the southern part of the state, and six hundred to a few charities here
in the city. The remainder, seven thousand five hundred and twenty, and
all the rest of the estate is left to you with the wish that you pursue
your art studies abroad. Brunt, of Adams & Brunt, and myself are
appointed executors. So now, that is just how you stand as far as I can
see: seventy-five hundred dollars in ready money and, if we suppose you
rent the California Street house, income property that nets you two
hundred and thirty-four a month. The will will have to be probated some
time next month and you will have to appear; however, I shall let you
know about that in time."

During the next two weeks Vandover was plunged into the affairs of
business for the first time in his life. It interested and amused him,
and he felt a certain self-importance in handling large sums of money,
and in figuring interest, rents, and percentages. Three days after his
interview with Mr. Field the sale of his father's office effects took
place, and the consequent five hundred dollars Vandover turned over into
the hands of the lawyer, who was already looking for an investment for
the eighty-nine hundred. This matter had given Vandover considerable
anxiety.

"I don't want anything fancy," he said to Field. "No big per cents. and
bigger risks. If I've got to live economically I want something that's
secure. A good solid investment, don't you know, with a fair interest;
that's what I'm looking for."

"Yes," answered the lawyer grimly; "I've been looking for that myself
ever since I was your age."

They both laughed, and the lawyer added: "Has Brunt found a tenant for
the California Street house yet? No? Well, perhaps you had better keep
that five hundred for your running expenses until he does. It will
probably take some time."

"All right," answered Vandover. "There were a couple of women up to look
at the place yesterday, but they wanted to use it for a boarding-house.
I won't hear to that. Brunt says they would ruin it, dead sure."

"I suppose you are looking around, yourself, for rooms?" inquired Mr.
Field. "Have you found anything to suit you?"

"No," answered Vandover, "I have not. I don't like the idea of living
in one of the downtown hotels, and as far as I have looked, the uptown
flats are rather steep. However, I haven't gone around very much as yet.
I've been so busy. Oh, how about the paving of the street in front of
those Bush Street houses of mine? Brunt says that the supervisors have
passed a resolution of intention to that effect. Now shall I let the
city contractor have the job or give it to Brunt's man?"

"Better let the city people do it," advised Field. "They may charge
more, but you needn't pay _them_ for a long time."

By the end of three weeks Vandover had sickened of the whole thing. The
novelty was gone, and business affairs no longer amused him. Besides
this, he was anxious to settle down in some comfortable rooms. It was
now the middle of winter and he had determined that it was not the
season for a European trip. He would wait until the summer before going
to Paris.

Little by little Vandover turned over the supervision and management of
his affairs and his property to Adams & Brunt, declaring that he could
not afford to be bothered with them any longer. This course was much
more expensive and by no means so satisfactory from a business point of
view, but Vandover felt as though the loss in money was more than offset
by his freedom from annoyance and responsibility.

He was eager to get settled. The idea of taking rooms that should be all
his own and that he could fit up to suit his taste attracted him
immensely. Already he saw himself installed in charming bachelor's
apartments, the walls covered with rough stone-blue paper forming an
admirable background for small plaster casts of Assyrian _bas-reliefs_
and photogravures of Velasquez portraits. There would be a pipe-rack
over the mantelpiece, and a window-seat with a corduroy cushion such as
he had had in his room in Matthew's.

Very slowly his father's affairs were settled, and by degrees the estate
began to adjust itself to the new grooves in which it was to run. By the
middle of December everything was beginning to go smoothly, and the day
before Christmas Mr. Field announced to Vandover that he had invested
his eighty-nine hundred in registered U.S. 4 per cents. They had had
several long talks concerning this sum of money, and in the end had
concluded that it would be better to invest it in some such fashion
rather than to take up any of the mortgages that were on the houses.

During the first weeks of the new year the house on California Street
was rented for one hundred and twenty-five dollars to an English
gentleman, the president of a fruit syndicate in the southern part of
the state. There were but three in the family, and though the rent was
below that which Vandover had desired, Brunt advised him to close the
transaction at once, as they were desirable tenants and would probably
stay in the house a long time.

On the last evening which he was to spend in his home, Vandover cast up
his accounts and made out a schedule as to his monthly income.

    Rent from realty, net average                                  $ 84.00
    Rent from homestead property on California Street               125.00
    Interest on U.S. bonds, 4 per cent.                              23.00
                                                                   _______
        Total                                                      $232.00
    In small iron safe                                             $170.00
    Received from sale of office effects                           $500.00
                                                                   _______
                                                                   $670.00
    Expenses, outstanding bills, lawyer's fees, undertaker's
      bill, expenses for collecting, etc                            587.00
                                                                   _______
    Balance, January 16th                                           $83.00

Then with a shrug of the shoulders he dismissed the whole burdensome
business from his mind. Brunt would manage his property, sending him
regularly the monthly statement in order to keep him informed. The
English gentleman of the fruit syndicate would add his hundred and
twenty-five, and the 4 per cents., faithfully brooding over his
eighty-nine hundred in the dark of the safety deposit drawer, would
bring forth their little quota of twenty-three with absolute certainty.
Two thirty-two a month. Yes, he was comfortably fixed and was free now
to do exactly as he pleased.

His first object now was to settle down for the winter in some pleasant
rooms. He had decided that he would look for a suite of three--a
bedroom, studio, and sitting-room. The bedroom he was not particular
about, the studio he hoped would have plenty of light from the north,
but the sitting-room _must_ be sunny and overlook the street, else what
would be the use of a window-seat? As to the neighbourhood, he thought
he would prefer Sutter Street anywhere between Leavenworth and Powell.

In the downtown part this street was entirely given over to business
houses; in the far, uptown quarter it was lined with residences; but
between these two undesirable extremes was an intermediate district
where the residences had given place to flats, and the business blocks
to occasional stores. It was a neighbourhood affected by doctors,
dentists, and reputable music-teachers; drug stores occupied many of the
corners, here and there a fine residence still withstood the advance of
business, there were a number of great apartment houses, and even one or
two club buildings.

It was a gay locality, not too noisy, not too quiet. The street was one
of the great arteries of travel between the business and the residence
portions of the city, and its cable-cars were frequented by ladies going
to their shopping or downtown marketing or to and from the matinées.
Acquaintances of Vandover were almost sure to pass at every hour.

He took rooms temporarily at the Palace and at once set about locating
on Sutter Street. He had recourse again to Brunt, who furnished him with
a long list of vacancies in that neighbourhood. Apartment-hunting was an
agreeable pastime to Vandover, though in the end it began to bore him.
Altogether, he visited some fifteen or twenty suites, in each case
trying to fit himself into the rooms, imagining how the window-seat
would look in such a window, how the pipe-rack would show over such a
mantel, just where on such walls the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ could be
placed to the best advantage, and if his easel could receive enough
steady light from such windows. Then he considered the conveniences, the
baths, the electric light, and the heat.

After a two weeks' search, he had decided upon one of two suites; both
of these were in the desired neighbourhood but differed widely in other
respects.

The first was reasonable enough in the matter of rent, and had even been
occupied by an artist for some three or four years previous. However,
the room that Vandover proposed to use as a sitting-room was small and
had no double windows, thus making the window-seat an impossibility.
There did not seem to be any suitable place for the Assyrian
_bas-reliefs_, and the mantelpiece was of old-fashioned white marble
like the mantelpiece in Mrs. Wade's front parlour, a veritable horror.
It revolted Vandover even to think of putting a pipe-rack over it. These
defects were offset by the studio, a large and splendid room with
hardwood floors and an enormous north light, the legendary studio, the
dream of an artist, precisely such a studio as Vandover had hoped he
would occupy in the Quarter.

The other suite was in a great apartment house, a hotel in fact, but
very expensive, with electric bulbs and bells, and with a tiled bathroom
connecting with the bedroom. The room which he would be obliged to use
as his studio was small, dark, the light coming from the west. But the
sitting-room was perfect. It had the sun all day long through a huge bay
window that seemed to have been made for a window-seat; there were
admirable, well-lighted spaces on the walls for casts and pictures, and
the mantelpiece was charming, extremely high, and made of oak; in a
word, the exact sitting-room that Vandover had in mind. Already he saw
himself settled there as comfortably and snugly as a kernel in a
nutshell. It was true that upon investigation he found that the grate
had been plastered up and the flue arranged for a stove. But for that
matter there were open-grate stoves to be had that would permit the fire
to be seen and that would look just as cheerful as a grate. He had even
seen such a stove in the window of a hardware store downtown, a tiled
stove with a brass fender and with curious flamboyant ornaments of
cast-iron--a jewel of a stove.

For two days Vandover hesitated between these two suites, undecided
whether he should sacrifice his studio for his sitting-room, or his
sitting-room for his studio. At length he came to the conclusion that as
he was now to be an artist a good studio ought to be the first
consideration, and that since he was to settle down to hard, serious
work at last he owed it to himself to have a fitting place in which to
paint; yes, decidedly he would take the suite with the studio. He went
to the agent, told him of his decision, and put up a deposit to secure
the rooms.

The same day upon which he took this decided step he had occasion to
pass by both places in question. As he approached the apartment house
in which the rejected suite was situated it occurred to him to tell the
clerk in the office that he had decided against the rooms; he could take
a last look at them at the same time.

He was shown up to the rooms again, and walked about in the
sitting-room, asking the same questions about the heat, the plumbing,
and the baths. He even went to the window and looked out into the
street. It _was_ a first-rate berth just the same, and how jolly it
would be to lounge in the window-seat of a morning, with a paper, a
cigarette, and a cup of coffee, watching the people on their way
downtown; the women going to their shopping and morning's marketing.
Then all at once he remembered that at most he would only have these
rooms for five months, and reflected that if his whole life was to be
devoted to painting he might easily put up with an inconvenient studio
for a few months. Once at Paris all would be different.

At that the rooms took on a more charming aspect than ever; never had
they appeared cheerier, sunnier, more comfortable; never had the oak
mantel and the tiled stove with the flamboyant ornaments been more
desirable; never had a window-seat seemed more luxurious, never a
pipe-rack more delectable, while at the same time, the other rooms, the
rooms of the big studio, presented themselves to his imagination more
sombre, uncomfortable, and forbidding than ever. It was out of the
question to think of living there; he was angry with himself for having
hesitated so long. But suddenly he remembered the deposit he had already
made; it was ten dollars; for a moment he paused, then dismissed the
matter with an impatient shrug of the shoulders. "So much the worse," he
said. "What's ten dollars?" He made up his mind then and there and went
downstairs, walking on his heels, to tell the clerk that after all he
would engage the rooms from that date.

Chapter Twelve

Vandover took formal possession of his rooms on Sutter Street during the
first few days of February. For a week previous they had been in the
greatest confusion: the studio filled with a great number of trunks,
crates, packing cases, and furniture still in its sacking. In the
bedroom was stored the furniture that had been moved out of the
sitting-room, while the sitting-room itself was given over to the
paperhangers and carpenters. Vandover himself appeared from time to
time, inquiring anxiously as to the arrival of his "stuff," or sitting
on a packing-case, his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back, and a
cigarette between his lips.

He had passed a delightful week selecting the wall paper and the pattern
for the frieze, buying rugs, screens, Assyrian _bas-reliefs_,
photogravures of Renaissance portraits, and the famous tiled stove with
its flamboyant ornaments. Just after renting his home he had had a talk
with the English gentleman of the fruit syndicate and had spoken about
certain ornaments and bits of furniture, valuable chiefly to himself,
which he wished to keep. The president of the fruit syndicate had been
very gracious in the matter, and as soon as Vandover had taken his rooms
he had removed two great cases of such articles from the California
Street house and had stored them in the studio.

After the workmen were gone away Vandover began the labour of
arrangement, aided by one of the paperhangers he had retained for that
purpose. It was a work of three days, but at last everything was in its
place, and one evening toward the middle of the month Vandover stood in
the middle of the sitting-room in his shirt-sleeves, holding the
tweezers and a length of picture-wire in his hand, and looked around him
in his new home.

The walls were hung with dull blue paper of a very rough texture set off
by a narrow picture moulding of ivory white. A dark red carpet covered
with rugs and skins lay on the floor. Upon the left-hand wall, reaching
to the floor, hung a huge rug of sombre colours against which were fixed
a fencing trophy, a pair of antlers, a little water colour sketch of a
Norwegian fjord, and Vandover's banjo; underneath it was a low but very
broad divan covered with corduroy. To the right and left of this divan
stood breast-high bookcases with olive green curtains, their tops
serving as shelves for a multitude of small ornaments, casts of animals
by Fremiet and Barye, Donatello's lovely _femme inconnue_, beer steins,
a little bronze clock, a calendar, and a yellow satin slipper of
Flossie's in which Vandover kept Turkish cigarettes. The writing-desk
with the huge blue blotter in a silver frame, the paper-cutter, and the
enormous brass inkstand filled the corner to the right of the divan,
while drawn up to it was the huge leather chair, the chair in which the
Old Gentleman had died. In the drawer of the desk Vandover kept his
father's revolver; he never thought of loading it; of late he had only
used it to drive tacks with, when he could not find the hammer. Opposite
the divan, on the other side of the room, was the famous tiled stove
with the flamboyant ornaments; back of this the mantel, and over the
mantel a row of twelve grotesque heads in plaster, with a space between
each for a pipe. To the left in the angle of the room stood the Japanese
screen in black and gold, and close to this a tea-table of bamboo and a
piano-lamp with a great shade of crinkly red paper that Turner Ravis had
given to Vandover one Christmas. The bay window was filled by the
window-seat, covered with corduroy like the divan and heaped with
cushions, one of them of flaming yellow, the one spot of vivid colour
amidst the dull browns and sombre blues of the room. A great sideboard
with decanters and glasses and chafing-dishes faced the window from the
end wall. The entrance to the studio opened to the left of it, which
entrance Vandover had hung with curtains of dust-brown plush.

