the pleasant days of quiet reading and whimsical reflection were over for the worm, poor devil! life caught him up without warning—that complex fascinating life of which he had long been a spectator—and swept him into swift deep currents. he was to be a mere spectator no longer.
washington square glowed with june. the trees had not yet assumed the faded, dispirited gray-green of midsummer. the bus tops were crowded with pleasure riders, and a crowd of them pressed about the open-air terminal station held in check by uniformed guards. on the wide curves of asphalt hundreds of small italians danced to the hurdy-gurdy or played hopscotch or roller-skated. perambulators lined the shady walks; nurses, slim and uniformed, fat and unformed, lined the benches. students hurried west, south and north (for it was afternoon—saturday afternoon, as it happened). beggars, pedlers, lovers in pairs, unkempt tenement dwellers, a policeman or two, moved slowly about, but not so slowly as they would move a few weeks later when the heat of july would have sapped the vitality of every living thing in town.
but the worm, standing near the marble arch where fifth avenue splendidly begins, felt not june in his heart. he walked on through the square to the old red-brick building where for three years he and hy lowe and pcter ericson mann had dwelt in bachelor comfort. the dingy studio apartment on the seventh floor had been his home. but it was a haunt of discord now.
he found the usually effervescent hy pacing the lower hall like a leopard in a cage. hy wore an immaculately pressed suit of creamy gray flannel, new red tie, red silk hosiery visible above the glistening low-cut tan shoes, a panama hat with a fluffy striped band around it. in his hand was a thin bamboo stick which he was swinging savagely against his legs. his face worked with anger.
he pounced upon the worm.
“wanted to see you,” he said in a voice that was low but of quavering intensity. “before i go. got to run.”
at this point the elevator came creaking down. a messenger boy stepped out, carrying hy's suit-case and light overcoat.
“excuse me,” breathed hy, “one minute.” he whispered to the boy, pressed a folded dollar bill into his hand, hurried him off. “this thing has become flatly impossible—”
“what thing?” the worm was moodily surveying him.
“pete. he's up there now. i'm through. i shan't go into those rooms again if he—look here! i've found a place for you and me, over in the mews. eight dollars less than this and more light. tell pete. i. can't talk to him. my god, the man's a—”
“he's a what?” asked the worm.
“well, you know what he did! as there's a god in the heavens he killed old wilde.”
“killed your aunt!” observed the worm, and soberly considered his friend. hy's elaborate get-up suggested the ladies, a particular lady. the worm looked him over again from the fluff-bound panama to the red silk socks. a very particular lady! and he was speaking with wandering eyes and an unreal sort of emphasis; as if his anger, though doubtless genuine enough, were confused with some other emotion regarding which he was not explicit.
“where are you going now—over to the mews?”
hy started at the abrupt question, took the worm's elbow, became suddenly confidential.
“no,” he said, “not exactly. you see—everything's gone to smash. the creditors of the paper won't keep me on. they'll put in a country preacher with a string tie, and he'll bring his own staff. that's what pete's done to me! that's what he's done. i wouldn't go off this way, right now, if it wasn't for the awful depression i feel. i didn't sleep a wink last night. honest, not a wink! a man's got to have some sympathy in his life. damn it, in a crisis like this—”
“perhaps you can tell me with even greater lucidity when you are coming back,” said the worm dryly.
hy gulped, stared blankly at his friend, uttered explosively the one word, “monday!” then he glanced at his watch and hurried out of the building.
the worm slowly shook his head and took the elevator.
the long dim studio was quite as usual, with its soft-toned walls, dilapidated but comfortable furniture, hy's piano, the decrepit flat-top desk, the two front windows from which you could see all of the square and the mile of roofs beyond it, and still beyond, the heights of new jersey. the coffee percolator stood on the bookcase—on the empty bookcase where once had been the worm's library. in this room he had studied and written the hundreds of futile book reviews that nobody ever heard of, that had got him precisely nowhere. in this room he had lived in a state of soul near serenity until he met sue wilde. now it brought heartache. merely to push open the door and step within was to stir poignantly haunting memories of a day that was sharply gone. it was like opening old letters. the scent of a thoughtlessly happy past was faintly there.
