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"Yes," I answered, "she is a very fine young woman."
"Doesn't much care for literature, does she?"
"I don't know, but she has a heart of gold, and that's what counts."
So we retired to a small private table and disputed and argued for a couple of hours, at the end of which my brains were addled and I told him to do as he pleased, whereat he beamed and I parted from him.
Then I began counting the days till the Rochambeau should arrive, and Frances came back to town and sent me word at once. She received me joyfully and told me how much good the sea-air on the Newport cliffs had done Baby Paul, who was beginning to talk like a little man and to say "God bless David" in the prayer he babbled after her each evening.
"I'm only back for a short time," she said, "because I'm to sing at a concert in Boston next week, and then we are going to Buffalo for a day, after which I shall return. And what do you think, David? I am to sign an engagement for the Metropolitan! Tsheretshewski is going abroad this winter to play in Spain and England, and so I shall be, for the whole winter, here in New York, and – and I hope you won't neglect me."
I assured her that I would call every day, and left her, after I had inspected Baby Paul, who deigned to let me kiss him and favored my moustache with a powerful tug. He is a stunning infant. She was standing at the outer door of her apartment, her dear sweet smile speaking of her friendship and regard. The temptation came on me again, the awful longing for a touch of those lips, but I held myself within bounds, as bravely as I could, and touched the elevator signal. She waited until the cage had shot up and waved her hand at me. Her "Good-by, Dave" held all the charm of her song and the tenderness of her heart, I thought, and I answered it with a catch in my throat.
"You will never be anything but a big over-grown kid, David," Frieda had told me, a few days before. Ay! I realized it! I would never cease crying for that radiant moon. Sometimes, in silly dreams, I have seen myself standing before her, with her two hands in mine, with her lips near, with her heart ready to come into my keeping. But, when I waken, I remember the words she said last year, when Gordon made her so unhappy. How could love be left in her heart? she had asked. Was there ever a night when she didn't kneel and pray for the poor soul of the man buried somewhere in France, in those dreadful fields, with, perhaps, never a cross over him nor a flower to bear to him a little of the love she had given? Let well enough alone, David, my boy! You can have her song whenever you care to beg for it, and her friendship and her smiles. Would you forfeit these things because you must come forth and beg for more, ay, for more than she can give you? Would you force her dear eyes to shed tears of sorrow for you, and hear her soft voice breaking with the pain it would give her to refuse?
A few days later she met me at her door, excitedly, and told me that Baby Paul had a slight cold and that Dr. Porter had advised her not to take him away with her.
"And, Dave, I just have to go! It would be too hard on some of the others, if I broke faith and didn't appear. I must leave to-night, and it just breaks my heart to be compelled to start when my Baby Paul isn't well. Dr. Porter has promised to call every day and see him during my absence. Dave dear, you are ever so fond of Baby too. Won't you come in every day, and you must telegraph, if you don't find him getting along as well as he should, or use the long distance telephone."
She was much agitated, and I saw how hard it was on her to leave the dear little man behind. But Frances is the sort of woman who keeps her promises. She has given her word and will go!
So we dined together, that evening, with Frieda, and we saw Frances away to the train and put her on board the sleeper and returned home, and Frieda spoke a great deal and told me about the sale of her latest picture and all that she expected from the one she was going to exhibit at the winter Salon. It was only after I had left her that I realized the dear soul had been trying to divert my thoughts.
In the morning came the telegram from the marine department of the cable company. The Rochambeau would dock at eleven. I was at the waterside an hour earlier, devoured with impatience and anxiety, thinking of a thousand alarming possibilities. Finally, the big ship appeared, far down the stream, and slowly came up. I scanned the decks as soon as people could be distinguished, but could see no sign of my friend.
At last, the steamer was warped into the dock after three puffing tugs had pushed and shoved her for the longest time, and the passengers began to come off, and still he did not show up and the gang plank was nearly bare of people. I seized upon a steward bearing ashore a load of suitcases and bags and asked him whether there was not a Mr. McGrath on board.
"Certainement, Monsieur, there he is coming now," replied the man, hurrying away.
