Chapter VIII: Part 8

“Just the same,” went on Deane quietly, “although I’ve seen him pretend to have the quality you say he has, I’m a woman, and I would know. I would rebel.” She tapped out her cigarette. “Surely, Drew, you can see that he speculates about himself in order to enjoy his own pursuits.”

“That may be so,” agreed Drew, somewhat sardonically. “But I have something of more immediate importance, Deane. Roberts is not well. I don’t know what the trouble is, but he has changed terribly in the past few months. His reaction to Martin is instantaneous and violent. This may affect you. Please see as little as you can of him.”

“I know,” said Deane with a charming, puzzled frown. “I’ve felt it too, and sometimes it frightens me.”

“Please come to Paris,” suggested Drew impulsively, leaning forward and taking both her hands in his.

“Sweet Drew,” whispered Deane, “how good you are! But I love Martin and I need to be with him, I want to go right away to him. Now. Even now,” She stood up and held Drew’s arm as they strolled to the promenade.

“Let’s say good-by right here,” she said, her full, red lips trembling. “I’m about to cry.”

“It isn’t good-by at all, dearest,” said Drew, smiling gravely. “You know that in spite of anything, we’ll always be together. Go to Martin now, but remember that _we_ have the phone, the cable, the secret bond and love in understanding.” He kissed her on both cheeks and as Deane turned, she saw that his eyes were misty.

After she had gone, Drew went into Tai’s little room. The ship was slipping out of the pier and the child clapped his hands at the movement. Drew lay down on the couch and laid his arms over his eyes. This!—to happen for the second time in his life! It was too severe. There could not be a third. Little Tai approached softly and kissed the tears away. It was all he knew, and suddenly Drew smiled.

Before he went on the promenade he looked out through the darkness and saw the black, rolling water. He gazed at himself in the mirror and drew a warm scarf under his dark overcoat. Then he pulled his dark hat over his forehead, looked steadily at himself once more and went on deck.

He hesitated for a moment by a large ventilator as he saw a young man leaning on the rail, studying the ocean. The boy’s profile was quaint in the dim overhead lights. Drew pulled his own hat lower, turned up the collar of his coat and approached the stranger with unhurried, gentle steps.

_CHAPTER XIX_

The concert hall quieted. Conversation hushed.

The White Peacock,[3] sorrowful and majestic, appeared in the faint light. Winding through deep white reeds, brushing through ghostly ferns, he approached. Wading the moon-puddles, breaking the mist with silver feathers, he looked at Deane. Holding his white throat into the stars, moving the fallen petals, he sang to her—sang a clear, demanding song of his remote, pale island. Deane shivered under the soft notes, loosening her gown. The White Peacock, his snowy tail drifting over the moon-flowers, lifted his scarlet eyes—lifted his eyes through clouds and placed each strong tone against her.... The music changed tempo. The white bird screamed shrilly, his bright whistle falling through glissandi of sound. The exquisite melody rose into the wind, hesitated, and dropped murmuring into the white sea.... The White Peacock faded in the fluid light, became distant—Deane, following with her arms the receding shadow.

The music died. People moved in their chairs and the subdued whispers grew into applause. The mood was broken and Deane touched her eyes. She put on a coat of soft gray fur, adjusted her little tight-fitting blue toque and carelessly pinned back on her collar a small bunch of violets which had fallen to her lap during the concert. As she was rising someone addressed her.

“Then you, too, are fond of modern music?”

Surprised, Deane looked up. Roberts stood before her.

“It was beautiful,” she answered. “Beautiful, and intimate.”

Roberts smiled in appreciation, acutely aware of the faint and lovely perfume of her violets.

“Did you come alone, Deane?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then,” said the adviser, his voice curiously naive and youthful, “let me drive you home. I have my car.”

She stepped into the aisle by his side and as they walked out together the distinguished grace of his movements and the coloring in his cheeks, still flushed by the spell of the music, made Deane conscious of the beauty of a sex that shocked her heart but held her mind; and in this acceptance every light in her hair and eyes acquired luminance until she was betrayed—and Roberts looked, turned blind, and never looked again.

The early darkness of winter had descended and the streets were brightly lit with red and green lights. Snow, falling gently, coated the buildings and walks. The holiday atmosphere—the thought of Christmas, gave them a feeling of friendliness. They drove over to Fifth Avenue.

All down the broad expanse of the great boulevard swept the Yuletide spirit. The thick streams of people, carrying boxes and parcels wrapped in colored paper, seemed compact—a constant mass instead of one of gigantic fluctuation. At the corners they bumped and jostled each other, frantically trying to retrieve dropped packages, laughing all the while. There they were, pouring their laughter and hustle and gay concern over the Avenue—a huge, comforting block of the world, this infinite throng.

As Deane and Roberts passed St. Patrick’s Cathedral they noticed that the doors of the church had been thrown open—a silent welcome to the holiday crowds. There was an impression of austere immensity; and over the kneeling figures which had sought tranquillity within the sacred vault there shone a great soft radiance, whether from electric lights or candles on the altar, Deane and Roberts did not know.

Farther down the Avenue they could hear the muffled sound of chimes; and as they drew near one of the department stores the sound became more brilliant until they noticed that behind the glass of the one window which ran its entire front length there was nothing but an illusion of depth in a green-blue sky and two large gold bells, swinging slowly back and forth.

Deane turned to Roberts and was astonished to find that he was looking at her instead of the lovely window.

