AN ACT OF GOD

It was five o'clock in the afternoon and five degrees above zero. It was also very windy, which made it seem colder to everybody except the thermometer; and as the thermometer alone exhibited signs of being able to stand a temperature of twenty or thirty or even forty degrees colder without suffering disagreeable consequences, that seemed rather unfair. For the wind, which was blowing not in hysterical gusts but in the calm, relentless, all-day-and-all-night, forty-to sixty-mile gale that you only get west of the Great Lakes, did make it colder; there was no doubt about that. Else why did every one keep out of it as much as possible; walk on the protected side of the street, seek shelter in doorways while waiting for trolley cars, and so forth? Of course the wind made you colder; so much colder that when you were sheltered from it, if only for a moment, you felt comparatively warm, though it was still five degrees above zero. Unless, that is, you happened to be standing over one of those grated openings in the sidewalk that belched forth their welcome though inexplicable gusts of warm air into the outer world; if you could get a place over one of those—gee, but you were the lucky guy!

That was the way you phrased it, at any rate, if you happened to be twelve years old and a newsboy with an income of—well, say thirty dollars a year, if that sounds sufficiently insufficient to provide anything approaching decent clothes, decent food and a decent place to live. If not, make it as little as you like. The point is that the annual income of a certain ten-year-old newsboy, by name of Stodger McClintock, was preeminently, magnificently insufficient to provide any of those commodities. As a consequence of which, Stodger was cold. As another consequence of which Stodger, the gay, the debonair, the unemotional, the anything but tearfully inclined, was very nearly in tears. People do actually suffer from the cold occasionally, even in this effete and over-protected age, and Stodger was suffering. The volcanic opening was all very well, but he could not stay there long. And the prospects for the night were bad, and bad even for supper....

There were tears in James' eyes also as he hurried along from work, but they were entirely due to the wind. As soon as he perceived Stodger, however, who dashed out at him with the customary "Here's yer paper, mister!" at an unexpected place in the side street instead of at the corner as per custom, he realized that his (Stodger's) tears were not entirely due to the wind.

"Well, Stodger! What are you doing down here?" he cried cheerfully.

"Trine t' git woim." Stodger's diction at best was imperfect and it was now further impeded by a certain nasal fluency, the joint result of the cold and contemplation of domestic imperfections. But James understood, perfectly well.

"Well, Stodger, it is cold, I'll have to grant you that!" he rejoined, and instituted fumbling operations into the pocket where he kept his loose silver. "Give me a Star and a Sun and a Mercury, too, will you? This is no time for economy; the announcement of the all-American football team is out to-night. Give me one of every paper you have!"

Pecuniary transaction ensued, parallel with conversation.

"And how do you like this weather, Stodger?"

"Me? Oh, I don't mind."

"Don't you? Well, I do, I'm afraid. This is just a little too cold for my pleasure. But then I'm not a husk, like you."

"Well—" there was concession in Stodger's voice—"it's loike this. Some guys minds it, 'n' then they don't like t' unbutton their coats 'n' fork out a penny fer a paper. 'N' that makes bum bizniss. See?" Print is miserably inadequate to give an idea of Stodger's consonants.

"I see. Stodger, did you ever hear of an act of God?"

"Huh?"

"Well, never mind. A cold snap like this is an act of God. Some natural cataclysm, something that can't be prevented or even foreseen. Well, sir, opposed as I am to indiscriminate giving, I'm going to break a rule this time. All bets are off when an act of God comes along. Here's half a dollar. Can you get something to eat and keep yourself warm over night with that?"

"Sure I kin." Stodger grinned broadly for a second or two; then his face clouded. "Aw, naw. Not off you. I couldn't take that off you." He meant that only fools gave away money, and he did not want to put James in that category.

"Why not?" James' smile, his unruffled good-humor, had their effect. Surely a god that smiled and looked like that could not be quite a fool, even if he gave away money. "Now stop your guff; take the cash and cut along. So long!... That was my trolley, dash it; you and your confounded scruples have made me miss my car, Stodger!... Well, let's take a look at the all-American football team. Stoddard of Harvard, Brown of the Army, Steele of Michigan...." He ran his eye down the list till interrupted by a sharp exclamation from his friend.

