“Have I bored you?” inquired Maury, looking down with some concern.
“No, you have disappointed us. You’ve shot a lot of arrows but did you shoot any birds?”
“I leave the birds to Dick,” said Maury hurriedly. “I speak erratically, in disassociated fragments.”
“You can get no rise from me,” muttered Dick. “My mind is full of any number of material things. I want a warm bath too much to worry about the importance of my work or what proportion of us are pathetic figures.”
Dawn made itself felt in a gathering whiteness eastward over the river and an intermittent cheeping in the near-by trees.
“Quarter to five,” sighed Dick; “almost another hour to wait. Look! Two gone.” He was pointing to Anthony, whose lids had sagged over his eyes. “Sleep of the Patch family—”
But in another five minutes, despite the amplifying cheeps and chirrups, his own head had fallen forward, nodded down twice, thrice….
Only Maury Noble remained awake, seated upon the station roof, his eyes wide open and fixed with fatigued intensity upon the distant nucleus of morning. He was wondering at the unreality of ideas, at the fading radiance of existence, and at the little absorptions that were creeping avidly into his life, like rats into a ruined house. He was sorry for no one now—on Monday morning there would be his business, and later there would be a girl of another class whose whole life he was; these were the things nearest his heart. In the strangeness of the brightening day it seemed presumptuous that with this feeble, broken instrument of his mind he had ever tried to think.
There was the sun, letting down great glowing masses of heat; there was life, active and snarling, moving about them like a fly swarm—the dark pants of smoke from the engine, a crisp “all aboard!” and a bell ringing. Confusedly Maury saw eyes in the milk train staring curiously up at him, heard Gloria and Anthony in quick controversy as to whether he should go to the city with her, then another clamor and she was gone and the three men, pale as ghosts, were standing alone upon the platform while a grimy coal-heaver went down the road on top of a motor truck, carolling hoarsely at the summer morning.
CHAPTER III
THE BROKEN LUTE
It is seven-thirty of an August evening. The windows in the living room of the gray house are wide open, patiently exchanging the tainted inner atmosphere of liquor and smoke for the fresh drowsiness of the late hot dusk. There are dying flower scents upon the air, so thin, so fragile, as to hint already of a summer laid away in time. But August is still proclaimed relentlessly by a thousand crickets around the side-porch, and by one who has broken into the house and concealed himself confidently behind a bookcase, from time to time shrieking of his cleverness and his indomitable will.
The room itself is in messy disorder. On the table is a dish of fruit, which is real but appears artificial. Around it are grouped an ominous assortment of decanters, glasses, and heaped ash-trays, the latter still raising wavy smoke-ladders into the stale air, the effect on the whole needing but a skull to resemble that venerable chromo, once a fixture in every “den,” which presents the appendages to the life of pleasure with delightful and awe-inspiring sentiment.
After a while the sprightly solo of the supercricket is interrupted rather than joined by a new sound—the melancholy wail of an erratically fingered flute. It is obvious that the musician is practising rather than performing, for from time to time the gnarled strain breaks off and, after an interval of indistinct mutterings, recommences.
Just prior to the seventh false start a third sound contributes to the subdued discord. It is a taxi outside. A minute’s silence, then the taxi again, its boisterous retreat almost obliterating the scrape of footsteps on the cinder walk. The door-bell shrieks alarmingly through the house.
From the kitchen enters a small, fatigued Japanese, hastily buttoning a servant’s coat of white duck. He opens the front screen-door and admits a handsome young man of thirty, clad in the sort of well-intentioned clothes peculiar to those who serve mankind. To his whole personality clings a well-intentioned air: his glance about the room is compounded of curiosity and a determined optimism; when he looks at Tana the entire burden of uplifting the godless Oriental is in his eyes. His name is FREDERICK E. PARAMORE. He was at Harvard with ANTHONY, where because of the initials of their surnames they were constantly placed next to each other in classes. A fragmentary acquaintance developed—but since that time they have never met.
Nevertheless, PARAMORE enters the room with a certain air of arriving for the evening.
Tana is answering a question.
TANA: (Grinning with ingratiation) Gone to Inn for dinnah. Be back half-hour. Gone since ha’ past six.
PARAMORE: (Regarding the glasses on the table) Have they company?
TANA: Yes. Company. Mistah Caramel, Mistah and Missays Barnes, Miss Kane, all stay here.
PARAMORE: I see. (Kindly) They’ve been having a spree, I see.
TANA: I no un’stan’.
PARAMORE: They’ve been having a fling.
TANA: Yes, they have drink. Oh, many, many, many drink.
PARAMORE: (Receding delicately from the subject) “Didn’t I hear the sounds of music as I approached the house”?
TANA:(With a spasmodic giggle)Yes, I play.
