“We’ll all go down to Casey’sAnd we’ll have a little gin,And we’ll sit upon the sandTill the tide comes in,Till the tide comes in;And we’ll sit upon the sandTill the tide comes in.”
“We’ll all go down to Casey’sAnd we’ll have a little gin,And we’ll sit upon the sandTill the tide comes in,Till the tide comes in;And we’ll sit upon the sandTill the tide comes in.”
“Right over again and faster,” said King O’Leary. “That’s the way, Miss Quirley; you’re a sport. That’s right—thump the floor; beat time anyhow!”
They were chanting this memory-haunting snatch for the third time, clapping hands in rhythm and struggling amid laughter to get their breaths, when the door was flung violently open and Dangerfield appeared, top-hat, fur coat and the gleam of a white tie.
The chorus died down immediately. Every one was struck by the strangeness of his entrance. He looked bigger and rougher than he was, muffled up in the great coat, with a flurry of snow on the shoulders, over which could be seen the white of two other faces peering curiously in. He took off his hat slowly, as he saw the company, but in a dazed way, and stood there blinking at them, for all the world like a great bear wandering into the glare of a camp-fire. There was indeed something restless and shaggy about him that struck them all as he stood there, staring into the room. The head was full and round with an abundance of curly black hair, grizzled at the temples, with one white lock that rose from the forehead like a white flame. The face was wide-spaced and rather flat, the yellow-green eyes were deep set with distended pupils, very animal-like—eyes that glowed and set in sudden fixed stares.
Evidently the party had startled him—perhaps it was the presence of women, which he had not foreseen, for after a moment he seemed to recover himself with an effort and said a few words which caused his companions to scuttle away and took a step into the room, smiling courteously, without a trace of the former wild, almost unbalanced stare.
“I am afraid I owe you an apology,” he said quietly. “My friends mistook this for my studio. I hope you will forgive the rudeness of my intrusion.”
During the moments which had followed the flying open of the door, the entire company had remained hushed under the spell of the brusque incident. Every one had the same feeling—there was something out of place with the man, dressed as he was, here in the Arcade alone on Christmas night—something indefinably wrong, though what it was each would have been hard put to it to express. In this short moment, where each man felt that he was in trouble, there was something about him, a certain weakness or a certain childlike wildness, that went to the heart of every woman present—a quality the man had of being lovable (for it was unconscious) despite all his faults. He had bowed and started to withdraw, before King O’Leary came to.
“Hold up, friend—you must be Dangerfield, aren’t you?”
“Dangerfield?” said the new arrival, stopping. “Yes, that’s my name.”
“Then you’ve fallen in right. There’s an invitation waiting for you in your room for this same shebang.”
“An invitation?” said Dangerfield slowly, and he passed his hand over his brow, which was splendid and open. Many noticed the effort which he seemed to put into his words. “I was out, probably. If I had been there, I assure you I would have come with the greatest of pleasure. It’s my loss,” he added, with a smile that seemed to appeal for their friendship.
“Never too late, neighbor. This is a get-together party. Drop your duds and join us.”
“May I? Thank you,” he said, but he continued tostand there without a move to shed his overcoat, until Flick, who had been watching him narrowly, approached, saying:
“Let me give you a hand. Wilder’s my name. Glad to know you.”
He seemed to recall himself, and slipped from the heavy coat.
A curious thing among the many curious things of this night was that immediately all the others came up to be introduced to Dangerfield, with an instinctive tribute, or the feeling that the man was in deep trouble. Drinkwater was among the first, his nervous, prying little eyes fairly fastened on the other in his excitement. Dangerfield shook each hand cordially, with a smile that seemed to transform his whole expression into one of democracy and kindliness, giving to his greeting of each woman present a touch of exquisite deference.
Then a strange thing happened.
“Mr. Cornelius,” said King O’Leary. “There’s a string of names I wouldn’t dare tackle. We call him ‘the baron.’”
“Mr. Cornelius, I am very—” said Dangerfield, and then raised his head and stopped short. The baron, too, was staring at him as though he had seen a vision of the past, mumbling over and over as though dissatisfied, “Meester Dangerfeel—Dangerfeel——”
It was only a moment, but every one perceived it, while Drinkwater’s face was fairly quivering with interest. Each caught himself up and bowed, but for a moment across the face of Dangerfield had come again that sudden, startled, bearlike stare which seemed the frightened uprising of another nature struggling within him.
