"Barbara," said her father when they had finished dinner, "I made a threat this morning, and I'm going to keep it. If you have no especial objection, will you come into the library?"
Her face was radiant; he had been praising her work for the tenth time. "It sounds," she said, "as if I was going to be whipped. That wasn't what you threatened to do, was it?"
"No," said he. "I'mto be punished. I'm going to tell you about a mistake of judgment I once made. But not as a warning, or a moral lesson--merely, my dear, that you and I may learn to know each other better. First, though, I want to talk to you about your model."
"He's rather fascinating, don't you think?"
"He is very clever," said her father, "and when he chooses he can talk very well. He proved that this morning. To me, personally, he is most repugnant, but I admit that when he once launched out, I listened as a school-boy listens to stories of treasure and pirates. He's lived and observed and suffered. There is no doubt about that. But I shall be greatly relieved to hear that your bust is finished. I don't like the idea of such a man being in the same block with you. I hope that you will not feel inspired to do another head of him."
"He's a splendid model," said Barbara. "Of course this morning he didn't keep still--and he did talk. But then I wasn't really working; When I wish he keeps almost as still as the clay I work with."
"Doesn't looking at him ever give you--oh, a disagreeable creepy feeling?"
"Not any more. I'm so used to him now. No, I feel a genuine friendliness for him,"
"I thought," said her father, "that to you artists, models were absolutely impersonal--just planes and angles and--what was it you used to say?"
Barbara flushed slightly, remembering a former and very disagreeable conversation. "Your memory is much too good," she said.
Dr. Ferris frowned, "I'm not trying to interfere," he said; "you're old enough to know what's best for you, but if I could instil in you a proper distaste for your friend, Mr. Blizzard, I should be delighted. Beauty and the beast donotgo well together."
Dr. Ferris frowned. "I'm not trying to interfere," he said. "You're old enough to know what's best for you".
"Please"said Barbara, "don't bother your head about me. When the bust is finished, you and I go abroad for to look, for to see, for to learn. That's agreed. We shall not invite Mr. Blizzard to go with us, and all will be well. There's my hand on it!"
She laughed rosily, and they shook hands.
"Until recently," said Dr. Ferris, "I have taken, as you know, very little interest in your career as a sculptor. Haven't you thought that rather an unnatural attitude?"
"Why, yes," said Barbara, "I have."
She took a box of safety matches from a cigar-table, and kneeling, lighted the fire in the big chimney-piece.
"I hope you don't mind," she said; "I'm shivery."
She knelt on, watching the little flames grow into big flames, and spreading her hands to the warmth. Her face, arms, throat, and the front of her white dress became golden. She looked more like some lovely vestal of fire-worship than an ambitious American girl, determined to achieve fame in the battleground of the world.
"Why, yes," she repeated, "it has seemed strange to me. When I've thought that I wanted to do things, you always took a lot of interest and trouble, but when Iknewthat I wanted to do one thing, you gave me a dreadfully cold shoulder." She smiled whimsically. "I shall do an allegory in bluish-white marble--The Cold Shoulder."
She retreated a little from the fire, and sat at her father's feet. He laid his hand on her many-colored hair.
From childhood Barbara had resented parental caresses. On the present occasion, she felt a sudden tenderness for her father, and leaned a little against him, in answer to the touch of his hand.
"Did it ever," said he, "strike you as strange that you never took any interest inmycareer?"
"I've always been tremendously proud of you," she said. "You know that."
"You liked my results," he said, "the show pieces--newspaper notoriety--speech-making--the races in special trains against death. But you don't even know what has chiefly interested me during the last thirty years; nor the goal which I have felt I must reach before I could be resigned to parting with this life."
"No," she said gently, "I don't. Tell me. Iwantto be interested."
"You know, of course, that I experiment with animals."
"Yes. I have seen crates of guinea-pigs and monkeys at the laboratory door. I'm afraid it always made me a little unhappy. But I suppose it's the only way to get certain results. And you always give them something, don't you?"
"Always. They don't suffer more than a man would while healing a deep clean cut. In other words, they don't suffer at all. And they're not unhappy, and they don't bear malice. And still I wouldn't do it, if I could help myself. I think, my dear, that I have been chosen for my sins to introduce a great benefit to mankind. It seems now only a question of perfecting the technique. I've already had extraordinary results."
"What's the idea?"
"You know, of course, that a piece of skin from one man can be successfully grafted on another man. Well, so can a liver, a finger, a hand, a foot, an arm, a leg. I have two monkeys now: a black and a gray. The black monkey has the gray hands and forearms, the gray monkey has the black. I made the exchange eighteen months ago. And they have developed the same strength and skill with the grafted members that they had with their own. I have a monkey who had only one eye when he came. Now he has two--they aren't a good color match, but he sees as well with one as the other. When these ideas are perfected it will be possible, perhaps, to make old people young. The secret is absolute cleanliness and the accuracy in joining of a Chippendale or an Adams. So you see," he smiled, "that in a way you and I are chasing the same ambition--how to express the thing imagined through perfection of technique."
