COLTFOOT had a short note from Annan asking him to lunch. He called up, saying that he couldn’t get away until afternoon.
When he did arrive at No. 3 Governor’s Place, Mrs. Sniffen said that Mr. Annan was lying down—that for the last two weeks he had not seemed to be very well.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked Coltfoot.
“I don’t know, sir. ’E doesn’t go out any more. ’E ’asn’t left the ’ouse in the last fortnight.”
“That’s nothing. He’s working.”
“No, sir; Mr. Annan don’t write. He just reads or sits quiet like till a fit takes ’im sudden, and then he walks and walks and walks.”
“Does he eat?”
“Nothing to keep a canary ’ealthy. It’s ’igh-balls what keep ’im up, Mr. Coltfoot; and I ’ate to say so, but it worrits me.”
“Mr. Annan doesn’t drink,” said Coltfoot incredulously.
“Oh, no, sir—a glass of claret at dinner—a cocktail perhaps. It’s only the last two weeks that I ’ave to keep ’im in ice and siphons.”
Coltfoot, puzzled, thought a moment: “All right,” he said, “I’ll go up.”
Annan, lying on the lounge, heard him and sat up.
They shook hands; Annan pushed the Irish whiskey toward him and pointed to the ice and mineral water.
“Mike,” he said, “is my stuff rotten?”
Coltfoot, who had been inspecting his thin features, laughed.
“Not so rotten,” he said. “Why?”
“You once said it was all wrong.”
“Probably professional jealousy, Barry——” He constructed an iced draught for himself, sipped it, furtively noticing the bluish shadows on Annan’s temples and under his cheek-bones.
“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded.
“Nothing.... I’m worried because I can’t write.”
“Rot, my son.”
“It’s quite true. I haven’t touched a pen for a month, nearly.... The hell of it is that I’ve nothing to say.”
There was a silence.
“Good God, Mike,” he burst out, “do you think I’m done for?”
“I think not,” drawled the other.
“Because—I can’t work. I can’t. I seem to be in a sort of nightmare state of mind.... Did you ever feel that the world’s askew and everything out of proportion?”
“No, I never did. Something has happened to you, Barry.”
“Nothing—important.... No.... But I’m rather scared about my work. You know those stories I did for you? I hate them!”
“You ungrateful young devil, they made you.”
“What did they make me?”
“A best-seller—for one item. A fine workman for another——”
“Mike! Who cares for good workmanship in these days? Who understands it when he sees it? Who does it?
“It’s a jerry-age,—jerry-built houses, furniture, machinery,—jerry-built literature, music, drama,—jerry-built nations too,—and marriages and children and every damned thing that once required good workmanship.
“Now, everything is glue and pasteboard and unskilled labour——”
“Oh, lay off on your jerry-built jeremiad!” cried Coltfoot, laughing. “Where do you get that stuff?”
“Stuff is right, too. I’m a fake, also. I’m a jerry-built author with a jerry-built education and I write jerry-bui——” He dodged a lump of ice.
“Shut up,” said Coltfoot wearily. “How long do you think I’m going to listen? Come on, now, what’s started you skidding, Barry?”
“You started me.”
“Oh—that line of talk I handed you?”
“It got under my skin.”
“Oh! Who’s been sticking the knife into you since? Not your fool public. Not the Great American Ass.”
Annan shook his head.
“Well, who?”
“Another—friend.”
“Is that what upset you?”
“Yes.... Partly.”
“You’re not ill, are you, Barry?” inquired the elder man, curiously.
“No, I should say not!”
“Financial troubles?... You don’t mind my asking?”
“Oh, it isn’t anything of that sort, Mike.... It really isn’t anything.”
“You’re not—in love.... Are you?”
“Hang it all, no, I’m not!... No.... I’ve never been in love, Mike.”
“You’ve had a few affairs, dear friend,” remarked Coltfoot, amused.
“Well, you know the kind. Everybody has ’em. Everybody has that sort. That’s just vanity—silliness—no harm, you know.... The young are always sparring—like little chicks and kittens.”
Coltfoot finished his glass. There was an interval; Annan set both elbows on his knees and framed his drawn face between his hands.
“No, I’m not in love,” he said as though to himself.
They discussed other matters. But now and then Annan drifted back to love, and his ignorance of it.
