"Oh! I was able to walk straight enough when I came home. The stuff had little effect on me. In the taxi my head was whirling, though. But I got back here and took up the picture again and placed it on the easel, in a flood of light. It was wonderful! It seemed to me that she was coming out of the frame and extending her round arms and slender fingers to me till my heart was throbbing in my throat and choking me!"
He stopped again and took up his pacing once more, like some furred beast in a cage.
"In the morning I looked at myself," he resumed. "A fine wreck of manhood I appeared, bleared and haggard and with a mouth tasting of the ash heap. But, after a Turkish bath, I was like some imitation of my real self again, for I could hold myself in and think clearly. It meant the abandoning of all my plans and the awakening, some day, in a period of disillusionment, with a woman at my side carrying another man's child and bestowing on me the remnants of her love. Ay, man! I was egotist enough to think I should only have to ask, to put out my hand to her! But I gripped myself again and felt proud of the control I could exercise over my madness. The Jap packed up my things, and I went away over there, where the other woman awaited me, with her horses and her autos, her rackets and her golf-clubs, with other rich women about her, laughing, simpering, chattering, but culling all the blossoms of a life I had aimed for and was becoming a part of. I had paid for it, Dave, in toil such as few other men have undergone, at the price of starvation in garrets, over there in the Quartier. No light o' loves for me, no hours wasted, never a penny spent but for food of a sort and the things I needed for painting. And it took me years. Then the reward was before me, for I had won time. Yes, man! I was the master of time! Fools say it is money! What utter rot! Money is time, that's what it is. It can bring time for leisure, and to enjoy luxury, to bask in smiles, to lead a life of ease and refinement, and time also to accomplish the great work of one's dreams!"
There was another pause.
"I didn't forget her, of course. She was before me night and day, but I thought I was mastering my longing, beginning to lord it over an insane passion. I could golf and swim and dance, and listen to fools prattling of art, and smile at them civilly and agree with their silly nonsense. They're not much more stupid than most of the highbrows, after all, and, usually, a devilish sight more pleasant to associate with. None of Camus's poison in their kitchens! And—and that other woman was a beauty, and she held all that I aimed for in her hand and was stretching it out to me. And she's a good woman too and a plucky one! Rather too good for me, I am sure. It was at night, going forty miles an hour, I think, that I finally made up my mind to ask her. And—and she consented. She was driving and never slowed down a minute, for we were late. I was half scared, and yet hoping that she might wrap that car around a telegraph pole, before we arrived. When we finally stopped, she declared it had been a glorious ride, and gave me her lips to kiss, and—and I went up to my room to dress for dinner, feeling that I had made an end of all insanity, that I had achieved all that I had fought so hard for!
"Then, later on, after some months, you came around to ask me to use Frances as a model again. I thought I was quite cured at that time, and I refused. Oh, yes! I had been coming to that shack of yours. On those Sunday afternoons the devil would get into me. A look at her would do no harm. You and Frieda would be there too. And I would come and sit on your rickety bed and look at her, and listen to you all, and watch you pouring out tea. But I thought all the time that I was keeping a fine hold on myself, just tapering off, the dope-fiends call it. Then it was that you came to me. You're ugly and gawky enough, Dave, but no evil angel of temptation was ever so compelling as you. I remember how you stared when I said I didn't want her. And you hadn't been gone ten minutes before the devil had his clutches on me and flung me in my car and I met you at your door and told you to let her come!
"And I've been painting her again. Such beastly stuff as I've turned out! Daubing in and rubbing out again, and staring at her till I knew she was beginning to feel uneasy and anxious. But I always managed to keep a hold on my tongue. God! What a fight I was waging, every minute of the time, crazy to fling the palette to the floor, to kick the easel over, to rush to her and tell her I was mad for the love of her! And to-day the crisis came; I'd been shaking all over; couldn't hold a brush to save my life. I—I don't know what I said to her; but it was nothing to offend her, I am sure, nothing that a sweet, clean woman could not hear and listen to, from a man who loved her. But I remember her words. They were very halting and that poor voice of hers was very hoarse again.
"'Oh!' she cried, 'I—I am so miserably sorry. I—I thought you were just one of the dear kind friends who have been so good to me. I—I never said a word or did a thing to—to bring such a thing about. Please—please let me go away. It makes me dreadfully unhappy!'
"And so she picked up her hat and put it on, her hands shaking all over, and took the baby to her bosom and went out, and—and I guess that's all, Dave."
He sank down on the teakwood stool he generally uses to put his colors on and his brushes. His jaws rested in the open palms of his hands, and he looked as if his vision was piercing the walls and wandering off to some other world.