The casts of the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ were against the wall upon
either side of the window. There were three of them, two representing
scenes from the life of the king, the third the wounded lioness which
Vandover never wearied of admiring.

Upon the wall over the mantel hung two very large photogravures, one of
Rembrandt's "Night Watch," the other a portrait of Velasquez
representing a young man with a hunting spear. Above one of the
bookcases was an admirable reproduction of the "Mona Lisa"; above the
other, a carbon print of a Vandyke, a Dutch lady in a silk gown and very
high ruff.

By the side of the "Mona Lisa," however, was a cheap brass rack stuffed
with photographs: actresses in tights, French quadrille dancers, high
kickers, and chorus girls.

In the studio, Vandover had tacked great squares and stripes of
turkey-red cloth against the walls to serve as a background for his
sketches. Some dozen or more portfolios and stretchers were leaned
against the baseboard, and a few ornaments and pieces of furniture, such
things as Vandover set but little store by, were carelessly arranged
about the room. The throne and huge easel were disposed so as to receive
as much light as was possible.

Beyond the studio was the bedroom, but here there was only the
regulation furniture. Some scores of photographs of Vandover's friends
were tacked upon the walls, or thrust between the wood and glass of the
mirror.

A new life now began for Vandover, a life of luxury and aimlessness
which he found charming. He had no duties, no cares, no
responsibilities. But there could be no doubt that he was in a manner
changed; the old life of dissipation seemed to have lost its charm. For
nearly twenty-six years nothing extraordinary had happened to break in
upon the uneventful and ordinary course of his existence, and then,
suddenly, three great catastrophes had befallen, like the springing of
three successive mines beneath his feet: Ida's suicide, the wreck, and
his father's death, all within a month. The whole fabric of his
character had been shaken, jostled out of its old shape. His desire of
vice was numbed, his evil habits all deranged; here, if ever, was the
chance to begin anew, to commence all over again. It seemed an easy
matter: he would merely have to remain inactive, impassive, and his
character would of itself re-form upon the new conditions.

But Vandover made another fatal mistake: the brute in him had only been
stunned; the snake was only soothed. His better self was as sluggish as
the brute, and his desire of art as numb as his desire of vice. It was
not a continued state of inaction and idleness that could help him, but
rather an active and energetic arousing and spurring up of those better
qualities in him still dormant and inert. The fabric of his nature was
shaken and broken up, it was true, but if he left it to itself there was
danger that it would re-form upon the old lines.

And this was precisely what Vandover did. As rapidly as ever his pliable
character adapted itself to the new environment; he had nothing to do;
there was lacking both the desire and necessity to keep him at his
easel; he neglected his painting utterly. He never thought of attending
the life-class at the art school; long since he had given up his
downtown studio. He was content to be idle, listless, apathetic, letting
the days bring whatever they chose, making no effort toward any fixed
routine, allowing his habits to be formed by the exigencies of the hour.

He rose late and took his breakfast in his room; after breakfast he sat
in his window-seat, reading his paper, smoking his pipe, drinking his
coffee, and watching the women on their way downtown to their morning's
shopping or marketing. Then, as the fancy moved him, he read a novel,
wrote a few letters, or passed an hour in the studio dabbling with some
sketches for the "Last Enemy." Very often he put in the whole morning
doing pen and inks of pretty, smartly dressed girls, after Gibson's
manner, which he gave away afterward to his friends. In the afternoon he
read or picked the banjo or, sitting down to the little piano he had
rented, played over his three pieces, the two polkas and the air of the
topical song. At three o'clock, especially of Wednesday and Saturday
afternoons, he bestirred himself, dressed very carefully, and went
downtown to promenade Kearney and Market streets, stopping occasionally
at the Imperial, where he sometimes found Ellis and Geary and where he
took cocktails in their company.

He rarely went out in the evenings; his father's death had changed all
that, at least for a while. He had not seen Turner Ravis nor Henrietta
Vance for nearly two months.

Vandover took his greatest pleasure while in his new quarters, delighted
to be pottering about his sitting-room by the hour, setting it to
rights, rearranging the smaller ornaments, adjusting the calendar,
winding the clock and, above all, tending the famous tiled stove.

In his idleness he grew to have small and petty ways. The entire day
went in doing little things. He passed one whole afternoon delightfully,
whittling out a new banjo bridge from the cover of a cigar-box, scraping
it smooth afterward with a bit of glass. The winding of his clock was
quite an occurrence in the course of the day, something to be looked
forward to. The mixing of his tobacco was a positive event and
undertaken with all gravity, while the task of keeping it moist and ripe
in the blue china jar, with the sponge attachment, that always stood on
the bamboo tea-table by the Japanese screen, was a wearing anxiety that
was yet a pleasure.

It became a fad with him to do without matches, using as a substitute
"lights," tapers of twisted paper to be ignited at the famous stove. He
found amusement for two days in twisting and rolling these "lights,"
cutting frills in the larger ends with a pair of scissors, and stacking
them afterward in a Chinese flower jar he had bought for the purpose and
stood on top of the bookcases. The lights were admirably made and looked
very pretty. When he had done he counted them. He had made two hundred
exactly. What a coincidence!

But the stove, the famous tiled stove with flamboyant ornaments, was the
chiefest joy of Vandover's new life. He was delighted with it; it was so
artistic, so curious, it kept the fire so well, it looked so cheerful
and inviting; a stove that was the life and soul of the whole room, a
stove to draw up to and talk to; no, never was there such a stove! There
was hardly a minute of the day he was not fussing with it, raking it
down, turning the damper off and on, opening and shutting the door,
filling it with coal, putting the blower on and then taking it off
again, sweeping away the ashes with a little brass-handled broom, or
studying the pictures upon the tiles: the "Punishment of Caliban and His
Associates," "Romeo and Juliet," the "Fall of Phaeton." He even
pretended to the chambermaid that he alone understood how to manage the
stove, forbidding her to touch it, assuring her that it had to be coaxed
and humoured. Often late in the evening as he was going to bed he would
find the fire in it drowsing; then he would hustle it sharply to arouse
it, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying: "Wake up there,
you!" And then when the fire was snapping he would sit before it in his
bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously and scratching himself, as was
his custom, for over an hour.

But very often in the evening he would have the boys, Ellis, Geary, and
young Haight, up to a little improvised supper. They would bring home
_tamales_ with them, and Vandover would try to make Welsh rabbits, which
did not always come out well and which they oftentimes drank instead of
ate. Ellis, always very silent, would mix and drink cocktails
continually. Vandover would pick his banjo, and together with young
Haight would listen to Geary.

"Ah, you bet," this one would say, "I'm going to make my pile in this
town. I can do it. Beale sent me to court the other morning to get the
judge's signature. He had a grouch on, and wanted to put me off. You
ought to have heard me jolly him. I talked right up to him! Yes, sir;
you bet! Didn't I have the gall? That's the way you want to do to get
along--get right in and not be afraid. I got his signature, you bet. Ah,
I'm right in it with Beale; he thinks I'm hot stuff."

Now that there was nothing to worry him, and little to occupy his mind,
Vandover gave himself over considerably to those animal pleasures which
he enjoyed so much. He lay abed late in the morning, dozing between the
warm sheets; he overfed himself at table, and drank too much wine; he
ate between meals, having filled his sideboard with canned patés, potted
birds, and devilled meats; while upon the bamboo table stood a tin box
of chocolates out of which he ate whole handfuls at a time. He would
take this box into the bathroom with him and eat while he lay in the hot
water until he was overcome by the enervating warmth and by the steam
and would then drop off to sleep.

It was during these days that Vandover took up his banjo-playing
seriously, if it could be said that he did anything seriously at this
time. He took occasional lessons of a Mexican in a room above a
wigmaker's store on Market Street, and learned to play by note. For a
little time he really applied himself; after he had mastered the
customary style of play he began to affect the more brilliant and fancy
performances, playing two banjos at once, or putting nickels under the
bridge and picking the strings with a calling-card to imitate a
mandolin. He even made up some comical pieces that had a great success
among the boys. One of these he called the "Pleasing Pan-Hellenic
Production"; another was the imitation of the "Midway Plaisance Music,"
and a third had for title "A Sailor Robbing a Ship," in which he managed
to imitate the sounds of the lapping of the water, the creaking of the
oarlocks, the tramp of the sailor's feet upon the deck, the pistol shot
that destroyed him, and--by running up the frets on the bass-string--his
dying groans, a finale that never failed to produce a tremendous effect.

Chapter Thirteen

Just before Lent, and about three months after the death of Vandover's
father, Henrietta Vance gave a reception and dance at her house. The
affair was one of a series that the girls of the Cotillon had been
giving to the men of the same club. Vandover had gone to all but the
last, which had occurred while he was at Coronado. He was sure of
meeting Geary, young Haight, Turner Ravis, and all the people of his set
at these functions, and had always managed to have a very jolly time. He
had been very quiet since his father's death and had hardly gone out at
all; in fact, since Ida Wade's death and his trip down the coast he had
seen none of his acquaintances except the boys. But he determined now
that he would go to this dance and in so doing return once more to the
world that he knew. By this time he had become pretty well accustomed to
his father's death and saw no reason why he should not have a good time.

At first he thought he would ask Turner to go with him, but in the end
made up his mind to go alone, instead; one always had a better time when
one went alone. Young Haight would have liked to have asked Turner, but
did not because he supposed, of course, that Vandover would take her. In
the end Turner had Delphine act as her escort.

Vandover arrived at Henrietta Vance's house at about half-past eight. A
couple of workmen were stretching the last guy ropes of the awning that
reached over the sidewalk; every window of the house was lighted. The
front door was opened for the guest before he could ring, and he passed
up the stairs, catching a glimpse of the parlours through the portières
of the doors. As yet they were empty of guests, the floors were covered
with canvas, and the walls decorated with fern leaves. In a window
recess one of the caterer's men was setting out two punch bowls and a
multitude of glass cups; three or four musicians were gathered about the
piano, tuning up, and one heard the subdued note of a cornet; the air
was heavy with the smell of pinks and of La France roses.

At the turn of the stairs the Vances' second girl in a white lawn cap
directed him to the gentlemen's dressing-room, which was the room of
Henrietta Vance's older brother. About a dozen men were here before him,
some rolling up their overcoats into balls and stowing them with their
canes in the corners of the room; others laughing and smoking together,
and still others who were either brushing their hair before the mirrors
or sitting on the bed in their stocking feet, breathing upon their
patent leathers, warming them before putting them on. There were one or
two who knew no one and who stood about unhappily, twisting the tissue
paper from the buttons of their new gloves, and looking stupidly at the
pictures on the walls of the room. Occasionally one of the gentlemen
would step to the door and look out into the hall to see if the ladies
whom they were escorting were yet come out of their dressing-room, ready
to go down.

On the centre table stood three boxes of cigars and a great many
packages of cigarettes, while extra hairbrushes, whiskbrooms, and papers
of pins had been placed about the bureau.

As Vandover came in, he nodded pleasantly to such of the men as he knew,
and, after hiding his hat and coat under the bed, shook himself into his
clothes again and rearranged his dress tie.

The house was filling up rapidly; one heard the deadened roll of wheels
in the street outside, the banging of carriage doors, and an incessant
rustle of stiff skirts ascending the stairs. From the ladies'
dressing-room came an increasing soprano chatter, while downstairs the
orchestra around the piano in the back parlour began to snarl and whine
louder and louder. About the halls and stairs one caught brief glimpses
of white and blue opera cloaks edged with swan's-down alternating with
the gleam of a starched shirt bosom and the glint of a highly polished
silk hat. Odours of sachet and violets came and went elusively or
mingled with those of the roses and pinks. An air of gayety and
excitement began to spread throughout the house.

"Hello, old man!" "Hello, Van!" Charlie Geary, young Haight, and Ellis
came in together. "Hello, boys!" answered Vandover, hairbrush in hand,
turning about from the mirror, where he had been trying to make his hair
lie very flat and smooth.

"Look here," said Geary, showing him a dance-card already full, "I've
got every dance promised. I looked out for that at the last one of these
affairs; made all my arrangements and engagements then. Ah, you bet, I
don't get left on any dance. That's the way you want to rustle. Ah," he
went on, "had a bully sleep last night. I knew I was going to be out
late to-night, so I went to bed at nine; didn't wake up till seven. Had
a fine cutlet for breakfast."

