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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8441-0.txt b/8441-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d74136b --- /dev/null +++ b/8441-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2617 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Between Friends, by Robert W. Chambers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Between Friends + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8441] +Posting Date: July 30, 2009 +Last Updated: November 3, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN FRIENDS *** + + + + +Produced by Andre Boutin-Maloney + + + + + + + + +BETWEEN FRIENDS + +By Robert W. Chambers + + +1914 + + + + +I + +Like a man who reenters a closed and darkened house and lies down; lying +there, remains conscious of sunlight outside, of bird-calls, and the +breeze in the trees, so had Drene entered into the obscurity of himself. + +Through the chambers of his brain the twilit corridors where cringed his +bruised and disfigured soul, there nothing stirring except the automatic +pulses which never cease. + +Sometimes, when the sky itself crashes earthward and the world lies in +ruins from horizon to horizon, life goes on. + +The things that men live through--and live! + +But no doubt Death was too busy elsewhere to attend to Drene. + +He had become very lean by the time it was all over. Gray glinted on his +temples; gray softened his sandy mustache: youth was finished as far as +he was concerned. + +An odd idea persisted in his mind that it had been winter for many +years. And the world thawed out very slowly for him. + +But broken trees leaf out, and hewed roots sprout; and what he had so +long mistaken for wintry ashes now gleamed warmly like the orange +and gold of early autumn. After a while he began to go about more or +less--little excursions from the dim privacy of mind and soul--and he +found the sun not very gray; and a south wind blowing in the world once +more. + +Quair and Guilder were in the studio that day on business; Drene +continued to modify his composition in accordance with Guilder’s +suggestions; Quair, always curious concerning Drene, was becoming slyly +impudent. + +“And listen to me, Guilder. What the devil’s a woman between friends?” + argued Quair, with a malicious side glance at Drene. “You take my best +girl away from me--” + +“But I don’t,” remarked his partner dryly. + +“For the sake of argument, you do. What happens? Do I raise hell? No. I +merely thank you. Why? Because I don’t want her if you can get her away. +That,” he added, with satisfaction, “is philosophy. Isn’t it, Drene?” + +Guilder intervened pleasantly: + +“I don’t think Drene is particularly interested in philosophy. I’m sure +I’m not. Shut up, please.” + +Drene, gravely annoyed, continued to pinch bits of modeling wax out of a +round tin box, and to stick them all over the sketch he was modifying. + +Now and then he gave a twirl to the top of his working table, which +revolved with a rusty squeak. + +“If you two unusually intelligent gentlemen ask me what good a woman the +world--” began Quair. + +“But we don’t,” interrupted Guilder, in the temperate voice peculiar to +his negative character. + +“Anyway,” insisted Quair, “here’s what I think of ‘em--” + +“My model, yonder,” said Drene, a slight shrug of contempt, “happens +to be feminine, and may also be human. Be decent enough to defer the +development of your rather tiresome theory.” + +The girl on the model-stand laughed outright at the rebuke, stretched +her limbs and body, and relaxed, launching a questioning glance at +Drene. + +“All right; rest a bit,” said the sculptor, smearing the bit of wax he +was pinching over the sketch before him. + +He gave another twirl or two to the table, wiped his bony fingers on +a handful of cotton waste, picked up his empty pipe, and blew into the +stem, reflectively. + +Quair, one of the associated architects of the new opera, who had been +born a gentleman and looked the perfect bounder, sauntered over to +examine the sketch. He was still red from the rebuke he had invited. + +Guilder, his senior colleague, got up from the lounge and walked over +also. Drene fitted the sketch into the roughly designed group, where it +belonged, and stood aside, sucking meditatively on his empty pipe. + +After a silence: + +“It’s all right,” said Guilder. + +Quair remarked that the group seemed to lack flamboyancy. It is true, +however, that, except for Guilder’s habitual restraint, the celebrated +firm of architects was inclined to express themselves flamboyantly, and +to interpret Renaissance in terms of Baroque. + +“She’s some girl,” added Quair, looking at the lithe, modeled figure, +and then half turning to include the model, who had seated herself on +the lounge, and was now gazing with interest at the composition sketched +in by Drene for the facade of the new opera. + +“Carpeaux and his eternal group--it’s the murderous but inevitable +standard of comparison,” mused Drene, with a whimsical glance at the +photograph on the wall. + +“Carpeaux has nothing on this young lady,” insisted Quair flippantly; +and he pivoted on his heel and sat down beside the model. Once or twice +the two others, consulting before the wax group, heard the girl’s light, +untroubled laughter behind their backs gaily responsive to Quair’s +wit. Perhaps Quair’s inheritance had been humor, but to some it seemed +perilously akin to mother-wit. + +The pockets of Guilder’s loose, ill-fitting clothes bulged with linen +tracings and rolls of blue-prints. He and Drene consulted over these for +a while, semi-conscious of Quair’s bantering voice and the girl’s easily +provoked laughter behind them. And, finally: + +“All right, Guilder,” said Drene briefly. And the firm of celebrated +architects prepared to evacuate the studio--Quair exhibiting symptoms of +incipient skylarking, in which he was said to be at his best. + +“Drop in on me at the office some time,” he suggested to the youthful +model, in a gracious tone born of absolute self-satisfaction. + +“For luncheon or dinner?” retorted the girl, with smiling audacity. + +“You may stay to breakfast also--” + +“Oh, come on,” drawled Guilder, taking his colleague’s elbow. + +The sculptor yawned as Quair went out: then he closed the door then +celebrated firm of architects, and wandered back rather aimlessly. + +For a while he stood by the great window, watching the pigeons on +neighboring roof. Presently he returned to his table, withdrew the +dancing figure with its graceful, wide flung arms, set it upon the +squeaky revolving table once more, and studied it, yawning at intervals. + +The girl got up from the sofa behind him, went to the model-stand, and +mounted it. For a few moments she was busy adjusting her feet to the +chalk marks and blocks. Finally she took the pose. She always seemed +inclined to be more or less vocal while Drene worked; her voice, if +untrained, was untroubled. Her singing had never bothered Drene, nor, +until the last few days, had he even particularly noticed her blithe +trilling--as a man a field, preoccupied, is scarcely aware of the wild +birds’ gay irrelevancy along the way. + +He happened to notice it now, and a thought passed through his mind that +the country must be very lovely in the mild spring sunshine. + +As he worked, the brief visualization of young grass and the faint blue +of skies, evoked, perhaps, by the girl’s careless singing, made for his +dull concentration subtly pleasant environment. + +“May I rest?” she asked at length. + +“Certainly, if it’s necessary.” + +“I’ve brought my lunch. It’s twelve,” she explained. + +He glanced at her absently, rolling a morsel of wax; then, with slight +irritation which ended in a shrug, he motioned her to descend. + +After all, girls, like birds, were eternally eating. Except for that, +and incessant preening, existence meant nothing more important to either +species. + +He had been busy for a few moments with the group when she said +something to him, and he looked around from his abstraction. She was +holding out toward him a chicken sandwich. + +When his mind came back from wool gathering, he curtly declined the +offer, and, as an afterthought, bestowed upon her a wholly mechanical +smile, in recognition of a generosity not welcome. + +“Why don’t you ever eat luncheon?” she asked. + +“Why should I?” he replied, preoccupied. + +“It’s bad for you not to. Besides, you are growing thin.” + +“Is that your final conclusion concerning me, Cecile?” he asked, +absently. + +“Won’t you please take this sandwich?” + +Her outstretched arm more than what she said arrested his drifting +attention again. + +“Why the devil do you want me to eat?” he inquired, fishing out his +empty pipe and filling it. + +“You smoke too much. It’s bad for you. It will do very queer things to +the lining of your stomach if you smoke your luncheon instead of eating +it.” + +He yawned. + +“Is that so?” he said. + +“Certainly it’s so. Please take this sandwich.” + +He stood looking at the outstretched arm, thinking of other things and +the girl sprang to her feet, caught his hand, opened the fingers, placed +the sandwich on the palm, then, with a short laugh as though slightly +disconcerted by her own audacity, she snatched the pipe from his left +hand and tossed it upon the table. When she had reseated herself on +the lounge beside her pasteboard box of luncheon, she became even more +uncertain concerning the result of what she had done, and began to view +with rising alarm the steady gray eyes that were so silently inspecting +her. + +But after a moment Drene walked over to the sofa, seated himself, +curiously scrutinized the sandwich which lay across the palm of his +hand, then gravely tasted it. + +“This will doubtless give me indigestion,” he remarked. “Why, Cecile, do +you squander your wages on nourishment for me?” + +“It cost only five cents.” + +“But why present five cents to me?” “I gave ten to a beggar this +morning.” + +“Why?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“Was he grateful?” + +“He seemed to be.” + +“This sandwich is excellent; but if I feel the worse for it, I’ll not be +very grateful to you.” But he continued eating. + +“‘The woman tempted me,’” she quoted, glancing at him sideways. + +After a moment’s survey of her: + +“You’re one of those bright, saucy, pretty, inexplicable things that +throng this town and occasionally flit through this profession--aren’t +you?” + +“Am I?” + +“Yes. Nobody looks for anything except mediocrity; you’re one of the +surprises. Nobody expects you; nobody can account for you, but you +appear now and then, here and there, anywhere, even everywhere--a pretty +sparkle against the gray monotony of life, a momentary flash like a +golden moat afloat in sunshine--and what then?” + +She laughed. + +“What then? What becomes of you? Where do you go? What do you turn +into?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“You go somewhere, don’t you? You change into something, don’t you? What +happens to you, petite Cigale?” + +“When?” + +“When the sunshine is turned off and the snow comes.” + +“I don’t know, Mr. Drene.” She broke her chocolate cake into halves and +laid one on his knee. + +“Thanks for further temptation,” he said grimly. + +“You are welcome. It’s good, isn’t it?” + +“Excellent. Adam liked the apple, too. But it raised hell with him.” + +She laughed, shot a direct glance at him, and began to nibble her cake, +with her eyes still fixed on him. + +Once or twice he encountered her gaze but his own always wandered +absently elsewhere. + +“You think a great deal, don’t you?” she remarked. + +“Don’t you?” + +“I try not to--too much.” + +“What?” he asked, swallowing the last morsel of cake. + +She shrugged her shoulders: + +“What’s the advantage of thinking?” + +He considered her reply for a moment, her blue and rather childish +eyes, and the very pure oval of her face. Then his attention flagged as +usual--was wandering--when she sighed, very lightly, so that he scarcely +heard it--merely noticed it sufficiently to conclude that, as usual, +there was the inevitable hard luck story afloat in her vicinity, and +that he lacked the interest to listen to it. + +“Thinking,” she said, “is a luxury to a tranquil mind and a punishment +to a troubled one. So I try not to.” + +It was a moment or two before it occurred to him that the girl had +uttered an unconscious epigram. + +“It sounded like somebody--probably Montaigne. Was it?” he inquired. + +“I don’t know what you mean.” + +“Oh. Then it wasn’t. You’re a funny little girl, aren’t you?” + +“Yes, rather.” + +“On purpose?” + +“Yes, sometimes.” + +He looked into her very clear eyes, now brightly blue with intelligent +perception of his not too civil badinage. + +“And sometimes,” he went on, “you’re funny when you don’t intend to be.” + +“You are, too, Mr. Drene.” + +“What?” + +“Didn’t you know it?” + +A dull color tinted his cheek bones. + +“No,” he said, “I didn’t know it.” + +“But you are. For instance, you don’t walk; you stalk. You do what +novelists make their gloomy heroes do--you stride. It’s rather funny.” + +“Really. And do you find my movements comic?” + +She was a trifle scared, now, but she laughed her breathless, youthful +laugh: + +“You are really very dramatic--a perfect story-book man. But, you know, +sometimes they are funny when the author doesn’t intend them to be.... +Please don’t be angry.” + +Why the impudence of a model should have irritated him he was at a +loss to understand--unless there lurked under that impudence a trace of +unflattering truth. + +As he sat looking at her, all at once, and in an unexpected flash of +self-illumination, he realized that habit had made of him an actor; that +for a while--a long while--a space of time he could not at the moment +conveniently compute--he had been playing a role merely because he had +become accustomed to it. + +Disaster had cast him for a part. For a long while he had been that +part. Now he was still playing it from sheer force of habit. His tragedy +had really become only the shadow of a memory. Already he had emerged +from that shadow into the everyday outer world. But he had forgotten +that he still wore a somber makeup and costume which in the sunshine +might appear grotesque. No wonder the world thought him funny. + +Glancing up from a perplexed and chagrined meditation he caught her +eye--and found it penitent, troubled, and anxious. + +“You’re quite right,” he said, smiling easily and naturally; “I am +unintentionally funny. And I really didn’t know it--didn’t suspect +it--until this moment.” + +“Oh,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean--I know you are often unhappy--” + +“Nonsense!” + +“You are! Anybody can see--and you really do not seem to be very old, +either--when you smile--” + +“I’m not very old,” he said, amused. “I’m not unhappy, either. If I ever +was, the truth is that I’ve almost forgotten by this time what it was +all about--” + +“A woman,” she quoted, “between friends”--and checked herself, +frightened that she had dared interpret Quair’s malice. + +He changed countenance at that; the dull red of anger clouded his +visage. + +“Oh,” she faltered, “I was not saucy, only sorry.... I have been sorry +for you so long--” + +“Who intimated to you that a woman ever played any part in my career?” + +“It’s generally supposed. I don’t know anything more than that. But I’ve +been--sorry. Love is a very dreadful thing,” she said under her breath. + +“Is it?” he asked, controlling a sudden desire to laugh. + +“Don’t you think so?” + +“I have not thought of it that way, recently.... I haven’t thought +about it at all--for some years.... Have you?” he added, trying to speak +gravely. + +“Oh, yes. I have thought of it,” she admitted. + +“And you conclude it to be a rather dreadful business?” + +“Yes, it is.” + +“How?” + +“Oh, I don’t know. A girl usually loves the wrong man. To be poor is +always bad enough, but to be in love, too, is really very dreadful. It +usually finishes us--you know.” + +“Are you in love?” he inquired, managing to repress his amusement. + +“I could be. I know that much.” She went to the sink, turned on the +water, washed her hands, and stood with dripping fingers looking about +for a towel. + +“I’ll get you one,” he said. When he brought it, she laughed and held +out her hands to be dried. + +“Do you think you are a Sultana?” he inquired, draping the towel across +her outstretched arms and leaving it there. + +“I thought perhaps you’d dry them,” she said sweetly. + +“Not in the business,” he remarked; and lighted his pipe. + +Her hands were her particular beauty, soft and snowy. She was much in +demand among painters, and had posed many times for pictures of the +Virgin, her hands usually resting against her breast. + +Now she bestowed great care upon them, thoroughly drying each separate, +slender finger. Then she pushed back the heavy masses of her hair--“a +miracle of silk and sunshine,” as Quair had whispered to her. That same +hair, also, was very popular among painters. + +It was her figure that fascinated sculptors. + +“Are you ready?” grunted Drene. Work presently recommenced. + +She was entirely accustomed to praise from men, for her general +attractiveness, for various separate features in what really was an +unusually lovely ensemble. + +She was also accustomed to flattery, to importunity, to the ordinary +variety of masculine solicitation; to the revelation of genuine feeling, +too, in its various modes of expression--sentimental, explosive, +insinuating--the entire gamut. + +She had remained, however, untouched; curious and amused, perhaps, yet +quite satisfied, so far, to be amused; and entirely content with her own +curiosity. + +She coquetted when she thought it safe; learned many things she had +not suspected; was more cautious afterwards, but still, at intervals, +ventured to use her attractiveness as a natural lure, as an excuse, as +a reason, as a weapon, when the probable consequences threatened no +embarrassment or unpleasantness for her. + +She was much liked, much admired, much attempted, and entirely +untempted. + +When the Make-up Club gave its annual play depicting the foibles of +artists and writers in the public eye, Cecile White was always cast for +a role which included singing and dancing. + +On and off for the last year or two she had posed for Drene, had +dropped into his studio to lounge about when he had no need of her +professionally, and when she had half an hour of idleness confronting +her. + +As she stood there now on the model stand, gazing dreamily from his busy +hands to his lean, intent features, it occurred to her that this day +had not been a sample of their usual humdrum relations. From the +very beginning of their business relations he had remained merely her +employer, self-centered, darkly absorbed in his work, or, when not +working, bored and often yawning. She had never come to know him any +better than when she first laid eyes on him. + +Always she had been a little interested in him, a little afraid, +sometimes venturing an innocent audacity, out of sheer curiosity +concerning the effect on him. But never had she succeeded in stirring +him to any expression of personal feeling in regard to herself, one way +or the other. + +Probably he had no personal feeling concerning her. It seemed odd to +her; model and master thrown alone together, day after day, usually +became friends in some degree. But there had been nothing at all of +camaraderie in their relationship, only a colorless, professional +sans-gene, the informality of intimacy without the kindly essence of +personal interest on his part. + +He paid her wages promptly; said good morning when she came, and +good night when she went; answered her questions when she asked them +seriously; relapsed into indifference or into a lazy and not too civil +badinage when she provoked him to it; and that was all. + +He never complimented her, never praised her; yet he must have thought +her a good model, or he would not have continued to send for her. + +“Do you think me pretty?” she had asked one day, saucily invading one of +his yawning silences. + +“I think you’re pretty good,” he replied, “as a model. You’d be quite +perfect if you were also deaf and dumb.” + +That had been nearly a year ago. She thought of it now, a slight heat +in her cheeks as she remembered the snub, and her almost childish +amazement, and the hurt and offended silence which lasted all that +morning, but which, if he noticed at all, was doubtless entirely +gratifying to him. + +“May I rest?” + +“If it’s necessary.” + +She sprang lightly to the floor walked around behind him, and stood +looking at his work. + +“Do you want to know my opinion?” she asked. + +“Yes,” he said, with unexpected urbanity; “if you are clever enough to +have an opinion. What is it?” + +She said, looking at the wax figure of herself and speaking with +deliberation: + +“In the last hour you have made out of a rather commonplace study an +entirely spontaneous and charming creation.” + +“What!” he exclaimed, his face reddening with pleasure at her opinion, +and with surprise at her mode of expressing it. + +“It’s quite true. That dancing figure is wholly charming. It is no +study; it is pure creation.” + +He knew it; was a little thrilled that she, representing to him an +average and mediocre public, should recognize it so intelligently. + +“As though,” she continued, “you had laid aside childish things.” + +“What?” he asked, surprised again at the authority of the expression. + +“Academic precision and the respectable excellencies of-the-usual;--you +have put away childish things and become a man.” + +“Where did you hear that?” he said bluntly. + +“I heard it when I said it. You know, Mr. Drene, I am not wholly +uneducated, although your amiable question insinuates as much.” + +“I’m not unamiable. Only I didn’t suppose--” + +“Oh, you never have supposed anything concerning me. So why are you +surprised when I express myself with fragmentary intelligence?” + +“I’m sorry--” + +“Listen to me. I’m not afraid of you any more. I’ve been afraid for two +years. Now, I’m not. Your study is masterly. I know it. You know it. You +didn’t know I knew it; you didn’t know I knew anything. And you didn’t +care.” + +She sat down on the sofa, facing him with a breathless smile. + +“You don’t care what I think, what I am, what interests I may have, what +intellect, what of human desire, hope, fear, ambition animates me; do +you? You don’t care whether I am ignorant or educated, bad or good, ill +or well--as long as it does not affect my posing for you; whether I am +happy or unhappy, whether I--” + +“For Heaven’s sake--” + +“But you don’t care!... Do you?” + +He was silent; he stood looking at her in a stupid sort of way. + +After a moment or two she rose, picked up her hat, went to the glass and +pinned it on, then strolled slowly back, drawing on her gloves. + +“It’s five o’clock, you know, Drene.” + +“Yes, certainly.” + +“Do you want me to-morrow?” + +“Yes. Yes, of course.” + +“You are not offended?” + +He did not answer. She came up to him and repeated the question in a +childishly anxious voice that was a trifle too humble. And looking down +into her eyes he saw a gleam of pure mischief in them. + +“You little villain!” he said; and caught her wrists. “A lot you care +whether I am offended!” + +She looked away from him, turning her profile. Her expression was +inscrutable. After a silence he dropped her wrists with a vague laugh. + +“You should have let me alone,” he said. + +“‘The woman tempted me,’” she repeated, still looking away from him. He +said nothing. + +“Good night,” she nodded, and turned toward the door. + +He went with her, falling into step beside her. One arm slipped around +her waist as they entered the hallway. They walked slowly to the door. +He unlatched it, hesitated; she moved one foot forward, and he took a +step at the same time which brought her across his path so closely that +contact was unavoidable. And he kissed her. + +“Oh,” she said. “So you are human after all! I often wondered.” + +She looked up, trying to laugh, but could not seem to take it as coolly +as she might have wished to. + +“Not that a kiss is very important in these days,” she continued, “yet +it might interest you to hear that a friend of yours rather fancies +me. He wouldn’t like you to do it. But--” She lifted her blue eyes with +faint malice--“What is a woman between friends?” + +“Who is he?” + +“Jack Graylock.” + +Drene remained motionless. + +“I haven’t encouraged him,” she said. “Perhaps that is why.” + +“Why he fancies you?” + +“Why he asked me to marry him. It was the only thing he had not asked.” + +“He asked that?” + +“After he realized it was the only way, I suppose,” she said coolly. +Drene took her into his arms and kissed her deliberately on the mouth. +Looking up at him she said: “After all, he is your friend, isn’t he?” + +“A friend of many years. But, as you say, what is a woman between +friends?” + +“I don’t know,” said the girl. And, still clasped in his arms, she bent +her head, thoughtfully, considering the question. + +And as though she had come to some final conclusion, she raised her +head, lifted her eyes slowly, and her lips, to the man whose arms +enfolded her. It was her answer to his question, and her own. + +When she had gone, he went back and stood again by the great window, +watching the cote on a neighboring roof, where the pigeons were +strutting and coquetting in the last rays of the western sun. + + + + +II + +When she came again to the studio, she was different, subdued, evading, +avoiding, smiling a little in her flushed diffidence at his gay ease of +manner--or assumption of both ease and gaiety. + +He was inclined to rally her, tease her, but her reticence was not all +embarrassment. The lightest contact, the slightest caress from him, +added a seriousness to her face, making it very lovely under its +heightened color, and strangely childlike. + +Model and master they would have remained no longer had it been for him +to say, he desiring now to make it a favor and concession on her part to +aid him professionally, she gravely insisting on professionalism as the +basis of whatever entente might develop between them, as well as the +only avowed excuse for her presence there alone with him. + +“Please. It’s respectable,” she insisted her agreeable, modulated voice. +“I had rather the reason for my coming here be business--whatever else +happens.” + +“What has happened,” he said, balancing a handful of wet clay in +one hand and looking laughingly up at her, where she stood on the +model-stand, “is that a pretty girl strolled in here one day and held +up a mirror to a solemn ass who was stalking theatrically through life. +That solemn ass is very grateful for the glimpse he had of himself. He +behaved gratefully, didn’t he?” + +“Very,” she said with a forced smile. + +“Do you object to the manner in which he expressed his gratitude?” + +She hung her head. + +“No,” she said. + +After a while she raised her eyes, her head still lowered. He was +working, darkly absorbed as usual in the plastic mass under his fingers. + +She watched him curiously, not his hands, now, but his lean, intent +face, striving to penetrate that masculine mask, trying to understand. +Varying and odd reflections and emotions possessed her in turn, and +passed--wonder, bewilderment at herself, at him; a slight sense of fear, +then a brief and sudden access of shyness, succeeded by the by glow +of an emotion new and strange and deep. And this, in turn, by vague +bewilderment again, in which there was both a hint of fear, and a tinge +of something exquisite. + +Within herself she was dimly conscious that a certain gaiety, an +irresponsibility and lightness had died out in her, perhaps permanently, +yet leaving no void. What it was that replaced these she could not +name--she only was conscious that if these had been subdued by a newer +knowledge, with a newer seriousness, this unaccustomed gravity had left +her heart no less tender, and had deepened her capacity for emotion +to depths as profound and unexplored as the sudden mystery of their +discovery by herself. + +Always, now, while she posed, she was looking at him with a still +intentness, as though he really wore a mask and she, breathlessly +vigilant, watched for the moment when he might forget and lift it. + +But during the weeks that followed, if the mask were indeed only the +steady preoccupation that his visage wore, she seemed to learn nothing +more about him when his features lost their dark absorption and he +caught her eye and smiled. No, the smile revealed nothing except another +mask under the more serious cast of concentration--only another +disguise that covered whatever this man might truly be deeper down--this +masculine and unknown invader of frontiers surrendered ere she had +understood they were even besieged. + +And during these weeks in early spring their characteristics, even +characters, seemed to have shifted curiously and become reversed; his +was now the light, irresponsible, half-mocking badinage--almost boyishly +boisterous at times, as, for instance, when he stepped forward after the +pose and swung her laughingly from the model-platform to her corner on +the sofa. + +“You pretty and clever little thing,” he said, “why are you becoming so +serious and absent-minded?” + +“Am I becoming so?” + +“You are. You oughtn’t to: you’ve made a new and completely different +man of me.” + +As though that were an admirable achievement, or even of any particular +importance. And yet she seemed to think it was both of these when, +resting against him, within the circle of his arm, still shy and silent +under the breathless poignancy of an emotion which ever seemed to sound +within her depths unsuspected. + +But when he said that she had made a new and completely different man of +him, she remembered his low-voiced when that change impended as he held +her by her wrists a moment, then dropped them. He had said, half to +himself: “You should have let me alone!” + +Sometimes at noon she remembered this when they went out for luncheon +realizing they would never have been seated together in a restaurant had +she not satisfied her curiosity. She should have let him alone; she +knew that. She tried to wish that she had--tried to regret everything, +anything; and could not, even when within her the faint sense of alarm +awoke amid the softly unchangeable unreality of these last six weeks of +spring. + +Was this then really love?--this drifting through alternating dreams +of shyness, tenderness, suspense, pierced at moments by tiny flashes +of fear, as lightning flickers, far buried in softly shrouded depths of +cloud? + +She had long periods of silent and absorbed dreaming, conscious only +that she dreamed, but not of the dream itself. + +She was aware, too, of a curious loneliness within her, and dimly +understood that it was the companion of a lifetime she was missing--her +conscience. Where was it? Had it gone? Had it died? Were the little, +inexplicable flashes of fear proof of its disintegration? Or its +immortal vitality? + +Dead, dormant, departed, she knew not which, she was dully aware of its +loss--dimly and childishly troubled that she could remember nothing to +be sorry for. And there was so much. + +Men in his profession who knew him began to look askance at him and her, +amused or otherwise, according to their individual characters. + +That Cecile White went about more or less with the sculptor Drene was +a nine days’ gossip among circles familiar to them both, and was +forgotten--as are all wonders--in nine days. + +Some of his acquaintances recalled what had been supposed to be the +tragedy of his life, mentioning a woman’s name, and a man’s--Drene’s +closest friend. But gossip does not last long among the busy--not that +the busy are incapable of gossip, but they finish with it quickly, +having other matters to think about. + +Even Quair, after recovering from his wonder that his own condescending +advances had been ignored, bestowed his fatuously inflammable attentions +elsewhere. + +He had been inclined to complain one day in the studio, when he and +Guilder visited Drene professionally; and Guilder looked at his dapper +confrere in surprise and slight disgust; and Drene, at first bored, grew +irritable. + +“What are you talking about?” he said sharply. + +“I’m talking about Cecile White,” continued Quair, looking rather oddly +at the sculptor out of his slightly prominent eyes. “I didn’t suppose +you could be interested in any woman--not that I mind your interfering +with any little affair between Cecile and me--” + +“There wasn’t any.” + +“I beg your pardon, Drene--” + +“There wasn’t any!” repeated Drene, with curt contempt. “Don’t talk +about her, anyway.” + +“You mean I’m not to talk about a common artist’s model--” + +“Not that way.” + +“Oh. Is she yours?” + +“She isn’t anybody’s, I fancy. Therefore, let her alone, or I’ll throw +you out of doors.” + +Quair said to Guilder after they had departed: + +“Fancy old Drene playing about with that girl on a strictly pious basis! +He’s doubtless dub enough to waste his time. But what’s in it for her?” + +“Perhaps a little unaccustomed masculine decency.” + +“Everybody is decent enough to her as far as I know.” + +“Including yourself?” + +“Certainly, including myself,” retorted Quair, adding naively: “Besides, +I knew any attempt at philandering would be time wasted.” + +“Yet you tried it,” mused Guilder, entering his big touring car and +depositing a bundle of blue-prints and linen tracing paper at his own +ponderous feet. Quair followed him and spoke briefly to the chauffeur, +then: + +“Tried nothing,” he said. “A little chaff, that’s all. When it comes to +a man like Jack Graylock going so far as to ask her to marry him, good +night, nurse! Nothing doing, even for me.” + +“Even for you,” repeated Guilder in his moderate and always modulated +voice. “Well, if she’s escaped you and Graylock, she’s beyond any danger +from Drene, I fancy.” + +Quair smiled appreciatively, as though a delicate compliment had been +offered him. Several times on the way to call on Graylock he insisted on +stopping the car at as many celebrated cafes. Guilder patiently awaited +him in the car and each time Quair emerged from the cafe bar a little +more flushed and a trifle jauntier than when he had entered. + +He was a man so perfectly attired and so scrupulously fastidious about +his person that Guilder often speculated as to just why Quair always +seemed to him a trifle soiled. + +Now, looking him over as he climbed into the car, unusually red in the +face, breathing out the aroma of spirits through his little, pinched +nostrils, a faint sensation of disgust came over the senior member of +the firm as though the junior member were physically unclean. + +“That’s about ten drinks since luncheon,” he remarked, as the car rolled +on down Fifth Avenue. + +Quair, who usually grew disagreeably familiar when mellow, poked his +gloved thumb: + +“You’re a merry old cock, aren’t you?” he inquired genially, “--like a +pig’s wrist! If I hadn’t the drinking of the entire firm to do, who’d +ever talk about Guilder and Quair, architects?” + +It was common rumor that Quair did his brilliant work only when +“soused.” And he never appeared to be perfectly sober, even when he was. + +Graylock received them in his office--a big, reckless-eyed, handsome +man, with Broad Street written all over him and “danger” etched in every +deepened line of his face. + +“Well, how about that business of mine?” he inquired. “It’s all right to +keep me waiting, of course, while you and Quair here match for highballs +at the Ritz.” + +“I had to see Drene--that’s why we are late,” explained Guilder. “We’re +ready to go ahead and let your contracts for you--” + +“Drene?” interrupted Graylock, looking straight at Guilder with a +curious and staring intensity. “Why drag Drene into an excuse?” + +“Because we went to his studio,” said Guilder. “Now about letting the +contracts--” + +“Were you at Drene’s studio?” + +“Yes. He’s doing the groups for the new opera for us.” + +Quair, watching Graylock, was seized with a malicious impulse: + +“Neat little skirt he has up there--that White girl,” he remarked, +seating himself on Graylock’s polished table. + +A dull flush stained Graylock’s cheekbones, and his keen eyes turned on +Quair. The latter lighted a cigarette, expelled the smoke in two thin +streams from his abnormally narrow nostrils. + +“Some skirt,” he repeated. “And it looks as though old Drene had her +number--” + +Guilder’s level voice interrupted: + +“The contracts are ready to be--” + +But Graylock, not heeding, and perhaps not hearing, and looking all the +time at Quair, said slowly: + +“Drene isn’t that kind.... Is he?” + +“Our kind, you mean?” inquired Quair, with a malice so buried under +flippancy that the deliberate effrontery passed for it with Graylock. +Which amused Quair for a moment, but the satisfaction was not +sufficient. He desired that Graylock should feel the gaff. + +“Drene,” he said, “is one of those fussers who jellify when hurled on +their necks--the kind that ask that kind of girl to marry them after +she’s turned down everything else they suggest.” + +Graylock’s square jaw tightened and his steady eyes seemed to grow even +paler; but Quair, as though perfectly unconscious of this man’s record +with the wife of his closest friend, and of the rumors which connected +him so seriously with Cecile White, swung his leg unconcernedly, where +it dangled over the table’s edge, and smiled frankly and knowingly upon +Graylock: + +“There’s always somebody to marry that sort of girl; all mush isn’t +on the breakfast table. When you and I are ready to quit, Graylock, +Providence has created a species of man who settles our bills.” + +He threw back his head, inhaled the smoke of his cigarette, sent two +thin streams through his nose. + +“Maybe Drene may marry her himself. But--I don’t believe he’ll have +to.... Now, about those contracts--” he affected a yawn, “--go on and +tell him, Guilder,” he added, his words distorted by another yawn. + +He stepped down to the floor from his perch on the table, stretched his +arms, looking affably all the while at Graylock, who had never moved a +muscle. + +“I believe you had a run-in with that Cecile girl once, didn’t you, +Graylock? Like the rest of us, eh? Oh, well--my hat off to old Drene +if he wins out. I hold no malice. After all, Graylock, what’s a woman +between friends?” + +And he nodded gaily at Graylock and sauntered leisurely to the window. + +And kept his back turned, fearful of exploding with laughter in the very +face of the man who had been staring at him out of pale, unchanging eyes +so steadily and so long. + +Guilder’s patient, bored, but moderate voice was raised once more: + +“In regard to the letting of these contracts--” + +But Graylock, staring at Quair’s back, neither heeded nor heard him, for +his brain was still ringing with the mockery of Quair’s words--“What is +a woman between friends?” And now, for the first time, he was beginning +to understand what the answer might be. + + + + +III + +She had not posed for Drene during the last two weeks, and he had begun +to miss her, after his own fashion--that is, he thought of her when not +preoccupied and sometimes desired her companionship when unoccupied. + +And one evening he went to his desk, rummaged among note-books, and +scribbled sheets of paper, until he found her address, which he could +never remember, wrote it down on another slip of paper, pocketed it, and +went out to his dinner. + +But as he dined, other matters reoccupied his mind, matters +professional, schemes little and great, broad and in detail, which +gradually, though not excluding her entirely, quenched his desire to see +her at that particular time. + +Sometimes it was sheer disinclination to make an effort to communicate +with her, sometimes, and usually, the self-centering concentration +which included himself and his career, as well as his work, seemed to +obliterate even any memory of her existence. + +Now and then, when alone in his shabby bedroom, reading a dull book, or +duly preparing to retire, far in the dim recesses of heart and brain a +faint pain became apparent--if it could still be called pain, this vague +ghost of anger stirring in the ashes of dead years--and at such moments +he thought of Graylock, and of another; and the partly paralyzed +emotion, which memory of these two evoked, stirred him finally to think +of Cecile. + +It was at such times that he always determined to seek her the next day +and continue with her what had been begun--an intimacy which depended +upon his own will; a destiny for her which instinct whispered was within +his own control. But the next day found him at work; models of various +types, ages, and degrees of stupidity came, posed, were paid, and +departed; his studies for the groups in collaboration with Guilder and +Quair were approaching the intensely interesting period--that stage of +completion where composition has been determined upon and the excitement +of developing the construction and the technical charm of modeling +begins. + +And evening always found him physically tired and mentally satisfied--or +perturbed--to the exclusion of such minor interests as life is +made of--dress, amusement, food, women. Between a man and a beloved +profession in full shock of embrace there is no real room for these or +thought of these. + +He ate irregularly and worked with the lack of wisdom characteristic +of creative ability, and he grew thinner and grayer at the temples, and +grayer of flesh, too, so that within a month, between the torrid New +York summer and his own unwisdom, he became again the gaunt, silent, +darkly absorbed recluse, never even stirring abroad for air until some +half-deadened pang of hunger, or the heavy warning of a headache, set +him in reluctant motion. + +He heard of Cecile now and then; Cosby had used her for a figure on +a fountain destined to embellish the estate of a wealthy young man +somewhere or other; Greer employed her for the central figure of +Innocence in his lovely and springlike decoration for some Western +public edifice. Quair had met her several times at Manhattan Beach with +various and assorted wealthy young men. + +And one evening Guilder came alone to his studio and found him lying on +the lounge, his lank, muscular hands, still clay-stained, hanging inert +to the floor above an evening paper fallen there. + +“Hello, Guilder,” he said, without rising, as the big architect shambled +loosely through the open doorway. + +“How are you, Drene?” + +“All right. It’s hot.” + +“There’s not a breath of air. It looks like a thunder-storm in the +west.” + +He pulled up a chair and sprawled on it, wiping his grave features with +a damp handkerchief. + +“Drene,” he said, “a philanthropic guy of sorts wants to add a chapel to +the church at Shallow Brook, Long Island. We’ve pinched the job. Can you +do an altar piece?” + +“What sort?” + +“They want a Virgin. It’s to be called the Chapel of the Annunciation. +It’s for women to repair to--under certain and natural circumstances.” + +“I’ve so much on hand--” + +“It’s only a single figure-barring the dove. Why don’t you do it?” + +“There are plenty of other men--” + +“They want you. There’ll be no difficulty about terms.” + +Drene said with a shrug: + +“Terms are coming to mean less and less to me, Guilder. It costs very +little for me to live.” He turned his gray, tired face. “Look at this +barn of a place; and go in there and look at my bedroom. I have no use +for what are known as necessities.” + +“Still, terms are terms--” + +“Oh, yes. A truck may run over me. Even at that, I’ve enough to live +life out as I am living it here--between these empty walls--and that +expanse of glass overhead. That’s about all life holds for me--a sheet +of glass and four empty walls--and a fistfull of wet clay.” + +“Are you a trifle morbid, Drene?” + +“I’m not by any means; I merely prefer to live this way. I have +sufficient means to live otherwise if I wish. But this is enough of the +world to suit me, Guilder--and I can go to a noisy restaurant to eat in +when I’m so inclined--” He laughed a rather mirthless laugh and glanced +up, catching a peculiar expression in Guilder’s eyes. + +“You’re thinking,” said Drene coolly, “what a god I once set up on the +altar of domesticity. I used to talk a lot once, didn’t I?