“It is as glorious as that other vault we passed,” she said quietly, amazed at his attitude.

“Yes,” he answered, still regarding her gravely, “and although beauty, to me, is but a dream gone by—a vagrant moment—a motion lost before it’s held—oddly, I find it stationary for one evening.” He paused and added, looking at her fixedly, “Even within a superb commercial painting.”

The chiming now covered the air with invisible shadows. There was an icy wind; and as Deane sensing its fury within the well-heated car, pulled her coat more tightly around her shoulders, Roberts again caught the perfume of the flowers she was wearing, and their fragrance seemed to him to become as audible—to have a resonance and vibration quite as definite as the chimes.

They spoke no more but continued down the Avenue until they came upon a children’s shop with such a pretty charm about it that Roberts stopped the car. For the shop’s display there was a miniature snowstorm—a tiny replica of the one outside which was increasing in density each moment. Amidst the artificial snow within the window were artificial children posed in different attitudes. One small boy had his hand raised against a snowman as though building him. A little girl stood by, just watching. And still another boy was stooped as though gathering more snow. The scene was such a dainty one that Roberts looked at it wistfully, with a reserved hunger that seemed to demand release; and Deane, fascinated, clasped her hands together. On the street a ragged boy, walking beside a hulk of a man, stopped for a moment to look quietly, but in silent despair at these happy children who played in the snow and wore such pretty clothes. He stared particularly at the little girl, with her long, blond curls and piquant face and her little dress and coat that were like a dream. But the man, resentful, cuffed the boy’s cheek roughly, pulling him along. The lad cringed. Deane thought she heard him cry out once and turned her face away; while Roberts, who had also witnessed the episode, started the car and drove on swiftly through the storm.

Near the lower part of the Avenue, just before they turned off on Deane’s street, they came upon a Christmas tree which had been set up in the courtyard of a large apartment hotel. The branches of the pine were straight and proud; and instead of the usual strings of many-colored lights which had dressed the other trees along the boulevard, on this, there were dull points of red under the boughs, or brilliant ones of green that stood far out, so awkwardly, that by their very misplacement the tree appeared to be native and uncut. It was without tinsel. There was only the snow. The wind and the shadows did the rest. The unusual reflections dwelt upon Deane’s face and Roberts turned to her impulsively.

“You are beautiful this evening, Deane,” he said.

She looked at him once more and smiled, although she was a bit perplexed. For some time she continued to gaze at him, watching the man, as vivid as the tree itself against the snow. Then abruptly, the notion came to her that his temperament might be flexible, and she lifted her head higher, as though challenging him. Her eyes were sparkling.

Roberts seemed frightened at first at her audacity and turned away in embarrassment. Then, looking back to meet her dancing eyes, he broke into a choppy laugh of singular amusement which Deane echoed. During the rest of the drive they were silent; but there was a tenuous bond of understanding between them; and when they reached Deane’s apartment, Roberts stopped the engine and placed his hand lightly on hers.

“Yes, you are a beautiful and an intricate woman,” he said quietly.

Deane quickly withdrew her hand. She was surprised at the instantaneous feeling of revulsion which came over her. There had been no possessiveness in Roberts’ action—no suggestion of desire or intimacy. It had been the movement of a child. But the contact had chilled her. What was the quality about him that disturbed her now? Could it be a strong jealousy of his interest in Martin? She could see Roberts stiffen in the semi-darkness.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, with hauteur. “My remark was entirely impersonal.”

“I know,” she said gently. Then, annoyed with herself, she added, “I was thinking of Drew. To-night he arrives in France. I wonder if it is snowing there.”

The adviser dropped his shoulders.

“It is snowing everywhere,” he said gravely. And as he assisted Deane out of the car, he repeated, “—everywhere.”

Feeling his wild and plaintive loneliness and his sorrow, Deane stepped quite close to him, resting her gloved hand on his sleeve.

“William!” she murmured softly.

For one moment, their antipodal forces swung into parallel; and, so going, Deane and Roberts smiled together.

* * * * *

When Martin came that evening, Deane said to him at once, “I saw Roberts at the concert and he brought me home in his car. I liked him better than ever before.”

“Well,” Martin was thoughtful, “I can’t say that I like it—oh, you needn’t explain his charm! I’m quite aware of it. But I’m afraid of his mind. I’m afraid of the way it works, and I wish to God he’d get out of the picture. It’s getting a little too uncanny—the way he checks on me.” Martin pulled his chair closer to Deane’s. “I found out that he tried to block my part-time job. Still, with all of it,” he continued, “my attitude toward him remains variable; for underneath his mask lies a real and secret protest. This protest is limitless—and if I’m right, rather beautiful.” Martin laughed shortly. “Odd as it may be, I’m certain that I’m responsible for many of his appearances. His sickness, if he _is_ sick, is now abiding in a perfect culture.”

“And what is that?” asked Deane, looking at him with her large eyes.

“A medium of vicious love engendered by myself.”

Deane laughed without restraint.

“Darling,” she said, taking Martin’s face in her hands, “you want to be so awfully bad, don’t you?”

Martin smiled with her and she was satisfied, promptly forgetting the adviser.

“Drew looked very sad when he left, Martin,” she said. “Tell me—did he go just because of you?”

“Deane,” Martin said quite seriously, “we mustn’t keep on thinking that all these forces are created by me.” Martin was pale in the shadows. “That would be a timeless, horrible thought—a possible eternity. Can anything be more terrible than eternity? All this action is separate from myself. It _must_ be. It’s not possible that my demand has been too much!” He was speaking hoarsely when Deane put her arms around him.