It was precisely at this moment that Geary got his first advancement in
life. Mr. Beale, Jr., head clerk in the great firm of Beale & Story,
came up to him as he was drawing off his overcoat:

"How is Fischer?" asked Geary.

Beale, Jr., pulled him over into a corner, talking in a low voice. "He's
even worse than yesterday," he answered. "I think we shall have to give
him a vacation, and that's what I want to speak to you about. If you
can, Geary, I should like to have you take his place for a while, at
least until we get through with this contract case. I don't know about
Fischer. He's sick so often, I'm afraid we may have to let him go
altogether."

Suddenly the orchestra downstairs broke out into a clash of harmony and
then swung off with the beat and cadence of a waltz. The dance was
beginning; a great bustle and hurrying commenced about the
dressing-rooms and at the head of the stairs; everybody went down. In
the front parlour by the mantel Henrietta Vance and Turner stood on
either side of Mrs. Vance, receiving, shaking hands, and laughing and
talking with the different guests who came up singly, in couples, or in
noisy groups.

No one was dancing yet. The orchestra stopped with a flourish of the
cornet, and at once a great crowding and pushing began amidst a vast hum
of talk. The cards were being filled up, a swarm of men gathered about
each of the more popular girls, passing her card from hand to hand while
she smiled upon them all helplessly and good-naturedly. The dance-cards
had run short and some of the men were obliged to use their visiting
cards; with these in one hand and the stump of a pencil in the other,
they ran about from group to group, pushing, elbowing, and calling over
one another's heads like brokers in a stock exchange.

Geary, however, walked about calmly, smiling contentedly, very
good-humoured. From time to time he stopped such a one of the hurrying,
excited men as he knew and showed him his card made out weeks before,
saying, "Ah, how's that? _I_ am all fixed; made all my engagements at
the last one of these affairs, even up to six extras. That's the way you
want to rustle."

Young Haight was very popular; everywhere the girls nodded and smiled at
him, many even saving a place on their cards for him before he had
asked.

Ellis took advantage of the confusion to disappear. He went up into the
deserted dressing-room, chose a cigar, unbuttoned his vest and sat down
in one chair, putting his feet upon another. The hum of the dance came
to him in a prolonged and soothing murmur and he enjoyed it in some
strange way of his own, listening and smoking, stretched out at ease in
the deserted dressing-room.

Vandover went up to Turner Ravis smiling and holding out his hand. She
seemed to be curiously embarrassed when she saw him, and did not smile
back at him. He asked to see her card, but she drew her hand quickly
from his, telling him that she was going home early and was not dancing
at all, that in fact she had to "receive" instead of dance. It was
evident to Vandover that he had done something to displease her, and he
quickly concluded that it was because he had not asked her to go with
him that evening.

He turned from her to Henrietta Vance as though nothing unusual had
happened, resolving to see her later in the evening and in the meanwhile
invent some suitable excuse. Henrietta Vance did not even see his hand;
she was a very jolly girl, ordinarily, and laughed all the time. Now she
looked him squarely in the face without so much as a smile, at once
angry and surprised; never had anything seemed so hateful and
disagreeable. Vandover put his hand back into his pocket, trying to
carry it all off with a laugh, saying in order to make her laugh with
him as he used to do, "Hello! how do you do this evening? It's a
pleasant morning this afternoon." "How do you do?" she answered
nervously, refusing to laugh. Then she turned from him abruptly to talk
to young Haight's little cousin Hetty.

Mrs. Vance was neither embarrassed nor nervous as the girls had been.
She stared calmly at Vandover and said with a peculiar smile, "I am
surprised to see you here, Mr. Vandover."

An hour later the dance was in full swing. Almost every number was a
waltz or a two-step, the music being the topical songs and popular airs
of the day set to dance music.

About half-past ten o'clock, between two dances, the cornet sounded a
trumpet call; the conversation ceased in a moment, and Henrietta Vance's
brother, standing by the piano, called out, "The next dance will be the
_first extra_," adding immediately, "a _waltz_." The dance recommenced;
in the pauses of the music one heard the rhythmic movement of the feet
shuffling regularly in one-two-three time.

Some of the couples waltzed fast, whirling about the rooms, bearing
around corners with a swirl and swing of silk skirts, the girls' faces
flushed and perspiring, their eyes half-closed, their bare, white
throats warm, moist, and alternately swelling and contracting with their
quick breathing. On certain of these girls the dancing produced a
peculiar effect. The continued motion, the whirl of the lights, the heat
of the room, the heavy perfume of the flowers, the cadence of the music,
even the physical fatigue, reacted in some strange way upon their
oversensitive feminine nerves, the monotony of repeated sensation
producing some sort of mildly hypnotic effect, a morbid hysterical
pleasure the more exquisite because mixed with pain. These were the
girls whom one heard declaring that they could dance all night, the
girls who could dance until they dropped.

Other of the couples danced with the greatest languor and gravity, their
arms held out rigid and at right angles with their bodies.

About the doors and hallways stood the unhappy gentlemen who knew no
one, watching the others dance, feigning to be amused. Some of them,
however, had ascended to the dressing-room and began to strike up an
acquaintance with each other and with Ellis, smoking incessantly,
discussing business, politics, and even religion.

In the ladies' dressing-room two of the maids were holding a long
conversation in low tones, their heads together; evidently it was
concerning something dreadful. They continually exclaimed "Oh!" and
"Ah!" suddenly sitting back from each other, shaking their heads, and
biting their nether lips. On the top floor in the hall the servants in
their best clothes leaned over the balustrade, nudging each other,
talking in hoarse whispers or pointing with thick fingers swollen with
dish-water. All up and down the stairs were the couples who were sitting
out the dance, some of them even upon the circular sofa in the hall over
the first landing.

The music stopped, leaving a babel of talk in the air, the couples fell
apart for an instant, but a great clapping of hands broke out and the
tired musicians heroically recommenced.

As soon as the short _encore_ was done there was a rush for the lemonade
and punch bowls. The guests thronged around them joking each other.
"Hello! are you here _again_?" "Oh, this is dreadful!" "This makes _six_
times I've seen you here."

A smell of coffee rose into the air from the basement. It was about
half-past eleven; the next dance was the supper dance and the gentlemen
hurried about anxiously searching the stairs, the parlours, and the
conservatory for the girls who had promised them this dance weeks
before. The musicians were playing a march, and the couples crowded down
the narrow stairs in single file, the ladies drawing off their gloves.
The tired musicians stretched themselves, rubbed their eyes, and began
to talk aloud in the deserted parlours.

Supper was served in the huge billiard-room in the basement and was
eaten in a storm of gayety. The same parties and "sets" tried to get
together at the same table; Henrietta Vance's party was particularly
noisy: at her table there was an incessant clamour of screams and shouts
of laughter. One ate oysters _à la poulette_, terrapin-salads, and
croquettes; the wines were Sauternes and champagnes. With the nuts and
dessert the caps came on, and in a few minutes were cracking and
snapping all over the room.

Six of the unfortunates who knew no one, but who had managed through a
common affliction to become acquainted with each other, gathered at a
separate table. Ellis was one of their number; he levied a twenty-five
assessment, and tipped the waiter a dollar and a half. This one
accordingly brought them extra bottles of champagne in which they found
consolation for all the _ennui_ of the evening.

After supper the dancing began again. The little stiffness and
constraint of the earlier part of the evening was gone; by this time
nearly everybody, except the unfortunates, knew everybody else. The good
dinner and the champagne had put them all into an excellent humour, and
they all commenced to be very jolly. They began a Virginia Reel still
wearing the magician's caps and Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper.

Young Haight was with Turner Ravis as much as possible during the
evening, very happy and excited. Something had happened; it was
impossible for him to say precisely what, for on the face of things
Turner was the same as ever. Nothing in her speech or actions was
different, but there was in her manner, in the very air that surrounded
her, something elusive and subtle that set him all in a tremor. There
was a change in his favour; he felt that she liked to have him with her
and that she was trying to have him feel as much in some mysterious way
of her own. He could see, however, that she was hardly conscious of
doing this and that the change was more apparent to his eyes than it was
to hers.

"Must you really go home now?" he said, as Turner began to talk of
leaving, soon after supper. They had been sitting out the dance under a
palm at the angle of the stairs.

"Yes," answered Turner; "Howard has the measles and I promised to be
home early. Delphine was to come for me and she ought to be here now."

"Delphine?" exclaimed young Haight. "Didn't you come with Van?"

"No," answered Turner quietly. Only by her manner, and by something in
the way she said the word, Haight knew at once that she had broken
definitely with Vandover. The talk he had had with her at her house came
back to him on the instant. He hesitated a moment and then asked:

"There is something wrong? Has Van done anything--never mind, I don't
mean that; it's no business of mine, I suppose. But I know you care for
him. I'm sorry if--"

But he was not sorry. Try as he would, his heart was leaping in him for
joy. With Vandover out of the way, he knew that all would be different;
Turner herself had said so.

"Oh, everything is wrong," said Turner, with tears in her eyes. "I have
been so disappointed in Van; oh, terribly disappointed."

"I know; yes, I think I know what you mean," answered young Haight in a
low voice.

"Oh, please don't let's talk about it at all," cried Turner. But young
Haight could not stop now.

"Is Van really out of the question, then?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, not seeing what he was coming to. "Oh, yes;
how could I--how _could_ I care for him after--after what has happened?"

Very much embarrassed, young Haight went on: "I know it's unfair to take
advantage of you now, but do you remember what you said once? That if
Vandover were out of the question, that _'perhaps'_ you might--that it
would be--that there might be a chance for me?"

Turner was silent for a long time, and then she said: "Yes, I remember."

"Well, how about that _now_?" asked young Haight with a nervous laugh.

"Ah," answered Turner, "how do I know--so soon!"

"But what do you _think_, Turner?" he persisted.

"But I haven't thought at all," she returned.

"Well, think now!" he went on. "Tell me--how about that?"

"About _what_?"

"Ah, you know what I mean," young Haight replied, feeling like a little
boy, "about what you said at your house that Sunday night. Please tell
me; you don't know how much it means to me."

"Oh, there's Delphine at the door!" suddenly exclaimed Turner. "Now,
really, I _must_ go down. She doesn't know where to go; she's so
stupid!"

"No," he answered, "not until you tell me!" He caught her hand, refusing
to let it go.

"Ah, how mean you are to corner me so!" she cried laughing and
embarrassed. "Must I--well--I know I shouldn't. _O-oh_, I just _detest_
you!" Young Haight turned her hand palm upward and kissed the little
circle of crumpled flesh that showed where her glove buttoned. Then she
tore her hand away and ran downstairs, while he followed more slowly.

On her way back to the dressing-room she met him again, crossing the
hall.

"Don't you want to see me home?" she said.

"Do I _want_ to?" shouted young Haight.

"Oh, but I forgot," she cried. "You can't. I won't let you. You have
your other dances engaged!"

"Oh, damn the other dances!" he exclaimed, but instead of being
offended, Turner only smiled.

Toward one o'clock there was a general movement to go. Henrietta Vance
and Mrs. Vance were inquired for, and the blue and white opera cloaks
reappeared, descending the stairs, disturbing the couples who were
seated there. The banging of carriage doors and the rumble of wheels
recommenced in the street. The musicians played a little longer. As the
party thinned out, there was greater dance room and a consequent greater
pleasure in dancing. These last dances at the end of the evening were
enjoyed more than all the others. But the party was breaking up fast:
Turner had already gone home; Mrs. Vance and Henrietta were back at
their places in front of the mantel, surrounded by a group of gentlemen
in capecoats and ladies in opera wraps. Every one was crying "Good-bye"
or "Good night!" and assuring Mrs. Vance and Henrietta of the
enjoyableness of the occasion. Suddenly the musicians played "Home Sweet
Home." Those still dancing uttered an exclamation of regret, but
continued waltzing to this air the same as ever. Some began to dance
again in their overcoats and opera wraps. Then at last the tired
musicians stopped and reached for the cases of their instruments, and
the remaining guests, seized with a sudden panic lest they should be the
last to leave, fled to the dressing-rooms. These were in the greatest
confusion, every one was in a hurry; in the gentlemen's dressing-room
there was a great putting on of coats and mufflers and a searching for
misplaced gloves, hats and canes. A base hum of talk rose in the air,
bits and ends of conversation being tossed back and forth across the
room. "_You_ haven't seen my hat, have you, Jimmy?" "Did you meet that
girl I was telling you about?" "Hello, old man! have a good time
to-night?" "Lost your hat? No, I haven't seen it." "Yes, about half-past
ten!" "Well, I told him that myself!" "Ah, you bet it's the man that
rustles that gets there." "Come round about four, then." "What's the
matter with coming home in _our_ carriage?"

