CHAPTER IX

"It's dark as an inferno, and the stairs make a man's back ache," said Laurence Stanley dismally to himself, as he climbed up to the Philistine Club, "but," as he caught his breath again and consequently began to feel more cheerful, "it's comfortable when you get there."

Which was distinctly true. The furniture, the carpets, the hangings in the spacious, rambling old rooms were all ancient and worn, but comfort was as common to them all as was age. When you came in and slid down into the shiny leather cavern of an arm chair you felt that you were at home. At least, the men who were members did. They were a queer lot, these members. Just what they had in common, no man might say; there were artists, and writers, and musicians, and men-about-town. To outsiders it seemed as if a certain sort of cleverness was the open sesame to the membership rolls. In the matter of name, it was doubtless, the effect of a stroke of humor that came to one of the founders. Perhaps, for the very reason that most of the members were men of the sort that one instinctively knew to be modern, and broad and untramelled by dogmas or doctrines, the club had been named the Philistine Club. It was no longer in its first youth. The walls were behung with the portraits of former presidents--portraits that were all alike in their effect of displaying an execrable sort of painting; it was evident that in its selection of painters in ordinary the club had lived strictly up to its name. The building that housed the club was an old one, on one of the busiest business thoroughfares in the city. It was very convenient, as the hard-working fellows among the members phrased it; in a minute you could drop out of the rush and roar of the street-traffic into the quiet gloom of the club, a lounge, and a book.

Stanley had not been in the dark corner that he usually affected very long before Vanstruther came in, his beard more pointed than ever. He dropped limply into a chair, put his feet on one of the whist tables, and said, as he lit a cigar: "Do you know this is about the time of year that I realize that this town is a hole? I repeat it--a hole! A hole, moreover, with the bottom out. I tell you there's not a soul in town just now."

"Most true," assented Stanley, "for neither you nor I have anything that deserves the name."

"Bosh! What I mean is that the place is a howling desert. Everybody is still at the seashore, or the mountains, or the mineral springs. Newport or the White Mountains, or Manitou, or Mackinac Island--there's where every self-respecting person is at this time; not in this old sweat-box. Why, it's a positive fact that there are no pretty girls at all on the avenue these days; or, if there are any, you can tell at a glance that they're from Podunk or Egypt."

"In other words, there is a scarcity of 'Mrs. Tomnoddy received yesterday,' and 'there will be a meeting of the Contributors' Club at Mrs. Mausoleum's on Friday.' People who like to see their names in the daily papers are out of town, so the society journalist waileth; is it not so? It all comes down to bread and butter in this country. Just as soon as we get away from bread and butter, we'll be greater idiots than the others ever knew how to be." He waved a hand carelessly to some remote space in which he inferred the continent of Europe.

"That's all very well," rejoined the other, "you are always great on magniloquent generalizations, but you never trouble about the concrete things. I'm up a tree for copy, day in, day out, and I groan just once, and what do you do? You moralize loftily. But do you help me with a real bit of news? Not a bit of it."

"Well, you know," Stanley said, lazily, "I'm the last man in the world to come to for items of news concerning _le monde où l'on s'amuse_. But if you want something a notch or two lower--say about the grade of members of this club. Do you notice that Dante Belden's sofa is empty today?"

The journalist looked around to the other side of the room where an old black leather lounge stood. It was the sofa that had long since become the special property, in the eyes of the other members, of the artist, Dante Gabriel Belden. He used to sleep there a great deal; and he used to dream also. Occasionally he waxed talkative, and then there usually grew up around him a circle of chairs. In such conclave, there passed anecdotes that were delightful, criticisms that were incisive, and, in total, nothing that was altogether stupid.

"Where is he?" asked Vanstruther.

"Where is who?" It was Marsboro, the _Chronicle's_ artist, that had sauntered over.

"Belden."

"Married," said Stanley, laconically.

"The devil!" exclaimed Vanstruther, putting his cigar down on the window-ledge.

"Not the same," was the quiet reply. "Although--" and Stanley paused to smile--"it might be interesting to trace the relationship."

"Oh, talk straight talk for a minute, can't you! I never knew the man was thinking of it."

"Nor did I. Well, we're all friends of his, and men don't think any less of each other in a case of this kind, so I'll tell you the story. In my opinion, it's a clear case of 'Tomlinson, of Berkley Square'. However, that's open to individual interpretation. Belden has succumbed to a lifelong passion for Henri Murger?"