"Gee, but he's a bum choice!"

"Who?"

"Steele."

"Steele? Oh, I'm not so sure. He's death on running back punts...."

"Aw, he is not! I tell yer, he couldn't hang onto a punt if 'twas handed to him on flypaper by a dago in a dress suit, let alone run with it! My ole gran'mudder c'n run better'n him, any day!" Domestic troubles being for the nonce in abeyance Stodger was in a mood to let his tongue run free on a favorite topic.

"Well, we'll have to put your grandmother in at all-America left half next year." Stodger knew as well as anybody when he was being laughed at, and held his peace. "I didn't know you were such a football fan, Stodger."

"Aw, yes. I'm some fan." This without enthusiasm, in the bored tone in which one agrees to the statement of a self-evident fact.

"Well, I wonder. Stodger, do you think you could recognize any all-America player if you saw him on the street, in ordinary togs?"

"Sure I could."

"How many years back?"

"T'ree years ... oh, more; four, five years, mebbe!"

"Well, I'm afraid you lose, Stodger!"

"Aw, gwawn! Try me an' see!"

"You've lost already, I tell you. You've been talking to an all-America player for the last ten minutes and never knew it!"

"Aw, wotcha trine t' hand me! Run along 'n' tell it to the cop on the corner! Tell it to me gran'mudder, if you like; she'll believe yer! You can't slip one like that on me, I tell yer!" Stodger's contempt was magnificent, but he rather marred the effect of it by adding suspiciously "Wotcheer?" which amounted to a confession that he might be wrong, after all.

"Two years ago. Take a good look now, Stodger; see if you can't recognize me." James turned so that the sunset glow fell more strongly on his face. Stodger looked with all his eyes, but remained unconvinced.

"Line, er back?" he inquired.

"Back."

"I gotcha now! Wimboine! Wimboine! Right half! Yale!" But experience had taught him that such dreams usually fade, and he went on, disappointed: "Aw, naw. Can't slip that on me. You're not that Wimboine. You look a little bit like him, but you're not that Wimboine. Brudder, p'raps. You're no football player."

"Why not?"

"Too thin. You c'd never tear through the line th' way that feller did."

"Oh, rot; we'll end this, here and now." James fumbled at length beneath his fur coat and produced the end of a watch-chain on which dangled a little gold football with his name, that of his college and the date of his achievement on it. Stodger, convinced, simply stared. It was as though Jupiter had stepped right down from Olympus. James, with a smile at his consternation, resumed his paper for the last minute or two before his car arrived.

"Say, mister! Mister Wimboine! You got my tail twisted that time, all right! I'm a goat, I'm a simp, I'm a boob! You got my number! Call me wotch like!"

"All right, Stodger, I will." James spoke and smiled through his reading. He had almost ceased to think of Stodger, who was more entertaining when incredulous, and was reading merely to kill time till his car arrived. Stodger's tongue was still wagging:—

"Say, dey was a guy useter live down Chicago called Schmidt—Slugger Schmidt, that was a cracker jack—middle-weight—ever hear of him? I knew him, oncet ... he had a little practise bout wid Riley th' other night—you know, Hurrican Riley?—and laid him out in t'ree roun's.... Say, mister, there goes yer car! That's the Poik Street car went!"

"What? Oh, did it? Never mind; I'm going to walk." James was off; off almost before the words were out of his mouth, and Stodger, struck by the sudden curtness of his tone was afraid he had outraged the feelings of the god. Mister Wimboine had clearly been deeply displeased about something, and Stodger was sure it must have been something more than the all-America football team.

Of course Stodger was not really responsible for James' displeasure and his sudden determination to walk the three miles that lay between him and his club and dinner, any more than was the composition of the all-America football team. It was something much more serious; something that made bodily exercise imperative lest cerebration around and around one little particular point should make him dizzy. For it was a very small thing that cerebration was busy on, even if it did represent a great deal to James; only a tiny paragraph at the bottom of the first page of one of the evening papers. The single headline had first caught his eye:—"Rates Heartache at $40,000," and then with unbelieving eyes he read on: "New Haven, Conn., Dec. 8. Myrtle Mowbray, a manicure living in this city, has filed a suit of breach of promise of marriage for $40,000 in the Superior Court here against Harold Wimbourne, a student in Yale University. Mr. Wimbourne is a member of an old and prominent New Haven family. He is a senior in the academic department."