--a hell of +a clamor I made in eulogy of the domestic virtues. Well, only idiots +retain the same opinions longer than twenty-four hours. Fixity is +imbecility; the inconstant alone progress; dissatisfaction is only a +synonym for intelligence; contentment translated means stagnation..... I +have changed my opinion concerning the virtues of domesticity.” + +Guilder said, in his even, moderate voice: + +“Your logic is weird, Drene: in one breath you say you have changed your +opinion; in another that you are content; in another that contentment is +the fixedness of imbecility--” + +Drene, reddening slightly, half rose on one elbow from his couch: + +“What I meant was that I change in my convictions from day to day, +without reproaching myself with inconstancy. What I believed with all my +heart to be sacred yesterday I find a barrier to-day; and push it aside +and go on.” + +“Toward what?” + +“I go on, that’s all I know--toward sanctuary.” + +“You mean professionally.” + +“In every way--ethically--spiritually. The gods of yesterday, too, were +very real--yesterday.” + +“Drene, a man may change and progress on his way toward what never +changes. But standards remained fixed. They were there in the beginning; +they are immutable. If they shifted, humanity could have no goal.” + +“Is there a goal?” + +“Where are you going, then?” + +“Just on.” + +“In your profession there is a goal toward which you sculptors all +journey.” + +“Perfection?” + +Guilder nodded. + +“But,” smiled Drene, “no two sculptors ever see it alike.” + +“It is still Perfection. It is still the goal to the color-blind and +normal alike, whatever they call it, however, they visualize it. That +is its only importance; it is The Goal..... In things spiritual the same +obtains--whether one’s vision embraces Nirvana, or the Algonquin Ocean +of Light, or a pallid Christ half hidden in floating clouds--Drene, +it is all one, all one. It is not the Goal that changes; only our +intelligence concerning its existence and its immortality.” + +Drene lay looking at him: + +“You never knew pain--real pain, did you? The world never ended for you, +did it?” + +“In one manner or another we all must be reborn before we can progress.” + +“That is a cant phrase.” + +“No; there’s truth under the cant. Under all the sleek, smooth, canty +phrases of ecclesiastic proverb, precept, axiom, and lore, there is +truth worth the sifting out.” + +“You are welcome to think so, Guilder.” + +“You also could come to no other conclusion if you took the trouble to +investigate.” + +Drene smiled: + +“Morals are no more than folk-ways--merely mental condition consequent +upon custom. Spiritual beliefs are radically dependant upon folkways +and the resultant physical and mental condition of the human brain which +creates everything that has been and that is to be.” + +“Physiology has proven that no idea, no thought, ever originated within +the concrete and physical brain.” + +“I’ve read of those experiments.” + +“Then you can’t ignore a conclusion.” + +“I haven’t reached a conclusion. Meanwhile, I have my own beliefs.” + +“That’s all that’s necessary,” said Guilder, gravely, “--to entertain +some belief, temporary or final.” He smiled slightly down at Drene’s +drawn, gray visage. + +“You and I have been friends of many years, Drene, but we have never +before talked this way. I did not feel at liberty to assume any intimacy +with you, even when I wanted to, even when--when you were in trouble--” + He hesitated. + +“Go on,” grunted the other. “I’m out of trouble now.” + +“I just--it’s a whimsical notion--no, it’s a belief;--I just wanted to +tell you one or two things concerning my own beliefs--” + +“Temporary?” + +“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter; they are beliefs. And this is one: all +physical and mental ills are created only by our own minds--” + +“Christian Science?” sneered Drene. + +“Call it what you like,” said Guilder serenely. “And call this what you +like: All who believe worthily will find that particular belief true in +every detail after death.” + +“What do you call that?” demanded Drene, amused. + +“God knows. It seems to be my interpretation of the Goal. I seem to be +journeying toward it without more obstacles and more embarrassments to +encounter than confront the wayfarer who professes any other creed.” + +After a while Drene sat up on his couch: + +“How did all this conversation start?” he asked uneasily. + +“It was about the Virgin for that chapel we are going to do..... That’s +part of my belief: those who pray for her intercession will find +her after death, interceding--” he smiled, “--if any intercession be +necessary between us and Him who made us.” + +“And those unlisted millions who importune Mohammed and Buddha?” + +“They shall find Mohammed and Buddha, who importune them worthily.” + +“And--Christ?” + +“He bears that name also--He!” + +“Oh! And so, spiritually as well as artistically, you believe in the +Virgin?” + +“You also can make a better Virgin if you believe in her otherwise than +esthetically.” + +Drene gazed at him incredulously, then, with a shrug: + +“When do you want this thing started?” + +“Now.” + +“I can’t take it on now.” + +“I want a sketch pretty soon--the composition. You can have a model of +the chapel to--morrow. We went on with it as a speculation. Now we’ve +clinched the thing. When shall I send it up from the office?” + +“I’ll look it over, but--” + +“And,” interrupted Guilder, “you had better get that Miss White for the +Virgin--before she goes off somewhere out of reach.” + +Drene looked up somberly: + +“I haven’t kept in touch with her. I don’t know what her engagements may +be.” + +“One of her engagements just now seems to be to go about with Graylock,” + said Guilder. + +Drene flushed, but said nothing. + +“If he marries her,” added Guilder, “as it’s generally understood he +is trying to, the best sculptor’s model in town is out of the question. +Better secure her now.” + +“He wants to marry her?” repeated Drene, in a curiously still voice. + +“He’s mad about her. He’s abject. It’s no secret among his friends. Men +like that--and of that age--sometimes arrive at such a terminal--men +with Graylock’s record sometimes get theirs. She has given him a run, +believe me, and he’s brought up with a crash against a stone wall. He is +lying there all doubled up at her feet like a rabbit with a broken back. +There was nothing left for him to do but lie there. He’s lying there +still, with one of her little feet on his bull neck. All the town knows +it.” + +“He wants to marry her,” repeated Drene, as though to himself. + +“She may not take him at that. They’re queer--some women. I suppose +she’d jump at it if she were not straight. But there’s another thing--” + Guilder looked curiously at Drene. “Some people think she’s rather crazy +about you.” + +Drene gazed into space. + +“But that wouldn’t hurt her,” added Guilder, in his calm, pleasant +voice. “She’s a straight little thing--white and straight. She could +come to no harm through a man like you.” + +Drene continued to stare at space. + +“So,” continued the other, confident, “when she recovers from a natural +and childlike infatuation for you she’ll marry somebody... Possibly even +such a man as Graylock might make her happy. You can’t ever tell about +such men at the eleventh hour.” + +Drene turned his eyes on him. There was no trace of color in his face. + +“Aren’t you pretty damned charitable?” + +“Charitable? Well, I--I’m so inclined, I fancy.” + +“You’d be content to see that girl marry a dog like that?” + +“I did not say so. I am no judge of men. No man knows enough to condemn +souls.” + +Drene looked at him: + +“Well, I’ll tell you something. I know enough to do it. I had rather +damn my soul--and hers, too--than see her marry the man you have named. +It would be worth it to me.” + +After a strained silence, Guilder said: + +“There is a mode of dealing with those who have injured you, which is +radically different--” + +“I deal with such people in my own fashion!” + +“But, after all, the infamy is Graylock’s. Why oblige him by sharing it +with him?” + +“Do you know what he did to me and mine?” + +“A few of us know,” said Guilder, gently, “--your old friends.” + +There came a pale, infernal flicker into Drene’s eyes: + +“I’ll take your commission for that altar piece,” he said. + +“What is it? An Annunciation?” + + + + +IV + +Composition had been determined upon, and the sketch completed by the +middle of August; Cecile had sat for him every day from nine until five; +every evening they had dined together at the seashore or other suburban +and cool resorts. Together they had seen every summer entertainment in +town, had spent the cooler, starlit evenings together in his studio, +chatting, reading loud sometimes, sometimes discussing he work in hand +or other subjects of he moment, even topics covering a wider and more +varied range than he had ever before discussed with any woman. + +He seemed to have become utterly changed; the dark preoccupation had +been absent from his face--the gauntness, the grayness, seemed to have +become subdued; the deep lines of pain, imperceptible at times, smoothed +out and shadowed in an almost gay resurgence of youth. + +If, during the first week or two of her companionship, his gaiety had +been not entirely spontaneous, his smile shadowed with something duller, +his laughter a trifle forced, she had not perceived it in her surprised +and shyly troubled preoccupation with this amazing and delightful +transfiguration. + +At first she scarcely knew what to look for, what to expect from him, +from herself, when she came into the studio after many weeks of absence; +and she always halted in the doorway, trembling a little, as always, +when in contact with him. + +But he was very delightful, smiling, easy, and deferential enough to +reassure her with a greeting that became him, as he saluted her pretty +hand, held it a moment in possession, laughingly, and released it. + +From the moment of their reunion he had never touched her, save for +a quick, firm, smiling hand-clasp in the morning and another at the +night’s parting. + +Now, little by little, she was finding herself delightfully at ease with +him, emerging by degrees from her charming bewilderment out of isolation +to a happy companionship never before shared with any man. + +Nor even vaguely had she dreamed that Drene could be such a man, such +a friend, never had she imagined there was in him such kindness, such +patience, such gentleness, such comprehension, such virile sense and +sympathy. + +And never, now, was her troubled consciousness aware of anything +disquieting in his attitude, of anything to perturb her. + +He seemed to enjoy himself like a boy, with her companionship, wholly, +heartily, without any motive other than the pleasure of the moment; +and so, little by little, she gave herself up to it too, in the same +fashion, unguardedly, frankly, innocently revealing herself to him by +degrees as their comradeship became deliciously unembarrassed. + +He was making a full length study in clay now. All day long she sat +there enthroned, her eyes partly closed, the head lifted a trifle and +fallen back, and her lovely hands resting on her heart--and sometimes +she strove to imagine something of the divine moment which she was +embodying; pondering, dreaming, wondering; and sometimes, in the +stillness, through her trance crept a thrill, subtle, exquisite, as +though in faint perception of the heavenly moment. And once, into her +half-dreaming senses came the soft stirring of wings, and she opened her +eyes and looked up, startled and thrilled. + +But it was only a pigeon which had come through the great window from +the cote on the adjacent roof and which circled above her on whimpering +wings for a moment and then sheered out into the sunlight. + +They dined together at a roof garden that evening, the music was +particularly and surprisingly good, and what surprised him even more was +that she knew it and spoke of it. And continued speaking of music, he +not interrupting. + +Reticent hitherto concerning her antecedents he learned now something +of them--and inferred more; nothing unusual--a musical career determined +upon, death intervening dragging over her isolation the steel meshes of +destitution--the necessity for self-support, a friend who knew a painter +who employed models--not anything unusual, not even dramatic. + +He nodded as she ended: + +“Have you saved anything?” + +“A hundred dollars.” + +“That’s fine.” + +She smiled, then sighed unconsciously. + +“You are thinking,” he said, “that youth is flying.” + +She smiled wistfully. + +“Youth is the time to study. You were thinking that, too.” + +She nodded. + +“You could have married.” + +“Why?” she asked, troubled. + +“To obtain the means for a musical education.” + +She gazed at him in amazement, then: “I could go out on the street, too, +as far as that is concerned. It would be no more disgraceful.” + +“Folk-ways sanction self-sale, when guaranteed by the clergy,” he said. +She turned her head and he saw the pure, cold profile against the golden +table-lamp, and he saw something else under the palms beyond--Graylock’s +light eyes riveted upon them both. + +“You know,” he said, under his breath, “that I shall not marry you. +But--would you care to begin your studies again?” + +There was a long silence: She remained with face partly averted until +the orchestra ceased. Then she turned and looked at him, and he saw her +lip tremble. + +“I had not thought you meant to ask me--that. I do not quite understand +what you mean.” + +“I care enough for you to wish to help you. May I?” + +“I was not sure you cared--enough--” + +“Do you--for me?” + +“Before I say that I do--care for you--” she began, tremulously--“tell +me that I have nothing to fear--” + +Neither spoke. Over her shoulder Drene stared at the distant man who +stared back at him. + +Presently his eyes reverted to hers, absently studying the childlike +beauty of her. + +“I’m going to tell you something,” he said. “Love is no more wonderful +than hate, no more perfect, no more eternal. And it is less fierce, and +not as strong.” + +“What!” she whispered, bewildered at the sinister change in him. + +“And I want to tell you another thing. I am alone in the world. What I +have, I have devised to you--in case I step out--suddenly--” + +He paused, hesitated, then: + +“Also I desire you to hear something else,” he went on. “This is the +proper time for you to hear it, I think--now--to-night--” + +He lifted his blazing eyes and looked at the other man. + +“There was a woman,” he said--“She happened to be my wife. Also there +was my closest friend: and myself. The comedy was cast. Afterward +she died--abroad. I believe he was there at the time--Kept up a +semblance--But he never married her.... And I do not intend to +marry--you.” + +After a moment: “And that,” she whispered, “is why you once said to me +that I should have let you alone.” + +“Did I say that to you?” + +“Yes.” She looked up at him, straight into his eyes: “But if you care +for me--I do not regret that I did not let you alone.” + +“I shall not marry you.” + +Her lip trembled but she smiled. + +“That is nothing new to me,” she said. “Only one man has offered that.” + +“Why didn’t you take him?” he asked, with an ugly laugh. + +“I couldn’t. I cared for you.” + +“And now,” he said, “are you afraid of me?” + +“Yes--a little.” + +He leaned forward suddenly, “You’d better steer clear of me!” Her +startled eyes beheld in him a change as swift as his words. + +“Fair warning!” he added: “look out for yourself.” Everything that was +brutal in him; everything ruthless and violent had marred his features +so that all in a moment the mouth had grown ugly and a hard, bruised +look stamped the pallid muscles of his features and twitched at them. + +“You’re taking chances from now on,” he said. “I told you once to let me +alone. You’d better do it now. And--” he stared at the distant man--“I +told you that hate is more vital than love. It is. I’ve waited a long +time to strike. Even now it isn’t in me to do it as I have meant to +do it. And so I tell you to keep away from me; and I’ll strike in the +old-fashioned way, and end it--to-night.” + +Stunned by his sudden and dreadful metamorphosis, her ears ringing with +his disjointed incoherencies, she rose, scarcely knowing what she was +doing, scarcely conscious that he was beside her, moving lightly and in +silence out into the brilliant darkness of the streets. + +It was only at her own door that he spoke again: standing there on the +shabby steps of her boarding-house, the light from the transom yellowing +his ghastly face. + +“Something snapped”--he passed an unsteady hand across his eyes;--“I +care very deeply for you. I--they’ll make over to you--what I have. You +can study on it--live on it, modestly--” + +“W-what is the matter? Are you ill?” she stammered, white and +frightened. + +But he only muttered that she had her warning and that she should keep +away from him, and that it would not be long before she should have an +opportunity in life. And he went his way not looking back. + +When he reached his studio the hall was dark. As he turned the key he +thought he heard something stirring in the shadows, but went in--leaving +the door into the hallway open--and straight on across the room to his +desk. + +He was putting something into his coat pocket, and his back was still +turned to the open door when Graylock stepped quietly across the +threshold; and Drene heard him, but closed his desk, leisurely, and +then, as leisurely, turned, knowing who had entered. + +And so they stood alone together after many years. + + + + +V + +Graylock looked at Drene’s heavily sagging pocket and knew what was in +it. A sudden sweat chilled his temples, but he said steadily enough: + +“I’d like to say a word or two--if you’ll give me time.” And, as Drene +made no reply;--“You’re quite right: This business of ours should be +finished one way or another. I can’t stand it any longer.” + +“In that case,” remarked Drene with an evil stare at him, “I may +postpone it--to find out how much you can stand.” He dropped his right +hand into the sagging pocket, looking intently at Graylock all the +while: + +“What do you want here anyway?” + +“I fancy that you have already guessed.” + +“Maybe. All the same, what do you want?”--fumbling with his bulging +pocket for a moment and then remaining motionless. + +Graylock’s worn eyes rested on the outline of the shrouded weapon: he +stood eyeing it absently for a moment, then seated himself on the sofa, +his heavy eyes shifting from one object to another. + +But there were few objects to be seen in that silent place;--a star +overhead glimmering through the high expanse of glass above;--otherwise +gray monotony of wall, a clay shape or two swathed in wet clothes, a +narrow ring of lamp light, and formless shadow. + +“It’s a long time, Drene.” + +Drene mused in silence, now and then watching the other obliquely. + +Presently he withdrew his right hand from his coat pocket, pulled an +armchair toward him and seated himself. + +“It’s many years,” repeated Graylock. “I expected you to do something +before this.” + +“Were you uneasy?” sneered Drene. Then he shrugged, knowing that +Graylock was no coward, sorry he had intimated as much, like a man who +deals a premature and useless blow. + +He sat brooding for a while, his lean dangerous head lowered sideways as +though listening; his oblique glance always covering Graylock. + +“I suppose you’ll be surprised when I tell you one reason that I came +here,” said Graylock. + +“Do you suppose you can still surprise me by anything you may say or +do?” + +The man remained silent, sitting with his hands tightly clasped on his +knees. + +“Drene,” he said, in a low voice, “don’t strike at me through this young +girl.” + +Drene began to laugh, unpleasantly. + +“Are you in love with her?” + +“Yes.... You know it.” + +Drene said, still laughing: “It’s the common rumor. You may imagine it +amuses your friends--if you have any left.” + +Graylock spoke in a voice that had a ghostly sound in the great room: + +“Don’t harm her, Drene. It is not necessary. I shall never see her +again--if that will content you.” + +Drene laughed: “I never saw my wife again. Did that help me? I never saw +her again, but as long as she lived I knew what she was ... My wife. And +when she died, still my wife. There was no relief--no relief.” + +Graylock, deathly white, framed his haggard face between his hands and +stared at nothing: + +“I know,” he said. “I understand now. I am here to-night to pay the +reckoning.” + +“You can’t pay it.” + +“No, not the whole score. There’s another bill, I suppose, waiting for +me--somewhere. But I can settle my indebtedness to you--” + +“How?” + +“That’s up to you, Drene.” + +“How?” repeated Drene, violently. + +Graylock made a slight gesture with his head toward Drene’s sagging +pocket: “That way if you like. Or,” he added, “There is a harder +punishment.” + +“What is it?” + +“To give her up.” + +“Yes,” said Drene, “that is harder. But I can make it even harder than +that. I can make it as hard for you as you made it for me. I can let you +live through it.” + +He laughed, fisted in his pocket, drew out the lumpy automatic and +leisurely pushed the lever to “safe.” + +He said: “To kill you would be like opening the cell door for a lifer. +You know what you are while you’re alive; maybe you’d forget if you were +dead. I--” + +He ceased, fiddling absently with the dull-colored weapon on his knee; +and for a while they remained silent, not looking at each other. And +when Drene spoke again he was still intent upon the automatic. + +“If I knew what happens after a man dies I could act intelligently.” He +shot an ugly look at Graylock: “I don’t know about you, either. You’re a +rat. But you might fool me at that. You might be repentant. And in that +case you’d get away--if it’s true that the eleventh hour is not too +late.... If it’s true that Christ is merciful.... So I’ll take no +chances of a getaway. You might fool me--one way or another--if you were +dead.” + +Graylock lifted his head from his hands: “I don’t know how much of the +other debt I’ve already paid, Drene. But I’ve paid heavily since I knew +her--if that is any satisfaction to you. And since I knew she cared for +you, and when I realized that you meant to strike me through her--I have +paid, heavily.... Yet, if you were honestly in love with her--” + +“Is that any of your damned business?” + +“She’s only a child--” + +“You rat! That’s what’s coming to you!” + +“If you say so. But what is coming to her, Drene?” + +“Continue to guess. But I know you. It’s yourself you’re sorry for and +what you’ll have to endure--live through. That’s what you can’t stand, +and remain the sleek, self-satisfied rat you are. No, it will make earth +a living hell for you; never a second, day or night, will you be able +to forget--if you really do love her.... And I believe you do--I don’t +understand how a thing like you can love--but it seems it can.” + +After a silence Graylock said: “You don’t care if you damn yourself?” + +“It’s worth it to me.” + +“Are you willing that I should know you are as great a blackguard as I +am?” Drene’s gaunt features reddened and he set his jaws in silence. + +“Don’t you care what you do to her?” asked Graylock, unsteadily. “It’s a +viler business than that for which you are punishing me.” + +For a long time Drene sat there looking down at the weapon on his knees. +And after a while, the other man spoke huskily: “It’s bad enough either +way for me, Drene. I’ll do what you wish in the matter. I’ll leave +the country; I’ll stay; whichever you say. Or,” he said with a ghastly +smile, “I’ll clean out that automatic for you to-night--if you’ll marry +her.” + +Drene looked up, slowly: + +“What did you say?” + +“I said that I’d clean out your automatic for you--to-night--if you +wish.... It can be an accident or not, just as you say.” + +“Where?” + +“In my own rooms--if it is to be an accident.” + +“Do you offer--” + +“Yes; if you’ll marry her afterwards. If you say you will I’ll take your +word.” + +“And then you’ll be out of your misery, you damned coward!” + +“God knows.... But I think not,” said Graylock, under his breath. + +Drene twisted the automatic, rose and continued to twirl it, +considering. Presently he began to pace the floor, no longer noticing +the other man. Once his promenade brought him up facing the wall where a +calendar hung. + +He stood for a while looking at it absently. After a few moments he +stepped nearer, detached the sheet for the present month, then one by +one tore off the remaining sheets until he came to the month marked +December, Graylock watching him all the while. + +“I think it happened on Christmas,” remarked Drene turning toward the +other and laying a finger on the number 25 printed in red. + +Graylock’s head bent slightly. + +“Very well. Suppose about eleven o’clock on Christmas night you give +your automatic a thorough cleaning. + +“If you say so.” + +“You have one?” + +“I shall buy one.” + +“Didn’t you come here armed?” + +“No.” + +Drene looked at him very intently. But Graylock had never been a liar. +After a few moments he went over to his desk, replaced the weapon under +the papers, and, still busy, said over his shoulder: + +“All right. You can go.” + + + + +VI + +He wrote to Cecile once: + +Hereafter keep clear of men like Graylock and like me. We’re both of a +stripe--the same sort under our skins. I’ve known him all my life. It +all depends upon the opportunity, the circumstances, and the woman. And, +what is a woman between friends--between such friends as Graylock and I +once were--or between the sort of friends we have now become? Keep clear +of such men as we are. We were boys together. + + +For a week or two he kept his door locked and lived on what the janitor +provided for him, never going out of the studio at all. + +He did no work, although there were several unexecuted commissions +awaiting his attention and a number of sketches, clay studies, and one +marble standing around the studio in various stages of progress. The +marble was the Annunciation. The head and throat and slender hands were +completed, and one slim naked foot. + +Sometimes he wandered from one study to the next, vague-eyed, standing +for a long time before each, staring, lost in thought. Sometimes, in the +evening he read, choosing a book at random among the motley collection +in a corner case--a dusty, soiled assortment of books, ephemeral novels +of the moment, ponderous volumes which are in everybody’s library but +which nobody reads, sets of histories, memoirs, essays, beautifully +bound and once cared for, but now dirty from neglect--jetsam from a +wrecked home. + +There had been a time when law, order and neatness formed the basis +of Drene’s going forth and coming in. He had been exact, precise, +fastidious; he had been sensitive to environment, a lover of beautiful +things, a man who deeply appreciated any symbol that suggested home and +hearth and family. + +But when these three were shattered in the twinkling of an eye, +something else broke, too. And he gradually emerged from chaos, +indifferent to all that had formerly been a part of him, a silent +emotionless, burnt out thing, callous to all that he had once cared for. + +Yet something of what he had been must have remained latent within him +for with unimpaired precision and logic he constructed his clay and +chiseled his marble; and there must have been in him something to +express, for the beauty of his work, spiritual and material, had set him +high among the highest in his profession. + +Sometimes sorrow changes the dross from the lamp of the spirit so +that it burns with a purity almost unearthly; sometimes sorrow sears, +rendering the very soul insensible; and sometimes sorrow remains under +the ashes, a living coal steadily consuming all that is noble, hardening +all that is ignoble; and is extinguished leaving a devil behind +it--fully equipped to slay the crippled soul. + +Alone in his studio at night, motionless in his chair, Drene was +becoming aware of this devil. Reading by lamplight he grew conscious of +it; recognized it as a companion of many years, now understanding that +although pain had ended, hatred had remained, hiding, biding, and very, +very quiet. + +And suddenly this hatred had flamed like hell-fire, amazing even +himself--that day when, lifted out of his indifference for an instant +by a young girl’s gaiety--and with a smile, half-responsive, on his own +unaccustomed lips, he had learned from her in the same instant, that the +man he had almost ceased to remember was honestly in love with her. + +And suddenly he knew that he hated and that he should strike, and that +there could be no comparison in perfection between hatred and what +perhaps was love. + +Sometimes, at night, lying on the studio couch, he found himself still +hesitating. Could Graylock be reached after death? Was it possible? +If he broke his word after Graylock was dead could he still strike and +reach him through the woman for whose sake he, Graylock, was going to +step out of things? + +That occupied his mind continually, now. Was there anybody who could +tell him about such matters? Did clergymen really know whether the soul +survived? And if it did, and if truly there were a hell, could a living +man add anything to its torments for his enemy’s benefit? + +One day the janitor, lingering, ventured to ask Drene whether he was +feeling quite well. + +“Yes” said Drene, “I am well.” + +The janitor spoke of his not eating. And, as Drene said nothing, he +mentioned the fact that Drene had not set foot outside his own quarters +in many weeks. + +Drene nodded: “I expect to go for a walk this evening.” + +But he did not. He lay on his couch, eyes open in the darkness, +wondering what Graylock was doing, how he lived, what occupied his days. + +What were the nights of a condemned man like? Did Graylock sleep? Did +he suffer? Was the suspense a living death to him? Had he ever suspected +him, Drene, of treachery after he, Graylock, had fulfilled his final +part of the bargain. + +For a long time, now, a fierce curiosity concerning what Graylock was +thinking and doing had possessed Drene. What does a man, who is in good +physical health, do, when he is at liberty to compute to the very second +how many seconds of life remain for him? + +Drene’s sick brain ached with the problem day and night. + +In November the snow fell. Drene had not been out except in imagination. + +Day after day, in imagination, he had followed Graylock, night after +night, slyly, stealthily, shirking after him through busy avenues at +midday, lurking by shadowy houses at midnight, burning to see what +expression this man wore, what was imprinted on his features;--obsessed +by a desire to learn what he might be thinking--with death drawing +nearer. + +But Drene, in the body, had never stirred from his own chilly room--a +gaunt, fierce-eyed thing, unkempt, half-clothed, huddled all day in his +chair brooding above his bitten nails, or flung starkly across his couch +at night staring at the stars through the dirty crust of glass above. + +One night in December when the stars were all staring steadily back at +him, and his thoughts were out somewhere in the darkness following his +enemy, he heard somebody laughing in the room. + +For a while he lay very still, listening; but when he realized that the +laughter was his own he sat up, pressing his temples between hot and +trembling fingers. + +It seemed to silence the laughter: terror subsided to a tremulous +apprehension--as though he had been on the verge of something horrible +sinking into it for a moment--but had escaped. + +Again he found himself thinking of Graylock, and presently he laughed; +then frightened, checked himself. But his fevered brain had been afire +too long; he lay fighting with his thoughts to hold them in leash lest +they slip out into the night like blood hounds on the trail of the man +they had dogged so long. + +Trembling, terrified, he set his teeth in his bleeding lip, and clenched +his gaunt fists: He could not hold his thoughts in leash; could not +control the terrifying laughter; hatred blazed like hell-fire scorching +the soul in him, searing his aching brain with flames which destroy. + +In the darkness he struggled blindly to his feet; and he saw the stars +through the glass roof all ablaze in the midnight sky; saw the infernal +flicker of pale flames in the obscurity around him, heard a voice +calling for help--his own voice-- + +Then something stirred in the darkness; he listened, stared, striving to +pierce the obscurity with fevered eyes. + +Long since the cloths that swathed the clay figures in the studio had +dried out unnoticed by him. He gazed from one to another, holding his +breath. Then his eyes rested upon the altar piece, fell on the snowy +foot, were lifted inch by inch along the marble folds upward slowly to +the slim and child-like hands-- + +“Oh, God!” he whispered, knowing he had gone mad at last. + +For, under the carven fingers, the marble folds of the robe over the +heart were faintly glowing from some inward radiance. And, as he reeled +forward and dropped at the altar foot, lifting his burning eyes, he saw +the child-like head bend toward him from the slender neck--saw that the +eyes were faintly blue-- + +“Mother of God!” he screamed, “my mind is dying--my mind is dying! ... +We were boys, he and I.... Let God judge him.... Let him be judged... +mercifully.... I am worse than he.... There is no hell. I have +striven to fashion one--I have desired to send him thither--Mother of +God--Cecile--” + +Under his fevered eyes he was confusing them, now, and he sank down +close against the pedestal and laid his f ace against her small cold +foot. + +“I am sick,” he rambled on--“and very tired.... We were boys together, +Cecile.... When I am in my right mind I would not harm him.... He was so +handsome and daring. There was nothing he dared not do.... So young, and +straight, and daring.... I would not harm him. Or you, Cecile.... Only +I am sick, burning out, with only a crippled mind left--from being +badly hurt--It never got well. ... And now it is dying of its +hurt--Cecile!--Mother of God!--before it dies I do forgive him--and ask +forgiveness--for Christ’s sake--” + +Toward noon the janitor broke in the door. + + + + +VII + +It was late in December before Drene opened his eyes in his right +senses. He unclosed them languidly, gazed at the footboard of his bed, +then, around at the four shabby walls of his room. + +“Cecile?” he said, distinctly. + +The girl who had been watching him laid aside her sewing, rose, and +bent over him. Suddenly her pale face flushed and one hand flew to her +throat. + +“Dearest?” he said, inquiringly. + +Then down on her knees fell the girl, and groped for his wasted hand and +laid her cheek on it, crying silently. + +As for Drene, he lay there, his hollow eyes roaming from wall to wall. +At last he turned his head on the pillow and looked down at her. + +The next day when he opened his eyes from a light sleep his skin was +moist and cool and he managed to move his hand toward hers as she bent +over him. + +“I want--Graylock,” he whispered. The girl flushed, bent nearer, gazing +at him intently. + +“Graylock,” he repeated. + +“Not now,” she murmured, “not today. Rest for a while.” + +“Please,” he said, looking up at her trustfully--“Graylock. Now.” + +“When you are well--” + +“I am--well. Please, dear.” + +For a while she continued sitting there on the side of his bed, his limp +hands in hers, her lips pressed against them. But he never took his +eyes from her, and in them she saw only the same wistful expression, +unchanging, trustful that she would do his bidding. + +So at last she went into the studio and wrote a note to Graylock. It was +late. She went downstairs to the janitor’s quarters where there was a +messenger call. But no messenger came probably Christmas day kept them +busy. Perhaps, too, some portion of the holiday was permitted them, +for it was long after dinner and the full tide of gaiety in town was +doubtless at its flood. + +So she waited until it was plain that no messenger was coming; then +she rose from the chair and stood gazing out into the wintry darkness +through the dirty basement window. Clocks were striking eleven. + +As she turned to go her eye fell upon the telephone. She hesitated. But +the memory of Drene’s eyes, their wistfulness and trust decided her. + +After a little waiting she got Graylock’s apartment. A servant asked her +to hold the wire. + +After an interval she recognized Graylock’s voice at the telephone, +pleasant, courteous, serenely wishing her the happiness of the season. + +“What are you doing this Christmas night?” she asked. “Surely you are +not all alone there at home?” + +“I am rather too old for anything else,” he said. + +“But what are you doing? Reading?” + +“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I happened to be cleaning an automatic +revolver when you called up.” + +“What a gay employment for Christmas night! Is that your idea of +celebrating?” + +“There happens to be nothing else for me to do tonight.” + +“But there is. You are requested to make a call.” + +“On whom?” he asked, quietly. + +“On Mr. Drene.” + +For a full minute he remained silent, although she spoke to him twice, +thinking the connection might have been interrupted. Then his voice +came, curiously altered: + +“Who asked that of me?” + +“Mr. Drene.” + +“Mr. Drene is very ill, I hear.” + +“He is convalescent.” + +“Did he ask you to call me?” + +“Certainly.” + +“Then--you are with him?” + +“Yes.” + +“Where?” + +“In his apartment. I came downstairs to the janitor’s rooms. I am +telephoning from there what he wished me to ask you.” + +After a pause Graylock said: “Is his mind perfectly clear?” + +“Perfectly, now.” + +“He asked for me?” + +“Yes. Will you come?” + +“He asked for me? Tonight? At eleven o’clock?” + +She said: “I don’t think he knows even what month it is. He has only +been conscious for a day or two. Had he known it was Christmas night +perhaps he might not have disturbed you. But--will you come?” + +“I am afraid it is too late--to-night.” + +“Tomorrow, then? Shall I tell him?” + +There was a silence. She repeated the question. But Graylock’s reply was +inaudible and she thought he said good-bye instead of good night. + +Somewhere in the rear of the basement the janitor and his family and +probably all his relatives were celebrating. A fiddle squeaked in there; +there was a steady tumult of voices and laughter. + +The girl stood a while listening, a slight smile on her lips. Blessed +happiness had come to her in time for Christmas--a strange and heavenly +happiness, more wonderful than when a life is spared to one who loves, +for it had been more than the mere life of this man she had asked of +God: it had been his mind. + +He lay asleep when she entered and stood by the shaded lamp, looking +down at him. + +After a while she seated herself and took up her sewing. But laid it +aside again as there came a low knocking at the door. + +Drene opened his eyes as Graylock entered all alone and stood still +beside the bed looking down at him. In the studio Cecile moved about +singing under her breath. They both heard her. + +Drene nodded weakly. After a moment he made the effort to speak: + +“I am trying to get well--to start again--better--live more--nobly. ... +Take your chance, too.” + +“If you wish, Drene.” + +“Yes. I was not--very--well. I had been ill--very--a long while ... +And you are not to clean the automatic.... Only your own-soul.... Ask +help.... You’ll get it..... I did.... And--all that is true--what +we believed--as boys.... I know. I’ve seen. And it’s all true--all +true--what we believed--as little boys.” + +He looked up at Graylock, then closed his eyes with the shadow of a +smile in them. + +“Good-bye--Jack,” he whispered. + +Graylock’s mouth quivered, his lips moved in speech; and perhaps Drene +heard and understood, for he opened his eyes and looked once more at his +boyhood friend. + +“Somewhere--somebody will straighten out--all this,” he murmured, +closing his eyes again: “We can’t; we can only try--to straighten +out--ourselves.” + +Graylock looked down at him in silence, then, tall and heavily erect, he +turned away. + +Cecile met him from the studio. + +“Good night,” she said, offering her hand.... “And a happy Christmas.... +I hope you will not be lonely.” + +He took her hand, gravely, thanked her, and went his way forever. + +For a few minutes she lingered in the doorway connecting Drene’s bedroom +with the studio. She held a sprig of holly. + +After a little while he opened his eyes and looked at her, and, smiling, +she came forward to the bedside. + +“It was a terrible dream,” he whispered--“all those years. But it was a +dream.” + +“You must dream no more.” + +“No. Come nearer.” + +She rested on the bed’s edge beside him and laid one hand on his. The +other held the holly, but he did not notice it until she offered it. + +“Dear,” she whispered, “it is Christmas night. And you did not even know +it.” + +Suddenly the tears he had not known for years burned in his eyes, and +he closed them, trembling, awed by the mercy of God that had been +vouchsafed to him at the eleventh hour, else he had slain his soul. + +After a while he felt her lips touching his brow. And now silent in +the spell of the dream that invaded her--the exquisite vision of +wifehood--she sat motionless with childlike eyes lost in thought. + +Once more he turned his head and looked at her. Then her slender neck +bent, and he saw that her eyes were divinely blue-- + +“Cecile!”--he faltered--“Madonna inviolate!... The +woman--between--friends--” + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Between Friends, by Robert W. Chambers + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN FRIENDS *** + +***** This file should be named 8441-0.txt or 8441-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/4/4/8441/ + +Produced by Andre Boutin-Maloney + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/8441-0.zip b/8441-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0c7da5e --- /dev/null +++ b/8441-0.zip diff --git a/8441-h.zip b/8441-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..add38e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/8441-h.zip diff --git a/8441-h/8441-h.htm b/8441-h/8441-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe64b6c --- /dev/null +++ b/8441-h/8441-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3380 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!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" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Between Friends, by Robert W. Chambers + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Between Friends, by Robert W. Chambers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Between Friends + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Release Date: July 30, 2009 [EBook #8441] +Last Updated: November 3, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN FRIENDS *** + + + + +Produced by Andre Boutin-Maloney, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + BETWEEN FRIENDS + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Robert W. Chambers + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + 1914 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + Contents + </h3> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VII </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + Like a man who reenters a closed and darkened house and lies down; lying + there, remains conscious of sunlight outside, of bird-calls, and the + breeze in the trees, so had Drene entered into the obscurity of himself. + </p> + <p> + Through the chambers of his brain the twilit corridors where cringed his + bruised and disfigured soul, there nothing stirring except the automatic + pulses which never cease. