The Danger Mark

"Start now, I tell you! Haven't I your word?"

"Yes—but on the way to buy transportation can't I offer myself one last–"

"Can't you be a good sport, Stuyve?"

The youth hesitated, scowled.

"Oh, very well," he said carelessly, turned and went out.

As he walked along in the slush he said to himself: "I guess it's up the river for mine.... By God, it's a shame, for I'm feeling pretty good, too, and that's no idle quip!… Old Squills handed out a line of talk all right-o!… He landed it, too.... I ought to find something to do."

As he walked, a faint glow stimulated his enervated intelligence; ideas, projects long abandoned, desires forgotten, even a far echo from the old ambition stirring in its slumber, quickened his slow pulses. The ghost of what he might have been, nay, what he could have made himself, rose wavering in his path. Other ghosts, long laid, floated beside him, accompanying him—the ghosts of dead opportunities, dead ideals, lofty inspirations long, long strangled.

"A job," he muttered; "that's the wholesome dope for Willy. There isn't a newspaper or magazine in town where I can't get next if I speak easy. I can deliver the goods, too; it's like wiping swipes off a bar–"

In his abstraction he had walked into the Holland House, and he suddenly became conscious that he was confronting a familiarly respectful bartender.

"Oh, hell," he said, greatly disconcerted, "I want some French vichy, Gus!" He made a wry face, and added: "Put a dash of tabasco in it, and salt it."

A thick-lipped, ruddy-cheeked young fellow, celebrated for his knowledge of horses, also notorious for other and less desirable characteristics, stood leaning against the bar, watching him.

They nodded civilly to one another. Quest swallowed his peppered vichy, pulled a long face and said:

"We're a pair of 'em, all right."

"Pair of what?" inquired the thick-lipped young man, face becoming rosier and looking more than ever like somebody's groom.

"Pair of bum whips. We've laid on the lash too hard. I'm going to stable my five nags—my five wits!"—he explained with a sneer as the other regarded him with all the bovine intelligence of one of his own stable-boys—"because they're foundered; and that's the why, young four-in-hand!"

He left the bar, adding as he passed:

"I'm a rotting citizen, but you"—he laughed insolently—"you have become phosphorescent!"

The street outside was all fog and melting snow; the cold vichy he had gulped made him internally uncomfortable.

"A gay day to go to Mulqueen's," he muttered sourly, gazing about for a taxicab.

There was none for hire at that moment; he walked on for a while, feeling the freezing slush penetrate his boot-soles; and by degrees a sullen temper rose within him, revolting—not at what he had done to himself—but at the consequences which were becoming more unpleasant every moment.

As he trudged along, slipping, sliding, his overcoat turned up around his pasty face, his cheeks wet with the icy fog, he continued swearing to himself, at himself, at the slush, the cold vichy in his belly, the appetite already awakened which must be denied.

Denied?… Was he never to have one more decent drink? Was this to be the absolute and final end? Certainly. Yet his imagination could not really comprehend, compass, picture to himself life made a nuisance by self-denial—life in any other guise except as a background for inertia and indulgence.

He swore again, profanely asking something occult why he should be singled out to be made miserable on a day like this? Why, among all the men he knew, he must go skulking about, lapping up cold mineral water and cocking one ear to the sounds of human revelry within the Tavern.

As for his work—yes, he ought to do it.... Interest in it was already colder; the flare-up was dying down; habitual apathy chilled it to its embers. Indifference, ill-temper, self-pity, resentment, these were the steps he was slowly taking backward. He took them, in their natural sequence, one by one.

Old Squills meant well, no doubt, but he had been damned impertinent.... And why had Old Squills dragged in his sister, Sylvia?… He had paid as much attention to her as any brother does to any sister.... And how had she repaid him?

Head lowered doggedly against the sleet which was now falling thickly, he shouldered his way forward, brooding on his "honour," on his sister, on Dysart.

He had not been home in weeks; he did not know of his sister's departure with Bunny Gray. She had left a letter at home for him, because she knew no other addresses except his clubs; and inquiry over the telephone elicited the information that he had not been to any of them.

But he was going to one of them now. He needed something to kill that vichy; he'd have one more honest drink in spite of all the Old Squills and Mulqueens in North America!