"Are you the only man working along these lines?"
"Heavens, no! Aristotle probably believed in animal grafting. But I think that, owing to a natural talent for doing close and accurate work with my hands, I have gone farther than anybody else. What gave you the impulse to be a sculptor, Barbs?"
She laughed gayly. "The statues in the Metropolitan that have lost their arms and heads and legs. I felt very sorry for them. I was very young and foolish, and I invented a game to play. I'd select a statue that needed an arm, say, and then I'd hunt among the other statues for an arm that would fit, or for a head or whatever else was missing. Through playing that game I got the idea of making whole statues from the beginning and not bothering with fragments."
"And to think," said Dr. Ferris, "that we have failed to understand each other. Why, Barbs, your ambition is a direct lineal descendant of mine. It was a maimed marble that showed you your life's work. It was a maimed child that showed me mine. It seems that at heart we are both menders."
"I began on dolls," said Barbara.
"And I began on guinea-pigs."
A footman entered with whiskey and soda on a tray. Barbara rose.
"Shall I pour you a drink?"
"A very little one, please."
She poured him his drink, and once more seated herself at his feet.
"After I graduated from the P. & S.," said Dr. Ferris, "I did ambulance work for two years, accidents, births, fires. I was ambitious to learn, and worked myself sick. One morning, after I'd been all night bringing a most reluctant young Polack into the world, I was called to the house of a world-famous man in East Thirty-fourth Street. The house was full of servants mad with grief and fright. The man and his wife had gone out of town, and their son, a beautiful boy about ten years old, had got himself run over by a truck. His governess, I gathered, a German fool, had been in some way directly responsible. But that is the small end of the matter. The boy's legs were horribly crushed and mangled. It seemed to me that if his life was to be saved, they must come off at once. The family's physician was the famous old Doctor Watson Bell. I sent for him. He didn't come at once, and when I had waited as long as I dared, I took upon my own shoulders the very heavy responsibility of operating. I put the child under ether, and with the help of one assistant took his legs off just below the hip-joints. Then Dr. Bell came. He was a very old friend of my father's, and he had always been very good to me. First he looked to see that what had been done had been well done. Then he examined the legs that I had taken off. Then he sent the nurse out of the room. Then he turned and looked at me, and his face was gray and cold as a stone. He said: 'You fool! You imbecile!' And he showed me, clear as a flash of lightning, that the legs never should have been amputated. Then he said, more gently: 'For your father's sake I will save your face, young man. I shall set my approval to this catastrophe. For your father's sake, and for your mother's. I have always looked on you as an adopted son. Are you drunk?' I told him that I had been up all night, and had had no sleep since five o'clock the morning before. He shrugged his shoulders, and said: 'In your right mind, you couldn't have done it,' and I knew that I couldn't. 'Horrible!' he said, 'horrible! This poor baby to be a wreck of a thing all his life, because a healthy and hearty young man cannot get along on a little sleep. But, thank God, the child will never know that the operation wasn't necessary,'
"By common accord, we turned to look at the little boy. His eyes were open. He had come out of the ether with miraculous suddenness. And we saw by the expression of his face that he had heard--and that he had understood."
Barbara took her father's hand in both hers and pressed it hard. "Poor old dad," she said.
"Of course," Dr. Ferris went on, "the child told his parents. But Dr. Bell lied up and down to save my face. He said that what the child thought he had heard was part of an ether dream. And I lied. And nobody believed the little boy. I had told him, before Dr. Bell could stop me--I was hysterical and crazy--that if there was ever anything under heaven that I could do for him, I would do it--no matter what it was. And the boy told his parents that I had said that, but it was only taken by them as evidence that I felt terribly sorry for what I had had to do, and that I had a tender heart."
"Poor old dad!" said Barbara. "And what became of the little boy?"
"He grew vicious," said Dr. Ferris. "I don't blame him. Quarrelled fearfully with his father, dropped into all sorts of evil ways and companionship--all my fault, every bit of it--and finally disappeared completely out of the station to which he had been born. I had reason until the other day to believe that he was dead. Then I saw him."
There was quite a long silence. The fire burned brightly. Dr. Ferris, greatly agitated by tragic memories, closed his eyes very tightly, as if to shut them out.
"And of course," said Barbara at last, "the small boy is my Mr. Blizzard. Well, what can we do for him?"
"Youowe him nothing," said her father sharply.
