TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT
Clarence Sidwell was alone in his down-town bachelor quarters; that is, alone save for an individual the club-man's friends termed his "Man Friday," an undersized and very black negro named Alexander Hamilton Brown, but answering to the contraction "Alec." Valet, man of all work, steward, Alec was as much a fixture about the place as the floor or the ceiling; and, like them, his presence, save as a convenience, was ignored.
The rooms themselves were on the eleventh floor of a down-town office-building, as near the roof as it had been possible for him to secure suitable quarters. For eight years Sidwell had made them his home when he was in town. The circle of his friends had commented, his mother and sisters (his father had been long dead) had protested, when, a much younger man, he first severed himself from the semi-colonial mansion which for three generations had borne the name of Sidwell; but as usual, he had had his own way.
"I want to work when I feel so inclined, when the mood is on me, whether it's two o'clock of the afternoon or of the morning,'" he had explained; "and I can't do it without interruption here with you and your friends."
For the same reason he had chosen to live near the sky. There, high above the noise and confusion, he could observe and catch the influence of the activity which is in itself a powerful stimulant, without experiencing its unpleasantness. Essentially, the man was an æsthete. If he went to a race or a football game he wished to view it at a distance. To be close by, to mingle in the dust of action, to smell the sweat of conflict, to listen to the low-voiced imprecations of the defeated, detracted from his pleasure. He could not prevent these features—therefore he avoided them.
This particular evening he was doing nothing, which was very unusual for him. The necessity for society, or for activity, physical or mental, had long ago become as much a part of his nature as the desire for food. Dilettante musician as well as artist, when alone at this time of the evening he was generally at the upright piano in the corner. Even Alec noticed the unusual lack of occupation on this occasion, and exposed the key-board suggestively; but, observing the action, Sidwell only smiled.
"Think I ought to, Alec?" he queried.
The negro rolled his eyes. Despite his long service, he had never quite lost his awe of the man he attended.
"Sho, yo always do that, or something, sah," he said.
Sidwell smiled again; but it was not a pleasant smile. So this was the way of it! Even his servant had observed his habitual restlessness, and had doubtless commented upon it to his companions in the way servants have of passing judgment upon their employers. And if Alec had noticed this, then how much more probable it was that others of Sidwell's numerous acquaintances had noticed it also! He winced at the thought. That this was his skeleton, and that he had endeavored to keep it hidden, Sidwell did not attempt to deny to himself. One of the reasons he had not given to his family for establishing these down-town quarters was this very one. Time and again, when he had felt the mood of protest strong upon him, he had come here and locked the doors to fight it out alone. But after all, it had been useless. The fact had been obvious, despite the trick; mayhap even more so on account of it. Like the Wandering Jew he was doomed, followed by a relentless curse.
He shook himself, and walking over to the sideboard poured out a glass of Cognac and drank it as though it were wine. Sidwell did not often drink spirits. Experience had taught him that to begin usually meant to end with regret the following day; but to-night, with his present mood upon him, the action was as instinctive as breathing. He moved back to his chair by the window.
The evening was hot, on the street depressingly so, but up here after the sun was set there was always a breeze, and it was cool and comfortable. The man looked out over the sooty, gravelled roofs of the surrounding lower buildings, and down on the street, congested with its flowing stream of cars, equipages, and pedestrians. Times without number he had viewed the currents and counter-currents of that scene, but never before had he so caught its vital spirit and meaning. Born of the elect,—reared and educated among them,—the supercilious superiority of his class was as much a part of him as his name. While he realized that physically the high and the low were constructed on practically the same plan, he had been wont to consider them as on totally separate mental planes. That the clerk and the roustabout on ten dollars a week, breathing the same atmosphere,—seeing daily, hourly, minute by minute, from separate viewpoints, the same life,—that they should have in common the constant need of diversion had never before occurred to him. Multitudes of times, as a sociologist, or as a literary man in search of realism, he had visited the haunts of the under-man. Languidly, critically, as he would have observed at the "zoo" an animal with whose habits he was unacquainted, he had watched this rather curious under-man in his foolish, or worse than foolish, endeavor to find amusement or oblivion. He had often been interested, as by a clown at a circus; but more frequently the sight had merely inspired disgust, and he had returned to his own diversions, his own efforts to secure the same end, with an all but unconscious thankfulness that he was not such as that other. To-night, for the first time, and with a wonder we all feel when the obvious but long unseen suddenly becomes apparent, the primary fact of human brotherhood, irrespective of caste, came home to him. To-night and now he realized, diminutive in the distance as they were, that the swarm of figures that he had hitherto considered mere animals vain of display were impelled upon the street, compelled to keep moving, moving, without a pre-arranged destination, by the same spirit of unrest that had sent him to the buffet. At that moment he was probably nearer to his fellow-man than ever before in his life; but the truth revealed made him the more unhappy. He had grown to consider his own unhappiness totally different and infinitely more acute than that of others; he had even taken a sort of morbid, paradoxical pleasure in considering it so; and now even this was taken from him. Not only had his own secret skeleton been visible when he believed it concealed, but all around him there suddenly sprang up a very cemetery of other skeletons, grinning at his blindness and discomfiture. His was not a nature to extract content from common discomfort, and but one palliative suggested itself,—the dull red decanter on the sideboard. Rising again and filling a glass, he returned and stood for a moment full before the open casement of the window gazing down steadily.
