Chapter IX: Part THREE: Life (2)

The Doctor re-lit his cigar, put his glasses on again and clasped his long, capable hands over one thin knee. "I wish I could even suggest to you," he said--more naturally and with keen enthusiasm--"the intense excitement that we bacteriologists are all beginning to feel. For years and years we've been experimenting, and little by little our work is coming to a definite head. Every time we meet we find that we've moved a step further on the road to discoveries. It makes me laugh to think that my early theories, which, only a few years ago, were scoffed at and looked upon as dreams, are taking shape. It's been a long, uphill fight. Science is beginning to win. It's all very wonderful." He noticed that Graham's cigar had gone out. With extreme politeness, such as a man would use to very welcome guests, he held out a box of matches.

The boy took it. "I don't feel like smoking," he said, with a catch in his voice.

Something in his tone made the Doctor peer closely at him. "You look pale, my dear lad," he said, "pale and tired. Aren't you well?"

"Oh, yes; he's perfectly all right," said Peter hurriedly, trying to steer his father to another subject.

Graham threw his cigar away. "I'm not!" he cried, with a sudden, uncontrollable outburst. "I feel as rotten as I am. I can't sit here and listen to you, father. Don't be kind to me, I can't stand it." He put his head down between his hands and burst out crying like a boy.

The Doctor was startled. He got up quickly and stood hesitatingly. He wanted to put his hands on the boy's shoulders, but the sudden breakdown brought back his shyness. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Peter, do you know?"

Peter nodded. He then made up his mind to let things take their course. "Let him tell you," he said. "This may be the turning point for all three of us."

Graham drew the cheque-book out of his pocket, opened it and threw it on the desk under the reading lamp. "Look!" he said. "That's what I've come to."

For some moments the Doctor saw nothing but a cheque drawn by himself in favor of his second son for three thousand dollars. The fact that he didn't remember having made it out, and the fact that it was for so large a sum made at first no impression upon him. He was so puzzled and so taken back at the sudden outburst of emotion which had broken up what he hoped was going to be a charming reunion that the sight of this cheque conveyed nothing to him. Both his sons watched him closely, not knowing what he would say or do. He was such a stranger to them--his feelings and characteristics were so unknown to them that they found themselves speculating as to the manner in which he would take this dreadful piece of dishonesty. A great surprise was in store for them.

When the Doctor realized what had been done,--that the signature on the cheque was not his own, although it was very cleverly copied,--they saw him wince and shut his eyes. After a moment of peculiar hesitation he drew his chair up to the desk and sat down. Holding his breath, Peter watched him tear the cheque out and quietly make out another for precisely the same amount. Then the Doctor got up and stood in front of Graham with the new cheque in his hand. All the sprightliness and exhilaration with which he had entered the room had left him. He looked old and thin and humble. His shoulders stooped a little and the cheque trembled in his hand.

"Am I such an ogre that my children are afraid to bring their troubles to me?" he said, in a broken voice. "What have I ever done to deserve this, Graham? You'd only to come to me and say that you needed money and I'd have given it to you. Who am I working for? For whom have I always worked?" He held out the cheque. "Take it, and if that isn't enough ask me for more. I'd like to know why it is that you need it, if you'll be good enough to tell me; but, for God's sake, don't hurt me like this again."

Without a word--without, indeed, being able to find a word,--infinitely more crushed by this kindness than he would have been by an outburst of anger and reproach,--Graham took the cheque, turned on his heel and left the room, walking like a drunken man.

Peter watched him go. There was a feeling of great relief in his heart. Nothing that he could have done or said--nothing that Kenyon could have said in his most forcible manner, with all the weight of sophistication behind it, could have pulled Graham up and set him on a new path so well as the unexpected generosity of his father and the few pathetic words with which he underlined it.

But when Peter turned round to his father with the intention of taking him, for the first time, into his confidence and treating him as he would have treated Ranken Townsend under the same circumstances, he saw that the Doctor was crumpled up in his chair with his hands over his face and his shoulders shaking with sobs, and so he held his peace; and instead of obtaining the help that he needed so much he put his strong arm round his father in a strange protective way, as though he were the stronger man.

"Oh, don't, father," he said. "Please don't."

VII

There was a good reason why Kenyon didn't stay out his fortnight at Dr. Guthrie's house. He had already begun to know several young men whose very good feathers were waiting to be plucked. It was obviously impossible for him to invite them to East Fifty-second Street, and it became necessary, therefore, that he should take a bachelor-apartment in which to set up business. There he could play cards until any hour that suited him and settle down seriously to make his winter in New York a success. Also, he confessed to himself, the atmosphere of the Doctor's house was not conducive to his peace of mind or to his rigidly selfish way of life. He hadn't come over to the United States in order to play the fairy godmother, or even the family adviser to the young Guthries. He had worked hard to clear the one thing out of Graham's life which had rendered him useless, and he had had the satisfaction of seeing Peter's engagement broken, for which admirable accident he was profoundly grateful, because Peter also would now be free. In fact, these two brothers could now easily be brought to concentrate upon Kenyon's deserving case and take round to his apartment any friends of theirs who enjoyed gambling and could pay when they lost.

