"Stop here, close to the side of the road, John. Stop your engine, please, and go and sit by the lake."
The man obeyed at once with the unquestioning readiness of one used to his mistress' whims. For several minutes she remained silent. She had the air of one drinking in with almost passionate eagerness the sedative effect of the stillness, the soft spring air, the musical country sounds, the ripple of the breeze in the trees, the humming of insects, the soft splash of the lake against the stony shore. Philip himself was awakened into a peculiar sense of pleasure by this, almost his first glimpse of the country since his arrival in New York. A host of half forgotten sensations warmed his heart. He felt suddenly intensely sympathetic, perhaps more genuinely tender than he had ever felt before towards the woman by his side, whose hour of suffering it was. His hand slipped under the rug and held her fingers, which clutched his in instantaneous response. Her lips seemed unlocked by his slight action.
"I came here alone two years ago," she told him, "and since then often, sometimes to study a difficult part, sometimes only to think. One moment."
She released her fingers from his, drew out the hatpins from her hat, unwound the veil and threw them both on to the opposite seat. Then she laid her hands upon her forehead as though to cool it. The little breeze from the lake rippled through her hair, bringing them every now and then faint whiffs of perfume from the bordering gardens.
"There!" she exclaimed, with a little murmur of content. "That's a man's action, isn't it? Now I think I am getting brave. I have something to say to you, Philip."
He felt her fingers seeking his again and held them tightly. It was curious how in that moment of crisis his thoughts seemed to wander away. He was watching the little flecks of gold in her hair, wondering if he had ever properly appreciated the beautiful curve of her neck. Even her voice seemed somehow attuned to the melody of their surroundings, the confused song of the birds, the sighing of the lake, the passing of the west wind through the trees and shrubs around.
"Philip," she began, clinging closely to him, "I have brought you here to tell you a story which perhaps you will think, when you have heard it, might better have been told in my dressing-room. Well, I couldn't. Besides, I wanted to get away. It is about Sylvanus Power."
He sat a little more upright. His nerves were tingling now with eagerness.
"Yes?"
"I met him," she continued, "eight years ago out West, when I was in a travelling show. I accepted his attentions at first carelessly enough. I did not realise the sort of man he was. He was a great personage even in those days, and I suppose my head was a little turned. Then he began to follow us everywhere. There was a scandal, of course. In the end I left the company and came to New York. He went to China, where he has always had large interests. When I heard that he had sailed—I remember reading it in the paper—I could have sobbed with joy."
Philip moved a little uneasily in his place. Some instinct told him, however, how greatly she desired his silence—that she wanted to tell her story her own way.
"Then followed three miserable years, during which I saw little of him. I knew that I had talent, I was always sure of making a living, but I got no further. It didn't seem possible to get any further. Nothing that I could do or say seemed able to procure for me an engagement in New York. Think of me for a moment now, Philip, as a woman absolutely and entirely devoted to her work. I loved it. It absorbed all my thoughts. It was just the one thing in life I cared anything about. I simply ached to get at New York, and I couldn't. All the time I had to play on tour, and you won't quite understand this, dear, but there is nothing so wearing in life as for any one with my cravings for recognition there to be always playing on the road."
She paused for a few minutes. There was a loud twittering of birds. A rabbit who had stolen carefully through the undergrowth scurried away. A car had come through the wood and swept past them, bringing with it some vague sense of disturbance. It was some little time before she settled down again to her story.
"At the end of those three years," she went on, "Sylvanus Power had become richer, stronger, more masterful than ever. I was beginning to lose heart. He was clever. He studied my every weakness. He knew quite well that with me there was only one way, and he laid his schemes with regard to me just in the same fashion as he schemed to be a conqueror of men, to build up those millions. We were playing near New York and one day he asked me to motor in there and lunch with him. I accepted. It was in the springtime, almost on such a day as this. We motored up in one of his wonderful cars. We lunched—I remember how shabby I felt—at the best restaurant in New York, where I was waited upon like a queen. Somehow or other, the man had always the knack of making himself felt wherever he went. He strode the very streets of New York like one of its masters and the people seemed to recognise it. Afterwards he took me into Broadway, and he ordered the car to stop outside the theatre where I am now playing. I looked at it, and I remember I gave a little cry of interest.
"'This is the new theatre that every one is talking about, isn't it?' I asked him eagerly.
"'It is,' he answered. 'Would you like to see inside?'
"Of course, I was half crazy with curiosity. The doors flew open before him, and he took me everywhere. You know yourself what a magnificent place it is—that marvellous stage, the auditorium all in dark green satin, the seats like armchairs, the dressing rooms like boudoirs—the wonderful spaciousness of it! It took my breath away. I had never imagined such splendour. When we had finished looking over the whole building, I clutched his arm.
"'I can't believe that it isn't some sort of fairy palace!' I exclaimed. And to think that no one knows who owns the place or when it is going to be opened!'
"'I'll tell you all about that' he answered. 'I built it, I own it, and it will be opened just when you accept my offer and play in it.'
"It all seemed too amazing. For a time I couldn't speak coherently. ThenI remember thinking that whatever happened, whatever price I had to pay,I must stand upon the stage of that theatre and win. My lips were quitedry. His great voice seemed to have faded into a whisper.
"'Your offer?' I repeated.
"'Yourself,' he answered gruffly."
There was a silence which seemed to Philip interminable. All the magic of the place had passed away, its music seemed no longer to be singing happiness into his heart. Then at last he realised that she was waiting for him to speak.
"He wanted—to marry you?" he faltered.
"He had a wife already."
Splash! John was throwing stones into the lake, a pastime of which he was getting a little tired. A huge thrush was thinking about commencing to build his nest, and in the meantime sat upon a fallen log across the way and sang about it. A little tree-climbing bird ran round and round the trunk of the nearest elm, staring at them, every time he appeared, with his tiny black eyes. A squirrel, almost overhead, who had long since come to the conclusion that they were harmless, decided now that they had the queerest manners of any two young people he had ever watched from his leafy throne, and finally abandoned his position. Elizabeth had been staring down the road ever since the last words had passed her lips. She turned at last and looked at her companion. He was once more the refugee, the half-starved man flying from horrors greater even than he had known. She began to tremble.
"Philip!" she cried. "Say anything, but speak to me!"
Like a flash he seemed to pass from his own, almost the hermit's way of looking out upon life from the old-fashioned standpoint of his inherent puritanism, into a closer sympathy with those others, the men and women of the world into which he had so lately entered, the men and women who had welcomed him so warm-heartedly, human beings all of them, who lived and loved with glad hearts and much kindliness. The contrast was absurd, the story itself suddenly so reasonable. No other woman on tour would have kept Sylvanus Power waiting for three years. Only Elizabeth could have done that. It was such a human little problem. People didn't live in the clouds. He wasn't fit for the clouds himself. Nevertheless, when he tried to speak his throat was hard and dry, and at the second attempt he began instead to laugh. She gripped his arm.