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes, when the sky itself crashes earthward and the world lies in + ruins from horizon to horizon, life goes on. + </p> + <p> + The things that men live through—and live! + </p> + <p> + But no doubt Death was too busy elsewhere to attend to Drene. + </p> + <p> + He had become very lean by the time it was all over. Gray glinted on his + temples; gray softened his sandy mustache: youth was finished as far as he + was concerned. + </p> + <p> + An odd idea persisted in his mind that it had been winter for many years. + And the world thawed out very slowly for him. + </p> + <p> + But broken trees leaf out, and hewed roots sprout; and what he had so long + mistaken for wintry ashes now gleamed warmly like the orange and gold of + early autumn. After a while he began to go about more or less—little + excursions from the dim privacy of mind and soul—and he found the + sun not very gray; and a south wind blowing in the world once more. + </p> + <p> + Quair and Guilder were in the studio that day on business; Drene continued + to modify his composition in accordance with Guilder’s suggestions; Quair, + always curious concerning Drene, was becoming slyly impudent. + </p> + <p> + “And listen to me, Guilder. What the devil’s a woman between friends?” + argued Quair, with a malicious side glance at Drene. “You take my best + girl away from me—” + </p> + <p> + “But I don’t,” remarked his partner dryly. + </p> + <p> + “For the sake of argument, you do. What happens? Do I raise hell? No. I + merely thank you. Why? Because I don’t want her if you can get her away. + That,” he added, with satisfaction, “is philosophy. Isn’t it, Drene?” + </p> + <p> + Guilder intervened pleasantly: + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think Drene is particularly interested in philosophy. I’m sure + I’m not. Shut up, please.” + </p> + <p> + Drene, gravely annoyed, continued to pinch bits of modeling wax out of a + round tin box, and to stick them all over the sketch he was modifying. + </p> + <p> + Now and then he gave a twirl to the top of his working table, which + revolved with a rusty squeak. + </p> + <p> + “If you two unusually intelligent gentlemen ask me what good a woman the + world—” began Quair. + </p> + <p> + “But we don’t,” interrupted Guilder, in the temperate voice peculiar to + his negative character. + </p> + <p> + “Anyway,” insisted Quair, “here’s what I think of ‘em—” + </p> + <p> + “My model, yonder,” said Drene, a slight shrug of contempt, “happens to be + feminine, and may also be human. Be decent enough to defer the development + of your rather tiresome theory.” + </p> + <p> + The girl on the model-stand laughed outright at the rebuke, stretched her + limbs and body, and relaxed, launching a questioning glance at Drene. + </p> + <p> + “All right; rest a bit,” said the sculptor, smearing the bit of wax he was + pinching over the sketch before him. + </p> + <p> + He gave another twirl or two to the table, wiped his bony fingers on a + handful of cotton waste, picked up his empty pipe, and blew into the stem, + reflectively. + </p> + <p> + Quair, one of the associated architects of the new opera, who had been + born a gentleman and looked the perfect bounder, sauntered over to examine + the sketch. He was still red from the rebuke he had invited. + </p> + <p> + Guilder, his senior colleague, got up from the lounge and walked over + also. Drene fitted the sketch into the roughly designed group, where it + belonged, and stood aside, sucking meditatively on his empty pipe. + </p> + <p> + After a silence: + </p> + <p> + “It’s all right,” said Guilder. + </p> + <p> + Quair remarked that the group seemed to lack flamboyancy. It is true, + however, that, except for Guilder’s habitual restraint, the celebrated + firm of architects was inclined to express themselves flamboyantly, and to + interpret Renaissance in terms of Baroque. + </p> + <p> + “She’s some girl,” added Quair, looking at the lithe, modeled figure, and + then half turning to include the model, who had seated herself on the + lounge, and was now gazing with interest at the composition sketched in by + Drene for the facade of the new opera. + </p> + <p> + “Carpeaux and his eternal group—it’s the murderous but inevitable + standard of comparison,” mused Drene, with a whimsical glance at the + photograph on the wall. + </p> + <p> + “Carpeaux has nothing on this young lady,” insisted Quair flippantly; and + he pivoted on his heel and sat down beside the model. Once or twice the + two others, consulting before the wax group, heard the girl’s light, + untroubled laughter behind their backs gaily responsive to Quair’s wit. + Perhaps Quair’s inheritance had been humor, but to some it seemed + perilously akin to mother-wit. + </p> + <p> + The pockets of Guilder’s loose, ill-fitting clothes bulged with linen + tracings and rolls of blue-prints. He and Drene consulted over these for a + while, semi-conscious of Quair’s bantering voice and the girl’s easily + provoked laughter behind them. And, finally: + </p> + <p> + “All right, Guilder,” said Drene briefly. And the firm of celebrated + architects prepared to evacuate the studio—Quair exhibiting symptoms + of incipient skylarking, in which he was said to be at his best. + </p> + <p> + “Drop in on me at the office some time,” he suggested to the youthful + model, in a gracious tone born of absolute self-satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + “For luncheon or dinner?” retorted the girl, with smiling audacity. + </p> + <p> + “You may stay to breakfast also—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come on,” drawled Guilder, taking his colleague’s elbow. + </p> + <p> + The sculptor yawned as Quair went out: then he closed the door then + celebrated firm of architects, and wandered back rather aimlessly. + </p> + <p> + For a while he stood by the great window, watching the pigeons on + neighboring roof. Presently he returned to his table, withdrew the dancing + figure with its graceful, wide flung arms, set it upon the squeaky + revolving table once more, and studied it, yawning at intervals. + </p> + <p> + The girl got up from the sofa behind him, went to the model-stand, and + mounted it. For a few moments she was busy adjusting her feet to the chalk + marks and blocks. Finally she took the pose. She always seemed inclined to + be more or less vocal while Drene worked; her voice, if untrained, was + untroubled. Her singing had never bothered Drene, nor, until the last few + days, had he even particularly noticed her blithe trilling—as a man + a field, preoccupied, is scarcely aware of the wild birds’ gay irrelevancy + along the way. + </p> + <p> + He happened to notice it now, and a thought passed through his mind that + the country must be very lovely in the mild spring sunshine. + </p> + <p> + As he worked, the brief visualization of young grass and the faint blue of + skies, evoked, perhaps, by the girl’s careless singing, made for his dull + concentration subtly pleasant environment. + </p> + <p> + “May I rest?” she asked at length. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly, if it’s necessary.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve brought my lunch. It’s twelve,” she explained. + </p> + <p> + He glanced at her absently, rolling a morsel of wax; then, with slight + irritation which ended in a shrug, he motioned her to descend. + </p> + <p> + After all, girls, like birds, were eternally eating. Except for that, and + incessant preening, existence meant nothing more important to either + species. + </p> + <p> + He had been busy for a few moments with the group when she said something + to him, and he looked around from his abstraction. She was holding out + toward him a chicken sandwich. + </p> + <p> + When his mind came back from wool gathering, he curtly declined the offer, + and, as an afterthought, bestowed upon her a wholly mechanical smile, in + recognition of a generosity not welcome. + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t you ever eat luncheon?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Why should I?” he replied, preoccupied. + </p> + <p> + “It’s bad for you not to. Besides, you are growing thin.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that your final conclusion concerning me, Cecile?” he asked, absently. + </p> + <p> + “Won’t you please take this sandwich?” + </p> + <p> + Her outstretched arm more than what she said arrested his drifting + attention again. + </p> + <p> + “Why the devil do you want me to eat?” he inquired, fishing out his empty + pipe and filling it. + </p> + <p> + “You smoke too much. It’s bad for you. It will do very queer things to the + lining of your stomach if you smoke your luncheon instead of eating it.” + </p> + <p> + He yawned. + </p> + <p> + “Is that so?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly it’s so. Please take this sandwich.” + </p> + <p> + He stood looking at the outstretched arm, thinking of other things and the + girl sprang to her feet, caught his hand, opened the fingers, placed the + sandwich on the palm, then, with a short laugh as though slightly + disconcerted by her own audacity, she snatched the pipe from his left hand + and tossed it upon the table. When she had reseated herself on the lounge + beside her pasteboard box of luncheon, she became even more uncertain + concerning the result of what she had done, and began to view with rising + alarm the steady gray eyes that were so silently inspecting her. + </p> + <p> + But after a moment Drene walked over to the sofa, seated himself, + curiously scrutinized the sandwich which lay across the palm of his hand, + then gravely tasted it. + </p> + <p> + “This will doubtless give me indigestion,” he remarked. “Why, Cecile, do + you squander your wages on nourishment for me?” + </p> + <p> + “It cost only five cents.” + </p> + <p> + “But why present five cents to me?” “I gave ten to a beggar this morning.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “Was he grateful?” + </p> + <p> + “He seemed to be.” + </p> + <p> + “This sandwich is excellent; but if I feel the worse for it, I’ll not be + very grateful to you.” But he continued eating. + </p> + <p> + “‘The woman tempted me,’” she quoted, glancing at him sideways. + </p> + <p> + After a moment’s survey of her: + </p> + <p> + “You’re one of those bright, saucy, pretty, inexplicable things that + throng this town and occasionally flit through this profession—aren’t + you?” + </p> + <p> + “Am I?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Nobody looks for anything except mediocrity; you’re one of the + surprises. Nobody expects you; nobody can account for you, but you appear + now and then, here and there, anywhere, even everywhere—a pretty + sparkle against the gray monotony of life, a momentary flash like a golden + moat afloat in sunshine—and what then?” + </p> + <p> + She laughed. + </p> + <p> + “What then? What becomes of you? Where do you go? What do you turn into?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “You go somewhere, don’t you? You change into something, don’t you? What + happens to you, petite Cigale?” + </p> + <p> + “When?” + </p> + <p> + “When the sunshine is turned off and the snow comes.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know, Mr. Drene.” She broke her chocolate cake into halves and + laid one on his knee. + </p> + <p> + “Thanks for further temptation,” he said grimly. + </p> + <p> + “You are welcome. It’s good, isn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + “Excellent. Adam liked the apple, too. But it raised hell with him.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed, shot a direct glance at him, and began to nibble her cake, + with her eyes still fixed on him. + </p> + <p> + Once or twice he encountered her gaze but his own always wandered absently + elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + “You think a great deal, don’t you?” she remarked. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “I try not to—too much.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” he asked, swallowing the last morsel of cake. + </p> + <p> + She shrugged her shoulders: + </p> + <p> + “What’s the advantage of thinking?” + </p> + <p> + He considered her reply for a moment, her blue and rather childish eyes, + and the very pure oval of her face. Then his attention flagged as usual—was + wandering—when she sighed, very lightly, so that he scarcely heard + it—merely noticed it sufficiently to conclude that, as usual, there + was the inevitable hard luck story afloat in her vicinity, and that he + lacked the interest to listen to it. + </p> + <p> + “Thinking,” she said, “is a luxury to a tranquil mind and a punishment to + a troubled one. So I try not to.” + </p> + <p> + It was a moment or two before it occurred to him that the girl had uttered + an unconscious epigram. + </p> + <p> + “It sounded like somebody—probably Montaigne. Was it?” he inquired. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh. Then it wasn’t. You’re a funny little girl, aren’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, rather.” + </p> + <p> + “On purpose?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sometimes.” + </p> + <p> + He looked into her very clear eyes, now brightly blue with intelligent + perception of his not too civil badinage. + </p> + <p> + “And sometimes,” he went on, “you’re funny when you don’t intend to be.” + </p> + <p> + “You are, too, Mr. Drene.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Didn’t you know it?” + </p> + <p> + A dull color tinted his cheek bones. + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said, “I didn’t know it.” + </p> + <p> + “But you are. For instance, you don’t walk; you stalk. You do what + novelists make their gloomy heroes do—you stride. It’s rather + funny.” + </p> + <p> + “Really. And do you find my movements comic?” + </p> + <p> + She was a trifle scared, now, but she laughed her breathless, youthful + laugh: + </p> + <p> + “You are really very dramatic—a perfect story-book man. But, you + know, sometimes they are funny when the author doesn’t intend them to + be.... Please don’t be angry.” + </p> + <p> + Why the impudence of a model should have irritated him he was at a loss to + understand—unless there lurked under that impudence a trace of + unflattering truth. + </p> + <p> + As he sat looking at her, all at once, and in an unexpected flash of + self-illumination, he realized that habit had made of him an actor; that + for a while—a long while—a space of time he could not at the + moment conveniently compute—he had been playing a role merely + because he had become accustomed to it. + </p> + <p> + Disaster had cast him for a part. For a long while he had been that part. + Now he was still playing it from sheer force of habit. His tragedy had + really become only the shadow of a memory. Already he had emerged from + that shadow into the everyday outer world. But he had forgotten that he + still wore a somber makeup and costume which in the sunshine might appear + grotesque. No wonder the world thought him funny. + </p> + <p> + Glancing up from a perplexed and chagrined meditation he caught her eye—and + found it penitent, troubled, and anxious. + </p> + <p> + “You’re quite right,” he said, smiling easily and naturally; “I am + unintentionally funny. And I really didn’t know it—didn’t suspect it—until + this moment.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean—I know you are often unhappy—” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense!” + </p> + <p> + “You are! Anybody can see—and you really do not seem to be very old, + either—when you smile—” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not very old,” he said, amused. “I’m not unhappy, either. If I ever + was, the truth is that I’ve almost forgotten by this time what it was all + about—” + </p> + <p> + “A woman,” she quoted, “between friends”—and checked herself, + frightened that she had dared interpret Quair’s malice. + </p> + <p> + He changed countenance at that; the dull red of anger clouded his visage. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she faltered, “I was not saucy, only sorry.... I have been sorry for + you so long—” + </p> + <p> + “Who intimated to you that a woman ever played any part in my career?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s generally supposed. I don’t know anything more than that. But I’ve + been—sorry. Love is a very dreadful thing,” she said under her + breath. + </p> + <p> + “Is it?” he asked, controlling a sudden desire to laugh. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you think so?” + </p> + <p> + “I have not thought of it that way, recently.... I haven’t thought about + it at all—for some years.... Have you?” he added, trying to speak + gravely. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes. I have thought of it,” she admitted. + </p> + <p> + “And you conclude it to be a rather dreadful business?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it is.” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don’t know. A girl usually loves the wrong man. To be poor is + always bad enough, but to be in love, too, is really very dreadful. It + usually finishes us—you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you in love?” he inquired, managing to repress his amusement. + </p> + <p> + “I could be. I know that much.” She went to the sink, turned on the water, + washed her hands, and stood with dripping fingers looking about for a + towel. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll get you one,” he said. When he brought it, she laughed and held out + her hands to be dried. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think you are a Sultana?” he inquired, draping the towel across + her outstretched arms and leaving it there. + </p> + <p> + “I thought perhaps you’d dry them,” she said sweetly. + </p> + <p> + “Not in the business,” he remarked; and lighted his pipe. + </p> + <p> + Her hands were her particular beauty, soft and snowy. She was much in + demand among painters, and had posed many times for pictures of the + Virgin, her hands usually resting against her breast. + </p> + <p> + Now she bestowed great care upon them, thoroughly drying each separate, + slender finger. Then she pushed back the heavy masses of her hair—“a + miracle of silk and sunshine,” as Quair had whispered to her. That same + hair, also, was very popular among painters. + </p> + <p> + It was her figure that fascinated sculptors. + </p> + <p> + “Are you ready?” grunted Drene. Work presently recommenced. + </p> + <p> + She was entirely accustomed to praise from men, for her general + attractiveness, for various separate features in what really was an + unusually lovely ensemble. + </p> + <p> + She was also accustomed to flattery, to importunity, to the ordinary + variety of masculine solicitation; to the revelation of genuine feeling, + too, in its various modes of expression—sentimental, explosive, + insinuating—the entire gamut. + </p> + <p> + She had remained, however, untouched; curious and amused, perhaps, yet + quite satisfied, so far, to be amused; and entirely content with her own + curiosity. + </p> + <p> + She coquetted when she thought it safe; learned many things she had not + suspected; was more cautious afterwards, but still, at intervals, ventured + to use her attractiveness as a natural lure, as an excuse, as a reason, as + a weapon, when the probable consequences threatened no embarrassment or + unpleasantness for her. + </p> + <p> + She was much liked, much admired, much attempted, and entirely untempted. + </p> + <p> + When the Make-up Club gave its annual play depicting the foibles of + artists and writers in the public eye, Cecile White was always cast for a + role which included singing and dancing. + </p> + <p> + On and off for the last year or two she had posed for Drene, had dropped + into his studio to lounge about when he had no need of her professionally, + and when she had half an hour of idleness confronting her. + </p> + <p> + As she stood there now on the model stand, gazing dreamily from his busy + hands to his lean, intent features, it occurred to her that this day had + not been a sample of their usual humdrum relations. From the very + beginning of their business relations he had remained merely her employer, + self-centered, darkly absorbed in his work, or, when not working, bored + and often yawning. She had never come to know him any better than when she + first laid eyes on him. + </p> + <p> + Always she had been a little interested in him, a little afraid, sometimes + venturing an innocent audacity, out of sheer curiosity concerning the + effect on him. But never had she succeeded in stirring him to any + expression of personal feeling in regard to herself, one way or the other. + </p> + <p> + Probably he had no personal feeling concerning her. It seemed odd to her; + model and master thrown alone together, day after day, usually became + friends in some degree. But there had been nothing at all of camaraderie + in their relationship, only a colorless, professional sans-gene, the + informality of intimacy without the kindly essence of personal interest on + his part. + </p> + <p> + He paid her wages promptly; said good morning when she came, and good + night when she went; answered her questions when she asked them seriously; + relapsed into indifference or into a lazy and not too civil badinage when + she provoked him to it; and that was all. + </p> + <p> + He never complimented her, never praised her; yet he must have thought her + a good model, or he would not have continued to send for her. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think me pretty?” she had asked one day, saucily invading one of + his yawning silences. + </p> + <p> + “I think you’re pretty good,” he replied, “as a model. You’d be quite + perfect if you were also deaf and dumb.” + </p> + <p> + That had been nearly a year ago. She thought of it now, a slight heat in + her cheeks as she remembered the snub, and her almost childish amazement, + and the hurt and offended silence which lasted all that morning, but + which, if he noticed at all, was doubtless entirely gratifying to him. + </p> + <p> + “May I rest?” + </p> + <p> + “If it’s necessary.” + </p> + <p> + She sprang lightly to the floor walked around behind him, and stood + looking at his work. + </p> + <p> + “Do you want to know my opinion?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said, with unexpected urbanity; “if you are clever enough to + have an opinion. What is it?” + </p> + <p> + She said, looking at the wax figure of herself and speaking with + deliberation: + </p> + <p> + “In the last hour you have made out of a rather commonplace study an + entirely spontaneous and charming creation.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” he exclaimed, his face reddening with pleasure at her opinion, and + with surprise at her mode of expressing it. + </p> + <p> + “It’s quite true. That dancing figure is wholly charming. It is no study; + it is pure creation.” + </p> + <p> + He knew it; was a little thrilled that she, representing to him an average + and mediocre public, should recognize it so intelligently. + </p> + <p> + “As though,” she continued, “you had laid aside childish things.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” he asked, surprised again at the authority of the expression. + </p> + <p> + “Academic precision and the respectable excellencies of-the-usual;—you + have put away childish things and become a man.” + </p> + <p> + “Where did you hear that?” he said bluntly. + </p> + <p> + “I heard it when I said it. You know, Mr. Drene, I am not wholly + uneducated, although your amiable question insinuates as much.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not unamiable. Only I didn’t suppose—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you never have supposed anything concerning me. So why are you + surprised when I express myself with fragmentary intelligence?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m sorry—” + </p> + <p> + “Listen to me. I’m not afraid of you any more. I’ve been afraid for two + years. Now, I’m not. Your study is masterly. I know it. You know it. You + didn’t know I knew it; you didn’t know I knew anything. And you didn’t + care.” + </p> + <p> + She sat down on the sofa, facing him with a breathless smile. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t care what I think, what I am, what interests I may have, what + intellect, what of human desire, hope, fear, ambition animates me; do you? + You don’t care whether I am ignorant or educated, bad or good, ill or well—as + long as it does not affect my posing for you; whether I am happy or + unhappy, whether I—” + </p> + <p> + “For Heaven’s sake—” + </p> + <p> + “But you don’t care!... Do you?” + </p> + <p> + He was silent; he stood looking at her in a stupid sort of way. + </p> + <p> + After a moment or two she rose, picked up her hat, went to the glass and + pinned it on, then strolled slowly back, drawing on her gloves. + </p> + <p> + “It’s five o’clock, you know, Drene.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, certainly.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you want me to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Yes, of course.” + </p> + <p> + “You are not offended?” + </p> + <p> + He did not answer. She came up to him and repeated the question in a + childishly anxious voice that was a trifle too humble. And looking down + into her eyes he saw a gleam of pure mischief in them. + </p> + <p> + “You little villain!” he said; and caught her wrists. “A lot you care + whether I am offended!” + </p> + <p> + She looked away from him, turning her profile. Her expression was + inscrutable. After a silence he dropped her wrists with a vague laugh. + </p> + <p> + “You should have let me alone,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “‘The woman tempted me,’” she repeated, still looking away from him. He + said nothing. + </p> + <p> + “Good night,” she nodded, and turned toward the door. + </p> + <p> + He went with her, falling into step beside her. One arm slipped around her + waist as they entered the hallway. They walked slowly to the door. He + unlatched it, hesitated; she moved one foot forward, and he took a step at + the same time which brought her across his path so closely that contact + was unavoidable. And he kissed her. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she said. “So you are human after all! I often wondered.” + </p> + <p> + She looked up, trying to laugh, but could not seem to take it as coolly as + she might have wished to. + </p> + <p> + “Not that a kiss is very important in these days,” she continued, “yet it + might interest you to hear that a friend of yours rather fancies me. He + wouldn’t like you to do it. But—” She lifted her blue eyes with + faint malice—“What is a woman between friends?” + </p> + <p> + “Who is he?” + </p> + <p> + “Jack Graylock.” + </p> + <p> + Drene remained motionless. + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t encouraged him,” she said. “Perhaps that is why.” + </p> + <p> + “Why he fancies you?” + </p> + <p> + “Why he asked me to marry him. It was the only thing he had not asked.” + </p> + <p> + “He asked that?” + </p> + <p> + “After he realized it was the only way, I suppose,” she said coolly. Drene + took her into his arms and kissed her deliberately on the mouth. Looking + up at him she said: “After all, he is your friend, isn’t he?” + </p> + <p> + “A friend of many years. But, as you say, what is a woman between + friends?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” said the girl. And, still clasped in his arms, she bent + her head, thoughtfully, considering the question. + </p> + <p> + And as though she had come to some final conclusion, she raised her head, + lifted her eyes slowly, and her lips, to the man whose arms enfolded her. + It was her answer to his question, and her own. + </p> + <p> + When she had gone, he went back and stood again by the great window, + watching the cote on a neighboring roof, where the pigeons were strutting + and coquetting in the last rays of the western sun. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + When she came again to the studio, she was different, subdued, evading, + avoiding, smiling a little in her flushed diffidence at his gay ease of + manner—or assumption of both ease and gaiety. + </p> + <p> + He was inclined to rally her, tease her, but her reticence was not all + embarrassment. The lightest contact, the slightest caress from him, added + a seriousness to her face, making it very lovely under its heightened + color, and strangely childlike. + </p> + <p> + Model and master they would have remained no longer had it been for him to + say, he desiring now to make it a favor and concession on her part to aid + him professionally, she gravely insisting on professionalism as the basis + of whatever entente might develop between them, as well as the only avowed + excuse for her presence there alone with him. + </p> + <p> + “Please. It’s respectable,” she insisted her agreeable, modulated voice. + “I had rather the reason for my coming here be business—whatever + else happens.” + </p> + <p> + “What has happened,” he said, balancing a handful of wet clay in one hand + and looking laughingly up at her, where she stood on the model-stand, “is + that a pretty girl strolled in here one day and held up a mirror to a + solemn ass who was stalking theatrically through life. That solemn ass is + very grateful for the glimpse he had of himself. He behaved gratefully, + didn’t he?” + </p> + <p> + “Very,” she said with a forced smile. + </p> + <p> + “Do you object to the manner in which he expressed his gratitude?” + </p> + <p> + She hung her head. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said. + </p> + <p> + After a while she raised her eyes, her head still lowered. He was working, + darkly absorbed as usual in the plastic mass under his fingers. + </p> + <p> + She watched him curiously, not his hands, now, but his lean, intent face, + striving to penetrate that masculine mask, trying to understand. Varying + and odd reflections and emotions possessed her in turn, and passed—wonder, + bewilderment at herself, at him; a slight sense of fear, then a brief and + sudden access of shyness, succeeded by the by glow of an emotion new and + strange and deep. And this, in turn, by vague bewilderment again, in which + there was both a hint of fear, and a tinge of something exquisite. + </p> + <p> + Within herself she was dimly conscious that a certain gaiety, an + irresponsibility and lightness had died out in her, perhaps permanently, + yet leaving no void. What it was that replaced these she could not name—she + only was conscious that if these had been subdued by a newer knowledge, + with a newer seriousness, this unaccustomed gravity had left her heart no + less tender, and had deepened her capacity for emotion to depths as + profound and unexplored as the sudden mystery of their discovery by + herself. + </p> + <p> + Always, now, while she posed, she was looking at him with a still + intentness, as though he really wore a mask and she, breathlessly + vigilant, watched for the moment when he might forget and lift it. + </p> + <p> + But during the weeks that followed, if the mask were indeed only the + steady preoccupation that his visage wore, she seemed to learn nothing + more about him when his features lost their dark absorption and he caught + her eye and smiled. No, the smile revealed nothing except another mask + under the more serious cast of concentration—only another disguise + that covered whatever this man might truly be deeper down—this + masculine and unknown invader of frontiers surrendered ere she had + understood they were even besieged. + </p> + <p> + And during these weeks in early spring their characteristics, even + characters, seemed to have shifted curiously and become reversed; his was + now the light, irresponsible, half-mocking badinage—almost boyishly + boisterous at times, as, for instance, when he stepped forward after the + pose and swung her laughingly from the model-platform to her corner on the + sofa. + </p> + <p> + “You pretty and clever little thing,” he said, “why are you becoming so + serious and absent-minded?” + </p> + <p> + “Am I becoming so?” + </p> + <p> + “You are. You oughtn’t to: you’ve made a new and completely different man + of me.” + </p> + <p> + As though that were an admirable achievement, or even of any particular + importance. And yet she seemed to think it was both of these when, resting + against him, within the circle of his arm, still shy and silent under the + breathless poignancy of an emotion which ever seemed to sound within her + depths unsuspected. + </p> + <p> + But when he said that she had made a new and completely different man of + him, she remembered his low-voiced when that change impended as he held + her by her wrists a moment, then dropped them. He had said, half to + himself: “You should have let me alone!” + </p> + <p> + Sometimes at noon she remembered this when they went out for luncheon + realizing they would never have been seated together in a restaurant had + she not satisfied her curiosity. She should have let him alone; she knew + that. She tried to wish that she had—tried to regret everything, + anything; and could not, even when within her the faint sense of alarm + awoke amid the softly unchangeable unreality of these last six weeks of + spring. + </p> + <p> + Was this then really love?—this drifting through alternating dreams + of shyness, tenderness, suspense, pierced at moments by tiny flashes of + fear, as lightning flickers, far buried in softly shrouded depths of + cloud? + </p> + <p> + She had long periods of silent and absorbed dreaming, conscious only that + she dreamed, but not of the dream itself. + </p> + <p> + She was aware, too, of a curious loneliness within her, and dimly + understood that it was the companion of a lifetime she was missing—her + conscience. Where was it? Had it gone? Had it died? Were the little, + inexplicable flashes of fear proof of its disintegration? Or its immortal + vitality? + </p> + <p> + Dead, dormant, departed, she knew not which, she was dully aware of its + loss—dimly and childishly troubled that she could remember nothing + to be sorry for. And there was so much. + </p> + <p> + Men in his profession who knew him began to look askance at him and her, + amused or otherwise, according to their individual characters. + </p> + <p> + That Cecile White went about more or less with the sculptor Drene was a + nine days’ gossip among circles familiar to them both, and was forgotten—as + are all wonders—in nine days. + </p> + <p> + Some of his acquaintances recalled what had been supposed to be the + tragedy of his life, mentioning a woman’s name, and a man’s—Drene’s + closest friend. But gossip does not last long among the busy—not + that the busy are incapable of gossip, but they finish with it quickly, + having other matters to think about. + </p> + <p> + Even Quair, after recovering from his wonder that his own condescending + advances had been ignored, bestowed his fatuously inflammable attentions + elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + He had been inclined to complain one day in the studio, when he and + Guilder visited Drene professionally; and Guilder looked at his dapper + confrere in surprise and slight disgust; and Drene, at first bored, grew + irritable. + </p> + <p> + “What are you talking about?” he said sharply. + </p> + <p> + “I’m talking about Cecile White,” continued Quair, looking rather oddly at + the sculptor out of his slightly prominent eyes. “I didn’t suppose you + could be interested in any woman—not that I mind your interfering + with any little affair between Cecile and me—” + </p> + <p> + “There wasn’t any.” + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon, Drene—” + </p> + <p> + “There wasn’t any!” repeated Drene, with curt contempt. “Don’t talk about + her, anyway.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean I’m not to talk about a common artist’s model—” + </p> + <p> + “Not that way.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh. Is she yours?” + </p> + <p> + “She isn’t anybody’s, I fancy. Therefore, let her alone, or I’ll throw you + out of doors.” + </p> + <p> + Quair said to Guilder after they had departed: + </p> + <p> + “Fancy old Drene playing about with that girl on a strictly pious basis! + He’s doubtless dub enough to waste his time. But what’s in it for her?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps a little unaccustomed masculine decency.” + </p> + <p> + “Everybody is decent enough to her as far as I know.” + </p> + <p> + “Including yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly, including myself,” retorted Quair, adding naively: “Besides, I + knew any attempt at philandering would be time wasted.” + </p> + <p> + “Yet you tried it,” mused Guilder, entering his big touring car and + depositing a bundle of blue-prints and linen tracing paper at his own + ponderous feet. Quair followed him and spoke briefly to the chauffeur, + then: + </p> + <p> + “Tried nothing,” he said. “A little chaff, that’s all. When it comes to a + man like Jack Graylock going so far as to ask her to marry him, good + night, nurse! Nothing doing, even for me.” + </p> + <p> + “Even for you,” repeated Guilder in his moderate and always modulated + voice. “Well, if she’s escaped you and Graylock, she’s beyond any danger + from Drene, I fancy.” + </p> + <p> + Quair smiled appreciatively, as though a delicate compliment had been + offered him. Several times on the way to call on Graylock he insisted on + stopping the car at as many celebrated cafes. Guilder patiently awaited + him in the car and each time Quair emerged from the cafe bar a little more + flushed and a trifle jauntier than when he had entered. + </p> + <p> + He was a man so perfectly attired and so scrupulously fastidious about his + person that Guilder often speculated as to just why Quair always seemed to + him a trifle soiled. + </p> + <p> + Now, looking him over as he climbed into the car, unusually red in the + face, breathing out the aroma of spirits through his little, pinched + nostrils, a faint sensation of disgust came over the senior member of the + firm as though the junior member were physically unclean. + </p> + <p> + “That’s about ten drinks since luncheon,” he remarked, as the car rolled + on down Fifth Avenue. + </p> + <p> + Quair, who usually grew disagreeably familiar when mellow, poked his + gloved thumb: + </p> + <p> + “You’re a merry old cock, aren’t you?” he inquired genially, “—like + a pig’s wrist! If I hadn’t the drinking of the entire firm to do, who’d + ever talk about Guilder and Quair, architects?” + </p> + <p> + It was common rumor that Quair did his brilliant work only when “soused.” + And he never appeared to be perfectly sober, even when he was. + </p> + <p> + Graylock received them in his office—a big, reckless-eyed, handsome + man, with Broad Street written all over him and “danger” etched in every + deepened line of his face. + </p> + <p> + “Well, how about that business of mine?” he inquired. “It’s all right to + keep me waiting, of course, while you and Quair here match for highballs + at the Ritz.” + </p> + <p> + “I had to see Drene—that’s why we are late,” explained Guilder. + “We’re ready to go ahead and let your contracts for you—” + </p> + <p> + “Drene?” interrupted Graylock, looking straight at Guilder with a curious + and staring intensity. “Why drag Drene into an excuse?” + </p> + <p> + “Because we went to his studio,” said Guilder. “Now about letting the + contracts—” + </p> + <p> + “Were you at Drene’s studio?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. He’s doing the groups for the new opera for us.” + </p> + <p> + Quair, watching Graylock, was seized with a malicious impulse: + </p> + <p> + “Neat little skirt he has up there—that White girl,” he remarked, + seating himself on Graylock’s polished table. + </p> + <p> + A dull flush stained Graylock’s cheekbones, and his keen eyes turned on + Quair. The latter lighted a cigarette, expelled the smoke in two thin + streams from his abnormally narrow nostrils. + </p> + <p> + “Some skirt,” he repeated. “And it looks as though old Drene had her + number—” + </p> + <p> + Guilder’s level voice interrupted: + </p> + <p> + “The contracts are ready to be—” + </p> + <p> + But Graylock, not heeding, and perhaps not hearing, and looking all the + time at Quair, said slowly: + </p> + <p> + “Drene isn’t that kind.... Is he?” + </p> + <p> + “Our kind, you mean?” inquired Quair, with a malice so buried under + flippancy that the deliberate effrontery passed for it with Graylock. + Which amused Quair for a moment, but the satisfaction was not sufficient. + He desired that Graylock should feel the gaff. + </p> + <p> + “Drene,” he said, “is one of those fussers who jellify when hurled on + their necks—the kind that ask that kind of girl to marry them after + she’s turned down everything else they suggest.” + </p> + <p> + Graylock’s square jaw tightened and his steady eyes seemed to grow even + paler; but Quair, as though perfectly unconscious of this man’s record + with the wife of his closest friend, and of the rumors which connected him + so seriously with Cecile White, swung his leg unconcernedly, where it + dangled over the table’s edge, and smiled frankly and knowingly upon + Graylock: + </p> + <p> + “There’s always somebody to marry that sort of girl; all mush isn’t on the + breakfast table. When you and I are ready to quit, Graylock, Providence + has created a species of man who settles our bills.” + </p> + <p> + He threw back his head, inhaled the smoke of his cigarette, sent two thin + streams through his nose. + </p> + <p> + “Maybe Drene may marry her himself. But—I don’t believe he’ll have + to.... Now, about those contracts—” he affected a yawn, “—go + on and tell him, Guilder,” he added, his words distorted by another yawn. + </p> + <p> + He stepped down to the floor from his perch on the table, stretched his + arms, looking affably all the while at Graylock, who had never moved a + muscle. + </p> + <p> + “I believe you had a run-in with that Cecile girl once, didn’t you, + Graylock? Like the rest of us, eh? Oh, well—my hat off to old Drene + if he wins out. I hold no malice. After all, Graylock, what’s a woman + between friends?” + </p> + <p> + And he nodded gaily at Graylock and sauntered leisurely to the window. + </p> + <p> + And kept his back turned, fearful of exploding with laughter in the very + face of the man who had been staring at him out of pale, unchanging eyes + so steadily and so long. + </p> + <p> + Guilder’s patient, bored, but moderate voice was raised once more: + </p> + <p> + “In regard to the letting of these contracts—” + </p> + <p> + But Graylock, staring at Quair’s back, neither heeded nor heard him, for + his brain was still ringing with the mockery of Quair’s words—“What + is a woman between friends?” And now, for the first time, he was beginning + to understand what the answer might be. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + She had not posed for Drene during the last two weeks, and he had begun to + miss her, after his own fashion—that is, he thought of her when not + preoccupied and sometimes desired her companionship when unoccupied. + </p> + <p> + And one evening he went to his desk, rummaged among note-books, and + scribbled sheets of paper, until he found her address, which he could + never remember, wrote it down on another slip of paper, pocketed it, and + went out to his dinner. + </p> + <p> + But as he dined, other matters reoccupied his mind, matters professional, + schemes little and great, broad and in detail, which gradually, though not + excluding her entirely, quenched his desire to see her at that particular + time. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes it was sheer disinclination to make an effort to communicate + with her, sometimes, and usually, the self-centering concentration which + included himself and his career, as well as his work, seemed to obliterate + even any memory of her existence. + </p> + <p> + Now and then, when alone in his shabby bedroom, reading a dull book, or + duly preparing to retire, far in the dim recesses of heart and brain a + faint pain became apparent—if it could still be called pain, this + vague ghost of anger stirring in the ashes of dead years—and at such + moments he thought of Graylock, and of another; and the partly paralyzed + emotion, which memory of these two evoked, stirred him finally to think of + Cecile. + </p> + <p> + It was at such times that he always determined to seek her the next day + and continue with her what had been begun—an intimacy which depended + upon his own will; a destiny for her which instinct whispered was within + his own control. But the next day found him at work; models of various + types, ages, and degrees of stupidity came, posed, were paid, and + departed; his studies for the groups in collaboration with Guilder and + Quair were approaching the intensely interesting period—that stage + of completion where composition has been determined upon and the + excitement of developing the construction and the technical charm of + modeling begins. + </p> + <p> + And evening always found him physically tired and mentally satisfied—or + perturbed—to the exclusion of such minor interests as life is made + of—dress, amusement, food, women. Between a man and a beloved + profession in full shock of embrace there is no real room for these or + thought of these. + </p> + <p> + He ate irregularly and worked with the lack of wisdom characteristic of + creative ability, and he grew thinner and grayer at the temples, and + grayer of flesh, too, so that within a month, between the torrid New York + summer and his own unwisdom, he became again the gaunt, silent, darkly + absorbed recluse, never even stirring abroad for air until some + half-deadened pang of hunger, or the heavy warning of a headache, set him + in reluctant motion. + </p> + <p> + He heard of Cecile now and then; Cosby had used her for a figure on a + fountain destined to embellish the estate of a wealthy young man somewhere + or other; Greer employed her for the central figure of Innocence in his + lovely and springlike decoration for some Western public edifice. Quair + had met her several times at Manhattan Beach with various and assorted + wealthy young men. + </p> + <p> + And one evening Guilder came alone to his studio and found him lying on + the lounge, his lank, muscular hands, still clay-stained, hanging inert to + the floor above an evening paper fallen there. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Guilder,” he said, without rising, as the big architect shambled + loosely through the open doorway. + </p> + <p> + “How are you, Drene?” + </p> + <p> + “All right. It’s hot.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s not a breath of air. It looks like a thunder-storm in the west.” + </p> + <p> + He pulled up a chair and sprawled on it, wiping his grave features with a + damp handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + “Drene,” he said, “a philanthropic guy of sorts wants to add a chapel to + the church at Shallow Brook, Long Island. We’ve pinched the job. Can you + do an altar piece?” + </p> + <p> + “What sort?” + </p> + <p> + “They want a Virgin. It’s to be called the Chapel of the Annunciation. + It’s for women to repair to—under certain and natural + circumstances.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve so much on hand—” + </p> + <p> + “It’s only a single figure-barring the dove. Why don’t you do it?” + </p> + <p> + “There are plenty of other men—” + </p> + <p> + “They want you. There’ll be no difficulty about terms.” + </p> + <p> + Drene said with a shrug: + </p> + <p> + “Terms are coming to mean less and less to me, Guilder. It costs very + little for me to live.” He turned his gray, tired face. “Look at this barn + of a place; and go in there and look at my bedroom. I have no use for what + are known as necessities.” + </p> + <p> + “Still, terms are terms—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes. A truck may run over me. Even at that, I’ve enough to live life + out as I am living it here—between these empty walls—and that + expanse of glass overhead. That’s about all life holds for me—a + sheet of glass and four empty walls—and a fistfull of wet clay.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you a trifle morbid, Drene?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not by any means; I merely prefer to live this way. I have sufficient + means to live otherwise if I wish. But this is enough of the world to suit + me, Guilder—and I can go to a noisy restaurant to eat in when I’m so + inclined—” He laughed a rather mirthless laugh and glanced up, + catching a peculiar expression in Guilder’s eyes. + </p> + <p> + “You’re thinking,” said Drene coolly, “what a god I once set up on the + altar of domesticity. I used to talk a lot once, didn’t I?—a hell of + a clamor I made in eulogy of the domestic virtues. Well, only idiots + retain the same opinions longer than twenty-four hours. Fixity is + imbecility; the inconstant alone progress; dissatisfaction is only a + synonym for intelligence; contentment translated means stagnation..... I + have changed my opinion concerning the virtues of domesticity.” + </p> + <p> + Guilder said, in his even, moderate voice: + </p> + <p> + “Your logic is weird, Drene: in one breath you say you have changed your + opinion; in another that you are content; in another that contentment is + the fixedness of imbecility—” + </p> + <p> + Drene, reddening slightly, half rose on one elbow from his couch: + </p> + <p> + “What I meant was that I change in my convictions from day to day, without + reproaching myself with inconstancy. What I believed with all my heart to + be sacred yesterday I find a barrier to-day; and push it aside and go on.” + </p> + <p> + “Toward what?” + </p> + <p> + “I go on, that’s all I know—toward sanctuary.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean professionally.” + </p> + <p> + “In every way—ethically—spiritually. The gods of yesterday, + too, were very real—yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “Drene, a man may change and progress on his way toward what never + changes. But standards remained fixed. They were there in the beginning; + they are immutable. If they shifted, humanity could have no goal.” + </p> + <p> + “Is there a goal?” + </p> + <p> + “Where are you going, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Just on.” + </p> + <p> + “In your profession there is a goal toward which you sculptors all + journey.” + </p> + <p> + “Perfection?” + </p> + <p> + Guilder nodded. + </p> + <p> + “But,” smiled Drene, “no two sculptors ever see it alike.” + </p> + <p> + “It is still Perfection. It is still the goal to the color-blind and + normal alike, whatever they call it, however, they visualize it. That is + its only importance; it is The Goal..... In things spiritual the same + obtains—whether one’s vision embraces Nirvana, or the Algonquin + Ocean of Light, or a pallid Christ half hidden in floating clouds—Drene, + it is all one, all one. It is not the Goal that changes; only our + intelligence concerning its existence and its immortality.” + </p> + <p> + Drene lay looking at him: + </p> + <p> + “You never knew pain—real pain, did you? The world never ended for + you, did it?” + </p> + <p> + “In one manner or another we all must be reborn before we can progress.” + </p> + <p> + “That is a cant phrase.” + </p> + <p> + “No; there’s truth under the cant. Under all the sleek, smooth, canty + phrases of ecclesiastic proverb, precept, axiom, and lore, there is truth + worth the sifting out.” + </p> + <p> + “You are welcome to think so, Guilder.” + </p> + <p> + “You also could come to no other conclusion if you took the trouble to + investigate.” + </p> + <p> + Drene smiled: + </p> + <p> + “Morals are no more than folk-ways—merely mental condition + consequent upon custom. Spiritual beliefs are radically dependant upon + folkways and the resultant physical and mental condition of the human + brain which creates everything that has been and that is to be.” + </p> + <p> + “Physiology has proven that no idea, no thought, ever originated within + the concrete and physical brain.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve read of those experiments.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you can’t ignore a conclusion.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t reached a conclusion. Meanwhile, I have my own beliefs.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s all that’s necessary,” said Guilder, gravely, “—to entertain + some belief, temporary or final.” He smiled slightly down at Drene’s + drawn, gray visage. + </p> + <p> + “You and I have been friends of many years, Drene, but we have never + before talked this way. I did not feel at liberty to assume any intimacy + with you, even when I wanted to, even when—when you were in trouble—” + He hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “Go on,” grunted the other. “I’m out of trouble now.” + </p> + <p> + “I just—it’s a whimsical notion—no, it’s a belief;—I + just wanted to tell you one or two things concerning my own beliefs—” + </p> + <p> + “Temporary?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter; they are beliefs. And this is one: all + physical and mental ills are created only by our own minds—” + </p> + <p> + “Christian Science?” sneered Drene. + </p> + <p> + “Call it what you like,” said Guilder serenely. “And call this what you + like: All who believe worthily will find that particular belief true in + every detail after death.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you call that?” demanded Drene, amused. + </p> + <p> + “God knows. It seems to be my interpretation of the Goal. I seem to be + journeying toward it without more obstacles and more embarrassments to + encounter than confront the wayfarer who professes any other creed.” + </p> + <p> + After a while Drene sat up on his couch: + </p> + <p> + “How did all this conversation start?” he asked uneasily. + </p> + <p> + “It was about the Virgin for that chapel we are going to do..... That’s + part of my belief: those who pray for her intercession will find her after + death, interceding—” he smiled, “—if any intercession be + necessary between us and Him who made us.” + </p> + <p> + “And those unlisted millions who importune Mohammed and Buddha?” + </p> + <p> + “They shall find Mohammed and Buddha, who importune them worthily.” + </p> + <p> + “And—Christ?” + </p> + <p> + “He bears that name also—He!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! And so, spiritually as well as artistically, you believe in the + Virgin?” + </p> + <p> + “You also can make a better Virgin if you believe in her otherwise than + esthetically.” + </p> + <p> + Drene gazed at him incredulously, then, with a shrug: + </p> + <p> + “When do you want this thing started?” + </p> + <p> + “Now.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t take it on now.” + </p> + <p> + “I want a sketch pretty soon—the composition. You can have a model + of the chapel to—morrow. We went on with it as a speculation. Now + we’ve clinched the thing. When shall I send it up from the office?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll look it over, but—” + </p> + <p> + “And,” interrupted Guilder, “you had better get that Miss White for the + Virgin—before she goes off somewhere out of reach.” + </p> + <p> + Drene looked up somberly: + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t kept in touch with her. I don’t know what her engagements may + be.” + </p> + <p> + “One of her engagements just now seems to be to go about with Graylock,” + said Guilder. + </p> + <p> + Drene flushed, but said nothing. + </p> + <p> + “If he marries her,” added Guilder, “as it’s generally understood he is + trying to, the best sculptor’s model in town is out of the question. + Better secure her now.” + </p> + <p> + “He wants to marry her?” repeated Drene, in a curiously still voice. + </p> + <p> + “He’s mad about her. He’s abject. It’s no secret among his friends. Men + like that—and of that age—sometimes arrive at such a terminal—men + with Graylock’s record sometimes get theirs. She has given him a run, + believe me, and he’s brought up with a crash against a stone wall. He is + lying there all doubled up at her feet like a rabbit with a broken back. + There was nothing left for him to do but lie there. He’s lying there + still, with one of her little feet on his bull neck. All the town knows + it.” + </p> + <p> + “He wants to marry her,” repeated Drene, as though to himself. + </p> + <p> + “She may not take him at that. They’re queer—some women. I suppose + she’d jump at it if she were not straight. But there’s another thing—” + Guilder looked curiously at Drene. “Some people think she’s rather crazy + about you.” + </p> + <p> + Drene gazed into space. + </p> + <p> + “But that wouldn’t hurt her,” added Guilder, in his calm, pleasant voice. + “She’s a straight little thing—white and straight. She could come to + no harm through a man like you.” + </p> + <p> + Drene continued to stare at space. + </p> + <p> + “So,” continued the other, confident, “when she recovers from a natural + and childlike infatuation for you she’ll marry somebody... Possibly even + such a man as Graylock might make her happy. You can’t ever tell about + such men at the eleventh hour.” + </p> + <p> + Drene turned his eyes on him. There was no trace of color in his face. + </p> + <p> + “Aren’t you pretty damned charitable?” + </p> + <p> + “Charitable? Well, I—I’m so inclined, I fancy.” + </p> + <p> + “You’d be content to see that girl marry a dog like that?” + </p> + <p> + “I did not say so. I am no judge of men. No man knows enough to condemn + souls.” + </p> + <p> + Drene looked at him: + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’ll tell you something. I know enough to do it. I had rather damn + my soul—and hers, too—than see her marry the man you have + named. It would be worth it to me.” + </p> + <p> + After a strained silence, Guilder said: + </p> + <p> + “There is a mode of dealing with those who have injured you, which is + radically different—” + </p> + <p> + “I deal with such people in my own fashion!” + </p> + <p> + “But, after all, the infamy is Graylock’s. Why oblige him by sharing it + with him?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know what he did to me and mine?” + </p> + <p> + “A few of us know,” said Guilder, gently, “—your old friends.” + </p> + <p> + There came a pale, infernal flicker into Drene’s eyes: + </p> + <p> + “I’ll take your commission for that altar piece,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “What is it? An Annunciation?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + Composition had been determined upon, and the sketch completed by the + middle of August; Cecile had sat for him every day from nine until five; + every evening they had dined together at the seashore or other suburban + and cool resorts. Together they had seen every summer entertainment in + town, had spent the cooler, starlit evenings together in his studio, + chatting, reading loud sometimes, sometimes discussing he work in hand or + other subjects of he moment, even topics covering a wider and more varied + range than he had ever before discussed with any woman. + </p> + <p> + He seemed to have become utterly changed; the dark preoccupation had been + absent from his face—the gauntness, the grayness, seemed to have + become subdued; the deep lines of pain, imperceptible at times, smoothed + out and shadowed in an almost gay resurgence of youth. + </p> + <p> + If, during the first week or two of her companionship, his gaiety had been + not entirely spontaneous, his smile shadowed with something duller, his + laughter a trifle forced, she had not perceived it in her surprised and + shyly troubled preoccupation with this amazing and delightful + transfiguration. + </p> + <p> + At first she scarcely knew what to look for, what to expect from him, from + herself, when she came into the studio after many weeks of absence; and + she always halted in the doorway, trembling a little, as always, when in + contact with him. + </p> + <p> + But he was very delightful, smiling, easy, and deferential enough to + reassure her with a greeting that became him, as he saluted her pretty + hand, held it a moment in possession, laughingly, and released it. + </p> + <p> + From the moment of their reunion he had never touched her, save for a + quick, firm, smiling hand-clasp in the morning and another at the night’s + parting. + </p> + <p> + Now, little by little, she was finding herself delightfully at ease with + him, emerging by degrees from her charming bewilderment out of isolation + to a happy companionship never before shared with any man. + </p> + <p> + Nor even vaguely had she dreamed that Drene could be such a man, such a + friend, never had she imagined there was in him such kindness, such + patience, such gentleness, such comprehension, such virile sense and + sympathy. + </p> + <p> + And never, now, was her troubled consciousness aware of anything + disquieting in his attitude, of anything to perturb her. + </p> + <p> + He seemed to enjoy himself like a boy, with her companionship, wholly, + heartily, without any motive other than the pleasure of the moment; and + so, little by little, she gave herself up to it too, in the same fashion, + unguardedly, frankly, innocently revealing herself to him by degrees as + their comradeship became deliciously unembarrassed. + </p> + <p> + He was making a full length study in clay now. All day long she sat there + enthroned, her eyes partly closed, the head lifted a trifle and fallen + back, and her lovely hands resting on her heart—and sometimes she + strove to imagine something of the divine moment which she was embodying; + pondering, dreaming, wondering; and sometimes, in the stillness, through + her trance crept a thrill, subtle, exquisite, as though in faint + perception of the heavenly moment. And once, into her half-dreaming senses + came the soft stirring of wings, and she opened her eyes and looked up, + startled and thrilled. + </p> + <p> + But it was only a pigeon which had come through the great window from the + cote on the adjacent roof and which circled above her on whimpering wings + for a moment and then sheered out into the sunlight. + </p> + <p> + They dined together at a roof garden that evening, the music was + particularly and surprisingly good, and what surprised him even more was + that she knew it and spoke of it. And continued speaking of music, he not + interrupting. + </p> + <p> + Reticent hitherto concerning her antecedents he learned now something of + them—and inferred more; nothing unusual—a musical career + determined upon, death intervening dragging over her isolation the steel + meshes of destitution—the necessity for self-support, a friend who + knew a painter who employed models—not anything unusual, not even + dramatic. + </p> + <p> + He nodded as she ended: + </p> + <p> + “Have you saved anything?” + </p> + <p> + “A hundred dollars.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s fine.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled, then sighed unconsciously. + </p> + <p> + “You are thinking,” he said, “that youth is flying.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled wistfully. + </p> + <p> + “Youth is the time to study. You were thinking that, too.” + </p> + <p> + She nodded. + </p> + <p> + “You could have married.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” she asked, troubled. + </p> + <p> + “To obtain the means for a musical education.” + </p> + <p> + She gazed at him in amazement, then: “I could go out on the street, too, + as far as that is concerned. It would be no more disgraceful.” + </p> + <p> + “Folk-ways sanction self-sale, when guaranteed by the clergy,” he said. + She turned her head and he saw the pure, cold profile against the golden + table-lamp, and he saw something else under the palms beyond—Graylock’s + light eyes riveted upon them both. + </p> + <p> + “You know,” he said, under his breath, “that I shall not marry you. But—would + you care to begin your studies again?” + </p> + <p> + There was a long silence: She remained with face partly averted until the + orchestra ceased. Then she turned and looked at him, and he saw her lip + tremble. + </p> + <p> + “I had not thought you meant to ask me—that. I do not quite + understand what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “I care enough for you to wish to help you. May I?” + </p> + <p> + “I was not sure you cared—enough—” + </p> + <p> + “Do you—for me?” + </p> + <p> + “Before I say that I do—care for you—” she began, tremulously—“tell + me that I have nothing to fear—” + </p> + <p> + Neither spoke. Over her shoulder Drene stared at the distant man who + stared back at him. + </p> + <p> + Presently his eyes reverted to hers, absently studying the childlike + beauty of her. + </p> + <p> + “I’m going to tell you something,” he said. “Love is no more wonderful + than hate, no more perfect, no more eternal. And it is less fierce, and + not as strong.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” she whispered, bewildered at the sinister change in him. + </p> + <p> + “And I want to tell you another thing. I am alone in the world. What I + have, I have devised to you—in case I step out—suddenly—” + </p> + <p> + He paused, hesitated, then: + </p> + <p> + “Also I desire you to hear something else,” he went on. “This is the + proper time for you to hear it, I think—now—to-night—” + </p> + <p> + He lifted his blazing eyes and looked at the other man. + </p> + <p> + “There was a woman,” he said—“She happened to be my wife. Also there + was my closest friend: and myself. The comedy was cast. Afterward she died—abroad. + I believe he was there at the time—Kept up a semblance—But he + never married her.... And I do not intend to marry—you.” + </p> + <p> + After a moment: “And that,” she whispered, “is why you once said to me + that I should have let you alone.” + </p> + <p> + “Did I say that to you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” She looked up at him, straight into his eyes: “But if you care for + me—I do not regret that I did not let you alone.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall not marry you.” + </p> + <p> + Her lip trembled but she smiled. + </p> + <p> + “That is nothing new to me,” she said. “Only one man has offered that.” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn’t you take him?” he asked, with an ugly laugh. + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t. I cared for you.” + </p> + <p> + “And now,” he said, “are you afraid of me?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—a little.” + </p> + <p> + He leaned forward suddenly, “You’d better steer clear of me!” Her startled + eyes beheld in him a change as swift as his words. + </p> + <p> + “Fair warning!” he added: “look out for yourself.” Everything that was + brutal in him; everything ruthless and violent had marred his features so + that all in a moment the mouth had grown ugly and a hard, bruised look + stamped the pallid muscles of his features and twitched at them. + </p> + <p> + “You’re taking chances from now on,” he said. “I told you once to let me + alone. You’d better do it now. And—” he stared at the distant man—“I + told you that hate is more vital than love. It is. I’ve waited a long time + to strike. Even now it isn’t in me to do it as I have meant to do it. And + so I tell you to keep away from me; and I’ll strike in the old-fashioned + way, and end it—to-night.” + </p> + <p> + Stunned by his sudden and dreadful metamorphosis, her ears ringing with + his disjointed incoherencies, she rose, scarcely knowing what she was + doing, scarcely conscious that he was beside her, moving lightly and in + silence out into the brilliant darkness of the streets. + </p> + <p> + It was only at her own door that he spoke again: standing there on the + shabby steps of her boarding-house, the light from the transom yellowing + his ghastly face. + </p> + <p> + “Something snapped”—he passed an unsteady hand across his eyes;—“I + care very deeply for you. I—they’ll make over to you—what I + have. You can study on it—live on it, modestly—” + </p> + <p> + “W-what is the matter? Are you ill?” she stammered, white and frightened. + </p> + <p> + But he only muttered that she had her warning and that she should keep + away from him, and that it would not be long before she should have an + opportunity in life. And he went his way not looking back. + </p> + <p> + When he reached his studio the hall was dark. As he turned the key he + thought he heard something stirring in the shadows, but went in—leaving + the door into the hallway open—and straight on across the room to + his desk. + </p> + <p> + He was putting something into his coat pocket, and his back was still + turned to the open door when Graylock stepped quietly across the + threshold; and Drene heard him, but closed his desk, leisurely, and then, + as leisurely, turned, knowing who had entered. + </p> + <p> + And so they stood alone together after many years. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + Graylock looked at Drene’s heavily sagging pocket and knew what was in it. + A sudden sweat chilled his temples, but he said steadily enough: + </p> + <p> + “I’d like to say a word or two—if you’ll give me time.” And, as + Drene made no reply;—“You’re quite right: This business of ours + should be finished one way or another. I can’t stand it any longer.” + </p> + <p> + “In that case,” remarked Drene with an evil stare at him, “I may postpone + it—to find out how much you can stand.” He dropped his right hand + into the sagging pocket, looking intently at Graylock all the while: + </p> + <p> + “What do you want here anyway?” + </p> + <p> + “I fancy that you have already guessed.” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe. All the same, what do you want?”—fumbling with his bulging + pocket for a moment and then remaining motionless. + </p> + <p> + Graylock’s worn eyes rested on the outline of the shrouded weapon: he + stood eyeing it absently for a moment, then seated himself on the sofa, + his heavy eyes shifting from one object to another. + </p> + <p> + But there were few objects to be seen in that silent place;—a star + overhead glimmering through the high expanse of glass above;—otherwise + gray monotony of wall, a clay shape or two swathed in wet clothes, a + narrow ring of lamp light, and formless shadow. + </p> + <p> + “It’s a long time, Drene.” + </p> + <p> + Drene mused in silence, now and then watching the other obliquely. + </p> + <p> + Presently he withdrew his right hand from his coat pocket, pulled an + armchair toward him and seated himself. + </p> + <p> + “It’s many years,” repeated Graylock. “I expected you to do something + before this.” + </p> + <p> + “Were you uneasy?” sneered Drene. Then he shrugged, knowing that Graylock + was no coward, sorry he had intimated as much, like a man who deals a + premature and useless blow. + </p> + <p> + He sat brooding for a while, his lean dangerous head lowered sideways as + though listening; his oblique glance always covering Graylock. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you’ll be surprised when I tell you one reason that I came + here,” said Graylock. + </p> + <p> + “Do you suppose you can still surprise me by anything you may say or do?” + </p> + <p> + The man remained silent, sitting with his hands tightly clasped on his + knees. + </p> + <p> + “Drene,” he said, in a low voice, “don’t strike at me through this young + girl.” + </p> + <p> + Drene began to laugh, unpleasantly. + </p> + <p> + “Are you in love with her?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.... You know it.” + </p> + <p> + Drene said, still laughing: “It’s the common rumor. You may imagine it + amuses your friends—if you have any left.” + </p> + <p> + Graylock spoke in a voice that had a ghostly sound in the great room: + </p> + <p> + “Don’t harm her, Drene. It is not necessary. I shall never see her again—if + that will content you.” + </p> + <p> + Drene laughed: “I never saw my wife again. Did that help me? I never saw + her again, but as long as she lived I knew what she was ... My wife. And + when she died, still my wife. There was no relief—no relief.” + </p> + <p> + Graylock, deathly white, framed his haggard face between his hands and + stared at nothing: + </p> + <p> + “I know,” he said. “I understand now. I am here to-night to pay the + reckoning.” + </p> + <p> + “You can’t pay it.” + </p> + <p> + “No, not the whole score. There’s another bill, I suppose, waiting for me—somewhere. + But I can settle my indebtedness to you—” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s up to you, Drene.” + </p> + <p> + “How?” repeated Drene, violently. + </p> + <p> + Graylock made a slight gesture with his head toward Drene’s sagging + pocket: “That way if you like. Or,” he added, “There is a harder + punishment.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “To give her up.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Drene, “that is harder. But I can make it even harder than + that. I can make it as hard for you as you made it for me. I can let you + live through it.” + </p> + <p> + He laughed, fisted in his pocket, drew out the lumpy automatic and + leisurely pushed the lever to “safe.” + </p> + <p> + He said: “To kill you would be like opening the cell door for a lifer. You + know what you are while you’re alive; maybe you’d forget if you were dead. + I—” + </p> + <p> + He ceased, fiddling absently with the dull-colored weapon on his knee; and + for a while they remained silent, not looking at each other. And when + Drene spoke again he was still intent upon the automatic. + </p> + <p> + “If I knew what happens after a man dies I could act intelligently.” He + shot an ugly look at Graylock: “I don’t know about you, either. You’re a + rat. But you might fool me at that. You might be repentant. And in that + case you’d get away—if it’s true that the eleventh hour is not too + late.... If it’s true that Christ is merciful.... So I’ll take no chances + of a getaway. You might fool me—one way or another—if you were + dead.” + </p> + <p> + Graylock lifted his head from his hands: “I don’t know how much of the + other debt I’ve already paid, Drene. But I’ve paid heavily since I knew + her—if that is any satisfaction to you. And since I knew she cared + for you, and when I realized that you meant to strike me through her—I + have paid, heavily.... Yet, if you were honestly in love with her—” + </p> + <p> + “Is that any of your damned business?” + </p> + <p> + “She’s only a child—” + </p> + <p> + “You rat! That’s what’s coming to you!” + </p> + <p> + “If you say so. But what is coming to her, Drene?” + </p> + <p> + “Continue to guess. But I know you. It’s yourself you’re sorry for and + what you’ll have to endure—live through. That’s what you can’t + stand, and remain the sleek, self-satisfied rat you are. No, it will make + earth a living hell for you; never a second, day or night, will you be + able to forget—if you really do love her.... And I believe you do—I + don’t understand how a thing like you can love—but it seems it can.” + </p> + <p> + After a silence Graylock said: “You don’t care if you damn yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s worth it to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you willing that I should know you are as great a blackguard as I + am?” Drene’s gaunt features reddened and he set his jaws in silence. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you care what you do to her?” asked Graylock, unsteadily. “It’s a + viler business than that for which you are punishing me.” + </p> + <p> + For a long time Drene sat there looking down at the weapon on his knees. + And after a while, the other man spoke huskily: “It’s bad enough either + way for me, Drene. I’ll do what you wish in the matter. I’ll leave the + country; I’ll stay; whichever you say. Or,” he said with a ghastly smile, + “I’ll clean out that automatic for you to-night—if you’ll marry + her.” + </p> + <p> + Drene looked up, slowly: + </p> + <p> + “What did you say?” + </p> + <p> + “I said that I’d clean out your automatic for you—to-night—if + you wish.... It can be an accident or not, just as you say.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “In my own rooms—if it is to be an accident.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you offer—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; if you’ll marry her afterwards. If you say you will I’ll take your + word.” + </p> + <p> + “And then you’ll be out of your misery, you damned coward!” + </p> + <p> + “God knows.... But I think not,” said Graylock, under his breath. + </p> + <p> + Drene twisted the automatic, rose and continued to twirl it, considering. + Presently he began to pace the floor, no longer noticing the other man. + Once his promenade brought him up facing the wall where a calendar hung. + </p> + <p> + He stood for a while looking at it absently. After a few moments he + stepped nearer, detached the sheet for the present month, then one by one + tore off the remaining sheets until he came to the month marked December, + Graylock watching him all the while. + </p> + <p> + “I think it happened on Christmas,” remarked Drene turning toward the + other and laying a finger on the number 25 printed in red. + </p> + <p> + Graylock’s head bent slightly. + </p> + <p> + “Very well. Suppose about eleven o’clock on Christmas night you give your + automatic a thorough cleaning. + </p> + <p> + “If you say so.” + </p> + <p> + “You have one?” + </p> + <p> + “I shall buy one.” + </p> + <p> + “Didn’t you come here armed?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + Drene looked at him very intently. But Graylock had never been a liar. + After a few moments he went over to his desk, replaced the weapon under + the papers, and, still busy, said over his shoulder: + </p> + <p> + “All right. You can go.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <h3> + He wrote to Cecile once: + </h3> + <p> + Hereafter keep clear of men like Graylock and like me. We’re both of a + stripe—the same sort under our skins. I’ve known him all my life. It + all depends upon the opportunity, the circumstances, and the woman. And, + what is a woman between friends—between such friends as Graylock and + I once were—or between the sort of friends we have now become? Keep + clear of such men as we are. We were boys together. + </p> + <p> + For a week or two he kept his door locked and lived on what the janitor + provided for him, never going out of the studio at all. + </p> + <p> + He did no work, although there were several unexecuted commissions + awaiting his attention and a number of sketches, clay studies, and one + marble standing around the studio in various stages of progress. The + marble was the Annunciation. The head and throat and slender hands were + completed, and one slim naked foot. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes he wandered from one study to the next, vague-eyed, standing for + a long time before each, staring, lost in thought. Sometimes, in the + evening he read, choosing a book at random among the motley collection in + a corner case—a dusty, soiled assortment of books, ephemeral novels + of the moment, ponderous volumes which are in everybody’s library but + which nobody reads, sets of histories, memoirs, essays, beautifully bound + and once cared for, but now dirty from neglect—jetsam from a wrecked + home. + </p> + <p> + There had been a time when law, order and neatness formed the basis of + Drene’s going forth and coming in. He had been exact, precise, fastidious; + he had been sensitive to environment, a lover of beautiful things, a man + who deeply appreciated any symbol that suggested home and hearth and + family. + </p> + <p> + But when these three were shattered in the twinkling of an eye, something + else broke, too. And he gradually emerged from chaos, indifferent to all + that had formerly been a part of him, a silent emotionless, burnt out + thing, callous to all that he had once cared for. + </p> + <p> + Yet something of what he had been must have remained latent within him for + with unimpaired precision and logic he constructed his clay and chiseled + his marble; and there must have been in him something to express, for the + beauty of his work, spiritual and material, had set him high among the + highest in his profession. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes sorrow changes the dross from the lamp of the spirit so that it + burns with a purity almost unearthly; sometimes sorrow sears, rendering + the very soul insensible; and sometimes sorrow remains under the ashes, a + living coal steadily consuming all that is noble, hardening all that is + ignoble; and is extinguished leaving a devil behind it—fully + equipped to slay the crippled soul. + </p> + <p> + Alone in his studio at night, motionless in his chair, Drene was becoming + aware of this devil. Reading by lamplight he grew conscious of it; + recognized it as a companion of many years, now understanding that + although pain had ended, hatred had remained, hiding, biding, and very, + very quiet. + </p> + <p> + And suddenly this hatred had flamed like hell-fire, amazing even himself—that + day when, lifted out of his indifference for an instant by a young girl’s + gaiety—and with a smile, half-responsive, on his own unaccustomed + lips, he had learned from her in the same instant, that the man he had + almost ceased to remember was honestly in love with her. + </p> + <p> + And suddenly he knew that he hated and that he should strike, and that + there could be no comparison in perfection between hatred and what perhaps + was love. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes, at night, lying on the studio couch, he found himself still + hesitating. Could Graylock be reached after death? Was it possible? If he + broke his word after Graylock was dead could he still strike and reach him + through the woman for whose sake he, Graylock, was going to step out of + things? + </p> + <p> + That occupied his mind continually, now. Was there anybody who could tell + him about such matters? Did clergymen really know whether the soul + survived? And if it did, and if truly there were a hell, could a living + man add anything to its torments for his enemy’s benefit? + </p> + <p> + One day the janitor, lingering, ventured to ask Drene whether he was + feeling quite well. + </p> + <p> + “Yes” said Drene, “I am well.” + </p> + <p> + The janitor spoke of his not eating. And, as Drene said nothing, he + mentioned the fact that Drene had not set foot outside his own quarters in + many weeks. + </p> + <p> + Drene nodded: “I expect to go for a walk this evening.” + </p> + <p> + But he did not. He lay on his couch, eyes open in the darkness, wondering + what Graylock was doing, how he lived, what occupied his days. + </p> + <p> + What were the nights of a condemned man like? Did Graylock sleep? Did he + suffer? Was the suspense a living death to him? Had he ever suspected him, + Drene, of treachery after he, Graylock, had fulfilled his final part of + the bargain. + </p> + <p> + For a long time, now, a fierce curiosity concerning what Graylock was + thinking and doing had possessed Drene. What does a man, who is in good + physical health, do, when he is at liberty to compute to the very second + how many seconds of life remain for him? + </p> + <p> + Drene’s sick brain ached with the problem day and night. + </p> + <p> + In November the snow fell. Drene had not been out except in imagination. + </p> + <p> + Day after day, in imagination, he had followed Graylock, night after + night, slyly, stealthily, shirking after him through busy avenues at + midday, lurking by shadowy houses at midnight, burning to see what + expression this man wore, what was imprinted on his features;—obsessed + by a desire to learn what he might be thinking—with death drawing + nearer. + </p> + <p> + But Drene, in the body, had never stirred from his own chilly room—a + gaunt, fierce-eyed thing, unkempt, half-clothed, huddled all day in his + chair brooding above his bitten nails, or flung starkly across his couch + at night staring at the stars through the dirty crust of glass above. + </p> + <p> + One night in December when the stars were all staring steadily back at + him, and his thoughts were out somewhere in the darkness following his + enemy, he heard somebody laughing in the room. + </p> + <p> + For a while he lay very still, listening; but when he realized that the + laughter was his own he sat up, pressing his temples between hot and + trembling fingers. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to silence the laughter: terror subsided to a tremulous + apprehension—as though he had been on the verge of something + horrible sinking into it for a moment—but had escaped. + </p> + <p> + Again he found himself thinking of Graylock, and presently he laughed; + then frightened, checked himself. But his fevered brain had been afire too + long; he lay fighting with his thoughts to hold them in leash lest they + slip out into the night like blood hounds on the trail of the man they had + dogged so long. + </p> + <p> + Trembling, terrified, he set his teeth in his bleeding lip, and clenched + his gaunt fists: He could not hold his thoughts in leash; could not + control the terrifying laughter; hatred blazed like hell-fire scorching + the soul in him, searing his aching brain with flames which destroy. + </p> + <p> + In the darkness he struggled blindly to his feet; and he saw the stars + through the glass roof all ablaze in the midnight sky; saw the infernal + flicker of pale flames in the obscurity around him, heard a voice calling + for help—his own voice— + </p> + <p> + Then something stirred in the darkness; he listened, stared, striving to + pierce the obscurity with fevered eyes. + </p> + <p> + Long since the cloths that swathed the clay figures in the studio had + dried out unnoticed by him. He gazed from one to another, holding his + breath. Then his eyes rested upon the altar piece, fell on the snowy foot, + were lifted inch by inch along the marble folds upward slowly to the slim + and child-like hands— + </p> + <p> + “Oh, God!” he whispered, knowing he had gone mad at last. + </p> + <p> + For, under the carven fingers, the marble folds of the robe over the heart + were faintly glowing from some inward radiance. And, as he reeled forward + and dropped at the altar foot, lifting his burning eyes, he saw the + child-like head bend toward him from the slender neck—saw that the + eyes were faintly blue— + </p> + <p> + “Mother of God!” he screamed, “my mind is dying—my mind is dying! + ... We were boys, he and I.... Let God judge him.... Let him be judged... + mercifully.... I am worse than he.... There is no hell. I have striven to + fashion one—I have desired to send him thither—Mother of God—Cecile—” + </p> + <p> + Under his fevered eyes he was confusing them, now, and he sank down close + against the pedestal and laid his f ace against her small cold foot. + </p> + <p> + “I am sick,” he rambled on—“and very tired.... We were boys + together, Cecile.... When I am in my right mind I would not harm him.... + He was so handsome and daring. There was nothing he dared not do.... So + young, and straight, and daring.... I would not harm him. Or you, + Cecile.... Only I am sick, burning out, with only a crippled mind left—from + being badly hurt—It never got well. ... And now it is dying of its + hurt—Cecile!—Mother of God!—before it dies I do forgive + him—and ask forgiveness—for Christ’s sake—” + </p> + <p> + Toward noon the janitor broke in the door. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + It was late in December before Drene opened his eyes in his right senses. + He unclosed them languidly, gazed at the footboard of his bed, then, + around at the four shabby walls of his room. + </p> + <p> + “Cecile?” he said, distinctly. + </p> + <p> + The girl who had been watching him laid aside her sewing, rose, and bent + over him. Suddenly her pale face flushed and one hand flew to her throat. + </p> + <p> + “Dearest?” he said, inquiringly. + </p> + <p> + Then down on her knees fell the girl, and groped for his wasted hand and + laid her cheek on it, crying silently. + </p> + <p> + As for Drene, he lay there, his hollow eyes roaming from wall to wall. At + last he turned his head on the pillow and looked down at her. + </p> + <p> + The next day when he opened his eyes from a light sleep his skin was moist + and cool and he managed to move his hand toward hers as she bent over him. + </p> + <p> + “I want—Graylock,” he whispered. The girl flushed, bent nearer, + gazing at him intently. + </p> + <p> + “Graylock,” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Not now,” she murmured, “not today. Rest for a while.” + </p> + <p> + “Please,” he said, looking up at her trustfully—“Graylock. Now.” + </p> + <p> + “When you are well—” + </p> + <p> + “I am—well. Please, dear.” + </p> + <p> + For a while she continued sitting there on the side of his bed, his limp + hands in hers, her lips pressed against them. But he never took his eyes + from her, and in them she saw only the same wistful expression, + unchanging, trustful that she would do his bidding. + </p> + <p> + So at last she went into the studio and wrote a note to Graylock. It was + late. She went downstairs to the janitor’s quarters where there was a + messenger call. But no messenger came probably Christmas day kept them + busy. Perhaps, too, some portion of the holiday was permitted them, for it + was long after dinner and the full tide of gaiety in town was doubtless at + its flood. + </p> + <p> + So she waited until it was plain that no messenger was coming; then she + rose from the chair and stood gazing out into the wintry darkness through + the dirty basement window. Clocks were striking eleven. + </p> + <p> + As she turned to go her eye fell upon the telephone. She hesitated. But + the memory of Drene’s eyes, their wistfulness and trust decided her. + </p> + <p> + After a little waiting she got Graylock’s apartment. A servant asked her + to hold the wire. + </p> + <p> + After an interval she recognized Graylock’s voice at the telephone, + pleasant, courteous, serenely wishing her the happiness of the season. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing this Christmas night?” she asked. “Surely you are not + all alone there at home?” + </p> + <p> + “I am rather too old for anything else,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “But what are you doing? Reading?” + </p> + <p> + “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I happened to be cleaning an automatic + revolver when you called up.” + </p> + <p> + “What a gay employment for Christmas night! Is that your idea of + celebrating?” + </p> + <p> + “There happens to be nothing else for me to do tonight.” + </p> + <p> + “But there is. You are requested to make a call.” + </p> + <p> + “On whom?” he asked, quietly. + </p> + <p> + “On Mr. Drene.” + </p> + <p> + For a full minute he remained silent, although she spoke to him twice, + thinking the connection might have been interrupted. Then his voice came, + curiously altered: + </p> + <p> + “Who asked that of me?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Drene.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Drene is very ill, I hear.” + </p> + <p> + “He is convalescent.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he ask you to call me?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly.” + </p> + <p> + “Then—you are with him?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “In his apartment. I came downstairs to the janitor’s rooms. I am + telephoning from there what he wished me to ask you.” + </p> + <p> + After a pause Graylock said: “Is his mind perfectly clear?” + </p> + <p> + “Perfectly, now.” + </p> + <p> + “He asked for me?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Will you come?” + </p> + <p> + “He asked for me? Tonight? At eleven o’clock?” + </p> + <p> + She said: “I don’t think he knows even what month it is. He has only been + conscious for a day or two. Had he known it was Christmas night perhaps he + might not have disturbed you. But—will you come?” + </p> + <p> + “I am afraid it is too late—to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “Tomorrow, then? Shall I tell him?” + </p> + <p> + There was a silence. She repeated the question. But Graylock’s reply was + inaudible and she thought he said good-bye instead of good night. + </p> + <p> + Somewhere in the rear of the basement the janitor and his family and + probably all his relatives were celebrating. A fiddle squeaked in there; + there was a steady tumult of voices and laughter. + </p> + <p> + The girl stood a while listening, a slight smile on her lips. Blessed + happiness had come to her in time for Christmas—a strange and + heavenly happiness, more wonderful than when a life is spared to one who + loves, for it had been more than the mere life of this man she had asked + of God: it had been his mind. + </p> + <p> + He lay asleep when she entered and stood by the shaded lamp, looking down + at him. + </p> + <p> + After a while she seated herself and took up her sewing. But laid it aside + again as there came a low knocking at the door. + </p> + <p> + Drene opened his eyes as Graylock entered all alone and stood still beside + the bed looking down at him. In the studio Cecile moved about singing + under her breath. They both heard her. + </p> + <p> + Drene nodded weakly. After a moment he made the effort to speak: + </p> + <p> + “I am trying to get well—to start again—better—live more—nobly. + ... Take your chance, too.” + </p> + <p> + “If you wish, Drene.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I was not—very—well. I had been ill—very—a + long while ... And you are not to clean the automatic.... Only your + own-soul.... Ask help.... You’ll get it..... I did.... And—all that + is true—what we believed—as boys.... I know. I’ve seen. And + it’s all true—all true—what we believed—as little boys.” + </p> + <p> + He looked up at Graylock, then closed his eyes with the shadow of a smile + in them. + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye—Jack,” he whispered. + </p> + <p> + Graylock’s mouth quivered, his lips moved in speech; and perhaps Drene + heard and understood, for he opened his eyes and looked once more at his + boyhood friend. + </p> + <p> + “Somewhere—somebody will straighten out—all this,” he + murmured, closing his eyes again: “We can’t; we can only try—to + straighten out—ourselves.” + </p> + <p> + Graylock looked down at him in silence, then, tall and heavily erect, he + turned away. + </p> + <p> + Cecile met him from the studio. + </p> + <p> + “Good night,” she said, offering her hand.... “And a happy Christmas.... I + hope you will not be lonely.” + </p> + <p> + He took her hand, gravely, thanked her, and went his way forever. + </p> + <p> + For a few minutes she lingered in the doorway connecting Drene’s bedroom + with the studio. She held a sprig of holly. + </p> + <p> + After a little while he opened his eyes and looked at her, and, smiling, + she came forward to the bedside. + </p> + <p> + “It was a terrible dream,” he whispered—“all those years. But it was + a dream.” + </p> + <p> + “You must dream no more.” + </p> + <p> + “No. Come nearer.” + </p> + <p> + She rested on the bed’s edge beside him and laid one hand on his. The + other held the holly, but he did not notice it until she offered it. + </p> + <p> + “Dear,” she whispered, “it is Christmas night. And you did not even know + it.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the tears he had not known for years burned in his eyes, and he + closed them, trembling, awed by the mercy of God that had been vouchsafed + to him at the eleventh hour, else he had slain his soul. + </p> + <p> + After a while he felt her lips touching his brow. And now silent in the + spell of the dream that invaded her—the exquisite vision of wifehood—she + sat motionless with childlike eyes lost in thought. + </p> + <p> + Once more he turned his head and looked at her. Then her slender neck + bent, and he saw that her eyes were divinely blue— + </p> + <p> + “Cecile!”—he faltered—“Madonna inviolate!... The woman—between—friends—” + </p> + <p> + THE END <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Between Friends, by Robert W. 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Chambers + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8441] +Posting Date: July 30, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN FRIENDS *** + + + + +Produced by Andre Boutin-Maloney + + + + + + + + +BETWEEN FRIENDS + +By Robert W. Chambers + + +1914 + + + + +I + +Like a man who reenters a closed and darkened house and lies down; lying +there, remains conscious of sunlight outside, of bird-calls, and the +breeze in the trees, so had Drene entered into the obscurity of himself. + +Through the chambers of his brain the twilit corridors where cringed his +bruised and disfigured soul, there nothing stirring except the automatic +pulses which never cease. + +Sometimes, when the sky itself crashes earthward and the world lies in +ruins from horizon to horizon, life goes on. + +The things that men live through--and live! + +But no doubt Death was too busy elsewhere to attend to Drene. + +He had become very lean by the time it was all over. Gray glinted on his +temples; gray softened his sandy mustache: youth was finished as far as +he was concerned. + +An odd idea persisted in his mind that it had been winter for many +years. And the world thawed out very slowly for him. + +But broken trees leaf out, and hewed roots sprout; and what he had so +long mistaken for wintry ashes now gleamed warmly like the orange +and gold of early autumn. After a while he began to go about more or +less--little excursions from the dim privacy of mind and soul--and he +found the sun not very gray; and a south wind blowing in the world once +more. + +Quair and Guilder were in the studio that day on business; Drene +continued to modify his composition in accordance with Guilder's +suggestions; Quair, always curious concerning Drene, was becoming slyly +impudent. + +"And listen to me, Guilder. What the devil's a woman between friends?" +argued Quair, with a malicious side glance at Drene. "You take my best +girl away from me--" + +"But I don't," remarked his partner dryly. + +"For the sake of argument, you do. What happens? Do I raise hell? No. I +merely thank you. Why? Because I don't want her if you can get her away. +That," he added, with satisfaction, "is philosophy. Isn't it, Drene?" + +Guilder intervened pleasantly: + +"I don't think Drene is particularly interested in philosophy. I'm sure +I'm not. Shut up, please." + +Drene, gravely annoyed, continued to pinch bits of modeling wax out of a +round tin box, and to stick them all over the sketch he was modifying. + +Now and then he gave a twirl to the top of his working table, which +revolved with a rusty squeak. + +"If you two unusually intelligent gentlemen ask me what good a woman the +world--" began Quair. + +"But we don't," interrupted Guilder, in the temperate voice peculiar to +his negative character. + +"Anyway," insisted Quair, "here's what I think of 'em--" + +"My model, yonder," said Drene, a slight shrug of contempt, "happens +to be feminine, and may also be human. Be decent enough to defer the +development of your rather tiresome theory." + +The girl on the model-stand laughed outright at the rebuke, stretched +her limbs and body, and relaxed, launching a questioning glance at +Drene. + +"All right; rest a bit," said the sculptor, smearing the bit of wax he +was pinching over the sketch before him. + +He gave another twirl or two to the table, wiped his bony fingers on +a handful of cotton waste, picked up his empty pipe, and blew into the +stem, reflectively. + +Quair, one of the associated architects of the new opera, who had been +born a gentleman and looked the perfect bounder, sauntered over to +examine the sketch. He was still red from the rebuke he had invited. + +Guilder, his senior colleague, got up from the lounge and walked over +also. Drene fitted the sketch into the roughly designed group, where it +belonged, and stood aside, sucking meditatively on his empty pipe. + +After a silence: + +"It's all right," said Guilder. + +Quair remarked that the group seemed to lack flamboyancy. It is true, +however, that, except for Guilder's habitual restraint, the celebrated +firm of architects was inclined to express themselves flamboyantly, and +to interpret Renaissance in terms of Baroque. + +"She's some girl," added Quair, looking at the lithe, modeled figure, +and then half turning to include the model, who had seated herself on +the lounge, and was now gazing with interest at the composition sketched +in by Drene for the facade of the new opera. + +"Carpeaux and his eternal group--it's the murderous but inevitable +standard of comparison," mused Drene, with a whimsical glance at the +photograph on the wall. + +"Carpeaux has nothing on this young lady," insisted Quair flippantly; +and he pivoted on his heel and sat down beside the model. Once or twice +the two others, consulting before the wax group, heard the girl's light, +untroubled laughter behind their backs gaily responsive to Quair's +wit. Perhaps Quair's inheritance had been humor, but to some it seemed +perilously akin to mother-wit. + +The pockets of Guilder's loose, ill-fitting clothes bulged with linen +tracings and rolls of blue-prints. He and Drene consulted over these for +a while, semi-conscious of Quair's bantering voice and the girl's easily +provoked laughter behind them. And, finally: + +"All right, Guilder," said Drene briefly. And the firm of celebrated +architects prepared to evacuate the studio--Quair exhibiting symptoms of +incipient skylarking, in which he was said to be at his best. + +"Drop in on me at the office some time," he suggested to the youthful +model, in a gracious tone born of absolute self-satisfaction. + +"For luncheon or dinner?" retorted the girl, with smiling audacity. + +"You may stay to breakfast also--" + +"Oh, come on," drawled Guilder, taking his colleague's elbow. + +The sculptor yawned as Quair went out: then he closed the door then +celebrated firm of architects, and wandered back rather aimlessly. + +For a while he stood by the great window, watching the pigeons on +neighboring roof. Presently he returned to his table, withdrew the +dancing figure with its graceful, wide flung arms, set it upon the +squeaky revolving table once more, and studied it, yawning at intervals. + +The girl got up from the sofa behind him, went to the model-stand, and +mounted it. For a few moments she was busy adjusting her feet to the +chalk marks and blocks. Finally she took the pose. She always seemed +inclined to be more or less vocal while Drene worked; her voice, if +untrained, was untroubled. Her singing had never bothered Drene, nor, +until the last few days, had he even particularly noticed her blithe +trilling--as a man a field, preoccupied, is scarcely aware of the wild +birds' gay irrelevancy along the way. + +He happened to notice it now, and a thought passed through his mind that +the country must be very lovely in the mild spring sunshine. + +As he worked, the brief visualization of young grass and the faint blue +of skies, evoked, perhaps, by the girl's careless singing, made for his +dull concentration subtly pleasant environment. + +"May I rest?" she asked at length. + +"Certainly, if it's necessary." + +"I've brought my lunch. It's twelve," she explained. + +He glanced at her absently, rolling a morsel of wax; then, with slight +irritation which ended in a shrug, he motioned her to descend. + +After all, girls, like birds, were eternally eating. Except for that, +and incessant preening, existence meant nothing more important to either +species. + +He had been busy for a few moments with the group when she said +something to him, and he looked around from his abstraction. She was +holding out toward him a chicken sandwich. + +When his mind came back from wool gathering, he curtly declined the +offer, and, as an afterthought, bestowed upon her a wholly mechanical +smile, in recognition of a generosity not welcome. + +"Why don't you ever eat luncheon?" she asked. + +"Why should I?" he replied, preoccupied. + +"It's bad for you not to. Besides, you are growing thin." + +"Is that your final conclusion concerning me, Cecile?" he asked, +absently. + +"Won't you please take this sandwich?" + +Her outstretched arm more than what she said arrested his drifting +attention again. + +"Why the devil do you want me to eat?" he inquired, fishing out his +empty pipe and filling it. + +"You smoke too much. It's bad for you. It will do very queer things to +the lining of your stomach if you smoke your luncheon instead of eating +it." + +He yawned. + +"Is that so?" he said. + +"Certainly it's so. Please take this sandwich." + +He stood looking at the outstretched arm, thinking of other things and +the girl sprang to her feet, caught his hand, opened the fingers, placed +the sandwich on the palm, then, with a short laugh as though slightly +disconcerted by her own audacity, she snatched the pipe from his left +hand and tossed it upon the table. When she had reseated herself on +the lounge beside her pasteboard box of luncheon, she became even more +uncertain concerning the result of what she had done, and began to view +with rising alarm the steady gray eyes that were so silently inspecting +her. + +But after a moment Drene walked over to the sofa, seated himself, +curiously scrutinized the sandwich which lay across the palm of his +hand, then gravely tasted it. + +"This will doubtless give me indigestion," he remarked. "Why, Cecile, do +you squander your wages on nourishment for me?" + +"It cost only five cents." + +"But why present five cents to me?" "I gave ten to a beggar this +morning." + +"Why?" + +"I don't know." + +"Was he grateful?" + +"He seemed to be." + +"This sandwich is excellent; but if I feel the worse for it, I'll not be +very grateful to you." But he continued eating. + +"'The woman tempted me,'" she quoted, glancing at him sideways. + +After a moment's survey of her: + +"You're one of those bright, saucy, pretty, inexplicable things that +throng this town and occasionally flit through this profession--aren't +you?" + +"Am I?" + +"Yes. Nobody looks for anything except mediocrity; you're one of the +surprises. Nobody expects you; nobody can account for you, but you +appear now and then, here and there, anywhere, even everywhere--a pretty +sparkle against the gray monotony of life, a momentary flash like a +golden moat afloat in sunshine--and what then?" + +She laughed. + +"What then? What becomes of you? Where do you go? What do you turn +into?" + +"I don't know." + +"You go somewhere, don't you? You change into something, don't you? What +happens to you, petite Cigale?" + +"When?" + +"When the sunshine is turned off and the snow comes." + +"I don't know, Mr. Drene." She broke her chocolate cake into halves and +laid one on his knee. + +"Thanks for further temptation," he said grimly. + +"You are welcome. It's good, isn't it?" + +"Excellent. Adam liked the apple, too. But it raised hell with him." + +She laughed, shot a direct glance at him, and began to nibble her cake, +with her eyes still fixed on him. + +Once or twice he encountered her gaze but his own always wandered +absently elsewhere. + +"You think a great deal, don't you?" she remarked. + +"Don't you?" + +"I try not to--too much." + +"What?" he asked, swallowing the last morsel of cake. + +She shrugged her shoulders: + +"What's the advantage of thinking?" + +He considered her reply for a moment, her blue and rather childish +eyes, and the very pure oval of her face. Then his attention flagged as +usual--was wandering--when she sighed, very lightly, so that he scarcely +heard it--merely noticed it sufficiently to conclude that, as usual, +there was the inevitable hard luck story afloat in her vicinity, and +that he lacked the interest to listen to it. + +"Thinking," she said, "is a luxury to a tranquil mind and a punishment +to a troubled one. So I try not to." + +It was a moment or two before it occurred to him that the girl had +uttered an unconscious epigram. + +"It sounded like somebody--probably Montaigne. Was it?" he inquired. + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"Oh. Then it wasn't. You're a funny little girl, aren't you?" + +"Yes, rather." + +"On purpose?" + +"Yes, sometimes." + +He looked into her very clear eyes, now brightly blue with intelligent +perception of his not too civil badinage. + +"And sometimes," he went on, "you're funny when you don't intend to be." + +"You are, too, Mr. Drene." + +"What?" + +"Didn't you know it?" + +A dull color tinted his cheek bones. + +"No," he said, "I didn't know it." + +"But you are. For instance, you don't walk; you stalk. You do what +novelists make their gloomy heroes do--you stride. It's rather funny." + +"Really. And do you find my movements comic?" + +She was a trifle scared, now, but she laughed her breathless, youthful +laugh: + +"You are really very dramatic--a perfect story-book man. But, you know, +sometimes they are funny when the author doesn't intend them to be.... +Please don't be angry." + +Why the impudence of a model should have irritated him he was at a +loss to understand--unless there lurked under that impudence a trace of +unflattering truth. + +As he sat looking at her, all at once, and in an unexpected flash of +self-illumination, he realized that habit had made of him an actor; that +for a while--a long while--a space of time he could not at the moment +conveniently compute--he had been playing a role merely because he had +become accustomed to it. + +Disaster had cast him for a part. For a long while he had been that +part. Now he was still playing it from sheer force of habit. His tragedy +had really become only the shadow of a memory. Already he had emerged +from that shadow into the everyday outer world. But he had forgotten +that he still wore a somber makeup and costume which in the sunshine +might appear grotesque. No wonder the world thought him funny. + +Glancing up from a perplexed and chagrined meditation he caught her +eye--and found it penitent, troubled, and anxious. + +"You're quite right," he said, smiling easily and naturally; "I am +unintentionally funny. And I really didn't know it--didn't suspect +it--until this moment." + +"Oh," she said quickly. "I didn't mean--I know you are often unhappy--" + +"Nonsense!" + +"You are! Anybody can see--and you really do not seem to be very old, +either--when you smile--" + +"I'm not very old," he said, amused. "I'm not unhappy, either. If I ever +was, the truth is that I've almost forgotten by this time what it was +all about--" + +"A woman," she quoted, "between friends"--and checked herself, +frightened that she had dared interpret Quair's malice. + +He changed countenance at that; the dull red of anger clouded his +visage. + +"Oh," she faltered, "I was not saucy, only sorry.... I have been sorry +for you so long--" + +"Who intimated to you that a woman ever played any part in my career?" + +"It's generally supposed. I don't know anything more than that. But I've +been--sorry. Love is a very dreadful thing," she said under her breath. + +"Is it?" he asked, controlling a sudden desire to laugh. + +"Don't you think so?" + +"I have not thought of it that way, recently.... I haven't thought +about it at all--for some years.... Have you?" he added, trying to speak +gravely. + +"Oh, yes. I have thought of it," she admitted. + +"And you conclude it to be a rather dreadful business?" + +"Yes, it is." + +"How?" + +"Oh, I don't know. A girl usually loves the wrong man. To be poor is +always bad enough, but to be in love, too, is really very dreadful. It +usually finishes us--you know." + +"Are you in love?" he inquired, managing to repress his amusement. + +"I could be. I know that much." She went to the sink, turned on the +water, washed her hands, and stood with dripping fingers looking about +for a towel. + +"I'll get you one," he said. When he brought it, she laughed and held +out her hands to be dried. + +"Do you think you are a Sultana?" he inquired, draping the towel across +her outstretched arms and leaving it there. + +"I thought perhaps you'd dry them," she said sweetly. + +"Not in the business," he remarked; and lighted his pipe. + +Her hands were her particular beauty, soft and snowy. She was much in +demand among painters, and had posed many times for pictures of the +Virgin, her hands usually resting against her breast. + +Now she bestowed great care upon them, thoroughly drying each separate, +slender finger. Then she pushed back the heavy masses of her hair--"a +miracle of silk and sunshine," as Quair had whispered to her. That same +hair, also, was very popular among painters. + +It was her figure that fascinated sculptors. + +"Are you ready?" grunted Drene. Work presently recommenced. + +She was entirely accustomed to praise from men, for her general +attractiveness, for various separate features in what really was an +unusually lovely ensemble. + +She was also accustomed to flattery, to importunity, to the ordinary +variety of masculine solicitation; to the revelation of genuine feeling, +too, in its various modes of expression--sentimental, explosive, +insinuating--the entire gamut. + +She had remained, however, untouched; curious and amused, perhaps, yet +quite satisfied, so far, to be amused; and entirely content with her own +curiosity. + +She coquetted when she thought it safe; learned many things she had +not suspected; was more cautious afterwards, but still, at intervals, +ventured to use her attractiveness as a natural lure, as an excuse, as +a reason, as a weapon, when the probable consequences threatened no +embarrassment or unpleasantness for her. + +She was much liked, much admired, much attempted, and entirely +untempted. + +When the Make-up Club gave its annual play depicting the foibles of +artists and writers in the public eye, Cecile White was always cast for +a role which included singing and dancing. + +On and off for the last year or two she had posed for Drene, had +dropped into his studio to lounge about when he had no need of her +professionally, and when she had half an hour of idleness confronting +her. + +As she stood there now on the model stand, gazing dreamily from his busy +hands to his lean, intent features, it occurred to her that this day +had not been a sample of their usual humdrum relations. From the +very beginning of their business relations he had remained merely her +employer, self-centered, darkly absorbed in his work, or, when not +working, bored and often yawning. She had never come to know him any +better than when she first laid eyes on him. + +Always she had been a little interested in him, a little afraid, +sometimes venturing an innocent audacity, out of sheer curiosity +concerning the effect on him. But never had she succeeded in stirring +him to any expression of personal feeling in regard to herself, one way +or the other. + +Probably he had no personal feeling concerning her. It seemed odd to +her; model and master thrown alone together, day after day, usually +became friends in some degree. But there had been nothing at all of +camaraderie in their relationship, only a colorless, professional +sans-gene, the informality of intimacy without the kindly essence of +personal interest on his part. + +He paid her wages promptly; said good morning when she came, and +good night when she went; answered her questions when she asked them +seriously; relapsed into indifference or into a lazy and not too civil +badinage when she provoked him to it; and that was all. + +He never complimented her, never praised her; yet he must have thought +her a good model, or he would not have continued to send for her. + +"Do you think me pretty?" she had asked one day, saucily invading one of +his yawning silences. + +"I think you're pretty good," he replied, "as a model. You'd be quite +perfect if you were also deaf and dumb." + +That had been nearly a year ago. She thought of it now, a slight heat +in her cheeks as she remembered the snub, and her almost childish +amazement, and the hurt and offended silence which lasted all that +morning, but which, if he noticed at all, was doubtless entirely +gratifying to him. + +"May I rest?" + +"If it's necessary." + +She sprang lightly to the floor walked around behind him, and stood +looking at his work. + +"Do you want to know my opinion?" she asked. + +"Yes," he said, with unexpected urbanity; "if you are clever enough to +have an opinion. What is it?" + +She said, looking at the wax figure of herself and speaking with +deliberation: + +"In the last hour you have made out of a rather commonplace study an +entirely spontaneous and charming creation." + +"What!" he exclaimed, his face reddening with pleasure at her opinion, +and with surprise at her mode of expressing it. + +"It's quite true. That dancing figure is wholly charming. It is no +study; it is pure creation." + +He knew it; was a little thrilled that she, representing to him an +average and mediocre public, should recognize it so intelligently. + +"As though," she continued, "you had laid aside childish things." + +"What?" he asked, surprised again at the authority of the expression. + +"Academic precision and the respectable excellencies of-the-usual;--you +have put away childish things and become a man." + +"Where did you hear that?" he said bluntly. + +"I heard it when I said it. You know, Mr. Drene, I am not wholly +uneducated, although your amiable question insinuates as much." + +"I'm not unamiable. Only I didn't suppose--" + +"Oh, you never have supposed anything concerning me. So why are you +surprised when I express myself with fragmentary intelligence?" + +"I'm sorry--" + +"Listen to me. I'm not afraid of you any more. I've been afraid for two +years. Now, I'm not. Your study is masterly. I know it. You know it. You +didn't know I knew it; you didn't know I knew anything. And you didn't +care." + +She sat down on the sofa, facing him with a breathless smile. + +"You don't care what I think, what I am, what interests I may have, what +intellect, what of human desire, hope, fear, ambition animates me; do +you? You don't care whether I am ignorant or educated, bad or good, ill +or well--as long as it does not affect my posing for you; whether I am +happy or unhappy, whether I--" + +"For Heaven's sake--" + +"But you don't care!... Do you?" + +He was silent; he stood looking at her in a stupid sort of way. + +After a moment or two she rose, picked up her hat, went to the glass and +pinned it on, then strolled slowly back, drawing on her gloves. + +"It's five o'clock, you know, Drene." + +"Yes, certainly." + +"Do you want me to-morrow?" + +"Yes. Yes, of course." + +"You are not offended?" + +He did not answer. She came up to him and repeated the question in a +childishly anxious voice that was a trifle too humble. And looking down +into her eyes he saw a gleam of pure mischief in them. + +"You little villain!" he said; and caught her wrists. "A lot you care +whether I am offended!" + +She looked away from him, turning her profile. Her expression was +inscrutable. After a silence he dropped her wrists with a vague laugh. + +"You should have let me alone," he said. + +"'The woman tempted me,'" she repeated, still looking away from him. He +said nothing. + +"Good night," she nodded, and turned toward the door. + +He went with her, falling into step beside her. One arm slipped around +her waist as they entered the hallway. They walked slowly to the door. +He unlatched it, hesitated; she moved one foot forward, and he took a +step at the same time which brought her across his path so closely that +contact was unavoidable. And he kissed her. + +"Oh," she said. "So you are human after all! I often wondered." + +She looked up, trying to laugh, but could not seem to take it as coolly +as she might have wished to. + +"Not that a kiss is very important in these days," she continued, "yet +it might interest you to hear that a friend of yours rather fancies +me. He wouldn't like you to do it. But--" She lifted her blue eyes with +faint malice--"What is a woman between friends?" + +"Who is he?" + +"Jack Graylock." + +Drene remained motionless. + +"I haven't encouraged him," she said. "Perhaps that is why." + +"Why he fancies you?" + +"Why he asked me to marry him. It was the only thing he had not asked." + +"He asked that?" + +"After he realized it was the only way, I suppose," she said coolly. +Drene took her into his arms and kissed her deliberately on the mouth. +Looking up at him she said: "After all, he is your friend, isn't he?" + +"A friend of many years. But, as you say, what is a woman between +friends?" + +"I don't know," said the girl. And, still clasped in his arms, she bent +her head, thoughtfully, considering the question. + +And as though she had come to some final conclusion, she raised her +head, lifted her eyes slowly, and her lips, to the man whose arms +enfolded her. It was her answer to his question, and her own. + +When she had gone, he went back and stood again by the great window, +watching the cote on a neighboring roof, where the pigeons were +strutting and coquetting in the last rays of the western sun. + + + + +II + +When she came again to the studio, she was different, subdued, evading, +avoiding, smiling a little in her flushed diffidence at his gay ease of +manner--or assumption of both ease and gaiety. + +He was inclined to rally her, tease her, but her reticence was not all +embarrassment. The lightest contact, the slightest caress from him, +added a seriousness to her face, making it very lovely under its +heightened color, and strangely childlike. + +Model and master they would have remained no longer had it been for him +to say, he desiring now to make it a favor and concession on her part to +aid him professionally, she gravely insisting on professionalism as the +basis of whatever entente might develop between them, as well as the +only avowed excuse for her presence there alone with him. + +"Please. It's respectable," she insisted her agreeable, modulated voice. +"I had rather the reason for my coming here be business--whatever else +happens." + +"What has happened," he said, balancing a handful of wet clay in +one hand and looking laughingly up at her, where she stood on the +model-stand, "is that a pretty girl strolled in here one day and held +up a mirror to a solemn ass who was stalking theatrically through life. +That solemn ass is very grateful for the glimpse he had of himself. He +behaved gratefully, didn't he?" + +"Very," she said with a forced smile. + +"Do you object to the manner in which he expressed his gratitude?" + +She hung her head. + +"No," she said. + +After a while she raised her eyes, her head still lowered. He was +working, darkly absorbed as usual in the plastic mass under his fingers. + +She watched him curiously, not his hands, now, but his lean, intent +face, striving to penetrate that masculine mask, trying to understand. +Varying and odd reflections and emotions possessed her in turn, and +passed--wonder, bewilderment at herself, at him; a slight sense of fear, +then a brief and sudden access of shyness, succeeded by the by glow +of an emotion new and strange and deep. And this, in turn, by vague +bewilderment again, in which there was both a hint of fear, and a tinge +of something exquisite. + +Within herself she was dimly conscious that a certain gaiety, an +irresponsibility and lightness had died out in her, perhaps permanently, +yet leaving no void. What it was that replaced these she could not +name--she only was conscious that if these had been subdued by a newer +knowledge, with a newer seriousness, this unaccustomed gravity had left +her heart no less tender, and had deepened her capacity for emotion +to depths as profound and unexplored as the sudden mystery of their +discovery by herself. + +Always, now, while she posed, she was looking at him with a still +intentness, as though he really wore a mask and she, breathlessly +vigilant, watched for the moment when he might forget and lift it. + +But during the weeks that followed, if the mask were indeed only the +steady preoccupation that his visage wore, she seemed to learn nothing +more about him when his features lost their dark absorption and he +caught her eye and smiled. No, the smile revealed nothing except another +mask under the more serious cast of concentration--only another +disguise that covered whatever this man might truly be deeper down--this +masculine and unknown invader of frontiers surrendered ere she had +understood they were even besieged. + +And during these weeks in early spring their characteristics, even +characters, seemed to have shifted curiously and become reversed; his +was now the light, irresponsible, half-mocking badinage--almost boyishly +boisterous at times, as, for instance, when he stepped forward after the +pose and swung her laughingly from the model-platform to her corner on +the sofa. + +"You pretty and clever little thing," he said, "why are you becoming so +serious and absent-minded?" + +"Am I becoming so?" + +"You are. You oughtn't to: you've made a new and completely different +man of me." + +As though that were an admirable achievement, or even of any particular +importance. And yet she seemed to think it was both of these when, +resting against him, within the circle of his arm, still shy and silent +under the breathless poignancy of an emotion which ever seemed to sound +within her depths unsuspected. + +But when he said that she had made a new and completely different man of +him, she remembered his low-voiced when that change impended as he held +her by her wrists a moment, then dropped them. He had said, half to +himself: "You should have let me alone!" + +Sometimes at noon she remembered this when they went out for luncheon +realizing they would never have been seated together in a restaurant had +she not satisfied her curiosity. She should have let him alone; she +knew that. She tried to wish that she had--tried to regret everything, +anything; and could not, even when within her the faint sense of alarm +awoke amid the softly unchangeable unreality of these last six weeks of +spring. + +Was this then really love?--this drifting through alternating dreams +of shyness, tenderness, suspense, pierced at moments by tiny flashes +of fear, as lightning flickers, far buried in softly shrouded depths of +cloud? + +She had long periods of silent and absorbed dreaming, conscious only +that she dreamed, but not of the dream itself. + +She was aware, too, of a curious loneliness within her, and dimly +understood that it was the companion of a lifetime she was missing--her +conscience. Where was it? Had it gone? Had it died? Were the little, +inexplicable flashes of fear proof of its disintegration? Or its +immortal vitality? + +Dead, dormant, departed, she knew not which, she was dully aware of its +loss--dimly and childishly troubled that she could remember nothing to +be sorry for. And there was so much. + +Men in his profession who knew him began to look askance at him and her, +amused or otherwise, according to their individual characters. + +That Cecile White went about more or less with the sculptor Drene was +a nine days' gossip among circles familiar to them both, and was +forgotten--as are all wonders--in nine days. + +Some of his acquaintances recalled what had been supposed to be the +tragedy of his life, mentioning a woman's name, and a man's--Drene's +closest friend. But gossip does not last long among the busy--not that +the busy are incapable of gossip, but they finish with it quickly, +having other matters to think about. + +Even Quair, after recovering from his wonder that his own condescending +advances had been ignored, bestowed his fatuously inflammable attentions +elsewhere. + +He had been inclined to complain one day in the studio, when he and +Guilder visited Drene professionally; and Guilder looked at his dapper +confrere in surprise and slight disgust; and Drene, at first bored, grew +irritable. + +"What are you talking about?" he said sharply. + +"I'm talking about Cecile White," continued Quair, looking rather oddly +at the sculptor out of his slightly prominent eyes. "I didn't suppose +you could be interested in any woman--not that I mind your interfering +with any little affair between Cecile and me--" + +"There wasn't any." + +"I beg your pardon, Drene--" + +"There wasn't any!" repeated Drene, with curt contempt. "Don't talk +about her, anyway." + +"You mean I'm not to talk about a common artist's model--" + +"Not that way." + +"Oh. Is she yours?" + +"She isn't anybody's, I fancy. Therefore, let her alone, or I'll throw +you out of doors." + +Quair said to Guilder after they had departed: + +"Fancy old Drene playing about with that girl on a strictly pious basis! +He's doubtless dub enough to waste his time. But what's in it for her?" + +"Perhaps a little unaccustomed masculine decency." + +"Everybody is decent enough to her as far as I know." + +"Including yourself?" + +"Certainly, including myself," retorted Quair, adding naively: "Besides, +I knew any attempt at philandering would be time wasted." + +"Yet you tried it," mused Guilder, entering his big touring car and +depositing a bundle of blue-prints and linen tracing paper at his own +ponderous feet. Quair followed him and spoke briefly to the chauffeur, +then: + +"Tried nothing," he said. "A little chaff, that's all. When it comes to +a man like Jack Graylock going so far as to ask her to marry him, good +night, nurse! Nothing doing, even for me." + +"Even for you," repeated Guilder in his moderate and always modulated +voice. "Well, if she's escaped you and Graylock, she's beyond any danger +from Drene, I fancy." + +Quair smiled appreciatively, as though a delicate compliment had been +offered him. Several times on the way to call on Graylock he insisted on +stopping the car at as many celebrated cafes. Guilder patiently awaited +him in the car and each time Quair emerged from the cafe bar a little +more flushed and a trifle jauntier than when he had entered. + +He was a man so perfectly attired and so scrupulously fastidious about +his person that Guilder often speculated as to just why Quair always +seemed to him a trifle soiled. + +Now, looking him over as he climbed into the car, unusually red in the +face, breathing out the aroma of spirits through his little, pinched +nostrils, a faint sensation of disgust came over the senior member of +the firm as though the junior member were physically unclean. + +"That's about ten drinks since luncheon," he remarked, as the car rolled +on down Fifth Avenue. + +Quair, who usually grew disagreeably familiar when mellow, poked his +gloved thumb: + +"You're a merry old cock, aren't you?" he inquired genially, "--like a +pig's wrist! If I hadn't the drinking of the entire firm to do, who'd +ever talk about Guilder and Quair, architects?" + +It was common rumor that Quair did his brilliant work only when +"soused." And he never appeared to be perfectly sober, even when he was. + +Graylock received them in his office--a big, reckless-eyed, handsome +man, with Broad Street written all over him and "danger" etched in every +deepened line of his face. + +"Well, how about that business of mine?" he inquired. "It's all right to +keep me waiting, of course, while you and Quair here match for highballs +at the Ritz." + +"I had to see Drene--that's why we are late," explained Guilder. "We're +ready to go ahead and let your contracts for you--" + +"Drene?" interrupted Graylock, looking straight at Guilder with a +curious and staring intensity. "Why drag Drene into an excuse?" + +"Because we went to his studio," said Guilder. "Now about letting the +contracts--" + +"Were you at Drene's studio?" + +"Yes. He's doing the groups for the new opera for us." + +Quair, watching Graylock, was seized with a malicious impulse: + +"Neat little skirt he has up there--that White girl," he remarked, +seating himself on Graylock's polished table. + +A dull flush stained Graylock's cheekbones, and his keen eyes turned on +Quair. The latter lighted a cigarette, expelled the smoke in two thin +streams from his abnormally narrow nostrils. + +"Some skirt," he repeated. "And it looks as though old Drene had her +number--" + +Guilder's level voice interrupted: + +"The contracts are ready to be--" + +But Graylock, not heeding, and perhaps not hearing, and looking all the +time at Quair, said slowly: + +"Drene isn't that kind.... Is he?" + +"Our kind, you mean?" inquired Quair, with a malice so buried under +flippancy that the deliberate effrontery passed for it with Graylock. +Which amused Quair for a moment, but the satisfaction was not +sufficient. He desired that Graylock should feel the gaff. + +"Drene," he said, "is one of those fussers who jellify when hurled on +their necks--the kind that ask that kind of girl to marry them after +she's turned down everything else they suggest." + +Graylock's square jaw tightened and his steady eyes seemed to grow even +paler; but Quair, as though perfectly unconscious of this man's record +with the wife of his closest friend, and of the rumors which connected +him so seriously with Cecile White, swung his leg unconcernedly, where +it dangled over the table's edge, and smiled frankly and knowingly upon +Graylock: + +"There's always somebody to marry that sort of girl; all mush isn't +on the breakfast table. When you and I are ready to quit, Graylock, +Providence has created a species of man who settles our bills." + +He threw back his head, inhaled the smoke of his cigarette, sent two +thin streams through his nose. + +"Maybe Drene may marry her himself. But--I don't believe he'll have +to.... Now, about those contracts--" he affected a yawn, "--go on and +tell him, Guilder," he added, his words distorted by another yawn. + +He stepped down to the floor from his perch on the table, stretched his +arms, looking affably all the while at Graylock, who had never moved a +muscle. + +"I believe you had a run-in with that Cecile girl once, didn't you, +Graylock? Like the rest of us, eh? Oh, well--my hat off to old Drene +if he wins out. I hold no malice. After all, Graylock, what's a woman +between friends?" + +And he nodded gaily at Graylock and sauntered leisurely to the window. + +And kept his back turned, fearful of exploding with laughter in the very +face of the man who had been staring at him out of pale, unchanging eyes +so steadily and so long. + +Guilder's patient, bored, but moderate voice was raised once more: + +"In regard to the letting of these contracts--" + +But Graylock, staring at Quair's back, neither heeded nor heard him, for +his brain was still ringing with the mockery of Quair's words--"What is +a woman between friends?" And now, for the first time, he was beginning +to understand what the answer might be. + + + + +III + +She had not posed for Drene during the last two weeks, and he had begun +to miss her, after his own fashion--that is, he thought of her when not +preoccupied and sometimes desired her companionship when unoccupied. + +And one evening he went to his desk, rummaged among note-books, and +scribbled sheets of paper, until he found her address, which he could +never remember, wrote it down on another slip of paper, pocketed it, and +went out to his dinner. + +But as he dined, other matters reoccupied his mind, matters +professional, schemes little and great, broad and in detail, which +gradually, though not excluding her entirely, quenched his desire to see +her at that particular time. + +Sometimes it was sheer disinclination to make an effort to communicate +with her, sometimes, and usually, the self-centering concentration +which included himself and his career, as well as his work, seemed to +obliterate even any memory of her existence. + +Now and then, when alone in his shabby bedroom, reading a dull book, or +duly preparing to retire, far in the dim recesses of heart and brain a +faint pain became apparent--if it could still be called pain, this vague +ghost of anger stirring in the ashes of dead years--and at such moments +he thought of Graylock, and of another; and the partly paralyzed +emotion, which memory of these two evoked, stirred him finally to think +of Cecile. + +It was at such times that he always determined to seek her the next day +and continue with her what had been begun--an intimacy which depended +upon his own will; a destiny for her which instinct whispered was within +his own control. But the next day found him at work; models of various +types, ages, and degrees of stupidity came, posed, were paid, and +departed; his studies for the groups in collaboration with Guilder and +Quair were approaching the intensely interesting period--that stage of +completion where composition has been determined upon and the excitement +of developing the construction and the technical charm of modeling +begins. + +And evening always found him physically tired and mentally satisfied--or +perturbed--to the exclusion of such minor interests as life is +made of--dress, amusement, food, women. Between a man and a beloved +profession in full shock of embrace there is no real room for these or +thought of these. + +He ate irregularly and worked with the lack of wisdom characteristic +of creative ability, and he grew thinner and grayer at the temples, and +grayer of flesh, too, so that within a month, between the torrid New +York summer and his own unwisdom, he became again the gaunt, silent, +darkly absorbed recluse, never even stirring abroad for air until some +half-deadened pang of hunger, or the heavy warning of a headache, set +him in reluctant motion. + +He heard of Cecile now and then; Cosby had used her for a figure on +a fountain destined to embellish the estate of a wealthy young man +somewhere or other; Greer employed her for the central figure of +Innocence in his lovely and springlike decoration for some Western +public edifice. Quair had met her several times at Manhattan Beach with +various and assorted wealthy young men. + +And one evening Guilder came alone to his studio and found him lying on +the lounge, his lank, muscular hands, still clay-stained, hanging inert +to the floor above an evening paper fallen there. + +"Hello, Guilder," he said, without rising, as the big architect shambled +loosely through the open doorway. + +"How are you, Drene?" + +"All right. It's hot." + +"There's not a breath of air. It looks like a thunder-storm in the +west." + +He pulled up a chair and sprawled on it, wiping his grave features with +a damp handkerchief. + +"Drene," he said, "a philanthropic guy of sorts wants to add a chapel to +the church at Shallow Brook, Long Island. We've pinched the job. Can you +do an altar piece?" + +"What sort?" + +"They want a Virgin. It's to be called the Chapel of the Annunciation. +It's for women to repair to--under certain and natural circumstances." + +"I've so much on hand--" + +"It's only a single figure-barring the dove. Why don't you do it?" + +"There are plenty of other men--" + +"They want you. There'll be no difficulty about terms." + +Drene said with a shrug: + +"Terms are coming to mean less and less to me, Guilder. It costs very +little for me to live." He turned his gray, tired face. "Look at this +barn of a place; and go in there and look at my bedroom. I have no use +for what are known as necessities." + +"Still, terms are terms--" + +"Oh, yes. A truck may run over me. Even at that, I've enough to live +life out as I am living it here--between these empty walls--and that +expanse of glass overhead. That's about all life holds for me--a sheet +of glass and four empty walls--and a fistfull of wet clay." + +"Are you a trifle morbid, Drene?" + +"I'm not by any means; I merely prefer to live this way. I have +sufficient means to live otherwise if I wish. But this is enough of the +world to suit me, Guilder--and I can go to a noisy restaurant to eat in +when I'm so inclined--" He laughed a rather mirthless laugh and glanced +up, catching a peculiar expression in Guilder's eyes. + +"You're thinking," said Drene coolly, "what a god I once set up on the +altar of domesticity. I used to talk a lot once, didn't I?