I might not have recognized him, so pale and thin did he look, but it was Gordon all right, at the head of the trussed gangway, and he waved a hand at me. A man preceded him, carrying some baggage.
"Hello, Gordon!" I shouted joyfully, in spite of the shock his sharp, worn features had given me.
"Hello, Dave!" he cried back.
A moment later he was down on the dock, stepping lightly, and I pushed my hand out towards him, eager for the strong grasp of former days.
"You'll have to take the left, old boy. The right one's behind, somewhere in Belgium. Wait a moment and I'll give you my keys, Dave. I have to keep everything in my lefthand pockets, so they're crowded. Yes, I have them. I suppose that my trunk is already ashore. Do try and get a customs' officer for me and hurry the thing through."
He was talking as calmly and coolly as if he had been gone but a few days and had suffered only from a cut finger. We were fortunate in being able to get through the formalities very soon, and, shortly after, we drove away in a taxi.
"Well, Dave, how've you been and how's everybody?" he asked, after lighting a cigarette from mine.
"Every one is all right," I answered impatiently. "Oh! Gordon, old man! How did it ever happen?"
"Just a piece of shell while I was picking some fellows up," he answered. "You have no idea of how surprising it is when you suddenly realize that something's missing. But what's a hand more or less after all that I've seen? How's Frieda?"
"Stouter than ever," I replied, "and her appetite's improving. Porter recommended a diet, but she won't follow it. Says her fat doesn't interfere with her sitting at the easel."
"Good old Frieda! I've heard about your book, Dave, it made a big stir, didn't it? And so – so Madame Dupont has become a great singer again; heard all about it from a fellow on board and, of course, your letters spoke of it; but you're such a crazy old duffer I supposed you were getting carried away with your enthusiasm. Never could take things quietly, could you? Any other news?"
"Nothing very special," I told him. "The Van Rossums came to town early, this year. I – I've seen Miss Sophia."
"Have you? Give me another cigarette. Yes, light a match for me. I'm clumsy as the devil with that left hand!"
He sat back, puffing at the thing and looking out of the window.
"Peanuts," he said. "Haven't seen a peanut cart for over a year. Colored women, too. Plenty of fighting niggers in France, but no darky ladies. Look at the big cop! Policemen are the only leisure class in this country, aren't they? Lord! What a big, ghastly brick monstrosity that is! We can lick the world when it comes to fetid commercial architecture, can't we? Are you going all the way up to the studio with me?"
"Of course I am," I asserted indignantly. "What did you suppose I'd do?"
"Thought you might laugh at the uselessness of a studio in my present condition," he replied negligently. "I've told you I'm clumsy as the deuce with that left hand. Tried to draw a face with it the other day, in pencil. Looked like a small boy's effort on a fence. So, of course, I'm through with painting. I've been rather saving, you know. Invested my money quite safely and haven't spent much on this jaunt. Of course a few thousands went where I thought they'd do most good. A fellow who'd keep his hands in his pockets when help is so badly needed would be a queer animal. But I've enough to live on and smoke decent tobacco. I think I'll take a small bachelor apartment in New York, to come to when I get the horrors. I'll spend the rest of the time in the country, a good way off. I'll read books, yes, even yours, and, perhaps, learn to sit around with a crowd, near a grocery stove, and discuss potatoes and truck. Hang it all! There's always something a fellow can do!"
"My dear Gordon," I began, "I don't see – "
"Oh, shut up, Dave, I know all the things one can say to a cripple. What's the use? Some fellows on board asked me to dine with them this evening at Delmonico's, and I damned them up and down. Sat for eight mortal days at the dining-table on the ship, with an infernal female on each side of me; they'd quarrel as to which of them would cut my meat for me. It's enough for a fellow to go dotty. Sometimes I wouldn't go and had things served in my cabin so the steward would do the cutting. Understand, I'm not kicking. Hang it all, man, I'm not even sorry I went! The chaps I helped out were probably worth it. Great old experience trying to make fifty miles an hour with a fellow inside bleeding to death, I can tell you. I've seen enough of it to have learned that a man's life doesn't amount to much. Any old thing will do for me now."