"Philip!" she exclaimed. "Be reasonable! Say what you like, but look and behave like a human being. Don't make that noise!" she almost shrieked.
He stopped at once.
"Forgive me," he begged humbly. "I can't help it. I seem to be playing hide and seek with myself. You haven't finished the story yet—if there is anything more to tell me."
She drew herself up. She spoke absolutely without faltering.
"I accepted Sylvanus Power's terms," she went on. "He placed large sums of money in Fink's hands to run the theatre. There was a wonderful opening. You were not interested then or you might have heard of it. I produced a new play of Clyde Fitch's. It was a great triumph. The house was packed. Sylvanus Power sat in his box. It was to be his night. Through it all I fought like a woman in a nightmare. I didn't know what it meant. I knew hundreds of women who had done in a small way what I was prepared to do magnificently. In all my acquaintance I think that I scarcely knew one who would have refused to do what I was doing. And all the time I was in a state of fierce revolt. I had moments when my life's ambitions, when New York itself, the Mecca of my dreams, and that marvellous theatre, with its marble and silk, seemed suddenly to dwindle to a miserable, contemptible little doll's house. And then again I played, and I felt my soul as I played, and the old dreams swept over me, and I said that it wasn't anything to do with personal vanity that made me crave for the big gifts of success; that it was my art, and that I must find myself in my art or die."
The blood was flowing in his veins again. She was coming back to him. He was ashamed—he with his giant load of sin! His voice trembled with tenderness.
"Go on," he begged.
"I think that the reason I played that night as though I were inspired was because of the great passionate craving at my heart for forgetfulness, to shut out the memory of that man who sat almost gloomily alone in his box, waiting. And then, after it was all over, the wonder and the glory of it, he appeared suddenly in my dressing-room, elbowing his way through excited journalists, kicking bouquets of flowers from his path. We stood for a moment face to face. He came nearer. I shrank away. I was terrified! He looked at me in cold surprise.
"'Three minutes,' he exclaimed, 'to say good-by. I'm off to China. Stick at it. You've done well for a start, but remember a New York audience wants holding. Choose your plays carefully. Trust Fink.'
"'You're going away?' I almost shrieked.
"He glanced at his watch, leaned over, and kissed me on the forehead.
"'I'll barely make that boat,' he muttered, and rushed out."…
Philip was breathless. The strange, untold passion of the whole thing was coming to him in waves of wonderful suggestion.
"Finish!" he cried impatiently. "Finish!"
"That is the end," she said. "I played for two years and a half, with scarcely a pause. Then I came to Europe for a rest and travelled back with you on theElletania. Last night I saw Sylvanus Power again for the first time. Don't speak. My story is in two halves. That is the first. The second is just one question. That will come before we reach home…John!" she called.
The man approached promptly—he was quite weary of throwing stones.
"Take us somewhere to lunch," his mistress directed, "and get back to NewYork at six o'clock."
It was not until they were crossing Brooklyn Bridge, on their way into the city, that she asked him that question. They crawled along, one of an interminable, tangled line of vehicles of all sorts and conditions, the trains rattling overhead, and endless streams of earnest people passing along the footway. Below them, the evening sunlight flashed upon the murky waters, glittered from the windows of the tall buildings, and shone a little mercilessly upon the unlovely purlieus of the great human hive. The wind had turned cool, and Elizabeth, with a little shiver, had drawn her furs around her neck. All through the day, during the luncheon in an unpretentious little inn, and the leisurely homeward drive, she had been once more entirely herself, pleasant and sympathetic, ignoring absolutely the intangible barrier which had grown up between them, soon to be thrown down for ever or to remain for all time.
"We left our heroine," she said, "at an interesting crisis in her career.I am waiting to hear from you—what would you have done in her place?"
He answered her at once, and he spoke from the lesser heights. He was fiercely jealous.
"It is not a reasonable question," he declared. "I am not a woman. I am just a man who has led an unusually narrow and cramped life until these last few months."
"That is scarcely fair," she objected. "You profess to have loved—to love still, I hope. That in itself makes a man of any one. Then you, too, have sinned. You, too, are one of those who have yielded to passion of a sort. Therefore, your judgment ought to be the better worth having."
He winced as though he had been struck, and looked at her with eyes momentarily wild. He felt that the deliberate cruelty of her words was of intent, an instinct of her brain, defying for the moment her heart.
"I don't know," he faltered. "I won't answer your question. I can't. You see, the love you speak of is my love for you. You ask me to ignore that—I, who am clinging on to life by one rope."
"You are like all men," she sighed. "We do not blame you for it—perhaps we love you the more—but when a great crisis comes you think only of yourselves. You disappoint me a little, Philip. I fancied that you might have thought a little of me, something of Sylvanus Power."
"I haven't your sympathy for other people," he declared hoarsely.
"No," she assented, "sympathy is the one thing a man lacks. It isn't your fault, Philip. You are to be pitied for it. And, after all, it is a woman's gift, isn't it?"
There followed then a silence which seemed interminable. It was not until they were nearing the theatre that he suddenly spoke with a passion which startled her.
"Tell me," he insisted, "last night? I can't help asking. I was in hell!"
He told himself afterwards that there couldn't be any possible way of reconciling cruelty so cold-blooded with all that he knew of Elizabeth. She behaved as though his question had fallen upon deaf ears. The car had stopped before the entrance to the theatre. She stepped out even before he could assist her, hurried across the pavement and looked back at him for one moment only before she plunged into the dark passage. She nodded, and there was an utterly meaningless smile upon her lips.
"Good-by!" she said. "Do you mind telling John he needn't wait for me?"
Then she disappeared. He stood motionless upon the pavement, a little dazed. Two or three people jostled against him. A policeman glanced at him curiously. A lady with very yellow hair winked in his face. Philip pulled himself together and simultaneously felt a touch upon his elbow. He glanced into the face of the girl who had accosted him, and for a moment he scarcely recognised her.
"Wish you'd remember you're in New York and not one of your own sleepy old towns," Miss Grimes remarked brusquely. "You'll have a policeman say you're drunk, in a minute, if you stand there letting people shove you around."
He fell into step by her side, and they walked slowly along. Martha was plainly dressed, but she was wearing new clothes, new shoes, and a new hat.
"Don't stare at me as though you never saw me out of a garret before," she went on, a little sharply. "Your friend Miss Dalstan is a lady who understands things. When I arrived at the theatre this morning I found that it was to be a permanent job all right, and there was a little advance for me waiting in an envelope. That fat old Mr. Fink began to cough and look at my clothes, so I got one in first. 'This is for me to make myself look smart enough for your theatre, I suppose?' I said. 'Give me an hour off, and I'll do it.' So he grinned, and here I am. Done a good day's work, too, copying the parts of your play for a road company, and answering letters. What's wrong with you?"