Kenyon possessed a neat and tidy brain. It was run on the same principle as a well-organized business office. It had its metaphorical card indexes, letter-files and such like; so that when he made up his mind to go into his own quarters he gave the matter the closest and most careful consideration. He paid several visits to the well-known bachelor apartment-houses in and around West Forty-fourth Street. They would have been very suitable but for the existence of irksome rules and regulations as to ladies. He went further afield and, with Graham's assistance, examined several apartments in private houses. What he wanted was a place somewhere on the map where his breakfast would be cooked especially for him at any hour he desired, and which would be free of elevator boys, clerks, and the watchful eye of a manager. Finally he discovered exactly such a place on the second floor of a fairly large old-fashioned house in West Forty-eighth Street. In this the elderly lady who, as Kenyon at once saw, was blessed with the faculty of being able to look at things with a Nelsonian eye,--having, poor soul, to earn her living,--lived in the basement with her parrot and her Manx cat. Two young business men shared rooms on the first floor and a retired professor--who spent the greater part of his time in the country--rented the third floor. The servants slept in the attic.

Into this house Kenyon moved,--much against the wishes of all the Guthries, especially Belle,--the day after Peter's attempt to get in touch with his father came to such an utter failure. He was very well pleased with his quarters. They gave him elbow-room and freedom from the responsibility of looking after another man's sons. The sitting-room, arched in the middle, ran from the front to the back of the house and it was well and discreetly furnished. There was a particularly nice old Colonial mirror over the mantel-piece, and what prints there were hanging on the walls were very pleasant. The bedroom across the passage would have been equally large had it not been broken up to provide a bath-room and a slip-room for baggage.

Fate, however, with its characteristic impishness, interfered with Kenyon's well-laid scheme. At the very hour when he was arranging his personal photographs a cable addressed to him was delivered at Dr. Guthrie's house. It so happened that Peter was in the hall when the servant took it in, and he started off at once to take it round to his friend. He was glad enough to seize any excuse to see Kenyon again. He felt horribly at a loose end. Graham's affairs had completely upset him and disarranged his plans. He was longing to see Betty, but was not going back on his agreement with Ranken Townsend until such time as he could make the artist eat his words; and, as to his father and his endeavor to break down that apparently insurmountable barrier, he was utterly disheartened and depressed. He was shown into Kenyon's rooms at the moment when he was standing in front of a very charming photograph of Baby Lennox which he had placed on the sideboard. It showed her in a little simple frock, with a wide-brimmed garden hat, standing among her roses with a smile on her face. She looked very young, pretty and flower-like.

"Hello, Peter!"

"I've brought this cable round. Otherwise I wouldn't have rushed in on you quite so soon."

"My dear old boy," said Kenyon, "you know very well that you have the complete run of whatever place I may be living in, at all hours of the day and night. A cable for me, eh? What the devil--? I was jolly careful to give my address here to very few people in England. Too many are anxious to serve me with summonses. Baby Lennox is going to be married, perhaps, and sends me the glad tidings. By Jove, I wonder who she's nabbed!" He shot out a laugh and tore open the envelope. "Oh, my God!"

"What is it?" asked Peter, anxiously.

Kenyon held out the cablegram and remained standing rigid, with his mouth open and his eyes shut, and his face as white as a stone.

It was from Baby Lennox. "Your father died last night. A heart attack. Come home at once."

"Oh, my dear Nick!" said Peter. "My dear old boy! I can't tell you how----"

"No," said Kenyon; "don't say anything. Just sit down and wait for me. Whatever you do, don't go." And he went out of the room and across the passage to his bedroom, and shut himself in.

Peter waited. The few cold, definite and even brutal words contained in the cablegram would have hit him much harder and rendered his sympathy for his friend very much more real if he could have felt what it would have been to him to hear of the death of his own father. While he waited, mechanically holding that slip of paper between his fingers, his respect for his friend's grief widened into an odd and powerful feeling of envy. The man who was dead had been infinitely more than a father. He had been a friend and a brother as well. It made him sick and cold to feel that the receipt of such a cablegram bringing to him the news of the death of his own father would have moved him only to extreme sympathy for his mother. He was ashamed and humiliated to realize that no actual grief would touch him, because his father was nothing more than a sort of kind but illusive guardian or a good-natured step-father--altogether unused to children--who effaced himself as much as he could and threw all responsibility upon his wife.

