Black is White

by George Barr McCutcheon

Aye, he was lonely. The house was as bleak as the steppes of Siberia. He longed for companionship, friendship, kindness, and suddenly in the midst of it all he leaped to his feet.

“I'm going out, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, breaking in upon an unappreciated tale that Mr Riggs was relating at some length and with considerable fierceness in view of the fact that Mr Dawes had pulled him up rather sharply once or twice in a matter of inaccuracies. “Excuse me, please.”

He left them gaping with astonishment and dashed out into the hall for his coat and hat. Even then he had no definite notion as to what his next move would be, save that he was going out—somewhere, anywhere; he did not care. All the time he was employed in getting into his light overcoat his eyes were fixed on the front door, and in his heart was the strange, indescribable hope that it would open to admit his father, who, thinking of him in his loneliness and moved by a suddenly aroused feeling of love, had abandoned an evening of selfish pleasure in order to spend it with him.

And if his father should walk in, with eagerness in his long unfriendly eyes, what joy it would be for him to rush up to him and cry out: “Father, let's be happy! Let's make each other happy!”

Somehow, as he rushed down the front steps with the cool night air blowing in his face, there surged up within him a strong, overpowering sense of filial duty. It was his duty to make the first advances. It was for him to pave the way to peace and happiness. Something vague but disturbing tormented him with the fear that his father faced a great peril and that his own place was beside him and not against him, as he had been for all these illy directed years. He could not put it away from him, this thought that his father was in danger—in danger of something that was not physical, something from which, with all his valour, he had no adequate form of defence.

At the corner he paused, checked by an irresistible impulse to look backward at the house he had just left. To his surprise there was a light in the drawing-room windows facing the street. The shade in one of them had been thrown wide open and a stream of light flared out across the sidewalk.

Standing in this stream of light was the figure of a man. Slowly, as if drawn by a force he could not resist, the young man retraced his steps until he stood directly in front of the window. A questioning smile was on his lips. He was looking up into Ranjab's shadowy, unsmiling face, dimly visible in the glow from the distant street-lamp. For a long time they stared at each other, no sign of recognition passing between them. The Hindu's face was as rigid, as emotionless as if carved out of stone; his eyes were unwavering. Frederic could see them, even in the shadows. He had the queer feeling that, though the man gave no sign, he had something he wanted to say to him, that he was actually calling to him to come back into the house.

Undecided, the man outside took several halting steps toward the doorway, his gaze still fixed on the face in the window. Then he broke the spell. It was a notion on his part, he argued, If he had been wanted, his father's servant would have beckoned to him. He would not have stood there like a graven image, staring out into the night.

Having convinced himself of this, Frederic wheeled and swung off up the street once more, walking rapidly, as one who is pursued. Turning, he waved his hand at the man in the window. He received no response. Farther off, he looked back once more. The Hindu still was there. Long after he was out of sight of the house he cast frequent glances over his shoulder, as if still expecting to see the lighted window and its occupant.

Blocks away, in his hurried, aimless flight, he slackened his pace and began to wonder whither he was going. He had no objective point in mind. He was drifting. His footsteps lagged and he looked about him for marks of locality. Union Square lay behind him, and beyond, across Eighteenth Street, was the Third Avenue Elevated. He had not meant to come in this direction. It was not his mind alone that wandered.