of self-preservation. -He worked when he got a job; but he never kept a job, -because his habits always fired him. Then he lived as he -could, lifting whatever small object came his way—an -apple from a fruit-stall, a purse a lady had inadvertently -laid down, a bag in a station, an umbrella forgotten in a -corner—anything! The pawnshops knew him so well that -he was afraid to go into them any more—except when he -was so tired that he wanted to be sent to the Island for a -month’s rest. In general, he disposed of his booty for a -few pennies to children, to poverty-stricken mothers of -families, to pals in the saloons. As long as a few dollars -lasted he lived, as he himself would have said, honestly. -When he was driven to it he filched again; but only -when he was driven to it.</p> - -<p>It was ten days now since he had begun following me -about, somewhat as a stray dog will follow you when you -have given him a bone and a drink of water. For a year -and more I had seen him in one or another of the dives I -hung about. The same faces always turn up there, and -we get to have the kind of acquaintance, silent, haunted, -tolerant, that binds together souls in the Inferno. In -general, it is a great fraternity; but now and then—often -for reasons no one could fathom—some one is excluded. -He comes and goes, and the others follow him with resentful -looks and curses. Occasionally he is kicked out, -which was what happened to Lovey whenever his weakness -afforded the excuse.</p> - -<p>It was when he was kicked out of Stinson’s that I had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span> -picked him up. It was after midnight. It was cold. -The sight of the abject face was too much for me.</p> - -<p>“Come along home with me, Lovey,” I had said, -casually; and he came.</p> - -<p>Home was no more than a stifling garret, and Lovey -slept on the floor like a dog. But in the morning I found -my shoes cleaned as well as he could clean them without -brush or blacking, my clothes folded, and the whole -beastly place in such order as a friendly hand could bring -to it. Lovey himself was gone.</p> - -<p>Twice during the interval he had stolen in in the same -way and stolen out. He asked no more than a refuge -and the privilege of sidling timidly up to me with a beseeching -look in his sodden eyes when we met in bars. -Once, when by hook or by crook he had got possession of -a dollar, he insisted on the honor of “buying me a drink.”</p> - -<p>On this particular afternoon I had met him by chance -in the region of Broadway between Forty-second Street -and Columbus Circle. I can still recall the shy, half-frightened -pleasure in his face as he saw me advancing -toward him. He might have been a young girl.</p> - -<p>“Got somethin’ awful good, sonny, to let ye in on,” -were the words with which he stopped me.</p> - -<p>I turned round and walked back with him to the Circle, -and round it.</p> - -<p>“No, Lovey,” I said decidedly, when we had got to the -corner of the Park, “it’s not good enough. I’ve other fish -to fry.”</p> - -<p>A hectic flush stole into the cheeks, which kept a marvelous -youth and freshness. The thin, delicate features, -ascetic rather than degraded, sharpened with a frosty -look of disappointment.</p> - -<p>“Well, just as you think best, sonny,” he said, resignedly.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span> -He asked, abruptly, however, “When did ye -have yer last meal?”</p> - -<p>“The day before yesterday.”</p> - -<p>“And when d’ye expect to have yer next?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know. Sometime; possibly to-night.”</p> - -<p>“Possibly to-night— ’Ow?”</p> - -<p>“I tell you I don’t know. Something will happen. If -it doesn’t—well, I’ll manage.”</p> - -<p>He had found an opening.</p> - -<p>“Don’t ye see ye carn’t go on like that? Ye’ve got to -live.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, I haven’t.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say that, sonny,” he burst out, tenderly. -“Ye’ve got to live! Ye must do it—for my sake—now. -I suppose it’s because we’re—we’re Britishers together.” -He looked round on the circling crowd of Slavs, Mongolians, -Greeks, Italians, aliens of all sorts. “We’re different -from these Yankees, ain’t we?”</p> - -<p>Admitting our Anglo-Saxon superiority, I was about to -say, “Well, so long, Lovey,” and shake him off, when he -put in, piteously, “I suppose I can come up and lay down -on yer floor again to-night?”</p> - -<p>“I wish you could, Lovey,” I responded. “But—but -the fact is I—I haven’t got that place any more.”</p> - -<p>“Fired?”</p> - -<p>I nodded.</p> - -<p>“Where’ve ye gone?”</p> - -<p>“Nowhere.”</p> - -<p>“Where did ye sleep last night?”</p> - -<p>I described the exact spot in the lumber-yard near -Greeley’s Slip. He knew it. He had made use of its -hospitality himself on warm summer nights such as we -were having.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span></p> - -<p>“Goin’ there again to-night?”</p> - -<p>I said I didn’t know.</p> - -<p>He gazed at me with a kind of timid daring. “You -wouldn’t be—you wouldn’t be goin’ to the Down and Out -Club?”</p> - -<p>I smiled.</p> - -<p>“Why should you ask me that?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know. See you talkin’ to one of those -fellas oncet. Chap named Pyncheon. Worse than missions -and ’vangelists, they are.”</p> - -<p>“Did you ever think of going there yourself?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord love ye! I’ve thought of it, yes. But I’ve -fought it off. Once ye do that ye’re done for.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t believe I’m done for—” I began; but -he interrupted me coaxingly.</p> - -<p>“I say, sonny. I’ll go to Greeley’s Slip. Then if -you’ve nothin’ else on ’and, you come there, too—and -we’ll be fellas together. But don’t—don’t—go to the -Down and Out!”</p> - -<p>As I walked away from him I had his “fellas together” -amusingly, and also pathetically, in my heart. Lovey -was little better than an outcast. I knew him by no name -but that which some pothouse wag had fixed on him -derisively. From hints he had dropped I gathered that -he had had a wife and daughters somewhere in the world, -and intuitively I got the impression that without being -a criminal he had been connected with a crime. As to -his personal history he had never confided to me any of -the details beyond the fact that in his palmy days he had -been in a ’at-shop in the Edgware Road. I fancied that -at some time or another in his career his relatives in London—like -my own in Canada—had made up a lump sum -and bidden him begone to the land of reconstruction.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span> -There he had become what he was—an outcast. There I -was becoming an outcast likewise. We were “fellas together.” -I was thirty-one and he was fifty-two. My -comparative youth helped me, in that I didn’t look older -than my age; but he might easily have been seventy.</p> - -<p>Having got rid of him, I drifted diagonally across the -Park, but with a certain method in the seeming lack of -method in taking my direction. Though I had an objective -point, I didn’t dare to approach it otherwise than by -a roundabout route. It is probable that no gaze but -that of the angels was upon me; but to me it seemed -as if every glance that roved up and down the Park must -spot my aim.</p> - -<p>For this reason I assumed a manner meant to throw -observation off the scent. I loitered to look at young -people on horseback or to stare at some specially dashing -motor-car. I strolled into by-paths and out of them. I -passed under the noses of policemen in gray-blue uniforms -and tried to infuse my carriage with the fact which Lovey -had emphasized, that I had never yet been pinched. I -had never yet, so far as I knew, done anything to warrant -pinching; and that I had no intentions beyond those of -the ordinary law-abiding citizen was what I hoped my -swagger would convey.</p> - -<p>Though I was shabby, I was not sufficiently so to be -unworthy to take the air. The worst that could be said -of me was that I was not shabby as the working-man is at -liberty to be. Mine was the suspicious, telltale shabbiness -of the gentleman—far more damning than the grime -and sweat of a chimney-sweep.</p> - -<p>Now that I was alone again, I had a return of the sensation -that had been on me since waking in the morning—that -I was walking in the air. I felt that I bounced like<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span> -a bubble every time I stepped. The day before I had -been giddy; now I was only light. It was as if at any -minute I might go up. Unconsciously I ground my footsteps -into the gravel or the grass to keep myself on the -solid earth.</p> - -<p>It was not the first time I had gone without food for -twenty-four hours, but it was the first time I had done it -for forty-eight. Moreover, it was the first time I had ever -been without some prospect of food ahead of me. With a -meal surely in sight on the following day I could have -waited for it. More easily I could have waited for a -drink or two. Drink kept me going longer than food, for -in spite of the reaction after it the need of it had grown -more insistent. Had I been offered my choice between -food and life, on the one hand, and drink and death, on -the other, I think I should have chosen drink and death.</p> - -<p>But now there was no likelihood of either. I had husbanded -my last pennies after my last meal, to make them -spin out to as many drinks as possible. I had begged a -few more drinks, and cadged a few more. But I had come -to my limit in all these directions. Before I sought the -shelter of Greeley’s Slip a hint had been given me at -Stinson’s that I might come in for the compliments showered -on Lovey ten days previously. Now as I walked in -the Park the craving inside me was not because I hadn’t -eaten, but because I hadn’t drunk that day.</p> - -<p>Two or three bitter temptations assailed me before I -reached Fifth Avenue. One was in the form of a pretty -girl of eight or ten, who came mincing down a flowery -path, holding a quarter between the thumb and forefinger -of her left hand. Satan must have sent her. I could -have snatched the quarter and made my escape, only -that I lacked the nerve. Then there was a newsboy counting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span> -his gains on a bench. They were laid out in rows before -him—pennies, nickels, and dimes. I stood for a -minute and looked down at him, estimating the ease with -which I could have stooped and swept them all into my -palm. He looked up and smiled. The smile didn’t disarm -me; I was beyond the reach of any such appeal. It -was again that I didn’t have the nerve. Lastly an old -woman, a nurse, was dealing out coins to three small children -that they might make purchases of a blind man selling -bootlaces and pencils. I could have swiped them all -as neatly as a croupier pulls in louis d’or with his rake—but -I was afraid.</p> - -<p>These were real temptations, as fierce as any I ever -faced. By the time I had reached the Avenue I was in a -cold perspiration, as much from a sense of failure as from -the effort at resistance. I wondered how I should ever -carry out the plans I had in mind if I was to balk at such -little things as this.</p> - -<p>The plans I had in mind still kept me from making -headway as the crow flies. I went far up the Avenue; -I crossed into Madison Avenue; I went up that again; -I crossed into Park Avenue. I crossed and recrossed and -crisscrossed and descended, and at last found myself -strolling by a house toward which I scarcely dared to -turn my eyes, feeling that even for looking at it I might -be arrested.</p> - -<p>I slackened my pace so as to verify all the points which -experts had underscored in my hearing. There was the -vacant lot which the surrounding buildings rendered so -dark at night. There was the low, red-brown fence inclosing -the back premises, over which a limber, long-legged -fellow like me could leap in a second. There were the -usual numerous windows—to kitchen, scullery, pantry,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span> -laundry—of any good-sized American house, some one -of which was pretty sure to be left unguarded on a summer -night. There were the neighboring yards, with more -low fences, offering excellent cover in a get-away, with -another vacant lot leading out on another street a little -farther down.</p> - -<p>I had so many times strolled by the house as I was doing -now, and had so many times rehearsed its characteristics, -that I made the final review with some exactitude before -passing on my way.</p> - -<p>My way was not far. There was nothing to do but to -go back into the Park. As it was nearly six o’clock, it -was too late to search for a job that day, and I should -have had no heart for doing so in any case. I had found -a job that morning—that of handling big packing-cases in -a warehouse—but I was too exhausted for the work. -When in the effort to lift one onto a truck I collapsed and -nearly fainted, I was told in a choice selection of oaths -to beat it as no good.</p> - -<p>I sat on a bench, therefore, waiting for the dark and -thinking of the house of which I had just inspected the -outside. It was not a house picked at random. It was -one that had possessed an interest for me during all the -three years I had been in New York. I had, in fact, -brought a letter of introduction to its owner from the -man under whom I had worked in Montreal. Chiefly -through my own carelessness, nothing came of that, but -I never failed, when I passed this way, to stare at the -dwelling as one in which I might have had a footing.</p> - -<p>The occupant was also a well-known architect in New -York. In the architects’ offices in which I found employment -I heard him praised, criticized, condemned. His -work was good or bad according to the speaker’s point of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span> -view. I thought it tolerably good, with an over-emphasis -on ornament.</p> - -<p>It was an odd fact that, in starting out on what was -clear in my mind as a new phase in my career, no other -house suggested itself as a field of operations. As to this -one I felt documented, and that was all. I had no sense -of horror at what I was about to do; no remorse from the -position from which I had fallen. I suppose my mind -was too sick for that, and my body too imperatively clamorous. -I had said to Lovey that I didn’t have to live—but -I did. I had seen that very morning that I did. -I had stood at the edge of Greeley’s Slip and watched the -swirling of the brown-green water with a view to making -an end of it. One step and I should be out of all this -misery and disgrace! The world would be rid of me; my -family would be rid of me; I should be rid of myself, -which would be best of all. Had I been quite sure as -to the last point, I think I could have done it. But I -wasn’t quite sure. I was far from quite sure. I could -imagine the step over the edge of Greeley’s Slip as a step -into conditions worse than those I was enduring now; -and so I had drawn back. I had drawn back and wandered -up-town, in the hope of securing a job that would -give me a breakfast.</p> - -<p>I wonder if you have ever done that? I wonder if you -have ever gone from dock to station and from station to -shop and from shop to warehouse, wherever heavy, unskilled -labor may be in demand, and extra hands are -treated with a brutality that slaves would kick against, -in the hope of earning fifty cents? I wonder if in your -grown-up life you have ever known a minute when fifty -cents stood for your salvation? I wonder if with fifty -cents standing for your salvation you ever saw the day<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span> -when you couldn’t get it? No? Then you will hardly -understand how natural, how much a matter of course, -the thing had become which I was resolved to do.</p> - -<p>It was no sudden idea. I had been living in the company -of men who took such feats for granted. Their talk -had amazed me at first, but I had grown used to it. I -had grown used to the thing. I had come to find a -piquancy in the thought of it.</p> - -<p>Then Lovey’s suggestions had not been thrown away -on me. True, he was out for small game, while I, if I -went in for it, would want something bigger and more -exciting; but the basic idea was the same. Lovey could -make a haul and live for weeks on the fruit of it; I might -do the same and live for months. And if I didn’t pull it off -successfully, if I was nabbed and sent away—why, then -there would be some let-up in the struggle which had become -so infernal. Even if I got a shot through the heart—and -the tales I heard were full of such accidents—the -tragedy would not lack its element of relief. It might -be out of one hell into another—but it would at least -be out of one.</p> - -<p>Not that I hadn’t found a bitter pleasure in the life! I -had. I found it still. In one of Dostoyevsky’s novels -an old rake talks of the joys of being in the gutter. Well, -there are such joys. They are not joys that civilization -knows or that aspiration would find legitimate; but one -reaches a point at which it is a satisfaction to be oneself -at one’s worst. Where all the pretenses with which poor -human nature covers itself up are cast aside the soul -can stalk forth nakedly, hideously, and be unashamed. -In the presence of each other we were always unashamed. -We could kick over all standards, we could drop all poses, -we could flout all duties, we could own to all crimes, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span> -be “fellas together.” As I went lower and lower down it -became to me a kind of acrid delight, of positively intellectual -delight, to know that I was herding with the most -degraded, and that there was no baseness or bestiality -to which I was not at liberty to submit myself.</p> - -<p>If there had never been any reactions from this state -of mind!—but God!</p> - -<p>It was a disadvantage to me that I was not like my -cronies. I couldn’t open my lips without betraying the -fact that I belonged to another sphere. Though the -broken-down man of education is not unknown in the -underworld, he is comparatively rare. He is comparatively -rare and under suspicion, like a white swan in a -flock of black ones. I might be open-handed, ingratiating, -and absurdly fellow-well-met, but I was always an outsider. -They would take my drinks, they would return -me drinks, we would swap stories and experiences with -all outward show of equality; but no one knew better -than myself that I was not on a footing with the rest of -them. Women took to me readily enough, but men were -always on their guard. Try as I would I never found a -mate among them, I never made a friend. Therefore, -now that I was down and out, I had no one of whom to -ask a good turn, no one who would have done me a good -turn, but poor, useless old Lovey sneaking in the shade.</p> - -<p>I was in a measure between two worlds. I had been -ejected from one without having forced a way into the -other. When I say ejected I mean the word. The bitterest -moment in my life was on that night when my eldest -brother came to his door in Montreal and gave me fifty -dollars, with the words:</p> - -<p>“And now get out! Don’t let any of us ever see your -face or hear your name again.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span></p> - -<p>As I stumbled down the steps he gave me a kick that -didn’t reach me and which I had lost the right to resent. -He himself went back to the dinner-party his wife was -entertaining inside, and of which the talk and laughter -reached me as I stood humbly on the door-step. From the -other side of the street I looked back at the lighted windows. -It was the last touch of connection with my -family.</p> - -<p>But it had been a kindly, patient family. My father -was one of the best known and most highly honored among -Canadian public men. As he had married an American, I -had a good many cousins in New York, though I had not -made myself known to any of them since coming there to -live. I didn’t want them. Had I met one of them in the -street, I should have passed without speaking; but, as it -happened, I never met one. I saw their names in the -papers, and that was all.</p> - -<p>My father and mother had had five children, of whom I -was the fourth. My two brothers were married, prosperous -and respected—one a lawyer in Montreal, the other -a banker in Toronto. My elder sister was married to a -colonel in the British army; the younger one—the only -member of the family younger than myself—still lived -at home.</p> - -<p>We three sons were all graduates of McGill, in addition -to which I had been sent to the Beaux Arts in Paris. Out -of that I had come with some degree of credit; and there -had been a year in which I was in sight—oh, very distant -sight!—of the beginning of the fulfilment of my childhood’s -ambition to revolutionize the art of architecture -in Canada. But in the second year that vision went -out; and in the third came the night on my brother -Jerry’s door-step.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span></p> - -<p>I had nothing to complain of. The family had borne -with me—and borne with me. When we reached the -time when I was supposed to be earning my own living -and my father’s allowance came to an end, my mother, -who had some money of her own, kept it up. She would be -keeping it up still if she knew where I was—but she didn’t -know. From the moment of leaving Montreal I decided -to carry out Jerry’s injunction. They should neither see -my face nor hear my name again. I didn’t stop to consider -how cruel this would be to the best mother a man -ever had—to say nothing of the best father—or rather, -when I did stop to consider it it seemed to me that I was -taking the kindest course. I had no confidence in myself -or in the future. New surroundings and associations -would not give me a new heart, whatever hopes those who -wished me well might be building on the change. For a -new heart I needed something which I hadn’t got and saw -no means of getting.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER II</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Somewhere about dusk I fell asleep. It was dark -when I woke up. It was dark and still and sultry, as -it often is in New York in the middle of June.</p> - -<p>The lamps were lit in the Park, and in their glow -shadowy forms moved stealthily. When they went in -twos I took them to be lovers; when they went alone I -put them down as prowlers of the night. I didn’t know -what they were after, but whatever it might be I was sure -it was no good.</p> - -<p>Not that that mattered to me! I had long been in a -situation where I couldn’t be particular. When I had -risen and stretched myself I, too, moved stealthily, dogged -by a crime I hadn’t yet committed, but of which the guilt -was already in the air.</p> - -<p>As I had nothing by which to tell the time, I was obliged -to wait till a clock struck. I hoped it was eleven at least, -but when the sound came over the trees it was only nine. -Only nine, and I could do nothing before one! Nothing -before one, and nowhere to go! Nowhere to go, and no -food to eat, and not a drop to drink! Doubtless I could -have found water; but water made me sick. With four -hours to wait, I thought again of the dark river with its -velvety current, running below Greeley’s Slip.</p> - -<p>Aimlessly I drifted toward it—that is, I drifted toward -Columbus Circle, whence I could drift farther still through -squalid, fetid, dimly lighted streets down to the water’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span> -edge. The night was so hot that the thought of the -plunge began to appeal to me. After all, it would be an -easy, pleasant way of stepping out.</p> - -<p>But I didn’t do it. The unknown beyond the river once -more drove me back. Besides, the adventure I had -planned was not without its fascination. I wanted to -see what it held in store. If it held nothing—well, then, -Greeley’s Slip would still be accessible in the morning.</p> - -<p>So I skulked back into the depths of the Park again. -Those who went as twos began to disappear, and the lonely -shadows to steal along more furtively. Now and then one -of them approached me or hung in the distance suggestively. -It was not like any of the encounters that take -place in daylight. It was more as if these dark ghosts -had floated up from some evil spirit land, into which -before morning they would float down again.</p> - -<p>But twelve o’clock struck at last, and I took midnight -as a call. It was a call to leave the great human division -in which I had hitherto been classed, and become a criminal. -Once I had done this thing, I should never be able -to go back. The angel with the flaming sword would -guard that way, and I could never regain even such status -as that which I was abandoning.</p> - -<p>If my head had not been swimming I might at the last -minute have felt a qualm at that, but my mind had lost -the faculty of deconcentration. It was fixed on the thing -before me in such a way that I couldn’t get it off. For -this reason I went, on leaving the Park, directly to the -street and number where my thoughts were.</p> - -<p>I was surprised by the emptiness and silence of the -thoroughfares. Not till then had I remembered that at -this season of the year most of the houses would be closed. -Closed they were, looking dark and blank and forbidding.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span> -I happened to know that the house to which I was bound -was not closed; and though the fact that there were so -few to pass in the streets rendered me more conspicuous, -it also made me the less subject to observation.</p> - -<p>Indeed, there were no observers at all when I approached -the black spot made by the vacant lot. There was nothing -but myself and the blackness. Not a light in the house! -Hardly a light in any of the houses roundabout! Not -a footfall on the pavements! If ever there was a good -opportunity to do what I had come for, it was mine.</p> - -<p>But I passed. The black spot frightened me. It was -like a black gulf into which I might sink down. I re-passed.</p> - -<p>I went farther up the street and took myself to task. -It was a repetition of my recoil from the children in the -afternoon. I must have the nerve—or I must own to myself -that I hadn’t. If I hadn’t it, then I had no alternative -but Greeley’s Slip.</p> - -<p>I turned in my steps and passed the house again. If -from the blank windows any one had been looking out -my actions would have been suspicious. I went far down -the street, and came back again far up it. Then when I -had no more power of arguing with myself I suddenly -found my footsteps crushing the dusty, sun-dried shoots -of nettle and blue succory. I was in the vacant lot.</p> - -<p>All at once fear left me. As well as any old hand in -the business I seemed to know what lay before me. At -every second some low-down prompting, sprung from -nameless depths in my nature, told me what to do.</p> - -<p>I noted in the first place how accurate the experts had -been as to light and shade. The house stood so far up -on one of the long avenues that the buildings were thinning -out. So, too, the street lamps. They were no more<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span> -than in the proportion of two to three as compared to -their numbers half a mile lower down. Just here they -were so placed that not a ray fell into the three or four -thousand square feet which had probably never been built -upon since Manhattan was inhabited. Even the wall of -the house was windowless on this side, for the reason -that within a few months some new building would probably -block the outlook.</p> - -<p>Once I had crept close to the wall, I knew I presented -neither silhouette nor shade to any chance passer-by. I -could feel my way at leisure, cautiously treading burdock -and fireweed underfoot. I came to the low wooden fence, -in which there was a gate for tradesmen, which was possibly -unlocked; but I didn’t run the risk of a click. With -my long legs a stride took me over into a small brick-paved -court.</p> - -<p>I paused to reconnoiter. The obscurity here was so -dense that only my architect’s instincts told me where the -doors and windows would probably be. I located them -by degrees. The doors I let alone. The windows I tried, -first one and then another, but with no success. There -was probably some simple fastening that I could have -dealt with had I had a pocket-knife, but the one I had -carried for years had long since been lying in a pawnshop. -To reflect I sat down on the cover of a bin that was doubtless -used for refuse.</p> - -<p>A footstep alarmed me. It was heavy, measured, slow. -With the ease of a snake I was down on my belly, crawling -toward cover. Cover offered itself in the form of the -single shrub that the court contained—lilac or syringa—growing -close against the kitchen wall. Lovey would have -commended the silence and swiftness with which I slipped -behind it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span></p> - -<p>The footstep receded, slow, measured, heavy. Coming -to the conclusion that it was a policeman in the Avenue, -I raised my head. I had no sense of queerness in my -situation. It seemed as much a matter of course as if -I had been doing the same sort of thing ever since I was -born.</p> - -<p>There was apparently a providence in all this, for, looking -up, I spied a window I had not seen before, because it -was hidden by the shrub. This, if any, would have been -neglected by the servants when they went to bed.</p> - -<p>With scarcely the stirring of a leaf I got on my feet -again—and, lo! the miracle. The window was actually -open. I had nothing to do but push it a few inches -higher, drag myself up and wriggle in. I accomplished -this without a sound that could be detected twenty feet -away.</p> - -<p>Coming down on my hands and knees, I found myself -amid the odor of eatables, chiefly that of fruit. I rested a -minute to get my bearings, which I did by the sense of -smell. I knew I must be in a sort of pantry. By putting -out my hands carefully, so as to knock nothing over, I -perceived that it was little more than a closet with shelves. -A thrill of excitement passed through me from head to -foot when my hand rested on an apple.</p> - -<p>I ate the apple there and then, kneeling upright, my -toes bent under me. I ate another and another. Feeling -cautiously, I discovered a tin box in which there were -bread and cake. I ate of both. Getting softly on my -feet, I groped for other things, which proved in the main -to be no more than tea, coffee, spices, and starch. Then -my fingers ran over a strawlike surface, and I knew I had -hold of a demijohn.</p> - -<p>Smell told me that it contained sherry, and such knowledge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span> -of housekeeping as I possessed suggested that it was -cooking-sherry. I took a long swig of it. Two long -swigs were enough. It burnt me, and yet it braced me. -With the food I had eaten I felt literally like a giant -refreshed with wine.</p> - -<p>It occurred to me that this was a point at which I -might draw back. But the spell of the unknown was upon -me, and I determined to go at least a little farther. Very, -very stealthily I opened the door.</p> - -<p>I was not in a kitchen, as I expected to find myself, -but in a servants’ dining-room. I got the dim outlines -of chairs and what I took to be a dresser or a bookcase. -Another open door led into a hall.</p> - -<p>My knowledge of the planning of houses aided me at -each step I took. From the hallway I could place the -kitchen, the laundry, and the back staircase. I knew the -front hall lay beyond a door which was closed. At the -foot of the back staircase I stood for some minutes and -listened. Not a sound came from anywhere in the -house. The kitchen clock ticked loudly, and presently -startled me with a gurgle and a chuckle before it struck -one. After this manifestation I had to wait till my heart -stopped thumping and my nerves were quieted before -venturing on the stairs. As the first step creaked, I kept -close to the wall to get a firmer support for my tread. -On reaching a landing I could see up into another hall. -Here I perceived the glimmer or reflection of a light. It -was a very dim or distant light—but it was a light.</p> - -<p>I stood on the landing and waited. If there were people -moving about I should hear them soon. But all I did -hear was the heavy breathing of the servants, who were -sleeping on the topmost floor.</p> - -<p>Creeping a little farther up, I discovered that the light<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span> -was in a bedroom—the first to open from the front hall -up-stairs. Between the front hall and the back hall the -door was ajar. That would make things easier for me, -and I dragged myself noiselessly to the top. I was now -at the head of the first flight of back stairs, and looking -into the master’s section of the house. Except for that -one dim light the house was dark. It was not, however, -so dark that my architect’s eye couldn’t make a mental -map quite sufficient for my guidance.</p> - -<p>It was clearly a dwelling that had been added to, with -some rambling characteristics. The first few feet of the -front hall were on a level with the back hall, after which -came a flight of three or four steps to a higher plane, -which ran the rest of the depth of the building to the window -over the front door. In the faint radiance through -this window I could discern a high-boy, a bureau, and -some chairs against the wall. I could see, too, that from -this higher level one staircase ran down to the front door -and another up to a third story. What was chiefly of -moment to me was the fact that the bedroom with the -light was lower than the rest of this part of the house, -and somewhat cut off from it.</p> - -<p>With movements as quiet as a cat’s I got myself where -I could peep into the bedroom where the lamp burned. -It proved to be a small electric lamp with a rose-colored -shade, standing beside a bed. It was a rose-colored -room, evidently that of a young lady. But there was no -young lady there. There was no one.</p> - -<p>The fact that surprises me as I record all this is that I -was so extraordinarily cool. I was cooler in the act than -I am in the memory of it. I walked into that bedroom -as calmly as if it had been my own.</p> - -<p>It was a pretty room, with the usual notes of photographs,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span> -bibelots, and flowered cretonne which young -women like. The walls were in a light, cool green set off -by a few colored reproductions of old Italian masters. -Over the small white virginal bed was a copy of Fra -Angelico’s “Annunciation.” Two windows, one of which -was a bay, were shaded by loosely hanging rose-colored -silk, and before the bay window the curtains were drawn. -Diagonally across the corner of this window, but within -the actual room, stood a simple white writing-desk, with -a white dressing-table near it, but against the wall. On -the table lay a gold-mesh purse, in which there was -money. I slipped it into my pocket, with some satisfaction -in securing the first fruits of my adventure.</p> - -<p>With such booty as this it again occurred to me to be -on the safe side and to go back by the way I came. I -was, in fact, looking round me to see if there was any -other small valuable object I could lift before departing -when I heard a door open in some distant part of the -house—and voices.</p> - -<p>They were women’s voices, or, rather, as I speedily -inferred, girls’ voices. By listening intently I drew the -conclusion that two girls had come out of a room on the -third floor and were coming down the stairs.</p> - -<p>It was the minute to make off, and I tried to do so. -I might have effected my escape had I not been checked -by the figure of a man looming up suddenly before me. -He sprang out of nowhere—a tall, slender man, in a dark-blue -suit, with trousers baggy at the knees, and wearing -an old golfing-cap. I jumped back from him in terror, -only to find that it was my own reflection in the pier-glass. -But the few seconds’ delay lost me my chance to get -away.</p> - -<p>By the time I had tiptoed to the door the voices were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span> -on the same floor as myself. Two girls were advancing -along the hall, evidently making their way to this chamber. -My retreat being cut off, I looked wildly about -for a place in which to hide myself. In the instants at -my disposal I could discover nothing more remote than -the bay window, screened by its loose rose-colored hangings. -By the time the young ladies were on the threshold -I was established there, with the silk sections pulled -together and held tightly in my hand.</p> - -<p>The first words I heard were: “But it will seem so -like a habit. Men will be afraid of you.”</p> - -<p>This voice was light, silvery, and staccato. That which -replied had a deep mezzo quality, without being quite -contralto.</p> - -<p>“They won’t be nearly so much afraid of me,” it said, -fretfully, “as I am of them. I wish—I wish they’d let -me alone!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, they won’t do that—not yet awhile; unless, -as I say, they see you’re hopeless. Really, dear, when a -girl breaks a third engagement—”</p> - -<p>“They must see that she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t -have to. Here—this is the hook that always bothers me.”</p> - -<p>There were tears in the mezzo voice now, with a hint -of exasperation that might have been due to the lover -or the hook, I couldn’t be sure which.</p> - -<p>“But that’s what I don’t see—”</p> - -<p>“You don’t see it because you don’t know Stephen—that -is, you don’t know him well.”</p> - -<p>“But from what I do know of him—”</p> - -<p>“He seems very nice. Yes, of course! But, good -Heavens! Elsie, I want a husband who’s something more -than very nice!”</p> - -<p>“And yet that’s pretty good, as husbands go.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span></p> - -<p>“If I can’t reach a higher standard than as husbands -go I sha’n’t marry any one.”</p> - -<p>“Which seems to me what’s very likely to happen.”</p> - -<p>“So it seems to me.”</p> - -<p>The silence that followed was full of soft, swishing -sounds, which I judged to come from the taking off of -a dress and the putting on of some sort of negligée. From -my experience of the habits of girls, as illustrated by my -sisters and their friends, I supposed that they were lending -each other services in the processes of undoing. The -girl with the mezzo voice had gone up to Elsie’s room to -undo her; Elsie had come down to render similar assistance. -There is probably a psychological connection between -this intimate act and confidence, since girls most -truly bare their hearts to each other when they ought -to be going to bed.</p> - -<p>The mezzo young lady was moving about the room -when the conversation was taken up again.</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand,” Elsie complained, “why you -should have got engaged to Stephen in the first place.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t, either”—she was quite near me now, and -threw something that might have been a brooch or a chain -on the little white desk—“except on the ground that I -wanted to try him.”</p> - -<p>“Try him? What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Well, what’s an engagement? Isn’t it a kind of experiment? -You get as near to marriage as you can, -while still keeping free to draw back. To me it’s been -like going down to the edge of the water in which you -can commit suicide, and finding it so cold that you go -home again.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you ever mean to be married at all?” Elsie demanded, -impatiently.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span></p> - -<p>“I don’t mean to be married till I’m sure.”</p> - -<p>Elsie burst out indignantly: “Regina Barry, that’s the -most pusillanimous thing I ever heard. You might as -well say you’d never cross the Atlantic unless you were -sure the ship would reach the other side.”</p> - -<p>“My trouble about crossing the Atlantic is in making -up my mind whether or not I want to go on board. One -might be willing to risk the second step, but one can’t -risk the first. Even the hymn that says ‘One step enough -for me’ implies that at least you know what that’s to be.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that you balk at marriage in any case.”</p> - -<p>“I mean that I balk at marriage with any of the men -I’ve been engaged to. I must say that; and I can’t say -more.”</p> - -<p>During another brief silence I surmised that Regina -Barry had seated herself before the dressing-table and was -probably doing something to her hair. I wish I could -say here that in my eavesdropping I experienced a sense -of shame; but I can’t. Whatever creates a sense of -shame had been warped in me. The moral transitions -that had turned me into a burglar had been gradual but -sure. With the gold-mesh purse in my pocket a burglar -I had become, and I felt no more repugnance to the business -than I did to that of the architect. Notwithstanding -the natural masculine interest these young ladies stirred -in me, I meant to wait till they had separated—gone to -bed—and fallen asleep. Then I would slip out from my -hiding-place, swipe the brooch or the chain that had been -thrown on the desk, and go.</p> - -<p>“What was the matter with the first man?” Elsie began -again.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know whether it was the matter with him or -with me. I didn’t trust him.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span></p> - -<p>“I should say that was the matter with him. And the -next man?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing. I simply couldn’t have lived with him.”</p> - -<p>“And what’s wrong with Stephen is that he’s no more -than very nice. I see.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, you don’t see, dear! There’s a lot more to -it than all that, only I can’t explain it.” I fancied that -she wheeled round in her chair and faced her companion. -“The long and short of it is that I’ve never met the -man with whom I could keep house. I can fall in love -with them for a while—I can have them going and coming—I -can welcome them and say good-by to them—but -when it’s a question of all welcome and no good-by—well, -the man’s got to be different from any I’ve -seen yet.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll end by not getting any one at all.”</p> - -<p>“Which, from my point of view, don’t you see, won’t -be an unmixed evil. Having lived happily for twenty-three -years without a husband, I don’t see why I should -throw away a perfectly good bone for the most enticing -shadow that ever was.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe you’re human.” Before there could -be a retort to this Elsie went on to ask, “How did poor -Stephen take it?”</p> - -<p>“Well, he didn’t go into fits of laughter. He took it -more or less lying down. If he hadn’t—”</p> - -<p>“If he hadn’t—what?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know. The least little bit of fight on his -part—or even contempt—”</p> - -<p>As this sentence remained unfinished I could hear -Elsie rise.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m off to bed,” she yawned. “What time do -you have breakfast?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span></p> - -<p>There was some little discussion of household arrangements, -after which they said their good nights.</p> - -<p>With Elsie’s departure I began for the first time to -be uncomfortable. I can’t express myself otherwise than -to say that as long as she was there I felt I had a chaperon. -In spite of the fact that I had become a professional -burglar the idea of being left alone with an innocent young -lady in her bedroom filled me with dismay.</p> - -<p>I was almost on the point of making a bolt for it when -I heard Elsie call out from the hallway: “Ugh! How dark -and poky! For mercy’s sake, come up with me!”</p> - -<p>Miss Barry lingered at the dressing-table long enough -to ask: “Wouldn’t you rather sleep in mother’s room? -That communicates with this, with only a little passage -in between. The bed is made up.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no,” Elsie’s staccato came back. “I don’t mind -being up there, and my things are spread out; only it -seems so creepy to climb all those stairs.”</p> - -<p>“Wait a minute.”</p> - -<p>She sprang up. I breathed freely. My sense of propriety -was saved. The voices were receding along the -front hall. Once the young ladies had begun to mount -the stairs I would slip out by the back hall and get off. -Relaxing my hold on the silk hangings I stepped out cautiously.</p> - -<p>My first thought was for the objects I had heard -thrown down with a rattle on the writing-desk. They -proved to be a string of small pearls, a diamond pin, and -some rings of which I made no inspection before sweeping -them all into my pocket.</p> - -<p>I was ready now to steal away, but, to my vexation, -the incorrigible maidens had begun to talk love-affairs -again at the foot of the staircase leading up to the third<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span> -floor. They had also turned on the hall light, so that -my chances were diminished for getting away unseen.</p> - -<p>Knowing, however, that sooner or later they would -have to go up the next flight, I stood by the writing-desk -and waited. I was not nervous; I was not alarmed. -As a matter of fact the success of my undertaking up to -the present point, together with the action of food and -wine, combined to make me excited and hilarious. I -chuckled in advance over the mystification of Miss -Regina Barry, who would find on returning to her room -that her rings, her necklet, and her gold-mesh purse had -melted into the atmosphere.</p> - -<p>In sheer recklessness I was now guilty of a bit of deviltry -before which I would have hesitated had I had time to -give it a second thought. On the desk there was a scrap -of blank paper and a pen. Stooping, I printed in the neat -block letters I had once been accustomed to inscribe -below a plan:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>There are men different from those you have seen hitherto. Wait.</p> - -</div> - -<p>This I pinned to the pincushion on the dressing-table, -beginning at once to creep toward the door, so as to seize -the first opportunity of slipping down the back stairs.</p> - -<p>But again I was frustrated.</p> - -<p>“I’m all right now,” I heard Elsie say, reassuringly. -“Don’t come up. Go back and go to bed.”</p> - -<p>Miss Barry spoke as she returned along the hall toward -her room: “The cook sleeps in the next room to you, -so that if you’re afraid in the night you’ve only to hammer -on the wall. But you needn’t be. This house is as safe -as a prison.”</p> - -<p>I had barely time to get into the bay window again -and pull the curtains to.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span></p> - -<p>Some five minutes followed, during which I heard the -opening and shutting of drawers and closets and the swish -and frou-frou of skirts. I began to curse my idiocy -in fastening that silly bit of writing to the pincushion. -My only hope lay in the possibility that she would go -to bed and to sleep without seeing it.</p> - -<p>With hearing grown extraordinarily acute I could trace -every movement she made about the room. Presently I -knew she had come back to the dressing-table again. -Pulling up a chair, she sat down before it, to finish, I suppose, -the arranging of her hair.</p> - -<p>For a few seconds there was a silence, during which -I could hear the thumping of my heart. Then came the -faint rattling of paper. I knew when she read the thing -by the slight catch in her breath. I expected more than -that. I thought she would call out to her friend or -otherwise give an alarm. If she went to a telephone to -summon the police I decided to make a dash for it. -Indeed, I meant to make a dash for it as it was, as soon -as I knew her next move.</p> - -<p>But of all the next moves, the one she made was the -one I had least counted on. With a sudden tug at the -hangings she pulled them apart—and I was before her.</p> - -<p>I was before her and she was before me. It is this -latter detail of which I have the most vivid recollection. -In the matter of time all other recollections of the -moment seem to come after that and to be subsidiary -to it.</p> - -<p>My immediate impression was of two enormous, wonderful, -burning eyes, full of amazement. Apart from the -eyes I hardly saw anything. It was as if the light of a -dark lantern had been suddenly turned on me and I was -blinded by the blaze. I was blinded by the blaze and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span> -shriveled up in it. No words can do justice to my sudden -sense of being a contemptible, loathsome reptile.</p> - -<p>“’Sh!” was the first sound that came from her. She -raised her hand. “Don’t make a noise or you’ll frighten -my friend. She’s nervous already.”</p> - -<p>Instinctively I pulled off my cap, stepping out of my -hiding-place into the middle of the room. As I did so -she recoiled, supporting herself by a hand on the writing-desk. -Now that the discovery was made, I could see -her grow pale, while the hand on the desk trembled.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t be afraid,” I began to whisper.</p> - -<p>“I’m not afraid,” she whispered back; “but—but -what are you doing here?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll show you,” I returned, with shamefaced quietness. -“I shall also show you that if you’ll let me go -without giving an alarm you won’t be sorry.”</p> - -<p>Pulling all the things I had stolen out of my pocket, -I showered them on the dressing-table.</p> - -<p>“Oh!”</p> - -<p>The smothered exclamation made it plain to me that -she hadn’t missed the articles.</p> - -<p>“May I ask you to verify them?” I went on. “If -you should find later that something had disappeared, -I shouldn’t like you to think that I had carried it -away.”</p> - -<p>She made a feint at examining the jewelry, but I could -see that she was incapable of making anything like a -count. It was I who insisted on going over the objects -one by one.</p> - -<p>“There’s this,” I said, touching the gold-mesh purse, -but not picking it up. “I see there’s money in it; but -it has not been opened. Then there’s this,” I added, -indicating the pearl necklet; “and this,” which was the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span> -brooch. “The rings,” I continued, “I don’t know anything -about. There are three here. That’s all I remember -seeing; but I didn’t notice in particular.”</p> - -<p>She said, in a breathless whisper, “That’s all there -were.”</p> - -<p>“Then may I ask if you mean to let me go?”</p> - -<p>“How can I stop you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, in two or three ways. You could call your servants, -or you could ring up the police—”</p> - -<p>Her big, burning eyes were fixed on me hypnotically. -The color began to come back to her cheeks, but she -trembled still.</p> - -<p>“How—how did you get in?”</p> - -<p>I explained to her.</p> - -<p>“And the only thing I’ve taken,” I went on, “is the -food I ate and the wine I drank; but if you knew how -much I needed them—”</p> - -<p>“Were you hungry?”</p> - -<p>“I hadn’t eaten anything for two days, and very little -for two days before that.”</p> - -<p>“Then you’re not—you’re not one of those gentleman -burglars who do this sort of thing out of bravado?”</p> - -<p>“As we see in novels or plays. I don’t think you’ll find -many of them about. I’m a burglar,” I pursued, “or I—I -meant to be one—but I’m not a gentleman.”</p> - -<p>“You speak like a gentleman.”</p> - -<p>“Unfortunately, a gentleman is not made by speech. -A gentleman could never be in the predicament in which -you’ve caught me.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, you were a gentleman once.”</p> - -<p>“My father was a gentleman—and is.”</p> - -<p>“English?”</p> - -<p>“I’d rather not tell you. Now that I’ve restored the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span> -things, if you’ll give me your word that I sha’n’t be -molested I shall—”</p> - -<p>“You sha’n’t be molested, only—”</p> - -<p>As she hesitated I insisted, “Only what, may I ask?”</p> - -<p>Her manner was a mixture of embarrassment and pity. -She had not hitherto taken her eyes from me since we -had begun to speak. Now she let them wander away; -or, rather, she let them shift away, to return to me swiftly, -as if she couldn’t trust me without watching me. By -this time she was trembling so violently, too, that she -was obliged to grasp the back of a chair to steady herself. -She was too little to be tall, and yet too tall to -be considered little. The filmy thing she wore, with its -long, loose sleeves, gave her some of the appearance -of an angel, only that no angel ever had this bright, -almost hectic color in the cheeks, and these scarlet -lips.</p> - -<p>“Was it,” she asked, speaking, as we both did, in low -tones, and rapidly—“was it because you—you had no -money that you did this?”</p> - -<p>I smiled faintly. “That was it exactly; but now—”</p> - -<p>“Then won’t you let me give you some?”</p> - -<p>I still had enough of the man about me to straighten -myself up and say: “Thanks, no. It’s very kind of you; -but—but the reasons which make it impossible for me -to—to steal it make it equally impossible for me to take -it as a gift.”</p> - -<p>“But why—why was it impossible for you to steal it, -when you had come here to do it?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose it was seeing the owner of it face to face. -I’d sunk low enough to steal from some one I couldn’t -visualize—but what’s the use? It’s mere hair-splitting. -Just let me say that this is my first attempt, and it hasn’t<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span> -succeeded. I may do better next time if I can get up -the nerve.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but there won’t be a next time.”</p> - -<p>“That we shall have to see.”</p> - -<p>“Suppose”—the mixture of embarrassment and pity -made it hard for her to speak—“suppose I said I was -sorry for you.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t have to say it. I see it. It’s something -I shall never forget as long as I live.”</p> - -<p>“Well, since I’m sorry for you, won’t you let -me—?”</p> - -<p>“No,” I interrupted, firmly. “I’m grateful for your -pity; I’ll accept that; but I won’t take anything else.” -I began moving toward the door. “Since you’re good -enough to let me go, I had better be off; but I can’t do -it without thanking you.”</p> - -<p>For the first time she smiled a little. Even in that dim -light I could see it was what in normal conditions would -be commonly called a generous smile, full, frank, and -kindly. Just now it was little more than a quivering of -the long scarlet lips. She glanced toward the little heap -of things on the desk.</p> - -<p>“If it comes to that, I have to thank you.”</p> - -<p>I raised my hand deprecatingly.</p> - -<p>“Don’t.”</p> - -<p>I had almost reached the threshold when her words -made me turn.</p> - -<p>“Do you know who I am?”</p> - -<p>“I think I do,” was all I could reply.</p> - -<p>“Well, then, why shouldn’t you come back later—in -some more usual manner—and let me see if there isn’t -something I could do for you?”</p> - -<p>“Do for me in what way?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span></p> - -<p>“In the way of getting you work—or something.”</p> - -<p>My heart had leaped up for a minute, but now it fell. -Why it should have done either I cannot say, since I -could be nothing to her but a fool who had tried to be a -thief, and couldn’t, as we say in our common idiom, get -away with it.</p> - -<p>I thanked her again.</p> - -<p>“But you’ve done a great deal for me as it is,” I added. -“I couldn’t ask for more.” Somewhat disconnectedly I -continued, “I think you’re the pluckiest girl I ever saw -not to have been afraid of me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it wasn’t pluck. I saw at once that you wouldn’t -do me any harm.”</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p>“In general. I was surprised. I was excited. In a -way I was overcome. But I wasn’t afraid of you. If -you’d been a tramp or a colored man or anything like -that it would have been different. But one isn’t afraid -of a—of a gentleman.”</p> - -<p>“But I’m not a—”</p> - -<p>“Well then, a man who has a gentleman’s traditions. -You’d better go now,” she whispered, suddenly. “If -you want to come back as I’ve suggested—any time to-morrow -forenoon—I’d speak to my father—”</p> - -<p>“Not about this?” I whispered, hurriedly.</p> - -<p>“No, not about this. This had better be just between -ourselves. I shall never say anything to any one about -it, and I advise you to do the same.” I had made a low -bow, preparatory to getting out, when she held up the -scrap of paper she had crumpled in her hand. “Why -did you write this?”</p> - -<p>But I got out of the room without giving a reply.</p> - -<p>I was descending the back stairs when I heard a door<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span> -open on the third floor and Elsie’s voice call out, “Regina, -are you talking to anybody down there?”</p> - -<p>There was a tremor in the mezzo as it replied: “N-no. -I’m just—I’m just moving about.”</p> - -<p>“Well, for Heaven’s sake go to bed! It’s after two -o’clock. I never was in a house like this in all my life -before. It seems to be full of people crawling round -everywhere. I think I’ll come down to your mother’s -bed, after all.”</p> - -<p>“Do,” was the only word I heard as I stole into the -servants’ dining-room, then into the closet with shelves, -where I shut the door softly. A few seconds later I was -out on the cool ground, in the dark, behind the shrub.</p> - -<p>I lay there almost breathlessly, not because I was -unable to get up, but because I couldn’t drag myself away. -I wanted to go over the happenings of the last hour and -seal them in my memory. They were both terrible to -me and beautiful.</p> - -<p>I had been there some fifteen minutes when I heard -the open window above me closed gently and the fastening -snapped. I knew that again she was near me, though, -as before, she didn’t suspect my presence. I wondered -if the chances of life would ever bring us so close to each -other again.</p> - -<p>Above me, where the shrub detached itself a little -from the wall of the house, I could see the stars. Lying -on my back, with my head pillowed on the crook of my -arm, I watched them till it seemed to me they began to -pale. At the same time I caught a thinning in the texture -of the darkness. I got up with the silence in which I had -lain down. Crossing the brick-paved yard and striding -over the low wall, I was again in the vacant lot.</p> - -<p>It was not yet dawn, but it was the dark-gray hour<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span> -which tells that dawn is coming. I was obliged to take -more accurate precautions than before, as, crushing the -tangle of nettle, burdock, fireweed, and blue succory, I -crept along in the shadow of the house wall to regain the -empty street.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER III</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>The city was beginning to wake. Mysterious carts -and wagons rumbled along the neighboring avenues. -From a parallel street came the buzz and clang of a lonely -early-morning electric car. Running footsteps would -have startled one if they had not been followed by the -clinking of peaceful milk-bottles in back yards. Clanking -off into the distance one heard the tread of solitary -pedestrians bent on errands that stirred the curiosity. -Here and there the lurid flames of torches lit up companies -of gnomelike men digging in the roadways.</p> - -<p>Going toward Greeley’s Slip, I skirted the Park, though -it made the walk longer. Under the dark trees men were -lying on benches and on the grass, but for reasons I -couldn’t yet analyze I refused to thrust myself among -them. A few hours earlier I would have done this without -thinking, as without fear; but something had happened -to me that now made any such course impossible.</p> - -<p>My immediate need was to get back to poor old Lovey -and lie down by his side. That again was beyond my -power to analyze. I suppose it was something like a -homing instinct, and Lovey was all there was to welcome -me.</p> - -<p>“Is that you, sonny?” he asked, sleepily, as I stooped -to creep into the cubby-hole which a chance arrangement -of planks made in a pile of lumber.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>“Glad ye’ve come.”</p> - -<p>When I had stretched myself out I felt him snuggle a -little nearer me.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mind, sonny, do you?”</p> - -<p>“No, Lovey. It’s all right. Go to sleep again.”</p> - -<p>For myself, I could do nothing but lie and watch the -coming of the dawn. I could see it beating itself into the -darkness long before there was anything to which one -could give the name of light. It was like a succession of -great cosmic throbs, after each of which the veil was a -little more translucent.</p> - -<p>In my nostrils was the sweet, penetrating smell of lumber, -subtly laden with the memories of the days when I -was a boy. The Canadian differs from the American -largely, I think, in the closeness of his forest-and-farm -associations. Not that the American hasn’t the farm and -the forest, too, but he has moved farther away from them. -The mill, the factory, and the office have supplanted them—in -imagination when not in fact, and in fact when not -in imagination. If the woods call him he has to go to -them—for a week, or two, or three at a time; but he comes -back inevitably to a life in which the woods play little -part. The Canadian never leaves that life. The primeval -still enters into his cities and his thoughts. Some day it -may be different; but as yet he is the son of rivers, lakes, -and forests. There is always in him a strain of the -<i>voyageur</i>. The true Canadian never ceases to smell balsam -or to hear the lapping of water on wild shores.</p> - -<p>It was balsam that I smelled now. The lapping of -water soothed me as the river, too, began to wake. It -woke with a faint noise of paddle-wheels, followed by a -bellow like the call of some sea monster to its mate.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span> -Right below me and close to the slip I heard the measured -dip of oars. Hoarse calls of men, from deck to deck or -from deck to dock, had a weird, watchful sound, as though -the darkness were peopled with Flying Dutchmen. Lights -glided up and down the river—which itself remained unseen—mostly -gold lights, but now and then a colored -one. Chains of lights fringed the New Jersey shore, -where, far away, sleepless factories threw up dim red -flares. A rising southeast wind not only hid the stars -under banks of clouds, but went whistling eerily round -the corners of the lumber-piles. The scent of pine, and -all the pungent, nameless odors of the riverside, began to -be infused with the smell—if it is a smell—of coming rain.</p> - -<p>I can best describe myself as in a kind of trance in -which past and present were merged into one, and in -which there seemed to be no period when two wonderful, -burning eyes had not been watching me in pity and amazement. -As long as I lived I knew they would watch me -still. In their light I got my life’s significance. In their -light I saw myself as a boy again, with a boy’s vision of -the future. The smell of lumber carried me back to our -old summer home on the banks of the Ottawa, where I -had had my dreams of what I should do when I was big. -All boys being patriotic, they were dreams not merely -of myself, but of my country. It worried me that it was -not sufficiently on the great world map, that apart from -its lakes and prairies and cataracts it had no wonders -to show mankind. As we were a traveling family, I was -accustomed to wonders in other countries, and easily -annoyed when one set of cousins in New York and another -in England took it for granted that we lived in an -Ultima Thule of snow. I meant to show them the -contrary.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span></p> - -<p>From the beginning my ardors and indignations translated -themselves into stone. I had seen St. Peter’s in -one country, St. Paul’s in another, and Chartres and -châteaux in a third. I had seen New York transforming -itself under my very eyes—the change began when I was -in my teens—into a town of prodigious towers which in -themselves were symbolical. Then I would go home to -a red-gray city, marvelously placed between river and -mountain, where any departure from its original French -austerity was likely to be in the direction of the exuberant, -the unchastened, the fantastic. All new buildings in -Canada, as in most of the States, lacked “school.”</p> - -<p>“School” was, more or less in secret, the preoccupation -of my youth—“school” with some such variation from -traditional classic lines as would create or stimulate the -indigenous. I had not yet learned what New York was -to teach me later—that necessity was the mother of art, -and that pure new styles were formed not by any one’s -ingenuity or by the caprice of changing taste, but because -human needs demanded them. Rejecting the art nouveau, -which later made its permanent home in Germany, -I combined all the lines in which great buildings had ever -been designed, from the Doric to the Georgian, in the -hope of evolving a type which the world would recognize -as distinctively Canadian, and to which I should give -my name. In imagination I built castles, cathedrals -and theaters, homes, hotels and offices. They were -in the style to be known as Melburyesque, and would -draw students from all parts of the architectural earth -to Montreal.</p> - -<p>It was not an unworthy dream, and even if I could -never have worked it out I might have made of it something -of which not wholly to be ashamed. But as early<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span> -as before I went to the Beaux Arts the curse of Canada—the -curse, more or less, of all northern peoples—began -to be laid upon me. In Paris I had some respite from it, -but almost as soon as I had hung out my shingle at home -I was suffering again from its cravings. I will not say -that I put up no fight, but I put up no fight commensurate -with the evil I had to face. The result was what -I have told you, and for which I now had to suffer in my -soul the most scorching form of recompense.</p> - -<p>The point I found it difficult to decide was as to whether -or not I ever wanted to see Regina Barry again—or -whether I had it in me to go back and show myself to her -in the state from which I had fallen more than three years -before. In the end it was that possibility alone which -enabled me to endure the real coming of the dawn.</p> - -<p>For it came—this new day which out of darkness might -be bringing me a new life.</p> - -<p>As I lay with my face turned toward the west I got -none of its first glories. Even on a cloudy morning, with -a spattering of rain, I knew there must be splendors in -the east, if no more than gray and lusterless splendors. -Light to a gray world is as magical as hope to a gray -heart; and as I watched the lamps on the New Jersey -heights grow wan, while the river unbared its bosom to -the day, that thing came to me which makes disgrace -and shame and humiliation and every other ingredient -of remorse a remedy rather than a poison.</p> - -<p>I myself was hardly aware of the fact till Lovey and I -had crept out of our cubby-hole, because all round us men -were going to work. Sleepers in the open generally rise -with daylight, but we had kept longer than usual to our -refuge because we didn’t want to fare forth into the rain. -As sooner or later it would come to a choice between<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span> -going out and being kicked out, we decided to move of -our own accord.</p> - -<p>I must leave to your imagination the curious sensation -of the down and out in having nothing to do but to get -up, shake themselves, and walk away. On waking after -each of these homeless nights it had seemed to me that -the necessity for undressing to go to bed and dressing -when one got up in the morning was the primary distinction -between being a man and being a mere animal. -Not to have to undress just to dress again reduced one -to the level of the horse. Stray dogs got up and went -off to their vague leisure just as Lovey and I were doing. -Not to wash, not to go to breakfast, not to have a duty -when washing and breakfasting were done—knocked out -from under one all the props that civilization had built -up and deprived one of the right to call oneself a man.</p> - -<p>I think it was this last consideration that had most -weight with me as Lovey and I stood gazing at the multifarious -activities of the scene. There were men in sight, -busy with all kinds of occupations. They were like ants; -they were like bees. They came and went and pulled -and hauled and hammered and climbed and dug, and -every man’s eyes seemed bent on his task as if it were -the only one in the world.</p> - -<p>“It means two or three dollars a day to ’em if they -ain’t,” Lovey grunted, when I had pointed this fact out -to him. “Don’t suppose they’d work if they didn’t -’ave to, do ye?”</p> - -<p>“I dare say they wouldn’t. But my point is that they -do work. It’s Emerson who says that every man is as -lazy as he dares to be, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, anybody could say that.”</p> - -<p>“And in spite of the fact that they’d rather be lazy,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span> -they’re all doing something. Look at them. Look at -them in every direction to which your eyes can turn—droves -of them, swarms of them, armies of them—every -one bent on something into which he is putting a piece -of himself!”</p> - -<p>“Well, they’ve got ’omes or boardin’-’ouses. It’s easy -enough to git a job when ye can give an address. But -when ye carn’t—”</p> - -<p>We were to test that within a minute or two. Fifteen -or twenty brownies were digging in a ditch. Of all the -forms of work in sight it seemed that which demanded the -least in the way of special training.</p> - -<p>Approaching a fiercely mustachioed man of clearly defined -nationality, I said, “Say, boss, could you give my -buddy and me a job?”</p> - -<p>Rolling toward me a pair of eyes that would have done -credit to a bandit in an opera, he emitted sounds which -I can best transcribe as, “Where d’live?”</p> - -<p>“That’s the trouble,” I answered, truthfully. “We -don’t live anywhere and we should like to.”</p> - -<p>He looked us over. “Beat it,” he commanded, nodding -toward the central quarters of the city.</p> - -<p>“But, boss,” I pleaded, “my buddy and I haven’t got -a quarter between us.”</p> - -<p>He pointed with his thumb over his left shoulder. -“Getta out.”</p> - -<p>“We haven’t got a nickel,” I insisted; “we haven’t got -a cent.”</p> - -<p>“Cristoforo, ca’ da cop.”</p> - -<p>As Cristoforo sprang from the ditch to look for a policeman, -Lovey and I shuffled off again into the rain.</p> - -<p>We stood for a minute at the edge of one of the long, -sordid avenues where a sordid life was surging up and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span> -down. Men, women, and children of all races and nearly -all ranks were hurrying to and fro, each bent on an errand. -It was the fact that life provided an errand for each of -them that suddenly struck me as the most wonderful -thing in creation. There was no one so young or so old, -no one so ignorant or so alien, that he was not going from -point to point with a special purpose in view. Among the -thousands and the tens of thousands who would in the -course of the morning pass the spot on which we stood, -there would probably not be one who hadn’t dressed, -washed, and breakfasted as a return for his daily contribution -to the common good. Never before and hardly -ever since did I have such a sense of life’s infinite and -useful complexity. There was no height to which it -didn’t go up; there was no depth to which it didn’t go -down. No one was left out but the absolute wastrel like -myself, who couldn’t be taken in.</p> - -<p>Though it was not a cold day, the steadiness of the -drizzle chilled me. The dampness of the pavements got -through the worn soles of my boots, and I suppose it did -the same with Lovey’s. The lack of food made the old -man white, and that of drink set him to trembling. The -fact that he hadn’t shaved for the past day or two gave -his sodden face a grisly look that was truly appalling. -Though the pale-blue eyes were extinct, as if the spirit -in them had been quenched, they were turned toward me -with the piteous appeal I had sometimes seen in those of -a blind dog.</p> - -<p>It was for me to take the lead, and yet I couldn’t wholly -see in what direction to take it. While I was pondering, -Lovey made a variety of suggestions.</p> - -<p>“There doesn’t seem to be nothink for it, sonny, but -to go and repent for a day or two. I ’ate to do it; kind<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span> -o’ deceivin’ like, it is; but they’ll let us dry ourselves and -give us a feed if we ’ave a sense of sin.”</p> - -<p>I wondered if he had in mind anything better than -what I had myself.</p> - -<p>“Where?”</p> - -<p>He took the negative side first.</p> - -<p>“We couldn’t go to the Saviour, because I’ve put it -over on ’em twice this year already. And the ’Omeless -Men won’t do nothink for ye onless you make it up in -menial work.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t try either of them,” I said, briefly.</p> - -<p>“Don’t blame you, sonny, not a bit. Kind o’ makes -a hypercrite of a man, it does. I ’ate to be a hypercrite, -only when I carn’t ’elp it.”</p> - -<p>He went on to enumerate other agencies for the raising -of the fallen, of most of which he had tested the hospitality -during the past few years. I rejected them as -he named them, one by one. To this rejection Lovey -subscribed with the unreasoning dislike all outcast men -feel for the hand stretched down to them from higher up. -Nothing but starvation would have forced him to any of -these thresholds; and for me even starvation would not -work the miracle.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter with the Down and Out?” I sprang -on him, suddenly.</p> - -<p>He groaned. “Oh, sonny! It’s just—just what I was -afeared of.”</p> - -<p>I turned and looked down into his poor, bleared, suffering -old face.</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Because—because—oncet ye try that they’ll—they’ll -never let ye go.”</p> - -<p>“But suppose you don’t want them to let you go?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span></p> - -<p>He backed away from me. If the dead eyes could -waken to expression, they did it then.</p> - -<p>“Oh, sonny!” He shook as if palsied. “Ye don’t -know ’em, my boy. I’ve summered and wintered ’em—by -lookin’ on. I’ve had pals of my own—”</p> - -<p>“And what are they doing now, those pals of your -own?”</p> - -<p>“God knows; I don’t. Yes, I do; some of ’em. I see -’em round, goin’ to work as reg’lar as reg’lar, and no -more spunk in ’em than in a goldfish when ye shakes yer -finger at their bowl.”</p> - -<p>Afraid of exciting suspicion by standing still, we began -drifting with the crowd.</p> - -<p>“Is there much that you can call spunk in you and me?”</p> - -<p>Again he lifted those piteous, drunken eyes. “We’re -fellas together, ain’t we? We’re buddies. I ’ear ye say -so yerself when you was speakin’ to that Eyetalian.”</p> - -<p>I have to confess that with his inflection something -warm crept into my cold heart. You have to be as I -was to know what the merest crumbs of trust and affection -mean. A dog as stray and homeless as myself might -have been more to me; but since I had no dog....</p> - -<p>“Yes, Lovey,” I answered, “we’re buddies, all right. -But for that very reason don’t you think we ought to try -to help each other up?”</p> - -<p>He stopped, to turn to me with hands crossed on his -breast in a spirit of petition.</p> - -<p>“But, sonny, you don’t mean—you carn’t mean—on—on -the wagon?”</p> - -<p>“I mean on anything that’ll get us out of this hell of -a hole.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, if it’s only that, I’ve—I’ve been in tighter -places than this before—and—and look at me now.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span> -There’s ways. Ye don’t have to jump at nothink onnat’rel. -If ye’d only ’ave listened to me yesterday—but -it ain’t too late even now. What about to-night? Just -two old ladies—no violence—nothink that’d let you in -for nothink dishonorable.”</p> - -<p>“No, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>We drifted on again. He spoke in a tone of bitter -reproach.</p> - -<p>“Ye’d rather go to the Down and Out! It’ll be the -down, all right, sonny; but there’ll be no out to it. Ye’ll -be a prisoner. They’ll keep at ye and at ye till yer soul -won’t be yer own. Now all these other places ye can put -it over on ’em. They’re mostly ladies and parsons and -greenhorns that never ’ad no experience. A little repentance -and they’ll fall for it every time. Besides”—he -turned to me with another form of appeal—“ye’re a -Christian, ain’t ye? A little repentance now and then’ll -do ye good. It’s like something laid by for a rainy day. -I’ve tried it, so I know. Ye’re young, sonny. Ye don’t -understand. And when it’ll tide ye over a time like -this—they’ll git ye a job, very likely—and ye can backslide -by and by when it’s safe. Why, it’s all as easy as -easy.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t as easy as easy, Lovey, because you say you -don’t like it yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I like it better than the Down and Out, where they -won’t let ye backslide no more. Why, I was in at Stinson’s -one day and there was a chap there—Rollins was his -name, a plumber—just enj’yin’ of himself like—nothink -wrong—and come to find out he’d been one of their men. -Well, what do ye think, sonny? A fellow named Pyncheon -blew in—awful ’ard drinker for a young ’and, he used to -be—and he sat down beside Rollins and pled with ’im<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span> -and plod with ’im, and—well, ye don’t see Rollins round -Stinson’s no more. I tell ye, sonny, ye carn’t put nothing -over on ’em. They knows all the tricks and all the -trade. Give me kind-’earted ladies; give me ministers -of the gospel; give me the stool o’ repentance two or three -times a month; but don’t give me fellas that because -they’ve knocked off the booze theirselves wants every one -else to knock it off, too, and don’t let it be a free country.”</p> - -<p>We came to the corner to which I had been directing -our seemingly aimless steps. It was a corner where the -big red and green jars that had once been the symbols -for medicines within now stood as a sign for soda-water -and ice-cream.</p> - -<p>“Let’s go in here.”</p> - -<p>Lovey hung back. “What’s the use of that? That -ain’t no saloon.”</p> - -<p>“Come on and let us try.”</p> - -<p>Pushing open the screen door, I made him pass in before -me. We found ourselves in front of a white counter -fitted up like a kind of bar. As a bar of any sort was -better than none, Lovey’s face took on a leaden shade -of brightness.</p> - -<p>In the way of a guardian all we could see at first was -a white-coated back bent behind the counter. When it -straightened up it was topped by a friendly, boyish face.</p> - -<p>Lovey leaped back, pulling me by the arm.</p> - -<p>“That’s that very young Pyncheon I was a-tellin’ you -of,” he whispered, tragically; “him what got Rollins, the -plumber, out of Stinson’s. Let’s ’ook it, sonny! He -won’t do us no good.”</p> - -<p>But the boyish face had already begun to beam.</p> - -<p>“Hel-lo, old sport! Haven’t seen you in a pair of blue -moons. Put it there!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span></p> - -<p>The welcome was the more disconcerting because in the -mirror behind Pyncheon I could see myself in contrast to -his clean, young, manly figure. I have said I was shabby -without being hideously so, but that was before I had -slept a fourth night on the bare boards of a lumber-yard, -to be drenched with rain in the morning. It was also -before I had gone a fourth morning without shaving, and -with nothing more thorough in the way of a wash than -I could steal in a station lavatory. The want of food, -the want of drink, to say nothing of the unspeakable anguish -within, had stamped me, moreover, with something -woebegone and spectral which, now that I saw it reflected -in the daylight, shook me to the soul.</p> - -<p>I never was so timid, apologetic, or shamefaced in my -life as when I grasped the friendly hand stretched out to -me across the counter. I had no smile to return to Pyncheon’s. -I had no courtesies to exchange. Not till that -minute had I realized that I was outside the system of -fellowship and manhood, and that even a handshake was -a condescension.</p> - -<p>“Pyn,” I faltered, hoarsely, “I want you to take me to -the Down and Out. Will you?”</p> - -<p>“Sure I will!” He glanced at Lovey. “And I’ll take -old Lovikins, too.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you be so fresh with your names, young man!” -Lovey spoke up, tartly. “’Tain’t the first time I’ve seen -you—”</p> - -<p>“And I hope it won’t be the last,” Pyn laughed.</p> - -<p>“That’ll depend on how polite ye’re able to make yerself.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you can count me in on politeness, old sport, so -long as you come to the Down and Out.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll go to the Down and Out when I see fit. I ain’t<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span> -goin’ to be dragged there by the ’air of the ’ead, as I see -you drag poor Rollins, the plumber, a month or two -ago.”</p> - -<p>“Quit your kiddin’, Lovey. How am I going to drag -you by the ’air of the ’ead when you’re as bald as a door-knob? -Say, you fellows,” he went on, pulling one of the -levers before him, “I’m going to start you off right now -with a glass of this hot chocolate. The treat’s on me. -By the time you’ve swallowed it Milligan will be here, -and I can get off long enough to take you over to Vandiver -Street.” He dashed in a blob of whipped cream. “Here, -old son, this is for you; and there’s more where it came -from.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t come in ’ere for nothink of the kind,” Lovey -protested. “I didn’t know we was comin’ in ’ere at all. -You take it, sonny.”</p> - -<p>“Go ahead, Lovikins,” Mr. Pyncheon insisted. “’E’s -to ’ave a bigger one,” he mimicked. “Awful good for -the ’air of the ’ead. ’Ll make it sprout like an apple-tree—I -beg your pardon, happle-tree—in May.”</p> - -<p>Before Pyncheon had finished, the primitive in poor -Lovey had overcome both pride and reluctance, and the -glass of chocolate was pretty well drained. The sight of -his sheer animal avidity warned me not to betray myself. -While Pyncheon explained to Milligan and made his preparations -for conducting us, I carried my chocolate to the -less important part of the shop, given up to the sale of -tooth-brushes and patent medicines, to consume it at ease -and with dignity.</p> - -<p>Pyncheon having changed to a coat, in the buttonhole -of which I noticed a little silver star, and a straw hat -with a faint silver line in the hatband, we were ready to -depart.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span></p> - -<p>“I’ll go with ye, sonny,” Lovey explained; “but I -ain’t a-goin’ to stay. No Down and Out for mine.”</p> - -<p>“You wouldn’t leave me, Lovey?” I begged, as I replaced -the empty glass on the counter. “I’m looking to -you to help me to keep straight.”</p> - -<p>He edged up to me, laying a shaking hand on my arm.</p> - -<p>“Oh, if it’s that— But,” he added more cheerfully, -“we don’t have to stay no longer than we don’t want -to. There’s no law by which they can keep us ag’in’ -our will, there ain’t.”