Robert W. Chambers

“ That Cecile White went about more or less with the sculptor Drene was a nine days’ gossip among circles familiar to them both, and was forgotten—as are all wonders—in nine days.
Some of his acquaintances recalled what had been supposed to be the tragedy of his life, mentioning a woman’s name, and a man’s—Drene’s closest friend. But gossip does not last long among the busy—not that the busy are incapable of gossip, but they finish with it quickly, having other matters to think about. ”

“ Drene said with a shrug:
“Terms are coming to mean less and less to me, Guilder. It costs very little for me to live.” He turned his gray, tired face. “Look at this barn of a place; and go in there and look at my bedroom. I have no use for what are known as necessities.”
“Still, terms are terms—”
“Oh, yes. A truck may run over me. Even at that, I’ve enough to live life out as I am living it here—between these empty walls—and that expanse of glass overhead. That’s about all life holds for me—a sheet of glass and four empty walls—and a fistfull of wet clay.” ”

“ But what is coming to her, Drene?”
“Continue to guess. But I know you. It’s yourself you’re sorry for and what you’ll have to endure—live through. That’s what you can’t stand, and remain the sleek, self-satisfied rat you are. No, it will make earth a living hell for you; never a second, day or night, will you be able to forget—if you really do love her.... And I believe you do—I don’t understand how a thing like you can love—but it seems it can.”
After a silence Graylock said: “You don’t care if you damn yourself?” ”

“ He laughed a rather mirthless laugh and glanced up, catching a peculiar expression in Guilder’s eyes.
“You’re thinking,” said Drene coolly, “what a god I once set up on the altar of domesticity. I used to talk a lot once, didn’t I?—a hell of a clamor I made in eulogy of the domestic virtues. Well, only idiots retain the same opinions longer than twenty-four hours. Fixity is imbecility; the inconstant alone progress; dissatisfaction is only a synonym for intelligence; contentment translated means stagnation..... I have changed my opinion concerning the virtues of domesticity.” ”

“ Quair had met her several times at Manhattan Beach with various and assorted wealthy young men.
And one evening Guilder came alone to his studio and found him lying on the lounge, his lank, muscular hands, still clay-stained, hanging inert to the floor above an evening paper fallen there.
“Hello, Guilder,” he said, without rising, as the big architect shambled loosely through the open doorway.
“How are you, Drene?”
“All right. It’s hot.”
“There’s not a breath of air. It looks like a thunder-storm in the west.” ”

“ I am no judge of men. No man knows enough to condemn souls.”
Drene looked at him:
“Well, I’ll tell you something. I know enough to do it. I had rather damn my soul—and hers, too—than see her marry the man you have named. It would be worth it to me.”
After a strained silence, Guilder said:
“There is a mode of dealing with those who have injured you, which is radically different—”
“I deal with such people in my own fashion!”
“But, after all, the infamy is Graylock’s. Why oblige him by sharing it with him?” ”

“ Guilder looked curiously at Drene. “Some people think she’s rather crazy about you.”
Drene gazed into space.
“But that wouldn’t hurt her,” added Guilder, in his calm, pleasant voice. “She’s a straight little thing—white and straight. She could come to no harm through a man like you.”
Drene continued to stare at space.
“So,” continued the other, confident, “when she recovers from a natural and childlike infatuation for you she’ll marry somebody... Possibly even such a man as Graylock might make her happy. You can’t ever tell about such men at the eleventh hour.” ”

“ Over her shoulder Drene stared at the distant man who stared back at him.
Presently his eyes reverted to hers, absently studying the childlike beauty of her.
“I’m going to tell you something,” he said. “Love is no more wonderful than hate, no more perfect, no more eternal. And it is less fierce, and not as strong.” ”

“ Graylock’s square jaw tightened and his steady eyes seemed to grow even paler; but Quair, as though perfectly unconscious of this man’s record with the wife of his closest friend, and of the rumors which connected him so seriously with Cecile White, swung his leg unconcernedly, where it dangled over the table’s edge, and smiled frankly and knowingly upon Graylock:
“There’s always somebody to marry that sort of girl; all mush isn’t on the breakfast table. ”