It was an hour before Kenyon reappeared, and during that time--which seemed to Peter no more than a few minutes--he went over again in his mind the scene which had taken place in the Doctor's laboratory, out of which he had gone stultified and thrown back upon himself. He was as grateful as Graham had been for the Doctor's generosity, but appalled at the thought that he had utterly failed to realize not only the gravity of Graham's act, but the long years of parental neglect which made such an act possible. It seemed to him that the way in which his father had taken that deplorable incident was all wrong. He should not have written another cheque. He should have had Graham up in front of him, strongly and firmly, and tried him as a judge would have tried him if his act had been discovered and dealt with by law. He should have gone into all the circumstances which led up to the forgery and thereby have cleared the way for a new understanding. As it was, his acceptance of it was so weak that it gave Peter and Graham a feeling almost of contempt for that too kind man to whom children were obviously without significance, and the unmistakable knowledge that he was unable to understand his grave responsibility and the fact that he, alone among men, must take the blame for all their misdeeds and mistakes, because they had been allowed to enter life unwarned, unguided and unhelped. The outcome to Peter of this hour's bitter thought was finally this: That if news were brought to him at that moment of his father's death the only sorrow that he could feel would be at the fact that he felt no sorrow.

When Kenyon came back into the room it was with his usual imperturbability. He might merely have left it to answer the telephone or interview the man who had come to collect his clothes to be ironed. But his eyes were red. In his own peculiar way he had loved his father and admired him. It was the first time that he had wept since he had been a child.

"Thanks, so much, for waiting, old boy," he said. "I hope you've been smoking, or something."

"No," said Peter; "I have things to think about too."

Kenyon looked about, with a queer little smile. "I was just settling down," he said. "Very decent room, this, isn't it? Well, well, there it is. You never know your luck, eh?"

"When will you sail, Nick?"

"The first possible boat. Do you know anything about the sailings? Ah, this paper will have it. I detest the sea and its everlasting monotony and blandness, and the dull-bright propinquity that it forces upon one." He opened the paper and searched among its endless columns for the Shipping News. "Here we are. 'Trans-Atlantic Sailings.' I have a wide choice, I see. There's a White Star and a Cunarder leaving to-morrow at twelve-thirty. The _Olympic_, I see! That's good enough,--if she's not full up. I'll see to it this afternoon. There's sure to be a cabin somewhere at this time of year."

"I shall miss you badly," said Peter.

"Thanks, old man. I know you will. And I shall hate going. Well, well!"

Peter picked up a book and put it down again; opened and shut a box of cigarettes and pushed a bowl of flowers nearer the middle of the table. "Do you want any--I mean, can I----?"

Kenyon laid his hand on his friend's square shoulder. "Not this time, Peter, old son. Thanks, awfully. I've had one or two good nights and my pockets are full of dollars. They'll see me home with perfect comfort. Well, here ends my visit to the United States. To-morrow night I shall have left the hospitable Statue of Liberty behind me. But she'll see me again. I'll dash round in the morning and thank your people for their extreme kindness to me. You'll see me off, won't you?"

"Yes," said Peter; "of course."

"Of course. We won't dine to-night. I--I don't feel like it."

"I understand, old man," said Peter.

"So long, then."

"So long," said Peter.

"The Earl is dead!" said Kenyon, with a sudden break in his voice. "Long live the Earl!" And he raised his hand above his head.

VIII

Not for the first time in his comparatively short life, Nicholas Kenyon was able to put to the test his often boasted power of self-control. It was his creed to accept everything that might happen to him, whether good or bad, with equanimity. It was part of his training to allow nothing to interfere with the routine of his day and the particular scheme that he had worked out for himself. He was, however, utterly unprepared for his father's death. Only the day before he had received a very cheerful and amusing letter from the Earl of Shropshire which had provided him with many quiet chuckles. When the blow came in that sudden fashion it knocked him down and for an hour reduced him to the level of an ordinary human being--of a man who had not specialized in individualism and who did not set the earth revolving round himself as its hub. Shut up in his bedroom he gave way to his real and best emotions, the genuineness of which surprised him. He was a master egotist--a superindividualist--the very acme of selfishness. Therefore, odd as it may seem, he was somewhat ashamed of his deep feeling, because it proved to him that one of the links of his carefully forged chain of philosophy was weak. He defined the word philosopher as one who is profoundly versed in the science of looking after himself.

As soon as Peter had left Kenyon's rooms, the new Earl of Shropshire took himself in hand and "carried on" as they do in the Navy after casualties, accidents and the issue of new orders. He continued to arrange his photographs round the room. He considered that he might as well make himself completely comfortable until the time came for him to pack up again and leave the country. He called up Belle on the telephone and had a little talk with her. He told her of his father's death and of the fact that he would have to sail within the next twenty-four hours. He listened with satisfaction to her cry of anguish, and arranged with her to come to see him that evening. It appeared that she was engaged to dine with some friends and go with them to hear Alfred Noyes read his poems at the AEolian Hall. He insisted upon her keeping her engagement and begged that she would come round to his rooms alone at eleven o'clock.