“Darling,” she whispered, “I understand. Won’t you love me a little?” By instinct she had given him that temporary haven where the mind of man retreats after being frightened by its own infinite possibilities. Deane’s gentle whisper and her fascinating implication of certain physical contacts quieted his nerves abruptly and he felt as though a sweet fire were crossing his spine. He closed his eyes, and allowing Deane to lead him into the gray-paneled bedroom, he lay back on the sheets, feeling her soft hands stroke his skin until he shivered.

“Delightful boy—delicious boy,” she said, her voice trembling and growing fainter.

Martin tried to speak to her, but his mouth was dry. He lifted his arms and held on to the rail of the bed, trying to pull away from the searing. Then it overcame him. He rolled and pretended to fight, but in his brain there was only an exultant shouting.

As Deane knelt at the foot of the bed she looked down at Martin and thought of the White Peacock; of the Gargoyle; and of their relation to this man; and she felt the lustful brooding of this trilogy which was dominant in her life. Her breasts rubbed against the fine hair of his knees and each touch made her wilder. Pulling at him, she crawled up beside him, her fingernails scratching the sheets. Then, from her throat came a strange cry, a small cry, like the wail of a new-born child.

* * * * *

The snow kept piling against the windshield. Once, Roberts had to get out and wipe it off from the outside. As he stepped back into the car his foot slipped on something. Deane’s violets! He flung them into the snow. In his imagination he saw Martin and Deane together—saw her laughingly repeat their conversation of the afternoon. He visualized Martin’s shrug, and contemptuous remarks. Roberts’ cheeks burned in the dark and he drove more recklessly. At this very moment the woman was probably in Martin’s arms.... Martin, with his sultry gray eyes and tanned face. Martin, outlined like a flame before him.... Roberts breathed the cold wind and spoke aloud. “He deserves nothing but my hatred. If I could make him suffer as he has made me suffer! His picture before me always!—superior, contemptuous and desirable! The night he sat with me in my apartment, fresh from the sea—wind and salt in his eyes and hair, I thought I had found life. My happiness stretched into the horizon of his understanding. Solemn and patient, he spoke to me and laughed with me. Now, he speaks of me, and laughs _at_ me—with her! I can hear him laughing—” Roberts voice rose more fiercely. “He is saying, ‘What?—tried to hold your hand? What the devil would he want with that?’” The irritating, superior tones rang in Roberts’ imagination. “Yes, I can hear them: ‘Poor old Roberts—what a pity—chap must lead an awful life—imagine going around with that handicap—not that there’s any moral application, just a matter of convenience—continually frustrated.’” Roberts pounded the steering wheel with his fist. “The cattle!” he whispered hoarsely. “As if they could understand—as if _anyone_ could understand. Damn them—their laughter and their insufferable attitude! Damn their happiness.... Drink it, Roberts!—That I should measure my life in terms of one night! One night with Martin, with his young face and old eyes. With his laughter and his understanding. What agony to be born one night and die the same! Better not to be born at all.... Why, Martin, did you swagger through the door with your flapping dungarees and proud head?... Angels dancing in the eyes that hold only devils now. Such insolence! A bright, beautiful distillation of evil. Martin—the god of selfishness, salt to the desire. A blinding picture that grows with absence. A dust that burns the eyes and chokes the appetite.... Delete the image!—step upon it, crush it only to see it rise anew, more beautiful and vicious than before.” Hot tears distorted Roberts’ vision. He drew his hand across his face angrily. In a flashing, intolerable whiteness, he saw himself swinging on the tapestry of his heritage. “God!” he cried into the night. “Predestination—crucified in the womb!” The image grew more hateful in his mind. The cold wind dried his tears. Slowly his mouth narrowed into a fanatical line. “He has made me suffer. Moving relentlessly, superficially, over people and life—eating life and dripping its tantalizing crumbs from an overstuffed mouth—ruthless and immaculate, he has made me suffer.” Roberts’ face was white in the light from the windshield. White, unsmiling and purposeful.

_CHAPTER XX_

Martin met few people; but there was an atmosphere of tension everywhere he walked. It didn’t make any difference what color their eyes were—blue or brown or clay, there was action. Mostly it was antipathy engendered by something the fulcrum of this hate could not understand. Sometimes, however, it was love—a piercing, shrill movement that fell, ageless and sexless, over his shoulders.

He did well with his work at the printing plant and was finally transferred to a night shift where he found, to his relief, that the hours were shorter, thus giving him precious moments that he could spend with Deane or devote to the perfecting of his type design. He liked also the quality of concentrated activity during these working hours at the plant, occasioned in part by the darkness which enveloped the building and grounds. He had no contact with the men around him except at coffeetime; and they, in turn, sensed an indivisible chasm where their thoughts and his whirled in confusion above them.

Once, during the evening, a machine squirted. The operator, swearing loudly, kicked back his chair and was picking the lead from his trousers when Martin glanced up, a phrase from the copy still in his mind. He went to the man at once to help him; but the molten metal, already hardened into splinters, had entered the fleshy part of the operator’s leg, and the man, in considerable discomfort, nodded his thanks to Martin and still swearing, softly now to himself, limped out of the room and down the hall.

