Louie sank back into his seat and gave it up. "Why do you think such
naughty things? I don't believe it, you know! You are so touchy. Scott
and Kitty may be a little stand-offish, but it might very possibly make
them feel better if you went at them nicely about this." He rallied and
began to coax again. "She's got it into her head that the McGregors have
a grudge, Doctor. There's nothing to it."
Rosamond had grown quite pale. Her upper lip, that was so like her
mother's when she was affable, so much harder when she was not, came
down like a steel curtain. "I happen to know, Louie, that Scott
blackballed you for the Arts and Letters. You can call that a grudge or
not, as you please."
Marsellus was visibly shaken. He looked sad. "Well, if he did, it wasn't
very nice of him, certainly. But are you sure, Rosie? Rumours do go
about, and people like to stir up family differences."
"It isn't people, and it's not rumour. I know it positively. Kathleen's
best friend told me."
Louie lay back and shook with laughter. "Oh, the ladies, the ladies!
What they do to each other, Professor!"
St. Peter was very uncomfortable. "I don't think I'd accept such
evidence, Rosamond. I don't believe it of Scott, and I think Louie has
the right idea. People are like children, and Scott's poor and proud. I
think Louie's chiffonier would go to his heart, if Louie offered it to
him. I'm afraid you wouldn't do it very graciously."
"Professor, I'll go to McGregor's office and put it up to him. If he
scorns it, so much the worse for him. He'll lose a very handy piece of
furniture."
Rosamond's paleness changed to red. Fortunately they were spinning over
the gravel loops that led through shaven turf to the Country Club. "You
can do as you like with your own things, Louie. But I don't want any of
mine in the McGregors' bungalow. I know Scott's brand of humour too
well, and the kind of jokes that would be made about them."
The car stopped. Louie sprang out and gave his arm to his wife. He
walked up the steps to the door with her, and his back expressed such
patient, protecting kindness that the Professor bit his lower lip with
indignation. Louie came back looking quite grey and tired, and sank into
the seat beside the Professor with a sadder-and-wiser smile.
"Louie," St. Peter spoke with deep feeling, "do you happen to have read
a novel of Henry James, The American? There's rather a nice scene in it,
in which a young Frenchman, hurt in a duel, apologizes for the behaviour
of his family. I'd like to do something of the sort. I apologize to you
for Rosamond, and for Scott, if he has done such a mean thing."
Louie's downcast face brightened at once. He squeezed the Professor's
arm warmly. "Oh, that's all right, sir! As for Scott, I can understand.
He was the first son of the family, and he was the whole thing. Then I
came along, a stranger, and carried off Rosie, and this patent began to
pay so well--it's enough to make any man jealous, and he a Scotchman!
But I think Scott will come around in the end; people usually do, if you
treat them well, and I mean to. I like the fellow. As for Rosamond, you
mustn't give that a thought. I love her when she's naughty. She's a bit
unreasonable sometimes, but I'm always hoping for a period of utter, of
fantastic unreasonableness, which will be the beginning of a great
happiness for us all."
"Louie, you are magnanimous and magnificent!" murmured his vanquished
father-in-law.
Chapter 17
Lillian and the Marselluses sailed for France early in May. The
Professor, left alone, had plenty of time to spray his rose-vines, and
his garden had never been so beautiful as it was that June. After his
university duties were over, he smuggled his bed and clothing back to
the old house and settled down to a leisurely bachelor life. He realized
that he ought to be getting to work. The garden, in which he sat all
day, was no longer a valid excuse to keep him from his study. But the
task that awaited him up there was difficult. It was a little thing, but
one of those little things at which the hand becomes self-conscious,
feels itself stiff and clumsy.
It was his plan to give part of this summer to Tom Outland's diary--to
edit and annotate it for publication. The bother was that he must write
an introduction. The diary covered only about six months of the boy's
life, a summer he spent on the Blue Mesa, and in it there was almost
sketch of Outland, and some account of his later life and achievements.
To write of his scientific work would be comparatively easy. But that
was not all the story; his was a many-sided mind, though a simple and
straightforward personality.
Of course Mrs. St. Peter had insisted that he was not altogether
straightforward; but that was merely because he was not altogether
consistent. As an investigator he was clear-sighted and hard-headed; but
in personal relations he was apt to be exaggerated and quixotic. He
idealized the people he loved and paid his devoir to the ideal rather
than to the individual, so that his behaviour was sometimes a little too
exalted for the circumstances--"chivalry of the cinema," Lillian used to
say. One of his sentimental superstitions was that he must never on any
account owe any material advantage to his friends, that he must keep
affection and advancement far apart, as if they were chemicals that
would disintegrate each other. St. Peter thought this the logical result
of Tom's strange bringing-up and his early associations. There is, he
knew, this dream of self-sacrificing friendship and disinterested love
down among the day-labourers, the men who run the railroad trains and
boats and reapers and thrashers and mine-drills of the world. And Tom
had brought it along to the university, where advancement through
personal influence was considered honourable.