--a hell of +a clamor I made in eulogy of the domestic virtues. Well, only idiots +retain the same opinions longer than twenty-four hours. Fixity is +imbecility; the inconstant alone progress; dissatisfaction is only a +synonym for intelligence; contentment translated means stagnation..... I +have changed my opinion concerning the virtues of domesticity." + +Guilder said, in his even, moderate voice: + +"Your logic is weird, Drene: in one breath you say you have changed your +opinion; in another that you are content; in another that contentment is +the fixedness of imbecility--" + +Drene, reddening slightly, half rose on one elbow from his couch: + +"What I meant was that I change in my convictions from day to day, +without reproaching myself with inconstancy. What I believed with all my +heart to be sacred yesterday I find a barrier to-day; and push it aside +and go on." + +"Toward what?" + +"I go on, that's all I know--toward sanctuary." + +"You mean professionally." + +"In every way--ethically--spiritually. The gods of yesterday, too, were +very real--yesterday." + +"Drene, a man may change and progress on his way toward what never +changes. But standards remained fixed. They were there in the beginning; +they are immutable. If they shifted, humanity could have no goal." + +"Is there a goal?" + +"Where are you going, then?" + +"Just on." + +"In your profession there is a goal toward which you sculptors all +journey." + +"Perfection?" + +Guilder nodded. + +"But," smiled Drene, "no two sculptors ever see it alike." + +"It is still Perfection. It is still the goal to the color-blind and +normal alike, whatever they call it, however, they visualize it. That +is its only importance; it is The Goal..... In things spiritual the same +obtains--whether one's vision embraces Nirvana, or the Algonquin Ocean +of Light, or a pallid Christ half hidden in floating clouds--Drene, +it is all one, all one. It is not the Goal that changes; only our +intelligence concerning its existence and its immortality." + +Drene lay looking at him: + +"You never knew pain--real pain, did you? The world never ended for you, +did it?" + +"In one manner or another we all must be reborn before we can progress." + +"That is a cant phrase." + +"No; there's truth under the cant. Under all the sleek, smooth, canty +phrases of ecclesiastic proverb, precept, axiom, and lore, there is +truth worth the sifting out." + +"You are welcome to think so, Guilder." + +"You also could come to no other conclusion if you took the trouble to +investigate." + +Drene smiled: + +"Morals are no more than folk-ways--merely mental condition consequent +upon custom. Spiritual beliefs are radically dependant upon folkways +and the resultant physical and mental condition of the human brain which +creates everything that has been and that is to be." + +"Physiology has proven that no idea, no thought, ever originated within +the concrete and physical brain." + +"I've read of those experiments." + +"Then you can't ignore a conclusion." + +"I haven't reached a conclusion. Meanwhile, I have my own beliefs." + +"That's all that's necessary," said Guilder, gravely, "--to entertain +some belief, temporary or final." He smiled slightly down at Drene's +drawn, gray visage. + +"You and I have been friends of many years, Drene, but we have never +before talked this way. I did not feel at liberty to assume any intimacy +with you, even when I wanted to, even when--when you were in trouble--" +He hesitated. + +"Go on," grunted the other. "I'm out of trouble now." + +"I just--it's a whimsical notion--no, it's a belief;--I just wanted to +tell you one or two things concerning my own beliefs--" + +"Temporary?" + +"I don't know. It doesn't matter; they are beliefs. And this is one: all +physical and mental ills are created only by our own minds--" + +"Christian Science?" sneered Drene. + +"Call it what you like," said Guilder serenely. "And call this what you +like: All who believe worthily will find that particular belief true in +every detail after death." + +"What do you call that?" demanded Drene, amused. + +"God knows. It seems to be my interpretation of the Goal. I seem to be +journeying toward it without more obstacles and more embarrassments to +encounter than confront the wayfarer who professes any other creed." + +After a while Drene sat up on his couch: + +"How did all this conversation start?" he asked uneasily. + +"It was about the Virgin for that chapel we are going to do..... That's +part of my belief: those who pray for her intercession will find +her after death, interceding--" he smiled, "--if any intercession be +necessary between us and Him who made us." + +"And those unlisted millions who importune Mohammed and Buddha?" + +"They shall find Mohammed and Buddha, who importune them worthily." + +"And--Christ?" + +"He bears that name also--He!" + +"Oh! And so, spiritually as well as artistically, you believe in the +Virgin?" + +"You also can make a better Virgin if you believe in her otherwise than +esthetically." + +Drene gazed at him incredulously, then, with a shrug: + +"When do you want this thing started?" + +"Now." + +"I can't take it on now." + +"I want a sketch pretty soon--the composition. You can have a model of +the chapel to--morrow. We went on with it as a speculation. Now we've +clinched the thing. When shall I send it up from the office?" + +"I'll look it over, but--" + +"And," interrupted Guilder, "you had better get that Miss White for the +Virgin--before she goes off somewhere out of reach." + +Drene looked up somberly: + +"I haven't kept in touch with her. I don't know what her engagements may +be." + +"One of her engagements just now seems to be to go about with Graylock," +said Guilder. + +Drene flushed, but said nothing. + +"If he marries her," added Guilder, "as it's generally understood he +is trying to, the best sculptor's model in town is out of the question. +Better secure her now." + +"He wants to marry her?" repeated Drene, in a curiously still voice. + +"He's mad about her. He's abject. It's no secret among his friends. Men +like that--and of that age--sometimes arrive at such a terminal--men +with Graylock's record sometimes get theirs. She has given him a run, +believe me, and he's brought up with a crash against a stone wall. He is +lying there all doubled up at her feet like a rabbit with a broken back. +There was nothing left for him to do but lie there. He's lying there +still, with one of her little feet on his bull neck. All the town knows +it." + +"He wants to marry her," repeated Drene, as though to himself. + +"She may not take him at that. They're queer--some women. I suppose +she'd jump at it if she were not straight. But there's another thing--" +Guilder looked curiously at Drene. "Some people think she's rather crazy +about you." + +Drene gazed into space. + +"But that wouldn't hurt her," added Guilder, in his calm, pleasant +voice. "She's a straight little thing--white and straight. She could +come to no harm through a man like you." + +Drene continued to stare at space. + +"So," continued the other, confident, "when she recovers from a natural +and childlike infatuation for you she'll marry somebody... Possibly even +such a man as Graylock might make her happy. You can't ever tell about +such men at the eleventh hour." + +Drene turned his eyes on him. There was no trace of color in his face. + +"Aren't you pretty damned charitable?" + +"Charitable? Well, I--I'm so inclined, I fancy." + +"You'd be content to see that girl marry a dog like that?" + +"I did not say so. I am no judge of men. No man knows enough to condemn +souls." + +Drene looked at him: + +"Well, I'll tell you something. I know enough to do it. I had rather +damn my soul--and hers, too--than see her marry the man you have named. +It would be worth it to me." + +After a strained silence, Guilder said: + +"There is a mode of dealing with those who have injured you, which is +radically different--" + +"I deal with such people in my own fashion!" + +"But, after all, the infamy is Graylock's. Why oblige him by sharing it +with him?" + +"Do you know what he did to me and mine?" + +"A few of us know," said Guilder, gently, "--your old friends." + +There came a pale, infernal flicker into Drene's eyes: + +"I'll take your commission for that altar piece," he said. + +"What is it? An Annunciation?" + + + + +IV + +Composition had been determined upon, and the sketch completed by the +middle of August; Cecile had sat for him every day from nine until five; +every evening they had dined together at the seashore or other suburban +and cool resorts. Together they had seen every summer entertainment in +town, had spent the cooler, starlit evenings together in his studio, +chatting, reading loud sometimes, sometimes discussing he work in hand +or other subjects of he moment, even topics covering a wider and more +varied range than he had ever before discussed with any woman. + +He seemed to have become utterly changed; the dark preoccupation had +been absent from his face--the gauntness, the grayness, seemed to have +become subdued; the deep lines of pain, imperceptible at times, smoothed +out and shadowed in an almost gay resurgence of youth. + +If, during the first week or two of her companionship, his gaiety had +been not entirely spontaneous, his smile shadowed with something duller, +his laughter a trifle forced, she had not perceived it in her surprised +and shyly troubled preoccupation with this amazing and delightful +transfiguration. + +At first she scarcely knew what to look for, what to expect from him, +from herself, when she came into the studio after many weeks of absence; +and she always halted in the doorway, trembling a little, as always, +when in contact with him. + +But he was very delightful, smiling, easy, and deferential enough to +reassure her with a greeting that became him, as he saluted her pretty +hand, held it a moment in possession, laughingly, and released it. + +From the moment of their reunion he had never touched her, save for +a quick, firm, smiling hand-clasp in the morning and another at the +night's parting. + +Now, little by little, she was finding herself delightfully at ease with +him, emerging by degrees from her charming bewilderment out of isolation +to a happy companionship never before shared with any man. + +Nor even vaguely had she dreamed that Drene could be such a man, such +a friend, never had she imagined there was in him such kindness, such +patience, such gentleness, such comprehension, such virile sense and +sympathy. + +And never, now, was her troubled consciousness aware of anything +disquieting in his attitude, of anything to perturb her. + +He seemed to enjoy himself like a boy, with her companionship, wholly, +heartily, without any motive other than the pleasure of the moment; +and so, little by little, she gave herself up to it too, in the same +fashion, unguardedly, frankly, innocently revealing herself to him by +degrees as their comradeship became deliciously unembarrassed. + +He was making a full length study in clay now. All day long she sat +there enthroned, her eyes partly closed, the head lifted a trifle and +fallen back, and her lovely hands resting on her heart--and sometimes +she strove to imagine something of the divine moment which she was +embodying; pondering, dreaming, wondering; and sometimes, in the +stillness, through her trance crept a thrill, subtle, exquisite, as +though in faint perception of the heavenly moment. And once, into her +half-dreaming senses came the soft stirring of wings, and she opened her +eyes and looked up, startled and thrilled. + +But it was only a pigeon which had come through the great window from +the cote on the adjacent roof and which circled above her on whimpering +wings for a moment and then sheered out into the sunlight. + +They dined together at a roof garden that evening, the music was +particularly and surprisingly good, and what surprised him even more was +that she knew it and spoke of it. And continued speaking of music, he +not interrupting. + +Reticent hitherto concerning her antecedents he learned now something +of them--and inferred more; nothing unusual--a musical career determined +upon, death intervening dragging over her isolation the steel meshes of +destitution--the necessity for self-support, a friend who knew a painter +who employed models--not anything unusual, not even dramatic. + +He nodded as she ended: + +"Have you saved anything?" + +"A hundred dollars." + +"That's fine." + +She smiled, then sighed unconsciously. + +"You are thinking," he said, "that youth is flying." + +She smiled wistfully. + +"Youth is the time to study. You were thinking that, too." + +She nodded. + +"You could have married." + +"Why?" she asked, troubled. + +"To obtain the means for a musical education." + +She gazed at him in amazement, then: "I could go out on the street, too, +as far as that is concerned. It would be no more disgraceful." + +"Folk-ways sanction self-sale, when guaranteed by the clergy," he said. +She turned her head and he saw the pure, cold profile against the golden +table-lamp, and he saw something else under the palms beyond--Graylock's +light eyes riveted upon them both. + +"You know," he said, under his breath, "that I shall not marry you. +But--would you care to begin your studies again?" + +There was a long silence: She remained with face partly averted until +the orchestra ceased. Then she turned and looked at him, and he saw her +lip tremble. + +"I had not thought you meant to ask me--that. I do not quite understand +what you mean." + +"I care enough for you to wish to help you. May I?" + +"I was not sure you cared--enough--" + +"Do you--for me?" + +"Before I say that I do--care for you--" she began, tremulously--"tell +me that I have nothing to fear--" + +Neither spoke. Over her shoulder Drene stared at the distant man who +stared back at him. + +Presently his eyes reverted to hers, absently studying the childlike +beauty of her. + +"I'm going to tell you something," he said. "Love is no more wonderful +than hate, no more perfect, no more eternal. And it is less fierce, and +not as strong." + +"What!" she whispered, bewildered at the sinister change in him. + +"And I want to tell you another thing. I am alone in the world. What I +have, I have devised to you--in case I step out--suddenly--" + +He paused, hesitated, then: + +"Also I desire you to hear something else," he went on. "This is the +proper time for you to hear it, I think--now--to-night--" + +He lifted his blazing eyes and looked at the other man. + +"There was a woman," he said--"She happened to be my wife. Also there +was my closest friend: and myself. The comedy was cast. Afterward +she died--abroad. I believe he was there at the time--Kept up a +semblance--But he never married her.... And I do not intend to +marry--you." + +After a moment: "And that," she whispered, "is why you once said to me +that I should have let you alone." + +"Did I say that to you?" + +"Yes." She looked up at him, straight into his eyes: "But if you care +for me--I do not regret that I did not let you alone." + +"I shall not marry you." + +Her lip trembled but she smiled. + +"That is nothing new to me," she said. "Only one man has offered that." + +"Why didn't you take him?" he asked, with an ugly laugh. + +"I couldn't. I cared for you." + +"And now," he said, "are you afraid of me?" + +"Yes--a little." + +He leaned forward suddenly, "You'd better steer clear of me!" Her +startled eyes beheld in him a change as swift as his words. + +"Fair warning!" he added: "look out for yourself." Everything that was +brutal in him; everything ruthless and violent had marred his features +so that all in a moment the mouth had grown ugly and a hard, bruised +look stamped the pallid muscles of his features and twitched at them. + +"You're taking chances from now on," he said. "I told you once to let me +alone. You'd better do it now. And--" he stared at the distant man--"I +told you that hate is more vital than love. It is. I've waited a long +time to strike. Even now it isn't in me to do it as I have meant to +do it. And so I tell you to keep away from me; and I'll strike in the +old-fashioned way, and end it--to-night." + +Stunned by his sudden and dreadful metamorphosis, her ears ringing with +his disjointed incoherencies, she rose, scarcely knowing what she was +doing, scarcely conscious that he was beside her, moving lightly and in +silence out into the brilliant darkness of the streets. + +It was only at her own door that he spoke again: standing there on the +shabby steps of her boarding-house, the light from the transom yellowing +his ghastly face. + +"Something snapped"--he passed an unsteady hand across his eyes;--"I +care very deeply for you. I--they'll make over to you--what I have. You +can study on it--live on it, modestly--" + +"W-what is the matter? Are you ill?" she stammered, white and +frightened. + +But he only muttered that she had her warning and that she should keep +away from him, and that it would not be long before she should have an +opportunity in life. And he went his way not looking back. + +When he reached his studio the hall was dark. As he turned the key he +thought he heard something stirring in the shadows, but went in--leaving +the door into the hallway open--and straight on across the room to his +desk. + +He was putting something into his coat pocket, and his back was still +turned to the open door when Graylock stepped quietly across the +threshold; and Drene heard him, but closed his desk, leisurely, and +then, as leisurely, turned, knowing who had entered. + +And so they stood alone together after many years. + + + + +V + +Graylock looked at Drene's heavily sagging pocket and knew what was in +it. A sudden sweat chilled his temples, but he said steadily enough: + +"I'd like to say a word or two--if you'll give me time." And, as Drene +made no reply;--"You're quite right: This business of ours should be +finished one way or another. I can't stand it any longer." + +"In that case," remarked Drene with an evil stare at him, "I may +postpone it--to find out how much you can stand." He dropped his right +hand into the sagging pocket, looking intently at Graylock all the +while: + +"What do you want here anyway?" + +"I fancy that you have already guessed." + +"Maybe. All the same, what do you want?"--fumbling with his bulging +pocket for a moment and then remaining motionless. + +Graylock's worn eyes rested on the outline of the shrouded weapon: he +stood eyeing it absently for a moment, then seated himself on the sofa, +his heavy eyes shifting from one object to another. + +But there were few objects to be seen in that silent place;--a star +overhead glimmering through the high expanse of glass above;--otherwise +gray monotony of wall, a clay shape or two swathed in wet clothes, a +narrow ring of lamp light, and formless shadow. + +"It's a long time, Drene." + +Drene mused in silence, now and then watching the other obliquely. + +Presently he withdrew his right hand from his coat pocket, pulled an +armchair toward him and seated himself. + +"It's many years," repeated Graylock. "I expected you to do something +before this." + +"Were you uneasy?" sneered Drene. Then he shrugged, knowing that +Graylock was no coward, sorry he had intimated as much, like a man who +deals a premature and useless blow. + +He sat brooding for a while, his lean dangerous head lowered sideways as +though listening; his oblique glance always covering Graylock. + +"I suppose you'll be surprised when I tell you one reason that I came +here," said Graylock. + +"Do you suppose you can still surprise me by anything you may say or +do?" + +The man remained silent, sitting with his hands tightly clasped on his +knees. + +"Drene," he said, in a low voice, "don't strike at me through this young +girl." + +Drene began to laugh, unpleasantly. + +"Are you in love with her?" + +"Yes.... You know it." + +Drene said, still laughing: "It's the common rumor. You may imagine it +amuses your friends--if you have any left." + +Graylock spoke in a voice that had a ghostly sound in the great room: + +"Don't harm her, Drene. It is not necessary. I shall never see her +again--if that will content you." + +Drene laughed: "I never saw my wife again. Did that help me? I never saw +her again, but as long as she lived I knew what she was ... My wife. And +when she died, still my wife. There was no relief--no relief." + +Graylock, deathly white, framed his haggard face between his hands and +stared at nothing: + +"I know," he said. "I understand now. I am here to-night to pay the +reckoning." + +"You can't pay it." + +"No, not the whole score. There's another bill, I suppose, waiting for +me--somewhere. But I can settle my indebtedness to you--" + +"How?" + +"That's up to you, Drene." + +"How?" repeated Drene, violently. + +Graylock made a slight gesture with his head toward Drene's sagging +pocket: "That way if you like. Or," he added, "There is a harder +punishment." + +"What is it?" + +"To give her up." + +"Yes," said Drene, "that is harder. But I can make it even harder than +that. I can make it as hard for you as you made it for me. I can let you +live through it." + +He laughed, fisted in his pocket, drew out the lumpy automatic and +leisurely pushed the lever to "safe." + +He said: "To kill you would be like opening the cell door for a lifer. +You know what you are while you're alive; maybe you'd forget if you were +dead. I--" + +He ceased, fiddling absently with the dull-colored weapon on his knee; +and for a while they remained silent, not looking at each other. And +when Drene spoke again he was still intent upon the automatic. + +"If I knew what happens after a man dies I could act intelligently." He +shot an ugly look at Graylock: "I don't know about you, either. You're a +rat. But you might fool me at that. You might be repentant. And in that +case you'd get away--if it's true that the eleventh hour is not too +late.... If it's true that Christ is merciful.... So I'll take no +chances of a getaway. You might fool me--one way or another--if you were +dead." + +Graylock lifted his head from his hands: "I don't know how much of the +other debt I've already paid, Drene. But I've paid heavily since I knew +her--if that is any satisfaction to you. And since I knew she cared for +you, and when I realized that you meant to strike me through her--I have +paid, heavily.... Yet, if you were honestly in love with her--" + +"Is that any of your damned business?" + +"She's only a child--" + +"You rat! That's what's coming to you!" + +"If you say so. But what is coming to her, Drene?" + +"Continue to guess. But I know you. It's yourself you're sorry for and +what you'll have to endure--live through. That's what you can't stand, +and remain the sleek, self-satisfied rat you are. No, it will make earth +a living hell for you; never a second, day or night, will you be able +to forget--if you really do love her.... And I believe you do--I don't +understand how a thing like you can love--but it seems it can." + +After a silence Graylock said: "You don't care if you damn yourself?" + +"It's worth it to me." + +"Are you willing that I should know you are as great a blackguard as I +am?" Drene's gaunt features reddened and he set his jaws in silence. + +"Don't you care what you do to her?" asked Graylock, unsteadily. "It's a +viler business than that for which you are punishing me." + +For a long time Drene sat there looking down at the weapon on his knees. +And after a while, the other man spoke huskily: "It's bad enough either +way for me, Drene. I'll do what you wish in the matter. I'll leave +the country; I'll stay; whichever you say. Or," he said with a ghastly +smile, "I'll clean out that automatic for you to-night--if you'll marry +her." + +Drene looked up, slowly: + +"What did you say?" + +"I said that I'd clean out your automatic for you--to-night--if you +wish.... It can be an accident or not, just as you say." + +"Where?" + +"In my own rooms--if it is to be an accident." + +"Do you offer--" + +"Yes; if you'll marry her afterwards. If you say you will I'll take your +word." + +"And then you'll be out of your misery, you damned coward!" + +"God knows.... But I think not," said Graylock, under his breath. + +Drene twisted the automatic, rose and continued to twirl it, +considering. Presently he began to pace the floor, no longer noticing +the other man. Once his promenade brought him up facing the wall where a +calendar hung. + +He stood for a while looking at it absently. After a few moments he +stepped nearer, detached the sheet for the present month, then one by +one tore off the remaining sheets until he came to the month marked +December, Graylock watching him all the while. + +"I think it happened on Christmas," remarked Drene turning toward the +other and laying a finger on the number 25 printed in red. + +Graylock's head bent slightly. + +"Very well. Suppose about eleven o'clock on Christmas night you give +your automatic a thorough cleaning. + +"If you say so." + +"You have one?" + +"I shall buy one." + +"Didn't you come here armed?" + +"No." + +Drene looked at him very intently. But Graylock had never been a liar. +After a few moments he went over to his desk, replaced the weapon under +the papers, and, still busy, said over his shoulder: + +"All right. You can go." + + + + +VI + +He wrote to Cecile once: + +Hereafter keep clear of men like Graylock and like me. We're both of a +stripe--the same sort under our skins. I've known him all my life. It +all depends upon the opportunity, the circumstances, and the woman. And, +what is a woman between friends--between such friends as Graylock and I +once were--or between the sort of friends we have now become? Keep clear +of such men as we are. We were boys together. + + +For a week or two he kept his door locked and lived on what the janitor +provided for him, never going out of the studio at all. + +He did no work, although there were several unexecuted commissions +awaiting his attention and a number of sketches, clay studies, and one +marble standing around the studio in various stages of progress. The +marble was the Annunciation. The head and throat and slender hands were +completed, and one slim naked foot. + +Sometimes he wandered from one study to the next, vague-eyed, standing +for a long time before each, staring, lost in thought. Sometimes, in the +evening he read, choosing a book at random among the motley collection +in a corner case--a dusty, soiled assortment of books, ephemeral novels +of the moment, ponderous volumes which are in everybody's library but +which nobody reads, sets of histories, memoirs, essays, beautifully +bound and once cared for, but now dirty from neglect--jetsam from a +wrecked home. + +There had been a time when law, order and neatness formed the basis +of Drene's going forth and coming in. He had been exact, precise, +fastidious; he had been sensitive to environment, a lover of beautiful +things, a man who deeply appreciated any symbol that suggested home and +hearth and family. + +But when these three were shattered in the twinkling of an eye, +something else broke, too. And he gradually emerged from chaos, +indifferent to all that had formerly been a part of him, a silent +emotionless, burnt out thing, callous to all that he had once cared for. + +Yet something of what he had been must have remained latent within him +for with unimpaired precision and logic he constructed his clay and +chiseled his marble; and there must have been in him something to +express, for the beauty of his work, spiritual and material, had set him +high among the highest in his profession. + +Sometimes sorrow changes the dross from the lamp of the spirit so +that it burns with a purity almost unearthly; sometimes sorrow sears, +rendering the very soul insensible; and sometimes sorrow remains under +the ashes, a living coal steadily consuming all that is noble, hardening +all that is ignoble; and is extinguished leaving a devil behind +it--fully equipped to slay the crippled soul. + +Alone in his studio at night, motionless in his chair, Drene was +becoming aware of this devil. Reading by lamplight he grew conscious of +it; recognized it as a companion of many years, now understanding that +although pain had ended, hatred had remained, hiding, biding, and very, +very quiet. + +And suddenly this hatred had flamed like hell-fire, amazing even +himself--that day when, lifted out of his indifference for an instant +by a young girl's gaiety--and with a smile, half-responsive, on his own +unaccustomed lips, he had learned from her in the same instant, that the +man he had almost ceased to remember was honestly in love with her. + +And suddenly he knew that he hated and that he should strike, and that +there could be no comparison in perfection between hatred and what +perhaps was love. + +Sometimes, at night, lying on the studio couch, he found himself still +hesitating. Could Graylock be reached after death? Was it possible? +If he broke his word after Graylock was dead could he still strike and +reach him through the woman for whose sake he, Graylock, was going to +step out of things? + +That occupied his mind continually, now. Was there anybody who could +tell him about such matters? Did clergymen really know whether the soul +survived? And if it did, and if truly there were a hell, could a living +man add anything to its torments for his enemy's benefit? + +One day the janitor, lingering, ventured to ask Drene whether he was +feeling quite well. + +"Yes" said Drene, "I am well." + +The janitor spoke of his not eating. And, as Drene said nothing, he +mentioned the fact that Drene had not set foot outside his own quarters +in many weeks. + +Drene nodded: "I expect to go for a walk this evening." + +But he did not. He lay on his couch, eyes open in the darkness, +wondering what Graylock was doing, how he lived, what occupied his days. + +What were the nights of a condemned man like? Did Graylock sleep? Did +he suffer? Was the suspense a living death to him? Had he ever suspected +him, Drene, of treachery after he, Graylock, had fulfilled his final +part of the bargain. + +For a long time, now, a fierce curiosity concerning what Graylock was +thinking and doing had possessed Drene. What does a man, who is in good +physical health, do, when he is at liberty to compute to the very second +how many seconds of life remain for him? + +Drene's sick brain ached with the problem day and night. + +In November the snow fell. Drene had not been out except in imagination. + +Day after day, in imagination, he had followed Graylock, night after +night, slyly, stealthily, shirking after him through busy avenues at +midday, lurking by shadowy houses at midnight, burning to see what +expression this man wore, what was imprinted on his features;--obsessed +by a desire to learn what he might be thinking--with death drawing +nearer. + +But Drene, in the body, had never stirred from his own chilly room--a +gaunt, fierce-eyed thing, unkempt, half-clothed, huddled all day in his +chair brooding above his bitten nails, or flung starkly across his couch +at night staring at the stars through the dirty crust of glass above. + +One night in December when the stars were all staring steadily back at +him, and his thoughts were out somewhere in the darkness following his +enemy, he heard somebody laughing in the room. + +For a while he lay very still, listening; but when he realized that the +laughter was his own he sat up, pressing his temples between hot and +trembling fingers. + +It seemed to silence the laughter: terror subsided to a tremulous +apprehension--as though he had been on the verge of something horrible +sinking into it for a moment--but had escaped. + +Again he found himself thinking of Graylock, and presently he laughed; +then frightened, checked himself. But his fevered brain had been afire +too long; he lay fighting with his thoughts to hold them in leash lest +they slip out into the night like blood hounds on the trail of the man +they had dogged so long. + +Trembling, terrified, he set his teeth in his bleeding lip, and clenched +his gaunt fists: He could not hold his thoughts in leash; could not +control the terrifying laughter; hatred blazed like hell-fire scorching +the soul in him, searing his aching brain with flames which destroy. + +In the darkness he struggled blindly to his feet; and he saw the stars +through the glass roof all ablaze in the midnight sky; saw the infernal +flicker of pale flames in the obscurity around him, heard a voice +calling for help--his own voice-- + +Then something stirred in the darkness; he listened, stared, striving to +pierce the obscurity with fevered eyes. + +Long since the cloths that swathed the clay figures in the studio had +dried out unnoticed by him. He gazed from one to another, holding his +breath. Then his eyes rested upon the altar piece, fell on the snowy +foot, were lifted inch by inch along the marble folds upward slowly to +the slim and child-like hands-- + +"Oh, God!" he whispered, knowing he had gone mad at last. + +For, under the carven fingers, the marble folds of the robe over the +heart were faintly glowing from some inward radiance. And, as he reeled +forward and dropped at the altar foot, lifting his burning eyes, he saw +the child-like head bend toward him from the slender neck--saw that the +eyes were faintly blue-- + +"Mother of God!" he screamed, "my mind is dying--my mind is dying! ... +We were boys, he and I.... Let God judge him.... Let him be judged... +mercifully.... I am worse than he.... There is no hell. I have +striven to fashion one--I have desired to send him thither--Mother of +God--Cecile--" + +Under his fevered eyes he was confusing them, now, and he sank down +close against the pedestal and laid his f ace against her small cold +foot. + +"I am sick," he rambled on--"and very tired.... We were boys together, +Cecile.... When I am in my right mind I would not harm him.... He was so +handsome and daring. There was nothing he dared not do.... So young, and +straight, and daring.... I would not harm him. Or you, Cecile.... Only +I am sick, burning out, with only a crippled mind left--from being +badly hurt--It never got well. ... And now it is dying of its +hurt--Cecile!--Mother of God!--before it dies I do forgive him--and ask +forgiveness--for Christ's sake--" + +Toward noon the janitor broke in the door. + + + + +VII + +It was late in December before Drene opened his eyes in his right +senses. He unclosed them languidly, gazed at the footboard of his bed, +then, around at the four shabby walls of his room. + +"Cecile?" he said, distinctly. + +The girl who had been watching him laid aside her sewing, rose, and +bent over him. Suddenly her pale face flushed and one hand flew to her +throat. + +"Dearest?" he said, inquiringly. + +Then down on her knees fell the girl, and groped for his wasted hand and +laid her cheek on it, crying silently. + +As for Drene, he lay there, his hollow eyes roaming from wall to wall. +At last he turned his head on the pillow and looked down at her. + +The next day when he opened his eyes from a light sleep his skin was +moist and cool and he managed to move his hand toward hers as she bent +over him. + +"I want--Graylock," he whispered. The girl flushed, bent nearer, gazing +at him intently. + +"Graylock," he repeated. + +"Not now," she murmured, "not today. Rest for a while." + +"Please," he said, looking up at her trustfully--"Graylock. Now." + +"When you are well--" + +"I am--well. Please, dear." + +For a while she continued sitting there on the side of his bed, his limp +hands in hers, her lips pressed against them. But he never took his +eyes from her, and in them she saw only the same wistful expression, +unchanging, trustful that she would do his bidding. + +So at last she went into the studio and wrote a note to Graylock. It was +late. She went downstairs to the janitor's quarters where there was a +messenger call. But no messenger came probably Christmas day kept them +busy. Perhaps, too, some portion of the holiday was permitted them, +for it was long after dinner and the full tide of gaiety in town was +doubtless at its flood. + +So she waited until it was plain that no messenger was coming; then +she rose from the chair and stood gazing out into the wintry darkness +through the dirty basement window. Clocks were striking eleven. + +As she turned to go her eye fell upon the telephone. She hesitated. But +the memory of Drene's eyes, their wistfulness and trust decided her. + +After a little waiting she got Graylock's apartment. A servant asked her +to hold the wire. + +After an interval she recognized Graylock's voice at the telephone, +pleasant, courteous, serenely wishing her the happiness of the season. + +"What are you doing this Christmas night?" she asked. "Surely you are +not all alone there at home?" + +"I am rather too old for anything else," he said. + +"But what are you doing? Reading?" + +"As a matter of fact," he said, "I happened to be cleaning an automatic +revolver when you called up." + +"What a gay employment for Christmas night! Is that your idea of +celebrating?" + +"There happens to be nothing else for me to do tonight." + +"But there is. You are requested to make a call." + +"On whom?" he asked, quietly. + +"On Mr. Drene." + +For a full minute he remained silent, although she spoke to him twice, +thinking the connection might have been interrupted. Then his voice +came, curiously altered: + +"Who asked that of me?" + +"Mr. Drene." + +"Mr. Drene is very ill, I hear." + +"He is convalescent." + +"Did he ask you to call me?" + +"Certainly." + +"Then--you are with him?" + +"Yes." + +"Where?" + +"In his apartment. I came downstairs to the janitor's rooms. I am +telephoning from there what he wished me to ask you." + +After a pause Graylock said: "Is his mind perfectly clear?" + +"Perfectly, now." + +"He asked for me?" + +"Yes. Will you come?" + +"He asked for me? Tonight? At eleven o'clock?" + +She said: "I don't think he knows even what month it is. He has only +been conscious for a day or two. Had he known it was Christmas night +perhaps he might not have disturbed you. But--will you come?" + +"I am afraid it is too late--to-night." + +"Tomorrow, then? Shall I tell him?" + +There was a silence. She repeated the question. But Graylock's reply was +inaudible and she thought he said good-bye instead of good night. + +Somewhere in the rear of the basement the janitor and his family and +probably all his relatives were celebrating. A fiddle squeaked in there; +there was a steady tumult of voices and laughter. + +The girl stood a while listening, a slight smile on her lips. Blessed +happiness had come to her in time for Christmas--a strange and heavenly +happiness, more wonderful than when a life is spared to one who loves, +for it had been more than the mere life of this man she had asked of +God: it had been his mind. + +He lay asleep when she entered and stood by the shaded lamp, looking +down at him. + +After a while she seated herself and took up her sewing. But laid it +aside again as there came a low knocking at the door. + +Drene opened his eyes as Graylock entered all alone and stood still +beside the bed looking down at him. In the studio Cecile moved about +singing under her breath. They both heard her. + +Drene nodded weakly. After a moment he made the effort to speak: + +"I am trying to get well--to start again--better--live more--nobly. ... +Take your chance, too." + +"If you wish, Drene." + +"Yes. I was not--very--well. I had been ill--very--a long while ... +And you are not to clean the automatic.... Only your own-soul.... Ask +help.... You'll get it..... I did.... And--all that is true--what +we believed--as boys.... I know. I've seen. And it's all true--all +true--what we believed--as little boys." + +He looked up at Graylock, then closed his eyes with the shadow of a +smile in them. + +"Good-bye--Jack," he whispered. + +Graylock's mouth quivered, his lips moved in speech; and perhaps Drene +heard and understood, for he opened his eyes and looked once more at his +boyhood friend. + +"Somewhere--somebody will straighten out--all this," he murmured, +closing his eyes again: "We can't; we can only try--to straighten +out--ourselves." + +Graylock looked down at him in silence, then, tall and heavily erect, he +turned away. + +Cecile met him from the studio. + +"Good night," she said, offering her hand.... "And a happy Christmas.... +I hope you will not be lonely." + +He took her hand, gravely, thanked her, and went his way forever. + +For a few minutes she lingered in the doorway connecting Drene's bedroom +with the studio. She held a sprig of holly. + +After a little while he opened his eyes and looked at her, and, smiling, +she came forward to the bedside. + +"It was a terrible dream," he whispered--"all those years. But it was a +dream." + +"You must dream no more." + +"No. Come nearer." + +She rested on the bed's edge beside him and laid one hand on his. The +other held the holly, but he did not notice it until she offered it. + +"Dear," she whispered, "it is Christmas night. And you did not even know +it." + +Suddenly the tears he had not known for years burned in his eyes, and +he closed them, trembling, awed by the mercy of God that had been +vouchsafed to him at the eleventh hour, else he had slain his soul. + +After a while he felt her lips touching his brow. And now silent in +the spell of the dream that invaded her--the exquisite vision of +wifehood--she sat motionless with childlike eyes lost in thought. + +Once more he turned his head and looked at her. Then her slender neck +bent, and he saw that her eyes were divinely blue-- + +"Cecile!"