WAYNE stood uncertainly on the boarding-house steps, glancing up and down the bleak, deserted street. The night was cold and a keen wind whipped his unbuttoned ulster round him. The woman watching him through the blind, so near that he was within arm’s reach of her, felt the tragedy of this hour. Her sense of responsibility for one man’s life had prompted her confession in the ugly little parlour; but there stood another, whose need of her was not less great. She had sent Wayne Craighill away and she must always think of him as he stood there, outside the threshold of her life as it was to be, blown upon by winds of destiny. A bit of paper, whirling in the blast, was not more a thing of chance than he.
A succession of trolleys passed as Wayne lingered, staring out upon the street. He was hardly conscious of the conflict that raged within, the turbulent spirit, the appetite already thwarted once to-day, uncoiling like a serpent and demanding to be satisfied. His heart was in rebellion against whatever gods he knew. No one in all the city was so lone as he; but there was always the great resource. He glanced toward the heart of the city; a car was approaching and he took a step; it was approaching rapidly and he started to run. It stopped with a harsh grinding of the brakes, and he put his foot on the step, then swung round, leaving an angry conductor swearing on the platform, and walked rapidly toward home. Jean, waiting at the window, saw and read with relief the meaning of his changed decision.
The spirit of the storm was not fiercer than that in his own heart as he strode away and as his blood warmed with the exercise he began to enjoy his buffetting in the gale. He had started up the long avenue toward the East End, widening at every step the distance between himself and the haunts he had known in drink. The internal struggle was less strenuous, now that his body fought the gale; and the remembrance of Jean nestled bird-like in his heart. She was a woman, unlike any that had ever been before in the world, and she had opened her soul to him for a fleeting glimpse and closed the door forever.
He strode on until midnight, with the bare boughs of the trees bending over him under the lash of the blast; and he found himself at last quite near home, and suddenly tired and weak, for he had eaten nothing since his slight luncheon. When he had gained the house and let himself in he flung himself down in a chair in the hall, and sat there, too weary to go further. The weakness of hunger was a new sensation and he felt so strange that he wondered if he were ill, and nothing that had happened seemed real or possible.
He became aware of a light step on the stair but in the dim light from the single hall lamp he saw no one. A moment later the switch clicked and Mrs. Craighill stood gazing at him as he sat in one of the high-backed hall chairs, his ulster falling loosely round him, his hat on the floor at his side. There was no mistaking the meaning of her accusing glance.
“Wayne!” she cried, “what are you doing here?”
He rose and clung wavering to the chair, confirming her impression that he was drunk.
“I’m all right, Addie. I haven’t been drinking—not a drop. Don’t make a fuss. I’ll go up to bed in a minute. I’m a little knocked out, that’s all.”
He shook her off impatiently as she tried to help him out of his coat.
“Please run along, Addie. I’m tired to death, and I guess I’m hungry. I’ll get some crackers.”
Nothing would serve now but that she must find something for him to eat; and he followed her into the dining room where she lighted the alcohol lamp and prepared to make tea. He protested, as she came and went with things for his luncheon, that far less would do. She moved about softly in her slippered feet, her dressing gown fluttering about her, while he sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, unheedful of her questions. She brought a chair and sat down near him to tend the kettle and waited what seemed an insufferable time for him to speak. Finally she said:
“Your father came in only a little while before I heard you. There was a meeting of the directors of the Hercules National to-night. He seemed very much troubled when he came home.”
Wayne lifted his head. “Yes; I suppose he is.”
“Have the business troubles affected him? He says there is no panic.”
Wayne roused himself at this and grinned.
“You might be sure father would take a sanguine view of the situation. That’s his way. It doesn’t make any difference what you call it—a panic or a shortage of currency or anything else—the country’s been scared to death and the fright isn’t over yet.”
He drank his tea and ate hungrily the sandwiches she had made. The news that his father had been at the bank until midnight interested him; he knew that the Hercules carried his father’s paper for a very large amount, and that it was maturing. Seeing that the mention of the financial stringency had interested Wayne, Mrs. Craighill jumped to the conclusion that the Craighill fortunes were in jeopardy and that Wayne’s condition was due to the anxious state of affairs downtown. She had believed her husband very rich and the thought that he might experience reverses was not pleasing. She had passed an unhappy day after her interview with her husband that morning touching the unfortunate Boston excursion. She had spent the evening alone and, though Wayne did not know it, she had telephoned to the Allequippa Club and to the Penn and asked for him. She had much to tell him and as he seemed more like himself, now that the hot tea had warmed his chilled body, she was quite ready to prolong this interview for her own relief and pleasure. She was charming en neglige and her hair in long braids added its note of intimacy.
“It’s nice to see you. If you won’t tell—really and truly—I’ll confess something.”
