XXXIV
Itwas not until he got a clear look at Arthur Faunce’s face under the strong light of the reading-lamp that Dr. Gerry realized the full effect of the crisis, moral and physical, upon the younger man. The old doctor had come in to New York on business connected with his practise, and in the evening, on his way to the station, he had looked up the apartment-house from which Faunce had phoned to him on more than one occasion. He had found him alone, completing his arrangements for the departure of the expedition to the south pole. Faunce had been glad to see him, had furnished some cigars and a light, and the two men sat on opposite sides of the table, both facing the open windows that looked out over a crowded thoroughfare not far from the heart of the city.
Even at this late hour the clamor of traffic came up to them, and the variegated lights of the flashing signs revolved, flashed, and receded and flashed again with all the colors of a kaleidoscope. But the steady light of the lamp on the table revealed Faunce’s face, its wasted look, the dark rings under the somber eyes, the drawn lines about the tight lips, the threads of white in the thick, darkhair that still curled slightly on the temples. The doctor’s practised eye traveled lower and rested on the lean, blue-veined hand that held the cigar. It was unsteady; even the fingers twitched occasionally.
They had been talking, ever since Dr. Gerry’s entrance, of the expedition. Faunce threw into what he said of it a show of force and even of enthusiasm, and the doctor had listened without showing that his own thoughts recurred persistently to that night long ago when this man had confessed to him in the old office at home. In his heart he pitied Faunce, as he noticed the feverish eagerness with which he talked of the new ship and his own plans.
“I’ve got one thing pretty well shaped in my mind,” Faunce said. “The last time I couldn’t have a free hand, of course, and I always thought some of our mistakes could have been avoided. But Overton wouldn’t yield; he has the kind of obstinacy that won’t give up.” He paused long enough to light another cigar, and then went on: “I’ve been pestered by some of the old men. I didn’t want them, but there’s one——” He stopped abruptly, began to pull at his cigar, and seemed embarrassed.
“Well, there’s one——”
Gerry gave him a keen glance. A dull red mounted in the white face, and Faunce frowned.
“He knows, or thinks he knows, somethingabout the other expedition, and suspects that I can’t afford to risk his telling it.”
“I thought, at one time, that you dreaded the secret; yet you’ve let Overton keep back the truth. You’re up to your neck in his debt.”
Faunce leaned forward in his chair, his shoulders bent like an old man’s, and his clasped hands hanging between his knees.
“I feel the same way now, but we agreed to keep it quiet—there didn’t seem to be any other way.”
“And he gave up the command to you, too. It seems to me you’re getting a good deal more out of it than he is—on the face of it, at least.”
“You think he’s paying a big price for a broken potsherd? Well, he isn’t doing it for my sake!” Faunce sank back again in his seat, the spark of his half-smoked cigar dying out between his fingers. Then he turned his head quickly and fixed his haggard eyes on the doctor. “Have you seen my wife lately?”
Gerry shook his head.
“Not for some days—a week, I think.”
“I wrote to her, asking her to answer me herself. If she really wants a divorce, she shall have it; but I want her to answer me, and she hasn’t. I’ve been wondering if she ever got my letter.”
“You mean, you think the judge has kept it from her? He isn’t capable of that. He would give it to her in any case.”
“That’s what I thought; but he has insulted me, I can’t go to the house, and she hasn’t answered my letter.”
The doctor picked up an ivory paper-knife from the table and began to run it back and forth between his fingers.
“It would be natural enough, wouldn’t it, for any woman to expect you to come to the house and ask such a question as that in person?”
“You think I haven’t the courage?”
“I think you’re taking chloral to an extent that’ll soon send you on the long expedition. It’s a dangerous drug, young man. A bit too much, and you’ll travel the common road. Perhaps that’s your idea?”
Faunce laughed bitterly.
“You forget I’m a coward!”
“Sometimes cowards take that way—it’s easy.”
“Don’t be alarmed, I sha’n’t! I’ve always had a tenacious wish for life. If I hadn’t had it, I’d never have done—the thing I did. I simply couldn’t risk dying.”
“Yet you’re going back down there!”
Faunce gazed at the doctor a little wildly, his eyes shining.
“It draws me—I can feel it! But I’ll take no risks; don’t be afraid of that. I know—know perfectly—that I’ll never risk my own skin, no matter how I risk others’.”
The doctor looked at him curiously. “Thereare two men in you, Faunce. Dose out the one with heroic medicine, and the other would have room to grow. You’d find yourself a hero!”
Faunce turned a haggard face on him.
“When she left me—when I saw the look she gave me—if I’d dared, if I’d had a white man’s courage, I’d have hung myself!” He spoke with such passion and force that it shook him out of his apathy. He stretched out a shaking hand toward the doctor. “For God’s sake, man, give me a dose that’ll deaden my nerves, so that I’ll have the courage to kill myself!”
Dr. Gerry grunted.
“You’ll do that without my help, at the rate you’re going.”
Faunce laughed bitterly again.
“You mean with chloral? I stopped it for a while, but I couldn’t sleep. I can’t, with this thing pursuing me. I thought I would pay off the score, and get free of it; but there’s my wife—I had to think of her. If she stays away, if she will have a divorce, then”—he threw back his head and drew a long breath—“then I’ll cut loose!”
“You mean, you’ll give it all away, and bear the odium, rather than stay bound to Overton?”
Faunce nodded, rising, and tossing his dead cigar out of the window. As he did so, he stood for a moment staring out, his view commanding the long street, closely flanked with great buildings,which narrowed in the far perspective until the high walls seemed to meet in a blur of blazing lights. It was as if he looked into the wide mouth of a funnel, lined with jewels, and it seemed that all these living, moving atoms, brute and human, must either be crowded or pushed through a tiny opening at the farther end or strangle in it.
Faunce was aware of it, aware of the clamor and the struggle of it, of the leap with which that crowd would launch itself upon the fallen, as a pack of wolves upon a wounded comrade, tearing and trampling the man who failed under its eager, cruel, predatory feet. He turned with a gesture of disgust.
“At the price I’m paying, life isn’t worth living!” he exclaimed.
Gerry rose from his seat and began to potter around the room. He did not even look toward Faunce, but he was aware of it when the younger man went to the table to take another cigar. While his back was turned, the doctor picked up a small, dark bottle from the dresser and dropped it into his pocket; then he found his hat.
“Don’t pay the price,” he said, as he held out his hand to Faunce.
Faunce stared at him for a moment without speaking, wrung his hand nervously, and went back to the task of lighting a new cigar.
“There are two ways of taking that,” he commented, as the doctor reached the door.
“There’s only one—live and get free of it.”
Faunce laughed bitterly.
“Free of it? How? I’ll never be free of it until I give my life for his. That’s the price they’re asking!”
The doctor shook his head, but he offered no argument. He had, in fact, a vague feeling of uncertainty. Between the two, Overton and this man, which? That was it—if Overton took Faunce’s wife, which?
The doctor was unable to answer it. Instead, he went down in the elevator with his hand over the bottle in his pocket.