</p> - -<p>“No, Lovey. If we want to go we’ll go—but we’re -buddies, aren’t we? And we’ll stick by each other.”</p> - -<p>“Say, you fellows! Quick march! I’ve only got half -an hour to get there and back.”</p> - -<p>Out in the street, Lovey and I hung behind our guide. -He was too brisk and smart and clean for us to keep step -with. Alone we could, as we phrased it, get by. With -him the contrast called attention to the fact that we -were broken and homeless men.</p> - -<p>“You go ahead, Pyn—” I began.</p> - -<p>“Aw, cut that out!” he returned, scornfully. “Wasn’t -I a worse looker than you, two and a half years ago? -Old Colonel Straight picked me up from a bench in Madison -Square—the very bench from which he’d been picked -up himself—and dragged me down to Vandiver Street -like a nurse’ll drag a boy that kicks like blazes every -step of the way.”</p> - -<p>As we were now walking three abreast, with Pyn in the -middle, I asked the question that was most on my mind:</p> - -<p>“Was it hard, Pyn—cutting the booze out?”</p> - -<p>“Sure it was hard! What do you think? You’re not -on the way to a picnic. For the first two weeks I fought -like hell. If the other guys hadn’t sat on my head—well,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span> -you and old Lovey wouldn’t have had no glass of hot -chocolate this morning.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose the first two weeks are the worst.”</p> - -<p>“And the best. If you’re really out to put the job -through you find yourself toughening to it every day.”</p> - -<p>“And you mean by being out to put the job through?”</p> - -<p>“Wanting to get the durned thing under you so as you -can stand on it and stamp it down. Booze’ll make two -kinds of repenters, and I guess you guys stand for both. -Old Lovey here”—he pinched my companion’s arm—“he’ll -forsake his bad habits just long enough to get well -fed up, a clean shirt on his back, and his nerves a bit -quieted down. But he’ll always be looking forward to the -day when he’ll be tempted again, and thinking of the good -time he’ll have when he falls.”</p> - -<p>“If you’ll mind yer own business, young Pyn—” -Lovey began, irritably.</p> - -<p>“Then there’s another kind,” this experienced reformer -went on, imperturbably, “what’ll have a reason for cutting -the blasted thing out, like he’d cut out a cancer or -anything else that’ll kill him. I’ve always known you -was that kind, Slim, and I told you so nearly a year -ago.”</p> - -<p>“I seen ye,” Lovey put in. “Was speakin’ about it -only yesterday. Knew you was after no good. I warned -ye, didn’t I, Slim?”</p> - -<p>Curiosity prompted me to say, “What made you think -I had a motive for getting over it?”</p> - -<p>“Looks. You can always tell what a man’s made for -by the kind of looker he is. As a looker you’re some -swell. Lovikins here, now—”</p> - -<p>“If I can’t do as well as the likes o’ you, ye poor little -snipe of a bartender for babies—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span></p> - -<p>“What’ll you bet you can’t?” Pyn asked, good-naturedly.</p> - -<p>“I ain’t a bettin’ man, but I can show!”</p> - -<p>“Well, you show, and I’ll lay fifty cents against you. -You’ll be umpire, Slim, and hold the stakes. Is that a -go?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t ’ave no truck o’ that kind,” Lovey declared, -loftily. “I’m a doer, I am—when I get a-goin’. I don’t -brag beforehand—not like some.”</p> - -<p>I was still curious, however, about myself.</p> - -<p>“And what did you make out of my looks, Pyn?”</p> - -<p>He stopped, stood off, and eyed me.</p> - -<p>“Do you know what you’re like now?”</p> - -<p>“I know I’m not like anything human.”</p> - -<p>“You’re like a twenty-dollar bill that’s been in every -pawnshop, and every bar, and every old woman’s stocking, -and every old bum’s pocket, and is covered with dirt and -grease and microbes till you wouldn’t hardly hold it in -your hand; but it’s still a twenty-dollar bill—that’ll buy -twenty dollars’ worth every time—and whenever you like -you can get gold for it.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Pyn,” I returned, humbly, as we went on -our way again. “That’s the whitest thing that has ever -been said to me.”</p> - -<p>Before we reached Vandiver Street, Pyn had given us -two bits of information, both of which I was glad to -receive.</p> - -<p>One was entirely personal, being a brief survey of his -fall and rise. The son of a barber in one of the small -towns near New York, he had gone to work with a druggist -on leaving the high school. His type, as he described -it, had been from the beginning that of the cheap sport. -Cheap sports had been his companions, and before he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span> -was twenty-one he had married a pretty manicure girl -from his father’s establishment. He had married her -while on a spree, and after the spree had repented. Repenting -chiefly because he wasn’t earning enough to keep -a wife, he threw the blame for his mistake on her. When -a baby came he was annoyed; when a second baby came -he was desperate; when a third baby promised to appear -he was overwhelmed. Since the expenses of being a cheap -sport couldn’t be reduced, he saw no resource but flight -to New York, leaving his wife to fend for herself and her -children.</p> - -<p>Folly having made of him a hard drinker, remorse made -of him a harder one. And since no young fellow of twenty-four -is callous enough to take wife-desertion with an easy -conscience, my own first talks with him had been filled -with maudlin references to a kind of guilt I hadn’t at the -time understood. All I knew was that from bad he had -gone to worse, and from worse he was on the way to the -worst of all, when old Colonel Straight rescued him.</p> - -<p>The tale of that rescue unfolded some of the history of -the Down and Out. As to that, Pyn laid the emphasis -on the fact that the club was not a mission—that is, it -was not the effort of the safe to help those who are in -danger; it was the effort of those who are in danger to -help themselves. Built up on unassisted effort, it was self-respecting. -No bribes had ever been offered it, and no -persuasions but such as a man who has got out of hell -can bring to bear on another who is still frying in the fire. -Its action being not from the top downward, but from the -bottom upward, it had a native impulse to expansion.</p> - -<p>Its inception had been an accident. Two men who -had first met as Pyncheon and I had first met had lost -sight of each other for several years. At a time when each<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span> -had worked his salvation out they had come together by -accident on Broadway, and later had by another accident -become responsible for a third. Finding him one night -lying on the pavement of a lonely street, they had seemingly -had no choice but to pick him up and carry him to -a cheap but friendly hostelry which they knew would not -refuse him. Here they had kept him till he had sobered -up and taken the job they found for him. Watching over -him for months, they finally had the pleasure of restoring -him to his wife and seeing a broken home put on its feet -again. This third man, in gratitude for what had been -done for him, went after a fourth, and the fourth after a -fifth, and so the chain was flung out. By the time their -number had increased to some twenty-five or thirty -Providence offered them a dwelling-place.</p> - -<p>The dwelling-place, with the few apparently worthless -articles it contained, was all the club had ever accepted -as a gift. Even that might have been declined had it -not been for the fact that it was going begging. When old -Miss Smedley died it was found that she had left her -residence in Vandiver Place as a legacy to St. David’s -Church, across the way. She had left it, however, as an -empty residence. As an empty residence it was in a measure -a white elephant on the hands of a legatee that had -no immediate use for it.</p> - -<p>St. David’s Church, you will remember, was not now -the fashionable house of prayer it had been in its early -days. Time was when Vandiver Place was the heart of -exclusive New York. In the ’forties and ’fifties no section -of the city had been more select. In the ’sixties and -’seventies, when Doctor Grace was rector of St. David’s, -it had become time-honored. In the ’eighties and ’nineties -the old families began to move up-town and the boarding-houses<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> -to creep in; and in the early years of the twentieth -century the residents ceded the ground entirely to the -manufacturer of artificial flowers and the tailor of the -ready-to-wear. In 1911 the line of houses that made it -a cul-de-sac was torn down and a broad thoroughfare cut -through a congeries of slums, the whole being named -Vandiver Street. Vandiver Place was gone; and with it -went Miss Smedley.</p> - -<p>Rufus Legrand, who succeeded Doctor Grace as rector -of St. David’s, offered Miss Smedley’s house as a home -for the Down and Out; but it was Beady Lamont, a -husky furniture-mover and ardent member of the club, -who suggested this philanthropic opportunity to Rufus -Legrand.</p> - -<p>“Say, reverent, my buddy’s give in at last, on’y I -haven’t got no place to put him. But, say, reverent, -there’s that old house I helped to move the sticks out of -two or three months ago. There’s three beds left in it, -and a couple of chairs. Me and him could bunk there for -a few nights, while he got straightened out, and—”</p> - -<p>“But you’d have no bedclothes.”</p> - -<p>“Say, reverent, we don’t want no bedclothes. Sleepin’ -in the Park’ll learn you how to do without sheets.”</p> - -<p>“My daughter, Mrs. Ralph Coningsby, could undoubtedly -supply you with some.”</p> - -<p>“Say, reverent, that ain’t our way. We don’t pass the -buck on no one. What we haven’t got we do without -till we can pay for it ourselves. But that old house ain’t -doin’ nothing but sit on its haunches; and if I could just -get Tiger into the next bed to mine at night—we don’t -want no bedclothes nor nothing but what we lay down -in—and take him along with me when I go to work by -day, so as to keep my search-lights on him, like—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span></p> - -<p>Rufus Legrand had already sufficiently weighed the -proposal.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I don’t see why you shouldn’t sleep in the -old place as long as you like, Beady, if you can only -make yourselves comfortable.”</p> - -<p>“Say, reverent, now you’re shouting.”</p> - -<p>So another accident settled the fate of Miss Smedley’s -lifelong home; and before many weeks the Down and -Out was in full possession.</p> - -<p>It was in full possession of the house with the refuse -the heirs had not considered good enough to take away—three -iron bedsteads that the servants had used; an equal -number of humble worn-out mattresses; two tolerably -solid wooden chairs, three that needed repairs, which -were speedily given them; some crockery more or less -chipped and cracked; and a stained steel-engraving of -Franklin in the <i>salon</i> of Marie Antoinette.</p> - -<p>True to its principles, the club accepted neither gifts -of money nor contributions in kind. Its members were -all graduates of the school of doing without. To those who -came there a roof over the head was a luxury, while to -have a friend to stand by them and care whether they -went to the devil or not was little short of a miracle.</p> - -<p>But by the time Billy Pyncheon had been brought in -by old Colonel Straight, gratitude, sacrifice, and enthusiasm -on the part of one or another of the members had -adequately fitted up this house to which Lovey and I -were on the way. It had become, too, the one institution -of which the saloon-keepers of my acquaintance were -afraid. We were all afraid of it. It had worked so many -wonders among our pals that we had come to look on it -as a home of the necromantic. Missions of any kind we -knew how to cope with; but in the Down and Out there<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span> -was a sort of wizardry that tamed the wildest hearts -among us, cast out devils, and raised the nearly dead. -I myself for a year or more—ever since I had seen the -spell it had wrought on Pyn, for whom from the first -I had felt a sympathy—had been haunted by the dread -of it; and here I was at the door.</p> - -<p>The door when we got to it was something of a disappointment. -It was at the head of a flight of old-time -brownstone steps, and was just like any other door. -About it was nothing of the magical or cabalistic Lovey -and I had been half expecting.</p> - -<p>More impressive was the neat little man who opened -to our ring. He was a wan, wistful, smiling little figure -of sixty-odd, on whom all the ends of the world seemed -to have come. He was like a man who has been dead -and buried and has come to life again—but who shows -he has been dead. If I had to look like that....</p> - -<p>But I took comfort in the thought of Pyn. Pyn showed -nothing. He was like one of the three holy men who -went through Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace—the smell of -fire had not passed on him. A heartier, healthier, merrier -fellow it would have been difficult to find.</p> - -<p>He entered now with the air of authority which belongs -to the member of a club.</p> - -<p>“Fellows had their breakfast, Spender?”</p> - -<p>Spender was all welcome, of the wistful, yearning kind.</p> - -<p>“The men at work is gone; but the guys under restraint -is still at table.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Christian not here yet?”</p> - -<p>“Never gets here before nine; and it’s not half past -seven yet.”</p> - -<p>Pyn turned to me. “Say, do you want to go in and -feed, or will you wash up first, or go to bed, or what?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span></p> - -<p>With this large liberty of choice I asked if we could do -whatever we liked. It was Spender who explained.</p> - -<p>“That’s the rule for new arrivals, unless they’ve got -to be put under restraint at once.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to be put under no restraint,” Lovey -declared, indignantly.</p> - -<p>“That’ll be all right,” Spender replied, kindly, “unless -there’s vermin—”</p> - -<p>Lovey jumped.</p> - -<p>“See here, now! Don’t you begin no such immodest -talk to me.”</p> - -<p>“There, there, Lovikins,” Pyn broke in. “Spender -don’t mean no harm. All sorts have to come to a place -like this. But when we see a gentleman we treat him like -a gentleman. All Spender wants to know is this, Is it -eats for you first, or a bath?”</p> - -<p>“And I don’t want no bath,” Lovey declared, proudly.</p> - -<p>“Then it’ll be eats. Quick march! I’ve got to beat -it back to my job.”</p> - -<p>Pyn’s introduction of us to those already in the dining-room -was simple.</p> - -<p>“This is Lovey. This is Slim. You guys’ll make ’em -feel at home.”</p> - -<p>Making us feel at home consisted in moving along the -table so as to give us room. In words there was no response -to Pyn, who withdrew at once, nor was there more -than a cursory inspection of us with the eyes. Whatever -was kindly was in the atmosphere, and that was perceptible.</p> - -<p>As we sat before two empty places, one of our new -companions rose, went to the dresser behind us, and -brought us each a plate, a spoon, a knife, and a cup and -saucer. A big man went to the kitchen door and in a -voice like thunder called out, “Mouse!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span></p> - -<p>By the time he had returned to his place a stumpy -individual with a big red mustache and a limp appeared -on the threshold. An explanation of the summons was -given him when a third of our friends pointed at us with a -spoonful of oatmeal porridge before he put it in his mouth.</p> - -<p>Mouse withdrew into the kitchen, coming back with -two basins of porridge, which he placed, steaming hot, -before us. Presently, too, he filled our cups with coffee. -Bread and butter, sugar and milk, were all on the table. -The meal went on in silence, except for the smacking of -lips and the clinking of spoons on the crockeryware.</p> - -<p>Of our fellow-guests I can only say that they presented -different phases of the forlorn. The man next to me was -sallow, hatchet-faced, narrow-breasted, weak of physique, -and looked as if he might have been a tailor. His hair -was a shock of unkempt black curls, and his dark eyes -the largest and longest and most luminous I ever saw -in a man. In their nervous glance they made me think -of a horse’s eyes, especially when he rolled them toward -me timidly.</p> - -<p>Opposite was a sandy, freckled-face type, whom I -easily diagnosed as a Scotchman. Light hair, light eyebrows, -and a heavy reddish mustache set off a face scored -with a few deep wrinkles, and savage like that of a beast -fretted with a sense of helplessness. The shaking hand -that passed the bread to me was muscular, freckled, and -covered with coarse, reddish hairs. I put him down as -a gardener.</p> - -<p>At the head of the table was a huge, unwieldy fellow -who looked as if he had all run to fat, but who, as I afterward -learned, was a mass of muscle and sinew, like a -Japanese wrestler. He had bloated cheeks and bloated -hands, and a voice so big and bass that when he spoke,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span> -as he did on going to the door to summon Mouse, he almost -shook the dishes on the dresser. He proved to be, -too, a pal of Beady Lamont’s, and as a piano-mover by -profession he frequented Beady’s spheres.</p> - -<p>At the big man’s right was a poor little whippersnapper, -not more than five foot two, who looked as if a puff would -blow him away; and opposite him a tall, spare, fine-looking -Irishman, a hospital attendant, whose face would -have been full of humor had it not been convulsed for -the time being with a sense of mortal anguish. It was -he who had brought us our dishes and took pains to see -that our needs were supplied.</p> - -<p>No more than any of the others were we eager for conversation. -The fact that we were having good warm -food served in a more or less regular way was enough -to occupy all that was uppermost in our thoughts. Poor -Lovey ate as he had drunk the chocolate half an hour -before, with a greed that was almost terrible. Once -more I might have done the same had I not taken his -example as a warning. Not that anything I did would -have attracted attention in that particular gathering. -Each man’s gaze was turned inward. His soul’s tragedy -absorbed him to the exclusion of everything else. Reaction -from the stupor of excess brought nothing but a -sense of woe. There was woe on all faces. There would -have been woe in all thoughts if conscious thought had -not been outside the range of these drugged and stultified -faculties.</p> - -<p>What was more active than anything else was a blind -fellow-feeling. They did little things for one another. -They did little watchful things for Lovey and me. They -even quarreled over their kindnesses like children eager -to make themselves useful.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span></p> - -<p>“You’ll want to know where the barth-room is,” the -timid tailor said to me as we rose from the table. “I’ll -show you.”</p> - -<p>There was a snarl from the whippersnapper across the -way.</p> - -<p>“Aw, put your lid on, Headlights. How long have -you been showin’ barth-rooms in this here shebang?” -He beckoned to me. “You come along o’ me, Slim—”</p> - -<p>It was the Irishman who intervened to keep the peace.</p> - -<p>“Listen to Daisy now, will you? He’s like a fox-terrier -that owns the house and grounds and barks at -every wan who goes by. Look now, Daisy! You take -this ould gent up to the bath-room on the top floor; and -you, Headlights, show Slim to the one on the second floor, -and every wan o’ you’ll have a bite at the cake.”</p> - -<p>With this peaceable division of the honors we started -off.</p> - -<p>I must describe the club as very humble. The rooms -themselves, as was natural with an old New York residence, -did not lack dignity. Though too narrow for their -height, they had admirable cornices and some exquisite -ceiling medallions. It is probable, too, that in days when -there were no skyscrapers in the neighborhood the house -was light enough, but now it wore a general air of dimness. -The furnishings were just what you might have -expected from the efforts of very poor men in giving of -their small superfluity. There were plenty of plain -wooden chairs, and a sufficiency of tables to match them. -In the two down-stairs sitting-rooms, which must once -have been Miss Smedley’s front and back drawing-rooms, -there were benches against the wall. A roll-top desk, -which I learned was the official seat of Mr. Christian, was -so placed as to catch the light from Vandiver Street. A<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span> -plain, black, wooden cross between the two front windows, -and Franklin in the <i>salon</i> of Marie Antoinette in -the place of honor over a fine old white marble mantelpiece, -completed the two reception-rooms.</p> - -<p>The floor above was given over to the dormitories -for outsiders, and contained little more than beds. They -were small iron beds, made up without counterpanes. As -every man made his own, the result would not have -passed the inspection of a high-class chambermaid, but -they satisfied those who lay down in them. Since outsiders -came in, like Lovey and me, with little or nothing -in the way of belongings, it was unnecessary to make -further provision for their wardrobes than could be found -in the existing closets and shelves. In the front bedroom, -which I suppose must have been Miss Smedley’s, there -were nine small beds; in the room back of that there were -seven; and in a small room over the kitchen, given up -to the men positively under restraint, there were five. -Twenty-one outsiders could thus be cared for at a time.</p> - -<p>On the third floor were the dormitories for club members—men -who had kept sober for three months and more, -and who wore a star of a color denoting the variety of -their achievements. On this floor, too, was a billiard, -card, and smoking room, accessible to any one, even to -outsiders, who had kept sober for three weeks. On the -top floor of all were a few bedrooms, formerly those of -Miss Smedley’s servants, reserved for the occasional occupancy -of such grandees as had preserved their integrity -for three years and more; and here, too, was the sacred -place known as “the lounge,” to which none were admitted -who didn’t wear the gold or silver star representing -sobriety for at least a year.</p> - -<p>The whole was, therefore, a carefully arranged hierarchy<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span> -in which one mounted according to one’s merit. -Little Spender wore the gold star, indicating a five years’ -fight with the devil; and Mouse, the cook, a blue one, -which meant that he had been victorious for three months. -All others in the club when Lovey and I arrived were -outsiders like ourselves. Outsiders gave their word to -stay a week, generally for the purpose of sobering up, but -beyond that nothing was asked of them. At the beginning -of the second week they could either continue their -novitiate or go.</p> - -<p>This information was given me by Spender as we stood -on the threshold of the bath-room before I passed in. -When the tale was ended, however, the Scotchman, who -had taken little or no part in our reception, pushed by -me and entered.</p> - -<p>“You’ll be wanting a shave,” he said, in explanation of -his rudeness. “There are my things”—he got down on -all-fours to show me a safety razor and a broken cup -containing a brush and shaving-soap, hidden behind one -of the legs of the bath-tub—“and you’ll oblige me by putting -them back. Daisy, the wee bye you saw at the -table, is doing the same by your chum. I make no doubt -your own things have been held in your last rooming-house.”</p> - -<p>When I had admitted that this was exactly the case -and had thanked my friends for their courtesies, they -withdrew, leaving me to my toilet.</p> - -<p>After the good meal the bath was a genuine luxury. -It was a decent bath-room, kept by the men, as all the -house was kept, in a kind of dingy cleanliness. Cleanliness, -I found, was not only a principle of the club; it -was one of the first indications that those who came in -for shelter gave of a survival of self-respect. Some of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span> -their efforts in that way were amusing or pathetic, as the -case might be, but they were always human and touching.</p> - -<p>While shaving I had an inspiration that was to have -some effect on what happened to me afterward. I decided -to let my mustache grow. As it grew strongly in -any case, a four days’ absence of the razor had given my -upper lip a deep walnut tinge, and, should I leave the -club after the week to which I had tacitly pledged myself -by coming there at all, I should look different from -when I entered. To look different was the first of the -obscure and violent longings of which my heart was full. -It would be the nearest possible thing to getting away from -my old self. Not to be the same man at all as the one -who had exchanged those few strange sentences with -Regina Barry seemed to be the goal toward which I was -willing to struggle at any cost of sacrifice.</p> - -<p>Having bathed and shaved, I was not an ill-looking -fellow till it came to putting on my shirt again. Any -man who has worn a shirt for forty-eight hours in a city -or on a train knows what a horror it becomes in the exposed -spots on the chest and about the wrists. I had -had but one shirt for a week and more—and but the one -soft collar. You can see already, then, that in spite of -some success in smartening up my damp and threadbare -suit I left the bath-room looking abject.</p> - -<p>I was not, however, so abject as Lovey when I found -him again in the front sitting-room down-stairs.</p> - -<p>In the back sitting-room our table companions were all -arranged in a row against the wall. In spite of the fact -that there were plenty of chairs, they sat huddled together -on one bench; and though there was tobacco, as there -were books, papers, and magazines, they sought no occupation. -When I say that they could have smoked and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span> -didn’t, the wrench that had been given to their normal -state of mind will be apparent. Close up to one another -they pressed, the Scotchman against the piano-mover, -and the piano-mover against the wee bye Daisy, like -lovebirds on the perch of a cage or newly captured animals -too terrified even to snap.</p> - -<p>Without comment on any one’s part, Lovey roamed -the front sitting-room alone.</p> - -<p>“I say, sonny,” he began, fretfully, as I entered, “this -ain’t no place for you and me.”</p> - -<p>I tried to buck him up.</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, it’s only for a week. We can stand it for -that long. They’re very civil to us.”</p> - -<p>“But they’re watchin’ of us already like so many -cats.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, they’re not. They’re only kind.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want none o’ that sort of kindness. What -do ye think that two-foot-four of a Daisy says to me -when ’e offered me the loan of ’is razor? ‘Lovey,’ says -’e, ‘I’m goin’ to ’elp ye to knock off the booze. It’ll -be terr’ble hard work for an old man like you.’ ‘To ’ell -with you!’ says I. ‘Ye ain’t goin’ to ’elp me to do no -such thing, because knock it off is somethink I don’t -mean.’ ‘Well, what did you come in ’ere for?’ says ’e. -‘I come in ’ere,’ I says to ’im, ‘because my buddy come -in ’ere; and wherever ’e goes I’ll foller ’im.’”</p> - -<p>“Then that’s understood, Lovey,” I said, cheerfully. -“If I go at the end of the week, you go; and if I stay, you -stay. We’ll be fellas together.”</p> - -<p>He shook his head mournfully.</p> - -<p>“If you go at the end of the week, sonny, I go, too; -but if you stay—well, I don’t know. I’ve been in jails, -but I ’ain’t never been in no such place as this—nobody<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span> -with no spunk. Look at ’em in there now—nothink but -a bunch of simps.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t leave me, Lovey?”</p> - -<p>The extinct-blue eyes were raised to mine.</p> - -<p>“No, sonny; I won’t leave ye—not for ’ardly nothink.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER IV</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>I don’t know how we got the idea that before we went -any farther we should be interviewed by Andy Christian, -but I suppose somebody must have told us. We -had heard of him, of course. He was, in fact, the master -wizard whose incantations were wrecking our institutions. -It was a surprise to us, therefore, to see, about nine -o’clock, a brisk little elderly man blow in and blow past -us—the metaphor is the most expressive I can use—with -hardly more recognition than a nod.</p> - -<p>“Hello, fellows!” he called out, as he passed through -the hall and glanced in at Lovey and me in the sitting-room. -“Hello, boys!” he said, casually, through the -second door, to the other group, after which he went on -his way to talk domestic matters with Mouse in the -kitchen.</p> - -<p>He seemed a mild-mannered man to have done all the -diabolical work we had laid at his door. Neatly dressed -in a summery black-and-white check, with a panama -hat, he was like any other of the million business men -who were on their way to New York offices that morning. -It was only when he came back from the kitchen and was -in conference with some of the men in the back parlor -that I caught in him that look of dead and buried tragedy -with which I was to grow so familiar in other members -of the club. Superficially he was clean-shaven, round-featured, -rubicund, and kindly, with a quirk about the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span> -lips and a smile in his twinkling gray eyes that seemed -always about to tell you the newest joke. His manner -toward Lovey and me, when he came into the front -sitting-room, was that of having known us all our lives -and of resuming a conversation that only a few minutes -before had been broken off.</p> - -<p>“Let me see! Your name is—?”</p> - -<p>He looked at Lovey as though he knew his name -perfectly well, only that for the second it had slipped his -memory.</p> - -<p>Lovey went forward to the roll-top desk at which Mr. -Christian had seated himself, and whispered, confidentially, -“My name is Lovey, Your Honor.”</p> - -<p>The quirk about the lips seemed to execute a little caper.</p> - -<p>“Is that your first name or your second?”</p> - -<p>“It’s my only name.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that you have another name, but you don’t -want to tell it?”</p> - -<p>“I mean that if I ’ave another name it ain’t nobody’s -business but mine.”</p> - -<p>The head of the club was now writing in a ledger, his -eye following the movement of his pen.</p> - -<p>“I see that you’re a man of decided opinions.”</p> - -<p>“I am—begging Your Honor’s parding,” Lovey declared, -with dignity.</p> - -<p>“That’ll help you in the fight you’re going to put -up.” Before Lovey could protest that he wasn’t going -to put up no fight the gentle voice went on, “And you -seem like a respectable man, too.”</p> - -<p>“I’m as respectable as anybody else—at ’eart. I -don’t use bad langwidge, nor keep bad company, nor -chew, nor spit tobacco juice over nothink, and I keeps -myself to myself.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span></p> - -<p>“All that’ll be a great help to you. What’s been your -occupation?”</p> - -<p>“’atter.”</p> - -<p>As our host was less used to the silent “h” than I, -it became necessary for me to say, “Hatter, sir.”</p> - -<p>I suppose it was my voice. Christian looked up quickly, -studying me with a long, kind, deep regard. Had I -been walking two thousand years ago on the hills of -Palestine and met Some One on the road, he might have -looked at me like that.</p> - -<p>The glance fell. Lovey’s interrogation continued.</p> - -<p>“And would you like that kind of job again—if we -could get it for you—ultimately?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want no job, Your Honor. I can look after -myself. I didn’t come in ’ere of my own free will—nor -to pass the buck—nor nothink.”</p> - -<p>There was an inflection of surprise, perhaps of disapproval -in the tone.</p> - -<p>“You didn’t come in here of your own free will? I -think it’s the first time that’s been said in the history of -the club. May I ask how it happened?”</p> - -<p>I couldn’t help thinking that I ought to intervene.</p> - -<p>“He came in on my account, sir,” I said, getting up -and going forward to the desk. “He’s trying to keep me -straight.”</p> - -<p>“That is, he’ll keep straight if you do?”</p> - -<p>“That’s it, sir, exactly.”</p> - -<p>He continued to write, speaking without looking up -at us.</p> - -<p>“Then I can’t think of anything more to your credit, -Mr.—Mr. Lovey—is that it?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want no mister, Your Honor—not now I -don’t.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span></p> - -<p>“When a man takes so fine a stand as you’re taking -toward this young fellow he’s a mister to me. I respect -him and treat him with respect. I see that we’re meant -to understand each other and get on together.”</p> - -<p>Poor Lovey had nothing to say. The prospect of -temptation and fall being removed by his own heroism -rendered him both proud and miserable at once.</p> - -<p>When the writing was finished the kind eyes were -again lifted toward me. Though the inspection was -so mild, it pierced me through and through. It still -seemed to cover me as he said: “You needn’t tell me -your real name if you don’t want to—but in general we -prefer it.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell anything you ask me, sir. My name is Frank -Melbury.” In order to conceal nothing, I added, “As -a matter of fact, it’s Francis Worsley Melbury Melbury; -but I use it in the shortened form I’ve given you.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks. You’re English?”</p> - -<p>“I’m a Canadian. My father is Sir Edward Melbury, -of Montreal.”</p> - -<p>“Married?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. Single.”</p> - -<p>“And you have a profession?”</p> - -<p>“Architect.”</p> - -<p>“Have you worked at that profession here in New -York?”</p> - -<p>I gave him the names of the offices in which from time -to time I had found employment.</p> - -<p>“And would you like to work at it again?”</p> - -<p>“I should, sir.”</p> - -<p>“As a matter of fact, we have a number of architects, -not exactly in the club, but friendly toward it, and on -intimate terms with us. I’ll introduce you to some of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span> -them when—when you get on your feet. How old are -you? Thirty?”</p> - -<p>“Thirty-one.”</p> - -<p>For some two minutes he went on writing.</p> - -<p>“How long since you’ve been drinking?”</p> - -<p>“My last drink was three days ago.”</p> - -<p>“And how long since you’ve been actually drunk?”</p> - -<p>“About a week.”</p> - -<p>“And before that?”</p> - -<p>“It was pretty nearly all the time.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a great advantage to you to come to us sober. -It means that you know what you’re doing and are to -some extent counting the cost. Men will take any kind -of vow when they’re”—his glance traveled involuntarily -to the back room—“when they’re coming off a spree. -The difficulty is to make them keep their promises when -they’ve got over the worst of it. In your case—”</p> - -<p>“I’ve got a motive, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Then so much the better.”</p> - -<p>I turned to Lovey.</p> - -<p>“Lovey, would you mind stepping into the next room? -There’s something I want to speak about privately.”</p> - -<p>“If it’s to let me in for worse, sonny—”</p> - -<p>“No, it won’t let you in for anything. It’s only got -to do with me.”</p> - -<p>“Then I don’t pry into no secrets,” he said, as he -moved away reluctantly; “only, when fellas is buddies -together—”</p> - -<p>“I’ve a confession to make,” I continued, when Lovey -was out of earshot. “Last night I—”</p> - -<p>“Hold on! Is it necessary for you to tell me this or -not?”</p> - -<p>I had to reflect.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span></p> - -<p>“It’s only necessary in that I want you to know the -worst of me.”</p> - -<p>“But I’m not sure that we need to know that. It -often happens that a man does better in keeping his -secrets in his own soul and shouldering the full weight -of their responsibility. Isn’t it enough for us to know -of you what we see?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that I can judge of that.”</p> - -<p>“Then tell me this: What you were going to say—is -it anything for which you could be arrested?”</p> - -<p>“It’s nothing for which I shall be arrested.”</p> - -<p>“But it’s an offense against the law?”</p> - -<p>I nodded.</p> - -<p>“And what renders you immune?”</p> - -<p>“The fact that—that the person most concerned has—has -forgiven it.”</p> - -<p>“Man or woman?”</p> - -<p>“Woman.”</p> - -<p>His eyes wandered along the cornice as he thought the -matter out. I saw then that they were wonderfully -clear gray eyes, not so much beautiful as perfect—perfect -in their finish as to edge and eyelash, but perfect most -of all because of their expression of benignity.</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe I should give that away,” he said, at -last; “not now, at any rate. If you want to tell me -later—” He changed the subject abruptly by saying, -“Is that the only shirt you’ve got?”</p> - -<p>I told him I had two or three clean ones in my trunk, -but that that was held by my last landlord.</p> - -<p>“How much did you owe him?”</p> - -<p>I produced a soiled and crumpled bill. He looked it -over.</p> - -<p>“We’ll send and pay the bill, and get your trunk.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span></p> - -<p>The generosity almost took my breath away.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but—”</p> - -<p>“We should be only advancing the money,” he explained; -“and we should look to you to pay us back -when you can. It’s quite a usual procedure with us, because -it happens in perhaps six of our cases out of ten. -I don’t have to point out to you,” he continued, with a -smile, “what I’m always obliged to underscore with -chaps like those in there, that if you don’t make good -what we spend on your account the loss comes not on -well-disposed charitable people who give of their abundance, -but on poor men who steal from their own penury. -The very breakfast you ate this morning was paid for -in the main by fellows who are earning from twelve to -twenty-five dollars a week, and have families to support -besides.”</p> - -<p>I hung my head, trying to stammer out a promise of -making good.</p> - -<p>“You see those boys in there? There are five of them, -and two will probably stick to us. That’s about the proportion -we keep permanently of all who come in. I -don’t know which two they will be—you never can tell. -Perhaps it will be the piano-mover and the Scotchman; -perhaps the man they call Headlights and the Irishman; -perhaps the little chap and some other one of them. -But whichever they are they’ll chip in for the sake of -the new ones we shall reclaim, and take on themselves -the burden of the work.”</p> - -<p>The thought that for the comforts I had enjoyed that -morning I was dependent on the sacrifice of men who -had hardly enough for their own children made me redden -with a shame I think he understood.</p> - -<p>“Their generosity is wonderful,” he went on, quietly;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span> -“and I tell it to a man like you only because you can -appreciate how wonderful it is. It’s the fact that so -much heart’s blood goes into this work that makes it so -living. These fellows love to give. They love to have -you take the little they can offer. You never had a meal -at your own father’s table that was laid before you more -ungrudgingly than the one you ate this morning. The -men who provide it are doing humble work all over the -city, all over the country—because we’re scattered pretty -far and wide. And every stroke of a hammer, and every -stitch of a needle, and every tap on a typewriter, and -every thrust of a shovel, and every dig of a pick, and every -minute of the time by which they scrape together the -pennies and the quarters and the dollars they send in -to us is a prayer for you. I suppose you know what -prayer really is?”</p> - -<p>His glance was now that of inquiry.</p> - -<p>“I’d like to have you tell me, sir,” I answered, humbly.</p> - -<p>He smiled again.</p> - -<p>“Well, it isn’t giving information to a wise and loving -Father as to what He had better do for us. It’s in trying -to carry out the law of His being in doing things for -others. That isn’t all of it, by any means; but it’s a -starting-point. Spender tells me that that nice fellow -Pyncheon brought you in. Well, then, every glass of -soda-water Pyncheon draws is in its way a prayer for -you, because the boy’s heart is full of you. Prayer is -action—only it’s kind action.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, sir,” I said, with an effort to control the -tremor of my voice; “I think I understand you.”</p> - -<p>“You yourself will be praying all through this week, -in your very effort to buck up. You’ll be praying in -helping that poor man Lovey to do the same. In his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span> -own purblind way—of course I understand his type and -what you’re trying to do for him—he’ll be praying, too. -Prayer is living—only, living in the right way.” He said, -suddenly, “I suppose you rather dread the week.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I do—rather—sir.”</p> - -<p>“Then I’ll tell you what will make it easier—what -will make it pass quickly and turn it into a splendid -memory.” He nodded again toward the back room. -“Chum up with these fellows. You wouldn’t, of course, -be condescending to them—”</p> - -<p>“It’s for them to be condescending to me.”</p> - -<p>He surprised me by saying: “Perhaps it is. You -know best. But here we try to get on a broad, simple, -human footing in which we don’t make comparisons. -But you get what I mean. The simplest, kindliest approach -is the best approach. Just make it a point to be -white with them, as I’m sure they’ve been white with -you.”</p> - -<p>I said I had never been more touched in my life than -by the small kindnesses of the past two hours.</p> - -<p>“That’s the idea. If you keep on the watch to show -the same sort of thing it will not only make the time -pass, but it will brace you up mentally and spiritually. -You see, they’re only children. Fundamentally you’re -only a child yourself. We’re all only children, Frank. -Some one says that women grow up, but that men never -do. Well, I don’t know about women, but I’ve had a -good deal to do with men—and I’ve never found anything -but boys. Now you can spoil boys by too much -indulgence, but you can’t spoil them by too much -love.”</p> - -<p>He stopped abruptly, because he saw what was happening -to me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span></p> - -<p>The next thing I knew was his arm across my shoulders, -which were shaking as if I was in convulsions.</p> - -<p>“That’s all right, old boy,” I heard him whisper in -my ear. “Just go up to the bath-room and lock the door -and have it out. It’ll do you good. The fellows in -there won’t notice you, because lots of them go through -the same thing themselves.” Still with his arm across -my shoulders he steered me toward the hall. “There -you are! You’ll be better when you come down. We’re -just boys together, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. -Only, when you see other fellows come in through the -week—we have two or three new ones every day—you’ll -bear with them, won’t you? And help them to -take a brace.”</p> - -<p>He was still patting me tenderly on the back as with -head bowed and shoulders heaving I began to stumble -up-stairs.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER V</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>My acquaintance with Ralph Coningsby was the -hinge on which my destiny turned. A hinge is -a small thing as compared with a door, and so was my -friendship with Coningsby in proportion to the rest of -my life; but it became its cardinal point.</p> - -<p>I met him first at the meeting of the club at which the -Scotchman and the piano-mover presented themselves for -membership. As to the five outsiders whom Lovey and I -had found on arriving, Christian’s prediction was verified. -Three went out when their week was over and they had -got sobered up. Two stayed behind to go on with the -work of reform. At the end of another week each stood -up with his next friend, as a bridegroom with his best -man, and asked to be taken into fellowship.</p> - -<p>That was at the great weekly gathering, which took -place every Saturday night. Among the hundred and -fifty-odd men who had assembled in the two down-stairs -sitting-rooms it was not difficult to single out Coningsby, -since he was the only man I could see in whom there was -nothing blasted or scorched or tragic. There was another -there of whom this was true, but I didn’t meet him -till toward the end of the evening.</p> - -<p>I had now been some ten days within the four walls -of the club, not sobering up, as you know, but trying to -find myself. The figure of speech is a good one, for the -real Frank Melbury seemed to have been lost. This other<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span> -self, this self I was anxious to get rid of, had left him in -some bright and relatively innocent world, while it went -roaming through a land of sand and thorns. I had distinctly -the feeling of being in search of my genuine -identity.</p> - -<p>For this I sat through long hours of every day doing -absolutely nothing—that is, it was absolutely nothing -so far as the eye could see; but inwardly the spirit was -busy. I came, too, to understand that that was the -secret of the long, stupefied forenoons and afternoons on -the part of my companions. They were stupefied only -because sight couldn’t follow the activity of their occupation. -Beyond the senses so easily staggered by strong -drink there was a man endeavoring to come forth and -claim his own. In far, subliminal, unexplored regions of -the personality that man was forever at work. I could -see him at work. He was at work when the flesh had -reached the end of its short tether, and reeled back from -its brief and helpless efforts to enjoy. He was at work -when the sore and sodden body could do nothing but sit -in lumbering idleness. He was at work when the glazed -eye could hardly lift its stare from a spot on the floor.</p> - -<p>That was why tobacco no longer afforded solace, nor -reading distraction, nor an exchange of anecdotes mental -relaxation. I don’t mean to say that we indulged in none -of these pastimes, but we indulged in them slightly. On -the one hand, they were pale in comparison with the -raw excitement our appetites craved; and on the other, -they offered nothing to the spirit which was, so to speak, -aching and clamorous. Apart from the satisfaction we -got from sure and regular food and sleep, our nearest approach -to comfort was in a kind of silent, tactual clinging -together. None of us wanted to be really alone. We<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span> -could sit for hours without exchanging more than a casual -word or two, when it frightened us to have no one else -in the room. The sheer promiscuity of bed against bed -enabled us to sleep without nightmares.</p> - -<p>The task of chumming up had, therefore, been an easy -one. So little was demanded. When a new-comer had -been shown the ropes of the house there was not much -more to do for him. One could only silently help him to -find his lost identity as one was finding one’s own.</p> - -<p>“That’s about all there is to it,” Andrew Christian -observed when I had said something of the sort to him. -“You can’t push a man into the kingdom of heaven; he’s -got to climb up to it of his own accord. There’s no salvation -except what one works out through one’s own sweat -and blood.” He gave me one of his quick, semi-humorous -glances. “I suppose you know what salvation is?”</p> - -<p>I replied that I had heard a great deal about it all my -life, but I was far from sure of what it entailed in either -effort or accomplishment.</p> - -<p>“Salvation is being normal. The intuitive old guys who -coined language saw that plainly enough when they connected -the idea with health. Fundamentally health is -salvation and salvation is health—only perfect health, -health not only of the body, but of the mind. Did it -ever strike you that health and holiness and wholeness -are all one word?”</p> - -<p>I said it never had.</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s worth thinking about. There’s a lot in it. -You’ll get a lot out of it. The holy man is not the hermit -on his knees in the desert, or the saint in colored glass, or -anything that we make to correspond to them. He’s the -fellow who’s whole—who’s sound in wind and limb and -intelligence and sympathy and everything that makes<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span> -power. When we say, ‘O worship the Lord in the beauty -of holiness,’ we mean, O worship the Lord in the beauty -of the all-round man, who’s developed in every direction, -and whose degree of holiness is just in proportion to that -development.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a big thought, sir,” I said. “I don’t believe -many people who speak the English language ever get -hold of it. But how does it happen that one of the two -words is spelt with a ‘w,’ while the other—”</p> - -<p>He laughed, showing two rows of small, regular white -teeth, as pretty as a girl’s.</p> - -<p>“That was another lot of intuitive guys; and a very -neat trick they played on us. They saw that once the -Anglo-Saxon, with his fine, big sporting instinct, got hold -of the idea that holiness meant spreading out and living -out in all manly directions—and by that I don’t mean -giving free rein to one’s appetites, of course—but they -saw that once the idea became plain to us the triumph of -lust would be lost. So they inserted that little bluffing, -blinding ‘w,’ which doesn’t belong there at all, to put us -off the scent; and off the scent we went. Church and -state and human society have all combined to make holiness -one of the most anemic, flat-chested words in the -language, when it’s really a synonym of normality.”</p> - -<p>We exchanged these thoughts in the narrow hall of the -club, as he happened to be passing, and stopped for a few -words. It was always his way. He never treated us to -long and formal interviews. From a handclasp and a few -chance sentences we got the secret of a personality which -gave out its light and heat like radium, without effort and -without exhaustion.</p> - -<p>“What do yer think ’e says to me?” Lovey demanded -of me one day. “‘Lovey,’ says ’e, ‘yer’ve got a terr’ble<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span> -responsibility on ye with that young fella, Slim. If you -go under ’e goes under, and if you keep straight ’e keeps -straight.’ What do yer think of that?”</p> - -<p>“I think you’re doing an awful lot for me, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>He slapped his leg.</p> - -<p>“Ye got that number right, old son. There’s nobody -else in the world I’d ’a’ done it for. If you ’adn’t taken -a fancy to me, like, that night, and arsked me to go ’ome -with you—But, say, Slim,” he went on, confidentially, -“wouldn’t you like to ’ave a drink?”</p> - -<p>Wouldn’t I like to have a drink? There was thirst in -the very rustle of Lovey’s throat. There was the same -thirst in my own. It was more than a thirst of the appetite—it -was a thirst of the being, of whatever had become -myself. It was one of the moments at which the -lost identity seemed farther away than ever, and the -Frank Melbury of the last three years the man in possession.</p> - -<p>I couldn’t, however, let Lovey see that.</p> - -<p>“Oh, one gets used to going without drinks.”</p> - -<p>“Do ye? I don’t. I’d take a drink of ’air-oil if anybody’d -give me one. I’d take a drink of ink. Anything -that comes out of a bottle’d be better’n nothink, after -all this water from a jug.”</p> - -<p>During the first few days at the club this was my usual -state, not of mind, but of sensation. During the next few -days I passed into a condition that I can best express as -one of physical resignation. The craving for drink was -not less insistent, but it was more easily denied. Since I -couldn’t get it I could do without it, and not want to -dash my head against a stone. But after the words with -Andrew Christian I have just recorded I began to feel—oh, -ever so slightly!—that Nature had a realm of freedom<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span> -and vigor in which there was no need of extraordinary -stimulants, and of which sunshine, air, and water might -be taken as the symbols. With the resting of my overexcited -nerves and the response of a body radically -healthy to regular sleep and simple food, I began to feel, -at least at intervals, that water, air, and sunshine were -the natural elements to thrive on.</p> - -<p>My first glance at Ralph Coningsby showed me a man -who had thriven on them. He was the type to whom -most of us take at sight—the clean, fresh, Anglo-Saxon -type, blue-eyed and fair, whom you couldn’t do anything -but trust.</p> - -<p>“God! how I should like to look like that!” I said to -myself the minute I saw him come in.</p> - -<p>I knew by this time that at the big weekly meetings -there were sometimes friendly visitors whose touch with -the club was more or less accidental. I had no difficulty -in putting this man down as one. He entered as if he -were at any ordinary gathering of friends, with a nod here, -a handshake there, and a few words with some one else. -Then for a minute he stood, letting his eyes search the -room till they rested on me, where I stood in a corner of -the front sitting-room.</p> - -<p>There was at once that livening of the glance that -showed he had found what he was looking for. Making -his way through the groups that were standing about, he -came up and offered his hand.</p> - -<p>“Your name’s Melbury, isn’t it? Mine’s Coningsby. -I think you must be the same Melbury who went to the -Beaux Arts in the fall of the year in which I left in the -spring.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re that Coningsby? You used to know Bully -Harris?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span></p> - -<p>“Rather! He and I lived together for a year in the -Rue de Seine.”</p> - -<p>“And he and I spent a year in the same house in the -Rue Bonaparte.”</p> - -<p>“And now he’s out in Red Wing, Minnesota, doing very -well, I hear.”</p> - -<p>“The last time I saw him was in London. We dined -together at the Piccadilly and did a theater.”</p> - -<p>“And Tommy Runt? Do you ever hear of him?”</p> - -<p>“Not since he went back to Melbourne; but that chap -he was always about with—Saunderson, wasn’t it?—he -was killed in a motor accident near Glasgow.”</p> - -<p>“So I heard. Some one told me—Pickman, I think it -was—an Englishman—but you didn’t know Pickman, -did you? He left the year I came, which must have been -three or four years before your time. By the way, why -don’t we sit down?”</p> - -<p>In the process of sitting down I remembered my -manners.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Coningsby, won’t you let me introduce you to -my friend, Mr. Lovey?”</p> - -<p>Lovey was seated, nursing a knee and looking as -wretched as a dog to whom no one is paying the customary -attention. He resented Coningsby’s appearance; -he resented a kind of talk which put me beyond his reach.</p> - -<p>When Coningsby, who seated himself between us, had -shaken hands and made some kindly observation, Lovey -replied, peevishly:</p> - -<p>“I ain’t in ’ere for nothink but to save Slim.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what the boys call me,” I laughed, in explanation.</p> - -<p>Coningsby having duly commended this piece of self-sacrifice, -we went on with the reminiscences with which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span> -we had begun. It was the most ordinary kind of breaking -the ice between one man and another; but for me -the wonder of it was precisely in that fact. You have -to be down and out to know what it means when some -one treats you as if you had never been anything but up -and in. There was not a shade in Coningsby’s manner, -nor an inflection in his tone, to hint at the fact that we -hadn’t met at the New Netherlands or any other first-class -club. It was nothing, you will say, but what any -gentleman would be impelled to. Quite true! But again -let me say it, you would have to be in my place to know -what it means to be face to face with the man who is -impelled to it.</p> - -<p>We stopped talking, of course, when business began, -Coningsby giving me any necessary explanations in an -undertone, and pointing out the notables whom I didn’t -already know by sight.</p> - -<p>One of these was Colonel Straight, who with Andrew -Christian had founded the club. I don’t believe that he -had ever been a colonel, but he looked like one; neither -can I swear that his real name was Straight, though it -suited him. In our world the sobriquet often clings -closer to us, and fits us more exactly, than anything given -by inheritance or baptism. Here was a man with a -figure as straight as an arrow and a glance as straight as -a sunbeam. What else could his name have been? With -one leg slightly shorter than the other, as if he had been -wounded in battle, a magnificent white mustache, a magnificent -fleece of white hair—he had all the air not only -of an old soldier, but of an old soldier in high command.</p> - -<p>“You wouldn’t think, to look at him,” Coningsby whispered, -“that he’s only an old salesman for ready-made -clothes.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span></p> - -<p>“No; he ought to be at the head of a regiment.”</p> - -<p>“But the odd thing I notice about this club is that a -man’s status and occupation in the world outside seem to -fall away from him as soon as he passes the door. They -become irrelevant. The only thing that counts is what he -is as a man; and even that doesn’t count for everything.”</p> - -<p>“What does count for everything?” I asked, in some -curiosity.</p> - -<p>“That he’s a man at all.”</p> - -<p>“That’s it exactly,” I agreed, heartily. “I hadn’t put -it to myself in that way; but I see that it’s what I’ve -been conscious of.”</p> - -<p>“As an instance of that you can take the friendship -between Straight and Christian. From the point of view -of the outside world they’re of types so diverse that -you’d say that the difference precluded friendship of any -kind. You know what Christian is; but the colonel is -hardly what you’d call a man of education. Without -being illiterate, he makes elementary grammatical mistakes, -and unusual ideas floor him. But to say that he -and Christian are like brothers hardly expresses it.”</p> - -<p>I pondered on this as the meeting, with Christian in the -chair, came to order and the routine of business began.</p> - -<p>When it grew uninteresting to people with no share in -the management of the club I got an opportunity to whisper, -“You settled in New York?”</p> - -<p>“I’m with Sterling Barry; the junior of the four partners.”</p> - -<p>The reply seemed to strip from me the few rags of -respectability with which I had been trying to cover -myself up. Had he gone on to say, “And I saw you -break into his house and steal his daughter’s trinkets,” I -should scarcely have felt myself more pitilessly exposed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span></p> - -<p>It was perhaps a proof of what the club had done for -me that I no longer regarded this crime with the same -sang-froid as when I entered. Even on the morning of -my first talk with Andrew Christian I could have confessed -it more or less as I should have owned to a solecism -in etiquette. During the intervening ten days, however, -I had so far reverted to my former better self that the -knowledge that I was the man who had crept into a house -and begun to rob it filled me with dismay.</p> - -<p>I had to pretend that I didn’t want to interrupt the -conducting of business to conceal the fact that I was -unable to reply.</p> - -<p>“You’ve worked in New York, too?” he began again, -when there was a chance of speaking.</p> - -<p>I had by this time so far recovered myself as to be able -to tell him the names of my various employers. I didn’t -add that they had fired me one after another because of -my drinking-spells, since I supposed he would take that -for granted.</p> - -<p>“Ever thought of Barry’s?”</p> - -<p>“I brought a letter of introduction to him from McArdle, -of Montreal; but I never presented it.”</p> - -<p>“Pity.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, perhaps it was. But you see I didn’t like -McArdle’s work, though I studied under him. As I was -afraid of getting into the same old rut, I went to Pritchard.”</p> - -<p>“What do you think of Barry’s things now?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I like them—though they’re not so severe as I -should go in for myself. The modern French is a little -too florid, and he goes them one better.”</p> - -<p>“Just my feeling. I should like you to see a bit of -work I’ve been doing on my own; rather a big order—for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span> -me, that is—in which I’ve had to be as American as -the deuce, and yet keep to the best lines.”</p> - -<p>“Like to,” I managed to whisper back as we heard -Christian announce that two new men were now to be -admitted to the club.</p> - -<p>I was interested in the ceremony, having by this time -got on friendly terms with both the piano-mover and the -Scotchman, and learned something of their history. With -necessary divergences the general trend of these tales -was the same. Both were married men, both had children, -in both cases “the home was broken up”—the -phrase had become classic in the club; though in the one -instance the wife had taken the children to her own people, -and in the other she was doing her best to support -them herself.</p> - -<p>Their names being called, there was a scraping of chairs, -after which the two men lumbered forward, each accompanied -by his next friend. The office of next friend, as I -came to learn, was one of such responsibility as to put a -strain on anything like next friendship. The Scotchman’s -next friend was a barber, who, as part of his return -for the club’s benefits to himself, had that afternoon cut -the hair of all of us inmates—nineteen in number; while -the piano-mover had as his sponsor the famous Beady -Lamont. The latter pair moved forward like two elephants, -their tread shaking the floor.</p> - -<p>I shall not describe this initiation further than to say -that everything about it was simple, direct, and impressive. -The four men being lined in front of Mr. -Christian’s desk, the spokesman for the authorities was -old Colonel Straight.</p> - -<p>“The difference between this club and every other -club,” he said, in substance, “is that men goes to other<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span> -clubs to amuse theirselves, and here they come to fight. -This club is an army. Any one who joins it joins a corps. -You two men who wants to come in with us ’ave got to -remember that up to now you’ve been on your own and -independent; and now you’ll be entering a company. -Up to now, if you worked you worked for yourself; if -you loafed you loafed for yourself; if you was lounge -lizards you was lounge lizards on your own account and -no one else’s; and if you got drunk no one but you—leaving -out your wife and children; though why I leave -them out God alone knows!—but if you got drunk no -one but you had to suffer. Now it’s going to be all different. -You can’t get drunk without hurting us, and -we can’t get drunk without hurting you. T’other way -round—every bit of fight we put up helps you, and every -bit of fight you put up helps us.</p> - -<p>“Now there’s lots of things I could say to you this evening; -but the only one I want to jam right home is this: -You and us look at this thing from different points of -view. You come here hoping that we’re going to help -you to keep straight. That’s all right. So we are; and -we’ll all be on the job from this night forward. You -won’t find us taking no vacation, and your next friends -here’ll worry you like your own consciences. They’ll -never leave you alone the minute you ain’t safe. You’ll -hear ’em promise to hunt for you if you go astray, and go -down into the ditch with you and pull you out. There’ll -be no dive so deep that they won’t go after you, and no -kicks and curses that you can give ’em that they won’t -stand in order to haul you back. That’s all gospel true, -as you’re going to find out if you go back on your promises. -But that ain’t the way the rest of us—the hundred and -fifty of us that you see here to-night—looks at it at all.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span> -What we see ain’t two men we’re tumbling over each other -to help; we see two men that’s coming to help us. And, -oh, men, you’d better believe that we need your help! -You look round and you see this elegant house—and the -beds—and the grub—and everything decent and reg’lar—and -you think how swell we’ve got ourselves fixed. But -I tell you, men, we’re fighting for our life—the whole hundred -and fifty of us! And another hundred and fifty that -ain’t here! And another hundred and fifty that’s scattered -to the four winds of the earth; we’re fighting for -our life; we’re fighting with our back against the wall. -We ain’t out of danger because we’ve been a year or two -years or five years in the club. We’re never out of danger. -We need every ounce of support that any one can -bring to us; and here you fellows come bringing it! -You’re bringing it, Colin MacPherson, and you’re bringing -it, Tapley Toms; and there ain’t a guy among us that -isn’t glad and grateful. If you go back on your own -better selves you go back on us first of all; and if either -of you falls, you leave each one of us so much the -weaker.”</p> - -<p>That, with a funny story or two, was the gist of it; but -delivered in a low, richly vibrating voice, audible in every -corner of the room and addressed directly and earnestly -to the two candidates, its effect was not unlike that of -Whitfield’s dying man preaching to dying men. All the -scarred, haunted faces, behind each of which there lurked -memories blacker than those of the madhouse, were -turned toward the speaker raptly. Knowledge of their -own hearts and knowledge of his gave the words a power -and a value beyond anything they carried on the surface. -The red-hot experience of a hundred and fifty men was -poured molten into the minute, to give to the promises<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span> -the two postulants were presently called on to make a -kind of iron vigor.</p> - -<p>Those promises were simple. Colin MacPherson and -Tapley Toms took the total-abstinence pledge for a week, -after which they would be asked to renew it for similar -periods till they felt strong enough to take it for a month. -They would remain as residents of the club till morally -re-established, but they would look for work, in which the -club would assist them, and send at least three-quarters -of their earnings to their wives. As soon as they were -strong enough they would set up homes for their families -again, and try to atone for their failure in the mean time. -They would do their best to strengthen other members of -the club, and to live in peace with them. The religious -question was shelved by asking each man to give his word -to reconnect himself with the church in which he had -been brought up.</p> - -<p>The promises exacted of the next friends were, as became -veterans, more severe. They were to be guardians -of the most zealous activity, and shrink from no insult or -injury in the exercise of their functions. If their charges -fell irretrievably away, their brothers in the club would -be sorry for them, even though the guilt would not be -laid at their door.</p> - -<p>When some twenty or thirty members had renewed -their vows for a third or fourth or fifth week, as the case -happened to be, the meeting broke up for refreshments.</p> - -<p>It was during this finale to the evening that Coningsby -brought up a man somewhat of his own type, and yet different. -He was different in that, though of the same rank -and age, he was tall and dark, and carried himself with a -slight stoop of the shoulders. An olive complexion -touched off with well-rounded black eyebrows and a neat<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span> -black mustache made one take him at first for a foreigner, -while the dreaminess of the dark eyes was melancholy -and introspective, if not quite despondent.</p> - -<p>“Melbury, I want you to know Doctor Cantyre, who -holds the honorable office of physician in ordinary to the -club.”</p> - -<p>Once more I was in conversation with a man of antecedents -similar to my own, and once more the breaking -of the ice was that between men accustomed to the same -order of associations. In this case we found them in -Cantyre’s tourist recollections of Montreal and Quebec, -and his enjoyment of winter sports.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER VI</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>There was nothing more than this to the meeting -that night, but early the next afternoon I was called -to the telephone. As such a summons was rare in the -club, I went to the instrument in some trepidation.</p> - -<p>“Hello! This is Frank Melbury.”</p> - -<p>“This is Doctor Cantyre. You remember that we met -last evening?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, rather!”</p> - -<p>“I’m motoring out in my runabout to see a patient who -lives a few miles up the river, and I want you to come -along.”</p> - -<p>The invitation, which would mean nothing to you but -a yes or a no, struck me almost speechless. There was -first the pleasure of it. I have not laid stress on the fact -that the weather was sickeningly hot, because it didn’t -enter into our considerations. We were too deeply concerned -with other things to care much that the house was -stifling; and yet stifling it was. But more important than -that was the fact that any one in the world should want -to show me this courtesy. Remember that I had been beyond -the reach of courtesies. A drink from some one who -would expect me to give him a drink in return was the -utmost I had known in this direction for months, and I -might say for years.</p> - -<p>Is it any wonder that in my reply I stammered and -stuttered and nearly sobbed?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, but, I say, I—I look too beastly for an expedition -of—of that sort. I’m awfully sorry, but—but I—well, -you know how it is.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, get out! You’ve got to have the air. I’m your -doctor. I’m not going to see you cooped up there day -after day in weather like this. Besides, I’m bringing -along a couple of dust-coats—the roads will be dusty part -of the way—and we shall both be covered up. Expect -me by half past two.”</p> - -<p>As he put up the receiver without waiting for further -protests, there was nothing for me but submission.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been ’ere as long as you ’ave,” Lovey complained -when I told him of my invitation, “and nobody don’t ask -me to go hout in no automobiles.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but they will.”</p> - -<p>He shook his head.</p> - -<p>“Them swells’ll take you away, sonny. See if they -don’t.”</p> - -<p>“Not from you, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>He grabbed me by the arm.</p> - -<p>“Will you promise me that, Slim?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Lovey; I promise you.”</p> - -<p>“And we’ll go on being buddies, even when the rich -guys talks to you about all them swell things?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Lovey. We’re buddies for life.”</p> - -<p>With this Mizpah between us he released my arm and -I was able to go and make my preparations.</p> - -<p>In spite of the heat and the fact that on a windless day -there was no dust to speak of, Cantyre was buttoned up -in a dust-coat. It would have seemed the last word in -tact if he hadn’t gone further by pretending to be occupied -in doing something to the steering-wheel while I -hid my seedy blue serge in the long linen garment he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span> -handed me out. As even an old golf-cap can look pretty -decent, I was really like anybody else by the time I had -snuggled myself in by his side.</p> - -<p>During the first mile or two of the way I could hardly -listen to Cantyre, to say nothing of making conversation. -In spasmodic sentences between his spells of attention to -the traffic he told me of his patient and where she lived; -but as it was nothing I was obliged to register in my -mind, I could give myself to the wonder of the occasion, -in awe at the miracle which had restored me to something -like my old place in the world at the very moment when -I seemed farthest away from it. Here I was, with not a -penny to my name and not two coats to my back, tooling -along like a gentleman with a gentleman, and as a man -with his friend. Moreover, here I was with a new revelation, -a convincing revelation, of something I had long -since ceased to believe—that in this world there was -such a thing as active brotherly kindness.</p> - -<p>I came out of these thoughts to find that we were following -the avenue with part of which I had made myself -so familiar ten days before. I began to ask myself if -Cantyre had a motive in bringing me this way. The -houses were thinning out. Vacant lots became frequent. -I noted the southern limit of my pacings up and down -on that strange midnight. Cantyre slowed the pace -perceptibly. My heart thumped. If he accused me of -anything, I was resolved to confess all.</p> - -<p>As we passed one particular vacant lot, a tangle of -nettle, fireweed, and blue succory, I noticed that Cantyre’s -gaze roamed round about it, to the neglect of the -machine. We had slowed down to perhaps ten miles -an hour.</p> - -<p>“Do you know whose house that is?” he asked, suddenly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span></p> - -<p>But I refused to betray myself before it was necessary.</p> - -<p>“Whose?” I riposted.</p> - -<p>“Sterling Barry, the architect’s.”</p> - -<p>The machine almost stopped. He looked the façade -up and down, saying, as he did so: “It’s closed for the -season. They left town a few days ago. Barry’s bought -the old Hornblower place at Rosyth, Long Island.”</p> - -<p>To my relief, we sped on again; but I was not long -in learning the motive behind his interest.</p> - -<p>Chiefly for the sake of not seeming dumb, I said, as -we got into the country, “You and Ralph Coningsby are -by way of being great friends, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“No,” he replied, promptly. “I see him when I go -to the club; not very often elsewhere. I know his -sister, Elsie Coningsby, better. Not that I know her -very well. She happens to be a great friend of—of a—of -a great friend—or, rather, some one who was a great -friend—of mine. That’s all.”</p> - -<p>So that was it!</p> - -<p>I said, after we had spun along some few miles more, -“Your name is Stephen, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. How did you know?”</p> - -<p>I hedged. “Oh, I must have heard some one call you -that.”</p> - -<p>“That’s funny. Hardly any one does. They mostly -say Cantyre—or just doctor.” He added, after a minute -or two, “You call me Stephen, and I’ll call you Frank.”</p> - -<p>Once more the swift march of happenings gave me a -slight shock.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but we hardly know each other.”</p> - -<p>“That would be true if there weren’t friendships that -outdistance acquaintanceships.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if you look at it that way—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span></p> - -<p>“That’s the way it strikes me.”</p> - -<p>“But, good Heavens! man, think of what—of what -I am!”</p> - -<p>His gaze was fixed on the stretch of road ahead of -him.</p> - -<p>“What’s that got to do with it? It wouldn’t make -any difference to me if you were a murderer or a -thief.”</p> - -<p>“How do you know I’m not?” I couldn’t help asking.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that you’re not; but I say it wouldn’t -make any difference to me if you were.”</p> - -<p>The word I am tempted to use of myself at this unexpected -offer of good-will is flabbergasted. I am not -emotional; still less am I sentimental; both in sentiment -and emotion my tendency is to go slow.</p> - -<p>After a brief silence I said: “Look here! Do you go -round making friends among the riffraff of mankind?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t go round making friends among people of any -sort. I’m not the friendly type. I know lots of people, -of course; but—but I don’t get beyond just knowing -them.”</p> - -<p>“Is that because you don’t want to?”</p> - -<p>“Not altogether. I’m a—I’m a lonesome sort of bloke. -I never was a good mixer; and when you’re not that, -other fellows instinctively close up their ranks against -you and shut you out. Not that that matters to me. I -hardly ever see a lot with whom I should want to get in. -You’re—you’re an exception.”</p> - -<p>“And for Heaven’s sake, why?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, for two or three reasons—which I’m not going -to tell you. One of these days you may find out.”</p> - -<p>We left the subject there and sped along in silence.</p> - -<p>This, then, was the man Regina Barry had turned<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span> -down; and, notwithstanding his kindness to myself, I -could understand her doing it. For a high-spirited girl -such as she evidently was he would have been too melancholy. -“Very nice” was what she had called him, and -very nice he was; but he lacked the something thoroughly -masculine that means more to women than to men. -Men are used to the eternal-feminine streak in themselves -and one another; but women put up with it only when -it is like a flaw in an emerald, noticeable to the expert, -but to no one else.</p> - -<p>I asked him how he came to be what Coningsby called -physician in ordinary to the club.</p> - -<p>“By accident. Rufus Legrand asked me to go over -and see what I could do for a bad case of D. T.”</p> - -<p>“He’s the rector of the church opposite, isn’t he?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and an awfully good sort. Only parson I know -who thinks more of God than he does of a church. I -shouldn’t be surprised if one of these days he got the true -spirit of religion.”</p> - -<p>“What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“What they’re doing at the Down and Out.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but they skip religion there altogether.”</p> - -<p>“They don’t skip religion; they only skip the word—and -for a reason.”</p> - -<p>“What reason?”</p> - -<p>“The reason that it’s been so misapplied as to have -become nearly unintelligible. If you told the men at -the club that such and such a thing was religion they’d -most of ’em kick like the deuce; but when they get the -thing without explanation they take to it every time. -But you were asking me about my connection with the -club. It began four years ago, when they first got into -Miss Smedley’s house. Fellow had the old-fashioned<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span> -horrors—bad. As I’d been making dipsomania a specialty -Legrand railroaded me in, and there I’ve stayed.”</p> - -<p>When we drew up at the gate of an old yellow mansion -standing in large grounds Cantyre left me in the -machine while he went in to visit his patient. The blue-green -hills were just beginning to veil themselves in the -diaphanous mauve of afternoon, and between them the -river with its varied life flowed silently and rapidly. It -was strange to me to remember that a short time ago I -had been wishing myself under it, and that this very -water would be washing the oozy, moss-grown piles of -Greeley’s Slip.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER VII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>No later than that evening my life took still another -step.</p> - -<p>A little before nine, just as I was about to go to bed—our -hours at the club were early—Ralph Coningsby -dropped in for a word with me. I happened to be at -the foot of the stairs in the hall when Spender admitted -him, and he refused to come farther inside.</p> - -<p>“Been dining with my wife’s father and mother over -the way,” he said, in explanation of his dinner jacket and -black tie, “and just ran across to say something while -I was in the neighborhood. You said last night you’d -come and see the Grace Memorial with me.”</p> - -<p>“If you say so,” I smiled, “I suppose I must have; -but it’s the first time to my knowledge that I ever heard -of it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s the bit of work I told you about—the -thing I’m doing on my own. It’s over here at St. David’s. -You see, when Charlie Grace died he left a sum of money -to build and endow this institution in memory of his -father.”</p> - -<p>I smiled again.</p> - -<p>“I know I must have heard the name of Charlie Grace, -but it seems to have slipped my memory. All the same—”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you about him to-morrow. I merely want to -say now that I’ll look in about ten in the morning, and -take you across the street—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span></p> - -<p>The difficulty I had had to confront in the afternoon -was before me again.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know about that, Coningsby. The fact is -I’m not—Well, hang it all! Can’t you see? I haven’t -a rag in the world but what I stand up in, and I can’t go -where I’m likely to run into decent people.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t run into any one but carpenters and -painters. I’m not going to take no for an answer, old -chap. Besides, there’s method in this madness, for—now -don’t buck!—for I’m going to put you on a job.”</p> - -<p>I could only stare vacantly.</p> - -<p>“On a job?”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Grace wants some measurements and specifications -which she thinks I haven’t given her exactly enough; -and the first thing to be done is to go over the whole -blooming place with a foot-rule and a tape-measure; but -I’ll tell you about that to-morrow, too. For a chap with -your training it will be office-boy’s work; but as you’re -doing nothing else for the moment—”</p> - -<p>It is needless to say that I hardly slept that night. It -was not the prospect of work alone that excited me; it -was that of being gradually drawn into the sphere in -which I might meet Regina Barry. I was still uncertain -as to whether I wanted to do that or not. There was no -hour of the day when I didn’t think of her, and yet it was -always with a sense of thankfulness that she couldn’t -know where I was or guess at what had become of me. -If I could have been granted the privilege of seeing her -without having her see me I should have jumped at it; -but the ordeal of her recognition was beyond my strength -to face. Rather than have her say with her eyes, “You -were the man who came into my room and tried to rob -me,” I would have shot myself.