Marsboro swore audibly. "I don't see," he said, "that you're any plainer than you were! What's all that got to do with the man's marriage?"

"Everything! Everything--the way I look at it, at least. You know as well as I do, how saturated he is with admiration for those delightful escapades of the Quartier Latin that Murger makes such pretty stories of. Well--he has acted up to them. The trouble is that this is not the Quartier Latin, and that sort of thing is a trifle awkward when you make a Christian ceremony of it. Here are the facts: Belden and myself were coming home from the theatre a good while ago, when we came to a couple that were decidedly in liquor. The man had been out to dinner, or a dance or somewhere; he had his dress clothes on, and his white shirt was still immaculate. His silk hat was on straight enough. His walk was the only thing that betrayed him. He had his arm around the girl. When we passed them, or began to, we could hear that the girl was crying. Her boots were shabby and the skirt that trailed over them was badly fringed at the bottom; above the waist she had on such sham finery and her face, once pretty, had such a stale, hunted look, as told plainly to what class she belonged. The class that is no class at all, and yet that has always been. "I'm afraid of you--you've been drinking--let me go," she was crying out. Belden stopped at once. The man put his arm more tightly about her waist, and tried, drunkenly, to kiss her. The girl wrenched herself almost away from him. She screamed out, "Let loose of me, you beast!" Then she began to moan a little. That settled Belden. He walked in front of the man in the white shirt-front, and told him to let the woman go. The man said he would see him damned first. The words had hardly tortured their stuttering way from the drunken man's mouth, before Belden gave him a blow between the eyes that sent the fellow to the sidewalk. He lay there cursing, drunkenly. Belden asked the woman, quietly, where she lived. She looked at him and laughed. Laughed aloud! I've seen most things, in my time, but that woman's laugh, and the look on her face are about the most grewsome things I remember. She laughed, you know as if someone had just told her that he would like to walk down to hell with her. She laughed in that high, unnatural key, in which only women of that sort can laugh; it was a laugh that had in it the scorn of the Devil for his toy, man. There was in it a memory of a time when she might have unblushingly answered that question of 'Where do you live?' There was in it something like pity for this innocent who asked her that question in good faith, or seemed to. Then she steadied herself against a lamp-post, and said, with the whine coming back into her voice, 'What d'ye want to know for?' 'I'll see that you get there all right,' said Belden. The woman laughed again. She took her hand away from the lamp-post, and began an effort to walk on without replying; but in an instant she swayed, and, had not Belden jumped toward her and put an arm about her shoulders, would have fallen.

"She cursed feebly. 'Tell me where you live?' Belden persevered. His voice was harsher and almost a command. She stammered out more sneering evasions; then she flung out the name of the dismal street where she had such residence as that sort ever has. What do you suppose that man Belden did? Hailed a cab, put the woman in, and got in after her. Simply shouted a hasty goodnight to me, and drove off. Well,--that's where it all began." Stanley stopped, got up, and walked over to the wall, pressing a button that showed there.

"But you don't mean to say--" began one of the others, with wonder and incredulity in his tone.

"Oh, yes, I do, though. Russell, take the orders, will you? What'll you men drink--or smoke? I've been talking, and my throat's dry."

The darky waited patiently until the several orders had been given. Then he glided away as noiselessly as he had come.

"There is really where the story, as far as I know it, ends," Stanley went on, after he had cooled his throat a little, "The other end of it came to me from Belden the other day. 'Got anything to do Thursday evening?' he asked me. We had been talking of dry-point etching. I told him I thought not. 'Then will you help me jump off?' he went on. Then the whole scene of that winter-night flashed back to me in a sort of wave. I felt, before he answered my question for further information, what his answer would be, 'Yes,' he said, 'it's the same girl. I know her better than I did. Her's is a sad case; very sad. I'm lifting her up out of it.' I didn't say anything, he hadn't asked my opinion. As between man and man there was nothing for me to cavil at; I was invited to a friend's wedding, that was all. I went. I was the only other person present, barring the old German minister that Belden fished out from some dark corner. It was the queerest proceeding! Belden had brought the girl up into a righteous neighborhood some months ago, it seemed; had been paying her way; the neighbors thought she was a person of some means, I suppose. He introduced me to her on the morning of his wedding-day; I think she remembered me, although she has caught manners enough from Belden or her past to conceal what she felt. And so--they were married."

