Part 22

When he had shaken hands Hildred found a minute in which to whisper, "Tom, you're the Greek god you read about in novels. Don't feel shy. All you need do is to stand around and be ornamental. Your rôle is the romantic unknown." She returned after the next bout of "receiving." "You and I will have the supper dance. I've insisted on that, and mother's given in. Don't get too far out of reach, so that I can put my hand on you when I want you."

He danced a little, chiefly with girls whom no one else would dance with and to whom some member of the Ansley family introduced him. When not dancing he returned to the gallery, where he leaned against a convenient pillar and looked on. It was what he best liked doing. Liking it, he did it well. He could hear people ask who he was. He could hear some Harvard fellow answer that he was the Whitelaw Baby. Once he heard a lady say, as she passed behind his back, "Well, he does look like the Whitelaws, doesn't he?"

The New York papers had recalled the Whitelaw baby to the public mind in connection with the ball given a few weeks earlier to "bring out" Lily Whitelaw. Once in so often the whole story was rehearsed, making the younger Whitelaws sick of it, and their parents suffer again. The fact that Tad and Lily Whitelaw were there that night gave piquancy to the presence of the romantic stranger. His stature, his good looks, his natural dignity, together with the mystery as to who he was, made him in a measure the figure of the evening.

From where he stood by his pillar in the gallery he recognized Lily in the swirl below, a slim, sinuous creature in shimmering green. All her motions were serpentine. She might have been Salome; she might also have been a shop girl, self-conscious and eager to be noticed. Whatever was outrageous in the dances of that autumn she did for the benefit of her elders.

When she turned toward him he could see that she had an insolent kind of beauty. It was a dark, spoiled beauty that seemed lowering because of her heavy Whitelaw eyebrows, and possibly a little tragic. In thought he could hear Hildred singing, as she had sung when he stayed with them at Dublin in the spring, "Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives by kindness." Lily's beauty would not. It was an imperious beauty, willful and inconsiderate.

He saw Hildred dancing too. She danced as if dancing were an incident and not an occupation. She had left more important things to do it; she would go back to more important things again. While she was at it she took it gayly, gracefully, as all in the evening's work, but as something of no consequence. She was in tissue of gold like an oriental princess, a gold gleam in her oriental eyes. An ermine stole as a protection against draughts was sometimes thrown over her shoulders, but more often across her arm.

He noticed the poise of her head. No other head in the world could have been so nobly held, so superbly independent. Its character was in its simplicity. Fashion did not exist for it. The glossy dark hair was brushed back from forehead and temples into a knot which made neatness a distinction. Distinction was the chief beauty in the profile, with its rounded chin, its firm, small, well-curved lips, and a nose deliciously snub. Decision, freedom, unconsciousness of self, were betrayed in all her attitudes and movements. Merely to watch her roused in him a dull, aching jealousy for Lily. He surprised himself by regretting that Lily hadn't been like this.

Imperious, willful, and inconsiderate Lily seemed to him again as she drank champagne and smoked cigarettes at supper. The party at her table, which was near the one at which he sat with Hildred, was jovial and noisy. Lily's partner, a fellow whom he knew by sight at Harvard, drank freely, laughed loudly, and now and then slapped the table. Lily too slapped the table, though she did it with her fan.

In the early morning--it might have been two o'clock--Tom found himself accidentally near her when Hildred happened to be passing.

"Oh, Lily! I want to introduce Mr. Whitelaw. He's got the same name as yours, hasn't he? Tom, do ask her to dance."

With her easy touch-and-go she left them to each other. Without a glance at him, Lily said, tonelessly,

"I'm not going to dance any more. I'm going to look for my brother and go home."

A whoop from the other side of the ballroom, where a rowdy note had come over the company, gave an indication of Tad's whereabouts. Tom suggested that he might find him and bring him up. Lily walked away without answering.

Hildred hurried back. "I'm sorry. I saw what she did. Try not to mind it."

"Oh, I don't. I decided long ago that one couldn't afford to be done down by that sort of thing. It pays in the end to forget it."

