The Parts Men Play Part 29

Although separated by more than thirty years, there was a cruel similarity in the pair--in the half-bravado, half-timorous poise of the head; in the droop of sensuous lips; in the dark hair of each, matted over pallid foreheads. It was as if De Foe had summoned some black art to show the future held in the lap of the G.o.ds for the youngest Durwent.

'My boy,' said De Foe drunkenly, but with a moving tenderness, 'life has refused me much, but it has left me the power to read a man's soul in his eyes. The world brands you as a beaten man--and by men's standards it is right. But Laurence De Foe can read beyond those sea-blue eyes of yours; he it is who knows that behind them lies the gallant soul of a gallant gentleman. End your days in a gutter or on the gibbet--what matters it where the actor sleeps when the drama is done?--but to-night you have done great honour to the Prince of Failures by letting him grasp your hand.'

He slowly released the young man's hand, and turned wearily away as Durwent sank into his chair, his eyes staring into filmy s.p.a.ce. Moving clumsily across the room, De Foe reached the bar and ordered a drink.

When it had been poured out for him he turned about, and, leaning back lazily, looked around the room, with his eyes almost hidden by the close contraction of thick, black eyelashes. Such was the unique power of his personality that the disjointed threads of conversation at the various tables wound to a single end as if by a signal.

'_Mes amis_,' said De Foe--and his voice was low and sonorous--'I see before me many, like myself, who have left behind them futures where other men left only pasts. I see before me many, like myself, who had the gift of creating exquisite, soul-stirring works of art and literature. But because we were not content to be mere mouthy clowns, with pen or brush, jabbering about the play of life, we have paid the penalty for thinking we could be both subject and painter, author and actor. Because we chose to live, we have failed. The world goes on applauding its successful charlatans, its puny-visioned authors pouring their thoughts of sawdust in the reeking trough of popularity; while we, who know the taste of every bitter herb in all experience--we are thrust aside as failures. . . . But the gift of prophecy is on me to-night. There is a youth here who has a soul capable of scaling heights where none of us could follow--and a soul that could sink to depths that few of us have known. He is one of us, and he has chosen to fight for England. I can see the glory of his death written in his eyes. Gentlemen--you who are adrift with uncharted destinies--drink to the boy of the sea-blue eyes. May he die worthy of himself and of us.'

Throughout the dimly lit room every one rose to his feet, incoherently echoing the last words of the speaker. . . . Still with the filmy wistfulness about his eyes and a tired, weary smile, d.i.c.k Durwent sat in his chair beating a listless tattoo on the table with his hand.

From across the room came the sound of the old playwright's hacking cough.

CHAPTER XV.

d.i.c.k DURWENT.

I.

Late that night Selwyn lay in his bed and listened to the softened tones of his two guests conversing in the living-room, Johnston Smyth having conceived such an attachment to his newly found friend that it was quite impossible to persuade him to leave. At his own request, blankets had been spread for Durwent on the floor, and after a hot bath he had rolled up for the night close to the fire. Johnston Smyth had also disdained the offer of a bed and ensconced himself on the couch, where he lay on his back and uttered vagrant philosophies on a vast number of subjects.

Wishing his strangely a.s.sorted guests a good night's repose, Selwyn had retired to his own room shortly after midnight, but, tired as he was, sleep refused to come. Like an etcher planning a series of scenes to be depicted, his mind summoned the various incidents of the night in a tedious cycle. The huddled figure at the foot of Cleopatra's steps; the fantastic airiness of Smyth with his shredded umbrella; the smoky atmosphere of Archibald's, with its strange gathering of derelicts; the two chance acquaintances spending the night in the adjoining room--what vivid, disjointed cameos they were! If there was such a thing as Fate, what meaning could there be in their having met? Or was their meeting as purposeless as that of which some poet had once written--two pieces of plank-wood touching in mid-ocean and drifting eternally?

It seemed that the low voices of the others had been going on for more than an hour when the sense of absolute stillness told Selwyn that he must have fallen asleep for an interval. He listened for their voices, but nothing could be heard except the sleet driven against the windows, and a far-away clock striking the hour of two.

Wondering if his visitors were comfortable, he rose from his bed, and creeping softly to the living-room door, opened it enough to look in.

Smyth's heavy breathing, not made any lighter by his having his head completely covered by bed-clothes, indicated that the futurist was in the realm of Morpheus. Durwent was curled up cosily by the fire, the blankets over him rising and subsiding slightly, conforming to his deep, tranquil breaths.

In the light of the fire, and with the warm glow of the skin caused by its heat and the refreshing bath, the pallor of dissipation had left the boy's face. In the musing curve of his full-blooded lips and in the corners of his closed eyes there was just the suggestion of a smile--the smile of a child tired from play. There was such refinement in the delicate nostrils dilating almost imperceptibly with the intake of each breath, and such spiritual smoothness in his brow contrasting with the glowing tincture of his face, that to the man looking down on him he seemed like a youth of some idyl, who could never have known the invasion of one sordid thought.

A feeling of infinite compa.s.sion came over Selwyn. He rebelled against the cruelty of vice that could fasten its claws on anything so fine, when there was so much human decay to feed upon.

The eyelids parted a little, and Selwyn stepped back towards the door.

'Hullo, Selwyn, old boy!' murmured Durwent dreamily. 'Is it time to get up?'

'No,' whispered Selwyn. 'I didn't mean to wake you.'

Durwent smiled deprecatingly and reached sleepily for the other's hand.

'It's awfully decent of you to take me in like this,' he said.

There was a simplicity in his gesture, a child-like sincerity in his voice, that made Selwyn accept the hand-clasp, unable to utter the words which came to his lips.

'Selwyn,' said d.i.c.k, keeping his face turned towards the fire, 'are you likely to see Elise soon?'

