70CHAPTER IVUNCERTAINTY
It was ten minutes after three on the following afternoon when Stephen Armstrong, in the lightest of flannels and jauntiest of butterfly ties, strolled up the tree-lined avenue and with an air of comfortable proprietorship wandered in at the Gleason cottage. A movable sprinkler was playing busily on the front lawn and, observing that the surrounding sod was well soaked, with lazy deliberation he shifted it to a new quarter. As he approached the house a mother wren flitted away before his face, and at the new suggestion he stood peering up at the angle under the eaves for the nest that he knew was near about. Once, standing there with the hot afternoon sun beating down upon him, he whistled in imitation of the tiny bird’s call; nothing developing, he mounted the steps and pulled the old-fashioned knocker familiarly.
There was no immediate response and he pulled again; without waiting for an answer,71he dropped into the ever-convenient hammock stretched beside the door and swung back and forth luxuriously. Unconsciously, and for the same reason that a bird sings—because it is carelessly oblivious of anything save the happiness of the moment—he began whistling softly to himself: without definite time or metre, subconsciously improvising. Perhaps a dozen times he swung back and forth; then the whistling ceased.
“Anything doing at this restaurant this afternoon, Elice?” he plunged without preface. An expansive smile made up for the lack of conventional greeting. “I’m as hungry as those little wrens I hear cheeping up there somewhere.”
The smile was contagious and the girl returned it unconsciously.
“I believe you’re always hungry, Steve Armstrong,” she commented.
“I know it. I was born that way.”
“And you never grew up.”
“Physically, yes, unfortunately. Otherwise—I’m fighting to the last ditch. I believe about three of those cookies you make—and, by the way, they’re much better than mother used to manufacture—will fill the void. Don’t you hear that cheeping?”72
The girl hesitated, disappeared, and returned.
“Thank you, Elice. Sit down over there, please, where I can see you. It makes them taste better. That’s right. Thank you, again. I’m going to pay my bill now by telling you your fortune. You’re going to make a great cook.”
“I wonder,” said the girl, enigmatically.
“There’s no question about it. And for good measure I’m going to retail the latest gossip. What, by the way and as a preliminary, do you suppose I’ve been doing all day?”
“It’s vacation. Fishing, I presume.”
“Stung! I did go fishing this morning—four o’clock, caught one too; but it was so small and innocent looking that I apologized and threw it back. That wasn’t what I referred to, however. You’ll have to guess again.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“I’m compelled to assist you then. I’ve been helping the Randalls settle. Harry ’phoned me early this morning and wanted to know if I didn’t desire to be useful; said he would exchange compliments sometime.” A significant pause, then a reminiscent sigh. “Every vertebra in my spinal column aches with an individual and peculiar pain.”
“They’re really settled at last, are they?” inquired73the girl, interestedly. “I can hardly wait to see how things look.”
“I don’t blame you for being curious, Elice,” sympathized Armstrong. “I felt a bit the same way myself.” A rueful grin. “Merely among ourselves, however, and as a word of advice between friends, you’d better curb your impatience for about a week longer.”
“And why? You’re darkly mysterious, as usual.”
“Mysterious! Heavens, no; merely compassionate.” He held up his hand for inspection. “Look at that blister. It’s as big as a dime and feels like a prune. They’re not done yet and they’d induce you to duplicate it if they ever got you into their clutches. So long as it’s all in the family I think one blister is about sufficient. Better lay low for a week anyway.”
“Steve,” the voice was severe, “you’re simply impossible. They’d never forgive you if they knew you talked that way.”
“Yes, they would,” easily. “I promised to come back and help complete the job.” Of a sudden he laughed boyishly, reminiscently. “Seriously, Elice, I’ve had a memorable day.” He laughed again. “Pardon me, but I’ve wanted to do that for hours and didn’t dare.74Such a mixture of furnishings as those two people have accumulated you never saw brought together under one roof before in your life.”
“Mixture, how? I fail to see the joke.”
“You will when you visit them, all right. I warn you in advance to be discreet.” He looked at his companion with whimsical directness. “You see it was this way. They started out together to buy things, with Margery at the helm. She’s not accustomed particularly to consider cost and went at the job with avidity. She’s methodical also, you know, and began at the front door. In fancy she entered the reception hall, and the first need that appealed to her was a rug. She picked out one. It’s Oriental, and a beauty: cost one hundred dollars if a cent. Next, in her mind’s eye, she noticed the bare windows—curtains were required, of course. So she selected them. They’re the real thing and two pairs—another hundred, I’ll wager. Following came three or four big leather chairs—nothing better in town. I can fancy old Harry’s heart sinking by this time; but he didn’t say a word—yet. Margery took another spurt and went on to the living-room. In consequence another big rug—and another hundred withdrawn from circulation. A jolly big davenport—more curtains;—and75then something happened. They told me so, but I didn’t need to be told; for it was then that Harry butted in. They were bankrupt already, and he knew it. He simply had to call a halt. It’s the funniest contrast I ever saw, and pathetic too; for from this point on the whole house is a nightmare. Cheap! he bought the cheapest things he could find and even then he got scared. By the time they got through the dining-room he must have been a nervous wreck, for the kitchen and upstairs furniture is second-hand, every stick and frying pan; and even then—” The humor left the speaker’s face. “It’s a shame to make fun of it, though, Elice. They’re going to replace it all as soon as they can.”