PARAMORE: One of the Japanese instruments.
(He is quite obviously a subscriber to the “National Geographic
Magazine.”)
TANA: I play flu-u-ute, Japanese flu-u-ute.
PARAMORE: What song were you playing? One of your Japanese melodies?
TANA:(His brow undergoing preposterous contraction) I play train song. How you call?—railroad song. So call in my countree. Like train. It go so-o-o; that mean whistle; train start. Then go so-o-o; that mean train go. Go like that. Vera nice song in my countree. Children song.
PARAMORE: It sounded very nice.
(It is apparent at this point that only a gigantic effort at control restrains Tana from rushing up-stairs for his post cards, including the six made in America.)
TANA: I fix high-ball for gentleman?
PARAMORE: “No, thanks. I don’t use it”. (He smiles.)
(TANA withdraws into the kitchen, leaving the intervening door slightly ajar. From the crevice there suddenly issues again the melody of the Japanese train song—this time not a practice, surely, but a performance, a lusty, spirited performance.
The phone rings. TANA, absorbed in his harmonics, gives no heed, so PARAMORE takes up the receiver.)
PARAMORE: Hello…. Yes…. No, he’s not here now, but he’ll be back any moment…. Butterworth? Hello, I didn’t quite catch the name…. Hello, hello, hello. Hello! … Huh!
(The phone obstinately refuses to yield up any more sound. Paramore replaces the receiver.
At this point the taxi motif re-enters, wafting with it a second young man; he carries a suitcase and opens the front door without ringing the bell.)
MAURY: (In the hall) “Oh, Anthony! Yoho”! (He comes into the large room and sees PARAMORE) How do?
PARAMORE: (Gazing at him with gathering intensity) Is this—is this Maury Noble?
MAURY: “That’s it”. (He advances, smiling, and holding out his hand) How are you, old boy? Haven’t seen you for years.
(He has vaguely associated the face with Harvard, but is not even positive about that. The name, if he ever knew it, he has long since forgotten. However, with a fine sensitiveness and an equally commendable charity PARAMORE recognizes the fact and tactfully relieves the situation.)
PARAMORE: You’ve forgotten Fred Paramore? We were both in old Unc Robert’s history class.
MAURY: No, I haven’t, Unc—I mean Fred. Fred was—I mean Unc was a great old fellow, wasn’t he?
PARAMORE: (Nodding his head humorously several times) Great old character. Great old character.
MAURY: (After a short pause) Yes—he was. Where’s Anthony?
PARAMORE: The Japanese servant told me he was at some inn. Having dinner, I suppose.
MAURY: (Looking at his watch) Gone long?
PARAMORE: I guess so. The Japanese told me they’d be back shortly.
MAURY: Suppose we have a drink.
PARAMORE: No, thanks. I don’t use it. (He smiles.)
MAURY: Mind if I do? (Yawning as he helps himself from a bottle) What have you been doing since you left college?
PARAMORE: Oh, many things. I’ve led a very active life. Knocked about here and there. (His tone implies anything front lion-stalking to organized crime.)
MAURY: Oh, been over to Europe?
PARAMORE: No, I haven’t—unfortunately.
MAURY: I guess we’ll all go over before long.
PARAMORE: Do you really think so?
MAURY: Sure! Country’s been fed on sensationalism for more than two years. Everybody getting restless. Want to have some fun.
PARAMORE: Then you don’t believe any ideals are at stake?
MAURY: Nothing of much importance. People want excitement every so often.
PARAMORE: (Intently) It’s very interesting to hear you say that. Now I was talking to a man who’d been over there——
(During the ensuing testament, left to be filled in by the reader with such phrases as “Saw with his own eyes,” “Splendid spirit of France,” and “Salvation of civilization,” MAURY sits with lowered eyelids, dispassionately bored.)
MAURY: (At the first available opportunity) By the way, do you happen to know that there’s a German agent in this very house?
PARAMORE: (Smiling cautiously) Are you serious?
MAURY: Absolutely. Feel it my duty to warn you.
PARAMORE: (Convinced) A governess?
MAURY: (In a whisper, indicating the kitchen with his thumb) Tana! That’s not his real name. I understand he constantly gets mail addressed to Lieutenant Emile Tannenbaum.
PARAMORE: (Laughing with hearty tolerance) You were kidding me.
MAURY: I may be accusing him falsely. But, you haven’t told me what you’ve been doing.
PARAMORE: For one thing—writing.
MAURY: Fiction?
PARAMORE: No. Non-fiction.
MAURY: What’s that? A sort of literature that’s half fiction and half fact?
PARAMORE: Oh, I’ve confined myself to fact. I’ve been doing a good deal of social-service work.
MAURY: Oh!
(An immediate glow of suspicion leaps into his eyes. It is as