The very sound of her voice was a tonic. He almost smiled as he answered her.
"Just a sort of hankering for the moon and a sudden fear lest I mightn't get it."
"You're spoilt, that's what's the matter with you," she declared brusquely.
"It never occurred to me," he said gloomily, "that life had been over-kind."
"Oh, cut it out!" she answered. "Here you are not only set on your feet but absolutely held up there; all the papers full of Merton Ware's brilliant play, and Merton Ware, the new dramatist, with his social gifts—such an acquisition to New York Society! Why, it isn't so very long ago, after all, that you hadn't a soul in New York to speak to. I saw something in your face that night. I thought you were hungry. So you were, only it wasn't for food. It cheered you up even to talk with me. And look at you to-day! Clubs and parties and fine friends, and there you were, half dazed in Broadway! Be careful, man. You don't know what it is to be down and out. You haven't been as near it as I have, anyway, or you'd lift your head up and be thankful."
"Martha," he began earnestly—
"Miss Grimes!" she interrupted firmly. "Don't let there be any mistake about that. I hate familiarity."
"Miss Grimes, then," he went on. "You talk about my friends. Quite right. I should think I have been introduced to nearly a thousand people since the night my play was produced. I have dined at a score of houses and many scores of restaurants. The people are pleasant enough, too, but all the time it's Merton Ware the dramatist they are patting on the back. They don't know anything about Merton Ware the man. Perhaps there are some of them would be glad to, but you see it's too soon, and they seem to live too quickly here to make friends. I am almost as lonely as I was, so far as regards ordinary companionship. Last night I felt the first little glow of real friendliness—just the men down at the club."
"You've put all your eggs into one basket, that's what you've done," she declared.
"That's true enough," he groaned.
"And like all men—selfish brutes!" she proceeded deliberately—"you expect everything. Fancy expecting everything from a woman like Miss Dalstan! Why, you aren't worthy of it, you know."
"Perhaps not," he admitted, "but you see, Miss Grimes, there is something in life which seems to have passed you by up till now."
"Has it indeed!" she objected. "You think I've never had a young man, eh?Perhaps you're right. Haven't found much time for that sort of rubbish.Anyway, this is where I hop on a trolley car."
"Wait a moment," he begged. "Don't leave me yet. You've nothing to do, have you?"
"Nothing particular," she confessed, "except go home and cook my dinner."
"Look here," he went on eagerly, "I feel like work. I've got the second act of my new play in my mind. Come round with me and let me try dictating it. I'll give you something to eat in my rooms. It's for the theatre, mind. I never tried dictating. I believe I could do it to you."
"In your rooms," she repeated, a little doubtfully.
"They won't talk scandal about us, Miss Grimes," he assured her. "To tell you the truth, I want to be near the telephone."
"In case she rings you up, eh?"
"That's so. I said something I ought not to have done. I ought to have waited for her, but it was something that had been tearing at me ever since last night, and I couldn't bear it."
"Some blunderers, you men," Miss Grimes sighed. "Well, I'm with you."
He led her almost apologetically to the lift of the handsome building in which his new rooms were situated. They were very pleasant bachelor rooms, with black oak walls and green hangings, prints upon the wall, a serviceable writing-table, and a deep green carpet. She looked around her and at the servant who had come forward at their entrance, with a little sniff.
"Shall you be changing to-night, sir?" he asked.
"Not to-night," Philip answered quickly. "Tell the waiter to send up a simple dinner for two—I can't bother to order. And two cocktails," he added, as an afterthought.
Martha stared after the disappearing manservant disparagingly.
"Some style," she muttered. "A manservant, eh? Don't know as I ever saw one before off the stage."
"Don't be silly," he remonstrated. "He has four other flats to look after besides mine. It's the way one lives, nowadays, cheaper than ordinary hotels or rooms. Take off your coat."
She obeyed him, depositing it carefully in a safe place. Then she strolled around the room, finding pictures little to her taste, and finally threw herself into an easy-chair.
"Are we going to work before we eat?" she asked.
"No, afterwards," he told her. "Have a cigarette?"
She held it between her fingers but declined a match.
"I'll wait for the cocktails," she decided. "Now listen here, Mr. Ware, there's a word or two I'd like to say to you."
"Go ahead," he invited listlessly.
"You men," she continued, looking him squarely in the face, "think a lot too much of yourselves. You think so much of yourselves that as often as not you've no time to think of other folk. A month or so ago who were you? You were hiding in a cheap tenement house, scared out of your wits, dressed pretty near as shabbily as I was, with a detective on your track, and with no idea of what you were going to do for a living. And now look at you. Who's done it all?"
"Of course, my play being successful," he began—
She broke in at once.
"You and your play! Who took your play? Who produced it at the New York Theatre and acted in it so that people couldn't listen without a sob in their throats and a tingling all over? Yours isn't the only play in the world! I bet Miss Dalstan has a box full of them. She probably chose yours because she knew that you were feeling pretty miserable, because she'd got sorry for you coming over on the steamer, because she has a great big heart, and is always trying to do something for others. She's made a man of you. Oh! I know a bit about plays. I know that with the royalties you're drawing you can well afford rooms like these and anything else you want. But that isn't all she's done. She's introduced you to her friends, she's taken more notice of you than any man around. She takes you out automobile driving, she lets you spend all your spare time in her rooms. She don't mind what people say. You dine with her and take her home after the play. You have more of her than any other person alive. Say, what I want to ask is—do you think you're properly grateful?"
"I couldn't ever repay Miss Dalstan," he acknowledged, a little sadly, "but—"
"Look here, no 'buts'!" she interrupted. "You think I don't know anything. Perhaps I don't, and perhaps I do. I was standing in the door of the office when you two came in from your automobile drive this afternoon. I saw her come away without wishing you good-by, then I saw her turn and nod, looking just as usual, and I saw her face afterwards. If I had had you, my man, as close to me then as you are now, I'd have boxed your ears."
He moved uneasily in his chair. There was no doubt about the girl's earnestness. She was leaning a little forward, and her brown eyes were filled with a hard, accusing light. There was a little spot of colour, even, in her sallow cheeks. She was unmistakably angry.
"I'd like to know who you are and what you think yourself to make a woman look like that?" she wound up.
The waiter entered with the cocktails and began to lay the cloth for dinner. Philip paced the room uneasily until he had gone.
"Look here, my little friend," he said, when at last the door was closed, "there's a great deal of sound common sense in what you say. I may be an egoist—I dare say I am. I've been through the proper training for it, and I've started life again on a pretty one-sided basis, perhaps. But—have you ever been jealous?"