He didn't intend to leave the United States, even under such circumstances, without adding Belle to his little list of conquests. The cold-bloodedness of such an intention was peculiarly characteristic of the man. "No weakness," he said to himself--"no weakness. No matter what happens, what had happened, is happening or may happen, you must carry on. You've built up a creed, stick to it." And then, very quietly--having changed his tie to a black one--he went forth to discover the offices of the White Star Steamship Company,--having obtained the proper directions from his landlady. He took the subway to the Battery, interviewed a clerk of Number One Broadway, had the good fortune to find that there was a state-room vacant on the boat deck of the _Olympic_; wrote his cheque for it; pocketed a bundle of labels; paid Graham a brief visit in his office on Wall Street and walked all the way home again, endeavoring to count the German names all along the most amazing street in the world, and giving up his temporary hobby in despair. On the way home he sent off a cable to Baby Lennox, giving her the name of the ship on which he was to sail. By this time he was tired and a little dazed at the amazing stir and bustle of Broadway, with its never-ceasing lines of cable-cars and its whir and rush of human traffic. He was glad of a cup of tea, and presently arranged himself for a quiet nap on the sofa in his sitting-room.

Later, with his mind concentrated solely on Belle's impending visit and what he intended to achieve, he dined alone at the Ritz, dropped in to see a turn or two at the Palace, and strolled back to Forty-eighth Street at half-past-ten. As he went into the house he heard the landlady talking to the two young business men who lived on the first floor. She was asking them to be good enough not to play the piano that evening, as the Professor had come back from the country and was very unwell. She had sent for the doctor, and he would be more comfortable if the house were as silent as it could be made.

Knowing that Belle would be punctual that night, of all nights, he went down just before eleven o'clock and waited for her at the front door. It was his intention to get her into the house unobserved, more for his own sake than for hers. The night was clear, but half a gale was blowing, carrying before it all the dust of the city and sending odd pieces of paper swirling into the air and making the hanging signs outside shops and small restaurants creak and groan. In its strong, vibrating song there was a note of wild passion that fitted exquisitely into Kenyon's frame of mind.

Belle drove up in a taxicab a few minutes after eleven. "Not a word until we get upstairs," said Kenyon, as he helped her out. And then when she stood in his sitting-room, with all her emotions in a state of upheaval, nothing was said for many minutes. He took her in his arms and kissed her, delighting in her young beauty and freshness with all the appreciation of a connoisseur.

There seemed to Belle to be no indiscretion in this visit. Was she not engaged to be married to this man?

As a matter of fact, she was not. Kenyon had been playing with her; and now that he had succeeded to his father's title he had even less intention of dealing seriously by her than ever before. Marriage was not in his thoughts or plans. The title was his and the old house that went with it, but he was no better off than he had been as Nicholas Kenyon, the Oxford undergraduate. On the contrary he now had responsibilities of which he had hitherto been free and he must look out for some one who could buy his name for a substantial sum. If Belle had read into his vague and indefinite remarks a proposal of marriage it only showed that she possessed a very lively imagination. He was not going at that point to undeceive her. He was merely going to take from her everything that she was gracious enough to give. His trip to New York had provided him with very little in actual substance. He was determined that it should not be altogether empty, and that Belle should furnish him with a charming memento.

He broke into Belle's preliminary remarks of conventional condolence by saying, "Thank you; but please don't say a word about my father. Let's talk about ourselves. We're alive. The next few hours are our property. Let's make them memorable. Let's give each other something that we can never forget." And he took her cloak and led her to a chair as though she were a queen, and stood looking at her with very greedy eyes.

But Belle's temperament was Latin. Ever since Kenyon had spoken to her over the telephone she had been unable to control her feelings. She loved this man overwhelmingly. She had given him all her heart, which had never been touched before. To her it seemed amazingly cruel that fate had come along with its usual lack of sympathy and circumspection and put a sudden end to all the delightful hours to which she had been looking forward. The death of a man whom she didn't know meant very little to her. She was young, and to the young what is death but a vague mystery, an inconvenient accident which seems to affect every one but themselves? Indeed, she rather resented the fact that Kenyon's father, in dying, was to take so suddenly out of her life the one human being about whom her entire happiness revolved.

"Oh, Nicholas, Nicholas! Must you go? Must you leave me? Let me go with you. I have the right. I shall be miserable and unhappy without you." And she clung to him with all the unreasonableness of a child.

Kenyon was not in the least touched by this appeal--only extremely pleased, because it showed him that Belle was in the right mood to be won. He put his hand on her round, white shoulder. "You must be brave," he said. "I know how you feel, but you must help me. Don't make things more difficult than they are. I may be able to come back quite soon,--who can tell?"

"I believe you're glad to go!" cried Belle.

Kenyon drew back. He wanted to make her feel that she had hurt him. He succeeded.

In an instant, full of self-reproach, Belle was on her feet and in his arms again. "What am I going to do without you? I almost wish you'd never come into my life. I've been looking forward to your being here the whole winter. How am I going to get through the days alone?"

A motor-car drew up at the house. Neither of them heard Dr. Guthrie's voice giving a quick order to the chauffeur or recognized his step as he passed upstairs on the way to see his friend, the Professor, on the floor above, to whom he had been called by the landlady.

Presently, having turned out all the lights except a shaded lamp on the table, Kenyon began to let himself go. He threw aside his characteristic calmness and became the lover--the passionate, adoring man who was about to be separated, under tragic circumstances, from the girl who was equally in love. He threw aside his first intention of finessing Belle into his bedroom on the plea of asking her to help him to pack. He remembered that the old man above was ill and that the landlady and others would be passing to and fro. This was distinctly annoying. He was, however, a past-master in the art that he was at present pursuing and set the whole of his mind on his opportunity. Belle was, naturally enough, as putty in his hands and her despair at losing him made her weak and pliable.