"Oh, yes," said Barbara gently, "oh, yes. Your obligations are mine. I shall tell him. It's like owing a frightful sum of money. We can't be happy till we've paid up, can we? You and I?"
"It seems," said Dr. Ferris, "that I have made two terrible mistakes. And the second is having told you about the first. My God, but this life is hard to bear!"
"But--why--what have I said? If there isanythingwe can do for him, we ought to do it."
"Are you going to say that to him?"
"Of course," she said.
"Suppose," said her father, "that in all this world he wanted only one thing--you?"
This suggestion was most unexpected to Barbara and odious. And she said coldly: "I hope he is not quite such a fool."
"But if he is?"
"My dear father," said Barbara, "I have been told that somewhere along the Milky Way there is a bridge between stars. Let's cross that when we come to it."
A footman entered carrying a large pasteboard box on which, in gilt letters, was the name of a Third Avenue florist. But the jonquils in the box were very fresh and lovely. They were, however, unaccompanied by a card.
"Some unknown person," said Barbara, "has formed the habit of sending me flowers".
"Some unknown person," said Barbara, "has formed the habit of sending me flowers." She smiled. "I shall ask my friend, Mr. Harry West," she said, "to find out who it is."
And then, suddenly, she turned away, so that her father should not see that she was blushing. The thought, not in the least disagreeable, had occurred to her for the first time, that perhaps Mr. Harry West himself was anonymously going down into his pocket for her sweet sake.
The legless man was not in the habit of waiting for things that he wanted, when the chance to take them had come. And he did not propose to endure the torture of sitting perfectly still hour after hour, morning after morning, while any young woman made a bust of him. Yet he allowed a number of mornings to pass without taking any definite steps toward the vengeance which he felt to be so dear to him.
That Barbara was a high-born lady was the chief obstacle in his plans. If she were to disappear suddenly out of the world which knew and loved her, there would be raised a hue and outcry greater, perhaps, than his utmost powers and resources could check. He would be run to earth without much doubt and put where even the sweet memory of vengeance would taste bitter in his mouth. It is perhaps pleasant to pluck the fruits of vengeance, but a man requires time in which to eat and digest them. If they are snatched from his hand the moment they are picked, his vengeance fails of all sweetness and justification.
On the other hand, Blizzard, in order to revenge himself on the man who had maimed him, was willing to give, if not his liberty, his life.
If he could not abduct Barbara and go free, he would kill himself when they came to take him. But he did not wish to kill himself. He wished to live a long time after, gloating on his memories. He had also on foot a scheme which, starting almost as a pleasantry, had developed in his mind, and was still developing, until its latent possibilities staggered his own imagination.
A certain Jew, proprietor of a pawnshop, was in reality a receiver of stolen goods. It was common knowledge among certain crooks in the city, that the recently stolen Bland diamonds had come into this man's hands. Blizzard thought that it would be funny to take these diamonds away from the Jew, hold them for a while, and then, since the fellow was after all a friend, return them. To break into Reichman's store at night would be dangerous. Reichman himself was no coward, and he employed a savage night-watchman, just out of Sing Sing. So Blizzard planned a robbery in a spirit of farce, and in the broad and crowded light of day.
Six stalwart young fellows entered Reichman's pawnshop at eleven-thirty in the morning. Each one had a watch or an overcoat to pawn. They crowded about Reichman, all talking at once. They were strangers to him. At exactly the same time the attention of the six policemen on the six nearest beats was attracted by the drunken and disorderly behavior of six more stalwart young fellows--one to each policeman. In the end six arrests were made, the six young drunkards were marched off to the station house, and the beats of the six policemen were for the time being deserted.
Sharp at eleven-thirty-seven, five of the six young men in Reichman's shop flung an overcoat over his head and rushed him into a dark corner, choking him so that he could not scream. A person in the street, however, saw the struggle, and rushed off to find the nearest policeman, who of course could not be found. Meanwhile the sixth young man ran lightly upstairs, looked under the mattress of the palatial Reichman bed, where he had been told to look, and secured the stolen diamonds. The farce came to a proper conclusion. Reichman could not complain to the police that he had been robbed of stolen goods. And he went about for many days with a sour face.
Blizzard came every day to condole with him, and finally to return the diamonds. Then he told Reichman, a man he could trust, how the robbery had been worked, and the two put their heads together.
If six policemen could be so easily put out of commission at a given moment, why not many? If a pawnshop could be so easily looted, why not Tiffany's, or one of the great wholesale jewellers in Maiden Lane? Why not the Sub-Treasury?