"Me jealous!" she repeated scornfully. "What of, I wonder?"
There was a suspicious glitter in her eyes, a queer little tremble in her tone. His question, however, was merely perfunctory. She represented little more to him, at that moment, than the incarnation of his own conscience.
"Very likely you haven't," he went on. "You are too independent ever to care much for any one. Well, I've been half mad with jealousy since last night. That is the truth of it. There's another man wants her, the man who built the theatre for her. She told me about him yesterday while we were out together."
"Don't you want her to be happy?" the girl asked bluntly.
"Of course I do."
"Then leave her alone to choose. Don't go about looking as though you had a knife in your heart, if you find her turn for a moment to some one else. You don't want her to choose you, do you, just because you are a weakling, because her great kind heart can't bear the thought of making you miserable? Stand on your feet like a man and take your luck…. Can I take off my hat? I can't eat in this."
The waiter had entered with the dinner. Merton opened the door of his room and paced up and down, for a few moments, thoughtfully. When she reappeared she took the seat opposite Philip and suddenly smiled at him, an exceedingly rare but most becoming performance. Her mouth seemed at once to soften, and even her eyes laughed at him.
"Here you ask me to dine," she said, "because you are lonely, and I do nothing but scold you! Never mind. I was typewriting something of yours this morning—I've forgotten the words, but it was something about the discipline of affection. You can take my scolding that way. If I didn't adore Miss Dalstan, and if you hadn't been kind to me, I should never take the trouble to make myself disagreeable."
He smiled back at her, readily falling in with her altered mood. She seemed to have talked the ill-humour out of her blood, and during the service of the meal she told him of the comfort of her work, the charm of the other girl in the room, with whom she was already discussing a plan to share an apartment. When she came to speak, however remotely, of Miss Dalstan, her voice seemed instinctively to soften. Philip found himself wondering what had passed between the two women in those few moments when Elizabeth had left him and gone back to Martha's room. By some strange miracle, the strong, sweet, understanding woman had simply taken possession of the friendless child. The thought of her sat now in Martha's heart, an obsession, almost a worship. Perhaps that was why the sense of companionship between the two, notwithstanding certain obvious disparities, seemed to grow stronger every moment.
They drank their coffee and smoked cigarettes afterwards in lazy fashion.Suddenly Martha sprang up.
"Say, I came here to work!" she exclaimed.
"And I brought you under false pretences," he confessed. "My brain's not working. I can't dictate. We'll try another evening. You don't mind?"
"Of course not," she answered, glancing at the clock. "I'll be going."
"Wait a little time longer," he begged.
She resumed her seat. There was only one heavily shaded lamp burning on the table, and through the little cloud of tobacco smoke she watched him. His eyes were sometimes upon the timepiece, sometimes on the telephone. He seemed always, although his attitude was one of repose, to be listening, waiting. It was half-past nine—the middle of the second act. They knew quite well that for a quarter of an hour Elizabeth would be in her dressing room. She could ring up if she wished. The seconds ticked monotonously away. Martha found herself, too, sharing that curiously intense desire to hear the ring of the telephone. Nothing happened. A quarter to ten came and passed. She rose to her feet.
"I am going home right now," she announced.
He reached for his hat.
"I'll come with you," he suggested, a little halfheartedly.
"You'll do nothing of the sort," she objected, "or if you do, I'll never come inside your rooms again. Understand that. I don't want any of these Society tricks. See me home, indeed! I'd have you know that I'm better able to take care of myself in the streets of New York than you are. So thank you for your dinner, and just you sit down and listen for that telephone. It will ring right presently, and if it doesn't, go to bed and say to yourself that whatever she decides is best. She knows which way her happiness lies. You don't. And it's she who counts much more than you. Leave off thinking of yourself quite so much and shake hands with me, please, Mr. Ware."
He gripped her hand, opened the door, and watched her sail down towards the lift, whistling to herself, her hands in her coat pockets. Then he turned back into the room and locked himself in.
The slow fever of inaction, fretting in Philip's veins, culminated soon after Martha's departure in a passionate desire for a movement of some sort. The very silence of the room maddened him, the unresponsive-looking telephone, the fire which had burned itself out, the dropping even of the wind, which at intervals during the evening had flung a rainstorm against the windowpane. At midnight he could bear it no longer and sallied out into the streets. Again that curious desire for companionship was upon him, a strange heritage for one who throughout the earlier stages of his life had been content with and had even sought a grim and unending solitude. He boarded a surface car for the sake of sitting wedged in amongst a little crowd of people, and he entered his club, noting the number of hats and coats in the cloakroom with a queer sense of satisfaction. He no sooner made his appearance in the main room than he was greeted vociferously from half a dozen quarters. He accepted every hospitality that was offered to him, drinking cheerfully with new as well as old acquaintances. Presently Noel Bridges came up and gripped his shoulder.
"Come and have a grill with us, Ware," he begged. "There's Seymour andRichmond here, from the Savage Club, and a whole crowd of us. Hullo,Freddy!" he went on, greeting the man with whom Philip had been talking."Why don't you come and join us, too? We'll have a rubber of bridgeafterwards."
"That's great," the other declared. "Come on, Ware. We'll rag oldHoneybrook into telling us some of his stories."
The little party gathered together at the end of the common table. Philip had already drunk much more than he was accustomed to, but the only result appeared to be some slight slackening of the tension in which he had been living. His eyes flashed, and his tongue became more nimble. He insisted upon ordering wine. He had had no opportunity yet of repaying many courtesies. They drank his health, forced him into the place of honour by the side of Honeybrook, veteran of the club, and ate their meal to the accompaniment of ceaseless bursts of laughter, chaff, the popping of corks, mock speeches, badinage of every sort. Philip felt, somehow, that his brain had never been clearer. He not only held his own, but he earned a reputation for a sense of humour previously denied to him. And in the midst of it all the door opened and closed, and a huge man, dressed in plain dinner clothes, still wearing his theatre hat, with a coat upon his arm and a stick in his hand, passed through the door and stood for a moment gazing around him.
"Say, that's Sylvanus Power!" one of the young men at the table exclaimed. "Looks a trifle grim, doesn't he?"
"It's the old man, right enough," Noel Bridges murmured. "Wonder what he wants down here? It isn't in his beat?"
Honeybrook, the great New York raconteur, father of the club, touchedPhilip upon the shoulder.
"Hey, presto!" he whispered. "We who think so much of ourselves have become pigmies upon the face of the earth. There towers the representative of modern omnipotence. Those are the hands—grim, strong-looking hands, aren't they?—that grip the levers of modern American life. Rodin ought to do a statue of him as he stands there—art and letters growing smaller as he grows larger. We exist for him. He builds theatres for our plays, museums for our pictures, libraries for our books."
