Lot & Company
Date: 2022-09-24T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Shipwreck survival -- Fiction; Clerks -- Fiction; Ocean travel -- Fiction

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lot & Company

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Lot & Company

Author: Will Levington Comfort

Release date: September 24, 2022 [eBook #69038]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: George H. Doran Company, 1915

Credits: D A Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by University of California libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOT & COMPANY ***

LOT & COMPANY

BY WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT

Lot & Company
Red Fleece
Midstream
Down Among Men
Fatherland

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
NEW YORK

Lot & Company

BY

WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT

AUTHOR OF “RED FLEECE,” “MIDSTREAM,” “DOWN AMONG
MEN,” “ROUTLEDGE RIDES ALONE,”
ETC., ETC.

NEW YORK

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

Copyright, 1915,
By George H. Doran Company

TO
JANE

CONTENTS

| PAGE
PART ONE
The Jade: I | | 11
PART TWO
Lot & Company: I | | 21
PART THREE
The Jade: II | | 67
PART FOUR
The Open Boat | | 107
PART FIVE
The Stone House: I | | 197
PART SIX
Lot & Company: II | | 241
PART SEVEN
The Stone House: II | | 321

PART ONE
THE JADE: I

1

All would have happened differently for Bellair had he been drowsy as usual on this particular Sunday afternoon. The boarding-house was preparing for its nap; indeed already half enveloped, but there came to Bellair’s nostrils a smell of carpets that brought back his first passage up stairs five years before. The halls were filled with greys—dull tones that drove him forth at last. It was November, and the day didn’t know what to do next. Gusts of seasonable wind, wisps of sunshine, threats of rain, and everywhere Bellair’s old enemy—the terrifying Sabbath calm, without which the naked granite soul of New York would remain decently hid. Sundays had tortured him from the beginning. It was not so bad when the garment was on—the weave of millions.

He walked east with an umbrella, thinking more than observing, crossed to Brooklyn and followed the water-front as closely as the complication of ferries, pier-systems and general shipping would permit. Finally he came to a wooden arch, marked Hatmos & Company, the gate of which was open. Entering, he heard the water slapping the piles beneath, his eyes held in fascination to an activity ahead. In the wonder of a dream, he realised that this was a sailing-ship putting forth. On her black stern, he read

Jade of Adelaide
printed in blue of worn pigment.

A barkentine, her clipper-built hull of steel, her lines satisfying like the return of a friend after years. Along the water-line shone the bright edge of her copper sheathing; then a soft black line smooth as modelled clay where she muscled out for sea-worth, and covered her displacement in the daring beauty of contour. Still above was the shining brass of her row of ports on a ground of weathered grey, and the dull red of her rail. Over all, and that which quickened the ardour of Bellair’s soul, was the mystery of her wire rigging and folded cloths against the smoky horizon, exquisite as the frame of a butterfly to his fancy.

His emotion is not to be explained; nor another high moment of his life which had to do with a flashing merchantman seen from the water-front at San Francisco—square-rigged throughout, a cloud of sail-cloth, her royals yet to be lifted, as she got underweigh. He knew that considerable canvas was still spread between California, Australia and the Islands, but what a well-kept if ancient maiden of the Jade’s species was doing here in New York harbour, A. D. Nineteen hundred and odd, was not disclosed to Bellair until afterward, and not clearly then.

He knew her for a barkentine, and in the intensely personal appeal of the moment he was a bit sorry for the blend. To his eyes the schooner-rig of mizzen and main masts was not to be compared for beauty to the trisected fore. Still he reflected that square-rigged throughout, she would be crowded with crew to care for her, and that her concession to trade was at least not outright. Schooner, bark and brig—he seemed to know them first hand, not only from pictures and pages of print, though there had been many long evenings of half-dream with books before him—books that always pushed back impatiently through the years of upstart Steam into Nature’s own navigation, where Romance has put on her brave true form in the long perspective. Ships that really sailed were one of Bellair’s passions, like orchards and vined stone-work—all far from him apparently and out of the question—loved the more because of it.... He watched with rapt eyes now, estimated the Jade’s length at one-seventy-five and was debating her tonnage when a huge ox of a man appeared from the cabin (while the Jade slid farther out), waddled aft as if bare-footed, spoke to an officer there, and then held up two brown hairy, thick-fingered hands, palms extended to the pier—as if to push Brooklyn from him forever.... The officer’s voice just reached shore, but not his words. A Japanese woman appeared on the receding deck.

“Jade of Adelaide,” muttered Bellair, moments afterward.

A tug was towing her straight toward Staten. He thought of her lying off the glistening white beach of a coral island two months hence, surrounded by native craft, all hands helping the big man get ashore.... At this moment a young man emerged from the harbour-front door of the Hatmos office, locking it after him. Bellair came up from his dream. Such realities of the city man are mainly secret. It was the worn surface that Bellair presented to the stranger, a sophisticated and imperturbable surface, and one employed so often that its novelty was gone.

“Where’s she going?” he asked.

“Who?”

Bellair smiled at the facetiousness.

“The Jade,” he said gently.

“Just as far from here as she can get.”

“Round the world?”

“I doubt if she’ll come back.”

“You don’t see many of them any more——”

“No,” replied the other agreeably enough, “this old dame and two or three sisters are about all that call here. Hatmos & Co. get ’em all.”

“Will you have a little drink?” Bellair inquired. “That is, if you know a place around here. I’m from across.”

The other was not unwilling. They walked up the pier together. A place was found.

“Does the Jade belong to the Hatmos people?” Bellair asked.

“No. We’re agents for Stackhouse. By the way, he’s aboard the Jade—just left the office a half hour ago. The Hatmos son and heir went home in a cab, like his father used to, when Stackhouse blew in from the South Seas——”

“The big man who stood aft as the ship cleared?” Bellair suggested.

“Hairy neck—clothes look like pajamas?”

“Yes.”

“That must have been Stackhouse. He’s the biggest man in Peloponasia——”

Bellair wondered if he meant Polynesia. “You mean in size?”

“Possibly that, but I meant—interests. Owns whole islands and steam-fleets, but hates steam. Does his pleasure riding under canvas. Comes up to New York every third year with a new Japanese wife. Used to spend his time drinking with old Hatmos—now he’s trying to kill off the younger generation. Lives at the Florimel while in New York, and teaches the dago barboys how to make tropical drinks. If he had stayed longer, he would have got to me. Young Hatmos is about finished.”

Bellair breathed deeply, strangely alive. “Where does the Jade call first after leaving here?”

“Savannah—then one or two South American ports—then around the Horn and the long up-beat to the Islands.”

“Why, that might mean four months.” Bellair spoke with a touch of wistfulness.

They emerged to the street at length, and the New Yorker started shyly back to the pier. The Hatmos man laughed.

“You fall for the sailing-stuff, don’t you?”

“Yes, it’s got me. Do they take passengers?”

“Sure, if you’re in no hurry. Here and there, some one like you—just for the voyage. Two or three on board from here.... One a preacher. He’d better look out. Stackhouse hates to drink alone.”

“Thanks. Good-bye.”

The Jade, far and very little among the liners, had turned south to the Narrows and was spreading her wings.... The world began to shut Bellair in, as he crossed the river again. Sunday night supper at the boarding-house was always a dismal affair; by every manner and means it was so to-night. The chorus woman of the Hippodrome was bolting ahead of the bell, to hurry away to rehearsal. Nightly she came up out of the water.... He tried three sea-books that night—“Lady Letty,” “Lord Jim” and “The Phantom,” but couldn’t get caught in their old spell. A new and personal dimension was upon him from the afternoon. He fell to dreaming again and again of the Jade—the last misty glimpse of her at the Narrows, and the huge brown hands pushing Brooklyn away.... There is pathos in the city man’s love and need for fresh air. Bellair pulled his bed to the window at last, surveying the room without regard. Long afterward he dreamed that he was out on the heaving floor of the sea, and that a man-monster came down from the deck in pajamas, and pressing his hands against the walls of the cabin, made respiration next to impossible for the inmate. There was a key to this suffocation, for the air in his room was still as a pool. A lull had fallen upon the city before a gusty storm of wind and rain.

PART TWO
LOT & COMPANY: I

1

Bellair regarded himself as an average man; and after all perhaps this was the most significant thing about him. He was not average to look at—the face of a student and profoundly kind—and yet, he had moved in binding routine for five years that they knew of at Lot & Company’s. His acquaintances were of the average type. He did not criticise them; you would not have known that he saw them with something of the same sorrow that he regarded himself.

Back of this five years was an Unknowable. Had you possessed exactly the perception you might have caught a glimpse of some extraordinary culture that comes from life in the older lands, and personal contacts with deeper evils—the culture of the great drifters, the inimitable polish of rolling stones. As a usual thing he would not have shown you any of this. At Lot & Company’s offices, men had moved and talked and lunched near and with him for years without uncovering a gleam of a certain superb equipment for life which really existed in a darkened room of his being.

Perhaps he was still in preparation. We have not really completed the circle of any accomplishment until we have put it in action. Certainly Bellair had not done that, since the Unknowable ended. He had made no great friends among men or women; though almost thirty, he had met no stirring love affair, at least in this period. He had done the most common duties of trade, for a common reward in cash; lived in a common house—moved in crowds of common men and affairs. It was as if he were a spy, trained from a child, but commanded at the very beginning of his manhood, not only to toil and serve in an insignificant post—but to be insignificant as well. It was by accident, for instance, that they discovered at Lot & Company’s that Bellair was schooled in the Sanscrit.

Before usual he was astir that Monday morning, but late at the office for all that. A drop of consciousness somewhere between shoe-buttons, and a similar trance between collar and tie. In these lapses a half hour was lost, and queerly enough afterward the old purports of his life did not hold together as before. A new breath from somewhere, a difference in vitality, and the hum-drum, worn-sore consciousness given to his work with Lot & Company, had become like an obscene relative, to be rid of, even at the price of dollars and the established order of things. It had been very clear as he drank his coffee that he must give quit-notice at the office, yet when he reached there, this was not so easy, and he was presently at work as usual in his cage with Mr. Sproxley, the cashier.

The Quaker firm of Lot & Company was essentially a printing establishment. During the first half of the period in which Bellair had been connected, though he was not stupider than usual, he had not realised the crooked weave of the entire inner fabric of the house. Lot & Company had been established for seventy-five years and through three generations. Its conduct was ordered now like a process of nature, a systematised tone to each surface manner and expression. All the departments were strained and deformed to meet and adjust in the larger current of profit which the cashier had somehow bridged without scandal for twenty-seven years. Personally, so far as Bellair knew, Mr. Sproxley was an honest man, though not exactly of the manner, and underpaid.

The cashier’s eyes were black, a black that would burn you, and unquestionably furtive, although Bellair sat for two years at a little distance from the cashier’s desk before he accepted the furtiveness, so deeply laid and set and hardened were his first impressions. They were hard eyes as well, like that anthracite which retains its gleaming black edge, though the side to the draft is red to the core.

Mr. Sproxley’s home was in Brooklyn, an hour’s ride from the office—a little flat in a street of little flats, all with the same porches, brickwork and rusty numerals. An apartment for two, and yet Mr. and Mrs. Sproxley had not moved, though five black-eyed children had come to them. The cashier of Lot & Company was a stationary man—that was his first asset.... A hundred times Bellair had heard the old formula, delivered by firm members to some caller at the office:

“This is our cashier, Mr. Sproxley. He has been with us twenty-seven years. We have found him the soul of honour”—the last trailing off into a whisper—a hundred times in almost the same words, for the Lots and the Wetherbees bred true. The visitor would be drawn off and confidently informed that Mr. Sproxley would die rather than leave a penny unaccounted; indeed, that his zeal on the small as well as large affairs was frequently a disturbance to the office generally, since everything stopped until the balance swung free. Bellair knew of this confidential supplement to the main form, because he had taken it into his own pores on an early day of his employment. The lift of that first talk (in Bellair’s case it was from the elder Wetherbee, an occasional Thee and Thou escaping with unworldly felicity) was for Bellair sometime to attain a similar rock-bound austerity of honour.... Always the stranger glanced a second time at Mr. Sproxley during the firm-member’s low-voiced affirmation of his passionate integrity.

Passing to the second floor, the visitor would meet Mr. Hardburg, head of the manuscript and periodical department, for Lot & Company had found a good business in publishing books of story and poetry at the author’s expense. Here eye and judgment reigned, Mr. Hardburg’s, on all matters of book-dress and criticism; yet within six or seven minutes, the formula would break through for the attention of the caller, thus:

“Lot & Company is a conservative House—that’s why it stands—a House, sir (one felt the Capital), that has stood for seventy-five years on a basis of honour and fair dealing, if on a conservative basis. Lot & Company stands by its agents and employés first and last. Lot & Company does not plunge, but over any given period of time, its progress is apparent and its policy significantly successful.”

Mr. Hardburg’s eyes kindled as he spoke—grey tired eyes, not at all like Mr. Sproxley’s—but the light waned, and Mr. Hardburg quickly relapsed into ennui and complaint, for he was a living sick man. The impression one drew from his earlier years, was that he had overstrained as an athlete, and been a bit loose and undone ever since.... Now Mr. Hardburg would be called away for a moment, leaving the stranger in the office with Miss Rinderley, his assistant. With fluent and well directed sentences, this lady would outline the triumphs of Mr. Hardburg from college to the mastery of criticism which he was now granted professionally.

“But what we love best about him,” Miss Rinderley would say, glancing at the enlarged photograph above his desk, “is the tireless way he helps young men. Always he is at that. I have seen him talk here for an hour—when the most pressing matters of criticism and editorial responsibility called—literally giving himself to some one needing help. Very likely he would miss his train for the country. Poor Mr. Hardburg, he needs his rest so——”

The caller would cry in his heart, “What a superb old institution this is!” and cover his own weaknesses and shortcomings in a further sheath of mannerism and appreciation—the entire atmosphere strangely prevailing to help one to stifle rather than to ventilate his real points of view.

So the establishment moved. The groups of girls going up and down the back stairs—to count or tie or paste through all their interesting days—counted the heads of their respective departments as their greatest men; spoke of them in awed whispers, in certain cases with maternal affection, and on occasion even with playful intimacy on the part of a few—but always as a master-workman, the best man in the business, who expressed the poorest part of himself in words, and had to be lived with for years adequately to be appreciated and understood.

Mr. Nathan Lot, the present head of the firm, was a dreamer. It was Mr. Sproxley who had first told Bellair this, but he heard it frequently afterward, came to recognise it as the accepted initial saying as regarded the Head, just as his impeccable honour was Mr. Sproxley’s and unerring critical instinct Mr. Hardburg’s titular association. Mr. Nathan was the least quarrelsome man anywhere, the quietest and the gentlest—a small bloodless man of fifty, aloof from business; a man who had worn and tested himself so little that you would imagine him destined to live as long again, except for the lugubrious atmospheres around his desk, in the morning especially, the sense of imperfect ventilation, though the partitions were but half-high to the lower floor and there was a thousand feet to draw from. The same was beginning in Jabez, the son, something pent, non-assimilation somewhere. However Jabez wasn’t a dreamer; at least, dreaming had not become his identifying proclivity. He was a head taller than his father with a wide limp mouth and small expressionless brown eyes—twenty-seven, and almost as many times a millionaire.

Jabez was richer than his father, who was the direct heir of the House of Lot, but his father’s dreaming had complicated the flow of another huge fortune in the familiar domestic fashion—Jabez being the symbol and centre of the combination; also the future head of the House of Lot and Company—up and down town.

Bellair wondered a long time what the pervading dream of the father was. He had been in the office many months, had never heard the senior-mind give vent to authoritative saying in finance, literature, science or prints; and while this did not lower his estimate at all—he was sincerely eager to get at the sleeping force of this giant. Mr. Sproxley spoke long on the subject, but did not know. Mr. Hardburg said:

“I have been associated with Mr. Nathan for eleven years now. The appeal of his worth is not eager and insinuating, but I have this to say—that in eleven years I have found myself slipping, slipping into a mysterious, a different regard, a profounder friendliness—if one might put it that way—for Mr. Nathan, than any I have known in my whole career. The fact is I love Mr. Nathan. He is one of the sweetest spirits I ever knew.”

Bellair was interested in dreamers; had a theory that dreaming was important. When he heard that a certain child was inclined to dreaming, he was apt to promise a significant future off-hand. He reflected that even Mr. Hardburg had forgotten to tell him of the tendency in Mr. Nathan’s case, but determined not to give up.... Once in the lower part of the city, he passed the firm-head—a studious little man making his way along at the edge of the walk. Bellair spoke before he thought. Mr. Nathan started up in a dazed way, appeared to recognise him with difficulty, as if there was something in the face that the hat made different. He cleared his voice and inquired with embarrassment:

“Are you going to the store?”

After Bellair had ceased to regret speaking, he reflected upon the word “store.” The president of a great manufacturing plant, content to be known as a tradesman—an excellent, a Quaker simplicity about that.

Bellair’s particular friend in the establishment was Broadwell of the advertising-desk, a young man of his own age who was improving himself evenings and who aspired to be a publisher. But even closer to his heart was Davy Acton, one of the office-boys, who had been tested out and was not a liar. A sincere sad-faced lad of fifteen, who lived with his mother somewhere away down town. He looked up to Bellair as to a man among men, one who had achieved. This was hard to bear on the man’s part, but he was fond of the youngster and often had him over Sundays, furnishing books of his own and recommending others. Davy believed in him. This was the sensation.

The only voices that were ever raised in the establishment were those of the travelling salesmen. The chief of this department, Mr. Rawter, was loud-voiced in his joviality. That was his word—“Mr. Rawter is so jovial.”

When the roaring joviality of Mr. Rawter boomed through the lower floor, old Mr. Wetherbee, the vice-president, would look up from his desk, and remark quietly to any one who happened near, “Mr. Rawter is forced to meet the trade, you know.” It was doubtless his gentle Quaker conception that wine-lists, back-slapping and whole-souled abandonment of to-morrow, were essentials of the road and trade affiliation. From the rear of the main floor, back among the piles of stock, reverberating among great square monuments of ledgers and pamphlets were the jovial voices of the other salesmen, Mr. Rawter’s seconds, the Middle-west man, and the Coast-and-South man—voices slightly muffled, as became their station, but regular in joviality, and doubtless as boom-compelling afield as their chief’s, considering their years.

Otherwise the elder Mr. Wetherbee—Mr. Seth—presided over a distinguished silence for the main. His desk was open to the floor at large. He was seventy, and one of the first to arrive in the morning—a vice-president who opened the mail, and had in expert scrutiny such matters as employment, salaries, orders and expenses of the travelling men on the road. Mr. Seth was not a dreamer; at least not on week-days—a millionaire, who gave you the impression that he was constantly on his guard lest his heart-quality should suddenly ruin all. The love, the very ardour of his soul was to give away—to dissipate the fortunes of his own and the firm-members, but so successfully had he fought all his life on the basis of considering the justice to his family and his firm, that Lot & Company now relied upon him, undoubting. Thus often a man born with weakness develops it into his particular strength....

The son, Eben Wetherbee, was harder for Bellair to designate. He seemed a different force, and called forth secret regard. A religious young man, who always occurred to Bellair’s mind as he had once seen him, crossing the Square a summer evening, a book under his arm, his short steps lifted and queerly rounded, as if treading a low-geared sprocket; toes straight out—the whole gait mincing a little. Eben was smileless and a great worker. He had no more to do or say with his father during working hours than any of the others.

Such was the firm: Mr. Nathan Lot and his son Jabez; Mr. Seth Wetherbee and his son Eben, and Mr. Rawter who had been given a nominal quantity of stock after thirty-five years’ service. In due course Mr. Sproxley would qualify for this illumination.... And yet not all. Staring down from the arch over the president’s door was a dour, white, big-chinned face, done in oils long ago—almost yellow-white, the black shoulder deadening away into the background; small eyes, wide mouth, but firmly hung—grandfather to Mr. Nathan, but no dreamer; great grand-sire to Mr. Jabez, but nothing loose-mouthed about the face of this, the original Jabez Lot,—organising genius of the House, and its first president, spoken of with awe and reverence; the first millionaire of the family and builder of its Gramercy mansion.... Suddenly, it had come to Bellair that this was the spirit of the Store, this picture was its symbol, that the slow strangulation of the souls of all concerned had begun in that white head, the planting of this bed of crooked canes.

2

One morning when Bellair was well into his third year with the printing-firm, the silence was broken on the lower floor. He was shaken that day into the real secret of the house. A certain Mr. Prentidd had been in conversation with Mr. Rawter some moments. The jovial voice of [Pg 33]the head-salesman was without significance to those near his partition—a part of the routine. Mr. Prentidd had invented a combination ledger and voucher-file that was having some sale in America, being manufactured and distributed by Lot & Company. Mr. Rawter on a recent trip abroad had been empowered to dispose of the English rights. The result, it now appeared, did not prove satisfactory to the inventor. The voice of the latter was raised. One felt the entire building subside into a quivering hush.

“I tell you, sir, I don’t trust you. I have heard in fact that the only way you could hurt your reputation here in New York or on the road would be to tell the truth.”

To Bellair there was something deeply satisfying in that remark of the inventor’s—something long awaited and very good. He saw Mr. Seth arise, his chin moving in a sickly fashion, a very old pathetic Mr. Seth. He realised that Mr. Rawter had laughed—that something had been burned from that laugh. Mr. Prentidd was hurried forth, and the nullifying system began. Mr. Jabez emerged from his father’s office and turning to Broadwell at the advertising-desk, said in a tone universally penetrative:

“What a pity that Mr. Prentidd drinks. There are few men finer to deal with when he is himself.”

Mr. Seth, in his chair again, sitting frog-like and gasping, remarked to Mr. Sproxley across the distance: “I really must ask Mr. Prentidd to come to us earlier in the day. He’s far too worthy a man to disgrace himself in this way.”

Bellair wondered that the point of Mr. Prentidd’s remark seemed entirely lost. As for himself he counted it worthy of regard. The episode was but begun. The inventor returned immediately, just as Mr. Rawter was stepping out. The two men met in the main corridor. It appeared that Mr. Prentidd repeated a certain question, for the head-salesman replied, the roundness of the joviality gone from his voice:

“I tell you, Mr. Prentidd, the situation has changed. I could not dispose of the English order at a better figure to save my soul. I extracted every cent for you and for the House.”

“I don’t believe you. Other matters of the same kind do better. If you speak the truth, you made a very bad bargain for yourself and what is more important, for me——”

The least like an inventor imaginable, a most physical person, Mr. Prentidd, with a fiery sense of his own rights and a manner as soft as his voice was penetrating. He turned a leisurely look of scorn at Mr. Rawter, half-stare and half-smile, then appeared to perceive the elder Mr. Wetherbee for the first time. The old man arose. Bellair felt the agony of expectancy far back among the stock-piles. The inventor shot straight at the vice-president:

“You’re an old man. I’ll trust your word. You’re an old man and a Quaker—yes, I’ll take your word. Your man, Rawter, says he could get only seven and one-half cents’ royalty for me on my Nubian file from England. I say it’s only half what I should get. Is it true—remember you’re old. Is it true?”

Prentidd’s face had power in it, exasperation and the remains of a laugh. It appeared that he was content to take a gambler’s chance and close the ugly business on Mr. Seth’s word.

The old man’s eye roved. He looked sick and shaken. He found the eyes of his son Eben which were full of terror and pity and hope.

“Answer me. Could Lot & Company get no more than fifteen cents altogether on the English patents?”

Mr. Wetherbee’s lips moved. “That’s all we could get, Mr. Prentidd. I’m sorry,” he said.

For an instant Mr. Prentidd stood there. It was evident that he had expected a different answer. True to his promise to take the old man’s word, however, he turned on his heel and walked out.

On the high sloping desk before Bellair’s eyes, a big ledger lay open. He had turned during the talk to the transaction of Prentidd—Lot & Company. The English disposal had been arranged for at twenty-five cents the file, royalty. Apparently Mr. Prentidd had agreed upon an even split, but Lot & Company had taken seventeen and the fraction.

Bellair was ill. The nausea crept down through his limbs, and up to his throat. The thing had worked out before him with such surety and clarity. The head of Mr. Sproxley moved about as if on a swivel, his body in writing position still. Presently he stepped down from his high stool, and came to Bellair’s side. Placing his pen behind his ear, he lifted the ledger from under Bellair’s eyes, his lips compressed with the effort. Then he placed it on his own desk to close it tenderly, after which it was taken to its niche in the vault.

The office was silent. Just now Bellair’s eyes turned as if subtly attracted to the place where Eben Wetherbee sat. The young man’s smileless eyes, almost insane with apprehension and sadness, were turned with extraordinary intent upon the place where his father sat. Bellair’s followed. The old man sat plumped in his chair; he gulped, tried to turn. His face looked as if he heard a ghost whispering. Yet he seemed unable to trust himself, hardly daring to meet the eyes that awaited. His hands lifted to the papers before him, but did not feel properly. He seemed a man of eighty. Mr. Eben came forward at last and asked Mr. Sproxley if he might look at the Prentidd transaction.

“It isn’t posted yet, Mr. Eben,” said the cashier.

At the side door at closing time, Bellair happened to pass a party of young women coming down from the bindery. One was saying:

“... and Mr. Prentidd was quite helpless after the scene—so that they had to call a taxi-cab for him. Isn’t it dreadful he drinks so?”

There was a personal result for Bellair, which he at no time misunderstood.

“We have considered creating a position for you next to Mr. Sproxley,” said the elder Mr. Wetherbee, the second morning following.

Bellair bowed.

“Since you have been with us less than three years, this is very good comment on the character of your services and our hope for your future with us——”

“What additional salary goes with the position?” Bellair had asked.

“If I followed my own inclination, it would be considerable. I have been able to secure for you, however, but a slight increase——”

This was one of Mr. Seth’s little ways. He added hopes of fine quality. There was a further point:

“You will at times handle considerable money and we must insist upon your putting in trust for us the sum of two thousand dollars.”

“I haven’t two thousand dollars, Mr. Wetherbee,” Bellair said.

“Of course, we trust you. It is a form—a form, nevertheless, upon which a valuable relation of this kind should be placed on a business basis.”

Bellair repeated.

“But you have friends——”

“Not with two thousand dollars’ surety for me—no friend like that.”

“Banks insist upon this—among those employés who handle much money——”

“I know—but that amount cannot be arranged.”

“How much can you put in trust available to Lot & Company in event of your departure——”

“I have slightly less than one thousand dollars——”

“Could you raise one thousand dollars?”

“With some effort.”

“Of course, it will draw interest for you——”

“I understand these affairs.”

The matter was referred to the next day when it was decided to accept Bellair’s amount of one thousand dollars, which Lot & Company could not touch without his consent, except in the event of his departure with company funds; and which Bellair could not draw without written statement from Lot & Company to the effect that he was leaving with a balanced account.

Thereafter he was one with Mr. Sproxley in the financial management, under the eye of Seth Wetherbee. One by one he learned the points of the system. Wherever the accounts had run over a series of years, there were byways of loot. These pilferings were not made at once, on the same basis that a gardener does not cut asparagus for market from young roots. The plants were encouraged to establish themselves. After that the open market was supplied with a certain output, the rest belonging to Lot & Company’s table. It frequently occurred to Bellair with a sort of enveloping darkness that he had the institution in his power; and with a different but equal force that he had a life position in all naturalness; that his life would be spent with slowly increasing monetary reward for juggling the different accounts—the field of crooked canes which was the asparagus-bed of Lot & Company. He did not like it. He was not happy; and yet he realised that the adjustments his nature had already made to the facts, suggested an entire adjustment later, the final easy acceptance.

3

Bellair had thought many times of getting out from under the die, but it never came to [Pg 40]him with quite the force as on that Monday morning, after watching the Jade fare forth from the Brooklyn water-front. Something had turned within him as a result of that little pilgrimage, something that spurred to radicalism and self-assertion. At no time had Bellair credited himself with a fairer honesty than most men. He had never given it a large part of thinking. Roughly he had believed that to be honest is the common lot. The corruption in the office which he could not assimilate had to do with extensive ramifications, its lying to itself. The instant seizing upon Mr. Prentidd’s alleged weakness on the part of the younger Lot and the elder Wetherbee; the action of Mr. Sproxley with the ledger; the subtle will-breaking and spiritual blinding of all the employés in a process that never slept and was operative in every thought and pulse of the establishment—the extent and talent of these, and the untellable blackness of it all, prevailed upon Bellair with the force of a life-impression.

Bellair’s present devil was a kind of inertia. Granting that the Unknowable had been charged with periods of intense action of several kinds, the recent half-decade might be regarded as its reflex condition. There is an ebb and flow to all things, and it is easier to adjust Bellair’s years at Lot & Company as a sort of resting period for his faculties, than to accept a constitutional inertia in his case, for subsequent events do not quite bear that out. He doubtless belonged to that small class of down town men who do their work well enough, but without passion, who have faced the modern world and its need of bread and cake, and who have compromised, giving hours in exchange for essential commodities, but nothing like the full energies of their lives. It is a way beset with pitfalls, but the unavoidable result of a system that multiplies products and profits and minimizes the chances for fine workmanship on every hand. Moreover in Bellair’s case there is a philosophical detachment to be considered. The aims and purports of the printing establishment were coldly and absolutely material. These did not challenge him to any fine or full expenditure of his powers; and if he had touched that higher zone of philosophy which makes a consecration of the simplest and the heaviest tasks, he had at least found it impracticable to make it work among the systems of Lot & Company’s business.

The two years or more since he was made assistant cashier had brought many further items and exhibits. He was now used on the left hand side of the throne, developed in the darkness-department already overworked, the eye of which was Mr. Seth and the hand, Mr. Sproxley. For as yet Bellair believed that even Eben Wetherbee had only suspicions. This was the bite of the whole drama. There were men in the building who would have died for their conviction that the House was honest. You might have told these men that Lot & Company was a morgue of conservatism; that having existed under a certain policy for seventy-five years, was the chief reason for its changing; that free, unhampered genius never found utterance through that House—and any of a dozen clerks would have laughed, spoken proudly of unerring dividends and uncanny stability, granting the rest. But that Lot & Company was structurally crooked was incredible except to the few who performed the trick. Bellair knew, for instance, that his best friend in the office, Broadwell, head of the advertising, was innocent....

Monday passed without his giving notice. He quailed before the questions that would be asked. If it were not for the one thousand dollars, he would have escaped with a mere “Good-night,” though a panic would have started until the Company was assured of the innocence of his departure. As for a panic, Lot & Company had that coming, he thought. Now he knew that he would not be able to get his surety-deposit until all was made certain in his regard by the firm....

Bellair wasn’t greedy, nor caught in any great desire for wealth. He had fallen into the Down town Stream, but did not belong. Every month had weakened him. He disliked to lose his beginnings toward competence; all the subtle pressures of Lot & Company worked upon him not to change. There was no other way open. He had been touched by the fear of fear—a sort of poorhouse horror that dogs men up into the millions and down to the grave. In a way, he had become slave to the Job. He even had the suspicion that more men maim their souls by sticking to their jobs than by any dissipation. This is the way to the fear of fear—the insane undertow of modern materialism.

He had tried to find peace outside his work in music and different philanthropies, but the people he met, their seriousness, perhaps more than anything else, and the vanity of their intellectualism, aroused his sense of humour. Bellair believed in the many, but was losing belief in himself. Often he had turned back to evenings in the room, and realised that the days were draining him too much for his own real expression of any kind. Always he felt that Lot & Company was too strong for his temper, that his edge was dulled in every contact. From his depressions, he saw ahead only two ways—a life of this, or a moment in which he had Lot & Company in his power unequivocably. The last was poisonous, and he knew it. He would have to fall considerably to profit by this sort of thing, but the inevitable conclusion of the whole matter, was that the life with Lot & Company was slowly but surely getting him down.

On Tuesday noon, Mr. Seth asked him to take to lunch a certain young stationer from Philadelphia, named Filbrick. They were made acquainted in the corridor. Passing out, Bellair and his companion met the smile of Mr. Sproxley. Bellair began the formula of the cashier’s absolute and autocratic integrity. He did not really hear himself, until he reached this part:

“I happen to be in the financial department. Two or three times each year, the whole office is thrown into a mess over some little strayed account——”

He stopped. It was less that he was saying this, than that he had come so far without a nudge from within. They had passed the big front doors, and met the wind of the street before he realised how deep the mannerism of the establishment had prevailed upon him. The process had passed almost into fulfilment before the truth within him had stirred from its sleep.... A very grey day. All through that luncheon he had found himself at angles from his companion, in strategic hollows, never in the level open. It wasn’t that he was different from usual, but that he was watching himself more shrewdly. His inner coherence was repeatedly broken, though the outer effects were not. He had never perceived before with such clarity that a man cannot be square and friendly to another man, when his mind and critical faculties are busy appraising him, while his eyes and lips approved and assuaged. Bellair that day realised his moral derangement—that he must be ripped open and his displaced organs corrected once for all, if anything decent was to come from him ever again.... He was still thinking in mid-afternoon, in the very trance of these thoughts, when he happened to look into Mr. Sproxley’s face. It seemed to him that there was a movement of most pitiful activities back of the red and black of Mr. Sproxley’s eyes.

There was much mental roving on Bellair’s part that week; moments in which the Monday morning abandon returned, and his self-amazement of the Tuesday luncheon, upon discovering how deeply his thoughts were imbedded in the prevailing lie. New York and the salary clutched him hard at intervals; so that he saw something of what was meant to give it up; also he saw that dreams are dreams.... Thousands of other young men would be glad to do his work, even his dirty work.

He had just returned from lunch on Friday when he started, to perceive the ruddy face and powerful frame of Mr. Prentidd darken the front door—which he had not done since his voice was last raised. Bellair was conscious of Seth Wetherbee hitching up his chair and a peculiar gasping cough from the old man, but his own eyes did not turn from the caller’s face—which moved slowly about, the pale little exchange-miss behind the first barrier, attentive to catch the stranger’s eye and answer his question. The inventor glanced slowly among desks and doors. His eye sought Sproxley, and the furtive black eyes of the latter shot down to his ledger as if crippled on the wing. His eyes held Bellair and the young man felt the scorn of ages burn through his veins—something new to his later life, yet deep in his heart, something he had known somewhere before, as if he had betrayed a good king, and his punishment had been to look that king in the eye before he died. Bellair had never hated himself as at that moment, and certainly never before felt himself identified body and soul with modern corruption, as now with scorn like a fiery astringent in his veins. The eyes of Mr. Prentidd finally settled upon the figure of Mr. Seth Wetherbee, their rays striking him abeam as it were. The old man hunched closer if anything, but did not raise his head.

The inventor was a physical person; his morals of a physical nature; his Nubian file of the same dimension and method of mind—a strong man who had to do with pain and pleasure of the flesh; his ideas of possessions were of the world. He moved softly, a soft, dangerous smile upon his lips, to the desk of the vice-president and jerked up a chair. The old man had to raise his head. It was as if the scene of three years ago was now to be continued, for Bellair saw the sorrowful, lengthened face of Mr. Eben turn from his desk in the other room and bend toward his father, whose face was intensely pathetic now in its forced smile of greeting.

“You’re not looking well—in fact, you’re looking old, Mr. Wetherbee, as if you would die pretty soon.”

“I’m not so strong as I was, Mr. Prentidd.”

Bellair couldn’t have done it, as the inventor did. Had the man stolen and ruined him—he could not have pushed on after the pathos of that.

“You’re a dirty old man—and you’ll die hard and soon—for you lied to me when I trusted you. I suppose you have lied to everybody, all your life——”

Thus he baited Mr. Seth feature by feature, pointing out the disorder of liver, kidney-puffs, the general encroachments of death, in fact. Then he pictured the death itself—all of a low literary strength as was Mr. Prentidd’s cold habit. The answer of Mr. Seth was an incoherent helplessness, his lips moving but with nothing rational under the sun, as if he had been called by some inexorable but superior being to an altitude where he was too evil to breathe, and begged piteously to be allowed to sink back and die. It was Mr. Eben who stopped it, coming forward quietly, his steps rounded, his shoulders bent, his face seeming brittle as chalk in its fixity. The thing that he said was quite absurd:

“You really mustn’t, Mr. Prentidd. It is too much.”

The inventor turned to him. His look was that of a man who turns a large morsel in his mouth.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said with a slow laugh. “There is this delicacy to old liars. Come give me my check—and I will go.”

“Your check——” Mr. Eben repeated.

“Yes, now—the check for the difference which your father’s lie cost me three years ago. I have seen the English books——”

Now young Mr. Jabez Lot came forward:

“Of course, if there has been error or any breach of contract—of course, you see a check off hand such as you ask is out of the question——”

The elder Mr. Wetherbee sank back to his desk; and now the dreamer, Mr. Nathan Lot, appeared with a frightened word of amelioration. Mr. Eben stood by the caller to the last moment. The latter was not at his best in this period—his threats and anger amounted to the usual result. Lot & Company refused to deal further, referring him to its attorney. The strangest part of it all was the gathering of three around Mr. Seth Wetherbee’s desk—Mr. Jabez and his father with Mr. Eben. Yet the concern of the Lots, father and son, had nothing to do with dangerous exhaustion of the vice-president.

“We have beaten him,” the dreamer said softly.

“Yes, Mr. Jackson will do the rest,” said Mr. Jabez. Mr. Jackson was the attorney.

Bellair, even with his training, had to take it slowly. “Beaten him”—that meant that the money had not passed to Mr. Prentidd. It was now with the law and the years—millions against a mere inventor. The psychic slaughtering of the old vice-president did not count—nothing of words counted. The firm had won, because the firm had not been knocked down and its pockets rifled—that would have meant loss. Not having been forced to pay, they had won.... Even as Bellair thought this out in full, the system of salving had begun from all the firm-heads for the benefit of those who heard. It was simply arranged and stated.... Their worst fears were realised: Mr. Prentidd was insane.... Mr. Seth went home early. Bellair knew that Mr. Eben had not been able to turn all responsibility to Mr. Jackson.... That afternoon Bellair reached his decision—in fact, he found it finished within him after the scene.

Yet he could not walk out at once, since he must have the amount of his surety, the item of interest and salary due. A certain project in his mind prevented the possibility of waiting several days for this amount to be detached from Lot & Company. Especially now after the final scene, they would make themselves very sure of his accounts and intentions. Late that Friday afternoon, it happened that considerable cash came in after banking hours. Bellair’s custom was to put this in a safety-vault until the following day. This time he held out the amount of his deposit and two years’ interest, together with the amount of his salary to date, locking up with the balance his order of release to the account of the Trust company. He determined to write a letter to Nathan Lot at once....

4

The City had a different look to him that night in his new sense of detachment. There were moments at dinner in which he felt as if he were already forgotten and out of place. Bellair had only known the one landlady in his five years of New York; yet he knew this one no better now than at the end of the first month. Perhaps there was nothing more to learn. She was anæmic of body, and yet did prodigious tasks, very quiet, very grey; and days to her were like endless rooms of the same house, all grim and uniform. She had her little ways, her continual suspicions, but all her faith was gone. Without church, without friends, without any new thought or gossip, her view of the world was neither magnified nor diminished, but greatly shortened, her eyes were almost incredibly dim. There was nothing to love about her. She was not excessively clean, nor excellent in cooking. She was like wax-work, a little dusty, her mind and all. Bellair paid her for the week, and added a present:

“Which I forgot on your birthday,” he said.

She held it in her hand. It did not seem hers. The apathy extended to all that was not actually due; all expectancy dead.

“You mean you are giving this to me?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bellair,—perhaps you will want it some time again.”

He wrote the letter to Mr. Nathan, but decided not to mail it until the last thing. He was restless over the irregularity in the money affair—had to assure himself again and again that he was taking not a cent that did not belong to him. The boarding-house was in the upper Forties between Broadway and Sixth avenue, and though he usually turned eastward for pleasure, this night he went among his own people, where even a nickle was medium of exchange. A stimulant did not exactly relieve his tension. His sense was that of loneliness, as he chose a table in Brandt’s indoor garden.

A mixed quartette presently broke into song behind him. Bellair’s thoughts were far from song. He was not expectant of music that would satisfy. Still something tugged him—again and again—until he really listened, but without turning. It was the voice of the contralto that was making an impression deep where his need was. There seemed an endless purple background to it, like a night of stars and south wind; the soft, deep volume rolled forth for him, and found itself expressed without amazement or travail. He turned now. The one voice was from the throat of a girl, just a girl, and though it was a gusty November, she was still wearing her summer hat.