something else was there—a human object, sprawled abjectly in the morris chair, garbed in slippers and bathrobe, hair disheveled, but black-rimmed eye-glasses still on his nose, the conspicuous black ribbon still hanging from them down the long face. it was that well-known playwright, peter ericson mann, author of the buzzard, odd change and anchored; and, more recently, of the scenario for jacob zanin's nature him. author, too, of the new satirical comedy. the triffler, written at sue wilde and booked for production in september at the astoria theater.
the worm had not told hy that he had just seen sue. now, standing motionless, the thousand memory-threads that bound the old rooms to his heart clinging there like leafless ivy, he looked down at the white-faced man in the morris chair and knew that he was even less likely to mention the fact to peter. he thought—“why, we're not friends! that's what it means!”
peter's hollow eyes were on him.
“you, worm!” he said huskily, and tried to smile. “i'm rather ill, i think. it's shock. you know a shock can do it.”
“what shocked you?” asked henry bates rather shortly, turning to the window.
“hy. he's crazy, i think. it's the only possible explanation. he said i was a”—peter's expressive voice dropped, more huskily still, into the tragic mood—“a murderer. it was a frightful experience. the boy has gone batty. it's his fear of losing his job, of course. but the experience has had a curious effect on me. my heart is palpitating.” his right hand was feeling for the pulse in his left wrist. “and i have some, difficulty in breathing.” now he pressed both hands to his chest.
the worm stared out the window. peter would act until his dying day; even then. one pose would follow another, prompted by the unstable emotions of genius, guided only by an egotism so strong that it would almost certainly weather every storm of brain or soul. in a very indirect way pete had murdered the old boy. no getting around that. an odd sort of murder—sending sumner smith to ask that question. peter himself, away down under his egotism, knew it. hence the play for sympathy.
peter was still talking. “it really came out of a clear sky. until very lately i should have said that hy and i were friends. as you know, we had many points of contact. last fall, when—”
the worm turned. “passing lightly over the next eight months,” he remarked, “what do you propose to do now?”
peter shrank back a little. the worm's manner was hardly ingratiating. “why—” he said, “why, i suppose i'll stay on here. you and i have always got on, henry. we've been comfortable here. and to tell the truth, i've been getting tired of listening to the history in detail of hy's amours. he wants to look out, that fellow. he's had a few too many of 'em. he's getting careless. now you and i, we're both sober, quiet. we were the backbone of the seventh-story men. we can go on—”
the worm, though given to dry and sometimes cryptic ways, was never rude. that is he never had been. but at this point he walked out of the apartment and closed the door behind him. he had come in with the intention of using the telephone. instead now he walked swiftly through the square and on across sixth avenue, under the elevated road into greenwich village, where the streets twist curiously, and the hopeless poor swarm in the little triangular parks, and writers and painters and sculptors and agitators and idea-venders swarm in the quaint tumble-down old houses and the less quaint apartment buildings.
he entered one of the latter, pressed one of a row of buttons under a row of brass mouthpieces. the door clicked. he opened it; walked through to the rear door on the right.
this door opened slowly, disclosing a tall young woman, very light in coloring, of a softly curving outline, seeming to bend and sway even as she stood quietly there; charming to the eye even in the half-light, fresh of skin, slow, non-committal in speech and of quietly yielding ways; a young woman with large, almost beautiful, inexpressive eyes. she wore hat and gloves and carried a light coat.
“you just caught me,” she said.
on the floor by the wall was a hand-bag. henry bates eyed this. “oh,” he murmured, distrait, “going away!”
“why—yes. you wanted me?”
“yes. it's about sue wilde.”
she hesitated; then led him into the half-furnished living-room.