"Seems to me he is looking for one of us," Noel Bridges remarked.
"Some pose, isn't it!" a younger member of the party exclaimed reverently, as he lifted his tankard.
All these things were a matter of seconds, during which Sylvanus Power did indeed stand without moving, looking closely about the room. Then his eye at last lit upon the end of the table where Philip and his friends were seated. He approached them without a word. Noel Bridges ventured upon a greeting.
"Coming to join us, Mr. Power?" he asked.
Sylvanus Power, if he heard the question, ignored it. His eyes had rested upon Philip. He stood over the table now, looming before them, massive, in his way awe-inspiring.
"Ware," he said, "I've been looking for you."
Instinctively Philip rose to his feet. Tall though he was, he had to look up at the other man, and his slender body seemed in comparison like a willow wand. Nevertheless, the light in his eyes was illuminative. There was no shrinking away. He stood there with the air of one prepared to welcome, to incite and provoke storm whatever might be brewing.
"I have been to your rooms," Sylvanus Power went on. "They knew nothing about you there."
"They wouldn't," Philip replied. "I go where I choose and when I choose.What do you want with me?"
Conversation in the room was almost suspended. Those in the immediate locality, well acquainted with the gossip of the city, held the key to the situation. Every one for a moment, however, was spellbound. They felt the coming storm, but they were powerless.
"I sought you out, Ware," Sylvanus Power continued, his harsh voice ringing through the room, "to tell you what probably every other man here knows except you. If you know it you're a fool, and I'm here to tell you so."
"Have you been drinking?" Philip asked calmly.
"Maybe I have," Sylvanus Power answered, "but whisky can't cloud my brain or stop my tongue. You're looking at my little toy here," he went on, twirling in his right hand a heavy malacca cane with a leaden top. "I killed a man with that once."
"The weapon seems sufficient for the purpose," Philip answered indifferently.
"Any other man," Sylvanus Power went on, "would have sat in the chair for that. Not I! You don't know as much of me as you need to, Merton Ware. I'm no whippersnapper of a pen-slinger, earning a few paltry dollars by writing doggerel for women and mountebanks to act. I've hewn my way with my right arm and my brain, from the streets to the palace. They say that money talks. By God! if it does I ought to shout, for I've more million dollars than there are men in this room."
"Nevertheless," Philip said, growing calmer as he recognised the man's condition, "you are a very insufferable fellow."
There had been a little murmur throughout the room at the end of Sylvanus Power's last blatant speech, but at Philip's retort there was a hushed, almost an awed silence. Mr. Honeybrook rose to his feet.
"Sir," he said, turning to Power, "to the best of my belief you are not a member of this club."
"I am a member of any club in America I choose to enter," the intruder declared. "As for you writing and acting popinjays, I could break the lot of you if I chose. I came to see you, Ware. Come out from your friends and talk to me."
Philip pushed back his chair, made his way deliberately round the head of the table, brushing aside several arms outstretched to prevent his going. Sylvanus Power stood in an open space between the tables, swinging his cane, with its ugly top, in the middle of his hand. He watched Philip's approach and lowered his head a little, like a bull about to charge.
"If you have anything to say to me," Philip observed coolly, "I am here, but I warn you that there is one subject which is never discussed within these walls. If you transgress our unwritten rule, I shall neither listen to what you have to say nor will you be allowed to remain here."
"And what is that subject?" Sylvanus Power thundered.
"No woman's name is mentioned here," Philip told him calmly.
Several of the men had sprung to their feet. It seemed from Power's attitude as though murder might be done. Philip, however, stood his ground almost contemptuously, his frame tense and poised, his fists clenched. Suddenly the strain passed. The man whose face for a moment had been almost black with passion, lowered his cane, swayed a little upon his feet, and recovered himself.
"So you know what I've come here to talk about, young man?" he demanded.
"One can surmise," Philip replied. "If you think it worth while, I will accompany you to my rooms or to yours."
Philip in those few seconds made a reputation for himself which he never lost. The little company of men looked at one another in mute acknowledgment of a courage which not one of them failed to appreciate.
"I'll take you at your word," Sylvanus Power decided grimly. "Here, boys," he went on, moving towards the table where Philip had been seated, "give me a drink—some rye whisky. I'm dry."
Not a soul stirred. Even Noel Bridges remained motionless. Heselton, the junior manager of the theatre, met the millionaire's eye and never flinched. Mr. Honeybrook knocked the ash from his cigar and accepted the role of spokesman.
"Mr. Power," he said, "we are a hospitable company here, and we are at all times glad to entertain our friends. At the same time, the privileges of the club are retained so far as possible for those who conform to a reasonable standard of good manners."
There was a sudden thumping of hands upon the table until the glasses rattled. Power's face showed not a single sign of anger. He was simply puzzled. He had come into touch with something which he could not understand. There was Bridges, earning a salary at his theatre, to be thrown out into the streets or made a star of, according to his whim; Heselton, a family man, drawing his salary, and a good one, too, also from the theatre; men whose faces were familiar to him—some of them, he knew, on newspapers in which he owned a controlling interest. The power of which he had bragged was a real enough thing. What had come to these men that they failed to recognise it?—to this slim young boy of an Englishman that he dared to defy him?
"Pretty queer crowd, you boys," he muttered.
Philip, who had been waiting by the door, came a few steps back again.
"Mr. Power," he said, "I don't know much about you, and you don't seem to know anything at all about us. I am only at present a member by courtesy of this club, but it isn't often that any one has reason to complain of lack of hospitality here. If you take my advice, you'll apologise to these gentlemen for your shockingly bad behaviour when you came in. Tell them that you weren't quite yourself, and I'll stand you a drink myself."
"That goes," Honeybrook assented gravely. "It's up to you, sir."
Mr. Sylvanus Power felt that he had wandered into a cul-de-sac. He had found his way into one of those branch avenues leading from the great road of his imperial success. He was man enough to know when to turn back.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I offer you my apologies. I came here in a furious temper and a little drunk. I retract all that I said. I'll drink to your club, if you'll allow me the privilege."
Willing hands filled his tumbler, and grateful ones forced a glass between Philip's fingers. None of them really wanted Sylvanus Power for an enemy.
"Here's looking at you all," the latter said. "Luck!" he muttered, glancing towards Philip.
They all drank as though it were a rite. Philip and Sylvanus Power set their glasses down almost at the same moment. Philip turned towards the door.
"I am at your service now, Mr. Power," he announced. "Good night, you fellows!"
There was a new ring of friendliness in the hearty response which came from every corner of the room.
"Goodnight, Ware!"
"So long, old fellow!"
"Good night, old chap!"
There was a little delay in the cloakroom while the attendant searched for Philip's hat, which had been temporarily misplaced. Honeybrook, who had followed the two men out of the room, fumbling for a moment in his locker and, coming over to Philip, dropped something into the latter's overcoat pocket.