It was two o’clock in the morning and time for the men to knock off. In the awkward blue light Martin wiped a smear of oil from his cheek. The mirror was so distorted and the light so penetrating that his face seemed one sided and all the lines about his mouth and eyes were pulling in the wrong directions. He washed his hands and face, glanced again into the crazy mirror, buttoned his pea-jacket and headed for his room in Greenwich Village.

His street was in a dimly lighted section made up of rooming houses occupied chiefly by small tradesmen. He had walked several blocks before he stopped to light a cigarette. It was very quiet and through the shabby elms the night seemed beautiful and lonely. As he started on he heard someone behind him. From the sound of the step, it was a woman. Vaguely, he wondered about her; but he walked on briskly, enjoying this brief, cold freedom, then stopped again, looking with interest straight overhead at the same stars he had watched move in different latitudes and from different ships. For the second time he heard the steps behind him and turned round. At this, they broke off sharply, but not before Martin had caught a distinctive note in them. They had a giddy pitch that was not purely feminine. His curiosity was aroused. He started down the street once more, walking slowly now, with a precise, even stride. Then he stopped abruptly. The feet behind him tapped on for a second, fluttered, hesitated and stopped again. Suddenly, in Martin’s mind, the unmusical gait gathered motif, meaning and form. He remembered a repulsively ardent smile.... “Carol!” he shouted. There was no answer. Again he tried. “Hi! Carol!” This time his follower ran quickly toward him.

“How did you know it was me, Martin?” asked the boy excitedly, all smiles.

Martin, chameleon-like, studied the dregs of his memory for similar situations or, he thought grimly, singular opportunities; for this was not an element to be faced, but one to be absorbed.

“We all have our characteristics, Carol,” he answered evenly.

“Do you like mine, Martin?” Carol’s plaintive tone softened the eager, beseeching import of his question.

Again Martin hesitated. He well knew that the middle path was not as the Romans had worked it out—a smooth highway, without deviation. He knew that the middle path must fluctuate with both extremes to deserve the term—which in this case, he observed to himself further with a certain cynical amusement, was between a bitch and a son-of-a-bitch. He took hold of the young man’s arm and spoke to him in a friendly fashion.

“Let’s go on up to my place, Carol,” he said.

On the dark stairs Carol followed close at his heels. Martin could feel little tugs at his coat as the young man hung on to him in a sort of childish panic and Martin had a distinct impression that Carol was groping for his hand. He could feel the boy’s breath on the back of his neck as they continued to climb; and when they reached the dark landing just outside Martin’s room, Carol was still hanging on to him feverishly. Martin fumbled for the keyhole, succeeded in finding it at last, opened the door and turned on a dim light. Carol followed him into the room, sighed with relief and closed the door quickly behind them.

He stood there, just inside, his hand still on the doorknob, gazing around him with wide eyes and obviously taking notes. There was a pallet on the floor in one corner, an old couch across from it and a writing desk in the center of the room. He could see a T-square, erasers and jumbled pieces of paper on the desk beside a miniature of Deane. He turned his head away suddenly at sight of the picture. In another corner of the room was a washbowl with a screen half around it. There was a general air of carelessness about the place which apparently made him nervous. Martin could see him straightening up things in his mind.

“It’s really more comfortable than it looks, Carol,” he said, trying to put his guest more at ease. “They keep the rooms warm and that bed sleeps better than it appears.” He unbuttoned his pea-jacket and hung it on a nail on the wall. “Take off your coat, Carol, won’t you?—and tell me what it’s all about. Two o’clock’s an odd time to go creeping after people. Why didn’t you call out?”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t like it,” answered the boy, biting his lip. He removed his thickly woven plaid overcoat, looked for a moment at the nail where Martin’s jacket hung, then folded his own coat meticulously, gave it a final pat and placed it with the utmost care over the back of the rocker.

“I don’t like it, when it’s handled that way,” said Martin, keeping his voice smooth. “I prefer a ‘hello.’”

Carol spoke softly.

“I had to follow you. Deane told me where you worked.”

“You asked her?” For the first time, Martin was genuinely annoyed.

Carol smiled unhappily.

“I had to, Martin. I think you’re wonderful.” His round face was ruddy and glowing and his eyes, bright and intent, were fixed on his host.

“Sit down, Carol.” Martin opened the window, pulled his own chair from under the desk and sat down facing him. “That’s strange,” he went on, a bit puzzled. “I thought you disliked me.” He brushed back his hair where the cold wind had rumpled it and sat quietly, staring out the window into the darkness.

Carol shuffled uneasily.

“I did at first. You were mean. I nearly hated you.” He sat forward, well on the edge of his chair. “But I don’t now. I’m different now.”

“Not at all,” said Martin, shaking his head quite seriously. “You’ll feel the same at the last as you did at the first. I’m sure of it.”

“I won’t change, dear Martin. I think you’re God,” the boy answered solemnly.

Martin nodded. Through the insufficient light within the room, the bronze tints of his skin deepened.

“Perhaps I am,” he said.

“Please don’t joke,” said Carol. His voice had acquired a pathetic, pleading quality. “I mean you really are—to me.” He shifted his position so that he could not see Deane’s picture.

“She won’t bite,” said Martin bluntly.

Carol twisted his hands.

“Can’t you see it my way a little bit, Martin?” The boy spoke now with a definite urgency, his words forming an aggressive prayer. “Can’t you change _some_?”

“No,” Martin answered. “I can’t see the advantage.”