What happened after that came so suddenly that few could remember it clearly. The orchestra had broken into a rattling two-step, and the studio was shaking withthe shuffling of feet; Dangerfield had not moved from his original position, and remained thus staring for so long a while that most had forgotten him, when all of a sudden there was a warning shout from Tootles, a scream from Pansy, and the next moment Dangerfield had reeled and fallen with a crash to the floor.
There was a babel of cries—some one calling to the orchestra to stop, Miss Quirley sobbing, and the baron calling for a glass of water, while Mr. Teagan rushed to and fro volubly, doing nothing at all—when in the midst of this turmoil, without any one knowing how she had gotten there, or indeed, noticing anything strange in her appearance, Inga Sonderson was seen kneeling at the side of the fallen man, examining him quietly and in a businesslike manner.
“He must be carried into his own room,” she said, after a quick examination. “When he comes to, there must be quiet—absolute quiet. He must be gotten there now.” Her eyes fell on King O’Leary. “You’re strong; can you carry him?”
For answer he stooped and lifted the senseless body, but not without an effort, for the man was powerfully built. Every one seemed at once to turn to Inga, as though recognizing a providential authority.
“Is he alive?”
“What was it—heart-stroke?”
“Apoplexy?”
“But is his studio ready?”
“His studio is ready,” said Inga quietly. She nodded to O’Leary. “Carry him in now. The rest stay here.” She glanced around. “I think the party had better end. There must be quiet. Belle, I shall want cold cloths; and Mr. Teagan, you had better send for a doctor. Baker is over on Sixty-seventh Street. Better telephone.”
It never occurred to King O’Leary to ask what she intended to do.Page 69.
It never occurred to King O’Leary to ask what she intended to do.Page 69.
It never occurred to King O’Leary to ask what she intended to do.Page 69.
Leaving the crowd, flustered and frightened, to disperseinto whispering groups, she went down the hall to the corner studio, which was piled with packing-cases in an indescribable confusion. In one corner, very black and white in the glare of the center-light, was a four-poster bed, and on it the sprawling figure of Dangerfield. She went to it straight and silent, knelt again, felt the pulse, lifted the eyelids, while King O’Leary waited.
“Well,” he said, as she arose. “D.T.’s, isn’t it?”
“Only a part of it—I think,” she said, looking down at the powerful figure that looked more like a stricken animal than ever. The curious thing is that it never occurred to King O’Leary to ask what she intended to do. He seemed to accept her as a fact, just as naturally as she had assumed control. She stood a moment silent, her finger on her lips, looking down, and then drew herself together with a sort of shudder, looked at King O’Leary, who was watching her, and said:
“Undress him and get him into bed. Then call me.”
It was a weird ending to the night of Christmas romping for King O’Leary, sitting breathless on an upturned box, his elbows on his knees, chin in hand, staring through the dim shafts of light at the two figures in the further corner—Dangerfield, limp and inert, head and shoulders a confused shadow against the white, propped-up pillows, with the lithe figure of the girl, straight as a young spruce, waiting. From the time O’Leary had placed him in the great four-poster bed, the man had not moved, while the heavy breathing, slow and regular, was the only sound through the stillness in the room. Against O’Leary the boxes rose in craggy somberness; a rug, leaning against the wall in an elongated roll, stretched upward like a climbing tree. Bits of sculpture, struggling groups of single busts, peered down at him above heaped-up chairs and tables in such confusion that, at times, he seemed to be moving through a fantastic warehouse.
Doctor Baker was away, and in despair they had routed Mr. Dean out of bed—the pale young man who was studying to be a veterinary. He had come, perched on the bed like a shadowy crow, taken the pulse, listened to Inga, and departed, after a wise caressing of his chin, without committing himself. Half an hour later, after a diligent consultation of certain books, he slipped back and beckoned O’Leary into the hall.
“The best thing is to let him sleep,” he said, with a professionally satisfied air. “Give him all the sleep he can get. Looks to me like nerves—and a touch—I’m not sure—but there are certain indications—lips blue,and the way he went over—a touch of heart-disease. Of course, it might be acute indigestion and then, too, he has been hitting it up pretty hard——”
“I congratulate you,” said King O’Leary, who had a prejudice against the profession, and who returned without imparting this expert opinion.
At about three o’clock, as nearly as he could judge, Dangerfield suddenly awoke, or at least seemed to awake, and sat bolt upright in bed, staring directly at the girl. This silent confrontation lasted a long moment; possibly in the darkness Dangerfield, if he were truly awake and not in a semisomnambulistic state, was staring at the girl with that startled animal intensity which had characterized his first entrance. All at once she put out her hand and said in a low, softly modulated voice:
“That’s enough; lie down again—go back to sleep.”