In Blizzard's mind the idea became an obsession; and he worked out schemes, in all their details; only to think of something bigger and more engaging. One or two details were present in all his plans: a hiding-place for the treasure when he should get it, and a large number of lieutenants whom he could trust. He could, he believed, at the least throw the whole city into a state of chaos for a few hours--for half a day--for a whole day. And during that period of lawless confusion anything might happen to anybody--to Barbara for instance. But his plans were not ripe, nor his trusted lieutenants as yet sufficient in number. He must therefore either put off his vengeance indefinitely, or run the risk of having his own career as a criminal come to a very sudden end. For once in his life he vacillated. But it was something more than the desire for vengeance which decided him to risk everything on immediate action.
His plan was very simple. Sometimes a messenger-boy brought a note to her studio. And Blizzard had observed that Barbara's invariable habit with notes was first to read them, and then to burn them. She never tore them into pieces and threw them into the fireplace. She struck a match, lighted them at one corner, and saw to it that they were entirely consumed. When Barbara had finished with a note, or a circular, or a letter, Sherlock Holmes himself could not have recovered the contents or the name of the sender. Banking on this habit, Blizzard wrote Barbara a note and sent it to her father's house by a man he could trust. She received the note at six o'clock, while she was resting prior to dressing and dining out. It read as follows:
81 Marrow Lane.DEAR MISS FERRIS:My affairs don't seem to be prospering here, so I am going away. I am sorry the Bust isn't finished. You will be disappointed. I am leaving at 8 o'clock for the West. I have enjoyed sitting for you. I wish you all the success and happiness you deserve.Very truly yours,BLIZZARD.
Her mind working very rapidly, Barbara rose at once, and quite unconsciously, so strong was habit in her, struck a match, set the beggar's note on fire, threw it into the fireplace, and watched it burn to ashes. On the way to the fireplace she pressed a button to summon her maid. When this one came, Barbara, already out of her dressing-gown, spoke imperatively:
"I am going out. I want a taxi called at once. Then come back and help me dress."
But when the maid returned there was little for her to do. Barbara was in a hurry.
She found a taxi waiting at the door. She glanced at the driver--he was not one of those who usually drove her.
"Do you know where Marrow Lane is?"
"Is it near the Brooklyn Bridge, miss?"
"I think so. Marrow Lane, No. 81. You can make inquiries. Hurry."
The strange driver drove skilfully and swiftly down the avenue. Two thoughts occupied him: the beauty of his fare, and the docility with which she came to the master's hand when he called.
In Barbara's mind there was but one thought: not that she was going to visit a disreputable man in a disreputable part of the city, but that she was going to keep that man in the city and finish her bust of him, or know the reason why. Fame was in her grasp. She felt astonishingly sure of that. She was not going to let it escape for a mere matter of convention. It had been her first idea to send Blizzard a note by messenger. But she had more confidence in her personal powers of persuasion. If her model needed money or was in some scrape that could be righted by money and influence, she believed that she could keep him in New York.
It was not yet dark, but all the city lamps were lighted, and the East Side had that atmosphere of care-free gaiety habitual to it after business hours when the weather is rainless and warm. The taxicab moved slowly, because the children had overflowed the sidewalks and played games which kept them in blissful danger of their lives. Twice the taxi stopped. Instantly a crowd gathered about it, and Barbara became an embarrassed but amused centre of criticism and admiration.
It became dark. The streets were less crowded. There were fewer lights. There was an unpleasant smell of old fish and garbage. The people Barbara now observed seemed each and all intent upon something or other. They were not merely loafing in the pure evening air, but hurrying. There were no more children. The taxi passed slowly (because of the uneven pavement) through a short, narrow street. The few lights in this street were nearly all red.
Save for the light in Blizzard's manufactory, Marrow Lane was dark and deserted. For some reason or other the city lights had gone out, or had been passed over by the lamplighter.
Through the glazed door Barbara saw the vast black shadow of Blizzard's profile on the white wall of his office. There was no bell. She turned the knob and pushed open the door. A bell clanged almost in her ear with fierce suddenness. It was like an alarm. Her heart beat the quicker for it; the number of her respirations increased. She was sorry that she had come. She was frightened; still she stepped through the door-way, and called in her clear? resolute voice:
"Mr. Blizzard! It's Miss Ferris."
His vast shadow remained motionless like a stain on the wall. And for a moment he did not answer. Could she have seen his face itself, instead of only its shadow, she must have turned with a cry of fear and found that the door which had closed behind her, clanging its bell, was locked, and that there was no escape that way.
If she had turned her head she must have seen that her taxi had gone quietly away.
In the dim light she looked wonderfully young and beautiful.