"Rather like a scene in a melodrama, isn't it, Ware," he whispered, "butI know a little about Sylvanus Power. It's only a last resource, mind."
Philip fetched his hat, and the two men stepped out on to the pavement. A servant in quiet grey livery held open the door of an enormous motor car. Sylvanus Power beckoned his companion to precede him.
"Home," he told the man, "unless," he added, turning to Philip, "you'd rather go to your rooms?"
"I am quite indifferent," Philip replied.
They drove off in absolute silence, a silence which remained unbroken until they passed through some elaborate iron gates and drew up before a mansion in Fifth Avenue.
"You'll wait," Sylvanus Power ordered, "and take this gentleman home.This way, sir."
The doors rolled open before them. Philip caught a vista of a wonderful hall, with a domed roof and stained glass windows, and a fountain playing from some marble statuary at the further end. A personage in black took his coat and hat. The door of a dining room stood open. A table, covered with a profusion of flowers, was laid, and places set for two. Mr. Sylvanus Power turned abruptly to a footman.
"You can have that cleared away," he directed harshly. "No supper will be required."
He swung around and led the way into a room at the rear of the hall, a room which, in comparison with Philip's confused impressions of the rest of the place, was almost plainly furnished. There was a small oak sideboard, upon which was set out whisky and soda and cigars; a great desk, covered with papers, before which a young man was seated; two telephone instruments and a phonograph. The walls were lined with books. The room itself was long and narrow. Power turned to the young man.
"You can go to bed, George," he ordered. "Disconnect the telephones."
The young man gathered up some papers, locked the desk in silence, bowed to his employer, and left the room without a word. Power waited until the door was closed. Then he stood up with his back to the fireplace and pointed to a chair.
"You can sit, if you like," he invited. "Drink or smoke if you want to.You're welcome."
"Thank you," Philip replied. "I'd rather stand."
"You don't want even to take a chair in my house, I suppose," Mr. Sylvanus Power went on mockingly, "or drink my whisky or smoke my cigars, eh?"
"From the little I have seen of you," Philip confessed, "my inclinations are certainly against accepting any hospitality at your hands."
"That's a play-writing trick, I suppose," Sylvanus Power sneered, "stringing out your sentences as pat as butter. It's not my way. There's the truth always at the back of my head, and the words ready to fit it, but they come as they please."
"I seem to have noticed that," Philip observed.
"What sort of a man are you, anyway?" the other demanded, his heavy eyebrows suddenly lowering, his wonderful, keen eyes riveted upon Philip. "Can I buy you, I wonder, or threaten you?"
"That rather depends upon what it is you want from me?"
"I want you to leave this country and never set foot in it again. That's what I want of you. I want you to get back to your London slums and write your stuff there and have it played in your own poky little theatres. I want you out of New York, and I want you out quick."
"Then I am afraid," Philip regretted, "that we are wasting time. I haven't the least intention of leaving New York."
"Well, we'll go through the rigmarole," Power continued gruffly. "We've got to understand one another. There's my cheque book in that safe. A million dollars if you leave this country—alone—within twenty-four hours, and stay away for the rest of your life."
Philip raised his eyebrows. He was lounging slightly against the desk.
"I should have no use for a million dollars, Mr. Power," he said. "If I had, I should not take it from you, and further, the conditions you suggest are absurd."
"Bribery no good, eh?" Mr. Power observed. "What about threats? There was a man once who wrote a letter to a certain woman, which I found. I killed him a few days afterwards. There was a sort of a scuffle, but it was murder, right enough. I am nearer the door than you are, and I should say about three times as strong. How would a fight suit you?"
Ware's hand was in his overcoat pocket.
"Not particularly," he answered. "Besides, it wouldn't be fair. You see,I am armed, and you're not."
As though for curiosity, he drew from his pocket the little revolver which Honeybrook had slipped into it. Power looked at it and shrugged his shoulders.
"We'll leave that out, then, for the moment," he said. "Now listen to me. I'm off on another tack now. Eight years ago I met Elizabeth Dalstan. I was thirty-eight years old then—I am forty-six now. You young men nowadays go through your life, they tell me, with a woman on your hands most of the time, waste yourself out in a score of passions, go through the same old rigmarole once a year or something like it. I was married when I was twenty-four. I got married to lay my hands on the first ten thousand dollars I needed. My wife left me fifteen years ago. You may have read of her. She was a storekeeper's daughter then. She has a flat in Paris now, a country house in England, a villa at Monte Carlo and another at Florence. She lives her life, I live mine. She's the only woman I'd ever spoken a civil word to until I met Elizabeth Dalstan, or since."
Philip was interested despite his violent antipathy to the man.
"A singular record of fidelity," he remarked suavely.
"If you'd drop that play-acting talk and speak like a man, I'd like you better," Sylvanus Power continued. "There it is in plain words. I lived with my wife until we quarrelled and she left me, and while she lived with me I thought no more of women than cats. When she went, I thought I'd done with the sex. Elizabeth Dalstan happened along, and I found I hadn't even begun. Eight years ago we met. I offered her at once everything I could offer. Nothing doing. We don't need to tell one another that she isn't that sort. I went off and left her, spent a winter in Siberia, and came home by China. I suppose there were women there and in Paris. I was there for a month. I didn't see them. Then America. Elizabeth Dalstan was still touring, not doing much good for herself. I hung around for a time, tried my luck once more—no go. Then I went back to Europe, offered my wife ten million and an income for a divorce. It didn't suit her, so I came back again. The third time I found Elizabeth discouraged. If ever a man found a woman at the right time, I did. She is ambitious—Lord knows why! I hate acting and the theatres and everything to do with them. However, I tried a new move. I built that theatre in New York—there isn't another place like it in the world—and offered it to her for a birthday present. Then she began to hesitate."
"Look here," Philip broke in, "I know all this. I know everything you have told me, and everything you can tell me. What about it? What have you got to say to me?"
"This," Sylvanus Power declared, striking the desk with his clenched fist. "I have only had one consolation all the time I have been waiting—there has been no other man. Elizabeth isn't that sort. Each time I was separated and came back, I just looked at her and I knew. That's why I have been patient. That is why I haven't insisted upon my debt being paid. You understand that?"
"I hear what you say."
Power crossed the room, helped himself to whisky, and returned to his place with the tumbler in his hand. There was a brief silence. A little clock upon the mantelpiece struck two. The street sounds outside had ceased save for the hoot of an occasional taxicab. Philip was conscious of a burning desire to get away. This man, this great lump of power and success, standing like a colossus in his wonderful home, infuriated him. That a man should live who thought he had a right such as he claimed, was maddening.