“where is sue, anyway?”
“when i left her she wras trying to make a fire in a kitchen range. out in jersey.”
“but what on earth—”
“trouble was she didn't understand about the damper in the pipe. i fixed that.”
betty glanced covertly at her wrist watch. “i don't want to appear unsympathetic,” she said, “but i don't see why she undertakes to shoulder that family. it's—it's quixotic. it's not her sort of thing. she's got her own life to live.”
the worm, very calm but a little white about the mouth, confronted her. betty moved restlessly.
“she wants you to pack up her things,” he said. “sent me to ask.”
betty knit her brows. “oh,” she murmured, “isn't that too bad. i really haven't a minute. you see—it's a matter of catching a train. i could do it monday. or you might call up one of the other girls. i'm awfully sorry. but it's something very important.” her eyes avoided his. her color rose a little. she turned away. “of course,” she was murmuring, “i hate terribly to fail sue at a time like this—”
she moved irresolutely toward the little hall, glanced again at her watch; and suddenly in confusion picked up her bag and hurried out.
he could hear her light step in the outer corridor; then the street door. all at sea, he started to follow. at the apartment door he paused. her key was in the lock; she had not even thought to take it. he removed it, put it in his pocket; then wandered back into the living-room and stood over the telephone, trying to think of some one he could call in. but his rising resentment made clear thinking difficult. he sank into the armchair, crossed his long legs, clasped his hands behind his head, stared at the mantel. on it were sue's books, in a haphazard row—a few russian novels (in english translations), havelock ellis's sex in relation to society, freud on psychanalysis and dreams, two volumes of schnitzler's plays, brieux's plays with the shaw preface, a few others.
his gaze roved from the books to the bare walls. they were bare; all sue's pictures were pinned up on the burlap screen that hid a corner of the room—half a dozen feminist cartoons from the masses, a futuristic impression of her own head by one of the village artists, two or three strong rough sketches by jacob zanin of costumes for a playlet at the crossroads, an english lithograph of mrs. pankhurst.
henry bates slowly, thoughtfully, filled and lighted his pipe. his brows were knit. the room, in its unfeminine bareness as well as in its pictures and books, breathed of the modern unsubmissive girl. no one had wasted a minute here on “housekeeping.” here had lived the young woman who, more, perhaps, than any other of the recent lights of the old village, had typified revolt. she had believed, like the village about her, not in patriotism but in internationalism, not in the home but in the individual, not in duty and submission, but in experiment and self-expression. already, like all the older faiths of men, this new religion had its cant, its intolerance of opposition, its orthodoxy. his pipe went out while he sat there flunking about it; the beginnings of the summer twilight softened the harsh room and dimmed the outlines of back fences and rear walls without the not overclean windows.
finally he got up, turned on the lights, took off his coat, found sue's trunk behind the burlap screen and dragged it to the middle of the room. he began with the coverings of the couch-bed; then went into the bedroom and folded blankets, coverlet, sheets and comforter. sue did not own a great variety of clothing; but what was hanging in the closet he brought out, folded and packed away. he took down the few pictures and laid them flat within the upper tray of the trunk. in an hour living-room, bedroom and closet were bare. the books he piled by the door; first guessing at the original cost of each and adding the figures in his head.
