Kenwick

“ At Kenwick's entrance the conversation stopped abruptly like the dialogue of movie actors when the camera clicks the scene's end. The intruder, clutching at one of the show-cases for support, forced a comradely smile. "If I can't put one over here," he told himself, "I don't deserve to be called a fiction-writer."
But before he had time to speak one of the men came forward with a startled questioning. "You look all in, man; white as a sheet. Sit down here. What's the idea?"
"Pretty close call," Kenwick told him. "A fellow in a car bowled me over as I was crossing the street. ”

“ He could imagine now how she must have felt as she had sat, a few hours before, listening to the paragraphs of Kenwick's masterpiece as they fell from the glib tongue of Richard Glover. There was an expression almost of awe upon his face. She could write all that, feel all that for one man, and then deliberately plan to marry another, to set him free! The thing seemed preposterous, and yet he knew it to be true. ”

“ And in the moment that its victim recovers a staggering strength, it is upon him again, sweeping aside in one crashing moment the pitiful defenses of philosophy and faith which the soul has constructed to save itself from shipwreck.
Until after midnight Kenwick sat at the window waiting for a summons from the telephone. Then he went to bed and fell into a listening sort of sleep. But not during that night nor in the days that followed was there any response to his telegram. ”

“ And then had followed a sentence or two of promise, of affection, of admonition, murmured in a hasty undertone intended to escape the ears of the statuesque creature who was his brother's wife. Kenwick had wondered afterward whether they had escaped her, whether, anything vital ever escaped Isabel Kenwick. And yet his farewell to her had been a flawless scene. She was always the central figure in some flawless scene. His brother's whole life seemed to him to be enacted upon a perfectly appointed stage. ”

“ Kenwick stood outside the closed door, a curious numbness stealing over him. Was it possible, he asked himself, that there had been some one in this house during the last twelve hours? Was it possible that this person was a woman? A solitary woman? It was unmistakably a woman's voice, and there was no sound of comforting or upbraiding or other evidence of companionship. As he knocked again at the door he wondered which one of them was the more startled by the presence of the other. ”

“ Kenwick's penetration is too subtle for a plain man's comprehension," Uncle Dan observed. The persistency with which the Colonel be-mistered Kenwick was an unmistakable sign of disapproval.
"Colonel Steele, I am guiltless of subtlety," [209] Kenwick declared in his most humorous manner; "I, too, am a plain man. But, if you will pardon the platitude, we all know that there is one beauty of the sun, and another beauty of the moon, and it would be pure affectation to ignore the fact."
"Apropos of the heavenly bodies,—when is the Urania to sail?" Pauline asked. ”

“ The voice of the Southerner came to him, sharply commanding, over the wire. "Can you come around right away? I want to talk it over with you."
"Talk what over?" Kenwick's voice was almost defiant.
"Why, haven't you seen it? Well, come around anyway. I'll be here for the next hour."
When Kenwick arrived at the Hartshire he found the photographer sorting over a pile of films. But as his guest entered, he swept these into a pasteboard box, and cleared off a chair for him. "Where have you been?" he demanded. "I called you at the hotel and the 'Clarion' office twice." ”

“ Kenwick refrained from asking himself why he should consider Daymond's claim paramount to his own; he was not given to searching analysis of his own motives. The man who values his illusions soon learns the best way of preserving them, and the illusion in question was doubly valuable, since it bade fair, under judicious tending, to invest the mythical Oliver Kenwick, already so dear to his imagination, with a nimbus of romantic devotion most agreeable to contemplate. ”

“ Two more trials with the electric button convinced Kenwick that the place was untenanted. He made a shade of his two hands and peered into the plate-glass window that gave on the front porch.
What he saw was an elegantly appointed dining-room furnished in old mahogany and dull blue hangings. There were carved candlesticks on the sideboard, and in the center of the bare dining-table a cut-glass bowl full of English walnuts. The somber high-backed chairs ranged along the wall seemed to the man outside to be guarding the room like a body of solemn gendarmes. ”

