The Tracer of Lost Persons Part 21

CHAPTER XII

"Nothing," said Gatewood firmly, "can make me believe that Kerns ought not to marry somebody; and I'm never going to let up on him until he does. I'll bet I could fix him for life if I called in the Tracer to help me. Isn't it extraordinary how Kerns has kept out of it all these years?"

The attractive girl beside him turned her face once more so that her clear, sweet eyes were directly in line with his.

"It _is_ extraordinary," she said seriously. "I think you ought to drop in at the club some day when you can corner him and bully him."

"I don't want to go to the club," said the infatuated man.

"Why, dear?"

He looked straight at her and she flushed prettily, while a tint of color touched his own face. Which was very nice of him. So she didn't say what she was going to say--that it would be perhaps better for them both if he practiced on her an artistic absence now and then. Younger in years, she was more mature than he. She knew. But she was too much in love with him to salt their ambrosia with common sense or suggest economy in their use of the nectar bottle.

However, the G.o.ds attend to that, and she knew they would, and she let them. So one balmy evening late in May, when the new moon's ghost floated through the upper haze, and the golden Diana above Manhattan turned flame color, and the electric lights began to glimmer along Fifth Avenue, and the first faint scent of the young summer freshened the foliage in square and park, Kerns, stopping at the club for a moment, found Gatewood seated at the same window they both were wont to haunt in earlier and more flippant days.

"Are you dining here?" inquired Kerns, pushing the electric b.u.t.ton with enthusiasm. "Well, that's the first glimmer of common sense you've betrayed since you've been married!"

"Dining _here_!" repeated Gatewood. "I should hope not! I am just going home--"

"He's thoroughly cowed," commented Kerns; "every married man you meet at the club is just going home." But he continued to push the b.u.t.ton, nevertheless.

Gatewood leaned back in his chair and gazed about him, nose in the air.

"What a life!" he observed virtuously. "It's all I can do to stand it for ten minutes. You're here for the evening, I suppose?" he added pityingly.

"No," said Kerns; "I'm going uptown to Billy Lee's house to get my suit case. His family are out of town, and he is at Seabright, so he let me camp there until the workmen finish papering my rooms upstairs. I'm to lock up the house and send the key to the Burglar Alarm Company to-night. Then I go to Boston on the 12.10. Want to come? There'll be a few doing."

"To Boston! What for?"

"Contracts! We can go out to Cambridge when I've finished my business.

There'll be _etwas_ doing."

"_Can't_ you ever recover from being an undergraduate?" asked Gatewood, disgusted.

"Well--is there anything the matter with a man getting next to a little amus.e.m.e.nt in life?" asked Kerns. "Do you object to my being happy?"

"Amus.e.m.e.nt? You don't know how to amuse yourself. You don't know how to be happy. Here you sit, day after day, swallowing Martinis--" He paused to finish his own, then resumed: "Here you sit, day after day, intellectually stultified, unemotionally ignorant of the higher and better life--"

"No, I don't. I've a book upstairs that tells all about that. I read it when I have holdovers--"

"Kerns, I wish to speak seriously. I've had it on my mind ever since I married. May I speak frankly?"

"Well, when I come back from Boston--"

"Because I know a girl," interrupted Gatewood--"wait a moment, Tommy!"--as Kerns rose and sauntered toward the door--"you've plenty of time to catch your train and be civil, too! I mean to tell you about that girl, if you'll listen."

Kerns halted and turned upon his friend a pair of eyes, unwinking in their placid intelligence.

"I was going to say that I know a girl," continued Gatewood, "who is just the sort of a girl you--"

"No, she isn't!" said Kerns, wheeling to resume his progress toward the cloakroom.

"Tom!"

Kerns halted.

"_You're_ a fine specimen!" commented Gatewood scornfully. "You spent the best years of your life in persuading me to get married, and the first time I try to do the same for you, you make for the tall timber!"

"I know it," admitted Kerns, unashamed; "I'm bashful. I'm a chipmunk for shyness, so I'll say good night--"

"Come back," said Gatewood coldly.

"But my suit case--"

"You left it at the Lee's, didn't you? Well, you've time enough to go there, get it, make your train, and listen to me, too. Look here, Kerns, have you any of the elements of decency about you?"

"No," said Kerns, "not a single element." He seated himself defiantly in the club window facing Gatewood and began to b.u.t.ton his gloves. When he had finished he settled his new straw hat more comfortably on his head, and, leaning forward and balancing his malacca walking stick across his knees, gazed at Gatewood with composure.

"Crank up!" he said pleasantly; "I'm going in less than three minutes."

He pushed the electric k.n.o.b as an afterthought, and when the gilt b.u.t.tons of the club servant glimmered through the dusk, "Two more," he explained briskly. After a few moments' silence, broken by the tinkle of ice in thin gla.s.sware, Gatewood leaned forward, menacing his friend with an impressive forefinger:

"Did you or didn't you once tell me that a decent citizen ought to marry?"

"I did, dear friend."

"Did I or didn't I do it?"

"In the words of the cla.s.sic, you _done_ it," admitted Kerns.

"Was I or wasn't I going to the devil before I had the sense to marry?"

persisted Gatewood.

"You was! You _was_, dear friend!" said Kerns with enthusiasm. "You had almost went there ere I appeared and saved you."

"Then why shouldn't you marry and let me save you?"

"But I'm not going to the bowwows. _I'm_ all right. I'm a decent citizen. I awake in the rosy dawn with a song on my lips; I softly whistle rag time as I b.u.t.ton my collar; I warble a few delicious vagrant notes as I part my spa.r.s.e hair; I'm not murderous before breakfast; I go down town, singing, to my daily toil; I fish for fat contracts in Georgia marble; I return uptown immersed in a holy calm and the evening paper. I offer myself a c.o.c.ktail; I bow and accept; I dress for dinner with the aid of a rascally valet, but--_do_ I swear at him? No, dear friend; I say, 'Henry, I have known far, far worse scoundrels than you.

Thank you for filling up my bay rum with water. Bless you for wearing my imported hosiery! I deeply regret that my new shirts do not fit you, Henry!' And my smile is a benediction upon that wayward scullion. Then, dear friend, why, why do you desire to offer me up upon the altar of unrest? What is a little wifey to me or I to any wifey?"

"Because," said Gatewood irritated, "you offered me up. I'm happy and I want you to be--you great, hulking, self-satisfied symbol of supreme self-centered selfishness--"

"Oh, splash!" said Kerns feebly.

"Yes, you are. What do you do all day? Grub for money and study how to make life agreeable to yourself! Every minute of the day you are occupied in having a good time! You've admitted it! You wake up singing like a fool canary; you wear imported hosiery; you've made a soft, warm wallow for yourself at this club, and here you bask your life away, waddling downtown to nail contracts and cut coupons, and uptown to dinners and theaters, only to return and sprawl here in luxury without one single thought for posterity. _Your_ crime is race suicide!"