“Well?” he scowled.
“Dear me, you’ll have to do a lot better than that, Waynie, dear.”
“Don’t call me Waynie; it makes me sick.”
“Oh,” she pouted and threw herself back in her chair.
“What is it you wanted to tell me?” he demanded.
“Nothing.”
“Then don’t make so much fuss about it. You’d better go to bed.”
“I’m comfortable right now, but I’ve been lonesome and unhappy all day. I hoped you would come a long time ago. I kept a fine fire going for you—really just for you—in the library, and now you’re as cross and uninteresting as you can be. I didn’t suppose you Craighills were all cross.”
“So father was cross was he?” asked Wayne, scowling into his cigarette case.
“Oh, terribly cross. I tried to be polite to him and he went into his room and slammed the door. He was very cross this morning when he came home from Boston. He saw my mother up there.”
Wayne’s manner changed.
“That’s perfectly bully! If you have any more news like that, Addie, you may go on and tell me. Let’s move into the library.”
He stirred the fire into life and threw on fresh wood. He was refreshed by his luncheon and it was the curse of his temperament that he never ignored the nearest pleasure. Addie was a pretty trifle of a woman and it was not unpleasant to find her in a receptive mood. She crouched beside him, so close that he could have placed his hand on her head.
“This is very cozy, isn’t it? It must be hideously cold outside. Your father was going to take me to Bermuda for Easter, but I suppose we may all be in the poor-house by that time.”
“Stranger things have happened. But they wouldn’t take you at the alms-house. You are young and capable. I don’t just see you sitting on the bench with the old ladies, knitting socks. It would not become you, Addie. If the worst comes you would go out like a brave little woman and support your husband.”
She flashed a frightened look at him; she had no idea that her husband’s difficulties were serious, though she assumed he might be temporarily embarrassed, as men often were, without finding it necessary to change their manner of life. She remembered that the roof over her head belonged to Wayne and she sought to reassure herself as to the permanence of the arrangement by which Colonel Craighill had the use of it.
“You wouldn’t let them turn me out-of-doors, would you Wayne?”
“Well, if father went broke it would hardly be up to me to carry on the house here; it’s an expensive establishment to run. I might have to sell it myself.”
“Yes; I suppose your interests and your father’s are identical. What hurts him would hurt you.”
“Not at all! Our interests are anything but identical. We belong”—he said, with an irony that was for his own satisfaction—“we belong to different schools of finance. Father’s a plunger without knowing it; I’m a Wayne and the Waynes were always true Scots and kept what they had and sat on it. Father likes to be director of things, and the things liked to have him. He’s been used a good deal as bait—that’s what it amounts to. He’s just paid about two hundred thousand dollars for the privilege of sitting with a lot of solemn gentlemen up at Boston who organized a big corporation to raise bananas or grape fruit or something in the torrid deserts of Mexico. You know father well enough by this time to understand how that idea would appeal to him—irrigation to water the desert and make it blossom as the rose! I went in for a few thousand and so did Walsh; but we quit, and to-day when I told father I had sold out he was wounded. Tom Walsh is about the shrewdest old party there is around here. We sold out at the same time and both made money.”
He laughed softly to himself and slapped his knee.
“If you knew your father had got into a bad thing you ought to have told him—don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” he mocked her, still chuckling; “we ought to have told the Colonel he had bought a dead horse—and been gently kicked for our trouble. We know the Colonel, Tom and I. You notice that Tom bought out the mercantile house. Tom’s wiser than a serpent; he knew it was the best thing father had. Tom likes me. Isn’t it funny? He’s always settled all claims for damages against me when I’ve ripped things loose—and done it economically and quietly—never said anything, but just asked later for my check and said ‘Um’ when I thanked him. I caught the old rascal once giving an organ to a church somewhere—Vermont or New Hampshire; I guess it was Vermont, come to think of it. He was terribly bored when the bill strayed in to my desk. It was in memory of his father and mother and he growled fiercely because I got on to it.”
“He’s a strange man; I don’t understand him,” remarked Mrs. Craighill carelessly.
“By the way, how did you come out with your drive with Tom? Of course you told father you had been out riding with another man. I don’t know just how he would have taken it; you see Tom was only a sort of clerk in father’s office; father never knew him socially. I’ll wager you didn’t tell the Colonel.”
“No; I didn’t tell him. He was so angry about mother having spoiled his visit to the Brodericks’ and threatening to come here for a visit that I couldn’t have told him if I had wanted to.”
“Ah! I suppose you’ll wire her not to come, like a good little girl.”
“No; I’ll do nothing of the kind; but she won’t come.”
Her tone caused him to look at her quickly; but she met his gaze quietly and asked:
“How did you get on with Miss Morley after I so considerately left you alone this morning? This has really been a very busy day, hasn’t it?”