He did not respond immediately, and his eyes seemed to wander apprehensively into the shadows, but at last, perhaps under the pressure of her hand, he lay back. In a moment he began to stir and toss, mumbling incoherently to himself. She leaned over, taking his hand, and said something in gentle command, and presently he became quiet, and his sleep from then on was untroubled.
Toward the first filtering in of the dawn, King O’Leary, dozing at his post, woke up at a touch on his shoulder. It was Inga, looming out of the mist that streaked the room, like a dweller from the sea, one finger on her lips in warning, looking seriously down at him from her sea-blue eyes and dark face. They tiptoed across the room, looked a moment back at the unconscious figure on the bed, and stole out, closing the door. In the hall, the dusty globe shone sickly in the watery dawn.
“He’s all right now, I think,” she said, in a whisper. “It’s better for us not to be there when he awakes.”
“I—I guess I fell asleep,” said King O’Leary awkwardly,a little ashamed before the alert and young figure which showed no sign of fatigue.
“You really didn’t need to be there,” she said, and he noticed there was an awakened ring in her voice, as though a great joy or a great test had come to her. “Better get a bit of sleep now.”
“And you?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“I say, wouldn’t it be a good thing to lock him in—until later?”
“No, no,” she said with some emphasis; “never that—that sets them crazy. Besides, he’d get out of the window and over the roofs—there’s a way over the tenements. Then therewouldbe trouble.”
He stared at her with a feeling that this was a situation not entirely new to her, wondering many things. She felt the weight of this curiosity, for she turned toward her door, but without embarrassment, saying:
“Good night; thank you.”
“I say, will you tell me one thing?”
“What?”
She turned, her hand to the door, her back against it, drawing her eyebrows together, and, for the first time, he noticed the dark pools of wakefulness under her eyes, shadows that were not unbecoming, but gave an expression of acute sensitiveness to the fragile, dark oval of her face, which ordinarily was a little too placid—like the unmarked stretch of new-fallen snow.
“Did you know him—before?” he said, with a jerk of his head toward the corner studio.
She shook her head.
“But you know—at least you’ve got a guess—who he is?” he persisted.
“Yes,” she said, after a moment’s consideration;“I think I know.”
Then she nodded and went in.
Everything remained deeply quiet until about ten o’clock in the morning, when Dangerfield awoke, dressed himself in the discarded evening clothes, put on his fur coat and top-hat, and went down the hall, searching the inscriptions on each door until he arrived at the room of Mr. Cornelius, where, oblivious to the appearance of curious heads, he knocked loudly and entered. He was there fully half an hour before he emerged, and, returning to his room, closed and locked the door. What was said at this odd interview, no one ever found out. The baron, instantly questioned, replied that it was a matter which lay between them. He was in a high state of excitement, seeming unaccountably younger and making fearful blunders in English. His answer naturally served to increase the curiosity of the Arcadians, already exceedingly intrigued—an effect which was further heightened by the subsequent actions of Dangerfield himself.
Hardly had the surprise of his visit to the baron in incongruous attire died down, when he came out of his room shaved and properly dressed, and went down the hall and out. Sassafras, who took him down, vowed he looked just as natural as any one. At five o’clock the same afternoon, as the three friends were discussing the one topic, Dangerfield entered unexpectedly, and a curious thing happened. He came in as he had the night before, without a word of greeting, until he had stood quite a moment, with the same startled, set look that an animal shows—a look of trying to take in mentally, to comprehend something unaccustomed. This, however, passed, and he came forward with outstretched hand and winning smile.
“I am afraid I gave you quite a shock last night,” he said, and then, evidently forgetting that introductionshad taken place, he added: “My name’s Dangerfield. Seeing that I am your next-door neighbor, I hope I did not make too bad an impression.”
“This is free soil up here,” said Tootles cheerfully. “Nobody’s business what anybody does.”
This answer must have raised a suspicion in the visitor’s mind, for he was quiet a moment and presently asked:
“I am rather hazy as to last night. What happened?”
“Oh, there was quite a christening up here,” said Flick sympathetically. “You stood around for a while like a statue of Liberty and then went to sleep rather violently.”
“Did I do that?” said Dangerfield gloomily.