The face was merely pretty, but the voice was drama; flame of poppies in the presence of a fabulous orchid. Bellair’s heart may have been particularly sensitive to impression that night. The big brilliant den known as Brandt’s did not seem to have been cast into any enchantment; and yet it was likely that Bellair knew as much about music natively and by acquisition as any one present. In fact, he had reached the state of appreciation which dares to enjoy that which appeals and to say so, having endured for several winters a zeal which rushed him from one to another musical event, intolerant of all save classic symphonies. It wasn’t the music that held him now—a high flowery operatic matter not particularly interesting nor well-done—but the contralto was just a little girl, and the round girlish breast which held nothing miraculous for the many, was sending forth tones that quivered through Bellair, spine and thigh, and thrilling his mind with a profound passion to do something for the singer—an intrinsic and clean emotion, but one which made him ashamed. For an instant, he felt himself setting out on the great adventure of his life, the faintest aroma of its romance touching his senses; something akin to his dreams in the prison of Lot & Company, and which he had not sensed at all since his departure, until this instant. Quickly it passed; yet he had the sense that this great romance had to do with the little singer.

At once he wanted to take her from the other three; dreamed of working for her, so that she might have the chance she craved. Of course, she wanted something terribly; passionate want always went with such a voice. He saw her future alone. Some vampire of a manager would hear her. She would tie up—the little summer hat told him that. She would tie up, and New York would take her bloom before the flower matured—would take more than her little song. Here she was in Brandt’s already, and singing as if for the angels.

Bellair was four-fifths undiscovered country, as are all men but the very few, who dare to be themselves. Already the world was calling to him sharply for this first step aside from the worn highways of the crowd. He had not been normal to-night, even in his room; and his present adventure had already summoned forth all the hateful reserves of his training, as Prentidd’s departure had started the lies through the floors and halls of Lot & Company. His heart was calling out to the little singer, that here was a friend, one who understood and wanted nothing but to give; yet all that he had learned from the world was beating him back into the crowd.

He saw that the music had hardly penetrated the vast vulgar throng. New York is so accustomed to be amused, to dine to music and forget itself in various entertainments, that the quartette barely held its own against the routine of eating and drink and the voices of rising stimulation. It was Bellair who started the little applause when the first number was over. He hated to do it. The clapping of hands drew to himself eyes that he did not care to cultivate, but it seemed the only way just then to help her to make good.

The four of the quartette looked at him curiously, appraising his value as a critic, perhaps. Was he drunk or really appealed to? Was he worth considering? Applause at any price is dearly to be had. They took him in good faith, since he was not without desirable appearance. The young girl and the tenor arose and sang:

“Oh, that we two were Maying——”

The old song was a kind of fulfilment for Bellair, and preciously wrung his heart. He had never been Maying; wasn’t sure what sort of holidays were pulled off in regular Mayings; but he liked the song, and for all he knew the familiar sentiment was evoked bewitchingly. Many others now caught the thrall. These things are infectious. From hatred, he came to love Brandt’s—as if he had come home, and had been long away hungering—as if this were life, indeed.... They sang the last verse again, and sat down for hurried refreshment. The four were very near. The young girl caught Bellair’s eye, regarded him shyly for an instant, and turned to whisper to the bass, who seemed in charge of the four.

“... Yes, but hurry back. We’ve got to pull out of here.”

Bellair wasn’t dangling. Never had he been more intent to be decent and helpful. No one knew this. Even the girl was far from expectant. ... She sat down beside him.

“Hello,” she said. “You don’t live in New York, do you?”

“Yes, why?”

“Oh, you looked so homesick—when we sang.”

Bellair’s heart sank.

“I think I was homesick. What may I order for you?”

“A little Rhine wine—it’s very good here—and a sandwich——”

The waiter was standing by. Bellair had to clear his voice before ordering. He was distressed—up to his eyes in gloom that was general and without name.

5

“Do you sing in other places to-night?”

“Oh, yes, we’re just beginning. We’re on Broadway at eleven.”

“Where?”

“First at Pastern’s, then at the Castle.”

These places were just without the orbit of extravagance. She knew her answer was not exactly a stock-raiser, and added:

“But I expect to be on the road in the Spring——”

“Who with?”

She mentioned a light opera troupe that was just short of broad and unqualified approval—like Brandt’s and Pastern’s—an institution as yet without that mysterious toppiness which needs no props and meets sanction anywhere. These things are exactly ordered.

“But you are so good—you should be with people who would help you.”

She looked at him a little scornfully, something of weather and stress under the summer hat. She decided to be agreeable. “They all say that,” she said wearily.

“I’m sorry. I said just what I thought.”

“Study—a girl without a cent!” She lowered her voice: “Go with better people—before one is invited? Swing to the top of the opera before one is sufficiently urged?... Why, singing isn’t all. One must do more than sing——”

“I don’t believe that——”

“You should try. Singing won’t get you across. You’ve got to act, for one thing.”

He was relieved that she did not discuss the angel business, which is forgotten in so few stories of struggle and failure.

“I tell you, all that one has to do is to sing—when one sings as you do.”

“I have heard that many times,” she said bitterly, “from people not in the fight. They didn’t come to New York on their nerve—as I did. I made up my mind not to be afraid of wolves or bears or cars—to take what I could get, and wait until somebody beckoned me higher. Meanwhile Pastern’s and the Castle and here——”

“I wish I could do something for you.”

Her eyes gleamed at him.

“You need money?” he asked.

“I need money so terribly—that it’s almost a joke—but what do you want?”

Bellair rubbed his eyes, and smiled a little. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me, but I want to do something for you. At least, I did want just that.”

“What happened?”

“It isn’t a thing to talk or think about, I’m afraid. One starts thinking, and ends by wanting something—and I didn’t at first. What I said at first I meant—nothing more nor less.”

Her lips tightened. “If you mean just that——”

It raked him within. He did not help her by speaking. Somehow he had expected her to see that he had meant well. It was always a mystery to him how anything fine could be expected of men, if women were not so.

“Of course, I have to understand,” she added. “I can do with a poor room and poor food, but I can’t get anywhere without clothes.... I must go now.”

“I want you to excuse me if I’ve given you the idea of my being rich. I’m not, but I might help you some. How late do you work?”

“One o’clock.”

“Where are you last?”

“At the Castle.”

“And what time do you get there?”

“About eleven-thirty.”

“I’ll be there. Sing ‘Maying’ for an encore——”

She made believe that she trusted him.

“We’ll sing it at the Castle the last thing,” she said, leaving hastily.

No ease had come to him. His thoughts now were not the same as those which had come during the singing. He tried to put them away. He didn’t like the idea of giving her money. He knew that she didn’t expect to see him again; also that if he did come she would accept the service of a stranger, and give in return as little as she could. How explicit she was, already touched with the cold stone of the world. He did want to help her, and it had been pure at first. Talk as usual had broken the beauty of that. Sophistication and self-consciousness had come; her face changing more and more as the moments passed after the song. New York had taught them each their parts. It had been her thought from the first that he was looking for prey, but it had been very far from his.

Bellair was not without imagination. He saw himself following this girl in a future time, playing the part he had despised in other men—the dumb, slaving, enduring male; she continually expectant of his services, petulant, unreasonable without them. For the first time the question came to him: Is there not a queer sort of conquest in the lives of such men?... She was for herself; had it all planned out, the waiting, and what she would give on the way up, beside her song. It would not be much; as little as possible, in fact; but as much as was absolutely demanded. Bellair in the present state of mind seemed to object to all this less than what she wanted of the world—praise and fame.

“She’s just a little girl after all,” he muttered. “She ought to have her chance.”

He added (easing the conception a little for his own peace) that she was only franker and more outspoken than other women he had known; that they all wanted money and place, and wanted men who could furnish such things. Suddenly it occurred that the incident automatically supplied the final break with Lot & Company and New York. He laughed aloud.... He might borrow enough in time to make up the amount he gave her for morning, but that would certainly be a betrayal of the fiery urge that had whipped him all week to cross over into a new life and burn the last bridge.

He took his bags down to the station, arranging with the landlady to have his goods stored for the present. After that he rambled, a grateful freshness in the cool wind. His steps led through darker streets, where he startled the misery from the faces of the forbidden who took a chance on him. Their voices would whine; they couldn’t help it, and all they wanted in the world was money.... He was at the Castle before the quartette came.... They sang and Bellair dreamed.

He had never made pretence of other than the commonest lot; yet he conned now an early manhood that made later years utterly common. He followed the enticements of the sea, of the future, the singing-girl never far away, the rest shadows and sadness.... He must do something for her.... Rich natural tones winged forth from the breast of a maid, from shoulders so delicate and white. He would make and keep her great; here was something to do, to work for. It was like finding the ultimate secret. He knew now what had been the matter all the time—nothing to work for.... He would stand between her and all that he knew was rotten—the crowds like this at the Castle, the blurred face of the tenor which was both sharp and soft, the tired, tawdry soprano, the stupid animal of a bass. And Bellair, in the magnanimity of his heart’s effusion, included himself among the forces of destruction. He would keep her from the worst of himself, by all means.... She kept her promise, and arose with the tenor at last:

“Oh, that we two were Maying——”

... New York and all the rest reversed again in his mind. It wasn’t rotten, but lavish to furnish everything for money—so much that men and women were lost in the offerings, and did not know what to choose. Yet it was man’s business to choose. Bellair listened as one across the world; as if he had been gone a year and was thirsting and starving to get back. He was literally longing for New York, with its ramifications all about him—yet the thing he wanted, he could not touch. It was like a sick stomach that infested his whole nature with desire, while everything was at hand but the exact nameless thing desired.... She was like a saint, as she stood there, her mouth so pure, her features so pretty, her voice so brave and tireless—starry to Bellair, a night-voice with depths and heights and dew-fragrance. She was coming to him.

“You look just the same. I wouldn’t take you for a New Yorker.... Yes, I am through for to-night.”

“I should think you’d love to sing,” he said.

The remark was fatuous to her. She didn’t know that a year ago Bellair wouldn’t have dared to say anything so commonplace, but that he had come back to this simplicity from the complication of classics she had never heard of.

“Tell me, what do you want most?” he asked earnestly. “I don’t mean the need of clothes. We’ve covered that——”

“I want all that a voice will bring.”

“Great salaries, noise wherever you go, a continual performance of newspaper articles?”

“Yes.”

“A score of men praying for favours?”

She sipped warily.

“Don’t mind my question. It isn’t fair. But tell me, doesn’t it do something to you—to get even a man like me going, for instance,—to make him all different and full of pictures that haven’t anything to do with the case?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He stared at her. “You ought to. You do it. I’m not talking of art or soul, or any of that stuff. That isn’t it. I mean just what your singing amounts to in my case. It means New York, but not the routine New York—possibly the New York that might be. It means Maying—whatever that is——”

“You must have been drinking a lot, since I left Brandt’s,” she said merrily.

He didn’t let it hurt him, and was miserable anyway. “The fact is, I didn’t take a drink since Sixth avenue, until a moment ago.”

He saw that she was debating the vital matter of the evening—whether he was a piker who must be shaken presently, or whether he would really make good on his offer to help in the essentials of career.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Bessie Brealt.”

“And where could I find you, if I wanted to write?”

He noted her swift disappointment. There was positive pain in the air. He knew well what she was thinking, though her sweet face covered well: that he was about to promise to send the money to her, that ancient beau business. She took a last chance, and mentioned a booking agency that might answer for a permanent address.

“I’ll want to write—I feel that. And here, Bessie, if you don’t mind my saying ‘Bessie,’ I can spare a hundred for that wardrobe. I’d like to do some really big thing for you.”

He saw tears start to her eyes, but was not carried out of reason by them. She had wanted the money fiercely and it had come.

“How are you going to get home?” he asked, to relieve the embarrassment.

She glanced up quickly.

“I don’t mean that I want to take you home,” he said, shocked by the ugliness of the world that had called this explanation so hastily. “My train needs me.... Say, Bessie, men haven’t supplied you with altogether pleasant experiences so far, have they?”

“I’ll get a car home.”

He gave her his card.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Better let me get you a cab to-night. It’s late.”

She thanked him again.... At the curb, as the driver backed in, Bessie put up her lips to him.

“... Dear singing-girl—I didn’t ask that.”

“It’s because you didn’t, I think. Really that’s it. Oh, thank you. Good-night.”

Bellair beckoned another cab, and sank back into the dark. All the way to the station, and through to the Savannah-Pullman, he was wrenching himself clear from something like a passion to turn about to New York. At the last moment, before the train moved, he recalled the letter to Mr. Nathan, and hailed a station porter from the step.

“Please mail this for me,” he said, bringing up silver with the letter.

PART THREE
THE JADE: II

1

Bellair had to wait less than two days in Savannah, for the Jade had made a pretty passage. Impressions rushed home too swift for his mind to follow, as he stepped aboard from the cotton dock; the number of impressions, he did not know, until he began the inventory in his cabin afterward. Last and first and most compelling, however, was the spectacle of Stackhouse, that David Hume figure of a man, reclining in his cane-chair of similar vast proportions just aft of the main-shrouds. A momentous hammock of canes, that steamer-chair, with gentle giving slopes for the calves and broad containers, polished with wear and tightly woven like armour, for the arms; a sliding basket for the head, suggestive of a guillotine’s grisly complement; the whole adjusted to Stackhouse and no other.

Humid heat in the harbour, a day of soft low clouds. The man who pushed Brooklyn from him, had discarded even more thoroughly the clothing of temperate climes. The vivid black of his hairy chest was uncovered, and there was a shining bar of the same, just above the selvage of white sock. Bellair thought he must be hairy as a collie dog.... But mainly that which weighted and creaked the chair seemed an enormous puddle of faded silks.

The bulky brown head (which arose plumb as a wall from the back of the neck) had slightly bowed as Bellair passed. There was something ox-like in the placidity of the brown eyes, but that was only their first beam, as it were. Much that was within and behind the eyes of Stackhouse, Bellair thought of afterward. Through a deep, queer process, it came to him that even the answer for his coming was in that indescribable background; and restless, too, in the pervading brown, a movement of sleek animals there. The Japanese woman had skuffed forward with drink for her lord.

Over all was the cloud of canvas and rigging, which Bellair had studied from the land, and which had forced him to a fine respect for the ruffian sailor-men who could move directly in such an arcanum, and command its service. Bellair had not found such labour on shore, having lost his respect for the many who did not learn even the commonest work.... There was a deep-sea smell about her, a solution of tar and dried fruit, paint and steaming coppers from the galley.

The very age of the Jade was a charm to him. Only her spine and ribs and plates were of steel—the rest a priceless woodwork that had come into its real beauty under the endlessly wearing hands of man. There seemed a grain and maturity to the inner parts, as if the strain and roughing of the seas had brought out the real enduring heart of the excellent fabric. The rose-wood side-board of his upper berth, for instance, placed for the full light from the port to fall upon it, was worth the price of the passage—sixteen inches wide, a full inch and one-half thick, worn to a soft lustre as if the human hands had hallowed it, and giving back to the touch the same answer from the years that a vine brings to stone-work and the bouquet to wine.... The Jade had known good care and answered. Floors, even of the cabins, were hollowed from much stoning; the hinges held and ferried their burdens in silence, and the old locks moved with soft contented clicks, the wards running in new oil.

A city man who had long dreamed of a country garden; or indeed, Bellair was a city man who had long dreamed of a full-rigged ship to fulfil in part the romance of his soul. The Jade had a dear inner life for him, satisfied him with her lines, her breathing, settling and repose. A fine hunger began to animate the length and breadth of the man.

There was a half hour of straight, clear thinking, of the kind that plumbs the outlook with the in, and mainly comes unawares. Bessie Brealt, of course, appeared and passed, in all the hardness of her life and the pity of it, but the days that had elapsed since the parting had not changed his unique desire to help her; nor did he lie to himself that he wanted her, too, as a man wants a woman. He loved her in a way, against his will. Possibly the kiss had fixed that. In the solution of the running thoughts, and without subtlety of mingling, was the face on deck, the dark, extraordinary face of Stackhouse.

They were a full day at sea, before Bellair was called to sit down before the great cane chair. There was a warm land wind; November already forgotten. The Jade had gathered up her skirts and was swinging along with a low music of her own. Stackhouse waddled back to his chair from the land-rail, a remarkable mass of crumpled silks, the canes marked in the general effusion of dampness along his back and legs, the silks caught up behind by a system of wrinkles and imprints, and one hitched pantaloon revealing the familiar muff of fur above the selvage of his fallen sock. Now Stackhouse was preparing to enter. Bellair was caught in the tension. The process, while prodigious, was not without its delicate parts. One hand was irrevocably occupied with a long-stemmed China pipe, a warm creamy vase, already admired by Bellair. Breath came in puffs and pantings of fragrant tobacco, but there were gurglings and strange stoppages of air that complained from deeper passages.

Creaking began at the corners; and a wallowing as if from the father of all boars. Now the centre of the chair caught the strain in full and whipped forth its remonstrance. One after another the legs gripped the deck, each with a whimper of its own; and the air was filled with sharp singing tension which infected the nerves of the watcher. Suddenly the torso seemed to let go of itself; and from the canes of the huge central hollow came a scream in unison. By miracle the whole found itself once more and the breathing of Stackhouse subsided to a whine.

“We are entering the latitude of rum,” said he. “Whoever you are, young man, drink the drink of nature, and you will brosper.”

The west was just a shore-line, the dusk rising like a tide. The hand of the owner pressed the silks variously about his chest, and at last located a loose match. Nerves were sparsely scattered in these thick, heavy-fleshed fingers. He had to stop all talk and memory to direct his feeling. The match at length emerged from his palm, and slithered over the fine canes of the arm. It was damp. Stackhouse rubbed the sulphur delicately in the hair at his temple and tried again. Fire leaped to the tip, and poured out from the great hand which pressed it to the pipe and mothered it from the wind. From the gurgling passages, smoke now poured as the sweetness in Sampson’s riddle.

Rum had come. The Japanese woman served them. The youth of her face chilled Bellair; the littleness of her, all the tints and delicacy of a miniature in her whitened face. Bright-hued silk, a placid smile, the skuffing of her wooden sandals and the clock-work intricacy of the coils of her black hair—these were but decorations of the tragedy which came home to the American where he was still tender.... But why should he burn tissue? She seemed happy. He knew that the Japanese women require very little to make them happy; but that little was denied this maiden. An hour a day to giggle with her girl-friends behind a lattice, and she might have borne twenty-three hours of hell with calmness and cheer, not counterfeit like this.

“You have no true drink of the soil in Ameriga,” said Stackhouse. “You do not make beer nor wine, so you make no music. The only drink and the only music that come from the States of Ameriga, are from the nigger-folk who do not belong there. They make music and corn whiskey. The rest is boison to the soul.”

The voice was rich and mellow. He must have known Teutonic beginnings, or enough association for the mannerisms to get into his blood. Stackhouse was not even without that softness of sentiment, though he was tender only for men. Except for a spellable word here and there, his accent was inimitable. He talked of little other than death, and with indescribable care—as if he had been much with men of another language or with men of slow understanding.... It may have been the drink, or the sunset over distant land; the Spanish Main ahead, or the dryness and pentness of the city-heart and its achievement of long-dreamed desire in a snug, sweet ship under the easy strain of sails with wind in them; in any event Bellair was drawn with exquisite passion—drawn southward as the Jade was drawn in the soft, irresistible strength of nature.

He knew that this would pass, that he could not continue to sense this rapport with the sea-board, but he loved it now, breathed deep, and saw Stackhouse as he was never to be seen again. There was enchantment in the eyes of the great wanderer, and a certain culture of its kind in its stories. Bellair listened and in the gleam of the broad, dark eyes, there seemed a glimpse of burning ships, shadowy caravans on moonlit sands and the flash of arms by night; low-lying lights of island ports, formless rafts, spuming breakers, mourning derelicts—just glimpses, but of all the gloom and garishness of the sea. He began a monologue that night, and though it is not this story, it was not interrupted except by meals and sleeping, for many days; and all the pauses in that story were the dramatic pauses of death:

“... I have travelled more than most travellers and have seen more than is good for one man. In New York I saw Brundage of Frisco, who asked me if I remembered Perry. I said I remembered very well, for Perry was a bartner of mine, before young Brundage came out to the Islands. He told me Perry was six weeks buried. That is the way now. When I was young, my combanions did not die in beds. They were killed. Eight months ago, I saw Emslie—waved at him going up the river to Shanghai. He was outward bound, and came home to us in Adelaide in a sealed box. Old Foster, who is richer than I, has married a little Marie in Manila and may die when he pleases now. The South Seas still run in and yonder among Island shores, but who buys wine for the Japanese girls in Dunedin, since Norcross was conscripted for the service we all shall know?...

“And thus you come to the Jade, and some time you will here them dell of Stackhouse. Who knows but you may dell the story—of a familiar face turned down like an oft-filled glass? And some one will say, ‘He has not laughed these many years.’ They used to say in the Smilax at Hong Kong, when the harbour was raving and the seas were trying to climb the mountain—they used to say that Stackhouse was laughing somewhere off the China coasts. But there are only so many laughs in a man, and they go out with the years. Most of those who said that thing of Stackhouse—yes, most of them, are dead as glacial drift.”

Such was the quality of his perorations, hunched ox-like just aft of the main-shrouds—the Japanese woman coming and going with the ship’s bells, bringing drinks day and night.

“It seared my coppers—that drinking in the States of Ameriga. It will not subdue,” said he. “One has a thirst for weeks after a few days of drinking in Ameriga. For one must be bolite.”

He was never stimulated, seldom depressed, but saturated his great frame twenty hours of the twenty-four, the Japanese woman seeming to understand with few or no words the whims of taste of which he was made. Just once in the small hours, Bellair heard her voice. The cane-chair had not been empty long, and the silence of soft rain was upon the deck. Bellair had opened a package of New York papers purchased on the last day in Savannah.... It was just one scream, but the scream of one not frightened by any human thing.... The roll of papers dropped down behind the bunk. Anyway, Bellair could not have read after that. Early in the morning after hours of torture of dreams, he was awakened as usual by the sluicing of the monster. Two Lascars who travelled with Stackhouse apparently for no other purpose, poured pails of salt water upon him in the early hour when the decks were washed; and often at midday as they neared the Line. It was given to Bellair more than once, as the voyage lengthened, to witness this hippodrome.

2

Her face was continually turned away. Bellair wondered as days passed if he should ever see her face to face—the silent, far-looking young woman with a nursing baby in her arms. On deck she stood at the rail, eyes lost oversea. Her contemplation appeared to have nothing to do with Europe or America, but set to the wind wherever it came from, as the strong are always turned up-stream. Sometimes she wore a little blue jacket, curiously reminding Bellair of school-days, and though she was not far from that in years, she seemed to have passed far into the world. The child cried rarely.

There was a composure about the mother, but he did not know if it were stolidity or poise. Certainly she had known poverty, but health was in her skin, and there was something in that white profile, that the sun had touched with olive rather than tan, that stopped his look. The perfection of it dismayed Bellair. He loved beauty, but did not trust it, did not trust himself with it. The presence of a beautiful face stimulated him as no wine could do, but it also started him to idealising that which belonged to it, and this process had heretofore brought disappointment. Bellair did not want this touch of magnetism now. Beauty was plentiful. He had seen the profiles of Italian girls in New York, that the Greeks would have worshipped, and which the early worship of the Greeks was doubtless responsible for—beauty with little beside but giggle and sham. He disliked the thing in a man’s breast that answers so instantly to the line and colour of a woman’s face; objected to it primarily, because it was one of the first and most obvious tricks of nature for the replenishment of species in man and below. Bellair fancied to answer the captivation, if any at all, of a deeper wonder in woman than the contour of her countenance.

He was aware that many a woman has a beautiful profile, whose direct look is a disturbing reconsideration. This kept his eyes down, when she was opposite in the dining cabin. We are strangely trained at table; at no time so merciful. The human dining countenance must be lovely, indeed, not to break the laws of beauty. Only outright lovers dare, and they are bewildered by each other, and see not. So he did not know the colour of her eyes.

She nursed her baby often on deck, sitting bare-headed in the wind and sun, sometimes singing to it. The singing was all her own; Bellair wished she wouldn’t. Her melodies were foreign, and sometimes it seemed to him as if they were just a touch off the key. Her low dissonances, he described vaguely as Russian, but retained the suspicion that she was tonally imperfect of hearing.

The singing and the picture of her was just as far as possible from Bessie Brealt, but she made Bellair think. In all likelihood this was the general objection. His eyes smarted in the dusks, as he thought of the other singer (as solitary in New York as this woman here), who was determined not to be afraid of the cars or the bears or the wolves. Every day Bessie’s first words returned to him:

“A little Rhine wine—it’s very good here.”

And always the devastation of that sentence was great. It was a street-woman’s inside familiarity, Brandt’s being one of her rounds; as she might speak of the beer at Holbeck’s or the chops at Sharpe’s. Yet Bessie was not greedy, and had no taste for wine. It was the glibness, the town mannerism, and the low, easy level which her acceptance of the common saying revealed; the life which she was willing to make her own, at least exteriorly. But after all, in the better moments, it seemed very silly to deny a great soul to the girl who could sing as Bessie sang. Some day she would feel her soul....

The preacher, third passenger on board the Jade, reported that the Faraway woman was returning to her home in New Zealand. Fleury didn’t know if her baby was boy or girl, but judged that it was very healthy, since it cried so little.

Fleury wasn’t promising to Bellair’s eyes. First of all it was the cloth; and then during the first three weeks at sea, Bellair spent innumerable hours in the periphery of the great cane-chair. He did not resist his prejudice. “A missionary going out with the usual effrontery,” he decided. The preacher’s face appeared placid and boyish.... Fleury, however, continued to observe cheerful good-mornings, to praise the fine weather, and to offer opportunities for better acquaintance—all without being obtrusive in the least. Hayti and Santo Domingo—names once remote and romantic to the city man’s mind—were now vanished shores, and as yet the voyage was but well begun.... The three passengers were served together in the cabin, except in cases when the Stackhouse narrative happened to be running particularly well. Bellair would then be called to dine with the owner. Captain McArliss would appear at this mess and disappear—the courses being brought to him one after another in a certain rapid form. The Captain seemed so conscious, that Bellair never quite dared to observe what happened to the food, but he was certain that McArliss did not bolt. His suspicion was that he tasted or sipped as the case might be, merely spoiling the offering. He was gone before Stackhouse was really started.

It was less what the giant ate, than the excessive formality and importance of his table sessions that prevailed upon the American. Dinner was the chief doing of the day. Bellair had never complained, even in thought, of the food served to him in the usual mess, but with Stackhouse everything was extra fine from the Chinese standpoint—all delicacies and turns of the art, all choice cuttings and garnishments, a most careful consideration of wines—so that from the first audible delectation of the contents of the silver tureen, to the choice of a cigar (invariably after a few deep inhalations from a cigarette “made in Acca by the brisoners”), there was formality and deep responsibility upon the ship; and a freedom afterward through the galleys that was pleasant to regard.

“There are many things in Belgium,” said the master. “There are wines and gookeries there; also in Poland there are gooks. In England there are gooks, but not in Ameriga—only think-they-are-gooks. However, there are gooks in China. I have one, as you shall see.”

Something like this at each mighty dining—and the promise had to do with the next course which Stackhouse invariably knew and served as a surprise for his guest, for he ordered his dinner with his coffee and fish in the morning. Bellair had often seen the Chinese emerge from the galley, as they came up from the dining saloon, little sparse patches of hair here and there on his fat face like willow clumps on the shore, these untouched by the razor, though his forehead was perfectly shaven to the queue circlet. This was Gookery John taking his breath after the moil and heat of the day.

Stackhouse would declare that he dined just once a day, meaning this exactly. He breakfasted on a plate of fried fish with many pourings of mellow, golden and august German coffee, eating the hot fishes in his hands like crackers—a very warm and shiny hand when it was done—crisp brown fishes stripped somehow in his beard, the bones tossed overside. He liked full day with this meal. The plates were brought hot and covered to the great cane chair, until he called for them to cease. For his supper he desired outer darkness (English ale and apples, black bread from Rome that comes sewn in painted canvas like hams for the shipping, butter from Belgium packed with the care of costly cheeses, of which he was connoisseur; sauces of India, a cold chicken, perhaps, or terrapin, and an hour or two of nuts). The Japanese woman appeared at none of these services.

It was the dinners, however, which bewildered Bellair most. He had not the heart utterly to condemn them, since the Jade and the noble sea-air, sometimes winy and sometimes of sterile purity, kept him in that fine state of appreciation, which if he had ever known as a boy was utterly forgotten. He had initiation in curries and roasts, piquant relishes of seed and fish and flower, chowders, broiled fish and baked—until he felt the seas and continents serving their best, and learned about each in the characteristic telling of the man who lived for them. For instance when chicken was brought:

“These are the birds for the Chinese to play with—yes, you would think me joking? It is not so. The little chicken-birds are kept for pets. They are not frightened to death. You do not know, berhaps, that fear and anger boisons the little birds? They are kept happy and killed quick—before they know. Many mornings they are fed from the hand and played with, until they love John of the gookeries—and one morning—so, like that—heads off—and no boison from the fear of death in our flavours. Many things you do not know—yes?”

“Yes,” Bellair said.

Stackhouse loved his little facts like these, all matters of preparation of fish and flesh and fowl; the intricate processes of fattening, curing, softening, corking and all the science of the stores.... “There was a certain goose which I found in Hakodate—not from the Japanese, but from a Chino there——”.... “And once upon a time in Mindanao, they baked a fish for me with heated stones in the ground. Wrapped in leaves, it was, and covered first in clay. You should see the scales and skin come off with the clay—and the inner barts a little ball, when it was finished. And the dining of that evening. Ah, the sharb eyes of the little nigger girls—you would believe?”.... Such were the stories in the long feeding—but the stories on deck were the stories of the death of men.

In the usual mess the chat was perfunctory on Bellair’s part, since he granted that the preacher and the Faraway woman (he called her so in his thoughts from her distant-searching on deck) were so well adjusted to each other. He granted this, and much beside concerning the two, from pure fancy. Never once had they disregarded him, or engaged in conversation that would leave him dangling, though many times his own thoughts were apart. The Jade had been three weeks out of Savannah, in the southern Caribbean, a superb mid-afternoon, when Bellair, turning at the rail, found Fleury at his side. He had just been wondering if he had better go below and read awhile by the open port, or start the monologue of Stackhouse for the rest of the day. The latter was enjoyable enough, but Bellair disliked to drink anything so early.... “One must be bolite.”

It happened right for the first conversation with Fleury. He had never known a preacher whose talk touched the core of things. Preachers had always shown a softness of training on the actualities, and left Bellair sceptical of the rest. A minister had once told him: “What force for good we get to be in mid-life, is in spite of our ecclesiastical training, not because of it.” Bellair had often thought of that.

Yet, he had given much secret thought to religious things, not counting himself a specialist, however, seldom opening the subject. Certainly at Lot & Company’s, no one had marked this proclivity. He had the idea that a man must come up through men, and through the real problems of men, if he would become a moving force for good in the world; that no training apart among texts and tracts and tenets would get him power. Very clearly he saw that a man must go apart to fix his ideals, but that he should seek his wilderness after learning the world, not after prolonged second-hand contacts with books.

“The big job ahead is for some one who can show the human family that it’s all of a piece, and that we’re all out after the same thing,” he remarked.

“A Unifier,” Fleury suggested.

“Yes. Just so long as we have to hate one cult or sect, because we love another, we’re lost to the whole beauty of the scheme——”

“I quite agree with you,” said the preacher.

“What is your church?” Bellair asked.

“Well, the fact is, I haven’t one,” Fleury said with a smile. “Convictions somewhat similar to that which you have expressed have twice cost me my church. As the church puts it, I am a failure and not to be trusted with regular work——”

“You are going out in the mission-service?”

Bellair was now ashamed, because he had held the other a bit cheaply. The boyish face looked suddenly different to him, as Fleury said:

“No—that is, I have ceased to expound theology. I have come out to make the thought and the act one.”

Bellair was taking on a new conception. His question was a trifle automatic:

“Did you talk out in meeting?”

“Yes. There were a thousand years in the congregation. You know what I mean—only a few of our generation in method of mind.”

“A sort of Seventeenth century average?” Bellair suggested.

“Don’t misunderstand me. I was wrong, too,” Fleury declared. “Wrong, in the young man’s way of thinking himself right. You know we’re just as baneful when we are getting into a new world of thought as when we are not yet out of the old. It’s only after we have settled down and got accustomed to the place, that we’re reasonable. A man should be big enough to talk to all men, and appear everlastingly true to the least and the greatest. Truth is big enough for that. I had only a different trail from theirs, and wanted them all to come to mine, forgetting that the trails are only far apart at the bottom of the mountain—that they all converge at the top——”

“You had to be honest with yourself,” Bellair said thoughtfully.

“That’s just what I thought, but maybe there was a lie in that,” Fleury answered. “It’s not so easy to be honest with one’s self and keep on using words for a living. The best way is to act——”

“You’ve said something, Mr. Fleury.”

And in his new respect for the other, Bellair wanted to make his view clearer. “It’s the old soil and seed story again,” he said. “It isn’t enough to get truth down to superb simplicity. The minds of men must be open beside. My objection to the Church is that it has separated religion from work and the week-day—tried to balance one day of sanctimoniousness against six days of mammon—taught men that heaven is to be reached in a high spiritual effusion because One has died for us. The fact is we’ve got to help ourselves to heaven.... Excuse me for being so communicative,” he added, “but what you said about putting down talk and taking up action interested me at once. I’ve a suspicion you won’t be long in finding something to do——”

“I’m hoping just that.”

Fleury smiled at him. The face was large and mild, not a fighter’s face nor a coward’s either.... The young woman appeared with the child. She seemed to hold it to the sun, and she walked with the beauty of a woman bringing a pitcher to the fountain. Bellair realised the heat of the day. Her face had an intense clearness, but was partly turned away. There was a delicacy about it that he had not known before. He recalled that she had just bowed to them.... They were passing an island shore—a line of sun-dazzle that stung the eyes, empty green hills and a fierce white sky. Bellair thought of the woman and the island as one ... he, the third, coming home, mooring his boat, hastening up the trail at evening.... Her frail back, bending a little to the right, made him think of a dancer he had once seen. He saw the child’s bare limbs in the sun.... His steps were quickened up that Island trail again.... The Jade seemed fainting in the cushions of hot wind. Just then a voice said:

“She’s quite the most remarkable woman. She isn’t a talker.”

He had forgotten Fleury.

“Where is she going?”

“Auckland. She came from there.”

“Queer, she would go home this way——”

“Her whole fortune is in her arms,” Fleury whispered.

The ship’s bell struck twice; the cane-chair creaked; they turned by habit to note the appearance of the Japanese woman with drink. She did not fail. Stackhouse came to with a prolonged snore, a sound unlike a pair of pit-terriers at work.

“A considerable brute,” muttered the preacher.

“He has been much of a man in his way,” said Bellair.

“He talks much—that is weakness.”

Their eyes met. Bellair began to understand how deeply the other’s experience had bitten him.

“He’s afraid of death,” Fleury added.

“I wonder,” Bellair mused. “He talks always of death. He’s been in at the deaths of many men. He’ll die hard himself—if he doesn’t tame down.”

Fleury added: “When a man is so much an animal, all his consciousness is in that. They see death as the end—that’s why they are afraid——”

“I wonder if he is a coward?” Bellair questioned.

“The stuff animals are made of cannot last,” the preacher concluded.

Bellair pondered as he sat with Stackhouse that night. Brandy was the choice of the evening. The Japanese woman brought it from the deeps of the hold, where it had come in stone from Bruges. Bellair joined him a second and a third time for the instant stinging zest of the fire.... Fleury and the woman had long stood together aft by the clicking log. The moon came late and bulbous. Stackhouse talked of his fortune, and the chaos in many island affairs his death would cause.... Once he had loved a chap named Belding, and would have left him great riches, but Belding was dead....

3

They had crossed the Line. The night was windless hot—almost suffocating below. Bellair gave it up, a little after midnight, and went on deck, moving forward out of the smell of paint, for the heat had bubbled the lead on the cabin planking. A few first magnitude stars glinted in the fumy sky. The anchor chains and the big hook itself made a radiator not to be endured—better the smell of paint than that. Captain McArliss moved past with a cigar and suggested jerkily that a hammock was swung aft by the binnacle. Bellair thanked him and went there, but did not lie down. Close to the rail he could smell the deep and it refreshed him. Left alone in this hard-won ease, his thoughts turned back to New York.

... It was like a ghost at the companionway—a faint grey luminosity. She came toward him without a sound, the child in her arms. Something of the strangeness prevented him speaking until she was near, and then he spoke softly in fear lest she be frightened:

“It is I, Bellair——”

If she were startled, she did not let him know. He offered the deckchair he had occupied, or the hammock, as she chose.

“I would not have disturbed you,” she said.

“I think it is cooler close to the rail,” he suggested. “The little one is very brave. Is he awake?”

“Yes——”

“I don’t know why I said ‘he,’—the fact is, I didn’t know,” he laughed.

“You were right,” she answered, sitting down. “He seems to have so much to study and contemplate. It passes the time for him, and then he is very well and he likes the sea.”

“He has been to sea before?”

“Yes, we came up from Auckland on a steamer when he was ver-ee little, but he liked it, and did so well. It was harder for him in New York, although he didn’t complain——”

Bellair laughed.

“Now that I have taken your seat—won’t you get another?” she asked. “Or the hammock?”

“If you don’t mind I should be very glad to get another chair——”

Bellair found himself hurrying to the waist, for there was always a lesser seat by the great cane throne.... He could not see her face in that utter night, but sometimes when he had forgotten for a moment, there seemed the faintest grey haze about her face and shoulders, but never when he looked sharply; and the curve of her back as her body fitted to the child in her lap, hushed him queerly within, so that he listened to his own commonplace words, as one would hear the remarks of another.

“Do you suppose he would come to me?” the man asked.

“I think he would be very glad,” she said.

Bellair took no risk, but placed his hand softly between the little ones. Something went out of him, leaving nothing but a queer, joyous vibration that held life together, with ample to spare to laugh with. The larger part of his identity seemed to be infused with the night, however. On one side of his hand, there was a warm, light seizure, rendering powerless his own little finger, and on the other side, his thumb was taken. He lifted his hand a little and the captor’s came with it—no waste of energy whatsoever, but with easy confidence of having enough and to spare. The man couldn’t breathe without laughing, but he was very quiet about it as the moment demanded, and his delight was nowise to be measured in recent history.

He was bending forward close to the woman’s breast. Suddenly he remembered her—as if finding himself in a sanctuary.... The great pictures of the world had this motif, but the Third of the trinity was always invisible. Yet he had entered in this darkness, come right into the fragrance and the love-magnetism of it ... held there in two ineffable pressures.

His low laughter ceased. He was full of wonder now, but could not stay. Out of the bewilderment of emotions he had the one sense—that he was not the third to this mystery—that the third must be invisible, as in the great madonnas of paint. He betrayed the tiny grips with a twist, caught the child in his two hands and lifted him from the mother, sitting back in his own chair.... But the fragrance lingered about him and that wonderful homing vibration. He knew something of the nature of it now. It was peace.

4

The little blue jacket had come forth again as they ran down into the cold.... There was wild weather around the Horn, and Stackhouse was a sick monster from confinement. Bellair, who could drink a little for company through the glorious nights on deck, bolted from the cabin performance, and Captain McArliss was called to listen, and fell, as Stackhouse knew he would, for he had said to Bellair during one of their last talks:

“Lest there appear among men a perfect sailor, they handicapped my McArliss—packed his inner barts in unslaked lime. Never will you see a thirst fought as he fights it. First he will drink with me, and you will hear him laugh; then he will drink alone, and there will be silence until he begins to scream. Already his eyes are tortured and his lips white. Bresently he will come and sit with me——”

Bellair hated this; in fact the big master had begun to wear deeply. “I should think you would want to keep him on his feet—for the passage around the Horn.”

“My McArliss is always a sailor,” said Stackhouse, rocking his head.

Bellair could credit that. McArliss interested him—an abrupt, nervous man, who covered the eager warmth of his friendliness in frosted mannerisms and sentences clipped at each end. He was afraid of himself except in his work, afraid of his opinions, though a great reader of the queer out of the way good things. Bellair found Woolman’s Life in his little library, with narratives of the ocean, tales of Blackbirders and famous Indiamen, Lytton’s “Strange Story” and “Zanoni,” also Hartmann’s “Magic, Black and White.” The latter he read, and found it not at all what he expected, but a book that would go with him as far as he cared at any angle, and then lose him. He was quite astonished. It was a long book, too—the kind you vow you will begin again, from time to time through the last half. He wanted to talk to McArliss about it, but the Captain was embarrassed.