"My God!" groaned Vanstruther, "what an awful thing to do! Lifting her up out of it, does he say? No! He's bringing himself down to it! That's what it always ends in. Always. Oh, I've known cases! Every man thinks he is going to succeed where the others have failed. For they have failed, there is no doubt about that! Look at the case of Gripler, the Elevated magnate!--he did that sort of thing, and the world says and does the same old thing it has always done--sneers a little, and cuts her! He is having the most magnificent house in all Gotham built for himself, I understand, and they are going to move there, but do you suppose for a minute they will ever get into the circle of the elect? Not in a thousand years! Don't misunderstand me: I'm not considering merely the society of the 'society column,' I'm thinking of society at large, the entire human body, the mass of individuals scripturally enveloped in the phrase 'thy neighbor.' The taint never fades; a surface gloss may hide the spot, but some day it blazons itself to the world again in all it's unpleasantness. Take this case of our friend Belden. We, who sit here, are all men who know the world we live in; we will treat Belden himself as we have always done. We will even argue, in that exaggerated spirit of broadness that might better be called laxness, typical of our time, that the man has done a braver thing than ourselves had courage for had the temptation come to us. We will acknowledge that his motive was a good one. He honestly believes that he will educate the girl into the higher life. He thinks the past can be sunk into the pit of forgetfulness; but there is no pit deep enough to hide the past. We will say that he is putting into action what the rest of the radicals continually vapor about; the equal consideration, in matters of morality, of man and woman. He is remembering that a man, we argue, should in strict ethics demand of a woman no more than himself can bring. But, mark my words, the centuries have been wiser than we knew. It is ordained that the man who shall take to wife a woman that has what the world meaningly call 'a past,' shall see the ghost of that past shaking the piece of his house for ever and ever."

There was silence for a few moments. Beyond the curtains, someone came in and threw himself down on the sofa. Marsboro, looking vaguely out at window, said, somewhat irrelevantly, "I suppose that will be the end of the Sunday evening seances?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Stanley. "If I know anything about Belden, I shall not be surprised if he asks us all up there again one of these evenings. He has lived so long in Free-and-easy-dom that no thought of what people call 'the proprieties' will ever touch him."

"Heigh!" Vanstruther stretched himself reflectively. "It's a queer life a man leads, a queer life! God send us all easy consciences!"

"Don't be pathetic!" Stanley frowned. "The life is generally of our own choosing, and if we play the game we should pay the forfeits. Besides which, it is one of the few things I believe in, that the man who has tasted of sin, and in whose mouth the bitters of revulsion have corroded, is the only one who can ever safely be called good. It is different with a woman. If once she tastes--there's an end of her! Oh, I know very well that we never think this way at first. At first--when we are very young--we think there is nothing in the world so delightful as being for ever and ever as white as the driven snow; then Life sends his card, we make his acquaintance, he introduces us to some of his fastest friends, and we, h'm, begin to change our views a little. In accordance with the faint soiling that is gradually covering up the snowy hues of our being, the strictness of our opinions on the matter of whiteness relaxes notably. Arm in arm with Life, we step slowly down the ladder. Then, if we are in luck, there is a reaction, and we go up again--so far!--only so far, and never any further; if we are particularly fond of Life, we are likely to get very far down indeed; and the end is that Life bids us farewell of his own accord. That is the history of a modern man of the world."

"I believe you are right," said Marsboro, "I know, in my own case at least, that I can remember distinctly how beautiful my young ideal was. But Life is jealous of ideals; he shatters them with a single whiff of experience. And it happened as you just now said: as I descended, my ideals descended. I only hope"--he sighed, half in jest, half in earnest,--"that I will begin the upward climb and succeed in winning up."

"Ah," assented Stanley, "that is always the interesting problem. Which it will be: the elevator with the index pointing to 'Up' or the one destined 'Down.' You needn't look so curiously at me, Van, I know what you are wondering. Well you can rest easy in the assurance I give you: the nether slopes are beckoning to me. I became aware of it long ago, reconciled moreover. I live merely for the moment. My senses must amuse me until there is nothing left of them; that is all. But look here: don't think there is no reverse to the medal. I have, fate knows, my moments of being horrified at myself. It is, I presume, at the times when the ghost of my conscience comes to ask why it was murdered." He appeared to be concentrating all his attention on the ashes at the end of his cigarette. "Why, don't you know that there is no longer any meaning for me in any of those words: honor, and truth, and virtue? I have no standards, except my digestion, and my nerves. I don't mistreat my wife simply because it would come back to me in a thousand little annoyances that would grate on my nerves." He sipped slowly at the glass by his side. "And I'm not worse than some other men!"