For a moment neither said anything.
“And Margery?” suggested the girl at last.
“That’s where the little tragedy crops out. You see we began the way she had begun—at the front door. She was pleased as a boy with new boots at the reception hall. Still cheerful over the living-room. Non-committal in the diner. From there on Harry and I carted things upstairs and juggled with them alone and according to our own ideas.”
For the second time there was silence; then, low-voiced, came another suggestion.76
“And—Harry?”
“He’s game,” admiringly. “He may be thinking a lot—I’ve no doubt he is; but he’s not letting out a peep or making a sign. He pretended Margery was just tired out and bundled her out of doors under the trees. That’s one thing they’ve got at least: a whole yard full of grandfather elms. He sort of looked at me cross-eyed while he was doing it to see if I caught on, but I was blind as a post. By the way, I nearly forgot to mention it, but you and I are invited there for dinner this coming Thursday—sort of a house-warming and appreciation of my efforts combined.”
“For dinner, so soon?” The girl stared incredulously. “I don’t believe Margery ever cooked a meal in her life.”
“She isn’t going to try to yet, she informed me, so be of good cheer. That sort of thing is all to come later on, with the replaced furniture. At present she’s to have a maid and take observations.” The speaker laughed characteristically. “I asked her if she referred to the sort of individual my mother used to call a hired girl, but she stuck to ‘maid.’ It seems they are to pay her six dollars a week. Hired girls only command four.”77
Elice Gleason joined in the laugh sympathetically. The other’s good spirits was irresistible.
“You seem to have been gathering valuable data,” she commented drily.
“I have indeed. I couldn’t well help it. I was even forced into the conviction that it was intended I should so gather.” He smiled into his companion’s eyes whimsically. “They’re deep, those Randalls. After all is said I fancy my assistance was acquired not so much from any desire to save as to point a valuable object lesson; scatter the contagion, as it were.” He paused meaningly and smiled again. “Elice mine, we’re in grave danger, you and I. That worthy pair have designs upon our future. They are in the position of a certain class, famed in adage, who desire company. The dinner is only another illustration of the same point.”
Elice Gleason returned the smile, but quietly. She made no further comment, however, and the subject dropped.
In the hammock Armstrong swung back and forth in lazy well-being. Overhead the mother wren, a mere brown shadow, flitted in return over their heads. There was an instant’s clamor from hidden fledglings, and silence as the shadow passed back once more into the sunshine. Watching78through half-closed eyes, comfortably whimsical, Armstrong gazed into space where the shadow had vanished.
“What a responsibility the care of a family must be,” he commented, “particularly in this hot weather. That wren certainly has my sympathy—and respect.” He paused to give the swinging hammock a fresh impulse. “I wonder though,” he drifted on, “that is, if it is permissible to tangle up a variety of thoughts, if it’s any harder than it is to attempt to pull an idea out of one’s self by the roots and work it up into readable form with the thermometer above ninety in the shade—I wonder.”
Elice Gleason was observing him now, peculiarly, understandingly.
“How is the book coming, anyway, Steve?” she asked directly.
“Which book?” smilingly.
“Thebook, of course.”
“They’re allthebooks—or were at one time.” A trace, the first, of irony crept into his voice. “To be specific, however, masterpiece number one has just completed its eighteenth round trip East, and is taking a deserved rest. Masterpiece number two isen routesomewhere between here and New York, either coming or79going, on its eleventh journey. Number three has only five tallies to its credit—but hope springs eternal. Number four, the baby, still adolescent, has temporarily halted in its growth while I succor a needy benedict friend in distress. I believe that covers the family.”
The characterization was typically nonsensical; but, sympathetic, the listener read between the sentences and understood.
“Isn’t the new one coming well?” she asked low. “Tell me, Steve, honest.”
“Coming well, Elice! What a question to ask of probably America’s foremost living writer!” The speaker was still smiling. “What reprehensible misgiving, suspicion even!” Sudden silence, wherein bit by bit the smile faded. Silence continued until in its place came a new expression, one that changed the boy’s face absolutely, made it a man’s face—and not a young one at that.
“Coming well, Elice?” he repeated. “Honest, as you say, I don’t know.” The hammock had become still, but the speaker did not notice, merely lying there looking up into the sunshine and the blue unseeingly. “Sometimes I think it is, and then again—if one could only know about such things, know, not hope—of course80every writer in his own soul fancies—and his friends, for that matter, are just about as useful—” The speaker drew himself together with a shrug. For an instant his jaw locked decisively.