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span></p> - -<p>And yet I had to admit the fact that this danger was -in the air. Ralph Coningsby’s sister was the Elsie of -that tragic night; Cantyre was the Stephen. I was being -offered work by Sterling Barry’s partner, and might soon -be doing it for Sterling Barry himself. The fatality that -brought about these unfoldings might go farther still, -and before I knew it I might find myself in the precise -situation that filled me with terror—and yet made me -shiver with a kind of harsh delight. Before I could sleep -I had to make a compromise with my courage. I would -not shoot myself rather than meet her. I would meet -her first, if it had to be. I would take that one draft of -the joy I had put forever out of reach—and shoot myself -afterward.</p> - -<p>But in the morning I was more self-confident. Having -examined myself carefully in the cracked mirror in the -bath-room, I found that my mustache, which had grown -tolerably long and thick, changed my appearance not a -little. Moreover, food, rest, and sobriety had smoothed -away the unspeakable haggardness that had creased my -forehead, hardened my mouth, and burnt into my eyes -that woebegone desolation which I had noticed among -my companions when I arrived at the club. It is no exaggeration -to say that I was not only younger by ten -years, but that I was changed in looks, as a landscape -is changed when, after being swept by rains, it is bathed -in sunshine. The one hope I built on all this was that, -were I to meet Regina Barry face to face, she would not -recognize me at a first glance, while I could keep her -from getting a second.</p> - -<p>On the way across the street Coningsby told me something -of Charlie Grace and his memorial. He had been -the son of a former rector of St. David’s—an important<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span> -man in the New York of his day, who had outlived his -usefulness and been asked to resign his parish. The son -had never forgiven this slight, and the William Grace -Memorial was intended to avenge it. It had been the -express desire of the widow, Mrs. Charlie Grace, that he, -Ralph Coningsby, should have sole charge of the building, -and the work had been going on since the previous -autumn. In the coming autumn the house would be -ready for furnishing. It was for this purpose that Mrs. -Grace required the exact measurements of each room, -with the disposition of the wall spaces. During the summer -she could thus consider what she would have to do -when the time came in October.</p> - -<p>Only a corner of the new building was visible from -Vandiver Street, the main entrance being on Blankney -Place, which was a parallel thoroughfare. Standing in -the middle of the grass-plot in front of the dumpy, spurious -1840 Gothic rectory, we had the length of the dumpy, -spurious 1840 Gothic church in front of us. The memorial -had to be fitted in behind the chancel, on the -space formerly occupied by a Sunday-school room. -This space had been enlarged by the purchase of the lot -in Blankney Place, giving an entry from a more populous -neighborhood. The purpose of the memorial had -been more or less dictated by Mrs. Ralph Coningsby, -who, as Esther Legrand, the rector’s daughter, had from -her childhood upward worked among the people round -about and knew their needs. As far as I could gather, -it was to be a sort of neighborhood club, with parlors, -reading-rooms, playing-rooms, a dancing-room, a smoking-room, -a billiard-room, a lecture-room, a gymnasium, baths, -and so on, and open to those who were properly enrolled, -of both sexes and all ages. Of the committee in charge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span> -Mrs. Coningsby was apparently the moving spirit, though -Mrs. Grace was reserving to herself the pleasure of fitting -the house up.</p> - -<p>Before going inside we discussed the difficulties of harmonizing -a modern building with the efforts of the early -nineteenth century, and I had an opportunity to commend -Coningsby’s judgment. He had kept to the -brownstone of the church and rectory, and had suggested -their spirit while working on sober, well-proportioned -lines.</p> - -<p>In the middle of this I broke off to say: “Look here, -old chap! I hope you’re not inventing this job of yours -just for the sake of giving me something to do.”</p> - -<p>His frank gaze convinced me.</p> - -<p>“Honest, I’m not. Mrs. Grace is particularly anxious -to have the measurements sent down to her at Rosyth, -and we’re so short-handed—”</p> - -<p>“Then that’s all right. Let’s go in, and you can -show me what I’m to do.”</p> - -<p>As Coningsby had said, it was office-boy’s work, but -it suited me. It was a matter of getting broken in -again, and—whether it came by accident or my friend’s -good-heartedness—an easy job in which there was no -thinking or responsibility was the most effective means -that could have been found of nursing me along. At -the end of a week I was treated to the well-nigh incredible -wonder of a check.</p> - -<p>Early on a Sunday morning I took it to Christian, -asking that it should be turned in toward my expenses -at the club.</p> - -<p>Having read its amount, he held it in his fingers, twisting -it and turning it.</p> - -<p>“You see, Frank,” he said, after thinking for a minute,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span> -“the primary object of the club is not to be paid for -what it spends—though that is an object—it’s to help -fellows to get on their feet. Of you nineteen chaps who -are in the house at present twelve are regularly paying -for their board and lodging, and that pretty well carries -us along. If there’s a deficit it’s covered by the back -payments of men who’ve gone out and who are making -up. So that this isn’t pressing for the minute—”</p> - -<p>“But I should like to pay it, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, of course; but it’s a question of what is most -urgent. Now this isn’t urgent; we can extend your -credit; whereas, the first bit of bluff we’ve all got to put -up when we’re pulling ourselves together is in clothes.”</p> - -<p>He asked me how long my present job would go on. -I said for about three weeks.</p> - -<p>“Then keep this check,” he pursued, handing it back -to me, “till you get as much again. That will be enough -to turn you out quite smart. Go to Straight, at Bruch -Brothers—all our fellows go to him—and he’ll advise -you to the best advantage.”</p> - -<p>The words were accompanied by such a smile that I, -who am not emotional, felt my eyes smart.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER VIII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>The summer passed with no more than two or three -other incidents worth the jotting down.</p> - -<p>In the first place, the day arrived when I had to make -up my mind either to leave the club or to join it. -Expecting some opposition from Lovey as to joining it, -I was surprised to find him take the suggestion complacently.</p> - -<p>“I’ve found out,” he whispered to me, “that yer can -jine this club—and fall. Yer can fall three times before -they’ll turn ye out.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but you wouldn’t want to fall in cold blood.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” he muttered, doubtfully, “I ain’t partic’lar -about the blood. Now my hadvice’d be this: ’Ere we -are in July. That’s all right; we can jine. Then in -Haugust we can ’ave a wee little bit of a fall—just two -or three days like. We can do the same in September; -and the same in Hoctober. That’ll use up our three times, -and we can come back under cover for the worst months -of the winter. We can’t fall no more after that; but in -the spring we can try somethink else. There’s always -things.”</p> - -<p>“And suppose I don’t mean to fall?”</p> - -<p>He looked hurt.</p> - -<p>“Oh, if you can keep straight without me—”</p> - -<p>“But if I can’t, Lovey? If I must keep straight and -need you to help me?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span></p> - -<p>He clasped his hands against his stomach and drew a -dismal face.</p> - -<p>“That’d be a tight place for me.”</p> - -<p>“And isn’t there,” I continued, “another point of view? -Suppose we did what you suggest, do you think it would -be treating all these nice fellows decently?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if you’re going to start out treatin’ people decent—”</p> - -<p>“Well, why shouldn’t we? We can do it—you and I -together.”</p> - -<p>He drew a deep sigh.</p> - -<p>“I must say, Slim, yer do beat everythink for puttin’ -things on me.”</p> - -<p>But in the end we were both admitted at one of the -Saturday-evening meetings with, as usual, a large gathering -of friends, and some bracing words from Straight. Pyn -stood up with me as next friend, and little Spender did -the same by Lovey. I have not said that during the ten -days before I went to work Pyn blew in at the club during -some minutes of every lunch hour to watch my progress. -It was he, too, who found Lovey the job of washing windows, -by which that worthy also had a chance of returning -to honest ways. Indeed, though I cannot repeat it -frequently enough, of the many hands stretched out to -help me upward none was stronger in its grasp than -that of the kindly keeper of the soda-water fountain to -whom the club had given a veritable new birth.</p> - -<p>Our admission as members had taken place while I -was still doing the measurements at the memorial. By -the time they were finished Coningsby had a new proposal. -As it was the middle of July, he was anxious to take his -wife and two little children to the country for a month. -Carpenters, plasterers, painters, and plumbers were still at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span> -work on the building, and they couldn’t be left without -oversight. Would I undertake to give that—at a reasonable -salary?</p> - -<p>I had grown familiar with the work by this time, and -had been able to throw into the furtherance of Coningsby’s -plans an enthusiasm largely sprung of gratitude. -In addition I was getting back my self-confidence in proportion -as I got back my self-respect. The fact, too, -that in the new summer suit and straw hat to which the -colonel’s advice had helped me I could go about the -streets without being ashamed of myself did something -to restore my natural poise.</p> - -<p>I could see that by taking this work I should really be -helping Coningsby. He needed the rest; his wife and -babies undoubtedly needed the change. It was not -easy for a man with so important a piece of work as this -on hand to get any one satisfactorily to take his place. -I could accept the offer, then, without the suspicion—which -any man would hate—that it was being made to -me from motives of philanthropy. I was really being -useful—more useful than in taking the measurements for -Mrs. Grace, which any novice could have done—and -making a creditable living for the first time in years.</p> - -<p>Then, too, I had a great deal of Cantyre’s company. -He spent most of the summer in town; chiefly because -of his patients, but partly from a lack of incentive in -going away. He explained that lack of incentive to me -during one of the spins in his runabout to which he -treated me on three or four evenings a week. Now and -then I worked Lovey off on him for an outing, but he, -Cantyre, was generally a little peevish after such occasions. -It was not that he objected to giving Lovey or -any one else the air; it was that he suspected me of not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span> -really caring to go out with him. There are always -men—very good fellows, too—in whom there is this -strain of the jealousy of school-girls.</p> - -<p>On this particular evening I had been kidding him -about his depression, doing my best to rouse him out of it.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ll pull round in time,” he said, in his resigned, -lifeless tone. “If you knew the reason—”</p> - -<p>I did know the reason, of course. My conscience never -ceased to plague me with the fact that, though I could -return Regina Barry’s trinkets, Cantyre’s secret was a -theft I couldn’t get rid of. It was, indeed, partly to lead -him on to confiding it to me of his own accord, so that -I might know it legitimately, so to speak, that I brought -the subject up.</p> - -<p>“I suppose it’s about a girl.”</p> - -<p>So long a time passed that I thought he was not going -to respond to this challenge, when he said, “Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t she have you?” I asked, bluntly.</p> - -<p>“She said she would—and changed her mind.”</p> - -<p>“So that you were actually engaged?”</p> - -<p>“For about a month.”</p> - -<p>“Did she— You don’t mind my asking questions, -do you?”</p> - -<p>“Not if you won’t mind if I don’t answer.”</p> - -<p>“Then with that proviso I’ll go on. Did she tell why -she—why she broke it off?”</p> - -<p>“Not—not exactly.”</p> - -<p>“And haven’t you found out?”</p> - -<p>“Elsie Coningsby, she’s her great friend, told me something -of it. She said there were two kinds of women. -Some liked to be wooed, and others weren’t satisfied unless -they were conquered.”</p> - -<p>“And you took the wrong method?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span></p> - -<p>“So it seems.”</p> - -<p>“Well, why don’t you turn round now and take the -right one?”</p> - -<p>His dreamy, melancholy eyes slid toward me.</p> - -<p>“Do you see me doing that? I’m the kind of bloke -that would like a woman to conquer him. If it comes -to that, there are two kinds of men.”</p> - -<p>He had told me so much that I felt it right to give -him a warning.</p> - -<p>“Since you say she’s a friend of Elsie Coningsby’s, I -mayn’t be able to help finding out who she is.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I shouldn’t mind that—not with you. As a -matter of fact, I should like to introduce you to her -one of these days.”</p> - -<p>I broke in more hastily than I intended, “No, no; -don’t do that—for God’s sake!”</p> - -<p>He swung round in amazement. “Why—why, what’s -the matter?”</p> - -<p>I tried to recover myself. “Oh, nothing! Only, you -must see for yourself that—that after what I’ve been -through I’m not—not a lady’s man.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, get out!” was his only observation.</p> - -<p>We lapsed into one of our long silences, which was -broken when we turned back toward town.</p> - -<p>“Look here, Frank,” he said, suddenly, “you can’t -go on living down there in Vandiver Street. Besides, the -club will be needing your bed for some one else.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it. I -simply don’t want to move.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll have to, though.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I suppose so.”</p> - -<p>He went on to suggest a small apartment in the bachelor -house he was living in himself. Now was the time to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span> -rent, before men began coming back to town. He knew -of a little suite of three rooms and a bath which ought -to be within my means. As we passed the house we -stopped and looked at it. I liked it and promised to -turn the matter over in my mind.</p> - -<p>Next day I broached it to Lovey. The effect was -what I expected. He grasped me by the arm, looking -up at me with eyes the more eloquent from the fact that -they were dead.</p> - -<p>“Y’ain’t goin’ to leave me, Slim?”</p> - -<p>“It wouldn’t be leaving you, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>“Y’ain’t goin’ to live in another ’ouse, where I sha’n’t -be seein’ ye every day?”</p> - -<p>“You could get a room near.”</p> - -<p>“’Twouldn’t be the same thing—not noway, it wouldn’t -be. Oh, Slim!”</p> - -<p>With a gesture really dramatic he smote his chest with -his two clenched fists, and drew a long, grating sigh.</p> - -<p>We were sitting on our beds, which were side by side -in one of the dormitories. It was the nearest thing to -privacy the club-house ever allowed us.</p> - -<p>“This’ll be the hend of me; and it’ll be the hend of -you, Slim, if I ain’t there to watch over you. You’ll -never keep straight without me, sonny.” He was struck -with a new idea, and, indeed, I had thought of it myself. -“Didn’t ye say,” he went on, as he leaned forward -and tapped my knee, “that in them rooms there was one -little dark room?”</p> - -<p>“Very little and very dark.”</p> - -<p>“But it wouldn’t be too little or too dark for me, Slim, -not if I could be your valet, like. I could do everythink -for you, just like a gentleman. My father was a valet, -and he larned me before he couldn’t larn me nothink<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span> -else. I could keep your clothes so as you’d never need -new ones, and I could mend and darn and cook your -breakfasts—I’m a swell cook—I can bile tea and coffee -and heggs—many’s the time I’ve done it—”</p> - -<p>“All right, Lovey,” I interrupted. “It’s a bargain. -We’re buddies.”</p> - -<p>“No, Slim; we won’t be buddies no more. We’ll call -that off. We’ll just be master and man. I’ll know my -place and I’ll keep it. I sha’n’t call you Slim, nor sonny—”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, you must.”</p> - -<p>He shook his head.</p> - -<p>“No; not after we’ve moved from the club. I’ll call -you Mr. Melbury and say sir to you; and you must call -me Lovey, just as if it was my real name.” He added, -unexpectedly to me: “I suppose ye know it ain’t my -real name?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, what does it matter?”</p> - -<p>“It only matters like this: I ain’t—I ain’t—” He -got up in some agitation and went to one of the windows. -After looking out for a second or two he turned half round -toward me. “Ye ain’t thinking me any better than I -am, Slim, are you?”</p> - -<p>“I’m not thinking whether you’re better or worse, -Lovey. I just like you.”</p> - -<p>“And I’ve took an awful fancy to you, Slim. Seems -as if you was my whole family. But—but you’re not, -sonny. I’ve—I’ve got a family. They’re dead to me -and I’m dead to them; but they’re my family. Did ye -know that, Slim?”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know it, and you needn’t tell me.”</p> - -<p>“But if I was awful bad, sonny? If I was wuss than -anythink that’d ever come into your ’ead?”</p> - -<p>“We won’t talk about that. Perhaps there are things<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span> -that I could tell you which would show that there’s not -much difference between us.”</p> - -<p>“I ’ope there is, Slim. And she was terr’ble aggravatin’; -a drinkin’ woman, besides. I didn’t drink then—’ardly -not at all. It was after I was acquitted I begun -that. And my two gells—well, bein’ acquitted didn’t -make no difference to them; they’d seen. Only, they -didn’t swear that way in their hevidence. They swore -she fell down the stairs she was found at the bottom of, -her neck broken; and, bein’ a drinkin’ woman, the jury -thought—But the two gells knew. And when I was -let off they didn’t ’ave no more to do with me—so I come -over ’ere—”</p> - -<p>I rose and went to him, laying my hand on his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Don’t, Lovey. That’s enough. I don’t care who -you are or what you’ve done, we’ll stick it out together. -The only thing is that we’ll have to give up the booze.”</p> - -<p>“For good and all, Slim?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; for good and all.”</p> - -<p>“It’ll be awful ’ard.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it will be; but the worst of that is over.”</p> - -<p>He seized one of my hands in both of his.</p> - -<p>“Slim, if it’s got to be a ch’ice between you and liquor—well, -I’m danged if—if I won’t”—he made a great resolution—“give -up the liquor—and so ’elp me!”</p> - -<p>So when I moved Lovey moved with me. Washing -windows having become a lucrative profession, he insisted -on taking no wages from me and on paying for his -own food. In the matter of names we agreed on a compromise. -“Before company,” as he expressed it, I was -Mr. Melbury and sir; when we were alone together we -reverted to the habits of Greeley’s Slip and the Down -and Out, and I became Slim and sonny.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span></p> - -<p>I was truly sorry to leave the club, for its simple, -brotherly ways, wholesome and masculine, if never the -most refined, had become curiously a part of me. I had -liked the fellowship with rough men who were perhaps -all the more human for being rough. For the first time -in my life I had known something of genuine fraternity. -I do not affirm that we lived together without disagreements -or misunderstandings or that there were no minutes -electric with the tension that makes for an all-round fight. -But there was always some “wise guy,” as we called him, -to make peace among us; and on the whole we lived together -with a mutual courtesy that proved to me once -for all that it is nothing external which makes a gentleman. -Finer gentlemen in the essentials of the word I -never met than some of those who were just struggling -up from the seemingly bottomless pit.</p> - -<p>Thus the summer of 1913 became for me a very happy -one. There were reserves to that happiness, and there -were fears; but the optimism most of us bring to the -day’s work enabled me to face them. Of Regina Barry -I heard much from my friend Cantyre, and I made what -I heard suffice me. He was always willing to talk of this -girl, whom he never named; and little by little I formed -an image in my heart, which would never be anywhere -but in my heart as long as I could help it. As long as -I could help it I should not see her, nor should she see me. -As to that I was now quite positive. Nothing could be -gained by my seeing her, while by her seeing me everything -might be lost.</p> - -<p>If everything was lost in one way I was sure it would -be lost in another. Because I have said little or nothing -of the fight I was making you must not suppose that I -was free from the necessity of making it. I was making<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span> -it every day and hour. There were times when, if I -hadn’t had Lovey to think of, I should have yielded to -that suggestion which had come to me as neatly as it -had come to him of having a little fall. Falls were far -from unknown among us. They were accepted as an -unhappy matter of course. Some of our steadiest members -had made full use of the three times the law of -the club allowed them before finally settling down. I -believed that I could exercise this privilege—and come -back. But not so with Lovey! Once he failed in this -attempt, I knew he would be gone. As a matter of fact, -he would have failed at any time after the first week if -it hadn’t been on my account; so I couldn’t fail on his. -When I would have done it eagerly, wildly, I was withheld -by the old-fashioned motto of <i>noblesse oblige</i>.</p> - -<p>And yet in proportion as I grew stronger I realized -more clearly that my future was, as it were, balanced on -the point of a pin. Once I had met Regina Barry, and her -eyes had said, “You are the man who stole my gold-mesh -purse,” I knew it would be all up with me. She -wouldn’t have to say a word. Her look would bring the -accusation. Then, if I was weak I should go off and get -drunk; I should drink till I drank myself to death. If -I was strong I should shoot myself. There was just one -thing of which I was sure—I should never face that silent -charge a second time.</p> - -<p>But as the weeks went by and nothing happened I -began to be confident that nothing would. We reached -the end of September and I never heard Regina Barry’s -name. Even Cantyre hadn’t told me that, and didn’t -suppose that I knew it. I calculated the chances against -our ever meeting. I built something, too, on the possibility -that were we to meet she wouldn’t know me again.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span></p> - -<p>In this I got encouragement from the fact that one -day in Fifth Avenue I met my uncle Van Elstine. He -didn’t know me. He wouldn’t have cut me for anything -in the world; he was too good-natured and kind; but -he let his wandering gaze rest on me as on any passing -stranger, and went on his way. I argued then that time, -vicissitude, a hard life, and a mustache had worked an -effective disguise. If my own uncle, who had known me -all my life, could go by like that, how much more one to -whom I could be nothing but a sinister shadow seen for -three or four minutes in a rose-colored gloom.</p> - -<p>So I reasoned and became a little comforted. And -then one day my arguments were put to the test.</p> - -<p>It was quite at the end of September. The memorial -was now so nearly completed that Coningsby, who had -returned to town, left it almost entirely to my charge. -A new bit of work at Atlantic City having come his way, -he was closely absorbed in it. Mrs. Grace had motored -up once or twice to consult me as to papers, rugs, and -other details of interior decoration. I found her a grave, -beautiful woman who gave the impression of nourishing -something that lasts longer than grief—a deep regret. -Our intercourse was friendly but impersonal.</p> - -<p>Once she was accompanied by a young lady whose -voice I recognized as they approached the room in which -I was at work. It was a clear, bell-like, staccato voice, -whose tones would have made my heart stop still had I -heard it in heaven. Mrs. Grace entered the room, followed -by a girl as Anglo-Saxon in type as her brother, -only with a decision and precision in the manner which -he had not.</p> - -<p>In my confusion I was uncertain as to whether or not -there was an introduction, but I remember her saying:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span> -“Oh, Mr. Melbury, Ralph is so indebted to you for all -the help you’ve given him. He says if it hadn’t been for -you he wouldn’t have been able to get away from New -York this summer.”</p> - -<p>She, too, regarded me impersonally, as her brother’s -assistant, and no more. I mean by that that she showed -none of the interest good people generally display in a -brand that has been plucked from the burning.</p> - -<p>“Is it possible she doesn’t know it?” I asked Cantyre -the next time I saw him.</p> - -<p>“Of course she doesn’t. That would be the last -thing Coningsby would tell her. We never speak of -these things outside the club. If a fellow likes to do it -himself—well, that’s his own affair.”</p> - -<p>But early in October I came face to face with it all.</p> - -<p>I was standing at one of the upper windows, looking -down into Blankney Place, when I saw a motor drive up -to the door. I knew it was Mrs. Grace’s motor, having -seen it a number of times already. When the footman -held open the door Mrs. Grace herself stepped out, to -be followed by Miss Coningsby, who in turn was followed -by....</p> - -<p>I strolled away from the window into the interior of -the house. I was not so much calm as numb. There were -details about which I had to speak to Mrs. Grace, but -they all went out of my mind. They went out of my -mind as matters with which I had no more concern. A -dying man might feel that way about the earthly things -he is leaving behind. I was, in fact, not so much like -a dying man as like a man who in the full flush of vigor -is told that he must in a few minutes face the firing-squad.</p> - -<p>So I stood doing nothing, thinking nothing, while I -listened to the three voices as they floated up, first from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span> -the lower floor, then from the stairway, then from the -floor on which I was waiting in this seeming nervelessness.</p> - -<p>They drifted nearer—Mrs. Grace’s gentle tones, Elsie -Coningsby’s silvery tinkle, and then the rich mezzo, -which by association of ideas seemed to shed round me a -rose-colored light.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Grace and Miss Coningsby came in together, the -one in black, the other in white. Both bade me a friendly, -impersonal good morning, while Mrs. Grace proceeded -at once to the question of rugs. Didn’t I think that good -serviceable American rugs, with some of those nice Oriental -druggets people used in summer cottages, would be -better than anything more fragile and expensive?</p> - -<p>I made such answers as I could, keeping my eyes on -the door. Presently she appeared on the threshold, looking -about with interest and curiosity in her great, dark -eyes. Of the minute I retain no more than a vision in -rough green English tweed, with a goldish-greenish motoring-veil -round the head like a nimbus. She impressed -me as at once more delicate and more strong than I remembered -her—eager, alert, independent.</p> - -<p>“This is to be the men’s smoking-room,” Miss Coningsby -explained.</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t you know it?” Miss Barry said, lightly. -“One of the nicest rooms in the house—I think the very -nicest. It’s wonderful how well men do themselves, -isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but in this case it’s Hilda.”</p> - -<p>“It’s your brother first of all. You’ll see. It will be -the snuggest corner of the whole place, and they won’t -let a woman look into it.”</p> - -<p>She glanced at me—but casually. She glanced again—but -casually again. As no one introduced me, a greeting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span> -between us was not called for. But when Mrs. -Grace finished her questions about the rugs and they -were passing into the next room, Regina Barry turned -and looked at me a third time. It was now an inquiring -look, and significant.</p> - -<p>“Elsie, who’s that man?” I heard her say, after she -had joined her companions.</p> - -<p>The reply gave my name.</p> - -<p>“Oh!”</p> - -<p>“He’s been helping Ralph all summer. That’s how he -and Esther were able to get away.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!”</p> - -<p>“Now we’re going on to the day nursery—”</p> - -<p>But Regina Barry said: “Wait a minute! No; go -on. I’ll overtake you. I’m—I’m perfectly sure that -that’s the very man who—” She added, as if forcing -herself to a determination: “I’m going back to speak to -him. Tell Hilda I’ll be with her in an instant.”</p> - -<p>So I waited, repeating to myself the formula agreed -on two or three months before, that I would see her first—and -shoot myself afterward.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER IX</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>“Haven’t we met before?”</p> - -<p>Regina Barry said this as she came into the -room with her rapid, easy movement and took two or -three paces toward me, stopping as abruptly as she entered.</p> - -<p>I hung my head, crimsoning slowly.</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I thought so, though I didn’t recognize you at first. -I knew I had some association with you, but it was so -vague—”</p> - -<p>“Of course.”</p> - -<p>“Then I had no idea you were an architect.”</p> - -<p>“How could you?”</p> - -<p>“You see, meeting you for so short a time—”</p> - -<p>“And practically in the dark—”</p> - -<p>“I don’t remember that. But I had no chance to ask -anything about you. I only hoped you’d come back.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I couldn’t have done that.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“I should think you’d understand.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t—considering that I asked you particularly.”</p> - -<p>“I know you asked me particularly, but anything in -life—or death—would have been easier than to obey -you.”</p> - -<p>“What did I do to frighten you so?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing but show me too much mercy.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, I didn’t think anything of that.”</p> - -<p>“Of what? Of the crime—or of the forgiveness?”</p> - -<p>“Of the crime, of course.”</p> - -<p>I stepped back from her in amazement.</p> - -<p>“You didn’t think anything of—”</p> - -<p>“Why, no! I’ve often done the same myself.”</p> - -<p>“You? You’ve often done—”</p> - -<p>“Of course! Everybody has—at one time or another -in their lives. Naturally it doesn’t happen every day—and -one wouldn’t want it to. One wouldn’t have anything -left in the house if it did; but once in a way—it’s -nothing. What astonishes me is that you should have -thought of it.”</p> - -<p>“But—but you’ve thought of it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well—that’s different. But please don’t suppose -that I’ve thought of it seriously. It simply happened -that that evening—” The only sign of embarrassment -she gave was in grasping the greenish-goldish veil with -her left hand and pulling it round over her bosom. The -great eyes, of which the light made one doubtful as to -the color, glowed feverishly, and the long scarlet lips -threw at me one of their daring, challenging smiles. “Do -you want me to be absolutely frank?”</p> - -<p>“We began with frankness, didn’t we? Why shouldn’t -we keep it up?”</p> - -<p>“Well, it happened that that evening I’d broken off -my engagement.”</p> - -<p>Not to betray all I had learned by my eavesdropping -behind the rose-colored hangings, I merely said, “Indeed?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; and so I was a little—well, perhaps a little excited. -And anything that happened impressed me more -than it would have done ordinarily. If I’ve thought of -the way you appeared—and what happened when you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span> -did—it’s only been because it was part of the hours right -after—” There was another of those smiles that were -amusingly apologetic as well as amusingly provocative. -“You’re—you’re not married, are you?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Nor engaged?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Ever been?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Then you can’t imagine what it is to have been engaged -and nearly married—and then to find yourself free -again. Everything associated with the minute comes to -be imprinted on your memory. That’s why I’ve thought -of it, though I didn’t for the minute recognize you as the -man.”</p> - -<p>“And now that you have recognized me—”</p> - -<p>“I hope you’ll do as I asked you before, and come and -see us again.” She added, as she was about to turn -away, “How’s Annette?”</p> - -<p>I had been puzzled hitherto; I was now bewildered.</p> - -<p>“You mean Annette Van Elstine? Did you know she -was my cousin?”</p> - -<p>“Of course! Didn’t she bring you?”</p> - -<p>“Bring me?” I stammered. “Bring me—where?”</p> - -<p>“Why, to our house!”</p> - -<p>“When?”</p> - -<p>“The time we’re talking about—when you upset Mrs. -Sillinger’s coffee and broke the cup.”</p> - -<p>It is difficult to say whether I was relieved or not. I -could only falter, “I—I don’t believe I’m the man.”</p> - -<p>She came back two or three steps toward me.</p> - -<p>“Why, of course you’re the man! Isn’t your name -Melbury?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes—but—but I’m not the only Melbury. Could it -have been my—my brother, Jack?”</p> - -<p>“What’s your name?”</p> - -<p>“Frank.”</p> - -<p>She gazed at me a minute before saying: “Then—then I -think it must have been—your brother. I remember -now that Annette did call him Jack.” She continued, -“But what did you mean when—when you said it was -you?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you know?”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t the remotest idea.”</p> - -<p>“Look at me again.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t look at you again, because I’m looking at you -all the time. You’re most wonderfully like your brother.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I am. I met my uncle Van Elstine in -the street the other day and he didn’t know me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, strangers often see resemblances that escape -members of a family. All I get by looking at you -is that I see your brother. He was awfully nice. We -so—we so wished he’d come back. He—he wasn’t like -everybody else.”</p> - -<p>“He’s married now.”</p> - -<p>I wonder if I am right in thinking that a slight shadow -crossed her face. There may have been, too, a forced -jauntiness in her tone as she said, “Oh, is he?”</p> - -<p>I nodded.</p> - -<p>She turned away again, but again wheeled half round -to face me.</p> - -<p>“Well, now we know what I meant; but what on earth -did you mean?”</p> - -<p>I drew myself up for real inspection.</p> - -<p>“Can’t you think?”</p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span></p> - -<p>“I must say you seemed inordinately penitent over a -broken cup, even if Mrs. Sillinger was so cross. She -said you spilled the coffee all over her dress; but you -didn’t.”</p> - -<p>“You mean Jack.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes! What a bother! I shall always get you -mixed up in the future.”</p> - -<p>“I hope not—for his sake.”</p> - -<p>“Now don’t tease me. Tell me where we met.”</p> - -<p>“If I do—”</p> - -<p>She brightened, the smile of the scarlet lips growing -vividly brilliant.</p> - -<p>“I know. It was at the Millings’, at Tarrytown.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid not.”</p> - -<p>“Then it was at the Wynfords’, at Old Westbury? -They always have so many people there—”</p> - -<p>“Think again.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the good of thinking when, if I could remember -you, I should do it right away?”</p> - -<p>“It seems extraordinary to me that you can have -forgotten.”</p> - -<p>“You seem very sure of the impression you made on -me.”</p> - -<p>“I am.”</p> - -<p>“And I’ve forgotten all about it!”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t forgotten the impression; you’ve only -forgotten me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Melbury, tell me! Please! I’ve got to run -off and overtake Mrs. Grace; and I can’t do it unless I -know.”</p> - -<p>You will admit that my duty at this juncture required -some considering. In the end I said: “I sha’n’t tell you -to-day. I may do it later. In any case, I’ve given you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span> -so many tips that you can’t fail to see for yourself what -they lead to. You’ll probably have recalled by to-night.”</p> - -<p>“Then I shall ring you up to-morrow and tell you.”</p> - -<p>“No, please don’t do that; and yet, on second thoughts, -I know that when you’ve remembered you won’t want to.”</p> - -<p>She said, while withdrawing again toward the adjoining -room, “You certainly know how to make a thing -mysterious.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not making anything mysterious. You’ll see -that, after it’s all come back to you.”</p> - -<p>But, having passed into the next room, she returned -to the threshold to say: “I know you’re only making fun -of me. I never met you, because I couldn’t have forgotten -you. And I couldn’t have forgotten you, because -you’re so like your brother. But we’ll talk about it all -some other time.”</p> - -<p>The first thing I did was to go to a room where there -was a full-length mirror fixed to the wall and examine -myself in the glass. Was it possible that I had changed -so much in the brief space of four months? The reflection -told me nothing. In the tall, slim figure in the neat -gray check I could still see the sinister fellow who had -slept at Greeley’s Slip and skulked about the Park and -crept into a house at midnight. The transformation had -come so imperceptibly that the one image was no more -vital to me than the other. Inwardly, too, I felt no great -assurance against a relapse. I was like an insect toiling -up a slippery perpendicular. Not only was each step -difficult, but it might in the end land me at the bottom -where I began. In other words, I had still within me -the potentialities of the drunkard; and to the drunkard -all aberrations are possible.</p> - -<p>That night I put the question up to Lovey.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span></p> - -<p>“Lovey, do I look the same as I did four or five months -ago?”</p> - -<p>“You looks just as good to me, sonny.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but suppose you hadn’t seen me in the mean -while, and had come on me all of a sudden, would you -know right off that it was me?”</p> - -<p>“Slim, if I was blind and deaf and dumb, and couldn’t -see nothink nor ’ear nothink nor feel nothink, I’d know -it was you if you come ’arf a mile from where I was.”</p> - -<p>Since this intuitiveness was of no help to me, I worked -round to the subject when, later in the evening, I had gone -in to smoke a good-night pipe with Cantyre.</p> - -<p>He had a neat little corner suite which gave one a -cheery view of the traffic in Madison Avenue north and -south by a mere shifting of the eyes. I sat in the projecting -semicircle that commanded this because, after -my own outlook into an airshaft, I enjoyed the twinkling -of the lights. To me the real Ville Lumière is New York. -It scatters lights with the prodigal richness with which -the heaven scatters stars. It strings them in long lines; -it banks them in towering façades; it flings them in handfuls -up into the darkness; it writes them on the sky. -Twilight offers you a special beauty because, wherever -you are in the city, it brings out for you in one window -or another that first wan, primrose-colored beacon—in -some ways more beautiful than the evening star. Behind -the star you don’t know what there is, while behind -the light there is a palpitating history. Then as -you look down from some high perch other histories light -their lamps, till within half an hour the whole town is -ablaze with them—a light for every life-tale—as in pious -places there is one for every shrine.</p> - -<p>Those who were looking at ours saw nothing but a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span> -green-shaded lamp, and yet it lit up such bits of drama -as Cantyre’s and mine. So behind every other shining -star, in tower or tenement, dwelling-house or hotel, there -was tragedy, comedy, adventure, farce, or romance, all -in multifold complexity, while before each human story -there glowed this tranquil fire.</p> - -<p>If I had not been an architect, with a knowledge of -interior decoration as part of my profession, I might not -have been worried by the sybaritic note in Cantyre’s -rooms. Being fond of flowers, he had sheaves of gladioluses -and chrysanthemums wherever he could stack -them. Over the tables he threw bits of beautiful old -brocades, ineffable in color. Framed and glazed, a seventeenth-century -chasuble embroidered in carnations did -duty as a fire-screen. Japanese pottery grotesques and -Barye bronzes jostled one another on the mantelpiece -and low bookcases, while the latter housed rows of handsome -volumes bound to suit Cantyre’s special taste and -stamped with his initials. He himself, stretched in a -long chair, wore a dressing-gown of an indescribable -shade of plum faced with an equally indescribable shade -of blue. The plum socks and blue leather slippers couldn’t -have been an accident; and as I had dropped in on him -unexpectedly I knew that all this <i>recherche</i> was not to -dazzle any one—I could have forgiven that—but for his -own enjoyment.</p> - -<p>No one could have been kinder to me than he was—and -I liked him. I reminded myself that it was none -of my business if his tastes were fastidious, and that to -spend his money this way was better than in lounging -about bar-rooms, as I had done; and yet I could understand -that a girl like Regina Barry should be impatient -of these traits in a husband.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span></p> - -<p>I sat, however, with my back to it all, astride of a -small chair, my pipe in my mouth, looking down on the -lights and traffic.</p> - -<p>Breaking a long silence, I said, as casually as I could -do it: “I met Sterling Barry’s daughter the other day—Miss -Regina Barry, her name is, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>Vague, restless movements preceded the laconic response, -“Where?”</p> - -<p>“She came to the memorial with Mrs. Grace.”</p> - -<p>Hearing him strike a match, I knew he was making -an effort at sang-froid by lighting a cigarette.</p> - -<p>“Did you—did you—think her—pretty?”</p> - -<p>“Pretty wouldn’t be the word.”</p> - -<p>“Beautiful?”</p> - -<p>“Nor beautiful.”</p> - -<p>“What then?”</p> - -<p>“No word that I know would be adequate. You might -say fascinating if it hadn’t been vulgarized; and chic -would be worse.”</p> - -<p>“She’s tremendously animated—and vivid.”</p> - -<p>“She has the most living eyes and mouth I’ve ever -seen in a human being. I’ve never seen a face so aglow -with mind, emotion, and color. She’s all flame, but a -flame like that of the burning bush, afire from a force -within.”</p> - -<p>He spoke bitterly. “And people talk about that being -conquered!”</p> - -<p>To lead him further I said, “Has any one talked -of it?”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you know?”</p> - -<p>“How should I know? You—you’ve never told me.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m—I’m telling you now.”</p> - -<p>My sympathy was quite genuine.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span></p> - -<p>“Thanks, old boy. I can see—I can see how hard it -must have gone with you.”</p> - -<p>“How hard it’s going, Frank. There’s a difference in -tense. If you knew her better—”</p> - -<p>“I’m not sure that I care to know her better; and -that, old man, isn’t said out of rudeness. I don’t belong -to her world any more; and I’d rather not try to get -back into it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, get out! As a matter of fact I’m going to take -you to see her.”</p> - -<p>“You needn’t do that, because she asked me to come.”</p> - -<p>“Right off the bat like that? The first time she’d ever -seen you?”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t exactly that. She knew my brother Jack; -and my cousin, Annette van Elstine, is a friend of hers.”</p> - -<p>“Annette van Elstine is your cousin? Why didn’t you -tell me that before?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, for reasons. I should think you’d see. Why -should I claim Annette as a cousin? One of the smartest -women in New York, I’m told she is.”</p> - -<p>“One of the very smartest. She could do anything for -you.”</p> - -<p>“So there you are! When you think of what I was -when you first met me—what I am still, really—” It -seemed to me, however, that I had found my opening, -so I went on in another vein. “I met Annette’s father -in the street one day, not long ago, and he went by without -recognizing me. Have I changed very much—since -the spring?”</p> - -<p>“I should know you anywhere, Frank; but Coningsby -and Christian were saying last week that they wouldn’t -take you to be the same man any more.”</p> - -<p>“Did they mean morally—or physically?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, they meant in looks. They said they’d never -seen any one in whom good clothes and a straight life -had so thoroughly created a new man.”</p> - -<p>“So that you think my uncle might reasonably—”</p> - -<p>“Pass you without recognition? Oh, Lord, yes! Besides, -your mustache changes you a lot. I’d shave that -off again if I were you; and you want to get back to your -old self.”</p> - -<p>To end the subject I said merely: “I’m glad to hear -that I don’t look as I did; because—because I shouldn’t -like to think that the good old fellow had cut me.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER X</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>My problem was now as to how to tell Regina Barry -who I was; and it would have been more urgent -had I not felt sure that sooner or later she must guess. -Indeed, she might have guessed already. I had no -means of knowing. During the four or five days since -her visit to the memorial no echo of our meeting had come -back to me.</p> - -<p>But I was not left long in doubt.</p> - -<p>The William Grace Memorial was now practically ready -for furnishing. Mrs. Grace was about to move back to -town in order to undertake the task. Coningsby and -I were going through the rooms one day with an eye -to details that might have been overlooked when he said, -“Well, there doesn’t seem much more for you to do here, -does there?”</p> - -<p>I replied that as far as any further need of my services -was concerned I might knock off work there and then—thanking -him for all his help through the summer.</p> - -<p>“And now,” he went on, “I should like you to come -in on this job at Atlantic City if you’d care to. You see, -you and I understand each other; we speak the same -language both professionally and socially; and it’s not -so easy as you might think to pick up a chap of whom -you can say that. Why not come up to our little place—say -to-morrow night—and dine with us, and we could -talk it over? My wife told me to ask you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span></p> - -<p>Knowing that Coningsby had been aware of the state -of my wardrobe a few months earlier, I blushed to the -roots of my hair as I put the question: “What shall I -wear? Tails—or a dinner jacket and black tie?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, a dinner jacket. There’ll be just ourselves.”</p> - -<p>But when I went I found not only my host and hostess, -but Regina Barry to make the party square.</p> - -<p>The Coningsbys lived on the top floor of an apartment-house -on the summit of the ridge between the west side -of the Park and the Hudson. Below them lay a picturesque -tumble of roofs running down to the river, beyond -which the abrupt New Jersey heights drew a long -straight line against the horizon. Sunset and moonset -were the special beauties of the site, with the swift and -ceaseless current to add life and mystery to the outlook.</p> - -<p>The apartment differed from Cantyre’s in that its -simplicity would have been bare had it not produced an -impression of containing just enough. The walls of the -drawing-room were of a pale-gold ocher against which -every spot of color told for its full value. On this background -the green of chairs, the rose of lamp-shades, the -mahogany of tables, and the satinwood of cabinets pleased -and rested the eye. There were no pictures in the room -but a portrait of Mrs. Coningsby, which one of the great -artists of the day had painted for her as a gift. In its -richness of copper-colored hair and diaphanous jade-green -draperies the room got all the decoration it required.</p> - -<p>I had heard Regina Barry’s voice on entering, and knew -that I was up against my fate. That is to say, the revolver -lay ready in my desk. Knowing that such a meeting -as this must occur some time, I was in earnest as to -using the weapon on the day when her eyes accused me. -As I took off my overcoat and hat and laid them on a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span> -settle in the hall, I said I should probably do it when I -went home that night. It would depend on how she -looked at me.</p> - -<p>Meeting me at the door of the drawing-room, Mrs. -Coningsby was sweet and kindly in her welcome without -being over-demonstrative. I had heard of her beauty, -but was not prepared for anything so magnificent. Her -height, her complexion, her hair, her free movements—were -those of a goddess. I liked and admired Coningsby; -but I wondered how even he had caught this Atalanta -and imprisoned her in a flat on the west side of New York.</p> - -<p>“You know Miss Barry, don’t you?” were the words -with which she directed me toward the end of the room, -where the other guest was seated in a low arm-chair by -a corner of the fireplace.</p> - -<p>So the supreme moment came. I went the length of -the room knowing that I was facing it.</p> - -<p>I suppose it is instinct that tells women how to avoid -comparisons with each other by creating contrasts. -Knowing that in competition with her hostess she would -have everything to lose, Miss Barry used Mrs. Coningsby -as a foil. In other words, she had divined the fact that -her friend would be in black with a spangling of blue-green -sequins, and so had enhanced her own vividness -by dressing in a bright rose-red. What she lacked in -beauty, therefore, she made up in a brilliancy that stood -out against the pale-gold ocher background with the -force of a flaming flower.</p> - -<p>As I stooped to take the hand she held up languidly -I tried to search her eyes. They told me nothing. The -fire in them seemed not exactly to have gone out, but to -have been hidden behind some veil of film through which -one could get nothing but a glow. Had she meant to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span> -baffle me she couldn’t have done it more effectively; but, -as I learned later, she meant nothing of the kind. Her -greeting, as far as I could judge of it, was precisely that -which she would have accorded to any other diner-out.</p> - -<p>During the exchange of commonplaces that ensued -there were two things I noticed with curiosity and uneasiness. -She wore the string of pearls I had seen once -before—had had in my pocket, as a matter of fact—and -the long diamond bar-pin. As to her rings I could not -be sure, having on the night when I meant to steal them -noticed nothing but their number. But the pearls and -the diamonds arrested my attention—and my questionings. -Was she wearing them on purpose? Was she holding -them up as silent reminders between her and me? -Was I to understand from merely looking at them the -charge her eyes refused to convey?</p> - -<p>I had no means of seeking an answer to these questions, -because Coningsby came in and the process of being welcomed -had to be gone through again. Moreover, the -commonplaces which, when carried on <i>à deux</i>, might have -led to something more personal remained as commonplaces -and no more when tossed about <i>à quatre</i>.</p> - -<p>On our going in to dinner the same tone was maintained, -and I learned nothing from any interchange of -looks. There was, in fact, no interchange of looks. Miss -Barry talked to her right and to her left, but rarely across -the table. When it became necessary to speak a word -directly to me she did it with so hasty a glance that it -might easily not have been a glance at all. The burning -eyes that had watched me so intently on our first meeting, -and studied me with so much laughing curiosity on our -second, kept themselves hidden. Since it was on them -that I had reckoned to tell me what I was so eager to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span> -be sure of, I was like a man who hopes to look through a -window and finds it darkened by curtains.</p> - -<p>After dinner, however, I got an opportunity. Coningsby -and his wife were summoned to the nursery to discuss -the manifestations of some childish ailment. Miss Barry -and I being left alone before the fire, I was able to say, -“Well, have you thought of it?”</p> - -<p>Some of the customary vivacity returned to her lips -and eyes. She had at no time seemed unkindly—only -absent and rather dreamy. She was rather dreamy still, -but more on the spot mentally.</p> - -<p>“Thought of what?”</p> - -<p>“Of—of where we first met.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that! I’m sorry to say I’ve been too busy to -do any searching in my memory. But one of these days -I must.”</p> - -<p>There was no mistaking the sincerity of her tone. She -had not searched in her memory; she had not considered -it worth while. Her interest in our meeting at the -memorial had probably passed before she had driven -away.</p> - -<p>I must plead guilty to feeling piqued. That she should -be so much in my mind and that I should occupy so small -a place in hers not only disappointed but annoyed me. -I said to myself, “Oh, well, if she cares so little there is -no reason why I should care more.” Aloud I made it: -“Please don’t bother about it. One of these days the -recollection will come back to you of its own accord.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; I dare say.” She went on without transition, -“Whom did your brother marry?”</p> - -<p>I told her.</p> - -<p>“He wasn’t like everybody else,” she pursued. “I -wonder—I wonder if you are?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span></p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t that depend on what you mean by being -like everybody else? I don’t know that I get your -standard.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, men are so much alike. There’s no more difference -between them than between so many beans in a -bottle.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see that. To my mind they’re all distinct from -one another.”</p> - -<p>“In little ways, yes. But when it comes to the big -ways—”</p> - -<p>“What are the big ways?”</p> - -<p>She weighed this, a forefinger against a cheek.</p> - -<p>“The big ways are those which indicate character, -aren’t they? While the little ones only make for habits. -Men differ as to their habits, but in character they’re -all cut on the same pattern—two or three patterns at -most.”</p> - -<p>“But can’t you say the same of women?”</p> - -<p>“Very likely; only I don’t have to marry a woman.”</p> - -<p>Since she had become personal, I ventured to do the -same.</p> - -<p>“Oh, so it’s a question of marriage!”</p> - -<p>“What other question is there when a girl like me is -twenty-three? One has to decide that tiresome bit of -business before one can tackle anything else.”</p> - -<p>I grew bolder.</p> - -<p>“Decide as to whom to marry—or whether or not to -marry at all?”</p> - -<p>“Suppose I said as to whether or not to marry at all?”</p> - -<p>“You mean that you’d like advice?”</p> - -<p>“I’d listen to advice—if you’ve any to give.”</p> - -<p>I gathered all my strength together for the most tremendous -effort of my life.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span></p> - -<p>“Then, I should say this: That there are men in the -world different from any you’ve ever seen yet. Wait!”</p> - -<p>She laughed—an intelligent laugh, full of music, mirth, -and comprehension.</p> - -<p>“Do you know, that reminds me of something awfully -strange that happened to me a few months ago? Some -one else said just those words to me—or, rather, wrote -them down.”</p> - -<p>I pulled my chair so that her eyes rested on me more -directly.</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I can’t tell you. I said I never would—so I -mustn’t. I should love to—though I never shall.”</p> - -<p>“Was it—interesting?”</p> - -<p>“Thrilling! But there! I’m not going to tell you. I -shouldn’t have mentioned it if what you say hadn’t -been so oddly like—”</p> - -<p>But Coningsby came back into the room to ask if Miss -Barry wouldn’t join his wife in the nursery to see little -Rufus while he was awake. In the mean time he and I -would retire to his own snuggery and talk business.</p> - -<p>While I followed his account of the hotel he was building -sufficiently to get his ideas and to know what he -expected of me, I was saying to myself: “She doesn’t -know me. She doesn’t know me at all. It never occurs -to her as a possibility that the man who wrote those -words is the one she is now asked to meet at dinner. -How am I ever to get the nerve to let her know?”</p> - -<p>When I found the opportunity I put the question, -“Have your wife and Miss Barry any idea about me?”</p> - -<p>“About you? You mean about—”</p> - -<p>“The Down and Out.”</p> - -<p>“Lord, no! What would be the good of that?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span></p> - -<p>“The only good would be that—that I shouldn’t be -sailing under false colors.”</p> - -<p>“False colors be hanged! We’ve all got a right to the -privacy of our private lives. You don’t go nosing into -any one else’s soul; why should any one else go nosing -into yours? Why, if I were to tell my wife all I could -tell her about myself I should be ashamed to come home.”</p> - -<p>I knew this argument, and yet when I came to apply -it to my attitude toward Regina Barry I was not satisfied.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XI</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>A few days later I was surprised to receive a note -from Annette van Elstine. It ran:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p><span class="smcap">Dear Frank</span>,—I have just heard that you are in New York—that -you have been here some time. Why did you never -come to see me? It was not kind. And didn’t you know that -your mother has been heartbroken over your disappearance? -Jerry and Jack knew you were somewhere in this country, but -they’ve kept your mother in the dark. What does it all mean? -Come to tea with me—just me—on Friday afternoon at five, -and tell me all about it.</p> - -<p class="center">Your affectionate</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Annette</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<p>As this was the first bit of connection with my own -family since Jerry had practically kicked me down his -steps, I was deeply perturbed by it. I am not without -natural affection, and yet I seemed to have died to the -old life as completely as Lovey to that with his daughters. -I had never forgotten Jerry’s words: “And now get out. -Don’t let any of us ever see your face or hear your name -again.”</p> - -<p>The very fact that he was justified had roused the foolish -remnant of my pride.</p> - -<p>I had loved my mother; I had reverenced my father; -though my brothers were indifferent to me, I had felt a -genuine tenderness for my sisters. But since that night -on Jerry’s steps it had been to me as if I had put myself<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span> -on one side of a flood and left them on the other, and -that there was no magic skiff that would carry me back -whence I came. I cannot say that I grieved for them; -and it was the last of my thoughts that they would -grieve for me. I accepted the condition that we were -dead to each other, and tried to bury memory.</p> - -<p>And now came this first stirring of resurrection. It -hurt me. I didn’t want it. It was like the return of life -to a frozen limb. Numbness was preferable to anguish.</p> - -<p>“Lovey,” I said, as the old man hung about me when -I was undressing that night, “how would you feel if one -of your daughters—”</p> - -<p>He raised himself from the task of pulling off my -boots, which to humor him I allowed him to perform, -and looked at me in terror.</p> - -<p>“They ain’t—they ain’t after me?”</p> - -<p>“No, no! But suppose they were—wouldn’t you like -to see them?”</p> - -<p>He dropped the boot he held in his hand.</p> - -<p>“Y’ain’t goin’ to ’ave them ’unted up for me, Slim?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know anything about them, Lovey. That -isn’t my point at all. But suppose—just suppose—you -could see them again; would you do it?”</p> - -<p>He shook his bald head.</p> - -<p>“They’re dead to me. I’m dead to them. If we was -to see each other now ’twouldn’t be nothink but diggin’ -up a corpse.”</p> - -<p>“Nothink but diggin’ up a corpse,” I repeated to myself -as I turned east from Fifth Avenue, leaving the brown -trees of the Park behind me, and took the few steps -necessary to reach my uncle Van Elstine’s door. He had -married my mother’s sister, and during the lifetime of -my aunt the families had been fairly intimate. Of late<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span> -years they had drifted apart, as families will, though -touch-and-go relations were still maintained.</p> - -<p>I have to admit that while waiting for Annette in the -library up-stairs I was nervous. I was coming back to -that family life in which I should have interests, affections, -cares, responsibilities. For the past three years I -had had no one to think of but myself; and if in that -freedom there were heartaches, there were no complexities.</p> - -<p>Though it was not yet dark, the curtains were drawn -and the room was lighted not only by a shaded lamp, but -by the flicker of a fire. When Annette, wearing a tea-gown, -appeared at last in the doorway she stood for a -second to examine me.</p> - -<p>“Why, Jack!” she exclaimed, then. “I didn’t know -you were in New York. Have you brought Frank with -you?”</p> - -<p>“I am Frank,” I laughed, going forward to offer my -hand. “I didn’t know Jack and I were so much alike. -But you’re the second person who has said it within a few -days.”</p> - -<p>“It’s your mustache, I think,” she explained as we -shook hands. “I never saw you wear one before.”</p> - -<p>“I never did.”</p> - -<p>“Do sit down. They’ll bring tea in a minute. I’m -so glad to see you. But if it’s not a rude question, tell -me why you’ve been here all this time and never let me -know.”</p> - -<p>It would be difficult to define the conditions which -made Annette at the age of thirty-three what Cantyre -styled one of the smartest women in New York, but the -minute you saw her you felt that it was so. My uncle -Van Elstine was only comfortably off; their house was -not large; though they entertained a good deal, their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span> -manner of living was not showy. But my aunt Van -Elstine had established the tradition—some women have -the art of doing it—that whatever she had and did and -said was “the thing,” and Annette, as her only child and -heiress, had kept it up.</p> - -<p>As far as I could understand the matter, which had -been explained to me once or twice, my aunt was exclusive. -In the rush of the newly come and the rise of -the newly rich, which marked the last quarter of the -nineteenth century in New York, she and a few like-minded -friends had made it their business to pick and -choose and form what might literally be called an <i>élite</i>. -By 1913, however, the <i>élite</i> was not only formed but -founded on a rock as firm as the granite of Manhattan, -and Annette’s picking and choosing could be on another -principle. Hers was that more civilized American tendency -to know every one worth knowing, which is still -largely confined, so they tell me, to Washington and New -York. Where her mother had withdrawn Annette went -forward. Her <i>flair</i> for the important or the soon to be -important was unerring. Hers was one of the few drawing-rooms -through which every one interesting, both -domestic and foreign, was bound at some time to pass. -Being frankly and unrestrainedly curious, she kept in -touch with the small as well as with the great, with the -young as well as with the old, maintaining an enormous -correspondence, and getting out of her correspondents -every ounce of entertainment they could yield her. On -her side she repaid them by often lending them a helping -hand.</p> - -<p>The warmth of her greeting now was due not to the -fact that I was her cousin, but to her belief that I had -been up to something. It was always those who had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span> -been up to something with whom she was most eager to -come heart to heart. Without temptations of her own, -as far as I could ever see, she got from the indiscretions -of others the same sort of pleasure that a scientist finds -in studying the wrigglings of microbes under a microscope.</p> - -<p>Having some inkling of this, I answered her questions -not untruthfully, but with reservations, saying that I -had not come to see her because I had been down on my -luck.</p> - -<p>“And how did you come to be down on your luck?”</p> - -<p>“Can’t you guess?”</p> - -<p>“You don’t look it now.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve been doing better lately. I’ve made two or -three friends who’ve given me a hand.” Carrying the -attack in her direction, I asked, “How did you hear that -I was in New York?”</p> - -<p>“Hilda Grace told me. She said you’d been working -on that memorial of hers. She thought it awfully strange—you -won’t think me rude in repeating it?—that a man -like you should be only in a secondary position.”</p> - -<p>“If she knew how glad I was to get that—”</p> - -<p>She changed the subject abruptly.</p> - -<p>“When did you last hear from home?”</p> - -<p>I thought it sufficient to say: “Not for a long time. I -may as well admit that nowadays I never hear from -home at all.”</p> - -<p>“And, if it’s not a rude question, why don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Partly, I suppose, because I don’t write.”</p> - -<p>“So I understood from Jack. But, Frank dear, do you -think it kind?”</p> - -<p>I broke in with the question, the answer to which I -had really come to get, “When did you last see Jack?”</p> - -<p>“About eighteen months ago; just before he was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span> -married. He knew you were somewhere about, but he -wasn’t confidential on the subject.”</p> - -<p>“No; he wouldn’t be. Did he seem all right?”</p> - -<p>“Quite; and awfully in love with Mary Sweet. What’s -she like, really?”</p> - -<p>I described my new sister-in-law as I remembered her, -going on to say: “I suppose you gave Jack a good time. -Did you—did you take him about anywhere?”</p> - -<p>“Let me see. I took him to—where was it? I took -him to the Wynfords’—and—and—oh, yes!—to the -Barrys’. And it’s too funny! I really think Regina fell -in love with him at first sight. For a month or two she -questioned me about him every time we met. Then all -of a sudden she stopped. If she was struck by the -thunderbolt, as the French put it—well, all I can say -is that it serves her right.”</p> - -<p>“Serves her right—what for?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the way she’s carried on. It’s disgraceful. Do -you know her? Her father is an architect, like you.”</p> - -<p>Annette’s round, dusky face, which had no beauty but -a quick, dimpling play of expression, was one that easily -betrayed her ruling passion of curiosity. It was now so -alight with anticipation that I tried to be more than ever -casual.</p> - -<p>“I’ve—I’ve just met her.”</p> - -<p>“Where?”</p> - -<p>“Once at the memorial, when she came with Mrs. -Grace; and a few nights ago I dined with her at the -Coningsbys’.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder she didn’t take you for Jack.”</p> - -<p>To this I was not obliged to make a response for the -reason that, the man having arrived with the tea, Annette -had to give her attention to the placing of the tray.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span></p> - -<p>When I had taken a cup of tea from her hand I created -a diversion with the question, “What did you mean by -saying the way she carried on was disgraceful?”</p> - -<p>“Why, the way she gets engaged and disengaged. It’s -been three times in as many years, and goodness knows -how many more experiments—”</p> - -<p>“I suppose she’s trying to find the right man.”</p> - -<p>“It’s pretty hard on those she takes up and puts down -in the process. She’ll get left in the end, you’ll see if -she doesn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it better to get left than to marry the wrong -man?”</p> - -<p>“The very day I took Jack to see her she’d broken off -her engagement to Jim Hunter. I didn’t know it at the -time. It was two or three days later before it came out. -If I had known it and told Jack—”</p> - -<p>“Well, what then?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t say anything. They were awfully taken -with each other. But I’m glad he was saved. If he -hadn’t gone straight back to Montreal he might now be -in the place of poor Stephen Cantyre.”</p> - -<p>“I see a good deal of Cantyre.”</p> - -<p>“So I understand.”</p> - -<p>“Who told you?”</p> - -<p>“Elsie Coningsby.”</p> - -<p>“You seem to have got a good deal of information -about me all of a sudden.”</p> - -<p>“Because you’ve dropped right into the little circle -in which we all know one another with a kind of -village-like intimacy. New York is really a congeries -of villages.”</p> - -<p>“But any one could see that Cantyre would never -make a husband for a high-spirited girl like Miss Barry.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span></p> - -<p>“How do you know she’s high-spirited, if it’s not a -rude question?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, one can tell.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve seen her only twice. You must have noticed -her very particularly.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve noticed Cantyre very particularly; and just as -he wouldn’t make her the right kind of husband she -wouldn’t make him the right kind of wife.”</p> - -<p>When Annette said anything in which there was a -special motive a series of concentric shadows fled over -her face like ripples from the spot where a stone is thrown -into a pool.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m glad you don’t like her, if it isn’t a rude -thing to say.”</p> - -<p>“What has my liking her or not liking her got to do -with it?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing but the question of your own safety. If -she notices how much you’re like Jack—”</p> - -<p>“If she was going to notice that,” I said, boldly, “she -would have done it already.”</p> - -<p>“And so much the worse for you if she has—unless -you’re put on your guard.”</p> - -<p>“If you mean put on my guard against the danger of -being Cantyre’s successor in a similar experience—”</p> - -<p>“That was my idea.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I can give you all the reassurance you need, -Annette. In the first place, I’ve got no money—”</p> - -<p>The relevance of her interruption did not come to me -till nearly a year later.</p> - -<p>“Frank dear, I must ask you, while I think of it, -didn’t you know that your mother was very, very ill?”</p> - -<p>All the blood in my body seemed to rush back to my -heart and to stay there. We talked no more of Regina<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span> -Barry, nor of anything but stark fundamental realities. -In an instant they became as much the essentials of my -life as if Regina Barry had never existed. Annette -showed herself much better informed as to my career than -she pretended to be, giving me to understand that the -day on which I disappeared my mother had received a -kind of death-blow. She was of the type to leave the -ninety and nine in the wilderness to go after that which -was lost; and in her inability to do so she had been seized, -so Annette told me, with a mortal pining away. With -her decline my father was declining also, and all because -of me.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been the most awful rotter, Annette,” I groaned, -as I staggered to my feet. “You know that, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Frank, I do know it. That’s why I’ve been so -glad to get hold of you at last, and ask you to—to redeem -yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Redeem myself by going back?”</p> - -<p>She looked up at me and nodded.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but how can I?”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>My question was answered next evening by Beady -Lamont.</p> - -<p>Greatly to Lovey’s disgust, I made it a point to attend -every Saturday meeting at the club.</p> - -<p>“Them low fellas ain’t fit company for you, Slim,” -he would protest. “What’s the use of cuttin’ out the -booze and bein’ rich if you don’t ’old yer ’ead above the -likes o’ that?”</p> - -<p>“They’ve been awfully white with us, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>“They wasn’t no whiter with us than they’d be with -anybody else; and don’t three out o’ every five give ’em -the blue Peter?”</p> - -<p>But though we had this discussion once a week, he -always accompanied me to Vandiver Street, showing his -disapproval when he got there in sitting by himself and -refusing to respond to advances.</p> - -<p>I have to confess that I needed the fellowship of men -who had been through the same mill as myself, in order -to keep up the fight. Again let me repeat it, I am giving -you but a faint idea of the struggle I had to make. No -evil habit relinquishes its hold easily, and the one to -which I had given myself over is perhaps the most tenacious -of all. It would be wearisome if I were to keep -telling you how near I came at times to courting the -old disaster, and how close the shave by which I sheered -away; but I never felt safer than a blind man walking<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span> -along the edge of a cliff. More than once I tore the blue -star from my buttonhole, though on each occasion I -juggled myself into putting it back again. I juggled -myself as I did on the morning when I gazed at the brown-green -water flowing beneath Greeley’s Slip. I said that -what I didn’t do to-day I would still be free to do to-morrow, -thus tiding myself over the worst minutes, if -only by a process of postponement.</p> - -<p>But among my brothers at the club I heard so many -tales of heroic resistance that I grew ashamed of my -periods of weakness. What Pyn and Mouse and the -Scotchman and the piano-mover and Beady Lamont -could do, I told myself, I also could do. Moreover, new -men came in, and more than one of the educated type -turned to me for help. To a journalist named Edmonds, -and to an actor named Prince, I stood as next friend, -and only declined to officiate in the same capacity for -Headlights, the big-eyed tailor, and the wee bye Daisy, -when they returned, penitent, on the ground that I -couldn’t watch over more than two men efficiently. -With the actor I had no trouble, but twice I had to go -down to Stinson’s and pull Edmonds out of a drunken -spell. To keep him out was putting me on all my mettle; -and in order to maintain my mettle I had to stay out -myself. My courage was no whit nobler than that of -the man who would turn tail in the battle if it weren’t -for shame before his comrades; but there is something -to be got out of even such valor as that.</p> - -<p>And in the club I got it. Perhaps we were all putting -up a bluff. Perhaps those whom I looked upon as heroes -were inwardly no more glorious than I. But when the -fellows whom I patted on the back patted me in their -turn, I was obliged to live up to their commendation.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span> -There came, indeed, a time when I couldn’t help seeing -that in the eyes of new-comers especially I was taken as -a pillar of the club, and knew that I couldn’t fall without -bringing down some of the living walls along with -me. To be strong enough to hold up my portion of the -weight became once more with me then a question of -<i>noblesse oblige</i>.</p> - -<p>The Saturday evening after my talk with Annette -was a special one. After the actor, the journalist, Headlights, -and Daisy had renewed their pledge for a week, -Lovey and I stood up with the Scotchman, the piano-mover, -and three or four others, and repeated ours for -a month. It probably seems a simple thing to you; -but for us who knew what had been our perils during the -preceding month and the months preceding that, it was -a solemn undertaking. The first vow of all had been -relatively easy, since new resolutions have an attraction -in themselves. The weekly vows that came afterward -were not so fiercely hard, because they were but weekly. -When it came to promising for a month—well, I can only -say that to us a month had the length which it has to a -child. It seemed to stretch on indefinitely ahead of one. -The foe, retreating as we pressed forward, was always -keeping up a rear-guard fight, and we never woke in the -morning without being aware that we might strike an -ambush before nightfall. We got so tired of the struggle -that we often thought of the relief it would be to be -captured; and many a time the resolution was made that -when this month was up....</p> - -<p>And just at these minutes the chaps who seemed -stronger would close in about us, or those who seemed -weaker would make some appeal, and when the critical -Saturday evening came round we would walk up again,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span> -impelled by forces beyond our control, and repledge ourselves.</p> - -<p>On such occasions there was always some word spoken -to us by men who had fought longer than we had and -seen the enemy routed more effectively. That night the -speaker to the blue-star men was that club benefactor and -favorite, Beady Lamont. He was a huge mass of muscle, -turning the scale at three hundred and more. Strength -was in every movement when he walked and every pose -when he stood still. To my architect’s eye he planted his -legs as though they were ancient Egyptian monoliths. -Comparatively small round the abdomen, his chest was -like a great drum. His arms—but why give a description? -Hercules must have been like him, and Goliath -of Gath, and Charlemagne, and the Giants that were in -Those Days. They said that in drink he used to be terrible; -but now his big, jolly face was all a quiver of good-will.</p> - -<p>His voice was one of those husky chuckles of which -the very gurgles make you laugh. To make you laugh -was his principle function in the club. On this evening -he began his talk with a string of those amusing, disconnected -anecdotes which used to be a feature of after-dinner -speeches, somewhat as a boy will splash about -in the water before he begins to swim. But when he -swam it was with vigor.</p> - -<p>“And now some of you blue-star guys is probably hittin’ -a question that sooner or later knocks at the nuts -of most of us chaps that’s trying to make good all over -again. That’s families. Say, ain’t families the deuce? -You may run like a hare, or climb like a squirrel, or light -away like a skeeter—and your family’ll be at your heels. -It’s somethin’ fierce. You can never get away from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span> -them; they’ll never let you get away from them. Because”—his -voice fell to a tone of solemnity—“because -no matter how fast you sprint, or how high you climb, or -how graceful you can dodge—you carries your family -with you. You can no more turn your back on it than -you can on your own stummick. You may refuse to -pervide for it, you may treat it cruel, you may leave it -to look out for itself; but you can never git away from -knowin’ in your heart that if you’re a bum husband or -father or son you’re considerable more bum as a man. -That’s why the family is after us. Can’t shake ’em off! -Got ’em where they won’t be shook off. God A’mighty -Hisself put ’em there, and, oh, boys, listen to me and I’ll -tell you why.”</p> - -<p>He made dabs at his wrists as though to turn up his -sleeves, like a man warming to his work. Taking a step -or two forward he braced his left hand on his barrel-shaped -hip, while his gigantic forefinger was pointed -dramatically toward his audience.</p> - -<p>“Say, did any of you married guys ever wish to God -you was single again? Sure you did! Was any of you -chaps with two or three little kids to feed ever sorry for -the day when he heard the first of his young ones cry? -Surest thing you know! Did any of us with a father and -a mother, with brothers and sisters, too, very likely, ever -kick because we hadn’t been born an orphan and an only -child? You bet your sweet life we did! The drinkin’ -man don’t want no hangers-on. He wants to be free. -Life ain’t worth a burnt match to him when he’s got other -people to think of, and a home to keep up, and can’t -spend every penny on hisself. Some of us here to-night -has cursed our wives; some of us has beat our children; -some of us has cut out father and mother as if they’d<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span> -never done nothin’ for us, and we could cast off from -’em with no more conscience than a tug’ll cast off from -a liner.</p> - -<p>“But, boys, when God A’mighty put us into this world -He put us into a family first of all. He gives us kindness -there, and care, and eddication, and the great big thing -that fills the whole universe and that we ain’t got no -other name for only love. As soon as we’d got pretty -well grown He give us another feeling—one that druv us -by and by to go and start a family for ourselves. Most -of us went and started one, and them that haven’t done -it yet’ll do it before the next few years is out. But, -boys, what’s it all for? Everything’s got to be for somethin’ -or else it’s just lumberin’ up the ground; and this -here matter of families is either the worst or the best -thing you’ll find anywhere on earth. If it’s not the best -it’s the worst, and it has to be one or t’other.