At the doors of the dressing-rooms the ladies joined their escorts, and
a great crowd formed in the halls, worming down the stairs and out upon
the front steps. As the first groups reached the open air there was a
great cry: "Why, it's pouring rain!" This was taken up and repeated and
carried all the way back into the house. There were exclamations of
dismay and annoyance: "Why, it's raining right _down_!" "What _shall_ we
do!" Tempers were lost, brothers and sisters quarrelling with each other
over the question of umbrellas. "Ah," said Geary, delighted, peeling the
cover from his umbrella in the vestibule, "I _thought_ it was going to
rain before I left and brought mine along with me. Ah, you bet I always
look out for rain!" On the horse-block stood the caller, chanting up the
carriages at the top of his voice. The street was full of coupés,
carriages, and hacks, the raindrops showing in a golden blur as they
fell across the streaming light of their lamps. The horses were smoking
and restless, and the drivers in oilskins and rubber blankets were
wrangling and shouting. At every instant there was a long roll of wheels
interrupted by the banging of the doors. Near the caller stood a useless
policeman, his shield pinned on the outside of his wet rubber coat, on
which the carriage lamps were momentarily reflected in long vertical
streaks.

In a short time all the guests were gone except the one young lady whose
maid and carriage had somehow not been sent. Henrietta Vance's brother
took this one home in a hired hack. Mrs. Vance and Henrietta sat down to
rest for a moment in the empty parlours. The canvas-covered floors were
littered with leaves of smilax and La France roses, with bits of ribbon,
ends of lace, and discarded Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper. The butler
and the second girl were already turning down the gas in the other
rooms.

Long before the party broke up Vandover had gone home, stunned and
dazed, as yet hardly able to realize the meaning of what had happened.
Some strange and dreadful change had taken place; things were different,
people were different to him; not every one had been so outspoken as
Turner, Henrietta Vance and her mother, but even amongst others who had
talked to him politely and courteously enough, the change was no less
apparent. It was in the air, a certain vague shrinking and turning of
the shoulder, a general atmosphere of aversion and repulsion, an unseen
frown, an unexpressed rebuff, intangible, illusive, but as unmistakable
as his own existence. The world he had known knew him now no longer. It
was ostracism at last.

But why? Why? Sitting over his tiled flamboyant stove, brooding into the
winking coals, Vandover asked himself the question in vain. He knew what
latitude young men were allowed by society; he was sure nothing short of
discovered crime could affect them. True enough he had at one time
allowed himself to drift into considerable dissipation, but he was done
with that now, he had reformed, he had turned over a new leaf. Even at
his worst he had only lived the life of the other young men around him,
the other young men who were received as much as ever, even though
people, the girls themselves, practically knew of what they did, knew
that they were often drunk, and that they frequented the society of
abandoned women. What had he done to merit this casting off? What
_could_ he have done? He even went so far as to wonder if there was
anything wrong about his father or his sudden death.

A little after one o'clock he heard Geary's whistle in the street
outside. "Hello, old man!" he cried as Vandover opened the window. "I
was just on my way home from the hoe-down; saw a light in your window
and thought I'd call you up. Say, have you got anything wet up there?
I'm extra dry."

"Yes," said Vandover, "come on up!"

"Did you hear what Beale said to me this evening?" said Geary, as he
mixed himself a cocktail at the sideboard. "Oh, I tell you, I'm getting
right in, down at that office. Beale wants me to take the place of one
of the assistants in the firm, a fellow who's got the consumption,
coughing up his lungs all the time. It's an important place, hundred a
month; that's right. Yes, sir; you bet, I'm going to get in and rustle
now and make myself so indispensable in that fellow's place that they
can't get along without me. I'll crowd him right out; I know it may be
selfish, but, damn it! that's what you have to do to get along. It's
human nature. I'll tell you right here to-night," he exclaimed with
sudden energy, clenching his fist and slowly rapping the knuckles on the
table to emphasize each word, "that I'll be the head of that firm some
day, or I'll know the reason why."

When Geary finally became silent, the two looked into the fire for some
time without speaking. At last Geary said:

"You came home early to-night, didn't you?"

"Yes," answered Vandover, stirring uneasily. "Yes, I did."

There was another silence. Then Geary said abruptly: "It's too bad. They
are kind of stinky-pinky to you."

"Yes," said Vandover with a grin. "_I_ don't know what's the matter.
Everybody seems nasty!"

"It's that business with Ida Wade, you know," replied Geary. "It got
around somehow that she killed herself on your account. Everybody seems
to be on to it. I heard it--oh, nearly a month ago."

"Oh," said Vandover with a short laugh, "that's it, is it? I was
wondering."

"Yes, that's it," answered Geary. "You see they don't know for sure; no
one _knows_, but all at once every one seemed to be talking about it,
and they suspect an awful lot. I guess they are pretty near right,
aren't they?" He did not wait for an answer, but laughed clumsily and
went on: "You see, you always have to be awfully careful in those
things, or you'll get into a box. Ah, you bet I don't let any girl _I_
go with know _my_ last name or _my_ address if I can help it. I'm clever
enough for that; you have to manage very carefully; ah, you bet! You
ought to have looked out for that, old man!" He paused a moment and then
went on: "Oh, I guess it will be all right, all right, in a little
while. They will forget about it, you know. I wouldn't worry. I guess it
will be all right."

"Yes," answered Vandover absently, "I guess so--perhaps."

A few days later Vandover was in the reading-room of the Mechanics
Library, listlessly turning over the pages of a volume of _l'Art_. It
was Saturday morning and the place was full of ladies who were downtown
for their shopping and marketing, and who had come in either to change
their books or to keep appointments with each other. On a sudden
Vandover saw Turner just passing into the Biography alcove. He got up
and followed her. She was standing at the end of the dim book-lined
tunnel, searching the upper shelves, her head and throat bent back, and
her gloved finger on her lip. The faint odour of the perfume she always
affected came to him mingled with the fragrance of the jonquils at her
belt and the smell of leather and of books that exhaled from the shelves
on either side. He did not offer to take her hand, but came up slowly,
speaking in a low voice.

It was the last time that Vandover ever met Turner Ravis. They talked
for upward of an hour, leaning against the opposite book-shelves,
Vandover with his fists in his pockets, his head bent down, and the
point of his shoe tracing the pattern in the linoleum carpet; Turner,
her hands clasped in front of her, looking him squarely in the face,
speaking calmly and frankly.

"Now, I hope you see just how it is, Van," she said at length. "What has
happened hasn't made me cease to care for you, because if I had really
cared for you the way I thought I did, the way a girl ought to care for
the man she wants to marry, I would have stood by you through
everything, no matter what you did. I don't do so now, because I find I
don't care for you as much as I thought I did. What has happened has
only shown me that. I'm sorry, oh, so sorry to be disappointed in you,
but it's because I only think of you as being once a very good friend of
mine, not because I love you as you think I did. Once--a long time
ago--when we first knew each other, then, perhaps--things were different
then. But somehow we seem to have grown away from that. Since then we
have both been mistaken; you thought I cared for you in that way, and I
thought so, too, and I thought you cared for me; but it was only that we
were keeping up appearances, pretending to ourselves just for the sake
of old times. We don't love each other now; you know it. But I have
never intentionally deceived you or tried to lead you on; when I told
you I cared for you I really thought I did. I meant to be sincere; I
always thought so until this happened, and then when I saw how easily I
could let you go, it only proved to me that I did not care for you as I
thought I did. It was wrong of me, I know, and I should have known my
own mind before, but I didn't, I didn't. You talk about Dolly Haight;
but it is not Dolly Haight at all who has changed my affection for you.
I will be just as frank as I can with you, Van. I may learn really to
love Dolly Haight; I don't know, I think perhaps I will, but it isn't
that I care for him _just_ because I don't care for you. Can't you see,
it's just as if I had never met you. You know it's very hard for me to
say this to you, Van, and I suppose it's all mixed up, but I can't help
it. You don't know how sorry I am, because we have been such old
friends--because I really did care for you as a friend; it's a proof of
it, that there is no other man in the world I could talk to like this. I
think, too, Van, that was the only way you cared for me, just as a good
friend--except perhaps at first, when we first knew each other. You know
yourself that is so. We really haven't loved each other at all for a
long time, and now we have found it out before it was too late. And even
if everything were different, Van, don't you know how it is with girls?
They really love the man who loves them the most. Half the time they're
just in love with being loved. That's the way most girls love nowadays,
and you know yourself, Van, that Dolly Haight really loves me more than
you do." She gathered up her books and went on after a pause,
straightening up, ready to go: "If I should let myself think of what you
have done, I feel--as if--as if--why, dreadful--I--that I should hate
you, loathe you; but I try not to do that. I have been thinking it all
over since the other night. I shall always try to think of you at your
best; I have tried to forget everything else, and in forgetting it I
forgive you. I can honestly say that," she said, holding out her hand,
"I forgive you, and you must forgive me because once, by deceiving
myself, I deceived you, and made you think that I cared for you in that
way when I didn't." As their hands fell apart Turner faced him and
added, with tears in her eyes: "You know this must be good-bye for good.
You don't know how it hurts me to tell you. I know it looks as if I were
deserting you when you were alone in the world and had most need of some
one to influence you for the good. But, Van, won't you be better now?
Won't you break from it all and be your own self again? I have faith in
you. I believe it's in you to become a great man and a good man. It
isn't too late to begin all over again. Just be your better self; live
up to the best that's in you; if not for your own sake, then for the
sake of that other girl that's coming into your life some time; that
other girl who is good and sweet and pure, whom you will really, really
love and who will really, really love you."

All the rest of that month Vandover was wretched. So great was his shame
and humiliation over this fresh disaster that he hardly dared to show
himself out of doors. His grief was genuine and it was profound. Yet he
took his punishment in the right spirit. He did not blame any one but
himself; it was only a just retribution for the thing he had done. Only
what made it hard to bear was the fact that the chastisement had fallen
upon him long after he had repented of the crime, long after he had
resolved to lead a new and upright life; but with shut teeth he
determined still to carry out that resolve; he would devote all his
future life to living down the past. It might be hard; it might be one
long struggle through many, many years, but he would do it. Ah, yes, he
would show them; they had cast him off, but he would go away to Paris
now as he had always intended. As invariably happened when he was deeply
moved, he turned to his art, blindly and instinctively. He would go to
Paris now and study his paintings, five, ten years, and come back at
last a great artist, when these same people who had cast him off would
be proud to receive him. Turner was right in saying that he had in him
the making of a great man. He _knew_ that she was right; knew that if he
only gave the better part of him, the other Vandover, the chance, that
he would become a great artist. Well, he would do so, and then when he
came back again, when all the world was at his feet, and there were long
articles in the paper announcing his arrival, these people would throng
around him; he would show them what a great and noble nature he really
had; he would forgive them; he would ignore what they had done. He even
dramatized a little scene between himself and Turner, then Mrs. Haight.
They would both be pretty old then and he would take her children on his
lap and look at her over their heads--he could almost see those heads,
white, silky and very soft--and he would nod at her thoughtfully, and
say, "Well, I have taken your advice, do you remember?" and she was to
answer, "Yes, I remember." There were actually tears in his eyes as he
saw the scene.

At the very first he thought that he could not live without Turner; that
he loved her too much to be able to give her up. But in a little while
he saw that this was not so. She was right, too, in saying that he had
long since outlived his first sincere affection for her. He had felt for
a long time that he did not love her well enough to marry her; that he
did not love her as young Haight did, and he acknowledged to himself
that this affair at least had ended rightly. The two loved each other,
he could see that; at last he even told himself that he would be glad to
see Turner married to Dolly Haight, who was his best friend. But for all
that, it came very hard at first to give up Turner altogether; never to
see her or speak to her again.

As the first impressions of the whole affair grew dull and blunt by the
lapse of time, this humble penitential mood of Vandover's passed away
and was succeeded by a feeling of gloomy revolt, a sullen rage at the
world that had cast him off _only_ because he had been found out. He
thought it a matter of self-respect to resent the insult they had put
upon him. But little by little he ceased to regret his exile; the new
life was not so bad as he had at first anticipated, and his relations
with the men whom he knew best, Ellis, Geary, and young Haight, were in
nowise changed. He was no longer invited anywhere, and the girls he had
known never saw him when he passed them on the street. It was
humiliating enough at first, but he got used to it after a while, and by
dint of thrusting the disagreeable subject from his thoughts, by
refusing to let the disgrace sink deep in his mind, by forgetting the
whole business as much as he could, he arrived after a time to be
passably contented. His pliable character had again rearranged itself to
suit the new environment.

Along with this, however, came a sense of freedom. Now he no longer had
anything to fear from society; it had shot its bolt, it had done its
worst, there was no longer anything to restrain him, now he could do
anything.

He was in precisely this state of mind when he received the cards for
the opening of the roadhouse, the "resort" out on the Almshouse drive,
about which Toby, the waiter at the Imperial, had spoken to him.

Vandover attended it. It was a debauch of forty-eight hours, the longest
and the worst he had ever indulged in. For a long time the brute had
been numb and dormant; now at last when he woke he was raging, more
insatiable, more irresistible than ever.