“I know I’m more or less irresponsible, as a rule, Elice,” he analyzed swiftly, “and probably create the impression that I’m even more irresponsible than I am; but in this thing, at least, I’m serious. From the bottom of my soul I want to write well, want to. As I said before, sometimes I think I can—auto-intoxication maybe it is, I don’t know—and I’m as happy as a child, or a god, or a bird, or any completely happy thing you can fancy. Then again, as it’s been the past week, or the past month for that matter, I don’t seem to be able to do anything new. On top of this everything I’ve already done fairly personifies and leers at me. I get so that I fairly hate myself for the utter failure that I am, that at least I have been so far. I get to analyzing myself; I can’t help it, and the result isn’t pleasant. I’ve been doing so lately. I don’t overestimate myself in the least, Elice girl. Practically, commercially, I’m a zero. I’m simply not built that way. If I’m ever of any use in the world, ever amount to anything whatever, it will be in an impractical, artistic way. Whether I’ll81ever win out so—oh, for light, for light!... Frankly, the new novel is going badly, Elice, cursedly bad!”
“I’m sorry, Steve. You know—”
“Yes, I know.”
“I’ve believed always, and still believe—”
“Yes, I know that too.”
“You’ve got it in you to win; I know it, and you know it. You’ve done good work already, lots of it, and—”
“Wade into him and lick him!” bitterly. “He’s only three sizes larger than you are, and afraid—I know you can lick him. Wade in!”
The girl said nothing.
“Forgive me, Elice,” with quick contrition. “That was nasty of me, I confess. But I’m sore to-day, raw. It’s genius I suppose,” sarcastically, “genius unappreciated.”
Still the girl said nothing.
“If I could only get a ray of light, a lead, the flutter of a signal from outside the wall. But I keep hammering my head at it day after day, and it remains precisely as it was years ago when I began. It’s maddening.”
Yet the girl was silent, waiting silent.
“And, last of all, if I should eventually succeed, should break through into my own, as Darley82Roberts says, even then—from any point of view it isn’t a cheerful prospect.”
“As Mr. Roberts says? What was that, Steve?”
“I referred to the reward, pecuniary reward. He figured it out in dollars and cents once when he wanted to bring me out of the clouds. Looking at it that way, there isn’t much to the game even for the winners, Elice.”
“Not much if you win? I can’t believe it, Steve. I always supposed—”
“Everybody does. The public, the uninitiated, are long on supposing. Even the would-be’s like myself delude themselves and build air castles until some hard-headed friend calls the turn. Then—no; there really isn’t much in it, Elice; nothing in comparison to the plums in the business world. That job of Graham’s, for instance, offers greater possibilities than success even, and when it comes to partial success or failure! It’s a joke, the artistic temperament in this commercial twentieth century, a tremendous side-splitting joke! One nowadays should be born with suckers on his fingers, such as a fly has on its feet, so that whenever he came into the vicinity of a bank note it would stick fast. That would be the ideal condition, the greatest natural blessing, now!”83
“You know you don’t mean that, Steve. It’s hot and you’re out of the mood to-day—that’s all. To-morrow will be different; you’ll see things straight again.”
“Thank you, Elice. You’re right, as usual. I said I was raw to-day. It’s boyish to be so too, I realize that. But it’s hard sometimes, deucedly hard, when others are doing something and getting somewhere to see yourself standing still. One gets to thinking and imagining things that probably don’t exist.” He took a long breath. “It’s this thing of imagination that’s worse than reality. It crawls in between everything so; and somehow you can’t keep it out. It gives one a scare.” He laughed shortly, ill at ease. “It even makes one doubt a little the people one believes in most: take you and me, for instance. In my sane moments I know nothing could get between us; but sometimes I get to imagining—times like the last few days when I am—raw—that we’re gradually drifting apart. A little difference of opinion comes up and imagination magnifies until it becomes a mountain and—I know I’m preposterous, Elice, and there’s nothing really to it, but the thing’s been on my mind and I wanted to tell you and get it out of my system.” He had84hurried on, leading up to the point, making the situation deliberately. Now he turned to her, smiling frankly. “It’s preposterous, isn’t it, Elice? Tell me so. I like to hear you say it.”
“Preposterous, Steve?” The girl returned the look, but for some reason, probably one she herself could not have told, she did not smile. She merely looked at him, steadily, unwaveringly. “I have never thought of the possibility before, never questioned. Certainly nothing has come between us. To imagine—I never imagine the unpleasant, Steve.”
The figure in the hammock shifted restlessly, as though but half satisfied.
“And nothing ever will, Elice?” he pressed. “Say that just to please me. I think an awful lot of you, girl; so much that at times I’m afraid.”