“Oh, don’t let that worry you,” said Flick, who seemed all at once to realize that his past record debarred him from sitting in judgment. “Thought you were damned dignified. Only, you gave the skirts quite a scare.”
“I am sorry for that,” said Dangerfield gravely. He hesitated, and added: “The fact is, I get doubled up occasionally. It’s a nervous contraction that stiffens up my right side. It’s nothing to worry about—there’s nothing really to be done. The only thing to do is to stretch me out and let me come to. Did you notice that my right arm was doubled up?” he asked, suddenly looking at King O’Leary.
“Why, yes; it seems to me it was,” O’Leary answered, looking down at the floor, so as to avoid the other’s gaze.
“That’s it.”
Flick had it on his tongue to retort: “Old geezer, struck me you were pickled,” but, for some reason, he restrained this impulse and said instead:
“Lingering with us long?”
“I suppose so.”
“Going to sling some paint?”
“What?”
“You’re an artist, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What kind—cow, sea bathing or just green grass?”
Dangerfield looked at him a moment, and gradually a smile broke through.
“I see. Well, I am only a portrait painter.”
“Like Tootles,” said Flick.
Dangerfield glanced at Tootles, who acknowledged this tribute by bowing and saying with dignity, after making sure that no remnants of Wimpfheimer & Goldfinch’s cartoons were visible:
“Quite right. I do portraits. My friend is one of the hopes of literature. Mr. O’Leary draws harmonies from even a rented piano.”
“I hope you will take me in,” said Dangerfield, with his engaging smile. “Perhaps we can get off to a better start.”
“You’re examining the impressive mural decoration to the left?” said Tootles, following Dangerfield’s gaze, which had suddenly fixed itself in fascinated surprise upon the sunset breaking over the cañon of Colorado.
“Your work?”
“It’s not my work,” said Tootles firmly. “It belongs to the first Hoboken period. Mr. Flick Wilder, the well-known art connoisseur, collects such things. You may laugh,” he added, perceiving Dangerfield’s eyes twinkling.
“That’s all right; but you should see the walls,” said Flick defensively. “Well, how does it strike you—what do you think of our little boudoir?”
“It’s great—it’s real,” said Dangerfield, with such genuine joy that they all burst into laughter.
For half an hour he passed around, eager as a boy, examining everything, marveling at the owls and the Chinese dragon, which Flick called the “belly-light,” roaring with laughter over the reconstruction of the Harlem bear which had so wantonly attacked Flick, and gazing enraptured at the signs, the lodging box and the allotted abodes of Literature and Art, giving his advice as to the place to be assigned to Music, which was the present problem. During all this time he entered into their moods with enthusiasm and boyish glee as though nothing existed outside of the room, nor a worry in the world. But all at once, without warning or apparent cause, he lapsed back into his former moodiness, seemed to forget them completely, and presently, with a sign to King O’Leary, rose and left the room.
“Who took me into my room last night?” he asked, when King O’Leary had followed him into the hall.
“I did.”
“By yourself?”
“Yes; and you were some load,” said O’Leary cheerfully.
Dangerfield was silent a moment, his glance wandering up and down the hall. Finally he asked, after a delay so long that O’Leary had grown tired of waiting:
“I have an impression—was any one else with you?”
“Yes, there was—”
“A woman?” he interrupted.
O’Leary nodded.
“I thought so,” he said, with a sort of sigh of relief. Presently he added, but with less curiosity, “Who was it?”
“Girl across the way from you—Miss Sonderson. She happened along just as you keeled over. No one knows much about her, only she seemed to be able to handle you in first-rate style.”
“How long was she there?”
“Wespent the night, thank you,” said O’Leary, whohad begun to be impatient for some signs of gratitude to appear.
“She lives here—you’re sure?” said Dangerfield, looking at him intently.
“Sure; opposite to you. Look for yourself,” said King O’Leary with some irritation.
Dangerfield gave him a second glance, and then went slowly to Inga Sonderson’s door and bent over the card carefully.
“Yes; that’s right,” he said, nodding, and went into his room, as though that were, the only point to be settled.
“Well, you certainly are a queer rooster,” said King O’Leary to himself, so perplexed that he remained scratching his head. The door opened, and Dangerfield reappeared, coming toward him with extended hand.
“Please forgive me. What I wanted to say—what I came in to say, was to thank you.”
“Oh, forget it!” said O’Leary, instantly mollified. He felt the grasp of the other man’s hand, and liked him better for its free, powerful hug.
