Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “And I told you I was a new member here, and you pointed out the portraits of all those dead governors of the club, and told me what good fellows they had been. I found out later that you yourself were a governor of the club.”

  “Yes — I was.”

  Harrod’s shadowy face swerved toward the window, his eyes resting on the familiar avenue, empty now save for the policeman opposite, and the ragged children of the poor. In August the high tide from the slums washes Fifth Avenue, stranding a gasping flotsam at the thresholds of the absent.

  “And I remember, too, what you told me,” continued Shannon.

  “What?” said Harrod, turning noiselessly to confront his friend.

  “About that child. Do you remember? That beautiful child you saw? Don’t you remember that you told me how she used to leave her governess and talk to you on the rocks—”

  “Yes,” said Harrod. “That, too, is why I came back here to tell you the rest. For the evil days have come to her, Shannon, and the years draw nigh. Listen to me.”

  There was a silence; Shannon, mute and perplexed, set his coffee on the window sill and leaned back, flicking the ashes from his cigar; Harrod passed his hands slowly over his hollow temples: “Her parents are dead; she is not yet twenty; she is not equipped to support herself in life; and — she is beautiful. What chance has she, Shannon?” The other was silent.

  “What chance?” repeated Harrod. “And, when I tell you that she is unsuspicious, and that she reasons only with her heart, answer me — what chance has she with a man? For you know men, and so do I, Shannon, so do I.”

  “Who is she, Harrod?”

  “The victim of divorced parents — awarded to her mother. Let her parents answer; they are answering now, Shannon. But their plea is no concern of yours. What concerns you is the living. The child, grown to womanhood, is here, advertising for employment — here in New York, asking for a chance. What chance has she?”

  “When did you learn this?” asked Shannon soberly.

  “I learned it to-night — everything concerning her — to-night — an hour before I — I met you. That is why I returned. Shannon, listen to me attentively; listen to every word I say. Do you remember a passing fancy you had this spring for a blue-eyed girl you met every morning on your way downtown? Do you remember that, as the days went on, little by little she came to return your glance? — then your smile? — then, at last, your greeting? And do you remember, once, that you told me about it in a moment of depression — told me that you were close to infatuation, that you believed her to be everything sweet and innocent, that you dared not drift any farther, knowing the chances and knowing the end — bitter unhappiness either way, whether in guilt or innocence—”

  “I remember,” said Shannon hoarsely. “But that is not — cannot be—”

  “That is the girl.”

  “Not the child you told me of—”

  “Yes.”

  “How — when did you know—”

  “To-night. I know more than that, Shannon. You will learn it later. Now ask me again, what it is that you may do.”

  “I ask it,” said Shannon under his breath. “What am I to do?”

  For a long while Harrod sat silent, staring out of the dark window; then, “It is time for us to go.”

  “You wish to go out?”

  “Yes; we will walk together for a little while — as we did in the old days, Shannon — only a little while, for I must be going back.”

  “Where are you going, Harrod?”

  But the elder man had already risen and moved toward the door; and Shannon picked up his hat and followed him out across the dusky lamp-lighted street.

  Into the avenue they passed under the white, unsteady radiance of arc lights which drooped like huge lilies from stalks of bronze; here and there the front of some hotel lifted like a cliff, its window-pierced façade pulsating with yellow light, or a white marble mass, cold and burned out, spread a sea of shadow over the glimmering asphalt. At times the lighted lamps of cabs flashed in their faces; at times figures passed like spectres; but into the street where they were now turning were neither lamps nor people nor sound, nor any light, save, far in the obscure vista, a dull hint of lightning edging the west.

  Twice Shannon had stopped, peering at Harrod, who neither halted nor slackened his steady, noiseless pace; and the younger man, hesitating, moved on again, quickening his steps to his friend’s side.

  “Where are — are you going?”

  “Do you not know?”