“I suppose,” he said carelessly, “a fellow is able to diagnose the thing if he gets it.... Recognise it.... Don’t you?”
“Probably.”
“I suppose every fellow stands a chance of landing there sooner or later.”
“You write about it. Don’t you know?”
“Certainly.... I’m familiar with some phases of it.... The phenomena are well known.”
“The various sorts of love and its aftermath that you write about are enough to scare any man off that stuff,” remarked Coltfoot.
“Those are the sorts I’ve seen.... Or the cut and dried hypocrisy of my own kind and kindred.... I’ve seen darned few cases of satisfactory and enduring love.... Darned few, Mike.”
“Then there are a few?”
“Sure.”
“Why not write about one such incident?”
After a silence Annan lifted his eyes and gave him a haggard look.
“I’m afraid of Christmas-card stuff, I guess.... Mike, I’ve always been afraid of it. I’ve had a morbid fear of weakness.... And do you know I believe that was the real weakness? I am weak!”
“Barry, you’ve merely had things come to you too easily. You’ve had your own way too much. You’re persuasive; you get it. You’ve been, perhaps, a little self-complacent, a bit smug, a trifle cocksure.... All strength is in danger of such phases. But weakness never is. Weakness must assert itself or silently acquiesce in its own visible inferiority. For the bragger is the weakling, not he who does not need to assert himself.
“And always there lies a danger in the reticence of strength that, unawares, complacency and self-satisfaction may taint it, and strength go stale.”
After a silence: “My stuff has been pretty narrow, I guess,” muttered Annan.
“Narrow calibre, perhaps; but powerful. You can shoot a bigger gun and bigger projectile, Barry. I don’t know what your limits may be, but I know they’re wide—if you care to range them.”
“That’s nice of you, Mike.... I guess I’ll feel like working ... pretty soon.... As for falling in love, ... I suppose I’ll know it if I do.... Don’t you think so?”
Coltfoot took his hat and stick:
“I’m not sure. I don’t believe the thing conforms always to specific gravity or Troy weight or carats or decimals. I don’t believe that a standard test will always give the same reaction.” He scowled: “I don’t believe there’s such a thing as love in elemental supply. I think it’s always found in combination—endless combinations.... And how the hell you’re to recognise it, candidly, I don’t know.”
“Stay to dinner; will you, Mike?”
“Sorry.... By the way, how is your little waif, the Goddess of Discord, getting on with Smull?”
“All right, I fancy.”
“Don’t you see her?”
“I haven’t lately.”
“Well, the gossip is that she’s sure fire. Frank Donnell believes in her. I’ve heard that Smull is crazy about her and stands to back her to the limit.... I’m sorry—rather.”
“About what?” asked Annan sharply.
“Well, in Frank Donnell she had a gentleman. But Creevy is a vulgar fellow. His staff isn’t so much, either. Too bad the little girl couldn’t have remained in Betsy Blythe’s company. It was a decent bunch.”
“Oh—I guess it’s endurable.... Creevy is a rat. So’s Emil Shunk. Marc Blither and Harry Quiss are just common and harmless.... Of course, if anybody offends your little protégée Albert Smull will do murder.”
“You don’t like Smull,” said Annan.
“Neither do you.”
When Coltfoot had gone Annan went to the telephone. And sat there for an hour without calling anybody. He had done this every day for two weeks. Sometimes he did it several times a day.
Mrs. Sniffen knocked and asked him what he wished for dinner.
“I don’t know,” he said absently.
She stood waiting for a while: “Will you ring, sir, when you decide?”
“Yes, I will, Xantippe.... Thank you.”
After she had been gone for some time: “Well,” he breathed, “I—I can’t call her and keep any self-respect.... I simply can’t do it.... She’s through with me anyway.... I suppose I acted like a cad.... She wasn’t the girl to understand such affairs.... She is better than such things.... Or too stupid for them.... Stupid in that way only.... Too damned serious.... My God, what a hiding she gave me for my book!... But the other was worse.... I haven’t any self-respect when I remember that.... If I call her now, she can’t take any more away from me, as she’s got all I had....”
He came back to the telephone. He could feel the painful colour hot in his face as he unhooked the receiver.
In a hard voice he called her number.
“Now,” he said with an oath, “she can do her damnedest!”
She did.