At the corner next beyond the Gleason home Darley Roberts caught the nine o’clock car, and remained on it until the end of the division, practically the extreme opposite edge of the town, was reached. He was the last passenger to leave, and as the motorman was reversing the trolley he paused a moment in the vestibule.

“Normal load was it, Johnson?” he asked the conductor. “You rang up twenty-four fares, I noticed.”

The man looked consciously surprised to be called by name.

“Yes, Mr. Roberts,” he said; “we carry anywhere between twenty and thirty at this time of night.”

“How about the next trip, nine-thirty?”

“Better yet if anything.”

“And the next, the last?” 186

“Best of all. The straps are nearly always loaded.”

Roberts buttoned up his coat deliberately.

“Think it would pay to run a couple of hours longer?” he asked, and this time the conductor all but flushed at the unexpected confidence.

“Yes; I’m sure it would, Mr. Roberts; especially when the school’s in session. The boys would ride half the night if they could.”

“There seems to be a good deal in that. By the way, you have only one shift on this car now, I understand.”

It was the long-hoped-for opportunity and Johnson grew eloquent.

“Right you are, and it’s the dog’s life for us men. I’ve had only one hot meal a day since I took the job.” He searched the impassive face before him with a glance. “If the schedule was stretched a little, now, at either end and a second shift added—”

“That’s a good idea. I’m glad it occurred to you. Better speak to the superintendent about it yourself; he’ll see the point.” Roberts alighted deliberately. “Any suggestion you men in the service make is valuable.” As he vanished up the street toward his destination, in the fulness of knowledge that the contemplated 187 suggestion had been decided from the turning of the first wheel on the system, he left behind him a man imbued with an esprit de corps that was to grow and leaven the entire working force. It took but a minute all told!

Five minutes later, in the half dark doorway of a cottage on a side street, he was face to face with Harry Randall.

“Pardon me if I intrude,” he was saying, “but I’m going out of town to-morrow and I wish to talk with you a bit before I go. Can you spare me a little time?”

“Certainly.” Randall’s manner was decidedly stiff. Nevertheless he led the way through the vestibule and living-room to the dining-room beyond. There he halted significantly. “By the way,” he began, “the furniture I mentioned—”

“Damn the furniture!” Roberts met his host’s look steadily. “You know me better than that, by reputation if nothing more. I said I wished to talk with you. May I?”

Randall colored, and the stiffness vanished as by a miracle.

“Pardon me,” he said. “I’ve got a sort of den upstairs where I do my work.” Again he led the way. “My wife’s out of town, though, now, and things are a bit mussy.” 188

Roberts made no comment, and they mounted the stairs in silence.

Inside the room the visitor swept the place with a single all-including glance. Thereafter, apparently, he observed nothing.

“First of all, then,” he initiated bluntly, “do I intrude? If so, I can tell my business in five minutes; if not, we might possibly become acquainted.”

Again Randall colored; then he smiled, his saving quality.

“Not in the least. It’s Friday night, you know. In addition I was a bit lonely. I’m distinctly glad to see you.”

“Which, interpreted, means glad to see any one.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

For an instant the old odd smile shone in Roberts’ eyes, then it disappeared, leaving them normal, inscrutable.

“To begin with, then, I came primarily to talk about Steve Armstrong. I believe he’s a friend of yours.”

“Yes.” A halt, then the query direct returned. “Is he of yours?”

“I’ll answer that question later, if you please. At least he’s the one adult to date I can remember 189 who ever called me by my first name. Did you know that he’d returned to town?”

“Yes. He was here last night.”

“Responsible, was he?”

“Mr. Roberts!” Randall flushed like a woman with strangers. “Pardon me, but there are some questions I can’t answer—at least until you answer my own of a moment ago.”

“I understand perfectly. Also, contrary to your suspicion, I didn’t avoid your question to make it difficult for you. It requires two to be friends. Enmities I, personally, have none. Life’s too short and too busy. If it will assist you any, I met Armstrong in the street this evening face to face, and he declined to speak. I judge he’s no friend to me. Am I any more clear?”

“Yes,” simply.

“Do you wish to answer my question now, then?”