  The color died out of Shannon’s face; he spoke again, forming his words slowly with dry lips:

  “Harrod, why — why do you come into this street — to-night? What do you know? How do you know? I tell you I — I cannot endure this — this tension—”

  “She is enduring it.”

  “Good God!”

  “Yes, God is good,” said Harrod, turning his haggard face as they halted. “Answer me, Shannon, where are we going?”

  “To — her. You know it! Harrod! Harrod! How did you know? I — I did not know myself until an hour before I met you; I had not seen her in weeks — I had not dared to — for all trust in self was dead. To-day, downtown, I faced the crash and saw across to-morrow the end of all. Then, in my journey hellward to-night, just at dusk, we passed each other, and before I understood what I had done we were side by side. And almost instantly — I don’t know how — she seemed to sense the ruin before us both — for mine was heavy on my soul, Harrod, as I stood, measuring damnation with smiling eyes — at the brink of it, there. And she knew I was adrift at last.”

  He looked up at the house before him. “I said I would come. She neither assented nor denied me, nor asked a question. But in her eyes, Harrod, I saw what one sees in the eyes of children, and it stunned me.... What shall I do?”

  “Go to her and look again,” said Harrod. “That is what I have come back to ask of you. Good-by.”

  He turned, his shadowy face drooping, and Shannon followed to the avenue. There, in the white outbreak of electric lamps, he saw Harrod again as he had always known him, a hint of a smile in his worn eyes, the well-shaped mouth edged with laughter, and he was saying: “It’s all in a lifetime, Shannon — and more than you suspect — much more. You have not told me her name yet?”

  “I do not know it.”

  “Ah, she will tell you if you ask! Say to her that I remember her there on the sea rocks. Say to her that I have searched for her always, but that it was only to-night I knew what to-morrow she shall know — and you, Shannon, you, too, shall know. Good-by.”

  “Harrod! wait. Don’t — don’t go—”

  He turned and looked back at the younger man with that familiar gesture he knew so well.

  It was final, and Shannon swung blindly on his heel and entered the street again, eyes raised to the high lighted window under which he had halted a moment before. Then he mounted the steps, groped in the vestibule for the illuminated number, and touched the electric knob. The door swung open noiselessly as he entered, closing behind him with a soft click.

  Up he sped, mounting stair on stair, threading the narrow hallways, then upward again, until of a sudden she stood confronting him, bent forward, white hands tightening on the banisters.

  Neither spoke. She straightened slowly, fingers relaxing from the polished rail. Over her shoulders he saw a lamplighted room, and she turned and looked backward at the threshold and covered her face with both hands.

  “What is it?” he whispered, bending close to her. “Why do you tremble? You need not. There is nothing in all the world you need fear. Look into my eyes. Even a child may read them now.”

  Her hands fell from her face and their eyes met, and what she read in his, and he in hers, God knows, for she swayed where she stood, lids closing; yielding hands and lips and throat and hair. She cried, too, later, her hands on his shoulders where he knelt beside her, holding him at arm’s length from her fresh young face to
search his for the menace she once had read there. But it was gone — that menace she had read and vaguely understood, and she cried a little more, one arm around his head pressed close to her side.

  “From the very first — the first moment I saw you,” he said under his breath, answering the question aquiver on her lips — lips divinely merciful, repeating the lovers’ creed and the confession of faith for which, perhaps, all souls in love are shriven in the end.

  “Naida! Naida!” — for he had learned her name and could not have enough of it—” all that the world holds for me of good is here, circled by my arms. Not mine the manhood to win out, alone — but there is a man who came to me to-night and stood sponsor for the falling soul within me.

  “How he knew my peril and yours, God knows. But he came like Fate and held his buckler before me, and he led me here and set a flaming sword before your door — the door of the child he loved — there on the sea rocks ten years ago. Do you remember? He said you would. And he is no archangel — this man among men, this friend with whom, unknowing, I have this night wrestled face to face. His name is Harrod.”