It was not until Outland was a senior that Lillian began to be jealous
of him. He had been almost a member of the family for two years, and she
had never found fault with the boy. But after the Professor began to
take Tom up to the study and talk over his work with him, began to make
a companion of him, then Mrs. St. Peter withdrew her favour. She could
change like that; friendship was not a matter of habit with her. And
when she was through with anyone, she of course found reasons for her
fickleness. Tom, she reminded her husband, was far from frank, though he
had such an open manner. He had been consistently reserved about his own
affairs, and she could not believe the facts he withheld were altogether
creditable. They had always known he had a secret, something to do with
the mysterious Rodney Blake and the bank account in New Mexico upon
which he was not at liberty to draw. The young man must have felt the
change in her, for he began that winter to make his work a pretext for
coming to the house less often. He and St. Peter now met in the alcove
behind the Professor's lecture room at the university.
One Sunday, shortly before Tom's Commencement, he came to the house to
ask Rosamond to go to the senior dance with him. The family were having
tea in the garden; a few days of intensely warm weather had come on and
hurried the roses into bloom. Rosamond happened to ask Tom, who sat in
his white flannels, fanning himself with his straw hat, if spring in the
South-west was as warm as this.
"Oh, no," he replied. "May is usually chilly down there--bright sun, but
a kind of edge in the wind, and cool nights. Last night reminded me of
smothery May nights in Washington."
Mrs. St. Peter glanced up. "You mean Washington City? I didn't know you
had ever been so far east."
There was no denying that the young man looked uncomfortable. He frowned
and said in a low voice: "Yes, I've been there. I suppose I don't speak
of it because I haven't very pleasant recollections of it."
"How long were you there?" his hostess asked.
"A winter and spring, more than six months. Long enough to get very
home-sick." He went away almost at once, as if he were afraid of being
questioned further.
The subject came up again a few weeks later, however. After Tom's
graduation, two courses were open to him. He was offered an instructorship,
with a small salary, in the Physics department under Dr. Crane,
and a graduate scholarship at Johns Hopkins University. St. Peter
strongly urged him to accept the latter. One evening when the family
were discussing Tom's prospects, the Professor summed up all the reasons
why he ought to go to Baltimore and work in the laboratory made famous
by Dr. Rowland. He assured him, moreover, that he would find the
atmosphere of an old Southern city delightful.
"Yes, I know something about the atmosphere," Tom broke out at last. "It
is delightful, but it's all wrong for me. It discourages me dreadfully.
I used to go over there when I was in Washington, and it always made me
"But can you trust a child's impression to guide you now, in such an
important decision?" asked Mrs. St. Peter gravely.
"I wasn't a child, Mrs. St. Peter. I was as much grown up as I am
now--older, in some ways. It was only about a year before I came here."
"But, Tom, you were on the section gang that year! Why do you mix us
all` up?" Kathleen caught his hand and squeezed the knuckles together,
as she did when she wanted to punish him.
"Well, maybe it was two years before. It doesn't matter. It was long
enough to count for two ordinary years," he muttered abstractedly.
Again he went away abruptly, and a few days later he told St. Peter that
he had definitely accepted the instructorship under Crane, and would
stay on in Hamilton.
During that summer after Outland's graduation, St. Peter got to know all
there was behind his reserve. Mrs. St. Peter and the two girls were in
Colorado, and the Professor was alone in the house, writing on volumes
three and four of his history. Tom was carrying on some experiments of
his own, over in the Physics laboratory. He and St. Peter were often
together in the evening, and on fine afternoons they went swimming.
Every Saturday the Professor turned his house over to the cleaning-woman,
and he and Tom went to the lake and spent the day in his sail-boat.
It was just the sort of summer St. Peter liked, if he had to be in
Hamilton at all. He was his own cook, and had laid in a choice
assortment of cheeses and light Italian wines from a discriminating
importer in Chicago. Every morning before he sat down at his desk he
took a walk to the market and had his pick of the fruits and salads. He
dined at eight o'clock. When he cooked a fine leg of lamb, saignant,
well rubbed with garlic before it went into the pan, then he asked
Outland to dinner. Over a dish of steaming asparagus, swathed in a
napkin to keep it hot, and a bottle of sparkling Asti, they talked and
watched night fall in the garden. If the evening happened to be rainy or
chilly, they sat inside and read Lucretius.
It was on one of those rainy nights, before the fire in the dining-room,
that Tom at last told the story he had always kept back. It was nothing
very incriminating, nothing very remarkable; a story of youthful defeat,
the sort of thing a boy is sensitive about--until he grows older.
"TOM OUTLAND'S STORY"
Chapter 1
The thing that side-tracked me and made me so late coming to college was
a somewhat unusual accident, or string of accidents. It began with a
poker game, when I was a call boy in Pardee, New Mexico.