“I am not—not quite myself these days,” said Dangerfield, with boyish frankness. “Don’t mind what I do—and I hope we will be good friends.”
As he said this, there came a look of pain across the eyes, a look of inward distress that struck O’Leary, who went back into the studio, however, without response.
The man had a sense of authority, as he had authority himself, and there was perhaps in King O’Leary’s heart a shade of jealousy that the memory of Inga Sonderson and the way she had gone to his assistance did not serve to lessen. When he entered, his first question showed in what direction his curiosity had gone.
“What do you know about that Sonderson girl?”
“Lady Vere de Vere?” began Tootles.
“She’s not that,” said King O’Leary gruffly. “She’s the real stuff. Well, what do you know about her, Flick?”
“About as much as you, old life-guard.”
“I believe,” said Tootles, who assumed his English manner to show that his feelings were ruffled, “that there was a bit of an attachment between her and that chap, Champeno—queer beggar, and shockingly wild. How far it went, I really could not say. We hadn’t organized the Sixth Floor Social Club in those days, and the most we chaps did was to remark it was hot when it was hot, and cold when it was cold, and there you are!”
“Tootles,” said Flick severely, “put the cold soup, the cold turkey and the cold pig upon the table.” And turning to King O’Leary, he said. “Well, what do you think of Dangerfield? How do you make him out?”
“Haven’t made up my mind yet,” said King O’Leary shortly.
“Whatiswrong with him?” said Tootles, from the provision-box.
“Booze!” said Flick, in virtuous condemnation.
“Not entirely,” said King O’Leary, shaking his head. “I’ve seen a lot of booze-fighters, and helped tuck some of them underground, but I never saw any rum hound just like this guy.”
“Maybe he’s murdered some one,” said Tootles cheerfully.
“That would be more like it.”
“Well, I think he’s a nut,” said Flick.
“And I think he’s one corker!” said Tootles enthusiastically.
“‘Corker’ is not English, Art,” said Flick.
“Quite right, old boy. I consider him a jolly good chap,” said Tootles. “We’d better have the girls in; we never can eat all this.”
At this moment there came a determined pounding on the wall.
“What’s that?” said Flick, startled.
“Madame Probasco’s spirits,” said Tootles, who always took an extreme view.
“Why, it’s Schneibel!” said King O’Leary, listening to the knocking, which was repeated with more insistence.
They rushed around and found the dentist doubled up on the sofa betwixt rage and pain, gasping,
“Dot lobster—oh, dot lobster salad!”
“That’s true,” said Flick, in a whisper. “He ate half the salad; I saw him.”
While Tootles ran off in search of Dean, O’Leary and Flick gazed, fascinated, at the unfortunate man, who, between his fury and his agony, had turned an orange red.
Young Mr. Dean arrived, and immediately began to explore for symptoms of appendicitis, showing that whatever his present incapacity, he had at least mastered the economic theory of medicine.
“No, no; it ain’t de appendix, it’s de lobster—de damned lobster an’ de pistache ice-cream—”
“Has he eaten that combination?” said the pale young man, who, from the last twenty-four hours’ experience, had begun to form a professional manner.
“And more,” said Flick.
“Then that is probably the cause,” said the sub-doctor regretfully, at which Schneibel howled out an oath, roaring:
“Don’ tell vat it is! Stop it; for God’s sake, stop it!”
“But how will we stop it?” said King O’Leary.
Thus confronted, Mr. Dean looked very solemn and introspective, while the others waited.
“Well?” said Flick.
“If he were a horse,” said the sub-doctor pensively, “I think I’d bleed him.”
“Throw him oudt—throw dot chump oudt!” cried Schneibel, who rose up in such wrath that Mr. Dean whisked away.
King O’Leary had the happy idea to resort to Miss Quirley, who came, applied a hot-water bottle and dosed him from three small blue bottles so efficaciously that in half an hour the storm was over.
They sat down with the assistance of the others to vanquish the cold remnants and to plan a party which would complete the one that had been so rudely interrupted.
In the middle of the meal, King O’Leary, who had been singularly silent, rose without explanation, searched a moment in his trunk, which was stowed behind the second Japanese atrocity, and left the room.
He went rapidly down the hall until he had covered two-thirds of the way to Miss Sonderson’s room. Then he slowed down abruptly, hesitated, went on, listened and finally knocked. Instantly the door was half opened and the girl appeared, lifting her eyes in wonder.