This time the girl smiled, quietly, very quietly.
“And I of you, Steve,” she echoed. “Must I protest that?”
“No,” swiftly, “not for an instant. I don’t doubt, mind.... It’s all that cursed imagination of mine. I was only thinking of the future. If things shouldn’t come my way, shouldn’t—I put it at the worst possible—if by any chance I should remain a—failure such as I am now—you85wouldn’t mind—would overlook—it wouldn’t make any difference at all with you and me, would it, Elice?”
“Steve, you mustn’t say such things—mustn’t, I say. It’s morbid. I won’t listen.”
“But tell me,” passionately, “what I asked. I want to hear you say it. I want to know.”
For an instant the girl was silent, an instant that seemed minutes to the expectant listener. For the second time she met him eye to eye.
“Whether or not you become famous as a writer,” she said slowly, “won’t make any difference in the least. It’s you I care for, Steve; you as you are now and nothing more.” The voice paused but the eyes did not shift. “As for the future, Steve man, I can’t promise nor can you. To do so would be to lie, and I won’t lie. I say I love you; you as you are. If anything ever should come between us, should, I say—you suggested it and—persist—it will be because of a change in you yourself.” For the second time she halted; then she smiled. “I think that’s all there is to say,” she completed.
“All!” With a buoyancy unfeigned the man swung out of the hammock upon his feet. “That’s just the beginning. You’re just getting under way, Elice.”86
“No,” peremptorily; “all—for the present at least. It’s four o’clock of the afternoon, you know, and the neighbors have eyes like—Look at the sun shine!... You’ve scared away the wren too, and the brood is hungry. Besides it’s time to begin dinner. Cooks shouldn’t be hindered ever.” She turned toward the door decisively. “You may stay if you don’t bother again,” she smiled over her shoulder. “Meanwhile there’s a new ‘Life’ and a July ‘Century,’—you know where,” and with a final smile she was gone.
87CHAPTER VCERTAINTY
Four months had drifted by; again the University was in full swing.
Of an evening in late October at this time, in the common living-room which joined the two private rooms in the suite occupied by himself and Darley Roberts, Stephen Armstrong was alone. It was now nearly eleven o’clock, and he had come in directly after dinner, ample time to have prepared his work for the next day; but as yet he had made no move in that direction. On the roll-top desk, with its convenient drop light, was an armful of reference books and two late scientific magazines. They were still untouched, however, bound tight by the strap with which they had been carried.
But one sign of his prolonged presence was visible in the room. That, a loose pile of manuscript alternately hastily scribbled and painfully exact, told of the varying moods under which it had been produced;—that and a tiny pile of88cigarette stumps in the nearby ash-tray, some scarcely lit and others burned to a tiny stump, which had become the manuscripts’ invariable companion.
For more than an hour now, however, he had not been writing. The night was frosty and he had lit the gas in the imitation fireplace. The open flame had proved compellingly fascinating and, once stretched comfortably in the big Turkish rocker before it, duty had called less and less insistently and there he had remained. For half an hour thereafter he had scarcely stirred; then, without warning, he had risen. On the mantel above the grate was a collection of articles indigenous to a bachelor’s den: a box half filled with cigars, a jar of tobacco, a collection of pipes, a cut-glass decanter shaded dull red in the electric light. It was toward the latter that he turned, not by chance but with definite purpose, and without hesitation poured a whiskey glass level full. There was no attendant siphon or water convenient and he drank the liquor raw and returned the glass to its place. It was not the quasi-æsthetic tippling of comradery but the deliberate drinking of one with a cause, real or fancied, therefor and for its effect; and as he drank he shivered involuntarily with the instinctive aversion to raw89liquor of one to whom the action has not become habitual. Afterward he remained standing for a moment while his eyes wandered aimlessly around the familiar room. As he did so his glance fell upon the pile of text-books, mute reminder of a lecture yet unprepared, and for an instant he stood undecided. With a characteristic shrug of distaste and annoyance, of dismissal as well, he resumed his seat, his slippered feet spread wide to catch the heat.
Another half-hour passed so, the room silent save for the deliberate ticking of a big wall clock and the purr of the gas in the grate; at last came an interruption: the metallic clicking of a latch key, the tramp of a man’s feet in the vestibule, and Darley Roberts entered. A moment after entering the newcomer paused attentive, his glance taking in every detail of the all too familiar scene; deliberately, as usual, he hung up his top-coat and hat.
“Taking it comfortable-like, I see,” he commented easily as he pulled up a second chair before the grate. “Knocked off for the evening, have you?”
“Knocked off?” Armstrong shrugged. “I hardly know. I haven’t knocked on yet. I’m stuck in the mud, so to speak.”90
Roberts drew the customary black cigar from his waistcoat pocket and clipped the end methodically. As he did so, apparently by chance, his glance swept the mantel above the grate, and, returning, took in the testimony of the desk with its unopened text-books and pile of scattered manuscript. Equally without haste he lit a match and puffed until the weed was well aglow.