"One of these days she'll be sorry she did it. Your innings will come then."

"I'm not crazy for an innings. But time does avenge one, doesn't it?" He nodded toward the ballroom floor, where Lily, with a stalking, tip-toeing tread was pushing a man backward as if she would have pushed him down had he not recovered his balance and begun pushing her. "It avenges one even for that. Two minutes ago she said she wasn't going to dance any more."

"Well, she's changed her mind. That's all. Come and take a turn with me."

The affectionate solicitude in her tone was not precisely new to him, but for the first time he dared to wonder if it could be significant. By all the canons of life and destiny she was outside his range. She could take this intimate, sisterly way with him, he had reasoned hitherto, because she was so far above him. She was the Queen; he was only Ruy Blas, a low-born fellow in disguise. If he found himself loving her, if there was something so sterling and womanly in her nature that he couldn't help loving her, that would be his own look-out. He had made up his mind to that before the end of his three weeks in Dublin in the spring. Her tactful camaraderie then had carried him over all the places which in the nature of things he might have found difficult, doing it with a sweet assumption that they had an aim in common. Only they had no aim in common! Between him and her there could be nothing but pity and kindness on the one side, with humility and devotion on the other.

He had felt that till to-night. He had felt it to-night up to the minute of hearing those words, "Come and take a turn with me." The difference was in her voice. It had tones of comfort and encouragement. More than that, it had tones of comprehension and concern. She entered into his feelings, his struggles, his sympathies, his defeats. In the very way in which she put one hand on his shoulder and placed the other within his own he thought there might be more than the conventional gesture of the dance.

"You don't know how much I appreciate your coming to-night," she said, when she found an opportunity. "If you hadn't come I should have felt it as much as if father, or mother, or Guy hadn't come. More, I think, because--well, I don't know why--_because_. I only believe that I should have. It's been an awful bore to you, too."

"No, it hasn't. I've seen a lot. I like to get the hang of--of this sort of thing. I don't often get a chance."

"I thought of that. It seemed to me that the experience would be something. Everything's grist that comes to your mill, so that the more you see of things the better."

That was all they said, but when he left her she held his hand, she let him hold hers, till their arms were stretched out to full length. Even then her eyes smiled at him, and his smiled down into hers.

Having seen other people go, he decided to slip away himself. But in the cloakroom he found Tad, white and sodden in a chair, his hands thrust into his trousers' pockets, his legs stretched wide apart in front of him. No one was there but the cloakroom attendant who winked at Tom, as one who would understand the effect of too much champagne.

"Too young a head. Ought to be got home."

"I'll take him. Know where he lives. Going his way. Ask some one to call us a taxi."

Tad made no remonstrance as they helped him into his overcoat, and rammed his hat on his head. He knew what they were doing. "Home!" he muttered. "Home bes' place! Bed! God, I cou' go to sleep right now."

He did go to sleep in the taxi, his head on Tom's shoulder. Tom held him up, with his arm around his waist. Once more he had the feeling that had stirred in him before, of something deeper than the common human depths, primitive, pre-social, antedating languages and laws. "He's not my brother," he declared to himself, "but if he were...." He couldn't end that sentence. He could only feel glad that, since the boy _had_ to be taken home, the task should have fallen to him.

At Westmorley Court, where Tad now had his quarters, there was no difficulty of admittance. In his own room he submitted quietly to being undressed. Tom even found a suit of pajamas, stuffing the limp form into it. He got him into bed; he covered him up. Winding his watch, he put it on the night-table. All being done, he stooped over the bed to lift the arm that had flung aside the bedclothes, and put it under them again.

He staggered back. There flashed through his mind some of the stories by which Honey had accounted for the loss of his eye. His own left eye felt smashed in and shattered. He was sick; he was faint. He could hardly stand. He could hardly think. The room, the world, were flying into splinters.

"You damn sucker! Get out of this!"

By the time Tom had recovered himself Tad was settling to sleep.