“Here,” said King O’Leary, shoving forth a little package carefully wrapped and inscribed “A Merry Christmas.”
“What is it?” she said, noticing the confusion in his eyes.
“From the Christmas party last night,” he said awkwardly. “This was on the tree for you. Every one got something—please take it. And say—what I wanted to tell you is—my hat’s off to you! Honest, I think you’re a wonder!”
Before she could answer, he had actually blushed, wheeled clumsily, and gone hastily back.
One evening, the third after the party, Dangerfield came stamping into the Arcade, shaking from him the snow that lay clinging to his ulster. Inga Sonderson was already in the elevator, but beyond one of his characteristic, set looks, he paid no attention to her, to the active amazement of Sassafras, who stared hopefully from one to the other. Dangerfield was evidently in one of his worst moods, with furrowed lower face and brooding, far-distant glance. At the sixth floor he started to bolt out, and then, aware of her presence, drew back hastily, saying,
“I—I beg your pardon.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dangerfield,” she said, and inclined her head.
He started at the name, whirled about, and peered at her as she stood waiting for him to open the conversation. Then all at once he went past her rapidly, and was at his own door, with the key in the lock, before he became aware that she was back of him. He wheeled abruptly, stared at her, and in a moment came toward her curiously.
“Are you—I—I forget the name,” he said, after a moment’s attempt to recall it. “Are you the girl who took care of me—that night?”
She turned under the glare of the hall light, the snow glistening on her ulster where it had settled, her cheeks tingling, the dainty upper lip quivering with a faint smile.
“I suppose I am.”
It was characteristic of him that he did not at oncethank her, but continued gazing down into the unfathomable eyes, now black-blue as the wintry sea.
“Why did you do it?” he said gruffly.
She leaned back, as though withdrawing defensively before his looming inspection, and the door swung open on the darkness of the studio, with its wan, gray spread above where the snow was sifting against the skylight.
“Some one had to—didn’t they?”
The voice, though not a cultured one, had something peculiarly soothing and pleasant in its low modulation that caught his ear and left him with the desire to listen further.
“I have seen you before, haven’t I?”
She shook her head.
“That’s strange—seemed to me I had,” he muttered, looking at her again so intently and so long that at last she repeated to recall him,
“No; never.”
“You have never posed for me?”
“I don’t pose.”
“What?” He looked startled. “Oh, I beg your pardon.”
“No offense. I shouldn’t mind,” she said, smiling. “Well, good night.”
“Wait.” He held out his hand, and she gave hers directly. “I have to thank you very deeply—though I don’t know at all why you should have done it,” he said, shaking his head as though seeking from her the answer.
Her shoulders moved in a little deprecatory gesture.
“It’s just my way—that’s all.”
He continued to hold her hand, looking at her as though he were straining his eyes to distinguish some object in the fog. She did not attempt to draw her hand away, as most women would, rather taken with this brusqueness and assumption that was, at heart, unconscious.
“Something restful about you—your voice, and the touch of your hand,” he said, as though to himself. “I remember now—that night. I thought it was an hallucination. Yes; I remember you now, quite distinctly—and the sound of your voice.” He added abruptly: “You haven’t told me your name.”
“Inga Sonderson.”
He repeated it.
“Really? Sounds like the sea rolling in—curious name. You’re not American?”
“I was born here.”
“Shouldn’t have thought it.”
At this moment a door opened down the hall, and, recalled to himself, he frowned, looked down, seemed suddenly to perceive that her firm, slender hand lay in his huge spreading one, and said hastily:
“Well, thank you, anyhow.”
He went into his room without having shown anything more than a little wonder, a starting curiosity, and much kindliness.
They did not meet again for several days. He made no attempt to advance the acquaintance, which was perhaps what led her to take the next step.
During this time, the Arcadians saw little of Dangerfield, though they knew of his presence by the unusual coming and going of men such as were rare visitors in those sequestered halls; men of that outer world that lies bound between the iron confines of the elevated and lives from Madison Square to the park. In particular there was one man who arrived in a resplendent car, accompanied by a young clerk with a black brief-bag under his arm. At such times loud voices rose in argument, and they could hear the restless fall of Dangerfield’s feet tramping the room. After these visits he would disappear,returning late in the night, unseen. At other times, at any hour, midnight or dawn, he would start from his studio and begin pacing up and down the hall in slippered feet that made a dismal, sifting iteration in the wee hours. Once, after quite a group had been in the studio, and the conversation had gone into such a high pitch that Tootles had heard him cry, against some lower-pitched remonstrance, “He’ll do it—by God, he’ll do it!” Dangerfield was left in such a state of excitement that he passed Flick in the hall literally without seeing him, his eyes absolutely blinded to objects about him, as though filled with the obsession of distant figures. That night he came in late, and wandered up and down the hall until almost four o’clock in the morning. Whether he was drunk or sober they had no way of telling—only twice, directly outside their door, in startling contrast to his silent moods, they heard him swearing to himself. It was not the oaths themselves, but the stark savagery with which he ripped them out that caused Tootles to whisper to Flick:
“Literature, it’s not nice to swear like that. It makes my blood run cold.”