He sat down on the sofa and held Belle in his arms and kissed her again and again. "I love you! I love you! I don't know--I can't think what I shall be like without you," he said, bringing all his elaborate cunning to play upon her feelings. "More like a man who's lost his arms than anything; and we were to have come nearer and nearer this winter, finding out all the best of each other and all the joy that it is to love wholly and completely."

"Oh, don't go, don't go!" cried Belle, making a pathetic and almost child-like refrain of the words, "I love you so! I love you so!"

Kenyon bent down with her until her head was pillowed on the cushions, and kissed her lips and eyes. "You must love me, sweetheart, you must. It's the only thing that I can turn to and count on now. Go on loving me every minute that I'm away. I shall need it,--and before I go let me have the precious proof of your love to store up in my heart. Give me the priceless gift that is the only thing to keep me living till I come back."

"Nicholas, Nicholas!" she whispered, with her young breasts heaving against him. "I love you so! I love you so!"

The moment of his triumph had almost been reached when the Doctor, on his way down, saw something glistening in the passage outside Kenyon's sitting-room. He stooped and picked it up. He was puzzled to see that it was a little brooch that he had given to Belle on one of her birthdays. Her initials had been worked on it in diamonds. For several moments he held it in his hand, wondering how it could have been dropped in that place. He was utterly unaware of the fact that Kenyon lived in the house which he knew to be given up to bachelors. Then the blood rushed into his head. Almost for the first time in his life the Doctor acted on the spur of the moment. He was filled with a sudden sense of fear before which his inherent shyness and hesitancy were swept completely away. He tried to open the door. It was locked. He hammered upon it, shouting: "Let me in! Let me in!"

Kenyon, cursing inwardly, sprang up from the sofa. "It's your father," he said. "Go and sit by the table, quick, and pretend to be arranging these photographs." He could have ignored that knocking, but the result would be that the Doctor would go down to the landlady and there would be a scandal. How in the name of thunder did he know that Belle was in the room? He dashed over to the mantel-piece, collected a handful of his pictures and threw them on the table in front of Belle, who, with a touch of panic, tried to smooth her hair. Then he went to the door and opened it.

"Good evening, Doctor," he said quietly. "This is very kind of you. Belle is here helping me to pack, and Peter should have been here, but I expect something has detained him. Do come in." He saw the brooch in the Doctor's hand and cursed Belle's carelessness.

As Dr. Guthrie entered the room the blood slowly left his head. A feeling of intense relief pervaded him. He saw Belle sitting at the table with the utmost composure putting one photograph on top of another. At his side stood the man who had recently been his honored guest and who was the best friend of his eldest son,--the man of whose sad loss he had heard that afternoon from his wife. He thanked God that everything was well and hastened to accept Kenyon's suggestion that he had come there for the purpose of saying good-bye to him. It saved him from the appearance of having lost his head and made a fool of himself. "I--I'm indeed grieved to hear of your father's death, my dear Mr. Kenyon," he said, stammering a little. "I was called to see an old friend of mine who lives in this house, who isn't at all well, and I thought I'd take the opportunity on my way down----"

"I'm deeply obliged to you," said Kenyon, giving the weak, nervous man before him the credit of having seized the hint so quickly. "It helps me very much to have so many good friends. I sail to-morrow at two-thirty. This is a good opportunity for me to thank you very much for your delightful hospitality. Will you wait for Peter?"

"No; I think not, thanks," said the Doctor. "It's getting late and, as you say, Peter has in all probability been detained. Belle, dear, I think you'd better come with me, now."

Kenyon was still quite placid and courteous and undaunted. "Oh, but mayn't she stay until Peter turns up?"

"I think not," replied the Doctor, astonished at his own firmness. "It's very late."

"Curse it! Curse it!" cried Kenyon, inwardly. But with a little smile he went over to Belle and gave her his hand. "You've helped me a lot," he said. "I can easily finish packing now. Good night and good-bye."

Choking back her sobs and full of resentment at her father's clumsiness and interference, Belle rose and allowed Kenyon to help her into her cloak.

By a strange accident she, like Graham, had been saved from a disaster which might have followed her into the future. God's hand must have been stretched out to help that man, who, by his unconscious neglect, had made it possible for these two children of his to stand on the brink of irreparable misfortune.

Kenyon, keeping up a quiet flow of conventional remarks, followed them down-stairs and out into the street. He could have drawn Belle back into the hall while the Doctor went out to the car, and kissed her once again. But,--it was over, what was the use. He watched her fling herself into the motor-car and sit all hunched up with her hands over her face, and then he took the Doctor's hand and shook it warmly. All the angels in Heaven must have shuddered as he did so, and cried, "Judas! Judas!"

"Good-bye again, then," said the Doctor. "I'm deeply sorry for the reason that takes you away from us. I hope we may see you again soon."