“Any assistance a friend can give?” he proffered directly. “We all get tangled at times, I guess. At least every one I know does.”
Armstrong’s gaze left the fire and fastened on his companion peculiarly.
“Do you yourself?” he asked bluntly.
“Often.”
“That’s news. I fancied you were immune. What, if I may ask, do you do at such times to effect your release?”
“Go to bed, ordinarily, and sleep while the mud is drying up. There’s usually a big improvement by morning.”
“And when there isn’t—”
Roberts smiled, the tight-jawed smile of a fighter.
“It’s a case of pull, then; a pull as though Satan himself were just behind and in hot pursuit.91Things are bound to give if one pulls hard enough.”
Armstrong’s face returned to the grate. His slippered feet spread wider than before.
“I’m not much good at pulling,” he commented.
Roberts sat a moment in silence.
“I repeat, if I can be of any assistance—” he commented. “No butting in, you understand.”
“Yes, I understand, and thank you sincerely. I doubt if you can help any though—if any one can. It’s the old complaint mostly.”
“Publishers who fail to appreciate, I gather.”
“Partly.”
“And what more, may I ask?”
Armstrong stretched back listlessly, his eyes half closed.
“Everything, it seems, to me to-night, every cursed thing!” Restless in spite of his seeming inertia he straightened nervously. His fingers, slender almost as those of a woman, opened and closed intermittently. “First of all, the manuscript of my new book came back this morning, the one I’ve been working on for the last year. The expressman delivered it just after you left. That started the day wrong. Then came a succession92of little things. Breakfast, with coffee stone-cold, and soggy rolls; I couldn’t swallow a mouthful. Afterward I cut myself shaving, and I was late for lecture, and there was no styptic in the house, and I got down to my class with a collar looking as though I’d had my throat cut. The lecture room was chilly, beastly chilly, and about half the men had colds. Every twentieth word I’d say some one would sneeze and interrupt. On top of this one chap on the front row had neglected to complete his toilet and sat there for half an hour manicuring his nails, every blessed one of the ten; I counted them, while I was trying to explain proximal principles. At noon we had some more of that abominable soup with carrots in it. Carrots! I detest the name and the whole family; and we’ve had them every day now for a week. After lunch another big thing. I’d applied for position as lecturer in the summer school, applied early. The president met me to-day and remarked casually, very casually, that the man for the place had already been selected. He was very sorry of course, but—Back at the department I found that Elrod, one of my assistants, was sick, and of necessity I had to take his place in the laboratory. Inside half an hour some bumpkin dropped an eight-ounce93bottle of sulphuretted hydrogen. It spattered everywhere—and the smell! I feel like holding my nose yet. Later the water got stopped up, and for love or money no plumber—” The speaker paused, his shoulders lifted eloquently. “But what’s the use of itemizing. It’s been the same all day long, one petty rasp after another. To cap the climax Elice is out of town. She’s got an English class in a high-school in a dinky little burg out about twenty miles and goes out there every Thursday. I forgot this was the day until I pulled the knocker. That’s all, I guess, except that I’m here.”
Roberts smiled, the deliberate smile of tolerant understanding.
“One of those days, wasn’t it,” he commented sympathetically.
“Yes,” shortly, “and it seems lately as though that was the only kind I had—seems as though it was not one but an endless succession.... It’s all so petty, so confoundedly petty and irritating, and the outlook for the future seems so similar.” Of a sudden the speaker arose, selected a bit of rice paper from the mantel, and began rolling a cigarette swiftly. The labor complete he paused, the little white cylinder between his fingers. A moment he stood so, irresolute or intentionally94deliberate; without apology or comment he poured a second glass of liquor even full from the red decanter and drank it in silence. “On the square, Darley,” he blazed, “I expected a lot from that last book, banked on it; and it’s gone flat, like the others.” He resumed his seat and the cigarette flamed. “I worked hard on it, did my level best. I don’t believe I can ever do any better—and now it’s failed miserably. It knocks my pins clean out from under me.”
For a time the room was quiet. Roberts did not smile this time, or offer sympathy. The occasion for that had gone by. He merely waited in the fulness of knowledge, until the first hot flood of resentment had cooled, until the inevitable reaction that followed was on. Deliberate, direct to the point, he struck.
“You’re satisfied I’m your friend, are you?” he asked abruptly.
The other looked his surprise.
“Emphatically, yes. One of the few I have—it seems to-night.”
“And I couldn’t possibly have any selfish motive in—in tearing you loose from your moorings?”
“None whatever that I can imagine. Why?”95
“You won’t take offence either if I advise plainly?”
“No, I’m not a fool—yet. What is it, Darley,—your advice?”
Again Roberts paused, deliberately now, unemotionally.