At the Cataract Club there were three fashion-haunting young men drinking hot Scotches: Dumont, his empurpled skin distended with whiskey and late suppers, and all his former brilliancy and wit cankered and rotten with it, and his slim figure and clean-cut face fattened and flabby with it; Myron Kelter, thin, elegant, exaggerated, talking eternally about women and his successes with the frailer ones—Myron Kelter, son of a gentleman, eking out his meagre income by fetching, carrying, pandering to the rich, who were too fastidious to do what they paid him for doing in their behalf; and the third, Forbes Winton, literary dilettante, large in every feature and in waistcoat and in gesture—large, hard, smooth—very smooth, and worth too many millions to be contradicted when misstating facts to suit the colour of his too luxuriant imagination.

These greeted Quest in their several and fashionably wearied manners, inviting his soul to loaf.

Later he had a slight dispute with Winton, who surveyed him coldly, and insolently repeated his former misstatement of a notorious fact.

"What rot!" said Quest; "I leave it to you, Kelter; am I right or not?"

Kelter began a soft and soothing discourse which led nowhere at first but ended finally in a re-order for four hot Scotches.

Then Dumont's witty French blood—or the muddied dregs which were left of it—began to be perversely amusing at Quest's expense. Epigrams slightly frayed, a jest or two a trifle stale, humorous inversions of well-known maxims, a biting retort, the originality of which was not entirely free from suspicion, were his contributions to the festivities.

Later Kelter's nicely modulated voice and almost affectionate manner restrained Quest from hurling his glass at the inflamed countenance of Mr. Dumont. But it did not prevent him from leaving the room in a vicious temper, and, ultimately, the Cataract Club.

The early winter night had turned cold and clear; sidewalks glittered, sheeted with ice. He inhaled a deep breath and expelled a reeking one, hailed a cab, and drove to the railroad station.

Here he bought his tickets, choosing a midnight train; for the journey to Mulqueen's was not a very long one; he could sleep till seven in the car; and, besides, he had his luggage to collect from the hotel he had been casually inhabiting. Also he had not yet dined.

Bodily he felt better, now that the vichy had been "killed"; mentally his temper became more vicious than ever as he thought of Dumont's blunted wit at his expense—a wit with edge enough left to make a ragged, nasty wound.

"He'll get what's coming to him some day," snarled Quest, returning to his cab; and he bade the driver take him to the Amphitheatre, a restaurant resort, wonderful in terra-cotta rocks, papier-maché grottos, and Croton waterfalls—haunted of certain semi-distinguished pushers of polite professions, among whom he had been known for years.

The place was one vast eruption of tiny electric lights, and the lights of "the profession," and the demi-monde. Virtue and its antithesis disguised alike in silk attire and pearl collars, rubbed elbows unconcernedly among the papier-maché grottos; the cascades foamed with municipal water, waiters sweated and scurried, lights winked and glimmered, and the music and electric fans annoyed nobody.

In its usual grotto Quest found the usual group, was welcomed automatically, sat down at one of the tables, and gave his order.

Artists, newspaper men, critics, and writers predominated. There was also a "journalist" doing "brilliant" space work on the Sun. He had been doing it nearly a month and he was only twenty-one. It was his first job. Ambition tickled his ribs; Fame leaned familiarly over his shoulder; Destiny made eyes at him. His name was Bunn.

There was also a smooth-shaven, tired-eyed, little man who had written a volume on Welsh-rarebits and now drew cartoons. His function was to torment Bunn; and Bunn never knew it.

A critic rose from the busy company and departed, to add lustre to his paper and a nail in the coffin of the only really clever play in town.

"Kismet," observed little Dill, who did the daily cartoon for the Post, "no critic would be a critic if he could be a fifth-rate anybody else—or," he added, looking at Bunn, "even a journalist."

"Is that supposed to be funny?" asked Bunn complacently. "I intend to do art criticism for the Herald."

"What's the objection to my getting a job on it, too?" inquired Quest, setting his empty glass aside and signalling the waiter for a re-order. He expected surprise and congratulation.

Somebody said, "You take a job!" so impudently that Quest reddened and turned, showing his narrow, defective teeth.

"It's my choice that I haven't taken one," he snarled. "Did you think otherwise?"

"Don't get huffy, Stuyve," said a large, placid, fat novelist, whose financial success with mediocre fiction had made him no warmer favourite among his brothers.