“_I_ know the advantage,” said Carol softly. “I wish you’d try and change just a little bit.” He hesitated, his eyes shining. “I can’t tell you—but I could teach you, Martin.”

“How did this begin, Carol?”

The boy gave him a fond, acquisitive glance.

“It began that afternoon at Deane’s. You took my part. And then, at the drag, you were so beautiful in your yellow gown that I fell in love right away. How did you do your hair? It was perfect!”

“Damned if I know,” said Martin. He stared out the window again.

Carol lowered his head, pouting.

“But it wasn’t fixed the same way after you came down with Drew.”

“No?” asked Martin absently.

“No,” said Carol. “It was pinned different.”

Martin smiled.

“Are you sure,” he asked, “that it wasn’t Drew about whom you were concerned?”

“Oh!” said Carol, flushing, “I never felt that way about Drew. I just _love_ to talk with him and be a pal; but I never felt about him—like this—” His lips trembled a little. “Maybe I was a little flirty—he’s been so sweet to me; but then I’ve been that way before, and I’ve never been in love. It was all puppy stuff before.”

Martin slumped down in his chair.

“I’ve changed quite a bit in my opinions about things too, Carol,” he said. “But it hasn’t boiled over and I don’t believe it ever will. You know, Carol, that I love Deane.”

The boy leaned forward eagerly.

“Oh, I know lots of boys that like girls,” he replied, nodding his head wisely. “But they like boys, too.” With a timid gesture he reached out and touched Martin’s hand. The back of Martin’s scalp tingled and he felt like shivering; but he did not move.

“It’s no go, Carol,” he said, with finality. “It damned well gives me the creeps.”

Carol leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

“God,” he said, “I wish you’d try.” He bent forward again, making no attempt to restrain his sorrowful desire.

Martin jumped up, a kind of dull horror building into rage. He took Carol roughly by the shoulders.

“God damn you! What’s wrong with you? What the hell’s wrong with all of you? Don’t you like the feel of a woman’s breast? Don’t you like a mouth that’s soft and sweet, instead of a god-damned beard?” He noticed that he was shaking Carol and stopped. He moved back a pace, his face shaded, the perspiration pouring from his brow in streams. “Do you think it’s smart to be this way? Do you think it’s clever?” He closed his fists. “Give me Eve, god damn you! Give me Eve, and take your Adam!”

Carol was weeping softly.

“God,” he said. “I don’t think it’s smart.... Oh, Martin, I’m so lonely. I can’t help how I feel.... Don’t be mad.... I won’t do anything.... Please—” He was rocking back and forth in his helpless grief.

Martin sat down again. His face, which had hardened in the previous moment, lost its straight lines and the color came back to his cheeks. He ran his hand, which was trembling slightly, across his eyes. He sat very straight and stiff.

“I’m sorry, Carol,” he declared sincerely. “I lost my head. I understand.”

But Carol cried out, his palms against his temples, “You understand? _You?_ You don’t understand at all.... The days! The long, wet days!—I can’t stand them alone again!... You don’t know how I was born. How I was raised. My mother died when I was born—Oh! I’d have loved her.... My father took me to a mining camp. There weren’t any women. Even the cook was a man. They played with me, and gave me money.... After my father died, there were more men.... It’s my first thought, and my last.... I wish you _did_ understand. Then you’d just _have_ to love me.”

And Martin looked at Carol, at the tears running down his cheeks, at the pain that locked his face into the unknown agonies. He looked at the desk, at the picture of Deane and back again at Carol. And to himself he said repeatedly, “What good is compassion now!—What good is compassion now!”

Strangely, he went to Carol, a dark line between his eyes, although there was no frown except one for himself. For a moment he stood facing the boy so steadily and patiently that Carol wet his lips in nervousness, waiting in a kind of stolid anticipation for whatever was to come. Slowly, but with no hesitation, and still regarding the boy with an indefinable expression, Martin raised his hand and laid it on the other’s with such feeling, yet such weight that Carol stepped away and bent his knee as though he had been struck. Then, unresistant to Martin’s comprehensive look—a look so full of search, and surely pain, and perhaps knowing—and calmed by a hand that had found kindness in its power, Carol stepped forward again and held himself as though he were bemused—for so he was, with all his innocence and limitations conflicting with desire. And all the hopeless libido went out of him before this other one who was so straight and quiet and held him like—Carol thought, and thought again—like—and then quite swiftly it was revealed to him; like one man holds another. This chemical transmutation within him was so rapid that even Martin failed to see it. Just the same, as Carol, firmly gripped by Martin in equality, knew himself another man, he lifted his shoulders, stiffened in his new pride as he beheld new vistas; and in an immediate beauty smiled, unknowing that he had left Martin, who dropped his hand, bewildered.

Martin helped the boy on with his coat.

“Carol,” he said, his arm around him, “I want you to know that I’m your friend.” Impulsively he went to his desk and searched through a drawer. He drew out a snapshot and handed it to Carol. “Here I am,” he said, “climbing a king post at the beginning of a bad day.” It was a plain little picture of a ship at a crazy tilt with the sea, and Martin hanging tightly as he worked with a lashing; but Carol put it carefully in his pocket and smiled happily.

_CHAPTER XXI_

The days were getting warmer. Rio stopped by Martin’s house in the early afternoon and together they walked to the Battery where they sat down on a bench out of the sun. People were pouring in and out of the Aquarium. Boats leaving for Bedloe’s Island whistled and grunted against the docks. Liberty herself, as statuesque as ever, shone from her spring cleaning and seemed to hold her torch still higher and more independently.