I was appalled. All this had but one meaning. He was eating his heart out, try as he might to conceal it. To him, his art had been chiefly a means to an end; he had made it the servant of his desires. And now it was getting back at him, it was revenging itself, appearing infinitely desirable for its own sake. He would miss it as a man misses the dead woman, who has held his heart in the hollow of her hand; he was raging at the helplessness that had come upon him. And all this he translated into his usual cynicism. I would have given anything to have seen him break down and weep, so that I might have put my arm around his shoulders and sought to comfort him with love and affection.
We got out at the big building, and he nodded to the colored boy who stood at the door of the elevator, as if he had been gone but a day. On the landing he sought again to pull out his keys, but I touched the electric button and the old woman's steps hurried to the door.
"How are you?" he said, and brushed past her, paying no heed to her salutations. "Glad everything's open. I was afraid it would be all closed up like a beastly morgue. Hello!"
He stopped before the easel. Upon it I had placed a rough study he had made for Miss Van Rossum's picture. It was a thing of a few effective and masterly strokes.
"Good Lord, Dave, but I was a painter for fair, once upon a time! How did I ever do it?"
He sat there, very still, for a long time, while I watched him. I think he had forgotten all about me, for, after a time, he rose and pulled out of a closet some unframed canvasses, which he scattered against the legs of furniture and contemplated.
"Think I'll make a bonfire of them," he suddenly said. "Won't be such an idiot as to keep on staring at those things and looking at my stump, I'll warrant," and he pushed the handless wrist towards me, tied up in a bit of black silk.
Then the telephone rang.
"Wonder who's the infernal idiot calling up now?" he said. "Go and answer, Dave. No, I'll go myself and tell him to go to the devil!"
Then came one of those fragmentary conversations. I could not help hearing it, of course. It surprised me that he spoke quietly, with a civility of tone and accent I had not expected.
"Yes, came back a few minutes ago – No, Dave ran up here with me, Dave Cole, you know – Oh! Nothing much – Well, I've lost my hand, the one I painted with – Yes, I shall be glad to have you do so – Right away? Yes, if you want to, I mean if you will be so kind. Thank you ever so much!"
He hung up the receiver and turned to me, his eyes looking rather haggard.
"It's – it's Sophia Van Rossum. How did she know I was coming?"
"I let her know, of course," I answered rather shortly.
"You think I've treated her pretty badly, don't you?"
"Rottenly, Gordon!"
"I daresay I did. It was a sort of madness that came over me, but – but there's no excuse. She'll be here in a few minutes. I don't know what I can say to her. Stay here, Dave, and help me out. I used to tell you that she was just a society doll, and that sort of thing. Well, she's pretty strong on society, but she was brought up in it, belonged to it. But she's a great deal more of a woman than I gave her credit for being; I've realized it a thousand times since I've been gone. I call it mighty decent of her to ring me up and offer to come around and see me, after the way I've behaved to her."
"So do I, Gordon," I approved. "She's got a great big heart, the sort it's a sorry thing for a man to play with."
He made no answer, looking out from his window into the Park and its yellowing foliage. Then he lifted his maimed arm and stared at it.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE REPAIR OF A BROKEN STRAND
We sat there for some long minutes, in silence. Gordon was thinking deeply. His expression, the abandonment shown in the looseness of his limbs and the falling forward of his head, were instinct with something that represented to me a forgetting of pose and calculated conduct.
"I've seen so much suffering," he suddenly said. "That sort of thing either hardens a man into stone or softens his heart till he can cry out in hatred of the idea of inflicting pain that can be spared."
I made no answer. It was best to chance no interruption of his mood. My thoughts were of the meeting that would take place in a few minutes. Indeed, I felt that I ought not to be there, that my presence might hinder some cry of the heart, words a woman's soul might dictate. But I was compelled to remain, since Gordon wished me to. He was now like a child needing the comfort of a friendly hand before entering a place of darkness. But I would seize the first opportunity of leaving them alone. At any rate, I could cross the long studio and go into the next room, if needed.
Then the bell rang. I think it startled Gordon. The old woman went to the door, and we heard the girl asking for Mr. McGrath, in her pleasant and assured voice. I rose to meet her, lifting one of the portières to one side.