"Well," Power proceeded, setting down the tumbler empty, "you won't be bought. How am I going to get you out of the way?"
"You can't do it," Philip asserted. "I am going to-morrow morning toElizabeth, and I am going to pray her to marry me at once."
Power swayed for a single moment upon his feet. The teeth gleamed between his slightly parted lips. His great arm was outstretched, its bursting muscles showing against the sleeve of his dinner coat. His chest was heaving.
"If you do it," he shouted, "I'll close the theatre to-morrow and sack every one in it. I'll buy any theatre in New York where you try to present your namby-pamby play. I'll buy every manager she goes to for an engagement, every newspaper that says a word of praise of any work of yours. I tell you I'll stand behind the scenes and pull the strings which shall bring you and her to the knowledge of what failure and want mean. I'll give up the great things in life. I'll devote every dollar I have, every thought of my brain, every atom of my power, to bringing you two face to face with misery. That's if I keep my hands off you. I mayn't do that."
Philip shrugged his shoulders.
"If I put you in a play," he said, "which is where you really belong, people would find you humorous. Your threats don't affect me at all, Mr. Power. Elizabeth can choose."
Power leaned over to the switch and turned on an electric light abovePhilip's head.
"Blast you, let me look at you!" he thundered. "You're a white-faced, sickly creature to call yourself a man! Can't you see this thing as I see it? You're the sort that's had women, and plenty of them. Another will do for you, and, my God! she is the only one I've looked at—I, Sylvanus Power, mind—I, who have ruled fate and ruled men all my life—I want her! Don't be a fool! Get out of my path. I've crushed a hundred such men as you in my day."
Philip took up his hat.
"We are wasting time," he observed. "You are a cruder person than I thought you, Mr. Power. I am sorry for you, if that's anything."
"Sorry for me? You?"
"Very," Philip continued. "You see, you've imbibed a false view of life. You've placed yourself amongst the gods and your feet really are made of very sticky clay…. Shall I find my own way out?"
"You can find your way to hell!" Power roared. "Use your toy pistol, if you want to. You're going where you'll never need it again!"
He took a giant stride, a stride which was more like the spring of a maddened bull, towards Philip. The veneer of a spurious civilisation seemed to have fallen from him. He was the great and splendid animal, transformed with an overmastering passion. There was murder in his eyes. His great right arm, with its long, hairy fingers and its single massive ring, was like the limb of some prehistoric creature. Philip's brain and his feet, however, were alike nimble. He sprang a little on one side, and though that first blow caught him just on the edge of the shoulder and sent him spinning round and round, he saved himself by clutching at the desk. Fortunately, it was his left arm that hung helpless by his side. His fingers groped feverishly in the cavernous folds of his overcoat pocket. Power, who had dashed against the wall, smashing the glass of one of the pictures, had already recovered his balance and turned around. The little revolver, with whose use Philip was barely acquainted, flashed suddenly out in the lamplight. Even in that lurid moment he kept his nerve. He aimed at the right arm outstretched to strike him, and pulled the trigger. Through the little mist of smoke he saw a spasm of pain in his assailant's face, felt the thundering crash of his other arm, striking him on the side of the head. The room spun round. There was a second almost of unconsciousness…. When he came to, he was lying with his finger pressed against the electric bell. Power was clutching the desk for support, and gasping. The sober person in black, with a couple of footmen behind, were already in the room…. Their master turned to them.
"There has been an accident here," he groaned, "nothing serious. Take that gentleman and put him in the car. It's waiting outside for him. Telephone round for Doctor Renshaw."
For a single moment the major-domo hesitated. The weapon was still smoking in Philip's hand. Then Power's voice rang out again in furious command.
"Do as I tell you," he ordered. "If there's one of you here opens his lips about this, he leaves my service to-morrow. Not a dollar of pension, mind," he added, his voice shaking a little.
The servant bowed sombrely.
"Your orders shall be obeyed, sir," he promised.
He took up the telephone, and signed to one of the footmen, who helped Philip to the door. A moment afterwards the latter sank back amongst the cushions, a little dizzy and breathless, but revived almost instantly by the cool night air. He gave the chauffeur his address, and the car glided through the iron gates and down Fifth Avenue.
Philip was awakened the next morning by the insistent ringing of the telephone at his elbow. He took up the receiver, conscious of a sharp pain in his left shoulder as he moved.
"Is this Mr. Merton Ware?" a man's smooth voice enquired.
"Yes!"
"I am speaking for Mr. Sylvanus Power. Mr. Sylvanus Power regrets very much that he is unable to lunch with Mr. Ware as arranged to-day, but he is compelled to go to Philadelphia on the morning train. He will be glad to meet Mr. Ware anywhere, a week to-day, and know the result of the matter which was discussed last night."
"To whom am I speaking?" Philip demanded. "I don't know anything about lunching with Mr. Power to-day."
"I am Mr. Power's secretary, George Lunt," was the reply. "Mr. Power's message is very clear. He wishes you to know that he will not be in New York until a week to-day."
"How is Mr. Power?" Philip enquired.
"He met with a slight accident last night," the voice continued, "and is obliged to wear his arm in a sling. Except for that he is quite well. He has already left for Philadelphia by the early train. He was anxious that you should know this."
"Thank you very much," Philip murmured, a little dazed.
He sprang out of bed, dressed quickly, hurried over his coffee and rolls, boarded a cross-town car, and arrived at the Monmouth House flats just in time to meet Martha Grimes issuing into the street. She was not at all the same Martha. She was very neatly dressed, her shoes were nicely polished, her clothes well brushed, her gloves new, and she wore a bunch of fresh-looking violets in her waistband. She started in surprise as Philip accosted her.
"Whatever are you doing back in the slums?" she demanded. "Any fresh trouble?"
"Nothing particular," Philip replied, turning round and falling into step with her. "I can't see my way, that's all, and I want to talk to you. You're the most human person I know, and you understand Elizabeth."
"Gee!" she smiled. "This is the lion and the mouse, with a vengeance. You can walk with me, if you like, as far as the block before the theatre. I'm not going to arrive there with you, and I tell you so straight."
"No followers, eh?"
"There's no reason to set people talking," she declared. "Their tongues wag fast enough at the theatre, as it is. I've only been there for one day's work, and it seems to me I've heard the inside history of every one connected with the place."
"That makes what I have to say easier," he remarked. "Just what do they say about Miss Dalstan and Mr. Sylvanus Power?"
She looked at him indignantly.
"If you think you're going to worm things out of me—"
"Don't be foolish," he interrupted, a little wearily. "How could you know anything? You are only the echo of a thousand voices. I could find out, if I went where they gossip. I don't. In effect I don't care, but I am up against a queer situation. I want to know just what people think of them. Afterwards I'll tell you the truth."
