Will Lillibridge

“ This time the other smiled, a smile of tolerant amusement.
“And why shouldn’t I? Being merely the fish you suggest, it seems to me that that’s the one time in a human being’s life when, more than another, deliberation is in order. The wider the creek the longer the wise man will linger on the margin to estimate the temperature of the current in event of failure to reach the opposite bank. Inadvertently, Armstrong, you pass me a compliment. Merely as an observer, marriage looks to me like the longest leap a sane man will ever attempt.” ”

“ He looked at his companion steadily, unsmilingly prophetic. “Good-bye, friend Darley Roberts. You’re going—and you won’t return. Good-bye.”
An instant Roberts stood as he was, motionless; then he turned swiftly.
“You’re morbid to-night, Armstrong,” he returned slowly. “In the morning the sun will shine and the world will look very different. As for my leaving—you’ll find another man who’ll make a lot better mate than I am. I’m not a good fellow in the least.”
“I know it,” bluntly. “That’s why you’re good for me.” Unconsciously his glance travelled to the mantel, and shifted hurriedly. ”

“ If he was a writer they bid for a scrap of his manuscript more than he received for his whole work. There are exceptions, I say; but even exceptions only prove the rule. Think over the names of the big artists, the big geniuses. How many of them are alive or were appreciated in their own lives? How many living to-day compare in the public appreciation with those dead? None of them, practically, none. And still do you or does any other sane person fancy that human beings are degenerating every generation, that artistic genius is decadent? ”

“ Roberts laughed, a big-chested, tolerant laugh.
“Seems to me you ought to realize by this time that I am serious, Armstrong. You’ve known me long enough. Do you still fancy I’ve been posing these last five years you’ve known me?”
“No; you never pose, Darley. This is a compliment, I think; moreover, it’s the reason most of all why I like you.” He laughed in turn, unconsciously removing the sting from the observation following. “I can’t see any other possible excuse for our being friends. We’re as different as night is from day.” ”

“ For perhaps half a minute Roberts stood there, the fire from the open grate lighting his face, his big capable hands loose at his sides. He made no motion to leave, nor for a space to speak; characteristically abrupt, he turned, facing his companion directly.
“Armstrong,” he said, “I can’t work up to things delicately and have them seemingly happen by chance. Nature didn’t endow me with that ability. I have to come out with a broadside shot or not at all. I’m going to do so now. Why don’t you get married? Miss Gleason will be a better rudder immeasurably than I am.” ”

“ For long, interminably long it seemed to the watcher, the girl stood where she had paused, midway; the figure of her still, too still, her face shading first red to the ear tips, then slowly colorless as understanding drove home. A half-minute probably, in reality, immeasurably longer to them both it seemed, she stood so. Without a word she went back to her seat, remained there, unnaturally still, her arms, bare to the elbow in half sleeves, forming a great white V as the clasped hands lay motionless in her lap. ”

“ It gives one a scare.” He laughed shortly, ill at ease. “It even makes one doubt a little the people one believes in most: take you and me, for instance. In my sane moments I know nothing could get between us; but sometimes I get to imagining—times like the last few days when I am—raw—that we’re gradually drifting apart. A little difference of opinion comes up and imagination magnifies until it becomes a mountain and—I know I’m preposterous, Elice, and there’s nothing really to it, but the thing’s been on my mind and I wanted to tell you and get it out of my system.” ”

“ The wind was a wall that held them back like a vise in their places. In the flash of a glance the man looked at the face of the dial. The single arm was 225 pasted black over the numeral sixty. Once more the throttle advanced a notch, the spark lever two—and the hand halted at sixty-five. The wind gripped them afresh, and like human fingers grappled with them. Up, fairly level with their eyes, lifted the advancing yellow-white ribbon. By his side, though he did not look, the man knew that the girl had covered her face with her hands, was struggling against the gale to breathe. ”

“ Interrupting, awakening, torturing, sounded the thing they had so long expected; the impact of a step upon the floor of the porch without; a moment later another, uncertain, and another; a pause, and then, startlingly loud, the trill of an electric bell.
For an instant neither stirred. It was the expected; and still there is a limit to human endurance. The girl was trembling, in a nervous tension too great to bear longer. An effort indeed she made at control ”

“ I feel like condemning the whole University to the bottomless pit. I suppose Margery Randall would resent it if I told her so, but honestly I pity her; the more so because I’ve always envied her in a way. She’s not used to denying herself anything, and there’s bound to be a reckoning. It’s inevitable, and then—I don’t like to think of how it will be then. It’s a tragedy, Steve, nothing more or less.”
Opposite the man sat motionless in his place looking at her. All trace of his usual lounging attitude was absent. ”