How long he stood there he hardly knew. Once Alec's dark face peered into the room, and disappeared as suddenly. At last there was a knock at the door.
"Come in," invited Sidwell, without moving. The door opened and closed, and Winston Hough stood inside. The big man gave one glance at the surroundings, saw the empty glass, and backed away. "Pardon my intrusion," he said with his hand on the knob.
Sidwell turned. "Intrusion—nothing!" He placed the decanter with glasses and a box of cigars on a convenient table. "Come and have a drink with me," and the liquor flowed until both glasses were nearly full.
Hough hesitated in a reluctance that was not feigned. He felt that discretion was the better part of valor, and that it would be well to escape while he could, even at the price of discourtesy.
"Really," he said, "I only dropped in to say hello. I—"
"Nonsense!" interrupted Sidwell. "You must think I'm as innocent as a new-born lamb. Come over here and sit down."
Hough hesitated, but yielded.
Sidwell lifted his glass. "Here's to—whatever the trouble may be that brought you here. People don't visit me for pleasure, or unless they have nowhere else to go. Drink deep!"
They drank; and then Sidwell looking at Hough said, "Well, what is it this time? Going to reform again, or something of that kind, are you?"
Hough did not attempt evasion. He knew it would be useless. "No," he said; "to tell you the truth, I'm lonesome—beastly lonesome."
Sidwell smiled. "Ah, I thought so. But why, pray? Aren't you a married man with an ark of refuge always waiting?"
Hough made a grimace. "Yes, that's just the trouble. I'm too much married, too thoroughly domesticated."
The other looked blank. "I fail to understand. Certainly you and Elise haven't at last—"
"No, no; not that." Hough repelled the suggestion with a gesture as though it were a tangible object. "Elise left to-day to spend a month with her uncle up in northern Wisconsin, and I can't get out of town for a week. I feel as I fancy a small bird feels when it has fallen out of the nest while its mother is away. The bottom seems to have dropped out of town and left me stranded."
The host observed his guest humorously—a bit maliciously. "It is good for you, you complacent benedict," he remarked unsympathetically. "You can understand now the normal state of mind of bachelors. Perhaps after a few more days you'll have been tortured enough to retract the argument you made to me about matrimony. I repeat, it's poetic justice, and good for a man now and then to have a dose of his own medicine."
Hough smiled as at an oft-heard joke. "All right, old man, have it as you please; only let's steer clear of a useless discussion of the subject to-night."
"With all my heart," said Sidwell. The decanter was once more in his hand. "Let's drink to the very good health of Elise on her journey."
Hough hesitated. He had a feeling that there was an obscure desecration in the toast, but it was not tangible enough to resent. "To her very good health," he repeated in turn.
For a moment he looked steadily into the face of his companion, now a trifle flushed. Again an inward monitor warned him it were better to go; but the first flood of the liquor had reached his brain, and the temptation to remain was strong.
"By the way, how are you coming on with your own affair of the heart? Have you propounded the momentous question to the lady?"
Sidwell pulled forward the box of cigars and helped himself to one. "No," he returned with deliberation. "I haven't had a good opportunity. A gentleman from the West, where they wear their hair long and their coat-tails short, has suddenly appeared like an obscuring cloud on the Baker sky. I have a suspicion that he has aspirations for the hand of the lady in question. Anyhow, he's haunted the house like a ghost to-day. Mother Baker has for some reason taken a fancy to your humble servant, and over the 'phone she has kept me informed of the stranger's tribulations. He seems to be meeting with sufficient difficulties without my interposition, so out of the goodness of my heart I've given him an open field. I hope you appreciate my consideration. I fear he's not of a stripe to do so himself."
Hough lit his cigar. "Yes, it certainly was kind of you," he said. "Very kind."
With a sweep of his hand Sidwell brought the two glasses together with a click. "I think so. Kind enough to deserve commemoration by a taste of the elixir of life, don't you agree?" and the liquor flowed beneath a hand steady in the first stages of intoxication.