In the dim light she looked wonderfully young and beautiful. The parted opera-cloak disclosed her round straight throat and the broad smooth modelling of the neck from which it rose. She seemed taller and more stately than in street-dress, and at once younger, more defenceless, more virginal. There was not enough light in the place to bring out the contrasting colors of her hair. She looked like a black-haired beauty with ivory-white skin, instead of an amber, red, and brown beauty, with rosy, brown skin. Her head, small, round, and carried very high, lent her an air of extraordinary breeding and distinction. She had no thought for the short rose-brocade train of her dinner-dress, and let it trail over the dirty floor.
"Mr. Blizzard!"
This time he answered. It sounded less like a voice than the hoarse bass croak of a very enormous bull-frog.
"Please step this way."
Her head, if anything, a little higher than ever, she walked swiftly forward right into the legless man's office.
His face was very white, swollen, it looked, and blotched with purple. The veins in his forehead looked like mountain ranges on a topographical map.
"I've only a minute," said Barbara.
He lowered his head now over his ledger, but said nothing. Then he looked up and into her face steadily, and one by one the purple blotches in his own face paled, and vanished, like the extinguishing of as many hellish lights. And then to Barbara's horror a low groan, more like a dog's than a man's, passed his tightly pressed lips, came out, and was cut short off, as if with a keen knife.
"Are you sick?" she asked, not kindly, but imperatively and with a tone, perhaps, of disgust.
"Yes," said the legless man briefly, but without going into any explanation of his ailment. "You came to tell me that I mustn't go away till the bust is finished. Is that it?"
Barbara felt more at her ease. "Yes," she said, "I am selfish about it. It means so much to me."
"Well, you needn't have come," said Blizzard, and it was almost as if he was angry with her for having done so. "I've changed my plans. I've had to change them. I stay."
Barbara was immensely pleased. "I wish I could tell you how glad I am," she said.
"The thing now," said Blizzard, "is to get you back to your house. You shouldn't have come to this part of the city at all; and especially not dressed like that. But you didn't stop to think. You had an idea in your head. And you came. Did anybody know where you were going when you left home?"
She shook her head.
"Something dreadful might have happened to you," he said, and a curious smile played about his mouth for a moment, "and no one the wiser. Suppose you hadn't found me here to look after you? Suppose you'd found some drunken crook just out of Sing Sing, or something worse?"
"But Ididfind you," said Barbara, "and all is well."
"Yes--yes," he said, "alliswell. And you may thank your stars for that. Why didn't you tell your taxi to wait?"
"But I did."
Again the curious smile flickered about the legless man's mouth. "Well, he's gone."
Barbara followed the lead of Blizzard's eyes, and saw that the street in front of his manufactory was empty. He reached for his crutches, and swung himself down from his chair.
"Perhaps he's dropped down to Jake's saloon. Wait here. I'll see."
The bell of the outer door clanged with horrid suddenness. And then she heard a piercing loud whistle twice repeated. And a few moments later the sound of a motor.
"All right, Miss Ferris, I've got him."
She drew her cloak together, and joined the legless man on the sidewalk.
"Thank you very much," she said, "and good-by till to-morrow."
The taxicab driver's face had no expression whatever. He who understood driving so well could not make out what the master was driving at.
Blizzard held open the door of the taxi, and Barbara got in. But he did not at once close the door. Instead he turned his head and looked up the street. Then he called out sharply:
"Hurry up! Can't you see the lady's waiting."
One came, running; a tall well-built youth, with an expression on his face of cool, cynical courage and good humor.
"Miss Ferris," said Blizzard, "this young fellow will ride in with you if you don't mind. You can drop him when you get out of the East Side, and reach your own part of the city. He will see that no harm comes to you. If you ask him questions he will answer them. Otherwise he will not speak unless you wish."
The youth grinned a little sheepishly, and Barbara made room for him on the seat beside her.
"He will answer for your safety," continued the legless man, "with his ears. Where to?"
She gave the number of the house at which she was to dine, and the legless man repeated it to the driver.
"Good-night, Mr. Blizzard, and thank you."
"Good-night, Miss Ferris, and welcome."
The legless man watched the taxicab until it had rounded the corner of Marrow Lane. Then he looked upward at the stars for a while. Then he swung slowly and wearily back into his rookery, and having extinguished the light, sat for a long time in the dark.
What was it that had come over the man to let his victim escape when she was so mercilessly in his power? Ask the stars to which he turned. Ask the darkness in which he sits, alone, thinking. Better, perhaps, ask the man's warped and tormented soul.
It seems that while he sat in his office waiting for her, a champion rose up to defend her, a champion in his own heart. A champion who made such headway against the brute's lawless and beastly intention as to overthrow it.
Blizzard was in the power of that which all his mature life he had feared more than hanging or the electric chair, more even than prisons. He had fallen quietly, even gently, in love.
"I'm not going to ask you any questions," said Barbara, "because I don't think of any. But if you like to talk, please do."
Without comment or preamble the youth who was to answer for her safety with his ears, began to talk.