She looked at me, slightly surprised, but put out her hand, smiling rather vaguely, her eyes belying the calmness of her voice, her movements showing slight nervousness. Gordon was standing. I expected him to come forward, but he remained where he was, rather helplessly, and she stepped forward toward him, swiftly.
"Hello, Gordon!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad to see you again. What a bad boy you've been not to write to me! That – that only letter of yours implied that you gave me back my freedom, and so I suppose I am at liberty to consider myself as a little sister – or a pretty big one, and greet you as one."
With a swift motion of her hand she pushed up the tiny transparent veil she wore, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him, quickly, as if he really had been a brother she was delighted to see again. Then she sat down on the stool he had used to put his palette and tubes on and turned to me.
"It isn't very conventional, Mr. Cole," she said, with a little laugh that sounded forced. "Gordon and I have already kissed one another a few times. Once more will make no difference. I have done nothing to prevent him from at least continuing to consider me as a good friend, perhaps as the sister I've been playing at. Of course we'll have to give it up, now, because – because people can't keep on playing all the time and – and others wouldn't understand. I don't mind you, because you wrote that wonderful book and – and you seem to know so many things."
Then she turned to him again.
"Now tell me about yourself, Gordon," she said pleasantly, folding her hands upon her lap.
He had remained standing. An instinct of shyness, something like the humiliation of the man imperfectly clad or conscious of an ugly blemish, made him keep his right arm behind him.
"There – there's not much to tell," he began, rather haltingly, though he soon regained control. "I've come back because I could no longer be any good over there and – and because I became hungry for a sight of old things – and of old friends, I suppose. You – you're awfully kind, you – you've always been a splendid woman – a proud one, too, but now you come here and put out your hand in friendship to – to a fellow who has behaved rottenly to you. No, don't say anything! Dave used that word. He sometimes speaks to the point. I'll tell you everything. It will hurt you, I'm afraid, as it hurts me, but I've got to do it and I will beg your pardon afterwards. It was all a plan on my part, at first. You were a wonderful, gorgeous creature, one to whom any man would be attracted, and I thought you would make a grand wife and a great stepping-stone to the ambitions that filled my stupid head. And then, somehow, these all went by the board, and a passion came to me – yes, a passion like the week's or the month's insanity that comes to some, for another woman. She is a good woman and a very beautiful one also, the sort of woman who, like yourself, deserves the best and noblest in the man whose love she may return. And she refused me, quickly, sharply, with just a word or two. I think she also thought I was insane; I remember that she looked frightened. And then I wrote to you, a beastly letter. I tore up a score of them and sent the worst, I'm afraid. Then I took the steamer and went off to drive up and down those roads. It – it has, perhaps, been good for me, for I've seen how little a man himself amounts to, and how great and noble his heart and soul may be. And that passion passed away, so that I no longer thought of her, but always I grew hot and angry at myself, when I remembered you. I've seen you before me a good many times, yes, even in that hospital they took me to, a few weeks ago, during the nights when I couldn't sleep. It was a great vision of a fine woman, big-hearted and strong, too good for such a cad as I. No, don't interrupt! I felt that it was fortunate for you, the best thing that ever happened, that I had shown myself to you under my true colors and saved you – saved you from marrying me. That madness has gone long ago, and there's no trace of it left in me, I swear, but I'm the same impossible Gordon, I daresay, except for that missing hand."
He slowly brought the maimed limb forward, but she never looked at it. Her eyes were upon his, very shiny with unshed tears.
"Yes, the same old Gordon, with perhaps a little of his silly pose gone, with a realization of his uselessness and worthlessness. And now I humbly beg your pardon, Sophia – I mean Miss Van Rossum, for I have forfeited every title to your forbearance – I no longer deserve it. And – and now I stand before you with my soul naked and ashamed, and – and Dave will see you to the door, for – for he's a good man, fit to touch any woman's hand!"
His legs seemed to weaken under him. His left hand sought the window-ledge behind him, and he sank on the seat beneath. She rose from the stool and went to him, sitting down at his side, and put her hand on his right arm.