Turning away from the water, Rio glanced at Martin’s hand, his attention called to it, perhaps, by a ray of sunlight which fell slantingly upon a flat block of black onyx with a point of ruby in one corner which Martin wore upon his middle finger.

“I’ve always wanted to ask you about that funny ring you got there,” said Rio, yawning. “Where’d you find it?”

Martin twisted the ring until it caught the sun more evenly before he spoke.

“In the Red Sea,” he finally replied.

“Sounds like somethin’ back of it,” persisted Rio.

“There is.” Martin locked his hands around one knee and leaned forward in an attitude of tenseness. “The year before I met you, Rio, I got hurt on the old _Silver Cross_. She’s being scrapped now, and this was when she made her last trip to the East. I was pretty bad in the Indian Ocean, and the weather didn’t help any. I was worse at Aden; and they had to take me off at Massaua. When I was getting well I met a fellow named Nahrinja who was agent for a man who owned a pearl-fishing fleet. I wanted to get out on one of the boats to see how the boys went about it. So when I was better he gave me a knock-down to one of the Arab skippers and we set out.

“The Sudanese divers all seemed to like me, for I took to their native lute as though I’d played it all my life. In a few days I could do their ancient chants on the tamboura—somehow, understanding this sad, lost music. One Sudanese in particular, a boy named Sali, used to squat silently on the deck and watch me by the hour.

“We were after the finest pearl—the bilbil. And one morning Sali and I launched his dugout and piled in, the natives laughing a good deal, for I wasn’t used to their tipsy little pirogues. I paddled, while Sali looked through a glass-bottomed box for a good spot. When he found it, he went over the side with a weight to a depth of forty or fifty feet, while I watched through the box to see if he was all right and kept a lookout for shark. I had tried it once, myself, in shallower water and had got nicely stung by a poison fish for my efforts. Sali had many such scars and seemed used to it. But he told me to be careful of the giant clams, careful of the coral and particularly leery of the whip-tail ray, which can give you a bad cut with their barb.

“Sali worked more than he should; but he brought back good oyster. I was having a hell of a good time in spite of the stinks, and looked like one of the divers with my loincloth and my skin crusted with salt. Then it happened.” Martin looked at his ring again and continued.

“Sali had just left the ocean bed when I saw a black fin circle the bow of the boat. From his back, the shark was a big one. I began smacking the water with an iron pole, trying to frighten him away or attract his attention to the other side of the dugout, and to warn Sali, who was coming up fast.

“But just as the boy hit the surface, the shark struck him and Sali’s head went under. I jumped over the side and got him by the hair. When I brought him above water and could see his face, it looked as though it were frozen. He didn’t say anything or make any effort, and I couldn’t get him in the canoe; but when I clamped his hand on the gunwhale he held to it like a child, and I climbed into the boat by the stern, hoping the beast wouldn’t come back till I’d pulled the lad in. Finally, I got him by the wrist and managed to haul him in without capsizing. He looked down at his body at the place where his leg had been, for it was off high up next the hip. Then he looked at me and smiled, while two big tears ran down his cheeks.” Martin stopped again and choked. “I hope, Rio, it was because he was shocked out of his wits. I stripped off my loincloth and tried, as only a desperate man can do, to get a tourniquet around a place where I didn’t even have a stub to work on. At last, I started to shove my fist up the hole where the blood was spurting; and then, realizing that I was going mad myself, I grabbed a paddle and headed for the mother-boat like a demon. A pretty picture, eh, Rio?” said Martin bitterly. “A naked white man, as bloody by this time as the Sudanese, racing through the Red Sea with a dying boy who thought I could make him live—for that was what he kept saying all the time.”

“Cut it,” said Rio, his face hard. “Did you get him to the boat alive?”

“Yes,” answered Martin. “The nakhuda and another Arab hoisted him aboard and we laid him on the deck, out of the sun, with his head propped up. There were only minutes left, with nothing to do but magic; so I rubbed his wrists and whispered the Lord’s Prayer to him. It sounded all right on that blistering deck, or must have done so, for Sali kept smiling and repeating the words—the sound of the words after me.... ‘Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.’ ... Then his face changed—I saw it coming. He spoke thinly to the nakhuda, who knelt down and cut the string around the boy’s neck which held this amulet.” Martin pointed to the charm on his finger. “Sali took it, and with that hopeless, sweet trust glazed on his eyes forever, held it out to me that death-like second before death.”

Martin cleared his throat and looked down at the grass.

After watching him for a moment Rio said quietly, “That’s the last time I’ll ever ask about a ring. I done it once before, and I ought to know better.”

“What happened?” asked Martin.

Rio took his time, and scanned the harbor before he spoke.

“I shipped out of Liverpool,” he said at last, “because I had to once, on a vessel bound for the Solomon Islands. My watch partner looked like a Limey, but he was a shanty Irishman from Philadelphia. I never could quite make ’im out. We had two hours in Lisbon on the trip South, and he give a kid two bits American to get off a spittoon in a Portugee gin mill. He told me it made him nervous, seein’ a boy sit like that. Well, we had some sour wine and some biscuits before I seen his ring. It was a wide gold band on his left middle finger, and somehow I asked him about it. He grinned and looked pretty sick; but he said it was for Maud. I took another drink and lit up a cigarette because I couldn’t see no woman with _him_. He called himself ‘Philadelphia Dick,’ but the city would’ve killed ’im for it, since he was the ugliest bastard I ever seen, with a skin like tripe and a red eyelid that hung down like a lantern over his left eye. He knowed I didn’t believe that Maud stuff, and that damned eyelid dropped down like he was laughin’ at me, while he chewed on a biscuit with the ring wigglin’ all the time under his Harp nose.