“I judge you have a good reason for asking. He was not responsible, wholly.”

“Not even decently so?”

“Hardly.”

“I gathered as much from his appearance to-night. It was the first time I’d seen him 190 in nearly a year. You know the whole story between Armstrong and myself, I take it?”

“Yes,” once more.

“And your sympathy is naturally with him.”

“It has been.”

“And now—”

The smile that made Randall’s face boyish came into being.

“I’m deferring judgment now—and observing.”

“I fear I can’t help you much there,” said Darley, shortly. “I wished to discuss the future a bit, not the past. The last time I talked with Armstrong he was impossible. I think you know what I mean. All men are that way when they lose their nerve and drown the corpse. What I wish to ask of you is whether the thing was justified. I’m not artistic. I don’t brag of it—I admit it. You’re different; your opinion is of value. Commercially, he’s an impossibility. He couldn’t hold a place if he had it—any place. I don’t need to tell you that either. As a writer—can he write, or can’t he?”

Harry Randall took off his big eyeglasses and polished one lens and then the other.

“In my opinion, yes—and no.” He held the 191 glasses to the light, seemed satisfied, and placed them carefully on his nose. “A great writer—he’ll never be that. It takes nerve and infinite patience to be anything great, and Steve invariably loses his nerve too soon. He lacks just that much of being big. As for ability, the spark—he’s got it, Roberts, as certainly as you and I are sitting here. Elementally, he’s a child and will always remain a child. I think most artists are more or less so. Children can’t bear criticism or delay—uncertain delay—that’s Steve. On the other hand, if he were encouraged, kept free on the financial side, left at liberty to work when he felt the mood, and then only, then—I realize it’s a big ‘if’ and a big contract for some one—he’d make good. Have I answered your question?”

“Yes. And here’s another: Is it worth while?”

“To bolster him, you mean; to ‘pull him out of the mud,’ to use his own phrase?”

“No; that would be a waste of energy. I mean to keep him out permanently, to continue pulling indefinitely.”

For a long time the two men sat in silence.

“God knows,” said Randall at last. “I’ve asked myself the same question for years—and 192 couldn’t answer it. It’s as big as the universe. Steve is simply an atom. It’s unanswerable.”

In the pause following Roberts lit one of the seemingly inexhaustible black cigars, after proffering its mate. Again the two sat there, the blue haze of mutual understanding gathering between them.

“I say it’s unanswerable,” repeated Randall. “It’s the old problem of the young supporting the uselessly old, the well serving the incurably diseased. It means eternal vigilance from some one, eternal sacrifice. It’s insoluble, neither more nor less.”

“Yes,” said Roberts. “I’ve found it so—insoluble. Particularly so in this case.”

Slowly Randall’s glance lifted, met the other’s eyes. That instant, as a flame is born, came full understanding between them.

“Yes, particularly so in this case,” echoed Roberts; “for it means a woman’s sacrifice, one particular woman’s sacrifice. Nothing else in the world will do—nothing.”

It was the beginning of personal confidence, the halting-point for conversation between these two. Both knew it and neither crossed the line. They merely waited until a digression should come naturally. Roberts it was who at last introduced 193 it, and in a manner so matter of fact that the other was all but deceived.

“Has Armstrong been doing anything lately in a literary way—anything, I mean, that justifies your opinion?” he asked abruptly.

“No, not that I know of; absolutely nothing.”

“You’re relying, then, on past impressions merely.”

“Yes; specifically the last novel he wrote,—the one of a year or a year and a half or so ago.”

“You haven’t by any chance a copy of the manuscript, I suppose?”

“No.”

“You could doubtless get it, however?”

“I think so—unless some time he became morbid and burned it.”

“He hasn’t done that; I know him. He might threaten; but to do it—he’d as probably go hungry. Get it some time, will you?”

“I will if you request. You don’t wish it for yourself, do you?”

“No, not for myself. Perhaps not at all. I’ve not decided yet. Anyway get it, please, and be ready if I should ask.” He flashed a look no man had ever questioned, could question. “You don’t doubt my motive?” 194

“No. The manuscript will be ready. I’ll answer for that.”