“Crazy, eh?” he would say with a queer, dry laugh.

“I’ve stopped saying that about a book—because I don’t get it all,” Bellair remarked. “This man is right as far as I can go with him.”

“You give him the benefit—eh? That’s pretty good.”

“And you like it?”

“Ha—it passes the time. Good God—we have to pass the time!”

He spoke jerkily, always in this fashion, and the days brought no ease to the tension. McArliss patted his pockets, swore hastily over little things, looked snappily here and there. Bellair would have guessed, without the word from Stackhouse. The Captain was fighting hard. There seemed nothing to be done; the man had grown a spiked hedge around an innocent shyness; all that was real about him he kept shamefacedly to himself. Still Bellair believed more and more in his fine quality. McArliss made a picture for him of one who has come up through steam and returned to canvas bringing a finer appreciation to the beauty and possibilities of natural seamanship; as a man returns to the land, after many wearing years of city life, with a different and deeper instinct of the nature of the soil.

“She’s a slashing sailer,” he would say critically, as he crowded the Jade. “She balances to a hair—eh? Good old girl—they don’t breed her kind any more.”

It was he who balanced her to every wind, meeting all weathers with different cuts of cloth. Having only a distant familiarity with his fellow-officers and not even a speaking acquaintance with the crew, McArliss made her sing her racing song night and day down into the lower latitudes, until one played with the suspicion that he managed the weather, too,—with that same nervous, effective energy. It was all tremendously satisfying to Bellair. He had reacted on the last reaction, and was healed throughout. Worldliness was lost from his mental pictures of Bessie; daily she became more as he wanted her to be. Lot & Company had lost its upstanding and formidable black—was far-off now and dimly pitiable. He had not cared what was ahead; it had been the Jade and the voyage that had called him, but now the Islands and all that watery universe of the Southern Pacific were in prospect, to explore and make his own. Perhaps men were younger there; trade less old and ramified; perhaps they would bring him the new magic of life—so that he could live with zest and be himself.... Always at this part of the dream he would think of Bessie again. She was the cord not yet detached. Sooner or later, he must go back to her. At times he thought that he could not bear to remain very long; sometimes even watching this endless passage of days with strange concern.... But there was a short cut home—straight up the Pacific to San Francisco—and four days across....

Fleury and the Faraway woman had their increasingly fine part in his life. The preacher was always finding some new star, or bidding adieu to some northern constellation.

They had chosen the passage through the Straits because of the settled weather. At least, they called it fair-going—wild and rugged though it was, with huge masses of torn cloud, black or grey-black, hurtling past, often as low as the masthead, and all life managed at sick angles. The Jade bowed often and met the screaming blasts with her poles strangely bare, except, perhaps, for a few feet of extra-heavy canvas straining at the mizzen weather-rig.... Stackhouse nudged him one night and a laugh gurgled up from his chest as he pointed forward where McArliss stood in the waist lighting a cigarette.

“He will not sleep to-night. He will come to me—and you will never hear such talk as from this silent man. He will look for gompany to-night. One must be bolite.”

It was true. McArliss apparently fell into the cigarettes first, or perhaps he had fallen deeper. Bellair did not join them in the cabin, but heard their voices. The next day McArliss hunted him up, an inconceivable action. This was not like timid Spring, but sudden redolent summer after the austerities. The man was on fire, but perfectly in hand. All that he had thought and kept to himself for months appeared to come forth now—books and men, the great oceans of spirit and matter, and the mysteries of life and release. It seemed as if his body and brain had suddenly become transparent. The Captain was happy and kind, without oath or scandal, full of colour and romance; returning with excellent measure all the good thoughts that Bellair had given to him, and showing forth for one rare forenoon the memorable fabric of a man.

There was no repetition to his stages. In the afternoon he passed Bellair brusquely, and drank the night away with Stackhouse. The next day both face and figure had a new burden; the real man was now imprisoned more effectively than even his sobriety could accomplish.... Then the descent day by day—the narrow, woman’s waist and the broad, lean shoulders becoming a hunched unit, face averted, hands thick. Bellair always felt that Stackhouse was in a way responsible—for the old Master had known what would come and lured it on. He had foretold each stage—even to the last of McArliss drinking alone.

On two nights Fleury was with him while he met his devils. He had outraged Bellair at every offer and entrance. Even Stackhouse was surprised that the preacher was permitted to attend. His poor vitality at length began to crawl back into his body with terrible pain and shattered sanity—that old familiar battle, the last of many storms. And now the Jade was sailing up into the summer of the southern ocean. Midwinter in New York and here a strange, spacious sort of June, not without loneliness and wonderment to Bellair for the steady brightness and exceeding length of day.

The new moon had come down, extraordinary in its earth-shine which Fleury explained. The Jade was marking time, just making steerage headway, the breeze too light for good breathing.... To-night (as had happened a dozen times before on the other side of South America before the cold weather) Stackhouse had begun his story with, “It was a night like this——” As of old it was the tale of man and death, of the Stackhouse escape from death, sinuously impressing the Stackhouse courage and cleverness. Not that the story was without art; indeed, as usual, it was such a one as a man seldom leaves until the end; but Bellair had long since reached the moment of sufficiency. He had come to the end of his favourite author; had begun to see the mechanism and inventional methods of the workmanship. Vim was lost for the enactment of Stackhouse’s fiercer strength. The man was a concentrated fume of spirit, every tissue falsely braced, his very life identified with the life and heat of decay....

Alone, Bellair glanced about before going below. A breeze had slightly quickened the ship in the last hour. There may have been a dozen nights of equal mystery but this he appreciated more soundly and was grateful for freedom. His mind answered the beauty of it all ... something of this, he might be able to tell Bessie in a letter. The stars were far and tender; the air heavenly cool and soft, the night high, and the ship’s full white above, had something to do with angels—a dreamy spirit-haunt about it all. He would always see the Jade so, as he would see the Captain in that wonderful forenoon of his emancipation—poor McArliss who had not been on deck for days.

Twenty minutes later, with paper before him in his berth, Bellair was deep in the interpretation of his heart, when the Jade struck the cupola of a coral castle, and hung there shivering for five seconds. It was like a suspension of the law of time.

Bellair thought of Bessie, of every one on the ship, beginning with Fleury and the New Zealand woman, and ending with Captain McArliss and the owner’s Japanese wife. These latter two were strangely rolled into one, as their images came. He thought of the ship’s position somewhere in the great emptiness between the Strait of Magellan and Polynesia. He re-read the last line of the letter before him. It had to do with the real help he hoped to be in Bessie’s cause within the year. He heard the running and the hard-held voices on deck, and one great bellowing cry from Stackhouse. He knew now that all the tales were the low furies of fear; that the movement he had seen first in the eyes of the great animal were the movements of fear....

And then the Jade slid off the reef with a rip more tragic than the strike.

5

Hissing and sucking began below, and the drawing of the centre of the earth. Bellair felt this in his limbs, and the limp paralysis of the sails. It was like the blind struggle in the soul of a bird, this strain in the entity of the old Jade to retain her balance between earth and sky.... Bellair was on his knees dragging forth his unused case. The roll of New York papers came with it, and he stuffed them in overcoat pockets with a six-shooter, a bottle of whiskey and a few smaller things. These arrangements were made altogether without thought. Unfumblingly, he obeyed a rush of absurdities that seemed obvious and reasonable as in a dream.

The touch of water on his knee as he arose was like a burn. It poured in under the door, its stream the size of a pencil, a swift and quiet little emissary. It occurred—a queer, rational touch—that the Jade could not be thus filled so soon, that something must have overturned. He opened the door to the deck. Night and ocean were all one; the rest was the stars, and this bit of chaos recoiling from its death—a little ship, struck from the deep and perceiving her death like a rat that has been struck by a rattler. He smelled the sea, as one in a night-walk smells the earth when passing a ravine.

He moved aft toward the voices, without yet having thought of his own death. He passed a leaking water-cask, and this reminded him of his thirst. He took a deep drink—all he could—and his thoughts came up to the moment. At the same time, that which had been a mass of inarticulate sounds cleared into a more or less coherent intensity of action.

He heard that the Jade was sinking, but knew that already; heard that she would be under in five minutes, which was news of the first order of sensation.... Now he heard Stackhouse again; the rich unctuous voice gone, a sharp, dry peaking instead.... They were aft at the binnacle—Stackhouse, Fleury, the Faraway Woman, McArliss. The Japanese woman was hurrying forward with a pitcher of wine. Stackhouse drank from the pitcher, standing, and with greed that flooded his chest. He spoke and the Japanese woman vanished.

Bellair saw the face of McArliss in the white ray from the binnacle. He had scarcely seen the Captain for a week. Last seen, it was a face swollen and flaming red. It was yellow now, like the skin of a chicken, and feathered with patches of white beard. The loose eye-lids were touched with blue. He fumbled with a cigarette, and called hysterically to an officer amidships. He was not broken from the tragedy, but from the debauch.

Stackhouse was standing by the small boat when two sailors came to launch it. He rocked from one foot to another and peaked to them incessantly. Fleury and the woman stepped nearer the boat. They moved together as one person.... Bellair saw Stackhouse raise his hands as he had done that first Sunday, pushing Brooklyn from him. His body pressed against the gunwale of the small boat; he caught it in his hands, as it raised clear, his ridiculous ankles alternately lifting.

His Chinese cook rushed forward with cans of crackers, and dumped them in the boat. The Japanese woman appeared dragging a huge hamper of wines and liquors. Stackhouse took the hamper between his legs and sent her back to his cabin. The boat was lowered just below the level of the Jade’s gunwale. Stackhouse sprawled forward, the hairy masses of his legs writhing after. Presently he reversed, and began to reach for the hamper. Fleury kicked it out of reach, and lifted the woman and child in.

“Get water,” he said to Bellair. “I’ll save a place for you.”

Bellair tossed his overcoat into the boat and darted to the galley, where he found cans. Filling them seemed a process interminable, until he pulled over the half-filled cask.... Stackhouse was screaming for his hamper. The Japanese woman sped by with more bottles. She tried to put them in the boat, but Fleury took them from her, and attempted to force her into a place, but she had heard a final command from her lord and broke away.... Bellair was filling his cans a second time.... Stackhouse, who had risen insanely, was rocked back either by word or blow from Fleury. The small boat was on the sea, and the Jade’s rail leaned low to it. The sea was roaring into the mother-boat; she would flurry in an instant.

“Yes, water, Bellair,” said Fleury. “But don’t go back.”

“One more trip,” said Bellair.

He filled the last can—his mind holding the image of Stackhouse on his knees praying to Fleury for his hamper. Beseechings back in the dark accentuated the picture. Fleury was calling for him.... He passed the Japanese woman, sobbing and skuffing pitifully back to the cabin; as a child sent repeatedly for something hard to find. He heard the launching of the other and larger boat forward; saw at the binnacle McArliss still fumbling for a match. Then Fleury grasped him and his can.... No, it was the woman’s hand that saved the can from overturning. Bellair would have waited for the Japanese woman, but the Jade dipped half-over and slid him into the boat.

The mother-ship shuddered. The Japanese woman passed the binnacle, holding something high in her hand. She was on her knees.... There was a flare and the face of McArliss—who had struck his match at last.... The Jade seemed to go from them—a sheet of grey obscured the rail. The two who remained were netted there together, the red point of the cigarette flickered out.... The two boats were on the sea; the night, a serenity of starlight.... The sound of slobbering turned their eyes to Stackhouse, who was drinking from one of the large cans.... Fleury went to him, pressed the face from it, and placed the cans forward at the feet of the woman. His hand was sticky afterward, as if with blood, and he held it overside.

PART FOUR
THE OPEN BOAT

1

Bellair was athirst. The fact that he had taken a deep drink less than a half-hour before, did not prevail altogether against it. In the very presence of Stackhouse there was a psychological intensity of thirst. The master sat hunched and obscene in the stern of the boat, patting the wet folds of his shirt—a pure desire-body, afraid of death, afraid of thirst, afraid of the fear of thirst and death. Picturesqueness and personality were gone from him; romance and the strange culture of the man, for the eyes of Bellair; the old wonder, too, which the seas and the islands of the seas had given him. Bellair could not forget the ankles, the moving of those bare masses up and down, as Stackhouse had clung at the same time to the small boat and the gunwale of the Jade. What a poison to past tales—this present passion and method of self-salvation.[Pg 108] He was less than a beast, in retaining the effigy of a man.

Bellair turned to Fleury. Like swift pleasant rays in the dark, the last scenes of the main-deck recurred. Again he marvelled at the falsity of his first judgments, by which he had formerly set so much, and so complacently. It had seemed a fat face to him at first, a face out of true with the world, the face of an easy man who placates things as they are, because he was not trained to see the evil of them and give them fight. All that was remembered with difficulty, even for this moment of contrast. It would not come again. Fleury had stood up in the crisis, a man to tie to. He would never be the same again in look or action or intonation; as Stackhouse could never be the same. Fleury had risen and put on a princely dimension; the other had lost even that uncertain admirableness of gross animalism.

The preacher was leaning forward toward the knees of the woman, talking to the babe. Bellair imagined its eyes wide-open and sober; certainly it was still. The mother’s face was partly turned away. Fleury said:

“He is having his adventures. He will be a great man. He will have the world at his finger-tips, when he is as old as we are—and then his real work will begin. For when we know enough of the world, we turn to God.”

The note of the preacher in this did not embarrass Bellair, as it would have done before the Jade’s sinking.

“He will be a great power,” Fleury went on, for the heart of the mother. “These things which for him pass unconsciously, will form him nevertheless. They will do their work within; and when he is grown he will know what to do and say.”

“How do you know?” the mother asked.

“Chiefly because I believe in you,” he answered.

“I want him to live,” she said.

“We want that, too,” said Fleury.

Bellair felt himself nodding in the dark.

“If he is to be a great man, he will have to live through his first—at least, through this adventure.”

The meaning came very pure to Bellair. It had to do with crackers and water for the nourishment of the child. So strong and sure was her own fortitude that she did not need to say she was thinking only of food and drink for him. It meant to Bellair, “If I cannot nurse him, he will die.”

He regarded the length and beam of the small boat. It was not more than eighteen feet long—and only the Polar seas could be emptier than this vast southern ocean. The nights would be more easily endured, but the days, one long burning. Still it would not be torrid heat; they were too far south for that. The thought of storm, he kept in the background of his mind. They all did. Roughly estimated, there was food and water enough for them to live without great agony for a week, possibly for a day or two over, but Stackhouse was not a part of this consideration. He could not live a week without an abnormal consumption of water....

Fleury was talking about the stars. They would see Venus before dawn, he said; the great one in their meridian now was Jupiter. “If we had a marine-glass, we would be able to see his moons.... That,” he pointed to the brightest of the fixed stars, a splendid yellow gleam in the east, “that is Canopus, never seen north of the Gulf States at Home. It’s so mighty that our little earth would turn molten in ten seconds if it came as near as our sun.”

Bellair leaned toward him listening. The preacher pointed out the Southern Cross, and Alpha Centauri, almost the nearest of the sun’s neighbours.

Their thoughts groped naturally to such things. In the full realisation of their helplessness, they looked up. The background was a deep fleckless purple. Bellair hadn’t known the great stars of the northern skies, much less these splendid strangers. The brimming closeness of the dark sea harrowed the landsman’s heart of him; and there was something as great or greater than the actual terror of ultimate submerging. It was the fear of the fear; the same that causes men to leap from high places through the very horror of the thought of leaping. The water lapped the clinkered sides of the small boat. He touched it. His flesh took from the coolness something that numbed the pervading alarm; a message which the wet hand sensed, but the brain could not interpret. The presence of the others forward sustained him; Stackhouse in the stern was the downpull; thus Bellair was in the balance.

It was yet far from dawn; certainly no lighter, but Bellair could see better. The woman was looking away. He knew that he would see her so, until the last day of her life—that profile of serene control, that calm, far-seeing gaze.... What gave her this quiet power?... Already the thoughts of the three were intimate matters to all. It seemed very natural now to ask Fleury what gave the woman such strength.

“It’s the sense that all is well, in spite of this physical estrangement from the world,” the preacher said. “Bellair, it’s the sense that nothing matters but the soul. It’s not belief; it’s knowing. She has lost the sense of self. She is through talking. It is finished with her. We talk, because it is not finished in us—but it is being accomplished. We talk because we want that peace; when it comes we will not talk, but live it. It is exactly opposite to desire; you can see that——”

Yes, Bellair could see that. He had but to turn back in his seat to confront Stackhouse wringing his heavy twitching hands and begging for water, begging like a leper, now that a face turned to him—the most frightful picture of the work of desire and the fear of desire, that the world or the underworld could furnish. Less than two hours before he had drunk a quart and wasted a pint in his greed; and behind Bellair was the silent woman and Fleury, thinking of others, full of the good of the world.... In the worldliness that came to him from Stackhouse, the intimacy of the matter they had just talked about seemed startling.

“One can’t help but notice what you get from somewhere—and what the woman has,” Bellair added.

They were in the grey mystery of dawn—alone, for they had drifted, and the sailors in the other boat had begun to row at once. Stackhouse was lifted a little, brought nearer, possibly by the tension, which they all came to know so well—the tension of that grey hour, before the day reveals the sea.

“It was my ship,” he whimpered. “It was my hamber—McArliss was mine and the service——”

“You’d have had them all yet, but you amused yourself watching poor McArliss fall into the drink. You would have had it all—just the same this morning—for he would never have hit the reef on duty——”

It was Bellair who spoke, and the thing had suddenly appeared very clear to him. Stackhouse did not falter from the present, his huge head darting east and west to stare through the whitening film.

“It was my hamber. There is room here at my feet. It was little, yet meant so much. I should not have troubled you——”

The lack of it seemed suddenly to hurt him even more poignantly.

“You will all go to hell with your talk of beace,” he declared, looking between them but at no pair of eyes. “I will go first, what with the drink dying out, but you will not be long. There is hell for me, but for all alike. You may live days—but the longer, the more hell. And you will all come at last—to the long deep drink of the brine——”

“Oh, come now, Stackhouse,” said Bellair. “It may not turn out so badly. You’ve had luck before. You’ve talked much to me of luck—and deaths of others. If it’s your turn—face it as your innumerable friends faced it.”

The man was undone before them. The flesh of his jaws stood out, as if pulled by invisible fingers. His heavy lips rubbed together, so that they turned from the sight of them.

“There was room in the boat for that basket of rum,” he called out insanely. “It was all to me. There is no talk of God for me—rum was all I had!... I would have been so quiet. It would have been here at my feet, but for that fool who talks of God, and can never know the thirst of men.”

Fleury turned to him, his face deeply troubled. It occurred to Bellair that there was something to what Stackhouse said. Fleury, in kicking back the hamper, had kept the devil of Stackhouse from entering the boat, and Stackhouse served no other.... More and more it was twisting his brain, as young alligators twist at a carcass.

“I would have had it here between my knees. And I would have had the little bottle from the cabin—the last that boots you to sleep——”

“And so that is what you sent her back for—sent her to her death——”

“You lie. She was held here—trying to get the hamber to me. There would have been time. She would have gone and come. She would have been here now——”

Bellair and Fleury glanced at each other.

“I am rotted with drink—and will drink the brine first, but you will follow me. You will bring it up with your hands and drink—and drink——”

He was looking at Fleury now. The intensity of thirst in the spectacle of him—the presence of that vast galvanism of thirst—was like a burning sun in their throats. The baby cried, and the mother drew him shudderingly to her breast. Fleury swallowed hard, his face haggard and drawn in the daybreak. He went over and took his seat before the monster. Bellair was tempted to ask him to be easy, but there was no need. Fleury turned and drew a cup of water and handed it to the other. Bellair’s jaws ached cruelly from the drain of empty glands.

“We should pity you, Stackhouse,” he said, “but we are not facing death now. You fill the boat with thirst—you fill the sea—with your thinking drink and talking drink—until you bring a cry of thirst to the little child. It’s as if we had gone sixty hours—instead of six——”

He talked on for the sake of the woman. Stackhouse drank and grew silent. Bellair felt better and braver—even though the full light revealed nothing but empty sea and heavenly sky.

2

Bellair surveyed his world as the dawn came up.... Thirst and fasting; possibly, the end.... The peculiar part of his open boat contemplations, no two were alike. Physical denial hurried him from one plane to another from which he regarded his world—his two worlds, for Stackhouse behind was one, and his friends forward, another; the one drawing his love, courage [Pg 116]and finest ideals; the other, repression of self, lest he wear himself out in hatred. They were not talkers in front. He had not seen quite the entire fulfilment of Fleury’s meaning about talking until late moments. The Faraway Woman invariably said little; the child was the silentest of all; Fleury had met this demon and put it away. Stackhouse had talked and talked, and to the pictures he made with words, he belonged not at all, but to unspeakable things. Bellair remembered his own talk to Filbrick. It made him writhe. He had become crossed and complicated and ineffective that day. He had not talked in the straight line of heart and brain. He saw that a man who talks that which he is not, is less than nothing, as Stackhouse was less than nothing.

“How far are we from anywhere, Bellair?” Fleury asked.

“We weren’t supposed to strike land before Chatham or Bounty Island—two days’ sail this side of New Zealand, as I understand it. We lost land six—a week ago to-day—Madre de Dios, McArliss called it—off the west Coast of South America. With good wind McArliss planned to sight the Islands off New Zealand in three weeks. We had a week’s good sailing until yesterday—so we are a fortnight, as the Jade reckoned, from—your home.”

Bellair turned to the woman. She did not speak.

“Do you suppose we struck coral?” Fleury asked.

The subject seemed very hopeless. “I saw the charts in McArliss’ cabin. No reefs were charted according to our passage. We may have been off our course. But I do not understand. The mate took our bearings yesterday noon. I do not know what he reported to the Captain——”

“It may have been a sunken wreck that we struck,” said Fleury.

Bellair had thought of that. He turned to Stackhouse, who might have had something to say, but the other stared at them balefully—at their faces, not meeting their eyes. Either he had not followed their words, or chose to take no part.

“If we are in the course of any ships at all, it would be of one passing our route, from the Horn to the Islands,” Fleury added. “I doubt if it would do us any good to row. We must not tax our strength. If we are off our course, we cannot tell whether it is to the north or south, so nothing is positively to be gained. It’s a question of hands up. The other boat set out for somewhere at once. If they find ship they will tell the story——”

It appeared a useless recounting of obvious things. Bellair had thought this out bit by bit several times without finding the least substance to tie to. Fleury’s addition merely accentuated the bleakness of their position.

“Still,” the preacher added, “if there is nothing for us to do in the way of struggle—the rest is simplified. We may be thoroughly tested, but I feel a strange confidence of our ultimate delivery. I thought of it before we had parted from the Jade. It came to me again in the night. I believe it now. We do not belong to the deep—not all of us.”

Bellair wondered at the strength which came from this. He placed his trust upon this man, as one having familiarity with a source which he personally did not draw from. The preacher’s words were designed to cheer the woman, but he could not let them pass as merely for that. Fleury had a conviction, or he would not have spoken so.

The air grew cooler during the long closing of that first day. Bellair thought of his overcoat which lay in a roll under the narrow planking forward where the woman sat. The bundle of New York papers dropped out, as he drew the garment forth. He opened one of the papers laughingly.... The headlines were like voices from another world. The abyss between the real and the unreal yawned before his eyes now in the open boat. New York seemed to be fighting in prints for things so little and unavailing. So little ago, he, Bellair, had moved among them, as among things that counted. Now what was real was the woman’s courage and the substance of Fleury’s faith, and the hope that came from the immensity. The deep contrasts of life held Bellair.

As the message of the press came up to his eyes, he sunk into queer apathy, believed himself dreaming when he read his own name. He was not startled; even that was not his, but an invention like the clicking of a watch, which marks off an illusion of the illusion time.... An afternoon paper, dated the second day after his departure from New York; a brief statement of his departure with certain funds of Lot & Company; one item of a thousand dollars, several others suspected missing.... There was a follow story in the next day’s issue: Bellair as yet unfound, was believed to have gone to the Cobalt; Bessie Brealt, a professional singer, had passed an hour or two with the missing man on the eve of his flight. He had spent money recklessly.... This was all.

He dumped the papers overside, and was sorry afterward; still, there was not physical energy in him to explain, nor comprehension in the other two for such details. Lot & Company had sacrificed him to ward off disclosures he might make. Possibly Attorney Jackson had suggested the step. It was very clear. Even if the station-porter had not mailed his letter, they would have found his order of release in the safe. It was a part of the other world—proper business from Lot & Company’s point of view. He was marked a thief in his small circle. He seemed to see the face of the boarding-house woman as she heard the news. She would search her house.... And Bessie Brealt.... The tempter, notoriety, was responsible for her small, mean part. It wasn’t an accident. She must have looked at his card and told, for the reporters would not have come to her.... It began to hurt him, mainly because of the thoughts and dreams of helping her, which had come to him since, especially here in the open boat. She had fallen into one of the little tricks of New York—to break into print at any cost. There wasn’t much reality in the rest, nor much chance of his needing New York again.

... Three and a child in a small boat. The pale moon-crescent, her bow to the sinking sun, appeared higher in the west. What a cosmic intervention—since last night when he had seen her first arc and the earth-shine from the deck of the Jade! And what a supper he had gone down to afterward! There was wrench in that—an age since then.... No one had spoken for a long time. Bellair wondered if the man and woman thought of food as he did.

Three and a child in the empty sea, and the great suns of night were coming forth in the deepening dusk. They were strangers, but more real than the sea. This was not like the earth at all; and yet the Jade had been of the earth. Her fabric had contained the bond that held from port to port. Stars and sea—one more real than the other, and different, too, for there was horror in looking down, but hope in looking up. Something in his breast answered the universality—but quailed before the deep.

... Just now Bellair, lifting his overcoat to draw it closer around him, sensed its unaccustomed weight on the left. His hand sped thither, touched the full bottle of Bourbon whiskey purchased in Savannah. His hand remained with it a moment. A shudder passed through the small boat from Stackhouse, who had come to from another hideous sleep.

3

Bellair stared into the sea. No one had spoken for many minutes. It was close to noon. Though all that had to do with memory since the sinking of the Jade was treacherous, according to his recounting, it was but the second day; that is, the mother-ship had gone down in the heart of night before last.... Bellair had given away to temptation, when he let his eyes sink into the depths. He had fought it for hours, and knew that nothing good would come of it, but there was so much to fight, he had not the further strength for this.

The sea was calm on the surface, but there appeared a movement below, so vast and unhurried, that it was like some planetary function. There seemed a draw of the depths southward, an under-movement toward the Pole. At times a cloud of purple would rise from far beneath and shut off his peering, like the movement of blueing in a laundry-tub before it is well-diffused. It came to him that this was but a denser cloud-land—an ocean of condensed clouds, moved not by winds alone, but the stirring of the earth’s mysterious inner attractions, which in their turn were determined by the sun and moon and stars. It was all orderly, but he, Bellair, was out of order. And such a little thing—a quart of cool water, and any one of the thousands of meals he had thoughtlessly, gratelessly bought and paid for—thousands consumed with a book at hand, or a paper to keep his mind off the perfunctory routine of feeding himself. Hundreds of meals he had taken, because it was the hour, and a cigar was more pleasurable afterward; meals in his room—paper packages of food, pails of ice, chilled bottles with a mist forming on them; saloon lunches, plates of colored sausages, creamy-rose slices of ham, tailored radishes and herring pickled in onions.... There was not a fish in the sea, not a movement but the blueing, and that slide of the under-ocean river to the Pole.

Yet there was something in there—an end to this disorder. It would take all he had left—the good air. It was like a knife or a gun or a poison-pill.... The movement below was so strong that it would grip him, shut him from the air, and leave him slithering along toward the Pole, sometimes sinking sideways, and then rising, forever seeking his balance ... not forever. He pictured himself in a school of herring, thousands of bright lidless eyes, thousands of bubbles, like eyes, from their mouths opening and shutting—he slithering sideways—his hands moving in the tugs and pressures. They would cease to dart from his movements, understanding them as the ground-birds know the wind in the grass. Lips and eye-lids and nostrils—they would have food. Food was the great event of the day to all things—except men. Men ate by the clock, ate to smoke, ate to soften the hearts of women ... yet after all food was food.... Or one big fish.... Or two fighting for him.... Or one finding him lying still, a slow fanning of fins against the purple pressures, watching to be sure—then the strike.... Once he had examined a minnow after the strike of a bass.... Where would he be in that strike—or in that herring school-room—not that slithering sideways thing—but he? Would he be watching humorously, or back in the cage with Mr. Sproxley, or in Bessie’s bedroom? Was it all a myth about that other he? It seemed a myth with his stomach sinking, tightening like a dripping rag between a pair of mighty elbows. In the centre of the rag was a compressed cork, and in the cork, a screw was twisting.

Cork—that made him think of the whiskey. He turned from the water to the coat under the seat, his eyes blinking. His bare foot moved painfully to the coat and along the breast to the pocket, to the hard hump of the bottle.

His eyes suddenly filled with the figure of Stackhouse, whose attitudes were an endless series of death tableaus, as his stories had also pictured. His face had broken out into more beard, his eyes glazed, body shapeless, like clothing stuffed with hair. His hands held the primal significance of birth and death. They lay upon his limbs, the thumbs drawn into the palms, the first and little fingers of each pointing straight down. Bellair thought of how death contracts the thumb, and how infants come with their thumbs in-drawn.

Also his mind was played upon by two distinct series of emotions—Stackhouse representing one set; Fleury and the Faraway Woman signifying the other. He swung from power to power. Then his concern and fascination for Stackhouse changed from loathing and the visible tragedy, to a queer passage of conjecture regarding the worldwide processes which had nourished that huge body to its fall. In fact, Bellair’s favourite restaurants returned to mind like a pageant; the little inns on the Sound that he used to go summer Saturday afternoons; the one place in Staten where there were corn-cakes and a view of the shipping; the myriad eating and drinking places of New York; and from them all, one shop of chop and chicken-broils where the miracles were done on wood-embers, so that even the smoke that filled the place was seasoned nutriment.

“They certainly knew how to buy,” he muttered aloud.

It was a kind of moan, and he added quickly: “I beg your pardon.”

Fleury and the woman regarded him with silent kindness.

“I was just thinking of a man I knew—a buyer of canned goods,” he explained hastily. “The bargains in canned-goods he had a way of pulling off! There wasn’t a man in New York who could bring in lines of stuff at the figure he copped—a little runt of a man named Blath, who knew his business——”

Fleury leaned back as if reaching for support, his quiet smile not a little tender. His two browned hands came forward to Bellair’s knees, and he said with a devoted smile:

“I’ll not forget that in a hurry.... Blath, you say his name was?”

Bellair knew well that he had not kept his mental pictures from Fleury’s mind. His entire consciousness had been in steam and woodsmoke having to do with broiling meat. The three were worn thin, worn to fine receptivity, and caught one-another’s thought without effort of many words.... Though he did not turn, a shock of pity came to him now for the master. He had meant to save the opening of the whiskey for the next dawn, vaguely thinking that if they should find the sea empty once more, there would be that false strength to fall back upon. Stackhouse could not live more than a day or two longer. He was torn by devils, his only surcease being the snap of consciousness from time to time. The whiskey had been upon Bellair’s mind like a curse. He wanted its force for himself, but never really meant to use it, had not even given the temptation leeway. His lot was cast with the forward forces; they would not have touched the contents of his bottle. This did not change the desire, however.

4

The third day. Bellair was light-headed from the scarcity of crackers. Yesterday had been a mingled thirst and hunger day, but this was characterised by hunger incessant. To-morrow he anticipated with dread another thirst horror, and after that, no hunger at all, but mighty agony that knew but the one word, Water. The keen airs of night and morning, and the sterilised burning of the noons, constantly fanned and stimulated the natural demands of the body.... He had [Pg 127]forgotten the newspapers. Bessie’s face came before him—something of her deep heart-touching tones which changed him.

“There must be a great woman there—a great fine woman—like this one.”

He did not turn. It may have been the first concession from his every-day faculties of this woman’s actual beauty. He had already granted this deeper within, where the understandings of men are wiser, but harder to get at. Certain hours had shown him the clear quality of saints and martyrs; and he had seen in pure life-equation that the child was worth his life or Fleury’s. He would have given his, as most white men would, but it was different to see the value and rightness of it....

There was now an unspeakable need in the stern. He drew the bottle from the overcoat-pocket at his feet, without turning. Fleury and the woman watched him. He cut the small wires with his knife, tore off the wafer, half-expectant of some sound from behind.... The day was ending. The young moon newly visible in the dusk began its curve into the west from a higher point in the sky....

There was a screw in Bellair’s knife. It sank noiselessly into the cork, but the first creak of the stopper against the glass brought the jolt. They all felt it—as if the great body had fallen from a dream.

Stackhouse was staring at the thing in Bellair’s hands, his tongue visible, his face filling with light. He rubbed his eyes, the beginnings of articulation deep in his throat. He was trying to make himself believe it was not a vision. That harrowed them. A pirate would have pitied him—reptile desire imaged not in the face alone, but in the hands and all. Bellair poured a big drink in a tin-cup. Fleury passed him a gill of water. Stackhouse drained the cup with a cry.

Something earth-bound slowly left his face. In contrast it grew mild and reckonable; but within an hour he was wild with pain, and dangerous for night was falling. In the light of the moon there was treachery. Bellair and Fleury sat together in the centre. The other’s bulk was great and the boat small. In becoming custodian of a bottle of whiskey, Bellair now required help. He wished it in the sea, but there was a pang of cruelty about that. The new force that animated Stackhouse had to be reckoned with. It was both cunning and destructive. There was no murder in their hearts.... Stackhouse drew his feet under him, helping them with his hands; his eyeballs turned upward from the agony of cramps in his limbs; then he sank forward on his knees. The craft of desire had turned from fighting to speech. The moon was grey upon his breast and gleamed from his eyes.

“You will listen to a man who is dying. Yes, Bellair, you will listen—who listened to me so much.... Give me drink, so I can talk——”

“It may save you—but not if you take it all at once.”

The creature winced, but his passion moved to its appointed ends. He drew forth the large brown wallet they had often seen; rubbed it in his hands, until his fingers could feel; then opened the leather band. From one receptacle he lifted a thick package of bank-notes.

“I liked you, Bellair—almost as I liked one Belding. I could have done much for you. I hate that man, for he has made my death hard——”

His face turned toward Fleury, but did not meet the preacher’s eyes.

“The Jade brought a sweet cargo to Ameriga, and Stackhouse does not bank in New York.... Bellair, I want to drink—so the talk will come——”

So absurd was the sound of cargo and banking that Bellair thought his mind had wandered again, yet he said:

“You are better. You cannot drink each hour. If this is to help you, you must be sane.”

“I have something to say of imbortance—you will help me, Bellair. It is for you.”

The faces of Fleury and the mother gave him no help. They were kind, but the thing seemed beneath them, as if they were waiting for him to come back from it.

“You have stood by that man, and not by me,” Stackhouse said hoarsely. “So that I meant to toss this in the sea at the last—this and all the papers——”

He lifted the bank-notes and showed him the collection of separately-banded documents.

“I am a rich man, and I have no heir. I had thought of you, but you turned away from me and did not continue to listen. You went to him of the breachings—but you have now what is needful for me and I will bay. I have no heir. I said that before. I dell you now. A dying man does not lie. There are papers to make you rich, for I have other fortunes. Look, I will toss it into the sea—if you do not give me that bottle——”

Bellair laughed at him.

“These are thousand dollar notes—there are fifty of them——”

Bellair turned aside for an instant. Money and papers of more money—these were very far from fanning excitement in his breast. A loaf and a jug of fresh water were real; the moon’s higher appearance each night, and the majestic plan of the night-suns, these were real. Fleury, the woman and the babe, lost in the brimming darkness of earth’s ocean—they were real. Like the stars they had to do with the mighty Conceiver of it all. They were a part of the Conception—and so they were real—but the dollars of men....

“And do you know what I will do—after I have tossed this into the sea?”

The question brought him back quickly.

“No, Stackhouse,” he answered.

“I will come for you and dake that bottle. I am big. I have strength. I will dake it—or you will kill me—and that will be the end——”

Bellair thought of that. There was a pistol in his coat. He did not want to use it. He believed Stackhouse would do as he said.

“For God’s sake, Bellair——”

“If I give it to you—oh, not for that rubbish!” he pointed to the wallet. “If I give it to you—you will die more quickly——”

“That is what I want.”

“But it is not our way——”

Stackhouse tore loose from his shirtpocket the heavy gold watch and its heavier chain, dropped the whole into one of the folds of the wallet to weight it down. “It will sink,” he said.

“To hell with it——”

“For God’s sake, Bellair!” Stackhouse moaned, his arm rising with the wallet and falling again.

At that instant Bellair thought of Bessie Brealt and her career.... He turned to Fleury and the Mother. They were regarding him with kindest concern—as if he were a loved one who could not fail to do well in any event. Then he thought of the work that Fleury might do—the preacher who had finished with talk, and was so eager to act.... And just then, the little child turned to him from the mother’s breast—a puzzled look, but calm, and a flicker of the damp upper lip, as if it would like to smile, but was not sure.

Bellair held out the whiskey. The wallet was thrust in his hands for reception of the bottle—a frenzied transaction.

They begged him to spare it for his own peace. They gave him water, but poor Stackhouse could not live with the stuff in his hands. In fifteen minutes the bottle was drained, and then the monster wept.

5

The night roved on like a night in still mountains. The young moon had sunk behind the sea. Jupiter in meridian glory seemed trying to bring his white fire to the dying red of Antares.... A dark night of stars now, since the upstart moon had left the deeper purple. Most of all, Bellair was fascinated by the great yellow gleam of Canopus. It was a dry, pure dark—no drip in that night—but a thirsty horror in the saline lapping of the ocean against the planks.

Stackhouse was headless in the shadow, his piglike breathing a part of all. Fleury, the mother and the child slept; the preacher’s head close to the knees of the woman. Bellair marked that, and that Fleury loved her. At times the preacher’s whole life seemed an effort to make her eat and drink; and as for Fleury himself it often appeared that he required no better nutriment than that of conferring food and water upon the others. As custodian, he claimed authority for his action.... Bellair thought long of Bessie. He was watching the east at last for Venus to arise ahead of the sun....

... But Bessie became blurred. He did not understand. Either his brain had another picture, or the original of the singing girl was fading.... A New York voice, no passion, but ambition, an excellent voice—and such a beautiful, girlish breast.... Bellair tried to shake this coldness from him. This was not being true. He had a faint suspicion that a man’s woman is more apt to depart from him while he is at her side than when he is away. It is because another has come, if passion for the old dies, when one is away. Alone and apart, man is more ardent, in fact, unless a new picture composes.... He thought of Davy Acton, the office boy at Lot & Company’s, that wistful, sincere face—and then Bellair gave way to the night.

This was a new sensation. It came from the hunger and thirst. He could let go. The purple immensity would then take him. A half-hour, even an hour, would pass. It was not sleep, very different from that. He was not altogether lost. A little drum-beat would come back to him from the mighty revery-space, and his heart would answer the beat. He seemed to be on the borderland of the Ultimate Secret; and invariably afterward he was amazed at what he had been—so sordid and sunken and depraved was the recent life he had known.

“But I was what the days and years seemed to want of me,” he muttered.

That was the gall of it. Days and years are betrayers; all the activities of the world are betrayers. He glimpsed the great patience of the scheme. Only man makes haste. Myriad pressures, subtle and still-voiced, tighten upon a man, bringing just the suggestion that all is not well with him. Then there are the more obvious pressures—fever, desire, the death of a man’s loves—to make him stop and look and listen. But so seldom does he relate these to the restlessness of his soul. Rather he attributes them to the general misery of life. He has been taught to do so—the false teaching.... For general misery is not the plan of life. If children could only be taught that it is all superbly balanced, the plan perfect; that not a momentary stress of suffering comes undeserved; that the burden of all suffering is to make a man change!... A sentence came so clearly to him that even his lips formed it.

“The plan of life is for joy!”

He saw the need of every hundredth man at least, arising to repeat this sentence around the world—arising from his pain and husks like the Younger Son, and returning to the joy of the Father’s House.... Something was singing in him from his thought of children.

“We’re too old,” he thought, meaning the millions of men caught in the world as he had been, “but the children could learn. They could change——”

He had turned to the bow. Fleury was a nearer shadow, sitting, head bowed forward. The Mother’s head lay back against Bellair’s coat, the child across her knees.... That faint grey light was about her. He had not noted this at first; it seemed to have come from the moment of contemplation—something like starlight, something like the earth-shine that Fleury explained. Her lips were parted, and her eyes seemed held shut, not as if she slept but as if she were thinking of something dear to her—her face wasted a little.