XXXVIII

Nothing but the knowledge that the boy was drunk had kept him from striking back there and then. His temper was a hot one. It came in fierce gusts, which stormed off quickly. The quickness saved him now. Before he was home in bed he had reconciled himself to bearing this thing too. It was bigger to bear it, more masculine, more civilized. He would never forget his racking remorse after the last fight.

He didn't lose his eye, but he was obliged to see an oculist. The oculist pronounced it a close shave.

"Where in thunder did you get that?" Guy demanded, a day or two after the occurrence.

Tom thought it an opportunity to learn whether or not the boy had been conscious of what he did. "Ask Tad Whitelaw."

"_What?_ You don't mean to say you've had another row with him! Gee whiz!"

"No, I haven't had another row with him; but all the same, ask him."

Guy asked him, with no information but that the mucker would get another if he didn't keep out of the way. It was all Tom needed to know. He had not been too drunk to strike with deliberate intention, and to remember that he had struck.

Guy must have told Hildred, because she wrote begging Tom to come to see her. He wasn't to mind his black eye, because she knew all about it. She was tender, consoling.

"I don't believe he's a cad any more than I believe that of Lily," she said, while giving him a cup of tea, "but they're both spoiled with money and a sense of self-importance. You see, losing the other child has made their mother foolish about them. She's lavished everything on them, more than anyone, not a born saint, could stand. It would have been a great deal better if they'd had to fight their way--some of their way at any rate--like you."

"Oh, I'm another breed."

"Another figurative breed--yes. As to the breed in your blood--"

"Oh, but, Hildred, you don't believe that poppy-cock."

Her eyes were on the teapot from which she was pouring. "I don't believe it exactly because I don't know. It only strikes me as being very queer."

"Queer in what way?"

"Oh, in every way. They think so too."

"Then why do they seem to hate me so?"

"I shouldn't say they did that. They're afraid of you. You disturb them. They're--what do they call it in the Bible?--kicking against the pricks. That's all there is to it. When they'd buried the whole thing you come along and make them dig it up again. They don't want to do that. They feel it's too late. You can see for yourself that for Tad and Lily it would be awkward. When you've been the only two children, and such spoiled ones at that, to have an elder brother you didn't know anything about suddenly hoisted over you--"

"Of course! I understand that."

"Mr. Whitelaw feels the same, only he feels it differently. _He'd_ accept him, however hard it was."

"And Mrs. Whitelaw?"

"Oh, poor dear, she's suffered so much that all she asks is not to be made to suffer any more. I don't believe it matters to her now whether he's found or not, so long as she isn't tortured."

"And does she think I'd torture her?"

"They haven't come to that. It isn't what you _may_ do, but what they themselves _ought_ to do that troubles them."

"I wish if you get a chance you'd tell them that they needn't do anything."

"They wouldn't take my word for it, or yours either. It rests with themselves and their own consciences."

"A good deal of it rests with me."

"Yes, if you were willing to take the first step; but since you're not--"

They dropped it at that because Mrs. Ansley lilted in, greeting Tom with that outward welcome and inward repugnance he had had to learn to swallow. He knew exactly where he stood with her. She took him as an affliction. Affliction could visit the best families and ignore the highest merits. Guy, dear boy, was extravagant, and this was the proof of his extravagance. He was infatuated with this young man, who had neither means, antecedents, nor connections. She had heard the Whitelaw Baby theory, of course; but so long as the Whitelaws themselves rejected it, she rejected it too. The best she could do was to be philanthropic. Philip, Guy, Hildred, were all convinced that this young man was to make his mark. Very well! It was in her tradition, it was in the whole tradition of old Boston, to help those who were likely to get on. It was part of what you owed to your standing in the world, a kind of public duty. You couldn't slight it any more than royalty can slight the opening of bazaars. An aunt of her own had helped a poor girl to take singing lessons; and the girl became one of the great prima donnas of the world. Whenever she sang in opera in Boston it was always a satisfaction to the family to exhibit her as their protégée. So it might one day be with this young man. She hoped so, she was sure. She didn't like him; she thought the fuss made over him by Hildred and Guy, more or less abetted by their father, an absurdity; but since she was obliged to play up to the family standard of beneficence, up to it she would play. She bore with Tom, therefore, wisely and patiently, never snubbing him except when they chanced to be alone, and hurting him only as a jellyfish hurts a swimmer, by clamminess of contact.