</p> - -<p>“Now I stand before you as one who used to think it -was the worst. I won’t say nothin’ of my father and -mother. Them things is too sacred to be trotted out. -But I’ll speak of my wife, because she’s that grateful for -what’s been done for me—and everything done for me -has been done twice as much, ten times as much, for her—that -she’d like me to bring her into whatever I’ve got -to say. I’ve known the time when I was as crazy to be -quit of my family as a dog to be rid of the tin can tied to -his tail. I had a wife, then, and three children; and, O -my God! but I thought they was a drag! I couldn’t go -nowhere without thinkin’ I ought to be with ’em, and I -couldn’t take a drink without knowin’ I had to steal it -from my little boy and my two little girls. They was the -p’ison of my life. There was nights when I was reelin’ -home and I used to hope that the house had been burnt<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span> -down durin’ the day and they buried in the ashes. That’d -leave me free again. Not to have no home—not to -have to ante up for no one but myself—was the only thing -I ever prayed for. And by gum, but my prayer was -answered! One night I come home and found the house -empty. My wife had decamped, and left a note that run -somethin’ like this: ‘Dear Beady,’ says she, ‘I can’t -stand this life no more,’ says she. ‘If it was only me I -wouldn’t mind; but I can’t see my children kicked and -beat and starved and hated, not by no one.’ And then -she signed her name.</p> - -<p>“Well, say, boys, most of you has heard what happened -to me after that. I sure had one grand time while -it lasted—and it lasted just about six months. I saw a -man oncet—we was movin’ a party from Harlem to the -Bronx—fall down a flight of stairs with a sofa on his back, -and he sure did get some pace on. Well, my pace was -just about as quick—and as dead easy as he struck the -landin’ at the bottom I struck the gutter. Now you -know the rest of my story, because some of you guys -has had a hand in it.</p> - -<p>“But what I want to tell you is this: That when I begun -to come to again, as you might say, the first thing I -wondered about was the wife and the kids. I couldn’t -get ’em out of my mind, nohow. What did I ever have -’em for? I asked myself. Why in hell did I ever get married? -Nobody never druv me into it. I did it of my -own accord. I went hangin’ after the girl, who had a -good place in the kitchen department of a big store, and -I never let her have no peace till she said she’d marry -me, and did it. Why had I been such a crazy fool? -There was days and days, sittin’ right in there in that -back room, when I asked myself that; and at last I got<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span> -the answer. I’m goin’ to tell it to you now, because -there’s a lot of you shysters that’s only been a few weeks -in the club that’s askin’ yourselves that very same thing. -You’ve got wives and kids, the Lord knows where—scattered -to the four winds of heaven, for anything you -know—and you wish you hadn’t. But, say, don’t you -go on wishin’ no such thing; for I’m goin’ to tell you what -God A’mighty said to me right there in that back settin’-room.”</p> - -<p>He squared himself now, planting his Egyptian monoliths -with a force which in itself was a kind of eloquence. -His hands were thrust deep into his trousers pockets -and his big chest expanded.</p> - -<p>“‘Beady,’ God A’mighty says to me, and it was just -as if I’d heard His voice, ‘if a man don’t have no one -to think about but hisself he becomes the selfishest of all -things under the sun. I’m God,’ says He, ‘with nothin’ -to do but enj’y myself; and yet if I didn’t have you and -the other things I make to care for and think about I -wouldn’t have nothin’. I’ve just got to have ’em, for -if I didn’t I’d go crazy. So I make beautiful worlds, and -grand men, and noble women, and pretty kids, and strong -animals, and sweet birds to sing, and nice flowers to bloom, -and everything like that. I don’t make nothin’ ugly nor -nothin’ bad, nor no sickness nor sufferin’ nor poverty. -You guys does all that for yourselves, and I don’t take -no rest day nor night tryin’ to show you how not to. -Listen to me, Beady,’ says He. ‘Stop thinkin’ about -yourself and that awful hulk of a body, and what it wants -to eat and especially to drink. Don’t pay no more attention -to it than you can help. Say, you’re my son, and -you’re just like me. What you want is not the booze; -it’s somethin’ outside yourself to think about. I’ve given<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span> -you a wife and three fine youngsters. Now get out and -get after them. Cut out livin’ for yourself and live for -them. You must lose your life to find it; and the quickest -way to lose your life is not to think about your beastly -cravings at all.’</p> - -<p>“Well, by gum! boys, if I didn’t take God A’mighty -at His word. I says to myself, I’ll prove this thing or -bust—and if I was to bust there’d be some explosion. -When you fellows had kept me here long enough to let -me be pretty nigh sure of myself I went and looked up -the wife, and—well, there! I needn’t say no more. Some -of you dubs has been up to my little place and you know -that Whatever spoke to me that day in that back room -is in my little tenement in the Bronx if He ever was anywhere—and -that brings me at last to my p’int.</p> - -<p>“I’m speakin’ to you blue-star men because you’ve -showed pretty well by this time the stuff you’re made of. -As long as you was in danger of slippin’ back I wouldn’t -say this to you at all. But, say, you’ve weathered the -worst of it, so it’s time for me to speak.</p> - -<p>“Has any of you a wife? Then go back to her. Have -you kids? Then go back to ’em. Have you a father -or a mother? Then for God’s sake let them know that -you’re doin’ well. Go to ’em—write to ’em—call ’em -up on the ’phone—send ’em a telegraph—but don’t let -’em be without the peace o’ mind that’ll come from -knowin’ that you’re on your two feet. One of the most -mysterious things in this awful mysterious life is the way -somebody is always lovin’ somebody. Here in these two -rooms is a hundred and sixty-three by actual count of the -seediest and most gol-darned boobs that the country can -turn out. As we look at each other we can’t help askin’ -if any one in their tarnation senses could care for the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span> -likes of us. And yet for every bloomin’ one of us you can -foot up to eight or ten that’ll have us in their hearts as -if we was gold-headed cherubs.</p> - -<p>“Say, boys, I’ll tell you somethin’ confidential like, -and don’t think I’m braggin’. The furniture-movin’ business -is the grandest one there is. For a man that’s mastered -it there don’t seem anything in the world left for -him to learn. He’s ready to command a army or to -run a ocean liner. But there’s one thing I’ll be hanged -if even a furniture-mover knows anything about—and -that’s love. I’ve thought about it and thought about -it—and it gets me every time. I don’t know what it is, -or where it comes from, or how they brew the durned -thing in hearts like yours and mine. All I know is that -it’s there—and that this old world goes round in it. I’m -buttin’ into it all the time, and it kind o’ turns me shy -like. My own little home is so full of it that sometimes -it makes me choke. If I try to get away from it and -come down here—well, I’m blest if some bloke don’t -begin ladlin’ it out to me when he don’t hardly know -what he’s doin’. The furniture-movin’ business is that -shiny with it when you know how to see it— But I’ll -not say no more. You’d laff. You’re laffin’ at me now, -and I don’t blame you. All I’ve wanted to do is to put -some of you boys wise. If there’s a blue-star man who -knows any one in the world that’s fond of him—then -for Christ’s sake get after ’em! And do it not later -than to-night.”</p> - -<p>And so I did it. Before going to bed I wrote a long -letter to my father, giving him such details of my history -during the past three years as I thought he would like -to know. I hinted that if he or my mother would care -for a visit from me I could go home for a few days.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span></p> - -<p>Then I waited.</p> - -<p>In a week I got my reply. It read:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p><span class="smcap">My dear Frank</span>,—I am glad to receive your letter, but -sorry that it should ever have been necessary for you to write -it. That you should be doing well no one could be more thankful -for than I. I have given your messages to your mother, -and she wishes me to send you her love. I consider it my duty -to add, however, that no messages can withdraw the sword -you have thrust into her heart—and mine.</p> - -<p class="center">Your affectionate father,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Edward Melbury</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XIII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>After that my work took me to Atlantic City, -though not before I had had a number of meetings -with Regina Barry, each of which, with one exception, -took me by surprise.</p> - -<p>The exception was the first. Cantyre urged me so -strongly to come with him to call on Mrs. Barry and her -daughter that in the end I yielded.</p> - -<p>I found Mrs. Barry a charming invalid lady, keeping -to the background and allowing her daughter to take all -the initiative. From her as well as from Regina I got -the reflex action of their liking for Jack. Mrs. Barry -had seen him only once, but had preserved the memory -of the pleasure which the meeting had given her. She -repeated the statement, which had already grown familiar, -that she thought Jack different from other men. Perhaps -he was, though I could never see it. Perhaps she -thought I was, myself, though she didn’t say so in words.</p> - -<p>In any case, the call was followed by an invitation to -dinner, and not long after that Annette placed me next -to Miss Barry at lunch. Mrs. Grace did the same, and -so did Cantyre when he insisted on my joining a party -he gave at a theater. Two or three other meetings were -accidental, and if I say that in all of them Miss Barry -herself made the advances it is only to emphasize my -nervousness. I had no right to be meeting her; I had -no business to be allowing her to talk to me and show -that—well, that she didn’t dislike me. The revolver<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span> -was still in my desk and I began to ask myself if it wasn’t -my duty to make use of it. True, she had not accused -me with her eyes, but she was in some ways doing worse. -What was to be the end of it?</p> - -<p>I welcomed the work at Atlantic City, then, for more -reasons than one. It took me away from New York; -it kept me out of danger. Cantyre having confided to -me the fact that his hopes were not dead, it left the field -free to him. Never for a moment did he suspect that in -my heart there was anything that could interfere with -him; nor did he so much as dream that in hers....</p> - -<p>It is curious that in proportion as the craving for drink -diminished its place was taken by another craving for -what I knew I couldn’t have. There was every reason -why I couldn’t have it, why I could never have it. Atlantic -City offered me, therefore, the readiest means of flight.</p> - -<p>When that should be over I was planning a still further -retirement. Sterling Barry was in California, directing -the first stages of the erection of a block of university -buildings in which he took great pride. Coningsby himself -had suggested that when the Atlantic City job was -finished there would be an opening for me there if I -cared to make a bid for it. I did so care, and he promised -to speak for me. Once I reached the Pacific, I was -resolved not to come back for years, and perhaps never -to come back at all.</p> - -<p>It is lucky for me that I am temperamentally inclined -to look forward. The retrospective view in my case -would very soon have led me back to Greeley’s Slip, but -I was rarely inclined to dwell on it. Once when I was -crossing the Atlantic as a small boy our steamer had -run on the rocks at Cape Clear. To enable us to get off -her before she slipped back into the water and went down,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span> -long rope ladders were lowered to us from the top of the -cliff, and up them we had to climb. This we did in a -foggy Irish dawn, seeing just the rope rung ahead of us. -Had we been able to look farther up the face of the cliff -my mother and sisters would hardly have had the nerve -for the ascent. As it was, they could see that single -rung and no more, and so could keep their gaze upward -without fear.</p> - -<p>In the same way I kept my own gaze forward. I tried -not to look ahead of the day, and at Atlantic City the -days, even in November, were bearable enough. The -booming of the long miles of breakers acted on me as a -sedative. They dulled memory; they dulled pain; at -the same time they incited me to work as the piercing -wail of the bagpipes incites the Highlander to fight. I -got companionship from them and a sense of timelessness. -In their roll and tumble and crash I could hear the -<i>poluphoisboio thalasses</i> in which Homer put the sound of -breakers forever into speech.</p> - -<p>So November went by, and a great part of December. -Christmas was approaching, and I was eager to have it -over. Not that it mattered to me; but the sense that -there was a gay companionship in the world from which -I was excluded got slightly on my nerves. Cantyre, who -came down to spend a week-end with me whenever he -could, having to go for that season to his relatives in -Ohio, I looked for nothing more festal than a merry meal -with Lovey.</p> - -<p>The late afternoon on the day before Christmas Eve -was both windy and foggy, with a dash of drizzle in the -air. The men had knocked off working, and as I left -the half-finished building I stood for a minute to get the -puffs of wet wind in my face. The lights along the Board<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span> -Walk were reflected on the wet planks as in a blurred -mirror. Here and there a pedestrian beat his way against -the wind, and an occasional rolling-chair—the jinrikisha -of Atlantic City—disappeared into the aureole of the -sea-front.</p> - -<p>As I came down our rickety temporary steps I became -aware that a woman’s figure darted out of the shelter -of a pavilion on the shore edge and walked rapidly across -toward me. She wore an ulster and a tam-o’-shanter cap, -and made a gallant little figure in the wind. More than -that I did not take time to notice, as I had no suspicion -that she could have anything to do with me.</p> - -<p>I was, in fact, turning southward toward the house -where I was staying when she managed to beat her way -in front of me.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you know me?”</p> - -<p>I stopped in astonishment.</p> - -<p>“Why—why, what are you doing here?”</p> - -<p>“I was waiting for you.”</p> - -<p>I could think of nothing better to say than, “On an -evening like this?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t mind that. We arrived only this afternoon. -You see, my father can’t get back from California, -and mother wouldn’t spend Christmas in town. -We’re not going to have any Christmas, and so—”</p> - -<p>We struggled across the walk to the pavilion, which, -though open on all sides, afforded at least an overhead -protection.</p> - -<p>“How did you know where to find me?” I asked, -stupidly.</p> - -<p>“Ralph Coningsby told me—and the time you would -be coming out. I—I’ve something—something rather -special to—to say to you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span></p> - -<p>I stood looking down at her. In the wooden ceiling -above our heads there was an electric light that shed -its beams through the whirl of mist right into her upturned -face. There was a piteous quiver in the scarlet lips, and -to the eyes had returned that mingling of compassion -and amazement with which she had watched me when I -pulled out her trinkets and threw them on the desk. It -was the first time I had seen it since that night.</p> - -<p>As I look back we seem to have gazed at each other -in this way for an immeasurably long while, but I suppose -it was only for some seconds. I knew why she was -there. The truth had dawned on her at last, and she had -come to tell me it wouldn’t make any difference.</p> - -<p>But it would.</p> - -<p>I had left the revolver in my desk in town; but I reminded -myself that there was a train between eight and -nine and that I should have plenty of time to catch it.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XIV</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>For my own sake, rather than for Regina Barry’s, I -made an effort to escape from the pitiless pavilion -light overhead.</p> - -<p>“You’ll need to go back to your hotel. Sha’n’t we -walk along? Then you can tell me as we go.”</p> - -<p>The tramp through the gale and spray would have -been exhilarating were it not that confidential things had -to be thrown out into the tempest. As we left the -pavilion, however, a voice floated toward me from the -semi-darkness.</p> - -<p>“Chair, boss?”</p> - -<p>Another minute and we were seated side by side in the -odd little vehicle—something between a baby’s perambulator -and a touring-car—with the leather curtains buttoned -to protect us, and a view through the wind-shield -of a long line of lights shining into fog. There was a -minute of surprise in the fact that, involuntarily expecting -to go at a heightened speed, we found ourselves literally -creeping at the snail’s pace which was the customary gait -of our pusher.</p> - -<p>But that was only subconscious. I took note of it without -taking note of it, to remember it when I pieced the -circumstances together on returning home. The one thing -of which I was really aware was that in this curious conveyance -I was seated at her side, and able, as she sat -half turned toward me, to look her in the eyes.</p> - -<p>Now that we were there, she lost some of her self-possession.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span> -After the months in which I had been afraid -of her she seemed suddenly to have become afraid of me. -Crouching back into her corner of the chair, she grew -small and apologetic.</p> - -<p>“Mother made me come. She said some one ought to -tell you.”</p> - -<p>It was like a little cry—the cry of a child confessing -before it is accused. I could follow her mental action. -She wanted me to understand that nothing but <i>force -majeure</i> would have induced her to waylay a man as he -was coming home from work and take him in a kind -of ambush.</p> - -<p>Having once already talked with her at cross-purposes, -I was careful to let her state her message before betraying -my conviction of what it was to be.</p> - -<p>“It’s very kind of Mrs. Barry,” I began, vaguely.</p> - -<p>“You see, she likes you,” she broke in, impulsively. -“If you had any one belonging to you in this country -I dare say she—But she’s awfully maternal, mother is; -and when Annette told her—”</p> - -<p>“What did Annette tell her?”</p> - -<p>“That’s it. Oh, Mr. Melbury, I’m so sorry that I -should be the one to bring the news.”</p> - -<p>“If it’s bad news,” I said, encouragingly, “I’d rather -have you to share it with me than any one else in the -world.”</p> - -<p>She asked, abruptly, “Have you heard anything from -home—lately?”</p> - -<p>I had once more the sensation of the blood rushing -back to my heart and staying there. All I could do was -to shake my head.</p> - -<p>“That’s what Annette thought. We told her she ought -to write to you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span></p> - -<p>In my excitement I clutched her by the hand, but I -think she was hardly aware of the act any more than I.</p> - -<p>“But what is it?”</p> - -<p>“It’s—it’s about your father.”</p> - -<p>“He’s not—he’s not—dead?”</p> - -<p>She fell back again into her corner of the chair, withdrawing -her hand. I, too, fell back into my corner, staring -out through the wind-shield. Knowing that by not saying -no she was really saying yes, I was obliged not only -to get possession of the fact, but to control my sense -of it.</p> - -<p>I may say at once that it was the first sudden shock -of my life. Every other trial had come to me by degrees—I -had more or less seen it on the way and had been -ready to meet it. This was something I had hardly ever -thought of. That it might happen some time had been -vaguely in the back of my mind, of course; but I had -never considered it as an event of the day and hour. -Now that it had occurred, my mental heavens seemed to -fall.</p> - -<p>I have told you so little of my family life that you hardly -realize the degree to which my father was its center -and support. My memory cannot go back to the time -when he was not an important man, not only in the estimation -of his children, but in that of the entire country. -One of the youngest of that group of men who in the -’sixties and ’seventies took the scattered colonies of Great -Britain lying north of the border of the United States -and welded them into a gigantic, prosperous whole, he -had outlived all but the sturdiest of his contemporaries. -With Macdonald, Mount Stephen, Strathcona and a few -others he had had the vision of a new white man’s empire -stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span> -Great Lakes to the Arctic, and through good times and -evil he had never let it go. That there were evil times as -well as good ones is a matter of history; but however dark -the moment, my father was one of those who never lost -for a fraction of an instant his belief in ultimate success. -In helping to build up the vast financial system of the -Canadian Pacific Railway there was no door, in Europe -or America, where money could be borrowed at which -he did not knock. There were days when the prospect -was so hopeless and the treasury so empty that he was -obliged to pledge everything he possessed, and after -that to use nothing but his honor and his name. The -winning out is one of the fairy-tales of the modern -world. He had begun to reap his reward just as -my memory of him opens. Of his days of struggle I -knew only by hearsay. By the time I was five he was -already a man of considerable wealth, honored throughout -the Dominion, honored in Great Britain, and one of -the eight or ten Canadian baronets created by the Queen.</p> - -<p>I see him as tall, spare, and vigorous, with thin, clear-cut, -clean-shaven features, a piercing eye, and a mouth -that sagged at the corners not from dejection, but from -determination. Spartan in his own life, he required his -children to be Spartan in theirs. Though with our added -means our manner of living increased in dignity, it gained -little in the way of luxury; and many were the shifts to -which my brothers and I were pushed to indulge the follies -of young men.</p> - -<p>My brothers did this no more than experimentally, covering -their tracks and returning to right ways before their -digressions could be noticed. I was invariably caught, -coming in for some dramatic moments with my father, -which increased in tension with the years. I have often<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span> -wondered what his own youth could have been that he -had so little mercy on what was at first not much worse -than high spirits and boisterousness. Though I am far -from blaming any one but myself for my ultimately -going wrong, I have sometimes thought that a gentler -handling might have led me aright when sheer repression -only made me obstinate. That gentler handling my -mother would have given me had not my father felt that -it was weak. This knowledge only added to my perversity, -the result being a state of continuous rebellion -on my part and permanent displeasure on his.</p> - -<p>“You’re getting in worse and worse with the old man,” -my brother Jack warned me a few months before I left -Montreal for good. “I heard him telling mother that if -you didn’t turn over a new leaf he’d cut you out of his -will.”</p> - -<p>The information that he had so cut me out was the last -form of appeal he ever made to me. I didn’t believe -he meant it otherwise than as a bluff—a stroke of the -pen could have reinstated me; but merely as a bluff it -angered me. It implied that I might be induced to do -for money what I hadn’t done for love or duty, and I -was foolish enough to consider it part of my manhood -to prove that any one who so judged me was mistaken. -In that phase of my misguided life there was a kind of -crazy, Cordelia-like attempt to show my father that it -was not because of his money that I cared for him—or -didn’t care for him; but all I succeeded in doing was to -rouse the resentment of a man who had hardly ever been -defied.</p> - -<p>But I had repented of that kind of bravado long -before I had repented of anything else. My letter -to him in October had been quite sincere. To be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span> -cut out of his will had never meant anything to me -but the loss of his affection. I was sorry for that loss, -sorrier than any words I have could tell you. But when -he wrote to me, in answer to my October letter, I knew -from his tone that I had definitely killed whatever had -once existed between him and me, and that all that was -left for me was to bury it. I had been trying to bury it -for the past eight weeks, and I do not deny that the effort -was a bitter one.</p> - -<p>You must understand that I had now come in for a -set of emotions that had not belonged to me before I -went to the Down and Out. I can explain it only on the -ground that months of abstinence from anything that -could inflame the senses or disturb the poise of the mind -had induced a sanity of judgment to which I had been -a stranger. In this new light I was really a prodigal -son—not from any hope of a ring on my hand or the fatted -calf, but genuinely from affection for the parents I had -wronged.</p> - -<p>To have this impulse to arise and go to my father -thrown back on itself was the hardest thing in my experience. -Somehow I had kept the conviction that if -ever I repented that door would be open to my return. -It had not really occurred to me that they wouldn’t say -at home, “It is meet that we should make merry and be -glad.” That my brothers might refuse to join in the -chorus was a possibility. That my sister might not be -over-enthusiastic in doing so I should be able to understand. -But that my father and mother.... Throughout -my stay in Atlantic City I had been saying to myself, -“Well, if I’ve thrust a sword into your hearts, old -dears, you’ve jolly well thrust one into mine; and so -we’re quits.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span></p> - -<p>“When did it happen?” was the first question I was -sufficiently master of myself to ask.</p> - -<p>“Annette heard yesterday. I think it was the day -before.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know if—if he’d been ill?”</p> - -<p>“He hasn’t been well for a long time, Annette says—not -for two or three years; but the end was—well, it -was heart failure. He was in his motor—going home. -When the car drove up to the door they found him—”</p> - -<p>It was the picture thus presented that made me put -my hand to my forehead and bow my head. I was thinking -of him seated in his corner of the car, stately, unbending, -unpardoning, dead. I was thinking of the plight of -my poor little mother when the man she had for so -many years worshiped and obeyed was no longer there to -give her his commands. I was thinking of the commotion -in the family, of the stir of interest throughout -the community. A prince and a great man would have -fallen in Israel, and all our Canadian centers would be -aquiver with the news. Jerry and Jack would cable to -my sister in England, as well as to our uncles and aunts -in that country and in the United States. There were -cousins and friends who wouldn’t be forgotten. I alone -was left out.</p> - -<p>That was, however, more than I could believe. It -was more, too, than I was willing to allow Regina Barry -to suppose.</p> - -<p>“There must be a telegram for me at my rooms in New -York,” I managed to stammer, though I fear my tone -lacked conviction.</p> - -<p>To this she said nothing. She had, in fact, as Cantyre -informed me later, already ascertained that up to the -hour of her departure from New York there was none.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span></p> - -<p>I talked to Cantyre on the telephone immediately on -returning to my hotel. He said that, though in my -rooms there were some odds and ends of mail matter -which he hadn’t yet forwarded, there was no telegram or -Canadian letter. Having called up Annette, I got a -repetition of the meager information Miss Barry had -given me, though I learned in addition that the funeral -was to take place on the following day, which would be -Christmas Eve. Her father had already gone to Montreal -to take part in the ceremony. The embarrassment -of her tone in saying she was surprised that I had received -no announcement told me that she was not surprised. -It was the last touch to the certainty that I had -been omitted with intention.</p> - -<p>After that, for a time, my grief gave place to rage. -The punishment was so much greater than the crime that -my heart cried out against its injustice. Had I stayed -down in the depths where I was I should have accepted -it phlegmatically; but having made the effort to rise, -and made it with some success....</p> - -<p>I acquitted my mother and my sister of any share in -the injury done to me. My mother was the tenderest -little creature God ever made, but she had always been -under the domination of my father, and had now come -under that of her sons. Never having asserted herself, -she would hardly begin to do it at this date, though she -might weep her heart out in secret. I knew my sister -would put in a good word for me, but as the youngest of -the family and a girl she would easily be overruled.</p> - -<p>Jack might be mercifully inclined, but he would do as -Jerry insisted. Jerry—who as Sir Gerald Melbury would -now cut a great swath as head of the family—Jerry would -be my father over again. He would be my father over<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span> -again, only on a smaller scale. My father was tyrannical -by instinct; Jerry would be so by imitation. My father -believed his word to be law because he didn’t know how -to do anything else; Jerry would believe his word to be -law in order to be like my father. My father wouldn’t -forgive me because I had outraged his affections; Jerry -wouldn’t forgive me because my father hadn’t done it -first. As far as he could bring it about, my future would -be locked and sealed with my father’s death, not because -he, Jerry, would be so shocked at my way of life, but -because the laws of the Medes and Persians alter not.</p> - -<p>Nothing remained for me, then, but to grin and bear -it, and bide my time. That I had friends of my own was -to me a source of that kind of consolation which is largely -pride. Cantyre and the Coningsbys, Regina Barry and -her mother—came closer to me now than any one with -whom I had ties of blood. “Our relatives,” George Sand -writes somewhere, “are the friends given us by Nature; -our friends are the relatives given us by God.”</p> - -<p>As relatives given me by God I regarded Lovey and -Christian and Colonel Straight and Pyn and Beady -Lamont and all that band of humble, helpful pals to -whom I was knit in the bonds of the “robust love” which -was the atmosphere of brave old Walt Whitman’s City -of Friends. There was no pose among them, nor condemnation, -nor severity. Forgiveness was exercised -there till seventy times seven. They forbore one another -in love, and endeavored to keep the unity of the spirit in -the bond of peace to a degree of which Some One would -have said that He had not found the like, no, not in -Israel.</p> - -<p>My family were all of Israel, and of the strictest sect. -They fasted twice in the week, so to speak; in theory, if<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span> -not in practice, they gave tithes of all that they possessed; -they could sincerely thank God that they were not as -such men as composed the Down and Out; and yet it was -precisely among those who smote their breasts and didn’t -dare so much as to lift up their eyes unto heaven that I -found the sympathy that raised me to my feet and bade -me be a man. No wonder, then, that that evening I -kept poor old Lovey near me, that I took him down to -the café, where there were only men, and made him dine -with me, and told him of my bereavement.</p> - -<p>“Is he, now?” he said, drawing a melancholy face. -“No one can’t live forever, can they? He’d have been an -old, aged man, I expect.”</p> - -<p>I told him my father’s age.</p> - -<p>“Ah, well, at that time of life they gits carried off. -Too bad you didn’t know in time for the funeral. Ye’d -’ave liked to see him laid away safe underground, wouldn’t -ye, Slim? I ’ope he was in some good benefit club, like, -that’ll take care of the expenses of burial. Awful dear, -coffins is; but I suppose your family has a plot in some -churchyard.”</p> - -<p>When I had assured him that this was the case he continued: -“And as for goin’ off sudden—well, it’s awful -’ard on relations when a old, ancient man’ll lay round -sick and don’t know when ’is time’s come. I’ve knowed -’em when you’d swear they hung on a-purpose, just to -spite them as ’ad to take care of ’em. I ’ad a grandfather -o’ me own—well, you’d think that old man just -couldn’t die. Ninety, I believe he was, and a wicked -old thing when he got silly, like. Take the pepper, he -would, and pour it into the molasses-jug, and everything -like that. Terr’ble fun he was for us young ones, especially -one day when he dressed all up in ’is Sunday<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span> -clothes and went out in the street without ’is pants. I -don’t suppose yer guv’nor ever did the like o’ that, -Slim. Don’t seem as if old people on this side ’ad them -playful ways.”</p> - -<p>In this sort of reminiscence the evening went by, and -in the morning I received a note that did much to comfort -me. It was no more than the conventional letter -of condolence from Mrs. Barry, but it was tactfully -couched.</p> - -<p>“A loss like yours,” she wrote, “painful as it is at all -times, becomes tragically so when the support one finds -in family ties is too far away to sustain one. I have -often found in my own experience that loneliness added -a more poignant element to grief. I wish you would -remember, dear Mr. Melbury, that you have friends at -this Christmas-time quite near you. Run in and see us -whenever you feel the need of a friendly word. We are -leading a life here absolutely without engagements, and -you will cheer us up more than we can cheer you. If -on Christmas Eve you would care to look in between four -and five you would find us here, and we could give you a -cup of tea.”</p> - -<p>Needless to say all through the day of Christmas Eve -my thoughts were with the gathering in our house on the -slopes of Mount Royal. I saw in fancy every detail of -the lugubrious pomp through which Christians contradict -their Saviour in his affirmation that there is no death. -Solemnity, blackness, muffled drums, and long lines of -men throwing awe into their faces—would smite the heart -with a sense of the final, the irreparable, the gone and lost. -Flowers would lend a timid touch of brightness, but they -would bloom in little more than irony. The roll of many -wheels, the tramp of many feet, and a funeral service in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span> -which the triumphant note itself would be turned into a -dirge, these would be the massive accompaniment to the -few sobs welling up from hearts in which they would be -irrepressible. Though shut out in person, in spirit I was -there, standing in the shrouded room, witnessing my -mother’s farewell kiss, watching the lid placed on the -coffin, marching with my brothers, kneeling in the church, -hearing the clods fall in the grave. At the very moment -when Mrs. Barry handed me a cup of tea I was saying to -myself, “Now it is all over, and they are coming back to -the darkened, empty house.”</p> - -<p>I was not cheerful as a companion, and apparently no -one expected me to be so. We can scarcely be said to -have talked; we merely kept each other company. It -was Miss Barry herself who suggested, when we had -finished tea, that she and I should take a walk.</p> - -<p>The weather had grown clear, bright, and windless. -All along the promenade there was Christmas in the shops -and in the air. It was not like any Christmas I had ever -known before, with the blare, the lights, the gay, homeless -people, and the thundering of breakers under starlight; -but some essential of the ancient festival was present -there, and it reached me. It reached me with a yearning -to have something belonging to me that I could claim -as my own—something to which I should belong and -that wouldn’t cast me off—something that would love -me, something that I should love, with a love different -from that with which even the City of Friends could supply -me.</p> - -<p>But out on the crowded, starry sea-front we neither -walked nor talked. We sauntered and kept silent. On -my side, I had the feeling that there was so much to say -that I could say nothing; on hers, I divined that there<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span> -was the same. I will not affirm that in view of all the -circumstances I could be anything but uneasy; and yet -I was ecstatic. This wonderful creature was beside me, -comforting me, liking to be with me! But if she knew -exactly who I was....</p> - -<p>I was swept by an intense longing that she should be -told. It was a longing I was never free from, though -it didn’t often seize me so imperiously as to-night. It -seized me the more imperiously owing to the fact that I -could see her moving farther and farther away from any -recollection and realization coming through herself. I -had hoped that both would occur to her without my being -obliged to say in so many words, “I am the man who -tried a few months ago to steal your jewelry.”</p> - -<p>But if ever the shadow of this suggestion crossed her -mind, it didn’t cross it now. From the beginning the -face and figure of that man had been blurred behind the -memory of my brother Jack. Recent events had fixed -me, just as she saw me, definitely in conditions in which -sneak-thieving is unimaginable. I was the son of Sir -Edward Melbury, Baronet, of Montreal and Ottawa, a -man who would rank among the notables of the continent. -Though a son in disfavor, I was still a son, and moreover -I was exercising an honorable craft with some credit. I -might propose to her, I might marry her, I might live -my whole life with her, and the chances were that she -would never connect me with the man she had seen for -a few hurried minutes on pulling the rose-colored hangings -aside.</p> - -<p>For this very reason it seemed to me I must tell her -before our friendship went any further. It was an additional -reason that I began to think that the information -would be a shock to her. How I got that impression<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span> -I can scarcely tell you; the ways in which it was conveyed -to me were so trifling, so infinitesimal.</p> - -<p>For example, I asked her one day what she meant -by her oft-repeated statement that I was different from -other men.</p> - -<p>“Our men,” she explained, promptly, “have no life -apart from their businesses and professions. Business -and profession are stamped all over them. They are in -their clothes, their faces, the tones of their voices. You’d -know Ralph Coningsby was an architect, and Stephen -Cantyre a doctor, and Rufus Legrand a clergyman, the -minute you heard them speak. Now you wouldn’t know -what you were. You might be anything—anything a -gentleman can be, that is. I’ve heard some one say -that Oxford is a town in a university, and Cambridge a -university in a town. In just the same way my father, -for instance, is a man in an architect. You’re an architect -in a man. With you the man is the bigger. With -us he’s the smaller. It isn’t merely business before -pleasure; it’s business before human nature; and somehow -I’ve a preference for seeing human nature put -first.”</p> - -<p>There was little in this to say what I have just hinted -at. There was barely sufficient to let me see that she was -putting me above most of her men acquaintances, in a -place in which I had no right to be. Though it was as -far as she ever went, it was far enough to create my -suspicion and to make me feel that the earliest confession -would not come too soon.</p> - -<p>When we got down to the less frequented end of the -Board Walk the moment seemed to have arrived. The -crowd had thinned out to occasional groups of stragglers -or lovers going two and two. Only here and there one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span> -came on a shop; only here and there on a hotel. One -got an opportunity to see the stars, and to hear the ocean -as something more than a drumbeat to the blare.</p> - -<p>By a simultaneous movement we paused by the rail, -to look down on the dim, white, moving line of breakers. -It was one of those instants when between two people -drawn closely to each other something leaps. Had there -been nothing imperative to keep us apart I should have -seized her in my arms; she would have nestled there. I -had distinctly the knowledge that she would have responded -to anything—and that the initiative was mine.</p> - -<p>As a rocket that bursts into cascades of fire suddenly -goes out, so suddenly the moment passed, leaving us with -a sense of coldness, primarily due to me.</p> - -<p>Somewhat desperately I began: “Do you know what -has made the difficulties between me and my family?”</p> - -<p>She was gazing off toward the dark horizon.</p> - -<p>“Vaguely.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know that for years I gave them a great deal -of trouble?”</p> - -<p>“Vaguely.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know that—”</p> - -<p>“Do you know,” she interrupted, quietly, “that I used -to have a brother?”</p> - -<p>The question so took me by surprise that I answered, -blankly, “No.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I had. He was nearly ten years older than I, -which would make him about your age. He was—he -was wild.”</p> - -<p>“And is he—is he dead?”</p> - -<p>“He shot himself—about five years ago. It was a terrible -story, and I don’t want to tell it to you. I only -want to say that my mother feels that if—if father hadn’t<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span> -been so hard on him—if he’d played him along gently—he -might easily have been saved. It’s what Mr. Christian—he’s -had great experience in that sort of thing—he -does a wonderful work among men that have gone under—but -it’s what he used to tell father; only father hadn’t -nearly so much patience with his own son as he would -have had with some one else’s, and so— I wonder if -you can understand that when mother heard that you -had been—had been—well, a little like my brother—”</p> - -<p>“Who told her?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know. These things get about. It might -have been Annette.”</p> - -<p>“And assuming that I was what you call wild, have -you any idea how wild I was?”</p> - -<p>Her response to this was to say: “I like a man to have -spirit. The men who always keep on the safe side—” -She left this sentiment there, to add, less irrelevantly than -it sounded: “Mother wants you to come and dine with -us to-morrow evening. It will be Christmas Day, but we -sha’n’t keep it as Christmas. We don’t have any Christmases -since—since Tony died. We simply—we simply -sha’n’t be alone.”</p> - -<p>In the turn our talk had taken there was so much -human need that I found my efforts at confession paralyzed. -That a family whom I had regarded as enviably -care-free should be living in the shadow of a great tragedy, -and nursing a sorrow in which there was this element of -remorse, was curiously illuminating as a discovery. It -seemed to cast into other people’s lives the sort of sharp -revealing ray that a flash of lightning throws on a dark -road. Here was a girl whom I had thought of hitherto -as immune from the more sordid varieties of trial; and -yet she had at least tasted of their cup. It gave me a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span> -new conception of her. I began to see her not as a flat -surface or as static like a portrait, but as a living, palpitating -human being with duties round her and a vista -of experiences as background.</p> - -<p>The immediate inference was that I must assist them -over Christmas, as they would assist me; and to do that -I must put off telling Regina Barry where she had seen -me first.</p> - -<p>To be quite free, however, I had to get a kind of permission -from Lovey. My relations with him had grown -to be peculiar. He seemed to develop two personalities, -from the one to the other of which he glided more or less -unconsciously. Though even in our privacy he refused -any longer to speak of us as buddies and fellas together, -he called me Slim and sonny, and referred without hesitation -to our fraternal past. On my part I found it -almost consoling, in view of the bluff I was putting up, -to have some one near me who knew me at my worst. -Where I had to pretend before others there was no pretense -at all with him; and so I got the relief that comes -at any time when one can drop one’s mask.</p> - -<p>Here in Atlantic City I was paying all his expenses, -but no wages. In New York I offered him nothing but -his room. How he lived I didn’t always know, beyond -the fact that it was honestly. As to this he was so frank -that I could have little doubt about it.</p> - -<p>“There’s many a good thing I lets go by, Slim, all on -account o’ you. Washin’ windows ain’t nothink but old -woman’s work when a man’s been a ’atter. If it wasn’t -to save you, sonny—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know, Lovey. One of these days I may get -a chance to make it up to you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, as for makin’ it up, so long as you goes on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span> -with the fancy you took to me that night at Stinson’s, -like—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I do. You see that, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; I see it right enough, Slim. It kind o’ passes -the buck on me, as you might say. But there! Lord -love ye, I don’t complain! Ye’re a fine young fella, and -what I does for you—self-denial ye might call it—I don’t -grudge. When I sees ye goin’ round like a swell with -other swells I just says to myself, ‘Lovey, that’s your -work, old top’; and I feels kind o’ satisfied.”</p> - -<p>It was kind o’ satisfied that he showed himself when I -told him I had been asked to eat my Christmas dinner -with Mrs. and Miss Barry.</p> - -<p>“Ain’t that grand!” he commented, exultingly. “Ye’ll -put on them swell togs—”</p> - -<p>“But it will leave you alone, Lovey,” I reminded him.</p> - -<p>“Lord love ye, Slim, I don’t mind that! What’s -Christmas to me? I don’t pay no attention to all that -foolishness—except the plum puddin’.”</p> - -<p>I felt it right to throw out a warning.</p> - -<p>“In your dining-room, Lovey, with all the chauffeurs, -there’ll be things to drink, very likely.”</p> - -<p>He put on his melancholy face.</p> - -<p>“It won’t make no difference to me, Slim. The Down -and Out has got me bound by so many promises, like, -that I can’t take a sip o’ nothink, not no more than a dead -man that’s got a bottle in ’is coffin. I’m one that can -take it or leave it, as I feel inclined.”</p> - -<p>“If you’re going to try taking it or leaving it to-morrow -I sha’n’t accept Mrs. Barry’s invitation to dinner.”</p> - -<p>The effect was what I had expected.</p> - -<p>“You go to the dinner, Slim, my boy, and I’ll let you -see me ’ittin’ the ’ay before you starts.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span></p> - -<p>“But you could hit the hay and get out of bed again.”</p> - -<p>“No; because I’ll make you lock the door. I ain’t -a-goin’ to ’ave ye ’ave no hanxiety on my account.”</p> - -<p>So we settled it—not that I was to lock him in, but -that he was to guarantee me against being anxious; and -I suppose Christian would say that another bit of victory -was scored.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XV</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>A few days later I learned that my father had established -a small trust fund for my benefit, and that -the income was to be paid to me quarterly. He had -thus, after all, recognized me as his son, though not on -the footing of his other sons. Each of his other sons -would have— But I won’t go into that. It is enough -to say that for every dollar I should receive Jerry and -Jack would have twenty or thirty, and so would my -sisters. Even in my mother’s life interest I was not -to have a share when she no longer needed it.</p> - -<p>Among the many sins I have to confess, that of being -specially mercenary is not one. I make this affirmation -in order that you may not condemn me too severely when -I say that for days I labored under a sense of outrage. -Mine was the state of mind common among evil-doers -who object to paying the penalty of which they have had -fair warning. My father had told me with his own -mouth that on account of certain indulgences which I -had refused to give up he had cut me off altogether. I -had chosen to take my own way and to brave the consequences; -and now when the latter proved to be not so -bad as I had been bidden to expect I was indignant.</p> - -<p>When I informed Andrew Christian of the bequest I -added that I had practically made up my mind to refuse -it. He gave me that look which always seemed about to -tell you a good joke.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span></p> - -<p>“Why do you think he left you anything?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose he wanted to feel that if the worse came -to the worst I shouldn’t be quite penniless.”</p> - -<p>“But why should he want to feel that?”</p> - -<p>“Well, hang it all, sir, when everything is said and -done I was his son!”</p> - -<p>“You were his son, and he—he cared for you.”</p> - -<p>“He cared for me to—to that extent.”</p> - -<p>“And considering your attitude toward him, could -you expect him to care for you more?”</p> - -<p>I said, unwillingly, “No, I suppose not.”</p> - -<p>“Could you expect him to care for you as much?”</p> - -<p>“I—I’d given up thinking he cared for me at all.”</p> - -<p>“And this shows he did. In spite of all you made him -suffer—and, what was probably worse in his eyes, made -your mother suffer—he loved you still. I know you’re -not thinking of the money, Frank.”</p> - -<p>“No, I’m not; and that’s perfectly sincere.”</p> - -<p>“You’re thinking of his affection for you; and now -you’re assured of it. The amount of money he left you -is secondary. That, and the way in which he left it to -you, were determined by something else.”</p> - -<p>I looked at him hard as I said, “And what was that?”</p> - -<p>His look as he answered me was frank, straight, and -fearless.</p> - -<p>“The fact that he didn’t trust you.” I suppose he -must have seen how I winced, for he went on at once: -“That’s about the bitterest pill fellows like us have to -swallow. In addition to everything else that we bring -on ourselves we forfeit other people’s confidence. There’s -the nigger in the woodpile, even when we buck up. Your -father was fond of you, Frank; but he was afraid that -if he did for you all he would have done if you’d gone<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span> -straight it would only send you to the devil. Don’t you -see that?”</p> - -<p>With some relief as well as some reluctance I admitted -that I did.</p> - -<p>“It takes years, Frank, old boy, for men who’ve been -where you and I have been to build up a life which gives -a reasonable promise of making good. In seven or eight -months you’ve done splendidly. I don’t know that we’ve -ever had a fellow in the club whose been more game—”</p> - -<p>“It’s the club that’s been game.”</p> - -<p>“True; but you’ve got out of it the best that it can -give. I’ll say that for you. Only don’t imagine for a -moment that your fight is over.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, sir; I don’t.”</p> - -<p>“It’s perfectly true that if you resist the devil he will -flee from you; but he can show a marvelous power of -coming back. Some of your toughest tussles lie ahead. -Now I’m only reminding you of that to show you that -your father has perhaps done the very wisest thing for -you. A large part of your safety lies in the necessity -for your working. If you weren’t absolutely obliged to -do it in order to live like a respectable man there’s no -telling what tide of suppressed temptations might rush -in and engulf you.”</p> - -<p>I nodded slowly.</p> - -<p>“I see that. Thank you for pointing it out to me.”</p> - -<p>“But, Frank, old fellow, that’s not the chief thing I -want you to see. What will give you more satisfaction -than anything else is the knowledge that what has been -done for you has been done in love. Your father has -shown his love for you; you show your love for him. -Accept this gift graciously. Enjoy it and make the best -of it. Your life with him isn’t over.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span></p> - -<p>My expression must have been one of inquiry, because -he went on:</p> - -<p>“One of the sublimest and truest things that ever fell -from a pen is this, ‘Love is of God; and every one that -love is born of God, and knoweth God.’ It’s almost a -startling thing to realize that by the sheer act of love -we’re sons of God and know Him.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but what kind of love?” I asked, with some -incredulity.</p> - -<p>“Are there more kinds than one? The kingdom of -love is like that of minerals or that of vegetation—one in -essence, though multiform in manifestation. Just as one -will give us coal and diamonds with much the same ingredients, -and another the strawberry, the rose, and the -apple-tree, all closely akin, so love shows itself in a -million ways, and yet remains always love.”</p> - -<p>“And would you say that the love of parents and children, -the love of husbands and wives, the love of sweethearts, -and the love of God—”</p> - -<p>“—are all fundamentally related? Yes, I would. I -can’t understand love in any other sense, if it’s to be real -love. Do you remember how often we’ve talked of the -spirit there is in the world that throws dust into our -eyes by creating distinctions and confusions where neither -confusion nor distinction exists? Well, the same evil imp -is forever at work to stultify love by trying to take the -meaning from the word. And when it has stultified love -it has stultified God, since the one is identical with the -other.”</p> - -<p>I became argumentative.</p> - -<p>“But if all love is identical with God, how do you -account for what would commonly be called a wrong -love?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span></p> - -<p>“There’s no such thing as a wrong love. Men are -wrong and women are wrong, and they treat love wrongly; -but love itself is always right. There a distinction -must be made between love and passion; but it’s easy -enough to make it. One of these days we’ll take the -time to talk that over. At present my point is simply -this—that there’s only one love as there’s only one God, -and it’s only by understanding the unity of both that we -get the significance of either. Moreover, the same pen -that wrote, ‘Every one that loveth is born of God,’ wrote, -‘He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God.’ You see -then how magical a thing love is, and why any kind of -love—remember I’m speaking of love, not of physical -passion, which is another thing—but you can see how -any kind of love should work wonders.” He asked, suddenly, -“Have you written to your mother since your -father died?”</p> - -<p>I said I had not, that I hadn’t supposed a letter from -me would be welcome.</p> - -<p>“Don’t ask whether it would be welcome or not. Do -your duty—and let other people take care of theirs. Let -your mother see that, so far from feeling sore over the -provision in your father’s will, you take it in the way -I’ve tried to indicate. It will be an amazing comfort -to her; and if you want to give your brothers and sisters -the surprise of their young lives you’ll be doing it.” He -took my hand and pressed it. “Good-by now, old chap. -I’ve got to go and see Momma about the meals for to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>He passed on to the kitchen, where a Greek named -Pappa—nicknamed Momma by the boys—had taken the -place of Mouse; but he left me with a new outlook.</p> - -<p>Following his instructions, I began almost immediately<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span> -to get some of the reward he promised me. My mother -wrote to me within a week, timidly but tenderly, and with -joy at being in touch with me again. A few weeks later -my sister wrote, affectionately, if with reserve. When my -birthday came in March, and I was thirty-two, I had -small presents from them both, and from my two sisters-in-law -as well. I noticed that all letters, even from my -mother, were hesitatingly expressed, and in something -like an undertone of awe. My family, too, felt apparently -that I had put an abyss between myself and them, and -that in the effort to recross it there was a suggestion of -the supernatural. It was as if my father were saying to -them, “This, thy brother, was dead, and is alive again”—and -they were experiencing some of the strangeness that -Mary and Martha must have known when Lazarus came -back to the house at Bethany.</p> - -<p>But that was not my only reward, though of what I -received in addition I find it difficult to tell you. Indeed, -I should make no attempt to tell you at all were it not -so essential to this small record of a human life. All I -want to say is that that thing came to me as a new revelation -which is probably an every-day fact to you—that -by the simple process of loving I could dwell in God, I -could be aware that God was all round me.</p> - -<p>I mean that once I understood that love was God the -great mystery that had tantalized me all my life was -solved. All my life I had been tortured by the questions: -Who is God? What is God? What is my relation -to Him—or have I any? And now I seemed to have -found the answer. When I got back to love—the common, -natural love for my father and mother and sisters—when -I got back to feeling more gently toward my brothers—I -began to see—you must forgive me if I seem blatant,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span> -but that is not my intention—I began to see faintly and -very inadequately that I was actually in touch with God.</p> - -<p>I am far from saying that all my difficulties were overcome. -Of course they were not. I mean only that that -divine force of which I had been told the universe was -full, but which had always seemed apart from me, remote -from my needs, actually came, in some measure at -least, within my possession. Just as Beady Lamont found -the furniture-moving business shiny with it, once he knew -where to look for it, so I began to see my work as an -architect. It was as if a golden key had been put into -my hand which unlocked the richest of life’s secrets.</p> - -<p>All at once people whom I had known to be well disposed -toward me, and whom I had dismissed at that, -began to translate God to me. Ralph Coningsby, Cantyre, -Lovey, Christian, Pyn, not to speak of others, were -like reflectors that threw the rays of the great Central -Sun straight into my soul. I am not declaring that there -was no tarnish on the surfaces that caught those beams -and transmitted them to me—probably there was—but -light and warmth were poured into me for all that. Not -that there was a change in their attitude toward me; -the change was in my point of view, in my capacity for -seeing. What I had thought of only as human aid I -now perceived to be the celestial bread and wine; and -where I had supposed I was living only with men, I -knew I was walking with God.</p> - -<p>And yet there was a love with regard to which I could -not have this peace of mind. Christian would perhaps -have ascribed that defect to the fact that there was -passion in it. My own fear was that, having had its -inception in a moment of crime, it could never free itself -from the conditions that gave it birth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span></p> - -<p>After the Christmas dinner there was a change toward -me in the bearing of Regina Barry and her mother. -Without growing colder, they became slightly more formal; -and that I understood. As they had come so far -in my direction, it was for me to go some of the distance -in theirs, and I didn’t.</p> - -<p>I didn’t because I couldn’t. I was like a man who -would have been glad to walk if paralysis hadn’t nailed -him to his seat. As, however, it was emotional paralysis -and not physical, there was no means by which they could -become aware of it; nor could I make up my mind to tell -them.</p> - -<p>For quite apart from my damnable secret was the common, -every-day fact that I had no income sufficient to -maintain a wife in anything like the comfort to which -Regina Barry had been accustomed. Though she might -have accepted what I had to offer, I felt the usual masculine -scruples as to offering it. This, too, was something -that couldn’t be explained unless there was some -urgent need of the explanation; and so when I was mad -to go forward I had, to my shame and confusion, to hang -back.</p> - -<p>Their retreat was managed with tact and dignity. -During the week after Christmas I saw them on a number -of occasions, always by invitation, though I had no -further talk with Regina Barry alone. Two or three -times I guessed she would have been willing to go out to -walk with me, but I didn’t suggest it. As she had proposed -it once, she could hardly do so a second time, -and so we sat tamely in a sitting-room. Like that minute -on Christmas Eve when she would have flown into my -arms had I opened them, other minutes came and went; -and I saw my coldness reacting on her visibly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span></p> - -<p>At the end of ten days a note told me that they had -returned to New York, apologizing for the fact that they -had not had time to bid me good-by. Though seeing -plainly enough the folly of a correspondence, I wrote in -response to that note, hoping that a correspondence might -ensue. But I got no answer. I got nothing. Not so -much as a message was sent to me on the days when -Ralph Coningsby came down.</p> - -<p>I did not resent this; I only suffered. I suffered the -more because of supposing that she suffered too. And -yet when I next saw her I found nothing to support that -theory.</p> - -<p>When I went to New York for a few days in February -I called, but they were not at home. Having left my -card, I waited for a message that would name an hour -when I should find them; but I waited in vain. During -the four days my visit lasted I heard nothing kindlier -than what Cantyre repeated, that they were sorry to -have been out when I came.</p> - -<p>As I sent them flowers before leaving the city, a note -from Mrs. Barry thanked me for them cordially; but -there was not a syllable in it that gave me an excuse for -writing in response. Reason told me that it was better -that it should be so, but reason had ceased to be sufficient -as a guide.</p> - -<p>In March I made an errand that took me to town for -a week-end, and on the Sunday afternoon I called again -at the house which had so curiously become the focusing-point -of my destiny. Miss Barry was at home and receiving. -I found her with two or three other people, -and she welcomed me as doubtless she had welcomed -them. Even when I had outstayed them she betrayed -none of that matter-of-course intimacy which had marked<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span> -her attitude toward me in December. She seemed to -have retired behind all sorts of mental fortifications over -which I couldn’t at first make my way.</p> - -<p>When we were seated in the style of Darby and Joan -at the opposite corners of a slumbering fire she told me -her father had made one hurried visit from California, -and that, now that he had returned to the Pacific coast, -she and her mother were thinking of joining him there. -Should they do so, they would probably remain till it -was time to go to Long Island in June. Two or three -protestations against this absence came to my lips, but -of course I couldn’t utter them.</p> - -<p>I could have sworn that she was saying to herself, -“You don’t seem to care!” though aloud it became, -“We’ve never been in California, and we want to see what -it’s like.”</p> - -<p>I seized the opportunity to rejoin, “You’ve a fancy for -seeing what things are like, haven’t you?”</p> - -<p>She took up the challenge instantly. “Why do you -say that?”</p> - -<p>“Only because of what you’ve said at different times -yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Such as?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to quote. I was thinking of the taste -you’ve frequently acknowledged for making experiments.”</p> - -<p>“Experiments in things—or people?”</p> - -<p>“I was thinking of people.”</p> - -<p>She marched right into my camp by saying, boldly, -“Oh, you mean the number of times I’ve—I’ve broken -engagements?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I mean rather the number of times you’ve -formed them.”</p> - -<p>“Did you ever buy a house?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span></p> - -<p>I replied with some wonder that I had not.</p> - -<p>“Well, we’ve bought two—this one and the one at -Rosyth. But before buying either we rented each for -a season to see whether or not we liked it.”</p> - -<p>“And you did.”</p> - -<p>“But we’ve rented others which we didn’t. So you -see.”</p> - -<p>“I see that experiments are justified. Is that what -you mean?”</p> - -<p>“If one is satisfied with anything that comes along, by all -means take it. But if one only wants what one wants—”</p> - -<p>“And you know what you want?”</p> - -<p>Her eyes were all fire; her lips had the daring scarlet -of a poppy.</p> - -<p>“I’ve never got beyond knowing what I don’t want.”</p> - -<p>“That is, you’ve never taken anything up except in -the long run to throw it down?”</p> - -<p>“Your expressions are too harsh. One doesn’t throw -down everything one doesn’t want. One sets it aside.”</p> - -<p>“And would it be discreet to ask why you—why you -set certain things—and people—aside?”</p> - -<p>She looked at the fire as if considering.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean—men?”</p> - -<p>“To narrow the inquiry down, suppose I say I do.”</p> - -<p>“And”—she threw me a swift, daring glance—“and -marriage?”</p> - -<p>“That defines the question still further.”</p> - -<p>Her words came as the utterance of long, long thoughts.</p> - -<p>“One couldn’t marry a man one didn’t trust.”</p> - -<p>“No; of course not.”</p> - -<p>“Nor a milksop.”</p> - -<p>“You couldn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Nor a man who wasn’t a thoroughbred.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span></p> - -<p>“Just what do you mean by that?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t you know? If not I can’t explain. All I can -say is that there are things a thoroughbred couldn’t do.”</p> - -<p>“What sort of things?”</p> - -<p>“Why should you want me to tell you? You know as -well as I do. The things that make a man impossible—mean -things—ignoble things.”</p> - -<p>“Criminal things?”</p> - -<p>“Criminal things, too, I suppose. I don’t know so -much about them; but I do see a lot of meanness and -pettiness and— Oh, well, the sort of lack of the fastidious -in honor that—that puts a man out of the question.”</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you very hard to please?”</p> - -<p>“Possibly.”</p> - -<p>“And if you don’t find what—what you’re looking for?”</p> - -<p>“I shall do without it, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“And if you think you find it—and then discover that, -after all—”</p> - -<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. I’ve never been absolutely disillusioned -so far. When disillusion has come to me—as -it has—I could see it on the way. But if I—I cared for -some one and found I was deceived in him— But what’s -the use in talking of it?” she laughed. “Please don’t think -I’m putting forth a claim to be treated better than the -average. It’s only when I see the average—”</p> - -<p>“The average of men?”</p> - -<p>“No, the average of women. When I see what they’re -willing to take—and marry—and live with—I can only -say that I find myself very well off as I am.”</p> - -<p>This conversation did not make it easier for me to go -back to the starting-point of our acquaintance; but the -moment came when I did it.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XVI</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>I did not, however, do it that spring, since the event -that compelled me at last to the step took up all my -attention.</p> - -<p>It was toward the end of April that I received a telegram -signed by my sister’s name:</p> - -<p>“Mother seriously ill. Wants to see you. Come at -once.”</p> - -<p>In spite of my alarm at this summons I saw the opportunity -of putting up a good front before my relatives. -Taking Lovey with me as valet, and stopping at the best -hotel, I presented the appearance of a successful man.</p> - -<p>Though anxiety on my mother’s account made my return -a matter of secondary interest, I could see the surprise -and relief my apparent prosperity created. My -brothers had been expecting one of whom they would -have to be ashamed. Furthermore, they had not been -too confident as to my attitude with regard to my father’s -will. Looking for me to contest it, they had suspected -that behind my acquiescence lay a ruse. When they saw -that there was none, that I made no complaint, that I -seemed to have plenty of money, that I traveled with a -servant, that I had the air of a man of means—a curious -note of wonder and respect stole into their manner toward -me. I know that in private they were saying to each -other that they couldn’t make me out; and I gave them -no help in doing so.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span></p> - -<p>I gave them no help during all the month I remained -in Montreal. I arranged with Coningsby to take that -time, and my little stock of savings was sufficient to finance -me. Though I was once more putting up a bluff, it was -a bluff that I felt to be justified; and in the end it found -its justification.</p> - -<p>I have no intention of giving you the details of those -four weeks of watching beside a bed where the end was -apparent from the first. Now that I look back upon them, -I can see that they were not without their element of -happiness, since to my mother at least it was happiness -to know that I was beside her. The joy in heaven over -one sinner that repenteth was on her face from the day -I appeared, and never left it up to that moment when -we took our last look at her dear smiling features.</p> - -<p>When the lawyer came to read us her will I found, -to my amazement, that she had left me everything she -possessed.</p> - -<p>It was then that I reaped that which I had sown at -Andy Christian’s suggestion. Since with a good grace I -had accepted my father’s will, the rest of the family could -hardly do otherwise with regard to my mother’s. She -left a note saying that, had my father lived a few months -longer, he would have seen that I had re-established myself -sufficiently to be allowed to share equally with the -rest of the family in what he had to leave; but, as it was -too late for that, she was endeavoring to right the seeming -injustice—which he had not meant as an injustice—as -far as lay in her power. These words from her pen -being much more emphatic than any I could remember -from her lips, my brothers and sisters, whatever they felt -inwardly, could only give their assent to them.</p> - -<p>What my mother possessed included not only the personal<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span> -estate she had inherited from her father, considerably -augmented by her husband’s careful management, -but books, furniture, and jewelry. The books and -furniture I made over to my sister to remain in the two -houses, the one in Montreal, the other on the Ottawa. -Some of the jewelry I gave to her, to my sister in England, -and to my two sisters-in-law, though keeping the -bulk for my wife—when I got one.</p> - -<p>For I was now in a position to marry. Though my -mother had had no great wealth, what she left me, together -with the trust fund established by my father and -what I earned, would assure me enough to live in at least -as much comfort as Ralph Coningsby. I could, therefore, -propose to Regina Barry and feel I could make a -home for her.</p> - -<p>I had again come to the conclusion that if I asked -her she would accept me. I make no attempt to analyze -this feeling on her part, because I saw plainly enough -that it was founded on mistake. That is to say, having -developed an ideal of the man whom she could marry, -she had nursed herself into the belief that I came up to -it, when, as a matter of fact, I did not.</p> - -<p>Now I had seen enough of husbands and wives to know -that in most marriages there is some such illusion as this, -and that it can be successfully maintained for years. -When the illusion itself has faded it can live on as the -illusion of an illusion. By the time there is no illusion -or shadow of illusion left at all it has ceased in the majority -of cases to matter. Time has welded what mutual -distaste might have put asunder, and the married state -remains undisturbed.</p> - -<p>I was, therefore, obliged to face the consideration that -if I married the woman I loved she would probably never<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span> -discover what I felt it my duty to confess. Was it really, -then, my duty to confess it? Since no one knew it but -myself, was it not rather my duty to keep it concealed? -Other men had secrets from their wives—especially those -that concerned the days when they were unmarried—and -all were probably the happier for the secrecy. Even -Ralph Coningsby, who was the most model husband I -could think of, had said that if he were to tell his wife -all he could tell her about himself he would be ashamed -to go home. There were weeks when I debated these -questions every day and night, arriving at one conclusion -by what I may call my rough horse sense, and at another -by my instinct. Horse sense said, “Marry her and keep -mum.” Instinct warned, “You can never marry her -and be safe and happy with such a secret as this to come -between you.”</p> - -<p>Throughout this wavering of opinion I knew that when -the time came I should act from instinct. It wasn’t merely -that I wanted to be safe; it was also that, all pros and -cons apart, there was such a thing as honor. Not even -to be happy—not even to make the woman I cared for -happy—could I ignore that.</p> - -<p>I am not sure how much Andrew Christian understood -of the circumstances when, without giving him the facts -or mentioning a name, I asked his advice. He only said:</p> - -<p>“You’ve had some experience, Frank, of the potency -of love, haven’t you? Well, love has a twin sister—truth. -In love and truth together there’s a power which, if we -have the patience to wait for its working out, will solve -all difficulties and meet all needs.”</p> - -<p>My experiences during the past few months having -given me some reason to believe this, I decided, so far -as I came actively to a decision, to let it rule my course;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span> -but in the end the critical moment came by what you -would probably call an accident.</p> - -<p>It was the last Sunday in June. My work in Atlantic -City being over, Mrs. Grace had asked me to come down -for the week-end to her little place in Long Island. It -was not exactly a party, though there were two or three -other people staying in the house. My chief reason for -accepting the invitation—as I think it was the chief -reason for its being given—was that the Barry family -were in residence on the old Hornblower estate, which -was the adjoining property.</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact, Mrs. Grace and her guests were -all asked to Idlewild, as the late Mrs. Hornblower had -named her house, to Sunday lunch.</p> - -<p>The path from the one dwelling to the other was down -the gentle slope of Mrs. Grace’s gardens, across a meadow, -at the other side of which it joined the Idlewild avenue, -and then up a steep hill to the rambling red-and-yellow -house. Here one dominated the Sound for a great part -of the hundred and twenty miles between Montauk Point -and Brooklyn.</p> - -<p>Sauntering idly through the hot summer noon, I found -myself beside Mrs. Grace, while the rest of the party -straggled on ahead. As my hostess was not more free -than other women from the match-making instinct, it -was natural that she should give to the conversation a -turn that she knew would not be distasteful to me.</p> - -<p>“She’s a wonderful girl,” she observed, “with just that -danger to threaten her that comes from being over-fastidious.”</p> - -<p>“I know what you mean by her being over-fastidious; -but why is it a danger?”</p> - -<p>“In the first place, because people misunderstand her.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span> -They’ve ascribed to light-mindedness what has only -been the thing that literary people call the divine searching -for perfection.”</p> - -<p>“And do you know the kind of thing she’d consider -perfect?”</p> - -<p>It was so stupid a question that I couldn’t be surprised -to see a gleam of quiet mischief in her glance as she replied, -“From little hints she’s dropped to me, quite confidentially, -I rather think I do.”</p> - -<p>Fair men blush easily, but I tried to ignore the fact -that I was doing it as I said, “That’s quite a common -delusion at one stage of the game; but suppose she were -to find that she was mistaken?”</p> - -<p>The answer shelved the question, though she did it -disconcertingly: “Oh, well, in the case she’s thinking -of I don’t believe she will.”</p> - -<p>I was so eager for data that I pushed the inquiry -indiscreetly.</p> - -<p>“What makes you so sure?”</p> - -<p>“One can tell. It isn’t a thing one can put into words. -You know by a kind of intuition.”</p> - -<p>“Know what?”</p> - -<p>“That a certain kind of person can never have had any -but a certain kind of standard.” She gave me another -of those quietly mischievous glances. “I’ll tell you what -she said to me one day not long ago. She said she’d only -known one man in her life—known him well, that is—of -whom she was sure that he was a thoroughbred to the -core.”</p> - -<p>“But you admitted at the beginning that that kind -of conviction is a danger.”</p> - -<p>“It would be a danger if her friends couldn’t bear her -out in believing it to be justified.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span></p> - -<p>Unable to face any more of this subtle flattery, I was -obliged to let the subject drop.</p> - -<p>The lunch was like any other lunch. As an unimportant -person at a gathering where every one knew every -one else more or less intimately, I was to some extent at -liberty to follow my own thoughts, which were not altogether -happy ones. For telling what I had to tell, the -necessity had grown urgent. What was lacking, what had -always seemed to be lacking, was the positive opportunity. -This I resolved to seek; but suddenly I found it before -me.</p> - -<p>This was toward the middle of the afternoon, when the -party had broken up. It had broken up imperceptibly -by dissolving into groups that strolled about the lawns -and descended the long flights of steps leading to the -beach below. As I had not been seated near Miss Barry -at table, it was no more than civil for me to approach -her when the party was on the veranda and the lawn. -Our right to privacy was recognized at once by a withdrawal -of the rest of the company. It was probably assumed -that I was to be the fourth in the series of experiments -of which Jim Hunter and Stephen Cantyre had -been the second and the third; and, though my fellow-guests -might be sorry for me, they would not intervene -to protect me.</p> - -<p>Considering it sufficient to make their adieux to Mrs. -Barry, they left us undisturbed in a nook of one of the -verandas. Here we were out of sight of any of the -avenues and pathways to the house, and Mrs. Barry -was sufficiently in sympathy with our desire to be alone -not to send any one in search of us. On the lawn robins -were hopping, and along the edge of shorn grass the last -foxgloves made upright lines of color against the olive-green<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span> -scrub-oak. Far down through the trees one caught -the silvery glinting of water.</p> - -<p>The sounds of voices and motor wheels having died -away, Miss Barry said, languidly: “I think they must be -all gone. They’ll say I’m terribly rude to keep myself -out of sight. But it’s lovely here, isn’t it? And this -is such a cozy spot in which to smoke and have coffee. -I read here, too, and— Oh, dear, what’s happening?”</p> - -<p>It was then that the little accident which was to play -so large a part in my life occurred. She had leaned forward -from her wicker chair to set her empty coffee-cup -on the table. As she did so the string of pearls which -she wore at the opening of her simple white dress loosened -itself and slipped like a tiny snake to the floor of the -veranda. From a corresponding chair on the other side -of the table I sprang up and stooped. When I raised myself -with the pearls in my right hand I slipped them into -my pocket.</p> - -<p>Between the fingers of my left hand I held a lighted -cigar. Bareheaded, I was wearing white flannels and -tennis shoes. Now that the moment had come, I felt -extraordinarily cool—as cool as on the night when I had -slipped this string of pearls into my pocket before. I -looked down and smiled at her. Leaning back in her -chair, she looked up and smiled at me.</p> - -<p>I shall always see her like that—in white with a slash -of silk of the red of her lips somewhere about her waist, -and a ribbon of the same round her dashing Panama hat. -Her feet in little brown shoes were crossed. With an -elbow on the arm of her chair, she held a small red -fan out from her person, though she wasn’t actively -using it.</p> - -<p>“What does that mean?” she asked, idly, at last.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus2"> -<img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="500" height="650" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">“Didn’t you ever see any one put these pearls into his -pocket before?”</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span></p> - -<p>“Doesn’t it remind you of anything?”</p> - -<p>“No—of nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you ever see any one put these pearls into his -pocket before?”</p> - -<p>“Why, no!” She added, as if an idea had begun to -dawn in the back of her memory, “Not in that way.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I remember. You didn’t see him put them in -at all. You only saw him take them out.”</p> - -<p>The smile remained on her features, but something -puzzled gave it faint new curves.</p> - -<p>“Why—”</p> - -<p>“It was like this, wasn’t it?”</p> - -<p>I drew out the pearls and threw them on the table.</p> - -<p>She bent forward slightly, still smiling, like a person -watching with bewildered intensity a conjurer’s trick.</p> - -<p>“Why—”</p> - -<p>“Only your gold-mesh purse was with them—and your -diamond bar-pin—and your rings.”</p> - -<p>“Why—who, who on earth could have told you?”</p> - -<p>I, too, continued to smile, consciously wondering if I -should be as calm as this in the hour of death.</p> - -<p>“Who do you think?”