No further question of interest was asked, no additional hint of purpose proffered. The subject merely dropped, as in the beginning it had merely begun. In some ways they were similar, these two men in general so dissimilar.

“I had another object in calling to-night,” said Roberts, and again the announcement was made without preface. “The opportunity to buy a house presented itself to-day and I accepted. Perhaps you know the place,—J. C. Herbert’s, on top of the hill.”

“Yes.” Open wonder spoke in the voice, open mystification. “Yes, I know it.”

“It’s been vacant for some time. I moved this afternoon, just into a couple of rooms. My boy is there now trying to warm up the place; but even then it won’t be particularly inviting. Besides, I’m out of town quite a bit and in the future am likely to be called away still more. It occurred to me that if I could find some married people whom I trusted, who would take a personal interest in it and make it a home, it would be pleasanter for me than being tucked away in a couple of rooms alone and the rest of the barn empty.” 195

“Yes,” repeated Randall, impersonally, “I think I appreciate your point of view. It’s a little cheerless to be in a house alone.”

“I wouldn’t expect to interfere with them in any way,” Roberts drifted on, “or live with them—nothing of the kind. As I said, I probably shouldn’t even be there much; only at night. I’d expect to keep it up—coal and light and that sort of thing—just the same as I would have to do if I were alone. I’d naturally wish to help furnish it, too; the things that would inevitably fit in with it and wouldn’t fit any place else. But the main thing would be to have somebody about to make my own corner livable, to sort of humanize the place. You catch my idea?”

“Yes, I think so.” Harry Randall’s hand was on his bald spot, caressing it absently. “Yes, I think so,” he repeated.

“It’s a big place, even larger than I remembered, when I went through it to-day,” went on Roberts again. “It’ll take considerable help to keep it up and some one will have to be about constantly to direct. I have the help in mind right now, competent too—I meet a lot of people in various ways and I’ve had the thing on my mind; but the supervision—it’s simply 196 out of the question with me at the present.” He faced the other, looked at him straight. “Would you and Mrs. Randall care to accept the place as a home in return for taking the responsibility of up-keep from me?”

In the pause following Harry Randall’s face went slowly red. Equally directly he met the other’s look.

“Pardon me, Mr. Roberts,” he said, “but Mrs. Randall and myself are not exactly objects of charity yet.”

Darley Roberts’ expression did not alter by so much as the twitching of a muscle.

“That was unjustified, Mr. Randall,” he said evenly, “and you know it. Let me explain a bit further. I happen to have a house, but no home. By the same chance you are able to produce the reverse. Just why should it be an offence upon my part to suggest bringing the two together—for the mutual benefit of us both?”

“Why? Because it’s unequal, it’s patronage; and though I work for twelve hundred dollars a year, I’m still American born.”

“Granted—the latter remark. I’m also American born, in the remotest corner of the most God-forsaken county in—I won’t name 197 the State; I might hurt some one’s feelings.” Roberts’ big fingers were twitching in a way they had when something he had decided to do met with opposition. “Nevertheless I hope that fact doesn’t make me wholly unreasonable. When it comes to patronage, we’re all patronized: you do a kindness for a friend, without remuneration, and he accepts it; that’s patronage. The University gives you a position as professor, out of a dozen applicants who could do equally well, and you accept gladly. That’s favoritism, another word for patronage. A client comes to me and pays a fee for doing a certain labor, when my competitor across the street would perform it equally capably, and for perhaps a smaller fee. That’s patronage. You patronize your tailor when you order a suit of clothes, the butcher when you buy a beefsteak. It’s the basis of life, elemental. The very air you breathe is patronage. It costs you nothing, and you give nothing adequate in return. To characterize patronage as un-American, stultifying, is preposterous. Even if it were true in this case, you’d have to give another reason for offence. I refuse to consider it.”

“Well, unbusinesslike then, if that is better.”

