III
Graham was sitting up in bed when Peter returned to his room. He was looking about him with an expression of queer surprise,—puzzled apparently to find himself in his room.
"Oh, hello, old man!" said Peter. "How d'you feel?"
Graham put his hand up to his head. "I don't know yet. Have I been asleep? I thought I'd been in a railway accident. I was looking about for the broken girders and the ghastly signs of a smash."
He got slowly out of bed, put on his slippers and walked up and down for a few minutes with a heavy frown on his face. The emotion of the night before had left its marks. He stopped in front of a chair on the back of which his evening clothes were hanging neatly. He remembered that he had thrown them off. He noticed—at first with irritation—that the things on his dressing-table had been re-arranged—tampered with. It didn't look as he liked it to look. Something had been taken away. It dawned on him that all his razors had been removed. "Removed,"—the word sent a sort of electric shock through his brain as it passed through. He went over to the window and looked out into the street. The sun glorified everything with its wonderful touch. Good God! To think that he might be standing at that very moment on the other side of the great veil.
"I don't know—I don't know what to say to you for all this, Peter," he said.
Peter sat down, thrust his hands into his pockets and his long legs out in front of him. Reaction had set in. He felt depressed and wretched. "One of these days," he said, "I may ask you to do the same thing for me."
Something in his tone made Graham turn round sharply. "What's wrong?"
"Everything's wrong," said Peter. "But I'll tell you some other time. Your affair has got to be settled first."
"No; tell me now," said Graham. He dreaded to feel that he was the cause somehow or other of bringing trouble upon his brother. Never before in all his life had he seen Peter looking like that.
"Mr. Townsend happened to be passing Papowsky's last night and saw me coming out. I'd had a scrap up in the studio with a bunch of men who were half drunk. I must have looked like it. He told me that he wouldn't have me marry Betty, and he repeated it this morning. I've just come away from his place. That's what's the matter with me."
"Oh, curse me!" cried Graham. "Curse me for a fool!"
Peter sprang to his feet. "Don't start worrying about me. And look here; don't let's waste time in trying to scrape up spilt milk. I'm going to marry Betty, that's a dead certainty, and sooner or later Mr. Townsend will withdraw the brutal things he said to me. And you're going to wipe your slate clean, right away. So buck up and get busy, old man. Have your bath and get dressed as soon as you can. I'm going to help you to fix your affair as soon as you're ready."
"How?" asked Graham.
"I don't know quite. I think I'll ask Kenyon."
"No, don't. Let's do it together. I don't want Kenyon to see,—I mean I'd rather Kenyon was out of it. I'd rather that you were the only one to look on at the remainder of my humiliation,—that's the word. He knows quite enough as it is."
"All right!" said Peter. "Hurry up, then. We'll go round to the apartment and see Ita Strabosck. I cashed a cheque on the way back from Mr. Townsend's. We can't let her go out into the street with nothing in her pocket,—that's impossible."
Graham nodded. He couldn't find words to say what he felt about it all. There was a look of acute pain on his pale face as he went into the bath-room.
And then Peter sat down at his brother's table and wrote a little note to Betty:
My own dearest Baby:
Something has happened and your father—who's a fine fellow and well worthy of you—believes that I'm such a rotter that he's told me to consider myself scratched. I'm going to play the game by him for your sake as well as his. Don't worry about it. Leave everything to me. I won't ask you to go on loving me and believing in me, because that you must do, just as I shall go on loving you and believing in you. It has to be. I've got to think things over to see what can be done.
In the meantime, and as long as I live,
Your Peter.
He addressed the letter and put the envelope in his pocket. Then he went to the bath-room and called out: "Old man, shall I have some breakfast sent up for you?" The answer was, "No; the sight of food would make me sick."
Graham dressed quickly and nothing more was said by either of the brothers until they went out into the street together.
"We'll get a cab," said Peter.
"No; I'm too broke. Let's walk."