Clamminess of contact being in itself a weapon of offense, Tom ran away from it, but only to fall into contact of another kind.

It was a cloudy afternoon with Christmas in the near future. All over town there were notes of Christmas, in the shop windows, in the Christmas trees exposed for sale, in the way people ran about with parcels. He never approached this season without going back to that fatal Christmas Eve when he and his mother had been caught shop-lifting. He could still feel as he felt at the minute when he turned his face to the angle of the police-station wall, and wept silently. He wondered what Hildred would think of him if he were to tell her that tale. He wondered if he ever should.

Partly for the exercise, partly to find space to breathe and to think, he followed the Boston embankment of the Charles, making his way to the Harvard Bridge, and so toward Cambridge. In big quietly dropping flakes it had begun to snow. Presently it was snowing faster. The few pedestrians fled from the esplanade. He tramped on alone, enjoying the solitude.

The embankment lamps had been lit when he noticed, coming toward him, two young men, their collars turned up about their ears. They were laughing and smoking cigarettes. Drawing nearer, he recognized them as Tad Whitelaw and the fellow who had slapped the table at the dance. It was not hard to guess that they were on their way to see Hildred. He hoped that under cover of the darkness and the snow he might slip by unobserved.

But Tad stopped squarely in front of him. "Let's look at your eye."

The tone was so easy and friendly that Tom thought he might be going to apologize. He let him look.

"Well, you got that," Tad went on. "Another time you'll get worse. By God, if you don't keep away from me I'll shoot you."

Tom was surprised, but it was the sort of situation in which he could be cool. He smiled into the arrogant young face turned up toward his.

"What's the good of that line of talk? You know you wouldn't shoot me; you wouldn't have the nerve. Besides, you haven't anything to shoot me _for_. I'll leave it to this fellow." He turned to Tad's companion, who stood as a spectator, slightly to one side. "I found him dead drunk the other night. I took him home in a taxi, and put him to bed. That's no more than the common freemasonry among men. Any man would do the same at a pinch for any other man."

The companion played up nobly. "That's the straight dope, Tad. Take it and gulp it down. This guy is a good guy or he wouldn't have--"

"Go to hell," Tad interrupted, insolently. "I'm only warning him. If he hangs round me any more--"

Tom kept his temper by main force, addressing himself still to the companion.

"I've never hung round him. He knows I haven't. Two or three times I've run into him, as I've done to-day. Twice I've stepped in, to keep him from getting the gate, this time as a drunk, the other time as a damn fool. I'd do that for anyone. I'd do it for him, if I found him in the same mess again."

"That's fair enough, Tad," the referee approved. "You can't kick against it."

Tad tried to speak, but Tom went on with quiet authority.

"So that since he likes warnings he can take that one. I shan't let him be chucked out of Harvard if I can help it."

Tad sprang. "The devil you won't!"

Tom continued to speak only to the third party. "No, the devil I won't! I don't know why I feel that way about him, but that's the way I feel. And anyhow, now he knows."

Still addressing the companion only, he uttered a curt "Good-night." The companion responded civilly with "Good-night" on his side.

He neither looked at Tad, nor flung a word at him. Wheeling to face what had now blown into a snowstorm, he walked off into its teeth. But as he went he repeated the question he had put to Hildred Ansley.

"Why do they seem to hate me so?"

He thought of Lily, slippery, snake-like, perverted; he thought of the mother as he had seen her on that one day, in that one glimpse, a quivering bundle of agony; he thought of the father, human, sympathetic, with the iron in his soul.

Then he saw them with their heaped up money, their luxuries, their pride, their domineering self-importance. He knew just enough of the lives they led, the exemptions they enjoyed, to feel Honey's protest on behalf of the dispossessed.