“My advice then is to chuck it, for to-day and to-morrow and all time: the University, this whole artistic rainbow, chuck it as though it were hot, red hot, and get down to earth. Is that brutally plain enough?”
Unconsciously Armstrong had sat up, expectant. A moment he remained so, taking in the thought, all its implications, its suddenly suggested possibilities; as the full revolutionary significance of the idea came home of a sudden he dropped back in his place. With an effort he smiled.
“To answer your question: yes, I think that is brutally frank enough,” he said. A moment longer he remained quiet, thinking, the idea expanding. “Chuck it,” he repeated half to himself. “It sounds sensible certainly, to-night particularly.” New thoughts came, thoughts like the sifting of dead ashes. “Chuck it,” feverishly, “and admit incompetency, cowardice, failure absolute!” For the third time he was on his feet.96“No, never. I’ll go to the devil first.” His fingers were on the red decanter, his brown eyes aflame. “I’ll—”
“Armstrong!”
No answer, although the fingers halted.
“Steve!”
Still no answer; but bit by bit the hand retreated.
“Steve,” repeated, “sit down, please; please, I say. Let’s talk this matter over a little rationally. People have changed their minds before, some few billions of them—and made good afterward too. Have a little patience, man, and sit down. I have a proposition to make to you.”
Reluctantly Armstrong obeyed. His face was still unnaturally pale and he was breathing hard, but he obeyed. Back in his seat he waited a second, uncertain; with an effort he faced his companion fairly.
“I—realize I’m an ass, Darley,” he began, hesitantly, “and that this sort of thing is melodramatically cheap.” The white had left his face now and words were coming more easily. “I won’t attempt to apologize, I just simply admit the truth. I’ve lost my grip this evening.”
“Forget it.” The voice was commonplace. “Just forget it.”97
“I can’t; I’m not built that way; but I wish you would. If there’s one thing I hate more than another it’s cheap heroics.”
“I know it—and understand. Let it go at that.”
“Thank you. All right.” It was matter of fact, but such with an effort. “Let’s hear your proposition.”
As usual Roberts wasted no preface.
“The suggestion is merely in line with what I said before. In so many words, it’s to throw up this place of yours in the University and get into business. You’ll come into contact with realities that way and realities are eternally opposed to—cobwebs. You’ll be happier and more contented, I’m positive, once you get adjusted.” He gave his listener a keen look. “I’ve got an opening in mind right now. Say the word and I’ll have the place ready for you the day they appoint your successor in the University. Do you care to consider it?”
“Consider, yes, certainly.” Armstrong had lit a pipe and puffed at it shortly. “It’s white of you too to offer it. I know it’s a good thing or you wouldn’t make the suggestion.”
“It’s not as good as Graham’s offer,” refuted the other evenly, “places like that don’t dangle98loose every day; but it will pay you better than a university chair, and it offers possibilities—you anticipate probably,—it’s in connection with the new electric line. Between ourselves, Armstrong, this system is going to be a big thing when it’s complete. This is a straight tip. I happen to be in a position to know. I also happen to be in position to put you very near the basement, providing you wish to come in with us unhampered.” The voice halted meaningly. “That’s all I’m at liberty to say now, until you are really in and prove unmistakably—I’ll have several things more to tell you then.”
“Don’t misunderstand me, Darley,” he said slowly, “or take offence, please; but—but, to scrape off the veneer, you don’t trust me very far even yet, do you?”
There was a moment of silence, time for second thought.
“I can’t misunderstand what you mean,” said Roberts; “but unfortunately there are others besides yourself for me to consider.” The voice was patient, unnaturally so. “I’ve already talked more than I should.”
“If I accepted,” unobservant, Armstrong’s mind was running on in its own channel, “the place you mean would take my entire time. In99a way it would be like Graham’s offer. I’d be compelled—you catch the idea, don’t you?”
“Yes.” This time the other did not amplify.
“You know why I refused that proposition before. We beat the brush pretty thoroughly at that time.” It was declination involved, but declination nevertheless unmistakable. “It’s a rocky road I’m on, and with occasional mudholes such as—well—such as I fell into to-night; but somehow I can’t leave it. I won’t try to defend it this time. I’m not in the mood. But when it comes to breaking free, taking a new trail—I simply can’t do it, can’t!”
“Very well.” The voice was non-committal. Waiting, Armstrong thought there would be more to follow, a comment at least; but there was none. Roberts merely leaned back more comfortably in his place, remained so for a minute while like smoke the former subject faded from the horizon. Armstrong grew conscious that he was being observed intently.
“By the way,” introduced Roberts, abruptly, “I’ve decided to give up my residence here in the suburbs. They’re remodelling the office building I’m in, you know: adding another floor, an elevator, and one thing and another. I’ve rented a suite in the addition, to be fitted100out after some ideas of my own. They’ll begin on it inside a week.”
