CHAPTER XXIV
That was one of the days when everybody was unhappy, everybody except the Altruist. But it was against the Altruist’s principles to let the world know his changes in mood, and he may have been sad underneath his smile.
It began with the Man of the World. He came down to breakfast with a dragging step, and took his seat wearily. His face looked faded, and his eyes were dull.
“I wish somebody would give me something to make me sleep,” he said. “I lie awake every night until almost morning.”
A laugh went round the table. The habits of the Man of the World were notoriously conducive to sleeplessness. Late suppers too often robbed him of the slumber due his years.
The laughter offended him. He rosewith dignity and went away. When I followed him a few minutes later I found him sulking in the hall. The look of age in his blue eyes moved me to pity, and I drew the Man of the World toward me, as if he were a child.
I do not know what I said to him. It was something about changing all this, and beginning over again, without the smoking and the cards and the horses. He did not mind. In fact, he seemed to like having me touch him, and laid his cheek against my hand, very much as Jean liked to do. But he straightened up again.
“No,” he said firmly, “you are barking up the wrong tree. I mean,—I beg your pardon,—it doesn’t do any good. I might have done it once, but I can’t now.” And saying “Good morning” very courteously, he went up to his room.
I had promised the Doctor to visit with her a patient on Traffic Street, near Edgerley Bend. For once even the Doctor had lost courage. As we threaded our wayalong the crowded sidewalks of the East End she bewailed her unfitness for her work. Evidently she was disheartened because she could not cure the incurable.
I walked on in silence, too miserable to speak. The air was stifling, for there seemed to be but little space between the sky and the mud in the street. Gazing at the faces that drifted past us, some bad, some apathetic, some despairing, I wondered which were the more pitiful, those that had lost hope, or those that had never known it.
The Doctor’s mood changed when she reached her patient and found something to do; but I, who had not that means of relief, came home as wretched as before.
In the afternoon I went to Janet for comfort. As I crossed the street, the quaint stucco houses looked more than ever like the scenery of a stage. Through the half-drawn curtains I caught a glimpse of the Lad, and smiled. The play had really begun.
I had come for consolation, but I was disappointed. The Lad was alone with baby Jean. He looked up when I entered, and I saw that his eyes were clouded.
“Isn’t it cold?” he said, with an absentminded air.
I asked where everybody was. Jean’s father and mother were away. Yes. Miss Janet was at home, and had been here, but was now upstairs. He did not know if she was coming back.
We relapsed into silence. The Lad took Jean upon his knee. Something made the child feel neglected; neither by holding up her new bronze shoes nor by winking both her eyes could she win the Lad’s attention. He had forgotten us both. Suddenly he lifted the child to his face and kissed her passionately, murmuring, “Janet! Janet!”
I escaped to Janet’s room. The girl was pretending to read. Her lips were tight-set, and her eyes unnaturally bright.
“Do you know that you have a guest downstairs?” I asked.
“It is time that my guest went away,” was her answer.
“You haven’t a very polite way of inducing him to do it,” I said. “Child, what are you doing? Do you know what you are doing?”
She came and put her arms around my neck.
“I am finding out what happens when an insurmountable obstacle is met by an irresistible force. I cannot consent to be the Lad’s wife. I am not happy enough.”
“Don’t you care for him?” I asked.
“Perhaps I care too much to do that,” she answered slowly.
I was silent for very pity. I knew that all the obstinacy and incredulity of the girl’s nature had risen in battle against this new emotion. Love had come to her, but had come like a great sorrow.