A sort of mental and emotional nausea overcame James as the meaning of those lines sank into his brain. The vulgar, degrading cynicism of the headline! Breach of promise, scandal, newspaper publicity—that was the sort of thing that happened to other people, not to one's self. Such things simply did not occur in families one knew, much less in families by the name of Wimbourne. James had always thought of that name as apart, aloof from such things, exempt from all undesirable publicity. His family pride was none the less strong for being so unconscious, so dormant; now that it was outraged it flamed forth in a scorching blaze.

So loathing gave way to anger, and anger lasted a full mile and a half. It would have lasted longer if it had been concentrated on one person or thing, instead of directed against several persons, several things, several sets of circumstances, the order of things in general. For James was not angry at Harry alone; even he realized that before the mile and a half were up. He was angry at him at first, but that soon passed off somewhat; his anger seemed even to be seeking other objects, unconsciously—the Mowbray woman, Uncle James, himself, Yale University, the whole nature of man.

But cerebration had a chance to get in a good deal of its fell work during those three miles. As he swung open the front door of the club and passed into the main lobby, with its teeming confusion of electric lights and bellboys, he was conscious of nothing but a quiet, deep, corroding disgust that seemed to be as old as all time. It seemed as if he had known of this disgrace for years; had almost had time to outlive it, in fact. His first impulse was to go into the bar and annex himself to one of the cheerful groups that would be congregating there at this hour, and turn his mind to something else. But almost immediately he remembered that practically every one there would also have read the evening paper, and he shuddered at the thought of their pitying glances.

Automatically following his daily custom he cheeked his coat and hat at the cloak room and collected his mail from his post-box. Then he went straight to the one room in the club where he thought he was likely to be alone; a small reading-room usually popular in the afternoon but deserted by early evening. He found it empty, as he had expected. With a sigh of relief he turned out all the electric lights and threw himself on a couch in front of the open wood fire—a graceful though unnecessary compliment on the part of the club management to meteorological conditions.

But unluckily his glance fell on the unopened letters he still held in his hand, and immediately his trouble was on him again. One of them he recognized as coming from his Uncle James and the other, bearing the post-mark of New Haven, was from Beatrice. With a slight groan of combined resignation and disgust he tore open his uncle's letter and read it by the flickering light of the fire.

Dear James:
Your young brother has made more of a mess of it than we hoped would be the case. The Mowbray woman has brought suit for $40,000, and is likely to get it, or a good part of it, according to Raynham, whom I saw about the business yesterday. She has letters and a spoken promise in the presence of witnesses. We have nothing except the knowledge that Harry was drunk when he wrote the letters and drunk when he spoke the words, which is not much comfort. Still, Raynham thinks she can be made to settle out of court, especially if we take our time. We have got to show her first that the world will not come to an end because a Wimbourne has been mixed up with a woman—which it won't. It will be a matter, Raynham thinks, of $15,000 at least; probably more.

"What is going to become of the boy? Have you any influence over him? If not, who has? It is about time somebody exerted some on him, other than bad. He has much to fight against.

Your aunt sends her love. Your affect. uncle,

James Wimbourne.

In spite of his fatigue and his disgust, James smiled as he finished the letter. It was so characteristic of Uncle James; the most conventional sentences, the ones that seemed to mean least, really meant the most. "Your aunt sends her love"; only a person who knew Uncle James could appreciate the consciously suppressed humor of that phrase. As if Aunt Cecilia were not in such a vortex of conflicting emotions over the affair that such a conventional message would not be as far from her as Bagdad! "He has much to fight against"; Harry had much to fight against; Uncle James knew what, and he knew that James also knew. Connotative meanings like these more than atoned for the unflinching frankness of certain other phrases.

On the whole, James felt better for having read the letter, and opened Beatrice's with a lighter heart.