"I hope so, too," said Kenyon.

Standing in that quiet street he watched the automobile drive away, and cursed. His mind was filled with impotent rage. He felt as he did when he was a child and some one had hurt him. He wanted to find the thing which that some one treasured most and break it all to pieces, and stamp on it. Then he returned to his rooms, switched on all the lights, and with a gesture almost animalish in its baffled passion, swept all the photographs from the table.

He was kicking them savagely, one after another, when he heard the whistle which he and Peter had used at Oxford to attract each other's attention. He ran to the window and opened it. There stood Peter with a glint of moonlight on his great square shoulders.

"Come up!" said Kenyon. "By God, my luck's come back! Now I can make that old fool pay for ruining my evening!"

IX

With a fiendish scheme in the back of his head and with a most unpleasant smile on his face, Kenyon went over to the sideboard. He brought out two glasses. In one he mixed a whiskey high-ball and in the other he poured a concoction of neat whiskey and brandy, adding everything else that his bottles contained,--a mixture calculated to dull the senses even of the most hardened drinker. Then he waited--still with this unpleasant smile upon his face.

When Peter came in he looked tired and pale. His boots were covered with dust and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead. "I saw that you were up," he said, "so I whistled. If you hadn't called out I should have gone home. Hope you don't mind."

"Mind!" cried Kenyon. "I never was so glad to see anybody in my life. You look like a tramp. Where've you been?"

Peter threw his hat on the sofa and sat down heavily. "I wasn't in the mood to go home to dinner. I've been walking hard ever since I saw you. God knows where I've been. At one time I stood under the apartment-house in Gramercy Park. It's a wonder I didn't go up and have it out again with Ranken Townsend. But it wouldn't have been any use."

"Not the smallest," said Kenyon. "You'd only have given him the satisfaction of standing on his hind-legs and preaching to you. Will you have something to eat?"

Peter shook his head.

"Well, then, have a drink." And he put the poison in front of Peter. "I was going to drink to myself,--a rather dull proceeding alone. Now you can join me. On your feet, Peter, old man, and with no heel-taps, I give you 'the new Peer! The most decorative member of England's aristocracy,--Nicholas Augustus Fitzhugh Kenyon, Eighth Earl of Shropshire, master of Thrapstone-Wynyates--the man without a shilling!' Let it go!"

Peter stood up, clinked his friend's glass with his own, emptied it and set it down. "Good Lord!" he said, with a frightful grimace. "What in thunder was that?"

Kenyon burst into a derisive laugh. "'Some drink,' as you say over here. Away goes your water-wagon, Master Peter. Off you come from your self made pedestal. Drunk and incapable will be the words that will presently be very fitly applied to you, my immaculate friend." And he laughed again, as though it were a great joke. It would do him good to see Peter "human," as he called it, for once, to satisfy his sense of revenge--to pay out Dr. Guthrie for his cursed interference.

Peter was glad to get back to his chair. "I don't care what happens to me," he said. "What does it matter? I've got nothing to live for--a father who doesn't care a damn what becomes of me, and a girl who's given me up without a struggle."

He had had nothing to eat since the middle of the day. He was mentally and physically weary. Although he was unaware of the fact, he had caught a severe chill. It was not surprising that the horrible concoction which Kenyon had deliberately mixed went straight to his head.

Everything vile lying at the bottom of Kenyon's nature had been stirred up. At that moment he cared nothing for his friend's repeated generosity, his consistent loyalty and his golden friendship. With a sort of diabolical desire to amuse himself and see humiliated in front of him the man who had stuck to his principles so grimly, he filled his glass again, to make certainty doubly certain. "This time," he cried, "I'll give you another toast. Come on, now. On your feet again, and drink to 'that most charming family, the Guthries, and in particular to the eldest son--to the dear, good boy who has run straight and never been drunk, and has treated women with such noble chivalry. In a word, to Peter, the virgin man.'" He raised his glass, and so did Peter. This time the stuff almost choked him and he set his glass down only half empty. But he put on a brave front and sat up straight, laughing a little. "Nice rooms, these," he said. "Large and airy. Bit nicer than our first rooms at Oxford, eh?" How different this hideous poison made him look. Already he was like a fine building blurred by mist.

"It's extraordinary what you dry heroes can do when you try," said Kenyon. "All I hope is that you'll come face to face with your fond parent presently when you fumble your way into your beautiful home." He bent down and picked up his photographs and went on talking as though to himself. "Yes, there's some satisfaction in making others pay. I've tried it before, and know. I remember that plebeian little hunx at Oxford who was going into the Church. His name was Jones,--or something of the sort. I think he was a damned Welshman. He once called me a 'card sharp.' I didn't forget it. The first night he turned up in his Parson's clothes I doped him and he woke up next morning in the gutter. I loved it. Now, then, Peter, give me a hand with these things and bring them across the passage to my bedroom." He pointed to some books and left the room with his photographs.