And so they walked hard, arm in arm. It seemed rather an insult to Graham that the day was so fine, the sky so blue and equable and that all the passers-by seemed to be going on their way untroubled. He'd have been better pleased if the day had been dark and ugly and if everybody had been hurrying through rain and sleet. His own mind was disturbed by a storm of the most unpleasant thoughts. The girl whom they were on their way to see had exercised a strong physical fascination over him. He had believed in her absolutely. She had meant a great deal to him. Her deceit and cunning selfishness brought pessimism into his soul. It was a bad feeling.
As they came up to the house with its shabby door, a man well-past middle age,—a flabby, vulgar person, with thick awkward legs,—left it rather quickly and walked in the opposite direction. The two boys went in and Peter led the way up the dark staircase. The door was open and Lily, the colored maid, was holding a shrill argument with a man with a basket full of empty siphons on his arm. Her face broke into an odd and knowing smile when she saw Graham. They passed her without a word and went along the passage into the sitting-room. It was empty, but in a hideous state of disorder. There was about it all that last night look which is so unpleasant and insalubrious. The windows had not been opened and the room reeked with stale tobacco smoke and beer. Cigar stumps lay like dead snails on the carpet. Empty bottles were everywhere and dirty glasses. Through the half-open door which led into the bed-room they heard a flutey, uncertain soprano voice singing a curious foreign song.
After a moment of weakness and indecision, Graham pulled himself together and called out: "Ita! Ita!" sharply.
The song ceased abruptly. There was a cry of well-simulated joy and the girl, with her hair frowzled and a thin dressing-gown over her night-dress, ran into the room with naked feet. She drew up short when she saw the expression on Graham's face and Peter's square shoulders behind him. "Somesing ees ze matter," she said. "Oh, tell me!" Second nature and constant practice made the girl begin to act. This was obviously an opportunity for being dramatic.
With a huge effort Graham controlled himself. "I'm giving up this apartment to-day," he said.
"You are giving up——?"
"I said so."
"And what ees to become of me? You take me somewhere else?"
"No. I hope I shall never see you again—never!"
The girl burst forth. How well he knew that piteous gesture—that pleading voice—the tears that came into those large almond eyes,—all those tricks which had made him what he had been called the night before at Papowsky's—"a boob". "What 'ave I done? Do you not love me any more? I love you. I will die for you. You are everysing to me. Do not leave me to ze mercy of ze world. Graham! Graham! My saviour! I love you zo!"
Graham shook her off. "Please don't," he said. "Just pack your things and dress yourself. All I've got to say to you is that I've found you out. Perhaps you'd better go back to Papowsky's. You're very clever,—they all say so there. Find another damned young fool—that'll be easy."
The girl suddenly threw back her head and broke into an amazing laugh. The sound of it,—so merry—so full of a sort of elfin amusement,—was as startling to the two boys as though a bomb had been dropped into the room. "I could not find such a damned fool as you," she said loudly and coarsely, "eef I 'unted the earth. Eef you 'ad waited to come until to-night you would 'ave found zis little nest empty and ze bird flown. There ees a better boob zan you. Perhaps you met 'im going out. 'E marries me to-morrow. I vas to keep zat for a leetle surprise. Oh, yes, I am clever, and eet kills me with laughing to zee you stand there like a school teacher. You turn over a new leaf now, eh? Zat ees good. Zo do I. To-morrow I am a wife. I marry a man. My time with babies ees over."
She picked up a glass that was half-full of beer and with a gesture of supreme contempt jerked it into Graham's face. Then, with the quickness of an eel, she returned to her bedroom and slammed the door. They heard her laughing uncontrollably.
Graham wiped his face with his handkerchief, and dropped it on the floor with a shiver. "I shan't want to borrow any money from you, Peter," he said in a low voice. "Let's go."
And they went out into the street together—into the sun, and took a long breath of relief—a long, clean breath, untainted by stale tobacco smoke and beer and the pungent scent of Ita Strabosck.
Peter made no attempt to put into words his intense sympathy, but he took his brother's arm and held it tight, and Graham was very grateful. Right out of the very bottom of his heart two tears welled up into his eyes as he walked away.
After all, he was only twenty-four.