For a moment Armstrong said nothing.
“I’m not particularly surprised,” he commented at last, “that is, not surprised that you’re going to quit me. It was merely a question of time until this place we’re living in here got too small for you. When will you go?”
“The lease gives them a month to deliver.”
“A month. All right.” There was frost forming in the tone. “I’ll try and lassoo another mate in that time. The place isn’t particularly pretentious, but, nevertheless, I can’t afford to inhabit it alone.” He smiled, but it was not his customary companionable smile. “You’re on the incline and trudging up steadily, aren’t you, old man?”
For an instant Roberts returned the look with the analytic one Armstrong knew so well.
“I trust so,” he returned. A pause, again sufficient for second thought. “Looking into the immediate future I see a lot of grinding to be done, and I need machinery to do it with. This down town move is merely part of the campaign.”
“I see,” Armstrong ignored the explanation, even perverted it intentionally. “And the next installation of machinery will be in stone out on101Nob Hill among the other imitation colonial factories. When’s that to be, if I may ask?”
Roberts said nothing.
“When’s it to be, Darley?” repeated Armstrong. “You have it in mind, haven’t you?”
This time Roberts turned, his eyes unsmiling, his lips tight.
“When have I offended you, and how, Armstrong?” he countered directly. “Tell me that.”
“Offended!” Roused out of his ill humor Armstrong flushed penitently. “You’ve never offended, never. On the contrary, you’re only too patient with my tantrums.” He jerked himself together impulsively. “I didn’t mean anything by that at all. I’m blooming glad to see you prosper. I always knew you would.”
“The imitation colonial—factory then—” Roberts recalled slowly.
“Just a dream, a fancy, an air castle.”
“No, a reality—I hope.”
“What?—a miracle! But how about the tape line?”
“I repeat: I hope. Hope always refers to the future—the indefinite future.”
Armstrong smiled broadly, shrugged. Banter tingled on the tip of his tongue, but for some reason remained unspoken. Abruptly as it had102arisen the subject vanished beneath the surface. Merely the memory of that suggestion of things to come remained.
In the silence Roberts glanced at the clock and arose preparatory to bed. Watching the familiar action, a new thought sprang full-fledged to Armstrong’s brain, a sudden appreciation of the unconscious dependence he had grown to feel on the other man. The thought took words.
“On the square, old man,” he said soberly, “I hate to have you go. It’ll be beastly lonely here without you to sit down on me and make me feel foolish.” He gestured in mute eloquence. “It means the end between you and me the moment you pack your trunk. We may both put up a bluff—but just the same it’s the end.”
Roberts halted thoughtfully where he stood.
“The end? I wonder—and who will be to blame?”
“Neither of us,” swiftly. “It was inevitable. We’ll simply drift apart. You recall I prophesied once before—”
“Yes, I recall.”
Armstrong started involuntarily. Another memory had intruded.
“You remember—something else I predicted, do you?”103
A slow smile formed on Roberts’ lips.
“You said that sometime we’d hate each other, in the same measure that we were friends now.”
“Yes; and it’s so. I feel it; why I don’t know, can’t imagine—yet. But it will come about as surely as to-morrow will come.” He looked at his companion steadily, unsmilingly prophetic. “Good-bye, friend Darley Roberts. You’re going—and you won’t return. Good-bye.”
An instant Roberts stood as he was, motionless; then he turned swiftly.
“You’re morbid to-night, Armstrong,” he returned slowly. “In the morning the sun will shine and the world will look very different. As for my leaving—you’ll find another man who’ll make a lot better mate than I am. I’m not a good fellow in the least.”
“I know it,” bluntly. “That’s why you’re good for me.” Unconsciously his glance travelled to the mantel, and shifted hurriedly. “I’m a kind of clinging vine, I guess. To change the figure of speech, I need a stiff rudder to keep me headed straight to windward. I’ll—miss you,” simply.
Roberts hesitated a moment, choosing his words carefully.104
“We can’t very well always be together, though,” he suggested at last slowly.
“No, we can’t. I realize it. It’s—Pardon an ass and go to bed, old man.”
For perhaps half a minute Roberts stood there, the fire from the open grate lighting his face, his big capable hands loose at his sides. He made no motion to leave, nor for a space to speak; characteristically abrupt, he turned, facing his companion directly.
“Armstrong,” he said, “I can’t work up to things delicately and have them seemingly happen by chance. Nature didn’t endow me with that ability. I have to come out with a broadside shot or not at all. I’m going to do so now. Why don’t you get married? Miss Gleason will be a better rudder immeasurably than I am.”
Involuntarily Armstrong flushed, slowly the color faded. He said nothing.
“I know I’m intruding and offending,” went on the other; “you show that, but you said a bit ago I was your friend and the thing is on my mind. Believe this at least: I was never more your friend than when I advise the move now. I repeat: why don’t you get married, at once?”