--he faltered--"Madonna inviolate!... The +woman--between--friends--" + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Between Friends, by Robert W. Chambers + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN FRIENDS *** + +***** This file should be named 8441.txt or 8441.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/4/4/8441/ + +Produced by Andre Boutin-Maloney + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Between Friends + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8441] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 11, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN FRIENDS *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Andre Boutin-Maloney of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. + + + + + +Between Friends + +by Robert W. Chambers + + + +1914 + + + + +I + +Like a man who reenters a closed and darkened house and lies down; +lying there, remains conscious of sunlight outside, of bird-calls, +and the breeze in the trees, so had Drene entered into the obscurity +of himself. + +Through the chambers of his brain the twilit corridors where cringed +his bruised and disfigured soul, there nothing stirring except the +automatic pulses which never cease. + +Sometimes, when the sky itself crashes earthward and the world lies +in ruins from horizon to horizon, life goes on. + +The things that men live through--and live! + +But no doubt Death was too busy elsewhere to attend to Drene. + +He had become very lean by the time it was all over. Gray glinted +on his temples; gray softened his sandy mustache: youth was finished +as far as he was concerned. + +An odd idea persisted in his mind that it had been winter for many +years. And the world thawed out very slowly for him. + +But broken trees leaf out, and hewed roots sprout; and what he had +so long mistaken for wintry ashes now gleamed warmly like the orange +and gold of early autumn. After a while he began to go about more or +less--little excursions from the dim privacy of mind and soul--and +he found the sun not very gray; and a south wind blowing in the +world once more. + +Quair and Guilder were in the studio that day on business; Drene +continued to modify his composition in accordance with Guilder's +suggestions; Quair, always curious concerning Drene, was becoming +slyly impudent. + +"And listen to me, Guilder. What the devil's a woman between +friends?" argued Quair, with a malicious side glance at Drene. "You +take my best girl away from me--" + +"But I don't," remarked his partner dryly. + +"For the sake of argument, you do. What happens? Do I raise hell? +No. I merely thank you. Why? Because I don't want her if you can get +her away. That," he added, with satisfaction, "is philosophy. Isn't +it, Drene?" + +Guilder intervened pleasantly: + +"I don't think Drene is particularly interested in philosophy. I'm +sure I'm not. Shut up, please." + +Drene, gravely annoyed, continued to pinch bits of modeling wax out +of a round tin box, and to stick them all over the sketch he was +modifying. + +Now and then he gave a twirl to the top of his working table, which +revolved with a rusty squeak. + +"If you two unusually intelligent gentlemen ask me what good a woman +the world--" began Quair. + +"But we don't," interrupted Guilder, in the temperate voice peculiar +to his negative character. + +"Anyway," insisted Quair, "here's what I think of 'em--" + +"My model, yonder," said Drene, a slight shrug of contempt, "happens +to be feminine, and may also be human. Be decent enough to defer the +development of your rather tiresome theory." + +The girl on the model-stand laughed outright at the rebuke, +stretched her limbs and body, and relaxed, launching a questioning +glance at Drene. + +"All right; rest a bit," said the sculptor, smearing the bit of wax +he was pinching over the sketch before him. + +He gave another twirl or two to the table, wiped his bony fingers on +a handful of cotton waste, picked up his empty pipe, and blew into +the stem, reflectively. + +Quair, one of the associated architects of the new opera, who had +been born a gentleman and looked the perfect bounder, sauntered over +to examine the sketch. He was still red from the rebuke he had +invited. + +Guilder, his senior colleague, got up from the lounge and walked +over also. Drene fitted the sketch into the roughly designed group, +where it belonged, and stood aside, sucking meditatively on his +empty pipe. + +After a silence: + +"It's all right," said Guilder. + +Quair remarked that the group seemed to lack flamboyancy. It is +true, however, that, except for Guilder's habitual restraint, the +celebrated firm of architects was inclined to express themselves +flamboyantly, and to interpret Renaissance in terms of Baroque. + +"She's some girl," added Quair, looking at the lithe, modeled +figure, and then half turning to include the model, who had seated +herself on the lounge, and was now gazing with interest at the +composition sketched in by Drene for the facade of the new opera. + +"Carpeaux and his eternal group--it's the murderous but inevitable +standard of comparison," mused Drene, with a whimsical glance at the +photograph on the wall. + +"Carpeaux has nothing on this young lady," insisted Quair +flippantly; and he pivoted on his heel and sat down beside the +model. Once or twice the two others, consulting before the wax +group, heard the girl's light, untroubled laughter behind their +backs gaily responsive to Quair's wit. Perhaps Quair's inheritance +had been humor, but to some it seemed perilously akin to mother-wit. + +The pockets of Guilder's loose, ill-fitting clothes bulged with +linen tracings and rolls of blue-prints. He and Drene consulted over +these for a while, semi-conscious of Quair's bantering voice and the +girl's easily provoked laughter behind them. And, finally: + +"All right, Guilder," said Drene briefly. And the firm of +celebrated architects prepared to evacuate the studio--Quair +exhibiting symptoms of incipient skylarking, in which he was said to +be at his best. + +"Drop in on me at the office some time," he suggested to the +youthful model, in a gracious tone born of absolute +self-satisfaction. + +"For luncheon or dinner?" retorted the girl, with smiling audacity. + +"You may stay to breakfast also--" + +"Oh, come on," drawled Guilder, taking his colleague's elbow. + +The sculptor yawned as Quair went out: then he closed the door then +celebrated firm of architects, and wandered back rather aimlessly. + +For a while he stood by the great window, watching the pigeons on +neighboring roof. Presently he returned to his table, withdrew the +dancing figure with its graceful, wide flung arms, set it upon the +squeaky revolving table once more, and studied it, yawning at +intervals. + +The girl got up from the sofa behind him, went to the model-stand, +and mounted it. For a few moments she was busy adjusting her feet to +the chalk marks and blocks. Finally she took the pose. She always +seemed inclined to be more or less vocal while Drene worked; her +voice, if untrained, was untroubled. Her singing had never bothered +Drene, nor, until the last few days, had he even particularly +noticed her blithe trilling--as a man a field, preoccupied, is +scarcely aware of the wild birds' gay irrelevancy along the way. + +He happened to notice it now, and a thought passed through his mind +that the country must be very lovely in the mild spring sunshine. + +As he worked, the brief visualization of young grass and the faint +blue of skies, evoked, perhaps, by the girl's careless singing, made +for his dull concentration subtly pleasant environment. + +"May I rest?" she asked at length. + +"Certainly, if it's necessary." + +"I've brought my lunch. It's twelve," she explained. + +He glanced at her absently, rolling a morsel of wax; then, with +slight irritation which ended in a shrug, he motioned her to +descend. + +After all, girls, like birds, were eternally eating. Except for +that, and incessant preening, existence meant nothing more important +to either species. + +He had been busy for a few moments with the group when she said +something to him, and he looked around from his abstraction. She was +holding out toward him a chicken sandwich. + +When his mind came back from wool gathering, he curtly declined the +offer, and, as an afterthought, bestowed upon her a wholly +mechanical smile, in recognition of a generosity not welcome. + +"Why don't you ever eat luncheon?" she asked. + +"Why should I?" he replied, preoccupied. + +"It's bad for you not to. Besides, you are growing thin." + +"Is that your final conclusion concerning me, Cecile?" he asked, +absently. + +"Won't you please take this sandwich?" + +Her outstretched arm more than what she said arrested his drifting +attention again. + +"Why the devil do you want me to eat?" he inquired, fishing out his +empty pipe and filling it. + +"You smoke too much. It's bad for you. It will do very queer +things to the lining of your stomach if you smoke your luncheon +instead of eating it." + +He yawned. + +"Is that so?" he said. + +"Certainly it's so. Please take this sandwich." + +He stood looking at the outstretched arm, thinking of other things +and the girl sprang to her feet, caught his hand, opened the +fingers, placed the sandwich on the palm, then, with a short laugh +as though slightly disconcerted by her own audacity, she snatched +the pipe from his left hand and tossed it upon the table. When she +had reseated herself on the lounge beside her pasteboard box of +luncheon, she became even more uncertain concerning the result of +what she had done, and began to view with rising alarm the steady +gray eyes that were so silently inspecting her. + +But after a moment Drene walked over to the sofa, seated himself, +curiously scrutinized the sandwich which lay across the palm of his +hand, then gravely tasted it. + +"This will doubtless give me indigestion," he remarked. "Why, +Cecile, do you squander your wages on nourishment for me?" + +"It cost only five cents." + +"But why present five cents to me?" "I gave ten to a beggar this +morning." + +"Why?" + +"I don't know." + +"Was he grateful?" + +"He seemed to be." + +"This sandwich is excellent; but if I feel the worse for it, I'll +not be very grateful to you." But he continued eating. + +"'The woman tempted me,'" she quoted, glancing at him sideways. + +After a moment's survey of her: + +"You're one of those bright, saucy, pretty, inexplicable things that +throng this town and occasionally flit through this +profession--aren't you?" + +"Am I?" + +"Yes. Nobody looks for anything except mediocrity; you're one of +the surprises. Nobody expects you; nobody can account for you, but +you appear now and then, here and there, anywhere, even +everywhere--a pretty sparkle against the gray monotony of life, a +momentary flash like a golden moat afloat in sunshine--and what +then?" + +She laughed. + +"What then? What becomes of you? Where do you go? What do you +turn into?" + +"I don't know." + +"You go somewhere, don't you? You change into something, don't you? +What happens to you, petite Cigale?" + +"When?" + +"When the sunshine is turned off and the snow comes." + +"I don't know, Mr. Drene." She broke her chocolate cake into halves +and laid one on his knee. + +"Thanks for further temptation," he said grimly. + +"You are welcome. It's good, isn't it?" + +"Excellent. Adam liked the apple, too. But it raised hell with +him." + +She laughed, shot a direct glance at him, and began to nibble her +cake, with her eyes still fixed on him. + +Once or twice he encountered her gaze but his own always wandered +absently elsewhere. + +"You think a great deal, don't you?" she remarked. + +"Don't you?" + +"I try not to--too much." + +"What?" he asked, swallowing the last morsel of cake. + +She shrugged her shoulders: + +"What's the advantage of thinking?" + +He considered her reply for a moment, her blue and rather childish +eyes, and the very pure oval of her face. Then his attention flagged +as usual--was wandering--when she sighed, very lightly, so that he +scarcely heard it--merely noticed it sufficiently to conclude that, +as usual, there was the inevitable hard luck story afloat in her +vicinity, and that he lacked the interest to listen to it. + +"Thinking," she said, "is a luxury to a tranquil mind and a +punishment to a troubled one. So I try not to." + +It was a moment or two before it occurred to him that the girl had +uttered an unconscious epigram. + +"It sounded like somebody--probably Montaigne. Was it?" he inquired. + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"Oh. Then it wasn't. You're a funny little girl, aren't you?" + +"Yes, rather." + +"On purpose?" + +"Yes, sometimes." + +He looked into her very clear eyes, now brightly blue with +intelligent perception of his not too civil badinage. + +"And sometimes," he went on, "you're funny when you don't intend to +be." + +"You are, too, Mr. Drene." + +"What?" + +"Didn't you know it?" + +A dull color tinted his cheek bones. + +"No," he said, "I didn't know it." + +"But you are. For instance, you don't walk; you stalk. You do what +novelists make their gloomy heroes do--you stride. It's rather +funny." + +"Really. And do you find my movements comic?" + +She was a trifle scared, now, but she laughed her breathless, +youthful laugh: + +"You are really very dramatic--a perfect story-book man. But, you +know, sometimes they are funny when the author doesn't intend them +to be. . . . Please don't be angry." + +Why the impudence of a model should have irritated him he was at a +loss to understand--unless there lurked under that impudence a trace +of unflattering truth. + +As he sat looking at her, all at once, and in an unexpected flash of +selfillumination, he realized that habit had made of him an actor; +that for a while--a long while--a space of time he could not at the +moment conveniently compute--he had been playing a role merely +because he had become accustomed to it. + +Disaster had cast him for a part. For a long while he had been that +part. Now he was still playing it from sheer force of habit. His +tragedy had really become only the shadow of a memory. Already he +had emerged from that shadow into the everyday outer world. But he +had forgotten that he still wore a somber makeup and costume which +in the sunshine might appear grotesque. No wonder the world thought +him funny. + +Glancing up from a perplexed and chagrined meditation he caught her +eye--and found it penitent, troubled, and anxious. + +"You're quite right," he said, smiling easily and naturally; "I am +unintentionally funny. And I really didn't know it--didn't suspect +it--until this moment." + +"Oh," she said quickly. "I didn't mean--I know you are often +unhappy--" + +"Nonsense!" + +"You are! Anybody can see--and you really do not seem to be very +old, either--when you smile--" + +"I'm not very old," he said, amused. "I'm not unhappy, either. If I +ever was, the truth is that I've almost forgotten by this time what +it was all about--" + +"A woman," she quoted, "between friends"--and checked herself, +frightened that she had dared interpret Quair's malice. + +He changed countenance at that; the dull red of anger clouded his +visage. + +"Oh," she faltered, "I was not saucy, only sorry. . . . I have been +sorry for you so long--" + +"Who intimated to you that a woman ever played any part in my +career?" + +"It's generally supposed. I don't know anything more than that. +But I've been--sorry. Love is a very dreadful thing," she said under +her breath. + +"Is it?" he asked, controlling a sudden desire to laugh. + +"Don't you think so?" + +"I have not thought of it that way, recently. . . . I haven't +thought about it at all--for some years. . . . Have you?" he added, +trying to speak gravely. + +"Oh, yes. I have thought of it," she admitted. + +"And you conclude it to be a rather dreadful business?" + +"Yes, it is." + +"How?" + +"Oh, I don't know. A girl usually loves the wrong man. To be poor +is always bad enough, but to be in love, too, is really very +dreadful. It usually finishes us--you know." + +"Are you in love?" he inquired, managing to repress his amusement. + +"I could be. I know that much." She went to the sink, turned on the +water, washed her hands, and stood with dripping fingers looking +about for a towel. + +"I'll get you one," he said. When he brought it, she laughed and +held out her hands to be dried. + +"Do you think you are a Sultana?" he inquired, draping the towel +across her outstretched arms and leaving it there. + +"I thought perhaps you'd dry them," she said sweetly. + +"Not in the business," he remarked; and lighted his pipe. + +Her hands were her particular beauty, soft and snowy. She was much +in demand among painters, and had posed many times for pictures of +the Virgin, her hands usually resting against her breast. + +Now she bestowed great care upon them, thoroughly drying each +separate, slender finger. Then she pushed back the heavy masses of +her hair--"a miracle of silk and sunshine," as Quair had whispered +to her. That same hair, also, was very popular among painters. + + It was her figure that fascinated sculptors. + +"Are you ready?" grunted Drene. Work presently recommenced. + +She was entirely accustomed to praise from men, for her general +attractiveness, for various separate features in what really was an +unusually lovely ensemble. + +She was also accustomed to flattery, to importunity, to the ordinary +variety of masculine solicitation; to the revelation of genuine +feeling, too, in its various modes of expression--sentimental, +explosive, insinuating--the entire gamut. + +She had remained, however, untouched; curious and amused, perhaps, +yet quite satisfied, so far, to be amused; and entirely content with +her own curiosity. + +She coquetted when she thought it safe; learned many things she had +not suspected; was more cautious afterwards, but still, at +intervals, ventured to use her attractiveness as a natural lure, as +an excuse, as a reason, as a weapon, when the probable consequences +threatened no embarrassment or unpleasantness for her. + +She was much liked, much admired, much attempted, and entirely +untempted. + +When the Make-up Club gave its annual play depicting the foibles of +artists and writers in the public eye, Cecile White was always cast +for a role which included singing and dancing. + +On and off for the last year or two she had posed for Drene, had +dropped into his studio to lounge about when he had no need of her +professionally, and when she had half an hour of idleness +confronting her. + +As she stood there now on the model stand, gazing dreamily from his +busy hands to his lean, intent features, it occurred to her that +this day had not been a sample of their usual humdrum relations. +From the very beginning of their business relations he had remained +merely her employer, self-centered, darkly absorbed in his work, or, +when not working, bored and often yawning. She had never come to +know him any better than when she first laid eyes on him. + +Always she had been a little interested in him, a little afraid, +sometimes venturing an innocent audacity, out of sheer curiosity +concerning the effect on him. But never had she succeeded in +stirring him to any expression of personal feeling in regard to +herself, one way or the other. + +Probably he had no personal feeling concerning her. It seemed odd +to her; model and master thrown alone together, day after day, +usually became friends in some degree. But there had been nothing at +all of camaraderie in their relationship, only a colorless, +professional sans-gene, the informality of intimacy without the +kindly essence of personal interest on his part. + +He paid her wages promptly; said good morning when she came, and +good night when she went; answered her questions when she asked them +seriously; relapsed into indifference or into a lazy and not too +civil badinage when she provoked him to it; and that was all. + +He never complimented her, never praised her; yet he must have +thought her a good model, or he would not have continued to send for +her. + +"Do you think me pretty?" she had asked one day, saucily invading +one of his yawning silences. + +"I think you're pretty good," he replied, "as a model. You'd be +quite perfect if you were also deaf and dumb." + +That had been nearly a year ago. She thought of it now, a slight +heat in her cheeks as she remembered the snub, and her almost +childish amazement, and the hurt and offended silence which lasted +all that morning, but which, if he noticed at all, was doubtless +entirely gratifying to him. + +"May I rest?" + +"If it's necessary." + +She sprang lightly to the floor walked around behind him, and stood +looking at his work. + +"Do you want to know my opinion?" she asked. + +"Yes," he said, with unexpected urbanity; "if you are clever enough +to have an opinion. What is it?" + +She said, looking at the wax figure of herself and speaking with +deliberation: + +"In the last hour you have made out of a rather commonplace study an +entirely spontaneous and charming creation." + +"What!" he exclaimed, his face reddening with pleasure at her +opinion, and with surprise at her mode of expressing it. + +"It's quite true. That dancing figure is wholly charming. It is no +study; it is pure creation." + +He knew it; was a little thrilled that she, representing to him an +average and mediocre public, should recognize it so intelligently. + +"As though," she continued, "you had laid aside childish things." + +"What?" he asked, surprised again at the authority of the +expression. + +"Academic precision and the respectable excellencies +of-the-usual;--you have put away childish things and become a man." + +"Where did you hear that?" he said bluntly. + +"I heard it when I said it. You know, Mr. Drene, I am not wholly +uneducated, although your amiable question insinuates as much." + +"I'm not unamiable. Only I didn't suppose--" + +"Oh, you never have supposed anything concerning me. So why are you +surprised when I express myself with fragmentary intelligence?" + +"I'm sorry--" + +"Listen to me. I'm not afraid of you any more. I've been afraid +for two years. Now, I'm not. Your study is masterly. I know it. You +know it. You didn't know I knew it; you didn't know I knew anything. +And you didn't care." + +She sat down on the sofa, facing him with a breathless smile. + +"You don't care what I think, what I am, what interests I may have, +what intellect, what of human desire, hope, fear, ambition animates +me; do you? You don't care whether I am ignorant or educated, bad or +good, ill or well--as long as it does not affect my posing for you; +whether I am happy or unhappy, whether I--" + +"For Heaven's sake--" + +"But you don't care! . . . Do you?" + +He was silent; he stood looking at her in a stupid sort of way. + +After a moment or two she rose, picked up her hat, went to the glass +and pinned it on, then strolled slowly back, drawing on her gloves. + +"It's five o'clock, you know, Drene." + +"Yes, certainly." + +"Do you want me to-morrow?" + +"Yes. Yes, of course." + +"You are not offended?" + +He did not answer. She came up to him and repeated the question in +a childishly anxious voice that was a trifle too humble. And looking +down into her eyes he saw a gleam of pure mischief in them. + +"You little villain!" he said; and caught her wrists. "A lot you +care whether I am offended!" + +She looked away from him, turning her profile. Her expression was +inscrutable. After a silence he dropped her wrists with a vague +laugh. + +"You should have let me alone," he said. + +"'The woman tempted me,'" she repeated, still looking away from him. +He said nothing. + +"Good night," she nodded, and turned toward the door. + +He went with her, falling into step beside her. One arm slipped +around her waist as they entered the hallway. They walked slowly to +the door. He unlatched it, hesitated; she moved one foot forward, +and he took a step at the same time which brought her across his +path so closely that contact was unavoidable. And he kissed her. + +"Oh," she said. "So you are human after all! I often wondered." + +She looked up, trying to laugh, but could not seem to take it as +coolly as she might have wished to. + +"Not that a kiss is very important in these days," she continued, +"yet it might interest you to hear that a friend of yours rather +fancies me. He wouldn't like you to do it. But--" She lifted her +blue eyes with faint malice--"What is a woman between friends?" + +"Who is he?" + +"Jack Graylock." + +Drene remained motionless. + +"I haven't encouraged him," she said. "Perhaps that is why." + +"Why he fancies you?" + +"Why he asked me to marry him. It was the only thing he had not +asked." + +"He asked that?" + +"After he realized it was the only way, I suppose," she said coolly. +Drene took her into his arms and kissed her deliberately on the +mouth. Looking up at him she said: "After all, he is your friend, +isn't he?" + +"A friend of many years. But, as you say, what is a woman between +friends?" + +"I don't know," said the girl. And, still clasped in his arms, she +bent her head, thoughtfully, considering the question. + +And as though she had come to some final conclusion, she raised her +head, lifted her eyes slowly, and her lips, to the man whose arms +enfolded her. It was her answer to his question, and her own. + +When she had gone, he went back and stood again by the great window, +watching the cote on a neighboring roof, where the pigeons were +strutting and coquetting in the last rays of the western sun. + + + +II + +When she came again to the studio, she was different, subdued, +evading, avoiding, smiling a little in her flushed diffidence at his +gay ease of manner--or assumption of both ease and gaiety. + +He was inclined to rally her, tease her, but her reticence was not +all embarrassment. The lightest contact, the slightest caress from +him, added a seriousness to her face, making it very lovely under +its heightened color, and strangely childlike. + +Model and master they would have remained no longer had it been for +him to say, he desiring now to make it a favor and concession on her +part to aid him professionally, she gravely insisting on +professionalism as the basis of whatever entente might develop +between them, as well as the only avowed excuse for her presence +there alone with him. + +"Please. It's respectable," she insisted her agreeable, modulated +voice. "I had rather the reason for my coming here be +business--whatever else happens." + +"What has happened," he said, balancing a handful of wet clay in one +hand and looking laughingly up at her, where she stood on the +model-stand, "is that a pretty girl strolled in here one day and +held up a mirror to a solemn ass who was stalking theatrically +through life. That solemn ass is very grateful for the glimpse he +had of himself. He behaved gratefully, didn't he?" + +"Very," she said with a forced smile. + +"Do you object to the manner in which he expressed his gratitude?" + +She hung her head. + +"No," she said. + +After a while she raised her eyes, her head still lowered. He was +working, darkly absorbed as usual in the plastic mass under his +fingers. + +She watched him curiously, not his hands, now, but his lean, intent +face, striving to penetrate that masculine mask, trying to +understand. Varying and odd reflections and emotions possessed her +in turn, and passed--wonder, bewilderment at herself, at him; a +slight sense of fear, then a brief and sudden access of shyness, +succeeded by the by glow of an emotion new and strange and deep. And +this, in turn, by vague bewilderment again, in which there was both +a hint of fear, and a tinge of something exquisite. + +Within herself she was dimly conscious that a certain gaiety, an +irresponsibility and lightness had died out in her, perhaps +permanently, yet leaving no void. What it was that replaced these +she could not name--she only was conscious that if these had been +subdued by a newer knowledge, with a newer seriousness, this +unaccustomed gravity had left her heart no less tender, and had +deepened her capacity for emotion to depths as profound and +unexplored as the sudden mystery of their discovery by herself. + +Always, now, while she posed, she was looking at him with a still +intentness, as though he really wore a mask and she, breathlessly +vigilant, watched for the moment when he might forget and lift it. + +But during the weeks that followed, if the mask were indeed only the +steady preoccupation that his visage wore, she seemed to learn +nothing more about him when his features lost their dark absorption +and he caught her eye and smiled. No, the smile revealed nothing +except another mask under the more serious cast of +concentration--only another disguise that covered whatever this man +might truly be deeper down--this masculine and unknown invader of +frontiers surrendered ere she had understood they were even +besieged. + +And during these weeks in early spring their characteristics, even +characters, seemed to have shifted curiously and become reversed; +his was now the light, irresponsible, half-mocking badinage--almost +boyishly boisterous at times, as, for instance, when he stepped +forward after the pose and swung her laughingly from the +model-platform to her corner on the sofa. + +"You pretty and clever little thing," he said, "why are you becoming +so serious and absent-minded?" + +"Am I becoming so?" + +"You are. You oughtn't to: you've made a new and completely +different man of me." + +As though that were an admirable achievement, or even of any +particular importance. And yet she seemed to think it was both of +these when, resting against him, within the circle of his arm, still +shy and silent under the breathless poignancy of an emotion which +ever seemed to sound within her depths unsuspected. + +But when he said that she had made a new and completely different +man of him, she remembered his low-voiced when that change impended as +he held her by her wrists a moment, then dropped them. He had said, +half to himself: "You should have let me alone!" + +Sometimes at noon she remembered this when they went out for +luncheon realizing they would never have been seated together in a +restaurant had she not satisfied her curiosity. She should have let +him alone; she knew that. She tried to wish that she had--tried to +regret everything, anything; and could not, even when within her the +faint sense of alarm awoke amid the softly unchangeable unreality of +these last six weeks of spring. + +Was this then really love?--this drifting through alternating dreams +of shyness, tenderness, suspense, pierced at moments by tiny flashes +of fear, as lightning flickers, far buried in softly shrouded depths +of cloud? + +She had long periods of silent and absorbed dreaming, conscious only +that she dreamed, but not of the dream itself. + +She was aware, too, of a curious loneliness within her, and dimly +understood that it was the companion of a lifetime she was +missing--her conscience. Where was it? Had it gone? Had it died? +Were the little, inexplicable flashes of fear proof of its +disintegration? Or its immortal vitality? + +Dead, dormant, departed, she knew not which, she was dully aware of +its loss--dimly and childishly troubled that she could remember +nothing to be sorry for. And there was so much. + +Men in his profession who knew him began to look askance at him and +her, amused or otherwise, according to their individual characters. + +That Cecile White went about more or less with the sculptor Drene +was a nine days' gossip among circles familiar to them both, and was +forgotten--as are all wonders--in nine days. + +Some of his acquaintances recalled what had been supposed to be the +tragedy of his life, mentioning a woman's name, and a man's--Drene's +closest friend. But gossip does not last long among the busy--not +that the busy are incapable of gossip, but they finish with it +quickly, having other matters to think about. + +Even Quair, after recovering from his wonder that his own +condescending advances had been ignored, bestowed his fatuously +inflammable attentions elsewhere. + +He had been inclined to complain one day in the studio, when he and +Guilder visited Drene professionally; and Guilder looked at his +dapper confrere in surprise and slight disgust; and Drene, at first +bored, grew irritable. + +"What are you talking about?" he said sharply. + +"I'm talking about Cecile White," continued Quair, looking rather +oddly at the sculptor out of his slightly prominent eyes. "I didn't +suppose you could be interested in any woman--not that I mind your +interfering with any little affair between Cecile and me--" + +"There wasn't any." + +"I beg your pardon, Drene--" + +"There wasn't any!" repeated Drene, with curt contempt. "Don't talk +about her, anyway." + +"You mean I'm not to talk about a common artist's model--" + +"Not that way." + +"Oh. Is she yours?" + +"She isn't anybody's, I fancy. Therefore, let her alone, or I'll +throw you out of doors." + +Quair said to Guilder after they had departed: + +"Fancy old Drene playing about with that girl on a strictly pious +basis! He's doubtless dub enough to waste his time. But what's in it +for her?" + +"Perhaps a little unaccustomed masculine decency." + +"Everybody is decent enough to her as far as I know." + +"Including yourself?" + +"Certainly, including myself," retorted Quair, adding naively: +"Besides, I knew any attempt at philandering would be time wasted." + +"Yet you tried it," mused Guilder, entering his big touring car and +depositing a bundle of blue-prints and linen tracing paper at his +own ponderous feet. Quair followed him and spoke briefly to the +chauffeur, then: + +"Tried nothing," he said. "A little chaff, that's all. When it +comes to a man like Jack Graylock going so far as to ask her to +marry him, good night, nurse! Nothing doing, even for me." + +"Even for you," repeated Guilder in his moderate and always +modulated voice. "Well, if she's escaped you and Graylock, she's +beyond any danger from Drene, I fancy." + +Quair smiled appreciatively, as though a delicate compliment had +been offered him. Several times on the way to call on Graylock he +insisted on stopping the car at as many celebrated cafes. Guilder +patiently awaited him in the car and each time Quair emerged from +the cafe bar a little more flushed and a trifle jauntier than when +he had entered. + +He was a man so perfectly attired and so scrupulously fastidious +about his person that Guilder often speculated as to just why Quair +always seemed to him a trifle soiled. + +Now, looking him over as he climbed into the car, unusually red in +the face, breathing out the aroma of spirits through his little, +pinched nostrils, a faint sensation of disgust came over the senior +member of the firm as though the junior member were physically +unclean. + +"That's about ten drinks since luncheon," he remarked, as the car +rolled on down Fifth Avenue. + +Quair, who usually grew disagreeably familiar when mellow, poked his +gloved thumb: + +"You're a merry old cock, aren't you?" he inquired genially, "--like +a pig's wrist! If I hadn't the drinking of the entire firm to do, +who'd ever talk about Guilder and Quair, architects?" + +It was common rumor that Quair did his brilliant work only when +"soused." And he never appeared to be perfectly sober, even when he +was. + +Graylock received them in his office--a big, reckless-eyed, handsome +man, with Broad Street written all over him and "danger" etched in +every deepened line of his face. + +"Well, how about that business of mine?" he inquired. "It's all +right to keep me waiting, of course, while you and Quair here match +for highballs at the Ritz." + +"I had to see Drene--that's why we are late," explained Guilder. +"We're ready to go ahead and let your contracts for you--" + +"Drene?" interrupted Graylock, looking straight at Guilder with a +curious and staring intensity. "Why drag Drene into an excuse?" + +"Because we went to his studio," said Guilder. "Now about letting +the contracts--" + +"Were you at Drene's studio?" + +"Yes. He's doing the groups for the new opera for us." + +Quair, watching Graylock, was seized with a malicious impulse: + +"Neat little skirt he has up there--that White girl," he remarked, +seating himself on Graylock's polished table. + +A dull flush stained Graylock's cheekbones, and his keen eyes turned +on Quair. The latter lighted a cigarette, expelled the smoke in two +thin streams from his abnormally narrow nostrils. + +"Some skirt," he repeated. "And it looks as though old Drene had +her number--" + +Guilder's level voice interrupted: + +"The contracts are ready to be--" + +But Graylock, not heeding, and perhaps not hearing, and looking all +the time at Quair, said slowly: + +"Drene isn't that kind. . . . Is he?" + +"Our kind, you mean?" inquired Quair, with a malice so buried under +flippancy that the deliberate effrontery passed for it with +Graylock. Which amused Quair for a moment, but the satisfaction was +not sufficient. He desired that Graylock should feel the gaff. + +"Drene," he said, "is one of those fussers who jellify when hurled +on their necks--the kind that ask that kind of girl to marry them +after she's turned down everything else they suggest." + +Graylock's square jaw tightened and his steady eyes seemed to grow +even paler; but Quair, as though perfectly unconscious of this man's +record with the wife of his closest friend, and of the rumors which +connected him so seriously with Cecile White, swung his leg +unconcernedly, where it dangled over the table's edge, and smiled +frankly and knowingly upon Graylock: + +"There's always somebody to marry that sort of girl; all mush isn't +on the breakfast table. When you and I are ready to quit, Graylock, +Providence has created a species of man who settles our bills." + +He threw back his head, inhaled the smoke of his cigarette, sent two +thin streams through his nose. + +"Maybe Drene may marry her himself. But--I don't believe he'll have +to. . . . Now, about those contracts--" he affected a yawn, "--go on +and tell him, Guilder," he added, his words distorted by another +yawn. + +He stepped down to the floor from his perch on the table, stretched +his arms, looking affably all the while at Graylock, who had never +moved a muscle. + +"I believe you had a run-in with that Cecile girl once, didn't you, +Graylock? Like the rest of us, eh? Oh, well--my hat off to old Drene +if he wins out. I hold no malice. After all, Graylock, what's a +woman between friends?" + +And he nodded gaily at Graylock and sauntered leisurely to the +window. + +And kept his back turned, fearful of exploding with laughter in the +very face of the man who had been staring at him out of pale, +unchanging eyes so steadily and so long. + +Guilder's patient, bored, but moderate voice was raised once more: + +"In regard to the letting of these contracts--" + +But Graylock, staring at Quair's back, neither heeded nor heard him, +for his brain was still ringing with the mockery of Quair's +words--"What is a woman between friends?" And now, for the first +time, he was beginning to understand what the answer might be. + + + +III + +She had not posed for Drene during the last two weeks, and he had +begun to miss her, after his own fashion--that is, he thought of her +when not preoccupied and sometimes desired her companionship when +unoccupied. + +And one evening he went to his desk, rummaged among note-books, and +scribbled sheets of paper, until he found her address, which he +could never remember, wrote it down on another slip of paper, +pocketed it, and went out to his dinner. + +But as he dined, other matters reoccupied his mind, matters +professional, schemes little and great, broad and in detail, which +gradually, though not excluding her entirely, quenched his desire to +see her at that particular time. + +Sometimes it was sheer disinclination to make an effort to +communicate with her, sometimes, and usually, the self-centering +concentration which included himself and his career, as well as his +work, seemed to obliterate even any memory of her existence. + +Now and then, when alone in his shabby bedroom, reading a dull book, +or duly preparing to retire, far in the dim recesses of heart and +brain a faint pain became apparent--if it could still be called +pain, this vague ghost of anger stirring in the ashes of dead +years--and at such moments he thought of Graylock, and of another; +and the partly paralyzed emotion, which memory of these two evoked, +stirred him finally to think of Cecile. + +It was at such times that he always determined to seek her the next +day and continue with her what had been begun--an intimacy which +depended upon his own will; a destiny for her which instinct +whispered was within his own control. But the next day found him at +work; models of various types, ages, and degrees of stupidity came, +posed, were paid, and departed; his studies for the groups in +collaboration with Guilder and Quair were approaching the intensely +interesting period--that stage of completion where composition has +been determined upon and the excitement of developing the +construction and the technical charm of modeling begins. + +And evening always found him physically tired and mentally +satisfied--or perturbed--to the exclusion of such minor interests as +life is made of--dress, amusement, food, women. Between a man and a +beloved profession in full shock of embrace there is no real room +for these or thought of these. + +He ate irregularly and worked with the lack of wisdom characteristic +of creative ability, and he grew thinner and grayer at the temples, +and grayer of flesh, too, so that within a month, between the torrid +New York summer and his own unwisdom, he became again the gaunt, +silent, darkly absorbed recluse, never even stirring abroad for air +until some half-deadened pang of hunger, or the heavy warning of a +headache, set him in reluctant motion. + +He heard of Cecile now and then; Cosby had used her for a figure on +a fountain destined to embellish the estate of a wealthy young man +somewhere or other; Greer employed her for the central figure of +Innocence in his lovely and springlike decoration for some Western +public edifice. Quair had met her several times at Manhattan Beach +with various and assorted wealthy young men. + +And one evening Guilder came alone to his studio and found him lying +on the lounge, his lank, muscular hands, still clay-stained, hanging +inert to the floor above an evening paper fallen there. + +"Hello, Guilder," he said, without rising, as the big architect +shambled loosely through the open doorway. + +"How are you, Drene?" + +"All right. It's hot." + +"There's not a breath of air. It looks like a thunder-storm in the +west." + +He pulled up a chair and sprawled on it, wiping his grave features +with a damp handkerchief. + +"Drene," he said, "a philanthropic guy of sorts wants to add a +chapel to the church at Shallow Brook, Long Island. We've pinched +the job. Can you do an altar piece?" + +"What sort?" + +"They want a Virgin. It's to be called the Chapel of the Annunciation. +It's for women to repair to--under certain and natural circumstances." + +"I've so much on hand--" + +"It's only a single figure-barring the dove. Why don't you do it?" + +"There are plenty of other men--" + +"They want you. There'll be no difficulty about terms." + +Drene said with a shrug: + +"Terms are coming to mean less and less to me, Guilder. It costs +very little for me to live." He turned his gray, tired face. "Look +at this barn of a place; and go in there and look at my bedroom. I +have no use for what are known as necessities." + +"Still, terms are terms--" + +"Oh, yes. A truck may run over me. Even at that, I've enough to +live life out as I am living it here--between these empty walls--and +that expanse of glass overhead. That's about all life holds for +me--a sheet of glass and four empty walls--and a fistfull of wet +clay." + +"Are you a trifle morbid, Drene?" + +"I'm not by any means; I merely prefer to live this way. I have +sufficient means to live otherwise if I wish. But this is enough of +the world to suit me, Guilder--and I can go to a noisy restaurant to +eat in when I'm so inclined--" He laughed a rather mirthless laugh +and glanced up, catching a peculiar expression in Guilder's eyes. + +"You're thinking," said Drene coolly, "what a god I once set up on +the altar of domesticity. I used to talk a lot once, didn't I?