Hough pushed back his chair. "No," he protested. "I've had enough."
"Enough!" The other laughed unmusically. "Enough! You haven't begun yet. Drink, and forget your loneliness, you benedict disconsolate!"
But again the big man shook his head. "No," he repeated. "I've had enough, and so have you. We'll be drunk, both of us, if we keep up this clip much longer."
The smile left the host's face. "Drunk!" he echoed. "Since when, pray, has that exalted state of the consciousness begun to inspire terror in you? Drunk! Winston Hough, you're the last man I ever thought would fail to prove game on an occasion like this! We're no nearer being babes than we were the last time we got together, unless the termination of life approximates the beginning. Drink!"
But still, this time in silence, Hough shook his head. From a partially open door leading into the adjoining room the negro's eyes peered out.
Sidwell shifted in his seat with exaggerated deliberation and leaned forward. His dark mobile face worked passionately, compellingly. "Winston Hough," he challenged, "do you wish to remain my friend?"
"I certainly do."
"Then you know what to do."
Deep silence fell upon the room. Not only the eyes but the whole of Alec's face appeared through the doorway. Hough could no more have resisted longer than he could have leaped from the open window. They drank together.
"Now," said Sidwell, "just to show that you mean it, we'll have another."
And soon the enemy that puerile man puts into his mouth to steal his brains was enthroned.
Sidwell sank into his chair, and lighting his cigar sent a great cloud of smoke curling up over his head. Hand and tongue were steady, unnaturally so, but the mood of irresponsible confidence was upon him.
"Since you've decided to remain my friend," he said, "I'm going to tell you something confidential, very confidential. You won't give it away?"
"Never!" Hough shook his head.
The big man crossed his hands over his heart in the manner of small boys.
Sidwell was satisfied. "All right, then. This is the last time you and I will ever get—this way together."
Hough looked as solemn as though at a funeral. "Why so?" he protested. "Are you angry with me yet?"
"No, it's not that. I've forgiven you."
"What is it, then?" Hough felt that he must know the reason of his lost position, and if in his power remove it.
"I'm going to quit drinking after to-night, for one thing," explained Sidwell. "It isn't adequate. But even if I didn't, I don't expect we'll ever be together again after a few days, after you go away."
The listener looked blank. Even with his muddled brains he had an intimation that there was more in the statement than there seemed.
"I don't see why," he said bewilderedly.
Again Sidwell leaned forward. Again his face grew passionate and magnetic.
"The reason why is this. I have had enough, and more than enough, of this life I've been living. Unless I can find an interest, an extenuation, I would rather be dead, a hundred times over. I've become a nightmare to myself, and I won't stand it. In a few days you'll have departed, and before you return I'll probably have gone too. Nothing but an intervention of Providence can prevent my marrying Florence Baker now. Life isn't a story-book or we who live it undiscerning clods. She knows I am going to ask her to marry me, and I know what her answer will be. We'll be away on our wedding-trip long before you and Elise return in the Fall." The speaker's voice was sober. Only the heightened color of his face betrayed him.
"I say I'm through with this sort of thing," he repeated, "and I mean it. I've tried everything on the face of the earth to find an interest—but one—and Florence Baker represents that one. I hope against hope that I'll find what I'm searching for there, but I am skeptical. I have been disappointed too many times to expect happiness now. This is my last trump, old man, and I'm playing it deliberately and carefully. If it fails, Florence will probably return; but before God, I never will! I have thought it all out. I will leave her more money than she can ever spend—enough if she wishes to buy the elect of the elect. She is young, and she will soon forget—if it's necessary. With me, my actions have largely ceased to be a matter of ethics. I am desperate, Hough, and a desperate man takes what presents itself."
But Hough was in no condition to appreciate the meaning of the selfish revelation of his friend's true character. Since he married his lapses had been infrequent, and already his surroundings were becoming a bit vague. His one ambition was to appear what he was not—sober; and he straightened himself stiffly.
"I see," he said, "sorry to lose you, old pal, very sorry; but what must be must be, I s'pose," and he drew himself together with a jerk.
Sidwell glanced at the speaker sarcastically, almost with a shade of contempt. "I know you're sorry, deucedly sorry," he mocked. "So sorry that you'd probably like to drown your excess of emotion in the flowing bowl." Again the ironic glance swept the other's face. "Another smile would be good for you, anyway. You're entirely too serious. Here you are!" and the decanter once more did service.
Hough picked up his glass and nodded with gravity "Yes, I always was a sad devil." By successive movements the liquor approached his lips. "Lots of troubles and tribulations all my—"
The sentence was not completed; the Cognac remained untasted. At that moment there was a knock upon the door.