He saw it more clearly than the faintness of the light would suggest—and to Bellair’s breast came a sudden sense of her expectancy. It seemed she were awake, but lying back with eyes shut awaiting a lover, her face wasted a little from the burning of expectation. For a moment it was very beautiful to him. Then all was spoiled—for the personal entered. Almost before he had any volition in the matter, his mind had flashed across the interval of space between them—as if he were the one to bring that token to the parted lips.

He shook his head with impatience, and the miseries of the hour rushed home to his mind.

... Fleury was awake and they were whispering, the woman still asleep.

“The plan of the world is for joy,” Bellair said wearily. “We are all taught that it is a vale of tears—that’s the trouble—taught that we must grab what we can.”

“If we won’t learn from joy—we’ve got to take the pain,” said the preacher. “We’ve got to get out of the conception of time and space as the world sees it to catch a glimpse of the joy of the plan. We are in the midst of a superb puzzle. To those who see only the matter and not the meaning, life is an evil country, a country of dragons and monsters. But there’s a soul to it all, and man has a soul. If a man begins to use his soul to see and think with, the puzzle begins to unfold. A man’s soul isn’t of matter. It’s a pilgrim come far, far to go—very eager to get this particular journey through matter ended——”

“But why make the journey?”

“To learn evil.”

“The Younger Son wasted himself afield——”

“Was he not placed afterward above the elder in the Father’s heart?” Fleury asked. “Could he not appreciate the Father’s House better than him who had not left it? Man is greater than angels—that’s hinted at everywhere in the Scriptures. Angels are unalloyed good. The man who has mastered matter becomes a creative force. All the great stories of the world tell the same story—the wanderings of Ulysses, the tasks of Hercules. The soul’s mastery of each task and escape from each peril and illusion is an added lesson—finally the puzzle breaks open. The adventurer sees the long journey of the soul, not this little earth-crossing. He sees that his misery now is but a dip of the valley—that the long way is a steadily rising road—that the plan is for joy.”

It came home to him closer than ever before that night. His soul had tried to express itself and ordain his higher ways these many years, but he had lost his way in the world. He perceived that all men lose their way; that he had suddenly been shaken apart so he could see. It was luck in his case—the misery at Lot & Company’s, the singing of Bessie Brealt, the unparalleled contrasts here in the open boat. But why should he be shown, and not the millions of other imprisoned men? Was this a part of the great patience of the scheme again? Would something happen to each man in due season, some force in good time to help him to rise and be free?

“The man who ties himself to the pilgrim—and not the sick little chattering world creature—suddenly finds that he has but one job,” Fleury said presently. “He’s got to tell about it——”

The world suddenly smote Bellair.

“Why, men would say a man was crazy if he told the things we have thought this night,” he said, leaning forward. “Maybe we are a bit unsound. Perhaps these are illusions we are harbouring—vagaries from drying up and wasting away, similar to the vagaries of alcohol—doubtless——”

It was like waking from a dream—the horrible sounds now from the stern. Bellair heard Fleury’s voice. Turning, he saw Venus before anything else. It was the thought that he had fallen into the revery with, and had to be finished on the way out.

Under that superb vision of morning, Stackhouse was kneeling, his breast against the rail,—bringing up to his mouth great palm-fuls of brine.

6

The things that happened in the open boat on this fourth day are not altogether to be explained. A metaphysician from the East explained a similar visitation—but like many explanations of the East, the foundations of his discussion were off the ground. He did not begin [Pg 139]with stuff that weighs-up avoirdupois. The West can weigh the moon and estimate the bulk of Antares’ occulted companion, but in cases where things cease to be weighable, our side of the world sits back with the remark, “It is well enough to hypothecate the immaterial, but what’s the good of it when you can’t see it?” Also when the East gently suggests an opinion, the West rises to declare, “Why, you people haven’t got gas or running water in your houses.”

Now occasionally there comes a time when the Western eye sees something that it can’t touch or smell exactly, and it is easier to disbelieve its own senses than to change its point of view for an Eastern one. Accordingly it says, “I was crazy with the heat,” or as Bellair was prone to explain away the visitation of this day, “The thirst and the hunger had got to me.”

There follows, without further peroration, an unheated narrative of what appeared to take place on that fourth day:

As was expected from drinking the brine, Stackhouse went mad. The look of the great creature, his very identity, changed, went out from him, and something else came in. This happens when a dog goes mad. We have had to reckon with it in our own families. If that which we knew passes, without something foreign taking its place, the result would be a mere inert mass waiting for death. The alienists have given us the word obsession to explain that which comes instead, making an obscenity and violence of that which we knew. In the olden days these Enterers were known as demons. A man named Legion was beset with them, and Another with a strong will came and, according to the story, freed Legion. That which had defiled him entered a herd of swine, the bars of which were somehow down at the time....

They had ceased to hate Stackhouse. The old Master was gone into who knows what long feeding dream? This was merely his body that they watched for an hour or two in the forenoon. In fact, Bellair had studied the departure with some detachment. He was sitting as usual in the centre of the boat, glad that the Stackhouse agony was done. There was a moment in which it appeared that death was stealing in rapidly, and another in which a new kind of life entered the body—as vandals enter to despoil a house after the tenant has moved away.

The hunched body had suddenly reached for him like a great ape. Bellair had felt the crippling force of the touch, and an almost equal force from the thought that flashed in his mind—to use the pistol.... The boat had rocked beneath them. The blackness of much blood was in Bellair’s brain. The struggle was brief. Through it all, Bellair heard the cries of the child. Just as he was ready to fail, the monster sat back, his teeth snapping in his beard—the huge hands feeling for him, as one blinded.

“Change places with me, Bellair.”

This was from Fleury—midforenoon that fourth day. Bellair obeyed because he was afraid of the pistol at hand.

“I don’t want to kill him,” he panted.

“It will not come to that,” Fleury answered.

It was then that the transfer of seats was made. Bellair relied vaguely upon the preacher’s greater strength which was not of limb and shoulder. The monster dropped to his knees to renew the fight.

“Be still,” Fleury commanded. “Be still and rest——”

Stackhouse himself would not have faltered before that voice of Fleury’s, but there was a force in it that prevailed for a moment upon the obsession. The air was full of strain.... They heard the heart in the poor body. The blue-tipped hands were upraised from the bottom of the boat—the face was toward them. Bellair and the Faraway Woman could see only the back of Fleury’s head. The strain was like a vice in the open boat.

Bellair contemplated the mystery: that this force, lower and more destructive than Stackhouse, could be managed and subdued in part by the energy of another’s will-power, when Stackhouse himself would have required brute strength.... He thought he understood what was going on, though he would likely have scouted the same had some one told him. In any event, Fleury was quieting the complicated thing before him.... They heard the heart-beats rise and sink, the hands often lifting from the bottom. The entire passage of the battle was magnified before their eyes. Hours passed. Fleury scarcely turned.

So far there is nothing to call in the Eastern metaphysicians, but the day was not done, nor the dying galvanism of the monster. The afternoon was still bright, when the great hairy head cocked itself up differently—the eyes stretching open and suddenly filled with yellow-green light, the colour of squash-pulp close to the rind, but a transparent light, that gathered the rays of the day in its expiring lucency, and held their own eyes—a lidless horror lifted from its belly. The woman must have seen the change at the same instant, for her cry blended with the voice of Bellair. As one, they understood that this was a different force for Fleury to meet—a wiser, more ancient and terrific force, from the bowels of the world of evil possibly, without relation to Stackhouse, but with a very thrilling relation to them.

The whole face had a different look. It was rising higher. The hands were braced upon the grating, pushing the body up. They were accustomed to the loosed havoc of bestiality which Stackhouse had left upon his features—but this that looked out from his eyes was knit and intent.

Fleury’s hand groped back.

“It will not answer me,” he was saying. “This is different. It will not obey me. Take my hand, Bellair.... Yes, and take hers with the other. We must drive it out.”

Weariness more than death was in the speech. He had struggled for hours. It was the voice of a man who had fought to his soul’s end. Bellair held his hand and the woman’s, but felt himself the betrayer. This had come for him! He was the prophet lying still while the sailors deliberated. They must cast him into the sea, before this thing could be willed into quiescence. Concentration on his part was broken by this conviction.

The body of Stackhouse was lifted to its knees—the different face looking out of the eyes. They sat before it like terrified children; the eyes found them one after another, steadily, with unearthly frigid humour, like some creative force of evil, integrated of the ages, charged with intrepid will, a ruling visitant that would tarry but an instant for the climax.

It was not human, save in the shape and feature for their recognition; its difference from the human was its frank knowing destructiveness. Humanity is mainly unconscious of the processes of evil; this had chosen. This was of the pull of the earth, and knew its power. It seemed known to Bellair as if from some ancient meeting. He could never have remembered, however, without this return. It was devoid of sex, which seemed to bring to him some old deep problem that took its place with his ineffable fear of the presence.

So Bellair sat between them, holding their hands, but powerless to help.... It was higher, looking out of the eyes of the body, in strange solution with the fallen humanity of the face they knew. And Bellair knew he was responsible.

“You must depart. You do not belong here,” a voice said. Bellair could not tell if it were Fleury’s or the woman’s or his own. It may have been merely a thought.

The thing had uprisen now. It lurched in the sway of the boat. Fleury and he were standing to meet the body that hurled itself forward.... Water dashed over them. They were beneath the monster. Bellair felt more than the crush of the weight of flesh, a force kindred to electricity, but not electric, a smothering defiling dynamics, that despoiled him by the low, cold depth of its vibration, rather than by the fierce fury of it. Then he thought of the woman’s child. It came to him like a pure gleam. The child must live. The thought was very real, out of the self, but not for self.... It seemed that he heard the heart of Stackhouse break, and the demon hiss away.

Bellair looked up from the bottom of the boat. The woman’s face was very close, his face between her hands.

“... Yes, come back to us!” she was saying. “Oh, we could not live without you——”

It did not seem real to him for a moment. He turned from her merciful eyes. Fleury was sitting there in the centre, holding the child with hands that trembled. The boat rode lightly, though water lay in the bottom. He turned farther. Yes, the seat in the stern was empty.

“He is dead?” Bellair whispered.

“Yes,” she answered.

“And we did not kill him,” Fleury added.

“But how did he get overside?”

“You helped,” they told him.

He did not remember. “And the child?”

“The little Gleam is all right. All is well with us, Bellair.”

Something of the encounter returned now. “I do not belong here with you,” he said. “The thing—at the last—came for me——”

Then he realised how absurd this would sound—as if some ogre had come. Yet they understood.

“I thought it had come for me,” the woman answered quietly. “I said that, and he——”she turned with a smile to the preacher,“—and he said the same—that it had come for him. We will forget that. Something freed us——”

Bellair turned to the child.

“It was the little Gleam who freed us,” Fleury said.

“How did you get that name?” Bellair asked.

“You said it.”

“How long have I been lying here?”

“Ten minutes.”

He rested a moment longer.... The woman was sane, the child unhurt. Stackhouse was dead, and they had not murdered him. It was the fourth sunset.... Bellair sat up and turned his eyes to the sea.

The great body was near. It would not sink. They tried to row, but were too weak to pull far. The calm sea would not cover it from their eyes.... Even the birds did not come to it, and there was no tugging from the deep.

The terrible battle of the day had left them whimpering—drained men, in the pervading calm of the sea, under the dry cloudless heat and light of the sky. Fleury and Bellair looked at each other and their eyes said: “We did not murder him.” They looked again and found the woman saner than they. They turned over her shoulder to the blotch upon the sea. It floated high, drifted with them. They could not speak connectedly, but longed for the night.... At last, they heard her voice:

“It is very great to me to know that there are such men in the world. As a little girl in New Zealand I used to picture such heroes—such brothers and heroes. I came to doubt it afterward, and that was evil in me. I see now that the dream was true——”

They listened like two little boys.

“See, the cool is coming!” she added. “The child is glad, too. To-night, we will talk!”

“You will tell us a story?” Fleury said.

“Yes, when it is darker. It is all so safe and quiet now. We are all one.”

That meant something to Bellair. Later when it was dark, and they had supped, he said:

“It’s good—the way you count me in, but you shouldn’t. I don’t belong, much as I’d like to. I misjudged you at first. I misjudged Fleury—and him——” he pointed over her shoulder to the sea.

“It will be gone in the morning,” she whispered, patting his hand. “We are three—and the child.”

“Three, and God bless you,” said Fleury. “Three and the little Gleam——”

“The Gleam,” the woman repeated, holding the child closer. “I love that.”

“We are three and we follow the Gleam.”

7

Fleury took the child. The Faraway Woman sat straight in her seat, so that Bellair wondered at her strength. Her strength came to him. The deeps [Pg 148]of his listening were opened to her low voice. The story came to them with all the colour and contour of her thought-pictures—a richness from the unspoken words which cannot be given again:

“It’s about a little girl whom I will call Olga,” she said. “That is really her name, and the story is the little girl’s truly. I shall only tell part of it to-night, for it is long and I would only tell you the happy part—to-night.

“Olga’s father and mother and the other children lived in a low house by the open road that led to Hamilton. He raised sheep for a living on the rolling pasture-lands near the Waikata river, a hundred miles south of Auckland.... Yes, Olga was born in New Zealand—the youngest of a houseful of sisters. They belong more to the latter part of the story which I shall not tell to-night—just the happy part to-night.... The first thing that Olga remembered as belonging to the Great Subject was spoken by her father one evening when they were all together at their supper of bread and milk:

“‘... One never knows. It is best not to turn away any stranger, not even if he is shabby and ill-looking. I heard of a house where a stranger was turned away. They were not bad people, but supper was over, the things put aside, and the woman was very tired. The stranger was taken in at the next house, and in the morning he seemed different to them—not shabby or ill-looking at all, but rested and laughing, with bright lights about his hair. Always afterward, that house was blest, but the other house went on in its misery and labour. One never knows. It is best not to turn any stranger away.’

“Now Olga understood that from beginning to end. Many times before she had tried to follow the talk at the table, but the words would come too fast, and she would fall away to her own manner of seeing things. This talk simplified many matters for her, and seemed greatly to be approved. So in the evenings she began to watch for her guest up the long level road that led to Hamilton. All that summer Olga thought of it and watched, though she was very little and only five. Sometimes when it was not yet dark she would venture forth a few steps and stare up the long road, until the house of their distant but nearest neighbour was all blurred in the night. Just behind her cottage in the other direction, the road dipped into a ravine, and the trees grew up from it, shutting off the distance. No place could be more wonderful than the ravine at midday, for the shades were quickened with birds, bees, flowers and much beside that only Olga saw, but its enchantment was too keen for the evening, and the night came there very quickly.

“Her Guest would never come from the ravineway, but from the long, open road—Olga was sure of this. Yet when stopping to think, she became afraid he would not be allowed to pass the neighbour’s house. Their little Paul was her frequent playmate, and Paul’s father and mother were most good and hospitable people, the last on the Hamilton road to let a stranger go by, without food and shelter. And Paul would be looking, for he was almost always interested in her things.... But perhaps they would be in at supper and not see the stranger; or perhaps he would not want to stop there, but would know that she was watching. She made very certain that he would not get by her house unobserved.

“Spring had come again. The pale blue hepaticas were peeping into bloom. There was one day that ended in Olga’s most wonderful night. The sun had gone down, but not the light. The sky was crowded with rich gold like the breast of the purple martin—flickerings of beautiful light in the air, as if little balls of happiness were bursting of themselves. The shadows were soft on the long road; the tiles of the neighbour’s low house were like beaten gold, and the perfume of the hyacinths flooded everywhere into the silence. All that heaven could ever be was in that broad splendour and sweetness—the ravine a soft purple stillness behind, and a faint mist of red falling in the distant gold.

“He was coming. She knew him for The Guest from afar. The neighbours’ house was already dimmed, but the stranger was clear, so that she knew he had passed their door. She ran forth to meet him, and no one called to her from behind. It seemed all made for her—the evening so sweet and vast and perfect. One of her little loose shoes came off as she hurried, but she did not stop. The single one made her running clumsy, so she kicked that free too. He must not think she was a little lame girl.... He was farther than she thought; she had never come so far alone in the evening. And yet how clearly she could see him....

“He must be very tired, for sometimes he was on one side of the road, and sometimes on the other. He was quite old, and his step unsteady, yet he carried his cane and did not use it.... His head was uncovered. Now she knew why his steps were so unsteady. He was looking upward as he walked—upward and around quite joyously, the glow of the sky upon his white beard and hair—so that he did not see her coming, and her bare feet were silent on the road.

“She felt very little as she touched his cane.

“‘Won’t you come to our house to rest? Oh, please——’

“‘Yes, yes,’ he answered, but did not look down.

“‘Our house is near—won’t you come?’ she asked again, and turning, she was surprised how far it was, but not afraid, and no one called to her.

“‘Oh, yes,’ he answered.

“‘But I am down here——’

“‘Bless me—are you?’

“He did not seem to see her very well, but tried to follow her voice, his eyes looking past her, and to the side, his great hands groping for her gently. Olga spoke again and touched his hands. Then he really saw her, and she sighed with relief, because his eyes filled with the gentlest love she had ever seen—seemed to rest upon her and enclose her at the same time. The gladdest smile of welcome had come to his face. Both her hands were in his groping ones, but now she turned and led him. There was silence as they walked, and Olga asked:

“‘But what were you looking for—you were looking up, you know?’

“‘Was I, dear?’

“‘Yes, and what were you looking for?’

“‘I was looking for my mother,’ he said.

“Olga thought how old she must be, and she wanted to cry.... Her mother made the stranger very welcome, and her father stood back against the wall smiling in a way that she always remembered, and without lighting his pipe until after the stranger had finished his meal. There was golden butter and the dark bread that is the life of the peasants, a pitcher of fresh milk and a bite of that cheese which is brought forth only on Sundays or holidays. They pressed him to eat more, saying that he must be in need of food after his journey, but it was very little that he really took. He smiled and looked with peace from face to face, but Olga had pulled her stool back into the shadows, for she did not wish to intrude. He had not seen so much of the others.

“A chair was brought to the hearth, for it was now dark and there was a little fire burning against the damp coolness of evening. They waited in vain for him to speak. It was as if he had come home. To Olga he was intensely memorable sitting there in the firelight. The others would draw near, and he leaned forward and looked into their faces smilingly, but it was not the same.... Now he was looking and looking around the room. He found her, and held out his hands. She heard her mother say, ‘This is Olga’s guest.’

“She had not believed his old arms could be so strong. With one hand he held her, while the other patted her shoulder softly, slowly,—as if he had everything he desired. All about her was the firelight and the strange joyous whiteness of him—his throat and collar and beard all lustrous white. In his arms there was something she had never known, even from her mother—a deep and limitless joy, as if the world were all good, and nothing could possibly happen that would not be the right good thing.

“Then she became afraid her breast would burst, for the happiness was more and more. It had to do with the future, such a far distance of seeing, all rising and increasingly good—until Olga had to slip down from his knees, because the happiness in and through her was more than she could bear.

“‘I will come back,’ she said hoarsely.

“Outdoors she waited until the stars had steadied and were like the stars she knew, for they had been huge and blazing at first; then she returned and he stretched out his hands to her, and she heard her mother say, ‘Surely, this is Olga’s guest.’

“She did not remember how she got into her little bed. She heard the birds in the vines, and it was golden day when she awoke. Suddenly she knew that she had slept too long, that she would find him gone.... She thought of her little brown shoes on the road, but some one must have brought them in, for there they were by the bed.... He was no longer in the house, but she did not weep. There had been so much of wonder and beauty. She looked into her mother’s face, but did not ask. The mother smiled, as if waiting for her to speak. The other children must have been told, for they did not speak.

“A thousand times Olga wished that she had awakened in time; often it came to her that she had not done all she could for her guest, but there was never real misery about it, and she was never quite the same after that perfect night. She thought it out bit by bit every day, but it was long, long afterward before she spoke, and this was to an elder sister, who—it was most strange and pitiful to Olga—seemed to have forgotten it all——”

The Faraway Woman reached for the child, and held it close and strangely. Fleury offered her water, but she took just a sup and bade them finish the cup. “That was the happy part,” she added in a whisper, her back moving slowly to and fro, as she held the child high. “It might all have been happier, but Olga was not quite like the others. They did not tell her what they knew, and Olga never could tell them what she felt. Another time—some happy time—I will tell you, who are so good—you will understand the rest of the story——”

“Would you tell us if Olga’s guest came again?” the preacher asked.

“Yes, he came again,” she said softly.

Bellair sat still for several moments. Then he leaned forward and touched the child’s dress.

8

They made an appearance of drinking (with a cracker in hand) at midnight, but it was for the sake of the woman—a sup of tepid water. The long night sailed by. Slowly the moon sank—that dry moon, brick-red and bulbous, as it entered the western sea. All was still in the little boat. Bellair was ready to meet his suffering. [Pg 156]He could not sleep—because the woman was near. That was the night that her quality fixed itself for all time exemplary in his heart.

The little story had revealed to him a new sanctuary. He loved it and the little Gleam; as for that, he loved Fleury, too. It was a strange resolving of all separateness that had come to him from these friends. More than ever thrilling it had come, with Stackhouse out of the boat and since the story had been made his.

She had been frightened by his loss of consciousness at the end of the battle. He had awakened looking into her eyes. He scarcely dared to recall what she had said in her anxiety, but it was an extraordinary matter of value. What a mother she was; and what a little girl lived in that story, and now!... That little girl was still in her heart. The recent days in the open boat had not spoiled her; nor the recent years of loneliness and tragedy. Out of it all had come certain perfect works—the babe in her arms, her own fortitude and fearlessness of death; the little girl still in her eyes and heart. Bellair saw that a man loves the child in a woman, quite as much as a woman loves the boy in a man.... She had said that Fleury and he were brothers and heroes. He knew better in his own case. Still she had said it, adding that the discovery of such men to her was a part of the very bloom of life....

Bellair was not thinking the personal relation now. Fleury and she were mated in his own thoughts. From the beginning, this was so; and yet he did not ask more. He had come to believe from their glorious humanity (so strange to him and unpromising in the beginning)—that the world was crowded with latent values which, once touched and quickened into life, would make it a paradise.

That was the substance of the whole matter. He must never forget it. The human values which he had met in these were secret in thousands, perhaps in millions, of hearts, and needed only breaking open by stress and revelation—to bring the millennium to old Mother Earth, and open her skies for the plan of joy. Bellair impressed this upon his mind again, so he would not forget—then fell asleep.

She was first awake in the distance-clearing light. She arose carefully, so as not to awaken the men and the child, and stared long in every quarter. There was no ship, no land, no cloud; and yet a trace of happiness on her thin face, as she sat down. Fleury was rousing. She had expected that; for through their strange sympathy several times before he had awakened with her, or soon after. She bent forward and whispered a good-morning, and added:

“It is gone——”

“Surely?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God.”

The preacher breathed deeply, contemplated their faces one after another. From Bellair lying in the stern, his eyes turned significantly to the woman’s, and his own lit with zeal.... Bellair was on the borderland then, coming up through the fathoms of dream. Already he felt the heat; the sun had imparted its ache to his eyes. The three were half-blinded by the long brilliance of the cloudless days on the sea.... Bellair was trying to speak, but could not because of the parch in his throat. Moreover, no thoughts could hold him—not even Bessie. She came to mind, pink and ineffectual, lost in her childish things. She had failed this way before....

There was a cup to his lips. He smelled the water, and wanted it as he wanted decency and truth—as he wanted to be brave and fit to be one of the three. It almost crazed him, the way he wanted it—but it would be taking it from her. All the violence of one-pointed will was against the cup. He pushed it away.

“Don’t, Bellair,” said Fleury. “You’ll spill it. Drink——”

“I won’t. Take it away.”

“You must drink. It is yours.”

“Yes, he must drink,” said the woman.

Bellair sat up. Fleury was holding the cup to his lips.

“It is gone from behind,” said the preacher. “Drink your water. I have. I will speak to you after you drink.”

He stared at them, and at the open sea behind her. Then it came to him, as if from Fleury’s mind, to obey.... Fleury then served the woman. They ate a cracker together; at least it seemed so. Then Fleury spoke:

“We have the child to serve—that is our first thought; therefore we must think of the child’s mother first. As for her other part, as our companion, she will be one with us, of course. We have been here five full days, and we have not been allowed, by the presence of him who is gone—and may God rest and keep that—we have not been allowed to do the best we could in this great privilege of being together and drawing close to reality. Many have gone without food and drink for ten days—to come close to God. There is food here and water—to keep us in life. This is what I would say: We must change our point of view.”

He paused, and their eyes turned from one to another. The child’s face seemed washed in the magic of morning. The preacher added:

“We must cease to regard ourselves as suffering, as creatures in want, as starving or dying of thirst. Rather, as three souls knit, each to the other, who have entered upon a pilgrimage together—a period of simple austerity to cleanse and purify our bodies the better to meet and sense reality, and to approach with a finer sensitiveness, than we have ever known—the mystery and ministry of God.... So we are not suffering, Bellair. We are not suffering—”

He turned to the woman.

“We are chosen ones. This is our wilderness. When we are ready—God will speak to us. We are very far from the poor needs of the body—for this is the time and period of our consecration. God bless you both—and the Gleam.”

9

It was the seventh evening, the cool coming in. Bellair could not feel his body below his lungs, unless he stopped to think. The child was on his knee, his hands holding it. The little face was browned, but very clear and bright. Bellair’s hands against the child’s dress were clawlike to his own eyes, like the hands of a black man very aged. He could move his fingers when he thought of it, but he did not know if they moved unless he watched. The effort of steadying the child he did not feel in his arms, but in his shoulders. It was like the ache in his eyes. No tears would come, but all the smart of tears’ beginnings; and the least little thing would bring it about. He had to stop between words and wait for his throat to subside—in the simplest saying.

He saw everything clearly. The open boat was like a seat lifted a trifle above the runways of the world. He could see them, as one in the swarming paths beneath could never hope to see. It was all good, but the pain and the pressure of them all!... Bessie Brealt in pain and pressure; Davy Acton in the hard heavy air; Broadwell who was trying to be a man at Lot & Company’s; the old boarding-house woman who had forgotten everything but her rooms—her rooms moving with shadows whom she never saw clearly and never hoped to understand—shadows that flitted, her accounts never in order, her rooms never in order.... There had been people in there whom he never saw—one girlish voice that awakened in the afternoon and sang softly, a most subdued and impossible singing. She worked nights at a telephone switch-board—the night-desires of the great city passing through her—and she sang to the light of noon when it came to the cage.... Sunday afternoons when it was fine, a bearded man emerged from a back-room, emerged with a cane and cigarette case. Always on the front steps he lit the cigarette....

Bellair now couldn’t smoke.... Once there had been moaning in a lower back room, moaning night and morning from a woman. He was not sure if it were the millinery woman, or the one who worked in Kratz’s. The moaning stopped and as he passed through the hall, he heard a doctor say to the landlady:

“King Alcohol.”

Just that.... He saw the millinery woman afterward, so it wasn’t she.... The air in the old halls was of a character all its own. It was stronger than the emanations from any of the rooms. The separate currents lost their identity like streams in the ocean, like souls in Brahma.... How strangely apart he had kept all that five years! A face not seen before in the halls, and he did not know if it were a newcomer or old. So few came to the board to dine—the chorus-woman from the Hippodrome, who came up nightly from the water.... He saw the view from his window—over the roofs and areas. It was a wall of windows—dwellers in the canyon sides; boxes of food hanging out, clothing out to freshen itself in the dingy and sluggish airs—the coloured stockings and the faces that looked out. Everything was monotonous but the faces—faces grim and sharp—faces of kittens and bulls and rabbits and foxes, faces of ferrets, sleek faces, torn faces, red and brutal, white and wasted faces; faces of food and drink, faces of hunger and fear; the drugged look; few tears but much dry yearning, and not a face of joy.

There was no joyousness and peace in the lower runways, but pain and heavy pressures.... Bellair saw himself moving among those halls again, not a stranger, but with a hand, a smile, a dollar. No one would moan for days without his knowing. He would find day-work for the little telephone miss, and send orders for hats to the milliner. He would awaken that shadow of all the shadows, the landlady, with kindness and healing. He would call across the windowed cavern.... They would say, “Come over and help us,” and he would rush down stairs, and around into other streets, and faces there would be ready to show him. He saw it all clearly, such as it was, but no facts. They would not call to him. They would not be healed. They would take a dollar, but say he was cracked. He could move about passing forth a dollar here and there—that was all. They would welcome him at Lot & Company’s if he passed it out quietly enough. The dollar would go into the Sproxley system and emerge unbroken to the firm itself, there to be had and held and marked down in the house of Lot—Jabez, Nathan, Eben, Seth, each a part, the jovial Mr. Rawter a small but visible part—one hundred Sproxley-measured cents.... Davy Acton wouldn’t get one, nor Broadwell, nor the girls upstairs. The firm would not encourage him passing beyond the cage of Mr. Sproxley.... There were many who wanted food and drink and hats—hats——”

He was with Bessie Brealt now ... that night and the kiss. It was another life.... He went back to those who needed food—New York so full of food. Then he felt the heavy wallet against his breast—one paper in there would fill the open boat with food....

“My God,” he said.

He didn’t try to explain.... Sometimes he fell into a little dream as he sat. Once he was drinking at the narrow throat of a green bottle,—a magic bottle whose base was in the sea, and the trickle that passed through was freshened drop by drop. But it was a trick like all else in the world and the drops passed with agonising slowness. He came to, sucking hard upon his brass key, his mouth ulcered from it.... There were times in the long days that he hungered for the stars almost as for drink; times in the night when the stars bored him like some man-pageantry that he had seen too much of; times when the thought of God was less than the thought of water; and times when the faith and the glory of the spirit of the world made thirst a thing to laugh at, and death whimsical and insignificant.... Sometimes in the night, he fancied the woman was Bessie Brealt. It would come like a little suspicion first hardly stirring his faculties; finally it would be real—that the singing girl was there, all but her song. He would sit up rubbing his eyes in rebellion. Once he had spoken to be sure.

“Yes, it is I,” she said huskily, and the voice was not Bessie Brealt’s.

10

They did not speak of ships. Through the wakeful night hours they watched for the lights of ships, but they did not speak of vigils. Their eyes were straining for uncharted shores during the days, but they did not speak of land; nor of rain, though they watched passionately the change and movement of wind and cloud.

It is true that they suffered less in the days that followed the passing of Stackhouse. The underworld was gone from the seat in the stern; sunlight and sea air had cleansed it from the boat. They were weaker, but pangs of thirst were weaker, too. Small pieces of metal in their mouths kept the saliva trickling. The real difference was an exaltation which even Bellair shared at times, and which had come to them the fifth morning with Fleury’s talk, and with refining intensity since.

The child was well; his imperative founts still flowing. She was pure mother; it was the child that was nourished first, not her own body. She was first in the passion for his preservation. Indeed, she would have told them at once had any change threatened him. But she was the soul of the fasting too; the austerity of it found deep sanction within her; and there were moments in which she bewildered Bellair, for she became bright with the vitality which is above the need of bread.

Fleury talked of God, as Stackhouse had talked of death. Indeed, there was a contrasting intoxication in the days and nights of the preacher, but one without hideous reaction.

“There comes a moment,” he said, “when I am alone—when you two are asleep—that I feel the weakness. I drink and eat—perhaps more than my share. But when we are all together—sitting here as now, talking and sustaining one another—oh, it seems I was never so happy.”

Bellair suspected that this talk of lapses into abandonment while others slept was an effort to make their minds easy on the subject of his share. Both the Mother and Bellair doubted this; it preyed upon them. In the main they were one solution, each separate quality of their individualism cast into a common pool for the sustaining of a trinity.

“It changes the whole order,” Fleury declared. “Why, whole crowds have died of hunger—in half the number of days that holy men and women have fasted as a mere incident of their practice toward self-mastery. This is our consecration.”

Bellair found it true. He had ceased to marvel at himself. Deep reconstruction was advanced within him; and a strange loyalty and endurance prospered from the new foundations. If this were self-hypnosis—very well; if madness—very well, too; at least, it was good to possess, seven, eight, nine days in an open boat, on a one-fifth ration of water and food. To Bellair, who felt himself inferior to the others, it appeared that they already lived what he was thrillingly thinking out. He remembered his first thoughts of them—in the cold worldly manner of a fellow-traveller. It was almost as far as a man’s emotion can swing, from what he thought of them now. Before God, he believed he was right now, and wrong then. Certainly he would test it out, if he lived to move among men again.

He thought often about the child’s voice—at the moment that the heart of Stackhouse broke—as the point of his turning and salvation. This furnished a clue to many things, though he did not miss the fact that the world would smile at his credulity in accepting such a dispensation as real. The world would say that he had been driven to far distances of illusion by thirst and hunger; in fact, that anything which he had seen, other than the original entity in the eyes of Stackhouse, was a part of the illusion. Bellair considered this, and also that in every instance of late in which he had held the world’s point of view he had been proven wrong. He granted the world its rights to think as it chose, but accepted the dispensation.

There had been good and evil within him. The balance had turned in favour of the good, with that cry. It had turned from the self. The purpose of the Enterer had been to keep him in the self. It had come from the unfathomed depths of evil—that purpose and the devil which he saw. Bellair had heard repeatedly that some such dweller appeared to each man who makes an abrupt turn from the life of flesh to the life of the spirit. Each of the three had seen something foreign in the eyes of Stackhouse. It is true they had not talked of it; possibly to each it was different in its deadliness; perhaps theirs was not the demon he saw, since Fleury and the woman were much farther on the way than he, but they had been good enough to share responsibility for the visitation. Indeed, the Faraway Woman could not have been acting, since a cry came from her the instant it appeared.

This he loved to study: that his thought of the child had balanced the whole issue against the intruder; that something within him had brought that saving grace of selflessness out of chaos. It was a squeak, he invariably added, but it had shown him enough, opening the way. There must be such a beginning in every man; in fact, there must come an instant of choice; an instant in which a man consciously chooses his path, weighing all that is past against the hope and intellectual conception of a better life.

Bellair brooded upon this a great deal, especially on the ninth day, and that was the day, Fleury talked—the holiest of their days in the open boat. Bellair found many things clearer afterwards. As soon as he understood fully, he meant to close it all, so far as his own relation was concerned. In its very nature it must be given to others, must be turned to helpfulness. It was a sort of star-dust which did not adhere to self, but sought places of innocence to shine from, and used every pure instrument for its dissemination. The key to the whole matter was the loss of the sense of self. Having accepted this, Bellair knew that he must go up into Nineveh, so to speak. He trembled.

“We learn by austerities apart,” Fleury said, “and then we return to men with the story. We are called up the mountain to witness the transfiguration, and then are sent with the picture down among men. Oh, no, we are not permitted to remain, nor build a temple up there. First we receive; then we must give. We must lose the sense of self in order to receive; and having received, we do not want the sense of self. This is the right and left hand of prayer—pure selfless receptivity, then tireless giving to others. It is the key to the whole scheme of life—mountain and valley, ebb and flow, night and day, winter and summer, the movement of the lungs and the heart and the soul. We cannot receive while our senses are hot with desire; therefore we must become delicate and sensitive. Having received, we must make the gift alive through action. Dreaming is splendid; the dreamer receives. The dreamer starts all things; but the dreamer becomes a hopeless ineffectual if he does not make his dreams come true in matter. That is it. We are here to make matter follow the dream. That’s why the spirit puts on flesh—that’s why we are workmen. Action is the right hand of thought.”

The preacher was ahead of him in these thoughts. So often he said just what Bellair needed, the exact, clearing, helpful thing. For instance, Bellair had followed his own fascinating conviction that the world is full of secret values; that the world is ready to pull together, only it requires a certain stimulus from without—some certain message that would reach and unify all. Fleury tightened the matter by his expression of it:

“The socialists are doing great good. The church is still doing good; the societies that have turned to the East have heard the great message; even in commerce there is a new life; everywhere in the world, the sense of having found some new spirit which works to destroy the sense of self. If one great figure should come now—come saying, ‘You are all good. You are all after the same thing. One way is as good as another—only come.’... What we need is for some one to touch the chord for us—to give us the key, as to an orchestra of different instruments. We are all making different notes; and yet are ready for the harmony—some of us intensely eager for the harmony. The great need is for a Unifier.... It seems that we, here in the small boat, can see America so much clearer, than when we were there——”

Bellair had felt this a thousand times.

“The greatest story in the world is the story of the coming of a Messiah—the one who may chord for us. I think He will come. He will come out of the East, his face like the morning sun turned to the West. Don’t you see—we are all like atoms of steel in a chaos? You know what happens when a voltage of electricity is turned upon a bar of steel? Order comes to the chaos; the atoms sing, all turned the same way. That Voice must come—that tremendous voltage of spiritual electricity—that will set us all in harmony—all with our tails down stream.”

And Fleury finished it all by pointing out what had happened to them in the small boat. They had lost separateness; they were each for the others.

“That’s what must happen in America, in the world,—the pull of each for the whole—the harmony. You have seen an audience in the midst of great message or great music—they weep together. They cry out together. They are all one. That’s the story. That is what must happen. It will happen when the Unifier comes. It is the base of all gospel—that we are all one in spirit. Don’t you see it—every message from the beginning of time has told it? All one—all one—our separateness is our suffering, our evil. To return to the House of Our Father—that is the end of estrangement.”

... And Fleury was the one who had ceased to talk. But he had acted, too.... They saw that he was held by some power of his giving to them. He was like light. He had given the whole material force of his body to hold off that destruction which had come with the dying of Stackhouse. He had not eaten, even as they had eaten. They feared for him, because he was the centre and mainspring of their pilgrimage. Especially this haunt became more grippable in the heart of the ninth night.... There was a small tin of water left, less than three pints, very far from clean; and somewhat less than a pound of crackers. Bellair awoke to find Fleury gone from his place between him and the woman. He was in the stern, in the old seat of Stackhouse, praying. ... Fleury met the tenth day with an exaltation that awed Bellair and the woman; and there came from it a fear to Bellair’s heart that had nothing to do with self, nor with the Mother, nor the Gleam.

They were all weak, and two men utterly weak. Through their will and denial, and the extraordinary force and health of her own nature, the child had not yet been dangerously denied. It had become a sort of natural religion with the three—a readiness to die for the Gleam.

“This is our last day,” said Fleury, before the western horizon was marked clear.... The Faraway Woman told them another story of what the wise old shepherd dog told the puppies—that it was better to begin on crackers and water—and end on cookies and cream....

11

Bellair believed about this being the last day. The authority was quite enough, but there was still something akin to eternity in the possible space of another daylight and distance. The announcement did not bring him an unmixed gladness, for the mysterious fear of the night haunted him—the thing that had come to him under the full and amazing moon while Fleury prayed.... Day revealed no sign. They sat speechless and bowed under the smiting noon—the little boat in the wide, green deep under a fleckless, windless sky, proud of its pure part in infinite space.

That was the day the child moaned, as significantly for the ears of men, as for the mother. He was a waif to look at—the little heart at times like one of them in stoicism—then nestling to the mother-breast and the turning away in astonishment and pain. The Mother’s eyes were harrowing.

“This is our last day,” Fleury repeated.

“I believe you,” she said.

“Then drink and eat——”

“I did—it is—it is—oh, I did!”

“Land or rain or a ship, I do not know—but this is the last day——”

Bellair regarded him, between his own wordless vapourings of consciousness. The preacher was like a guest, not of earth altogether—like one who would come in the evening.... Yes, that was it. He was like the old man who came to Olga, only young and beautiful. It did not occur to Bellair now that he was regarding his friend with a quality of vision that a well-fed man never knows.... That which he had fancied placid and boyish was knit and masterful. The cheeks and temples were hollowed, but the eyes were bright. There is a brightness of hunger, of fever, of certain drugs, but these were as different as separate colours—and had not to do with this man’s eyes. Nothing that Bellair knew but starlight could be likened—and not all starlight. There was one star that rose late and climbed high above and a little toward the north—solitary, remote, not yellow nor red nor green nor white, as we know it—yet of that whiteness which is the source of all. Bellair had forgotten the name, but Fleury’s eyes made him think of it.