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t Elsie Coningsby?”</p> - -<p>“No. She was in the house, but—”</p> - -<p>“How did you know that?” She uttered a mystified -laugh. “She <i>was</i> there! It was one of the nights she -stayed with me when papa and mamma were down here -superintending some changes before we could move in. -But I never told her anything about it.”</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you—when she was right on the spot?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, because.”</p> - -<p>The smile disappeared. She stopped looking up at me -to turn her eyes toward the foxgloves and scrub-oak.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes? Because—what?”</p> - -<p>“Because I promised—that man—I wouldn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Why should you have made him such a promise?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know. Just at the time I was—I was -sorry for him.”</p> - -<p>“And aren’t you sorry for him still?”</p> - -<p>She looked up at me again with one of her bright -challenges.</p> - -<p>“Look here! Do you know him?”</p> - -<p>“Tell me first what I asked you. Aren’t you sorry -for him still?”</p> - -<p>“I dare say I am. I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“What did you—what did you—think of him at the -time?”</p> - -<p>“I thought he was—terrible.”</p> - -<p>“Terrible—in what way?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that I can tell you in what way. It -was so awful to think that a man who had had some -advantages should have sunk to that. If he’d been a real -burglar—I mean a professional criminal—I should have -been afraid of him; but I shouldn’t have had that sensation -of something meant for better things that had been -debased.”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t he tell you he was hungry?”</p> - -<p>The smile came back—faintly.</p> - -<p>“You seem to know all about it, don’t you? It’s -the strangest thing I ever knew. No one in this world -could have told you but himself. Yes, he did say he -was hungry; but then, a man who’d been what he must -have been shouldn’t have got into that condition. He’d -stolen into our pantry, poor creature, and drunk the -cooking-wine. He told me that—” Without rising, her -figure became alert with a new impulse. “Oh, I see!<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span> -You do know him. He was an Englishman. I remember -that.”</p> - -<p>I placed myself fully before her. “No, he wasn’t an -Englishman.”</p> - -<p>“He spoke like one.”</p> - -<p>“So do I, for the matter of that.”</p> - -<p>“Then he was a Canadian. Was he?”</p> - -<p>“He was a Canadian.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, then that accounts for it. But you did puzzle -me at first. But how did you come to meet him? -Was it at that Down and Out Club that papa and -Mr. Christian are so interested in? You go to it, -too, don’t you? I think Stephen Cantyre said you -did.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I go to it, too.”</p> - -<p>She grew pensive, resting her chin on a hand, with -her elbow on the arm of the chair.</p> - -<p>“I suppose it’s all right; but I never can understand -how men can be so merciful to one other’s vices. It -looks as if they recognized the seed of them within themselves.”</p> - -<p>“Probably that’s the reason.”</p> - -<p>“Women don’t feel like that about one another.”</p> - -<p>“They haven’t the same cause.”</p> - -<p>“I hope he’s doing better—that man—and picking up -again.”</p> - -<p>“He is.”</p> - -<p>She asked, in quite another tone, “You’re not going -back to New York to-morrow, are you?”</p> - -<p>“I’m not sure—yet.”</p> - -<p>“Hilda said she was going to try to persuade you and -the Grahams to stay till Tuesday. If you can stay, -mamma and I were planning—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span></p> - -<p>I put myself directly in front of her, no more than a few -feet away, my hands in the pockets of my jacket.</p> - -<p>“Look at me again. Look at me well. Try to recall—”</p> - -<p>Slowly, very slowly, she struggled to her feet. The -color went out of her lips and the light from her eyes -as she backed away from me in a kind of terror.</p> - -<p>“What—what—are you trying to make me—to make -me understand?”</p> - -<p>“Think! How should I know all that I’ve been -saying if—”</p> - -<p>“If the man himself didn’t tell you. But he did.”</p> - -<p>“No, he didn’t. No one had to tell me.”</p> - -<p>She reached the veranda rail, which she clutched with -one hand, while the other, clenched, was pressed against -her breast.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do mean—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you can’t?”</p> - -<p>“Why can’t I.”</p> - -<p>“Because—because it isn’t—it isn’t possible! You”—she -seemed to be shivering—“you could never have—”</p> - -<p>“But I did.”</p> - -<p>She gasped brokenly. “You? You?”</p> - -<p>I nodded. “Yes—I.”</p> - -<p>I tried to tell her, but I suppose I did it badly. Put -into a few bald words the tale was not merely sordid, -it was low. I could give it no softening touch, no saving -grace. It was more beastly than I had ever imagined it.</p> - -<p>Fortunately she didn’t listen with attention. The -means were indifferent to her when she knew the end. -For the minute, at any rate, she saw me not as I stood -there, clean and in white, but as I had been a year before,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span> -dirty and in rags. But she saw more than that. -With every word I uttered she saw the ideal she had -formed broken into shivers, like a shattered looking-glass.</p> - -<p>She interrupted my preposterous story to gasp, “I -can’t believe it!”</p> - -<p>“But it’s true.”</p> - -<p>“Then you mustn’t mind if—if I put you to a test. -Did you—did you write anything while you were -there?”</p> - -<p>“I printed something—in the same kind of letters -you’ve seen at the bottom of architects’ plans.”</p> - -<p>“And how did you come to do it?”</p> - -<p>I recounted the circumstance, at which she nodded -her head in verification.</p> - -<p>“So that was how you knew the words you repeated -to me a few months ago?”</p> - -<p>“That was how. I said there were men in the world -different from any you’d seen yet; and I told you to -wait.”</p> - -<p>She made a tremendous effort to become again the -daring mistress of herself which she generally was. She -smiled, too, nervously, and with a kind of sickening, -ghastly whiteness.</p> - -<p>“Funny, isn’t it? There are men in the world different -from any I’d seen before that time. I’ve—I’ve -waited—and found out.”</p> - -<p>Before I could utter a rejoinder to this she said, quite -courteously, “Will you excuse me?”</p> - -<p>I bowed.</p> - -<p>With no further explanation she marched down the -length of the veranda—carrying herself proudly, placing -her dainty feet daintily, walking with that care which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span> -people show when they are not certain of their ability -to walk straight—and entered the house.</p> - -<p>I didn’t know why she had gone; but I knew the worst -was over. Though I felt humiliation to the core of the -heart’s core, I also felt relief.</p> - -<p>With a foot dangling, I sat sidewise on the veranda -rail and waited. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was -not yet four, and I had lived through years since I had -climbed the hill at one. My sensations were comparable -only to those of the man who has been on trial for his -life and is waiting for the verdict.</p> - -<p>I waited nervously, and yet humbly. Now that it -was all over, it seemed to me that the bitterness of -death was past. Whatever else I should have to go -through in life, nothing could equal the past quarter of -an hour.</p> - -<p>The sensations I hadn’t had while making my confession -began to come to me by degrees. Looking back -over the chasm I had crossed, I was amazed to think I -had had the nerve for it. I trembled reminiscently; the -cold sweat broke out on my forehead. It was terrible -to think that at that very minute she was in there weighing -the evidence, against me and in my favor.</p> - -<p>Mechanically I relighted the cigar that had gone out. -Against me and in my favor! I was not blind to the fact -that in my favor there was something. I had gone down, -but I had also struggled up again; and you can make -an appeal for the man who has done that.</p> - -<p>She was long in coming back. I glanced at my watch, -and it was nearly half past four. Her weighing of the -evidence had taken her half an hour, and it was evidently -not over yet. Well, juries were often slow in coming to -a verdict; and doubtless she was balancing the extenuating<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span> -circumstance that I had struggled up against the main -fact that I had gone down.</p> - -<p>What she considered her ideal had during the past few -weeks been gradually transferring itself from her mind -to my own. She wouldn’t marry a man she couldn’t -trust; she wouldn’t marry a man who hadn’t what she -called spirit; she wouldn’t marry a milksop. But she had -well-defined—and yet indefinable—conceptions as to how -far in spirit a man should go, and of the difference between -being a milksop and a man of honor. She might find it -hard to admit that the pendulum of human impulse that -swung far in one direction might swing equally far in the -other; and therein would lie my danger.</p> - -<p>But I must soon know. It was ten minutes of five. -The jury had been out more than three-quarters of an -hour.</p> - -<p>A new quality was being transmuted into the atmosphere. -It was as if the lightest, flimsiest veil had -been flung across the sun. In the distant glinting of the -sea, which had been silver, there came a tremulous shade -of gold. The foxgloves bowed themselves like men at -prayer. The robins betook themselves to the branches. -From unseen depths of the scrub-oak there was an occasional -luscious trill, as the time for the singing of birds -wasn’t over yet.</p> - -<p>Round me there was silence. I might have been sitting -at the door of an empty house. I listened intently for -the sound of returning footsteps, but none came.</p> - -<p>At a quarter past five a chill about the heart began -to strike me. I had been waiting more than an hour. -Could it be possible that...?</p> - -<p>It would be the last degree of insult. Whatever she -did, she wouldn’t subject me to that. It would be worse<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span> -than her glove across the face. It was out of the question. -I couldn’t bear to think of it. Rather than think of it, -I went over the probabilities that she would come back -with the smile of forgiveness. It would doubtless be a -tearful smile, for tears were surely the cause of her delay. -When she had controlled them, when she was able to -speak and bid me be of good comfort, I should hear the -tap of her high heels coming down the uncarpeted stairway. -No red Indian ever listened for the tread of a -maid’s moccasins on forest moss so intently as I for that -staccato click.</p> - -<p>But only the birds rewarded me, and the cries of boys -who had come to bathe on the beach below. There was -more gold in the light; more trilling in the branches; a -more pungent scent from the trees, the flowers, and the -grass; and that was all.</p> - -<p>It was half past five; it was a quarter to six; it was six.</p> - -<p>At six o’clock I knew.</p> - -<p>My hat was lying on a chair near by. I picked it up—and -went.</p> - -<p>I went, not by the avenue and the path, but down the -queer, rickety flights of steps that led from one jutting -rock to another over the face of the cliff, till I reached the -beach. It was a broad, whitish, sandy beach, with a -quietly lapping tide almost at the full. Full tide was -marked a few feet farther up by a long, wavy line of seaweed -and other jetsam.</p> - -<p>It was the delicious hour for bathing. As far as one -could see in either direction there were heads bobbing -in the water and people scrambling in and out. Shrill -cries of women and children, hoarse shouts of men, -mingled with the piping of birds overhead. Farther out -than the bathers there were rowboats, and beyond the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[213]</span> -rowboats sails. In the middle of the Sound a steamer -or two trailed a lazy flag of smoke. Far, far to the south -and the west a haze like that round a volcano hung -over New York. I should return there next day to face -new conditions. I only wished to God that it could be -that night.</p> - -<p>The new conditions were, briefly, three: I could use the -revolver still lying in my desk; or I could begin to drink -again; or, like the bull wounded in the ring, I could seek -shelter in the dumb sympathy of the Down and Out.</p> - -<p>The last seemed to me the least attractive. I had -climbed that hill, and found it led only to a precipice that -I had fallen over.</p> - -<p>Neither did the first possibility charm me especially. -Apart from the horror of it, it was too brief, too sudden, -too conclusive. I wanted the gradual, the prolonged.</p> - -<p>It was the second course to which my mind turned -with the nearest approach to satisfaction. Christian had -told me that some of my severest tussles lay ahead; and -now I had come to the one in which I should go under. -In that the flesh at least would get its hour of compensation, -when all was said and done.</p> - -<p>At the foot of Mrs. Grace’s steps I paused to recall -Christian’s words of a few days previously:</p> - -<p>“In love and truth together there’s a power which, if -we have the patience to wait for its working out, will -solve all difficulties and meet all needs.”</p> - -<p>I had tried that—love and truth together!—and at the -result I could only laugh.</p> - -<p>My immediate fear was lest Mrs. Grace and the Grahams -would be on the veranda, vaguely expecting to offer -me their congratulations. When half-way up the steps -I heard voices and knew that they were there. So be it!<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[214]</span> -I had faced worse things in my life; and now I could -face that.</p> - -<p>But as I advanced up the lawn I saw them moving -about and talking with animation. As soon as Mrs. -Grace caught sight of me she hurried down the steps, -meeting me as I passed among the flower-beds. She -held a newspaper marked Extra in her hand, and seemed -to have forgotten that I had love-affairs.</p> - -<p>“Have you seen this? Colt, the chauffeur, was at the -station and brought it back. It’s just come down from -New York.”</p> - -<p>Glad of anything that would distract attention from -myself, I took the paper in my hand and pretended to be -reading it. All I got was the vague information that -some one had been assassinated—some man and his morganatic -wife. What did it matter to me? What did it -matter to any one? Of all that was printed there, only -five syllables took possession of my memory—and that -because they were meaningless, “Gavrilo Prinzip!”</p> - -<p>I was repeating them to myself as I handed the paper -back, and we exchanged comments of which I have no -recollection. More comments were passed with the -Grahams, and then, blindly, drunkenly, I made my way -to my room.</p> - -<p>There I found nothing to do less classic than to sit at -the open window, to look over at the red-and-yellow -house on the opposite hill. It was my intention to think -the matter out, but my brain seemed to have stopped working. -Nothing came to me but those barbaric sounds, -that kept repeating themselves with a kind of hiss: -“Gavrilo Prinzip! Gavrilo Prinzip!”</p> - -<p>From my stupefied scanning of the paper I hadn’t -grasped the fact that a name utterly unknown that morning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span> -was being flashed round the world at a speed more -rapid than that of the earth round the sun. Still less did -I suspect that it was to become in its way the most -sinister name in history. I kept repeating it only as you -repeat senseless things in the minutes before you go to -sleep.</p> - -<p>“Gavrilo Prinzip! Gavrilo Prinzip! Gavrilo Prinzip!”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XVII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>I came back as Major Melbury, of one of the Canadian -regiments.</p> - -<p>It was in November, 1916, that I was invalided home -to Canada, lamed and wearing a disfiguring black patch -over what had been my left eye.</p> - -<p>There were other differences of which I can hardly tell -you in so many words, but which must transpire as I go -on. Briefly, they summed themselves up in the fact -that I had gone away one man and I was coming back -another. My old self had not only been melted down in -the crucible, but it had been stamped with a new image -and superscription. It was of a new value and a new -currency, and, I think I may venture to add, of that -new coinage minted in the civil strife of mankind.</p> - -<p>The day of my sailing from Liverpool was exactly two -years four months and three weeks from that on which I -had last seen Regina Barry; and because it was so I must -tell you at once of an incident that occurred at the minute -when I stepped on board.</p> - -<p>Having come up the long gangway easily enough, I -found that at the top, where passengers and their friends -congregate, my difficulties began.</p> - -<p>When my left eye had been shot out the right had suffered -in sympathy, and also from shock to the retina. -For a while I had been blind. Rest and care in the hospital -my sister, Mabel Rideover, maintained at Taplow<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span> -had, however, restored the sight of my right eye; and now -my trouble was only with perspective. People and things -crowded on one another as they do in the vision of a baby. -I would dodge that which was far away, and allow myself -to bump into objects quite near me.</p> - -<p>As I stepped on deck I had a minute or two of bewilderment. -There were so many men more helpless than I -that whatever care there was to give was naturally bestowed -on them. Moreover, most of those who thronged -the top of the gangway had too many anxieties of their -own to notice that a man who at worst was only half -blind didn’t know which way to turn.</p> - -<p>But I did turn—at a venture. The venture took me -straight into a woman holding a baby in her arms, whom -I crushed against the nearest cabin wall. The woman -protested; the baby screamed. I was about, in the rebound, -to crash into some other victim when I felt from -behind me a hand take me by the arm. An almost invisible -guide began to pilot me through the crowd. All -I caught sight of was a Canadian nurse’s uniform.</p> - -<p>It is one of the results of the war that men, who are -often reduced to the mere shreds of human nature, grow -accustomed to being taken care of by women, who remain -the able-bodied ones.</p> - -<p>“Thanks,” I laughed, as the light touch pushed me -along, slightly in advance. “You caught me right in the -nick of time. I can see pretty well with my good eye, -only I can’t measure distances. They tell me that will -come by degrees.”</p> - -<p>Even though occupied with other thoughts, I was surprised -that my rescuer didn’t respond to my civility, for -another result of the war is the ease with which the men -and women who have been engaged in it get on terms of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span> -natural acquaintanceship. When artificial barriers are -removed, it is extraordinary how quickly we go back to -primitive human simplicity. Social and sex considerations -have thus been minimized to a degree which, it -seems to me, will make it difficult ever to re-establish -them in their old first place. They say it was an advance -in civilization when we ceased to see each other as primarily -males and females and knew we were men and -women. Possibly the war will lead us a step farther -still and reveal us as children of one family.</p> - -<p>That a nurse shouldn’t have a friendly word for a partly -incapacitated man struck me, therefore, as odd, though -my mind would not have dwelt on the circumstance if -she hadn’t released my arm as abruptly as she had taken -it. Having helped me to reach a comparatively empty -quarter of the deck, she had counted, apparently, on the -slowness and awkwardness of my movements to slip -away before I could turn round.</p> - -<p>When I managed this feat she was already some yards -down the length of the deck, hurrying back toward the -crowd from which we had emerged. I saw then that she -was too little to be tall and too tall to be considered little. -Moreover, she carried herself proudly, placing her dainty -feet daintily, and walking with that care which people -display when they are not certain of their ability to walk -straight. Reaching one of the entrances, she went in, -exactly as I had seen a woman pass through a doorway -two years four months and three weeks before.</p> - -<p>I was sure it was she—and yet I told myself it couldn’t -be. I told myself it couldn’t be, for the reason that I -had been deceived so frequently before that I had grown -distrustful of my senses. All through the intervening -time I had been getting glimpses of a slight figure here,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span> -of an alert movement there, of the poise of a head, of -the wave of a hand—that for an instant would make my -heart stop beating; but in the end it had meant nothing -but the stirring of old memories. In this case I could -have been convinced if the coincidence had not put too -great a strain on all the probabilities.</p> - -<p>I was to learn later that there was no coincidence; but -I must tell my story in its right order.</p> - -<p>The right order takes me back to my return to New -York, after my week-end at Mrs. Grace’s, on the morning -of June 29, 1914.</p> - -<p>During the two or three hours of jogging down the -length of Long Island in the train I tried to keep out of -my mind all thoughts but one; having deposited my bags -at my rooms, I should go to Stinson’s.</p> - -<p>With regard to this intention I was clearly aware of -a threefold blend of reaction.</p> - -<p>First, there was the pity of it. I could take a detached -view of this downfall, just as if I had heard of it in connection -with Beady Lamont or old Colonel Straight. -Though I should be only a man dropped in the ranks, -while they would have been leaders, the grief of my comrades -over my collapse would be no less sincere.</p> - -<p>But by tearing my mind away from that aspect of the -case I reverted to the satisfaction at being in the gutter, -of which the memories had never ceased to haunt me. I -cannot expect to make you, who have always lived on -the upper levels, understand this temptation; I can only -tell you that for men who have once been outside the -moral law there is a recurrent tugging at the senses to -get there again. I once knew an Englishman who had -lived in the interior of Australia and had “gone black.” -On his return to make his home in England he was seized<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[220]</span> -with so consuming a nostalgia for his black wives and -black children that in the end he went back to them. -Something like this was the call I was always hearing—the -call of Circe to go down.</p> - -<p>But I knew, too, that there was method in this madness. -I was deliberately starting out to earn the wages -of sin; and the wages of sin would be death. I must -repeat that going to Stinson’s would be no more than -a slow, convenient process of committing suicide. It -would be committing suicide in a way for which Regina -Barry would not have to feel herself responsible, as she -would were I to use the revolver. Having brought so -much on her, I was unwilling to bring more, even though -my heart was hot against her.</p> - -<p>My heart was hot against her—and yet I had to admit -that she had been within her rights. When all was -said that could be said in my favor, I had deceived her. -I had let her go on for the best part of a year believing -me to be what I was not, when during much of the time -I could see that such a belief was growing perilous to her -happiness. I had been a coward. I should have said -from the first moment—the moment when she took me -for my brother Jack—“I am a crook.” Then all would -have been open and aboveboard between us; but as it -was there was only one way out. Any other way—any -way that would have allowed me to go on living longer -than the time it would take drink to kill me—would have -been unbearable.</p> - -<p>The checkmate to these musings came when my eyes -fell upon Lovey. He was at the door of the apartment, -not only to welcome me, but to give me ocular demonstration -that he had kept the faith while I had been away. -It was the first time since the beginning of our association<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span> -that I had left him for forty-eight hours; and that -he was on his honor during those two days was no secret -between us. The radiant triumph of his greeting struck -into me like a stab.</p> - -<p>For Lovey now was almost as completely reconstructed -as I. I use the qualifying “almost” only because the -longer standing of his habits and the harder conditions -of his life had burnt the past more indelibly into him. -Of either of us one could say, as the Florentines are reported -to have said of Dante, “There goes a man who has -been in hell”; but the marks of the experience had been -laid more brutally on my companion than on me.</p> - -<p>Otherwise he showed cheering signs of resuscitation. -Neat, even at the worst of times, he was now habitually -scrubbed and shaved, and as elegant as Colonel Straight’s -establishment could turn him out. He had, in fact, for -the hours he had free from washing windows, metamorphosed -himself into the typical, self-respecting English -valet, with a pride in his work sprung chiefly of devotion.</p> - -<p>And for me he made a home. I mean by that that he -was always there—something living to greet me, to move -about in the dingy little apartment. As I am too gregarious, -I may say too affectionate, to live contentedly -alone, it meant much to me to have some one else within -the walls I called mine, even if actual companionship -was limited.</p> - -<p>But whatever it was, I was about to destroy it. I could -scarcely look him in the eyes; I could hardly say a word -to him.</p> - -<p>While unpacking my suit-case he said, timorously, -“Y’ain’t sick, Slim?”</p> - -<p>I began to change the suit I had been wearing for one -that would attract less attention at Stinson’s.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span></p> - -<p>“No, Lovey; I’m all right. I’m just—I’m just going -out.”</p> - -<p>And I went out. I went out without bidding the poor -old fellow good-by, though I knew it was the last the -anxious pale-blue eyes would see of me in that phase of -comradeship. When next we met I should probably be -drunk, and he would have come to get drunk in my -company. It would then be a question as to which of -us would hold out the longer.</p> - -<p>And that was the thought that after an hour or two -turned me back. I could throw my own life away, but I -couldn’t throw away his. However reckless I might be -on my own account, I couldn’t be so when I held another -man’s fate in my hand.</p> - -<p>Even so, I didn’t go back at once. Half-way to Stinson’s—I -was on foot—I came to a sudden halt. It -was as if the sense of responsibility toward Lovey -wouldn’t allow me to go any farther. I said to myself -that I must think the matter out—that I must -find and would find additional justification for my -course before going on.</p> - -<p>To do that I turned into a chance hotel.</p> - -<p>I like the wide hospitality of American hotels, where -any tired or lonesome wayfarer can enter and sit down. -I have never been a clubman. Clubs are too elective -and selective for my affinities; they are too threshed -and winnowed and refined. I have never in spirit had -any desire to belong to a chosen few, since not only in -heart, but in tastes and temperament, I belong to the -unchosen many. I enjoy, therefore, the freedom and -promiscuity of the lobby, where every Tom, Dick, and -Harry has the same right as I.</p> - -<p>Annoyed by the fact that a halt had been called in my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[223]</span> -errand of self-destruction, I began to ask myself why. -The only answer that came to me was that this old man, -this old reprobate, if one chose to call him so, cared for -me. He had been giving me an affection that prompted -him to the most vital sacrifice, to the most difficult kind -of self-control.</p> - -<p>Then suddenly that truth came back to me which -Andrew Christian had pointed out a few months earlier, -and which in the mean time had grown dim, that any -true love is of God.</p> - -<p>I was startled. I was awed. In saying these things I -am trying only to tell you what happened in my inner -self; and possibly when a man’s inner self has plumbed -the depths like mine it means more to him to get a bit -of insight than it does to you who have always been on -the level. In any case this question rose within me: -Was it possible that out of this old man, this drunkard, -this murderer, cast off by his children, cast out by men, -some feeble stream was welling up toward me from that -pure and holy fountain that is God? Was it possible that -this strayed creature had, through what he was giving -me—me!—been finding his way back to the universal -heart? If ever a human being had been dwelling in love -he had been dwelling in it for a year and more; and -there were the words, distilled out of the consciousness -of the ages, and written for all time, “He that dwelleth -in love dwelleth in God.” Was it God that this poor, -purblind old fellow had all unconsciously been bringing -me, shedding round us, keeping us straight, making us -strong, making us prosperous, helping us to fight our -way upward?</p> - -<p>I went back.</p> - -<p>But on the way I had another prompting—one that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[224]</span> -took me into the office of a tourist company to consult -time-tables and buy tickets.</p> - -<p>“Lovey,” I said, when I got home, “we must both -begin packing for all we’re worth. We’re leaving for -Montreal to-night.”</p> - -<p>“Goin’ to see your people, Slim, and stay in that swell -hotel?”</p> - -<p>“Not just now, Lovey. Later, perhaps. First of all -we’re going for a month into the woods north of the -Ottawa.”</p> - -<p>His jaw dropped. “Into the woods?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, old sport. You’ll like it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, I won’t, Slim. I never was in no woods in -my life—except London and New York. There’s one -thing I never could abide, and that’s trees.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t say that when you’ve seen real trees. -We’ll shoot and fish and camp out—”</p> - -<p>“Camp out? In a tent, like? Oh, I couldn’t, sonny! -I’d ketch me death!”</p> - -<p>“Then if you do we’ll come back; only, we’ve got to -go now.”</p> - -<p>“Why have we? It’s awful nice here in New York; -and I don’t pay no attention to people that says it’s -too hot.”</p> - -<p>I made the appeal which I knew he would not resist. -Laying my hand on his shoulder, I said: “Because, old -man, I’m—I’m in trouble. I want to get away where—where -I sha’n’t see—some one—again—and I need you.”</p> - -<p>“It ain’t that girl, Slim? She—she haven’t turned -you down?”</p> - -<p>The words took me so much by surprise that I hadn’t -time to get angry. All I could feel was a foolish, nervous -kind of coolness.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[225]</span></p> - -<p>“Lovey, what I want you to know I’ll tell you; and at -present I’m telling you this: I’ve got to get out; I’ve -got to get out quick; and I need you to buck me up. -No one can buck me up like you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if it’s that!” He would have followed me then -to places more dreadful than the Canadian woods. “Will -you take all your suits—or only just them new summer -things?”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[226]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XVIII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Thus it happened that when war broke out I was -deep in the wilderness. For more than a month I -had had no contact with the outside world, not a letter, -not a newspaper. I had escaped from New York without -leaving an address, since Cantyre was absent. I had -meant to write to him to have my letters forwarded, -but I never had. Could I have guessed that war was to -begin and to last so long I might have acted differently; -but the name of Gavrilo Prinzip was still meaningless.</p> - -<p>All sportsmen in my part of Canada know Jack Hiller’s, -just as frequenters of the Adirondacks know Paul Smith’s. -From Jack Hiller’s we struck farther in, to the rude camp -where I had spent many a happy holiday when I was a -lad. Two guides, an Indian and a half-breed, did the -heavy work; and some long-forgotten, atavistic sporting -strain in Lovey allowed him, groaningly and discontentedly, -to enjoy himself.</p> - -<p>But if I expected to find peace I saw I was mistaken. -The distance I had put between myself and the house -dominating Long Island Sound was only geographical. -In spirit I was always back on that veranda, living -through again the minutes of the long waiting. So the -solitude was no solitude for me. And then one day the -half-breed’s canoe shot over the waters of the lake, bringing -supplies from Jack Hiller’s, with the news that the -world had gone to war.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[227]</span></p> - -<p>I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of men -and women there are to whom the war came as a blessed -opportunity to get away from uselessness or heartache. -Stranded, purposeless, spiritless, futile, tired, empty, with -something broken in the life or seemingly at an end, they -suddenly found themselves called on to put forth energies -they never knew they had, to meet needs they had never -heard of.</p> - -<p>“Son of man, can these dry bones live?” one might -have been asking oneself a few years previously; and all -at once there were multitudes, multitudes in the valley -of decision, energized into newness of being. Among -them I was only one humble, stupid individual; but the -summons was like that which came to the dust when it -was bidden to be Adam and a man.</p> - -<p>I have no intention of telling you in detail what happened -to me between that August morning in 1914 and the -day I stepped on board the boat at Liverpool more than -two years later. There is no need. You know the outlines -of that tale already. My case hardly differed externally -from any other of the millions of cases you have -heard about. The machine of war does not vary in its -working much more than any other machine, except for -the drama played in each man’s soul.</p> - -<p>And of that I can say nothing. I don’t know why—but -I cannot. Day and night I think of what I saw and -heard and did in those two years, but some other language -must be coined before I can begin to speak of it.</p> - -<p>In this I am not singular; it is a rule to which I know -few, if any, exceptions. I have heard returned soldiers -on the lecture platform, telling part of the truth, and -nothing but the truth, but never the whole truth nor -the most vital truth. I have talked with some of them<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span> -when the lectures were over, and a flare in the eye has -said, “This is for public consumption; but you and I -know that the realities are not to be put into words.”</p> - -<p>One little incident I must give you, however, before I -revert to what happened on the boat.</p> - -<p>Having in that early August made my way to Ottawa -with Lovey, and decided that I must respond at once to -the country’s call, I expected a struggle with him, or -something bitter in the way of protest. But in this I was -mistaken. He, too, had been thinking the matter over, -and, hard as it would be for him to see me do it, that quiet -valor which practically no Englishman is without raised -him at once to the level of his part.</p> - -<p>“All right, Slim. It’s yer dooty to go, and mine to -give ye up. We won’t say no more about that.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks, Lovey, for making it so easy for me. I’ll -never forget it as long as I live. Now there’s only one -thing—”</p> - -<p>“If it’s about me goin’ straight, sonny, while ye’re -away, I’ll swear to God not to look so much as on the -same side o’ the street as a drop o’ liquor till He brings -ye back to me.”</p> - -<p>“Then I believe He will bring me back, old fellow.”</p> - -<p>“Sure He’ll bring ye back. Ye’ll be ’ome before Christmas; -and, Slim, if it isn’t goin’ to cost ye too much -money, won’t ye ’old on to them rooms so as I can keep -our little place together, like, and ’ave it all clean and -nice for you—?”</p> - -<p>Having consented to this, I was able to make further -provision for the old man when Cantyre joined me for a -day or two in Montreal to bid me good-by. Lovey’s heroism -was the sort of thing to draw out Cantyre’s sentimental -vein of approval.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[229]</span></p> - -<p>“I’ll take him and look after him, Frank. He’ll valet -me till you come back. I’ve always wanted a man to do -that sort of thing, and only haven’t had one because I -thought it would look like putting on side. But now that -he drops down to me out of heaven, as you might say, -I’ll take him as a souvenir of you.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[230]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XIX</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>All these interests had seemed far away from me -during the two and a half years over there; but in -proportion as I drew near Liverpool that morning they -reformed themselves in the mists of the near future, as -old memories come back with certain scents and scenes. -Not till the damp, smoky haze of the great port was closing -in round me did I realize that my more active part -in the vast cosmic episode was at an end, and that I -had come to the hour I had so often longed for—and was -going home.</p> - -<p>I was going home; and yet, for the minute, at any -rate, I was not glad. There is always something painful -in the taking up again of forsaken ties, however much we -once loved them. It was like a repetition of the effort -with which I had renewed my relations with my people. -The actual has a way of seizing us in its tentacles and -making us feel that it is the only life we ever truly led. -There was a time when I seemed to forget that I had ever -been anywhere but in the trenches. During the month -or two that I was blind I got so used to the condition as -to find it strange that I had ever seen. And always, in -face of the fierce intensity of the present, the life in New -York was remote, shadowy, and dim, as they say the -life in prison becomes from its very monotony to those -who look back on it after their release.</p> - -<p>What it really amounted to was that during those two<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span> -years I seemed to have grown in the size of my mental -conceptions. Having been hurled into an existence gigantic, -monstrous, in which there were no limits to either the -devotion or the cruelty of human beings toward one -another, all other ways of living had grown pale and -small. If you can imagine yourself swirling through -space, riding both zephyrs and tempests equally as a -matter of course, you can understand how tame it would -seem to be tied down to earth again, to go at nothing -more stimulating than a walking pace. Otherwise typified, -a lion that has been in a cage, and after two and a -half years of free roving in the jungle finds itself returned -to the cage again, would probably have the same sinking -of the heart as I when I saw the hulk of the <i>Assiniboia</i> -loom up before me in the dock.</p> - -<p>And then came that odd little incident of the nurse -to connect me with the past by a new form of excitement. -I have to confess that it was excitement largely compounded -of wonder and distress. A dull ache told me -that sensation was returning to a deadened nerve, and -that where I had supposed there was paralysis at least -there was going to be reaction and perhaps a pang.</p> - -<p>For by this time I had passed through that process -which is commonly known as “getting over it.” That -is, a new self was living a new life on a new plane of -existence. All that belonged to the period before I went -to enlist at Ottawa was on the other side of a flood. I -had not precisely forgotten; I had only died and become -a transmigrated soul. Whatever was past was past. I -might suffer from it; I might feel its consequences; but -I couldn’t live it again. On the other hand, I was living -vividly in the present. Not so much consciously or by -word as because I couldn’t help it, I had merged everything<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span> -I was into one dominating purpose with which, as -far as I was aware, Regina Barry had nothing to do. -The aims for which the war was being fought were my -aims; I had no others. When these objectives were won -my life, it seemed to me, would be over. It would melt -away in that victory as dawn into sunrise. It would -not be lost; it would only be absorbed—a spark in the -blaze of noonday.</p> - -<p>So mentally I was pressing forward. Though I could -do no more fighting, I had been told that there was still -work by which I could contribute to the object beside -which no other object could be taken into consideration. -I was being sent back for that reason. Not much had -been told me as yet about what I was to do, but I understood -that it was to be in connection with American public -opinion. It will be remembered that at the end of -1916 the United States was not only not in the war, but -it was still doubtful as to whether or not she ever would -be. The hand of a cautious listener being on the pulse -of a patient people, it was on the beat of that pulse that -the issue turned.</p> - -<p>I understood that, with my acquaintance ranging among -high and low, I was to do what I could to make the pulse -a little quicker. I might not be able to do much, but -we had all learned the value of small individual contributions. -It was argued that in proportion as the American -people began to see on which side the balance of righteousness -dipped, my game leg and my black patch, -and the haggardness and gauntness and batteredness of -my whole appearance, would have some appeal. The -appeal would be the stronger for the fact that I was not -an Englishman, but a Canadian—blood-brother to the -man of his own continent, blood-brother to the Briton,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[233]</span> -blood-brother to the Frenchman, blood-son of the great -ideals fathered by the Anglo-Saxon race, and in which all -free peoples in the course of two hundred years had been -made participants—and quick to spring to their defense. -I was to be, therefore, a kind of unobtrusive, unaccredited -ambassador to the man in the office and the street, with -instructions to be inoffensive but persuasive.</p> - -<p>And on this mission all my conscious thought was set. -No hermit in the desert was ever more entirely self-dedicated -to the saving of his soul than I to the quiet -preaching of this new crusade among men like Ralph -Coningsby and Stephen Cantyre and Beady Lamont and -Headlights and Daisy and Momma and Mouse, and any -others with whom I should come in contact. In fulfilling -this task I wanted no one to disturb or distract me; and -here at the very outset was some one who might do both.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[234]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XX</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>After having found my cabin and seen to my belongings -I hobbled up on deck once more, to verify -my vision of the Canadian nurse’s uniform. I discovered -the uniform in two or three instances, but in none that -corresponded to the figure too little to be tall and too tall -to be considered little I had watched receding down the -deck.</p> - -<p>As for the costume itself, it was not difficult to find -myself beside one of the ladies who wore it—a beautiful, -grave woman, of the type of Bouguereau’s Consolatrice, -who, with hands resting on the deck rail, was looking down -at the movement on the dock.</p> - -<p>“There seem to be a number of nurses going back,” I -observed, after an introductory word or two.</p> - -<p>“There are three in our party—myself and the two -over there.”</p> - -<p>The two over there were two I had already seen, -neither of them being my pilot of a half-hour previously.</p> - -<p>“I thought I saw another,” I threw off, casually.</p> - -<p>“I believe there is one—an American girl from Lady -Rideover’s hospital at Taplow.”</p> - -<p>As I had just come from Lady Rideover’s hospital at -Taplow, and Lady Rideover herself was my sister, I suggested, -without mentioning the relationship, that in this -speculation there was some mistake.</p> - -<p>“She may not have come directly from there,” the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span> -Consolatrice admitted; “but I know she was with Lady -Rideover six months ago.”</p> - -<p>“But six months ago I was with Lady Rideover -myself.”</p> - -<p>“Well, she was there then.”</p> - -<p>“But I should have seen her if she had been.”</p> - -<p>She turned slowly round on me, with deep, kind eyes. -“Would you? You could see all the time?”</p> - -<p>I had forgotten that. There had been two months -when I hadn’t seen at all. Any one might have come -and gone during that time.</p> - -<p>Remarking on the inconvenience of having no list of -passengers, I asked my companion if she knew the young -lady’s name.</p> - -<p>“No; but I can inquire of my friends. They may -know.”</p> - -<p>Having crossed to speak to the nurses on the other -side of the deck, she came back without the information.</p> - -<p>“But Miss Prynne,” she added, “that’s the short one, -says that the young lady came over about two years ago -with Lady Rideover’s sister, Miss Melbury, of Montreal.”</p> - -<p>I withdrew to ponder. I had been in continuous if -desultory communication with my sisters during all my -time abroad, and no mention of Regina Barry had ever -escaped either. I had not supposed that they knew one -another. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that I had -been under the same roof with her at Taplow and had -not been aware of it. And here she was on board the ship -on which I was returning home, and able to come to my -aid at a minute when I wanted help.</p> - -<p>I had often wished that some of my New York correspondents -would speak of her, but no one ever had. Except -in the case of Cantyre this was hardly strange, for—apart<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span> -from Hilda Grace, who never wrote to me—no -one knew that Regina Barry and I had meant anything -to each other. If Cantyre had spoken of her, it would -have been on his own account; but confidential as he -was in private talk, his letters were never more than a -few terse lines. So I had rather bitterly imagined her as -going on with the testing of other men, as she had tested -Jim Hunter, Cantyre, and me—trying them and finding -them wanting. In ungenerous moments I went so far as -to hope that Nemesis might overtake her in some tremendous -passion in which she herself would be tried and -tossed aside.</p> - -<p>It was, however, the second day out before I actually -came face to face with her. Her absence from the deck -had been part of the mystery. Having swung into the -Mersey, we remained there all Sunday night—it was a -Sunday we had gone on board—and much of Monday. -Accepting as necessary the secrecy which in war-time -enshrouds an Atlantic voyage, the passengers had made -themselves as comfortable as the conditions permitted, -and taken air and exercise by promenading the decks. -There could have been no better opportunity for finding -familiar faces, but, apart from one or two distant acquaintances, -I saw none. The three nurses’ uniforms I -had noted already were continually about; but I never -found the fourth.</p> - -<p>And then on Tuesday, after we had lost sight of the -Irish coast, there was another queer little incident. As I -could walk but little, I had been reading in the music-room. -Tired of doing that and eager to continue my -search for the missing uniform, I had limped to the doorway, -screened by a heavy portière, leading out toward -the companionway. But while I stood turning up the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span> -collar of my overcoat the portière was suddenly pulled -aside, and we were before each other, with a suggestion -of a similar occurrence three and a half years before.</p> - -<p>The very differences in my appearance—the mustache, -the patch over my left eye, the military coat—must have -helped to recall the earlier occasion by the indirect means -of contrast. As for her, she was what she had seemed to -me then—two great flaming eyes. They were tired eyes -now, haunted, tragic perhaps, and I saw later that when -you caught them off their guard they were pensive, if -not mournful. They were, indeed, all I could see of her, -for the rest of her features were hidden by the veil over -the lower part of the face which women occasionally copy -from the Turkish lady’s yashmak. A small black cap, -held by a jade-green pin, and a long, shapeless black -ulster or coat completed a costume quite unlike the uniform -for which I had been looking.</p> - -<p>I can only describe that encounter as the meeting of -two transmigrated souls. She had gone as far in her -direction as I in mine; but I couldn’t tell at a glance in -what direction she had gone. It was what struck me -dumb. When Paolo and Francesca met in space they -had nothing to say to each other except with the eyes. -In some such case as that we found ourselves. The -pressure of topics was too great to allow of immediate -selection. She seemed to wait for me to utter the first -word, and as I was at a loss she dropped the portière -behind her, inclined her head, and passed on into the -saloon.</p> - -<p>Though it was my place to follow her, I couldn’t, for -the minute, take so obvious a course. I was not only -too mystified by what I had heard of her, but too confused -as to our standing toward each other. I couldn’t<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span> -begin with a “How do you do?” as if we had parted on -the ordinary social terms, while anything more dramatic -would have been absurd. Hobbling along the deck, I -took refuge in the smoking-room in order to reflect.</p> - -<p>Reflection was not easy. Over its calm fields emotion -spread like water through a broken dike. For two and a -half years the emotional had been so stemmed and -banked and dammed in me that I had thought it under -control forever. I had had enough to do in giving orders -or carrying them out. But, now that the repressed had -broken its bounds again, the tide swept everything away -with it.</p> - -<p>Not that I knew just what I was experiencing; on the -contrary, I couldn’t have disentangled the element of -anger from that of curiosity, nor that of curiosity from -that of joy. All I could say for certain was that never -in my life had I been so anxious to keep free; never had -I so much needed concentration and single-mindedness. -The task to which I had vowed my undivided energy -and heart demanded a genuine celibacy of the will; and -now of all the women in the world....</p> - -<p>I was working on this train of thought when I became -aware that people were running along the deck. Glancing -about me at the same moment, I saw I was alone in -the smoking-room. A whistle blew, piercingly, alarmingly. -By the time I had struggled to my feet the ship -changed her course so sharply as to throw me against -a chair.</p> - -<p>I knew what it was, of course. We had been talking -of the possibility ever since we left the Mersey. However -much we tried to keep the mind away from the subject, -it came back to it, as a mischievous boy makes -straight for the thing forbidden him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[239]</span></p> - -<p>My first thought was for the girl in the yashmak. I -must find her, see she had a life-belt, and take her to her -boat. Before I had scrambled to the door, however, it -flew open, apparently of its own accord, while a wild -nor’wester positively blew the young lady in.</p> - -<p>It also blew away anything like Paolo-and-Francesca -sentiment.</p> - -<p>“Oh, here you are!” she exclaimed, breathlessly. -“I’ve been hunting for you everywhere. They say we’ve -sighted a periscope. Take this and put it on.”</p> - -<p>Of the two life-belts she carried she flung one to me, -beginning to fasten the other about herself.</p> - -<p>“But the one you’ve brought me must belong to some -one else,” I objected, as I aided her. “I’ve got one of my -own in my cabin. I’ll just run down—”</p> - -<p>She brushed this aside. “No; this is yours. I went -and got it.”</p> - -<p>“You—” I began in astonishment.</p> - -<p>“I’m a nurse—or a kind of one,” she said, hastily. -“That’s what I’m here for.”</p> - -<p>“But you knew where my cabin was?”</p> - -<p>“I found out. Oh, hurry—please!”</p> - -<p>She helped me as a medieval lady might have helped -her lord to buckle on his sword; and presently we were -out on deck.</p> - -<p>As we had twice already drilled in the unsightly things, -we had lost the sense of the grotesque appearance presented -by ourselves and our fellow-travelers. Besides, -we were too eager to descry the periscope to have any -more thought of ourselves than a wild duck of how it -looks when skimming away from a sniper. Indeed, it -was chiefly of a hunted wild duck that our zigzagging -boat reminded me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span></p> - -<p>It was a sullen day, with that scudding of low, gray -clouds which looks as if the heavens were hastening to some -Armageddon of their own. The sea had hardly got over -the swell left by one gale when it was being lashed into -fury by another. The <i>Assiniboia</i> pitched and rolled and -tore through the waters like a monster goaded by innumerable -stings. I should have found it next to impossible -to struggle along the deck had my protectress -not stood by and steadied me.</p> - -<p>There was a kind of foolish pretense at the chivalrous -in my tone as I said, “I’ll just see you to your boat -before going over to mine.”</p> - -<p>“We’re in the same boat,” she answered, briefly. “Do -come along.”</p> - -<p>I thought of my forty-eight hours of unfruitful search -for her.</p> - -<p>“But I didn’t see you at Number Seven when we drilled -yesterday.”</p> - -<p>“I’m there now,” she said, with the same brevity. -Feeling, apparently, that some explanation was needed, -she went on: “I’ve—I mean they—they’ve changed -me. Miss Prynne has let me have—or rather she’s -taken— That is,” she finished, in confusion, “we’re -all nurses together—and we’ve—we’ve exchanged.”</p> - -<p>In spite of some inward observations, I spared her any -other comment than to say, “How jolly!” as if the exchange -had been the most matter-of-course thing in the -world.</p> - -<p>I spoke just now of riding tempests and zephyrs, and -something like that it was to plow along at every ounce -of steam, with cross seas, head seas, seas abeam, and -seas abaft, as each new zigzag caught them. On the -roaring of the wind and the plunge and thunder of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span> -waves one rose into regions of tumultuous play where life -and death were the stakes. I saw no signs of fear, and -still less of panic; nor, so far as the eye could read, anything -more than a sporting excitement. One would have -said that our peril was accepted as being all in the game, -part of the day’s work. By the end of 1916 Atlantic -travelers had come to take the submarine for granted, -just as the statesmen of Plantagenet and Tudor times -took the headsman’s block as one of the natural risks -of going into politics.</p> - -<p>But we looked instinctively for a periscope. It is not -an easy thing for any one to see, and for me it was more -difficult than for most. I saw none; or I saw a hundred. -With the imperfect vision of my one eye the crests of the -billows bristled with moving four-inch pipes; and then -suddenly all would disappear and I saw nothing but the -waves curling upward into coronets of foam with veils -of trailing lace.</p> - -<p>Not that I was worse off in this respect than my fellow-travelers. -As they ran for their boats they would pause, -take a hurried look at the seas, exclaiming, “There it is!” -and then, more doubtfully, “No, no!” all in one breath. -The “No, no!” was generally uttered in a tone of disappointment, -since to cross the ocean and sight no submarine -would have been like journeying through Egypt -and missing the pyramids.</p> - -<p>And yet our danger was apparent. Only a fortnight -before the <i>Kamouraska</i>, sister ship to the <i>Assiniboia</i>, had -been sent to the bottom in these very waters, with great -loss of life. Of the tragedy the papers had given us -realistic pictures that were fresh in all our minds. There -was a preliminary scene on board not unlike the one we -were enacting. We saw later a shell bursting on the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span> -deck, somewhere amidships. We saw the passengers and -crew taking to the boats with shells kicking up geysers -among them as they tried to get away. We saw the great -ship sticking as straight up out of the water as a Cleopatra’s -Needle, before going slowly down. We saw the -U-boat herself lying on the water like a crocodile, some -four thousand yards away; we saw Queenstown as a -morgue. All this was as vividly in our minds as a rehearsal -to the actors of a play; and yet we were probably -no more nervous than the company on a first night when -the curtain is going up.</p> - -<p>The word went round that it was the fate of the <i>Kamouraska</i>, -with the futility of her surrender as a means -of saving the passengers’ lives, that prompted our captain -to flight and fight. Our wireless calls were undoubtedly -going up and down the Irish coast and out into the -ocean. Within an hour or two, if we could hold out so -long, destroyers would be rushing to our rescue. We -had nothing to be terribly afraid of with more than an -imaginative fear.</p> - -<p>That imaginative fear was quickened by the seemingly -maddened action of our ship. I can best describe her as -a leviathan gone insane. If insanity were to overtake a -whale it would probably splash the deep in some such -frenzy as this—so many angles out of the course one way—then -a violent heeling over—so many angles out of the -course another way—anyway, anywhere, anything—to -get out of that straight, staid line from port to port which -makes an ocean-going ship a liner. I admit that in this -wild, erratic dashing there was something that alarmed -us, and something, too, that made us laugh. It was the -comic side of madness, in which you can hardly see the -terrible because of the grotesque.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span></p> - -<p>By the time we reached life-boat No. 7 there were -many signs that neither officers nor passengers were going -to take more chances than they were obliged to. At -No. 5 on one side of us a young officer was on top, peeling -off the tarpaulin covering. At No. 9 on the other side -some of the crew were already mounted, examining supplies -and oars. At our own boat, cranks were being -fitted to the davits to swing the boat outward. All along -the line similar preparations were in progress, while men -and women—luckily we had no children on board—carrying -such wraps and hand-bags as they might reasonably -take, stood in groups, waiting for what was to happen -next.</p> - -<p>Our view of the sea was largely cut off here by the -bulk of the life-boats, though wherever there was a chink -there was also a cluster of heads. So many saw periscopes—and -so many didn’t see them—that it became -a mild joke. In general we surmised that if a U-boat -was cruising round us at all she had only been porpoising—sticking -up her periscope for a second or two to get a -look round, and withdrawing it before it could be seen by -any eye not on that very spot.</p> - -<p>The girl in the yashmak and I arrived so late on the -scene that there were no places left by the rail, and we -were obliged to content ourselves with second-hand information -as to what was taking place. Our excitement -had, therefore, a lack of point, like that of the small boy -behind the line of grown-up people watching a procession. -We fell back in the end into a kind of alcove, where, being -partially protected from wind and tumult, we could speak -to each other without shouting.</p> - -<p>I took the opportunity to thank her for her kindness to -me when I came on board on Sunday; but with my opening<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span> -words the air of Francesca meeting Paolo in space came -over her again. I understood her to say that her help -on Sunday was a little thing, that she would have given -it to any one.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” I agreed, “you would have given it to -any one; but in this case you gave it to me. You must -allow me to thank you before anything happens that -might—that might make gratitude too late.”</p> - -<p>As I think of her now I can see that she was mistress -of herself in the way that a letter-perfect actress is mistress -of herself, repeating words that have been learned -to fit a certain situation. She had foreseen that I would -say something of the kind; she had foreseen that when I -did she might be a prey to troublesome emotions; and -so had fortified herself in advance by a studied set -of phrases.</p> - -<p>“I’m so little of a nurse that I should be ashamed not -to do for a soldier the few small things in my power.”</p> - -<p>If she had never made me suffer anything, and if the -moment had not been one that might conceivably end -our relations forever, I should probably not have uttered -the words that came to me next.</p> - -<p>“Was it only because I’m a soldier—?”</p> - -<p>She interrupted skilfully. “Only because you’re a soldier? -Isn’t a soldier the most splendid man in the world—especially -at a time like this?”</p> - -<p>Bang!</p> - -<p>It was one of our two guns. As a merchantman, not -built to withstand the concussion of cannon, the <i>Assiniboia</i> -shuddered.</p> - -<p>With an involuntary start my companion caught me -by the sleeve. The impulse to seize her hand and draw -it gently within my arm was irresistible. Had I reflected,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[245]</span> -I might not have done this, since my dominant desire -was to keep stripped and unencumbered for the race.</p> - -<p>She allowed me to retain her hand just long enough -to show that she was not mortally offended, after which -she gently disengaged herself. To cover the constraint -that both of us felt I went on to wonder if our shot had -taken effect. A young man who had gone to find out -came back with the news that the lookout, having spied -the pin furrow of the periscope, the shot had been fired -at a venture. As far as could be observed it had done -nothing but send up a waterspout.</p> - -<p>On receiving this information I went on with our -interrupted personalities.</p> - -<p>“Ever since Sunday I’ve wondered what had become -of you; but then I’ve been looking for the uniform.”</p> - -<p>“I always intended taking that off when I got on board. -You see, I never was a nurse in any but an amateur sense, -and so—”</p> - -<p>It was my opportunity to spring the surprise I had been -holding in reserve ever since my talk with the Consolatrice -in the dock at Liverpool.</p> - -<p>“When did you last see Mabel?”</p> - -<p>She spoke with a sharp, sudden mezzo cry that might -have been caused by pain.</p> - -<p>“Who told you that?”</p> - -<p>“Who told me what?”</p> - -<p>Bang!</p> - -<p>It was our second gun, and though the girl in the yashmak -started again, she did not seize my arm. To hold -the drama at its instant of suspense, I pretended to be -more interested in the effect of the shot than in anything -else in the world, as in other circumstances I should have -been. I turned to this one and that one, inviting their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[246]</span> -guesses, noting all the while that over Regina Barry’s -eyes there spread the surface fire that a flaming sunset -casts on troubled water.</p> - -<p>She harked back to the subject as soon as it was clear -that we had missed our aim again.</p> - -<p>“Lady Rideover promised me she’d never tell you.”</p> - -<p>Her tone having become accusatory, I broke in on it -with studied nonchalance.</p> - -<p>“And she never did. To the best of my recollection -she never mentioned your name to me. But is there anything -wrong in my knowing that you and she are friends?”</p> - -<p>Color mounted to her brows where the yashmak -couldn’t conceal it, though she ignored the question.</p> - -<p>“And I’m sure it wasn’t your sister Evelyn.”</p> - -<p>“Why shouldn’t it have been?”</p> - -<p>“Because she promised me, too. I should be frightfully -hurt if I thought she—”</p> - -<p>“Then I’ll relieve your mind by assuring you that -she didn’t. But to me the curious thing is that you -shouldn’t have wanted me to know.”</p> - -<p>She ignored this, too, a furrow of perplexity deepening -between her brows.</p> - -<p>“It isn’t possible that Lady Rideover or Evelyn, without -telling you in words, should have allowed you to suspect—”</p> - -<p>“Not any more than they allowed me to suspect that -I was being nursed by a houri out of paradise.”</p> - -<p>She hastened to make a correction. “Oh, I never acted -as nurse to you! It was that Miss Farley.”</p> - -<p>“But you were at Taplow when I was there, and in -and out of my room.”</p> - -<p>The peculiar light in her eyes, partly of amazement, -partly of incredulity, reminded me of a poor trapped<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>[247]</span> -lady I had once seen in the prisoner’s dock while a witness -recounted the secrets of her life with remarkable exactness -of detail.</p> - -<p>“But you couldn’t see me!” she began, helplessly.</p> - -<p>“No, but I could hear.”</p> - -<p>“And you didn’t hear me. If I went into your room, -which I didn’t often do—”</p> - -<p>I launched a theory that was purely inspiration.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know. If you came into my room you didn’t -make a sound. You arranged that with Mabel. But -haven’t you heard that the blind develop an extra -sense?”</p> - -<p>“Not as quickly as that—or with that precision.” -She brightened with a new thought. “If your extra sense -told you I was there, why didn’t you speak to me?”</p> - -<p>“Suppose I said that I respected your incognita? If -you didn’t want to speak to me it must have been for a -reason. I couldn’t ignore that.”</p> - -<p>Whir-r-r! Z-z-z! P-ff!</p> - -<p>A shell from the submarine struck the water somewhere -near us, though all we saw was a column of white spume -on the port side of the ship, while we were on the starboard.</p> - -<p>She ignored even this. Standing erect, with her hands -in the pockets of her ulster, with no feature to betray her -but her eyes, she surmised, calmly, “Some of the other -nurses or one of the patients must have given you a hint.”</p> - -<p>“None of them ever pronounced your name in my -hearing.”</p> - -<p>“Then I give up guessing!” she said, with a touch of -impatience.</p> - -<p>“Which is what I can’t do.”</p> - -<p>“But what have you to guess at?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span></p> - -<p>“At what you’ve done it—at what you’re doing it—for.”</p> - -<p>She may have smiled behind the yashmak as she said, -“What difference does it make to you?”</p> - -<p>“I dare say it doesn’t make any—except that I seem -to be the person benefited.”</p> - -<p>“In time of war the soldier—the man who does the -thing—is the person benefited.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no; there’s the cause.”</p> - -<p>“But surely, if we’ve learned anything during the past -two years, it’s that what the soldier does for the cause -can’t compare with what the cause does for the soldier.”</p> - -<p>I saw my opportunity and was quick to use it. “So -that out of what you’ve been doing for me even you have -got something.”</p> - -<p>She turned this neatly. “I’ve got a great deal—out -of what I’ve been doing for every one. Not that it’s been -much. I merely mean that, whatever it’s been, it’s -brought me in far more than I’ve ever given out.”</p> - -<p>The swing of the boat was so abrupt as almost to make -her heel over. Up and down the deck such passengers -as were clinging to nothing were flung this way and that, -with some laughing and a few involuntary cries. Miss -Barry having braced me in a corner of the alcove because -of my game leg, I kept my footing steadily, but the girl -herself was thrown square into my arms.</p> - -<p>Not more than a second later another Whir-r-r! Z-z-z! -warned us that another shell was on the way; but before -we had time to be afraid a soft P-ff! told us that this, -too, had struck the water. The waterspout, this time on -the starboard side, not only spattered us with spray, but -made it clear that only the sharp shifting of the course<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>[249]</span> -had saved us from a hole in our bow. That within the -next few minutes our enemy would get us somewhere was -a little more than probable.</p> - -<p>Then from every cluster of heads came the cry, “Oh, -look!”</p> - -<p>There she was—a blue-gray streak, only a little darker -than the blue-gray waters. The change in our course -revealed her as she lay on the surface to shell us, since she -was too far away to send us a torpedo. We forgot everything—Regina -Barry and I forgot each other—to gaze. -My arms relaxed their hold on the girl because there was -no longer a mind to direct them; the girl took command -of herself because it was only thus that she could observe -the most baleful and fascinating monster in the world.</p> - -<p>For it was as a monster, baleful and fascinating, that -we regarded her. She was not a thing planned by men’s -brains and built in a shipyard. She was an abnormal, -unscrupulous, venomous water beast, with a special enmity -toward man. She had about her the horror of the -trackless, the deep, the solitary, the lonesome, the devilish. -Few of us had ever got a glimpse of her before. It -was like Saint George’s first sight of the dragon that -wasted men and cities, and called forth his hatred and -his sword.</p> - -<p>I think that sheer hatred was the cause of our banging -away at her with our two guns. We could hardly expect -to hit her. She must have been out of our range, and our -only hope was in getting out of hers.</p> - -<p>As far as we could judge she was lying still and shelling -us at her ease. Splash! Splash! Splash! The screeching -things went all round us; but by some miracle they -were only spectacular.</p> - -<p>Viewed as a spectacle, there was a terrific beauty in it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>[250]</span> -all. Nature and man were raging together, ferociously, -magnificently, without conscience, without quarter, without -remorse. Hell had unsealed its springs even in us -who stood watchful and inactive. There was a sense of -abhorrent glory in the knowledge that there were no -limits to which we would not go. That there were no -limits to which our enemy would not go with us was stimulating, -quickening, like the flicker of the whip to the -racer. About and above us were all the elements of which -man is most accustomed to be afraid, but which, now that -we were among them, inspired an appalling glee.</p> - -<p>It was amazing how quickly we got used to it, just as, -I am told, a man after a night or two gets used to being in -the death-house. To be shelled on a stormy, lonely ocean -came within a few minutes to being a matter of course. -Had we had time to reflect and look backward, it would -have seemed strange to think that we had made voyages -across the Atlantic in which we had not been shelled.</p> - -<p>Then all of a sudden there was a noise like that in a -house when it is struck by lightning. It was as if all -creation had burst into sound, as if there were nothing -anywhere that was not a concomitant of an ear-splitting, -soul-splitting crash. It was over us; it was round us; -it was everywhere; it might have been within us. In -our own persons we seemed to be rent by it.</p> - -<p>From the port side a blast of smoke rose and poisoned -the dark air. A few shrieks, half suppressed by the -shriekers, ran the length of the deck, and a few male -exclamations of astonishment and awe. For the most -part, however, we stood still and soundless, as I believe -we should have held ourselves had it proved to be the -Judgment Day.</p> - -<p>Our immediate impression was that all the aft of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span> -ship had been carried away. Had she begun to settle -stern foremost on the instant we should not have been -surprised. We could hardly believe that the long, narrow -perspective of the deck, with its groups dotting the -length of it, could remain unshattered and afloat. We -were sure the decks below must have been blown into -air and water.</p> - -<p>For the hundredth part of a second the <i>Assiniboia</i> appeared -to stop still in her course, like a creature with its -death-wound. She seemed stricken, stunned. But she -gave another lurch, another swing to her huge person; -and when the second shell came on, taking the range of -that which had struck her, it plowed the waves astern. -All seemed to be over in the space of between two breaths. -By the time we could get our wits together sufficiently to -ask what had happened she was once more driving -onward.</p> - -<p>It was splendid. It was sublime. It thrilled one with -pride in pluck and seamanship. One could have hugged -the brave old leviathan by the neck.</p> - -<p>A British seaman, running down the deck on some errand, -cried, as he passed us: “Got the old bucket aft, -just above the water-line. But, Lor’! she don’t mind it! -Didn’t do no ’arm. On’y killed Sammy Smelt, a steerage -cabin-boy.”</p> - -<p>But it was a beginning. Nothing could save us now -but speed and the captain’s skill. The young officer who -had helped to strip the covering off No. 5 strolled by us, -smoking a cigarette.</p> - -<p>“We’re showing her a pretty clean pair of heels,” he -said, coolly, by way of dealing out encouragement. -“Ship’s carpenter’s begun plugging up the hole. That -won’t hurt us so long as we don’t get another.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>[252]</span></p> - -<p>“What about the cabin-boy?” some one called out.</p> - -<p>He shrugged his shoulders, saying, merely, “Doctor -attending to the wounded.”</p> - -<p>It was strange to be tearing through the seas, with -that erratic course of the crazed leviathan, when at any -second death might strike us from the air. I had often -been under shell-fire, of course; but on land there was -generally some dugout, some <i>abri</i>, in which one could -seek shelter. What impressed me here was the vast -exposure of it all. We could only stand with the heaven -over us, ready to take to the boats, if need be, or equally -ready to be blown into bits like little Sammy Smelt.</p> - -<p>Among the people on the deck the quiet waiting which -the traditions of the race have made second nature continued. -We might have been passengers gathered at the -entrance to a railway track. If a scared look haunted -some faces, it was not more than might have been occasioned -by the extreme lateness of a train.</p> - -<p>The shells were still splashing, the ship was still driving -onward under every pound of steam, when I looked -again at the girl in the yashmak. It must not be understood -that I had looked away from her for long. The -period of our extreme peril did not in reality cover more -than a few minutes. Like the crisis of a fever, it was slow -in coming, but it passed quickly, though we needed some -time to realize the fact.</p> - -<p>But when I looked again at Regina Barry I found her -as little disturbed as a woman could possibly have been -in that special situation. Not to be hurled again into -my arms, she held now to the hand-rail that runs along -cabin walls; but she watched me rather than the ocean. -I was her charge and the ocean was not. The blue-gray -streak that had held her attention for a while was visible<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span> -only when the turnings of the ship threw it into view; -otherwise we had nothing to see on the starboard side -except an infinitude of billows with curling white crests.</p> - -<p>To resume something like the customary attitude of -human beings toward each other I said, as casually as I -could manage, “You came over here just after I did, -didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>Having purposely framed my sentence in just those -words, it was some satisfaction to get the result I was -playing for. It took all the aplomb—a rather shy aplomb—of -which she was mistress to answer in a way that -wouldn’t underscore my meaning.</p> - -<p>“Possibly; but I don’t remember when you came -over.”</p> - -<p>Having given the date of my sailing, I added, “And -you left with Evelyn a little more than three weeks -later?”</p> - -<p>“Since you know everything, you naturally know -that.” She took on the old air of being at once smiling -and defiant as she asked, “And has the fact any special -significance?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I want to find out.” Before she could -protest that there was no such significance I put the -question, “How did you come to know her?”</p> - -<p>“Is she so terribly difficult to know?”</p> - -<p>“Not in the least; only, you’d never seen her in your -life at the time when”—I gathered all my innermost -strength together to bring the words out—“at the time -when I talked to you last.”</p> - -<p>She, too, gathered her innermost strength together, -rising to the reference gallantly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, a good many things have happened since -then.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span></p> - -<p>Before going further I was obliged to pause and reckon -how much I dared. Of the many sensitive points in my -history, we were touching on the most sensitive. I was -fully aware that since the sleeping dog was sleeping it -might be better to let him lie. Once he was roused, there -might be a new set of perils to deal with, perils we could -avoid by softly stepping round them. That Paolo -should go one way in space and Francesca another seemed -to be decreed by inevitable fate; so why interfere with -the process?</p> - -<p>I should probably not have interfered with it had the -circumstances not raised us above the sphere of our ordinary -interests. The roar of the wind, the tumult of -the sea, the plunging of the ship, the indescribable whining -of shells, the knowledge of danger—were as the orchestra -which lifts the duet to emotional planes that -dialogue alone could never attain to. Though our words -might be commonplace, every syllable was charged with -tones and overtones and undertones of meaning to be -seized by something more subtle than intelligence. Prudence -might have said, “Let everything alone,” but that -urging of the being which escapes the leash of prudence -drove me on to speak.</p> - -<p>“Do you remember when I talked to you last?”</p> - -<p>She answered with the detachment of a witness under -compulsion to tell the truth. The personal was as far -as possible eliminated from her voice.</p> - -<p>“Perfectly.”</p> - -<p>“We—we seemed to—to break off in the middle of -a conversation.”</p> - -<p>“Which you never gave me any further opportunity -of going on with.”</p> - -<p>The statement took my breath away. For some seconds<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span> -I could only stare at her as a truthful man stares when he -hears himself given the lie direct.</p> - -<p>“Did you—did you—want to go on with it?” I managed -to stammer at last.</p> - -<p>“What do you think?”</p> - -<p>“I—I didn’t think that. I waited nearly two hours.”</p> - -<p>“And if you’d only waited a few minutes more—”</p> - -<p>I leaned down toward her, breaking in on her words -with a sense of what I might have lost: “Everything -would have been different? You were going to say that?”</p> - -<p>She took time to raise her hands and adjust the yashmak, -giving me the clue to her reason for wearing it. -It was putting on a vizor before going into battle. Knowing -that she would be thrown into some difficult situations, -she had taken this method of being as far as possible -screened against embarrassment.</p> - -<p>She was successful in that. Apart from the shifting -surface fire of her eyes and the slightest possible tremor -in her voice I saw no rift in the barricade of her composure.</p> - -<p>“No; that isn’t what I was going to say. I don’t -know how things would have been. I suppose they -would have been as—as they are now.”</p> - -<p>“But we could have talked them over.”</p> - -<p>“If you’d waited.”</p> - -<p>“I should have waited forever if I’d known.”</p> - -<p>“Or if,” she went on, with the same serenity, “you -hadn’t disappeared next day without leaving an address. -I tried to find you—as well as I could, that is—without -seeming to hunt you down.”</p> - -<p>I explained that when I left New York on that last -Monday in June, 1914, I had not expected to be gone for -more than a few weeks—just the time to recover from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>[256]</span> -the first effects of the blow I thought her scorn had dealt -to me.</p> - -<p>“It was curious, though,” I went on, “that that name, -Gavrilo Prinzip, should have hammered itself in on my -brain. I recall it now as about the only thing I could -think of. I didn’t know what it meant, and I was far -from supposing it the touchstone of human destinies that -it afterward proved to be; but in some unreasoning way -it held me. It was like the meaningless catch of a tune -with which you can’t go on, till all at once you see it -finishes in—”</p> - -<p>“In a trumpet-call. Yes, I know. You had to follow -it. So had I. I don’t think there’s much more than -that to be said.”</p> - -<p>The blue-gray streak was again on the starboard -side, but comfortingly far astern. Though we were still -within her range, we were getting the benefit of distance. -At the same time some one called our attention to a -blotch of black smoke, far down on the eastern horizon. -A destroyer was coming to our aid.</p> - -<p>I went back to the point we had partially forsaken.</p> - -<p>“How long did you expect me to wait that afternoon?”</p> - -<p>She looked down at the deck, answering with a perceptible -infusion of the bitter in her tone.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t fix a time. I wasn’t sitting with my watch -in my hand.”</p> - -<p>“But I was.”</p> - -<p>“Evidently.”</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you come down?”</p> - -<p>“I came down as soon as I could.”</p> - -<p>“What kept you?”</p> - -<p>She raised her eyes for a fleeting glance—lowering -them again. At the same time her voice sank, too,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257"></a>[257]</span> -so that in the fury of sound about us she was no more -than audible.</p> - -<p>“The thing you told me.”</p> - -<p>“And that kept you—in what way?”</p> - -<p>“In the way of making everything—different.”</p> - -<p>“How much does that mean—different?”</p> - -<p>“It means a good deal.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t you tell me exactly?