--a +hell of a clamor I made in eulogy of the domestic virtues. Well, +only idiots retain the same opinions longer than twentyfour hours. +Fixity is imbecility; the inconstant alone progress; dissatisfaction +is only a synonym for intelligence; contentment translated means +stagnation. . . . . I have changed my opinion concerning the virtues +of domesticity." + +Guilder said, in his even, moderate voice: + +"Your logic is weird, Drene: in one breath you say you have changed +your opinion; in another that you are content; in another that +contentment is the fixedness of imbecility--" + +Drene, reddening slightly, half rose on one elbow from his couch: + +"What I meant was that I change in my convictions from day to day, +without reproaching myself with inconstancy. What I believed with +all my heart to be sacred yesterday I find a barrier to-day; and +push it aside and go on." + +"Toward what?" + +"I go on, that's all I know--toward sanctuary." + +"You mean professionally." + +"In every way--ethically--spiritually. The gods of yesterday, too, +were very real--yesterday." + +"Drene, a man may change and progress on his way toward what never +changes. But standards remained fixed. They were there in the +beginning; they are immutable. If they shifted, humanity could have +no goal." + +"Is there a goal?" + +"Where are you going, then?" + +"Just on." + +"In your profession there is a goal toward which you sculptors all +journey." + +"Perfection?" + +Guilder nodded. + +"But," smiled Drene, "no two sculptors ever see it alike." + +"It is still Perfection. It is still the goal to the color-blind +and normal alike, whatever they call it, however, they visualize it. +That is its only importance; it is The Goal. . . . . In things +spiritual the same obtains--whether one's vision embraces Nirvana, +or the Algonquin Ocean of Light, or a pallid Christ half hidden in +floating clouds--Drene, it is all one, all one. It is not the Goal +that changes; only our intelligence concerning its existence and its +immortality." + +Drene lay looking at him: + +"You never knew pain--real pain, did you? The world never ended for +you, did it?" + +"In one manner or another we all must be reborn before we can +progress." + +"That is a cant phrase." + +"No; there's truth under the cant. Under all the sleek, smooth, +canty phrases of ecclesiastic proverb, precept, axiom, and lore, +there is truth worth the sifting out." + +"You are welcome to think so, Guilder." + +"You also could come to no other conclusion if you took the trouble +to investigate." + +Drene smiled: + +"Morals are no more than folk-ways--merely mental condition +consequent upon custom. Spiritual beliefs are radically dependant +upon folkways and the resultant physical and mental condition of the +human brain which creates everything that has been and that is to +be." + +"Physiology has proven that no idea, no thought, ever originated +within the concrete and physical brain." + +"I've read of those experiments." + +"Then you can't ignore a conclusion." + +"I haven't reached a conclusion. Meanwhile, I have my own beliefs." + +"That's all that's necessary," said Guilder, gravely, "--to +entertain some belief, temporary or final." He smiled slightly down +at Drene's drawn, gray visage. + +"You and I have been friends of many years, Drene, but we have never +before talked this way. I did not feel at liberty to assume any +intimacy with you, even when I wanted to, even when--when you were +in trouble--" He hesitated. + +"Go on," grunted the other. "I'm out of trouble now." + +"I just--it's a whimsical notion--no, it's a belief;--I just wanted +to tell you one or two things concerning my own beliefs--" + +"Temporary?" + +"I don't know. It doesn't matter; they are beliefs. And this is +one: all physical and mental ills are created only by our own +minds--" + +"Christian Science?" sneered Drene. + +"Call it what you like," said Guilder serenely. "And call this what +you like: All who believe worthily will find that particular belief +true in every detail after death." + +"What do you call that?" demanded Drene, amused. + +"God knows. It seems to be my interpretation of the Goal. I seem +to be journeying toward it without more obstacles and more +embarrassments to encounter than confront the wayfarer who professes +any other creed." + +After a while Drene sat up on his couch: + +"How did all this conversation start?" he asked uneasily. + +"It was about the Virgin for that chapel we are going to do. . . . . +That's part of my belief: those who pray for her intercession will +find her after death, interceding--" he smiled, "--if any +intercession be necessary between us and Him who made us." + +"And those unlisted millions who importune Mohammed and Buddha?" + +"They shall find Mohammed and Buddha, who importune them worthily." + +"And--Christ?" + +"He bears that name also--He!" + +"Oh! And so, spiritually as well as artistically, you believe in +the Virgin?" + +"You also can make a better Virgin if you believe in her otherwise +than esthetically." + +Drene gazed at him incredulously, then, with a shrug: + +"When do you want this thing started?" + +"Now." + +"I can't take it on now." + +"I want a sketch pretty soon--the composition. You can have a model +of the chapel to--morrow. We went on with it as a speculation. Now +we've clinched the thing. When shall I send it up from the office?" + +"I'll look it over, but--" + +"And," interrupted Guilder, "you had better get that Miss White for +the Virgin--before she goes off somewhere out of reach." + +Drene looked up somberly: + +"I haven't kept in touch with her. I don't know what her engagements +may be." + +"One of her engagements just now seems to be to go about with +Graylock," said Guilder. + +Drene flushed, but said nothing. + +"If he marries her," added Guilder, "as it's generally understood he +is trying to, the best sculptor's model in town is out of the +question. Better secure her now." + +"He wants to marry her?" repeated Drene, in a curiously still voice. + +"He's mad about her. He's abject. It's no secret among his +friends. Men like that--and of that age--sometimes arrive at such a +terminal--men with Graylock's record sometimes get theirs. She has +given him a run, believe me, and he's brought up with a crash +against a stone wall. He is lying there all doubled up at her feet +like a rabbit with a broken back. There was nothing left for him to +do but lie there. He's lying there still, with one of her little feet +on his bull neck. All the town knows it." + +"He wants to marry her," repeated Drene, as though to himself. + +"She may not take him at that. They're queer--some women. I suppose +she'd jump at it if she were not straight. But there's another +thing--" Guilder looked curiously at Drene. "Some people think she's +rather crazy about you." + +Drene gazed into space. + +"But that wouldn't hurt her," added Guilder, in his calm, pleasant +voice. "She's a straight little thing--white and straight. She could +come to no harm through a man like you." + +Drene continued to stare at space. + +"So," continued the other, confident, "when she recovers from a +natural and childlike infatuation for you she'll marry somebody. . . +Possibly even such a man as Graylock might make her happy. You +can't ever tell about such men at the eleventh hour." + +Drene turned his eyes on him. There was no trace of color in his +face. + +"Aren't you pretty damned charitable?" + +"Charitable? Well, I--I'm so inclined, I fancy." + +"You'd be content to see that girl marry a dog like that?" + +"I did not say so. I am no judge of men. No man knows enough to +condemn souls." + +Drene looked at him: + +"Well, I'll tell you something. I know enough to do it. I had +rather damn my soul--and hers, too--than see her marry the man you +have named. It would be worth it to me." + +After a strained silence, Guilder said: + +"There is a mode of dealing with those who have injured you, which +is radically different--" + +"I deal with such people in my own fashion!" + +"But, after all, the infamy is Graylock's. Why oblige him by +sharing it with him?" + +"Do you know what he did to me and mine?" + +"A few of us know," said Guilder, gently, "--your old friends." + +There came a pale, infernal flicker into Drene's eyes: + +"I'll take your commission for that altar piece," he said. + +"What is it? An Annunciation?" + + + +IV + +Composition had been determined upon, and the sketch completed by +the middle of August; Cecile had sat for him every day from nine +until five; every evening they had dined together at the seashore or +other suburban and cool resorts. Together they had seen every summer +entertainment in town, had spent the cooler, starlit evenings +together in his studio, chatting, reading loud sometimes, sometimes +discussing he work in hand or other subjects of he moment, even +topics covering a wider and more varied range than he had ever +before discussed with any woman. + +He seemed to have become utterly changed; the dark preoccupation had +been absent from his face--the gauntness, the grayness, seemed to +have become subdued; the deep lines of pain, imperceptible at times, +smoothed out and shadowed in an almost gay resurgence of youth. + +If, during the first week or two of her companionship, his gaiety +had been not entirely spontaneous, his smile shadowed with something +duller, his laughter a trifle forced, she had not perceived it in +her surprised and shyly troubled preoccupation with this amazing and +delightful transfiguration. + +At first she scarcely knew what to look for, what to expect from +him, from herself, when she came into the studio after many weeks of +absence; and she always halted in the doorway, trembling a little, +as always, when in contact with him. + +But he was very delightful, smiling, easy, and deferential enough to +reassure her with a greeting that became him, as he saluted her +pretty hand, held it a moment in possession, laughingly, and +released it. + +From the moment of their reunion he had never touched her, save for +a quick, firm, smiling hand-clasp in the morning and another at the +night's parting. + +Now, little by little, she was finding herself delightfully at ease +with him, emerging by degrees from her charming bewilderment out of +isolation to a happy companionship never before shared with any man. + +Nor even vaguely had she dreamed that Drene could be such a man, +such a friend, never had she imagined there was in him such +kindness, such patience, such gentleness, such comprehension, such +virile sense and sympathy. + +And never, now, was her troubled consciousness aware of anything +disquieting in his attitude, of anything to perturb her. + +He seemed to enjoy himself like a boy, with her companionship, +wholly, heartily, without any motive other than the pleasure of the +moment; and so, little by little, she gave herself up to it too, in +the same fashion, unguardedly, frankly, innocently revealing herself +to him by degrees as their comradeship became deliciously +unembarrassed. + +He was making a full length study in clay now. All day long she sat +there enthroned, her eyes partly closed, the head lifted a trifle +and fallen back, and her lovely hands resting on her heart--and +sometimes she strove to imagine something of the divine moment which +she was embodying; pondering, dreaming, wondering; and sometimes, in +the stillness, through her trance crept a thrill, subtle, exquisite, +as though in faint perception of the heavenly moment. And once, into +her halfdreaming senses came the soft stirring of wings, and she +opened her eyes and looked up, startled and thrilled. + +But it was only a pigeon which had come through the great window +from the cote on the adjacent roof and which circled above her on +whimpering wings for a moment and then sheered out into the +sunlight. + +They dined together at a roof garden that evening, the music was +particularly and surprisingly good, and what surprised him even more +was that she knew it and spoke of it. And continued speaking of +music, he not interrupting. + +Reticent hitherto concerning her antecedents he learned now +something of them--and inferred more; nothing unusual--a musical +career determined upon, death intervening dragging over her +isolation the steel meshes of destitution--the necessity for +self-support, a friend who knew a painter who employed models--not +anything unusual, not even dramatic. + +He nodded as she ended: + +"Have you saved anything?" + +"A hundred dollars." + +"That's fine." + +She smiled, then sighed unconsciously. + +"You are thinking," he said, "that youth is flying." + +She smiled wistfully. + +"Youth is the time to study. You were thinking that, too." + +She nodded. + +"You could have married." + +"Why?" she asked, troubled. + +"To obtain the means for a musical education." + +She gazed at him in amazement, then: "I could go out on the street, +too, as far as that is concerned. It would be no more disgraceful." + +"Folk-ways sanction self-sale, when guaranteed by the clergy," he +said. She turned her head and he saw the pure, cold profile against +the golden table-lamp, and he saw something else under the palms +beyond--Graylock's light eyes riveted upon them both. + +"You know," he said, under his breath, "that I shall not marry you. +But--would you care to begin your studies again?" + +There was a long silence: She remained with face partly averted +until the orchestra ceased. Then she turned and looked at him, and +he saw her lip tremble. + +"I had not thought you meant to ask me--that. I do not quite +understand what you mean." + +"I care enough for you to wish to help you. May I?" + +"I was not sure you cared--enough--" + +"Do you--for me?" + +"Before I say that I do--care for you--" she began, tremulously +--"tell me that I have nothing to fear--" + +Neither spoke. Over her shoulder Drene stared at the distant man +who stared back at him. + +Presently his eyes reverted to hers, absently studying the childlike +beauty of her. + +"I'm going to tell you something," he said. "Love is no more +wonderful than hate, no more perfect, no more eternal. And it is +less fierce, and not as strong." + +"What!" she whispered, bewildered at the sinister change in him. + +"And I want to tell you another thing. I am alone in the world. +What I have, I have devised to you--in case I step out--suddenly--" + +He paused, hesitated, then: + +"Also I desire you to hear something else," he went on. "This is +the proper time for you to hear it, I think--now--to-night--" + +He lifted his blazing eyes and looked at the other man. + +"There was a woman," he said--"She happened to be my wife. Also +there was my closest friend: and myself. The comedy was cast. +Afterward she died--abroad. I believe he was there at the time--Kept +up a semblance--But he never married her. . . . And I do not intend +to marry--you." + +After a moment: "And that," she whispered, "is why you once said to +me that I should have let you alone." + +"Did I say that to you?" + +"Yes." She looked up at him, straight into his eyes: "But if you +care for me--I do not regret that I did not let you alone." + +"I shall not marry you." + +Her lip trembled but she smiled. + +"That is nothing new to me," she said. "Only one man has offered +that." + +"Why didn't you take him?" he asked, with an ugly laugh. + +"I couldn't. I cared for you." + +"And now," he said, "are you afraid of me?" + +"Yes--a little." + +He leaned forward suddenly, "You'd better steer clear of me!" Her +startled eyes beheld in him a change as swift as his words. + +"Fair warning!" he added: "look out for yourself." Everything that +was brutal in him; everything ruthless and violent had marred his +features so that all in a moment the mouth had grown ugly and a +hard, bruised look stamped the pallid muscles of his features and +twitched at them. + +"You're taking chances from now on," he said. "I told you once to +let me alone. You'd better do it now. And--" he stared at the +distant man--"I told you that hate is more vital than love. It is. +I've waited a long time to strike. Even now it isn't in me to do it +as I have meant to do it. And so I tell you to keep away from me; +and I'll strike in the old-fashioned way, and end it--to-night." + +Stunned by his sudden and dreadful metamorphosis, her ears ringing +with his disjointed incoherencies, she rose, scarcely knowing what +she was doing, scarcely conscious that he was beside her, moving +lightly and in silence out into the brilliant darkness of the +streets. + +It was only at her own door that he spoke again: standing there on +the shabby steps of her boarding-house, the light from the transom +yellowing his ghastly face. + +"Something snapped"--he passed an unsteady hand across his eyes;-- +"I care very deeply for you. I--they'll make over to you--what I +have. You can study on it--live on it, modestly--" + +"W-what is the matter? Are you ill?" she stammered, white and +frightened. + +But he only muttered that she had her warning and that she should +keep away from him, and that it would not be long before she should +have an opportunity in life. And he went his way not looking back. + +When he reached his studio the hall was dark. As he turned the key +he thought he heard something stirring in the shadows, but went +in--leaving the door into the hallway open--and straight on across +the room to his desk. + +He was putting something into his coat pocket, and his back was +still turned to the open door when Graylock stepped quietly across +the threshold; and Drene heard him, but closed his desk, leisurely, +and then, as leisurely, turned, knowing who had entered. + +And so they stood alone together after many years. + + + +V + +Graylock looked at Drene's heavily sagging pocket and knew what was +in it. A sudden sweat chilled his temples, but he said steadily +enough: + +"I'd like to say a word or two--if you'll give me time." And, as +Drene made no reply;--"You're quite right: This business of ours +should be finished one way or another. I can't stand it any longer." + +"In that case," remarked Drene with an evil stare at him, "I may +postpone it--to find out how much you can stand." He dropped his +right hand into the sagging pocket, looking intently at Graylock all +the while: + +"What do you want here anyway?" + +"I fancy that you have already guessed." + +"Maybe. All the same, what do you want?"--fumbling with his bulging +pocket for a moment and then remaining motionless. + +Graylock's worn eyes rested on the outline of the shrouded weapon: +he stood eyeing it absently for a moment, then seated himself on the +sofa, his heavy eyes shifting from one object to another. + +But there were few objects to be seen in that silent place;--a star +overhead glimmering through the high expanse of glass +above;--otherwise gray monotony of wall, a clay shape or two swathed +in wet clothes, a narrow ring of lamp light, and formless shadow. + +"It's a long time, Drene." + +Drene mused in silence, now and then watching the other obliquely. + +Presently he withdrew his right hand from his coat pocket, pulled an +armchair toward him and seated himself. + +"It's many years," repeated Graylock. "I expected you to do +something before this." + +"Were you uneasy?" sneered Drene. Then he shrugged, knowing that +Graylock was no coward, sorry he had intimated as much, like a man +who deals a premature and useless blow. + +He sat brooding for a while, his lean dangerous head lowered +sideways as though listening; his oblique glance always covering +Graylock. + +"I suppose you'll be surprised when I tell you one reason that I +came here," said Graylock. + +"Do you suppose you can still surprise me by anything you may say or +do?" + +The man remained silent, sitting with his hands tightly clasped on +his knees. + +"Drene," he said, in a low voice, "don't strike at me through this +young girl." + +Drene began to laugh, unpleasantly. + +"Are you in love with her?" + +"Yes. . . . You know it." + +Drene said, still laughing: "It's the common rumor. You may imagine +it amuses your friends--if you have any left." + +Graylock spoke in a voice that had a ghostly sound in the great +room: + +"Don't harm her, Drene. It is not necessary. I shall never see +her again--if that will content you." + +Drene laughed: "I never saw my wife again. Did that help me? I +never saw her again, but as long as she lived I knew what she was +. . . My wife. And when she died, still my wife. There was no +relief--no relief." + +Graylock, deathly white, framed his haggard face between his hands +and stared at nothing: + +"I know," he said. "I understand now. I am here to-night to pay +the reckoning." + +"You can't pay it." + +"No, not the whole score. There's another bill, I suppose, waiting +for me--somewhere. But I can settle my indebtedness to you--" + +"How?" + +"That's up to you, Drene." + +"How?" repeated Drene, violently. + +Graylock made a slight gesture with his head toward Drene's sagging +pocket: "That way if you like. Or," he added, "There is a harder +punishment." + +"What is it?" + +"To give her up." + +"Yes," said Drene, "that is harder. But I can make it even harder +than that. I can make it as hard for you as you made it for me. I +can let you live through it." + +He laughed, fisted in his pocket, drew out the lumpy automatic and +leisurely pushed the lever to "safe." + +He said: "To kill you would be like opening the cell door for a +lifer. You know what you are while you're alive; maybe you'd forget +if you were dead. I--" + +He ceased, fiddling absently with the dull-colored weapon on his +knee; and for a while they remained silent, not looking at each +other. And when Drene spoke again he was still intent upon the +automatic. + +"If I knew what happens after a man dies I could act intelligently." +He shot an ugly look at Graylock: "I don't know about you, either. +You're a rat. But you might fool me at that. You might be repentant. +And in that case you'd get away--if it's true that the eleventh hour +is not too late. . . . If it's true that Christ is merciful. . . . +So I'll take no chances of a getaway. You might fool me--one way or +another--if you were dead." + +Graylock lifted his head from his hands: "I don't know how much of +the other debt I've already paid, Drene. But I've paid heavily since +I knew her--if that is any satisfaction to you. And since I knew she +cared for you, and when I realized that you meant to strike me +through her--I have paid, heavily. . . . Yet, if you were honestly +in love with her--" + +"Is that any of your damned business?" + +"She's only a child--" + +"You rat! That's what's coming to you!" + +"If you say so. But what is coming to her, Drene?" + +"Continue to guess. But I know you. It's yourself you're sorry for +and what you'll have to endure--live through. That's what you can't +stand, and remain the sleek, self-satisfied rat you are. No, it will +make earth a living hell for you; never a second, day or night, will +you be able to forget--if you really do love her. . . . And I +believe you do--I don't understand how a thing like you can +love--but it seems it can." + +After a silence Graylock said: "You don't care if you damn +yourself?" + +"It's worth it to me." + +"Are you willing that I should know you are as great a blackguard as +I am?" Drene's gaunt features reddened and he set his jaws in +silence. + +"Don't you care what you do to her?" asked Graylock, unsteadily. +"It's a viler business than that for which you are punishing me." + +For a long time Drene sat there looking down at the weapon on his +knees. And after a while, the other man spoke huskily: "It's bad +enough either way for me, Drene. I'll do what you wish in the +matter. I'll leave the country; I'll stay; whichever you say. Or," +he said with a ghastly smile, "I'll clean out that automatic for you +to-night--if you'll marry her." + +Drene looked up, slowly: + +"What did you say?" + +"I said that I'd clean out your automatic for you--to-night--if you +wish. . . . It can be an accident or not, just as you say." + +"Where?" + +"In my own rooms--if it is to be an accident." + +"Do you offer--" + +"Yes; if you'll marry her afterwards. If you say you will I'll take +your word." + +"And then you'll be out of your misery, you damned coward!" + +"God knows. . . . But I think not," said Graylock, under his +breath. + +Drene twisted the automatic, rose and continued to twirl it, +considering. Presently he began to pace the floor, no longer +noticing the other man. Once his promenade brought him up facing the +wall where a calendar hung. + +He stood for a while looking at it absently. After a few moments he +stepped nearer, detached the sheet for the present month, then one +by one tore off the remaining sheets until he came to the month +marked December, Graylock watching him all the while. + +"I think it happened on Christmas," remarked Drene turning toward +the other and laying a finger on the number 25 printed in red. + +Graylock's head bent slightly. + +"Very well. Suppose about eleven o'clock on Christmas night you +give your automatic a thorough cleaning. + +"If you say so." + +"You have one?" + +"I shall buy one." + +"Didn't you come here armed?" + +"No." + +Drene looked at him very intently. But Graylock had never been a +liar. After a few moments he went over to his desk, replaced the +weapon under the papers, and, still busy, said over his shoulder: + +"All right. You can go." + + + +VI + +He wrote to Cecile once: + +Hereafter keep clear of men like Graylock and like me. +We're both of a stripe--the same sort under our skins. +I've known him all my life. It all depends upon the +opportunity, the circumstances, and the woman. And, what +is a woman between friends--between such friends as +Graylock and I once were--or between the sort of friends +we have now become? Keep clear of such men as we are. +We were boys together. + + +For a week or two he kept his door locked and lived on what the +janitor provided for him, never going out of the studio at all. + +He did no work, although there were several unexecuted commissions +awaiting his attention and a number of sketches, clay studies, and +one marble standing around the studio in various stages of progress. +The marble was the Annunciation. The head and throat and slender +hands were completed, and one slim naked foot. + +Sometimes he wandered from one study to the next, vague-eyed, +standing for a long time before each, staring, lost in thought. +Sometimes, in the evening he read, choosing a book at random among +the motley collection in a corner case--a dusty, soiled assortment +of books, ephemeral novels of the moment, ponderous volumes which +are in everybody's library but which nobody reads, sets of +histories, memoirs, essays, beautifully bound and once cared for, +but now dirty from neglect--jetsam from a wrecked home. + +There had been a time when law, order and neatness formed the basis +of Drene's going forth and coming in. He had been exact, precise, +fastidious; he had been sensitive to environment, a lover of +beautiful things, a man who deeply appreciated any symbol that +suggested home and hearth and family. + +But when these three were shattered in the twinkling of an eye, +something else broke, too. And he gradually emerged from chaos, +indifferent to all that had formerly been a part of him, a silent +emotionless, burnt out thing, callous to all that he had once cared +for. + +Yet something of what he had been must have remained latent within +him for with unimpaired precision and logic he constructed his clay +and chiseled his marble; and there must have been in him something +to express, for the beauty of his work, spiritual and material, had +set him high among the highest in his profession. + +Sometimes sorrow changes the dross from the lamp of the spirit so +that it burns with a purity almost unearthly; sometimes sorrow +sears, rendering the very soul insensible; and sometimes sorrow +remains under the ashes, a living coal steadily consuming all that +is noble, hardening all that is ignoble; and is extinguished leaving +a devil behind it--fully equipped to slay the crippled soul. + +Alone in his studio at night, motionless in his chair, Drene was +becoming aware of this devil. Reading by lamplight he grew conscious +of it; recognized it as a companion of many years, now understanding +that although pain had ended, hatred had remained, hiding, biding, +and very, very quiet. + +And suddenly this hatred had flamed like hell-fire, amazing even +himself--that day when, lifted out of his indifference for an +instant by a young girl's gaiety--and with a smile, half-responsive, +on his own unaccustomed lips, he had learned from her in the same +instant, that the man he had almost ceased to remember was honestly +in love with her. + +And suddenly he knew that he hated and that he should strike, and +that there could be no comparison in perfection between hatred and +what perhaps was love. + +Sometimes, at night, lying on the studio couch, he found himself +still hesitating. Could Graylock be reached after death? Was it +possible? If he broke his word after Graylock was dead could he +still strike and reach him through the woman for whose sake he, +Graylock, was going to step out of things? + +That occupied his mind continually, now. Was there anybody who +could tell him about such matters? Did clergymen really know whether +the soul survived? And if it did, and if truly there were a hell, +could a living man add anything to its torments for his enemy's +benefit? + +One day the janitor, lingering, ventured to ask Drene whether he was +feeling quite well. + +"Yes" said Drene, "I am well." + +The janitor spoke of his not eating. And, as Drene said nothing, he +mentioned the fact that Drene had not set foot outside his own +quarters in many weeks. + +Drene nodded: "I expect to go for a walk this evening." + +But he did not. He lay on his couch, eyes open in the darkness, +wondering what Graylock was doing, how he lived, what occupied his +days. + +What were the nights of a condemned man like? Did Graylock sleep? +Did he suffer? Was the suspense a living death to him? Had he ever +suspected him, Drene, of treachery after he, Graylock, had fulfilled +his final part of the bargain. + +For a long time, now, a fierce curiosity concerning what Graylock +was thinking and doing had possessed Drene. What does a man, who is +in good physical health, do, when he is at liberty to compute to the +very second how many seconds of life remain for him? + +Drene's sick brain ached with the problem day and night. + +In November the snow fell. Drene had not been out except in +imagination. + +Day after day, in imagination, he had followed Graylock, night after +night, slyly, stealthily, shirking after him through busy avenues at +midday, lurking by shadowy houses at midnight, burning to see what +expression this man wore, what was imprinted on his +features;--obsessed by a desire to learn what he might be +thinking--with death drawing nearer. + +But Drene, in the body, had never stirred from his own chilly +room--a gaunt, fierce-eyed thing, unkempt, half-clothed, huddled all +day in his chair brooding above his bitten nails, or flung starkly +across his couch at night staring at the stars through the dirty +crust of glass above. + +One night in December when the stars were all staring steadily back +at him, and his thoughts were out somewhere in the darkness +following his enemy, he heard somebody laughing in the room. + +For a while he lay very still, listening; but when he realized that +the laughter was his own he sat up, pressing his temples between hot +and trembling fingers. + +It seemed to silence the laughter: terror subsided to a tremulous +apprehension--as though he had been on the verge of something +horrible sinking into it for a moment--but had escaped. + +Again he found himself thinking of Graylock, and presently he +laughed; then frightened, checked himself. But his fevered brain had +been afire too long; he lay fighting with his thoughts to hold them +in leash lest they slip out into the night like blood hounds on the +trail of the man they had dogged so long. + +Trembling, terrified, he set his teeth in his bleeding lip, and +clenched his gaunt fists: He could not hold his thoughts in leash; +could not control the terrifying laughter; hatred blazed like +hell-fire scorching the soul in him, searing his aching brain with +flames which destroy. + +In the darkness he struggled blindly to his feet; and he saw the +stars through the glass roof all ablaze in the midnight sky; saw the +infernal flicker of pale flames in the obscurity around him, heard a +voice calling for help--his own voice-- + +Then something stirred in the darkness; he listened, stared, +striving to pierce the obscurity with fevered eyes. + +Long since the cloths that swathed the clay figures in the studio +had dried out unnoticed by him. He gazed from one to another, +holding his breath. Then his eyes rested upon the altar piece, fell +on the snowy foot, were lifted inch by inch along the marble folds +upward slowly to the slim and child-like hands-- + +"Oh, God!" he whispered, knowing he had gone mad at last. + +For, under the carven fingers, the marble folds of the robe over the +heart were faintly glowing from some inward radiance. And, as he +reeled forward and dropped at the altar foot, lifting his burning +eyes, he saw the child-like head bend toward him from the slender +neck--saw that the eyes were faintly blue-- + +"Mother of God!" he screamed, "my mind is dying--my mind is dying! +. . . We were boys, he and I. . . . Let God judge him. . . . Let him +be judged . . . mercifully. . . . I am worse than he. . . . There is +no hell. I have striven to fashion one--I have desired to send him +thither--Mother of God--Cecile--" + +Under his fevered eyes he was confusing them, now, and he sank down +close against the pedestal and laid his f ace against her small cold +foot. + +"I am sick," he rambled on--"and very tired. . . . We were boys +together, Cecile. . . . When I am in my right mind I would not harm +him. . . . He was so handsome and daring. There was nothing he dared +not do. . . . So young, and straight, and daring. . . . I would not +harm him. Or you, Cecile. . . . Only I am sick, burning out, with +only a crippled mind left--from being badly hurt--It never got well. +. . . And now it is dying of its hurt--Cecile!--Mother of God!--before +it dies I do forgive him--and ask forgiveness--for Christ's sake--" + +Toward noon the janitor broke in the door. + + + +VII + +It was late in December before Drene opened his eyes in his right +senses. He unclosed them languidly, gazed at the footboard of his +bed, then, around at the four shabby walls of his room. + +"Cecile?" he said, distinctly. + +The girl who had been watching him laid aside her sewing, rose, and +bent over him. Suddenly her pale face flushed and one hand flew to +her throat. + +"Dearest?" he said, inquiringly. + +Then down on her knees fell the girl, and groped for his wasted hand +and laid her cheek on it, crying silently. + +As for Drene, he lay there, his hollow eyes roaming from wall to +wall. At last he turned his head on the pillow and looked down at +her. + +The next day when he opened his eyes from a light sleep his skin was +moist and cool and he managed to move his hand toward hers as she +bent over him. + +"I want--Graylock," he whispered. The girl flushed, bent nearer, +gazing at him intently. + +"Graylock," he repeated. + +"Not now," she murmured, "not today. Rest for a, while." + +"Please," he said, looking up at her trustfully--"Graylock. Now." + +"When you are well--" + +"I am--well. Please, dear." + +For a while she continued sitting there on the side of his bed, his +limp hands in hers, her lips pressed against them. But he never took +his eyes from her, and in them she saw only the same wistful +expression, unchanging, trustful that she would do his bidding. + +So at last she went into the studio and wrote a note to Graylock. +It was late. She went downstairs to the janitor's quarters where +there was a messenger call. But no messenger came probably Christmas +day kept them busy. Perhaps, too, some portion of the holiday was +permitted them, for it was long after dinner and the full tide of +gaiety in town was doubtless at its flood. + +So she waited until it was plain that no messenger was coming; then +she rose from the chair and stood gazing out into the wintry +darkness through the dirty basement window. Clocks were striking +eleven. + +As she turned to go her eye fell upon the telephone. She hesitated. +But the memory of Drene's eyes, their wistfulness and trust decided +her. + +After a little waiting she got Graylock's apartment. A servant +asked her to hold the wire. + +After an interval she recognized Graylock's voice at the telephone, +pleasant, courteous, serenely wishing her the happiness of the +season. + +"What are you doing this Christmas night?" she asked. "Surely you +are not all alone there at home?" + +"I am rather too old for anything else," he said. + +"But what are you doing? Reading?" + +"As a matter of fact," he said, "I happened to be cleaning an +automatic revolver when you called up." + +"What a gay employment for Christmas night! Is that your idea of +celebrating?" + +"There happens to be nothing else for me to do tonight." + +"But there is. You are requested to make a call." + +"On whom?" he asked, quietly. + +"On Mr. Drene." + +For a full minute he remained silent, although she spoke to him +twice, thinking the connection might have been interrupted. Then his +voice came, curiously altered: + +"Who asked that of me?" + +"Mr. Drene." + +"Mr. Drene is very ill, I hear." + +"He is convalescent." + +"Did he ask you to call me?" + +"Certainly." + +"Then--you are with him?" + +"Yes." + +"Where?" + +"In his apartment. I came downstairs to the janitor's rooms. I am +telephoning from there what he wished me to ask you." + +After a pause Graylock said: "Is his mind perfectly clear?" + +"Perfectly, now." + +"He asked for me?" + +"Yes. Will you come?" + +"He asked for me? Tonight? At eleven o'clock?" + +She said: "I don't think he knows even what month it is. He has +only been conscious for a day or two. Had he known it was Christmas +night perhaps he might not have disturbed you. But--will you come?" + +"I am afraid it is too late--to-night." + +"Tomorrow, then? Shall I tell him?" + +There was a silence. She repeated the question. But Graylock's +reply was inaudible and she thought he said good-bye instead of good +night. + +Somewhere in the rear of the basement the janitor and his family and +probably all his relatives were celebrating. A fiddle squeaked in +there; there was a steady tumult of voices and laughter. + +The girl stood a while listening, a slight smile on her lips. +Blessed happiness had come to her in time for Christmas--a strange +and heavenly happiness, more wonderful than when a life is spared to +one who loves, for it had been more than the mere life of this man +she had asked of God: it had been his mind. + +He lay asleep when she entered and stood by the shaded lamp, looking +down at him. + +After a while she seated herself and took up her sewing. But laid +it aside again as there came a low knocking at the door. + +Drene opened his eyes as Graylock entered all alone and stood still +beside the bed looking down at him. In the studio Cecile moved about +singing under her breath. They both heard her. + +Drene nodded weakly. After a moment he made the effort to speak: + +"I am trying to get well--to start again--better--live more--nobly. +. . . Take your chance, too." + +"If you wish, Drene." + +"Yes. I was not--very--well. I had been ill--very--a long while +. . . And you are not to clean the automatic. . . . Only your +own-soul. . . . Ask help. . . . You'll get it. . . . . I did. . . . +And--all that is true--what we believed--as boys. . . . I know. +I've seen. And it's all true--all true--what we believed--as little +boys." + +He looked up at Graylock, then closed his eyes with the shadow of a +smile in them. + +"Good-bye--Jack," he whispered. + +Graylock's mouth quivered, his lips moved in speech; and perhaps +Drene heard and understood, for he opened his eyes and looked once +more at his boyhood friend. + +"Somewhere--somebody will straighten out--all this," he murmured, +closing his eyes again: "We can't; we can only try--to straighten +out--ourselves." + +Graylock looked down at him in silence, then, tall and heavily +erect, he turned away. + +Cecile met him from the studio. + +"Good night," she said, offering her hand. . . . "And a happy +Christmas. . . . I hope you will not be lonely." + +He took her hand, gravely, thanked her, and went his way forever. + +For a few minutes she lingered in the doorway connecting Drene's +bedroom with the studio. She held a sprig of holly. + +After a little while he opened his eyes and looked at her, and, +smiling, she came forward to the bedside. + +"It was a terrible dream," he whispered--"all those years. But it +was a dream." + +"You must dream no more." + +"No. Come nearer." + +She rested on the bed's edge beside him and laid one hand on his. +The other held the holly, but he did not notice it until she offered +it. + +"Dear," she whispered, "it is Christmas night. And you did not even +know it." + +Suddenly the tears he had not known for years burned in his eyes, +and he closed them, trembling, awed by the mercy of God that had +been vouchsafed to him at the eleventh hour, else he had slain his +soul. + +After a while he felt her lips touching his brow. And now silent in +the spell of the dream that invaded her--the exquisite vision of +wifehood--she sat motionless with childlike eyes lost in thought. + +Once more he turned his head and looked at her. Then her slender +neck bent, and he saw that her eyes were divinely blue-- + +"Cecile!"--he faltered--"Madonna inviolate! . . . The +woman--between--friends--" + + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Between Friends, by Robert W. Chambers + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN FRIENDS *** + +This file should be named btwfr10.txt or btwfr10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, btwfr11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, btwfr10a.txt + +This eBook was produced by Andre Boutin-Maloney of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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