The affair at the roadhouse was but the beginning. All at once Vandover
rushed into a career of dissipation, consumed with the desire of vice,
the perverse, blind, and reckless desire of the male. Drunkenness,
sensuality, gambling, debauchery, he knew them all. He rubbed elbows
with street walkers, with bookmakers, with saloonkeepers, with the
exploiters of lost women. The bartenders of the city called him by his
first name, the policemen, the night detail, were familiar with his
face, the drivers of the nighthawks recognized his figure by the street
lamps, paling in the light of many an early dawn. At one time and
another he was associated with all the different types of people in the
low "sporting set," acquaintances of an evening, whose names grew faint
to his recollection amidst the jingle of glasses and the popping of
corks, whose faces faded from his memory in the haze of tobacco smoke
and the fumes of whisky; young men of the city, rich without apparent
means of livelihood, women and girls "recently from the East" with rooms
over the fast restaurants; owners of trotting horses, actresses without
engagements, billiard-markers, pool-sellers and the sons of the
proprietors of halfway houses and "resorts." With all these Vandover
kept the pace at the Imperial, at the race-track, at the gambling tables
in the saloons and bars along Kearney and Market streets, and in the
disreputable houses amid the strong odours of musk and the rustle of
heavy silk dresses. It lasted for a year; by the end of that time he had
about forgotten his determination to go to Paris and had grown out of
touch with his three old friends, Ellis, Geary, and Haight. He seldom
saw them now; occasionally he met them in one of the little rooms of the
Imperial over their beer and Welsh rabbits, but now he always went on to
the larger rooms where one had champagne and terrapin. He felt that he
no longer was one of them.

That year the opera came to San Francisco, and Vandover hired a
messenger boy to stand in line all night at the door of the music store
where the tickets were to be sold. Vandover could still love music. In
the wreckage of all that was good that had been going on in him his love
for all art was yet intact. It was the strongest side of his nature and
it would be the last to go.

Chapter Fourteen

The house was crowded to the doors; there was no longer any standing
room and many were even sitting on the steps of the aisles. In the boxes
the gentlemen were standing up behind the chairs of large plain ladies
in showy toilets and diamonds. The atmosphere was heavy with the smell
of gas, of plush upholstery, of wilting bouquets and of sachet. A fine
vapour as of the visible exhalation of many breaths pervaded the house,
blurring the lowered lights and dimming the splendour of the great glass
chandelier.

It was warm to suffocation, a dry, irritating warmth that perspiration
did not relieve, while the air itself was stale and close as though
fouled by being breathed over and over again. In the topmost galleries,
banked with tiers of watching faces, the heat must have been unbearable.

The only movement perceptible throughout the audience was the little
swaying of gay-coloured fans like the balancing of butterflies about to
light. Occasionally there would be a vast rustling like the sound of
wind in a forest, as the holders of librettos turned the leaves
simultaneously.

The orchestra thundered; the French horns snarling, the first violins
wailing in unison, while all the bows went up and down together like
parts of a well-regulated machine; the kettle-drums rolled sonorously at
exact intervals, and now and then one heard the tinkling of the harp
like the pattering of raindrops between peals of thunder. The leader
swayed from side to side in his place, beating time with his baton, his
hand, and his head.

On the stage itself the act was drawing to a close. There had just been
a duel. The baritone lay stretched upon the floor at left centre, his
sword fallen at some paces from him. On the left of the scene, front,
stood the tenor who had killed him, singing in his highest register,
very red in the face, continually striking his hand upon his breast and
pointing with his sword toward his fallen enemy. Next him on the extreme
left was his friend the basso, in high leather boots, growling from time
to time during a sustained chord, "_Mon honneur et ma foi._" In the
centre of the stage, the soprano, the star, the prima donna chanted a
fervid but ineffectual appeal to the tenor who cried, "_Jamais,
jamais!_" striking his breast and pointing with his sword. The prima
donna cried, "_Ah, mon Dieu, ayez pitié de moi._" Her confidante, the
mezzo-soprano, came to her support, repeating her words with an
impersonal meaning, "_Ayez pitié d'elle._" "_Mon honneur et ma foi_,"
growled the basso. The contralto, dressed as a man, turned toward the
audience on the extreme right, bringing out her notes with a wrench and
a twist of her body and neck, and intoning, "_Ah, malheureuse! Mon Dieu,
ayez pitié d'elle._"

The leader of the chorus, costumed as the captain of the watch, leaned
over the dead baritone and sang, "_Il est mort, il est mort. Mon Dieu,
ayez pitié de lui._" The soldiers of the watch were huddled together
immediately back of him. They wore tin helmets, much too large, and
green peplums, and repeated his words continually.

The chorus itself was made up of citizens of the town; it was in a
semicircle at the back of the stage--the men on one side, the women on
the other. They made all their gestures together and chanted without
ceasing: "_O horreur, O mystére! Il est mort. Mon Dieu, ayez pitié de
nous!_"

"_De Grace!_" cried the prima donna.

"_Jamais, jamais!_" echoed the tenor, striking his breast and pointing
with his sword.

"_O mystére!_" chanted the chorus, while the basso struck his hand upon
his sword hilt, growling "_Mon honneur et ma foi._"

The orchestra redoubled. The finale began; all the pieces of the
orchestra, all the voices on the stage, commenced over again very loud.
They all took a step forward, and the rhythm became more rapid, till it
reached a climax where the prima donna's voice jumped to a C in alt,
holding it long enough for the basso to thunder, "_Mon honneur et ma
foi_" twice. Then they all struck the attitudes for the closing tableau
and in one last burst of music sang all together, "_Mon Dieu, ayez pitié
de moi_" and "_de lui_" and "_d'elle_" and "_de nous_." Then the
orchestra closed with a long roll of the kettle-drums, and the prima
donna fainted into the arms of her confidante. The curtain fell.

There was a roar of applause. The gallery whistled and stamped. Every
one relaxed his or her position, drawing a long breath, looking about.
There was a general stir; the lights in the great glass chandelier
clicked and blazed up, and a murmur of conversation arose. The
footlights were lowered and the orchestra left their places and
disappeared underneath the stage, leaving the audience with the
conviction that they had gone out after beer. All over the house one
heard the shrill voices of boys crying out, "Op'ra books--books for the
op'ra--words and music for the op'ra."

Throughout the boxes a great coming and going took place and an
interchange of visits. The gentlemen out in the foyer stood about
conversing in groups or walked up and down smoking cigarettes, often
pausing in front of the big floral piece that was to be given to the
prima donna at the end of the great scene in the fourth act.

There was a little titter of an electric bell. The curtain was about to
go up, and a great rush for seats began. The orchestra were coming back
and tuning up. They sent up a prolonged medley of sounds, little minor
chirps and cries from the violins, liquid runs and mellow gurgles from
the oboes, flutes, and wood-wind instruments, and an occasional
deep-toned purring from the bass viols. A bell rang faintly from behind
the wings, the house lights sank, and the footlights blazed up. The
leader tapped with his baton; a great silence fell upon the house, while
here and there one heard an energetic "Ssh! ssh!" The fourth act was
about to begin.

When the curtain rose on the fourth act one saw the prima donna standing
in a very dejected pose in the midst of a vast apartment that might have
been a bedchamber, a council hall, or a hall of audience. She was alone.
She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms
were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to
her girdle. She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and
the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for
the famous quartet in the "great scene."

But for all this, the music had little by little taken possession of
Vandover, and little by little he had forgotten his surroundings, the
stifling air of the house, the blinding glitter of the stage and the
discomfort of his limbs cramped into the narrow orchestra chair. All
music was music to him; he loved it with an unreasoned, uncritical
love, enjoying even the barrel organs and hand pianos of the streets.
For the present the slow beat and cadence of the melodies of the opera
had cradled all his senses, carrying him away into a kind of exalted
dream. The quartet began; for him it was wonderfully sweet, the
long-sustained chords breathing over the subdued orchestral
accompaniment, like some sweet south wind passing in long sighs over the
pulse of a great ocean. It seemed to him infinitely beautiful,
infinitely sad, subdued minor plaints recurring persistently again and
again like sighs of parting, but could not be restrained, like voices of
regret for the things that were never to be again. Or it was a pathos, a
joy in all things good, a vast tenderness, so sweet, so divinely pure
that it could not be framed in words, so great and so deep that it found
its only expression in tears. There came over him a vague sense of those
things which are too beautiful to be comprehended, of a nobility, a
self-oblivion, an immortal eternal love and kindness, all goodness, all
benignity, all pity for sin, all sorrow for grief, all joy for the true,
the right, and the pure.

To be better, to be true and right and pure, these were the only things
that were worth while, these were the things that he seemed to feel in
the music. It was as if for the moment he had become a little child
again, not ashamed to be innocent, ignorant of vice, still believing in
all his illusions, still near to the great white gates of life.

The appeal had been made directly to what was best and strongest in
Vandover, and the answer was quick and over-powering. All the good that
still survived in him leaped to life again in an instant, clamouring for
recognition, pleading for existence. The other Vandover, the better
Vandover, wrestled with the brute in him once more, never before so
strong, never so persistent. He had not yet destroyed all that was good
in him; now it had turned in one more revolt, crying out against him,
protesting for the last time against its own perversion and destruction.
Vandover felt that he was at the great crisis of his life.

After all was over he walked home through the silent streets, proceeding
slowly, his hands in his pockets, his head bent down, his mind very
busy. Once in his rooms he threw off his things and, having stirred up
the drowsing fire in the tiled stove, sat down before it in his
shirt-sleeves, the bosom of his full dress shirt bulging from his vest
and faintly creaking as from time to time he drew a long breath. He had
been lured into a mood where he was himself at his very best, where the
other Vandover, the better Vandover, drew apart with eyes turned
askance, looking inward and downward into the depths of his own
character, shuddering, terrified. Far down there in the darkest, lowest
places he had seen the brute, squat, deformed, hideous; he had seen it
crawling to and fro dimly, through a dark shadow he had heard it
growling, chafing at the least restraint, restless to be free. For now
at last it was huge, strong, insatiable, swollen and distorted out of
all size, grown to be a monster, glutted yet still ravenous, some
fearful bestial satyr, grovelling, perverse, horrible beyond words.

And with the eyes of this better self he saw again, little by little,
the course of his whole life, and witnessed again the eternal struggle
between good and evil that had been going on within him since his very
earliest years. He was sure that at the first the good had been the
strongest. Little by little the brute had grown, and he,
pleasure-loving, adapting himself to every change of environment,
luxurious, self-indulgent, shrinking with the shrinking of a sensuous
artist-nature from all that was irksome and disagreeable, had shut his
ears to the voices that shouted warnings of the danger, and had allowed
the brute to thrive and to grow, its abominable famine gorged from the
store of that in him which he felt to be the purest, the cleanest, and
the best, its bulk fattened upon the rot and the decay of all that was
good, growing larger day by day, noisome, swollen, poddy, a filthy
inordinate ghoul, gorged and bloated by feeding on the good things that
were dead.

Besides this he saw how one by one he had wrenched himself free from all
those influences that had tended to foster and to cultivate all the
better part of him.

First of all, long ago it seemed now, he had allowed to be destroyed
that first instinctive purity, that fragile, delicate innocence which
dies young in almost every human being, and that one sees evaporating
under the earliest taint of vice with a smile partly of contempt,
partly of pity, partly of genuine regret.

Next it had been his father. The Old Gentleman had exerted a great
influence over Vandover; he had never forgotten that scene the morning
after he had told him of his measure of responsibility in Ida Wade's
suicide, the recovery from the first shock of dazed bewilderment and
then the forgiveness, the solicitude and the encouragement to begin over
again, to live it down and to do that which was right and good and true.
Not only had he stopped his ears to this voice, but also, something told
him, he had done much to silence it forever. Despite the Old Gentleman's
apparent fortitude the blow must have carried home. What must he not
have suffered during those long weeks while Vandover was away, what
lonely broodings in the empty house; and then the news of the wreck, the
days of suspense!

It all must have told; the Old Gentleman was not strong; Vandover could
not but feel that he had hastened his death, and that in so doing he had
destroyed another influence which would have cultivated and fostered his
better self, would have made it strong against the attacks of the brute.

The other person who had helped to bring out all that was best in
Vandover had been Turner Ravis. There was no denying that when he had
first known her he had loved her sincerely. Things were vastly different
with him when Turner had been his companion; things that were unworthy,
that were low, that were impure and vicious, did not seem worth while
then; not only did they have no attraction for him, but he even shunned
and avoided them. He knew he was a better man for loving her; invariably
she made him wish to be better. But little by little as he frequented
the society of such girls as Ida Wade, Grace Irving, and Flossie, his
affection for Turner faded. As the habits of passionate and unhealthy
excitement grew upon him he lost first the taste and then the very
capacity for a calm, pure feeling. His affection for her he frittered
away with fast girls and abandoned women, strangled it in the foul
musk-laden air of disreputable houses, dragged and defiled it in the
wine-lees of the Imperial. In the end he had quite destroyed it,
wilfully, wantonly killed it. As Turner herself had said, she could only
be in love with being loved; her affection for him had dwindled as
well; at last they had come to be indifferent to each other, she no
longer inspired him to be better, and thus he had shaken off this good
influence as well.