“We sailed, soon after, for undetermined cargo on the Solomon’s. Every man of us got fed up after we got there, for it was ‘lay to, and wait for orders.’ We had the ship so clean she ached, and finally we got shore-leave. The second engineer hammered me out a barb and Chips fixed an ironwood shaft for me, so I had a good harpoon to try on the bass and some red trout I seen around there. Philadelphia Dick grinned and looked sick again when he heard I was goin’ fishin’; but he and a couple of other sailors come along.

“It was a small atoll I picked near the mainland; so we rolled up our pants and waded to the belt of coral to have a look at the lagoon. The water was still; but all the fish I could see was small for my spear. One of the boys though, who was standin’ between me and Dick, slapped me on the arm and reached quick for the harpoon; and then I could see the water break a ways out, and a turtle come up from the shallows. It was a big one—about three hundred pounds—and we all got down on our knees and stayed quiet, except Philadelphia Dick. He stood there with his jaw droppin’ and his skin turnin’ so red that his loose eyelid hung down, limp and white, like a blossom.

“The turtle waded up pretty slow, takin’ its own damned way like they always do, till the guy that had my spear seen it was time. He jumped up and run toward the creature, raisin’ his arm to let the turtle have it through the eye. But he never made it,” Rio added slowly. “Philadelphia Dick hit him in the cheek and then in the nose, which broke so we could all hear it snap—even the damned turtle, who crawled on up like nothin’ had happened. Well, we stood there like a bunch of god-damned fools, like the guy who’d been clipped, while the turtle come on till she stood right in front of Philadelphia Dick. By God!—they watched each other till it made us feel in the way somehow, and we got the hell out of there. Once, the guy with the bloody face turned round and looked back at Dick and the turtle. ‘She took his eye, Rio,’ he said to me, funny-like. And I said, ‘Yeah—that’s Maud.’ ‘Maud?’ he said, still lookin’ funny, and we went back to the ship.

“Philadelphia Dick didn’t come back that night; but a native brought ’im alongside the next mornin’ and he come up the Jacob’s ladder like a snake. The Chinee cook seen ’im first and turned green. For Dick’s eyelid was down to his cheek like it had been sewed there, and his good eye was too cold for a man. But the worst thing was the look of his Irish nose that had been tilted up for thirty-five years—till then—but that had bent overnight into a hook as sharp as the creature’s we was all thinkin’ of. By the mercy of God, we sailed that evenin’ for Sarawak. Philadelphia Dick was at the steam winch when I seen ’im last; but five minutes later nobody could find ’im on the ship. When we got to Borneo the Devil himself must’ve reversed our sailing orders; for we was sent back to the Solomons, though the sailors hadn’t no stomach for it, I can tell you. The galley boy, more scared than silly, said somethin’ about Maud, and got the back of the hand from one of the men. Most of us, though, took this jinx along with the bugs and the sour bread; but we was all steppin’ like the Chief’s cat when we hove to about the place where Philadelphia Dick had jumped ship. We was all by the rail expectin’ somethin’, and we got it. A couple of turtles drifted in about midships and out of the long green we watched two beaks come up. One was Maud, the other a stranger. The god-damned Chinee cook yelled out and pointed. I seen the fella—a wide blue turtle with a heavy, forward shell. He scratched Maud (who looked pretty wise) with his right flipper and lifted the other one at us. The damned Chinee yelled again and we seen why; for there was a gold band like a barrel hoop, high up on that blue turtle’s port leg, where no human hand could’ve put it.” Rio stopped.

“And then?” asked Martin.

“And then a film come over that fella’s left eye and dropped down like our shipmate’s—and sure enough, there was Philadelphia Dick, hatin’ our guts, but tickled; and with all of us lookin’ on and wonderin’, he winked at us again and sounded, with his arm under Maud’s belly.”

Rio cleared his throat and looked out at the water. For a few minutes, the two men remained quiet until Rio, glancing at Martin, saw that his friend was hunched forward, his head down, still staring at the grass, and that his eyes were wet.

“For God’s sake, Martin,” he said.

Martin put his hand under his chin and regarded the other with a look so brief and yet so haunting that Rio held his tongue.

A Green Circle ship was leaving the harbor. The word NOMAD was painted on her bow.

“I made a trip on her one time,” said Rio, pointing, and changing the subject deliberately. “Old Hungry was the steward. God! What food!”

Martin straightened up and leaned back against the hard, wooden bench.

“I never saw you when you couldn’t eat,” he said, smiling a little.

“This wasn’t no different,” replied Rio, grinning with satisfaction. “I got chummy with the galley boy and lived handsome. I ate the Old Man’s oranges and drank the chief engineer’s ale.”

Martin looked amused.

“Did the kid supply you with romance, too?” he asked.

Rio regarded him strangely.

“No,” he stated, after a moment, “but that brings somethin’ to mind. Maybe you know the answer, my educated friend.”

“Perhaps,” said Martin, in a dry tone.

Rio shifted his position, moving back out of the sun.

“I was in Santa de Marina last trip, as you know,” he said. “There was a girl, and a boy.” He stopped talking abruptly and removed his cap long enough to wipe away the perspiration which had gathered on the band. “By God, I can’t finish it!” he added vehemently.