One cold, clear night in the fall I started out to hunt up a freight
crew that was to go out soon after midnight. It was just after pay day,
and one of the fellows had tipped me off that there would be a poker
game going on in the card-room behind the Ruby Light saloon. I knew most
of my crew would be there, except Conductor Willis, who had a sick baby
at home. The front windows were dark, of course. I went up the back
alley, through a tumble-down ice house and a court, into a 'dobe room
that didn't open into the saloon proper at all. It was crowded, and hot
and stuffy enough. There were six or seven in the game, and a crowd of
fellows were standing about the walls, rubbing the white-wash off on to
their coat shoulders. There was a bird-cage hanging in one window,
covered with an old flannel shirt, but the canary had wakened up and was
singing away for dear life. He was a beautiful singer--an old Mexican
had trained him--and he was one of the attractions of the place.
I happened along when a jack-pot was running. Two of the fellows I'd
come for were in it, and they naturally wanted to finish the hand. I
stood by the door with my watch, keeping time for them. Among the
players I saw two sheep men who always liked a lively game, and one of
the bystanders told me you had to buy a hundred dollars' worth of chips
to get in that night. The crowd was fussing about one fellow, Rodney
Blake, who had come in from his engine without cleaning up. That wasn't
customary; the minute a man got in from his run, he took a bath, put on
citizen's clothes, and went to the barber. This Blake was a new fireman
on our division. He'd come up town in his greasy overalls and sweaty
blue shirt, with his face streaked up with smoke. He'd been drinking; he
smelled of it, and his eyes were out of focus. All the other men were
clean and freshly shaved, and they were sore at Blake--said his hands
were so greasy they marked the cards. Some of them wanted to put him out
of the game, but he was a big, heavy-built fellow, and nobody wanted to
be the man to do it. It didn't please them any better when he took the
jack-pot.
I got my two men and hurried them out, and two others from the row along
the wall took their places. One of the chaps who left with me asked me
to go up to his house and get his grip with his work clothes. He's lost
every cent of his pay cheque and didn't want to face his wife. I asked
him who was winning.
"Blake. The dirty boomer's b
een taking everything. But the fellows will
clean him out before morning."
About two o'clock, when my work for that night was over and I was going
home to sleep, I just dropped in at the card-room to see how things had
come out. The game was breaking up. Since I left them at midnight, they
had changed to stud poker, and Blake, the fireman, had cleaned everybody
out. He was cashing in his chips when I came in. The bank was a little
short, but Blake made no fuss about it. He had something over sixteen
hundred dollars lying on the table before him in bank-notes and gold.
Some of the crowd were insulting him, trying to get him into a fight and
loot him. He paid no attention and began to put the money away, not
looking at anybody. The bills he folded and put inside the band of his
hat. He filled his overall pockets with the gold, and swept the rest of
it into his big red neckerchief.
I'd been interested in this fellow ever since he came on our division;
he was close-mouthed and unfriendly. He was one of those fellows with a
settled, mature body and a young face, such as you often see among
working-men. There was something calm, and sarcastic, and mocking about
his expression--that, too, you often see among workingmen. When he had
put all his money away, he got up and walked toward the door without a
word, without saying good-night to anybody.
"Manners of a hog, and a dirty hog!" little Barney Shea yelled after
him. Blake's back was just in the doorway; he hitched up one shoulder,
but didn't turn or make a sound.
I slipped out after him and followed him down the street. His walk was
unsteady, and the gold in his baggy overalls pockets clinked with every
step he took. I ran a little way and caught up with him. "What are you
going to do with all that money, Blake?" I asked him.
"Lose it, to-morrow night. I'm no hog for money. Damned barber-pole
dudes!"
I thought I'd better follow him home. I knew he lodged with an old
Mexican woman, in the yellow quarter, behind the round-house. His room
opened on to the street, by a sky-blue door. He went in, didn't strike a
light or make a stab at undressing, but threw himself just as he was on
the bed and went to sleep. His hat stuck between the iron rods of the
bed-head, the gold ran out of his pockets and rolled over the bare floor
in the dark.
I struck a match and lit a candle. The bed took up half the room; on the
dresser was a grip with his clean clothes in it, just as he'd brought it
in from his run. I took out the clothes and began picking up the money;
got the bills out of his hat, emptied his pockets, and collected the
coins that lay in the hollow of the bed about his hips, and put it all
into the grip. Then I blew out the light and sat down to listen. I
trusted all the boys who were at the Ruby Light that night, except
Barney Shea. He might try to pull something off on a stranger, down in
Mexican town. We had a quiet night, however, and a cold one. I found
Blake's winter overcoat hanging on the wall and wrapped up in it. I
wasn't a bit sorry when the roosters began to crow and the dogs began
barking all over Mexican town. At last the sun came up and turned the
desert and the 'dobe town red in a minute. I began to shake the man on
the bed. Waking men who didn't want to get up was part of my job, and I
didn't let up on him until I had him on his feet.
"Hello, kid, come to call on me?"
I told him I'd come to call him to a Harvey House breakfast. "You owe me
a good one. I brought you home last night."
"Sure, I'm glad to have company. Wait till I wash up a bit." He took his
soap and towel and comb and went out into the patio, a neat little
sanded square with flowers and vines all around, and washed at the