Public opinion had been a great check upon him, the fear of scandal, the
desire to stand well with the world he knew. Trivial though he felt it
to be, the dread of what people would say had to a great extent held
Vandover back. He had a position to maintain, a reputation to keep up in
the parlours and at the dinner tables where he was received. It could
not be denied that society had influenced Vandover for good. But this,
too, like all the others, he had cast from him. Now he was ostracized,
society cared no longer what he did, his position was gone, his
reputation was destroyed. There was no one now to stand in his way.

Vandover could not fall back on any religious influence. Religion had
never affected him very deeply. It was true that he had been baptized,
confirmed, and had gone to church with considerable regularity. If he
had been asked if he was a Christian and believed in God he would have
answered "Certainly, certainly." Until the time of his father's death he
had even said his prayers every night, the last thing before turning out
the gas, sitting upon the edge of his bed in his night-gown, his head in
both his hands. He added to the Lord's Prayer certain other petitions as
to those who were in trouble, sorrow, poverty, or any other privations;
he asked for blessings upon his father and upon himself, praying for the
former's health and prosperity, and for himself, that he might become a
great artist, that the "Last Enemy" might be admitted to the Salon when
he had painted it, and that it might make him famous. But, as a rule,
Vandover thought very little about religious matters and when he did,
told himself that he was too intelligent to believe in a literal heaven,
a literal hell, and a personal God personally interfering in human
affairs like any Jove or Odin. But the moment he rejected a concrete
religion Vandover was almost helpless. He was not mystic enough to find
any meaning in signs or symbols, nor philosophic enough to grasp vague
and immense abstractions. Infinities, Presences, Forces, could not help
him withstand temptation, could not strengthen him against the brute. He
felt that somewhere, some time, there was punishment for evildoing,
but, as happened in the case of Ida Wade's death, to dwell on such
thoughts disturbed and terrified him. He did not dare to look long in
that direction. Conscience, remorse, repentance, all these had been keen
enough at first, but he had so persistently kicked against the pricks
that little by little he had ceased to feel them at all.

Then an immense and overwhelming terror seized upon him. Was there
nothing, then--nothing left which he could lay hold of to save him? He
knew that he could not deliver himself by his own exertions. Religion
could not help him, he had killed his father, estranged the girl he
might have loved, outraged the world, and at a single breath blighted
the fine innate purity of his early years. It was as if he had entered
into his life in the world as into some vast labyrinth, wandering on
aimlessly, flinging from him one by one the threads, the clues, that
might have led him again to a safe exit, going down deeper and deeper
until, when near the centre, he had suddenly felt the presence of the
brute, had heard its loathsome muttering growl, had at last seen it far
down at the end of a passage, dimly and in a dark shadow; terrified, he
had started back, looking wildly about for any avenue of escape,
searching with frantic haste and eagerness for any one of those clues he
had so carelessly cast from him, realizing that without such guidance he
would inevitably tend down again to that fatal central place where the
brute had its lair.

There was nothing, nothing. He clearly saw the fate toward which he was
hurrying; it was not too late to save himself if he only could find
help, but he could find _no_ help. His terror increased almost to
hysteria. It was one of those dreadful moments that men sometimes
undergo that must be met alone, and that when past, remain in the memory
for all time; a glimpse far down into the springs and wheels of life; a
glimpse that does not come often lest the reason brought to the edge of
the fearful gulf should grow dizzy at the sight, and reeling, topple
headlong.

But suddenly Vandover rose to his feet, the tears came to his eyes, and
with a long breath he exclaimed: "Thank God for it!" He grew calmer in a
moment, the crisis had passed, he had found a clue beneath his groping
fingers.

He had remembered his art, turning to it instinctively as he always did
when greatly moved. This was the one good thing that yet survived. It
was the strongest side of him; it would be the last to go; he felt it
there yet. It was the one thing that could save him.

The thought had come to him so suddenly and with such marvellous
clearness that in his present exalted state of mind it filled him with a
vague sense of awe, it seemed like a manifestation, a writing on the
wall. Might it not be some sort of miracle? He had heard of men
reforming their lives, transformed almost in an instant, and had scoffed
at the idea. But might it not be true, after all? What was this
wonderful thing that had happened to him? Was this less strange than a
miracle? Less divine?

The following day Vandover rented a studio. It was the lofty room with
hardwood floors and the immense north light in that suite which he had
rejected when looking for rooms on the former occasion. He gave notice
to the clerk in the apartment house where his quarters were situated
that he intended to vacate after the first of the month. Charming as he
had found these rooms, he gave up, with scarcely a regret, the idea of
living in them any longer. In a month it would be summer and he would be
on his way to Paris.

But so great was his desire for work now, so eager was he to start the
"Last Enemy," so strong was the new energy that shook him, that Vandover
could not wait until summer to begin work again. He grudged everything
now that kept him away from his easel.

He disappeared from the sight of his ordinary companions; he did not
even seek the society of Geary or of young Haight. All the sketches he
had made for the "Last Enemy," together with his easel and his disused
palette, his colour-box, tubes, brushes and all the other materials and
tools for his work, he caused to be transferred to the new studio.
Besides this he had the stretcher made, best twill canvas on a frame
four feet long, two and a half feet high. This was for the large sketch
of the picture. But the finished work he calculated would demand an
eight by five stretcher.

He did not think of decorating the room, of putting any ornaments about
the wall. He was too serious, too much in earnest now to think of that.
The studio was not to be his lounging place, but his workshop. His art
was work with him now, hard, serious work. It was above all _work_ that
he needed to set him right again, regular work, steady, earnest work,
not the dilettante fancy of an amateur content with making pretty
things.

Never in his life had Vandover been so happy. He came and went
continually between his rooms, his studio, and his art dealers, tramping
grandly about the city, whistling to himself, strong, elated, filled
with energy, vigour, ambition. At times his mind was full of
thankfulness at this deliverance at the eleventh hour; at times it was
busy with the details of the picture, its composition, its colour
scheme. The main effects he wanted to produce were isolation and intense
heat, the shadows on the sand would be blue, the horizon line high on
the canvas, the sky would be light in tone, almost white near the earth.

The morning when he first began to work was charming. His new studio was
in the top floor of a five-story building, and on arriving there,
breathless from his long climb up the stairs, Vandover threw open the
window and gazed out and down upon the city spread out below him,
enjoying the view a moment before settling to his work.

A little later the trades would be blowing strong and brisk from the
ocean, driving steadily through the Golden Gate, filling the city with a
taint of salt; but at present the air was calm, touched with a certain
nimbleness, a sparkling effervescence, invigourating, exhilarating.

It was early in the forenoon, not yet past nine o'clock, and the mist
that gathers over the city just before dawn was steaming off under the
sun, very thin and delicate, turning all distant objects a flat tone of
pale blue. Over the roofs of the houses he could catch a glimpse of the
distant mountains, faint purple masses against the pale edge of the sky,
rimming the horizon round with a fillet of delicate colour. But any
larger view was barred by a huge frame house with a slated mansard roof,
directly opposite him across the street, a residence house, one of the
few in the neighbourhood. It had been newly painted white and showed
brave and gay against the dark blue of the sky and the ruddy greens of
the great garden in which it stood. Vandover from his window could from
time to time catch the smell of eucalyptus trees coming to him in long
aromatic breaths mingled with the odour of wet grass and fresh paint.
Somewhere he heard a hummingbird singing, a tiny tweedling thread of
song, while farther off two roosters were crowing back and forth at each
other with strained and raucous trumpet calls.

Vandover turned back to his work. Under the huge north light was the
easel, and clamped upon it the stretcher, blank, and untouched. The very
sight of the heavy cream-white twill was an inspiration. Already
Vandover saw a great picture upon it; a great wave of emotion suddenly
welled up within him and he cried with enthusiasm:

"By God! it is in moods like this that _chef d'oeuvres_ are made."

Around the baseboard of the room were a row of _esquisses_ for the
picture, on small landscape-stretchers, mere blotches of colour laid on
with the palette knife and large brushes, almost unintelligible to any
one but Vandover. He selected two or three of these and fastened them to
the easel above the big stretcher where he could have them continually
in his eye. He lit his pipe, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and standing
before the easel, began to sharpen a stick of charcoal with an old
razor, drawing the blade toward him so as to keep the point of the stick
from breaking. Then at last with a deep breath of satisfaction he began
blocking in the first large construction lines of his picture.

It was one o'clock before he knew it. He went downtown and had a hasty
lunch, jealous of every moment that was not spent on his picture. The
sight of it as he re-entered the room sent a thrill all over him; he was
succeeding better than he could have expected, doing better than he
thought he would. He felt sure that now he should do good work; every
stage of the picture's progress was an inspiration for the next one. At
this time the figures had only been "placed," broadly sketched in large
lines, "blocked in" as he called it. The next step was the second
drawing, much more finished.

He rapped the stretcher sharply with his knuckles; it responded
sonorously like a drumhead, the vibration shaking the charcoal from the
tracings, filling the air with a fine dust. The outlines grew faint,
just perceptible enough to guide him in the second more detailed
drawing.

He brought his stick of charcoal to a very fine edge and set to work
carefully. In a moment he stopped and, with his chamois cloth, dusted
out what he had drawn. He had made a false start, he began but could not
recall how the lines should run, his fingers were willing enough; in his
imagination he saw just how the outlines should be, but somehow he could
not make his hand interpret what was in his head. Some third medium
through which the one used to act upon the other was sluggish, dull;
worse than that, it seemed to be absent. _"Well,"_ he muttered, "can't I
make this come out right?" Then he tried more carefully. His imagination
saw the picture clearer, his hand moved with more assurance, but the two
seemed to act independently of each other. The forms he made on the
canvas were no adequate reflection of those in his brain; some third
delicate and subtle faculty that coordinated the other two and that
called forth a sure and instant response to the dictates of his mind,
was lacking. The lines on his canvas were those of a child just learning
to draw; one saw for what they were intended, but they were crude, they
had no life, no meaning. The very thing that would have made them
intelligible, interpretive, that would have made them art, was absent. A
third, a fourth, and a fifth time Vandover made the attempt. It was
useless. He knew that it was not because his hand lacked cunning on
account of long disuse; such a thing, in spite of popular belief, never
happened to artists--a good artist might abandon his work for five
years, ten years--and take it up again precisely where he had laid it
down with no loss of technical skill. No, this thing seemed more subtle,
so subtle that at first he could hardly grasp it. But suddenly a great
fear came upon him, a momentary return of that wild hysterical terror
from which he believed he had forever escaped.

"Is it gone?" he cried out. "Is it gone from me? My art? Steady," he
went on, passing his hand over his face with a reassuring smile;
"steady, old man, this won't do, again--and so soon! It won't do for you
to get scared twice like that. This is just nervousness, you are
overexcited. Pshaw! What's the matter with me? Let's get to work."

Still another time he dusted out what he had done and recommenced,
concentrating all his attention with a tremendous effort of the will.
Grotesque and meaningless shapes, the mocking caricatures of those he
saw in his fancy, grew under his charcoal, while slowly, slowly, a
queer, numb feeling came in his head, like a rising fog, and the touch
of that unreasoning terror returned, this time stronger, more
persistent, more tenacious than before.

Vandover nerved himself against it, not daring to give in, fearing to
allow himself to see what this really meant. He passed one hand over his
cheek and along the side of his head, the fingers dancing. "Hum!" he
muttered, looking vaguely about him, "this is bad. I mustn't let this
get the better of me now. I'll knock off for to-day, take a little rest,
begin again to-morrow."

In ten minutes he was back at his easel again. His charcoal wandered,
tracing empty lines on his canvas, the strange numbness grew again in
his head. All the objects in the range of his eyes seemed to move back
and stand on the same plane. He became a little dizzy.

"It's the _tobacco_," he exclaimed. "That pipe always was too strong."
He turned away to the open window, feeling an irresistible need of
distraction, of amusement, and he remained there resting on his elbows,
listening and looking, trying to be interested.

It was toward the middle of the afternoon. The morning mist was long
since evaporated and the first faint puffs of the inevitable trade wind
were just stirring the leaves of the eucalyptus across the street. In
the music-room of the white house the young lady of the family had
opened the piano and was practising finger-exercises. The scales and
arpeggios following one another without interruption, came to his ears
in a pleasant monotone. A Chinese "boy" in a stiff blouse of white
linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a
bucket of water and the garden hose. Grocery and delivery wagons came
and went, rattling over the cobbles and car-tracks, while occasionally a
whistle blew very far off. At the corner of the street by a
livery-stable a little boy in a flat-topped leather cap was calling
incessantly for some unseen dog, whistling and slapping his knees. An ex
press-wagon stopped a few doors below the white house and the driver
pulled down the back-board with a strident rattle of chains; the cable
in its slot kept up an unceasing burr and clack while the cars
themselves trundled up and down the street, starting and stopping with a
jangling of bells, the jostled glass windows whirring in a prolonged
vibrant note. All these sounds played lightly over the steady muffled
roar that seemed to come from all quarters at once; it was that deep
murmur, that great minor diapason that always disengages itself from
vast bodies, from mountains, from oceans, from forests, from sleeping
armies.