"Might have knocked me over with a feather," he said, "to find a lady like you sitting in a cab in front o' Blizzard's place. At first look I says to myself: 'One o' these high-fliers I've heard talk about that likes to fly low.' Then I flings your eyes one penetrating peep, and says to myself: ''Spect she ain't one o' that kind.' And I make out just this about you that you're O.K. from A to Xylophone, and I takes this opportunity to remark aloud to myself that I don't know what your game is, and it's none o' my haterogeneous business, but if I was you I'd cut Marrow Lane out o' my itenerary, and stay home nights playin' a quiet rubber o' tiddle winks-the-barber."
Barbara laughed gayly. "Everybody," she said, "thinks that my friend, Mr. Blizzard, is a very bad man. But he does nothing to prove it. He has been very considerate of me in every way."
"Did I say anything against Blizzard? You'll tell him I did? Not you. And I did not. If itwasn'tfor him, I says, Marrow Lanewouldbe hell's kitchen, and on the chanct that he ain't always going to be on the spot, nor me, cut it out, I says. But," continued the talkative youth, "in case you don't cut it out, in case you're ever in trouble down our way you take this," bluntly he handed her a small, dark metal whistle, "and blow her good. I knows the note, and if my ears is on the job, you gets help. You gets it sudden. You gets it good. And here, without fear or comment, I leaves you."
He signalled to the driver to stop. They had reached the southern boundary of Washington Square. Barbara held out her hand. She was greatly taken with her escort.
"And whom," she said, "am I thanking for the whistle?"
"Kid Shannon."
"Don't tell me," said Barbara, "thatyou'rethe man who put Hook Hammersley out in the third!"
"A right to the solar plexus," said Kid Shannon simply, "to bring him in range and a left to the jaw. Even his friends admits that he begun to take his gloves off while he was still in the air. But I'm in the saloon business now, if it's all the same to you, having been light-weight champion, and spoke a monologue over three circuits--nice-behaved ladies and gentlemen o' both sexes always welcome, pay as you consume; but for you or any friends o' yours the drinks will be on the house."
He turned with one foot on the sidewalk, and one in the cab.... "Here I wishes you salutations ..."
He turned with one foot on the sidewalk, and one in the cab.
"Lady," he said, "what I've poured in jest, drink in earnest. All that's yellow isn't butter. But if anybody was to ask you--say, a man who shall be as nameless as he is legless--what I says to you during our discursive promenaid, you answer back and say, 'Kid Shannon, whenever I speaks to him, merely says, "Ha! Hum!"--or words to that effect.' Here I wishes you salutations, and may your life contain nothing but times when you looks and feels your best."
Barbara shook hands with him again. "Come to 17 McBurney Place," she said, "some morning. Ask for Miss Ferris, and see what you think of the bust she's making of Mr. Blizzard." She smiled mischievously. "He's supposed to represent the devil just after falling into hell."
Shannon nodded with complete understanding. "Then," said he, "I bet he looks a ringer for Hook Hammersley that time he hit the resin."
"Thank you for protecting me," said Barbara, "and for the whistle. Will you tell the man to hurry, please? Thank you! Good-by."
She was very late to her dinner, but much too amused with recent events to care. And nobody could have made her believe that her going to Blizzard's place had been fraught with terrible peril. She prized the whistle that Kid Shannon had given her, and resolved that some time she would adventure again into his part of the city, and see if she could bring him running to her side.
"I am sorry I am late," said Barbara, "but I couldn't help it." She vouchsafed no further explanation, and because she was so young and beautiful all those who had been kept waiting forgave her.
Wilmot Allen took her into dinner, and looked much love at her, and talked much nonsense.
Wilmot Allen took her in to dinner, and looked much love at her, and talked much nonsense. He was, indeed, so gay and foolish that she imagined that he must have got himself into trouble again.
Blizzard was an acute student of human nature. And a certain softening in Barbara's manner toward him was proof that she had learned his story from her father, and no longer regarded him as a stranger off the streets, but as a human being definitely connected with her outlook upon life. Still, the suggestion that their relations had changed did not come from him, for he knew that pity or sympathy given by request lacks the potency of that which is spontaneously offered. So he held his peace in order that Barbara might be the first to speak, and during those days his heart became filled with mad hopes for the future.
Upon one thing he was determined, that when in the course of events Barbara should touch upon her father's criminal mistake, he would conceal, as something precious from a thief, the hatred and vengefulness that were in him, and unroll for her benefit a character noble and forgiving. He was content, or appeared content, day after day, for a number of hours, to be with her, and to play the hypocrite so ably as to defy detection.