"You have been very unhappy, Gordon," she said gently. "I am not sure that you have the right perspective as yet, and I don't see in all this anything to prevent our remaining good friends. We've had so many of the good things of life, you and I, and, perhaps, it is good for one to pay for them with a little sorrow. It may prevent one from getting too conceited. And you're so much better off than if this – this hurt had come just in wrecking a motor, or in being stepped on by a polo pony, because you will always realize that it happened while you were giving the best of yourself towards helping others, towards doing big things. And perhaps, some day, you might be able to paint again. They – they make such wonderful artificial things, I have heard, with aluminum and – and stuff that's ever so light. It might take you a whole year of practice before you could do anything; but what is a year when one's heart isn't too sad and weary. Even if you can't draw as well as you used to, you could take to landscapes, done broadly and strongly. There is no one who can mass colors and produce such effects as you are able to find. When you get confidence, I know you will be able to draw also, ever so well, and, perhaps, for your first trial, you will let me come and sit here and we'll chat together as we used to, and you'll paint again."
"Never!" he exclaimed.
"Oh, yes, sometime, I'm sure, when you feel better, Gordon, because you will forgive yourself after a time. That's so much harder for a man to do than to obtain the pardon of a woman! If you really think you want mine, it is yours, with all my heart, and – "
But she stopped, looking at him wistfully, her long lashes wet, her voice faintly tremulous. I knew that she would have granted him not only the pardon he had sued for, but also her strong and noble self, if he had begged for it.
He probably forgot his missing hand, for he swept the silk-wrapped thing across his eyes.
"You must think again, Sophia," he said very slowly. "You can't really mean it. Do you indeed feel that you can forgive me? Is it true that in your heart there is such charity?"
"It – I don't think it's charity, Gordon. I – I'm afraid it's something more than that. Perhaps you don't know as much as you think about women's hearts. Ask our friend David, here, he has looked into them very wisely, or he couldn't have written 'Land o' Love.' And now I think I must be going away. You mustn't use that word charity again, it is one that hurts just the least little bit. It's so dreadfully inexpressive, you know! And – and you'll write to me when you want me, won't you?"
"I want you now!" he cried. "I'd give the last drop of my blood for a shred of hope, for the knowledge that things might again, some day – "
"One moment, Gordon dear," she said, smiling through her tears, and looked into a tiny gold-meshed bag from which she pulled out a ring with a glistening stone. "I have always kept it. Do you mean that you would like me to put it on again?"
"Do, for the love of God!" he cried.
"Yes, and of dear old Gordon," she consented gently.
So I rose, quickly, with something very big and uncomfortable in my throat, and looked at my watch.
"I must run," I said. "I am ever so late. I'll come in again to-morrow, Gordon! God bless you both!"
I only heard, confusedly, the word or two with which they sought to detain me, but I ran away.
She had said that I knew women's hearts. God forgive her! What man on earth can penetrate such things, can ever gauge the depths of them, see all the wondrous beauty that may hide in them and blossom forth, full of awe and wonder. Every one must worship something, if it be but an idea, and my reverence goes out to the woman who exalts, to the mother of men, to the consoler, for, when she is at her highest and best, she becomes an object of veneration among such earthly things as we may bend a knee to.
The man had remained strong in his abasement, and the woman had seen it. She had been unembarrassed by my presence. Hers was the strength that spurns all pettiness. She knew that I loved Gordon and was assured of my regard for herself. If in her words there had been renunciation and the casting away of wounded pride, if in them there had been the surging of the great love that had long filled her heart, the whole world was welcome to hear them and to behold her while she gave her troth again into the man's keeping. She had risen above the smallness of recrimination, and, with a gesture, had swept away the past since in it there was nothing really shameful, nothing that could soil her ermine coat of fair and clean womanhood. Her faith in the man had returned, and, with it, the confidence born of her instinctive knowledge of a pure woman's mastery over men. She knew that Gordon had beheld those visions of hell that strengthen a man's dire need of heaven, and so, in all simplicity and with the wondrous openhandedness of a Ceres sowing abroad a world's supply of germinating seed, she had cast the treasure of herself before him.