Peter got up unsteadily and rocked to and fro. He picked up the books as he was directed and staggered after his friend. He lurched into the bedroom and stood in the doorway, supporting himself. "I'm--I'm drunk," he said, thickly. "Hopelessly drunk. Wha--what the devil have you done to me?"

Kenyon burst out laughing. Many times he had threatened to do this for his friend, whose attitude of consistent healthiness and simplicity had always irritated him. He delighted at that moment in seeing Peter all befogged and helpless and as wholly unable to look after himself as though he were a baby.

"Now you'd better go," he said sharply. He was tired with the episode. "I'm sick of the Guthries! Go home and cling to your bed while it chases round the room. I'll have mercy on you however to this extent. I'll put you in a taxi. There's sure to be one outside the hotel down the street. Come on, you hulking ex-Oxford man. Lean on me. Rather a paradox, isn't it? Hitherto I've always leaned on you." He got his visitor's hat and jammed it on his head, all cock-eyed. And then, still talking and jibeing and sneering, he led the uncertain Peter down-stairs.

There were two taxicabs drawn up outside the hotel to which Kenyon had referred. He shouted and waved his hand. A chauffeur mounted his box, manoeuvred the car around and drove up, glad to get a fare.

As he did so, a night butterfly flitted past, on her way home. She had had apparently an unsuccessful evening, for she stopped at the sight of these two men. Her rather pretty, thin, painted face wore an eager, anxious look. "Hello, dearie!" she said, and touched Kenyon on the arm.

"By Jove!" said Kenyon to himself. "By Jove!"

He was struck with a new inspiration. He had made his friend drunk. Good! Now he would send him off with a woman of the streets. That would complete his evening's work in the most artistic fashion, and render Peter human at last. And who could tell? It might hit the Doctor fair and square,--"the tactless, witless, provincial fool."

"Wait a second," he said to the girl, and with the able assistance of the driver put the almost inanimate and poisoned Peter into the cab. Then he turned. The night bird was eyeing him with a curious wistfulness. She was too smartly dressed and the white tops of her high boots gleamed sarcastically. "Well, dearie?"

"There's a customer for you," said Kenyon, jerking his finger towards the cab. "Take him home. He has money in his pocket. Help yourself."

The girl gave the driver her address--which was somewhere in the Sixties--and then, with a little chuckle, jumped in and drew the door to behind her with a bang that echoed through the sleeping street.

The cab drove away, and Kenyon's laugh went after it.

He was revenged.

X

But for the chauffeur, a burly and obliging Irishman, Nellie Pope's unwilling and unconscious customer would never have reached her rooms. They were on the top floor of a brown-stone house which had no elevator. The struggle to earn his own daily bread made the chauffeur sympathetic. So he got Peter over his shoulder, as though he were a huge sack, and carried him step by step up the narrow, ill-lit, echoing staircase. On the top landing he waited, breathing hard, while the girl opened the door with her latch-key.

"Where'll I put him?"

"Bring 'im into the bedroom," said the girl. "I'm sure I'm obliged to you for the trouble you've taken, mister. You'll 'ave a glass of beer before you go down, won't you?"

"Sure!"

He lumped Peter on to the bed with an exclamation of relief. It groaned beneath his dead weight. Mopping his brow and running his fingers through a shock of thick, dry hair, the Irishman looked down at the great body of his own customer's evening catch. "I guess I've seen a good many drunks before," he said, "but this feller's fairly paralyzed. It's a barrel he must have had, or perhaps he's shot himself with one of them needle things. Anyway, he's a fine-looking chap."

Nellie Pope, who had heard these remarks as she was pouring out a bottle of beer,--it was one of those apartments in which every sound carries from room to room and in which when you are seated in the kitchen it is possible to hear a person cleaning his teeth in the bathroom,--went in and stood at the elbow of the chauffeur. Switching on a light over the bed she peered into Peter's face. Her own lost most of its prettiness under the glare. There were hollows and sharpnesses here and there, the roots of the hair round her temples were darker than the too-bright gold of the rest of it. There was, however, something kind, and even a little sweet about her English cockney face and shrewd eyes. "Yes 'e's a fine looking chap, isn't 'e,--a bit of a giant, too, and looks like a gentleman. Poor boy, I wonder what that feller did to 'im!" She put her hand on Peter's head and drew it back quickly. "'E's got a fever, I should think. It looks as if I should 'ave to play nurse to-night. Oh, I beg pardon, mister, 'ere's your beer."

The Irishman took the glass, held it up against the light, made a curious Kaffir-like click with his tongue and threw back his head. "I guess that went down fine," said he. "One dollar and ten cents from you, Miss, and I'll make no charge for extras." He held out a great horny hand.

Nellie Pope opened her imitation gold bag. "Bin out o' luck lately," she said. "Don't know whether I've got--No, I 'aven't. Oh, I know!" With a little laugh she bent over Peter again and hunted him over for some money. Finding a small leather case she opened it. It contained a wad of bills. With a rather comical air of haughty unconcern she handed the chauffeur two dollars. "Keep the change," she said.

He laughed, pocketed the money, handed back the glass and went off, shutting the door behind him.