nothing remained but the bureau in the bedroom. he stood before this a long moment before he could bring himself to open the top drawer. to peter, to zanin, to hy howe, the matter would have been simple. years back those deeply experienced young bachelors had become familiar with all manner of little feminine mysteries; but to henry bates these were mysteries still. the color came hotly to his mild countenance; his pulses beat faster and faster. he recalled with painful vividness, the last occasion on which reason, normally his god, had deserted him. that was the day, not so long ago by the calendar, he had turned against all that had been his life—dropped his books in the north river, donned the costly new suit that peter's tailor had made for him and set forth to propose marriage to sue wilde. and with chagrin that grew and burned his face to a hotter red he recalled that he had never succeeded in making himself clear to her. to this day she did not know that his reflective, emotionally unsophisticated heart had been torn with love of her. why, blindly urging marriage, he had actually talked her into that foolish engagement with peter!... what was the quality that enabled men to advance themselves—in work, in love? whatever it might be, he felt he had it not. peter had it. zanin had it. hy had it. sue herself! each was a person, something of a force, a positive quality in life. but he, henry bates, was a negative thing. for years he had sat quietly among his books, content to watch others forge past him and disappear up the narrow lanes of progress. until now, at thirty-two, he found himself a hesitant unfruitful man without the gift of success.
“it is a gift,” he said aloud; and then sat on the springs of the stripped bed and stared at his ineffectual face in the mirror. “the trouble with me,” he continued, “is plain lack of character. better hy's trifling conquests; better zanin's driving instinct to get first; better peter's hideously ungoverned ego; than—nothing!”
his pipe usually helped. he felt for it. it was not in the right-hand coat pocket where he always carried it. which fact startled him. then he found it in the left-hand pocket. not once in ten years before this bitter hour had he misplaced his pipe. “my god,” he muttered, “haven't i even got any habits!” he was unnerved. “like pete,” he thought, “but without even pete's excuse.”
he lighted his pipe, puffed a moment, stood erect, drew a few deep breaths, then drove himself at the task of packing the things that were in the bureau. and a task it was! nothing but the strong if latent will of the man held him to it. there were soft white garments the like of which his hands had never touched before. reverently, if grimly, he laid them away in the upper trays of the trunk. in the bottom drawer were sue's dancing costumes—russian and greek. each one of these brought a vivid picture of the girl as she had appeared at the crossroads; each was a stab at henry bates' heart. at the bottom, in the corner, were a pair of red leather boots, very light, with metal clicks in the heels. he took them up, stood motionless holding them. his eyes filled. he could see her again, in that difficult crouching russian step—her costume sparkling with color, her olive skin tinted rose with the spirited exercise of it, her extraordinary green eyes dancing with the exuberant life that was in her. then, as if by a trick shift of scene, he saw her in a bare kitchen, wearing a checked apron, kneeling by a stove. the tears brimmed over. he lifted the little red boots, stared wildly at them, kissed them over and over.
“my god!” he moaned softly, “oh, my god!”
there was a faint smell of burning. his pipe lay at his feet, sparks had fallen out and were eating their way into the matting. he stepped on them; then picked up the pipe and resolutely lighted it again. the boots he carried into the living-room; found an old newspaper and wrapped them up; laid the parcel by his hat and coat in the hall.
he found a strap in the kitchen closet and strapped the trunk. there was a suit-case that he had filled; he closed this and laid it on the trunk. then he turned all the lights off and stood looking out the open window. he had had no dinner—couldn't conceivably eat any. it was evening now; somewhere between eight and nine o'clock, probably. he didn't care. nothing mattered, beyond getting trunk and suit-case off to sue before too late—so that she would surely have them in the morning. the sounds of evening in the city floated to his ears; and he realized that he had not before been hearing them. from an apartment across the area came the song of a talking machine. blowsy women leaned out of rear windows and visited. there was a faint tinkle from a mechanical piano in the corner saloon. he could hear a street-car going by on tenth street.
then another sound—steps in the corridor; the turning of a knob; fumbling at the apartment door.
he started like a guilty man. in the village, it was nothing for a man to be in a girl's rooms or a girl in a man's. the group was too well emancipated for that—in theory, at least. in fact, of course, difficulties often arose—and gossip. greathearted phrases were the common tender of village talk; but not all the talkers were great-hearted. and women suffered while they smiled. he would have preferred not to be found there.
a key grated. the door opened.
with a shrinking at his heart, a sudden great selfconsciousness, he stepped into the hall.
it was sue—in her old street suit.
