The Colossus Part 41

DeGolyer sat in his room, smoking his pipe. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, and said: "Oh, what a liar you are! But your day for truth is coming."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

THE TIME WAS DRAWING NEAR.

One morning, when DeGolyer called at the hospital, young Witherspoon said to him: "You are Hank, and I'm Henry." And this was the first indication that his mind was regaining its health.

Every day George Witherspoon would ask: "Well, how's your peculiar friend getting along?" And one evening, when he made this inquiry, DeGolyer answered: "He is so much pleased that he doesn't think it will take him quite three months to decide."

"Good enough, but why doesn't he decide now?"

"Because it would hardly be in keeping with his peculiar methods. I haven't questioned him, but occasionally he drops a hint that leads me to believe that he's satisfied."

DeGolyer was once tempted to tell Richmond and McGlenn that he was feeling his way through a part that had been put upon him, but with this impulse came a restraining thought--the play was not yet done.

They were at luncheon, and McGlenn had declared that DeGolyer was sometimes strangely inconsistent.

"I admit that I am, John, and with an explanation I could make you stare at me."

"Then let us have the explanation. Man was made to stare as well as to mourn."

"No, not now; but it will come one of these days, though perhaps not directly from me."

"Ah, you have killed a mysterious lion and made a riddle; but where is the honey you found in the carca.s.s? Give us the explanation."

"Not now. But one of these bleak Chicago days you and Richmond will sit in the club, watch the whirling snow and discuss me, and you both will say that you always thought there was something strange about me."

"And we do," McGlenn replied. "Here's a millionaire's son, and he has chosen toil instead of ease. Isn't that an anomaly, and isn't such an anomaly a strange thing? But will the outcome of that vague something cause us to hold you at a cooler length from us--will that 'I told you so' result in your banishment? Shall we send a Roger Williams over the hills?"

"John, what are you trying to get at?" Richmond asked.

McGlenn looked serenely at him. "Have you devoured your usual quota of pickles? If so, writhe in your misery until I have dined."

"I writhe, not with what I have eaten, but at what I see. Is there a more distressing sight than an epicure--or a gourmand, rather--with a ragged purse?"

"Oh, yes; a stuffer, a glutton without a purse."

Richmond laughed. "Hunger may force a man to apparent gluttony," he said, "and a sandbagger may have taken his purse; and all on his part is honesty. But there is pretense--which I hold is not honest--in an effort to be an epicure."

"Ah, which you hold is not honest. A most rare but truthful avowal, since nothing you hold is honest."

"In my willingness to help the weak," Richmond replied, "I have held your overcoat while you put it on."

"And it was not an honest covering until you took your hands off."

"Neither did it cover honesty until some other man put it on by mistake," Richmond rejoined.

DeGolyer went to his office, and Richmond and McGlenn, wrangling as they walked along, betook themselves to the Press Club. "I tell you,"

said McGlenn, as they were going up the stairs, "that he needs our sympathy. He has suffered, but having suffered, he is great."

Thus the weeks were sprinkled with light incidents, and thus the days dripped into the past--and a designated future was drawing near.

"Well," Witherspoon remarked one Sunday morning, "the time set by your insane friend will soon be up."

"Yes, within a week," DeGolyer replied.

"I should think that he is more in need of apartments in an asylum than of a newspaper; but if he thinks he knows his business, all right; we have nothing to say. What has he agreed to give for the paper?"

"No price has been fixed, but there'll be no trouble about that."

"I hope not."

"Did you understand mother and Ellen to say they were going out shopping to-morrow afternoon?" DeGolyer asked.

"Yes, but what of it?"

"There's this of it: If they decide to go, I want you to meet me here at three o'clock."

"Why can't you meet me at the store?"

"Don't I tell you that my friend is peculiar?"

"Oh, it's to meet him, eh? All right, I'll be here."

His play was nearing the end. To-morrow he must s.n.a.t.c.h "the make-up"

off his face. He felt a sadness that was more than half a joy. He should be free; he should be honest, and being honest, he could summon that most sterling of all strength, a manly self-respect. He had thought himself strong, but had found himself weak. The love of money, which at first had seemed so gross, at last had conquered him. This thought did not sting him now; it softened him, made him look with a more forgiving eye upon tempted human nature. But was it money that had tempted him to turn from a purpose so resolutely formed? Had not Witherspoon's argument and Ellen's persuasion left him determined to reserve one refuge for his mind--one closet wherein he could hang the cast-off garment of real self? Then it was the appeal of that gentle woman whom he called mother; it was not money. But after yielding to the mother he had found himself without a prop, and at last he had felt a contempt for a moderate income and had boasted to himself that he could buy a man. And for this he reproached himself. How grim was that something known as fate, how mockingly did it play with the children of men, and in that mockery how cold a justice! But he should be free, and that thought thrilled him.

In the afternoon he went over to the North Side, and along a modest street he walked, looking at the houses as if hunting for a number. He went up a short flight of wooden steps and rang the bell of the second flat. The hall door was open, and a moment later he saw Miss Drury at the head of the stairs.

"Why, is that you, Mr. Witherspoon?"

"Yes; may I come up?"

"What a question! Of course you may, especially as I am as lonesome as I can be."

He was shown into a neat sitting-room, where a canary bird "fluttered"

his hanging cage up and down. A rose was pinned on one of the white curtains. The room was warmed by a stove, and through the isingla.s.s the playful flame could be seen. She brought a "tidied" rocking-chair, and smiling in her welcome, said that as this was his first visit, she must make him comfortable. "Don't you see," she added, "that you constantly make me forget that I am working for you?"

"And don't you know," he answered, "that you are most pleasing when you do forget it? But I am to infer that you wouldn't give me the rocking-chair if you didn't forget that you were working for me?"

"You must infer nothing," she said. "But am I most pleasing when I forget? Then I will not remember again. It is a woman's duty to be pleasing; and her advantage, too, for when she ceases to please she loses many of her privileges."

DeGolyer went to the window, took the rose, brought it to her and said: "Put this in your hair."

She looked up as she took the rose; their eyes met and for a moment they lived in the promise of a delirious bliss. She looked down as she was putting the flower in her hair. He spoke an idle word that meant more than old Wisdom's speech, and she answered with a laugh that was nearly a sob. He thirsted to take her in his arms, to tell her of his love, but his time was not yet come--he was still Henry Witherspoon.