"True. All of which is a pity. But we've got off the subject. The villainy of ourselves is too patent a proposition. The question is, by what right we continue to expect of the women we marry that which they dare not expect of us.

"Are you the mouthpiece of the New Woman? Well, the Creator made man king, and the laws of physiology cannot be twisted to suit the New Woman. For it is, in essentials, unfortunately a question of physiological consequences. Wherefore, suppose we stop the argument. This is not a medical congress!"

Stanley went over to the desk where the periodicals lay, and picking one up, began, with a cigarette in his mouth, to let his eyes rest on the printed pages.

"Will you go, if you're asked?" Marsboro said, presently.

"I?" Stanley looked up carelessly. "Certainly. As far as I'm concerned a man may marry the devil and all his angels. But I wouldn't take my wife or my sister."

Vanstruther laughed dryly. "If women were to apply the tit-for-tat principle," he said, "what terribly small visiting lists most of us fellows would have!"

But Stanley disdained further discussion, and the other men got up to go. When they had passed beyond the curtains Stanley laid down the paper he had been reading, and smiled to himself. He was wondering why he had been led into this waste of breath. A man's life was a man's life, and what was the use of cavilling at facts! The only thing to do was to take life lightly and to let nothing matter. Also, one must amuse oneself! If the manner of the amusement was distasteful or hurtful to others, why--so much the worse for the others!

So musing, Laurence Stanley passed into a light slumber, and dreamed of impossible virtues.

But Dick Lancaster, who, from the sofa beyond the curtains, had heard all of this conversation, did not dream of pleasant things that night. In fact, he spent a white night. Like a flood the horrors of self-revelation had come upon him at sound of those arguments and dissections; he saw himself as he was, compared with what he had been; he shuddered and shivered in the grip of remorse.

In the white light of shame he saw whither the wish to taste of life had led him; he realized that something of that hopeless corruption that Stanley had spoken of was already etched into his conscience. Oh, the terrible temptation of all those shibboleths, that told us that we must live while we may! He felt, now that he had seen how deep was the abyss below him, that his feet were long since on the decline, and that from a shy attempt at worldliness he had gone on to what, to his suddenly re-awakened conscience, constituted dissoluteness.

To the man of the world, perhaps, his slight defections from the puritanic code would have seemed ridiculously vague. But, he repeated to himself with quickened anguish, if he began to consider things from the standpoint of the world, he was utterly lost; he would soon be like those others.

He got up and opened the window of his bed-room. Below him was the hum of the cable; a dense mist obscured the electric lights, and the town seemed reeking with a white sweat. He felt as if he were a prisoner. He began to feel a loathing for this town that had made him dispise himself so much. The roar of it sounded like a wild animal's.

Then a breeze came and swept the mist away, and left the streets shining with silvery moisture. Lights crept out of the darkness, and the veil passed from the stars. The wild animal seemed to be smiling. But the watcher at the window merely shrank back a little, closing the window. Fascinating, as a serpent; poisonous as a cobra! The glitter and glamour of society; the devil-may-care fascinations of Bohemia; they had lured him to such agony as this!

Such agony? What, you ask, had this young man to be in agony about? He was a very nice young man--all the world would have told you that! Ah, but was there never a moment in your lives, my dear fellow-sinners--you men and women of the world--when it came to your conscience like a sword-thrust, that the beautiful bloom of your youth and innocence was gone from you forever and that ever afterward there would be a bitter memory or a bitterer forgetfulness? And was that not agony? Ah, we all hold the masks up before our faces, but sometimes our arms tire, and they slip down, and then how haggard we look! Perhaps, if we had listened to our consciences when they were quicker, we would not have those lines of care upon our faces now. You say you have a complexion and a conscience as clear as the dew? Ah, well, then I am not addressing you, of course. But how about your neighbors? Ah, you admit--? Well, then we will each of us moralize about our neighbor. It is so much pleasanter, so much more diverting!