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t tell you exactly; but it was something like -this.” She fixed her eyes on me steadily. “When they -first opened the Subway in New York I came up out of -a station one winter afternoon just as the lights were -lit, and instead of going to the right, as I should have -done, I turned to the left. When I had walked about -fifteen minutes I was dazed. Though I was in a part of -New York I knew perfectly well, I couldn’t recognize -anything. It was all a confusion of lights. I couldn’t -tell which of the streets ran north and south, or which -were east and west, or what the buildings were that I’d -been used to seeing all my life. In the end some one took -me into a drug-store and made me sit down till I had time -to reorientate myself.”</p> - -<p>“But you did it in the end?”</p> - -<p>“That time—yes.”</p> - -<p>“And this time? The time we’re talking about?”</p> - -<p>Whir-r-r! Z-z-z! P-ff!</p> - -<p>Bang!</p> - -<p>Whir-r-r! Z-z-z! P-ff!</p> - -<p>Bang!</p> - -<p>From the port side there came something like a feeble -cheer—a chorus of rough male voices and high female -screams, timid and yet glad.</p> - -<p>A new swing of our crazed leviathan disclosed the reason<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258"></a>[258]</span> -for this wavering, victorious cry. There were two more -blobs of smoke on the horizon, and from different points -on the Irish coast three huge birds were flying like messengers -from some god. Moreover, the blob of smoke -we had first seen now had a considerable stretch of the -ocean behind her, and in front a parting of the spray -like two white plumes as she tore in our direction.</p> - -<p>“She sure is some little ripper!” came a dry Yankee -voice in the group about life-boat No. 5.</p> - -<p>“Thirty-five knots if it’s one.”</p> - -<p>“Them ’planes’ll overtake her, though, and be on the -spot as soon as she is.”</p> - -<p>“Gosh! I’d like to see Fritzie then!”</p> - -<p>“J’ever see a kingfisher sweep down on a gudgeon?”</p> - -<p>“Gee-whiz! Look at Fritzie! Goin’ to submerge!”</p> - -<p>And sure enough, as we stared, the blue-gray streak -began to sink behind the waves, becoming to the imagination -even more a giant deep-sea reptile after it had -gone.</p> - -<p>Almost simultaneously our leviathan calmed down, -resuming her straight course. It was done apparently -with the wordless, unexplained inconsequence with which -a runaway horse will suddenly fall into a peaceful trot. -There was no stopping to salute the destroyers and ’planes -that were hastening to our help or to exchange confidences -with them as to our common enemy. There was -neither hail nor farewell as we forged again toward the -open sea.</p> - -<p>Danger being considered past, the groups broke up, -intermingling with sighs of relief. The Consolatrice and -her friend came to exchange a few words with us, and -Miss Prynne returned from the boat to which she had -good-naturedly exchanged. While I thanked her for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259"></a>[259]</span> -this kindness, as if it had been done for myself, I saw -Miss Barry trying to slip off.</p> - -<p>By stepping out of my corner and assuming a limp -lamer than my actual disability warranted I was able to -intercept her.</p> - -<p>“I wonder,” I made bold to ask, “if you could give -me a hand back to the music-room?”</p> - -<p>The yashmak was not so impervious but that I could -detect behind it the scarlet glimmer of her smile.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I think you could get there by yourself. Try.”</p> - -<p>“I can manage the deck,” I said, in the tones of a boy -feigning an indisposition to stay away from school, “but -I’m afraid of the steps of the companionway.”</p> - -<p>“How would you have managed if I hadn’t been here?” -she asked, as she allowed me to lean ever so lightly on her -arm.</p> - -<p>The steps of the companionway presenting a more real -difficulty than I had expected, I could say nothing till -with her aid I had lowered myself safely down.</p> - -<p>Postponing the pleasure of thanking her, I reverted to -the topic the last attack had interrupted.</p> - -<p>“I want to hear about your reorientation. You were -able to put the streets in their proper place again, and to -see New York as it was; but in my case—”</p> - -<p>She put out her hand with that air which there is no -gainsaying.</p> - -<p>“I’m rather tired. I think I must go to my cabin and -have a rest.” She added, however, not very coherently: -“The way things happen is in general the best way—if -we know how to use it.”</p> - -<p>Somewhat desperately, because of her determination -to go, I burst out, “And do you think all this has been -the best way?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260"></a>[260]</span></p> - -<p>“You must see for yourself that it’s been a very good -way. We’ve been able to do—to do the things we’ve -both done.” But the admission in the use of the first -personal plural pronoun seemed suddenly to alarm her. -She took refuge again in her need of rest. “I really -must be off. If we don’t meet again before we leave the -boat—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but we shall!”</p> - -<p>“I’m very often confined to my cabin.”</p> - -<p>“Not when you want to be out of it.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, then; I very often don’t leave my cabin.”</p> - -<p>I was holding the hand she had extended to say good-by, -but she slipped it away and was going.</p> - -<p>“Then tell me this—just this,” I begged. “How is it -that we’re both on the same ship? That didn’t happen -by accident?”</p> - -<p>Whether she refused to answer my question or whether -it didn’t reach her I couldn’t tell. All I got in response -was a long, oblique regard—the fleeing farewell look of -Beatrice Cenci—as she carried her secrets and mysteries -away with her.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261"></a>[261]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXI</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>So my celibacy of the will was threatened. I mean -by that that I found myself with two main objects -of thought instead of one. Having vowed myself to a -cause, a woman had supervened with that pervasiveness -of presence with which a perfume fills a room. I might -still vow myself to the cause, but I shouldn’t serve it as -I had meant to, with heart and senses free.</p> - -<p>Or should I?</p> - -<p>The question fundamentally was that. Could I at a -time like this divide my allegiance as I should be obliged -to divide it by falling in love and being married? Or -ought I, in deference to the work I was to do, suppress -this old passion and smother the problems and curiosities -it had begun to rouse in me?</p> - -<p>If, in view of the many men who have been good soldiers -and equally good husbands, this hesitation seems -far-fetched to you, I must beg you to remember what I -have told you already, that my mission, such as it was, -had become my life. For this the inspiration sprang -from what I had seen for myself. What I had seen for -myself compelled me to believe that the world was divided -into just two camps—those who fought the Germans -and those who did not. “He that is not with me -is against me,” I was prepared to say; except that for the -small bordering nations, whom the arch-enemy could have -crushed as he had crushed Belgium and Serbia before any -one else could save them, I was ready to make long allowances.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a>[262]</span> -I couldn’t make these allowances for the United -States; and to win the friends I valued so highly to -joining in the task that seemed to me the most pressing -before mankind was the work to which I longed to give -myself every minute of the day.</p> - -<p>No consecrated soldier of a holy war had ever been -moved by a purer singleness of purpose than I when I -came on board the <i>Assiniboia</i>; and now I was already -thinking most of something else. As violently—I choose -the adverb—as if I had never seen this woman’s image -grow fainter and fainter in my memory I craved to know -certain things about her.</p> - -<p>I might state those things in this way: Why, in the -summer in which I joined the army and went across with -the first Canadian contingent, did she seek the acquaintance -of my sister Evelyn and undertake nursing in her -company? Why did she join my sister Mabel and steal -in and out of my room when I was blind? Why, since -I was blind, did she keep her presence unknown to me -and swear my sisters to secrecy? Why was she coming -back on board this boat? Did she really care for me? -And if she really cared for me, why this air of ever so -courteous, ever so gentle constraint the minute we were -alone and I broached any subject that was personal?</p> - -<p>Was she angry? Was she contrite? Was she wounded? -Was she scornful? Was she proud? Or was she simply -subjecting me to one more test, which might end again -in her being disappointed?</p> - -<p>I have to confess that these inquiries already absorbed -my soul in such a way that I forgot that on which I had -been accustomed to meditate every hour of my time—the -approach I was to make to American citizens like Beady -Lamont and Ralph Coningsby. Against this weaning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span> -away of my heart some essential loyalty cried, “Treason!” -I was the man who had put his hand to the plow and was -looking back. If I continued to look back I might easily -prove unfit for the kingdom of heaven as I conceived -of it.</p> - -<p>Throughout the next day I was eager to test the effect -of these counter-inclinations on myself. That I could -only do by meeting her. If I met her, would she be to -me simply what the Consolatrice was to a more intimate -degree? Or should I find her the brave, aspiring, provocative -spirit that had led me up the path that had begun -to mount from the moment when I first saw her—only in -the end to let me fall over the edge of a precipice? I -wanted to see; I wanted to be sure.</p> - -<p>But she kept me waiting. She didn’t appear that day. -It was a fine day for the ocean in November, with a -tolerably smooth sea. It was not weather, therefore, -that confined her to her cabin; it was something else. -She knew I would be on the watch for her, and she let -me have my labor for my pains.</p> - -<p>It was the kind of advance and recession with which I -had least patience. On Thursday morning I kept no -watch for her. Swearing that she meant no more to me -than Miss Prynne and that my work in life was too serious -to allow any woman to interfere with it, I gave myself to -the reading of books on the war situation as it affected -America. If she was playing a game, she would learn -that it was not one of solitaire. Two could take a hand -at it, and with equal skill. I prided myself on that skill -when sometime in the latter part of Thursday afternoon -she passed my chair in the music-room—the sixth sense -told me it was she—and I did not look up from Sheering’s -Oxford lectures on “The War and World Repentance.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264"></a>[264]</span></p> - -<p>Though my eye followed the passage, I got little or no -sense from it.</p> - -<p>“Human effort after human welfare is never drastic -enough,” I read. “It is never sufficiently radical to accomplish -the purpose it tries to carry out. Instead of -laying its ax at the root of the tree of its ills it is content -to hack off a few branches. It never gets beyond pruning-work; -and the most one can say of the results it -achieves is that they are better than nothing.</p> - -<p>“So much, then, one can affirm of the dreams that are -now being dreamed, in all probability to vanish with -waking. They are better than nothing. Better than -nothing are the aims held up before the Allied nations as -the citadels they are to capture. The crushing of military -despotism is better than nothing; the elimination -of war is better than nothing; the establishment of universal -democracy, the founding of a league of nations, the -formation of a league to enforce peace, the dissemination -of a world-wide entente, these are all of them better than -nothing, even though they end in being no more productive -of permanent blessing than the Hague Conference, -which was better than nothing in itself. They are probably -as effective as anything that man, with his reason, -his wisdom, his science, his degree of self-control, and his -pathetic persistence in believing in himself when that -belief has so unfailingly been blasted, can ever attain -to. But, oh, gentlemen, as the prophet said thirty centuries -ago, ‘This is not the way, neither is this the city.’ -You are pouring out blood; you are pouring out money; -you are giving your sons and your daughters to pass -through the fire to Moloch; through the fire to Moloch -unflinchingly they pass; you are tearing the hearts out -of your own bodies, and you are doing it with a heroism<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265"></a>[265]</span> -that cannot fail of some reward. But this is not the way, -neither is this the city. It is better than nothing, but it -is not the best. You could do it all so much more thoroughly, -so much more easily. You will accomplish something; -there is no question about that; but till you take -the right way, and attack the city of which you must -become masters, that great good thing for which you are -fighting will still be a vision of the future.”</p> - -<p>But with the knowledge that this woman had simply -passed and let her shadow fall upon me I had no heart -for Sheering’s impassioned words. I got up and followed -her.</p> - -<p>I found her on deck, far forward, leaning on the rail -and watching a fiery, angry sunset that inflamed all the -western horizon. As she looked round and saw me advancing -along the deck I detected in her telltale eyes the -first scared impulse to run away.</p> - -<p>But what was she afraid of?</p> - -<p>It was the question I asked as soon as I was near -enough to speak.</p> - -<p>“What makes you think I’m afraid of anything?”</p> - -<p>“The way you looked. You see, this queer sort of veil -doesn’t protect you; it gives you away by throwing all -your expression into your eyes. There’s an essence that -eludes one till it’s concentrated and distilled.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I didn’t mean—”</p> - -<p>“To look like an animal trying to escape? Well, you -did.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, as to that, I could easily have walked round the -deck-house to the other side of the ship.”</p> - -<p>“If the discourtesy wouldn’t have been too obvious—of -course!” But I didn’t press the point. There were -other admissions to which I had an unchivalrous craving<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a>[266]</span> -to bring her if I could; and so I went on, artfully, “It was -clever of you to find my state-room on Tuesday—all on -the spur of the moment like that.”</p> - -<p>She contented herself with murmuring, “Yes, wasn’t -it?”</p> - -<p>“And your own cabin is on another deck.”</p> - -<p>“I’m on this deck.”</p> - -<p>“So that you hadn’t even seen me going in and out.”</p> - -<p>“I’m a nurse—in a way. Nurses have to know more -than other passengers or they’d be no good on board ship.”</p> - -<p>“And do you know every one’s cabin?”</p> - -<p>“I know every one’s cabin to whom I can be useful.”</p> - -<p>“Is that many?”</p> - -<p>“No; not many, unfortunately.” She diverted the -attack by saying, “What are you asking for?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, for nothing,” I answered, carelessly. I added, -however, with some slight show of intention, “I’ve called -it your cleverness, but I really mean it as your kindness.”</p> - -<p>She decided to take the bull by the horns, shifting her -position and standing with her back to the rail.</p> - -<p>“If you call it kindness that I should have learned the -number and location of your cabin before we left Liverpool—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you did it then?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I did it then. But if you call it kindness, of -course I can’t prevent you. I can only assure you it -isn’t. I knew you couldn’t get about easily—”</p> - -<p>“How did you know that?”</p> - -<p>“I saw you come on board. Wasn’t that enough?”</p> - -<p>“Then let me go farther back and ask how you happened -to see me come on board. Wasn’t it an extraordinary -coincidence that you should have been there, -right at the head of the gangway?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267"></a>[267]</span></p> - -<p>“Well, life is full of extraordinary coincidences, isn’t -it? And when a woman who can do so little sees a -wounded man—”</p> - -<p>There were other wounded men scattered about the -deck. I glanced at them as I said, “And have you done -that for all the wounded men on board?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve done it for all I know.”</p> - -<p>“And how many do you know?”</p> - -<p>She averted her profile, with an air of having had -enough of the subject.</p> - -<p>“I wanted you to tell me a minute ago why you were -asking me these questions, and you said for nothing.” I -could see her smile behind the chiffon of the yashmak as -she went on, “Since that’s your only reason, perhaps you -won’t mind if I don’t answer you.”</p> - -<p>“But if I had a reason for asking, would you tell me -then?”</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t it have to depend on the reason?”</p> - -<p>“You’re very careful.”</p> - -<p>She shot a daring, smiling glance at me as she riposted, -“Well, aren’t you?” Before I had time to recover from -the slight shock that these words dealt me she pointed -to the horizon. “See, there’s smoke over there. I do -hope it’s not another U-boat.”</p> - -<p>I accepted the diversion—for more reasons than one. -Of these the first was the shock to which I have alluded. -She saw through me. That is, she saw I didn’t place her -first. How she saw it I could no more tell than she -could tell how I knew her history of the past two years. -But the tables were turned and turned in such a way as -to make me feel ridiculous. A man who is careful with -regard to a woman is always slightly grotesque.</p> - -<p>As my most skilful defense lay in feigning a lack of perception<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268"></a>[268]</span> -I talked about U-boats and the experience of two -days before; but I came away from her with a feeling of -discomfort.</p> - -<p>I analyzed the feeling of discomfort as due to the repetition -of our mutual attitude more than two years previously. -Where she came forward I drew back. I had -always drawn back. I used to suppose that nothing but -one motive could have driven me to this humiliating -course, and now I was taking it from another. I was -taking it from another, and she knew it. The essence -of the humiliation lay in that.</p> - -<p>Each time I met her on deck she betrayed a hesitation -that I found harder to bear than contempt. Her very -effort to preserve a tone of friendliness was a reproach -to me. It seemed to say: “You see all I’ve done for -you. You accept it and give me nothing in return.”</p> - -<p>And yet I was obliged to consider that which, were I -to let myself be nothing but myself, might lie before me -in the next few weeks and months. I should arrive in -New York as a man engaged to be married. As a man -engaged to be married I should be at once enveloped in -that silken net of formalities with which women with -their consecration to the future of the race have invested -all that pertains to the preliminaries of mating. I had -seen for myself that in America that silken net is more -elaborate than it is elsewhere. In any British community -it is spun of tissue, fragile, light, easily swept aside should -the need arise. In America it is solidly constructed of gold -cord, and is as often as not adorned with gems. In America -an engagement leads to something of an anti-climax in -that, from the human point of view, it is more important -than a marriage. It is sung by a chorus of matrons and -maidens and social correspondents of the press in a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269"></a>[269]</span> -volume far more resounding than that of the nuptial -hymn. That a man should marry after he has become -engaged is considered as much a matter of course as that -he should fight after he has enlisted; but that he should -become engaged is like taking that first oath which denotes -his willingness to give himself up, to make the -great renunciation for the sake of something else. More -than any single or signal act of bravery that comes later, -it is the thing that counts. I am not quarreling with -American social custom; I am only saying that I had -reasons for being afraid of it.</p> - -<p>I should arrive in New York as a man engaged to be -married, and as a man engaged to be married I should be -put through paces as strict and as stately as those of the -minuet. There would be no escape from it. I might be -promised in advance an escape from it, but the promise -would not be kept. I might be promised simplicity, -privacy, secrecy, a mere process of handfasting before the -least noticeable of legal authorities; but all would go by -the board.</p> - -<p>Whatever my future wife and I might say—and my -future wife would say it only half-heartedly, if as earnestly -as that—I should be seized in the soft, tender, irresistible -embrace of the feminine in American life, the element -that is far more powerful than any other, and I -should have no more fight to put up than a new-born infant -against a nurse. There would be a whole array of -mothers and potential mothers to see that I had not. -There would be Mrs. Barry and Annette van Elstine and -Hilda Grace and Esther Coningsby and Elsie Coningsby -and Mrs. Legrand, not to speak of a vast social army -behind them, all supported and urged on by the unanimous -power of the press.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270"></a>[270]</span></p> - -<p>No one of them would allow me to slip from their -kindly, overwhelming attentions any more than bees -would allow a queen. Like a queen bee is any man who -is engaged to an American girl—or at least he was in the -days, now so extraordinarily long ago, before America -went into the war. Since then marriage has become -casual, incidental, one of those hasty touches given to -human life, which, like the possession of money or the -pursuit of happiness or the leisure to earn a living, are -pleasant but not vital. But in the America of the end -of 1916, the mentally far-away America to which I was -going back, matrimony was the most momentous happening -in a life history. From the minute a man became engaged -to that when he turned away from the altar, he -had to give himself up to his condition. He was no -longer his own. Dinners, lunches, parties, theaters, publicity, -and the approval of women claimed him; and -shrinking was of no avail.</p> - -<p>To the life after marriage, from this point of view, my -mind hardly worked forward. I have spoken of men -who were good soldiers and equally good husbands. Undoubtedly -there are hundreds of thousands in the class. -But I had seen not a little of men who, because they were -husbands, would gladly not have been soldiers at all. -Theirs was not a divided allegiance, for they had only one. -The body was in the fight, and it did wondrously; but -the heart and soul and mind and craving were with the -wife and little ones; and who could blame them?</p> - -<p>But all my personal desire was not to be of their number. -Had I been married before the war I should have -been as they; but since I was free to espouse the cause -which had become mistress of everything I was I wanted -to espouse it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271"></a>[271]</span></p> - -<p>I thought I had espoused it. I had considered myself -bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh. During my months -of fighting it had been a satisfaction to think of myself -as at liberty to make any sacrifice of limb or life, and leave -no heart to bewail me, no eye to shed a tear, and no care -to spring up behind me. My family would be content -to say, “Poor old Frank, he did his duty!” Further than -that, I should bring no regret to any heart but Lovey’s; -and of him I was persuaded that if I went he wouldn’t -wait long after me. Moreover, I had guarded against -any too great misfortune overtaking him by providing for -him in my will.</p> - -<p>I must own, furthermore, to another misgiving: I was -not too sure of myself from the point of view of the old -failing.</p> - -<p>Things had happened in the trenches—they had dosed -me with brandy, whisky, rum, any restorative that came -handy, on a number of occasions—and there had been -something within me as ready to be waked as a tiger to -the taste of blood. I can say truthfully enough that I -had never yielded to the desire of my own deliberate act; -but I must also say truthfully that I was by no means -sure that one day I might not do so. We had talked -often enough, as men with men, of what we called a moral -moratorium—and the talk haunted me with all manner -of suggestions. The ban on what is commonly called sin -was to be lifted for the period of the war; and we who -had to deny ourselves so much were not to deny ourselves -anything that came easily within our grasp. It seemed -an alluring condition, and one which, without waiting for -the license of supreme war councils or the permission of the -Church, each of us was tempted to inaugurate for himself. -In a situation in which that which is born of the flesh is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_272"></a>[272]</span> -flauntingly before one’s eyes, and millions of men are -thrown together as flesh and little more, appetite has its -mouth wide open. That man was strong indeed who -could ignore this yearning of the body; and that man -was not I.</p> - -<p>So again the consciousness of freedom was like a reserve -fund to a corporation. It was something on which to fall -back if everything else was swept away. I didn’t want -to go to the devil; but if I went no one would suffer but -myself, as no one would suffer but myself if a German -sniper were to blow the top off my head. Mind you, I -am not saying that I came back morally weakened from -the war; I only came back with a sense that one man’s -life or death—one man’s ruin or salvation—was of no -more account than the fate of a roadside bit of jewel-weed -amid the infinite seed-time and harvest of the year. I -was inured to loss of all kinds on a stupendous scale. I -had seen thousands blown to pieces beside me, and my -mind had not turned aside to regret them; thousands -would see me blown to pieces with the same indifference -as to whether I lived or died. Callousness as to the life -and death of others induces callousness as to one’s own; -and compared to life and death, what is the control of -a mere appetite? No; I was not morally weakened; but -I was morally benumbed. There was a kind of moral -moratorium in my consciousness. I repeat that I wasn’t -practically making use of it; but I was in a period of suspense -in which I admitted to myself that it might depend -on circumstances whether I made use of it or not.</p> - -<p>And if I did, and if I was married....</p> - -<p>From the sheer possibility my mind turned in dismay. -To the celibacy made urgent by a purpose I added the -celibacy necessitated by a curse. As the one counseled<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_273"></a>[273]</span> -me not to involve myself with anybody else, so the other -warned me not to involve anybody else with me. Through -warning and counsel I had kept myself in something like -a state of serenity till now.</p> - -<p>It was a state of serenity with just one dominating impulse—to -get back among the comrades with whom I -had already found shelter. Whatever I had that could -be called a homing instinct was bound for the house in -Vandiver Street. There had been times when I thought -I had outlived that phase, times when what seemed like -a new and higher companionship, with a new and higher -place in the world and in men’s esteem, half persuaded -me that I was so little the waster in fact and the criminal -in possibility that the Down and Out was no more to me -than a sloughed skin to the creature that has thrown it -off. But I always waked from this pleasant fancy to see -myself as in essentials the same gaunt, tattered, hungry -fellow who had come with his buddy to beg a meal and a -bed of the Poor Brothers of the Order of Pity, who never -refused any homeless, besotted man. No matter what -battles I fought, what medals I won, what banquets I -was asked to sit down at, my place was among them; -and among them I hoped to do my work. They were all -American citizens, with as much weight, when it came to -the franchise, as the moneyed potentates of Wall Street. -As being not only my brethren, but a nucleus of public -opinion as well, I had had no other vision before me for -my return than that of sharing their humble refreshments -and talk, together with that blind, desperate, devoted -fraternity which made a city of refuge of the home that -had once been Miss Smedley’s.</p> - -<p>And since coming on board that vision was threatened -by another—one in which I saw myself moving amid compliments<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_274"></a>[274]</span> -and flowers and polite conventions, in all the -entangling convolutions of the silken net. Whether it -would be with or without love was, in my state of mind, -beside the mark. Love had ceased to be, for the time -being, at any rate, the ruling factor in a man’s decisions -about himself. There was a moratorium of love, let there -be one of morals or not. “I’ve got to,” had been the -reply to love made by twenty millions of men all over the -world, either under compulsion or of their own free will; -and women had accepted the answer valiantly.</p> - -<p>The difficulty in my case sprang of choice. “I’ve got -to” wasn’t imperative enough. Or if imperative, it was -imperative on both sides equally.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_275"></a>[275]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>And then a word was said which, though solving no -problems, opened up a new line of suggestion.</p> - -<p>I have spoken of Regina Barry as another transmigrated -soul. I have said that I could not tell at a glance in -what direction her spirit had traveled; nor could I after -some days of intercourse. As much as she had been frank -and open in the other period of our acquaintance, she had -now become mystery to me—elusive, tantalizing, sealed. -By the end of a few days I began to perceive that she -came near me only, as I might say, officially. If there -was danger or storm or darkness—we sailed without lights—she -was within reach of me. She was within reach of -me many a time if I wanted no more than a book that had -fallen or a rug that had been left elsewhere on the deck. -It was strange how hovering and protective her presence -could be for the moment of need, and how far withdrawn -the minute I could get along alone.</p> - -<p>And far withdrawn the transmigrated spirit seemed to -me at all times. Do what I would to traverse the distance, -I found her as remote as ever. Do what I would -to break down her defenses or transcend them, they still -rose between us, impalpable, impregnable, and all but -indiscernible. She had traveled away from me as I had -traveled away from her; and yet now that we met in -space there was some indefinable bond between us.</p> - -<p>It was in right of that bond that I asked her one day -why she was going home.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_276"></a>[276]</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, for all sorts of reasons.” She added, “One of -them is on account of father.”</p> - -<p>“Isn’t he well?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, he’s well enough. That isn’t it.”</p> - -<p>As she did not explain, I refrained from asking further, -not because I didn’t want to know, but because I knew -she would tell me.</p> - -<p>It was our usual trysting-place, the deck rail, though -not now that which ran along the side of the ship, but the -one across the portion of the upper deck toward the bow, -allowing us to look down on the pit in which the few -steerage passengers took the air. They were standing -about in helpless, idle groups, some ten or twelve oddly -clad, oddly hatted men, with three or four of their women, -and a white staring baby, whose fingers, as it hung over -its mother’s shoulder, dangled like bits of string.</p> - -<p>We were in the Gulf Stream, so that the day was comparatively -mild. A north wind not too violent blew away -the possibility of fog and sent an occasional shaft of sunshine -through the rifts in the great gray clouds. The -swell left over from the gale of the past few days tossed -the ship’s nose into the air with a long, slow, rhythmic -heave, slightly to port, and gave to good sailors like ourselves -that pleasant sensation of swinging which a bird -must get on a tree.</p> - -<p>Wind and water were fraught with the nameless peaceful -intimations of the New World after the turmoil of the -Old one. It is difficult to say how one seizes them, but -they come with the Gulf Stream. I have always noticed -that half-way over there is a change in the aura, the -atmosphere. It throws a breath of balsam on the wind, -and flashes on the waves that gleam which Cabot, Jacques -Cartier, and the Pilgrims saw when they sighted land.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_277"></a>[277]</span></p> - -<p>It is that wonderful sense of going westward which, I -suppose, is primal to the instinct. Going eastward, one -is going back to beginnings, to things lived, to things -over and done with. Going westward, all is hope. It is -the onward reach, the upward grasp, the endless striving. -It is the lifting of the hands, the straining of the power -to achieve, the yearning of the inner man. The thing -that is finished is left behind, and the thing to be wrestled -with and done is in front of one. The very sun goes -before one with a splendid gesture of beckoning—on to -work, on to self-denial, on to triumph and success—and -when it sets it sets with a promise of a morrow.</p> - -<p>We had already begun to feel that; and on my part -in a spirit of compunction. I was going, as far as lay -within my small powers, to turn the west back upon the -east again, to reverse nature by making the stream flow -toward its source. I was far from insensible to the pity -of it, for I had seen the effect on my own country.</p> - -<p>I had seen my own country—that baby giant, whose -very existence as a country antedated but little the year -when I was born—I had seen it pause in its work, in its -play, in its task of self-development—listen—shiver—thrill—throw -down the ax, the spade, the hammer, the -pick—go up from the field, the factory, and the mine—and -offer itself willingly. It was to me as if that was -fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet:</p> - -<p>“I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I -send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; -send me.”</p> - -<p>I had seen that first flotilla of thirty-one ships sail down -the St. Lawrence, out into the ocean, and over to the -shores of England, as the first great gift of men which -the New World had ever made to the Old, as some return<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278"></a>[278]</span> -for all the Old had poured out upon the New. I had -seen it, for I was on it. We went gaily, as hop-pickers go -to a bean-feast. We knew it was war, but the word had -no meaning for us. What it meant we found out at Ypres, -at Vimy, at Lens. But when I think of my country now -I think of her no longer as a baby giant. She has become -a girl widow—valiant, dry-eyed, high-souled, ready to go -on with the interrupted work and do bigger work—but -a widow all the same.</p> - -<p>And the sword that had pierced one heart I was bringing -to pierce another. I was sorry; but sorrow didn’t keep -me, couldn’t keep me from being terribly in earnest.</p> - -<p>And in on these thoughts Regina Barry broke as if she -had been following them.</p> - -<p>“Look at the waves where the sun catches them. -Aren’t they like flashing steel? It’s just as if all the -drowned hands at the bottom of the sea were holding up -swords to the people of America, begging them to go and -fight.”</p> - -<p>I looked at her, startled. “You feel that way?”</p> - -<p>She looked at me, indignant. “Certainly. How else -could I feel?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I didn’t know. Americans feel so many different -ways.”</p> - -<p>“Because they don’t know. I’m going back”—she gave -a light, deprecating laugh—“I’m going back to tell -them.”</p> - -<p>I was still more startled. “Tell whom?”</p> - -<p>“Any one I know. Every one knows some one. I -don’t mean to say that I’m a Joan of Arc; but I shall do -what I can.”</p> - -<p>“And how shall you begin?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll begin with father and with—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279"></a>[279]</span></p> - -<p>She stopped at the second name, though to me the fact -did not become significant till afterward.</p> - -<p>“That’s what I meant,” she resumed, “when I said I -was going back on his account.”</p> - -<p>“You mean?”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t see why we should be in it. He’s like so -many Americans; he hasn’t emerged from the eighteen-hundreds. -He still thinks of the New World as if it was -a new creation that had nothing to do with the Old. He -doesn’t see that there’s only one world and one race of -men, wherever they are and whatever they do. To him -Americans are like souls that get over to paradise. They’re -safe and can afford to dwell safely. They’re no longer -concerned with the sorrows and struggles of the people -left on earth.”</p> - -<p>It was to get light on my own way that I asked, “And -what are you going to say to convince him?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know yet. I shall say what the moment -suggests.”</p> - -<p>“And you’re sure it will suggest something?”</p> - -<p>Her great eyes burned like coals as she turned them on -me in protest at the question.</p> - -<p>“Suggest something? You might as well ask if the -air suggests something. It suggests that I breathe it; -but I don’t have to think of it beforehand, when the -whole world is full of it.”</p> - -<p>“Full of what?”</p> - -<p>She considered the question, finding in it all I meant -to put there.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” she answered at last. “That is, I -don’t know in any sense that would go into a few words. -There’s so much of it. The minute you try to express -it from any one point of view you find you’re inadequate.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_280"></a>[280]</span></p> - -<p>I was still seeking light.</p> - -<p>“But when you try to do it from several points of view—correlating -them?”</p> - -<p>“Even then—” She paused, reflecting, shaking her -head as she went on again, as if to shake away a consciousness -of the impossible. “I don’t try. There’s no -use in trying. It’s so immense—so far beyond me. It’s -grown so, too. When it first began I could more or less -compass it—or, I thought I could. Now it’s become like -nature—or God—or any of the colossal infinite conceptions—it -means different things to different minds.”</p> - -<p>“That is, we can only take of it what we take of the -ocean—each a few drops—no one able to take all?”</p> - -<p>“Something like that. And we can only give a few -drops—just what we’ve got the measure to take up—some -a little more, some a little less—but no one more -than a little as compared to the whole. That’s why I’m -not going to try to explain.”</p> - -<p>“Then how are you going to make them understand?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell them—I’ll do what I can to show them—that -the greatest movement of all time is going on—and -America is taking no national part in it. I’ll try to make -them see that it isn’t just to avenge the few American -lives lost through the U-boats, or to free Belgium, or to -put down autocracy, or to do any one or two or three of -the things that have been set before us. It isn’t even -the whole of them, just taken as so many human motives.”</p> - -<p>“But you’ll have to tell them what it is, won’t you? -It won’t do just to put before them what it isn’t.”</p> - -<p>“But how can I? How can any one? It would be -like trying to tell them what nature is. It’s a universal -composite, made up of everything; but you couldn’t go<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_281"></a>[281]</span> -about the country explaining it in lectures. The nearest -I could come to it would be in saying that it’s the great -dramatic conflict between good and evil to which human -nature has been working up ever since it committed its -first sin; but the words in which to do that have been so -hard worked and are so terribly worn that they’ve become -a kind of ditty. It seems to me best just to talk -to them simply—and let them construct the monster out -of the bones I lay before them. They’ll do it. The public -is not very quick, but when it gets going it’s pretty -instinctive.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, then you’re going to tackle the public?”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to tackle any one to whom I can get access.”</p> - -<p>“You spoke just now of lectures.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll speak of anything that will help me to get the -message across. That’s why I mention father and—” -Again she hesitated at a name, going on with an elision:—“first -of all. They are simply the first I shall be able to -talk to. As a matter of fact, not many as yet have been -over there and come back to America—so that there’s a -good deal of curiosity still unsatisfied—and so one will -get a chance. You must have noticed already how dearly -Americans, especially the women, like to be talked to. -We’re talked to so much by experts on all subjects that -we should burst with knowledge if our minds weren’t like -those swimming-tanks with fresh water running in and -out of them all the time.”</p> - -<p>“So you’re really going to make it a kind of business?”</p> - -<p>She spread her hands apart, palms outward.</p> - -<p>“What else can I do? I assure you it isn’t any desire -for publicity or that sort of thing. I’m just—I’m just -driven on. It’s like what some one says in the Bible—I’ve -taken to reading the Bible lately—it seems the only<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_282"></a>[282]</span> -thing big enough in spirit to go with the big times—but -some one says there: ‘Woe unto me, if I preach not the -gospel!’ Well, it’s the same way with me. Woe unto -me if I don’t do this thing! It’s taken possession of me; -I can’t do anything else; and so I’m going back—”</p> - -<p>I was expressing but one of the host of thoughts that -crowded on me as I said: “You’ve got the tremendous -advantage of being an American. You can say what -you like. If I were—”</p> - -<p>She stood off and surveyed me. “You don’t need to -say anything. You speak for yourself. One has only -to look at you.”</p> - -<p>I smiled ruefully. “I know I’m pretty well battered -up.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it isn’t that.”</p> - -<p>“What is it, then?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just—it’s just everything. -You’re a type. I’m not speaking of you personally, but -of a lot—hundreds—thousands—I’ve seen—young fellows -who make me think of some other words in the Bible.”</p> - -<p>“What are they?”</p> - -<p>“They’re in Isaiah, I think. Everybody knows them.” -She recited in a smooth, rich voice that gave new beauty -to the familiar passage: “‘Surely he hath borne our griefs, -and carried our sorrows: ... He was wounded for our -transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the -chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his -stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; -we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord -hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.’” Her voice rose—and -fell again. “‘He was oppressed, and he was -afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as -a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_283"></a>[283]</span> -is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.’” She resumed in -a colloquial tone: “I’ve seen so much of that, haven’t -you? The lamb led dumb to the slaughter, and the -quiet, wounded man hardly opening his mouth for a -moan. It’s heartbreaking.”</p> - -<p>“And yet you’d bring your own people into it.”</p> - -<p>“Because it’s sublime. Because I’ve seen for myself -that the people who take part in it are raised to levels -they never knew it was possible to reach. Haven’t you -found the same thing for yourself?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I? I’m only—”</p> - -<p>“You’re a man—and a young man. You’re a young -man who’s been—I can’t express it. It’s all in that fact. -The people at home will only have to look at you to see -what language could never put before them. Language -isn’t equal to it. Imagination isn’t equal to it when the -thing is over. Don’t you find that? Doesn’t it often -seem to you, now that you’re out of it, as if it was a dream -that had half escaped you? You try to tell it—and you -can’t. That’s why the people who’ve been there and -come back so often have nothing to say. That’s why so -many of the books—except those that contain diaries -jotted down on the minute—that are written afterward -are so often disappointing. It’s like a great secret in -every man’s soul that he knows and thinks about, and -can never get out of him. So I shall make no attempt -to do more than to tell the little things, the small human -details—”</p> - -<p>You will see that I was following my own train of -thought as I broke in, “But New York life will get hold -of you again.”</p> - -<p>“It can’t get hold of me again, because there will be -nothing for it to catch on by. That’s all over for me.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_284"></a>[284]</span> -It could no more seize anything I am now than you or -I”—she pointed to a flock of little birds riding up and -down on a long, smooth billow—“from the deck of this -ship could catch one of those Mother Carey’s chickens.”</p> - -<p>My sensations were those of a man who has received -an extraordinary bit of good news, like that of a great -artistic triumph or the inheritance of a fortune. It was -something that went to the foundations of life, bathing -them in security and peace. As we continued to talk -the swing of the boat became the lulling of strong arms.</p> - -<p>The conflict of which for the past few days my mind -had been the battle-ground was suddenly appeased. -Woman, love, marriage, the more comforting elements in -life—were no longer in opposition to what had become -a man’s pressing and sacred duties. There could be a love -which asked for no moratorium; or rather, there could -be a woman with the courage of a soldier.</p> - -<p>I began to see her as comparable to that crusader’s -wife who, disguised as a page, followed her lord on his -journeys, to share his perils and minister to his needs. -In a modern girl it was not only romantic; it was adorable. -That it should have been done for me was beyond -my power to believe. None but the bravest and most -daring spirit would have attempted it—none but the -heart capable of climbing higher and more adventurously -still. I had known her for a gallant soul from that midnight -minute when she pulled aside her hangings and found -me lurking in her chamber; but I had never made a forecast -of the heroisms and fidelities expanding here like the -beauty from the heart of a rose.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_285"></a>[285]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXIII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>So we came to that last evening on board, of which -I must now tell you. It had taken me the intervening -time to get used to the new outlook. The habit of -seeing myself surrounded by a whole stockade of prohibitions -was too strong to overcome in a flash. I had -to let my mind emerge into freedom gently, telling myself -each day that with a wife like this I could serve the cause -more devotedly than ever, since she would be serving it -too.</p> - -<p>Of that dedication to a cause I was possibly too much -aware. My uniform made me aware of it. My game leg -and my sightless eye made me aware of it. The need of -whole peoples, like the French and British and Italian, -of every man who could fire a gun or ram home a bayonet -or speak a rousing word—that more than anything else -seemed to put a consecration upon me of which I was -as foolishly and yet as loftily conscious as a modern king, -accustomed to a bowler hat, when he rides through the -streets with his crown on.</p> - -<p>And on the last evening there was enough of the -ecstatic in the air to justify this sense of a mission.</p> - -<p>The voyage, which had not been without the exciting -stimulus of danger, was successfully over. The west -was actually reached, and the things done left behind us. -The things to be done were making our pulses beat faster -and our energies yearn forward. To-morrow with its<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_286"></a>[286]</span> -summons to activity was more keenly in our consciousness -than to-day. Doctors, nurses, returning soldiers, -the sparse handful of business men—we were already in -heart ashore, walking in streets, riding in tram-cars, -eating in dining-rooms, sleeping in beds, taking part in -hard work, and deeming these things a privilege. Voices -and laughter in the clear, still night, and the clicking of -heels on the deck, were part of the relief and joyousness.</p> - -<p>Late in the afternoon we had picked up the Nantucket -light-ship, which rested like a star on the water. Now -the horizon was being strung with beads of light, one, two, -three, or little clusters at a time, behind which we knew -that advancing night was lighting myriads of lamps all -the way to the Pacific. On the Atlantic coast it was already -dark, with cities and towns ablaze, and villages -and farm-houses lit by kindly, shimmering windows. In -the Middle West it was twilight, with electrics spangling -the office-buildings here and there, and pale-gold flowers -strewn over the prairie floors. Beyond the Mississippi it -would still be day, but day dissolving gorgeously, softly, -into sunset and moonrise and the everlasting magic of the -stars.</p> - -<p>As she and I hung over the deck rail side by side we -felt ourselves on the edge of wonders. The Old World was -in need of us, and we were in need of the New. To us -who were New World born, and who were coming back -to generous, easy-going welcome after the unspeakable -things we had seen, the craving for New World brotherhood -and vigor was like that of hunger or thirst. This -much we admitted in so many words—even she.</p> - -<p>She was still elusive; she was still mysterious. Though -during the past few days she had not resisted a certain -habit as to the place and hour at which we should find<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_287"></a>[287]</span> -ourselves together and had been willing to talk freely -on any theme connected with the cause, she took flight -from a hint of the personal, like a bird at an approaching -footstep.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, she was so far responsive as to say in -answer to some question of mine, “My immediate plans—”</p> - -<p>I broke in abruptly, “Let me tell you about your immediate -plans.”</p> - -<p>As the deck was faintly illuminated, since we were -again sailing with lights, I saw that change in her eyes -which comes when a fire on a hearth bursts into a conflagration.</p> - -<p>Probably my tone and the change in my manner had -startled her.</p> - -<p>“You? What?” she began, confusedly.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you what your plans are; but before that let -me tell you something else.”</p> - -<p>She put up her hand. “Wait! Don’t—”</p> - -<p>But it was too late to stop me. I couldn’t have stopped -myself. I was carried on by the impetus that came from -my having been so many years held back. I was no -longer the consecrated servant of a cause. As for having -been a drunkard and a thief, no shadow of remembrance -stayed with me. I was simply a man head over heels in -love with a woman, and in all sorts of stupid, stumbling -phrases saying so.</p> - -<p>She listened because she couldn’t do anything else -without walking away; but she listened with a kind of -aloofness. With her clasped hands resting on the rail and -her little, black silhouette held quietly erect, she gazed off -toward a great white star, which I suppose must have -been Capella, and heard my tale because she couldn’t -stop it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_288"></a>[288]</span></p> - -<p>“Listen,” I went on, leaning on an arm extended along -the rail. “I’ll tell you your story. I’ve pieced it together -and I know what it is. I didn’t know it when -I came on board. It puzzled me.”</p> - -<p>Her lips moved, but there was no turn of her head or -stir of her person.</p> - -<p>“Please don’t. I’m—I’m not sure that I could bear -it.”</p> - -<p>“Why shouldn’t I? You’ve done certain things. Let -me give you their interpretation.”</p> - -<p>“If I do—” she began, weakly.</p> - -<p>I couldn’t allow her to continue.</p> - -<p>“I see now the explanation of so many things that bewildered -me at first—that made me suffer. That day at -Rosyth, for instance, when you went in and left me, you -didn’t despise or hate me. You may have been disillusioned—”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t the word,” she murmured, still motionless, -and looking off at the big white star. “I’d been thinking -of you as the kind of man I’d—I’d been looking for so -long.”</p> - -<p>“And you saw I was less so than any of the others.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not saying that. But if you think it was easy -to tear up all one’s conceptions by the roots and plant -in new ones—however kindly—all at once—”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, I don’t! not now. But at that time I didn’t -know you. It’s only been since coming on board and -finding out what you’ve done—”</p> - -<p>Curiosity prompted her to glance round at me.</p> - -<p>“Then it was only since coming on board?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it was simple enough. It’s silly to keep up the -secret. I was talking, while we were still in the dock -at Liverpool, with that handsome Canadian nurse.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_289"></a>[289]</span></p> - -<p>“Miss Ogden. She was matron of the hospital at—”</p> - -<p>“She knew who you were. She couldn’t tell me your -name, but she said—or Miss Prynne said—that you’d come -over with Evelyn—that you’d been at Taplow with -Mabel—”</p> - -<p>“I know; the sort of thing that goes round among -nurses.”</p> - -<p>“And so I put two and two together and formed a -theory.”</p> - -<p>“You needn’t tell me what it is. Please don’t.”</p> - -<p>“But I want to.” I hurried on before she could protest -further. “When you saw that you’d—you’d hurt -me—that day at Rosyth—and that I had disappeared—and -gone into the army—and away to England—you got -into touch with Evelyn—”</p> - -<p>“I wanted to do something,” she declared, in a tone -of self-defense. “I couldn’t help it when I knew the need -was going to be so great. We didn’t see that all at once, -because we thought the war was going to be over in a very -little while. But when we began to realize it wasn’t—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t say you did it all on my account.”</p> - -<p>Though this was meant to provoke either admission -or denial, she glided over it.</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t easy to do anything in New York, because -we hadn’t got that far as yet; and so I naturally went to -Canada. When I did so Annette gave me a line of -introduction to Evelyn.”</p> - -<p>“And you told her about me.”</p> - -<p>She fell into my trap so far as to say: “I didn’t tell her. -I simply let her guess.”</p> - -<p>“Guess what?”</p> - -<p>“All I ever said to her in words was to ask her never -to mention my name to you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_290"></a>[290]</span></p> - -<p>“But why?”</p> - -<p>“I did the same with Lady Rideover when she took -me on at Taplow.”</p> - -<p>“Why—again?”</p> - -<p>“For the reason that—that if you ever came to find -out what I was doing you’d misunderstand it; just as I -see you—you do.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t. I don’t misunderstand it when I say -that in going to my sisters you wanted to be—you mustn’t -be offended!—you wanted to be near me—to watch over -me as much as possible.”</p> - -<p>“You were the only man I knew at that time who’d -taken the actual step of going to the war. If there’d been -any others—”</p> - -<p>“It wouldn’t have mattered if there’d been a hundred. -I don’t misunderstand it when I say that as -soon as you knew I was going home by this boat you -arranged—”</p> - -<p>“To go home by it too,” she forestalled, quickly, “so -that you should have somebody near you who could get -about in the normal way in case there was danger. I -admit that. It’s perfectly true.” She turned round on -me with fire in her manner as well as in her eyes. “But -what do you think I’m going home for?”</p> - -<p>I repeated what she had said a few days before:</p> - -<p>“You’re going home on account of your father—and -to interest him and other Americans in American duty -as to the war.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a reason; it’s the reason I find it easiest to -give. But I mustn’t hide it from you now that—that -I’ve—I’ve another.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus3"> -<img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="500" height="650" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">“You’re going home to marry me.”</p> -<p class="caption">“How can I be going home to marry you, when—when -I never knew till within half an hour that you—that -you cared anything about me?”</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_291"></a>[291]</span></p> - -<p>I made one of my long mental leaps. I made it as a -man might take the one chance of life in leaping a crevasse, -knowing that there are more chances that he will be dashed -to pieces in the chasm.</p> - -<p>“You’re going home to be married.”</p> - -<p>There was a kind of awe in the way she drew off from -me.</p> - -<p>“You’re extraordinary,” she breathed, faintly. “Miss -Ogden didn’t tell you that.”</p> - -<p>I had not cleared the crevasse. I was struggling desperately -on the edge of it, while beneath me was the -abyss.</p> - -<p>“You’re going home to marry me.”</p> - -<p>I think she gave a little bitter laugh. At any rate, -there was the echo of it in her tone, as she said, with sardonic -promptness: “How can I be going home to marry -you, when—when I never knew till within half an hour -that you—that you cared anything about me?”</p> - -<p>I, too, must have laughed, the statement struck me -as so absurd.</p> - -<p>“What? You never knew—?”</p> - -<p>She shook her head with an emphasis almost violent.</p> - -<p>“You may have known,” she said, in that voice which, -after all, could not be called bitter, for the reason that -it was reproachful, “but I’d come to the conclusion that”—she -tried to carry the situation off with a second laugh, -a laugh that ended as something like a sob—“that you -didn’t.”</p> - -<p>I leaned down toward her, speaking the words right -into her face.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t care?”</p> - -<p>She nodded silently.</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake, what made you think that?”</p> - -<p>“Oh—everything!”</p> - -<p>“Everything? When? How?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_292"></a>[292]</span></p> - -<p>She was doing her best to convey the impression that -it didn’t matter.</p> - -<p>“Everything—always—in New York—at Atlantic City—there -especially! And lately—”</p> - -<p>“Yes? Lately?”</p> - -<p>“Lately—at Taplow.”</p> - -<p>“But at Taplow—how? In Heaven’s name—how?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I was in and out of your room.”</p> - -<p>“So I understand; but what of that?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing; nothing; only—only what I saw.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what did you see?”</p> - -<p>Instead of answering this question at once she shifted -her ground.</p> - -<p>“If you cared—as you say—why didn’t you tell some -one?”</p> - -<p>“Tell some one? Who could I tell?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, any one. Lady Rideover, for one. She’d made -a promise not to mention me; but you hadn’t.”</p> - -<p>“But why should I have mentioned you when I never -supposed she had any notion—”</p> - -<p>“But you see that’s it. If you’d cared—so much—you’d -have done it—to one of your sisters or the other. -But you didn’t—not to either; and so they got the idea—”</p> - -<p>“Yes? What idea did they get? Go on. Tell me.”</p> - -<p>I noticed that she was twisting and untwisting her -fingers, and that she had begun throwing me quick, -nervous glances through the half-light.</p> - -<p>“It’s no use telling you, because it doesn’t matter. -That is, it doesn’t matter now. Everything’s—arranged.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll talk about that later. I want to know what -idea Mabel and Evelyn got.”</p> - -<p>“They didn’t get it exactly. They were only beginning -to get it when I made them understand that I was going<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_293"></a>[293]</span> -back to be—Oh, why do you make me talk about it? -Why do you bring it all up now, when it can’t do any -good?”</p> - -<p>To get at the facts I was obliged to speak with the -severity one uses toward a difficult child.</p> - -<p>“I want you to tell me what idea Mabel and Evelyn -got.”</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it perfectly evident what idea they’d get? Any -one would get it when you—when you never said a word—not -the least, little, confidential word—and you so ill!—and -blind!—and to your own sisters!—and that Miss -Farley there!”</p> - -<p>I passed over the reference to Miss Farley because I -couldn’t see what it meant. I had enough to do in -seizing the new suggestion that had come to me.</p> - -<p>“They didn’t think—they couldn’t have thought—that -there was nothing on my side.”</p> - -<p>“And everything on mine. That’s precisely the inference -they drew. Girls do go about, you know, giving -people to understand that men—”</p> - -<p>“But not girls like you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, girls like me; or sufficiently like me. And so I -had—in sheer self-respect—to let Lady Rideover see that -there was nothing in it of the kind of thing she thought, -and that I was actually going home to be—”</p> - -<p>“But didn’t she see? Didn’t she know? Didn’t everybody -see? Didn’t everybody know?”</p> - -<p>In the two brief sentences that came out with something -like a groan she threw tremendous emphasis on the first -word.</p> - -<p>“Nobody knew! Nobody saw!”</p> - -<p>There was a similar emphasis on the penultimate word -in my response.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_294"></a>[294]</span></p> - -<p>“Did you ask them?”</p> - -<p>She flashed back at me: “I did—almost. At times like -that—if it’s so—some one generally knows it from—from -the person who’s expecting to be brimming over with -his secret.” She laughed again, lightly, nervously. “But -in this instance nobody did.”</p> - -<p>“You asked them?”</p> - -<p>“Practically. I forgot everything I used to consider -pride and—and I sounded them.”</p> - -<p>“You sounded whom?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the people who knew you best—and who knew -me—Annette, Esther Coningsby, Ralph—any one to -whom I thought you might have betrayed yourself by a -word. But it was just as with Evelyn and Lady Rideover. -You had practically not mentioned my name. -Hilda Grace told me she tried to sound you—that Sunday -at Rosyth.”</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“I’m only quoting her, mind you. She said she didn’t -get”—there was a repetition of that nervous laugh—“she -said she didn’t get—any satisfaction. And so—”</p> - -<p>I tried to take a reasonable tone. “But how could I -tell you or anybody else before I’d confessed to you who -I was and where you’d first seen me?”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. I quite understand that—now that you’ve -said what you’ve said to-night. It’s where the past makes -us pay—”</p> - -<p>“For what I used to be.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re not the only one,” she declared, in a -curious, offhand tone. “It’s for what I used to be, -too.”</p> - -<p>I found it difficult to follow her. “What you used to -be? I don’t understand you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_295"></a>[295]</span></p> - -<p>“You know about me—how I’ve been engaged to one -man after another—and broken the engagements.”</p> - -<p>“Because you were trying to find the right one.”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t only that. I thought of myself; I didn’t -think of them. I let them offer me everything they had -to give—and pretended to accept it—just to experiment—to -play with—and now—now I’m—I’m caught!”</p> - -<p>“Caught—in what way?”</p> - -<p>She tossed her hands outward in a little, exasperated -gesture.</p> - -<p>“I can’t do the same thing again. It wouldn’t be right. -It wouldn’t be sane.”</p> - -<p>“The same thing? Do tell me what you mean.”</p> - -<p>“It’s—it’s one of the same men. I’m—I’m caught. -It’s what mother—and Elsie Coningsby—and other people -who could talk to me plainly—told me would happen -some day. I’m—I’m punished. And I can’t do the -same thing the second time.”</p> - -<p>It was still to escape from the yawning hell into which -I felt myself going down that I said, stupidly, “Why can’t -you?”</p> - -<p>“Because I can’t. It’s what I said just now. It -wouldn’t be sane. I’ve made a kind of history for myself. -If I were to do the same thing again it wouldn’t -merely seem cruel, it would seem crazy.”</p> - -<p>“But if you don’t care for him?”</p> - -<p>“I do—in a way. He’s been so good and kind and -patient and everything! And even if I didn’t care for -him at all it would be just the same—after what I’ve let -him think—the second time.”</p> - -<p>I could see her reasoning, if reasoning it was, though it -was not the uppermost thought in my mind. As a -matter of fact, I was repeating her statement as to “one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_296"></a>[296]</span> -of the same men.” Which one of them was it? There -had been three—the one she didn’t trust—the one she -couldn’t have lived with—and the one who was only -very nice. It would make such a difference which one -it proved to be that I was afraid to ask her.</p> - -<p>I burst out, desperately: “Oh, but why did you—let -him think it—the second time?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. It happened by degrees—by writing—in -letters—and I didn’t see how far I was going. It -was a kind of reaction.”</p> - -<p>“Reaction from what?”</p> - -<p>She looked at me wildly. “From you, I think. As far -as I remember it became definite at Taplow.”</p> - -<p>“When you were actually seeing me every day?”</p> - -<p>“That was the reason. It was seeing you so cheerful -and full of jokes—and not missing—not missing any one—nor -ever mentioning them—not to a soul. It just convinced -me of what I’d been sure of before—ever since the -time at Atlantic City—that you didn’t—that you never -had.... And so when he suggested it in one of his letters—I -don’t know what made me!—but I didn’t say it was -impossible.”</p> - -<p>“What did you say?”</p> - -<p>“I said, who knows?—or something like that. And -then he cabled—but I didn’t cable back—I only wrote—trying -to say no—but not saying it decidedly enough.... -And so it’s gone on—he writing and cabling both—and -I only writing, but letting him think—just little by little—and -not seeing how far I was being swept along.”</p> - -<p>I wanted to be clear as to the facts.</p> - -<p>“Then do I understand that you’re engaged to him?”</p> - -<p>“I told him I wouldn’t be engaged again—that engagements -for me had come to be grotesque. I said that if<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_297"></a>[297]</span> -we did it we’d—we’d just go somewhere and be married.”</p> - -<p>“If you did it? Then it’s possible—”</p> - -<p>“No; because he’s expecting it. I’ve allowed him to -expect it—just little by little, you understand—and not -seeing how far I was letting myself in.... And now he’s -told some people who used to know about it when I was -engaged to him before—and that binds me because it -will get about—so that if I were to break it off with him -the second time I should be a laughing-stock—and quite -rightly.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Regina, how could you?”</p> - -<p>Taking no note of the fact that for the first time in -my life I had called her Regina, she answered, simply: -“I tell you I don’t know. If I do know it was because -I was so lonely—and I’m over twenty-six—and feel older -still—and nobody seemed to care about me but him—and -I couldn’t bear the idea of going on and never marrying -any one at all—which is what Elsie Coningsby said -would happen to me—and what I’d been half wishing for -myself—and yet half afraid of.... And you—”</p> - -<p>“Yes? What about me?”</p> - -<p>“There was a nurse at Taplow, that Miss Farley—”</p> - -<p>“Miss Farley! Oh, good God!”</p> - -<p>“Well, how did I know? She was very pretty.”</p> - -<p>“Could I see whether she was pretty or not?”</p> - -<p>“And you were always joking with her and thanking -her.”</p> - -<p>“Of course I thanked her. What else could I do?”</p> - -<p>“You needn’t have kissed her hand. I caught you -doing that one day when I was tidying up in your room.”</p> - -<p>“Did you? Very likely. When a man is as helpless -as I was his gratitude often becomes maudlin.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_298"></a>[298]</span></p> - -<p>“I don’t know that you need call it that. He simply -falls in love with the pretty nurse who takes care of him. -It was happening all the time in the hospitals. But for -me—right there in your room—and shut out from everything—”</p> - -<p>“But that wasn’t my fault. If I’d known you were -there—”</p> - -<p>“It was your fault at Atlantic City—and afterward—when -I’d let you see—far more than a girl should ever -let any man see.”</p> - -<p>“But you know how impossible it was for me then—till -I’d told you who I was.”</p> - -<p>“I know it now. I didn’t know it before half an hour -ago. And the time when you told me that—that thing—at -Rosyth—I had no idea whether or not you meant.... -And when you blame me for not coming down-stairs -quicker than I did—”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t blamed you, Regina.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t imagine what it was to be all at sea not -merely as to what you felt, but actually as to what you -were—and had been. When you pulled the pearls out -of your pocket—and said you were that man—”</p> - -<p>There were two or three minutes during which she -stood with face averted, and I had to give her time to -regain her self-control.</p> - -<p>“You see,” she went on, her rich mezzo just noticeably -tremulous—“you see, I’d always thought about him—a -girl naturally would, finding him in her room like that—but -I’d thought of him as.... And I’d been thinking of -you, too. I’d been thinking of you as the very opposite -of him. He was so terrible—so gaunt—so stricken—I -see just a little of him in you now, after all you’ve suffered.... -But you—I don’t know what it was you had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_299"></a>[299]</span> -about you—your brother had it, too—I saw it again -when I met him at Evelyn’s in Montreal, something a little -more than distinguished, something faithful and good.”</p> - -<p>“Those things are often hang-overs of inheritance that -have no counterpart in the nature.”</p> - -<p>“Well, whatever it was I saw it—and all that year those -two types had been before my mind. Then when I was -told that there were not two—that there was only one—it -was like asking me to understand that the earth had -only one pole, and that the North and the South Poles -were identical.” She surprised me with the question, -“Did you ever read <i>La Dame aux Camélias</i>?”</p> - -<p>I said I had, wondering at the connection.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you remember how it begins with the exhumation -of the body of that poor woman six months -after she was buried?”</p> - -<p>I recalled the fact.</p> - -<p>“So that all through the rest of the book, when Marguerite -Gautier is at the height of her triumphs, if you -call them triumphs, you see her as she was first shown -to you. Well— Oh, don’t you understand? That’s the -way I had to see—I had to see you!”</p> - -<p>I hung my head. “I understand perfectly, Regina—now.”</p> - -<p>“There’s so much we’re only beginning to understand -now, both on your side and on mine.”</p> - -<p>“When it’s almost too late—if it isn’t quite.”</p> - -<p>Her manner, her voice, both of which had been a little -piteous, took on a sudden energy.</p> - -<p>“Oh, as to that, I’ve been thinking it over—I’ve had -to think over so much—and I don’t believe the word -applies.”</p> - -<p>“Doesn’t apply?” I asked, in astonishment. “Why<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_300"></a>[300]</span> -not—when it’s as late as it is? It’s just as if Fate had -been making us a plaything.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe that. Life can’t be the sport of disorganized -chance. If Romeo takes poison ten minutes -before Juliet wakes it’s because the years behind them -led up to the mistake.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that we reap only what we sow?”</p> - -<p>“And that life is as much a matter of development in -a logical sequence as the growth of certain plants from -certain seeds. It isn’t—it can’t be—a mere frenzy of -haphazards. Things happen to us in a certain way because -what we’ve done leaves them no other way.”</p> - -<p>“And was there no other way in which this could happen -to you and me?”</p> - -<p>“Think! Isn’t it the very outcome that might have -been expected from what we’ve been in the past?”</p> - -<p>I stared at her without comprehension.</p> - -<p>“Because of your past life,” she went on, “there was -something you couldn’t tell me; and because I didn’t -know it I’ve taken a step which my past life doesn’t allow -me to retrace. Could anything be neater?”</p> - -<p>“And yet you’re fond of saying that the way things -happen is the best way.”</p> - -<p>“It’s the best way if it’s the only way, isn’t it? I -should go mad if I thought that my life hung on nothing -but caprice—whether of luck or fate or anything you call -God. I can stand my deserts, however hard, if I know -they’re my deserts.”</p> - -<p>“You can stand this?”</p> - -<p>“This is not a question of standing; it’s one of working -out. Life isn’t static; it’s dynamic—those are the right -words, aren’t they? It’s always unfolding. One thing -leads to the next thing; and then there must be times<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_301"></a>[301]</span> -when a lot of things that seemed separate are gathered -up in one immense result. Don’t you think it must be -that way?”</p> - -<p>I said, stupidly, that I didn’t know.</p> - -<p>“Of course you don’t know if you don’t think; but try -to think!”</p> - -<p>“What good will thinking do when we see how things -are?”</p> - -<p>“It’ll show us how to make the best of them, won’t -it?”</p> - -<p>“Is there any best to be made of your marrying anybody -else than me? The way things happen isn’t necessarily -the best way.”</p> - -<p>After her hesitating syncopated sentences in dealing -with what was more directly personal to her life and mine -she talked now not so much calmly as surely, as of subjects -she had long thought out.</p> - -<p>“I don’t say the best way absolutely; but the best in -view of what we’ve made for ourselves. For ourselves you -and I have made things hard. There’s no question about -that. But isn’t it for both of us now to live this minute -so that the next won’t be any harder?”</p> - -<p>There was no argument in this; there was only appeal.</p> - -<p>“What,” I asked, “do you mean by that?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose I mean that the best way to live this minute -is to accept what it contains—till it develops into something -else—as it will. This isn’t final. It’s only a step -on the way to—”</p> - -<p>“It’s a step on the way to your marrying a man you’re -not in love with, and my not marrying at all.”</p> - -<p>“And as the world is at present, aren’t there worse -tragedies than that?”</p> - -<p>Irony of which she must have been unaware pricked<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_302"></a>[302]</span> -my dreams of celibate consecration to a cause as a pin -pricks a bubble.</p> - -<p>“So that if I stand still and let you go on—”</p> - -<p>She threw me a quick glance. “And aren’t you going -to?”</p> - -<p>The answer to that question was what in the back of -my mind I had been trying to work out.</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t it depend,” I said, picking the right words, -“on which of the three it is? There’s one I couldn’t interfere -with—not without disregarding gratitude and honor.”</p> - -<p>“Do you want me to tell you which?”</p> - -<p>But I didn’t—not then. Too much hung on what the -knowledge would bring me. There were decisions to -which I couldn’t force myself at once. In saying this I -added, “But though I can’t interfere with him without -disregarding gratitude and honor, I don’t say that I -sha’n’t disregard them.”</p> - -<p>In the clear starlight her eyes had a veiled metallic -brightness.</p> - -<p>“No?”</p> - -<p>“And if I don’t,” I persisted, “what shall you do?”</p> - -<p>“What would you expect me to do?”</p> - -<p>“I should expect you to back me up.”</p> - -<p>“So that we should both be disregarding gratitude and -honor?”</p> - -<p>“We’ve a right to our happiness.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a very old argument, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“It’s not the less true for being old.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no; if it’s true it’s true—anyhow.”</p> - -<p>“And it is true. Don’t you know it is?”</p> - -<p>She surprised me by saying, as if quite casually, “I -don’t suppose that in the end it’s the truth or the untruth -of the argument that would weigh with me.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_303"></a>[303]</span></p> - -<p>My heart gave a thump.</p> - -<p>“Then what would weigh with you?”</p> - -<p>She was standing with her back to the rail, the -great white star behind her. As if to emphasize the -minute of suspense the engines gradually stopped, while -the ship rocked gently on the tide. The lights on shore -were more complex now, lights above lights, lights back -of lights, with the profusion of seaboard towns even in -November. The murmur of voices and the click of heels -grew expectant as well as joyous.</p> - -<p>When she spoke at last it was with breast heaving and -eyes downcast. Her words came out staccatowise, as -if each made its separate effort to keep itself back.</p> - -<p>“What would weigh with me? I—I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“Does that mean,” I demanded, sharply, “that you -might back me up?”</p> - -<p>I could barely catch her words.</p> - -<p>“It means first of all that—that I’m awfully weak.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t weak, Regina, to—to love.”</p> - -<p>“It’s weak for a soldier to make love an excuse for not -fighting.”</p> - -<p>“But you’re not a soldier.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, I am; and so are you. We’re all soldiers -now—every one in the world. We keep telling ourselves—we -keep telling one another—that we’re fighting for -right. It’s our great justification. But what’s the use -of fighting for public right if we go and do wrong privately?”</p> - -<p>“But it isn’t right for you to throw yourself away on -a man you don’t care for.”</p> - -<p>“It’s right for me to stand by my word—what is practically -my word—till something relieves me from the -necessity.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_304"></a>[304]</span></p> - -<p>“And do you think anything ever will?”</p> - -<p>“That’s not what I have to consider. If I do what -I know I ought to do I’ve only to wait—and let the next -thing come.”</p> - -<p>“And what you know you ought to do—are you going -to do it?”</p> - -<p>She looked up at me pleadingly, quiveringly, with -clasped hands.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to do—to do anything else. Oh, Frank, -I hope you won’t make me!”</p> - -<p>It was not this unexpected collapse that made me -tremble; it was not this confession; it was the knowledge -that I had her in my power. She had seemed so far above -me—ever since I knew her; she had seemed so far beyond -me, so strong, so aloof, so ice pure, so inflexibly -and inaccessibly right! And now she was ready to come -to me if I insisted on taking her.</p> - -<p>But the hungry beast in me was not yet satisfied with -her avowals.</p> - -<p>“Could I, Regina—could I—make you?”</p> - -<p>I once saw in the eyes of a spaniel that knew it was -going to be shot the beseeching, submissive, helpless look -I saw here.</p> - -<p>“You know what I’ve been doing, Frank—the last two -years—just to be where I—where I could—hear about -you—occasionally—and see you perhaps—when you -couldn’t see me.”</p> - -<p>I bent down toward her, close, closer, till I almost enveloped -her.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know that—now—and—and I’m—I’m going -to make you.”</p> - -<p>She didn’t answer, but she didn’t withdraw. Perhaps -she crept nearer me. Certainly she shivered.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_305"></a>[305]</span></p> - -<p>The look in her eyes was still helpless, submissive, beseeching; -but because it grew mortally frightened as well -I repeated what I had said as softly but as firmly as I -could make the words:</p> - -<p>“I’m—I’m going to make you.”</p> - -<p>There was nothing but the strip of black veiling between -her lips and mine when a sudden flash that might have -come out of heaven threw me back with a start.</p> - -<p>It was there above us—the great beacon—landlike—homelike—the -New World—the new work—the new -problems to be solved—the new duties toward mankind -to be hammered home—while thankful voices were murmuring -round us:</p> - -<p>“Sandy Hook!”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_306"></a>[306]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXIV</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>I never knew the compulsion exercised by organized -life till I found it settling round me, with an even distribution -like that of the weight of the atmosphere on -the body, paralyzing my will and making it impotent. -No more than I could throw off the atmosphere could I -be free from this force for a second.</p> - -<p>It began with my arrival on the dock, where Sterling -Barry had come to meet his daughter. I had seen him -often enough before, though I had never known him -otherwise than in the way called touch-and-go. A ruddy, -portly, handsome fellow of sixty-odd, with eyes that had -passed on their torch to his daughter’s, he must in early -life have been retiring and diffident, for his general approach -now had that forced jovial note that verges on -the boisterous.</p> - -<p>“Hello! Hello!” he cried, as he lilted up to where I -stood with Lovey in the Custom House Section M. -“Alive and kicking, what? Couldn’t kill you. Tried, -didn’t they?” he went on, looking me over. “Not but -what it might have been worse, of course. Billy Townsend’s -son’ll never come back at all, poor chap. Fine -young fellow, with a bee in his bonnet about aviation. -Would go—and now you see! Well, we’ve got you back -and we’re going to keep you. What do you know about -that?