Dear James; (he read)

Jack Trotwood has just been here and told me that that unspeakable woman is actually going to sue Harry for breach of promise. I tried to get him to tell more, but he said that that was all he had been able to get out of Harry. It's too awful! You can imagine what a time I've been through, seeing him at least once a week and not being able to say a word about the whole business. I've had to depend on Jack Trotwood for all my information, and naturally he hasn't wanted to say much. Do you mean to say Harry hasn't written you all this term? I cannot understand it at all.

Aunt Selina seems quite cut up about it, and wishes you were here. 'Tell James to come,' she said when I told her I would write you. I must confess, though, that I don't see what good you could do—now. Of course, terrible as this suit is, it does relieve things in one way, at least. Once we're quite sure it's merely money she's after, it doesn't seem quite so bad. I even think it is better now than it was early in the autumn, when we thought he was actually fond of her.

There is no other news to give you; as you can imagine, we have not been thinking of much else. Poor Harry, how sorry I am for him! How much I wish I could help him, and how little I can do!

As ever yours,

Beatrice.

This letter was less comforting than the other. Beatrice's words seemed to James to carry a veiled reproach with them; to implicate him much more closely in Harry's disgrace than he had as yet thought of implicating himself. "I don't see what good you could do—now;" "better now than it was in the early autumn—" such sentences could not but have their sting for the sensitive mind, and James was sensitive when Harry was concerned, and even more so when Beatrice was.

Had he been negligent in regard to Harry? Oh, yes, he was perfectly willing to admit that he had, now that he came to think it over, though he would rather have had anybody other than Beatrice point out the fact to him—and that, doubtless, was because a comment from Beatrice would have twice the force of the same comment uttered by any one else. He had never really put himself out for Harry in any way, since the days when England seemed too far for him to venture to discover what the years were making of him. In the critical period of his senior and Harry's sophomore year he had shown himself entirely incapable of giving the friendship and sympathy and guidance that were needed. Jack Trotwood, and not he himself, had been Harry's best friend, in every sense of the phrase, for three years and more. And after graduation, he had come to Minneapolis.

Then this degrading affair with the manicure. James had heard of that first through Beatrice, for Harry's letters, which had arrived at regular, though rather long, intervals, had ceased abruptly in September, at the beginning of the college year. That had been almost a relief to James. Harry's letters had been calculated to widen rather than bridge the gulf between them. They had been amusing and always cleverly written. A letter written on the previous Tap Day, dated conspicuously "Thursday, May 18, 7 P.M." (two hours after Harry had failed to receive an election to any senior society) had been a perfect masterpiece of omission. It ran pleasantly along on the weather, the outward appearance of the university, sundry little incidents of no importance or interest, the economic condition of the country—everything except Tap Day, himself, anything that would interest James. This letter had irritated James beyond all expression, yet at the same time he admired it for what it was worth, and hated himself for admiring it.

And so, as he was obliged to learn from other sources of Harry's missing a senior society, so he was dependent on others for all his information in re Myrtle Mowbray. In October Beatrice had written him that Harry had been seen much in the society of the woman, who conducted her business in connection with a barber shop situated conveniently for the patronage of the student body. Jack Trotwood had also written, somewhat timidly, to the same effect, evidently much perplexed about where his truest duty to Harry lay. Apparently there had been motor parties to neighboring country inns, more or less conspicuous carryings-on in restaurants about town, and so forth. Such tidings became more and more acute for a month, and then ceased. There was reason for hoping that the nonsense was all over. Then the thunderbolt of to-day.

James had not really been much worried, before to-day. He had caught a glimpse of "the Mowbray woman," as he always thought of her, one day in the previous June, while in New Haven for Commencement. He had been strolling along Chapel Street with a group of classmates, and one of them called his attention to a female form emerging from a shop door, giving in a discreet undertone a brief explanation of her celebrity, ending with a vivid word of commendation—"Some fluff." James looked, and saw a pretty face. It had been but a fraction of a second, and the face was turned away from him; but it was enough to leave quite a lasting impression on his mind—an impression that had not been without its effect on his reception of the news of Harry's infatuation. A pretty face! Well, when all was said and done, Harry had not been the first man of his acquaintance to become enamored of a pretty face—and get over it. He did not approve of the alleged infatuation; the thought of it gave him considerable uneasiness. But, helped out by the impression, his optimistic temperament had battled with the uneasiness and in the end overcome it; prevented it, certainly, from growing into anything like anxiety, anything that would necessitate drastic and disturbing measures, such as pulling up stakes, for instance, and hurrying New Haven-ward.... Oh, how loathsomely lazy and indifferent he had been, now that he looked back on it all!

