“What joy!” they exclaimed, “to have invented the Supreme Sin!”
II
BROTHERS-IN-LAW
With the vision of an antique marble façade lingering in his memory he slowly walked up the Avenue, only stopping at Fiftieth Street to turn and as leisurely retrace his route. Vincent Serle was in the middle of his vigorous life, but this day, an early one in April, his forces seemed arrested; like the curling wave which crests before its ultimate recoil and crumble. He attributed his mood to the weather. It was not precisely spring-fever, but a general slackening of physical fibre. He felt almost immoral: he desired respite from toil; he longed for some place where his eyes would not encounter palette or print; and, a versatile man of uncertain purpose, he longed to write a novel, chiefly about himself.
The clock on the church-tower told him that he was farther down-town than he had planned. He had mechanically spoken to passing acquaintances. He had saluted Mrs. Larce, over whose portrait he was laboring, with a vacant regard and flamboyant hat. Then he emerged from his engulfing spleen and hastily ascended Delmonico’s steps. It was his day of disappointments. All the windows in the café were occupied; nothing remained except a large table in the centre of the room, decidedly an unpleasant spot, with people passing and repassing. He hesitated and would have gone away when he remembered that this hour always saw a mob of hungry folk at any establishment. And Benedict, his favorite waiter, whispered to him that he would assiduously attend to monsieur’s wants. The bored painter sank heavily into his chair.
The meal was not an enlivening one. Like most artists educated in Paris, Vincent never took anything save coffee and rolls before one o’clock. He was not an early riser; he deplored morning work, being lazy and indifferent; but he soon discovered that if he were to keep pace with the desperate pace of New York artistic life he dared not waste the first half of the day. Mrs. Larce, for example, insisted upon a ten-o’clock sitting. At that precise hour he wished himself a writer with liberty to work at midnight; then he might indulge in more tobacco, dreams, and later uprisings. In the meantime he was munching his fish without noting its flavor, a fact that Benedict witnessed with disappointed eyes.
He had achieved coffee and cognac and was about to light a black cigar when a man hurried in, and, after gazing at the coveted window-tables, sat himself opposite Serle with a short nod, though hardly looking at him. The match burned Serle’s fingers and he struck a fresh one. Instinctively he stood up, searching the room for another place. The garçon asked if he desired his account. Vincent shook his head and fumingly demanded a newspaper; behind it he swallowed his brandy and puffed his cigar. The fine print melted into a blurred mass before his eyes and his hands trembled. He could feel the beating of blood at his wrists and temple. He did not peep over the paper rampart because of his discomposed features.
“Damn him!” he thought, “I wonder if he knows me yet?”
The newcomer calmly ate his omelette with the air of a man intent upon some problem. He was not so tall, so dark as Serle, but older, wirier and of a type familiar to Fifth Avenue after four o’clock on fine afternoons:—a lawyer, broker, an insurance officer, but never an artist. He did not glance at his table companion until the other had folded his newspaper, and then without a gleam of recognition.
“He doesn’t know me,” reflected Serle; “so much the better, I’ll not go away. I’ll watch him. It will be interesting.”
He sardonically hoped that the absorbed man would choke as he swallowed his chop. Then he smiled at his vindictive temper, smiled bitterly because of his childishness—after all the fellow was not to blame; he had been a mere accomplice of a stronger, a more unprincipled will. Yet, slowly studying the face, he could not call it a foolish one. Its owner showed by his concentrated pose, the stern expression of his mask, that he was not a weakling.