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_307"></a>[307]</span></p> - -<p>I replied that as things were I was afraid I had no choice -but to stay.</p> - -<p>“And if you want a job come to me. Some big things -doing. Country never so prosperous. Lots of business -for every one—even for poor old nuts like us. Well, so -long! Come and see us. Mrs. Barry will want to hear -you talk. Awfully keen on the war, she is, and that sort -of thing. Bit down in the mouth now over this Rumania -business. Sad slump that, very.”</p> - -<p>I said that it only left the more for us to do.</p> - -<p>“Got your hands full, what? They do seem to put it -over on you, don’t they? Ah, well, we won’t see you -licked. We’ll keep out of the war as war; but you’ve -got our sympathy. Watchful waiting—that’s the new -ticket, you know. Can do a lot with that.”</p> - -<p>With his light, dancing step he was waltzing away again -when he suddenly returned.</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Barry’ll have something to tell you,” he said, -with a gleam in his eye curiously like that in Regina’s. -“Perhaps you know it already. Regina may have given -you the tip, what? People get confidential on board -ship. Nothing else to do. No fuss and feathers about -it. They don’t want that. War-time spirit, you know. -Just telling a few of our friends. Don’t mind saying that -Mrs. Barry and I are mighty delighted. Been like our -own son for years. Sorry when it came to nothing last -time; but look at ’em now!” He pointed to Section B, -where Cantyre was bending over Regina as I had bent -over her last night. “Can see from here what it means. -Get your congratulations by and by.”</p> - -<p>Of all this the point is that I couldn’t say a word. I -couldn’t tell him there on the dock that I didn’t mean to -let it go any farther, nor did he suspect for a second that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_308"></a>[308]</span> -I had more than an outsider’s interest in the romance. I -felt awkward and cowardly at remaining dumb, but -neither time nor place admitted of a protest.</p> - -<p>So, too, when a few minutes later Cantyre came over -to give me his welcome. It was the welcome of old, with -a shocked pity in it.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t expect to see you so badly mauled,” was his -sorrowful comment after the first demonstrations. “I -knew you were wounded, of course, and that you had -been blind. Regina wrote me that from Taplow. But -I didn’t look for your being so—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s nothing,” I interposed, in the effort to shut -off his sympathy.</p> - -<p>Having asked me a few professional questions in reference -to the ways in which I had been wounded, he said: -“Well, now that we’ve got hold of you again we mean to -feed you up and take care of you. You’re going to be -my patient, Frank. For the present, at any rate, we’ll -be living in the same old house, and I shall be able -to keep a daily eye on you. Lovey here has your -apartment as clean as an operating-room. See you -there later. Just now I’ve got to go back to—to -Regina. And by the way”—his habitually mournful -expression brightened as a lowering day lights up when -the sun bursts through the masses of drifting cloud—“by -the way, I shall have something to tell you by and -by. The most wonderful thing has happened, Frank—something -you and I used to talk about before you went -abroad.”</p> - -<p>He wrung my hand with that way he had of pulling -it downward and pulling it hard, which betrayed all sorts -of raptures breaking in on a spirit that had never known -common, every-day happiness. His whole face asked me<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_309"></a>[309]</span> -to rejoice with him, and, though I couldn’t do that, I -couldn’t do the other thing.</p> - -<p>It was on my lips to say, “You can’t have her because -I’m going to take her away from you.” But the words -died before they were formed. The very thought died in -my mind. Whatever I did, I shouldn’t be able to do it -that way; and so I let him go.</p> - -<p>“Do you know what he meant, Slim—when he said -them things—the doctor?”</p> - -<p>This was Lovey’s question as he sat beside me in the -taxicab and we drove up-town.</p> - -<p>As I made no answer, he mumbled, mysteriously: “I -do. I ’aven’t valeted ’im for nothink.”</p> - -<p>I still made no answer, and the mumble ceased.</p> - -<p>As yet I had noticed him only as the returned traveler -notices the faithful old dog that greets him by lifting his -eyes adoringly and wagging his tail. I saw now that the -intervening two and a half years had aged him. He had -grown white and waxy; his thin gray hair was thinner. -A trembling, like that of a delicately poised leaf on a day -when there is little wind, shook his hands, and the left -corner of his lower lip had the pathetic quiver of a child’s -when it is about to sag in a great weeping.</p> - -<p>As I had paid him so little attention on the dock, I -picked up the hand resting on his knee and pressed it.</p> - -<p>He responded with a long, harsh breath which, starting -as a sigh of comfort, became something inarticulately -emotional.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Slim! I’ve got ye back, ’aven’t I?”</p> - -<p>“Seems like it, Lovey.” I laughed without feeling -mirthful.</p> - -<p>“Ye look awful, don’t ye?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose I do.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_310"></a>[310]</span></p> - -<p>“But it don’t make no difference to me, it don’t. I’d -rather ’ave ye all chawed up like this than not ’ave ye -at all.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>“Them wars is awful things. Why don’t they stop -’em?” He continued, without waiting for an explanation: -“It’s all along o’ them blamed Germans. The -cheek o’ them—to go and fight Englishmen! There was -a German in the ’at-shop in the Edgware Road used to -’ang round me somethin’ fierce; and now I believe he -wasn’t nothink but a-spyin’ on me. Don’t you think he -was, Slim?”</p> - -<p>“I think very likely.”</p> - -<p>“Makes my blood run cold, it does, the times I’ve took -’im into a little tea-shop in Great Hatfield Street—and -me a-treatin’ on ’im, like. If I ’adn’t ’ad luck I might -be lookin’ like you by this time. Ain’t it awful to be one-eyed, -sonny?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m getting used to it.”</p> - -<p>“Used to it till you looks in the glass, I expect. Get -a fright when ye do that, don’t you? But it’s all right, -Slim. It wouldn’t matter to me if you was a worse looker -than y’are. I wouldn’t turn ye down, neither, not if it -was for all the doctors in the world. Not but what he’s -been very attentive to me while you was away. I don’t -make no complaint about that. Bit finicky about socks -and ’andkerchiefs always the same color—and ye couldn’t -see ’is socks most o’ the time—only when he pulled up -his trouser leg a-purpose—but a good spender and not -pokin’ ’is nose into my affairs. I’ll say all that for ’im; -but if he was to ask my ’and in marriage, like, and I could -get you, Slim—all bunged up as y’are now and everything!—well, -I know what I’d say.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_311"></a>[311]</span></p> - -<p>Too miserable to reject this bit of sympathy, I said, -merely, “Unfortunately, Lovey, every one may not be -of your opinion.”</p> - -<p>“I d’n’ know about that,” he protested. “Seems to -me everybody would be if you could make ’em understand, -like.”</p> - -<p>There was nothing offensive in this, coming as it did -from a deep affection, but, as it had gone far enough, I -turned my attention to the streets.</p> - -<p>There was a quality in them not to be apprehended by -the sense of sight. It defied at first my limited powers -of analysis. Something to which I was accustomed was -not there; and something was there to which I was not -accustomed.</p> - -<p>That to which I was not accustomed struck me soon -as shimmering, shining, radiant. That it was not an -outward radiance goes without saying. New York on -that November day was as dreary and bleak a port as -one could easily land at. A leaden sky cloaked the streets -in a leaden, lifeless atmosphere. The tops of steeples and -the roofs of the tall buildings were wreathed in a leaden -mist. Patches of befouled snow on the ground, with the -drifts of paper, rags, and refuse to which the New York -eye is so inured that it doesn’t see them, lent to the side-streets -through which we clattered an air of being so hopelessly -sunk in dirt that it is no use trying to be any other -way. Drays rumbled, motor-trucks honked, ferry-boats -shrieked, tram-cars clanked, trains overhead crashed with -a noise like that of the shell that had struck the <i>Assiniboia</i>, -while our taxicab creaked and squeaked and spluttered -like an old man putting on a speed he has long outlived. -On the pavements a strange, strange motley of men and -women—Hebrew, Slavic, Mongolian, negro, negroid—carried<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_312"></a>[312]</span> -on trades as outlandish as themselves. Here and -there an outlandish child shivered its way to an outlandish -school. Only now and then one saw a Caucasian -face, either clean, alert, superior, or brutalized and repulsive -beyond anything to be seen among the yearning, -industrious aliens.</p> - -<p>And yet to me all was lit by an inner light of which I -couldn’t at first see the lamp. I caught the rays without -detecting the source that emitted them. In and through -and above this squalid New York, with its tumult, its -filth, its seeming indifference to the individual, there was -a celestial property born of the kingdom of heaven. It -shone in the sky; it quivered in the air; it lay restfully -on the hoary graveyards nestling at the feet of prodigious -cubes, like eld at the base of Time. All faces glowed with -it; all tasks translated it; all the clamor of feet and -wheels and whistles sang it like a song.</p> - -<p>The name of it came to me with a cry of joy and a -pang of grief simultaneously. It was peace. I was in a -country that was not at war.</p> - -<p>I had forgotten the experience. I had forgotten the -sensation it produces. I had forgotten that there was -a world in which men and women were free to go -and come without let or hindrance. And here were -people doing it. The day’s work claimed them, and -nothing beyond the day’s work. To earn a living was -an end in itself. The living earned, a man could -enjoy it. The money he made he could spend; the -house he built he could occupy; the motor he bought -he could ride in; the wife he married he could abide -with; the children he begot he could bring up. He -could go on in this routine till he sickened and died -and was buried in it. There was no terrific overruling<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_313"></a>[313]</span> -motive to which all other motives had become subsidiary, -and into which they merged.</p> - -<p>In the countries I had been living in war was the sky -overhead and the ground beneath the feet. One dreamed -it at night, and one woke to it in the morning. It made -everything its adjunct, every one its slave. Duty, -wealth, love, devotion, had no other object on which to -pour themselves out. It commanded, absorbed, monopolized. -There was no home it didn’t visit, no pocket -it didn’t rifle, no face it didn’t haunt, no heart it didn’t -search and sift and strengthen and wrench upward—the -process was always a hard, dragging, compulsive one—till -the most wilful had become submissive and the most -selfish had given all. Prayer was war; worship was -war; art, science, philosophy, sport were war. Nothing -else walked in the streets or labored in the fields or -bought and sold in the shops. It was the next Universal -after God.</p> - -<p>And here, after God, a man was his own Universal. -With no standard to which everything had to be referred -he seemed unutterably care-free. Care-free was not a -term I should have used of New York, of America, in the -old days; but it was now the only one that applied. The -people I saw going by on the sidewalks had nothing but -themselves and their families to think of. Their only -struggle was the struggle for food and shelter. Safe people, -happy people, dwelling in an Eden out of the reach -of cannon and gas and bomb!</p> - -<p>“I came not to bring peace, but a sword!”</p> - -<p>Sacrilegiously, perhaps, I was applying those words to -myself as we jolted homeward. But I was applying them -with a query. I was asking if it could possibly be worth -while. All at once my mission became unreal, fantastic.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_314"></a>[314]</span></p> - -<p>To begin with, it was beyond my powers. Among these -hundreds of thousands of strangers I knew but a handful. -Even on that handful I should make no impression. I -could see at a glance, from the few words I had exchanged -with people on the dock, that each man’s cup was full. -You couldn’t pour another drop into it. I had subconsciously -taken it for granted that my friends would be, -as it were, waiting for me; and already it was evident -that in their minds there would not be a vacant spot. I -had not the will-power to force myself in on so much hurry -and preoccupation.</p> - -<p>Then I wasn’t interested in it any more. I had pretentiously -thought of myself as dedicated to a cause, and now -the cause had dissolved into nothing on this leaden, overcharged -air. It would be ridiculous to wean these people -away from their work, even if I could play like the Pied -Piper and have them follow me. I didn’t want to do it. -I wanted to marry the woman I loved, and settle down -quietly, industriously, to spend my days in an office and -my nights at home, like the countless human ants that -were running to and fro. My celibacy of the will was -gone. My consecration was gone. Where these austerities -had been there was now only that yearning of whatever -it is that draws a man toward a woman, and I asked -nothing but the freedom to enjoy. I was determined to -enjoy. The resolve came over me with this first glimpse -of New York. It came over me in a tide of desire which -was all the fiercer for its long repression. It may have -been the demand of the flesh for compensation. That -which had not merely been denied, but brutalized and -broken, rose with the appetite of a starving beast.</p> - -<p>So, thirdly, I was not fit for any high undertaking. It -was not my real self that had made these vows; it was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_315"></a>[315]</span> -a phantasm self evoked by the vast emotions of a strife -in which the passions raged on a scale that lifted the -human temporarily out of itself. But now that the strife -had been left behind, the human fell back into the same -old rut.</p> - -<p>In the same old rut I found myself. I had reverted to -what I had been before there was a war at all. My carnal -instincts were as strong as ever; as strong as ever was -my longing for Regina Barry as my wife. It was stronger -than ever, since I meant to get her by hook or by crook, -if I couldn’t do it by the methods which colloquially we -call straight.</p> - -<p>It was, however, the difficulties of hook and crook that -oppressed me. The straight line was in this case that of -least resistance. I grew more convinced of it as the day -advanced.</p> - -<p>There was everything to make my return to the old -quarters a moment of depression. The quarters themselves, -which had seemed palatial after the Down and -Out, were modest to the point of being squalid. As -Cantyre had said, Lovey had kept them as clean as an -operating-room, but cleanliness couldn’t relieve their dingy -shabbiness or make up for the absence of daylight.</p> - -<p>Moreover, Cantyre’s own proximity was trying to me. -There was only the elbow of a corridor between his rooms -and mine. He would resume the old chumming habits -of running in and out, while I was sharpening a knife to -stab him in the back.</p> - -<p>And in the processes of unpacking Lovey got on my -nerves. He got on my nerves as a sweet, old, fussy -mother gets on those of a wayward son during the hours -he is compelled to stay at home. Dogging me about -from one room to another, his affection was like a draught<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_316"></a>[316]</span> -of milk held out to a man whose lips are parched for -brandy.</p> - -<p>It was a relief, therefore, when the telephone rang and -Annette van Elstine asked me to come and have tea with -her. I knew that Annette was not craving to see me -merely as her cousin; and as my cousin I could have -waited patiently for the pleasure of seeing her; but with -her scent for drama and her insatiable curiosity she -would raise the issues of which I wanted to talk even if -I got no good from it.</p> - -<p>I found her as little changed as if Time had not passed -nor War dropped his bomb on the world.</p> - -<p>Annette’s smartness, as I have already told you, was -difficult to define. It was not in looks or dress or manner -of living or gifts of intellect. If I could ascribe it to a -cause I should put it down as authority of position combined -with the possession of a great many personal secrets. -She knew your intimate history for the reason that she -asked you intimate questions. Authority of position -enabled her to do this—or at least she acted as if it did—with -the right of a cross-examiner to probe the truth in -court. She could convey the impression that her interest -in your affairs was an honor—as if a queen were to -put her royal finger in your family pie—so that quite -artlessly you unlocked your heart to her. Other people’s -unlocked hearts were her kingdom, since, as far as I could -see, she had nothing in her own.</p> - -<p>Also, as far as I could see, she wore the same tea-gown -I had always seen her in; she sat in the same chair in -front of the same fire; she had before her the same tea -equipage; she might have been pouring the same tea.</p> - -<p>The transition from the necessary questions as to my -personal experiences and wounds to that of the exact<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_317"></a>[317]</span> -relations between Mrs. Hartlepool and Gen. Lord Birkenhead -was an easy one. Disappointed that I had spent -two years at the front and had heard nothing of the -delicate situation between these distinguished persons, -of which an amazing mass of contradictory detail had -reached certain circles in New York, she turned the conversation -on what was really the matter in hand.</p> - -<p>“So you came over on the same boat as Regina?”</p> - -<p>Unable to deny this statement, I admitted its truth. -The dusky ripples played over Annette’s round features, -giving them a somber vivacity.</p> - -<p>“Did she tell you anything?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; a good many things.”</p> - -<p>“Anything special, I mean?”</p> - -<p>“Everything she said was special, as far as I can remember.”</p> - -<p>She tried another avenue.</p> - -<p>“You’ve gone back to your old quarters, haven’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; I kept them all the time I was away. Stupid, -I suppose; but when I left New York I didn’t expect to -be gone for more than a few weeks.”</p> - -<p>“Stephen Cantyre is in that house, isn’t he?”</p> - -<p>“On the same floor with me.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll see a great deal of him, won’t you?”</p> - -<p>“I did when I was there before.”</p> - -<p>“Was he on the dock to meet Regina?”</p> - -<p>“He was on the dock, either to meet her or to meet me. -As a matter of fact, he met us both.”</p> - -<p>“Did he say anything about her?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; he said he had to go and speak to her.”</p> - -<p>“Only to speak to her?”</p> - -<p>“What more could he do—right there on the dock?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, then you do know?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_318"></a>[318]</span></p> - -<p>“Know what?”</p> - -<p>“What do you suppose? Can’t you guess?”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know you wanted me to guess. I thought -you meant to tell me.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t tell you what I don’t know myself—officially.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know it in any other way?”</p> - -<p>“I know it by signs and tokens.”</p> - -<p>“One can infer a lot from them.”</p> - -<p>“That’s just what I’ve done. It wasn’t till I heard -that you’d come over in the same boat with her—”</p> - -<p>The rest of the sentence was conveyed by a look which -invited me to go on.</p> - -<p>“You thought I might be able to corroborate the signs -and tokens?”</p> - -<p>“Or contradict them—if it’s not a rude thing to -say.”</p> - -<p>I wriggled away from the frontal attack. “Why should -it be rude?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, I’m the last person in the world to go poking -into other people’s business.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly.”</p> - -<p>“Only people do like to tell me things.”</p> - -<p>“I can quite understand that—when they’ve anything -to tell.”</p> - -<p>“Which is what I thought you might have.”</p> - -<p>“How could I have anything to tell when I’ve just -spent two years in trenches and hospitals?”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t been in trenches and hospitals during -the last ten days. Oh, don’t say anything if you don’t -want to. I’m not in the least curious.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you’re not. No one would ever think so.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve only been—well, just a little afraid.”</p> - -<p>“What were you afraid of?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_319"></a>[319]</span></p> - -<p>“Of the situation. I suppose it wasn’t an accident -that you took the boat that she was on?”</p> - -<p>“No, it wasn’t an accident. But what has that to -do with it?”</p> - -<p>“Just that much—that you did it on purpose.”</p> - -<p>“So that you were afraid on my account?”</p> - -<p>“No; on hers. You see, she’s been so terribly talked -about that now that it’s beginning again—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s beginning again, is it?”</p> - -<p>She said, mysteriously, “Stephen Cantyre is rather a -goose, you know.”</p> - -<p>“In what way?”</p> - -<p>“In the way of dropping hints when he’d much better -keep still. He’s so crazy about her—”</p> - -<p>“It’s a pity for him to be dropping hints if he isn’t sure.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, he must be sure enough! After the way she -treated him before, he’d never expose himself to the -same thing the second time. It isn’t that he’s not sure. -It’s just the way he does it—confiding in every one, but -only saying that he hopes.”</p> - -<p>“If he only hopes, it doesn’t bind any one but himself.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t a question of binding; it’s one of the situation. -If she’s let him hope—the second time—she’s -bound. If it was only the first time—or if she hadn’t -made such an insane reputation for herself—don’t you -see?—the whole thing is in that.”</p> - -<p>“I should think the whole thing was in whether or not -she was in love with him.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it isn’t. If she was as much in love with somebody -else as Juliet she couldn’t throw over Stephen -Cantyre now. She’d have to be put under restraint if -she did—shut up in some sort of ward. The community -wouldn’t stand for it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_320"></a>[320]</span></p> - -<p>“It might be a nine days’ wonder, of course.”</p> - -<p>“It would be one of those nine days’ wonders that last -all your life. She’d be done for.” She went on in another -key. “But, of course, her father and mother wouldn’t -let her. They’re delighted. He’s very well off—and a -good fellow, who’ll give her everything she wants.”</p> - -<p>“But what good will that do if she doesn’t care for -him?”</p> - -<p>Her animation went into the eclipse that always came -over her when she touched the heart of things.</p> - -<p>“What makes you think she doesn’t—if it’s not a rude -question?”</p> - -<p>“The fact that she turned him down before.”</p> - -<p>She broke in with that directness which she never -hesitated to make use of when the time came.</p> - -<p>“You don’t think she cares anything about you?”</p> - -<p>I considered two or three ways of meeting this, the -one I adopted being to put on a rather inane smile.</p> - -<p>“What if she did?”</p> - -<p>“She’d just have to get over it, that’s all. You, too!”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“I needn’t tell you why. You must see for yourself. -Or, rather, I’ve told you already. There are ways in -which an engagement is more important than a marriage—any -engagement; and when it’s a second engagement -to the same man—If she’d been married to him, and -couldn’t get along, why, no one would think the worse -of her if she got a divorce and married some one else. -She would have given him a try; she would have done -her best. But just to take him up and put him down, and -take him up and put him down again, without trying -him at all—my dear Frank, it isn’t done!”</p> - -<p>“But suppose we did it?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_321"></a>[321]</span></p> - -<p>“In that case it might be the world well lost for love—but -the world would be lost; and you needn’t be under -any misconception about it. Personally I’d stand by -any one through almost anything; I have stood by -Regina in the past when lots of other women have given -her the cold shoulder because of her—”</p> - -<p>“Call it anything you like. Most of us have other -names for it. All I want to say now is that I wouldn’t -stand by her in this; nor by you, either. If you had come -to me when you were in your other troubles—three or -four years ago—you’d have found me just the same as -if you’d been keeping straight. Any one can go to the -bad. There isn’t a family that hasn’t some one who’s -done it. But this would be the kind of thing— Frank, -old boy, I’m telling you right now, so that you’ll know -where you stand with me. I’d have to be the first to -cut you both.”</p> - -<p>To this there were several retorts I could have made, -any of them quite crushing to Annette; but I was thinking -of the practical difficulties before us. The rôle of -unscrupulous coquette was the last in which Regina -would care to appear; that of cad was equally distasteful -to me. Had it been possible to make one plunge and be -over with it, it would have been different; as it was, the -preliminaries—the facing of all the people who would -have to be faced—the explaining all the things that would -have to be explained—couldn’t but be devilish.</p> - -<p>I was just beginning, “Why should you assume that -we are thinking of any such thing—?”</p> - -<p>But before I could finish the sentence the door opened -gently and a maid’s voice announced, “Mrs. Barry.”</p> - -<p>Of all the people in the world, this lady was the last -I wanted to meet at that moment. Knowing how I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_322"></a>[322]</span> -must have figured in her eyes in the past, I was planning -for the future to figure in a worse light still. I had -thrown her kindness back in her face and never given her -an explanation. She must have known that my seeming -flight from Long Island after that last Sunday in June, -1914, had left her daughter unhappy; and the reason had -remained a mystery.</p> - -<p>She gave me the first glance as she entered, and only -the second to our hostess. The awful severity of those -who are temperamentally gentle and unjudging was in -the very coldness of her eye.</p> - -<p>She was a charming, delicate, semi-invalid woman who -seemed to have been spun, like the clothes she wore, out -of the least durable materials in life. Regina had the -same traits, but harder, stronger, and more lasting. It -was difficult to think of the latter as an invalid; while -you couldn’t see the mother as anything else.</p> - -<p>Prettily old-fashioned, she seemed not to have changed -her style of dressing since the eighteen-seventies. The -small bonnet might have dated from the epoch of professional -beauties when Mrs. Langtry was a girl. The -long fur pelisse with loose hanging sleeves was of no -period at all. I think she wore a train. In her own -house she habitually did, and she seemed to have just -flung on the pelisse and driven down the Avenue in her -motor.</p> - -<p>She greeted me politely, without enthusiasm, but with -due regard to the fact that I was a wounded hero home -from the wars. Talking of the invasion of Rumania, she -showed herself much more alive to America’s international -duty than any of the few men I had met since my landing.</p> - -<p>“I wish we could get my husband and Stephen to see -things that way,” she continued, sweetly, over her tea-cup.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_323"></a>[323]</span> -“They’re so pacifist, both of them. My husband -feels that we’ve nothing to do with it, and Stephen is -opposed to war on any ground. You must talk to him, -Mr.—or captain, isn’t it? Oh, major? You must talk -to him, Major Melbury. He’ll listen to you.” She -turned to Annette. “You know, Annette, I just ran in to -share our good news with you. Regina and Stephen—they’ve -made it up again—and they’re so happy!” An -oblique glance included me. She was getting the satisfaction -that women receive from a certain kind of revenge. -“Poor darling! You don’t know how hard she’s tried, -Annette. People haven’t understood her. All she’s -wanted was to be sure of herself—and now she is. She’s -really been in love with Stephen all these years, only she -didn’t know it. That is, she knew it; and yet—But -I’m sure you see it. You’re one of the few who’ve never -been unkind to her. She wanted me to tell you. She’ll -be so glad to have you know it, too, Major Melbury. -Perhaps she told you on the boat. I think she said she -did. I don’t quite remember. There’s been so much to -say in the last few hours. There always is at such a -time, don’t you think?... No; they’re not going to announce -an engagement. It would only make more talk, -after all the talk there’s been. One of these days they’ll be -married—without saying anything about it. And, oh!—I -know you’ll be interested, Annette, though it may bore -Major Melbury—Stephen has bought that very nice -house—the Endsleigh Jarrotts lived in it for a little while—on -Park Avenue near Sixty-sixth Street. Ralph Coningsby -is going to remodel it for them, and I’m sure it -will be awfully attractive. That’s where they’ll live.”</p> - -<p>It was my opportunity. I could have shouted out -there and then and made a scene.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_324"></a>[324]</span></p> - -<p>Do you think me a coward for not doing it? Do you -think me a fool?</p> - -<p>All kinds of speeches were hot within me—and I kept -them back. More correctly, I didn’t keep them back; -I simply couldn’t utter them. I couldn’t give pain to -this sweet lady sipping her tea so contentedly; I couldn’t -give pain to Annette. Annette was enjoying the situation -in which we found ourselves; the sweet lady had -got compensation for months, for years, of wondering and -unhappiness in those seemingly artless words, “She’s -really been in love with Stephen all these years, only she -didn’t know it.” I knew they were spoken for my benefit. -Between the lines, between the syllables, they said, -“And if you think she was ever in love with you you’re -wrong.” Whether the sweet lady believed her own -statements or not made little difference. It would -gratify her all her life to remember that she had had the -chance of making them.</p> - -<p>So I came away, following the line of least resistance, -because I didn’t see what else I could do.</p> - -<p>I didn’t see what else I could do when Cantyre came -into my bedroom late that night.</p> - -<p>I knew he would be dining at the Barrys’, and that he -would come looking me up after his return. To avoid -him I had the choice between staying out and going to -bed. My physical condition kept me from staying out -very late, and so I took the other alternative. It made -no difference, however, since he waked Lovey by pounding -on the door, and insisted on coming in.</p> - -<p>Dropping into the arm-chair beside my bed, with no -light but that which streamed in behind him from the -sitting-room, he took me on my weak side by beginning -to talk about the war.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_325"></a>[325]</span></p> - -<p>I have said that my mission had become unreal and -fantastic, but that was only in relation to my personal -fitness for the task. That the war was a holy war, to be -fought to a holy end, remained the alpha and omega of -my convictions. And to Cantyre war of any kind was -plainly unholy war, productive of unholy reactions. -What I felt as he talked may best be expressed by Lovey’s -words next morning when he betrayed the fact that he -had been listening.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t it get yer goat, Slim, the way the doctor -went on last night?”</p> - -<p>It did get my goat, and I restrained myself only because -I had been warned in London to be patient with Americans. -“You must treat them as wise parents treat their -sons,” I had been told. “Help them to see for themselves—and -when they do that you can trust them.” So the -best I could do was to help Cantyre to see for himself; -and to make any headway in that I had to pretend to be -tolerant.</p> - -<p>“No one contends that war is the ideal method for -settling human difficulties,” I admitted; “but as long as -human society stands on certain planks in its platform -there’ll be no other way.”</p> - -<p>“Then isn’t this the time to take another way?”</p> - -<p>“No; because you’ve got to change your bases of -existence first. You can’t change your effects without -first changing your causes, any more than you can graft -an apple on an oak.”</p> - -<p>“But even without removing the cause you can still -sometimes nip the effect.”</p> - -<p>“Which is what in the present instance we tried to -do, and didn’t succeed in. All the trend of education -during thirty years has been in the direction of eliminating<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_326"></a>[326]</span> -war, while still keeping the principle that makes for -war as part of the foundation of our life. We created a -system of international law; we set up a Hague Tribunal; -many of us had come to the conclusion that no great -war could ever again take place; but the law by which -human beings prefer as yet to live outwitted us and -brought war upon us whether we would or not. So long -as you keep the causes you must have the effects.”</p> - -<p>“Then let us do away with the causes.”</p> - -<p>“Yes! Let us. Only, to do that in time for the present -situation we should have begun five hundred years ago. -You can’t put out the fire the ages have kindled as you’d -blow out a candle. When you’ve spent centuries in preparing -your mine, and fixed a time fuse to make it explode, -you’ve nothing to do but to let it go off. This -war wasn’t made overnight. The world has been getting -ready for it as long as there have been human beings to -look askance at one another. Now we’ve got it—with -all its horrors, but also with all its compensations.”</p> - -<p>“Compensations for the lives it has ruined?”</p> - -<p>“In the lives it has saved—yes. You’ll never get its -meaning unless you see it as a great regenerative process.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to tell me that we can only be regenerated -by fire and sword and rapine?”</p> - -<p>“Not at all! We’re regenerated by courage and honor -and sacrifice and the sense that every man gets—every -Tommy, every poilu, every bluejacket—that he personally -is essential to man’s big fight in his struggle upward. It’s -one of the queer things of the whole business that out of -the greatest wrong human beings can inflict on one another—to -go to war with them—there can come the highest -benefits to every individual who gets himself ready to -receive them. It makes one believe in an intelligence<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_327"></a>[327]</span> -compelling the race toward good, however much we may -be determined to go the other way.”</p> - -<p>He tuned his voice to a new key.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve never doubted that; and now, old chap, -now I—I see it.”</p> - -<p>I knew what was coming. It was the great subject -that could eclipse even that of the war. I had just force -to pull the bedclothes up about my mouth and mutter -a suffocated, “How?”</p> - -<p>“What I hinted this morning. It’s all—it’s all come -right. I used to think it never would, sometimes. And -then—don’t laugh, old boy!—but then I’d say to myself -that God would never have made me feel as I did unless -He meant something to come of it. Religion keeps telling -you to trust; and I did trust—on and off.”</p> - -<p>Again I had an opportunity; but again such words as -rose in me choked themselves back in my throat. I -could have told him that she was ready to come to me -if I lifted a finger. I knew I should have to tell him -sometime, and it occurred to me that it might as well -be now. It was the words that failed me, not the intention; -or if it was the intention, it was the intention -in any degree that made it compulsory.</p> - -<p>I don’t think he noticed that I said nothing, for he went -falteringly on:</p> - -<p>“It’s a wonderful thing to be happy, Frank. I’ve -never been happy before in my life. I’m a pusillanimous -sort of bloke, and there’s the truth. I wasn’t happy at -home, or at school, or at college, or in any of the hospitals -where I worked; and I never made any friends. -You must know I’ve been queer when I say that women -have always looked at me as if I was outside of their -range. They’ve never made up to me in the way they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_328"></a>[328]</span> -do to most fellows with a bit of money and not deformed. -Regina—there! I’ve said her name—she was the very -first who ever took the trouble to be more than just -decently civil.”</p> - -<p>I managed to stammer the words, “What did she do?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, nothing very much—not at first. She seemed -to think—she used to say it—that I was different from -most men. That’s what she appeared to be on the lookout -for. All the other chaps she knew were so much alike, -and I—Well, that’s how it began. She wanted the -unusual—and I turned up. After a while she thought -I wasn’t unusual enough—said it in so many words—But -you know that story. I’ve told you too many times -already.”</p> - -<p>“And now?”</p> - -<p>“She thinks she’ll marry me.”</p> - -<p>He brought out the statement in a voice all awe and -amazement.</p> - -<p>“She only thinks?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, she will. She wouldn’t say anything about it if -she didn’t mean—”</p> - -<p>“And—and you’re going to—to let her?”</p> - -<p>“Let her? Why, man, you might as well ask me if -I’d let God forgive my sins if He said He’d do it.”</p> - -<p>“God could forgive your sins and not be any the worse -off Himself.”</p> - -<p>He sprang forward in his chair, grabbing at the bedclothes.</p> - -<p>“Frank, I swear to you it will be the same with her. -She’ll never be sorry. I’ll never let her. She’ll be like -God to me. I’ll make my whole life worship and service.”</p> - -<p>“If that’s what she wants.”</p> - -<p>“It’s what every woman wants, so they say. They<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_329"></a>[329]</span> -just ask to be loved; and when you love them enough—” -He uttered a little shrill laugh, in which there was a -touch of the hysterical that was always somewhere about -him. “God! Frank, it’s wonderful! Even you who -know her can’t imagine what it means to a lonely bloke -like me.”</p> - -<p>I pumped myself up to a great effort.</p> - -<p>“Suppose”—I had to moisten my lips before going on—“suppose -she was to play you the same trick she played -you before?”</p> - -<p>“She wouldn’t.”</p> - -<p>In spite of his evident conviction, I pressed the question.</p> - -<p>“But if she did?”</p> - -<p>He threw off in a tone that seemed careless: “In that -case there’d be just one thing for me to do. I’d leave -her everything I possess—I’m doing that as it is—and, -well, you can guess the rest. I—I couldn’t go through all -that again. The first time—well, I just pulled it off; -but the second—”</p> - -<p>It was the old story. They all seemed to have the -second time on the brain. I, too, was getting it on the -brain. It was like a trip-hammer pounding in my head.</p> - -<p>I forced myself, however, to make some foolish, semi-jovial -speech in which there was no congratulation, begging -him, then, for the love of Heaven, to clear out, as I -wanted to go to sleep.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_330"></a>[330]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXV</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>No record of the next few weeks exists for me. I -suppose I must have done things—little things. I -must have gone in and out, and eaten my meals, and fulfilled -Lovey’s orders—for, lacking volition of my own, -I was entirely at his command. But the recollection of -it all has passed from me. I remember reading in some -one’s reminiscences of prison life that the weeks of solitary -confinement went by; but the released prisoner -could not say how. Nothing remained with him, apparently, -but a big, black blur; and of these first weeks -in New York it was all that stayed with me.</p> - -<p>I know that Christmas came and went, and that I -spent the festival at Atlantic City. I did this in a wild -hope, which I knew was idiotic when I formed it. I told -Lovey what I was about to do; I knew he, in the course -of his valeting, which he still kept up, would tell Cantyre; -I guessed that Cantyre would tell Regina; and I hoped—it -never really amounted to hoping, I only dreamed—that -Regina might find the moment a favorable one for -slipping away and joining me. Then we should actually -do the thing so impossible to plan.</p> - -<p>But, of course, nothing came of it; and I returned to -New York more unsatisfied than I had gone away. The -sense of being unsatisfied sent me at last to Sterling -Barry’s door.</p> - -<p>You will observe that I had not talked with Regina -since our last night on board ship. On the morning of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_331"></a>[331]</span> -landing her quick movements, as compared with my slow, -lumbering ones, enabled her to elude me. Since our -landing my will had been positively paralyzed. Those -words of hers, “Oh, Frank, I hope you won’t make me!” -were always in my memory; but the very sense that I -could use the power held me back from doing it. I meant -to use it; but as each minute came round when I might -have taken a step toward that end I seemed to fall backward, -like the men who went out with swords and staves -to take the Christ.</p> - -<p>But two days after my return from Atlantic City I came -to the conclusion that I could wait no longer. I could go -and call on her at least. For the family it would mean -no more than that I had come to offer my congratulations. -For her—but I could tell that only by being face -to face with her.</p> - -<p>The old manservant recognized me on coming to the -door. He was sorry that Miss Barry had gone to tea -with Miss van Elstine, and was sure his mistress would -be sorry, too. Moreover, they had all heard of my -prowess in battle, and were proud of me.</p> - -<p>So I drove round in my taxi to Annette’s.</p> - -<p>The maid would have ushered me straight up to the -library, but I preferred to send in my card. As I was -being conducted up-stairs a minute later I had the privilege -of hearing a few words which I am sure Annette intended -for my ear.</p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t mind this once, Regina; but I can’t -have it going on.... Yes, I know it’s an accident; but -it’s an accident that mustn’t continue to happen. The -very fact that he’s my cousin obliges me to be the more -careful. It wouldn’t be fair to your father and mother -if I were to let you come here—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_332"></a>[332]</span></p> - -<p>“But, Annette, this once is all I’m asking for.”</p> - -<p>“And all I mean to grant.”</p> - -<p>I could tell by Annette’s voice that she was retreating -to another room, so that by the time I entered Regina -stood there alone. Before I knew what I was doing I -held both her hands in mine and was kissing them.</p> - -<p>It is an odd fact that on raising my eyes I saw her -features for the first time since that summer afternoon -at Rosyth. On board ship she had always worn the yashmak; -and on the dock she had been too far away to allow -of my seeing more than that she was there.</p> - -<p>The face I saw now was not like Annette’s, untouched -by the passage of time and suffering and world agony. -You might have said that in its shadows and lines and -intensities the whole history of the epoch was expressed. -It was one of those twentieth-century faces—they are -women’s faces, as a rule—on which the heroic in our -time has stamped itself in lineaments which neither paint -nor marble could reproduce. It flashed on me that the -transmigrated soul had traveled farther than I had suspected.</p> - -<p>I don’t know what we said to each other at first. They -were no more than broken things, not to be set down by -the pen. When I came to the consciousness of my -actual words I was saying, “I’m going to make you, -Regina; I’m going to make you.”</p> - -<p>She responded like a child who recognizes power, but -has no questionings as to right and wrong.</p> - -<p>“Are you, Frank? How?”</p> - -<p>“In any way that suggests itself.” I added, helplessly, -“I don’t know how.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll do whatever you tell me,” she said, simply and -submissively.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_333"></a>[333]</span></p> - -<p>“Then will you just walk away with me some afternoon—and -be married—without saying anything to any -one?”</p> - -<p>“If you say so.”</p> - -<p>“When shall we do it?”</p> - -<p>“Whenever you like.”</p> - -<p>“Next week?”</p> - -<p>“If that suits you.”</p> - -<p>“Would it suit you?”</p> - -<p>She bent her head and was silent. I repeated the -question with more insistence.</p> - -<p>“Would it suit you, Regina?”</p> - -<p>“There’s no question of suiting me. I’ve got myself -where I can’t be”—she smiled, a twitching, nervous smile—“where -I can’t be suited.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean that you’d come with me—when you -wouldn’t want to?”</p> - -<p>“Something like that.”</p> - -<p>“Why should you?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve told you that. I’ve—I’ve let you see it—in -what I’ve been doing for the past two years.”</p> - -<p>“So that I’m absolutely master?”</p> - -<p>“That’s it.”</p> - -<p>I turned away from her, walking to the other end of -the long room. When I came back she was standing as -I had left her, humbly, with eyes downcast, like a slave-girl -put up for sale.</p> - -<p>I paused in front of her.</p> - -<p>“Do you know that your abandonment of will puts us -both in an extraordinary position?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.” She went on presently, “But I know, too, -that where you’re concerned my will-power has left me.”</p> - -<p>“But that isn’t like you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_334"></a>[334]</span></p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p>“No, it isn’t. Generally my will is rather strong. -But in this case— You see—I’d—I’d waited so long—and -I’d never believed that you—that you cared anything—and -now that I know you do—well, it’s simply made me -helpless. I’ve—I’ve no will at all.”</p> - -<p>“So that I must have enough for two?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose so.”</p> - -<p>“And if I—if I carry you off—and make every one unhappy—and -put you in a position where you’d be—where -you’d be done for—that’s what Annette calls it—the -responsibility would be all mine?”</p> - -<p>“I should never reproach you.”</p> - -<p>“In words.”</p> - -<p>“Nor in thought—if I could help it.”</p> - -<p>“But you mightn’t be able to help it.”</p> - -<p>To this there was no reply. I took another turn to -the end of the room. My freedom of action was terrifying. -Since I could do with her what I liked, I was afraid to do -anything. I came back and said so.</p> - -<p>The old Regina woke as she murmured, “If you’re -afraid to do anything—do nothing.”</p> - -<p>“And what would you do?”</p> - -<p>“I should let things take their course.”</p> - -<p>“Let things take their course—and marry him?”</p> - -<p>“If things took their course that way.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean that they mightn’t take their course -that way?”</p> - -<p>“I’m not married to him yet. There are—there are -difficulties.”</p> - -<p>I caught her by the arm. “Of what kind?”</p> - -<p>“Of opinion chiefly—but of very vital opinion.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean about the war?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_335"></a>[335]</span></p> - -<p>She said with a force like that of a suppressed cry: -“He wants me not to have anything more to do with it! -And I—I can’t stop—not while it’s going on. I—I must -be doing something. It’s one of the reasons why I could -marry him—that he’s a doctor—and I could take him -over there—where they need him so much.”</p> - -<p>“And he won’t go?”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t say that exactly; but he doesn’t want to. -He thinks it’s all wrong—that when it comes to brutality, -one side is as bad as the other.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, he’ll get over that—if you insist; and then you’ll -marry him.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps so—if I haven’t already married you.”</p> - -<p>“What makes you think you may have married me?”</p> - -<p>“You said you’d make me.”</p> - -<p>And in the end, when Annette came back, we left it -at that, with everything up in the air.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_336"></a>[336]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXVI</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>More weeks followed, of which my record is chiefly -in the drama of public events.</p> - -<p>Vast as these were at the time, they seem even vaster -in the retrospect. As my memory goes back to them -they are like prodigious portents in the sky, awful to -look at and still more awful to think about. A time -will come when we shall find it amazing merely to have -lived through such happenings.</p> - -<p>Before the invaders the Rumanian towns were going -down like houses built of blocks. In her attitude to -Rumania, Russia was a mystery—a husband who sees his -wife fighting for her life and doing hardly anything to -help her. The rumors, true or false, that reached us -might have been torn from some stupendous, improbable -romance—a feeble Czar, a beautiful and traitorous Czarina, -a corrupt nobility, an army betrayed, a people seething -in dreams and furies and ignorance. Washington, -having gone so far as to ask the Allied nations their peace -conditions, had received them—restitution, reparation, -and future security. Then late in that month of January, -1917, there came to people like me an unexpected shock. -Before the Senate President Wilson delivered the speech -of which the tag that ran electrically round the world -was peace without victory.</p> - -<p>I mention these things because they are the only waymarks -of a time during which my private life seemed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_337"></a>[337]</span> -to be drearily and hopelessly at a standstill. The deadlock -of the nations reacted on myself. Mentally I was -at grips with destiny, but nothing made any progress. I -was exactly where I had started, as regards Regina, as -regards Cantyre, as regards Annette, as regards the -father and mother Barry. Outwardly I was on friendly -terms with them all, and on no more than friendly terms -with any one.</p> - -<p>The Barrys invited me to dinner, and I went. Cantyre -made up a theater party—he was fond of this form of -recreation—and I went to that. Annette asked me to a -Sunday lunch at which Cantyre and Regina were guests. -The force of organized life held us together as a cohesive -group; the operation of conventional good manners kept -us to courtesies. That any one was happy I do not believe; -but life threw its mask even on unhappiness.</p> - -<p>I got in, of course, an occasional word with Regina, -which, nevertheless, didn’t help me. As far as I could -observe, she lived and moved in a kind of hypnotic state, -from which nothing I knew how to say could wake her. -She was always waiting for me to give the word, and -I was afraid to give it. If there was hypnotism, it affected -us both, since I was as deeply in the trance as she.</p> - -<p>Now and then, however, she came out of it with some -brief remark which gave me a lead and perhaps made me -hope. One such occasion was at the theater. Cantyre -had not put me next to her, but there was an entr’acte -when I found his place empty and slipped into it.</p> - -<p>“And how are events taking their course?” I asked, -with a semblance of speaking cheerily.</p> - -<p>“I’m waiting to see.”</p> - -<p>“Still?”</p> - -<p>“Still.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_338"></a>[338]</span></p> - -<p>“And how long is that to go on?”</p> - -<p>“Till events have shaped their course in a way that -will tell me what to do.”</p> - -<p>“How shall you know that?”</p> - -<p>“How does the twig know when the current takes it -from the spot where it has been caught and carries it -down-stream?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but you’ve got intelligence.”</p> - -<p>“Any intelligence I’ve got implores me to keep on -waiting.”</p> - -<p>“So that you’re not going to be married right away?”</p> - -<p>“I shall not be married till I see it’s the obvious thing -to do.”</p> - -<p>“Not even to me?”</p> - -<p>“That’s different. I’ve already told you—”</p> - -<p>“That if I give the word— But don’t you see I -can’t give it?”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. You’re waiting for the sign as much as I -am.”</p> - -<p>“What sign?”</p> - -<p>“We shall recognize it when the time comes.”</p> - -<p>“Where will it come from?”</p> - -<p>“Right up out of life; I don’t know where, nor how.”</p> - -<p>“Who’ll give it to us?”</p> - -<p>She had only time, as Cantyre returned to his seat, -to send me a long, slantwise look, with the underscored -words, “You know!”</p> - -<p>Another time was in the regrouping of guests, after -Annette’s luncheon. Finding myself beside her at a window, -I asked the plain question, “Are you engaged to -Cantyre?”</p> - -<p>“I’m just where I was when I told you about it on -board ship. He hasn’t asked me to be more definite.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_339"></a>[339]</span></p> - -<p>“Is he just where he was?”</p> - -<p>“I think he is, in that—in that he expects me to marry -him.”</p> - -<p>“And you leave him under that impression?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what else to do—till I get the sign.”</p> - -<p>“You’re still looking for that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Aren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Not that I’m aware of.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but you are, whether you’re aware of it or not.”</p> - -<p>“And suppose he urges you before the sign comes?”</p> - -<p>“I shall still wait.”</p> - -<p>“And suppose I urged you?”</p> - -<p>“I’d take that as the sign.”</p> - -<p>And after the guests went I stayed behind and told -the whole story to Annette. So long as there were no -clandestine meetings under her roof, she was as detached -and sympathetic and non-committal as a chorus in a -Greek play.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you give her the sign, if it’s not a rude -question?” she asked, while a marvelous succession of -ripples circled over her duskiness.</p> - -<p>“Because I’m afraid to. Think what it would mean to -Cantyre, who’s been so white with me all these years.”</p> - -<p>“As well as to every one concerned, including herself -and you. I’m glad you’ve enough common sense to feel -that. See here, Frank,” she went on, kindly, “you’ve -got to pull yourself out of this state of mind. It’s doing -you no good. When you ought to be at work for your -country, which needs you desperately, you’re sulking over -a love-affair. Buck up! Be a sport! Be a man! There -are lots of nice girls in New York. I’ll find you some -one.”</p> - -<p>But at that I ran away.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_340"></a>[340]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXVII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>Within a few days I saw the correctness of -Annette’s summing up.</p> - -<p>A medieval legend tells of an angel being sent to Satan -with the message that God meant to take from the devil -all the temptations with which he had seduced mankind. -To this Satan resigned himself because he couldn’t -help it, begging of the angel that he should be left with -just one—and that the least important. “Which?” asked -the angel. “Depression,” said Satan. The angel considered -the request, found that depression cut but slight -figure as a sin, and went back to heaven, leaving it behind -him. “Good!” laughed Satan, as the celestial vision -faded out. “In this one gift I’ve secured the whole bag -of tricks.”</p> - -<p>And that is what I was to find.</p> - -<p>I was depressed on leaving Europe. I grew more depressed -because of the experience on board ship. In -New York I was still more depressed. There was a -month in which all things worked together for evil; and -then I came to the place at which Satan had desired to -have me.</p> - -<p>I have not said that during all this time I made no -attempt to look up my old friends at the Down and Out -or, beyond an occasional argument with Cantyre, to fulfil -the mission with which I had been intrusted. Ralph -Coningsby had come and offered me work, and I had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_341"></a>[341]</span> -refused it. Even the march of public events, with the -introduction of lawless submarine warfare and the breaking -off of diplomatic relations between Germany and the -United States, hadn’t roused me. I marked the slow -rise of the impulse toward war in the breasts of the American -people, as passionless and as irresistible as an incoming -tide, but it seemed to have nothing to do with me. I was -out of it, flung aside by a fate that had made sport of me.</p> - -<p>I was so far from the current of whatever could be called -life that I grew apathetic. Though I hadn’t seen Regina -for weeks, I sat down under the impalpable obstacles between -us, making no effort to overcome them. I ate -and drank and slept and brooded on the futility of living, -and let the doing so fill my time. Lovey was worried, -and dogged me round till there were minutes when I -could have sprung on him and choked him.</p> - -<p>Then came the afternoon when I decided that Satan -must have his way.</p> - -<p>There is a hotel in New York of which I had many -recollections because I had frequented its barroom in the -days before I went altogether down. It is a somewhat -expensive-looking barroom, with heavy mahogany, gilded -cornices, and frescoes of hunting-scenes on the wall. -Hanging over the bar at any time during the day or night -can be seen all the types that are commonly known as -sporting, from the dashing to the cheap.</p> - -<p>They might have been the same as on that day when I -turned my back upon the place five years previously. -They hung in the same attitudes; they called for the -same drinks; they used the same profanities, though -with some novelty in the slang. With my limp, my black -patch, and my general haggardness, I felt like a ghost -returning among them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_342"></a>[342]</span></p> - -<p>Timidly I approached a barman at leisure and asked -for a cocktail of a brand for which I used to have a liking. -I carried it off to a table placed inconspicuously behind -the door leading to and from the hotel. Putting it on -the table, I stared at its amber reflections.</p> - -<p>I had come back to the same old place at last. It was -curious; but there I was. All my struggling, all my wandering, -all my up-hill work, all my days and nights in -the trenches, all my suffering, all my love—everything -had combined together to land me just here, where, so -to speak, I had begun. It was the old story of dragging -up the cliff, only to fall over the precipice. It seemed -to be my fate. There was no escaping it.</p> - -<p>I might not take more than that one drink during that -afternoon; but I knew it would be a beginning. I should -come back again; and I should come back again after -that. Another type of man would do nothing of the kind; -but I was my own type.</p> - -<p>Very deliberately I said good-by to the world I had -known for the past three years and more. I said good-by -to work, to ambition, to salvation, to country, to love. -Back, far back in my mind I was saying the same deliberate -good-by to God. I shouldn’t rest now till everything -was gone.</p> - -<p>The glass was still untasted on the table. I was taking -my time. The farewells on which I was engaged couldn’t -be hurried. The fate in store for me would wait.</p> - -<p>Then the door behind which I sat began to open. It -opened slowly, timidly, stealthily, as if the person entering -was afraid to come in. The action stirred the curiosity, -and I watched.</p> - -<p>Before I saw a face I saw a hand. Rather, I saw four -fingers from the knuckles to the nails, as if some one was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_343"></a>[343]</span> -steadying himself by the sheer force of holding on. They -were old, thin, twisted fingers, and I knew at a glance -I had seen them before.</p> - -<p>The door continued to open, stealthily, timidly, slowly; -and then, looking like a spirit rather than a man—a -neat, respectable spirit wearing a silver star in his buttonhole, -with trembling hands and a woeful quiver to -the corner of his lower lip—Lovey stood in the barroom.</p> - -<p>He stood as if he had never been in any such place -before. He was like a visitant from some other sphere—dazed, -diaphanous, unearthly.</p> - -<p>He didn’t look at the table behind the door. His gaze -was far off. I could see it scanning the backs of the -hangers across the bar. Then it went over the tables one -by one, traveling nearer and nearer.</p> - -<p>Just before the dim eyes reached me I said: “Hello, -Lovey! Come and sit down. What’ll you have to -drink?”</p> - -<p>There seemed to be an interval between hearing my -voice and actually seeing me—an interval during which -a frosty, unnatural color, as if snow were suddenly to -take fire, flared in his waxlike cheek. But he came to the -table and dropped into a round-backed chair.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Slim!”</p> - -<p>Leaning on the table, he covered his face with his -hand.</p> - -<p>I tried putting up a bluff. “What’s the matter, -Lovey? Haven’t got a headache, have you?”</p> - -<p>He raised those pitiful, dead blue eyes. “No, but I’ve -got a ’eartache, Slim—a ’eartache I won’t never get over.”</p> - -<p>“Why, why—” I began to rally him.</p> - -<p>“It’s just what I was afeared of—for days and days -I’ve been afeared of it. Been a-watchin’ of you, I ’ave.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_344"></a>[344]</span></p> - -<p>Here was another transmigrated soul that had traveled -farther than I knew. It was in pure curiosity as to the -changes wrought in him that I said: “I should think you -would have been glad, Lovey. When I was here before -you used to want to have us both go back.”</p> - -<p>The extinct eyes were raised on me.</p> - -<p>“These times ain’t them times. Everything different. -I ’aven’t stayed where I was in them days, not any -more nor you. Oh, to think, to think!”</p> - -<p>“To think what?”</p> - -<p>“That you should ’ave come back to this—and me -believin’ the war ’ad done ye good—lifted you up, like. -Not but what you was the best man ever lived before the -war—”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, Lovey. No one knows what I was better than -yourself.”</p> - -<p>“You was good even then, sonny—even in them awful -old days. Goodness ain’t just in doin’ certain things; -it’s in being certain things. I don’t ’ardly know what -it is; but I can tell it when I see it. And I seen it in -you, Slim—right from the first. Me and God A’mighty -seen it together. That’s why He pulled you up out o’ -what you was—and made you rich—and dressed you in -swell clo’es—and sent you to the war—and made you a -’ero—and stuck you all over with medals—and brought -you ’ome again to me. And if you’d only waited—”</p> - -<p>“Well, if I’d only waited—what?”</p> - -<p>“You’d ’a’ got somethink better still. You’d ’a’ got -it pretty soon.”</p> - -<p>“What should I have got?”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus4"> -<img src="images/illus4.jpg" width="500" height="650" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">“That you should ’ave come back to this—and me believin’ -the war ’ad done ye good—lifted you up, like. -Not but what you was the best man ever lived before the -war—”</p> -</div> - -<p>“I ain’t a-goin’ to tell ye. If you’d come ’ome with -me you’d see.” Before I could follow up this dark hint -he continued: “God A’mighty don’t play no tricks on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_345"></a>[345]</span> -His children. Look at me! All He’s give me. Kep’ me -well while you was away—and ’elped me to knock off -the booze when it was mortal ’ard to do it—and pervided -me with a good ’ome, thanks to you, Slim!—and work—and -wages—and a very nice man to work for, all except -bein’ a bit stuck on ’isself—and let me off washin’ windows, -which was never a trade for an eddicated man like me—and -brought you back to me, which was the best thing -of all—and just because I waited.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean by waiting?”</p> - -<p>“I mean waitin’ for Him. That’s somethink I’ve found -out since you went away, sonny. It’s a tip as Beady -Lamont give me. You’ve got to wait patient-like for -Him; and if you do He’ll come to you.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you don’t. That’s why I’m a-tellin’ of -you. It was like this: When you went away it was somethink -fierce for me—nothink but that empty flat—and -everythin’ speakin’ to me o’ you, like—yer clo’es and yer -boots and yer books and yer pipes, and the chairs you -used to sit on, and the bed you used to sleep in—and -everythink like that—till I thought I was goin’ crazy. -Many’s the time I wanted to come and do just what -you’re a-doin’ of now—but I’d think o’ the promise I -give you before ye went—and I’d ’ang on a bit more. -And then God A’mighty Hisself come and spoke to me, -just as He did to Beady Lamont that time he told us -about when we was in the blue stars.”</p> - -<p>“And what did God Almighty say?”</p> - -<p>“He come in the middle o’ the night, and woke me up -out of a sound sleep—”</p> - -<p>“How did you know it was He?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I knowed. Ye couldn’t ’elp knowin’.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_346"></a>[346]</span></p> - -<p>“Did you hear His voice?”</p> - -<p>“Ye didn’t ’ave to ’ear. It just went all over ye, like. -I sits up in bed, and everything was dark and light at the -same time, and something awful comfortin’ like sweepin’ -through and through me. Ye couldn’t ’ardly say it was -’earin’ or seein’ or feelin’ or nothink. It was just understandin’, -like—but you knowed it was there.”</p> - -<p>“But you haven’t told me what He said.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I’m a-comin’ to. He says: ‘Lovey,’ says -He, ‘you’ve put up a good fight, and now ye’re over the -worst of it. But I’m with ye all the time,’ says He; -‘only I can’t give ye everythin’ to oncet. All ye can take -is what ye’ve made yerself fit to receive,’ says He; ‘because -there was a good many years in yer life when ye -wasn’t fit to receive nothink. But just you wait, and -you’ll see ’ow good I’ll be to you by degrees,’ says He. -‘You go on fightin’ in your way, just as that young fella, -Slim, is fightin’ in his way, and I’ll do you both good, -and bring you back to each other,’ says He. And, oh, -sonny, He’s kep’ His word—all but right up till now, when -you’ve been goin’ about that sad-like—and not wantin’ -to be ’ome. And now this!”</p> - -<p>“But that’s not God, Lovey; that’s me.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see much difference. The most ways I gets -a’old o’ God, as you might say, is through the nice things -people does for me—and the nice people theirselves—especially -men—I don’t ’old with women—and more -particular you, Slim—you that was more to me than my -own children ever was—than my own life—yes, sonny, than -my own life. I ain’t a-goin’ to live very long now—”</p> - -<p>“What makes you think so?”</p> - -<p>“I ’appen to know,” he replied, briefly. “There’s ways -you can tell.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_347"></a>[347]</span></p> - -<p>“What ways?”</p> - -<p>“Smellin’, for one thing. Ye can smell death just as -easy as ye can smell flowers, or the fryin’ o’ fish, or any -other smell; and it’s a sign ye’ll never be mistook in.” -His ascetic profile was thrown up, with a long sniff through -his delicate, quivering nostrils. “I can smell it now—just -like the smell o’ liquor.” The profile came down, -and he went on, eagerly: “But what I’m tellin’ you is -that if I could die to save you from what ye’re beginnin’ -to do this day, Slim, I’d do it cheerful. I knowed you -was bent on it before ye knowed it yerself. I’ve been -a-watchin’ on ye, and follerin’ you about when ye didn’t -see me.”</p> - -<p>“How did you know?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t tell ye ’ow—not no more than I could tell you -I knowed it was God. It don’t matter ’ow you know -things as long as you know them, does it?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps not.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve just been a-livin’ in yer skin ever since ye come -’ome, sonny. It was as if all yer thoughts passed through -my mind, and all yer feelin’s through my ’eart. I ain’t -much of a ’and at love—that kind of female love, I mean—not -now, I ain’t; but I know that when ye’re young it -kind o’ ketches you—”</p> - -<p>“Stop, Lovey,” I said, warningly.</p> - -<p>“All right, Slim, I’ll stop. I don’t need to go on. All -I want to say is that you don’t know—you couldn’t know—the -fancy I’ve took to you—and I used to think that -you kind o’ ’ad a fancy for me, like.”</p> - -<p>“So I have.”</p> - -<p>The mild eyes searched me. There was a violent trembling -of the lower lip.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean that, Slim?” Before I could answer he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_348"></a>[348]</span> -added, proudly: “I don’t need to ’ave no one sayin’ -they’ve got a fancy for me when they ’aven’t.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but it’s true!”</p> - -<p>Two shivering hands were stretched out toward me -in dramatic appeal.</p> - -<p>“Oh, then leave that there drink alone and come -’ome along o’ me.” His eyes fell on the glass. “’Ow -many o’ them things ’ave ye ’ad?”</p> - -<p>“None yet; this is the first; and I haven’t tasted it.”</p> - -<p>He straightened himself up, speaking with what I can -only call a kind of exaltation.</p> - -<p>“Then God A’mighty has sent me to you in time. -It’s Him—and except Him ’tain’t no one nor nothink. -Slim, if you puts yer lips to that glass now ye’ll be sinnin’ -in His face just as much as if it was Him and not me as -was a-pleadin’ with ye.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t a sin to take a cocktail.”</p> - -<p>“Not for every one, I don’t suppose. It wouldn’t be -for the doctor; and it wouldn’t be for Mr. Coningsby; -but ’tis for me, and ’tis for you. There’s take-it-and-leave-it -people in the world, and there’s take-it-and-be-damned; -and you and me belongs to the last. Oh, Slim, -don’t be mad wi’ me! Ain’t ye a silver-star man in the -Down and Out? Ain’t I yer next friend—yer real next -friend, that is—a great deal more than that young Pyn, -with ’is impotent tongue, what stood up with you? -Come ’ome along o’ me, and I’ll show you somethin’ -good.”</p> - -<p>It was the dark hint again.</p> - -<p>“What are you driving at, Lovey? What is there at -home?”</p> - -<p>His reply might have been paraphrased from a writing -he had never heard of.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_349"></a>[349]</span></p> - -<p>“There’s things ahead of you, Slim, different from what -you’re expectin’ of. Wait.”</p> - -<p>I confess to being startled. You must see me as in an -overwrought condition, reacting from the tremendous -strain, first of fighting, then of blindness, and thirdly of -emotional stress. I do not pretend that more than any -other man who comes back from the jaws of the infernal -brazier in Flanders I was my normal self. I was easily -up and easily down, easily excited and easily impressed. -The mere cast of Lovey’s two brief sentences impressed -me.</p> - -<p>“What things?” I asked, with that mixture of credulity -and rejection with which one puts questions to a trance -medium.</p> - -<p>“I’ll not tell ye; I’ll show ye; only ye must come -’ome.” As if in illustration of his words, he added, -“Ye must begin to wait right now.”</p> - -<p>“But why wait?”</p> - -<p>“Because God A’mighty can’t give us everything to -oncet. Didn’t I say He told me that Hisself? We ain’t -fit to receive more’n a little at a time, just like babies. -That’s another tip as Beady give me. And Mr. Christian -he p’inted out to me oncet that wait is one of the frequentest -words in the Bible. See here! Beady writ this for -me.” Fumbling in an inside pocket, he drew forth a -carefully folded bit of paper, saying, as he did so: “It -was one of the times when I was awful low in my mind -because you was away. I don’t ’old with them low fellas -at the Down and Out—not as a reg’lar thing, I don’t—but -now and then when I just couldn’t seem to get along -without you I’d go down to one of the meetin’s. Then -oncet Beady sits beside me and begins a-kiddin’ o’ me, -callin’ me old son and everything like that. But by ’n’<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_350"></a>[350]</span> -by he sees I wasn’t in no such humor, and we starts in -to talk serious-like. And then—well, I don’t ’ardly know -’ow I come to let it out—but Beady he sees just ’ow it was -with me, and he bucks me up and writes me this. He -ain’t as bad as you’d think he’d be, that Beady. It’s -good words out of the Bible, and there’s a reg’lar tip in -’em.”</p> - -<p>The shaky hands unfolded the bit of foolscap on which -was scrawled in a laborious script:</p> - -<p>“Wait on the Lord; wait, I say, on the Lord.”</p> - -<p>Beneath this counsel from one psalm were the verses -from another:</p> - -<p>“I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto -me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of -an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon -a rock, and established my goings.”</p> - -<p>I suppose you will call my impulse by some modern -psychological name, and for aught I know you may be -right. But the words were not without their effect on -me. They came to me with the mystery of a message -emanating from the days before Time, and from spheres -which have no need of the sun to rise or of the moon to -give brightness or of the light of any candle. That it -was carried to me by this tottering old man whom I had -known in such different conditions only added to the awe.</p> - -<p>I struggled to feet that were as shaky as Lovey’s hands, -carried my little white ticket to the bookkeeper, paid for -my drink, which I had left untouched, and flinging an -“All right, Lovey; I’m your man!” to him, hobbled out -into the lobby of the hotel.</p> - -<p>My immediate sensation was that which you have -known when the black cloud of troubles that enveloped -you on waking has been instantly dispelled on your getting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_351"></a>[351]</span> -out of bed. The troubles may still be there; but -you know your competence to live and work and deal -with them.</p> - -<p>What I felt chiefly, I think, was that the old temptation -would never master me again. I had been face to face -with it, and hadn’t submitted to its spell. Something -had been healed in me; something had been outgrown. -A simple old man with no eloquence but that of his -affection had led me as another might be led by a -child.</p> - -<p>With this sense of release came a sense of energy. I -was given back to my mission; my mission was given -back to me. That which for lack of a more humble term -I can only call the spirit of consecration took hold of me -again and made me its own. The aims for which the war -was being fought were my aims; I had no others. When -these objectives were won my life, it seemed to me, would -be over. It would melt away in that victory as dawn -into sunrise. It would not be lost; it would only be -absorbed—a spark in the blaze of noonday.</p> - -<p>And as for love—well, after all, there was the moratorium -of love. My lot in this respect—if it was to be -my lot—would be no harder than that of millions of other -men the wide world over. Love was no longer the first -of a man’s considerations, not any more than the earning -of a living could be the first. It might be a higher -thing for her—a higher thing for me—to give it up.</p> - -<p>Turning these things over in my mind and wondering -vaguely what might be awaiting me at the apartment, -I said nothing to Lovey as we trundled homeward in a -taxicab; nor did Lovey say anything to me.</p> - -<p>It was only when we got out of the lift and he had -turned the key in our own door that he said, with sudden<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_352"></a>[352]</span> -energy: “Slim, I’ll be yer servant right down to the -very ground.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, you won’t be, Lovey,” I returned, deprecatingly. -“We’re fellas together. We’re buddies. We’ll -be buddies as long as we live.”</p> - -<p>He slapped his leg with a cackle that was, as nearly -as his old lungs could make it, a heartfelt, mirthful laugh.</p> - -<p>“There! Didn’t I tell you? That’s what I’ve been -a-waitin’ for; and the Lord has give it to me at last. -He can’t do much more for me now—not till He takes -me ’ome, like.” He raised his sharp profile and sniffed. -“I smell it, Slim—a kind o’ stuffy smell it is now—but I -ain’t mistook in it. And now, Slim,” he went on, triumphantly, -as he threw the door open and entered before -me to turn on the lights—“and now, Slim, what you’re -a-waitin’ for is—is waitin’ ’ere for you.”</p> - -<p>I knew it couldn’t be Regina that Lovey was caging in -these overheated rooms, since she wouldn’t be sitting in -the dark.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_353"></a>[353]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXVIII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>It was not Regina Barry who was waiting for me, but -it was the next best thing.</p> - -<p>Lovey stood off and pointed to it as it lay, white and -oblong, on the sitting-room table.</p> - -<p>“Give it to me with ’er own ’and,” he said, mysteriously. -“Druv up to the door and asked the janitor to call me -down. Told me to tell you that it wouldn’t be at ’alf -past four, as she says in the note, but at five, and ’oped -you wouldn’t keep ’er waitin’.”</p> - -<p>I held it in my hand, turning it over. I felt sure of -what was in it, but I didn’t know whether I was sorry or -glad. Of course I should be glad from one point of view; -but the points of view were so many. It would be all -over now with the mission, for which my enthusiasm had -so suddenly revived. When we had done this thing we -should be discredited and ostracized by the people we -knew best, and for some time to come.</p> - -<p>I stood fingering the thing, feeling as I had felt now -and then when we had given up a trench or a vantage-point -we had been holding against odds. Wise as it -might be to yield, it was, nevertheless, a pity, and only -left ground that would have to be regained. There was -moral strength, too, in the mere fact of holding. Not -to hold any longer was a sign of weakness, however good -the reason.</p> - -<p>I broke the seal slowly, saying, as I did so, “Did she -say where?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_354"></a>[354]</span></p> - -<p>“No, Slim; she didn’t say nowhere.”</p> - -<p>“Only that I was not to keep her waiting.”</p> - -<p>He thought again. “Punctual was ’er word.”</p> - -<p>She needn’t, however, have said that. Of course I -should be punctual. All might depend on my being on -the spot at the moment when the clock struck. I still -hesitated at drawing out the sheet. As a matter of fact -I was wondering if she had received the sign she had talked -about, and if so, what it was.</p> - -<p>After all, it was an unimportant note.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p><span class="smcap">Dear Frank</span>,—Mother has allowed me to ask Doctor -Feltring—a lady—who retreated with the Serbian Army into -Albania, to speak at our house at half-past four to-morrow -afternoon. Will you come? We shall all be glad to see you.</p> - -<p class="center">Yours,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Regina</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<p>That was all. I should have felt a certain relief that -nothing was irrevocably settled had there not been in the -envelope another page. On it were written the words: -“Are you trying the indirect method? If so, I think -you will find it unwise.”</p> - -<p>If I read this once I must have read it twenty times, -trying to fathom its meaning.</p> - -<p>I could only think that she was gently charging me -with my apathy. The indirect method was the inactive -method. I had let weeks go by not only without saying -the word which she had told me she would obey, but -without making any attempt to get speech with her.</p> - -<p>And yet it seemed to me that any other woman in the -world might have resented this but Regina. It was a -kind of resentment unlike her. She was too proud, too -intense. Even in the hypnotic state induced by the -knowledge, after years of doubt, that we cared for each<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_355"></a>[355]</span> -other, she had kept her power of resistance. She would -come with me if I made her, but she hoped I wouldn’t -make her. That hope made it difficult for me to impose -myself on any one at once so willing and so reluctant. -Of what, from different angles, each of us owed to Cantyre—not -to mention any one else—she was as sensitively -aware as I was.</p> - -<p>I could hardly believe, therefore, that she was reproaching -me; and yet what else did she mean?</p> - -<p>I tried to learn that on the following day, but found -access to her difficult. Since she was hostess to the -speaker of the afternoon as well as to some sixty or -eighty guests, mostly ladies, this was scarcely strange. -I was limited, therefore, to the two or three seconds -during which I was placing in her hands a cup of tea. -Even then there was a subject as to which I more pressingly -desired information.</p> - -<p>“I see Stephen isn’t here.”</p> - -<p>She couldn’t keep out of her eyes what I read as a kind -of crossfire, expressive of contradictory emotions.</p> - -<p>“He wouldn’t come.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“He didn’t like the subject.”</p> - -<p>“Because it was medicine?”</p> - -<p>“Because it was war.”</p> - -<p>“But if this country goes in?”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t believe it will. He thinks the breaking off -of our relations with Germany will do all for which we -can be called on. We’ll never fight, he says. Even if we -declare war he’s sure it will only be in name.”