... The woman’s head was lying back. Something that Bellair had noted a hundred times, without bringing it actually into his mind’s front, now appeared with all the energy of a realisation. Her throat was almost too beautiful. The diverging lines under the ear, one stretching down to the shoulder, the other curving forward around the chin, were shadowed a little deeper from her body’s wasting, but the beauty was deeper than flesh, the structure itself classic. It was the same as when he had noted her finger-nails. Beauty had brought him a kind of excitement, and something of hostility—as if he had been hurt terribly by it long ago. But this was different; these details had come one by one, as he was ready. Her integrity had entered his heart before each outer symbol. He had not seen her at all at first; recalled the queer sense of hesitation in raising his eyes across the table in the cabin of the Jade. He had studied her face in the open boat, but something seemed to blur his eyes when she turned to him to speak. Two are required for a real understanding. As yet they had not really met, not yet turned to each other in that searching silence which fathoms. But the details were dawning upon him. Perhaps that was the way of the Faraway Woman—to dawn upon one.

The day was ending—their shadows long upon the water. Fleury raised his hand as he said:

“It is surer to me than anything in the world——”

“What, Fleury?” Bellair asked, though there was but one theme of the day.

“That this is our last day in the open boat.”

Bellair did not answer. His own voice had a hideous sound to him and betrayed his misery.

“It was the too-great light—that I saw,” the preacher added huskily. “It began last night as I prayed. I saw that this was the last day for us—but more——”

“I saw something about you as you prayed,” the woman said.

Fleury surprised them now, taking a sup of water. They saw that he had something to say about God and the soul of man—that was the romance he worshipped. They listened with awe. In Bellair’s heart, at least, there was a conviction that tightened continually—that they were not long to hear the words of the preacher.

“... For two years I have been in the dark and could not pray. Before that I prayed with the thought of self, which is not prayer. I could not stay as a church leader without praying. I said I would pray when I could pray purely for them. I told them, too, that I could not look back in service and adoration to the Saviour of another people who lived two thousand years ago. They called me a devil and a blasphemer. For two years, I have tried to serve instead of to pray, but no one would listen, no one would have me. They said I was insane, and at times I believed it. At last, it came to me that I must go away—to the farthest part of the world——”

He turned yearningly to the woman.

“And then you came with your strength and faith.”

Now to Bellair:

“And you came with the world in your thoughts, and I made the third. We went down into the wilderness together—with that other of the underworld. It was a cosmos. It has shown me all I can bear. Last night, it came to me that I could pray for you. It came simply, because I loved you enough——”

His face moved from one to the other, his hand fumbling the dress of the child beside him.

“It was very clear. As soon as I loved you enough, I could pray for you, without thought of self. It was the loss of the self that made it all so wonderful. And as I prayed, the light came, and the Saviour I had lost, was in the light. And the light was Ahead; and this message from Him, came to my soul:

“I am here for those who look ahead; and for those who turn back two thousand years, I am there. Those who love one another find me swiftly.”

Bellair scarcely heard him. Fleury’s eyes were light itself. The man’s inner flame had broken through. Something incandescent was within him; something within touched by the “glittering plane.” But it did not mean future years together. Bellair had wanted that.... Fleury smiled now, his eyes lost in the East. He lifted his hand.

“It always comes from the East,” he said strangely.

Bellair had searched that horizon a few moments ago. He knew exactly how the East had looked—a thin luminous grey line on the green, brightening to Prussian blue, then to vivid azure. He dared not look now, but watched the woman.

Straining and terror were in her eyes—then sudden light, a miracle of light and hope, then her cry.

Bellair seemed to see it in her mind—the smudge upon the horizon—before he turned. It was there—a blur on the thin grey line.

To lift the oars was like raising logs of oak, but he shipped the pair at last, listening for the words of the others and watching their faces. It seemed simpler than straining his eyes to the East. Fleury tried to raise the overcoat from the bottom of the boat, but it fell from his hands, and he sank back smiling:

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “They’re coming. They’ll see us soon.”

To Bellair it was like seeing a ghost, that smile of Fleury’s. It meant something that in the future would be quite as important to him as the ship’s bearing down to lift them up. He pulled toward the east—felt the old fainting come, pulled against that,—to the east, until a low, thundering vibration was all about him, like the tramp of death. Perhaps it was that—the thought flickered up into form out of the deep blur.... He was drinking water again. This time he did not fight.

“You may as well have yours, Bellair, man,” Fleury was saying, “and you need not row. They’re coming. It’s a ship coming fast. There is light for them to see us well—if they do not already——”

“But you haven’t drunk!”

“Bless you, I’ll drink now.”

The woman handed him the water. The cup was in his hand. He covered merely the bottom of the cup, and made much of it as if it were a full quart.

“The fact is—I’m not thirsty,” he said pitifully, when he saw their faces.

“You’re all in,” Bellair said in an awed tone.

Through the prolonged ending of that day Bellair watched the steamer near, but his thoughts were not held to the beauty of her form, nor the pricking out at last of her lights. He stood against the bare pole in the dusk, and waved and called—his voice little and whimsical. It seemed to falter and cling within their little radius, then run back to his ears—a fledgeling effort. But the deep baying of the steamer answered at last. Even that could not hold Bellair’s thoughts.... She was coming straight toward them now. If it were death and illusion, so be it; at least that is what he saw.

“It would be all right—except for him,” Bellair said to the woman.

“I tell you all is well,” said Fleury. “Only I ask——”

“Yes,” they said, when he paused.

“Don’t let them separate us—when we are on board the ship to-night. I want to be with you both to-night—we three who have seen so much together—and the little man.”

... They heard her bells and the slackening of the engines. She was coming in softly like an angel, bringing the different life, a return to earth it was. The woman was weeping. Bellair could not have spoken without tears....

Just now through the evening purple, he saw that star in the east, off the point of the steamer’s prow.

“Fleury,” he said, “tell me—what is that one—that pure one—I have forgotten?”

The preacher’s eyes followed his finger.

“That is Spika—Spika of the Virgin,” he said.

12

The engine had stopped. She neared in the deep dusk, a harp of lights, and with the steady sound [Pg 181]of a waterfall.... She was just moving. There was a hail from the heights.

“Hai!” answered Bellair. It was a poor, broken sound.

Now they felt the strange, different heat of the steamer—earth-heat—and a thousand odours registered on their clean senses—milk and meat, coal-smoke, and the steam of hot ashes, perfumes, metal and paint.... A hoarse voice called down:

“Are any of you sick—infectious?”

“No—just hunger and thirst—clean as a new berth.”

It was Bellair again.

“Stay off well. We’re putting down a ladder. Watch the green light.”

They saw it come down to them—to the very water. Then they were uplifted. This was the world coming back—but a changed world. A great kindness had come over all men. Bellair saw the tears in the eyes of the people gathered on the deck. He almost expected to see Bessie Brealt there.... Perhaps the change had come from her singing.... There was a choke in the voices of the people gathered around them.

“Please,” he managed to say, “don’t keep us apart to-night—we three. Please let us be together.”

And down the deck-passage he heard the voices of women, and among them, the Faraway Woman’s voice, in answer:

“Yes, I will go with you thankfully—but not for long. My companions and I must be together very soon. We three—to-night—it is promised between us.”

There was no voice from Fleury.

The kindness of every one, that was like a poignant distress to Bellair. He dared not speak; in fact, there was danger of him breaking down even without words. The eyes about him were searching, in their eagerness to help. An Englishman came forward at intervals and gripped his hand; a German spoke to others of the remarkable condition of the boat and its three, after ten days; another German moved in and out helping, without any words, though his eyes lifted Bellair over several pinches of emotion. The American ship-doctor was the best of all; young, gruff, humorous, quick-handed, doing and saying the right thing.... They brought him stimulants and sups of water by the teaspoon. The merest aroma of thin broth in the bottom of a tea-cup was lifted to his lips. He was helped to a hot bath; a splendid quiet friendliness about it all. Now it occurred to Bellair that they were tremendously eager to hear his story. He wanted to satisfy them....

“It was the fifth day—that Stackhouse died,” he was saying, though he was mistaken. “Perhaps you’ve heard of him ... owns a lot of ships and islands down here.... That was the climax for us. He died hard and he was a big man—but we did not murder him.... His body did not sink....”

There was a boom of running water in the bathroom; the steam rising. Bellair’s voice was ineffectual. The face of the ship-surgeon bent to him in the steam, saying:

“Cut it—there’s plenty of time.... Leave it all to us.... I say, lean back. You’ve got a bath coming. Guess you’ve never been on a sick-list before. We can wait for the story.”

Bellair did try to lean back. One by one, the sheathes of will power that he had integrated in the past ten days relaxed. It was strange to feel them go. They had come hard, and they were correspondingly slow to ease in their grip. He had to be told again and again—to be helped to rest. It was good to think that a man does not lose such hard-won strength more easily than it comes—that one, in fact, has to use the same force to relax with. It was all delightful, this friendliness, the ease of his body, and the giving—the giving into human arms of great kindliness, and the sense of the others being cared for similarly. They had fixed a berth for him, when he said:

“You know we are to be together to-night. It was a compact between us——”

The surgeon was out and in. It occurred to Bellair that he was attending the other two.... He repeated his wish to the surgeon about joining the others as soon as possible.

“They’re all alike,” the latter said. “They’re all thinking about getting together again.... Good God, man, you’ve had ten days of steady company. You ought to sleep——”

“It is a compact between us.... Is he—is he?”

It came to Bellair that this man might be able to tell him the truth, but the surgeon was now at the door speaking to one of the Germans. He vanished without turning....

They were together later in one of the empty cabins of the German liner, Fomalhaut, bound for Auckland; and only the American doctor came and went. The child was asleep in the berth beside Fleury. The two others sat near.

The extraordinary moonlight of the night before, when Bellair had awakened to find the preacher at prayer, had left the spirit of its radiance upon Fleury’s face. It was there now—and such a different face from which his eyes, falsified by New York, had seen at first. This was the real Fleury—this lean, dark, white-toothed gamester, features touched by some immortal glow from that orient moon; whose smile and the quality of every word and gesture, had for him a gleam of inspiration and the nobility of tenderness. The man had risen in Fleury—that was the secret. And this that had risen in Fleury could not die.

But the flesh was dying. Bellair had known it in the dusk while the steamer neared. He knew that the woman understood—from her face which leaned toward the berth continually, from the suffering in her eyes and the dilation of sensitive nostrils.... For ten days, as much as he could, Fleury had betrayed himself. Custodian of the food and water, he had served them well. And that day of the Stackhouse passing—if it were not all a hideous dream, as Bellair fancied at times—he had not given a balance of strength that had not returned, to fight off the will of the Intruder.

The flesh was dying, but this that had risen in Fleury could not die. Their other companion had gone down, clothed in hair and filth and the desire of a beast, taking the remnant of the man with it.

Thus it had come to Bellair—the vivid contrast of cavern and high noon. It was all in the two deaths, the enactment of the second, as yet unfinished.... New York and all life moved with countless tricks and lures to make a man lose his way, lose his chance to rise and die with grace like this. New York was like one vast Lot & Company.

Fleury’s head was upon the knees of the woman. Bellair had not seen her take him. For this last hour, the three were as one. There was a cry from Bellair that the woman heard all her days:

“Oh, Fleury, do you have to go?”

So far as time measures, the silence was long before Fleury answered, and then only to say:

“Take my hand, Bellair.”

He came up from a deep dream to obey. It had been as if he were out under the stars again,—Fleury talking from the shadows near the woman—the rest, vastness and starlight.

“It’s the too-great light, Bellair. It came when I could stand it. As soon as I could love you enough I could pray. It is the loss of the sense of self that made it wonderful. The Light and His voice came from ahead.

“‘I am here for those who look ahead, and for those who turn back two thousand years, I am there. Those who love one another find me swiftly.’... This is dying of happiness.”

In the silence, the low lights of the cabin came back for their eyes. They heard him say at the last:

“... I love you both and respect and thank you both. We found our happiness in the open boat.... And Bellair, when you go back to New York, do not stay too long. It is right for you to go, but do not stay too long.... And dear Bellair—always follow the Gleam.”

The Doctor came. It was his step in the passage that roused them. He bent to the face, then searched the eyes of the woman. She could not find his.... Bellair was puzzled. The head was in her lap, yet the preacher seemed behind them, and still with something to say. They were not sure at first that it was the Doctor who asked:

“Why did you not call me?”

He repeated the question.

“He told us—you would come afterward,” Bellair said in a dazed way.

“Yes, he wanted it so,” said the woman.

The Doctor stared at them. “Are you two going to pull off anything further to-night, or are you going to get the rest you need, and attend to the nourishment you need?”

“We’re under orders now, Doctor,” said Bellair....

“If I should want him in the night—if I should be frightened, you would let him come?”

It was the Faraway Woman who asked this of the Doctor, her hand touching Bellair’s sleeve.

“Why, of course,” the Doctor answered quickly.

“We’ve been together in strange things,” Bellair explained. “And now you see, our friend is gone.”

The door was open between their cabins, but Bellair was not called. Once he heard the child cry, but it was quickly hushed.... He thought it must be near morning at last, and went on deck. He was not suffering, except from lassitude, deep languor and numbing strangeness that Fleury was not near him—that the woman was not sitting in her place forward.... It was just after midnight, the moon still high, the weather the same. ... He was not seen. Three men were seated smoking in the lee of one of the engine-room funnels, the light from the dining-saloon on their knees. The Doctor joined them, and said presently:

“... It’s a bit deep for me. They’ve been in an open boat ten days. Old Stackhouse, well-known down here, died of thirst the fourth or fifth day, but these two and the infant have lived through it. The preacher looked all right, but seems to have suffered a fatal case of happiness since we lifted him aboard. The two knew it was coming apparently, and arranged for me to be absent.... It appears that they made a sort of pilgrimage to Mecca out of thirst and starvation, and got away with it——”

Bellair withdrew softly.

In the long next forenoon when he could not rise, he wished he had gone into that open door, when he was on his feet last night. Sometimes half-dreamily he wished he were back in the open boat, because she was always there. Something had taken establishment in his character from that ten days. She had never failed—in light or dark, in the twilights of dawn and evening, in moon and star and sunlight—always there; disclosing leisurely some new aspect of beauty for him. He understood now that one does not begin to see clearly any object until one is attracted to it—that all the cursory looking at things around the world will not bring them home to the full comprehension.

... He could call to her, but it was like telephoning. He had never liked that, and beside he was not the master of his voice. It would not go straight, but lingered in corners, broke pitifully—so that he knew it frightened her—and the meanings in his mind which he could not speak, pressed the tears out of his eyes.... Then there was pain. His body astonished him. He had merely been weak and undone last night, but to-day.... And he knew that she was suffering, not from any sound from her cabin, but because she did not come. Then they had to feed the child. This filled him with a rebellion so sharp that it recalled him to full faculties for a second. He had to smile at his absurdity.

The second day it was the same, but the third Bellair arose; and when she heard his step, her call came. It was still early morning. He found the child before he looked into her face.

“I am ashamed to be so weak,” she said. “But to-day—a little later—he said I could rise. We are to be on deck for a half-hour after dinner, he told me.”

“The little Gleam——” said Bellair....

She was whiter, more emaciated than when they sighted the Fomalhaut. There had been a crisis that they had not expected in the relinquishment of their will-powers.... Yet he saw how perfectly her face was fashioned.... Her hand came up to him, warm from the child, the sleeve falling back to her shoulder—held toward him, palm upward. As he took it, all strangeness and embarrassment left him, and he was something that he had not been for five years, something from the Unknowable. But that was not all. He looked into her eyes and met something untellably familiar there.

A most memorable moment to Bellair.

They were on deck together in the afternoon, the American doctor helping them. They heard sacred music—as he walked between them aft. They reached the rail of the promenade overlooking the main-deck.... A service was being intoned in German. Passengers and crew were below, and in the midst—leaded and sewn in canvas, in the cover of a flag——

The sound that came from the woman was not to be interpreted. She turned and left them. Bellair would have followed but he felt a courtesy due the Doctor, who had arranged for them not to miss the ceremony. Perhaps he had held the ceremony until they could leave the cabin. Yet Bellair had already turned away.

“Good God——” said the American. “You people have got me stopped. I thought this was a trinity outfit—that we picked up.”

Bellair took his hand. “It was—but our friend left us.”

The Doctor glanced at him curiously, and pointed down to the body already upon the rail. “I suppose that has nothing to do with him?” he remarked.

“Not now—not to watch,” said Bellair.

“I’ll understand you sometime,” the other added. “Go to her. You’ll probably find her waiting for you forward.”

Bellair lay in his berth that night, the open door between, and he thought of that first real look that had passed between them. “I’m not just right yet from the open boat,” he reflected. “I’m all let down from starvation, a bit wild with dreams and visions, but I saw old joys there and old tragedies, and mountains and deserts and—most of all, partings. I wonder what I’ve got to do with them all? It seemed to me that I belonged to some of those partings—as if I had hungered with her before and belonged to her now—and yet——”

Fleury came into his thoughts. “They were certainly great together. It seemed to me that I did not belong when they were together; and yet, this morning as I looked down at her—well, something of expectancy was there——”

Bellair found himself lying almost rigid in the intensity of his hope. Then his thoughts whirled back to New York—all unfinished. There was something in his heart for Bessie—and something in the wallet for Bessie. That was in the original conception, and he must not fail in that; and then he must clean that name, Bellair, from the black mark Lot & Company had traced across it. For a moment he fell to wondering just how he would go about that. Lot & Company was tight and hard to move.... A moment later he was somewhere in an evil and crowded part of New York, in the dark, Davy Acton holding him fast by the hand.

“... something of expectancy.”... Was it in her eyes, or in her lips? Her whole face came to him now, a picture as clear as life. He had dwelt upon her eyes before—and that billowy softness of her breast, as she lay—he had not thought of that. It was like something one says to another of such moment, that only the meaning goes home—the words not remembered until afterward. And her mouth—it was like a girl’s, like a mother’s too, so tender and expectant. ... That word thrilled him. It was the key to it all.

He was farther and farther from sleep—listening at last with such intensity that it seemed she must call.

PART FIVE
THE STONE HOUSE: I

1

The woman awed him quite as much as in the open boat. The turning of her profile to the sea had for Bellair a significance not to be interpreted exactly, but it had to do with firmness and aspiration and the future. Fleury was in their minds more than in speech. She could speak of him steadily, and this during the sensitiveness of convalescence which is so close to tears. Perhaps they found their deepest joy in the child’s fresh blooming. The ship’s people were an excellent company.

Bellair’s mind adjusted slowly, and by a rather intense process, to the fact of the Stackhouse wallet. It was all that the great wanderer had said. The woman accepted the lifted condition, but it seemed hard for her faculties to establish a relation with temporal plenty. Fleury had given them each a greater thing. They were one in that—keen and comprehensive; indeed their minds attacked with vigour and ardour this one thought: somehow to help in drawing off the brimming sorrows of the world.

It came all at once to Bellair that this was no new conception. He had heard and read of helping all his life. A touch, queerly electric, had come over him as a boy, when a certain old man passed, and some one whispered in the most commonplace way, “His whole thought is for others.”... He had read it in many books; especially of late, the note had been sounded. It was getting into the press—some days on every page. All the cultic and social ports, into which he had sailed (like a dingy whaler, he thought) had spoken of brotherhood, first and last.

Did a thing like this have to be talked by the few for several thousand years before it broke its way into the conception of the many, and finally began to draw the materials of action together? It had not been new in certain parts of the world two thousand years ago when Jesus brought the perfect story of it, and administered it through life and death. Had there been too much speech and too little action since; or did all this speech help; the result being slow but cumulative, toward the end of the clearly-chiselled thought on the part of the majority that would compel the atoms of matter into action, making good all thoughts and dreams?... He knew men who sat every Sunday listening courteously to more or less inspired voices that called upon them to Love One Another; yet these men, during the next six days, moved as usual about their work of rivalry and burning personal desire. Why was this?

The answer was in his own breast. He had made a mental conception of the good of turning the force of one’s life out to others, but he had not lived it; had never thought seriously of living it, until now that the results had been shown him, as mortal eyes were never given before to see. That was it; men required more than words. Would something happen to bring to all men at last the transfiguring facts as they had been brought to him in the open boat—squarely, leisurely, one by one? He was not different from many men. Given the spectacle of the fruits of desire and the fruits of compassion side by side, as he had been forced to regard them—any one would understand.

The woman was one of those who had got it all long ago. She had ceased to speak of it much, but had put it into action. The child was a part of her action, and his own love for her—that new emotion, deeper than life to him. She had mainly ceased to speak.... Action and not speech had been the way of Fleury, his main life-theme, his first and last words. Formerly Fleury had spoken, and then emerged into the world of action. It had been tremendous action—for them. These things never die.

“That’s the beauty of them,” he said aloud. “These things never die.”

“You were thinking of him?” the Faraway Woman said.

The Fomalhaut left them at Auckland—insular, high and breezy between its harbours and warm to the heart, from the southern summer. They took the train to Hamilton, near where she had lived....

“It seems so long since I was a part of the life here,” she told him, as they climbed a hill by the long road—the same upon which Olga’s Guest had come, “and yet it really isn’t. You can see—how little the Gleam is. He was born here.... There was so much to learn. It has been like a quick review of all life. When I think of it—and feel the child alive, unhurt—oh, do you know what it makes me want to do?”

Bellair was thinking of Fleury. He sensed her emotion, as he shook his head.

“It makes me want to work for you.”

Bellair placed her saying to the account of her fine zeal for the good of the nearest. He was very far from seeing anything heroic in his part of the ten days.... They had paused on the little hill back of the settlement where she had lived. With all her coming home, she met no acquaintance while he was with her. It was as if she had come to look, not to enter.... But there were two days in which she went forward alone, and Bellair got a foretaste of what it would mean to be separated. It called to him all the strength that he had earned.... The Faraway Woman came back to Hamilton where he waited—as one who had hastened. The child was asleep, and they walked out into the streets together....

They were alone again as in that first night on board the Fomalhaut when Fleury left them.

“Do you want to stay to make your house near the Hamilton road?” he asked.

She regarded him quietly, her eyes fixed upon his face with an incommunicable yearning.

“No.”

“Do you mean to stay in New Zealand?”

Again she held him with her eyes, before answering:

“It may be well for me here, as anywhere. I could not stay in America.”

The sun was setting. It was she who broke the silence:

“You must go away?”

“Yes. You knew that from him?”

“From what he said—yes.”

“He told me not to stay too long.”

“Perhaps he saw it all. Perhaps he saw something that would keep you.”

“He saw a very great deal.”

They had been gone two hours. Her steps quickened, when she thought of the child.... “Yes, I may as well stay in Auckland,” she said. “Do you know, I should like to stay by the sea—to be near it, for remembering——”

That seemed to come very close to Bellair’s conviction—that her whole life was turned to the saint who had passed.

“A little house by the sea,” he said, his mind picturing it eagerly to relieve the greater matter.

“Just what I was thinking—a little place out of Auckland on the bluffs—overlooking Waitemata—where one could see the ships coming in——”

“Will you let me help you find it, and arrange your affairs?”

“Nothing could be happier for me—if you would.”

“We’ll go back to Auckland to-night, and start out looking from there.”

Mainly they followed the shore during their days of search; but sometimes they found woods and little towns. There was no coming to the end of her; she put on fresh perfections every day, and there were moments in which he was meshed in his own stupidity for not seeing the splendour of her at the first moment. He became possessed of a healthful wonder about women—how men like himself wait for years for some companion-soul, finally believing her to be in the sky, only to find that the nearest was waiting all the time. The world is so full of illusions, and a man’s mind is darkest when it seems most clear.

The days were like entering one walled garden after another, always her spirit vanishing at the far gate. Beside him was a strong frail comrade, loving the water and air and sky and wood, as only a natural woman can love them—her eyes shining softly, her lips parted and red as the sleeping child’s. He was struck with the miracle of her mouth’s freshness. It was like the mouth of a city-bred woman, a woman who had forced her way for years through the difficult passages of a man’s world, who had met the fighting of the open, and the heavier-line fighting of solitude.... Here Bellair’s diffidence intervened. Moreover, it was a mouth that could say unerring things.

“She is a fine weave,” he would say, after the partings at night.

She held through every test. The enthralling advance guard never failed—that winged immortal something ahead. Often in some little inn or in the hotel at Auckland during the nights, he found himself in rebellion because he could not go to her. Always in the open boat he had awakened to find her there, and on the night that Fleury passed, she had asked to have him within call—but those times were gone. The world had intervened that little bit.... There was one summer day and a bit of forest to enter, a moment surpassing all. Her arms and fingers, her eyes and breast were all fused with emotions. She gave him back his boyhood that afternoon in a solemn wordless ceremony, but all his diffidence of boyhood came with it.

The woods were full of fairies to her; there were meanings for her eyes in the drift of the wind over the brown pools. She caught the woodland whispers, was a part of sweet, low vibrations of the air.... Her eyes had come up to his, fearless and tender; yet for the life of him, he could not have been sure that they wanted anything he could give. For the first time he marvelled now at the genius of self-protection which women have put on, instinct by instinct, throughout all this age of man, this age of muscle and brain, in which the driving spirit of it all has no voice.... There was one branch above her that was like hawthorn, and full of buds. The little Inverness cape that she wore was tossed back, and her arms were held up to the branches.... Strangely that instant he thought of her story—the coming of The Guest—the thought she had held all the years, the strange restless beauty of its ideal—the mothering beauty of it that seemed to him now endless in power. Such a mystery came to him from her arms—as if she were holding them up to receive perfection, some great spiritual gift.... It was startlingly native to her, this expectancy—the pure receptivity of it, and the thought of beauty in her mind. A woman could command heaven with that gesture, he thought, and call to earth an archangel—if her ideal were pure enough.

A sudden gust of love came over him for her child. He thought he had loved it before, but it was startling now, filling him, turning his steps back toward the place where it lay....

2

And all the time that they were searching widely from Auckland for their house, a little Englishwoman, growing old, sat waiting for them within an hour’s ride from the city. They found her at last and her stone cottage, rarely attractive in its neglect; and from the door-yard, an Odessian vista of sky and harbour and lifted shore-line.... They had even passed it before, their eyes turned farther afield. Bellair couldn’t ignore the analogy of the nearest woman, nor the stories of all the great spiritual quests—how the fleeces on a man’s doorstep turn golden, if he can only see.

“I knew some one would come,” the little woman said. She had a mole on her nose and eyes that twinkled brightly. “In fact, I prayed.”

Bellair smiled and thought of Fleury’s saying—that those who turn back two thousand years would find Him.... She had kept a boarding-house, and now the work was too much. Besides, the children of a younger sister back in the home in Essex were calling to her.

“They need me in England,” she repeated. “And here, I have been unable to keep up the little house. I am too old now. My young men were so dear about it, but I was not making them comfortable. One’s heart turns home at the close——” She thought they did not understand; and explained all the meanings carefully—how in age, the temporal needs are not so keen, and the mind wanders back to the elder places.... Bellair stood apart, knowing that the two women could manage better alone.... The cottage faced the east a little to northward, and had been built of the broken rocks of the bluff and shore, its walls twenty inches thick and plastered on the stone within. The interior surprised them with its size, two bedrooms facing the sea and two behind, beside the living room (for dining, too, according to the early design) and the kitchen. They took it as it was, furniture and all, and loved the purchase.

For several days she remained with them, helped and explained and amplified—suggesting much paint. Each day for an hour or so, there were tears. She had found her going not so easy, and the process was slow to accustom herself to the long voyage; the sense of detachment could not be hurried. She wanted them to see her whole plan of the place. Her dream had been to have evergreens cut in patterns and flower-beds in stars and crescents. Meanwhile with her years had grown up about her the wildest and most natural garniture of the stone cottage; vines and shrubs, the pines putting on a sumptuousness of low foliage altogether unapproved.

Gradually it was all forgotten but the long voyage, and Bellair could help in making the details of that as simple and desirable as possible. In fact, he went with her to the ship....

“She was dear to us, and we shall miss her always,” the Faraway Woman said that night.... She would never come back. It was a parting, but the very lightness of it moved them. They wondered if they had done all they could.

“I’m so glad the means were not at hand for her to paint the stone-work,” Bellair said firmly.

“I’m afraid she would think we lack interest,” the woman added, as she glanced at the smoky beams of the ceiling. The years had softened them perfectly.

“She wanted them washed the very first thing,” said Bellair, “and varnished. If she had stayed much longer we would have been forced to paint something.”

In the days that followed, a softness and summery bloom came continually to the Faraway Woman’s eyes. His heart quickened when she turned to him. They moved in and out from the cottage to grounds, again and again.

“It’s unreal to me,” she would say. “I wonder if it will ever seem ours? I know it won’t, while you are away. I could live here fifty years until I seemed a part of the cottage and grass and trees, and I would feel a pilgrim resting——”

“It is part of you now, and always has been,” he said. “You are at home on high ground and you must have the sea-distance. They belong to you. I think that is what made you so hard for me to understand.”

“Was I hard for you?”

“I was so fresh from the little distances and the short-sight of things—from looking down——”

“I wonder if any one ever was so willing to be seen on his worst side?” she asked. “I really believe you know very little about yourself.... He saw—the real side.”

“He saw good everywhere,” said Bellair.

“... I wonder why I was strange to you at first?” she repeated, after a moment. “You were not strange to me.”

“Not when I spent so much time at the great cane chair?”

“No. You seemed to be studying. I could see that you didn’t belong there. You appeared to be interested in it all—as if he were a part of the ship——”

“And you didn’t seem to belong at all to my eyes,” he told her. “You belonged out in the distances of ocean. You came closer and closer during the days in the open boat—but here you belong. It seems to me that you have come home—and how I wish I could stay, too.”

“I wish you could stay—but I know that there is unfinished work in New York.”

“I wonder how he knew?” Bellair questioned.

“He saw very clearly. He was not flesh at all—that last day——”

“After the night—when he prayed.... You saw him that night?”

“Yes.”

Her innate sense of beauty startled him afresh every day. All that he idealised was an open book to her. Bellair had planned his house in the New York room. The greatest houses are planned so, by those who suffer and are confined. It had not come to him in the form of this stone cottage by the sea. This was not his dream that had come true here, although in many ways it was fairer than his dream. Very plainly, this little rock-bound eyrie was of her fashioning—the very atoms of it, drawing together to conform with the picture in her mind. He loved the place better so. Perhaps her thought of a home had been the stronger.

“It is almost perfect now,” she would say. “The neglect has made it right. A few roses, some bee-hives, vines and perennials—the rest is just clearing and cleansing. I could go over all the leaves and branches with a soapy sponge. The rest is to prune and thin and cleanse—so the sunlight is not shut from anywhere altogether—so it all can breathe——”

He caught the picture in her mind—foliage cut away for the play of sun and wind everywhere—the chaste and enduring beauty of leaf and stone and moving water. And now appeared a bit of her nature quite as real:

“And then those extra two rooms, I could rent them and give board——”

“Oh, but you don’t have to.”

“I have always had much to do. I must have work now.”

She had no realisation of property; material poverty was a part of her temperament. She was superbly well, and could only remain so by the expenditure of ample energy. Bellair saw the Martha soul, the mother of men, a breadgiver. He thought of the passion of men for the vine-women, and of the clinging sons they bear.... He lingered over a ship, and another. They toiled together like two peasants in the open, the baby sitting in the sun, the house ashine within. She would have only the simple things. She loved fine textures, but only of the lasting fabrics in woods and wares. She was content to carry water and trim lamps. She loved the stones and the low open fires. Often she turned away seaward, as he had seen her from the Jade’s rail, and from the bow seat of the open boat. Once in the garden, he made the child laugh, to bring back her eyes, and she said:

“I love it so here, but I don’t want to love it, so that it would hurt terribly, if it were taken away.”

This was but one side. There were other moments, in which Bessie and New York and all that he and the Faraway Woman had been, seemed fused into a ball of mist whirling away, and they stood together, man and woman, touching sanity at last in a world of power and glory. It was not then a time for words.... Once their hands went out together, and holding for a moment, Bellair had the strange sense of the self sinking from him. He could not feel his hand or any part of his being—as if it were a part of her, two creatures blent into one, and an indescribable rush of something different than physical vitality.

And once sitting with her under the lamp in the evening, he drew again that sense of peace that had come in the queer darkness on the deck of the Jade. It had to do with the mountains—as if they had finished with the valleys, and were ascending together in the strong light of the mountains.

And then there was passion—that plain, straight earth drive. Bellair was strange about this with the Faraway Woman. This passion was like the return of an old hunting companion, so natural in the wilds, but strange and out of place in his newly-ordered life. It had come from the Unknowable, and he had supposed it lost in that wilderness. It dismayed him that she should call it forth, but she called from him everything day by day, and no day the same. He had lost much of the old, but not that passion. And the nature of it which she called had a bewildering beauty.... But there was much to keep the old native of the wilds from really entering. The world would have called Bellair’s idealism naïve; and there was something of Fleury in the very solution of their lives—not a finger-print of passion in all that relation. There was the Unfinished Story of Ogla’s Guest. Finally there was the Gleam.

Life was very full and rare to Bellair, but there seemed always a new ship in the harbour flying Blue Peter for California.... In the main, they forgot themselves, as unwatched man and woman, slept under the same roof and had their food together; at least, Bellair forgot it for hours at a time. It seemed the very nature of life; the purity of it all so obvious.... One afternoon he came up from the city in a cool south wind; a grey afternoon, the sunset watery and lemon-hued. He was thinking of the ship that would float Blue Peter to-morrow. The homely scent of damp bark burning quickened his senses, as he crossed the yard, and he heard her singing to the child. Somehow the woodsmoke had brought back to him a Spring day in the northern woods—grey light and dark pools, all foliage baby-new, a song-sparrow pair trilling back and forth from edge to open....

He saw her in one of the rare flashes of life. She was sitting by the fireplace, the nearest window across the room. Her figure was softened in the deep grey light to the pure sensousness of motherhood—except her face, hands and boots, and that which she held. These were mellowed in the faintest orange glow from the firelight. Her back was curved forward, her face bent to the baby’s head, held high in the hollow of her arms. The dress was caught tightly about her ankles—a covering pliant almost as a night-robe, but that was a mystery of the shadows. She was like the figure of some woman he had seen somewhere—some woman of the river-banks, but this a Madonna of the firelight. He passed on, and waited before speaking.

3

They went a last time to the city.... There was a place for a chair, and they had seen an old urn in a by-street which belonged near the Spring. They felt that these products of [Pg 214]men had to be just so, and that they had earned a great boon in being given a part at stone cottage. The things that were brought there must endure; must reason together in long leisure concord, putting on the same inner hue at the last and mellowing together as old friends, or old mates. This time, Bellair’s eyes did not meet the city quite as before; it was not as a stranger exactly, who rambles through a port while his ship lies in the offing. His real berth was an hour’s ride back from the city and made of stone. Perhaps later he would find work to do here.... A child passed them in the store, and brought the change after their purchase—a boy of twelve or fourteen, his face old with care. It made Bellair think of Davy Acton at Lot & Company’s. They bought a bit of glass, a bit of silver, some linen and a rug, and rode home with their arms full.

Another letter had come from one of the Island headquarters of Stackhouse, in answer to Bellair’s inquiry concerning affairs. The papers in the wallet had given him clues to the various insular interests; and the replies, without exception, represented the attitudes of agents ready and open to authority from without. Stackhouse had left no centre of force that appeared to have vitality enough to rise in its own responsibility. Bellair saw that sooner or later he must make a visit to these different interests, and that the place of the wallet for the time being, at least, amounted to headquarters. He wrote as explicitly as possible in reply to the letters, promised to call in due course, established a freedom where his judgment permitted, but felt the whole vast business very loosely in hand. New York was first, and it became very clear to him, especially on this night, that New York must be entered upon without further delay. There was a thrill of dismay in the thought of the weeks that had passed, and the dreaming. Dreams were good. He had needed these days; great adjustments and healings had taken place. It had been the pleasant lull between the old and new, the only rest his life had known, in fact. All its beauty was massed into the period—but the dreams must be turned into action now.

A man may stay just so long in joy. There are moments in every life when the hour strikes for parting. The lover does well to leave his lady then quickly. There is an understanding in the world that the woman invariably whispers, Stay, but very often an organisation of force that makes austerity possible, does not come from the man alone. If the moment of parting passes, the two still lingering together, a shadow enters between them, blurring their faces for each other’s eyes, dimming the dream.

It does not come from without. The train missed, the passage paid for and not connected, the column that marches away, one set broken, the sentry post to which a strange figure is called—these are but matters to laugh at afterward. The shadow comes between them from their own failure. It is slow to lift. In the final elevation of romance, there shows one sunken length.... There is the moment of meeting and the moment of parting; that which lies between, whether an hour or generation, forms but the equal third, for the great love intervals of human kind are not measured by time, but by the opening of the doors of the heart. By the very laws of our being, the doors draw together against rapture prolonged. The man who crosses the world to live one day with his sweetheart, sees her at last in the doorway or the trysting-place as he cannot see her again; and in the tear of parting, something different of her, something that has been occulted, clears magically for his eyes. It must not blind him to remain, for it is her gift to abide with him over the divide. It passes, not to come again if he remains; rapture falls into indulgence; the fibre of integrity weakens and lets them down into mere mortals. Man is not ready for the real revelation of romance in whom a master does not arise at the stroke.

That night there was a mew at the door. They had finished tea and were sitting by the fire. The woman opened the door and a young tabby-puss walked leisurely in, moved in a circle about the room, tail held high. Chair and table and lounge, she brushed against, standing upon her toes, eyes blinking at the fire. The woman brought a saucer of milk. The visitor drank, as if that were all very well, but that she could have done well enough until breakfast. Apparently it was not her way to land upon friends in a starving condition. Before the fire, she now sat, adding a point to her toilet from time to time, inspecting it carefully and long. Finally she turned to the woman, hopped upon her knee and settled to doze. She had accepted them, and they called her Elsie.

“Little-Else-to-do,” said the woman.

They stood beside the child’s bed later that night.

It rained, and the home closed in upon them with its cheer and humble beauty. He saw her hand now in everything—even the rungs of the chairs shone in the firelight. The hearth was swept. Her face—it was a place of power, and such a fusion of tenderness was there, the eyes pure and merciful. All that he had known before her coming was unfinished, explanatory. She had shown him what a human adult woman should be in this year of our Lord. His soul yearned to her; his whole life nestling to this place of hers—as her stone cot nestled to the cliff.... She was always very quiet about her love for the child when he was near. That was because he loved the Gleam so well.... Yet he had seen the Firelight Madonna.

“You have made it all I can do—to go away,” he said.

“I have thought of that—I might have made it easier. I have thought of that,” she repeated. “And yet—we were so tired. We seemed to need to be ourselves. It has been beautiful—to be ourselves——”

It seemed to him that she came nearer, but that was impossible for the child was between.... Just then his mind finished the other picture—of her arms held up to the hawthorn buds—a babe of his own in those arms! He would have fought to prevent its coming, but it visualised of itself. Had it been that which enchanted the woodland?... He was silent. She had become even more to him for this instant. He would not call it other than beautiful, now that it had come. She was more than ever the heart of mystery—the Quest. She knew all these things—love and maternity she knew; even the passionate fluting of Pan had quickened her eyes; and where she abode, there was the genius of Home.

So slowly had it come—perhaps this was not all. For weeks he had stood by—day after day, the heart of her becoming more spacious and eloquent; one miracle of the woman after another—finally, to-night the mystery of all life about her, for his eyes. Yet to her it was no mystery; she was of it, rhythmically so. She knew the dream—and the life that comes at last to quicken it. She could love; she could live; she could wait. She loved God—but loved Nature, too. She was spirit, but flesh, too. She was powerful in two worlds....

So Bellair stood with bowed head, and though Bessie was forgotten, Fleury was not. It was still with him that Fleury and the Faraway Woman were fashioned for each other.... “She may be so wonderful to me, because she trusts me to understand——” such was the essence of his fear. It kept his heart dumb.... That night she brought a pitcher of water and placed it upon the hearth, looked up and found him watching.

“For the fairies,” she said.

That changed him a little, brought her nearer to words of his; though the effort to speak was like lifting a bridge. She was leaving for her room when he managed:

“Day after to-morrow—the steamer. May we not talk to-night?”

He saw her stop. Then she was coming toward him so gladly.

“Yes—you want the rest of the story?”

“Yes.... I have been sorry that he couldn’t hear it——”

She stood before him, tall and white.

“I think you are like me,” she said in a moment. “I think you have something behind you that you do not tell—something that made you what you are—yet greater than you seem to yourself.... I would have told you while he was with us, but you know how the days passed and we could not hold our thoughts together. Then there were times when we could not even use our voices.... Do you know that the world is wonderful—that the thousands about us do not even dream how wonderful it is—how tremendous even miseries are? Sometimes I think that the tragedies we meet are our greatest hours.”