“ Armstrong sank back in his chair lazily.
“All right, Darley,” he accepted; “when you won’t be serious there’s no use trying to make you so. I surrender.”
“Serious!” Roberts looked at the younger man peculiarly. “Serious!” he echoed low. “That’s just where your diagnosis fails, my friend. It’s the explanation as well why I never did those ‘other things,’ as you call them, that students do and so humanize themselves.” Involuntarily his eyes went to the girl’s face, searched it with a glance. “It is, I suppose, the curse of my life: the fact that I can’t be different. ”

“ I don’t discount writers in the least or their work; but with the world as it is the main chance doesn’t lie that way—and it’s the main chance we’re all after. Fish or no fish, I tell you some time you’ll find this out for yourself. To get the most out of life a man must be in the position to pass current wherever he may be. In the millennium the standard may be different—I for one sincerely hope it will be; but in the twentieth century dollars are the key that unlocks everything. ”

“ A moment Roberts paused. “It’s because you are afraid, not of me, but of Steve Armstrong: afraid of the way the Lord fashioned him. Elice, come out into the light, please. We must face this thing. You’re not his mother, and you don’t love him otherwise. Tell me, is a sentiment dead greater than one living? Will you, must you, sacrifice the happiness of two for the happiness of one? Answer me, please.”
An instant the girl hesitated; obediently she came out into the light, stood there so, her hand on the pillar of the porch. She did not glance at her companion, did not dare to do so. ”

“ Still Randall said nothing, still waited.
Armstrong hesitated, drumming on the arm of his chair with his slender fingers. But the lull was only temporary, the storm not past; the end was not yet.
“I suppose,” he forged on, “the work should be its own reward, its own justification. At least would-be artists are told so repeatedly. Whenever one rebels at the injustice the world is there with this sophistry, feeds him with it as a nurse feeds pap to a crying child, until he’s full and temporarily comatose. ”

“ Simultaneously again the speed indicator followed the backward trail. Incredibly swift the gale dwindled, until it barely fanned their cheeks. The roar of the great engine subsided, until once more it was a gentle murmur. The vivid green and the dull yellow of summer took their respective places; and like a live thing, beaten and cowed, the big car drew up at the very edge of the grove, left the yellow road-ribbon, rustled a moment amid the half-parched grass and halted in the shadow blot of a big water maple—thirty miles almost to a rod from the city limits they had left. ”

“ The smile that made Randall’s face boyish came into being.
“I’m deferring judgment now—and observing.”
“I fear I can’t help you much there,” said Darley, shortly. “I wished to discuss the future a bit, not the past. The last time I talked with Armstrong he was impossible. I think you know what I mean. All men are that way when they lose their nerve and drown the corpse. What I wish to ask of you is whether the thing was justified. I’m not artistic. I don’t brag of it—I admit it. You’re different; your opinion is of value. Commercially, he’s an impossibility. ”

“ The girl flashed a glance, but he was not looking at her.
“Because you always win,” she said simply.
“Always?” A pause. “Always, Elice?”
“Always in matters of—money.”
The man lay there still, looking up. Barely a leaf in the big maple was astir, not a single sensate thing. Had they been the only two people alive on a desert expanse they could not have been more isolated, more completely alone. Yet he pursued the lead no further, neither by word nor suggestion. ”

“ Armstrong was still smiling, the same being a smile not pleasant to see.
“Now that I’ve got you going,” he commented, “I’ve a curiosity to have you keep on. You’re certainly stirring with a vengeance to-night, Darley.”
“And accomplishing nothing. Strange as it may seem to you, I’m serious.”
“I don’t doubt it, old man.” Of a sudden the smile had passed. “I can’t adjust my point of view to yours at all. If I thought dollars were the end of existence I’d quit the game now. If the world has come to this—”
“The world hasn’t come to it and never will. You simply can’t or won’t see the point. ”

“ Killing time, politely called recreation, merely fails to afford me pleasure. For that reason I avoid it. I claim no credit for so doing. It’s not consecration to duty at all, it’s pure selfishness. I’m as material as a steam engine. My pleasure comes from doing things; material things, practical things. For a given period of time my pleasure is in being able to point to a given object accomplished and say to myself: there, ‘Darley, old man, you started out to do it and you’ve done it.’ Is that clear, Miss Gleason?” 61
“And if you don’t accomplish it, what then?” commented Armstrong. ”