“What the deuce is he going through?” said Flick, in wonder.
“Hell of some sort,” said Tootles laconically. “Suppose the Christian thing is to promenade with the chap.”
“Let him alone,” said King O’Leary, who had waked up also. “Fellows like that aren’t in the mood for coddling.”
Immediately the sifting slip-slip ceased. Probably Dangerfield had heard the sound of their voices and retired. At any rate, he had waked up the whole floor and scared Miss Quirley almost into hysterics. No one, however, reported the disturbance, though each had been gruesomely affected. There seemed to be a tacit understandingthat the man was passing through some crisis and should be left alone.
One person, however, took active interest in all Dangerfield’s movements—the Portuguese-Yankee, Drinkwater, who was always prowling down toward that end of the floor. Twice, when conferences had been going on in the corner studio, Inga Sonderson had found him outside her door, ostensibly seeking a view of the snow-capped roofs of the tenements that rolled grimly toward the river. Each time he had mumbled some excuse and unwillingly shifted away. Meanwhile, the boxes still encumbered the passage, while within the studio the same heaped-up disorder must have prevailed.
Matters were thus when, on New Year’s eve, Inga Sonderson returned to the Arcade after a solitary supper at the Childs restaurant on the avenue. She had no sooner turned the hall than down the somber stretch she noticed with surprise a brilliant swath of light. She went on, wondering what this could portend, for since their chance meeting, she had not laid eyes on her neighbor. Through the opening of his studio door she could see boxes, furniture and bric-à-brac piled toward the ceiling like wreckage washed against the shore. At the grating of her key in the lock, Dangerfield loomed into the door-frame, dressed for the street, and saw her, with a swift, appealing light in the storm-ridden face.
“Come in,” he said, without preliminaries, as though he had been waiting in desperation for her return.
She rather liked this abruptness, so devoid of male coquetry, instinctively warned that the man must have called to her in his need. He had returned into the studio, as though sure of her coming. She entered, closed the door, and found him by the window that gave on the misery of the tenements, seated in a chair, his back bent, his fists doubled up and pressed under his chin.
“Talk to me,” he said, in abrupt demand.
She stood a little away from him, looking down at his suffering, divining the forces of doubt and despair wrestling within his soul. In the midst of the surging confusion of the studio, they were in a shallow clearing. She went over and laid her hand on his shoulder, holding it there until she forced him to look up.
“Let me help,” she said quietly.
The sound of her voice seemed to arrest his attention. He turned restlessly, his hand closing over her wrist.
“Bad night?”
He nodded, and his eyes wandered from her. All at once he rose with a great breath, stretched out his arms, and then, with a brusque turn, came back, looking at her with even a touch of suspicion in his eyes.
“Why do you want to?”
What thoughts might have been in his mind were dispelled by the frankness of her answer.
“Because you need help—don’t you?” she said, her eyes never swerving under the shock of his stare, that was not easy to encounter.
“Take off your hat.”
She saw that it was his curiosity that had been aroused, and lifted her two arms in that wholly feminine gesture which seems to accord the first note of intimacy to the man who witnesses it. He stared at her more intently, with the eye of the artist, quick to note values—the massed blacks of her hair and the odd contrast of the sea-blue eyes against the brown oval of her face that gave to the little teeth, when she smiled her serious smile, the lustrous flash of milky porcelain.
“No; that’s true,” he said abruptly.
“What?” she asked, after a moment’s waiting.
“You’ve never posed for me.”
“Do you want me to?”
“No, no; that’s all over,” he said moodily; and, as though the allusion had been unfortunate, he turned from her, bumping against the corner of a chest which protruded.
“Great Heavens! What a horror—what a nightmare of a hole!” he said, gazing about him.
“Then why not fix it up?”