  “My name!” She stood up straight and pale, within the circle of his arms; he rose, too, speechless, uncertain — then faced her, white and appalled.

  She said: “He — he followed us to Bar Harbor. I was a child, I remember. I hid from my governess and talked with him on the rocks. Then we went away. I — I lost my father.” Staring at her, his stiffening lips formed a word, but no sound came.

  “Bring him to me!” she whispered. “How can he know I am here and stay away! Does he think I have forgotten? Does he think shame of me? Bring him to me!”

  She caught his hands in hers and kissed them passionately; she framed his face in her small hands of a child and looked deep, deep into his eyes: “Oh, the happiness you have brought! I love you! You with whom I am to enter Paradise! Now bring him to me!”

  Shaking, amazed, stunned in a whirl of happiness and doubt, he crept down the black stairway, feeling his way. The doors swung noiselessly; he was almost running when he turned into the avenue. The trail of white lights starred his path; the solitary street echoed his haste, and now he sprang into the wide doorway of the club, and as he passed, the desk clerk leaned forward, handing him a telegram. He took it, halted, breathing heavily, and asked for his friend.

  “Mr. Harrod?” repeated the clerk. “Mr. Harrod has not been here in a month, sir.”

  “What? I dined with Mr. Harrod here at eight o’clock!” he laughed.

  “Sir? I — I beg your pardon, sir, but you dined here alone to-night—”

  “Send for the steward!” broke in Shannon impatiently, slapping his open palm with the yellow envelope. The steward came, followed by the butler, and to a quick question from the desk clerk, replied: “Mr. Harrod has not been in the club for six weeks.”

  “But I dined with Mr. Harrod at eight! Wilkins, did you not serve us?”

  “I served you, sir; you dined alone—” The butler hesitated, coughed discreetly; and the steward added: “You ordered for two, sir—”

  Something in the steward’s troubled face silenced Shannon; the butler ventured: “Beg pardon, sir, but we — the waiters thought you might be — ill, seeing how you talked to yourself and called for ink to write upon the cloth and broke two glasses, laughing like—”

  Shannon staggered, turning a ghastly visage from one to another. Then his dazed gaze centered upon the telegram crushed in his hand, and shaking from head to foot, he smoothed it out and opened the envelope.

  But it was purely a matter of business; he was requested to come to Bar Harbor and identify a useless check, drawn to his order, and perhaps aid to identify the body of a drowned man in the morgue.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE SWASTIKA

  THIS is rather a curious story — not nearly as artistic as if it were fiction. Fact seldom is artistic.

  One thing is certain: Hildreth had never before heard of a swastika; he had heard of Judge Grey, one of the Mixed Tribunal, and he knew that the Sarna came from that magistrate as a wedding gift to his father; but he never for one moment connected anything that ever happened in the Orient with his stenographer and private secretary. Nor did he suspect — but this story is running away from me backward.

  Reclining in his uncle’s emblazoned armchair, the tips of his fingers joined, young Hildreth gazed meditatively at the ceiling through the drifting haze of his cigar. On the ceiling several delicately tinted Cupids were attempting to asphyxiate one another with piles of roses. The room and its furniture also were gayly ornamental after the style popularly imputed to Louis XIV, that monarch being in no condition to deny the accusation. There was a view through one door into a rococo library, through another into a breakfast room, and through the windows into a snowstorm at Thirtieth Street and Fifth Avenue. However, the ensemble did not appear illogical if you turned your back to the window; besides, there was the stenographer to look at. But Hildreth was gazing fixedly at the ceiling through the stratified mist from his cigar.

  The youthful stenographer, dimpled chin on hand, drummed softly with her pencil tip and watched him sidewise out of two very beautiful eyes. Her cuffs were as immaculate as her cool, white skin; her head, with its thick, bright hair, harmonized with other pretty things; and I do not think that Louis XIV would have repudiated her, at any rate.