“ Roberts swung about in his desk chair, the crease between his eyes suddenly grown deep.
“Nonsense,” he refuted curtly. “You’re not the first man in the world who has done something to regret. Every one has in some way or another—and profited by the experience. It’s forgotten already, I say, man. Let it pass at that, and go ahead as though nothing had happened. By the way, have you had supper—or do you call it dinner?”
For the first time Armstrong looked at the speaker and, forgetting for the instant, he almost smiled. The question was characteristic. ”

“ Not the impassive, cold Darley Roberts the world knew, but the other Darley Roberts revealed to one alone; the isolate human alone and lonely. “But it’s past, past, do you hear? And to-day is December the sixth, our anniversary—ours.” He halted, waiting. He smiled, with a tenderness infinite. “Is it ‘Darley’ still, Elice? ”

“ Get your competency first, your balance-wheel, your independence, your established base of supplies; then plan your campaign. The world is big, infinitely big, to the human being who can command. It’s a little mud ball to the other who has to dance whenever some one else whistles. ”

“ The smile had left Armstrong’s face now, and in its place was the pallor of reaction. But he was quiet also.
“I wish I could,” he said steadily, “but I can’t. It’ll be exactly as it was before.”
The girl was still smiling,—that same normal, apparently effortless, smile.
“Nonsense!” she refuted, in tones deliberately matter-of-fact. “There’s all the difference in the world. Before you had no 316 audience. And now—the entire country will listen now.”
“It doesn’t matter,” dully. “It’s always been you that counted really. Success was an incident, but you were the real incentive.” ”

“ Elice Gleason looked up penitently.
“I’m sorry,” she said simply. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I don’t doubt it,” equally simply.
“You’re so blunt and logical though; so—abstract.”
“Yes; I am that way.”
The girl drew a long breath. Seemingly, after all, the victory was hers.
“Well, what are we going to do about it? We, their friends, have to do something.”
“Yes, that’s the question—what?”
“Margery will never go back now of herself. I know her.”
“No; she’ll never go back of herself, never. Do you blame her?” ”

“ Randall said nothing. He knew this other man.
“I tell you I’m awake, Harry, at last, and see things as they are; things now so childishly obvious that it seems incredible I could have gone on so long without recognizing them. People prate about appreciation of artists of various kinds and of their work, grow maudlin over it by artificial light in the small hours of the night. And how do they demonstrate it? Once in a while, the isolated exception that proves the rule, by recognizing and rewarding the genius in his lifetime. ”

“ Randall and myself are not exactly objects of charity yet.”
Darley Roberts’ expression did not alter by so much as the twitching of a muscle.
“That was unjustified, Mr. Randall,” he said evenly, “and you know it. Let me explain a bit further. I happen to have a house, but no home. By the same chance you are able to produce the reverse. Just why should it be an offence upon my part to suggest bringing the two together—for the mutual benefit of us both?”
“Why? Because it’s unequal, it’s patronage; and though I work for twelve hundred dollars a year, I’m still American born.” ”

“ Did you mean it, Steve, the way you did it, deliberately? Tell me.”
“Mean it? Certainly. It’s important, what I asked, from an artist’s point of view. Either I was wrong or else reality is—overdone.... Repression’s the word, all critics agree, repression invariably.”
“Steve Armstrong! Stop! I won’t stand it. Listen. It’s unbelievable, but I must take you at your word—your own word. Do you mean exactly what you’ve said, and done?”
Again the moisture sprang to Armstrong’s face, but this time there was no attempt at procrastination.
“Yes, Elice,” he said, and looked her fair. ”

“ We can theorize and moon and drift about in the clouds all we please; but when eventually our pipe goes out and we come down to earth this thing of marriage is practical. It’s give and take, with a whole lot to give. I haven’t been practising law and dealing with marital difficulties, to say nothing of divorces, without getting a few inside facts. Marriages are made in Heaven, perhaps, but married life is lived right here on earth; and the butcher and the rest play leading parts. I recognize I’m leading the procession a bit now, Armstrong ”

“ On his bare hands the sweat gushed forth and, despite the suction, glistened bright. Yet once more, the last time the throttle moved, the spark—and met on the sextant. With its last ounce of power the great car responded, thrilled; one could feel it, a vital thing. Once again the speed-hand on the indicator stirred; but this time the man did not see it, dared not look even for the fraction of a second. Like grim death, grim life, he clung to the wheel ”