“Why? You know why, Darley. It’s the105old reason—the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. They still hold the fort.”
“No, not for you—unless you let them. Forgive another broadside. If you get pinched temporarily let a friend be of service. I’m not afraid to trust you. Anyway I chance it. We all have to chance something for happiness. Don’t delay any longer, man, don’t!”
“Don’t?” Of a sudden Armstrong glanced up and met the other’s look steadily. “Don’t?” he repeated. “Why do you say that, please?”
A second Roberts met the lifted questioning eyes.
“Because I meant it,” he said. “Please don’t ask me to say more.”
“But I do ask it,” pressed Armstrong, stubbornly. “You meant something particular by that, something I have the right to know.”
“Won’t you consider what I suggested,” asked Roberts in a low tone; “merely consider it?”
“Perhaps after you tell me what you meant. Why ‘don’t,’ please?”
On the cosy room fell silence,—the silence of midnight; the longest silence of that interrupted understanding. For a long while Roberts stood precisely as he was; he started walking,106measuring the breadth of the room and back again; something the watcher had never known him to do before, never in the years of acquaintance, no matter what the uncertainty or difficulty confronting. A second time he followed the trail back and forth, until, watching him, the spectator felt at last something like terror of the thing he had deliberately conjured and that now was inevitably coming very near; for at last Roberts had halted, was standing over him.
“In all the time that I’ve known you, Armstrong,” said a voice, a new voice, “you’ve asked my advice repeatedly, asked the reason for it, insisted that I explain minutely, and disregarded it absolutely. I’ve tried to be honest with you each time, tried to be of service; and still you’ve disregarded. It’s been the same to-night, the old, old story. I’ve been dead in earnest, tried to be unselfish, and still you question and doubt and insist.” A second the voice halted, the speaker glancing down, not analytically or whimsically, as usual, but of a sudden icy cold. “You insist now, against my request, and once more I’m going to humor you. You wish to know what I meant by ‘don’t’ delay. I meant just this, man, just this and no more: Chances for happiness come to us all sometime in our107lives. They knock at our door and wait for us to open. Sometimes, not often, they knock twice; but they don’t keep on knocking forever. There are a multitude of other doors in the world and, after a while, opportunity, our opportunity, goes by, and never returns; no matter how loudly we call. Is that clear enough, man?”
“In the abstract, yes.” Armstrong’s lips were dry and he moistened them unconsciously. “In the concrete, though, as it applies to my—happiness—”
“God, you’re an egotist, Armstrong! Is it possible you can’t understand, or won’t?”
Slowly, with an effort, Armstrong arose; his face of a sudden gray, his hands fastened to the back of his chair.
“You mean to suggest that Elice,” he began, “that Elice—You dare to suggest that to me?”
“Dare?”
They looked at each other, not three feet apart.
“Dare?” Roberts repeated.
“Darley!”
“Don’t! I’ve argued, advised, used persuasion—everything. Take that as a warning if108you wish, or disregard it if you choose. I’m done.”
On the chair back the fingers locked tighter and tighter, until they grew white. Tardy comprehension was coming at last.
“You mean to warn me,” Armstrong scarcely recognized his own voice, “that you yourself—”
“Yes, I myself. That’s why I warned you.”
“You yourself,” he repeated, “whom I introduced and took with me as my friend, my best friend—you—Judas!”
“Re-introduced.” Roberts’ eyes were as steady as his voice. “Re-introduced—mark that. Miss Gleason has forgotten, but she was the first girl I met in the University, when I had one suit of frayed clothes to my name, and my stock was below par. Miss Gleason has forgotten, I say, had no reason to remember; but I—Nor—Judas; drop that for all time.... I’ve warned you, you understand.”
“Darley!”
“No—Roberts. I’m no hypocrite. You’ve precipitated this understanding, compelled it; but perhaps it’s as well. I’ll move out of here to-morrow instead of in a month, if you wish. Do you wish it?”
Bit by bit the hands on the chair back, that109had been so tense, loosened, and Armstrong sank back in his seat, his face turned away.
“I don’t know—yet.” His fingers were twitching aimlessly. “I want to think.... You, of all men, you!” He turned, his eyes ablaze, his voice thick. “Yes, go to-morrow, damn you! and as for your warning, do as you please, get between us if you can.” He laughed raspingly. “I’ll delay—dangle, you catch that—as long as I see fit. I dare you.”
An instant Roberts stood as he was; slowly and without a word he started for his room. As he did so Armstrong arose swiftly and, all but gropingly, his hand sought the red decanter on the mantel. “I dare you,” he repeated blindly, “dare you!”
“Armstrong!” Roberts had halted, looking back. “Not for any one’s sake but your own—think a second, man.”
“To hell with you and thought!”
Without a sound this time or another glance the door to Roberts’ room opened and closed and Armstrong was alone.