“ And Kenwick gripped it with an equal astonishment. It was one of the men whom he had known well at college. "Going it strong now that you are back in civilization again?" On his face was genuine pleasure and the shamefaced expression that it would have worn if the newspaper reporter had suddenly encountered him tobogganing down one of San Francisco's hills on a child's coaster. ”

“ In the intervals of conversation Kenwick, watching the straggling group in front, found it curiously gratifying to observe that Daymond did not seem to have much to say for himself. Kenwick had not by any means made up his mind to cut Geof out, but the possibility of such a feat gave a new zest to his intercourse with May. He was one of those men who, in their admirations at least, unconsciously take their cue from others. His judgments were not spontaneous, and the value he placed upon any good thing was greatly [181] enhanced by the knowledge that it was an object of desire to other persons. ”

“ Why, man, you're nothing short of a godsend. And most of these people," he swept a hand over the coterie represented on the table, "are from New York themselves. They're not writing to a stranger exactly. They know who your family is—or was. They know all about you."
Kenwick's lips stiffened. "Well, they certainly have that advantage over me."
"I don't mean to imply, of course, that they've been investigating your personal history," Dayton hastened to explain. "But Kenwick is not an inconspicuous name in the East. ”

“ And like the attempts of most straightforward men, the effort had been a failure. "Why, buck up, man," he admonished now. "They can't convict you, you know; not under—the circumstances. You haven't been thinking that?"
"I've been thinking a good many things since I came back to Mont-Mer," Kenwick answered slowly. "You see, Morgan, I know more now than I did when I was trying to ferret this thing out up in the city. For one thing, I know a little more about my adversary. ”

“ There were the weather-beaten faces of ranch workers, the smug, complacent faces of those whom life has petted, the resolute faces of those who have come to see grim justice administered. Among them, here and there, was a scattering of veiled faces; women eager to see, but ashamed of being seen. Kenwick wondered contemptuously if some of the writers of the perfumed notes were among these.
During his dispassionate survey of the spectators he was acutely conscious of the presence of a man sitting at the far end of the table around which the lawyers were assembled. ”

“ Uncle Dan was sitting in the chair where he could watch the faces of the young men. There was something in Kenwick's manner that antagonised him; it was, somehow, too appreciative.
"I make a condition," the Colonel exclaimed abruptly, in his voice of martinet. "If there's a likeness the sketch is forfeited."
"I'm safe," Geoffry laughed. "I never got a likeness in my life."
"I will be as evasive as possible," said Kenwick, somewhat nettled; "but it's rather late to impose conditions."
"Am I holding the poppies right?" asked May, after what seemed to her a long interval of silence. ”

“ Then Kenwick, still haunted by the specter of solitude, invited the New Orleans man up to his room. There stretched out comfortably in two deep chairs, with an ash-tray between them, they discussed politics, books, and New York. "It's my home town," Kenwick explained, "but I'm a Westerner by adoption. They say, 'Once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker,' but it hasn't worked that way with me."
Jarvis smiled. "They say that about Emporia, Kansas, too, and about all the other towns ranging in between. It's a world-wide colloquialism. ”

“ Then Granville Jarvis, glancing at the haggard face of the young man across the table, ventured the first personal remark of the hour. "You've scarcely eaten a thing, and you look all in. I don't want to intrude into your affairs, but is there anything I can do?"
It was that unexpected kindliness that always proves too much for overstrung nerves. "I've just had bad news," Kenwick admitted. "It's rather shaken me up. But you can't do anything, thanks."
"Better take a walk out in the fresh air," Jarvis suggested. "I know how you feel. It's beastly—when a man is all alone." ”