</p> - -<p>I was not so much interested in Cantyre’s opinions as -in the way in which she would take them.</p> - -<p>“And you?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_356"></a>[356]</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, I think he’s only kicking against the pricks. He -can’t think like that.”</p> - -<p>I gave her a look which I tried to make significant. -“You mean that he’s taking the indirect method?”</p> - -<p>She gazed off to the other side of the room. “Oh, -that isn’t the indirect method.”</p> - -<p>“What does the indirect method involve?”</p> - -<p>But here Mrs. Endsleigh Jarrott butted in—I have no -other term for it—with a question, which she asked as -if her life depended on the answer, “Regina, didn’t you -think the action of that English nurse in going over the -mountains with the band of little Serbian boys the most -heroic thing you ever heard of?”</p> - -<p>So I came away without having learned what it was I -was doing, but not less determined to find out.</p> - -<p>I resolved to try Cantyre. My meetings with him had -become not exactly rare, but certainly infrequent. I -had hardly noticed the decline of our intimacy while it -was going on; I only came to a sudden realization of it -when I said to myself I would look in on him that night.</p> - -<p>It occurred to me in the first place that I had not -looked in on him of my own accord since I had come -home. I had gone round the elbow of the corridor once -or twice when he had invited me, but never of my own -initiative. Then it struck me that it was some time -since he himself had come knocking at my door.</p> - -<p>“Lovey, when was the doctor last in here?”</p> - -<p>He was in the “kitchingette” and came to the threshold -slowly. When he did so there was that scared look -on his face I had seen on the previous afternoon.</p> - -<p>“I don’t rightly know, Slim.”</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it more than a week ago?”</p> - -<p>He considered. “It might be.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_357"></a>[357]</span></p> - -<p>“Do you know any reason why he doesn’t come?”</p> - -<p>He seemed to be defending himself against an accusation.</p> - -<p>“Why, Slim! ’Ow sh’d I know?”</p> - -<p>“Well, you see him every day—in and out of his room -with his boots and things.”</p> - -<p>“He don’t ’ardly ever speak to me.”</p> - -<p>“And don’t you ever speak to him?”</p> - -<p>He fidgeted nervously. “Oh, I passes the time o’ day, -like, and tells him if his pants need pressin’ and little -things like that.”</p> - -<p>“Does he ever say anything about me?”</p> - -<p>“Not lately he don’t.”</p> - -<p>“Have you any idea why not?”</p> - -<p>“I might ’ave a hidea, Slim; but what’s servants’ -gossip, after all?”</p> - -<p>As he had me there I dropped the subject, stealing -round to Cantyre’s quarters about eleven that night.</p> - -<p>To my knock, which was timid and self-conscious, he -responded with a low “Come in” that lacked the heartiness -to which he had accustomed me. As usual at this -hour, he was in an elaborate dressing-gown, and also as -usual the room was heavy with the scent of flowers. He -was not lounging in an arm-chair, but sitting at his desk -with his back to me, writing checks.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s you!” he said, without turning his head.</p> - -<p>“Thought I’d drop in on you.”</p> - -<p>He went on writing. “Do you want to sit down?”</p> - -<p>“Not if you’re busy.”</p> - -<p>“Got some bills to pay.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, then I’ll come another time.”</p> - -<p>Having gone in for one bit of information, I went out -with another. Cantyre knew.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_358"></a>[358]</span></p> - -<p>I was not only sorry for his knowing, I was surprised -at it. During the two months we had been in New York -both Regina and I had been notably discreet. We had -been discreet for the reasons that all the strings were in -our own hands, and it depended solely on ourselves as -to which we pulled. We alone were the responsible -parties. That poor Cantyre shouldn’t have to suffer -before we knew whether we meant to make him suffer -or not had been a matter of concern to us both.</p> - -<p>If he knew, it was, therefore, not from me; and neither -was it from Regina. There remained Annette, but she -was as safe as ourselves. Further than Annette I couldn’t -think of any one.</p> - -<p>I should have been more absorbed by this question -had I not waked to new elements in the world drama, as -one wakes to a sudden change in the weather. My surprise -came not from any knowledge of new facts, but from -the revival of my own faculty for putting two and two -together. There had been a month in which depression -had produced a kind of mental hibernation. When at -the end of February I emerged from it the New World in -particular had moved immeasurably far forward.</p> - -<p>Now that I came to notice it, I saw a change as perceptible -as that in the wind in the whole American -national position. As silently as the wind shifts to a new -point of the compass a hundred millions of people had -shifted their point of view. They were moving it onward -day by day, with a rapidity of which they themselves -were unconscious.</p> - -<p>The titanic facts were to the undercurrent of events -but as the volcano to the fire at the heart of the earth. -The heart of all human life being now ablaze, there was -here and there a stupendous outburst which was but a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_359"></a>[359]</span> -symptom of the raging flame beneath. There was the -U-boat blockade of Great Britain, endangering all the -maritime nations of the world. There was the American -diplomatic break with Germany. There was the guarding -of the German ships interned in American ports. -There was the torpedoing of an American steamer off -the Scilly Isles. There was Mr. Wilson’s invitation to -the neutral nations to join him in the breach with the -German Emperor. And then on the 26th the President -went in person before Congress to ask authority to use -armed force to protect American rights.</p> - -<p>These, I say, were but volcanic incidents. The impressive -thing to me was the transformation of a people -by a process as subtle as enchantment.</p> - -<p>Two months earlier they had been neutral, and sitting -tight on their neutrality. The war was three thousand -miles away. It had been brewed in the cursed vendettas -of nations of some of which the every-day American -hardly knew the names. It was tragic for those peoples; -but they whose lives were poisoned by no hereditary -venom were not called on to take part. Zebulun and -Naphtali from sheer geographical position might be obliged -to hazard their lives to the death; but Asher could -abide in his ports, and Gilead beyond Jordan. That had -been the kind of reasoning I heard as late as the time of -my arrival.</p> - -<p>On my return to New York in November, I found a -nation holding its judgments and energies in suspense. -What by the end of February interested me most was -the spectacle of this same people urging forward, surging -upward, striving, straining toward a goal which every -one knew it would take strength and sacrifice to reach.</p> - -<p>Between this approach to war and that of any of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_360"></a>[360]</span> -other great powers there was this difference: They had -taken the inevitable step while in the grip of a great -stress. They sprang to their arms overnight. They had -no more choice than a man whose house is on fire as to -whether or not he will extinguish it. Out of the bed of -their luxurious existence they were called as if by conflagration. -Whether they would lose their lives or escape -with them was a question they had no time to -consider. They went up to the top notch of the heroic -in an instant, not knowing the danger they were facing -or the courage they displayed.</p> - -<p>Here, on the other hand, was a people who saw everything -from a long way off. For nearly three years their -souls had been sickened with the tale of blood. Gilead -might abide beyond Jordan and Asher in his ports, but -no atrocious detail had been spared them. They knew, -therefore, just what they were doing, exactly what was -before them. I can hardly say that they made their -choice; they grew toward it. They grew toward it calmly, -deliberately, clear-sightedly; and for this very reason -with an incomparable bravery. If I were an American -citizen instead of the American citizen’s blood-brother, -I might not say this; I might not have been aware of it. -In any family the outsider can see that which escapes -the observation of the daughter or the son. I heard no -born American comment on this splendid, tranquil, leisurely -readjustment of the spirit to a new, herculean -task; perhaps no born American noticed it; but to me -as an onlooker, interested and yet detached, it was one -of the most grandiose movements of an epoch in which -the repetition of the grandiose bewilders the sense of -proportion, as on the first days in the Selkirks or the -Alps.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_361"></a>[361]</span></p> - -<p>It was at this time I heard that Regina was addressing -meetings. They were women’s club meetings, and I -learned from Annette that she was speaking with success.</p> - -<p>“She seems to have come out of a sort of trance,” -Annette observed of her, using the word I had used myself. -“Ever since she came home she’s been like a girl -walking in her sleep. Now she’s waked and is like her -old self.”</p> - -<p>Since Annette knew my story, or part of it, I thought -it no harm to ask, “To what do you attribute it?”</p> - -<p>But Annette refused to lend herself to my game.</p> - -<p>“I attribute it to her getting over the long strain. It’s -natural that you people who’ve been over there should -be dazed or jumpy or something. She’s been dazed.”</p> - -<p>“And what do you think I’ve been?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’ve been the same,” she laughed; “but then, -you’re always queer.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_362"></a>[362]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXIX</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>The news with regard to Regina acted on me as a -twofold stimulus.</p> - -<p>In the first place, it sent me back at last to the Down -and Out. If she had waked, I, too, would wake; and -since she was actively pleading the great cause, I would -do the same. I didn’t go to a meeting, but dropped in -during a forenoon. The house was even humbler and -dingier than I remembered it, but as scrupulously neat -and clean. In the back sitting-room were half a dozen -men, all of the type to which I had once belonged and -with whom I felt a sympathy so overwhelming as to surprise -myself. Perhaps because I had seen so much of -what could be made of human material even when it was -destined to be no more than cannon fodder in the end, -I was sorry to see this waste.</p> - -<p>With one exception I placed them as all under thirty. -They were good-looking fellows in the main, who would -respond amazingly to drill. After that impetus to the -inner self, of which the Down and Out had the secret, -plenty of work, a regular life, food, water, and sleep -would renew them as the earth is renewed by spring. -No missionary ever longed to bring a half-dozen promising -pagans into the Christian fold more ardently than I to -see these five or six poor wastrels transformed into fighting-men.</p> - -<p>For the minute there was no official there but little<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_363"></a>[363]</span> -Spender, whose bliss in life was in opening the Down and -Out door. Having led me across the empty front sitting-room, -he said, as I stood in the gap of the folding-doors:</p> - -<p>“Say, brothers! This is Slim. Come in here four or -five years ago, just as low down as any of you, and look -at him now!”</p> - -<p>I did feel enormously tall, in spite of the high studding -of the room, as well as enormously big in my ample military -overcoat. To the six who sat in that woeful outward -idleness, of which I knew the inner secret preoccupation, -I must have been an astonishing apparition. Only -a very commanding presence could summon these men -from the desolate land into which their spirits were wandering; -but for once in my life I did it. All eyes were -fixed on me; every jaw dropped in a kind of awe.</p> - -<p>Knowing the habits and needs of such a stupor, I merely -threw off my overcoat, entered, and sat down. Any -greeting I made was general and offhand. Apart from -that I sat and said nothing.</p> - -<p>I sat and said nothing because I knew it was what they -liked. They liked the companionship, as babies and -dogs like companionship, though their aching minds could -not have responded to talk. There was no embarrassment -in this silence, no expectation. It was a stupefied -pleasure to them to stare at the uniform, to speculate -inchoately as to the patch on my eye; and that little was -enough.</p> - -<p>Nobody read; nobody smoked. I neither smoked nor -read; I only sat as in a Quaker meeting, waiting for the -first movement of the spirit.</p> - -<p>It came when a husky voice, that seemed to travel -from across a gulf, said, without any particular reason, -“I’m Spud.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_364"></a>[364]</span></p> - -<p>I turned to my right, to see a good-looking, brown-eyed -fellow, of perhaps twenty-eight, trying to reach me, -as it were, with his pathetic, despairing gaze.</p> - -<p>I knew what was behind this self-introduction. The -lost identity was trying to find itself; the man who was -worthy of something was doing his utmost to get out of -the abyss by reaching up his hands to the man who had -got out.</p> - -<p>“All right, Spud,” I said, heartily. “Put it there! -We’re going to be friends.”</p> - -<p>Silence for another five minutes was broken when a high -voice recited in a sort of litany, “I’m Jimmy McKeever, -traveler for Grubbe & Oates, gents’ furnishers.”</p> - -<p>Sharp-faced, wiry, catlike, agile, tough as wire, I could -see this fellow creeping out into the darkness of No Man’s -Land, and creeping back with information of the enemy.</p> - -<p>I broke in on the litany to say: “Good for you, Jimmy, -old boy! Glad to know you. Let’s shake hands.”</p> - -<p>He sprang from his seat on the outskirts of the group, -but before he could reach me a great, brawny paw was -stretched forward by a blue-eyed young Hercules sitting -nearer me, which grasped my fingers as if in a vise. There -was then a scramble of handshaking, each of the bunch -asserting his claim for recognition, like very small children. -The older man alone held aloof, sitting by himself, -scowling, hard-faced, cross-legged, kicking out a big foot -with a rapid, nervous rhythm.</p> - -<p>It was he who, when the handshaking was over, snarled -out the question, “What’s the matter with your eye?”</p> - -<p>I told them the story of how I lost it.</p> - -<p>I told it as simply as I could, while working in a fair -share of the strong color which I hoped would arrest their -attention.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_365"></a>[365]</span></p> - -<p>It did. In all my experience of men coming back into -life from the state which is so expressively known as dead -drunk it was the first time I ever saw them listen with -avidity to any voice but that of the inner man.</p> - -<p>What is there about war which speaks with this authority? -Where did it get its power to go to the hidden -man of the heart, that subliminal self with which modern -speculation has been so busy, and shift him from off his -age-long base? It is commonly said that, whatever our -personal vicissitudes, human nature remains the same; -but though that may be true of the past, I doubt if it will -be true of the future. War on the scale on which we are -waging it has already changed human nature. It has -changed it as the years change a baby to a boy and a boy -to a man. It has lifted human nature up, drawn out of -it what we never supposed to be there, freed it from its -slavery to time. It has to a large degree reversed the -processes of time as it has reversed the usages of sex. -We have seen youth doing the work of maturity, maturity -that of youth, women that of men, men that of women. -We have seen cowards transformed into heroes, rotters -into saints, stupid, idiotic ne’er-do-wells into saviors of -mankind.</p> - -<p>We shall never go back again to the helpless conviction -that youth must grow slowly into age, only to have age -decay into ugliness and senility. This kind of foolish, -useless progress may still go on for an indefinite time to -come, but we shall work against it as against something -contrary to the highest possibilities of nature. Since we -have thrown off our mental shackles in great moments, -we shall see that we can do the same in small, and, having -emerged on a higher plane, we shall stay there. -Staying there, we shall doubtless go on in time to a higher<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_366"></a>[366]</span> -plane still—a plane on which the mighty works that are -now wrought in war will become feasible in peace. We -are not on that plane yet; but if the advance of the -human race means anything we shall get there. It may -take a thousand years; it may take more; it may take -less; but in the mean time we must seize our blessings as -we may.</p> - -<p>So these fellows listened to my tale as raptly as if a -trumpet were sounding in their ears. It was like a summons -to them to come out of stupefaction. They asked -questions not only as to my own experiences, but as to -the causes and purposes of the war in general. I do not -affirm that they were the most intelligent questions that -could be asked; but for men in their condition they were -astonishing.</p> - -<p>That they were not of necessity to be easy converts I -could see when the old chap sitting apart asked again, in -his bitter voice, “Did you ever kill a fellow-creetur that -had the same right to live as yourself?”</p> - -<p>As we discussed that aspect of the subject, too, I found -it difficult to restrain my audience from the free fight for -which at the Down and Out there was always an inclination.</p> - -<p>I accomplished this, however, and as I rose to go the -brawny Hercules sidled shyly up to me with the words: -“Say! I’m a Canuck. Peterfield, Ontario, is where I -hail from. Why ain’t I in this here war?”</p> - -<p>He was my first recruit. A few weeks later he was in -uniform in Montreal. My object in telling you about -him is to point out the fact that I made a beginning, and -that from the beginning the sympathy of the City of -Comrades upheld me. Little by little that movement -by which the whole of America was being shaken out of its<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_367"></a>[367]</span> -materialism, its provincialism, and its mental isolation -reached us in Vandiver Street, and we began to see that -there were subjects of conversation more commanding -than that of drink. What I may call a war party rose -among us, and the sentiment that we ought to be in it -was expressed.</p> - -<p>“We shall be in it when the time comes,” Andrew -Christian said to me when we were alone for a few minutes -after I had been talking with the men one day. “One of -the great mistakes human impatience makes is in trying -to hurry the methods by which the divine mind counteracts -human errors. We forget that it is not for us to -know the times or the seasons that the Father hath put -into His own power. Things that take place in their -own way generally take place in His. And the overruling -force of His way, when we let it alone, working -simply, naturally, and as a matter of course, is one of the -extraordinary features of history.”</p> - -<p>I was the more impressed by these quiet words for the -reason that I saw that he, too, was one of the Americans -chafing under the long holding back of his country. No -one I had seen since my return was more changed in this -respect than he. I had left a man who had but one object -in his life, the salvation of other men from drink. I -found a man marvelously broadened, heightened, illumined, -almost transfigured by a larger set of purposes.</p> - -<p>But he spoke so calmly!</p> - -<p>“We shall go into this thing the more thoroughly when -our people as a whole are convinced of its necessity. -And for a hundred millions of people to be convinced is -a matter that takes time. But even there you can see -how a great purpose is changing them almost against -their own will. It isn’t many months ago that they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_368"></a>[368]</span> -elected a President on the slogan, ‘He kept us out of -war.’ Had it not been for that slogan it’s doubtful -whether or not he would have been elected. All politics -apart, we can say that, had he not been elected, it’s -doubtful whether any other candidate could carry with -him a united Congress when we come to the moment of -decision. Were the President not to have a united Congress, -behind him, there would be no united people. As -it is we’re all forging forward together, President, Congress, -and people, as surely as winter forges forward into -spring; and when the minute arrives—”</p> - -<p>He broke off with a smile I can only call exalted. With -a hasty pressure of my hand he was off to some other fellow -with some other needful word.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_369"></a>[369]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXX</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>My purpose in telling you all this is to show you why -I reacted so slightly to Regina’s charge of the indirect -method. Though my curiosity as to what she -meant was keen enough, the pressure of other interests -allowed it no time to work. This is to say, as soon as I -got back into the current of great events personal concerns -became relatively unimportant. They had to wait. -One developed the capacity to keep them waiting.</p> - -<p>But toward the middle of March I met her one day in -Fifth Avenue. Even from a distance I could see that her -step was vigor and her look animation. The haunting -sadness had fled from her eyes, while the generous smile, -spontaneous and flashing, had returned to her scarlet -lips. It was a new Regina because it was the old one.</p> - -<p>To me her first exclamation was: “How well you look! -You’re almost as you were before the war.”</p> - -<p>Though I was conscious of a pang at seeing her so far -from pining away, I endeavored to play up.</p> - -<p>“Mayn’t I say the same of you? What’s done it?”</p> - -<p>She laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. Work, I suppose—and -the knowledge that things are marching.”</p> - -<p>“I hear you’re very busy.”</p> - -<p>“I hear you’re busy, too.”</p> - -<p>“People do seem to want to be told things at first -hand.”</p> - -<p>“I find the same.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_370"></a>[370]</span></p> - -<p>“And so one has to be on the job.”</p> - -<p>“There’s nothing like it, is there? It”—she flung me -one of her old, quick, daring glances—“it fills all the -needs. Nothing else becomes urgent.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that one’s personal affairs—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, one has no personal affairs. I remember a man -who was in the San Francisco earthquake telling me -that for forty-eight hours he hardly needed to eat or -sleep.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve seen that doubled and trebled.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you have. It simply means that when we -get out of ourselves we can make supermen of the commonest -material.”</p> - -<p>I ventured to say: “You look happy, Regina. Are -you?”</p> - -<p>“Are you?”</p> - -<p>I weighed this in order to answer her truthfully.</p> - -<p>“If I’m not happy I’m—I’m content—content to be -doing something—the least little bit—to urge things forward.”</p> - -<p>“And I can say the same. If I look well, as you put -it, that’s the reason. And so long as that’s the reason -other things can—wait.” She added, quickly: “I must -go now or I shall be late. I’m speaking to the women at -the Mary Chilton Club, and I’m overdue.”</p> - -<p>She had actually passed on when I stopped her to say, -“What do you mean by the indirect method?”</p> - -<p>She called back over her shoulder, “Ask Stephen.”</p> - -<p>And I asked him that night. Having heard him come -into his room between eight and nine o’clock, I marched -in boldly, bearding him without beating about the bush.</p> - -<p>“I say, old Stephen, what have you been saying to -Regina about me?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_371"></a>[371]</span></p> - -<p>His hat had been thrown on the table; his arms were -outstretched in the act of taking off his overcoat.</p> - -<p>He repeated my question as if he didn’t understand it.</p> - -<p>“What have I been saying to Regina about you? Why, -nothing—much.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing much; that means something. What the -deuce do you mean by the indirect method?”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t spoken of an indirect method.”</p> - -<p>“No; but she has!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I see.”</p> - -<p>“Then if you see, tell me what it is.”</p> - -<p>He finished the arrested act of taking off his coat, -after which he hung it up in a closet, doing the same -with his hat. The minute’s delay allowed time for the -storm-clouds to gather on his face, and all the passions -of a gloomy-hearted nature to concentrate in a hot, thundery -silence.</p> - -<p>“Is this a bit of bluff, Frank?”</p> - -<p>“Bluff be hanged! I’m ready to speak out frankly.”</p> - -<p>The storm-clouds were torn with a flash like a streak -of lightning.</p> - -<p>“Then why didn’t you come to me like a man instead -of sending that sneaking old beast—”</p> - -<p>“Hold on, Stephen. What sneaking old beast have I -sent?”</p> - -<p>“He wouldn’t have come unless you had set him on -me. You needn’t tell me that.”</p> - -<p>“What the deuce are you talking about?”</p> - -<p>“You know what I’m talking about. There hasn’t -been a day since you came back that I haven’t had a -hint.” He was not a man to whom anger came easily; -he began to choke, to strangle with the effort to get his -indignation out. “I’d have given him the toe of my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_372"></a>[372]</span> -boot long ago if—if—if—if”—the words positively shivered -on his lips—“if—if—if I hadn’t wanted to see how -far you’d go; and, by God! I’ve—I’ve had enough of it!”</p> - -<p>“Enough of what, Stephen?” I endeavored to ask, -quietly.</p> - -<p>He knocked his knuckles on the table with a force that -almost made them bleed.</p> - -<p>“My name is Cantyre—do you understand?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I understand. But tell me, what is it you’ve -had enough of?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve had enough of your damned diplomatic slyness in -setting that old reptile on me!”</p> - -<p>I am not quick tempered. The tolerance born of a -too painful knowledge of my own shortcomings obliges -me to be slow to wrath. But when anger does get hold -of me it works a change like that of a powerful chemical -agent suddenly infused into the blood.</p> - -<p>I turned and strode out. A few times in the trenches -I had been the victim of this rage to kill—and I had -killed. How many I killed at one time or another I now -couldn’t tell you. I saw too red to keep the count. All -I know is that I have stuck my bayonet into heart after -heart, and have dashed out brains with the butt end of -my rifle. It is all red before me still—a great splash of -blood on the memory.</p> - -<p>But I had got the habit. In a rage like this to kill -some one had become an instinct. I could not have believed -that the impulse would have pursued me into civil -life; but there it was.</p> - -<p>Having flung open the door of my apartment, I marched -straight for the “kitchingette.” Lovey was seated on a -stool beside the tiny gas-range, polishing one of my boots. -The boot was like a boxing-glove on his left hand, while<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_373"></a>[373]</span> -he held the brush suspended in his right, looking up at -me with the piteous appeal of a rabbit pleading for its -life.</p> - -<p>His weakness held me back from striking him, but it -didn’t stem my words.</p> - -<p>“Who the devil, you old snake, gave you the right to -interfere in my affairs?”</p> - -<p>He simply looked up at me, the boot on one hand, -the brush suspended in the other. His lower lip trembled—his -arms began to tremble—but he made no attempt -to defend himself.</p> - -<p>“What have you been saying?” I demanded. “Speak, -can’t you?”</p> - -<p>But he couldn’t. I caught him by the collar and -dragged him to his feet.</p> - -<p>He had just the strength to stand on them, though his -limp hands continued to hold the boot and the brush.</p> - -<p>“Now are you going to speak? Or shall I kick you -out?”</p> - -<p>“You’d kick me out, Slim?”</p> - -<p>The mildness of his voice maddened me.</p> - -<p>“By God, I would!”</p> - -<p>The brush and the boot fell with a dull clatter to the -floor.</p> - -<p>“Then I’d better go.”</p> - -<p>He looked about him helplessly till his eyes fell on the -old felt hat hanging on a peg. I watched him as he took -it down and crammed it on his head. There was another -helpless searching as if he didn’t know what he was looking -for before he spied an old gnarled stick in a corner. -Taking that in his hand, he fumbled his way into the -living-room.</p> - -<p>By the time I had followed him I was beginning to relent.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_374"></a>[374]</span> -I had not really meant to have him go, but I was -not ready as yet to call him back. What Cantyre must -have thought of me, what Regina must have thought of -me, in egging so poor a creature on to say what I wouldn’t -say myself, roused me as to a more intense degree I used -to be roused on hearing of Belgian women treated with -the last indignities, and Canadian soldiers crucified. Had -I stopped to consider I would have seen that Regina didn’t -believe it, and that Cantyre believed it only as far as -it gave an outlet to his complicated inward sufferings; -but I didn’t stop to consider. Perhaps I, too, was seeking -an outlet for something repressed. At any rate, I -let the poor old fellow go.</p> - -<p>“What about your things?” I asked, before he had -reached the door.</p> - -<p>He turned with a certain dignity. “I sha’n’t want no -things.” He added, however, “Ye do mean me to get out, -Slim?”</p> - -<p>I didn’t—but I didn’t want to tell him so. Fury had -cooled down without leaving me ready to retract what -I had said. I meant to go after him—when he had got -as far as the lift—but I meant, too, that he should take -those few bleeding steps of anguish.</p> - -<p>He took them—not to the lift, but out into the vestibule. -Then I heard a faint moan; then a sound as if -something broke; and then a soft tumbling to the -floor.</p> - -<p>When I got out he was lying all in a little huddled, -senseless heap, with a cut on his forehead where he had -struck the key or the door-knob as he fell.</p> - -<p>It was more than an hour before Cantyre got him back -to consciousness; but it was early morning before he -spoke. We had stayed with him through the night, as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_375"></a>[375]</span> -he had shown all the signs of passing out. His recovery -of speech somewhere about dawn came as a -surprise to us.</p> - -<p>To Cantyre I had given but the slightest explanation -of the accident, being sure, however, that he guessed at -what I didn’t say.</p> - -<p>“Told him to get to the dickens out of this, and he -was taking me at my word. Never meant to let him get -farther than the lift. Just wanted to scare him. Sorry -now.”</p> - -<p>But Lovey’s account was different.</p> - -<p>About seven in the morning there came a streak of -wan light down the shaft into which the window of his -room looked out. Cantyre murmured something about -going back to his own place for a bath.</p> - -<p>“All right,” I agreed, “and you’d better get your breakfast. -When you come back I can do the same. You will -come back, won’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, of course! I sha’n’t be gone more than an hour. -When he wakes again give him another teaspoonful of -this; but don’t worry him unless he wakes.”</p> - -<p>And just then Lovey woke. He woke with a dim smile, -as a young child wakes. He smiled at Cantyre first, and -then, rolling his soft blue eyes to the other side of the -bed, he smiled at me.</p> - -<p>“What’s up, Slim?” he asked, feebly. “I ain’t sick, -am I?”</p> - -<p>“No, Lovey, old son, you’re not sick; you’ve only had -a bit of a fall.”</p> - -<p>And then it came back to him.</p> - -<p>“Oh yes. I know. Served me right, didn’t it?” -Rolling his eyes now toward Cantyre, he continued: “I -was just a-frightenin’ of Slim, like. Kind o’ foolish, I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_376"></a>[376]</span> -was. Said I was goin’ to leave him. Didn’t mean to go -no farther nor the lift.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t mean to let you go, Lovey,” I groaned, -humbly.</p> - -<p>“Of course you didn’t! ’Ow ’uld ye get along without -me, I’d like to know? Didn’t I keep ye straight all them -weeks at the Down and Out?”</p> - -<p>“You did, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>“And ’aven’t I saved ye lots o’ times since?”</p> - -<p>“You have, old man.”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t leave ye, not for nothink, Slim. We’re -buddies as long as we live, ain’t we? Didn’t ye say that -to me yerself?”</p> - -<p>“I did, and I’ll say it again.”</p> - -<p>“Well then, what’s the use o’ talkin’? You mustn’t -mind me, sonny. I may get into a bad temper and speak -’arsh to you; but I don’t mean nothink by it. I wouldn’t -leave ye, not for—”</p> - -<p>The voice trailed away, and presently he was asleep -or unconscious again, I couldn’t be sure which.</p> - -<p>Neither could I be sure whether he believed this version -of the tale or whether he concocted it to comfort -me. At any rate, it served its purpose in that it eased -the situation outwardly, enabling Cantyre and me to -face each other without too much self-consciousness.</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact, self-consciousness had hardly embarrassed -us through the night. There had been too -much to think about and to do. The minute I had got -Lovey into the living-room and on the couch I had run -for Cantyre, and he had run back with me. In the stress -of watching the old man’s struggle between life and death -we felt toward our personal relations what one feels of -an exciting play after returning to realities. We were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_377"></a>[377]</span> -back on the old terms; we called each other Stephen and -Frank. Only now and then, when for a half-hour there -was nothing to do but to sit by the bed and watch, did -our minds revert to the actual between us.</p> - -<p>That is, mine reverted to it, and I suppose his did the -same. How he thought of it I cannot tell you; but to -me it seemed infinitely trifling. Here was a dying man -whose half-lighted spirit was standing on the threshold -of a fully lighted world. One might have said that the -radiance of the life on which he was entering already -shone in the tenderness that began to dawn in the delicate -old face. It was a face growing younger, as for two or -three years it had grown more spiritual. I saw that now -and did justice to it as something big. It was on the -level of big things; and love-affairs between men and -women were only on the level of the small.</p> - -<p>And all over the world big things of the same sort -were taking place, some in the sharp flash of an instant, -and some as the slow result of years. I had seen so much -of it with my own eyes that I could call up vision after -vision as I sat alone in the gray morning, watching the -soft, sweet pall settle on the old man’s countenance, while -Cantyre took his bath.</p> - -<p>Queerly, out of the unrecorded, or out of what I didn’t -suppose I had recorded, there flashed a succession of pictures, -all of them of the big, the splendid, the worth while. -They came inconsequently, without connection with each -other, without connection that I could see with the moment -I was living through, beyond the fact that they were -all on the scale of the big.</p> - -<p>There was the recollection of a khaki-clad figure lying -face downward on a hillside. I approached him from below, -catching sight first of the soles of the huge boots<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_378"></a>[378]</span> -on which he would never walk again. Coming nearer, I -saw his arms outstretched above his head and his nails -dug into the earth. He was bleeding from the ears. But -when I bent over him to see if he was still alive he said, -almost roughly:</p> - -<p>“Leave me alone! I can get along all right. Jephson’s -over there.”</p> - -<p>I left him alone because there was nothing I could do -for him, but when I went to Jephson he was lying on his -back, his knees drawn up, and his face twisted into the -strangest, most agonized, most heavenly and ecstatic -smile you can imagine on a human face.</p> - -<p>Then there was a young fellow running at the head of -his platoon, a slim young fellow with flaxen hair and a -face like a bright angel’s, who had been a crack sprinter -at McGill. He was long after my time, of course; but -I had known his family, and since being in the neighborhood -of Ypres I had seen him from time to time. He -was not made for a soldier, but a brave young soldier he -had become, surmounting fear, repulsion, and all that was -hideous to a sensitive soul like his, and establishing those -relations with his men that are dearer in many ways than -ties of blood. The picture I retain, and which came back -to me now, is of his running while his men followed him. -It was so common a sight that I would hardly have -watched it if it had been any one but him. And then, -for no reason evident to me, just as if it was part of the -order of the day, he threw up his arms, tottered on a few -steps, and went tumbling in the mud, face downward.</p> - -<p>With the rapidity of a cinema the scene changed to -something else I had witnessed. It was the day I got -my dose of shrapnel in the foot. Lying near me was a -colonel named Blenkins. Farther off there lay a sergeant<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_379"></a>[379]</span> -in his regiment named Day. Day had for Blenkins -the kind of admiration that often exists between man -and officer for which there is no other name than worship. -Slowly, painfully, dying, the non-com. dragged -himself over the scarred ground and laid his head on the -dying colonel’s heart. Painfully, slowly, the dying colonel’s -hand stole across the dying non-com.’s breast; and -in this embrace they slept.</p> - -<p>Other memories of the same sort came back to me, -disconnected, having no reference to Lovey, or Cantyre, -or Regina, or the present, beyond the fact that they -came out of the great life of which comradeship was a -token and the watchwords rang with generosity.</p> - -<p>It was the world of the moment. Such things as I -had been recalling had happened that very night; they -had happened that very morning; they would happen -through that day, and through the next day and the -next—till their purpose was accomplished. What that -purpose was to be—But that I was to learn a little -later.</p> - -<p>That is to say, a little later I got a light on the outlook -which has been sufficient for me to walk by; but of -it I will tell you when the time comes.</p> - -<p>For in the mean time the tide was rising. As Lovey -lay smiling himself into heaven the national spirit was -mounting and mounting, quietly, tensely, with excitement -held in leash till the day of the Lord was very near -at hand.</p> - -<p>All through March events had developed rapidly. On -the first day of that month the government had revealed -Germany’s attempt to stir up Mexico and Japan against -the United States. A few days later Germany herself -had admitted the instigation. A few days later still<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_380"></a>[380]</span> -Austria had given her approval to unlimited submarine -warfare. A few days later still Nicholas was deposed -in Petrograd. The country was marching; the world -was marching; the heart was marching. It was difficult -for the mind to keep up with the immensity of such happenings -or to appraise them at their value. I do not -assert that I so appraised them; I only beg you to understand -that what I wanted and Cantyre wanted and -Regina wanted, each of us for himself and herself, became -curiously insignificant.</p> - -<p>Not that we were working with the same ends in view. -By no means! Cantyre was still opposed to war as war, -and bitterly opposed to war if it involved the United -States. That he was kicking against the pricks, as -Regina asserted, I couldn’t see; but that he was feeling -the whole situation intensely was quite evident.</p> - -<p>The result, however, was the same when it came to -balancing personal interests against the public weal. -The public weal might mean one thing to him and another -thing to me, but to us both it overrode private -resentment. There was a moratorium of resentment. -We might revive it again; but for the moment it vanished -out of sight.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_381"></a>[381]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXXI</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>So we came to that determining moment when we -held our famous patriotic meeting at the Down and -Out.</p> - -<p>I call it famous because it was a new point of departure. -In all the club’s history there had never been a -meeting for any other purpose than to screw the courage -up to the cutting out of drink. Other subjects had been -suggested from time to time; but we had stuck to our -last as specialists. We had not been turned aside for -philanthropy, for education, for financial benefit, or even -for religion in the commonly accepted meaning of that -word; and the results had been our justification. But -now the flame at the heart of the earth had caught us, -and we were all afire.</p> - -<p>I mean that we were afire with interest, though the -interest was against war as well as for it. But for it or -against it, it was the one theme of our discussion; and -with cause.</p> - -<p>The tide was rising higher, and the spirit of the nation -floating on the top. On one of the first days of April the -President had asked Congress to declare a state of war -with the German Empire. Two days later the Senate -voted that declaration. A few nights after that we got -together to talk things over at the Down and Out.</p> - -<p>It was a crowded meeting, but as you looked round -you in advance you would have prophesised a dull one.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_382"></a>[382]</span> -Our fellows came from all over New York and the suburbs, -washed up, brushed up, and in their Sunday clothes. -A few were men of education, but mostly we were of the -type generally classed as hard-working. In age we ran -from the seventies down to the twenties, with a preponderance -of chaps between twenty-five and forty.</p> - -<p>What I gathered from remarks before the meeting -came to order was a dogged submission to leadership.</p> - -<p>“If you was to put it up to us guys to decide the whole -thing by ourselves,” Beady Lamont said to me as we stood -together, “we’d vote ag’in’ it. Why? Because we’re -over here—mindin’ our own business—with our kids to -take care of—and our business to keep up—and we ain’t -got no call to interfere in what’s no concern of ours. -Them fellows over in Europe never could keep still, and -they dunno how. But”—he made one of his oratorical -gestures with his big left hand—“but if the President -says the word—well, we’re behind him. He’s the country, -and when the country speaks there’s no Amur’can -who ain’t ready to give all.”</p> - -<p>Perhaps he had said something similar to Andrew -Christian, because it was that point of being ready to -give all which, when he spoke, Christian took as his -text.</p> - -<p>I am not giving you an account of the whole meeting; -I mean only to report a little of what Christian said, and -its effect upon Cantyre. Cantyre had come because Regina -had insisted; but he sat with the atmosphere of -hot, thundery silence wrapping him round.</p> - -<p>“To be ready to give all is what the world is summoned -to,” Christian declared, when he had been asked -to say a few words, “and, oh, boys, I beg you to believe -that it’s time! The call hasn’t come a minute too soon,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_383"></a>[383]</span> -and we sha’n’t be a minute too soon in getting ready to -obey it.”</p> - -<p>“Some of us ’ain’t got much to give,” a voice came -from the back sitting-room.</p> - -<p>“We’ve all got everything there is, if we only understood -it,” Christian answered, promptly; “but whatever -we have, it’s something we hold dear.”</p> - -<p>“If we hold it dear,” another voice objected, “why -should we be asked to give it up?”</p> - -<p>“Because we haven’t known how to use it. Think of -all you’ve had in your own life, Tom, and what you’ve -done with it.”</p> - -<p>I didn’t know what Tom had had in his life, but the -retort evidently gave him something to turn over in his -mind.</p> - -<p>“There never was a time in the history of the world,” -Christian went on, “when the abundance of blessing -was more lavishly poured out upon mankind. In every -country in both hemispheres we’ve had the treasures of -the earth, the sea, and the air positively heaped upon us. -Food, clothing, comfort, security, speed—have become -the commonplaces of existence. The children of to-day -grow up to a use of trains and motors and telephones and -airplanes that would have seemed miraculous as short a -time ago as when I was a lad. The standard of living -has been so quickly raised that the poor have been living -in a luxury unknown to the rich of two or three generations -ago. The Atlantic has got to be so narrow that we -count the time of our crossing it by hours. The globe -has become so small that young people go round it for -a honeymoon. People whose parents found it difficult -to keep one house have two or three, and even more. -There is money everywhere—private fortunes that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_384"></a>[384]</span> -would have staggered the imagination of Solomon and -the Queen of Sheba and Augustus and Charlemagne all -combined. Amusements are so numerous that they pall -on us. In lots of the restaurants of New York you can -order a meal for yourself alone, and feel that neither -Napoleon nor Queen Victoria nor the Czar could possibly -have sat down to a better one.”</p> - -<p>“Some could,” one of our objectors declared, with all -sorts of implications in his tone.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m not saying there are no inequalities or that -there is just distribution of all this blessing. In fact, -my point is that there is not. All I’m asserting is that -the blessing is there, and that the very windows of -heaven have been opened on the world in order to pour -it out.”</p> - -<p>“I never saw none of it,” a thin, sour fellow put in, -laconically.</p> - -<p>“But, Juleps, that’s what I’m coming to. The blessing -was there, and some of us wouldn’t try to get what -belonged to us, and others of us collared too much, and -we treated it very much as children treat pennies in a -scramble. We did far worse than that. We rifled, we -stole, we gobbled, we guzzled, we strutted, we bragged; -the fellow that was up kicked the fellow that was down to -keep him down; the fellow that had plenty sneaked and -twisted and cringed and cadged in order to get more; -and we’ve all worked together to create the world that’s -been hardly fit to live in, that every one of us has known. -Now, boys, isn’t that so? Speak out frankly.”</p> - -<p>Since in that crowd there could not be two opinions as -to the world being hardly fit to live in, there was a general -murmur of assent.</p> - -<p>“Now wealth is a great good thing; and what I mean<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_385"></a>[385]</span> -by wealth is the general storehouse, free to us all, which -we call the earth and the atmosphere round it. I don’t -have to tell you that it’s a storehouse crammed in every -crack and cranny with the things you and I need for our -enjoyment. And it isn’t a storehouse such as you and I -would fill, which has got only what we could put into it; -it’s always producing more. Production is its law. It’s -never idle. It’s incessantly working. The more we -take out of it the more it yields. I don’t say that we -can’t exhaust it in spots by taxing it too much; of course -we can. Greed will exhaust anything, just as it’s exhausting, -under our very eyes, our forests, our fisheries, and -our farms. But in general there’s nothing that will respond -to good treatment more surely than the earth, nor -give us back a bigger interest on the labor we put into it.”</p> - -<p>“That’s so,” came from some one who had perhaps -been a farmer.</p> - -<p>“And so,” Christian went on, “we’ve had a world -that’s given us everything in even greater abundance than -we could use. We’ve had food to waste; we’ve had -clothes for every shade of temperature; we’ve had coal -for our furnaces, and iron for our buildings, and steel for -our ships, and gasolene for our automobiles. We’ve had -every invention that could help us to save time, to save -worry, to save labor, to save life. Childhood has been -made more healthy; old age more vigorous. That a race -of young men and young women has been growing up -among us of whom we can say without much exaggeration -that humanity is becoming godlike, any one can see who -goes round our schools and colleges.”</p> - -<p>He took a step forward, throwing open his palms in a -gesture of demand.</p> - -<p>“But, fellows, what good has all this prodigious plenty<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_386"></a>[386]</span> -been doing us? Has it made us any better? Have we -become any more thankful that we all had enough and -to spare? Have we been any more eager to see that when -we had too much the next man had a sufficiency? Have -we rejoiced in this plenitude as the common delight of -every one? Have we seen it as the manifestation of the -God who expresses Himself in all good things, and Who -has given us, as one of the apostles says, all things richly -to enjoy? Has it brought us any nearer Him? Has it -given us any increased sympathy with Him? Or have -we made it minister to our very lowest qualities, to our -appetites, to our insolence, to our extravagance, to our -sheer pride that all this was ours, to wallow in, to waste, -and to despise?</p> - -<p>“You know we have done the last. There isn’t a man -among us who hasn’t done it to a greater or less degree. -There is hardly a man in New York who hasn’t lived in -the lust of the purely material. You may go through -the world and only find a rarefied creature here and there -who hasn’t reveled and rioted and been silly and vain -and arrogant to the fullest extent that he dared.”</p> - -<p>The wee bye Daisy was sitting in the front row, looking -up at the speaker raptly.</p> - -<p>“I haven’t, Mr. Christian,” he declared, virtuously.</p> - -<p>“Then, Daisy, you’re the rarefied creature I said was -an exception. Most of us have,” he went on when the -roar of laughter subsided. “If we haven’t in one way -we have in another. And what has been the result? -Covetousness, hatred, class rivalry, capital and labor bitternesses, -war. And now we’ve come to a place where -by a queer and ironical judgment upon us the struggle -for possession is going to take from us all that we possess.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_387"></a>[387]</span></p> - -<p>He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and -spoke casually, confidentially.</p> - -<p>“For, boys, that’s what I’m coming to. All the good -things we have are going to be taken away from us. Since -we don’t know how to use them, and won’t learn, we’ve -got to give them back.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t believe that, Mr. Christian,” a common-sense -voice cried out in a tone of expostulation.</p> - -<p>“Peter, you’ll see. You’ll only have to live a few -months longer to find yourself like every one else in -America, lacking the simple essentials you’ve always -taken as a matter of course. It isn’t luxuries alone that -you’ll be called on to give up; it will be the common -necessaries of every-day life. The great summons is coming -to us, not merely from our government, not merely -from the terrified and stricken nations of mankind, but -from God above—to give everything back to Him. I don’t -say that we shall starve or that we shall freeze; but we -may easily be cold and hungry and driven to a cheese-paring -economy we never expected to practise. The -light will be taken from our lamps, the work from our -fingers, the money from our pockets. We shall be searched -to the very soul. There’s nothing we sha’n’t have to -surrender. At the very least we must give tithes of all -that we possess, signifying our willingness to give more.”</p> - -<p>“Some of us ’ain’t got nothing.”</p> - -<p>It was the bitter cry of the dispossessed.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Billy; we’ve all got life; and life, too, we shall -have to offer up. There are some of you chaps sitting -here that in all human probability will be called on to -do it.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t, Mr. Christian. You’re too old.”</p> - -<p>“I’m too old, Spud, but my two boys are not; and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_388"></a>[388]</span> -they’re getting ready now. Whether it’s harder or easier -to let them go rather than for me to go myself I leave to -any of you guys that have kids.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps it won’t be as bad as what you think.”</p> - -<p>“Jimmy, I’m only reasoning from what I see in the -world already. When the human race is being trodden -in the wine-press we in America can’t expect to be spared. -If any of you want to know what’s happening to the kind -of world we’ve made for ourselves let him read the eighteenth -chapter of the book of the Revelation. That chapter -might be written of Europe as it is at this minute. -Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. The kings of the -earth stand off from her, crying, Alas! alas! that great -city Babylon, for in one hour is her judgment come! -The merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, -for no man buyeth their merchandise any more, saying, -Alas! alas! that great city, which was clothed in fine -linen and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and -precious stones and pearls, for in one hour so great riches -is come to naught. And every shipmaster, and all the -company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by -sea, cast dust on their heads and cry over her, Alas! alas! -that great city wherein were made rich all that had ships -in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour -she is made desolate.”</p> - -<p>“But that ain’t us.”</p> - -<p>“No, Headlights, that’s not us. I agree with you -that there’s a difference. America is not in the same -boat with Europe—not quite—but very nearly. Perhaps -because our crimes are not so black we’ve been given -the chance to do what we have to do more of our own -free act. From Europe what she had has been taken -away violently, whether she would or no. We have the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_389"></a>[389]</span> -chance to come before the throne of God and offer it back -of our own free will. You see the difference! And, oh, -boys, I want you to do it—”</p> - -<p>“It ain’t for us, Mr. Christian, to decide that.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, it is, Beady! It’s for each of us to offer willingly -in his own heart. Not just to the government—not -just to the country—not just to France or Belgium -or any other nation that’s in a tight place—but to that -blessed and heavenly Father Who’s giving us this wonderful -chance to put everything into His hands again, -and get it all back for redistribution. Don’t you see? -That’s it—the redistribution! A better world has to -come out of this—a juster world—a happier world—a -cleaner world. And in that reconstruction we Americans -have the chance to take the lead because we’re doing it -of our own accord. Every other country has some ax to -grind; but we have none. We’ve none except just to be -in the big movement of all mankind upward and forward. -But the difference between us and every other country—unless -it’s the British Empire—is that we do it man by -man, each stepping out of the ranks in his turn as if -he was the only one and everything depended on his act. -It’s up to you, Beady; it’s up to me; it’s up to each -American singly.”</p> - -<p>“Why ain’t it up to every European singly?”</p> - -<p>“It is. They’re just beginning to understand that it -is. The Englishman, the Frenchman, the Italian, they’re -beginning to see that the democracy we talk so much -about isn’t merely a question of the vote—that it isn’t -primarily a question of the vote at all—it’s one of self-government -in the widest and yet the most personal sense. -The great summons is not to mankind in nations; it’s to -mankind as individuals. It’s to Tom and Jimmy and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_390"></a>[390]</span> -Peter and Headlights and Daisy and every one who has -a name. It’s the individual who makes the country, who -forms the army, who becomes the redemptive element. -In proportion as the individual cleanses himself from the -national sin the national sin is wiped out. So it’s by -Englishmen and Englishwomen that England will renew -itself—”</p> - -<p>I think it was my old friend, the Irish hospital attendant, -who called out, “What’s England’s national sin?”</p> - -<p>The question brought the speaker to a halt. He seemed -to reflect.</p> - -<p>“What’s England’s national sin?” he repeated. “I -should say—mind you, I’m not sitting in judgment on -any one or any people—but we’ve all got to clean our -stables, even if it takes the labors of Hercules to accomplish -it—I should say England’s national vice—the vice -that’s been eating the heart out of her body, and the -spirit out of her heart—is sensuality.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter with France?”</p> - -<p>“I’m not an international physician with a specialty -for diagnosis,” Christian laughed; “but in my opinion -France has been corroded through and through with -sordidness. She’s been too petty, too narrow, too mean, -too selfish—”</p> - -<p>“Say, boss, tell us about my country.”</p> - -<p>“You mean, Italy, Tony? Haven’t you got to get rid -of your superstition, and all the degrading things superstition -brings with it? I want you to understand that -we’re talking of national errors, not of national virtues.”</p> - -<p>“Have we got a national error in the United States?”</p> - -<p>“What do you think, Tapley? Isn’t it as plain as the -nose on your face? Isn’t it written all over the country, -on every page of every newspaper you pick up?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_391"></a>[391]</span></p> - -<p>“What? What is it?” came from several voices at -once.</p> - -<p>“Dishonesty!” he cried, loudly. “We Americans have -got our good points, but of them honesty is the very -smallest. If any one called us a nation of sharpers he -wouldn’t be very far wrong. Our notion of competition -is to get the better of the other fellow, by foul means if -it can’t be done by fair. That’s the case in private life, -and when it comes to public—well, did you ever hear of -anything that we ever undertook as a people that didn’t -have to be investigated before very long? You can -hardly read a daily paper in which the investigation of -some public trust isn’t going on. Dishonesty is stamped -deep, deep into the American character as it is to-day; -and for that very reason, if for no other, we’ve got to give -everything back. If we don’t it will be taken from us -by main force; and we’re not of the type to wait for that.”</p> - -<p>He seemed to gather himself together. His face, always -benignant, began to glow with an inward light.</p> - -<p>“But, boys, what I want you to understand is that we -can make this act of offering as a great act of faith. -Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down! -We can take our good gifts and our perfect gifts and hand -them up! We can anticipate their being taken from us -by giving them. We can give them as men who know -whence they have been received, and where they will be -held in trust for us—not grudgingly nor of necessity, as -the Bible tells us, for God loveth a cheerful giver. Now -is the time for us to test that love—every man for himself. -The appeal is to the individual. Give, and it shall -be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken -together, and running over, shall men give into your -bosom, according to the measure that ye mete. For this<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_392"></a>[392]</span> -giving isn’t to men, it’s to God; it isn’t a portion, it’s -all; it isn’t limited to material things, it includes our -love and our life. It’s the great summons; it’s the great -surrender. And—boys—my dear old boys who’ve been -saved from other things—we’ve all been saved for this—for -something we never expected, but which isn’t hard -to do when you look at it in the right way—to hand ourselves -back, in body, mind, and possessions, to Him from -whom we came, that He may make a new use of us and -begin all over again.”</p> - -<p>And the first thing I saw when he stopped was Cantyre -springing forward to grasp him by the hand.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_393"></a>[393]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXXII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>When I got out the streets were already buzzing -with a rumor that no extra had as yet proclaimed. -The House of Representatives had followed the Senate -in voting for war, and the President was about to sign -the declaration.</p> - -<p>But I forgot this on arriving at the flat, for Lovey was -propped up in bed, with his thin nose in the air, making -little sniffs.</p> - -<p>“I smell it, Slim,” he smiled, as I entered. “Kind of -a coffee smell it is now, with a dash o’ bacon and heggs.”</p> - -<p>“That smell is always round this flat, Lovey,” I said, -trying to be casual. “It’s all the breakfasts you and I -have eaten—”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, Slim. You can’t be mistook in this; and besides—” He -made a sign to the man nurse who for the -past week or two Cantyre had sent in from one of his -hospitals. “You clear out, d’ye ’ear? I want to talk -to my buddy, private-like.”</p> - -<p>The man strolled out to the living-room, whispering -to me as he passed: “There’s a change in him. I don’t -think he’ll last through the night.”</p> - -<p>“Come and sit ’ere, sonny,” Lovey commanded as -soon as we were alone. “I’ve got somethin’ special-like -to tell ye. Did ye know,” he went on, when I was -seated beside the bed, “as I’d seen Lizzy—and she ’adn’t -her neck broke at all. She was lovely.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_394"></a>[394]</span></p> - -<p>“Where?” I asked, to humor him.</p> - -<p>“Right ’ere—right beside that there chair that you’re -a-sittin’ in.”</p> - -<p>“When?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, on and off—pretty near all the time now.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that she comes and goes?”</p> - -<p>“No; not just comin’ and goin’. She’s—she’s kind o’ -’ere all the time, only sometimes I ain’t lookin’.” His -face became alight. “There she is now—and a great -long street be’ind ’er. No, it ain’t a street; it’s just all -lovely-like, and Lizzy with ’er neck as straight as a -walkin’-stick—and not a drinkin’-woman no more she -don’t look—it’s kind o’ beautiful like, Slim, only—only I -can’t make ye understand.”</p> - -<p>Sighing fretfully over his inability to explain, he lapsed -into that state of which I never was sure whether it was -sleep or unconsciousness.</p> - -<p>The coma lasted for a great part of the night. Sending -the nurse to lie down, I sat and watched, chiefly because -I had too much on my mind and in my heart to want -to go to bed. Every two or three hours Cantyre stole -in, in his dressing-gown, finding nothing he could do. -Once or twice I was tempted to ask him what he thought -of Christian’s talk, but, fearing to break the spell it -might have wrought in him, I refrained. He himself -didn’t mention it, nor did he seem to know that I had -observed his impulsive, shaking hands.</p> - -<p>On one of the occasions when he was with me Lovey -opened his eyes suddenly, beginning to murmur something -we couldn’t understand.</p> - -<p>“What is it, old chap?” Cantyre questioned, bending -over him and listening.</p> - -<p>But Lovey was already articulating brokenly. It took<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_395"></a>[395]</span> -two or three repetitions, or attempts at repetition, for -Cantyre to be in a position to interpret.</p> - -<p>“What’s he trying to say?” I inquired.</p> - -<p>Cantyre pretended to arrange the bottles on the table -beside the bed so as not to have to look at me.</p> - -<p>“He says, or he’s doing his best to say, ‘I didn’t say -nothink but what was for everybody’s good.’”</p> - -<p>It was on my lips to retort, “Perhaps he didn’t.”</p> - -<p>I left that, however, for Cantyre, who went back to -his rooms without comment.</p> - -<p>He returned in the small hours of the morning, and -once more we sat, one on one side of the bed and the -other on the other, in what was practically silence. All -I could say of it was that it had become a sympathetic -silence. Why it was sympathetic I didn’t know: but the -unclassified perceptions told me that it was.</p> - -<p>When Lovey opened his eyes again it was with the -air of not having been asleep or otherwise away from us.</p> - -<p>“I saved ye, Slim, didn’t I?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Lovey, old man, you did.”</p> - -<p>“Kep’ straight so as you would keep straight too?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>“Ye’d never ’a’ done it if it ’adn’t been for me?”</p> - -<p>“No, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>“And I’d never ’a’ gone away from ye, Slim. I was -just a—a-frightenin’ of you. I didn’t mean no ’arm at -all, I didn’t.”</p> - -<p>“I know, Lovey.”</p> - -<p>He fixed his glazing eyes upon me as he said, “I told -ye my name wasn’t Lovey, didn’t I?”</p> - -<p>“No, but that doesn’t matter.”</p> - -<p>“No, that doesn’t matter now. We’re fellas together, -so what’s the diff?... I don’t care where we sleeps to-night,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_396"></a>[396]</span> -so long as you’re there, sonny.... Greeley’s Slip -is good enough for mine, if I can snuggle up to you, -like.... Ye don’t mind, do ye?”</p> - -<p>I put my arm round his shoulder, raising him.</p> - -<p>“No, Lovey, I don’t mind. Just snuggle up.”</p> - -<p>“’Old me ’and, sonny.”</p> - -<p>I took his hand in mine as his head rested on my -shoulder.</p> - -<p>He gave a long, restful sigh.</p> - -<p>“Lizzy says it’s an awful nice place where she is, and—”</p> - -<p>I felt him slipping down in bed; but Cantyre, who -knew more of such cases than I did, caught him gently -round the loins and lowered him.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_397"></a>[397]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXXIII</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>On coming back the next afternoon from selecting -the spot for Lovey’s grave there was a man in khaki -on the train. When I got out at the Grand Central I saw -another. In Fifth Avenue I saw another and another. -They seemed to spring out of the ground, giving a new -aspect to the streets. In the streets that shining thing -I had noticed on landing was no longer to be seen. Silver -peace had faded out, while in its place there was coming—coming -by degrees—but coming—that spirit of strong -resolve which is iron and gold.</p> - -<p>Or perhaps I had better say that peace had taken -refuge in my dingy little flat, where Lovey was lying on -his bed in his Sunday clothes, with hands folded on his -breast. Peace was in every line of the fragile figure; in -the face there was peace satisfied—peace content—gentle, -abiding, eternal.</p> - -<p>Two days later a little company of us stood by his -grave while Rufus Legrand read the ever-stirring words -of the earth to earth. It was the old comradeship which -Lovey himself would have liked—the fellowship of men -who had fought the same fight as he, and were hoping -to be faithful unto death like him—Christian, Straight, -little Spender, Beady, Pyn, the wee bye Daisy, and one -or two others. Cantyre alone had none of the dark -memories—and yet the bright and blessed memories—that -held the rest of us together; but Cantyre had his -place.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_398"></a>[398]</span></p> - -<p>We had driven out side by side in the same motor, -as what the undertaker called chief mourners. I don’t -remember that we uttered a word to each other till we -got out at the grave.</p> - -<p>It was Cantyre who said, then: “I want you to drive -back with me, Frank. There’s somewhere I should like -to take you.”</p> - -<p>Reassured by his use of my name, I merely nodded, -wondering what he meant.</p> - -<p>I didn’t ask, however; nor did I ask when we were -back in the motor again and on our way to town. I got -my first hint as we began to descend the long avenue in -which Sterling Barry had his house.</p> - -<p>As I expected, we stopped at the door. The vacant -lot was still vacant, and among its dead stalks of burdock -and succory April was bringing the first shades of soft -green. I thought of Lovey, of course; of our tramp round -Columbus Circle; of my midnight adventure right on this -spot. It was like going back to another life; it was as -this life must have seemed to Lovey and his Lizzy reunited -in that world where her neck was as straight as a walking-stick, -and everything was lovely-like.</p> - -<p>Cantyre spoke low, as if he could hardly speak at all.</p> - -<p>“I asked Regina to be in. She’ll be expecting us.”</p> - -<p>And she was. She was expecting us in that kind of -agitation which hides itself under a pretense of being -more than usually cool. In sympathy with Lovey’s -memory, I suppose, she was dressed in black, which made -a foil for her vivid lips and eyes. Out of the latter she -was unable to keep a shade of feverish brightness that -belied the nonchalance of her greeting.</p> - -<p>She talked about Lovey, about the funeral, about the -weather, about the declaration of war, about the men in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_399"></a>[399]</span> -khaki who with such surprising promptness had begun -to appear in the streets. She talked rapidly, anxiously, -against time, as it were, and busied herself pouring tea. -Suspecting, doubtless, that Cantyre had something special -to say, she was trying to fight him off from it as long -as possible.</p> - -<p>I had taken a seat; he remained standing, his back -to the fire. His look was abstracted, thundery, morose.</p> - -<p>Right in the middle of what Regina was saying about -the seizure of the German ships he dropped with the remark, -“You two know what Lovey told me—what he’s -been telling me ever since you both came home.”</p> - -<p>Neither of us had a word to say. We could only stare. -You could hear the mantelpiece clock ticking before -he went on again.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m not going to give you up, Regina,” he declared, -aggressively, then.</p> - -<p>One of her hands was on the handle of the teapot; -one was in the act of taking up a cup. If coloring was -ever transmuted into flame, her coloring was at that -moment. There was a dramatic intensity in her quietness.</p> - -<p>“Have I asked you to, Stephen?”</p> - -<p>“No; but—”</p> - -<p>“Have I?” I demanded.</p> - -<p>“No; but—”</p> - -<p>“If Lovey did it it was without any knowledge of -mine,” I continued. “I practically killed him, God forgive -me, for doing it!”</p> - -<p>“You’re both off the track,” Cantyre broke in. “You -don’t know what I—what I want to say.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, then, Stephen. Tell us,” Regina said, -tranquilly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_400"></a>[400]</span></p> - -<p>He spoke stammeringly. “It’s—it’s—just this: This -is no time—for—for—love.”</p> - -<p>We stared again, waiting for him to go on.</p> - -<p>“It’s what—what Christian told us two or three nights -ago. We’re in a world where—where love and marriage -are no longer the burning questions. They’re too small. -Don’t you see?”</p> - -<p>We continued to stare, but we agreed with him.</p> - -<p>“So—so,” he faltered, “I want you—I want you both—to—to -put it all off.”</p> - -<p>“The moratorium of love?” I suggested.</p> - -<p>“The moratorium of everything,” he took up, “but -what—what Christian put before us. I see that now -more plainly than I ever saw anything in my life. We’ve -got to give everything up—and get it back—different. -We shall be different, too—and things that we’re struggling -over now will be settled for us, I suppose, without -our taking them into our own hands at all. That’s how -I look at it, if you two will agree.”</p> - -<p>“I agree, Stephen,” Regina said, with the same tranquillity.</p> - -<p>“And I, too, old chap.”</p> - -<p>“I’m—I’m going over,” he stumbled on, “with the -first medical unit from Columbia—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Stephen! How splendid!”</p> - -<p>He contradicted her. “No, it isn’t. I’m not doing it -from any splendid motives whatever. I’m going just to—to -try and get out of myself. Don’t you see—you -two? You must see. I’m—I’m sunk in myself; I’ve -never been anything else. That’s what’s been the matter -with me. That’s why I never made any friends. That’s -why you, Frank, have never really cared a straw about -me—in spite of all the ways I’ve made up to you; and why<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_401"></a>[401]</span> -you, Regina, can hardly stand me. But, by God! you’re -both going to!”</p> - -<p>With this flash of excitement I sprang up, laying my -hand on his arm.</p> - -<p>“We care for you already, old man.”</p> - -<p>“That’s not the point. I’ve—I’ve got to care for myself. -I’ve got to find some sort of self-respect.”</p> - -<p>But Regina, too, sprang up, joining us where we stood -on the hearth-rug. She didn’t touch him; she only stood -before him with hands clasped in front of her.</p> - -<p>“Stephen dear, you’re not doing any more heart-searching -than Frank and I are doing; or than every true -American is doing all through the country. What you -say Mr. Christian told you the other night is more or -less consciously in everybody’s soul. We know we’re -called to the judgment seat; and at the judgment seat -we stand. That’s all there is to it. Marriage and giving -in marriage for people like us must wait. It’s become unimportant. -There are people—younger than we are for -the most part—to whom it comes first. But for us, with -our experience—each of us—you with yours, Frank with -his, I with mine—well, we have other work to do. We -must see this great thing through before we can give our -attention to ourselves. And we shall see it through, -sha’n’t we, by doing as you say? We must give everything -up—and wait. Then we shall probably find our -difficulties solved for us. I often think that patience—the -power to wait and be confident—is the most stupendous -force in the world.”</p> - -<p>And with few more words than this we left her. I -went first, giving them a little time alone together. But -I hadn’t gone very far before, on accidentally turning -round, I saw Cantyre coming down the steps.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_402"></a>[402]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak"><i>CHAPTER XXXIV</i></h2> - -</div> - -<p>It was just a year later that a secret but profound misgiving -in my heart began to be dispelled.</p> - -<p>I call it secret because it was unacknowledged by myself. -It would never, I believe, have come to me of its -own accord; it was suggested from without, and even so -I didn’t harbor it consciously. It was only with the news -of Seicheprey, of which the details began to come in toward -the end of April, 1918, that I knew that in the wheat -of my hopes and confidences there had been tares of -anxiety and fear.</p> - -<p>I had seen too many of those strapping, splendid fellows -not to be confident and hopeful. But I had also -read too much of the folly of pitting green boys, however -magnificently built, against the seasoned troops of -long campaigns, not to have a lurking dread as to the -test. I never voiced the question, not even to my own -heart; yet Satan, the manufacturer of fear, had not failed -to formulate it to my subconsciousness. What if this -noble America, so strong, so generous, so ready to respond -to that call which Christian had uttered, so eager to pour -out its all, with both hands, gladly, gaily—what if now, -before the guns of a ruthless and unconquerable foe, she -should meet the disaster that would bring her to the dust? -What if those beloved boys, all sinew and muscle as they -were, should go down as I had seen my fellow-countrymen -go down, in heaps that showed the impotence of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_403"></a>[403]</span> -valor? I had witnessed so much sacrifice—sacrifice by -mistake, sacrifice by lack of skill, sacrifice by lack of -knowledge that could have been obtained—that when I -looked at these lads my heart sank at moments when it -should have been most buoyant.</p> - -<p>Then came Seicheprey, and I knew.</p> - -<p>Then came the Marne, the Ourcq, the Vesle; and I -was satisfied.</p> - -<p>For the cause had absorbed me again, heart and soul -and mind. I was being sent all over the country, and -sometimes into Canada, to speak for it. In this way I -came to be in a small town in the Middle West—Mendoza -happened to be its name—when, picking up a paper, I -saw that a hospital had been bombed. The next edition -reported that two doctors and three or four nurses had -been killed. The next told us their names. Among the -names was....</p> - -<p>And so he did give his all.</p> - -<p>I didn’t write to Regina; Regina didn’t write to me. -She was busy, as I was busy; but somewhere in the distance -and the silence between us there was a place where -our spirits met.</p> - -<p>And when we met in person we still didn’t speak of it. -It was too deep, too sacred, too complicated and strange -to go readily into words. It was easier and more natural -to talk of something else.</p> - -<p>That was at Rosyth, on Long Island, at the end of -June. Hearing that I had returned to New York for a -rest, Hilda Grace asked me down for the week-end, just -as she had asked me exactly four years before.</p> - -<p>On this occasion she made no attempt to sound me; -she mentioned Regina only to say that she was at the -red-and-yellow house on the opposite hill for a little rest<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_404"></a>[404]</span> -on her part. By disappearing after lunch on Sunday she -gave me to understand that I was free.</p> - -<p>I went to the old Hornblower house by the way I had -taken when I had last come away from it—down Mrs. -Grace’s steps to the beach—along the shore—and up the -steps to the lawn where the foxgloves bordered the scrub-oak.</p> - -<p>I went back to the veranda where I had waited and -sat down in one of the same chairs. Taking out a cigarette, -I lighted it and began to smoke.</p> - -<p>Perhaps some one had seen me from a window, for in -a little while there was the click of high heels on the bare -steps of the stairway. Then out on the veranda came a -figure too little to be tall and too tall to be considered -little, carrying herself proudly, placing her dainty feet -daintily, but advancing toward me instead of going away. -She was dressed in white, with a scarlet band about her -waist and another about her dashing Panama, of the -same shade as her lips. In the opening at the neck she -wore a string of pearls. Lower down, the opening was -fastened by a diamond bar-pin. In her hand she carried -a gold-mesh purse, which she threw carelessly on a table -as she passed.</p> - -<p>She met me as any hostess meets a man who comes -to make a call. We talked of the topics of the day, -beginning with the weather. From the weather we passed -to the war, and to all our anxieties and humiliations -through the spring. We could do this, however, with a -ray of cheerfulness, because the Château-Thierry salient -was beginning to be wiped out.</p> - -<p>“But why do things have to happen the way they do?” -I asked her. “If we’re going to win, why couldn’t we -have won from the first? What’s the use of all this backing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_405"></a>[405]</span> -and filling, this losing and taking, and relosing and -retaking, the same old ground? Oh, I know there are the -usual explanations as to our not being up to the mark -in munitions and man power; but I mean what is the -explanation from the point of view of an All-Powerful -and All-Intelligent—?”</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it the same explanation that applies to every -human life?”</p> - -<p>“Well, what’s that?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that I can tell you,” she smiled, thoughtfully; -“but I do feel sure that we need our experiences. -With minds and natures like ours we’re not fitted to go -straight and simply from point to point. The long way -round has to be our short way home, and—and—the -way things happen is the best way.... Oh, dear, what’s -happening?”</p> - -<p>It was admirably staged. The slipping of the string of -pearls to the floor could hardly have been another accident. -For me there was but one thing to do.</p> - -<p>Springing to my feet I stooped and picked the necklet -up. Having picked it up, I put it in my pocket.</p> - -<p>I stood smiling down at her. She sat smiling up at -me. There was more in that smile than a lifetime of -words could have uttered.</p> - -<p>But when I was about to pull the pearls out of my -pocket again she leaned forward and said, huskily: “Don’t, -Frank. Keep them.”</p> - -<p>I looked at her, puzzled. “Why, Regina?”</p> - -<p>“Because some day you—you’ll give them back to -me. Till then they’ll be yours. They’ll be a symbol—a -pledge.”</p> - -<p>“Will it be—some day—some day—soon?”</p> - -<p>“Not so very soon, Frank. I must still have time<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_406"></a>[406]</span> -to—to think of Stephen. I cared for him—in my -way.”</p> - -<p>“I think of him, too,” I said, shakily. “It seems hard -that he should have had to give everything, when I’m—I’m -getting everything.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, death isn’t so terrible—or so significant. There -wouldn’t be so much of it if it was. I only mean—but -I can’t explain to you. We must get a little farther on—not -only you and I—but our country—our countries—we -must give still more—we must at least offer all even -if it isn’t all taken away from us—before it’s given back -to us—renewed—purified.”</p> - -<p>“And then?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, then!”</p> - -<p>But the glow in her face said the rest.</p> - -<p class="titlepage">THE END</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CITY OF COMRADES ***</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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