"Well, they profess to think," she said slowly, "that the theatre belongs to Miss Dalstan, and that she—"
"Stop, please," he interrupted. "I know you hate saying it, and I know quite well what you mean. Well, what about that?"
"It isn't my affair."
"It isn't true," he told her.
"Whether it's true or not, she is one of the best women in the world,"Martha declared vigorously.
"There isn't any doubt about that, either," he assented. "This is the situation. Listen. Sylvanus Power has been in love with Elizabeth for the best part of his life. He built that theatre for her and offered it—at a price. She accepted his terms. When the time came for payment, he saw her flinch. He went away again and has just come back. She is face to face now with a decision, a decision to which she is partly committed. In the meantime, during these last few months, Elizabeth and I have become great friends. You know that I care for her. I think that she cares for me. She has to make up her mind. Martha, which is she to choose?"
"How do you want me to answer that?" the girl asked, slackening her pace a little. "I'm not Miss Dalstan."
"From her point of view," he explained eagerly. "This man Power is madly and I believe truly in love with her. In his way he is great; in his way, too, he is a potentate. He can give her more than luxury, more, even, than success. You know Elizabeth," he went on. "She is one of the finest women who ever breathed, an idealist but a seeker after big things. She deserves the big things. Is she more likely to find them with me or with him?"
"Power's wife is still alive," she ruminated.
"And won't accept a divorce at present," he observed. "If ever she does, of course he will marry her. That has to be taken into account not morally but the temporal side of it. We know perfectly well that whatever Elizabeth decides, she couldn't possibly do wrong."
Martha smiled a little grimly.
"That's what it is to be born in the clouds," she said. "There is no sin for a good woman."
He looked at her appreciatively.
"I wonder how I knew that you would understand this," he sighed.
Suddenly he clutched at her arm. She glanced up in surprise. He was staring at a passer-by. Her eyes followed his. In a neat morning suit, with a black bowler hat and well-polished shoes, a cigar in his mouth and a general air of prosperity, Mr. Edward Dane was strolling along Broadway. He passed without a glance at either of them. For a moment Philip faltered. Then he set his teeth and walked on. There was an ashen shade in his face. The girl looked at him and shook her head.
"Mr. Ware," she said, "we haven't talked much about it, but there is something there behind, isn't there, something you are terrified about, something that might come, even now?"
"She knows about it," he interposed quickly.
"Would it be very bad if it came?"
"Hideous!"
"If she were your wife—?"
"She would be notorious. It would ruin her."
"Do you think, then," she asked quietly, "that you needed to come and ask my advice?"
He walked on with his head high, looking upwards with unseeing eyes. A little vista of that undisturbed supper table on the other side of the marble hall, a dim perspective of those eight years of waiting, flitted through his brain. The lord of that Fifth Avenue Mansion was in earnest, right enough, and he had so much to offer.
"It will break me if I have to give her up," he said simply. "I believe I should have gone overboard, crossing the Atlantic, but for her."
"There are some women," she sighed, "the best of all women, the joy of whose life seems to be sacrifice. That sounds queer, don't it, but it's true. They're happy in misfortune, so long as they are helping some one else. She is wonderful, Elizabeth Dalstan. She may even be one of those. You'll find that out. You'd better find out for yourself. There isn't any one can help you very much."
"I am not sure that you haven't," he said. "Now I'll go. Where did you get your violets, Martha? Had them in water since last night, haven't you?"
She made a little grimace at him.
"A very polite young gentleman at the box office sent us each a bunch directly we started work yesterday. I've only had a few words with him yet, but Eva—that's the other girl—she's plagued to death with fellows already, so I'm going to take him out one evening."
Philip stopped short. They were approaching the theatre.
"Not a step further," he declared solemnly. "I wouldn't spoil your prospects for worlds. Run along, my little cynic, and warm your hands. Life's good at your age—better than when I found you, eh?"
"You don't think I am ungrateful?" she asked, a little wistfully.
He shook his head.
"You couldn't be that, Martha…. Good luck to you!"
She turned away with a little farewell wave of the hand and was lost at once in the surging stream of people. Philip summoned a taxicab, sat far back in the corner, and drove to his rooms. He hesitated for a moment before getting out, crossed the pavement quickly, hurried into the lift, and, arriving up-stairs, let down the latch of the outside door. Edward Dane was back in New York! For a moment, the memory of the great human drama in which he found himself a somewhat pathetic figure seemed swallowed up by this sudden resurrection of a grisly tragedy. He looked around his room a little helplessly. Against his will, that hideous vision which had loomed up before him in so many moments of depression was slowly reforming itself, this time not in the still watches of the night but in the broad daylight, with the spring sunshine to cheer his heart, the roar of a friendly city in his ears. It was no time for dreams, this, and yet he felt the misery sweeping in upon him, felt all the cold shivers of his ineffective struggles. Slowly that fateful panorama unfolded itself before his memory. He saw himself step out with glad relief from the uncomfortable, nauseous, third-class carriage, and, clutching his humble little present in his hand, cross the flinty platform, climb the long, rain-swept hill, keeping his head upraised, though the very sky seemed grimy, battling against the miserable depression of that everlasting ugliness. Before him, at least, there was his one companion. There would be kind words, sympathy, a cheerful fireside, a little dreaming, a little wandering into that world which they had made for themselves with the help of such treasures as that cheap little volume he carried. And then the last few steps, the open door, the room, its air at first of wonderful comfort, and then the queer note of luxury obtruding itself disquietingly, the picture on the mantelpiece, her coming. He had never been in love with Beatrice. He knew that now perfectly well. He had simply clung to her because she was the only living being who knew and understood, because they had mingled their thoughts and trodden the path of misery together. Removed now from that blaze of passion, smouldering perhaps in him through previous years of discontent, but which leaped into actual and effective life for the first time in those few moments, he realised a certain justice in her point of view, a certain hard logic in the way she had spoken of life and their relations. There had been so little real affection between them. So little had passed which might have constituted a greater bond. It was his passionate outburst of revolt against life, whose drear talons seemed to have fastened themselves into his very soul, which had sent him out with murder in his brain to seek the man who had robbed him of the one thing which stood between him and despair; the pent-up fury of a lifetime which had tingled in his blood and had given him the strength of the navvy in those few minutes by the canal side.
He covered his face with his hands, strode around the room, gazing wildly out over the city, trying to listen to the clanging of the surface cars, the rumble of the overhead railway in the distance, the breaking of the long, ceaseless waves of human feet upon the pavement. It was useless. No effort of his will could keep from his brain the haunting memory of those final moments—the man's face, handsome and well-satisfied at first, the careless greeting, the sudden change, the surprise, the apprehension, the ghastly fear, the agony! He heard the low, gurgling shriek of terror; he looked into the eyes with the fear of hell before them! Then he heard the splash of the black, filthy water.