“ Do you mind helping me for, say, half an hour? You see, the human eye and brain are the ideal apparatus for perfecting the camera and I'm working on an invention."
Kenwick complied with alacrity, glad of the opportunity to get his mind off of himself. For almost an hour Jarvis worked under the black hood of the tripod while Kenwick reported on the images printed upon the cards. When the tests were finished and he rose to go, the photographer pushed aside his paraphernalia and wiped his forehead. "Hot as Hades under that thing!" he cried. "Say, I was wondering the other day if you play golf." ”

“ There's a woman in here who's ill, and somebody has locked her into her room. I'm not able to do a thing for her or for myself. Do you know what house this is?"
The stranger shook his head. "No, I'm just out here on a visit." Kenwick groaned. There flashed into his mind the stories of some of his friends who had toured California and who were unanimous in their conclusion that everybody in the southern part of the state was merely a visitor. "But whom do they visit?" Everett Kenwick had once inquired and nobody could supply him with an answer.
"Then you don't know where the Raeburn house is?" ”

“ But Kenwick, despite Dayton's admonition to "Brace up and eat a good meal," waved it indifferently aside.
"I'm done for," he said simply. "I don't see how any twelve men could hear the evidence that was presented this morning and find me innocent. And by the time Jarvis gets through telling anything he likes, and proving it——Well, it appears that every person who has been connected in any way with me since this trouble fell upon me has taken advantage of my misfortune to enrich himself. I don't care much now what they do with me. When you lose your faith in humanity it's time to die. ”

“ It seemed that when Kenwick had come to her for a sitting, his name had been accidentally revealed to her by another client, and it had struck her with the force of a blow. For it recalled to her mind a horrible adventure at Mont-Mer, which she narrated for me then in detail. At first she had surmised that this must be some relative of the unfortunate young man, and she had done all she could, she said, to start him upon the track of the tragedy. When she discovered that it was the man himself, she was glad to place all her powers at my disposal. ”

“ But it had been unnecessary for the attorney to make a plea for his client, after the quietly dramatic testimony of the last witness for the defense. In thrilling terms the "Clarion" described Kenwick's final service at the front, when he had made his way alone across No-Man's-Land and saved for France one of her most gallant officers, and had given in exchange that thing which is more precious than life itself. Only through an accident, which had killed the man who had meant to batten upon his misery, had he been released from a pitiable bondage. ”

“ She gazed past him out of the window where, at the curb, Arnold Rogers was assisting a fur-coated figure into the Paddington limousine. "You see, Edward Marstan was my husband and——Well, some day you may come to realize, Mr. Kenwick, that when a woman has loved, there is no such word as 'free.'"
At the foot of the stairway Kenwick spoke with an almost curt suppression to Granville Jarvis. "I'm going over to the hotel with Morgan. Come over there." ”

“ As he turned away he was conscious of only one impulse; to be with somebody. He must have companionship of some sort, any sort, or he would lose his reason. From the dining-room there drifted out to him the pleasant din of human voices. He made his way inside and followed the head-waiter to his accustomed seat beside one of the mirror walls.
The hotel dining-room was full that evening. There was an Elks' convention in the city and the lobby swarmed with delegates. At his table Kenwick found three other men, and was pathetically grateful for their comradeship. ”

“ He snapped open the cover of his watch, then closed it again. "The most devilish thing about life on this planet, Kenwick, is that we can't do very much for each other. The game is largely solitaire. But for any good that I ever did I've been well repaid. Any man ought to be satisfied, I think, when the gods allow him two full hours—in Utopia."
CHAPTER XX
It was the morning after his acquittal that Kenwick and Marcreta Morgan drove out of the Paddington gateway in one of the Utopia machines. ”

“ Having, then, definitely conceived the idea, which had, indeed, been hovering in his mind for some time, that Geoffry Daymond was seriously interested in May Beverly, the situation had gained a piquancy which Kenwick found extremely seductive. He was far too wedded to his career of "free-lance,"—a title which he took no little pride in appropriating,—to have regarded with equanimity that awkward contingency which goes by the name of consequences, but he was fond of playing with fire, as over self-confident people are apt to be. ”