And Barbara, knowing how the man had been abused, guessing how he must have suffered, and still suffered, came to look upon him, not indeed as upon a person wholly noble, but as upon one who, with an impulse in the right direction, had in him possibilities of great nobility.
Just as a fine motor-car, perfect in mechanism, punctures a tire and is stalled by the side of the road, so works of genius like Barbara's head of Blizzard do not progress in one swift rush from start to finish. There were whole mornings during which it seemed that things went backward instead of forward, and when she was so discouraged that, had it not been for the legless man's almost fiery confidence in her ability to overcome all obstacles, she must have taken a hammer and pounded her fine sketch back into the lump of clay from which it had been evolved.
Blizzard's eyes had undergone a most thorough schooling. They had learned, to the flicker of an eyelid, when Barbara was going to look their way, and at such times were careful not to meet her eyes. When, however, they knew her to be intent for a period upon the work and not the model, they studied her always with zest, and always with more and more understanding.
Suddenly, one day, after he had been sitting motionless for half an hour, the beggar broke his pose.
"Please don't," she said. "I'm not through."
In his eyes, soft and full of understanding, there was a gentle, if masterful, smiling. "Yes, you are," he said, "for now. I haven't watched you at work all these mornings without learning something about the way you go at it. Do you know what a blind alley is?"
"Yes," she said petulantly, "and I'm in one."
"Quite so," said Blizzard. "And you're not taking the right way out. First you tried to climb up the house on the right, then the house on the left, and when I interrupted you, you were making a sixth effort to shin up the lightning-rod of the house that blocks the alley."
Barbara laughed. "But," she objected, "I've got to get out somehow--or fake--or call the thing a fiasco, and give it up."
"Of course you've got to get out," said Blizzard, "and it's very simple."
"Simple!" she exclaimed; "a lot you know about it."
"Quite simple," he repeated; "you merely face about and walk out. In, other words, remove that lump of mud which one day is going to be more like my ear than my ear itself, and begin over."
And it came home to Barbara that the man was right. "Thank you," she said simply. "You're a great help. That is precisely what I shall do."
"But don't do it now."
"Why not?"
"Because you've wasted the freshness of your early-morning zeal with vain efforts. Destroy what you've done--there's always satisfaction in that; but either leave the re-doing alone for to-day, or try something else."
"When," said Barbara, beginning to feel soothed and confident again, "did I put myself in your hands for guidance?"
"The moment you lost your presence of mind," said the beggar; "that's when a woman always puts herself in a man's hands. Put a cloth over his satanic majesty's portrait, and sit down and relax your muscles, and talk to the devil himself."
Barbara did as he commanded with the expression of a biddable child. She flung herself into a deep chair, and drew a long, care-free breath.
"There," she said, "I knew I wasn't fit."
"You can't spend the night at a Country Club, dance till 4 A.M., catch the 7 A.M. for town, and do good work--not always."
"How did you know all that?"
Blizzard laughed. "From a man," said he, "who had planned to rob the Meadowbrook Club last night. There is a fine haul of scarf-pins, and sleeve-links, and watches and money in the bachelors' quarters. He came to me in great dejection and explained what very hard luck he had had. He said the whole place was lit up and full of people and music, and no chance for an honest man to earn a cent. I happened to ask if you were there, and he said you were. The train was a guess, and so of course was the 4 A.M. Will you take a piece of well-meant advice? Either be a society girl or a sculptor. But don't burn the candle at both ends. You even look tired, and that's nonsense at your age."
He laughed like a boy.
"They tell me," he said, "that I could do the new dances. They tell me they are just like clinches in a prize-fight, and that only the novices move their feet."
Barbara's brows contracted. "I'm going to ask you a favor," she said. "If you want to talk about your misfortune, God knows I'm ready to listen. I feel some of the responsibility. But please don't joke about it. We're friends, I think. And I like to forget that you're not exactly like other people. And sometimes I do."
"Truly?" His eyes were full of suppressed eagerness and elation.
"Yes," she said, "when you talk high-mindedly and generously, as you can, when you want to, I enjoy being with you, in touch with a mind so much more knowing and able than my own. But, now we've made a beginning, I'd really like to talk about--all this dreadful mess that's been made of your life, and how things can be made easier for you, and for my father."
Figuratively, Blizzard's tongue went into his cheek at the mention of Dr. Ferris, but the expression of his face underwent no change. "Of course," he said simply, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, "I have forgiven your father. He was very young--very excitable--inexperienced."
"Actually"she said, "in your heart, you've forgiven him? And you're not saying things just to make me comfortable?"
"I am afraid," he confessed, "that I am too selfish to say or do things just to make other people comfortable. Did you ever hate anybody?"
"I think so."
"Did you like it?"