A row of artists glanced up and coldly continued their salad, their Vandyck beards all wagging in unison.

"I want you to understand," said Quest, leaning both elbows offensively on Dill's table, "that the job I ask for I expect to get."

"You might have expected that once," said the cool young man who had spoken before.

"And I do now!" retorted Quest, raising his voice. "Why not?"

Somebody said: "You can furnish good copy, all right, Quest; you do it every day that you're not working."

Quest, astonished and taken aback at such a universal revelation of the contempt in which he seemed to be held, found no reply ready—nothing at hand except another glass of whiskey and soda.

Minute after minute he sat there among them, sullen, silent, wincing, nursing his chagrin in deepening wrath and bitterness; and his clouding mind perceived in the rebuke nothing that he had ever done to deserve it.

Who the devil were these rag-tags and bob-tails of the world who presumed to snub him—these restaurant-haunting outsiders, among whom he condescended to sit, feeling always the subtle flattery they ought to accord him by virtue of a social position hopeless of attainment by any of them?

Who were they to turn on him like this when he had every reason to suppose they were not only aware of the great talent he had carelessly neglected to cultivate through all these years, but must, in the secret recesses of their grubby souls, reluctantly admire his disdain of the only distinctions they scrambled for and could ever hope for?

His black looks seemed to disturb nobody; Bunn, self-centred, cropped his salad complacently; the Vandyck beards wagged; another critic or two left, stern slaves to duty and paid ads.

The lights bothered him; tremors crawled over and over his skin; within him a dull rage was burning—a rage directed at no one thing, but which could at any moment be focussed.

Men rose and left the table singly, by twos, in groups. He sat, glowering, head partly averted, scowlingly aware of their going, aware of their human interest in one another but not in him, aware at last that he counted for nothing whatever among them.

Some spoke to him as they passed out; he made them no answer. And at last he was alone.

Reaching for his empty glass, he miscalculated the distance between it and his quivering fingers; it fell and broke to pieces. When the waiter came he cursed him, flung a bill at him, got up, demanded his coat and hat, swore at the pallid, little, button-covered page who brought it, and lurched out into the street.

A cab stood there; he entered it, fell heavily into a corner of the seat, bade the driver, "Keep going, damn you!" and sat swaying, muttering, brooding on the wrongs that the world had done him.

Wrongs! Yes, by God! Every hand was against him, every tongue slandered him. Who was he that he should endure it any longer in patience! Had he not been patient? Had he not submitted to the insults of a fool of a doctor?—had he not stayed his hand from punishing Dumont's red and distended face?—had he not silently accepted the insolent retorts of these Grub Street literati who turned on him and flouted the talent that lay dormant in him—dead, perhaps—but dead or dormant, it still matched theirs! And they knew it, damn them!

Had he not stood enough from the rotten world?—from his own sister, who had flung his honour into his face with impunity!—from Dysart, whose maddening and continual ignoring of his letters demanding an explanation–

There seemed to come a sudden flash in his brain; he leaned from the window and shouted an address to the cabman. His hat had fallen beside him, but he did not notice its absence on his fevered head.

"I'll begin with him!" he repeated with a thick laugh; "I'll settle with him first. Now we're going to see! Now we'll find out about several matters—or I'll break his neck off!—or I'll twist it off—wring it off!"

And he beat on his knees with his fists, railing, raging, talking incoherently, laughing sometimes, sometimes listening, as though, suddenly, near him, a voice was mocking him.

He had a pocket full of bills, crushed up; some he gave to the cabman, some he dropped as he stuffed the others into his pockets, stumbled toward a bronze-and-glass grille, and rang. The cabman brought him his hat, put it on him, gathered up the dropped money, and drove off with his tongue in his cheek.

Quest rang again; the door opened; he gave his card to the servant, and stealthily followed him upstairs over the velvet carpet.

Dysart, in a velvet dressing-gown knotted in close about his waist, looked over the servant's shoulders and saw Quest standing there in the hall, leering at him.

For a moment nobody spoke; Dysart took the offered card mechanically, glanced at it, looked at Quest, and nodded dismissal to the servant.

When he and the other man stood alone, he said in a low, uncertain voice:

"Get out of here!"