If he heard the question he did not answer it, staring glumly into the disorder, his fist doubled against his teeth, biting at his nails, a convulsive, aggressive gesture characteristic of him.
“Let’s unpack things and fix up the studio,” she repeated.
He shook his head, plainly annoyed, and, after a moment, came back, as though some gust of emotion had whirled through him and left a lull of fatigue.
“Talk to me,” he said, sinking down limply. “Tell me about yourself.” But immediately he broke in upon his own mood, saying abruptly: “So you think I am down and out, don’t you?”
“No—I don’t think that,” she said gently. “That’s whatyouthink.”
“Well, I am,” he said vehemently. “Do you know what’s wrong?” he added sharply, and, as she continued to watch him, he laughed and said: “No, no; I won’t tell you that. Find out.”
She laid her hand on his shoulder again, to still the rising excitement in his voice.
“Why didn’t you call me before?”
“Curious voice you have,” he said, without attention to her question, in his haphazard jumping way. “Wish you’d go on talking. It makes me drowsy—feeling of green fields, little swishing brooks, and multitudes of silver leaves sweeping the skies. I love your voice.”
“Let me take care of you to-night.”
“Why, what would you do?” he said, jerking up his head.
“Let’s start right by making a home out of this.”
“A home?”
The allusion was unfortunate, for he broke into a laugh, starting up and seizing her arm, while the excitement seemed to pile up within him.
“No, no; I’ll tell you what I’m going to do a night like this. I’m going to break loose—stop this eternal, maddening fighting to hold myself in—give way!” His voice had risen into rapid, shrill notes, and she noticed that his eyes had taken on the unseeing shimmer. “Give way—give way! Stop living as others want you—let the world roar about you. What’s it matter—whom does it hurt—who cares the slightest?”
He seized his hat, and, turning toward her, flung an arm around her, holding her to him as though to sweep her up and out in his breathless progress.
“Will you do that? Just to-night? Just for one night? Will you follow me to-night?”
“No, I will not,” she said firmly, though into her eyes leaped something untamed at the gusty, wild embrace in which he had caught her. “And you won’t go, either.”
“I won’t?” he said, laughing boisterously, looking down into her eyes that were so close to his. “That’s a good one! You think you can change me, do you? Well, you’ll see!”
He let go of her, and was starting toward the door when she said quickly,
“You’re right—do as you please.”
“Of course I shall,” he said angrily. Then a new thought seemed to strike him. He hesitated, came back on tiptoe, and said, with a curious smile:
“Aren’t you just a little bit afraid of me?”
“No; I am not afraid of you,” she said, and she kepther eyes on his so intently that, in a moment, his glance went away.
“Well, I’ll tell you something,” he said, in a whisper; “I am afraid of myself.”
He allowed her, without further resistance, to take his hat and draw off his coat.
At this moment, the sound of voices and the crashing chords of a piano broke in incongruously upon their mood.
“What’s that?” he said, startled.
“The studio next door,” she said. “They’ve gathered to see the old year out, I suppose.”
Down the hall they heard Flick calling:
“Every one this way! Greatest social function of the year!”
Then the sound of knocking, an imperative personal summons. She passed swiftly to the button and extinguished the light. Through the window a pale shadow made Dangerfield just discernible. She felt her way back and sat down near him, with a whispered caution to silence. Tootles’ and Schneibel’s voices could be heard outside in consultation.
“Oh, Miss Sonderson!”
“She’s oudt.”
“Thought I heard her coming back.”
The door of the room where they were shivered, and Tootles cried:
“I say there, friend Dangerfield, foregather!”
She put her hand quickly over his wrist to check a response. The knock was repeated.
“He’s oudt, too,” said Schneibel. “Can’t you see, you chump, dere’s no light?”
“My, but he’ll be off on a record bat to-night!”
“Well, you just bet he will.”
They moved away, and in the obscurity, Dangerfield began to laugh, a bitter, gloomy laugh.
“Don’t!” she said sharply.
Across the wall, O’Leary’s powerful hands awoke the piano. Sitting side by side, they heard laughter and the sounds of dancing. The man at Inga’s side was silent again. Music and the shuffling iteration of the dance seemed to act in a soothing way upon his nerves. He began to talk in a low, matter-of-fact voice, with a curious gift he had, even in the most soul-racking moments, of standing off and looking back at himself.
“How extraordinary to be ending the year like this! Last year and this! Up here, marooned, lost—ended! I certainly have seen queer turns in my life. Well, the last phase, and thenBonsoir—