"For a while it was rather fun to think up things to do to the person, and then it got to be disagreeable, and feverish, like a cut that's festered, and then I made a strong effort, and found that hating was very poor company and led nowhere."
"Exactly," said the beggar. "Do you mind if I talk frankly? My hatred for your father persisted a great many years, until I found that going to bed with it every night and getting up with it every morning was a slow poison that was affecting all the rest of me--my power to think out a line of action, my power to stick to it, even my power to like people that were good to me and faithful to my interests. I found that I was beginning to hate everybody and everything in the world and the world itself. Meanwhile, Miss Barbara, I did things that can never be undone."
He was silent, and appeared to be turning over the leaves in the books of his memory. Suddenly he spoke again.
"And it was all so silly," he said, "so futile. The cure was in my head all the time--just longing to be used. And fool that I was, I didn't know it."
"What was the cure?"
"It was the sovereign cure for all our troubles, Miss Barbara--reason, and crowds. Stand morning or evening at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge--stand there with your trouble, and consider that among the passers, better carried than yours, are troubles, far, far greater than yours, more poignant, lives lived in dungeons deeper and more dark. Your father has lived a life of most admirable utility: should he be hated for one mistake? Suppose that it had been some other small boy's legs that he wasted, instead of mine? Would I hate him for it? Why, no. I'd say it's too bad. But since it was I that lost the legs I lost all sense of proportion and justice and was a long time--a long time coming back to it."
"May I know what brought you round?"
The beggar felt that he might dare a little. He smiled. "Of course. What brought me around was the discovery that he had created something far, far more important than what he had destroyed. At first I thought you were like so many other girls of your class--well dressed, and good to look at. Then that you had a very genuine talent, and were going to count in the world. Then, and this is best, it came over me that you were one girl in a million--that you would do whatever seemed right to you, not without fear of criticism, and pain and sacrifice, but regardless of them. And so, you see, the reparation is made. The father hurt, and the daughter cured."
Barbara's face had become very grave. "However wrong you are about my character," she said, "the reparation is not yet made. And you may be sure of this--that, whatever the criticism, I owe you friendship and you shall have it,"
The beggar trembled inwardly, but he shook his head. "You could hardly pull me up to a level," he said, "upon which friendship between us would be possible. Imagine that I have sunk to the chin in mud, and that at the last time of calling I have been pulled out. Still the mud clings to me."
"Nonsense," said Barbara, "you can be washed."
They both laughed, and at once became grave again.
"You don't know," he said, "what I've been or what I've done. You can't even imagine."
"That is not the point," said Barbara, "and this is: Are you sorry? If you really have been rotten, do you want to be sound and fine? If you do I'm your friend, and whatever help I can give you, you shall have."
"If you knew," he said humbly, "how I dread the bust being finished! I'll be like a child stealing a ride by the strength of his arms, I'll have to drop off then--won't I?--back into the mud."
"I'm not offering you friendship," she said, "merely while you are useful to me. Do well, Mr. Blizzard, and do good, and I will always be your friend."
"Do you believe that I want to do well, that I want to do good? That I want to wipe the past from the slate?"
"You have only to tell me," she said loyally, "and I shall believe."
"Then I tell you," he said, and Barbara jumped impulsively to her feet and shook hands with him.
"And I may come to you," he pleaded, "for advice, and help? Old habits are hard to shake. My friends are thieves, crooks, and grafters. My sources of income are not clean. Even now I have dishonest irons in the fire. Shall I pull them out?"
"Of course."
"But people who have trusted me will be hurt."
"You must work those problems out in your own conscience."
To Blizzard, believing that he was actually making progress into the fastnesses of her heart, and that he might in time gain his ends by propinquity and his own undeniable force and personality, a sudden, cheeky knocking upon the door proved intensely irritating. It was a very small messenger-boy with a box of jonquils. Blizzard watched very closely the expression of Barbara's face while she opened the box. She held up the flowers for him to see.
"Aren't they pretty?" she said.
"They are very pretty," said Blizzard, and he found it difficult to control his voice. "And it was very sweet of him to send them. Isn't that the rest of the speech?"
"Of course," said Barbara gayly.
She lifted the flowers until the lower half of her face was hidden.
"Mr. Allen, I suppose," said the beggar.
"Why should you suppose that?" said Barbara, a little coldly. "There is no card."
Blizzard felt his mistake. And Barbara felt that he felt it. She went into the next room for a vase of water, and returned presently with heightened color. She had heard Harry West's slow grave voice explaining something to Bubbles. Her heart told her that West had sent the flowers, and she meant to get rid of Blizzard and find out. So, the vase of flowers in one hand, she held out the other to him, and said:
"To-morrow."
Blizzard was loath to go, but he felt that there was a certain finality in her voice, and he swung out of the studio, his heart gnawed with jealousy.