But Quest pushed past him into the lighted room beyond, and Dysart followed, very pale.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I've asked you questions, too," retorted Quest. "Answer mine first."

"Will you get out of here?"

"Not until I take my answer with me."

"You're drunk!"

"I know it. Look out!"

Dysart moistened his bloodless lips.

"What do you want to know?" And, as Quest shouted a question at him: "Keep quiet! Speak lower, I tell you. My father is in the next room."

"What in hell do I care for your father? Answer me or I'll choke it out of you! Answer me now, you dancing blackguard! I've got you; I want my answer, and you've got to give it to me!"

"If you don't lower your voice," said Dysart between his teeth, "I'll throw you out of that window!"

"Lower my voice? Why? Because the old fox might hear the young one yap! What do I care for you or your doddering family–"

He went down with a sharp crash; Dysart struck him again as he rose; then, beside himself, rained blows on him, drove him from corner to corner, out of the room, into the hall, striking him in the face till the young fellow reeled and fell against the bath-room door. It gave; he stumbled into darkness; and after him sprang Dysart, teeth set—sprang into the darkness which split before him with a roar into a million splinters of fire.

He stood for a second swaying, reaching out to grasp at nothing in a patient, persistent, meaningless way; then he fell backward, striking a terrified servant, who shrank away and screamed as the light fell on her apron and cuffs all streaked with blood.

She screamed again as a young man's white and battered face appeared in the dark doorway before her.

"Is he hurt?" he asked. His dilated eyes were fixed upon the thing on the floor. "What are you howling for? Is he—dead?" whispered Quest. Suddenly terror overwhelmed him.

"Get out of my way!" he yelled, hurling the shrieking maid aside, striking the frightened butler who tried to seize him on the stairs. There was another manservant at the door, who stood his ground swinging a bronze statuette. Quest darted into the drawing-room, ran through the music-room and dining-room beyond, and slammed the door of the butler's pantry.

He stood there panting, glaring, his shoulder set against the door; then he saw a bolt, and shot it, and backed away, pistol swinging in his bleeding fist.

Servants were screaming somewhere in the house; doors slammed, a man was shouting through a telephone amid a confusion of voices that swelled continually until the four walls rang with the uproar. A little later a policeman ran through the basement into the yard beyond; another pushed his way to the pantry door and struck it heavily with his night-stick, demanding admittance.

For a second he waited; then the reply came, abrupt, deafening; and he hurled himself at the bolted door, and it flew wide open.

But Quest remained uninterested. Nothing concerned him now, lying there on his back, his bruised young face toward the ceiling, and every earthly question answered for him as long as time shall last.

Up-stairs a very old and shrunken man sat shivering in bed, staring vacantly at some policemen and making feeble efforts to reach a wig hanging from a chair beside him—a very glossy, expensive wig, nicely curled where it was intended to fall above the ears.

"I don't know," he quavered, smirking at everybody with crackled, painted lips, "I know nothing whatever about this affair. You must ask my son Jack, gentlemen—my son Jack—te-he!—oh, yes, he knows; he can tell you a thing or two, I warrant you! Yes, gentlemen, he's like all the Dysarts—fit for a fight or a frolic!—te-he!—he's all Dysart, gentlemen—my son Jack. But he is a good son to me—yes, yes!—a good son, a good son! Tell him I said so—and—good-night."

"Nutty," whispered a policeman. "Come on out o' this boodwar and lave th' ould wan be."

And they left him smirking, smiling, twitching his faded lips, and making vague sounds, lying there asleep in his dotage.

And all night long he lay mumbling his gums and smiling, his sleep undisturbed by the stir and lights and tramp of feet around him.

And all night long in the next room lay his son, white as marble and very still.

Toward morning he spoke, asking for his father. But they had decided to probe for the bullet, and he closed his eyes wearily and spoke no more.

They found it. What Dysart found as the winter sun rose over Manhattan town, his Maker only knows, for his sunken eyes opened unterrified yet infinitely sad. But there was a vague smile on his lips after he lay there dead.

Nor did his slayer lie less serenely where bars of sunlight moved behind the lowered curtains, calm as a schoolboy sleeping peacefully after the eternity of a summer day where he had played too long and fiercely with a world too rough for him.

And so, at last, the indictments were dismissed against them both and their cases adjourned sine die.