Miss Pope, who had a tidy mind as well as an economical nature, took the glass into the kitchen and finished the bottle herself. And then, without removing her hat and gloves she sat down and counted the money that was contained in the case. "One hundred and twenty-five dollars," she said. "Some little hevening!"

She put the case into her bag, where it lay among a handkerchief, steeped in a too-pungent scent, a small, round box of powder, a stick of lip salve, and a few promiscuous dimes. Then she took off her hat--a curious net-like thing round which was wound two bright feathers--her coat and her gloves. The latter she blew out tenderly, almost with deference. They were white kid. All these she put very carefully on a scrupulously clean dresser. Singing a little song she arranged a meal for herself on the table,--having first laid a cloth. Bread, butter and sardines made their appearance, with the remains of a chocolate cake which had been greatly to the taste of her last night's customer, who had not been, however, a very generous person. Extremely hungry, she sat down and, with the knowledge that her purse was full, laid on the butter with a more careless hand than usual. While she ate she enjoyed the bright dialogue of Robert Chambers in a magazine which, having first broken its back in order to keep it open, she propped up against a bowl. Half way through the meal, she jumped up suddenly. "'Ere!" she said. "You can't leave that poor boy like that, you careless cat, and 'im lying with a fever!" She went swiftly into the bedroom, and once more stood looking down at the inert form of poor old Peter. Then she laughed at the difficulty of taking off his clothes, and with a shrug of her shoulders started pluckily at his boots. She hung the coat and waistcoat over the back of one of the chairs,--there were only two,--and having folded the trousers with great care, returned to her supper. It was after two o'clock when finally she crept quietly into bed.

XI

A little over twenty-four years before, Nellie Pope had been born to two honest, hard-working country folk. They lived in a village of about two dozen cottages a stone's throw from the great cross cut by the Romans on the chalky side of Chiltern Hills, in England. Her parents' quiver had already been a full one and there was indeed very little room in it for the new arrival. Eight other boys and girls had preceded her with a rapidity which must have surprised nature herself, bounteous as she is. The father, a deep-chested, brown-bearded, very ignorant, but good-natured man, worked all the year round on a farm. His wages were fourteen shillings a week. The wife, who had been a domestic servant, added to the family pot by taking in washing and, if able, helping at the big house when guests were there. Neither of them had ever been farther away from their native village than the town which lay in the saucer of the valley, the steeple of whose church could be seen glinting in the sun away below.

Little Nellai, as she was called, was thrown on her own resources from the moment that she could crawl out of the narrow kitchen door into the patch of garden where potatoes grew and eager chickens played the scavenger for odd morsels of food. Her eldest sister was her real mother, and it was she who daily led her little brood of dirty-faced children out into the beech forest which stood in strange silence behind the cottage. The monotonous years slipped by one after another, enlivened only by a death or a birth or a fight, or a very occasional jaunt to the town in one of the farm wagons, perched up on a load of hay or wedged in between sacks of potatoes. Little Nellai's pretty face and fair hair very soon made her a pet of the lady at the big house, and it was from this kind, but mistaken person, from whom she obtained the seeds of discontent which at the early age of sixteen sent her into the town as a "help" in the kitchen of a man who kept a garage. It was from this place, on the main road to London, that Nellie Pope saw life for the first time and became aware of the fact that the world was a larger place than the little village perched up so near the sky, and caught the fever of discovery from the white dust that was left behind by the cars which sped to London one way, and to Oxford the other.

During this first year among shops and country louts, Nellie became aware of the fact that her pretty face and fair hair were very valuable assets. They procured her candies and many other little presents. They enabled her to make a choice among the young men with whom to walk out. They won smiles and pleasant words not only from the chauffeurs of the cars which came into her master's garage to be attended to, but also from their owners. Eventually it was one of these--more unscrupulous than most--who, staying for a few days at the "Red Lion," carried Nellie away with him to London, after several surreptitious meetings in the shady lane at the back of the churchyard. There it was that she saw life with very naked eyes, passed quickly from one so-called protector to another, was taken to the United States by one of a troupe of gymnasts, and then deserted. For two years she had been numbered among the night birds who flit out after dark--a member of the oldest profession in the world. There were, however, no moments in her life--hard, terrible and sordid as it was--when she looked back with anything like regret at those heavily thatched cottages which stood among their little gardens on the side of the hills. She could put up with the fatigue, brutality and uncertainty, the gross actuality of her present life, with courage, cheerfulness and even optimism, but the mere thought of the deadly monotony of that peaceful village, where summer followed winter with inexorable routine, made her shudder. The first pretty frock which had been given her by the lady of the big house had begun the work. The candies and the little presents from the country louts had completed it; and here she was, still very young, with a heart still kind and with a nature not yet warped and brutalized,--a danger to any community in which she lived, the deliberate spreader of something so frightful that science and civilization stood abashed in her presence.

Vanity has much to answer for, and out of nature spring many plants whose tempting berries are filled with poison.

It was in the bed of this wretched little woman that the unconscious Peter slept that night.