“You have met them,” he said, a part of her spirit almost. “I have seen them in your eyes. It gave me the sense of shelter with you and limitless understanding—-”

“I am thankful for that,” she whispered. “When we have understanding, we have everything. Those who in their childhood are made to suffer horribly are often the ones who reach understanding. Sometimes they suffer too much and become dulled and dumb. Sometimes in the very ache of their story, which can be so rarely told, they risk the telling to some one not ready. It aches so, as its stays and stays untold. Oh, the whole world craves understanding, and yet if we tell our story to one who is not ready—we hurt them and ourselves, and add unto our misery. There are moments set apart in life in which one finds understanding, but the world presses in the next day, and the story does not look so well. The spirit of it fades and the actions do not seem pure when the spirit is out—so one loses a loved friend. Oh, I am talking vaguely. It is not my way to talk vaguely—but to-night—it is like a division of roads, and a story is to be told—-”

“Do you think the story will diminish in my mind to-morrow?” he asked.

“No—not you. I have seen you through the sunlight and the dark looking into my eyes for it. If I thought it would diminish in your mind—yes, I would tell it just the same. It must be told—but life would not be the same. Even this, our little stone cot, would not be the same. I should have to become harder and harder to hold—to follow the Gleam——

“... I shall be Olga in the rest of the story,” she was saying. “For I am Olga.... The truth is, I have no other name. There is one that I used, and another that I formerly used—but they are not mine. You shall see.... My father prospered with the sheep-raising, and slowly on the long road that you have seen, houses came one by one, until at last there was a village about us. My father was like the village father, and my mother the source of its wisdom in doctoring and maternal affairs—she had learned by bringing forth. But I was not of them—they all saw that. The coming of plenty, the coming of the people, the coming of men to woo my sisters, and the maidens my brothers brought for us to see, before they took them quite away—none of these things were so real to me as the coming of my Guest when I was such a little girl. And none remembered that—not even my mother. Until I ceased to speak of it, they tried to make me think it was a dream. But I knew that rapture. It had changed me. I was always to search for it again. I was always looking for another such night—for that afterglow again. I was the last child and the silent one.

“But all that had to do with children was intimate and wonderful to me.... I remember once when we were all girls at home together, and they were talking—each of what she should have for her treasure from the household—one walnut, one silver, one an inlaid desk—and they turned to me laughingly, for I was not consulted as a rule, I said I wanted the little hickory cradle in an upper closet. It was one of those household days which girls remember.... All was happier then. The little cradle seemed like a casket in which jewels had come to my mother—seven times. We had all smiled at her first from that hickory cradle.... I went up stairs to look at it—a dim place full of life and messages to me. I was weak; my arms ached; and it was so dear that I dare not say that it was mine.... My father said the cradle must belong to the eldest girl.

“... I began to sense the terrible actuality of life through the mating of Lois, ten years older, with a countryman who came for her. For sisters, Lois and I had always been far apart, and this stranger who wished to marry her, had nothing to do with life as I dreamed it—a child of twelve. To many, Lois was the loveliest of us—large, calm, dark and quiet, very well, slow of speech, but quick to smile. Had you visited our house then, you would have remembered my father’s patriarchal air, the smile of Lois, and the maternity that brooded over us all. The rest you would get afterward—a variety of young people with different faults and attractions—I the grey one, last to be noted. Lois was given credit for more than she was. I do not love brain or power, but I seem to love courage. Lois had something to take the place of these—not courage—and no, not power nor brain. She had sensuousness and appetite.

“One night I seemed to see what the whole house was straining for—a kind of process of marriage continually afoot. Just now it was Lois. I remember my father being called into the front room where Lois and Collinge had been for an evening—his face beaming when he came forth, and my mother’s quiet sanction. There were conferences after that, dressmaking, the arrangement of money affairs. And I was suddenly ill with it. To me, there could be no trade or public business. To me, it had to do with a child and that was consecrated ground. Oh, you must see it had to be different. I wanted it like a stroke of lightning. I did not understand but I wanted it like that—like a flight of swans—and not talk and property transactions. To me it had to do with rain and frost and the tides and the pulses of plants—the silent things. I did not understand—but knew that children came to those who took each other.

“I remember one supper; the countryman talked—talked of the marriage day—the breakfast, the ceremony—the end and the dusk, and turned to Lois with sleepy half-folded eyes. She was smiling and flushed—and I looked from face to face at the table, at my sisters—and I rushed away because I could find nothing pure.... Some one said my mother never looked prettier.... I remember the flood of honeysuckle perfume that came to me in the torture of hatred, as I passed through the distant hall.... And then later from the top of the stairs, Lois and my mother were talking, and Lois said:

“‘You know, Mother, we will not have children for the first three years, at least——’”

“I was somehow below by her in the lower hall. She seemed a rosy pig upstanding, marked red and flaming.... And that night long afterward, my mother found me and said, ‘You are getting beyond me, Olga.’ ... But I could only think of men and women copying the squirrels, filling their bins, dressing their door-yards, reaching for outer things—and it was back of my very being—back of the mother and the patriarch—back of the shepherding and the folding—back of me. I hated life with destroying hatred—Lois wanting the seasons, but unwilling to bring forth fruit, accepting the countryman’s idea of life.... Can you see that it had the look of death to me?”

Bellair could only bow his head. To him the woman was revealing the grim days through which she had won her poise and power.... She was telling another incident with the same inclination—for the thought of being a mother had been the one master of her days. He seemed to see the child, the girl, the younger woman about her—a grey-eyed, red-lipped girl, with a waist that was smaller and smaller as she gained in inches from fifteen to eighteen—madness for mothering, passionate in that, but not passionate for sensation—her face sometimes so white, that they would ask her mother, “Is Olga quite well?”... Yet teeming with that intensive health that goes with small bones and perfect assimilation—that finds all to sustain life in fruit and leaves ... books, light sleeping, impassioned with the lives of great women and the saints—one of those who come to the world for devotion and austerity and instant sacrifice; yet for none of these apart; rather a fruitful vine, her prevailing and perennial passion for motherhood.

“And yet I almost ceased to breathe,” she was saying, “when I came to understand man’s part in these things. I felt myself differently after that—even children—but from this early crisis which so many men and women have met with untellable suffering, emerged a calm that could not have come without it. The travail brought me deep into the truth. For all great things the price must be paid—how wonderfully we learned that in the open boat. There are sordid processes in the production of all fine things—even in the bringing forth of a Messiah.”

She paused, as if she saw something enter the eyes that had listened so fervently. Bellair cleared his voice. “I remember something he said,” he told her. “That matter is the slate—spirit the message that is written. The slate is broken, the message erased, but eyes have seen it, and the transaction is complete. For the spirit has integrated itself in expression——”

“I think he said it, for you to tell me now,” the Faraway Woman whispered.

“Only he could have halted your story,” Bellair added.

“... I told you when my Guest came in the afterglow, of the house of our nearest but distant neighbour; now I am telling you of years afterward, when there were many houses between on the long road, and my playmate Paul had gone away to Sidney. Lois had long been married. I was seventeen—and so strangely and subtly hungering—for expression, for something that I did not know, which meant reality to me, but which was foreign and of no import to all about me. Often at evening I stared up the long road.... I remember late one night in the nearest house, the soft wind brought me the cry of a child. It was so newly come and it was not well. I went to it just as I was, though the people had just moved in and were strange to us. It was thirst—as we know. I went to it, as we would have gone to a waterfall. The door of their house was locked, but I knocked. The father came down at last. The lower rooms were filled with unpacked boxes. I told him why I had come. He talked to me strangely. He went upstairs and sent the mother down to me. It did not seem as if I could live through that night—and not have my way. She put her arms about me, led me upstairs to a room that was not occupied—save a chair by the window. I stood there waiting until she returned with the child.... I saw lights back in our house when they missed me—voices, but I could not go. In the early light I heard the woman saying to my mother: ‘... We really needed her so. Baby was restless, but he is much better and quiet with her. They are very happy together.... Yes, she is safe and well.’”

The Faraway Woman left him now to go to the child.

4

Returning, she put the kettle on, and made tea in the earthen pot. To Bellair her coming into the room again was a replenishment—as if she had been gone for hours; and this started a pang deep in his heart, which presently suffused everything when he realised that his ship had come for him. It was past midnight.... In reality it was to-morrow that his ship would sail.

“You listen wonderfully,” she said.

“It seems all about the little Gleam,” he answered. “It makes everything significant about the open boat.... I forget to swallow——”

They laughed together.

“Do you know, I can hardly realise when we are here—that this is New Zealand?” she said presently, “that only a little way back is the long road and the river and the ravine—the neighbour’s house and ours and the other houses between.... I will tell you the rest very quickly—and oh, let me tell you first, I am not afraid. In spite of all I know, I am not——”

She was bending forward across the table.

“... I was a woman when Paul came back from the distant city—and came first of all to me. He was changed—something excellent about his face and carriage, and something I did not understand at all, his face deeper lined, his voice lower, his words ready. I did not think about him when he was away. In the first evenings we passed together, I had only an old-time laugh for him. I kissed him with something like affection. We were permitted to be alone together, and I saw the old look upon my father’s face—that I had hated so. That look—even before the playmate thing had departed from me. Then I began to see Paul—something I could not like nor understand, a readiness of words, and he was not wise enough to make them ring deeply. I seemed to be studying in him the novelty of a man—through the eyes of a girl.

“One night we were together in my father’s house. It was our Spring and raining softly on the steps. The grass seemed full of odours, and the vines trembling with life. He kissed me there. It seemed that I hardly knew. I was looking over his shoulder into the dark, and I saw a little white face. It was like a rain-washed flower ... and to me it was quite everything.

“... Everything that I had known and loved—compensation for all that I had missed and hungered for. Only the little face—but I knew the arms were held out to me.

“Paul knew nothing of this. He was not to blame. It was not he, who carried me away. He was merely being the man he fancied—playing the thing as the world had taught him—showing himself fervent and a man. I could have laughed at his kisses.... I have nothing against him. It was his way.... But once he kissed me—and it came to me that he was the way—that he must join his call to mine.... I could do all but that—I need not love him. Can you understand—it seemed as if everything was done but that—that the little face had already chosen me.... I sent him away, and I remember long afterward I was standing on the porch alone. It rained.”

Bellair realised now that she was watching him with something like anguish. A different picture of her came to him from that moment—filed for the long days apart—the rapt look of her mouth, and the pearl in her hair that brought out the lustre of whiteness from her skin—full-bosomed, but slender—slender hands that trembled and moved toward him as she spoke.... It was something for him—as if he had always been partly asleep before—as if she had brought some final arousing component to his being.

“... My mother did not ask but once. When I told her—the horror came to me that she would die. I had not thought of it before. I had thought that it was mine—had seen very little of Paul. In fact, he had come several times, when I would not see him.... She called my father—and it was all to be enacted again. For a moment, I thought he would strike me. The most dreadful thing to them all was that I was not ashamed. They felt that I was unnatural....

“There was one high day in that little upper room. It was all like a prayer, when they would suffer me to be alone and not wring me with their misery—but this one high day, I must tell you. I stood by the window in the watery light of the sun from the far north. That moment the Strange Courage came. I felt that I could lead a nation, not to war, but to enduring peace; as if I had a message for all my people, and a courage not of woman’s, to tell it, to tell it again and again—until all the people answered. It was then that I understood that a man’s soul had come to my baby, and that it was not to be a girl, as I had sometimes thought.

“And then the rest of the waiting—days of misery that I can hardly remember the changes of—yet something singing within me—I holding it high toward heaven as I could—singing with the song within. After weeks, it suddenly came to me what they wanted to do to hide their shame—to take the little child half-finished from me—to murder it—to hide their shame.

“Then I told them that it had not occurred to me to marry Paul—that I did not love him—that I had loved the little child. I told them that I did not believe in the world—that I did not believe I had done wrong—that I did not believe our old preacher who stayed so long at the table could make me more ready for the child. I told my father that I did not believe in marrying a man and saying that I would have no children for three years. I told him that I was mad for the child—that I was young and strong and ready to die for it ... that my baby wanted me, and no other. I would have gone away, but they would not let me do that. They kept me in an upper room. Paul had gone away ... and after months my father went to find him. It was sad to me—sadness that I cannot forget in that—my father taking his cane and his bag and setting out to find the father—heart-broken and full of the awfulness of being away from his home. He had not been away for years.... And my mother coming timidly to my room.... And then I went down like Pharaoh’s daughter to the very edge of the water—for, for the Gleam!”

Her eyes were shining and she laughed a little, looking upward as if she saw a vision of it, and had forgotten the room and the listening—her eyes as close to tears as laughter.

“... And when I came back—it was all so different. I could pity them—my heart breaking for my father and mother, who had not the wonder, and only the fears. They were passing out—after doing their best as they saw it, for many, many years together—and I had brought them the tragedy, the crumbling of their house—a shame upon the patriarch of the long road, a blackness upon her maternities.... It was my father’s thought to bring Paul to me. As if I would have taken him, but he came—my father having given him much money.... Oh, do not be hard upon him. There is wildness in him and looseness, but the world had showed him the way and he was young. I said to him (it was within ten days after the coming and my father and mother were gone from the room), ‘I would not think of marrying you, Paul, but do not tell them. As soon as I am ready, I shall go away with you, and they will not be so unhappy—and as soon as we are well away, you shall be free. And you may keep the money, Paul.’

“... And now it is like bringing you a reward for listening so well. I tell you now of a moment of beauty and wonder—such as I had known but once before, and was more real to me than all the rest. It made that which was sorrowful and sordid of the rest seem of little account.... It was early evening in the upper room and still light. An old servant who loved me was in the room, and the Gleam was sleeping—the fourteenth day after his coming. The woman helped me to a chair and drew it to the window, and all was hushed. Even before I looked out, an unspeakable happiness began to gush into my heart.

“The ravine was crowding with darkness, but the long road was full of light. The houses between seemed to dwindle but the distance was full of radiance—that perfect afterglow again. Not for twenty years had there been such a sunset, and now the sky was massed with gold of the purple martin’s breast, and the roof of Paul’s house was like two open leaves of beaten gold—everywhere the air filled with strange brightenings. The fragrance from the fields arose to meet the heaven falling from the sky.

“I tried to make believe, but the road was empty. The Guest would never come again, and yet on such a night as this, he had come to me—like a saint that has finished his work, like a Master coming down a last time. All the room and the house was hushed behind me.... But the long road was empty.

“The old servant at last could bear it no longer. Perhaps she thought I did not breathe. Softly she crossed the room to the cradle, lifted the Gleam and placed him in my lap—as if to call me back. Breath came quickly at the touch of him, and she must have heard a low, joyous sound as I felt the child. With one hand I held him, patting his shoulder softly, slowly, with the other, until the ecstasy of long ago flowed into my being.

“There was a moment that I should have asked her to take the Gleam from me—had I been able to speak. It was such a moment that I had run out under the stars. But as I patted the tiny shoulder, the burden of the ecstasy passed, and a durable blessedness came—the calm of great understanding.

“The road—of course it was empty—for he had come.... I thought I had told the old servant, but a second time I seemed to see her anxious face bending so near in the dusk.

“‘Why, don’t you see?’ I whispered. ‘He was looking for his mother when I found him.’”

That was the end of the story—the rest just details that an outsider might ask: How she went away with Paul for the sake of her father; how he remained with her during the long voyage to America, but as nothing to her, more and more a stranger of different ways from hers—how he gave her but a little of the money her father had put in trust for her keeping—and rushed away to dig his grave in the city.... Then just a glimpse of her need and her labour and longing for the Island life—a dream, the Jade....

5

The final morning, Bellair took the babe in his arms and let himself down the rocky way to the shore. The trail was empty behind him, and the cottage shut off by the group of little pines, pure to pass through as the room of a child. And here were rain-washed boulders warming in the morning sun, and before his eyes the blue [Pg 236]and deep-eyed sea. It rolled up to his feet, forever changing with its stories and its secrets, very cool about them all to-day, full of mastery and leisure.

Bellair sat upon a stone and looked at the child: “I wish you could tell me, little man ... but you are not telling. You know it all, like the sea—but you do not tell.... And I’ll see you so many times, when I’m away,—see you like this and wish many times I could hold you. For we were always friends, good friends. You didn’t ask much.... And you were fine in the pinch, my son.... That little cry I heard, that little cry.... He loved you, and promised great things for you. I’ve come to believe it, little man, for I know your mother. That’s good gambling, from where I stand.... He knew it first. He knew it all first. And you didn’t tell him.... Oh, be all to her, little Gleam—be all to her, and tell her I love her—when she looks away to the sea. Tell her, I’ll be coming, perhaps.... I didn’t know I’d ever be called to kiss a little boy—but it’s all the same to you ... and take care of her for me.”

They were standing together a last time before his journey. The carriage had been waiting many minutes. The child was propped upon the lawn, and Elsie was picking her steps and shaking her paws that met the dew under the grass. His eye was held over her shoulder to the weathered door of the stone cottage. It was ajar and coppery brown, like the walls above the young vines. And over her other shoulder, too, was the brilliant etheric divide of the sea. He had to go back and stand a moment in the large room. The wind and the light came in; the vine tendrils came trailing in. He saw her books, her pictures, her chair, her door....

He stood beside her again, and tried to tell her how moving these weeks had been.

“Yes, we have seen both sides, and this was the perfect side. We saw the other, well——”

“And you are not caught in either—that’s what thrills me most,” said he. “I am always caught—in hunger and thirst and fear and pain—in beauty and possessions. But you have stood the same through it all—ready to come or go, ready for sun or storm——”

“After years of changes and uncertainty, one comes to rely only upon the true things.”

“I shall want to come back—before the first turn of the road,” he said. “I think I am hungry for the little house now——”

She put her arms about him. His heart was torn, but there was something immortal in the moment.

“This shall always be your home,” she said. “You may come back to-night—to-morrow—in twenty years—this is your house. I shall be here. I shall teach him to know and welcome you.... We are different. We are not strangers. We have gone down into the deep ways together. We shall always know each other, as no one else can, or as we can know no others. So we must be much to each other—and this is our home. You will never forget.... Oh, yes, you must come back—just as you must go away——”

Sentence by sentence, softly, easily spoken; not with a great beauty of saying, but with a bestowal of the heart that compelled his finest receptivity. And she had held him as a mother might, or as a sister, or as a woman who loved him. There was something in her tenure, of all the loves of earth. He looked deeply into her eyes, but hers was the love that did not betray itself then in the senses. He could not know, for he would not trust his own heart.... But this he knew, and was much to ponder afterward: This which she gave, could not have been given, nor have been received, before the days of the open boat. So strange was the ministry of that fasting.

They kissed, and hers so gladly given, failed of the secret; yet revealed to him a love that sustained, and sent him forth a man—such as Bellair had not been.

PART SIX
LOT & COMPANY: II

1

Bellair reached New York on a mid-May morning from the west, and walked up Seventh avenue to his old room. It was a time of day that he had seldom known the street and step. There was a different expression of daylight upon them. Of course, he had met these matters on many Sundays, but Sunday light and atmosphere was invariably different to his eyes—something foreign and false about it. He saw the old hall-mark, however, in the vestibule—the partial sweeping.... It had always been her way; all things a form. The vestibule and stone steps had to be swept—that was the law; to be swept with strength and thoroughness was secondary. He rang, and asked the servant for the woman of the house.

Waiting, he found himself in a singular depression of mind. The City had cramped and bewildered him. A small oval of grey-white cloud appeared in the dark hall. It came nearer, and Bellair saw the face of dusty wax—smaller, a little lower from his eyes. It came very near, and was upturned. The vision was dim, and the memory; all the passages slow and cluttered.

“It is Mr. Bellair,” she said, without offering her hand.

“Yes. I’ve come back.”

“I haven’t a room—for you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“And about your things in storage—I would be glad for the space now. Could you take care of this to-day?’

“Yes,” he answered.

“I have the bill ready.”... She called the servant who came with the broom. “On my table among the papers you will find Mr. Bellair’s bill for storage. Please get it.”

Bellair heard the servant on the stairs, one, two, three flights; then a long silence. He had never been quite sure where the landlady slept, believing that she hovered from basement to sky-light according to the ebb and flow of the tenant tides. The double-doors from the hall to the lower front room were slightly ajar. This, the most expensive in the house, appeared to be vacant. The servant was gone a long time. The landlady did not leave him alone in the hall. They did not speak. The darkness crept upon Bellair as if he were in a tank that was slowly but surely being filled, and presently would cover him. The paper was brought, the charge for six months’ storage, meagre. Bellair paid it, and offered more. He thought of her hard life, but the extra money was passed back to him.

“I have that present in keeping,” she said.

“What present?”

“That you gave me the night you went away——”

“But I gave it to you. Would you not take a little gift from one who had been in your house five years?”

“Money easily got, goes the same,” she answered.

Then Bellair realised how stupid he had been. She had seen the newspapers. She had been afraid to trust him alone in that bare hall. The smell of carpets stifled him.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said. “But hold the present a little longer. Perhaps you will not always feel that it came so easily. I’ll send for my goods at once.... Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Bellair.”

He was ill. The side-door of a famous hotel yawned to him directly across the street from his step. He was not sure they would take him. Registering, he stopped to think where he was from, adding Auckland, N. Z.... Yes, his bags would be brought from the station. They gave him a room, and Bellair stood in the centre of it.

For a few moments he actually weakened—limbs and mind. It wasn’t New York alone, nor the sordid incident across the street, reminding him so ruthlessly of Lot & Company and all that had been and was still to do; rather it was a giving way to a loneliness that had been rising for almost a month, wearing him to a shadow of himself, and giving him battle night and morning. Like many another solitary young man, he had brooded much upon what a certain woman might be. He had found that in those women he met, certain spaces must be filled in by his own compassion—and these spaces did not endure. Always in a test they separated from the reality. But the Faraway Woman day by day had fulfilled; even where his idealism failed, she completed the picture of the woman above him and of irresistible attraction.

She had come nearer and nearer. She was magic in this way. He had regarded her at first distantly and askance at the rail of the Jade. A gasp now came from him. That was so impossible and long ago.... She had not called him any more than a peasant woman. And yet one after another her rarities had unfolded; it would always be so. She was the very fountain of romance to him; the essence of whose attraction is variableness of days. Of all the days together, there had been no two alike—no two hours alike. He had watched her face under the light—never twice the same. The child, the maiden, the mother, the love-woman, the saint—lips passional, devotional ... then those wonder-moments when the old tragedies came back to her eyes.

They stirred him as if he had known her long ago; and yet nothing of this had come to him at first. How crude and coarse he had been not to see. Lot & Company and New York had covered her from his eyes. He had to fast and pray and concentrate upon her being, as a devotee upon the ball of crystal to begin upon her mysteries. Every man has his Lot & Company, his New York—the forces that bind him to the world. A man bound to the world can see but the body of a thing—the paint of a picture, just the outline and pigment of a picture or a bit of nature—just the body of a woman.

Something came to him that instant—of the perfect law of all things. Those caught in the body of events see but that, hear but that, anticipate but that—the very secret of all the misery and shortsightedness in the world. A man must rise, lift the centre of consciousness above the body of things, even to see physical matters in their true relation. It was all so thrillingly true to him in this glimpse—that a man can never see properly the sequence of his actions unless he can rise above them—that those in the ruck never know what they are about....

He tried to remember her face, as he stood in the hotel room. Failing, his mind returned to their days together. He was apart now and could view them, one by one, in their wonder and beauty. He was torn with them. At different times on the long voyage he had dwelt separately upon the episodes. Some had worn him to exhaustion. People on the ship had believed him a man with a great grief. At first, he looked about from face to face searching for some one whom he might tell, but there was no reception for his story. He had to stop and think that he was different and apart.... She had always been apart.

He had carried it alone, moving hushed and alone with his story; lying open-eyed in his berth through the hours of night, and often through the afternoons, an open book face downward upon his chest, his pipe cold ... living again the different moments in the rooms of the stone cottage, in the garden, on the shore; their journeys together, their breakfasts and luncheons and evenings together.

The boy was gone from him, from face and body. He did not know what had come instead, but he knew that he carried a creative image in his heart; something of the fragrance of her lingering about him. It had come to him at night alone on deck—the sweetness of her—on the wind. All that he wanted, all that he dreamed best of life and labour and love ... and yet after all, what had he to do with her in relation to these intimate things? Friend, companion, confidante—she was everything that a woman could be, except—— Had not the substance of that kind of giving died for her in the passing of the preacher?... Something of her story frightened him. She had learned the ultimate realness of loving. The man who entered her heart now would have to come with an immortal seal upon him. There was but one who could take up the fatherhood of the Gleam.... Bellair did not feel the man; did not know what she had given him; did not know what had come to him—to his face and carriage and voice. He had not yet lifted himself above so that he could see. Those whom he met, however, were struck with a different Bellair, and those who could not understand thought him touched a little queerly—as a man after sunstroke or any great light.

... It was now noon. He thought of his old friend, Broadwell, of the advertising-desk at Lot & Company. Perhaps Broadwell would dine with him. He called. The voice came back to him.... Yes, he would come at once. Bellair asked him to the hotel. In the interval he called the Trust company in whose keeping the thousand dollar surety had been, inquiring if Lot & Company had collected the amount. The answer was returned presently to the effect that Lot & Company had presented his release and collected the amount with interest four days after his departure.

Bellair hearkened to a faint singing somewhere within and found it had to do with Bessie. He called Brandt’s and ascertained that the same quartette was to sing there at nine in the evening. This was also one of the things he had come to do.

Broadwell was a trifle late, but all urbanity. There was something of the salesman’s manner and enunciation about him. Bellair fell away after the greeting, caught in a sort of mental flurry in which the picture of another luncheon engagement recurred to his mind—the day he had passed the desk and cage of Mr. Sproxley with the stranger named Filbrick, and his own telling of the cashier’s passionate honour.... When he came back to see clearly the face of Broadwell, he found that he personally was being scrutinised with odd intensity. Could it be that Broadwell had something more than a personal friendly interest? His questions did not seem adroit, and yet he wanted to know so much—of the ship, of Auckland, but especially of this long drive back to New York.

“Are you stopping here?” he asked.

“Yes. My old room was just opposite, but I was told that the house was full.”

“So you came here?”

“Yes.”

“And are you going to stay in New York?”

“I don’t know, Ben. There are a few things to see to.”

“Are you looking for a job?”

“Well, no. Not exactly, at least.”

Try as he might, Bellair could not feel free, as of old time. He felt the other wanted something, and this checked his every offering. He knew that Broadwell, at least six months before, could not have believed ill of Lot & Company, and there was no apparent change. The disclosure of the press must have righted itself in the office so far as he, Bellair, was concerned; surely Broadwell did not share the dread of him the landlady had shown; and yet, it was hard to broach these things. The advertising-man apparently had no intention of doing so.

“We’ve all missed you on the lower floor,” he said.

“Are there any changes?”

“Very few.”

“Who took my place?”

“Man from outside. Mr. Rawter brought in the man—middle-aged. Mr. Sproxley knew him, too.”

“Poor devil,” said Bellair, but not audibly. They had not dared to open the ledger revelations to any one in the office, but had found a man outside who was doubtless familiar with such books, doubtless one who had been deformed in the long, slow twistings of trade. Perhaps this one had children. Children were good for Lot & Company’s most trusted servants. It was well to have a number of children, like Mr. Sproxley—for their wants are many, and a man’s soul cannot breathe in the midst of many wants and small salary.

“Are you coming over to the office?”

“Yes, I find I have to. Some folks are taking the end Lot and Company gave the newspapers about my leaving. They were very much in a hurry about giving out that newspaper story—with the money in the vaults.”

Broadwell regarded him seriously. “I suppose they took the point of view that there could be but one motive for your leaving, without giving notice. Most firms would——”

“I wonder if most firms would?” Bellair asked. “Men have lapses other than falling into thievery. At least a firm should look up the facts in the case first. It’s a rather serious thing to charge a man with departure with funds. For instance, the public will glance through the details of such a charge, and miss entirely a denial afterward. Are you under bond?”

“No, I don’t handle company funds——”

“Suppose you were—and one night you came to the end of your rope—found you couldn’t go back—found it was a life or death matter of your soul, whether you went back or not. Still you had some salary coming and say a thousand dollars’ surety. You took this amount exactly—salary and bond and interest to the dollar, and left a note saying so, in place of the amount; also a note releasing to your firm the amount of the bond and interest, and stating clearly the item of salary—I say, would you expect to find yourself charged with embezzlement in next day’s paper?”

Broadwell’s shoulders straightened.

“Not in next day’s paper,” he said, with a smile.

Bellair did not miss the cut of this.

“You think that my case was not like that exactly?” he asked.

“I can’t see why a firm would give such a story to the press—unless they uncovered a loss,” Broadwell said slowly.

“Lot & Company couldn’t have uncovered a loss without looking in the very place where my note was, which proved there was no loss. Lot & Company couldn’t have collected my bond without proceedings—unless they found my release of it. And the bond was collected.”

“Then I can’t see any reason for incriminating—any one,” said Broadwell.

“Well, there was a reason—though the facts of my case are exactly as stated. Lot & Company had a reason. I haven’t decided whether it will be necessary to make that known.... But I didn’t bring you here to discuss this affair. I wanted to see you——”

Just then Mr. Broadwell was paged. A messenger was said to be waiting for him in the lobby.

“Send him in,” Broadwell said thoughtlessly.

Davy Acton came, and Broadwell saw his error. Bellair perceived that his luncheon-companion had made known his engagement at the office before leaving....

“Sit down, Davy. I’m glad to see you——”

The boy had grown. Bellair noted that simple thing, as he noted the fact also that Davy was tortured with embarrassment, and had not meant to come in. He wriggled his hand forward to take Bellair’s, which was held toward his, and then looked down shamefacedly, as if he had been charged with theft. Bellair knew well that the boy’s trouble was how to meet him—formerly a friend, but now an outcast from the firm. A kind of darkness stole over him. He saw now that Broadwell believed him a thief, even as the landlady had believed; but in the case of neither of these did the dread finality come to him, as from the face of this stricken boy.

This was the thought that shot through Bellair’s mind, “No one liked Davy so well as I did; no one tried to help him as I did; and now he thinks my liking and my helping, a part of the looseness of character which made me a thief.”

The thought was strange, yet natural, too. It came into the darkness which had covered the abode of Bellair’s consciousness.

“A bit of copy—that I missed getting off,” Broadwell was saying. “I was excited when you called.... All right, Davy. I’ve told ’em where to find it on the back of the note.... And now Bellair—you were saying——”

2

Bellair watched for the turn on the part of Broadwell that would reveal the character of his message, for he did not believe the matter of the copy for the printer. The chill was thick between them, yet Bellair managed to say:

“I’m not here for reprisal or trouble-making. It’s rather a novelty to be innocent, yet charged with a thing; certainly one sees a look from the world that could come no other way. I want to see you again—soon. I’ve got a story to tell you. It was a big thing to me. We used to have things in common. I’d like to tell you the story and see how it strikes you——”

“Good. I’m to spare——”

“Suppose you come here to lunch to-morrow——”

“No, you come with me.”

“I’d prefer it the other way,” Bellair declared. “It’s my story you are to listen to.”

As they parted, there was just a trace of the old Broadwell, that left Bellair with a feeling of kindness.

“I’m interested to hear that story,” the advertising-man said. “It did something to you apparently. Pulled you down a lot—but that’s not all. I can’t make it out exactly—but you’ve got something, Bellair.”

That was a long afternoon.... He had been gone less than six months; and yet was as much a stranger, as a young man coming in from the West for the first time. The hours dragged. The City did not awe him, but so much of it struck him in places tender. He could give and give; there seemed no other way, no other thing to do. He sat on a bench in Union Square, and talked with an old man who needed money so badly that Bellair reflected for some time the best way to bestow it without shock. The old fellow looked so near gone, that one feared his heart would break under any undue pressure of excitement.

Bellair concluded he had better buy a stimulant first of all, so he led the way across the Square to Kiltie’s. They lined up against the bar, and warmed themselves, the idea in Bellair’s mind being to give something beside money. Now the old man (not in the least understanding more than it was the whim of the stranger to do something for him), was so intent on what was to be done that he could not listen. Bellair had to come to the point. They went to a table for a bite of lunch, and the spectacle of a beggar’s mind opened—a story lacking imagination and told with the pitiful endeavour to fit into what was imagined to be the particular weakness of this listener.

For months, Bellair had not touched the little orbit of the trodden lives. The story was not true, for no single group of ten words hinged upon what had been said, or folded into the next statement. The old man was not simple, but his guile was simple, and the simplicity of that was obscene. Begging might be a fine art, but men chose or fell into their work without thought of making an art of it. The old man did not know his own tremendous drama. Had he dared plainly to be true, he would have captivated the world with his own poor faculties. Behind the affectations were glimpses of great realities—if only the fallen mind could accept his days and tell them as they came—just the imperishable fruits of his days. As it was, the whiskey swept them farther away, and the creature attempted to act; his pitiful conception of effects were called into being. The throb of it all was the way the world was brought back to Bellair. His whole past city life thronged into mind. This was but a shocking example of myriads of lives—trying to be what their undeveloped senses prompted for the moment, rather than to be themselves. This was the salesman’s voice and manner, he had seen in Broadwell.... He stopped his revery by handing over the present.

The old man’s eyes were wild now with hope and anguish to get away; a mingling of fear, too, lest the great sum of money in one piece be counterfeit; lest the stranger ask it back, or some one knock him down and take it away.

“I sat in a small boat,” Bellair was saying, “for ten days, with very little food and water. I saw one man die like a beast of thirst—or fear of thirst; and I saw another man master it—so that he died smiling—as only a man can die——”

Bellair did not finish. He had tried to catch the old man’s attention with this—to hold it an instant, thinking that some word would get home, something of the immortal facts in his heart, something greater than cash ... but the old man believed him insane, a liar, a fool or all three.

“Yes, yes,” he said, looking to the side, and to the door.

So he could listen, neither before nor afterward. Bellair eased his agony by letting him go—the money gripped in his hands, his limbs hastening, eyes darting to the right and left, as he sped through the swinging door.... For several moments, Bellair sat in the sorrow of it—lost in the grimmest of all tragedies—that here we are, a human family, all designed for lofty and majestic ends, yet having lost the power to articulate to each other. Suddenly Bellair remembered that the old face had looked into his for a swift second, when he was released—shaken, ashen, a murmur of something like “God thank you,” on the trembling lips. There was a bit of a ray in that.... Then he settled back into the tragedy again. It was this—that the old man had thought him insane for trying to help him; that he had seen something foreign and altogether amiss in the landlady’s eyes, in Ben Broadwell’s, and what was more touching to him, in Davy Acton’s.

Bellair straightened his shoulders. The misery of the thing oppressed him until he brought it to the laugh. Formerly he would have tried to escape. It was not his business if the old man would not be helped; he had tried. If a man can succeed in radiating good feelings and a spirit of helpfulness, he has done his part; the consequences are out of his hand. He saw that he had wanted to help; that what he had taken from the open boat and from the woman had brought this impulse to the fore in all his thinking. After that he must be an artist in the work; must become consummate; but having done his best—he must not spend energy in moods and personal depressions.... As for Lot & Company, he must meet them on their own footings—forgetting everything but their points of view. It was his business now to make a black spot clean, and it was an ugly material matter to be coped with as such, calling forth will-power and acumen of a world kind. He would see if he was to fail.

Bellair’s laugh was hard at first, from the tensity of the temptation to give up and let New York have its way in his case. Having whipped that (and it was a fair afternoon’s work) the smile softened a little, and he entered upon the task of the evening.

... Brandt’s was just as he had left it. The crowd increased; the quartette came. Bessie was lovely as ever; slightly different, since he had thought of her so much in the old hat. She did not see him, but her smile was like a flower of warmth and culture. A touch of the old excitement mounted in his breast, as they sang.... This was New York—among men—food and drink and warmth. This, too, was life; these were men who toil every day, who cannot take months to dream in, who cannot cross the sea and observe heroes and saints, but men who crowd and toil and fight, even expire, for their pleasures—such were the surgings of Bellair’s brain in the midst of the music. Bessie was the arch of it all—the arch of the old home, New York,—not this Bessie, but the Bessie that might be, the significant woman it was his work to make and mould. He was living his own thoughts, as much as listening. They vanished when the music stopped.... He sent a waiter to her with this written on a blank card:

“Will you sing Maying for an old friend?”

... The song choked the wanderer, and this was the new mystery of Maying—that it left him at the stone gate of a door-yard beyond windy Auckland....

He sent forward a gift of flowers, and was in a daze when she came to him and sat down.

“I have only a few minutes. We sing once more and then go. How dark and thin you look!”

He wanted to see her after her work was done, but dared not ask until other things were said.... There were words that left no impress, until he heard himself saying:

“I read the New York papers at sea——”

“... The reporters came to me. I had told some one of seeing you. It was just after I had read the news. It was new to me to have reporters come—and somehow they got what they wanted——”

“Oh, that didn’t matter. Only it was all unnecessary. My accounts there were never other than straight.”

She said she was glad. He saw she was more glad to drop the subject, and didn’t exactly believe him.

“And you’ve had luck away?”

“Yes, in several ways—beside money.”

It seemed necessary to add the last. He was struck with the shame and pity of it; yet it had to do with seeing her again.

“Are you going to be in New York long?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to talk with you to-night, after you are through. I might know better then—how long I am to stay.... Is it possible?”

“Yes—yes, I think so.”

“When?”

“After the Castle”

“Thank you.”

“I’m going to be given a chance—in two weeks—a real chance,” she declared. “I’ll tell you later.”

He tried to make himself believe that it was just as it had been; that Bessie was the same, the meaning of New York and the fortune that had come to him. How could she sing so, if it were not true?

“The formal try-out is two weeks from to-day,” she added. “The rest is done. It’s the chance for life—one of the leads with the King Follies for next season. They’ve already heard me. I need to do no more, than has been done?”

“Just singing?”

“There are many lines and some dancing—oh, it’s a chance to storm the piece—if I can.”

She enlarged and detailed the promise; Bellair forgot many things he had to say.

“Is that all you want, Bessie?”

“What?”

“This chance.”

Her brows knit with irritation. It was her high tide, and he did not seem able to rise with it. Still she dared not be angry with him.

“Don’t you see—it’s everything?”

“A good salary, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes——”

“And you are all fixed for it?”

“All but clothes—the old struggle. You helped me wonderfully before.”

“Perhaps I could help you again?”

“Oh, could you?” She was joyousness aflame—her whole nature winging about him.

Deep within, he was empty and bleak and cold. He wanted to give her money, but somehow could not make it easy for her. It cheapened him in his own eyes.... He was silent—his thoughts having crossed the world. There is no one to explain the sentence that ran through his mind, “... who buys wine for the Japanese girls in Dunedin, since Norcross was conscripted in the service we all shall know?”

“... But what am I to do for you,” he heard the girl inquire, “since you are—not going away to-night?”

He quaked at the old recall. Perhaps he had forgotten a little how to be sharp and city-wise; at least, he did not make himself clear at once.

“You have your mornings, don’t you, Bessie?”

“Not if I’m to have new clothes. That’s morning work——”

“There’s so much to say. I’ve thought about you in a lot of strange places——”

She leaned forward and said with a pitiful quiet, “Once, you only wanted me to be good.”

Then it dawned on him. “Good God, Bessie,” he cried, “I don’t want you to be bad!”

She regarded him, playing with the stem of her glass, as of old time. A curious being he was to her, and quite inexplicable.

“You love me?” she asked.

The bass now beckoned, and she fled.

3

Bellair saw that one may have a gift from heaven, a superb singing-voice, for instance, but that one must also furnish the thought behind it. It was not that Bessie Brealt lacked ambition; in fact, she had plenty of that, but it was the sort that cannot wait for real results. She did not see the great singer; she had not a thought to give with her song. She had not the emotions upon which a great organ of inspiration might be built with the years. Already she was touched with the world; the world stirred her desires; matters of first importance in her mind were the things she wanted.

She was not different from the thousands, from the millions, in this. He had not altogether lost the conviction that she might be made different. Already she was singing too much; her voice would never reach its full measure under these conditions. She would suffer the fate of the countless high-bred colts that are ruined by being raced too young, being denied the right to sound maturity. She should have been out of the life-struggle for years yet; in the country, in the perfect convent of natural life. She had not answered the true call, but meanwhile a call had come; its poison had entered. Bellair saw that the process before him, if any, was to break before building.... If consummate art were used, might not Bessie be helped to conceive the great career? Of course that thought must come first. However, he was far from believing that any art of his could be consummate.... Speaking that night of her new opportunity, he said:

“They will rehearse you a great deal—then performances twice a day—and you’re not more than twenty——”

“Just twenty——”

“You should be forty—before giving your voice so much work——”

She laughed. “Forty, I will doubtless be finished. Forty, and before, the fat comes——”

“People can forget fat—when a great voice is singing——”

“The great voices have sung from children,” she answered.

