The Street Called Straight

by Basil King

Davenant turned away. "I wasn't in a hurry."

"No; but he is. That's the point. That's where the beauty of it comes in for Olivia and you."

Peter looked blank. "Olivia and—me?"

"He's doing right," the old man explained, taking hold of the lapel of Davenant's coat, "or what he conceives to be right; and no one man can do that without putting us into a better position all round. Doing right," he continued, emphasizing his words by shaking the lapel and hammering on Peter's breast—"doing right is the solution of all the difficulties into which we get ourselves tied up by shilly-shallying and doing wrong. If Ashley were to hang fire you wouldn't know where the devil you were. But now that he's going straight, it leaves you free to do the same."

"It leaves me free to cut and run." He made little effort to conceal his bitterness.

"Then cut and run, if that's what you feel impelled to do. You won't run far before you see you're running to a purpose. I'll cut and run, too," he added, cheerfully. "I'll be off to see Olivia, and tell her she's made a catch."

Davenant was glad to be able to resume his tramp. "Poor old chap," he said to himself; "a lot he knows about it! It's damned easy to do right when you've got everything your own way."

Having everything his own way was the happy position in which he placed Rupert Ashley, seeing he was able to marry Olivia Guion by the simple process of selling an estate. There was no more to that in Davenant's estimation than to his own light parting with his stocks and bonds. Whatever sacrifice the act might entail would have ample compensation, since the giving up of the temporal and non-essential would secure supreme and everlasting bliss. He would gladly have spared a hand or an eye for a mere chance at the same reward.

Arrived in Boston there was nothing for him to do but to eat an expensive dinner at a restaurant and go back again. He did not return on foot. He had had enough of his own thoughts. They led him round and round in a circle without end. He was ashamed, too, to perceive that they concerned themselves chiefly, not with his love for Olivia Guion, but with his enmity to Rupert Ashley. It was the first time in his life that he was ever possessed by the fury to kill a man. He wouldn't have been satisfied to be rid of Ashley; he wanted to leap on him, to strike him, to choke him, to beat him to death. Sitting with his eyes fixed on the table-cloth, from which the waiter had removed everything but the finger-bowl and the bill, and allowing the cigar that protruded between his knuckles to burn uselessly, he had already indulged in these imaginary exercises, not a little to his relief, before he shook himself and muttered: "I'm a damned fool."

The repetition of this statement, together with the dull belief that repetition engenders, braced him at last to paying his bill and taking the tram-car to Waverton. He had formed a resolution. It was still early, scarcely later than the hour at which he usually dined. He had a long evening before him. He would put it to use by packing his belongings. Then he would disappear. He might go at once to Stoughton, or he might travel no farther than the rooms he had engaged, and which he had occupied in former years, on the less attractive slope of Beacon Hill. It would be all the same. He would be out of the circle of interests that centered round Olivia Guion, and so free to come back to his senses.