  Hildreth blew ring after ring of smoke at the ceiling, passing his hand, at intervals, through his hair, which was rather short and inclined to curl.

  “Miss Grey,” he said, “can’t you think of anything else that rhymes with ‘tin’?”

  “Gin, din, thin,” suggested the stenographer, referring to a rhyming dictionary.

  “We’ve used ‘din’ and ‘thin’ already in the second verse; don’t you remember? And we can’t use ‘gin’ in any combination whatever; I’ve tried it. Isn’t there anything else you can think of?”

  “Sin?” she inquired demurely.

  “‘Sin,’” he repeated. “‘Sin’ sounds interesting. We need something to flavor the poem. Do you believe that you and I could make any proper use of ‘sin’?”

  She appeared doubtful.

  “Let us see, anyway. Read what you’ve taken,” he said, composing himself to listen to his own lines with the modest resignation of the true poet.

  And the girl sorted her notes and read softly:

  “Behold them packed so snug within

  Their air-tight box of shining tin —

  Hildreth’s Honey Wafers!

  “Ready for breakfast, lunch or din Ner; crisp and fresh and sweet and thin —

  Hildreth’s Honey Wafers!”

  She raised her blue eyes, looking at him inquiringly over the penciled sheets of manuscript.

  “There ought to be another verse,” he mused. “Don’t you think so?”

  “I think two verses of this kind are sufficient, Mr. Hildreth.”

  “You are mistaken; the poem is still incomplete. The first verse, you see, is an impression — a sort of word-picture of the tin box — a kind of prologue to prepare people for what is inside the box in the second verse. In the second I explain that Hildreth’s Honey Wafers are all ready to eat, and I excite people’s appetites. Now, the third verse must gratify them. Don’t you see?”

  “Is it not good advertising to break off abruptly and leave the public hungry?”

  “No; that’s only good literature; but in advertising you must not leave your public discontented. People like to look at pictures of other people who are enjoying something to repletion — pitching into a generous trough of breakfast food, or pausing to savor the delicious after-effects of a nerve tonic. Besides,” he added moodily, puffing his cigar, “my uncle requires three verses, and that settles it. What was that rhyme you suggested?”

  “I — I ventured to suggest ‘sin.’”

  “‘Sin,’ he repeated thoughtfully, pinching his chin and staring at the snowy roofs across Thirtieth Street. “Well, how would
this do for the third verse?

  “They invigorate the hair and clear the skin,

  And promote happiness in this world of sin —

  Hildreth’s Honey Wa—”

  “But you have the meter all wrong again,” she expostulated. “You never pay any attention to the meter.”

  “Oh, you can fix that as you fixed the other verses!”

  “Besides, is it really true that Hildreth’s Honey Wafers do all those things?”

  He began an elaborate argument to prove that falling hair and poor complexion were caused by improper nourishment, and that the wafers were proper nourishment; but presently his voice dwindled to a grumble. He relighted his cigar, looking at her askance.

  “We might say,” he resumed, “using poetic license:

  “Into this world of crime and sin Like an angel above was wafted the box of tin; Hildreth’s Ho—”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “You can’t compare a tin box to an angel above — and you can’t waft a tin box, you know—”

  “Yes, I can. Poets’ license—”

  “That is one of the troubles with your verses, Mr. Hildreth — there is so much license and so little — so — little—”

  “You are rather rough on me,” he said, coloring up.

  “I don’t mean to be; I only try to help you.”

  “I know it; you are very kind — very amiable. I am perfectly aware that a stenographer’s duties do not include literary criticism. I ought to be ashamed to ask your aid, but if I don’t have it I’m done for.”

  “But I give it most freely, Mr. Hildreth.”

  “I know you do, and I’m also aware that I am imposing on you most shamefully. After this week we’ll let my verses go as I compose them. It will probably put me out of business, but I can’t help that.”