Martin was silent.

Rio thought for a moment, then sighed and went on.

“Yeah, it’s hard tellin’. There was somethin’ funny about the girl. Funny in a nice way. And she was screwy, too.” He wrinkled up his nose. “She made me dance pretty, but I could see she wasn’t tryin’ to.”

“In the Street of Curtains?” asked Martin.

“Yeah. But she don’t belong there,” said Rio, his voice rising. “I don’t believe I’ll leave her there.”

“That sounds just right,” observed his friend.

“You ain’t heard the story,” said Rio quietly.

“That’s right. The boy?”

Rio shook his head.

“He’s tougher to figure than his sister.”

Martin glanced up, interested for the first time.

“His sister was the girl?”

“His sister was the girl,” repeated Rio. “The boy—well—I never knowed no kid like him—” He stopped and stared at his friend. “Unless——”

“Unless it was myself, Rio?” supplied Martin, a hard smile on his lips.

“Since you’ve said it—yeah.” Rio looked out at the harbor again. “I give the girl all the money I had, and went back to the ship with the boy. On the way, there was a tree in flower—” He turned sharply on Martin and took hold of his shoulder. “Say,” he said in a low, intense voice, “what the hell’s wrong with me, Martin? By God, I want the truth!”

Martin could see astonishment and resentment in Rio’s face; also a desperate sense of fear.

“There isn’t anything wrong with you, Rio,” he said calmly. “I’ve been afraid, too. And I’ve been sick with anger at the extremes. But if God Almighty granted you one precious moment, as I believe He did, and you didn’t spend it, you can get down on your damned knees with the rest of the dilettantes and say your A B C’s to Heaven the rest of your life without getting another.” Martin’s face was now so flushed with an anger he could not understand that it was as dark as Rio’s.

The frown had left Rio’s face. Infinitely puzzled, yet reassured, he stared at his friend.

“You can still talk, can’t you, Martin? You can still make me believe you. Yeah, even when you lie, you make me feel better.”

“Yes,” said Martin, “I can still talk. For I have a problem myself. Perhaps you can help me with it.”

“Shoot,” said Rio, relief in his voice.

“It’s about Carol. I’ll try to make it quick for I know you don’t like him.”

“D’you?”

“Never mind about that. Here’s the point. Things are getting a little mixed up in our fashionable set. Drew kept down the friction, but he went away and I can’t say that I blame him.”

Rio grinned.

“He didn’t cut down the friction on me,” he said, patting his back and grimacing. “But I’m not sore at him.” Rio laughed out loud. “He’s too damned pretty. Anyway, what about Carol?”

Martin leaned over and spoke confidentially.

“I can’t tell you now, but I saw it,” he said, in a low voice. “Carol’s bound for it,” he went on moodily. “What a shame!”

Rio swung around to stare at his friend. His own mouth was open, and his soft brown eyes were as wide, as honest and as startled as those of a besieged mare.

“I’ll be god-damned!” he whispered, and turned away from Martin to stare out to sea. He stuck out his tongue and pulled at his ears. Then, after a moment, he settled back on the bench and regarded Martin with a worried expression. The sun disappeared behind a sailboat and in the bay, Liberty grew darker. A salt wind came up from the harbor and the shadow of the Aquarium now covered all that section of the Battery.

_CHAPTER XXII_

It was uncomfortably warm in the room where Martin was working on his type. He tried it awhile longer, then put aside his papers and went to the roof.

There were two women lying on a blanket taking a sun bath. They were in bathing suits and had the straps pulled down over their shoulders. Martin had to pass them to get to the opposite side of the porch. So he excused himself and only glanced at them briefly. But his presence apparently irritated them. One of the women, dark-haired and older than the other, seemed particularly annoyed. She laid her hand on the younger girl’s arm and whispered something audibly and caustically to her friend. The remark was in such bad taste that Martin turned around and surveyed them coolly.

A dog was lying on the blanket with the women. He was little and white. He was young and curious and friendly. He trotted over to Martin, observed his white slacks, then looked back at his own coat. He sniffed at the slacks and raised his head, and all the while, Martin stood quietly and looked at him. The dog’s eyes were brown. His legs were sturdy. Martin wanted to put his hand on the little head. He had done it before with animals. It was a sort of blessing. He wanted to say, “I like you. Don’t let yourself be destroyed by these people.” But he did not move. The women would object. They would speak sharply and the puppy would be ashamed.

Blood filled Martin’s head. He had worked late the night before and he was tired. Anger shook his mind. Once more he looked across the roof at the women. Then he knelt to the dog. Holding the nervous head between his hands he watched the brown eyes. In his own was reflected an heroic poem—an attainable star. Martin did not beg nor did he demand. He showed the small one something greater than pettings and soft food. He showed him hard winds, ice and sun; his wolf-like ancestors—their smoky, torn fur. The dog became quiet, watching intently. He made no sound.

Martin held him patiently, listening with him to the soft pad of feet on the leaves above and around them. The dog’s brown eyes grew wider, older, and became lost....

Martin stood up and regarded the women, thinking, “Symbols of a denatured civilization! Men linked together are strung, it is true, on the rock of a fool’s evolution. But in them tragedy, strength and beauty neutralize the distortion—while across from me, on the roof, grope the clowns, the mimics, playing music they can never understand. The chords they touch turn black....”