“ The gods of yesterday, too, were very real—yesterday.”
“Drene, a man may change and progress on his way toward what never changes. But standards remained fixed. They were there in the beginning; they are immutable. If they shifted, humanity could have no goal.”
“Is there a goal?”
“Where are you going, then?”
“Just on.”
“In your profession there is a goal toward which you sculptors all journey.”
“Perfection?”
Guilder nodded.
“But,” smiled Drene, “no two sculptors ever see it alike.” ”

“ It doesn’t matter; they are beliefs. And this is one: all physical and mental ills are created only by our own minds—”
“Christian Science?” sneered Drene.
“Call it what you like,” said Guilder serenely. “And call this what you like: All who believe worthily will find that particular belief true in every detail after death.”
“What do you call that?” demanded Drene, amused. ”

“ The pockets of Guilder’s loose, ill-fitting clothes bulged with linen tracings and rolls of blue-prints. He and Drene consulted over these for a while, semi-conscious of Quair’s bantering voice and the girl’s easily provoked laughter behind them. And, finally:
“All right, Guilder,” said Drene briefly. And the firm of celebrated architects prepared to evacuate the studio—Quair exhibiting symptoms of incipient skylarking, in which he was said to be at his best.
“Drop in on me at the office some time,” he suggested to the youthful model, in a gracious tone born of absolute self-satisfaction. ”

“ For a long time, now, a fierce curiosity concerning what Graylock was thinking and doing had possessed Drene. What does a man, who is in good physical health, do, when he is at liberty to compute to the very second how many seconds of life remain for him? ”

“ Graylock made a slight gesture with his head toward Drene’s sagging pocket: “That way if you like. Or,” he added, “There is a harder punishment.”
“What is it?”
“To give her up.”
“Yes,” said Drene, “that is harder. But I can make it even harder than that. I can make it as hard for you as you made it for me. I can let you live through it.”
He laughed, fisted in his pocket, drew out the lumpy automatic and leisurely pushed the lever to “safe.”
He said: “To kill you would be like opening the cell door for a lifer. You know what you are while you’re alive ”

“ Yet something of what he had been must have remained latent within him for with unimpaired precision and logic he constructed his clay and chiseled his marble; and there must have been in him something to express, for the beauty of his work, spiritual and material, had set him high among the highest in his profession.
Sometimes sorrow changes the dross from the lamp of the spirit so that it burns with a purity almost unearthly; sometimes sorrow sears, rendering the very soul insensible ”

“ In things spiritual the same obtains—whether one’s vision embraces Nirvana, or the Algonquin Ocean of Light, or a pallid Christ half hidden in floating clouds—Drene, it is all one, all one. It is not the Goal that changes ”

“ When it comes to a man like Jack Graylock going so far as to ask her to marry him, good night, nurse! Nothing doing, even for me.”
“Even for you,” repeated Guilder in his moderate and always modulated voice. “Well, if she’s escaped you and Graylock, she’s beyond any danger from Drene, I fancy.”
Quair smiled appreciatively, as though a delicate compliment had been offered him. Several times on the way to call on Graylock he insisted on stopping the car at as many celebrated cafes. ”

“ After all, girls, like birds, were eternally eating. Except for that, and incessant preening, existence meant nothing more important to either species.
He had been busy for a few moments with the group when she said something to him, and he looked around from his abstraction. She was holding out toward him a chicken sandwich.
When his mind came back from wool gathering, he curtly declined the offer, and, as an afterthought, bestowed upon her a wholly mechanical smile, in recognition of a generosity not welcome.
“Why don’t you ever eat luncheon?” she asked. ”

“ Graylock’s mouth quivered, his lips moved in speech; and perhaps Drene heard and understood, for he opened his eyes and looked once more at his boyhood friend.
“Somewhere—somebody will straighten out—all this,” he murmured, closing his eyes again: “We can’t; we can only try—to straighten out—ourselves.”
Graylock looked down at him in silence, then, tall and heavily erect, he turned away.
Cecile met him from the studio. ”