The desire for movement, for diversion, for anything that would keep him
from thinking was not to be resisted. Vandover caught up his hat and
fled from the room, not daring to look again at the easel. Once outside,
he began to walk, anywhere, straight before him, going on with great
strides, his head in the air.

He found Charlie Geary and took him to supper. Vandover talked
continually on all sorts of subjects, speaking very rapidly. In the
evening he insisted on Geary going to the theatre with him. He paid the
closest attention to the play, letting it occupy his mind entirely. When
the play was over and the two were about to say good night, Vandover
began to urge Geary to sleep up at his rooms that night. He overrode his
objections, interrupting him, taking hold of his arm, and starting off.
But Geary, a little surprised at his manner, refused. There were certain
law papers he had taken home with him from the office that afternoon and
that it was necessary he should return in the morning. Ah, you bet, he
would get it right in the neck if old Beale didn't have those
depositions the first thing when the office was open. Ah, he was getting
to be indispensable down there. He had had Fischer's place now for a
year. Fischer had never come back, and he had the promise of being taken
on as head clerk as soon as Beale Jr. went into the partnership with old
Beale. "I'll make my way in this town yet," he declared. "I'll be in
that partnership myself some day. You see; yes, sir; ah, you bet!"

The idea of passing the night alone terrified Vandover. He started
toward home, walking up Sutter Street, proceeding slowly, his hands in
his pockets. All at once he stopped, without knowing why; he roused
himself and looked about him. There was a smell of eucalyptus in the
air. Across the street was the huge white house, and he found that he
had stopped just before the door of the building on the top floor of
which his studio was situated. All day Vandover's mind had been in the
greatest agitation, his ideas leaping and darting hither and thither
like terrified birds in a cage. Just now he underwent a sudden reaction.
It had all been a matter of fancy, nothing but nervousness; he had not
drawn for some time, his hand lacked cunning from long disuse. The
desire for work came upon him again overpoweringly. He wanted to see
again if he could not draw just as truly and freely as in the old days.
No, he could not wait till morning; he must put himself to the test
again at once, at the very instant. It was a sudden feminine caprice,
induced, no doubt, by the exalted, strained, and unnatural condition of
his nerves, a caprice that could not be reasoned with, that could not be
withstood. He had his keys with him, he opened the outside door and
groped his way up the four long flights of stairs to his studio.

The studio was full of a sombre half-light, like a fog, spreading
downward from the great north light in the sloping roof. The window was
still wide open, the stretcher showed a pale gray blur. Vandover was
about to light the gas when he checked himself, his arm still raised
above his head. Ah, no; he did not dare to look at the result of his
day's work. It would be better to start in afresh from the beginning. He
found the chamois skin on the tray of the easel and rubbed out all the
drawing on the canvas. Then he lit the gas.

As he turned to his work once more a little thrill of joy and of relief
passed over him. This time his hand was sure, steady, his head was
clear. It had been nervousness after all. As he picked up his charcoal
he even exclaimed to himself, "Just the same, that _was_ a curious
experience this afternoon."

But the curious experience repeated itself again that night as soon as
he tried to work. Once more certain shapes and figures were born upon
his canvas, but they were no longer the true children of his
imagination, they were no longer his own; they were changelings,
grotesque abortions. It was as if the brute in him, like some malicious
witch, had stolen away the true offspring of his mind, putting in their
place these deformed dwarfs, its own hideous spawn.

Through the numbness and giddiness that gradually came into his head
like a poisonous murk he saw one thing clearly: It was gone--his art was
gone, the one thing that could save him. That, too, like all the other
good things of his life, he had destroyed. At some time during those
years of debauchery it had died, that subtle, elusive something,
delicate as a flower; he had ruined it. Little by little it had exhaled
away, wilting in the air of unrestrained debauches, perishing in the
warm musk-laden atmosphere of disreputable houses, defiled by the breath
of abandoned women, trampled into the spilt wine-lees of the Imperial,
dragged all fouled and polluted through the lowest mire of the great
city's vice.

For a moment Vandover felt as though he was losing his hold upon his
reason; the return of the hysteria shook him like a dry, light leaf. He
suddenly had a sensation that the room was too small to hold him; he
ran, almost reeled, to the open window, drawing his breath deep and
fast, inhaling the cool night air, rolling his eyes wildly.

It was night. He looked out into a vast blue-gray space sown with points
of light, winking lamps, and steady slow-burning stars. Below him was
the sleeping city. All the lesser staccato noises of the day had long
since died to silence; there only remained that prolonged and sullen
diapason, coming from all quarters at once. It was like the breathing of
some infinitely great monster, alive and palpitating, the sistole and
diastole of some gigantic heart. The whole existence of the great
slumbering city passed upward there before him through the still night
air in one long wave of sound.

It was Life, the murmur of the great, mysterious force that spun the
wheels of Nature and that sent it onward like some enormous engine,
resistless, relentless; an engine that sped straight forward, driving
before it the infinite herd of humanity, driving it on at breathless
speed through all eternity, driving it no one knew whither, crushing out
inexorably all those who lagged behind the herd and who fell from
exhaustion, grinding them to dust beneath its myriad iron wheels, riding
over them, still driving on the herd that yet remained, driving it
recklessly, blindly on and on toward some far-distant goal, some vague
unknown end, some mysterious, fearful bourne forever hidden in thick
darkness.

Chapter Fifteen

About a week later Hiram Wade, Ida's father, brought suit against
Vandover to recover twenty-five thousand dollars, claiming that his
daughter had killed herself because she had been ruined by him and that
he alone was responsible for her suicide.

Vandover had passed this week in an agony of grief over the loss of his
art, a grief that seemed even sharper than that which he had felt over
the death of his father. For this last calamity was like the death of a
child of his, some dear, sweet child, that might have been his companion
throughout all his life. At times it seemed to him impossible that his
art should fail him in this manner, and again and again he would put
himself at his easel, only to experience afresh the return of the
numbness in his brain, the impotency of his fingers.

He had begun little by little to pick up the course of his life once
more, and on a certain Wednesday morning was looking listlessly through
the morning paper as he sat in his window-seat. The room was delightful,
flooded with the morning sun, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ just touched
with a ruddy light, the Renaissance portraits looking down at him
through a fine golden haze; a little fire, just enough to blunt the
keenness of the early morning air, snapping in the famous tiled and
flamboyant stove. All about the room was a pleasant fragrance of coffee
and good tobacco.

Vandover caught sight of the announcement of the suit with a sudden
sharp intake of breath that was half gasp, half cry, starting up from
the window-seat, reading it over again and again with staring eyes.

It was a very short paragraph, not more than a dozen lines, lost at the
bottom of a column, among the cheap advertisements. It made no allusion
to any former stage of the affair; from its tone Ida might have killed
herself only the day before. It seemed hardly more than a notice that
some enterprising reporter, burrowing in the records at the City Hall,
had unearthed and brought to light with the idea that it might be of
possible interest to a few readers of the paper. But there was his name
staring back at him from out the gray blur of the type, like some
reflection of himself seen in a mirror. Insignificant as the paragraph
was, it seemed to Vandover as though it was the only item in the whole
paper. One might as well have trumpeted his crime through the streets.

"But twenty-five thousand dollars!" exclaimed Vandover, terrified.
"Where will _I_ find twenty-five thousand dollars?" And at once he fell
to wondering as to whether or no in default of payment he could be sent
to the penitentiary. The idea of winning the suit did not enter his mind
an instant; he did not even dream of fighting it.

For the moment it was like fire driving out fire. He forgot the loss of
his art, his mind filled only with the sense of the last disaster. What
could he do? Twenty-five thousand dollars! It would ruin him. A cry of
exasperation, of rage at his own folly, escaped him. "Ah, what a fool
I've been!"

For an hour he raged to and fro in the delightful sunlit room, pacing
back and forth in its longest dimension between the bamboo tea-table and
the low bookcase, a thousand different plans and projects coming and
going in his head. As his wits steadied themselves he began to see that
he must consult at once with some lawyer--Field, of course--perhaps
something could be done; a clever lawyer might make out a case for him
after all. But all at once he became convinced that Field would not
undertake his defence; he knew he had no case; so what could Field do
for him? He would have to tell him the truth, and he saw with absolute
clearness that the lawyer would refuse to try to defend him. The thing
could not honourably be done. But, then, what _should_ he do? He must
have legal advice from some quarter.

He was still in this state of perplexity when Charlie Geary arrived,
pounding on the door and opening it immediately afterward as was his
custom.

"Hello!" said Vandover, surprised. "Hello, Charlie! is that you?"

"Say," exclaimed Geary without returning his greeting, holding up his
hand as if to interrupt him; "say, have you seen your lawyer yet--seen
_any_ lawyer?"

"No," answered Vandover, shaking his head gravely; "no, I've only this
minute read about it in the paper." He was glad that Geary had come; at
once he felt a desire to throw this burden upon his chum's shoulders,
to let him assume the management of the affair, just as in the old
college days he had willingly, weakly, submitted to the dictatorship of
the shrewder, stronger man who smoothed out his difficulties for him,
and extricated him from all his scrapes. He knew Geary to be full of
energy and resource, and he had confidence in his ability as a lawyer,
even though he was so young in years and experience. Besides this, he
was his friend, his college chum; for all Geary's disagreeable qualities
he knew he would do the right thing by him now.

"You're the one man of all others I wanted to see," he exclaimed as he
gripped his hand. "By George! I'm glad you have come. Here, sit down and
let's talk this over." Geary took the big leather chair behind the desk,
and Vandover flung himself again upon the window-seat. It was as if the
two were back in the room in Matthew's; hundreds of times in those days
they had occupied precisely these positions, Geary bending over at the
study table, intent, nervous, very keen, Vandover lounging idly upon the
window-seat, resting easily on his elbow listening to the other man's
advice.

"Now, what must I do, Charlie?" Vandover began. "See my lawyer, I
suppose? But do you think a lawyer like Field would take my case? You
know I haven't a leg to stand on."

"But you haven't seen him?" inquired Geary sharply. "Haven't seen
anybody about it?" Vandover shook his head. "Sure?" insisted Geary
anxiously.

"Why, I have only just heard about it twenty minutes ago," protested
Vandover. "Why are you so particular about that?" he added. Then Geary
exploded his mine.

"Because," he said, with a smile of triumph that he could not restrain,
"because we are the counsel for the other side. I am on the case."

Vandover bounded from the window-seat speechless with astonishment,
bitterly disappointed. "_You?_ he shouted. Geary slowly nodded his head,
enjoying Vandover's bewilderment. Vandover dropped back upon the
cushions again, staring at him wildly with growing suspicion and anger.
He would not have thought it possible that Geary could so sacrifice
their old friendship to his own personal interest. The two continued
staring at each other across the table for a moment. In the silence
they heard the long rumble of a cable-car passing the house, and the
persistent jangling of its bell as it approached the street crossing. A
grocery wagon went up the side street, the horses' hoofs making a
cadenced clapping sound upon the asphalt.

"Well," exclaimed Vandover scornfully, "I suppose that's business, but I
would call it damned unkind!"

"Now, look here, old man," returned Geary consolingly. "Don't you take
the monkey-wrench off the safety valve like that. What am I here for if
it isn't to help you? Maybe you don't know that this is a mighty
unprofessional thing to do. Ah, you bet, if old Beale knew this I would
get it right in the neck. Don't you suppose I can help you more as
Wade's lawyer than I could as yours? And now that's the very first thing
I've got to tell you--to keep this dark, that I have seen you. I can't
do anything for you if you don't promise that."

"Oh, that's all right," returned Vandover, reassured. "That's all right,
you can--"

"It's not considered the right thing to do," Geary continued, not
heeding Vandover's answer, "but I just do it because"--he began to make
awkward gestures with both his hands--"because we're old friends, like
that. That was the very first thing I thought of when Beale Jr. told me
that we two had the case--that I could get you out of this hole better
as Wade's lawyer than as your own. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to
see that the first thing."

"I'm sure it was awfully good of you, old man," said Vandover sincerely.
"I'm in a lot of trouble nowadays!"

"Well, now don't you bother, Van," answered Geary consolingly. "I guess
we can pull you out of this all right." He drew up to the table, looking
about from side to side. "Got any writing paper concealed about the
premises?" he asked. Vandover pushed him over his writing pad, and
Geary, taking the cap from his fountain pen, began asking a series of
questions, taking down his answers in shorthand. After he had asked him
as to his age, length of residence in the city, his property, and some
few other technical matters, he leaned back in his chair and said:

"Now, let's hear your side of the story, Van. I don't suppose you like
to go over the thing again, but you see I ought to know." Vandover told
of the affair, Geary making notes as he went along. It was nearly noon
before their interview was at an end. Then Geary gathered up the papers
and reached for his hat and stick, saying:

"Well, now, that's all we can do to-day. I think I'll be up to see you
again day after to-morrow, in the afternoon. Beale Jr. and I have a date
with Mr. Wade again to-morrow, I think, and I can talk to you more
definitely after that. You know this is the devil of a thing to do," he
suddenly exclaimed apprehensively, "this playing back and forth between
the two parties like this; regularly dishonourable, don't you know?"