'I hardly think so,' said the American, kneeling down and stirring the coals with the poker.

'If you do, please don't tell her I've come back. She thinks I'm in the Orient somewhere, and if she knew I was joining up she would worry.

I suppose I shall always be "Boy-blue" to her, and never anything older.'

Selwyn replaced the poker and sat down on a cushion that was on the floor.

'It may be a rotten thing to say,' resumed the younger man, speaking slowly, 'but she was more of a mother to me than my mother was. As far back as I can remember she was the one person who believed in me. The rest never did. When I was a kid at prep. school and brought home bad reports, every one seemed to think me an outsider--that I wasn't conforming--and I began to believe it. Only Elise never changed. She was the one of the whole family who didn't want me to be somebody or something else. You can hardly believe what that meant to me in those days. It was a little world I lived in, but to my youngster's eyes it looked as if everything and every person were on one side, doubting me, and Elise was on the other, believing in me. . . . I'm not whining, Selwyn, or saying that any one's to blame for my life except myself, but I do believe that if Elise and I had been kept together I might not have turned out such a rotter. Sometimes, too, I wonder if it wouldn't have been better for her. She never made many friends--and looking back, I think the poor little girl has had a lonely time of it.'

He relapsed into silence and shifted his head wearily on the pillow.

Johnston Smyth murmured something m.u.f.fled and unintelligible in his sleep. Selwyn placed some new lumps of coal on the fire, the flames licking them eagerly as the sharp crackle of escaping gases punctured the sleep-laden air.

'It does sound rather like whining to say it,' said Durwent without opening his eyes, 'but after I was rusticated at Cambridge I tried to travel straight. If I had gone then to the Colonies I might have made a man of myself, but I hung around too long, and got mixed up with one of the rottenest sets in London. I went awfully low, Selwyn, but booze had me by the neck, and my conscience wasn't working very hard either.

And then another woman helped me. She was one of those who aren't admitted among decent people. She came of poor family, and had made a fairly good name for herself on the stage, and was absolutely straight until she met that blackguard Moorewell about three years ago.'

'The man you nearly killed?'

'Yes. At any rate, she and I fell in love with each other. I know it's all d.a.m.ned sordid, but we were both outcasts, and, as that chap said to-night, it's the people who have failed who lie closest to life.

Once more a woman believed in me, and I believed in a woman. We planned to get married. We were going away under another name, to make a new world for ourselves. For weeks I never touched a drop, and it seemed at last that I could see--just a little light ahead. You don't know what that means, Selwyn, when a man is absolutely down.'

The smile had died out in the speaker's face and given way to a cold, gray mist of pain.

'Moorewell heard about it,' went on Durwent, 'and though the blackguard had discarded her, he grew jealous, and began his devilry again. She did not tell me, but I know for a long time she was as true to me as I was to her. Then they went to Paris--I believe he promised to marry her there. A week later I got a letter from her, begging forgiveness.

He had left her, she said, and she was going away where I should never find her again. My first impulse was to follow her--and then I started to drink. G.o.d! what nights those were! I waited my time. I watched Moorewell until one night I knew he was alone. I forced an entrance, and caught him in his library. . . . As I said before, I was drunk; and that's what saved his life. I thought at the time he was dead; and having no money, I caught a late train, and hid all night and next day in the woods at Roselawn. Three times I saw Elise, but she was never alone; but that night I called her with a cry of the night-jar which she had taught me. She came out, and I told her as much as I could; and with her necklace I raised some money and got away.'

Again the murmured words came to a close. Selwyn searched his mind for some comment to make, but none would come. He could not offer sympathy or condolence--Durwent wasn't seeking that. It was impossible to condemn, or to suggest a new start in life, because the young fellow was not trying to justify his actions. Yet it seemed such a tragedy to look helplessly on without one effort to change the floating course of the driftwood.

'Durwent,' he said haltingly, 'it's not too late for you to start over again. If you will go to America, I have friends there who would give you every opening and'----

'You're an awfully decent chap,' said Durwent, once more touching Selwyn's hand with his; 'but I shall not come back from the war. I felt _that_ the moment I stepped on sh.o.r.e yesterday. I felt it again when that fellow spoke to me in the tavern. It may come soon, or it may be a long time, but this is the end.'

'No, no,' said Selwyn earnestly; 'all that's the effect of your chill.

It has left you depressed.'

'You don't understand,' said the lad, smiling with closed eyes, 'or you wouldn't say that. I said before that it means a lot, when a man's down, to be able to see a little light ahead. . . . I can see that now again. . . . It doesn't matter what I've been or done--I can go out there now, and die like a gentleman. War gives us poor devils that chance. . . . You know what I mean. My life has been no d.a.m.ned use to any one, Selwyn, but they won't care about that in France. To die in the trenches--that's my last chance to do something . . . to do something that counts.'

Selwyn leaned over and patted the lad on his shoulder. 'd.i.c.k,' he said, 'wait until the morning, and all these fancies will clear from your mind. We'll discuss everything then together.'

The musing smile lingered again about the boy's lips.

'You're tired out, old man,' went on the American. 'I shouldn't have waked you. Good-night.'

The other stopped him from rising by catching his arm with his hand.

'Do you mind,' said d.i.c.k, his eyes opening wide, 'just staying here until I go to sleep? . . . There are all sorts of wild things going through my head to-night . . . waves pounding, pounding, pounding. It never stops, Selwyn. . . . And I seem to hear shouts a long way off--like smugglers landing their stuff in the dark. I'm an awful idiot to talk like this, old boy, but I've lost my courage a bit.'

And so for nearly half-an-hour the American remained watching by the lad as sleep hovered about and gradually settled on him.

As Selwyn quietly stole from the room the City's clocks were striking three.