“ Drene flushed, but said nothing.
“If he marries her,” added Guilder, “as it’s generally understood he is trying to, the best sculptor’s model in town is out of the question. Better secure her now.”
“He wants to marry her?” repeated Drene, in a curiously still voice.
“He’s mad about her. He’s abject. It’s no secret among his friends. Men like that—and of that age—sometimes arrive at such a terminal—men with Graylock’s record sometimes get theirs. She has given him a run, believe me, and he’s brought up with a crash against a stone wall. ”

“ Under all the sleek, smooth, canty phrases of ecclesiastic proverb, precept, axiom, and lore, there is truth worth the sifting out.”
“You are welcome to think so, Guilder.”
“You also could come to no other conclusion if you took the trouble to investigate.”
Drene smiled:
“Morals are no more than folk-ways—merely mental condition consequent upon custom. Spiritual beliefs are radically dependant upon folkways and the resultant physical and mental condition of the human brain which creates everything that has been and that is to be.” ”

“ So at last she went into the studio and wrote a note to Graylock. It was late. She went downstairs to the janitor’s quarters where there was a messenger call. But no messenger came probably Christmas day kept them busy. Perhaps, too, some portion of the holiday was permitted them, for it was long after dinner and the full tide of gaiety in town was doubtless at its flood.
So she waited until it was plain that no messenger was coming; then she rose from the chair and stood gazing out into the wintry darkness through the dirty basement window. Clocks were striking eleven. ”

“ After a while Drene sat up on his couch:
“How did all this conversation start?” he asked uneasily.
“It was about the Virgin for that chapel we are going to do..... That’s part of my belief: those who pray for her intercession will find her after death, interceding—” he smiled, “—if any intercession be necessary between us and Him who made us.”
“And those unlisted millions who importune Mohammed and Buddha?”
“They shall find Mohammed and Buddha, who importune them worthily.” ”

“ Now and then he gave a twirl to the top of his working table, which revolved with a rusty squeak.
“If you two unusually intelligent gentlemen ask me what good a woman the world—” began Quair.
“But we don’t,” interrupted Guilder, in the temperate voice peculiar to his negative character.
“Anyway,” insisted Quair, “here’s what I think of ‘em—”
“My model, yonder,” said Drene, a slight shrug of contempt, “happens to be feminine, and may also be human. Be decent enough to defer the development of your rather tiresome theory.” ”

“ Now she bestowed great care upon them, thoroughly drying each separate, slender finger. Then she pushed back the heavy masses of her hair—“a miracle of silk and sunshine,” as Quair had whispered to her. That same hair, also, was very popular among painters.
It was her figure that fascinated sculptors.
“Are you ready?” grunted Drene. Work presently recommenced.
She was entirely accustomed to praise from men, for her general attractiveness, for various separate features in what really was an unusually lovely ensemble. ”

“ It is true, however, that, except for Guilder’s habitual restraint, the celebrated firm of architects was inclined to express themselves flamboyantly, and to interpret Renaissance in terms of Baroque.
“She’s some girl,” added Quair, looking at the lithe, modeled figure, and then half turning to include the model, who had seated herself on the lounge, and was now gazing with interest at the composition sketched in by Drene for the facade of the new opera. ”

“ A girl usually loves the wrong man. To be poor is always bad enough, but to be in love, too, is really very dreadful. It usually finishes us—you know.”
“Are you in love?” he inquired, managing to repress his amusement. ”

“ Drene opened his eyes as Graylock entered all alone and stood still beside the bed looking down at him. In the studio Cecile moved about singing under her breath. They both heard her.
Drene nodded weakly. After a moment he made the effort to speak:
“I am trying to get well—to start again—better—live more—nobly. ... Take your chance, too.”
“If you wish, Drene.”
“Yes. I was not—very—well. I had been ill—very—a long while ... And you are not to clean the automatic.... Only your own-soul.... Ask help.... You’ll get it..... I did.... And—all that is true—what we believed—as boys.... I know. ”

“ Besides, you are growing thin.”
“Is that your final conclusion concerning me, Cecile?” he asked, absently.
“Won’t you please take this sandwich?”
Her outstretched arm more than what she said arrested his drifting attention again.
“Why the devil do you want me to eat?” he inquired, fishing out his empty pipe and filling it.
“You smoke too much. It’s bad for you. It will do very queer things to the lining of your stomach if you smoke your luncheon instead of eating it.” ”