Wayne’s heart sank at the mention of Jean. It was in this room that very morning that heaven had seemed so near. Mrs. Craighill had followed her inquiry with a glance to see why he ignored her question. He had turned forward the table by which Jean had stood when he took her hand and held it to his face. He did not answer her question but stared dully into the fire where the events of the day mocked him in kinetoscopic flashes. Mrs. Craighill raised herself to her knees and brought her face close to his.
“Are you in love with her, Wayne?”
“What if I am?” he snapped, stirring uneasily and drawing slightly away from her.
“I’d be sorry if you were in love with anyone, I think; but you musn’t let her hurt you. I shouldn’t like that. She is too handsome for a poor girl; I suppose I was too,” she concluded with a sigh.
She found and caressed his hand. The faint, elusive perfume of her silken robe, the light touch of her hand, the fine precision of her profile, the pretty red lips and heavy-lidded, smiling eyes combined to quicken his heartbeats. She was here, quite within his reach, a wounded bird, with bruised wings, asking shelter. The revenge he had carried in his heart since the night he read her letter announcing her engagement to marry his father was attainable—he knew it by all the manifold testimonies of his senses, the response of his nature to hers. She was, as Tom Walsh had said, fragile, like glass; and he was a veritable weathercock, the wind’s plaything. His hand closed over hers, she drew nearer and her head lay on his breast, and he stroked her fair, bright hair.
“It’s good to be happy. I wish I belonged to you. If things only went right in this world I should, and we should have dear times together.”
Her bare arm stole about his neck; the touch of it kindled his blood like flame.
“You are tired of it?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes,” she answered softly.
“You’ve been cheated; you paid a big price for the happiness you didn’t get.”
“He doesn’t care the least bit. I don’t interest him. You might think he would talk to me when he was in trouble, but he keeps as far away as he can. But—I’m really not so bad—am I, Wayne? I’m not ugly, or stupid, or so very foolish?”
He pressed her hand for answer.
“Don’t you think I’m as nice as Jean? She’s big and strong and handsome—and she’s interesting—I can see how she appeals to you; but there’s so much she doesn’t know. Don’t you believe I know more than she does?”
His hand relaxed; she was aware that he drew away from her. He rose, almost flinging her away.
“For God’s sake, Addie, don’t talk to me of her; don’t speak of her.”
“Oh!” It was the exclamation of a rebuked child. “Of course I didn’t understand,” she pouted. “You seemed lonely and I was trying to be good to you. Of course, then, she is wiser than I am. If I’d known how it stood with you I shouldn’t have spoken of her at all.”
“She knows what you don’t know; she knows me.”
“Then she must be very wise!”
“She knows ten thousand things you never dreamed of; she has watched them bring dead men out of the pit; she has heard grimy children crying for their dead fathers. She knows the real things; but life to you is only a candy box with pretty pictures on the cover.”
“This may be very interesting,” she remarked coldly, “but I’m afraid you’re going to bore me. I don’t think I care to hear about dead men and the pit and children crying. Good night.”
He was safe for the moment. Her reference to Jean had steadied him, but he was not sure of himself. He felt that Jean was there by the table where he had pressed her hand to his face; the viol-like chords of her voice were in his ears; he saw the light of her countenance and felt the benediction of her spirit.
Mrs. Craighill had never understood him less than in that instant when, half turning to leave, she saw the far-away look of his eyes, the straightening of his figure and the indifferent glance that showed his acquiescence in her departure.
It was at this moment that the lights in the hall, which they had turned off when they sought the library, flashed on again. Mrs. Craighill sprang to the switch inside the library door and darkened the room. The hall lights fell only faintly across the library threshold, but as she peered out through the portières Mrs. Craighill saw her husband slowly descending, clad in his dressing gown, some papers in his hand. Her heart tore at her breast as she waited. When he reached the hall she was quite sure that he would come into the library and she put her hand over her mouth to stifle her frightened breathing. But he turned toward the little coat room and she heard him at the telephone. She was faint from fear, but Wayne caught her wrist and held her. Colonel Craighill was dictating a message to the telegraph office; cries for help these messages were, Wayne knew, to friends in New York and Philadelphia, and they added testimony to the worst Wayne knew of his father’s plight.
“Come,” Wayne whispered to the shrinking woman—“come.”
He drew her across the room and through a little-used door that communicated with the rear of the house, to a circular stairway that led to the upper floors, and waited until he heard the door above open and shut softly. Then he went back to the library and saw his father pass into the lighted area of the hall and mount the stair slowly.
The lights were snapped out from above and the house was still. Wayne sighed deeply and sought in the dark the chair in which Jean had sat that morning. When the light of the late winter dawn crept in grayly he was still there, his head bowed in his arms on the table.