A pretty face! The memory of it was still sharply out-lined on the back of James' brain and drove introspection and self-recrimination into momentary abeyance. A clear, slightly olive complexion, rising to a faint pink on the cheeks—artificial? Not as he remembered it; there was no suggestion of the chorus-girl—sharply-drawn eyebrows and dark hair. Above, a hat of some sort; below, a suit, preferably of dark blue serge. The impression had been recurrent in James' mind during these past months; not soon after it was received, in the summer; since then. There was something irritating and tantalizing about this circumstance; it was as though the impression had been strengthened by a second view. Where had he seen that face again, if at all? Yes, he had seen it, somewhere; he was almost certain of it. He was absolutely certain of it; he could remember everything—except the time and place. Which after all were important adjuncts to definite recollection—! No, he would not laugh himself out of it; he was sure. He would remember all about it some time when he least expected it.

He left it at that, and listlessly lay at full length watching the fire and allowing his thoughts to wander from the all-absorbing topic and its octopus-like ramifications. The fire was fascinating to watch; he loved open fires and wished they would have one in this room every evening. It would be almost like a home to come back to, after work. It was particularly pleasant to watch, like this, in an otherwise dark room, as it cast its intermittent flare on the walls and furniture. It brought out the rich warm tones in the brown leather of the chairs and the oak of the wainscot, and picked out small particles of gilt here and there in the ceiling decoration, and set them twinkling back in a cheerful, drowsy way. From the dim outside world beyond the open door came occasional sounds of club life; the distant clatter of crockery, the swish of a passing elevator, a voice finding fault with a club servant. James listened to them at first, in a half-amused, idle sort of way; then gradually they faded from his consciousness and he was aware of nothing but the fire and its flickering yellow light.

He watched the fire intently, absorbedly, with the lazy concentration with which a tired brain often fastens itself on some physical object, as though to crowd out other thoughts clamoring for admittance. The fire was beginning to burn low now, with flames that never rose more than a few inches above the logs. Every few moments a small quantity of half-burnt wood dropped off and fell to the glowing bed of coals beneath, and the flames broke out afresh in the place it fell from. James watched this process with a growing sense of expectancy; he seemed to be always waiting, waiting for the next fall; yet when the next fall came he was still waiting.... Was it only the fall of the coals that he was waiting for? It must be something else, something that had nothing to do with the fire at all; something much more important; something that he longed not to have come, yet, and at the same time wished were over.... He seemed now not to be lying at full length, but sitting on the broad arm of a chair. The fire-light's glow fell no longer on leather and oak, but on old flowered chintz and mahogany.... Now he was sitting no longer; he was bending over—bending low over something white; turning his ear so as to catch certain words that some one was uttering in a whisper; words that were indelibly burnt on his brain; words that were as inseparable from his being as life....

Then in an instant the room, the fire, everything vanished; and in their place, filling his whole consciousness—that face! He knew it perfectly now, exactly when, where, all about it; no room for mistake or doubt any more! He started upright on the couch; his whole world seemed suddenly illumined by a blinding flash of light. In another instant he was aware that somebody had turned on the electric light, and of a face staring quizzically into his. He heard a voice.

"Hello, you all alone in here, Wimbourne? You must be fond of the dark!—What are you looking so all-fired pleased about, I wonder?"

"Oh—Laffan! How are you?... Nothing much; I just thought of something, that's all."

"Congratulations on your thoughts. I'm looking for some one to dine with; I suppose you've eaten? It's late—"

"Whew—nearly eight! No, I've not eaten; shall we go up together?"

They started to leave the room, but James stopped abruptly in the doorway, suddenly practical, master of himself, of the whole situation.

"I say, Laffan, you're a lawyer, aren't you?"

"I attempt to be."

"Well, I want to consult you, professionally, if you'll let me. Consider me a client! Now, what I want to know is this; suppose a—"

"Oh, rot, man—not on an empty stomach! Come along upstairs; you can tell me all about it while you eat!"