He believed this untrue; at least, he believed that with conservation, a more sumptuous power was attainable. “They have sung naturally perhaps, but not professionally. If they were called into the stress of life very young, any greatness afterward was in spite of the early struggle, not because of it. The voice is an organ that wears out. It is not the same as the character which improves through every test. If you were to spend ten years in study—ten years, not alone in vocal culture, but in life preparation and the culture of happiness——”

“I suppose you would have me give up this chance with the Follies?” she asked with the control that suggests imminent fracture.

“Yes. There is nothing that passes so quickly—as the voice of a season. It is the plaything of a people without memory. If you had ever listened to the best of the light opera singers, in contrast to a really developed talent——”

But this was not the way. Bellair finished the sentence vaguely, not with the sharpness of the idea that had come to him. She was nervous and irritable and tired. She was enduring him, much as one endures a brother from the country, for whom allowances must be made; also there was a deeper reason.

“Perhaps what I think of you,” he said, stirring to thrill her some way if possible, “is really a fiery thing, Bessie. I think of you singing great hordes of creatures into unity of idea that would lift them from beasts into men. The world is so full of sorrow and dulness of seeing; the world is in a cloud—I want you to sing the clouds away. If you could wait—just wait, as one holding a sure and perfect gift—until the real call comes to you, and then sing, knowing your part, not in pleasure and amusement, but in life, in the stirring centres of struggle and strife. If you would go forth singing that great song of yours—from your soul! It would be like a voice from the East—to bring the tatters of humanity together. I felt all this vaguely when I first heard you—six months ago. I have thought of it nights and days on the ocean—in times when we had to live on our thoughts, hold fast to them or go mad, for we had two days’ water for ten, and two days’ food for ten. Then I remembered how I came into Brandt’s, torn that night, not knowing what to do—dull-eyed and covered with wrongs. You sang me free. For the minute you sang me out of all that. I could not have freed myself perhaps—without that song. I know that there are thousands of men like me to be freed——”

Bellair felt on sure ground now. This was his particular manner and message—the finest and strangest thing about him—the fact that had always appeared, making him different even from Fleury and the woman,—the thought that he was average—and not more impressionable than the multitudes. If they could be reached, they would make the big turn that he had been shoved into.

“... Thousands just as I was that night, preyed upon by trade, dull-witted with the ways of trade, the smug, the bleak, the poisonous tricks of trade, born and bred—their real life softened and watered and wasted away ... thousands who could turn into men at the right song, the right word. I always thought of you, Bessie—as one of the great helpers. If you can wait, the way will come. I will help you to wait. I came back to New York to help you——”

She picked up his glass and smelled it, her eyes twinkling. “Splendid,” she said, “but are you quite sure you haven’t a stick in this ginger-ale?”

Bellair leaned back. He hadn’t touched it yet. Perhaps something would come, better than words. It was not straight-going—this work that he had dreamed; always a shock in bringing down dreams from Sinai; always something deadly in meeting the empirical. He smiled. “Just ginger-ale, Bessie, but you are a stimulant. You are more beautiful than before. Not quite so girlish, but there is something new that is very intense to me——”

She leaned toward him now, very eager.

“I wondered what you would see. The difference was plain at once in you.... Tell me what you see——”

“Just between the fold of the eye and the point of the chin——” he answered.... (Queerly now he imagined himself talking on the shore to the little Gleam; it gave him just the touch that helped.) “—a little straightening of the oval, and the little puff at the mouth-corners drawn out. Why, Bessie, it’s just the vanishing child. And you are taller. I’m almost afraid to speak—to try to put it into words, how pretty you are——”

She was elate and puzzled, too. “Where did you get anything like that?” she asked. “It’s what made me remember before. Always when you get through preaching—you pay for it——”

It was out before she thought—yet for once the exact unerring thing that was in her mind.

He treasured it; saw that his appeal was certain this way; that he must be of the world, and right glib to master her. The way of reality was slow; he must never fail to pay for preaching.... They laughed, and the weariness went from her eyes. The bloom of her health was at its height. Now as Bellair watched her, thinking of the world-ways, she suddenly swept home to him—the old forbidden adventure of her, the meaning of money and nights, her homelessness, the city, the song, the price she would pay if he demanded it.

The thing was upon him before he realised. It had all been the new Bellair until now. His body had lain as if in a vault of wax, its essential forces in suspension. Suddenly without warning, the wax had melted away. He did not instantly give battle to the gust of desire—met it eye-to-eye. Bellair felt his own will, and knew he would use it presently. He was rather amazed at the power of the thing as it struck him, and the nature of it, so utterly detached from the redolence and effulgence he had known in the Stone House. This was not the old Hunting Companion who had come with garlands; a minkish aborigine, this, who had come empty-handed, whose hands were out to be filled.

The meaning of all that Stackhouse had left in wallets and sea-girt archipelagoes was in this sullen-eyed entity—in the O formed of thirsting lips. Bellair tried to check it before it came—the thought that this was peculiarly a New York manifestation, one destined to be Bessie Brealt’s familiar in future years.... He did not have to use his will. He lost himself in thinking of her plight.

“... Please bring the coffee,” she was saying to the waiter, her hand lifted, as if she would touch his sleeve, the familiarity of one who had sung here many nights. “Yes, he will have coffee. He is merely away somewhere.... Yes, we will have it smoked with cognac—but here—do it here. I like to see it burn....”

“Very well, Miss Brealt——”

The lights had all come back to Bellair. He was miserable—the adventure palled. There had been no lift, nor tumultuous carrying away. The quick change chilled him. Her words one by one had chilled him.... At least, he had demanded a madness to-night. Bessie did not have the wine of madness in her veins. This much had been accomplished. He could not break training coldly.... And now he felt as if the day had drained him to the heart, as if the day had come to an end, and he must rest.

He turned to her. “I found a little check-book for you to-day, but you must go to the bank and give them your signature. It is made of leather, small enough for your purse almost. The bank-book is with it. You will find a little account started.... And now I will call a cab for you——”

“But your coffee——” she said.

“Yes, we will have that——”

He had to get away for a moment. His heart was desolate with hunger.... The smell of the kitchen made him think of the galley of a ship....

“Oh, what can I do for you?” Bessie asked, when he returned.

“It’s what you can do for yourself that interests me——”

“But I must go with the Follies—if I win. It’s the career—the beginning!”

“If you must.”

“And when shall I see you?”

“Here to-morrow night—if you will.”

“Yes,” she said eagerly.

4

On the way to Lot & Company’s the next morning Bellair smiled at the sense of personal injustice which had returned to him. He held fast to a sort of philosophical calm, but permitted his energy to be excited by a peculiar blending of contempt and desire to wring the truth from Lot & Company at any price.

Suddenly he stopped. Lot & Company was merely something to master. Lot & Company was but an organised bit of the world which he had met; all men had their own organisations to face, to comprehend the vileness and illusion of, and then to get underfoot, neck and other vitals.... Bessie had helped him. There was something in that.... He felt the fighting readiness within him, and an added warning not to raise his voice. He must deal with Lot & Company on the straight low plane of what-was-wanted. That was the single level of the firm’s understanding.

Davy Acton smiled at him shyly—the first face after the pale telephone-miss at the door. Davy was more at home in these halls and floors than in the hotel dining-room. Bellair heard the jovial voice of Mr. Rawter behind his partition. From the distance, Broadwell glanced up and waved at him. Mr. Sproxley’s black eyes were fixed in his direction from behind the grating of his cage. Mr. Sproxley came forward, greeted him and returned. Bellair had asked to see the elder Mr. Wetherbee, but it appeared that Mr. Seth was not in.

“I’ll speak with Mr. Nathan Lot,” said Bellair.

“Mr. Lot is occupied.”

“Mr. Jabez then.”

Mr. Jabez came forth presently.... He had been married in the interval, according to Broadwell; the fact had touched the wide, limp mouth. A very rich girl had joined pastures with Jabez; so that this coming forward was one of the richest young men in New York, representing the fortune of his mother which the dreaming Nathan had put into works; representing the fortune he had recently wedded with or without dreaming, and also the Lot & Company millions. Mr. Jabez also stood for the modern note of the firm; he was designed to bring the old and prosperous conservatism an additional new and up-to-the-hour force of suction.... Mr. Jabez smiled.

“Hello, Bellair,” he said with a careless regard,—doubtless part of the modern method, the laxity of new America which knows no caste. The thought had formed about him something to this effect: “What’s the use of me carrying it—you will not be able to forget you are talking to forty millions?”

“Come in,” he added and Bellair followed.

Mr. Nathan was beyond the partition. The atmosphere of the dreamer had looped over into the son’s sanctum.... Bellair began at the point of his handing the letter, addressed to Mr. Nathan, to the station-porter at the last moment from the platform of the Savannah Pullman.

“But mails don’t miscarry,” said Mr. Jabez, impatiently.

“That’s a fact. Perhaps mine wasn’t mailed. Of course,” he added quietly, “you didn’t require that letter. You had my note of release in the safe. They say at the Trust company that you collected the thousand dollars and interest within four days after I left.”

“Suppose every employé who has a deposit of faith—should tie us up that way?”

“It would be well to find out what he has done—before calling in the police.”

“What do you want, Bellair?”

Mr. Jabez could hold his temper, when its display was an inconvenience.

“I want a paper signed by you for Lot & Company, stating that you were in error when you charged me with absconding with company funds; that my accounts were afterward found to be entirely correct.”

Jabez Lot surveyed him. There was some change which he did not understand. The paper asked for, was a mere matter of dictation, a thing that might be forced from the firm. He believed, however, that Bellair wanted something else.

“I think the wisest plan for us will be to turn your case over to our attorney,” he said.

“Why?” Bellair asked. The full episode of the Nubian File and Mr. Prentidd passed through his mind.

“You see these affairs are adjusted better out of the office——”

“Why?”

“As a matter of fact, Bellair,” Mr. Jabez said patiently, “Lot & Company is eager to make amends for its mistake——”

There was a slow, quiet cough, the most natural and thoughtless sort of cough from the inner office. Bellair wondered if the modern method of Mr. Jabez was wearing a bit upon the dreamer, or if he were really lost in some inscrutable departure of mind.

“That would seem natural,” said he. “It would seem the direct, clear way. I am not boisterous; I threaten nothing.”

Bellair knew that this reminder of the Prentidd episode did not help his cause, but he wished nothing to be lost from the force he possessed. At the same time, he knew that it was the policy of Lot & Company to give nothing unforced. He was interested.

“We hadn’t thought of it, of course,” the future head now said, “but I have no doubt that Lot & Company has something as good for you as your old place, if you——”

“But I do not want a position,” said Bellair.

“What is it you want—again?”

“I want a paper, saying that I stole nothing, that Lot & Company was in error in charging me with taking funds——”

“A sort of explanation of our course?”

“Not exactly—a statement of your course, and that you incriminated me unjustly——” Bellair spoke with slow clearness.

“I really believe you had better see Mr. Jackson.”

“Why?”

“Because this is most unusual——”

Another cough was heard.

“Unusual—to straighten out a wrong that has hurt a man?”

“The way you ask it. Lot & Company is willing to take you back——”

“But I do not want to come back. You say that Lot & Company is eager to make amends——”

Davy Acton came in, saying that Mr. Jabez was called to the advertising department for a moment.... To Bellair this was like an interruption of an interesting story, but he did not wait long. The scene was merely shifted. He was in Mr. Nathan’s room. Mr. Rawter joined them and Mr. Jabez returned directly. The latter reopened the conversation by relating justly and patiently what Bellair asked.

“I don’t see why he shouldn’t have such a paper,” said Mr. Nathan, brushing his fingers through his hair, as if to force his thoughts down. He was not a whit older. The same identical dandruff was upon his shoulders.

Mr. Rawter laughed jovially: “Don’t you see? That’s just it. Individually, that is exactly the situation—but a big house—all its ramifications affected—and who’s to be responsible for Lot & Company as a whole?”

“It was Lot & Company that incriminated me,” said Bellair.

“I told Mr. Bellair——” Mr. Jabez began.

“Mr. Bellair had better come back to the House—that in itself is our acknowledgement,” interrupted his father. Evidently the son was not yet finished in training.

Bellair turned to Mr. Jabez, who explained the point of Bellair’s unwillingness to return. There was silence at this, as if it were entirely incomprehensible.

“Have you taken a position elsewhere in New York?” Mr. Nathan asked.

“No.”

“Are you going to?”

“On that—I cannot be sure.”

Mr. Rawter now arose and came forward, placing his arm across Bellair’s shoulder. The latter winced, but not physically. For an instant it had fired and fogged him. “Bellair, my boy, on the face of it—this that you ask would seem very simple,” he began. “I would ask it in your case, but think of us. By misunderstanding, we let out the fact that you had gone with funds not your own.... You were away. We looked for you everywhere before this happened——”

“You let it out,” said Bellair. “It is very simple. Call it in again——”

“It isn’t so simple.”

“I might come back to work for you,” Bellair added, “and those who knew would say, ‘He hadn’t anything. Instead of locking him up, Lot & Company took him back to work out what he had taken——’”

“I might give you a personal letter, saying I was very sorry, that in the bewilderment of the moment, we jumped at the conclusion that you were identified with the missing funds——”

“But the funds were not missing. You could not look into the vault-box without finding my letter.”

“Our funds were not all in that box, Bellair.”

“They would know by next morning, if I had broken into your bank——”

Mr. Nathan appeared to be gone from them, his eyes softened with visions.

“Write him the letter, Mr. Rawter——” suggested Mr. Jabez.

It struck Bellair like a hated odour—this tool for unclean work, Rawter’s part in the establishment. He did not hasten now, though he knew they were waiting for his answer. The head of the sales resumed:

“Yes, I will do this gladly—in fact, it would relieve my mind to do this in the most cordial terms, but I would be interested first in learning just what disposition of it was intended——”

“It would be mine,” said Bellair. “Of course, I should use it as I thought fit.”

“I was thinking—in adjusting the tone of the letter, the wording, you know——”

“Adjust the tone—the wording—to the facts—that would seem best. But I would not accept such a letter from you personally. It would have to be written for Lot & Company——”

Mr. Nathan now showed signs of coming back.

“Let us have a day to think it over, Bellair,” he said.

“In that case—my part is finished. I have asked to be lifted out of a shameful position. You acknowledge that I have this lift coming.” It was at this point that an inspiration arrived. “All that there is left, naturally and equitably, is for you to do your part. A man’s name is of more importance than a firm’s name, and in any event, no man nor firm was ever hurt by squaring a crooked action.”

Mr. Nathan appeared to welcome the slight heat of this remark. It brought the moment nearer in which hands might be washed and the attorney summoned. But Bellair was not heated, Mr. Rawter fumed a little.

“What do you mean by a man’s name being more important than a firm’s name?” he demanded.

“A firm shares its responsibility. A man shoulders it alone.”

“And what do you mean by your part being finished?”

“I have worked in this office five years,” Bellair answered. “I never saw nor heard of a man in my position, or in a similar position of asking something, who profited by allowing delay. I will put the matter out of mind if the letter is not furnished to-day. Of course, I expect to get it. In fact, I have the pressure to force the issue—although it seems trivial for me to mention it.”

Bellair had thought of Mr. Prentidd again. There was doubtless a case of some kind pending on the matter of the Nubian File. Mr. Prentidd was no man to stop. It would not have been settled within six months. Lot & Company knew of his knowledge of this affair. Bellair plunged:

“In fact, there is a case against Lot & Company, to which I might add a singular weight of testimony. As for my own, it would go to the same counsel——”

Mr. Nathan ruffled his hair and the silent fall of grey white dust followed. Bellair felt pent. After so long a time at sea, it was hard for him to breathe in this place. He wearied now of the game, although Mr. Nathan was palpably down, present in the material plane.

“Bellair,” said he, turning about in his chair, “the added pressure of a discredited employé doesn’t count for much as testimony in any case——”

“I realised at once the reason why you discredited me—to cripple for the time being any knowledge I might care to use against you. However, you have all granted that I am not discredited. The only item mentioned in the charge was the item covered by the Trust company. You would have to work with Mr. Sproxley to show a deficit in the books having to do with my departure——”

“Bellair,” said Mr. Nathan, “a poor man can never win a suit against a strongly backed firm——”

“That is unfortunately true,” said Bellair, “but I am not poor. I came into an inheritance during the past six months. The fact is, I think I could spend as much money to buy justice as Lot & Company would be willing to spend to prevent it.”

“Bellair,” said Mr. Nathan, “you will find it impossible to move the press in your behalf against the firm of Lot & Company, with our advertising contracts among the valuable ones in the city lists——”

Knowledge now counted. “You do not advertise in the Record,” he declared. “I have often heard from the advertising department that there is a rupture between this office and that paper, dating over a quarter of a century——”

Mr. Nathan touched a button for his stenographer. She lit upon the little chair beside him like a winged seed.

“To all Parties interested: Mr. Bellair left our employ suddenly and without furnishing customary warning,” the president dictated. “Finding a certain explanation in the vault, instead of a sum slightly over one thousand dollars belonging to this firm, we hastily assumed that his sudden departure was energised by the usual conditions. In fact, such a suspicion was stated to the press by this firm. We have since found Mr. Bellair’s accounts to be correct in every detail, and we furnish this letter to express in part our concern for Mr. Bellair’s character which our hasty conclusion impinged upon. Mr. Bellair left a letter of explanation in the vault, but his action in leaving abruptly and without explanation forced us on the spur of the moment to discredit it. However, the statement of his letter proved true, and the money taken by Mr. Bellair was the exact amount of his surety bond, with stipulated interest, and his salary to the hour of departure.”

“You have heard it?” Mr. Nathan inquired.

“Yes, it will do,” said Bellair.

The president nodded to his stenographer, who whisked out. “It will be ready in a moment,” he said. “I will sign it for Lot & Company.... Bellair, are you sure you don’t want your old desk back?”

“Quite sure,” said Bellair.

Mr. Jabez and Mr. Rawter had departed. Bellair glanced at his watch. It was a moment past the hour of Mr. Broadwell’s leaving for luncheon. The advertising-man, of course, was aware of his presence in the lower office. Bellair stepped out, however, to make sure of his appointment. Broadwell, hat in hand, was engaged in talk with Mr. Jabez. Bellair returned to the office of the president to wait for the stenographer. Not more than two minutes later, Davy Acton came in with this message:

“Mighty sorry to call luncheon off. Am hurrying to catch a train for Philadelphia for the rest of the day. Will see you later.—Broadwell.”

... Bellair folded this thoughtfully. The stenographer brought the letter with copy. The front draft was approved for signature, and Bellair’s morning work accomplished.

In the hall he met Davy Acton, and followed a quick impulse.

“Davy, lad, how soon will you be ready to go out to lunch?”

“In about three minutes——”

“I’ll wait for you. I’m going your way.”

Davy’s customary exit was the side-door. Bellair waited there accordingly. The girls were coming down the iron stairway from the bindery. He stepped back in the shadow to let them pass. There were figures and faces that clutched at his throat.... And then a story began, half way up the first flight, and came nearer and nearer, the voice carrying easily to one who listened with emotion:

“Did you know that Mr. Bellair was back?... Bellair, the absconding clerk—Mr. Sproxley’s assistant. Lot & Company has refused to prosecute. He will not be arrested.... And think of his nerve—asking his old position back——”

... They saw merely the back of a man, if they saw him at all. The talk was not interrupted on the way to the street and beyond.... Bellair came up with a start to find the boy at his side.

5

For a square or two, Davy Acton walking beside him, Bellair did not speak. He had needed that last bit. The morning would have blurred his hard-earned knowledge of Lot & Company and the world, without that moment under the iron stairs. It was hard to take, but a man mustn’t forget such realities as this. He loses his grip on the world when he forgets. Happy to lose, of course, but the point of his effectiveness is gone when these rock-bottom actualities are forgotten.... He looked down, Davy was hopping every third step to keep up. Bellair had quickened his pace to put the stench of the swamp farther behind him, but it was still in his nostrils.... He laughed.

“I was thinking, Davy, and the thoughts were like spurs. We’re in no hurry, really.”

He would not take the boy to a stately and formal dining-room for him to be embarrassed. Bellair felt that he had something very precious along; a far graver solution than luncheon with Broadwell. They sat down at a little table in the corner of one of the less crowded restaurants. As they waited, Bellair said, drawing out the paper he had received from the dreaming Mr. Nathan:

“I want you to see this first. In fact, I was particularly concerned about getting it, just to show you. Davy, it hit me like a rock—the way you looked at me in the hotel yesterday. I couldn’t have that. We’ve been too good friends——”

Davy read the letter carefully, deep responsibility upon his understanding.

“Did you have trouble getting it?” he asked finally.

“It took the forenoon, Davy. I found that they had not taken the trouble to tell my old friends on the different floors that I was not a thief. What was worse for me, they let you think so——”

“I wouldn’t believe it at first,” said Davy.

“I’m glad of that.”

“I said to Mr. Broadwell, that they’d find out differently and be sorry. They didn’t let us know when they found out——”

“That’s why it was important for me to come back——”

“But why did you go away like that?”

The boy’s mind dwelt in the fine sense of being treated as an equal. Bellair felt called upon to be very explicit and fair:

“I came to the time when I couldn’t live with myself any longer—and stay in the cage with Mr. Sproxley. I saw a ship in the harbour the Sunday before—a sailing-ship,” he began, and then made a picture of it; also of his own hopelessness and what the years would mean, not touching specific dishonesties, but suggesting the atmosphere which had suddenly become poisonous to him. He did not forget that Davy had no other place, that he must keep a certain sense of loyalty, or be destroyed in such conditions.

“It would have taken two weeks to get clear in the ordinary way,” he added. “My decision came the day of the squabble with Mr. Prentidd in the office. I had to leave right then—was off for Savannah that very night——”

“And you found the ship there?” Davy asked eagerly.

“I beat her there a day and a half. Then we sailed for South America. I want to tell you the whole story. This is not the place. Could you come up in my room after supper to-night?”

“I think my mother will let me come——”

“Tell me about your mother, Davy. Is she well? I remember I meant to meet her some time.”

“Yes—just the same. You know she works a little, too——”

“Where?” Bellair asked absently.

Davy swallowed, and before he spoke, the man saw with a queer thrill that the boy hadn’t yet learned to lie.

“Well, she goes out three days a week—to do the laundry work—for people who have had her a long time.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I’m hoping to get where she won’t have to.”

“Of course.”

The dinner was brought. Bellair tried to make up for the place—in quantity. Neither spoke for the present. The man was hungry, too.

“I’m glad you told me that,” he said after a time, “glad you told me just that way.”

Davy applied himself further. Manifestly here was a point that he need not follow.

“Davy, you’ll come through. You’re starting in the right hard way—the old-fashioned way. It won’t be so slow as you think——” He was reminded now of what Fleury had said about the little Gleam that first night in the open boat.

“Slow but sure at Lot & Company’s—if a fellow does his part and works hard——”

Davy was being brought up in the usual way.

Bellair said: “I’m coming over to see you at your house some evening soon—if I may.”

“Sure.... It isn’t much of a house.”

“I’m not so certain about that. Anyway, I want to come. We’ll talk about it again this evening. You ask your mother when she’ll let me——”

“You might come to-night—-instead of me coming to the hotel——”

“No, I want to talk with you alone.”

Davy looked relieved.... He was on his way presently, and the town appeared better to Bellair that afternoon. At five he was in the hotel-lobby when a hand plucked his sleeve and he looked down into the whitest, most terrified face, he had ever seen.

“I’m fired!” was the intelligence that came up from it, and there was reproach, too.

“Come on upstairs, but first take it from me that you’ll be glad of it, in ten minutes——”

Bellair had to furnish a swift, heroic antidote for that agony.

“You haven’t been home, of course?” the man asked in the elevator.

“No.”

“Could we send a messenger to your mother—so she wouldn’t worry, and you wouldn’t have to go home until after we talk?”

“Yes.”

“All right, I’ll see to that at once.”

Davy wrote with trembling hands. The messenger was asked to bring an answer from Mrs. Acton.

“Now tell me,” said Bellair.

“Old Mr. Seth was down when I got back. You know he only comes down for an hour or two now in the middle of the day. He called me to him, and asked where I had been to lunch. I said with you. That was all, until four o’clock, when Mr. Eben came to me and asked if you had shown me anything—a letter from Lot & Company, for instance. I said yes. He went away, and at half-past four, he called me again, handed me my weekly envelope, saying that they would not need me any longer. I came right here. It seemed, I couldn’t go home——”

“Davy, lad, I’m glad I’m not broke, but if I were and couldn’t do a thing to make up—it would be a lucky day for you.”

Bellair ordered supper served in the room. They were free and alone. Faith returned to the boy, enough for the hour. Davy was consulted carefully upon the details of the order, a subtle suggestion from Bellair from time to time. Something of the long dinners on the Jade had come to his mind in this rôle. He had learned much about food that voyage, the profundity and emptiness of the subject. Bellair told his story, making it very clear to Davy—this at first:

“The office was doing to me just what it would do to you, Davy. It was breaking me down. The floors of Lot & Company are filled with heart-broken men. They do not know it well; some of them could never know, but there are secrets in the breasts of men there, that you wouldn’t dream of. It is so all over New York. Trade makes it so—offices, the entire city, crowded with heart-broken men.... They say first, ‘Why, every one is out for himself and the dollar—why not I?’ You and I were taught so in our little schooling. Then Lot & Company taught us. They are old masters—generations of teachers. Cramped and bleak, but loyal to the one verb—get. In all the Lot family, Davy, there is not a true life principle such as you brought to the office in the beginning. But if Lot & Company were unique—they would be an interesting study. The city is crowded with such firms—heart-breakers of men, the slow, daily, terrible grind; every movement, every expression, a lie—until to those inside, the lie is reality—and the truth a forbidden and terrible stranger. Every man has his Lot & Company.

“Davy, I breathed a bit of open that Sunday—so that I could see, but the next morning it closed about me again. It was Mr. Prentidd who helped me out. They stole from him and lied to him. Face to face, eye to eye, old Seth Wetherbee, the Quaker, lied to him, taking hundreds of dollars in the lie—millionaires taking hundreds of dollars from a poor inventor. I had the book of the London transaction before me, which showed the truth as they talked, and Mr. Sproxley came and took the book from me, and shut it in the safe.... And then when I left, they knew I had their secrets. You wondered why they called me a thief, when I was not. It was plain, Davy, to spoil anything I might say about their methods. Instantly they discredited me, because I was one of six or seven in the office who knew that they were thieves and liars. And why did they fire you to-day for lunching with me? Because they were afraid of what I might have told you. And why did they send Broadwell to Philadelphia when they knew he was to have lunch with me? For fear of what I might tell Broadwell. Even now they will not tell the different floors that I am exonerated.... But they are afraid, Davy—that’s their hell. That is their life—fear and the lie. Imagine men standing straight up to heaven—spines lifted from the ground, but going back to the ground—who knows but their souls already belly-down?—because they break the hearts of men, and live with fear and the lie.”

He told of Fleury and Stackhouse and the Faraway Woman—of McArliss, of striking the reef, and day by day in the open boat.... Davy’s eyes bulged. The boy saw Stackhouse at one end and quiet manhood in the other. He sat with Bellair, whom he could understand, in the point of balance between these forces. Bellair told of the stars and the child, and the distance from which they viewed the little things of the world and the grand simplicity of God. He pictured the man Fleury had become—the straight-seeing, the fearless, the ignited man, who mastered the lie in his heart and the animal in his abdomen—the man he, Bellair, wanted to be, and wanted Davy to be.... The Formahaut came, with Spika agleam to the northward, and Fleury died—the picture in his mind of a man, rising rather than falling.... Bellair told him of the first moment he heard the real voice of Fleury, as he stood on the tilted deck of the Jade in the dark, while he went back for water.... “I’ll hold a place for you!”

“A real man always says that, Davy. A real man will hold a place for you. And I thought, as I saw Stackhouse die and remembered his life, that he was the saddest and most terrible animal in human form. He was a glutton and a coward, but mainly he broke his own heart and not others. He was a slave to his stomach, but there was life, not creeping death, in his mind. I saw the pictures that moved there, low, vivid pictures, animal dreams, but he was not a destroyer of children or a breaker of the hearts of men. Low Nature was loose in him, but it was not a predatory instinct alone. Having enough, he could give. He could give fifty thousand dollars and a wallet full of valuable papers for a bottle of whiskey—but the Lots and the Wetherbees would have died clutching their money. I learned Stackhouse, Davy—only to understand that there is a depth below his. I think I should have taken you out somehow—if they hadn’t let you go——”

Davy asked questions, and the story came better and better. The thing that held him especially was the last days in the open boat.

“And did you really suffer less when you decided to make it a fast?”

“Yes, that was true in my case. Many have set out to fast ten days, and done with as little as we did. Of course it was harrowing, because we didn’t know when it would end; then the little baby was there, and the mother.”

“And you think he was really as happy as he said?”

“Davy, lad, Fleury was a prince. He would have given you his shirt. He had himself going so strong for us—that the fire of happiness ran through him. I’ll give you some books about that. It’s really a fact. You can’t suffer pain, when you’ve got something really fine up your sleeve for another. Perhaps you’ve felt it at Christmas——”

“You’re all out of yourself-like——”

“That’s it,” said the man.

More words would have stuck in his throat. Davy got it—got something of it. Bellair had come to ask so little, that this seemed a great deal.... He followed Davy down and into the street. It was still two hours before he was due at the Castle.

“How long does it take to get to your house, Davy?”

“About twenty-five minutes. It’s ’way down town.”

“Suppose I should go home and meet your mother. I have the time——”

“Yes, come with me. She will be watching.”

They passed a delicatessen-store, ripe cherries in the window, and a counter full of provisions that would have been far more thrilling had they not dined so well.

“Do you suppose we might take home an armful of these things?” Bellair asked.

Davy dissuaded weakly.... That clerk must have thought him mad, for Bellair merely pointed to bottles and jars and baskets—until they were both loaded. There was a kind of passion about it for the man. He hated to stop; in fact did not, until it occurred to him that this was not the last night of the world, and that Davy doubtless required many more substantial matters, which would furnish a rapturous forenoon among the stores—to-morrow forenoon....

They sat in an almost empty downtown subway train, their bundles about them, the stops called by the guard. They both hunched a little, when the stop nearest Lot & Company’s was called, but did not speak. Farther and farther downtown—the last passengers leaving. It was the hour the crowds move upward. Strange deep moments for Bellair—moments in which this was more than Davy sitting beside him. This was Boy—Davy Acton but the symbol of a great need.

6

A hurried walk to the east with their bundles to a quarter that Bellair had not known before, past the great stretches of massive buildings which the day had abandoned, to a low [Pg 294]and older sort that carried on a night-life of their own, where children cried, halls were narrow, and the warmth became heaviness.... A plump little woman who had not lost hope (she did not see the stranger at first because the boy filled her eyes); a dark, second-floor hall, a little room with a lamp and a red table-cloth; a door at either end, and opposite the door they entered, one window.... How bewildered she was with the bundles, desiring to prepare something for them right away. Indeed, it would have helped her to be active in their behalf.... Bellair was smiling.

Davy told part and Bellair part. Presently all was forgotten in the presence of the calamity that had befallen. It was slow to change her mind about Lot & Company. Davy had impressed upon her for two years the lessons administered there. Not to be changed in a moment, this estimate—that before all poverty, before all need, and above all hope, a place at Lot & Company’s was a permanent place, “if a fellow did his part”—that Lot & Company was an honest house. Davy told of the paper Mr. Bellair had forced from them, and Bellair touched upon the life he had led in those halls, just a little and with haste. To help him to speak authoritatively, he added that he would help Davy to another position.... Then he looked around, and glanced at his watch. There was a small anteroom which they occupied.... Bellair had asked about the other door. “An empty room,” Mrs. Acton told him.

Of course it was for rent. On the spur of the moment, he declared he would take it, asked her to rent it for him, insisting on paying in advance. He would come in the morning—have his things brought later.... No, Davy was not to look for a position to-morrow. Davy must devote himself to him to-morrow. He left them happily. The mother called after him in hopeless excitement that he had left enough to rent the room all summer.

He did not show the Lot & Company paper to Bessie; in fact, he never showed it but once, and that was to Davy Acton immediately after it was obtained. He had thought of taking it across the street to show the landlady, but perhaps that would merely have added to her living confusion. It had been most important for Davy, but to reopen the subject with Bessie, his manner might have touched an “I-told-you-so” indelicacy.... She was happy when he found her that night. Clothes in quantity were already begun—the next ten forenoons at the dressmakers’. She thanked him charmingly, studied him with a quizzical expression that invariably haunted him afterward.

Bellair could never tell just what would do it, but occasionally through an hour’s chat, he would say something, just enough above her comprehension to challenge her. Once opened, her faculties were not slow, but the life she had chosen, held her mind so consistently to its common level that the habit was formed. Mainly when he spoke above her, she ceased to listen, ignored him; but when something he said just hit home, she praised him with animation, as one would a sudden gleam of unexpected intelligence on the part of a child. It became one of his most remarkable realisations that a man who has anything worth while to say must come down to say it, just as certainly as he must go up to get it.

The sense of adventure with her did not return this night, though she had seemed to accept him differently from before; as if he belonged, part of her impediment mainly, but at moments of surpassing value, like a machine that one packs a day for a half-hour’s work it may do. His money had purchased something.

Bellair sat in the dark of his room, feet on the window-sill, hat still on, at two o’clock, his last night in the hotel where he never had belonged. He was very tired and longed for sleep; and yet there was a different longing for sleep than that which belonged to physical weariness. It had to do with his hunger for the Faraway Woman. This startled him. What was that refreshing mystery afterward? Did he go to her in sleep—did she come? Why was it that the burden of parting invariably increased through the long days? It had been so on the ship. In the morning he could live; then the hours settled down, until it seemed he must leap back to her; the ship’s ever increasing distance at times literally twisting his faculties until he was dazed with pain.

He had not thought of this before. Why was it always when the pressure increased and the ardour mounted—that he longed for sleep?... Nothing came to his work-a-day brain from the nights. His dreams were of lesser matters—and yet, something within pulled him to unconsciousness like the rush of a tide. It gave him a sense of the vastness, a glimpse of the inner beauty of life.

Far below in the side-street a heavy, slow-trotting horse clattered by. The motors were more and more hushed, even the hell of Broadway subdued. A different set of sounds came home to him, but he did not interpret for the present; their activity playing upon deeps of their own—a bridge swung open between them and his exterior thoughts....

Slowly all exterior matters slipped away—the mother and Davy and Bessie. The bridge between the surface and the deeps swung to, and he heard the sounds that had been thrilling his real being all the time as he sat by the window—the liner whistles that crossed Manhattan from the harbour, the deep-sea bayings which seemed to be calling him home.

7

Bellair must have rested well in a few hours, for he arose early, feeling very fit in and out. For years the man he had seen in the glass when he was alone, had aroused little or no curiosity; a sort of customary forbearance rather. The fact is, he had not looked close for years. This morning as he shaved, something new regarded him from the face, still deeply dark from the open boat. He called it a glint, but would have designated it as something that had to do with power in another. It was fixed—something earned and delivered.

Perhaps it was something she had seen.

This animated him. It had come from Fleury and the fasting, but most of all from contemplating her face and her nature. Was it the arousing of his own latent will? Was it because he was lifted above Lot & Company? What part of it had come from the anguish of separation? Truly a man must build something if he manages to live against the quickened beat of a hungry heart.

The face was very thin, too. He had felt that so often as he used the morning knife, but he saw it now. Thin and dark, and the boy gone altogether.... Bellair smiled. Lot & Company had tried to take the boy. Had they not failed, the man would never have come, but something craven in the place of the boy, something tied to its own death, its soul shielded from the light—a shield of coin-metals.

He shuddered, less at the narrowness of his own escape, than at New York whose business came up to him now through the open windows.... The shaving had dragged. He was not accustomed to study his own face. The very novelty of it had held him this time—and especially the thought of what she might have seen there. Suddenly he wanted something big to take back to her—a manhood of mind and an integrity of soul—something to match that superb freedom she had wrung from the world. A thousand times the different parts of her story had returned to his mind, always filling him with awe and wonder. She had come like one with a task, and set about it from a child, against all odds, putting all laws of men beneath—as if the task had been arranged before she came. He knew that the essence of this freedom was in the hearts of women everywhere, but she had made it manifest, dared all suffering for it. And yet with all the struggle behind her, the gentleness which he had come to know in her nature was one of the great revelations. It gave him a vision of the potential beauty of humanity; it made him understand that one must be powerful before one can be gentle; that one must master one’s self before one dare be free. All that he had was far too little to bring home to her. This morning he felt that nothing short of the impossible was worth going after.

A little later as he was leaving the room, the telephone rang. The operator said that a gentleman wanted to see him. On the lower floor, Bellair glanced into the eyes of a young man who wanted something; “glanced into” is somewhat inaccurate; rather his eyes glanced from the other’s, and took away a peculiar, indescribable interest. It was the look of a colt he had seen, a glitter of wildness and irresponsibility in a face that was handsome but not at its best.

Bellair had seen something of the expression in the faces of young men who had been fathered too much; those who had not met the masterful influence of denial, and had been allowed to lean too long. The face had everything to charm and to express beauty and reality with, but the inner lines of it were not formed; the judgments lacking, the personal needs too imperious. He had made the most of well-worn clothing, but appeared to feel keenly the poorness of it.

“I came in here yesterday,” he said hastily. “It all happened because the ledger was turned back. I glanced at it, as one will, and standing out from the page was ‘Auckland, N. Z.’ It was as if written in different colour to me. I followed the line back to the name—and tried to see you yesterday afternoon and last night. You didn’t come in——”

“You come from Auckland?” Bellair asked.

“Yes——”

“How long?”

“It’s more than a year.... Small thing to meet a stranger on, but it was all I had. Auckland is so far and so different—that when I saw it—it seemed there must be a chance——”

“Of course. I know how it is,” said Bellair. “Do you want to get back?”

“That isn’t it, exactly, though I haven’t anything here——”

“Have you had breakfast?”

“N-no.”

“Come in with me and we’ll talk. I have a half-hour to spare.”

Bellair heard his voice and wondered at the coldness of it. He remembered afterward the covered billiard-tables at the far end of the hall and the dimness of the hall’s length, as he led the way. His own custom was a pot of coffee and a bit of toast, but the other’s possible need of food had a singular authority over him, so he made out that this was one of the main feeding features of his day.... But the other was intent upon certain things beside food. He had been unlucky. Everything that he had tried in the year of New York had failed him somehow—little ventures, positions lost—and always some one was to blame, not this one who spoke and had suffered so. Bellair hearkened for one note that would confine itself to the unfinished mouth and the unstable character; one note that would suggest the possibility of a clue that the series of failures lay in his own shortcomings of strength and quality, but the boy had not this suggestion in his heart.

“Are you married?” Bellair asked.

“No.”

There was an instant’s lull, and then was turned off another story of misfortune:

“... I didn’t want to marry her. I got her in trouble down in New Zealand. Her father wanted me to marry her—was willing to pay for it—but a fellow can’t take a chance like that. We came up together with the kid to New York, but everything broke bad for me——”

The voice went on, but Bellair lost his face. There was a greenish-yellow light between their faces, at least, for Bellair’s eyes, and the floor seemed shaken with heavy machinery. Bellair knew the burn of hate, and the thirst to kill—and then he was all uncentred, like a man badly wounded. He arose.

“... The fact is, I don’t think she was quite right. None of them are——”

“I won’t be able to hear any more of that just now,” Bellair said slowly. “I’m leaving this hotel to-day for other quarters. But to-morrow morning at ten, I shall be here and listen to what you want. Perhaps I can set you straight a bit—for the present, anyway. And this—is so you won’t miss any meals in the meantime——”

Bellair handed him money.

“Please excuse me,” he added. “And finish your breakfast——”

He called the waiter and signed the card. Then he turned as if to look around the room. He located the door by which they had entered, drew his hands strangely across his eyes. Effusive gratefulness was seeking his ears from the young man in the chair. Bellair lifted his hand as if to cut off the voice, and then started for the door, his step hastening.