"If you think it's dishonourable," said Vandover as he accompanied Geary
to the door, "if you think it's dishonourable, Charlie, why, don't do
it! I don't want to ask you to do anything dishonourable for me."

"Oh, that's all right," replied Geary uneasily; "I had just as soon do
it for you, only listen to this: don't you say a word about the case to
anybody, not to your lawyer, nor to anybody. If Field should write to
you, you tell him you have counsel already. And, look here! you may have
the reporters up here pretty soon, and don't you open your face to them;
you mind that; don't you let them get a thing out of you. And there's
another thing you must understand: I'm not your lawyer, of course; you
see that. I could be disbarred if I was lawyer for both sides. It's like
this, you see: I'm Wade's lawyer--at least the firm I am with are his
lawyers--and of course I'm acting in Wade's interest. But you're an old
chum of mine, and if I can I'm going to try and make it easier for you.
You understand, don't you?"

"Yes, I understand, Charlie," answered Vandover, "and you are just a
brick."

Vandover passed the rest of the day in his sitting-room, the suspense of
the situation slowly screwing his nerves tenser and tenser. He walked
for hours back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back, his head
bent down, his forehead drawn into a frown of anxiety and exasperation,
or he stood for a long time at the window looking out into the street
with eyes that saw nothing. At supper that night he found that his
appetite had left him; the very thought of food revolted him. He
returned to his room between seven and eight o'clock, his body and mind
completely fagged, feeling a crying need of some diversion, some escape
from the thoughts that had been hounding him all day.

He made up his mind to read a little before going to bed, and all at
once remembered a book that he had once begun a long time ago but had
never finished: the story of two men who had bought a wrecked opium ship
for fifty thousand dollars and had afterward discovered that she
contained only a few tins of the drug. He had never read on to find how
that story turned out. Suddenly he found himself repeating, "Twenty-five
thousand dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars--where will _I_ find
twenty-five thousand dollars?" He wondered if he would go to jail if he
failed to pay. His interest in the book was gone in a moment, and he
took up another of his favourite novels, the story of a boy at the time
of Christ, a Jewish boy unjustly condemned to the galleys, liberated
afterward, and devoting his life to the overthrow of his enemy, whom at
last he overcame and humbled, fouling him in a chariot race, all but
killing him.

He sat down in the huge leather chair, and, drawing it up to the piano
lamp and cocking his feet upon the table, began to read. In a few
moments the same numbness stole into his head like a rising fog, a
queer, tense feeling, growing at the back of his forehead and at the
base of his skull, a dulness, a strange stupefying sensation as of some
torpid, murky atmosphere. He looked about him quickly; all the objects
in the range of his vision--the corner of the desk, the corduroy couch,
the low bookcase with Flossie's yellow slipper and Barye's lioness upon
it--seemed to move back and stand upon the same plane; the objects
themselves appeared immovable enough, but the sensation of them in his
brain somewhere behind his eyes began to move about in a slow, dizzy
whirl. The old touch of unreasoning terror came back, together with a
sudden terror of the spirit, a sickening sinking of the heart, a
loathing of life, terrible beyond words.

Vandover started up, striving to keep himself in hand, fighting against
a wild desire to rush about from wall to wall, shrieking and waving his
arms. Over and over again he exclaimed, "Oh, _what_ is the matter with
me?" The strangeness of the thing was what unsettled and unnerved him.
He had all the sensations of terror, but without any assignable reason,
and this groundless fear became in the end the cause of a new fear: he
was afraid of this fear that was afraid of nothing.

Very gradually, however, the crisis passed away. He became a little
calmer, and as he was mixing himself a glass of whisky and water at the
sideboard he decided that he would go to bed. He was sure that he would
be better for a good night's rest; evidently his nerves were out of
order; it would not do for him to read late at night. He realized all at
once that his mind and body alike were exhausted.

He passed a miserable night, dozing and waking at alternate hours until
three o'clock, when he found it impossible to get to sleep; hour after
hour he lay flat on his back staring open-eyed into the darkness,
listening to the ticking of the clock, the mysterious footsteps that
creaked the floors overhead, and the persistent drip of a water faucet.
Outside in the street he heard at long intervals the rattling of wheels
as the early milk wagons came and went; a dog began to bark, three gruff
notes repeated monotonously at exact intervals; all at once there was a
long muffled roll and an abrupt clacking noise; it ceased, then broke
out again sharply, paused once more, then recommenced, settling to a
prolonged minor hum; the cable was starting up; it was almost morning,
the window of his room began to show a brighter blur in the darkness,
while very far off he could hear the steady puffing of a locomotive. As
the first cable-car trundled by the house he dropped off to sleep for
the last time, being waked again toward nine o'clock by the sound of
some one shovelling coal outside under his window, the shovel clinking
and rasping upon the stone sidewalk.

He felt a little refreshed, but as he entered the dining-room for his
late breakfast the smell of food repulsed him; his appetite was gone; it
was impossible for him to eat. Toward eleven o'clock that same morning
he was pottering idly about his sitting-room, winding his clock and
shaking down the ashes in the tiled flamboyant stove; his mind was still
busy going over for the hundredth time all the possibilities of Hiram
Wade's suit, and he was just wondering whether something in the way of a
compromise might not be arranged, when with the suddenness of a blow
between the eyes the numbness in his head returned, together with the
same unreasoning fear, the same depression of spirits, the same fearful
sinking of the heart. What! it was coming back again, this strange
attack, coming back even when his attention was not concentrated, even
when there was no unusual exertion of his brain!

Then the torment began. This time the crisis did not pass off; from now
on it persisted continually. Vandover began to feel strange. At first
the room looked unfamiliar to him, then his own daily life no longer
seemed recognizable, and, finally, all of a sudden, it was the whole
world, all the existing order of things, that appeared to draw off like
a refluent tide, leaving him alone, abandoned, cast upon some fearful,
mysterious shore.

Nothing seemed worth while; all the thousand little trivial things that
made up the course of his life and in which he found diversion and
amusement palled upon him. A fearful melancholia settled over him, a
despair, an abhorrence of living that could not be uttered. This only
was during the day. It was that night that Vandover went down into the
pit.

He went to bed early, his brain in a whirl, his frame worn out as if
from long physical exertion. He was just dropping into a grateful sleep
when his whole body twitched suddenly with a shock and a recoil of all
his nerves; in an instant he was broad awake, panting and exhausted as
if from a long run. Once more he settled himself upon the pillow, and
once more the same leap, the same sharp spasm of his nerves caught him
back to consciousness with the suddenness of a relaxed spring. At last
sleep was out of the question; his drowsiness of the early part of the
evening passed away, and he lay back, his hands clasped behind his head,
staring up into the darkness, his thoughts galloping incessantly through
his brain, suffering without pain as he had never imagined a human being
could suffer though racked with torture from head to heel.

From time to time a slow torsion and crisping of all his nerves,
beginning at his ankles, spread to every corner of his body till he had
to shut his fists and teeth against the blind impulse to leap from his
bed screaming. His hands felt light and, as he told himself, "jumpy."
All at once he felt a peculiar sensation in them: they seemed to swell,
the fingers puffing to an enormous size, the palms bulging, the whole
member from the wrist to the nails distended like a glove when one has
blown into it to straighten it out. Then he had a feeling that his head
was swelling in the same way. He had to rub his hands together, to pass
them again and again over his face to rid himself of the fancy.

But the strange numb feeling at the base of the skull did not keep him
from thinking--he would have been glad if it had--and now at last when
the terror overcame him it was no longer causeless; he knew now what he
feared--he feared that he was going mad.

It was the punishment that he had brought upon himself, some fearful
nervous disease, the result of his long indulgence of vice, his vile
submission to the brute that was to destroy his reason; some collapse of
all his faculties, beginning first with that which was highest, most
sensitive--his art--spreading onward and downward till he should have
reached the last stages of idiocy. It was Nature inexorably exacting. It
was the vast fearful engine riding him down beneath its myriad spinning
wheels, remorselessly, irresistibly.

The dreadful calamities that he had brought upon himself recoiled upon
his head, crushing him to the dust with their weight of anguish and
remorse: Ida Wade's suicide, his father's death, his social banishment,
the loss of his art, Hiram Wade's lawsuit menacing him with beggary, and
now this last, this approaching insanity. It was no longer fire driving
out fire; the sense of all these disasters seemed to come back upon him
at once, as keen, as bitter as when they had first befallen. He had told
himself that he did not believe in a hell. Could there be a worse hell
than this?

But all at once, without knowing why, moved by an impulse, a blind,
resistless instinct, Vandover started up in bed, raising his clasped
hands above him, crying out, "Oh, help me! Why don't you _help_ me? You
can if you only will!" Who was it to whom he had cried with such
unerring intuition? He gave no name to this mysterious "You," this
strange supernatural being, this mighty superhuman power. It was the cry
of a soul in torment that does not stop to reason, the wild last hope
that feels its own helplessness, that responds to an intuition of a
force outside of itself--the force that can save it in its time of
peril.

Trembling, his hands still clasped above him, Vandover waited for an
answer, waited for the miracle. In the tortured exalted state of his
nerves he seemed suddenly possessed of a sixth sense; he fancied that he
would know, there in that room, in a few seconds, while yet his hands
remained clasped above his head. It was his last hope: if this failed
him there was nothing left. Still he waited; he felt that he should know
when the miracle came, that he would suddenly be filled with a sense of
peace, of quiet joy. Still he waited--there was nothing, nothing but the
vast silence, the unbroken blackness of the night, a night that was to
last forever. There was no answer, nothing but the deaf silence, the
blind darkness. But in a moment he felt that the very silence, the very
lack of answer, was answer in itself; there was nothing for him. Even
that vast mysterious power to which he had cried could not help him now,
_could_ not help him, could not stay the inexorable law of nature, could
not reverse that vast terrible engine with its myriad spinning wheels
that was riding him down relentlessly, grinding him into the dust. And
afterward? After the engine had done its work, when that strange other
time should come, that other life, what then? No, not even then, nothing
but outer darkness then and the gnashing of teeth, nothing but the deaf
silence, nothing but the blind darkness, nothing but the unbroken
blackness of an eternal night.

It was the end of everything! With a muffled cry, "Oh, I can't stand
this!" Vandover threw himself from his bed, groping his way out into the
sitting-room. By this time he was only conscious of a suffering too
great to be borne, everything else was blurred as in a thick mist. For
nearly an hour he stumbled about in the darkened room, bruising himself
against the furniture, dazed, numb, trying in vain to find the drawer of
the desk where he kept his father's revolver. At last his hand closed
upon it, gripping it so tightly that the hundreds of little nicks and
scratches made by the contact of the tacks and nails which he had
hammered with it nipped and bit into his palm like the teeth of tiny
mice. A vague feeling of shame overcame him at the last moment: he had
no wish to be found sprawling upon the floor, dressed only in his
night-gown. He lit the gas and put on his bathrobe, drawing the cords
securely about his waist and neck.

When he turned about to pick up the revolver again he found that his
determination had weakened considerably, and he was obliged to reflect
again upon the wreck of his life and soul before he was back once more
to the proper pitch of resolution. It was five minutes to two, and he
made up his mind to kill himself when the clock struck the hour. He
spent the intervening moments in arranging the details of the matter. At
first he thought he would do it standing, but he abandoned that idea,
fearing to strike his head against the furniture as he fell. He was
about to decide upon the huge leather chair, when the remembrance of his
father's death made that impossible. He finally concluded to sit upon
the edge of his bed, leaning a little backward so as not to fall upon
the floor, and he dragged the bed out into the sitting-room, preferring
somehow to die there. For a moment the idea of lying at length upon the
bed occurred to him, but in an instant he recoiled from it, horrified at
the thought of the death that struck from above; no, it would be best to
sit upon the edge of the bed, falling backward with the shot. Then he
wondered as to which it should be, his heart or his head; evidently the
head was the better; there upon the right side in the little hollow of
the temple, and the next moment he found himself curiously touching and
pressing the spot with his fingers. All at once he heard the little
clicking noise that the clock makes a minute or so before the hour. It
was almost two; he sat down upon the edge of the bed, cocking the
revolver, waiting for the clock to strike. An idea came to him, and he
looked at the calendar that stood at the right of the clock upon the top
of the low bookcase. It was the twelfth of April, Thursday; that, then,
was to be the date of his death--Thursday, April twelfth, at two in the
morning, so it would read upon his gravestone. For an instant the
awfulness of the thing he was to do came upon him, and the next instant
he found himself wondering if they still coursed jack-rabbits with
greyhounds down at Coronado the way they used to do when he was there.
All at once the clock struck two, and at the very last instant a
strange impulse to seat himself before the mirror came upon him. He drew