Chapter 28

THE BATTLE.

The car stopped before the porte-cochere. Blake alighted. He knew well the way. He did not ring; for the door was unlocked--ajar. Jaw close set-- lips but a thin straight line, he made his way down the great, dark, silent hall. He had come to do that which it were hard to do. When one has been the friend of such a man as John Schuyler was--when one has felt toward a man as such a man as John Schuyler must be felt toward--when one has known that man to do the things that he has done--when one has seen the misery--the suffering unutterable that he has caused--the shame beyond depth, the grief beyond measurement--and when she upon whom has been heaped this shame and grief and misery and suffering unutterable is the woman one loves--then it becomes not a little thing to go to that man without murder in one's heart and vengeance in one's soul.

Blake knew where he was most likely to find the man that had been his friend. There he went, thrusting open the broad door. He paused upon the threshold....

The woman, lifted her head.... She moved away from Schuyler, arranging the dead black masses of her hair.... She laughed a little.

Schuyler turned. Eyes again leaden saw Blake.

"You!" he cried.

Blake said no word.

Schuyler laughed, raucously.

"So you, of all, have not decided to flee from the leper."

Blake, looking at him, said, slowly:

"No; I stay behind and stand the stench for the sake of him who was my friend."

"Is the stench then so great that it precludes the common courtesy of announcing your presence?"

Blake made no answer to this.

"I wish to see you alone," he said, simply.

Schuyler half swung from him.

"You may see me as I am." he returned, doggedly.

"And a most damnably unpleasant sight it is."

Schuyler wheeled.

"You go too far," he said, threateningly.

"Too far?" repeated Blake. "Impossible.... I wish to see you alone--if you, and this woman--dare."

She, smiling, bowed, graciously.

"By all means," she agreed, easily.

"No!" cried Schuyler. "Stay where you are."

She shook her head.

"Pray pardon me. I'll wait in the morning room."

Alone, Blake turned and looked at Schuyler. Could it be that this was the man that had been his friend? ... It must be; and yet how could it be? There was in his heart a great bitterness. He could not understand....

Schuyler had turned to him.

"Look here, Tom," he began, doggedly, "before you begin, I wish to tell you that it is useless. Nothing that you can say will change me in the slightest. I've made up my mind; and my decision is unalterable."

"Irrevocable, is the word."

"As you will.... I'm sorry if the course I choose doesn't seem right to you--to the world--sometimes even to myself--and I'll confess to you that it doesn't--But, right, or wrong, it's the only one for me, and I must take it--must, whether I will or not. So, if you've come for a cigar and a chat, well and good. But if for anything else, go and avoid trouble."

"I'm looking for trouble," returned Blake, quietly. He advanced to the table and leaned against it. "Jack," he exclaimed, "you're a damned fool. There was some excuse for the others. Parmalee was a kid--Rogers an old fool--Van Dam--well, absinthe and asininity account for him. And they fell to their fooldom without warning to guard them or precedent to shield them. But you--open-eyed, knowing everything--forewarned and forearmed,--walk fatuously to your doom as one sheep follows another over a precipice. I swear I can't even yet believe that it isn't all a dream. I keep pinching myself and saying to myself that in the morning I'll wake up and go around and tell old Jack all about it as being a good joke. It's an uncanny, filthy sort of a nightmare as it stands, however." He turned to the other; Schuyler was striding up and down the room. "Old man," he pleaded, quietly, "what's the answer?"

Schuyler stopped in his walk. Looking at Blake, he remarked:

"You've never loved. You couldn't know."

"Never loved!" cried Blake, scornfully. "Couldn't know! Hell! You make me tired! What do you mean by debauching and degrading a good, pure word like love by applying it to this snaky, bestial fascination of yours. You're a fool!"

Schuyler advanced upon him, threateningly.

"Don't you call me that, too," he said, tensely.

Blake paid no heed.

"Love!" he cried, disgustedly. "This sordid, sodden passion of yours love! Love lives only where there is sympathy, and respect, and mutual understanding. Do you mean to tell me that you have any respect for this woman? You know well you haven't a bit more respect for her than she has for you, and that's none. Do you mean to tell me there's any sympathy between you? No more than there is between a snake and a bird. And you aren't capable of understanding her any more than she is of understanding you. Love! It's lust! And you know it!"

Schuyler had dropped into a chair. Blake finished. He swung toward him.

"Go on!" he almost hissed, through clenched teeth. "Go on! If you can tell me anything that I haven't told myself, I'd like to hear it. Tell me what you think. Tell me what everyone thinks. Put into words the scorn and contempt that I see in every eye that looks into mine--in every mirror that I look into. Go on! Tell me something else! But let me tell you one thing! When Destiny can't get a man any other way, she sends a woman for him.... And the woman gets him."

Blake looked at him.

"'A fool there was';" he quoted. Schuyler interrupted.

"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't you suppose I know that thing by heart-- every syllable--every letter of it? Don't you suppose I know what it means--all that it means--better than you can ever know?" He struck his forehead with clenched fist. "Tell me the things that lie here!" his voice was almost a scream. "The things that lie here, and burn, and burn, and burn! Tell me the things that lie here!" He struck his forehead again.

"I'll tell you this," said Blake, voice cold, and ringing. "It was written for you by a man who knew you; and you'll listen."

"No!" protested Schuyler. He started to rise from his chair. But Blake, catching him by the shoulders, thrust him back, holding him pinioned. "You fool," he remarked, bitterly. "You poor, pitiful, puling fool! 'Honor, and faith, and a sure intent'--a wife, a child, a reputation, a character. 'Stripped to his foolish hide,' the poem reads. But you're stripped to your naked, sodden skeleton. If I weren't so sorry for you, I could cut your throat. When I think of the little girl--calling you daddy--honoring you--loving you--and of what you've done for her! When I think of your wife--of the woman who went through the pains of childbirth for you--who held you sacred in that great, loving, glorious heart of hers--who gave, and gave, and gave asking only that there might be the more to give--You say that maybe I don't know what love is. Well, maybe I don't--and maybe I do. There are some things that a man may not tell his best friend--there are some things that a man may not even tell himself. But I'm different from you, thank God, and I love differently."

He moved back. Schuyler remained seated. Leaden eyes had in them now a new light--the light of suffering refined. Blake commanded:

"Stand up. Look me in the eye, as man to man--if you can."

Swiftly Schuyler rose to his feet. The two men stood face to face, eye to eye.

"Now," cried Blake, hope in his heart--hope ringing in his voice, "will you be a man, or a thing that earth, nor heaven, nor even hell has room for?"