Near an arc-light he stopped abruptly. The snow made a tabernacle for him, so that he was all alone. As he looked upward and outward millions and millions of sweet soft white things flew silently across the light. Out of his heart, up to his lips, there tore the kind of prayer which in times of temptation the Tollivant habit sometimes wrung from him:

"O God, keep me from ever wanting to be one of them!"

XXXIX

In January, 1917, it began to occur to Tom Whitelaw that he might have to go and fight. He might possibly be killed. Worse than that, he might be crippled or blinded or otherwise rendered helpless.

He had followed the war hitherto as one who looks on at tragedies which have nothing to do with himself. Europe was to him no more than a geographical term. Intense where his own aims and duties were concerned, but lacking the imaginative faculty, he had never been able to take England, France, and Germany as realities. The horrors of which he read in newspapers moved him less than a big human story on the stage. That the struggle might suck him into itself, smashing him as a tornado smashes a tree, came home to him first at a Sunday evening supper with the Ansleys.

"If it does come," Philip Ansley said, complacently, "a lot of you young fellows will have to go and be shot up."

"I'm on," Guy announced readily. "If it hadn't been for the family I'd have enlisted in Canada long ago."

His mother took this seriously. "Well that, thank God, can't happen to us. Darling, with your--"

"Oh, yes, with my fat! Same old bunk! But, mother, I'm losing weight like a snowbank in April. It's _running_ away. I'm exercising; I'm taking Turkish baths; I don't hardly eat a damn thing. I weighed two-fifty-three six weeks ago, and now I'm down to two-forty-nine."

"Don't worry," his father assured him. "You'll get there. You'll make a fine target for Big Bertha. Couldn't miss you any more than she would a whole platoon."

"Philip, how can you!"

"Oh, they're all crazy to go." He looked toward Tom. "Suppose you are too. Exactly the big husky type they like to blow into hash."

Turning to help himself from the dish Pilcher happened to be passing, Tom's eyes encountered Hildred's. Seated beside him, she had veered round on hearing her father's words. The alarm in her face was a confession.

"Oh, I can wait," he tried to laugh. "If I've got to go I will, but I'm not tumbling over myself to get there."

A half hour later Mrs. Ansley and the three younger members of the party were in the music room, where Guy was at the piano. The mother sat on a gilded French canapé, making an excuse for keeping Hildred beside her. Tom had already begun to guess that the friendship between Hildred and himself was making Mrs. Ansley uneasy. For all these years she had taken him as Guy's protégé with whom "anything of that kind" was impossible. But lately she had so maneuvered as not to leave Hildred and himself alone. Whether Hildred noticed it or not he couldn't tell, since she never made a counter-move. If she was not unconscious of her mother's strategy she let it appear as if she was.

All the while Guy chimed out the _Carillon de Cythère_ of Couperin le Grand Mrs. Ansley patted Hildred's hand, and rejoiced in her two children. Guy's touch was velvety because it was Guy's; Couperin le Grand was a noble composer because Guy played him. Her amorphous person quivered to the measure, with a tremor here and a dilation there, like the contraction and expansion of a medusa floating in the sea.

But when Guy had tinkled out the final notes she bubbled to her feet.

"Darling, I don't think I ever heard you play as well as you're doing this winter. I think if you were to give a private recital...."

In the general movement Tom lost the rest of this suggestion, but caught on again at a whisper which he overheard.

"Hildred, I simply must go and take my corsets off. I've had them on ever since I dressed for church. It's Nellie's evening out. I'll have to ask you to come and help me."

But as her mother was kissing Guy good-night Hildred managed to say beneath her breath, "Don't go away. I'll try to come back. There's something I want to speak about."

Left to themselves, the two young men exchanged bits of college gossip while Guy twirled on the piano stool. They had the more to say to each other since they met less often than in their year at Gore Hall. Guy was now in Westmorley Court, and Tom in one of the cheaper residential halls in the Yard. Their associations would have tended to put them apart, had not Guy's need of moral strengthening, to say nothing of a dog-like loyalty, driven him back at irregular intervals upon his old friend. Now and then, too, when his mother insisted on his coming home for the Sunday evening meal, Hildred suggested that he bring Tom.