“Unbusinesslike? Wait. In company with 198 three other men I’m developing a silver mine down in Arizona. The mining claim belongs to a fifth man, belongs to him absolutely. He knows the metal is there as well as we do; but it’s down under the ground, locked up tight in a million tons of rock. As it is now, so far as he’s concerned, it might as well be on Mars. If left to himself alone he’d live and die and it would still be there. He hasn’t the ability nor the means to make it of use. The other three men and myself have. We can develop it, and will; to our own purposes, share and share alike. According to your notion there’s patronage somewhere; but exactly where? Point me the offence?”

Again Harry Randall caressed his bald crown. The argument was convincing, almost.

“The cases are not parallel,” he combated weakly, “not even similar.”

“And why not?” shortly. “I’m no longer a young man particularly. I’ve never had a place that I could call home in my life; never for a day that I can remember. I want one now, fancy I see the possibility of making one; a place where I can keep a friend now and then if I wish, where I could even order in a supper and entertain if I saw fit. I chance to have the 199 ability to pay for the privilege, and am willing to pay. That’s my affair. You chance to be able to make that home possible—and incidentally enjoy it yourself. It’s like the silver mine,—mutual benefit, share and share alike. The cases seem to me parallel, quite parallel.”

Opposite Harry Randall sat very still. In absent forgetfulness he polished the big glasses the second time and sprung them back carefully on his nose. But even yet he did not answer, merely sat there waiting; awaiting the moment to counter, to refute.

“Am I not right?” asked Roberts, bluntly. “Isn’t the proposition logical?”

“Logical, yes. The logic is very good.” Randall glanced up keenly. The moment for which he had been waiting had come, more quickly than he had expected. “So good in fact that I see but one fault.”

“And that?”

This time the keen eyes smiled, very candidly.

“The sole fault, so far as I can see, is that you don’t believe in it yourself.”

For the space wherein one could count ten slowly the two men looked at each other; slowly, in turn, on Roberts’ firm fighter’s face there formed a smile, a peculiar, appreciative smile. 200

“Granted,” he said. “I admit failure.” The smile passed like a dropped curtain. “Moreover be assured I shall not dissimulate again. As a friend, or whatever you wish, however, I advise you to think carefully before you refuse an offer made in good faith and to your own advantage.”

Listening, Harry Randall straightened. His lips closed tightly for a second. “You mean, I presume,” the words were painfully exact, “to remind me that you hold my note for four hundred dollars, and to imply—” he halted significantly.

For a moment the other man said nothing, the face of him told nothing. Then deliberately, from an inner pocket, he drew out a leather wallet, from the wallet a strip of paper, and held it so the other could read. Still without a word he tore it to bits.

“The devil take your note!” he observed, succinctly and without heat.

“Mr. Roberts, you—” Randall’s face was crimson, “you—”

“Yes—I—”

“You didn’t mean—that, then, really?”

Roberts said nothing.

“I’m grateful for the confidence, believe me. 201 It’s not misplaced, either. Accept my assurance of that too.”

“My name is Roberts, not Shylock. I told you before I am American born, of American parents.”

“I beg your pardon,” abjectly. The red had left Randall’s face and in its place, as on a mirror, was forming another look, of comprehension—and more. “Yet you—advised; and if not that—” of a sudden he got to his feet. Something was coming he knew to a certainty—something unexpected, vital—and he felt better able so to meet it. “Just what did you mean?”

Roberts was studying him deliberately, with the peculiar analytical look Armstrong of old had known so well.

“You can’t imagine yet,” he queried, “not with the motive you fancied eliminated?”

“You wish to do me a kindness, a disinterested kindness. For what reason?”

“Cut out my motive, providing I have one, for the present. It’s immaterial.”

“That doesn’t help—I can’t conceive—” On a sudden came a flash of light that augmented to a blaze. “Can it concern Margery and me? Is that it?” 202

Roberts did not look up. “Yes,” he said.

“You know, then,” tensely. “How much?”

“Everything.” Roberts inspected the wall-paper opposite as though interested. “If you’ll permit me I’ll help you to avoid an action for divorce.” A pause. “One, moreover, I can’t help but feel somewhat justified.”

For long, very long, there was silence absolute. Then, adequate time having passed, apparently Roberts lost interest in the wall pattern.

“Sit down, please,” he suggested. “At last it seems we understand each other. Let’s talk things over a bit.”