And then he relapsed into a gloomy silence, from which nothing could arouse him. So he sat for hours, gazing out of window, until he fell asleep in his chair.
This scene was but a sample of many similar scenes. Sometimes he would rouse himself, dress, and go down into the city, full of all kinds of schemes to rehabilitate his fortunes. From these excursions he would return late at night, weary, but full of impossible hopes. He would try the Stock Exchange. That was where fortunes were made. Hard work didn't pay; it was the gambler who got both the luck and the money. He had had a tip from some one who knew; such and such a stock was bound to rise. And then, with pen and paper, he would work out his illusory profits, his hands trembling, his face glowing, and reach the most surprising and incredible conclusions.
"If I only had the money!" he would cry. "I would buy upon a margin. Bruce and Whitson would be proud to do business for me, for old times' sake. Masterman isn't forgotten in the city, I can tell you. Not by a long chalk. All I want is a chance, just a little money to begin with."
"I have a hundred pounds, father," Arthur replied to one of these appeals. "You can have that."
"A hundred pounds! Yes, that would be enough." And then, with a sudden flare of the old pride, he exclaimed, "No, no. That wouldn't do at all. I'm not sunk so low as to be a pensioner upon my children. I'll get what I want out of the world yet, and I'll get it by myself. I'm not very well yet, but wait till I get my nerve back, and I'll show you. Don't you be afraid about me. I'm playing a waiting game, and I'm going to win—you mind that!"
So a month passed, marked by tragic incalculable alternations of temper in his father. No one came near the house. Bundy had called twice, but Masterman had refused to see him. The church people appeared to have forgotten his existence. When the Sundays came, Masterman drew down the blinds, and sat alone in his office. If Arthur left the house it was but for the briefest absence. He would go round to Lonsdale Road, exchange a few words with Vickars, taste a raptured moment with Elizabeth, and return in haste and often in fear. For he could not calculate his father's moods, he did not know what he might be tempted to do, and he dared not leave him solitary.
And yet, all the time, Masterman's mind was slowly recovering its poise. His anger still burned, but it was now with smouldering rather than with active flame. His boastfulness declined. There were moments, not only of humility, but of extreme gentleness, like the gentleness of a sick child. They were but moments, often followed by gusts of bitter speech. In the bitter moments Arthur was to him the prodigal son who had deserted him; in the tender moments the only human creature on whose love he might repose. It was Arthur's lot to listen in silence to a hundred hurting comments on his conduct, uttered with sardonic scorn, and all the talent for invective which a disordered brain and wounded heart could contrive. And then, just when he was goaded almost beyond endurance, the mood would change, the black squall of rage would pass, and an inimitable softness, like the softness of a rain-washed sky, succeed it.
"I begin to think I'm a fool," he said once, after one of these explosions. "Well, you must forgive me. I'm a new kind of Job, and, like Job, I speak foolishly. I never could make out why they called Job patient. The thing I admire in Job is that he wasn't patient. He let himself rip. He cursed himself tired. Well, that's like me. I've got to do it, or burst."
"But Job trusted God through it all, father. Can't you?"
"Did he? Well, if he did at first, he didn't in the middle, any way. And I'm in the middle of the mess. And, besides, I don't see what God's got to do with it. As I understand it, a man's got to go through with things to the end, and the only satisfaction he'll get out of it is that he hasn't squealed."