8

It was truly a tenement quarter in which Davy and his mother lived. The fact awed Bellair somewhat. Had he been a cripple in a wheeled-chair, confined to one side of one block, he could have found a life’s work.... Little faces that choked him everywhere. One might toss coins at their feet, but the futility of that was like a cry to God.

Davy’s mother was making his room ready. By some chance it faced the east; between ten and noon, there was sunlight. Forty years ago it had been the kitchen of a second-floor apartment, doubtless respectable. Only the scars of the kitchen fixtures remained, like organs gone back to a rudiment in swift involution. Water now was to be had in but one place on each floor—in the hall, and the natives came there with their pitchers and cans as tropical villagers, morning and evening to the well.

Mrs. Acton had spared a bit of carpet, which looked as if it had been scrubbed; and just below the window the tip of a heaven-tree waved. It was thin as his single bed, but even that growth seemed miraculously attained, as if the seed must have held all the nourishment. Bellair stared down through shadows and litter, and could discern no more than a crack in the stone pavement, from which this leafy creature had come to him. Quite as miraculously it was, with the myriad children in the streets and halls. Certainly this was a place to keep tender. Davy had gone forth on an errand.

“What was he interested in especially when he was little?” Bellair asked.

“Boats—boats,” said the mother.

It struck the man queerly that he had not noted this. Davy had devoured his little list of sea stories, and had listened as no one else to the open boat narrative, but the man fancied it just the love of adventure. Bellair’s mother might have said the same thing.

“Did he draw them, you mean?” he asked.

“Yes, and played with them. His father was a seaman, Mr. Bellair.”

Bellair’s father had not been a seaman, but there was little to that. They were one in the initial proclivity. Perhaps if the truth were shaken down, there was something in this fact that had to do with their relation.

“Could I have breakfast and supper here with you?” he asked suddenly.

The woman looked startled. “You see, I am away three days a week.”

It was Bellair’s idea to make this impossible, so he insisted:

“My wants are simple. I might not be here always to supper—but, of course, I should want to pay for it. It would be pleasant—we three together—and no matter to me if supper were a bit late. You see, Mrs. Acton, now that I’ve begun, I insist on having a home. I lived in one room for five years, and that sort of thing is ended. A hotel is no better.”

Davy returned and Bellair took him forth at once, impatient to continue the adventure of the purchases, begun the night before. Hours passed. Once Davy looked up to him in a mixture of awe and joy:

“Why are you buying so many things for us, Mr. Bellair?”

“Sit down,” the man answered.

They were in a retail clothier’s. The salesman drew back.

“Davy,” said Bellair, “it’s the most natural thing. First I have the money and you have the needs. Second, we are friends——”

Bellair had felt many things hammering for utterance, but when he had come thus far, he found that the whole ground was covered.... The boy hurried home, but Bellair was not ready. With all his affection for the lad, he wanted to be alone. He had held himself to Davy’s needs for hours; but through it all, the sentences—so brief and thoughtless across the breakfast table—recurred smitingly. They hurt everything in him and in an incredible fashion. He marvelled that he had been able to reply quietly. His face burned now, and he thought of the Faraway Woman—how gentle she had been, blaming nothing, holding no sense of being wronged. It was that which helped him now, though his heart was hot and aching.... One must have compassion for the world—one whose home is the house of such a woman.

“It must not hurt the Gleam,” he said half-aloud. This was the burden of all his effort. “The Gleam is hers. I must not let the thought of this touch the Gleam—not even in my mind.”

The young man was stranded in New York. They met as arranged the next morning. Many difficulties were related, and the perversities of outside influences and the actions of others. The great regret was that at a certain time when he had the money more than a year ago, the young man had delayed for a day to purchase a certain little tobacconist’s shop on Seventh avenue. A friend of his had advised him against it, and plucked the fruit himself. This gave Bellair an idea.

In the next ten days, everything seemed waiting for the manager of the Follies to decide the case of Bessie Brealt. Davy was permitted to look for a new job, but Bellair made light of his unsuccess.... He did not look up Broadwell again, understanding clearly that the advertising-man would endanger his position in calling on him. Bellair was not ready to be responsible for such a loss to Broadwell. Employés of Lot & Company did not change easily.... He was frequently, but never long with Bessie during these days. There were moments of disturbing sweetness, and moments that he struggled quickly to forget, as Nature sets about hastily to cover unseemly matters upon the ground.

Now that the great event of her life had come, Bessie required much sleep, and cared for her beauty as never before. She already lived, for the most part, in the actual substance of victory, as only the young dare to do; yet she lost none of her zeal in preparation.... Bellair held to the original idea, though the means was not yet articulate. He was sensitive enough to realise that a man may be impertinent, even when trying to help another.

The tremendous discovery in this interval was that the open boat events which had proved so salutary and constructive in his own case, did not appear to have a comparable effect upon others when he related them. He began to believe that he had not authority, and that he must somehow try to gain authority by making good with men. He had his story to tell. He had seen the spirit and the flesh—beast and saint—watched them die. All life and hope and meaning were caught and held, as he saw it, between the manner of the deaths of two men. This experience had changed him—if not for the better—then he was insane.

It was hard for him to grasp, that the thing which had changed him could not change others—even Bessie. Yet those who listened, except Davy and his mother, appeared to think that he was making much of an adventure for personal reasons. He tried to write his story, but felt the bones of his skull as never before. He began, “I am a simple man,” but deep guile might be construed to that.... “I want nothing,” he wrote, “but to make you see the half that I saw in the open boat,” and he heard the world replying in his consciousness, “The open boat is on this man Bellair’s nerves. It’s his mania. The sun or the thirst did touch him a bit.”...

He became afraid to talk much even with Bessie, and New York boomed by, leaving him out—out.... He tried to lift the signs of misery on the way to the home of Davy’s mother, and in the surrounding halls, but the extent and terror of it dismayed him; and remarkably enough, always this same answer came: that he must get himself and the South Sea business in hand before a true beginning could be made here....

It wasn’t on Seventh avenue that he found a cigar store to suit his purpose in this interval, but the promise was certainly as good as the old one. He put the New Zealand young man in charge, on a basis designed to challenge any one’s quality; and having done this in a businesslike fashion, Bellair made haste to escape. The sense was cool and abiding in his mind that in this case, as in Lot & Company’s, the circle was complete. Still he retained the suspicion that the young man did not believe him sane.

He followed the singer when she permitted, to dressmakers, rehearsals, quartette performances and meals; found other men following singers similarly, in all their byways of routine; he disliked them, disliked himself.

He had not told her of his fortune, because he knew in his heart it would change everything. He helped in many small ways, and allowed her to believe what she chose. She had never identified him with large things, did not think the present arrangement could last, and made as much as possible of the convenience. They were together on the night before her try-out, though as usual it was but a matter of moments. Bellair used most of them in silence. The tension of hurry always stopped his throat. He longed for one full day with her, a ramble without the clock; yet what would he do with it—he, who dared not go to the water-front alone—to whom the night whistling of steamers in the harbour was like the call of the child of his heart?

“You are at your best,” he said. “Your voice was never sweeter than to-night. You must go now and sleep. To-morrow, of course, you will win, and when may I come?”

Her face clouded. Perhaps because he said the opposite, the thought of possible defeat came now with a clearness which had not before appealed to her unpracticed imagination.

“You may come to my room at twelve—no, at one. I shall go there at once after the trial—and you shall be first.”

It pleased him, and since she did not seem inclined to leave just then, Bellair found himself talking of the future. Perhaps he did not entirely cover his zeal to change a little her full-hearted giving of self to the foam. Bessie bore it. He had not spoken of the open boat, but something he said was related to it in her mind.

“To-morrow will settle everything,” she declared.... “And I don’t like that other woman on the ship. She isn’t human. You think it amazing because she didn’t cry and scream. That isn’t everything.... She’d be lost and unheard of here in New York.”

“Yes, that is probably true.”

“It’s all right for people who don’t write or paint or sing—to talk about real life and what’s right work in the world, but artists see it differently. Anyway, it’s the only job we’ve got.”

Bellair never forgot that, or rather what she had meant to say.

“Singing is what drew me to you, Bessie. What I object to is what the world tries to do with its singers, and that so many singers fall for it.”

“The world lets you more or less alone—until you make good. Plenty of time after that to answer back.”

She yawned. It was as near reality as they had gotten, and Bellair, who asked so little, had a glimpse again of the loveliness he had first taken to sea—even to the kiss at the last. She also granted him this:

“You’ve been good to me. I couldn’t have done without you——”

He lay awake long. The house in which he lived was very silent, and it pressed so close to the sea.

9

She was only partly dressed when he came early the next afternoon, but was not long in letting him in. Before any words, he knew that she [Pg 312]had won. A man often has to readjust hastily after the night before. It was so with Bellair now. Her eyes were bright with emotions, but a certain hardness was shining there. It was an effort for her to think of him and be kind. He would have seen it all in another’s story.

His glance kept turning to her bare arm, upon which a hideous vaccination-scar was revealed. They had not thought of her singing in those days.... She had never spoken of her house or her people. It was enough that those days were finished. Bellair could understand that. Her victory was all through her now, satisfying, completing her. She did not love money for its own sake or she would have treated him differently. All her surplus energy, even her passion, was turned to this open passage of her career. Having that, previous props could be kicked away; at least, Bellair felt this.

“Yes, it’s all done. A month of solid rehearsal—then the road. I take the second part, but I hope to come back in the first——”

“You were at your best at the trial?”

“After the first moment or two.... And no more Brandt’s or Castle—no more with the other three—God, how sick I am of them—and of this room!”

“Will you lunch with me?”

“Yes—I have until three.”

It was shortly after one. She talked with animation about her work, her eyes held to a glistening future. She finished her dressing leisurely, with loving touches, abandoning herself completely to the mirror as an old actress might, having conceded the essential importance of attractions. She studied her face and figure as if she were the maid to them. Bessie dressed for the world, not for herself, certainly not for Bellair. Without, in the world—streets, restaurants, theatres—there existed an abstraction which must be satisfied. She had not yet entered upon that perilous adventure of dressing for the eyes of one man. She did not think of Bellair as she lifted her arms to her hair. On no other morning could she have been so far from the sense of him in her room. Empires have fallen because a woman has lifted her naked arms to her hair with a man in the room.

An older woman would have rewarded him for being there; an older woman never would have put on her hat for the street without remembering her humanity. There was something in Bessie that reserved the kiss for the last. Possibly after the last song of the day, a kiss remained. She put on the flowers he brought; even that did not remind her, nor the dress he had bought for her—asking him if he approved, not that she cared, but because she was turning before the glass with the thing upon her body and mind. She would have asked a child the same.

They went to Beathe’s for luncheon, which was also Bessie’s breakfast. There, it may have been that she was ready to forget herself, knowing it would keep for a little. In any event, she seemed to see Bellair as he ordered for her, as if recalling that he had made many things move easily of late, and that it was pleasant to have these matters, even luncheons, conducted by another. Thinking of him, the voyage was instantly associated:

“I said last night that I didn’t like that woman,” she began. “I didn’t mean just that, of course. But a woman can see another woman better than a man. There are women who keep their mouths shut and get great reputations for being wise and all that. They never associate with women. You’ll always find them with men, playing sister and helping and saying little. Men get to think they’re the whole thing——”

“I suppose there are,” said Bellair.

He wished she had not picked up this particular point again; and yet a certain novelty about this impressed him now, and recurred many times afterward—that it was she who had broached the subject.

“Do you think a man knows men better than a woman does?” he asked.

Bessie had not thought of it; she was not sure.

Nor was Bellair. “The fact is, it doesn’t greatly matter what women think of women, and what men think of men—compared to what men and women think of each other,” he observed.

“You say you didn’t know that other man at first—that preacher,” she remarked.

“That’s true. There had to be danger—I had to hear his voice in danger.”

Bellair was lifted to his life-theme. He had never really told it in one piece. He did not mean to now, but Fleury came clearly to mind. The food was served and it was quiet behind the palms. If he could only say something for her heart. She seemed ready. Points of human interest were crowding to mind—perhaps he could hold her with them.

“... His every thought was for others,” he was saying. “I disliked him at first, but he was so kind and good-natured throughout that he could not fail to impress me a bit, but I didn’t really see him before the night of the wreck, when he arose to take things in hand. It was not noise, nor voice, but a different force. He seemed to rise—so that the huge Stackhouse was just a squealing pig before him. He had no fear. You looked into his face and wanted to be near him, and to do what he said. I caught his secret. A fool would. It was because he wasn’t thinking of himself. It seems, Bessie, as sure as you live—that the more a man gives out in that pure way Fleury did for us all—the more power floods into him. It came to him in volumes. We all knew it—even Stackhouse——

“And this is what I’m getting at. You’ve got the chance to use it. I can’t yet. I seem to be all clotted with what I want, but you can! You did. You pulled me out of the crowd, not knowing me at all—made me come to you—changed me. You can give with your singing—to hundreds—so that they will answer in their thoughts, and do things strange to themselves at first. They’ll want to die for you—but that isn’t the thing for you. You must want to sing for them—want to give them your soul all the time. Greater things will come to you than this—this which makes you happy. All that the world could give you—you will come to see—doesn’t matter—but what you can give the world——”

He saw her falling away from his story. It crippled him. He did not think he could fail so utterly.

“But you were a thief,” she said.

“I—was what?”

“You preach all the time, but you were a thief——”

He had heard aright. His hand reached for the wallet, that contained the letter from Lot & Company, but fell from it again.

“If you like,” he answered, “but I saw a beast die in the open boat—and saw a saint die——”

“You preach—preach—preach!” she cried, and her own points of view returned with greater intensity. “You’ve been kind—but, oh, you bore me so! You have been kind—but oh, don’t think you fail to make one pay the price! You were sunstruck, or crazed—and you come back preaching. I’m sick of you—just in my highest day, after the months of struggle—I hate you——”

Bellair heard a ship’s bell. It was dark about him—a cool, serene dark. The air fanned him softly and sweet; the place rocked—just for an instant, as if he were at sea.

“I hate you when you preach,” she finished. Her voice was softer. He knew she was smiling, but did not look at her face. She had delivered him. He was calm, and ineffably free, the circle finished.

“Oh, that we two were Maying——” he muttered, his thoughts far down the seas—remote and insular, serene and homing thoughts.

“It takes two to sing that,” she said.

“Yes.”

“But, I’m so sick of that——”

“You must have sung it many times,” he said.

He did not want to linger. A certain hush had come to her from him. It was not yet three.... He seemed surprised to find it broad day in the street. She touched his sleeve, drawing him to the curb, away from the crowds which astonished him. Clearly something was wrong with his head.

“Bessie—before your salary begins—have you everything? Isn’t there something——?”

She smiled and hesitated. He rubbed his eyes.

“I’m so glad I thought of it,” he said, drawing forth the brown wallet.

His gift bewildered her, but she did not ask him this time what he wanted. Instead she asked:

“But where are you going?”

“Why, Bessie, I’m going home.”

PART SEVEN
THE STONE HOUSE: II

1

The hard thing was to get Honolulu behind. The first seven days at sea was like a voyage to another planet. Bellair could lose himself in the universe, between the banging of the Chinese gongs that called passengers willingly, for the most part, to meals on the British ship Suwarrow.... They had crawled out of the harbour in the dusk, a southwest wind waiting at the gate, like an eager lover for a maiden to steal forth. She was in his arms shamelessly, before the dusk closed, the voices from the land hardly yet having died away. Bellair watched their meeting in the offing. The blusterer came head on; the Suwarrow veered coquettishly and started to run, knowing him the swifter and the stronger, as all woman-things love to know. Presently he had her, and they made a [Pg 322]night of it—the moon breaking out aghast from time to time, above black and flying garments of cloud. Bellair enjoyed the game, the funnels smoking the upper decks straight forward. They were making a passage that night, in the southward lift of that lover.

He had found a little leaf of cigars in a German shop in Honolulu; the same reminding him of Stackhouse. They were Brills, with a Trichinopoli flavour, a wrapping from the States, the main filler doubtless from the Island plantations. The German had talked of them long, playing with the clotty little fellows in his hands, for they were moist enough, not easily to be broken. “You sink your teeth in one of these after a good dinner,” he said, “and if you do not enjoy tobacco, it is because you have been smoking other plants. These are made by a workman——”

Bellair smoked to the workman; also he smoked to Stackhouse. Something kindly had come over him for the Animal. Lot & Company had helped him to it.... Yes, he thought, the animal part is right enough. It is only when the human adult consciousness turns predatory that the earth is laid waste and the stars are fogged.... These were but back-flips of Bellair’s mind. In the main he was held so furiously ahead, that body and brain ached with the strain. As nearly as he could describe from the sensation, there was a carbon-stick upstanding between his diaphragm and his throat. Every time he thought of Auckland, it turned hot.

... He knew better where to begin now. The beginning was not in New York. The wallet was heavy upon him; he must not waste it; nor allow it to waste itself through bad management. Auckland was a desirable centre for the Stackhouse operations. He could travel forth from one agency to another. The fundamental ideas of trade, together with large knowledge of how trade should not be conducted, was his heritage from Lot & Company. He would begin slowly and sincerely to work out his big problems—holding the fruits loosely in his hands; ready to give them up to another, if that other should appear; contenting himself only with the simplest things; preparing always to be poorer, instead of richer.... He would earn the right to be poor. The thought warmed him, something of the natural strength of youth about it.

Standing out of the wind with an expensive cigar, a superb course-dinner finished less than an hour back, Bellair smiled at the ease of poverty, welcoming all the details of clean, austere denial. Yet he was not so far from it as would appear. He had always taken these matters of luxury and satiety with tentative grasp; even the dinners of Stackhouse were but studies of life. His ideal was closely adjusted to the Faraway Woman’s in these things. One of the dearest of her sayings had to do with renting the two front rooms of the stone cottage. Yet now he hoped furiously that she had not yet done so.

His thoughts turned again out among the Islands. He would meet the agents of Stackhouse. They would be bewildered at first; they would think he had come to peer and bite. He would lift and help and pass on—making the circles again and again, gaining confidence, not saying much. No, the thing he had in mind had little to do with words.... What a masonry among men—here and there one giving his best secretly.

No words about it. Bellair halted and filled his lungs from the good breeze. This thought had repeated itself like a certain bright pattern through all the weave of his conception. It had a familiar look, and a prod that startled him now. The whole meaning of it rushed home, so that he laughed.

He had reached in his own way, the exact point that Fleury had set out with. He was determined to act. He had ceased to talk.... Just then looking up from his laughing reverie, he saw a star. It was ahead, not high, very brilliant and golden. It had only escaped a moment between the flying black figures of the night, but more brilliant for that. It was vast and familiar—the meaning tried the throat and struck at his heart with strange suffering.... Yes, the Suwarrow was lifting the southern stars. There could be no doubt. He had looked at that mighty sun too often from the open boat to mistake. Fleury had said if it were as near to earth as our sun, this little planet would be dried to a cinder in ten seconds. It was the great golden ball, Canopus.... A hand was placed softly in his. Bellair was startled. He had been far away, yet the gladness was instant, as he turned down to the face of Davy Acton.

“She’s better,” the boy said. “I’ve been trying to get her to come up on deck. She told me to ask you, if you thought it best.”

“Sure, Davy—I’ll go with you to get her.”

2

He had seen very little of Mrs. Acton during the voyage. Sailing was not her feat, but the lady was winsome after her fast. Bellair had found her very brave, and there had not been such an opportunity to tell her so, as this night. He wanted enough light to see her face, and enough air to keep her above any qualm. They found a cane-table, on the lee-side, toward America, the light of a cabin passage upon it. Bellair ordered an innocuous drink for Davy and himself, and whispered along a pint of champagne, having heard it spoken well of as an antidote for those emerging from the sickness of the sea.

“... It’s a little charged, cidery sort of a drink—just made for people convalescent from the first days out of ’Frisco,” he said.

She drank with serene confidence, and leaned back to regard the glass and the two.

“It’s not unlike a wine I drank long ago,” she observed, and her eyes warmed with the memory.

“A wine?” he said.

“Just so, but it’s no crutch for the poor, I should say, by the way it comes——”

She pointed to the service-tub, which, unfortunately, was of silver.

“They like to keep it cold,” Bellair suggested.

“It would need ice to keep that cold,” she replied.

There was a lyrical lilt to her words that he had not known before; in fact he hadn’t quite known Mrs. Acton before. She was lifted from the stratum of the submerged. She had her hands, her health, and the days now and ahead were novel in aspect. A little seasickness was nothing to one who had met the City, and for years prevented it from taking her boy. The heart for adventure was not dead within her.... In fact, Bellair, surveying the little plump white creature in new black, with a sparkle in her eye, her hand upon the thin stem of a glass, entered upon a pleasant passage.

“You see, Mrs. Acton—I’ve been struck ever since we sailed by the courage you showed in crossing the world like this, at the word from a stranger——”

“Stranger,” she repeated.

“I wanted you to take me up on that, but the fact is, you came at my word.”

“’Twas not much I had to leave——”

“I liked it better than the hotel.”

“Do you know, Mr. Bellair, I never gave up the hope of travel—a bit of travel before I passed? But I thought it would be alone from Davy——” Her eyes glistened.

Bellair was wondering if there were others in that tenement-house who had kept a hope.

“You know,” he said, “when I decided to ask you to come—because I was far from finished with our lad—I anticipated that it would be somewhat of a struggle. I saw how hard it was for you at first—the night we told you about his loss of a place——”

“We were on the edge so long—the least bump ready to push us over,” she murmured.

“I made a little arrangement with the express company to furnish you with a return ticket—you and Davy, or cheques to secure them, and enough beside to get you back to New York at any time——”

Her eyes widened. She turned to her boy to see if he were in this great business. Wonders had not ceased for him, since the first evening at the hotel. Davy was intent upon her now, even more than upon his friend.

“So I had it all fixed in your name. There’s an agency in Auckland—one in every city—so you can’t go broke. And no one can cash these things but you—after you call and register your signature. You’ll find enough and to spare for your passage (though I hope you won’t use it for many a year), and expenses for you and the boy——”

There were tears in her eyes. Bellair poured her wineglass full in the excitement.

“You didn’t need to do anything like that——”

“That’s a point I am particularly proud of,” he answered.

“I’ll put this away for you,” she said, taking the proffered envelope.

The face of dusty wax-work sped past his inner eyes.

“It’s all one,” she added. “It’s easy for me to say this, having nothing but what you give me. Did you hear of the house where every one put what they had in a basket hanging from the ceiling?”

“No,” he said.

“’Twas mainly empty. The poor are great-hearted, and those who have nothing.... This, I’ll put in no basket, but the bank, and you’ll have it when you get through giving away the rest. I’ll trust in the Lord, sure, to take me home——”

“I haven’t been very successful in giving away much,” he said. “That’s our problem down here among the Islands. Davy is to grow up and help me. You are to help us. There is another to help us.”

Mrs. Acton finished her glass. “Is it as much as that, then?”

Davy was regarding her with fine pride in his eyes.

Bellair sent him to the cabin for a book that would be hard to find, and turned to the boy’s mother:

“I’ve got something to say to you about Davy. I brought back a story and a fortune from my other trip down here. The story was more important by a whole lot. It changed everything for me. I thought I’d only have to tell it, to change others. That didn’t work. But Davy listened, and he wasn’t the same afterward.

“I didn’t understand him at first. I used to think when he didn’t speak, he was bored. I used to think I had to entertain him, buy him with gifts. But I was wrong. He was thinking things out for himself all the time. He was puzzled at first why any one cared to be good to him and be a friend to him—God, what a price the world must pay for making boys as strange to kindness as that.... But this is what I want to say. He believed in me long ago in Lot & Company’s. I succeeded in making him believe in me again. And because he believed in me, he believed in my story, and when he heard that—he wasn’t the same afterward.

“I tell you, boys are full of wonderful things, but the world has shut the door on them. All we’ve got to do is to be patient and kind and keep the door open, and we’ll have human heroes about us presently, instead of wolves and foxes and parrots and apes.... I learned that from Davy Acton. After he accepted me, he got my story—and that showed me that my work is with boys, and that first I’ve got to make them believe in me. I’ve got to be the kind of a man to win that. We’ll all pull together—you and Davy and that other and I.

“I’m going to help Davy, and I’m going to help boys. They’re not set. They change. They are open to dreams and ready for action. They can forget themselves long enough to listen. The world has treated them badly; the world has been a stupid fool in bringing up its children. Why, it’s half luck if we manage to amount to anything! I think I know now how to do better. I’m going to try. Why, I’d spend five years and all I have to give one boy his big, deep chance of being as human as God intended. I’ll help boys to find their work, show them how to be clean and fit and strong. I’ll show them that getting is but an incident, and when carried too far becomes the crime and the hell of the world.... He’s coming back—and he’s found the book, too. I must use it——”

He had told his story in a kind of gust, and the little woman had listened like a sensitive-plate, her eyes brimming, her son moving higher and higher in a future that was safe and green and pure.... It had come out at last for Bellair. He was happy, for he knew that this which had been born to-night, with the help of the mother’s listening, was the right good thing—the thing that had come home from hard experience to the heart of a simple man.

“Davy,” he said, “I’ve got a suspicion that your mother could eat something. Call a steward, lad.”

She started and fumbled for her handkerchief.

“Do you know—that is—I might try a bite, Mr. Bellair——”

The man was smiling. Davy returned and sat down wonderingly between them. His mother kept her mouth covered, but her eyes were wells of joy.

“I don’t know whether it’s that cider that needs keeping so cold,” she began steadily, “or this which Mr. Bellair has been saying, but the truth is, Davy, I haven’t been so happy since a girl——”

“A little lunch will fix that,” Bellair suggested absently.

“If it will,” she returned, “tell the man that it’s nothing I wish for, this night.”

3

Auckland passengers were not to be landed until the morning, but the Suwarrow sent one boat ashore that night. By some law unknown to the outsider, a few top bags of mail were discriminately favoured, and they were in [Pg 332]the boat. The second officer, with a handful of telegrams to be filed; a travelling salesman called home from the States on account of family illness, also Bellair were in the boat. He had told Davy and his mother that he was going to prepare a place for them; that he would be back on the deck of the Suwarrow before nine in the morning. Because the little landing party was out of routine, an hour or more was required for Bellair to obtain release to the streets. It was now midnight.

Three months away, and there had been no word from the woman who had remained. In fact, no arrangement for writing had been agreed upon, except in case New York should hold him. He had never seen the writing of the Faraway Woman.... He believed with profound conviction that within an hour’s ride by trolley from the place in the street where he moved so hastily now, there was a bluff, a stone cottage, a woman waiting for him, and a child near her; that all was well with the two and the place. Yet he lived and moved now in a wearing, driving terror. All his large and little moments of the past three months passed before him like dancers on a flash-lit stage, some beautiful, some false and ugly, but each calling his eyes, something of his own upon them.

The world had shown him well that man is not ready for joy when he fears, yet Bellair was afraid. Man deserves that which he complains of. Still, he was afraid. He was exultant, too. Cities might change and nations and laws, but not that woman’s heart. He did not believe she could love him, but he knew of her fondness hoped for that again. She was in a safe place—as any place in the world is safe. She was well, with a health he had never known in another, and the child was flesh of her. Yet he feared, his heart too full to speak. He did not deserve her, but he hoped for the miracle, hoped that the driving laws of the human heart might be merciful, hoped for her fondness again.

He would stand before her at his worst—all weakness and commonness of the man, Bellair, open before her. Perhaps she would see his love because of that, but he would not be able to tell her. Never could he ask for her. If it were made known, it would not be through words. It could only come from him in a kind of delirium. He must be carried away, a passion must take him out of self. Very far he seemed from passion; rather this was like a child in his heart, with gifts, deep and changeless, but inarticulate, as a child is. It had been long in coming, quietly fulfilling itself, and this was the rising.

... The last car was gone, but he found a carriage—an open carriage, a slow horse, a cool and starry night. The city was growing silent, the edges darkened. There were high trees, a homing touch about them after the sea, and a glimpse of the harbour to the left. Bellair had not even a bag with him. He would take off his hat for a way, and then put it on again. Sometimes he would let his ungloved hand hang overside, as one would do in a small boat. There was a leathery smell from the seat of the carriage, with a bit of stable flavour, that would get into a man’s clothes if he stayed long enough. It was dusty, too, something like a tight room full of old leather-bound books.

The horse plumped along, a little lurch forward at every fourth beat. Hunched and wrapped, the driver sat, and extraordinarily still—a man used to sitting, who gave himself utterly to it, a most spineless and sunken manner. Every little while he coughed, and every little while he spat.... Once they passed a motor-car—two men and a girl laughing between them; then the interurban trolley going back—the car he had missed. His heart thumped. It was the same car that he had known, the same tracks, no upheaval of the earth here so far.

Meanwhile, Bellair was rounding the Horn in the Jade; they struck rock or derelict, were lost for ages in an open boat; they came to Auckland and found a little stone house on the bluff, paused there....

He was away at sea again, from Auckland to ’Frisco, across the States, to Brandt’s, to Pastern’s, to Lot & Company’s and the tenements, to the Castle and the Landlady’s House; then trains and the long southern sweep of the Suwarrow, down the great sea again to this ... plumping along on the high, rocky shore. The brine came up to him, almost as from the open boat. His eyes smarted, his throat was dry, and the driver coughed.

Bellair had paper money in his hand. He meant to look at it under the carriage-light, when he stepped forth near the Gate. He leaned forward and touched the great coat.

“Whoa,” said the man, loud enough to rouse the seven sleepers, and the horse came up with a teeter.

“Don’t stop,” said Bellair. “It’s a little ahead yet. I’ll tell you when to stop.... Yes, let him walk——”

Now, Bellair surveyed what he had said. He was like that, just about as coherent as that. The whoa had shaken him empty for the most part.... He would not know what to say to her. He would sit or stand like a fool and grin.... But she was great-hearted. She would help him.... Awe and silence crept into him again.

“Now, pull up——”

“Whoa,” was the answer, shaking the trees.

“There, that will do,” Bellair said tensely. He stepped out and passed over the money, forgetting to look at it. He was afraid the man would roar again.

It was nearer than he thought, but a step to the Gate; its latch lifted softly and he crossed the gravel, held by the voice of the rig turning behind. It turned slowly as a ship in a small berth, and the voice carried like the cackle of geese.... There was no light. He was on the step. Something sweet was growing at the door.... Something brushed him at his feet. He leaned down in the darkness, and touched the tabby-puss, knocked softly.

“Yes——” came from within.

“It is I, Bellair——”

The door was opened to absolute blackness. She was not in his arms. Rather he was in her arms. She seemed to tower above him. Around was the softness and fragrance of her arms and her breast.... Not the cottage—her arms made the home of man. She held him from her, left him standing bewildered in the centre of the room. He heard her match, and her voice like a sigh, trailing to him almost like a spirit-thing:

“Oh,—I—am—so—happy!”

The lamp was lit, but she left it in the alcove, came to him again, a shawl about her. Lights were playing upon his shut eye-lids, fulfilment in his arms that a man can only know when he has crossed the world to a woman, not a maiden; a plenitude that a maiden cannot give.

And now she brought the light, and looked into his face—her own gleaming behind it, full of rapture, the face of a love-woman, some inspired training of the centuries upon it, all the mystery and delicacy for a man’s eyes that he can endure and live....

“What is it?”

He could only look at her.

“What is it?” more softly.

As if the thing had been left over in his mind, and required clearing away, he answered:

“Are—are the rooms rented?”

She laughed, came closer than the light.

“We are alone—only the child. I could not let any one come—the rooms seemed yours.... I thought you would come. It was time enough to change when I heard from you——”

“The little Gleam——”

“Yes, he is here.... Oh, did you know what it meant to us—when you went away?”

“I knew what it meant to me——”

“After the open boat and the days together here—you knew all?”

“Yes.”

“I thought it would be easier.... And you are changed! You are like a man who has found his Quest.”

She was about him like magic. They were moving toward the little room. She stopped and put the lamp back in the alcove.

“We will not take it in there. It would wake him.”

... It was dark upon the threshold. She took his hand. He heard her heart beating, or was it his own?... They heard the little breathing. She guided his hand to the warm little hand.

“Yes, he is well,” she whispered. “Everything is perfect with your coming.... There.... You hurried home to me, didn’t you?... Yes, I hoped. I felt the ship. I could not sleep. I wondered if I could be wrong.... Oh, to think of the dawn coming in—finding us here together ... and the little Gleam....”

Gray light was coming in. Her face was shadowed, but the gray was faint about her hair. His heart had taken something perfect from her; something of the nature of that peace which had come to him at the Jade’s rail crossing the Line, but greater than that, the fulfilment of that. Because it was perfect, it could not last in its fulness. That was the coolness of the Hills, but his love was glowing now like noon sunlight in a valley, the redolence of high sunlight in the river lowlands. Mother Earth had taken them again.

It was the tide of life; it was as she had told him it must be with her, akin to the loveliest processes of nature, like the gilding of a tea-rose, like the flight of swans. He watched her as the dawn rose, as a woman is only to be seen in her own room; watched her without words, until from the concentration, that which had been bound floated free within him.... A sentence she had spoken (it may have been an hour, or a moment ago) returned to his consciousness. “Oh, how I wanted you to come home to-night!”

His mind was full of pictures and power. It may have been the strangeness of the light, but his eyes could not hold her face, nor his mind remember the face that had welcomed him in the lamplight. Different faces moved before his eyes, a deep likeness in the plan of them, as pearls would be sorted and matched for one string, a wonderful sisterhood of faces, tenderness, fortitude, ardour, joy, renunciation. It was like a stroke. He had loved them all—facets of one jewel. And was the jewel her soul?

He arose, without turning from her, and moved to the far corner of the room, where there was neither chair nor table. As he moved, he watched her with tireless thirsting eyes.

She arose and came to him, moving low.... This figure that came, thrilled him again with the old magic of the river-banks. He could not pass the wonder of her crossing the room to follow him.... And now he saw her lips in the light—a girl’s shyness about her lips. She was a girl that instant—as if a veil had dropped behind her. It had never been so before—a woman always, wise and finished with years, compared to whom that other was a child. And yet she was little older than that other—in years. He loved the shyness of her lips. It was like one familiar bloom in the midst of exotic wonders. It seemed he would fall—before she touched him.

She was low in his arms, as if her knees were bent, as if she would make herself less for her lord.... And something in that, even as he held her, opened the long low roads of the past—glimpses from that surging mystery behind us all—as if they had sinned and expiated and aspired together.

“... That you would come to me——” he whispered.

“I have wanted to come to you so long.”

“I thought—I could not tell you—I thought I would stand helpless without words before you. Why, everything I thought was wrong. I can tell you—but there is no need——”

“There is little need of words between us.”

... That which she wore upon her feet was heel-less, and all the cries and calls and warnings and distances of the world were gone from between them, as they stood together.... And once her arms left him and were upheld, as if to receive a perfect gift. A woman could command heaven with that gesture.

They had reached the end of the forest, and found the dawn. The sounds of the world came back to them like an enchanter’s drone.

“Come,” she said, taking his hand, “it is day. We must return to the village. And oh, to our little Gleam! He is awakening. He will speak your name.”

THE END

BY WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT

A Brief Expression of the Critical Reception of

DOWN AMONG MEN

Outlook: Possessed of a marvelous descriptive genius, equipped with a remarkably flexible use of English and impelled by the passion of a mystic—the author of Down Among Men has written a striking novel.

The Dial: Seems to us the most exalted and appealing story Mr. Comfort has thus far written.

The Argonaut: A novel of extraordinary power. It is good as Routledge Rides Alone. It could hardly be better.

London Post: Alive with incident, bounding with physical energy, dramatic in coloring, and modern in every phrase. He has a message delivered with vigor, inspired with tense passion.

Atlantic Monthly: There is so much real fire in it—the fire of youth that has seen and suffered—so much vitality and passion that one grows chary of petty comments. The writer offers us the cup of life, and there is blood in the cup.

Chicago Record-Herald: An almost perfect tale of courage and adventure.

Chicago Tribune: Contains some of the most remarkable scenes that have appeared in recent American fiction.

New York Times: Few richer novels than this of Mr. Comfort’s have been published in many a long day.

New York Globe: We can say in all sincerity that we know of no recent bit of descriptive writing that can match this for sustained, breathless, dramatic interest.

Springfield Republican: Down Among Men is perhaps the most ambitious American novel that has come out during the past year.

12mo., Net $1.25.

MIDSTREAM

... A hint from the first-year’s recognition of a book that was made to remain in American literature:

Boston Transcript: If it be extravagance, let it be so, to say that Comfort’s account of his childhood has seldom been rivaled in literature. It amounts to revelation. Really the only parallels that will suggest themselves in our letters are the great ones that occur in Huckleberry Finn.... This man Comfort’s gamut is long and he has raced its full length. One wonders whether the interest, the skill, the general worth of it, the things it has to report of all life, as well as the one life, do not entitle Midstream to the very long life that is enjoyed only by the very best of books.

San Francisco Argonaut: Read the book. It is autobiography in its perfection. It shows more of the realities of the human being, more of god and devil in conflict, than any book of its kind.

Springfield Republican: It is difficult to think of any other young American who has so courageously reversed the process of writing for the “market” and so flatly insisted upon being taken, if at all, on his own terms of life and art. And now comes his frank and amazing revelation, Midstream, in which he captures and carries the reader on to a story of regeneration. He has come far; the question is, how much farther will he go?

Mary Fanton Roberts in The Craftsman: Beside the stature of this book, the ordinary novel and biography are curiously dwarfed. You read it with a poignant interest and close it with wonder, reverence and gratitude. There is something strangely touching about words so candid, and a draught of philosophy that has been pressed from such wild and bitter-sweet fruit. The message it contains is one to sink deep, penetrating and enriching whatever receptive soul it touches. This man’s words are incandescent. Many of us feel that he is breathing into a language, grown trite from hackneyed usage, the inspiration of a quickened life.

Ida Gilbert Myers in Washington Star: Courage backs this revelation. The gift of self-searching animates it. Honesty sustains it. And Mr. Comfort’s rare power to seize and deliver his vision inspires it. It is a tremendous thing—the greatest thing that this writer has yet done.

George Soule in The Little Review: Here is a man’s life laid absolutely bare. A direct, big thing, so simple that almost no one has done it before—this Mr. Comfort has dared. People who are made uncomfortable by intimate grasp of anything, to whom reserve is more important than truth—these will not read Midstream through, but others will emerge from the book with a sense of the absolute nobility of Mr. Comfort’s frankness.

Edwin Markham in Hearst’s Magazine: Will Levington Comfort, a novelist of distinction, has given us a book alive with human interest, with passionate sincerity, and with all the power of his despotism over words. He has been a wandering foot—familiar with many strands; he has known shame and sorrow and striving; he has won to serene heights. He tells it all without vaunt, relating his experience to the large meanings of life for all men, to the mystic currents behind life, out of which we come, to whose great deep we return.

12mo., Net, $1.25

RED FLEECE

Springfield Republican: The first genuine war novel.

Outlook: The first novel of any real consequence dealing with the great war.

San Francisco Argonaut: An extraordinary book. The reader of Comfort’s book is carried away on a storm of emotion.

New York Tribune: Decidedly the first notable novel of the great war is Will Levington Comfort’s Red Fleece. Comfort sees in the moujik’s dreamy soul the seed of a spiritual regeneration of the world.

The Dial: As a stylist, Mr. Comfort has never done better work. “His clothing smelled of death; and one morning before the smoke fell, he watched the sun shining upon the smoke-clad hills. That moment the thought held him that the pine-trees were immortal, and men just the dung of the earth.” It is not given to many men to write such English as that.

Boston Transcript: This is a story written in wireless. It leaves a lightning impression.

New York Times: This novel has one most unusual fault. It is not long enough.

Churchman, New York: By far the most interesting and thoughtful book of fiction springing from the great war.

12mo., Net, $1.25

Transcriber’s Notes:

On page 123, side-ways has been changed to sideways.

On page 130, banknotes has been changed to bank-notes.

On page 310, waterfront has been changed to water-front.

On page 336, eyelids has been changed to eye-lids.

The name "Fomalhaut" was spelled multiple ways in this book; all have been regularized to "Fomalhaut" (a star in the Southern Hemisphere.)

All other spelling, hyphenation and dialect has been retained as typeset.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOT & COMPANY ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that:

- • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

- • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

- • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

- • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

Table of Contents

- Lot & Company
- PART ONE THE JADE: I
- PART TWO LOT & COMPANY: I
- PART THREE THE JADE: II
- PART FOUR THE OPEN BOAT
- PART FIVE THE STONE HOUSE: I
- PART SIX LOT & COMPANY: II
- PART SEVEN THE STONE HOUSE: II
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE