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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14712 ***
+
+VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE
+
+By
+
+Frank Norris
+
+1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter One
+
+
+It was always a matter of wonder to Vandover that he was able to recall
+so little of his past life. With the exception of the most recent events
+he could remember nothing connectedly. What he at first imagined to be
+the story of his life, on closer inspection turned out to be but a few
+disconnected incidents that his memory had preserved with the greatest
+capriciousness, absolutely independent of their importance. One of these
+incidents might be a great sorrow, a tragedy, a death in his family; and
+another, recalled with the same vividness, the same accuracy of detail,
+might be a matter of the least moment.
+
+A certain one of these wilful fillips of memory would always bring
+before him a particular scene during the migration of his family from
+Boston to their new home in San Francisco, at a time when Vandover was
+about eight years old.
+
+It was in the depot of one of the larger towns in western New York. The
+day had been hot and after the long ride on the crowded day coach the
+cool shadow under the curved roof of the immense iron vaulted depot
+seemed very pleasant. The porter, the brakeman and Vandover's father
+very carefully lifted his mother from the car. She was lying back on
+pillows in a long steamer chair. The three men let the chair slowly
+down, the brakeman went away, but the porter remained, taking off his
+cap and wiping his forehead with the back of his left hand, which in
+turn he wiped against the pink palm of his right. The other train, the
+train to which they were to change, had not yet arrived. It was rather
+still; at the far end of the depot a locomotive, sitting back on its
+motionless drivers like some huge sphinx crouching along the rails, was
+steaming quietly, drawing long breaths. The repair gang in greasy caps
+and spotted blue overalls were inspecting the train, pottering about the
+trucks, opening and closing the journal-boxes, striking clear notes on
+the wheels with long-handled hammers.
+
+Vandover stood close to his father, his thin legs wide apart, holding in
+both his hands the satchel he had been permitted to carry. He looked
+about him continually, rolling his big eyes vaguely, watching now the
+repair-gang, now a huge white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.
+
+Several passengers were walking up and down the platform, staring
+curiously at the invalid lying back in the steamer chair.
+
+The journey was too much for her. She was very weak and very pale, her
+eyelids were heavy, the skin of her forehead looked blue and tightly
+drawn, and tiny beads of perspiration gathered around the corners of her
+mouth. Vandover's father put his hand and arm along the back of the
+chair and his sick wife rested against him, leaning her head on his
+waistcoat over the pocket where he kept his cigars and pocket-comb. They
+were all silent.
+
+By and by she drew a long sigh, her face became the face of an imbecile,
+stupid, without expression, her eyes half-closed, her mouth half-open.
+Her head rolled forward as though she were nodding in her sleep, while a
+long drip of saliva trailed from her lower lip. Vandover's father bent
+over her quickly, crying out sharply, "Hallie!--what is it?" All at once
+the train for which they were waiting charged into the depot, filling
+the place with a hideous clangor and with the smell of steam and of hot
+oil.
+
+This scene of her death was the only thing that Vandover could remember
+of his mother.
+
+As he looked back over his life he could recall nothing after this for
+nearly five years. Even after that lapse of time the only scene he could
+picture with any degree of clearness was one of the greatest triviality
+in which he saw himself, a rank thirteen-year-old boy, sitting on a bit
+of carpet in the back yard of the San Francisco house playing with his
+guinea-pigs.
+
+In order to get at his life during his teens, Vandover would have been
+obliged to collect these scattered memory pictures as best he could,
+rearrange them in some more orderly sequence, piece out what he could
+imperfectly recall and fill in the many gaps by mere guesswork and
+conjecture.
+
+It was the summer of 1880 that they had come to San Francisco. Once
+settled there, Vandover's father began to build small residence houses
+and cheap flats which he rented at various prices, the cheapest at ten
+dollars, the more expensive at thirty-five and forty. He had closed out
+his business in the East, coming out to California on account of his
+wife's ill health. He had made his money in Boston and had intended to
+retire.
+
+But he soon found that he could not do this. At this time he was an old
+man, nearly sixty. He had given his entire life to his business to the
+exclusion of everything else, and now when his fortune had been made and
+when he could afford to enjoy it, discovered that he had lost the
+capacity for enjoying anything but the business itself. Nothing else
+could interest him. He was not what would be called in America a rich
+man, but he had made money enough to travel, to allow himself any
+reasonable relaxation, to cultivate a taste for art, music, literature
+or the drama, to indulge in any harmless fad, such as collecting
+etchings, china or bric-à-brac, or even to permit himself the luxury of
+horses. In the place of all these he found himself, at nearly sixty
+years of age, forced again into the sordid round of business as the only
+escape from the mortal _ennui_ and weariness of the spirit that preyed
+upon him during every leisure hour of the day.
+
+Early and late he went about the city, personally superintending the
+building of his little houses and cheap flats, sitting on saw-horses and
+piles of lumber, watching the carpenters at work. In the evening he came
+home to a late supper, completely fagged, bringing with him the smell of
+mortar and of pine shavings.
+
+On the first of each month when his agents turned over the rents to him
+he was in great spirits. He would bring home the little canvas sack of
+coin with him before banking it, and call his son's attention to the
+amount, never failing to stick a twenty-dollar gold-piece in each eye,
+monocle fashion, exclaiming, "Good for the masses," a meaningless jest
+that had been one of the family's household words for years.
+
+His plan of building was peculiar. His credit was good, and having
+chosen his lot he would find out from the banks how much they would loan
+him upon it in case he should become the owner. If this amount suited
+him, he would buy the lot, making one large payment outright and giving
+his note for the balance. The lot once his, the banks loaned him the
+desired amount. With this money and with money of his own he would make
+the final payment on the lot and would begin the building itself,
+paying his labour on the nail, but getting his material, lumber, brick
+and fittings on time. When the building was half-way up he would
+negotiate a second loan from the banks in order to complete it and in
+order to meet the notes he had given to his contractors for material.
+
+He believed this to be a shrewd business operation, since the rents as
+they returned to him were equal to the interest on a far larger sum than
+that which he had originally invested. He said little about the double
+mortgage on each piece of property "improved" after this fashion and
+which often represented a full two-thirds of its entire value. The
+interest on each loan was far more than covered by the rents; he chose
+his neighbourhoods with great discrimination; real estate was
+flourishing in the rapidly growing city, and the new houses, although
+built so cheaply that they were mere shells of lath and plaster, were
+nevertheless made gay and brave with varnish and cheap mill-work. They
+rented well at first, scarcely a one was ever vacant. People spoke of
+the Old Gentleman as one of the most successful realty owners in the
+city. So pleased did he become with the success of his new venture that
+in course of time all his money was reinvested after this fashion.
+
+At the time of his father's greatest prosperity Vandover himself began
+to draw toward his fifteenth year, entering upon that period of change
+when the first raw elements of character began to assert themselves and
+when, if ever, there was a crying need for the influence of his mother.
+Any feminine influence would have been well for him at this time: that
+of an older sister, even that of a hired governess. The housekeeper
+looked after him a little, mended his clothes, saw that he took his bath
+Saturday nights, and that he did not dig tunnels under the garden walks.
+But her influence was entirely negative and prohibitory and the two were
+constantly at war. Vandover grew in a haphazard way and after school
+hours ran about the streets almost at will.
+
+At fifteen he put on long trousers, and the fall of the same year
+entered the High School. He had grown too fast and at this time was tall
+and very lean; his limbs were straight, angular, out of all proportion,
+with huge articulations at the elbows and knees. His neck was long and
+thin and his head large, his face was sallow and covered with pimples,
+his ears were big, red and stuck out stiff from either side of his head.
+His hair he wore "pompadour."
+
+Within a month after his entry of the High School he had a nickname. The
+boys called him "Skinny-seldom-fed," to his infinite humiliation.
+
+Little by little the crude virility of the young man began to develop in
+him. It was a distressing, uncanny period. Had Vandover been a girl he
+would at this time have been subject to all sorts of abnormal vagaries,
+such as eating his slate pencil, nibbling bits of chalk, wishing he were
+dead, and drifting into states of unreasoned melancholy. As it was, his
+voice began to change, a little golden down appeared on his cheeks and
+upon the nape of his neck, while his first summer vacation was
+altogether spoiled by a long spell of mumps.
+
+His appetite was enormous. He ate heavy meat three times a day, but took
+little or no exercise. The pimples on his face became worse and worse.
+He grew peevish and nervous. He hated girls, and when in their society
+was a very bull-calf for bashfulness and awkward self-consciousness. At
+times the strangest and most morbid fancies took possession of him,
+chief of which was that every one was looking at him while he was
+walking in the street.
+
+Vandover was a good little boy. Every night he said his prayers, going
+down upon his huge knees at the side of his bed. To the Lord's Prayer he
+added various petitions of his own. He prayed that he might be a good
+boy and live a long time and go to Heaven when he died and see his
+mother; that the next Saturday might be sunny all day long, and that the
+end of the world might not come while he was alive.
+
+It was during Vandover's first year at the High School that his eyes
+were opened and that he acquired the knowledge of good and evil. Till
+very late he kept his innocence, the crude raw innocence of the boy,
+like that of a young animal, at once charming and absurd. But by and by
+he became very curious, stirred with a blind unreasoned instinct. In the
+Bible which he read Sunday afternoons, because his father gave him a
+quarter for doing so, he came across a great many things that filled him
+with vague and strange ideas; and one Sunday at church, when the
+minister was intoning the Litany, he remarked for the first time the
+words, "all women in the perils of child-birth."
+
+He puzzled over this for a long time, smelling out a mystery beneath the
+words, feeling the presence of something hidden, with the instinct of a
+young brute. He could get no satisfaction from his father and by and by
+began to be ashamed to ask him; why, he did not know. Although he could
+not help hearing the abominable talk of the High School boys, he at
+first refused to believe that part of it which he could understand. For
+all that he was ashamed of his innocence and ignorance and affected to
+appreciate their stories nevertheless.
+
+At length one day he heard the terse and brutal truth. In an instant he
+believed it, some lower, animal intuition in him reiterating and
+confirming the fact. But even then he hated to think that people were so
+low, so vile. One day, however, he was looking through the volumes of
+the old Encyclopædia Britannica in his father's library, hoping that he
+might find a dollar bill which the Old Gentleman told him had been at
+one time misplaced between the leaves of some one of the great tomes.
+All at once he came upon the long article "Obstetrics," profusely
+illustrated with old-fashioned plates and steel engravings. He read it
+from beginning to end.
+
+It was the end of all his childish ideals, the destruction of all his
+first illusions. The whole of his rude little standard of morality was
+lowered immediately. Even his mother, whom he had always believed to be
+some kind of an angel, fell at once in his estimation. She could never
+be the same to him after this, never so sweet, so good and so pure as he
+had hitherto imagined her.
+
+It was very cruel, the whole thing was a grief to him, a blow, a great
+shock; he hated to think of it. Then little by little the first taint
+crept in, the innate vice stirred in him, the brute began to make itself
+felt, and a multitude of perverse and vicious ideas commenced to buzz
+about him like a swarm of nasty flies.
+
+A certain word, the blunt Anglo-Saxon name for a lost woman, that he
+heard on one occasion among the boys at school, opened to him a vista of
+incredible wickedness, but now after the first moment of revolt the
+thing began to seem less horrible. There was even a certain attraction
+about it. Vandover soon became filled with an overwhelming curiosity,
+the eager evil curiosity of the schoolboy, the perverse craving for the
+knowledge of vice. He listened with all his ears to everything that was
+said and went about through the great city with eyes open only to its
+foulness. He even looked up in the dictionary the meanings of the new
+words, finding in the cold, scientific definitions some strange sort of
+satisfaction.
+
+There was no feminine influence about Vandover at this critical time to
+help him see the world in the right light and to gauge things correctly,
+and he might have been totally corrupted while in his earliest teens had
+it not been for another side of his character that began to develop
+about the same time.
+
+This was his artistic side. He seemed to be a born artist. At first he
+only showed bent for all general art. He drew well, he made curious
+little modellings in clayey mud; he had a capital ear for music and
+managed in some unknown way of his own to pick out certain tunes on the
+piano. At one time he gave evidence of a genuine talent for the stage.
+For days he would pretend to be some dreadful sort of character, he did
+not know whom, talking to himself, stamping and shaking his fists; then
+he would dress himself in an old smoking-cap, a red table-cloth and one
+of his father's discarded Templar swords, and pose before the long
+mirrors ranting and scowling. At another time he would devote his
+attention to literature, making up endless stories with which he
+terrified himself, telling them to himself in a low voice for hours
+after he had got into bed. Sometimes he would write out these stories
+and read them to his father after supper, standing up between the
+folding doors of the library, acting out the whole narrative with
+furious gestures. Once he even wrote a little poem which seriously
+disturbed the Old Gentleman, filling him with formless ideas and vague
+hopes for the future.
+
+In a suitable environment Vandover might easily have become an author,
+actor or musician, since it was evident that he possessed the
+fundamental _afflatus_ that underlies all branches of art. As it was,
+the merest chance decided his career.
+
+In the same library where he had found the famous encyclopædia article
+was "A Home Book of Art," one of those showily bound gift books one sees
+lying about conspicuously on parlour centre tables. It was an English
+publication calculated to meet popular and general demand. There were a
+great many full-page pictures of lonely women, called "Reveries" or
+"Idylls," ideal "Heads" of gipsy girls, of coquettes, and heads of
+little girls crowned with cherries and illustrative of such titles as
+"Spring," "Youth," "Innocence." Besides these were sentimental pictures,
+as, for instance, one entitled "It Might Have Been," a sad-eyed girl,
+with long hair, musing over a miniature portrait, and another especially
+impressive which represented a handsomely dressed woman flung upon a
+_Louis Quinze_ sofa, weeping, her hands clasped over her head. She was
+alone; it was twilight; on the floor was a heap of opened letters. The
+picture was called "Memories."
+
+Vandover thought this last a wonderful work of art and made a hideous
+copy of it with very soft pencils. He was so pleased with it that he
+copied another one of the pictures and then another. By and by he had
+copied almost all of them. His father gave him a dollar and Vandover
+began to add to his usual evening petition the prayer that he might
+become a great artist. Thus it was that his career was decided upon.
+
+He was allowed to have a drawing teacher. This was an elderly German, an
+immense old fellow, who wore a wig and breathed loudly through his nose.
+His voice was like a trumpet and he walked with a great striding gait
+like a colonel of cavalry. Besides drawing he taught ornamental writing
+and engrossing. With a dozen curved and flowing strokes of an ordinary
+writing pen he could draw upon a calling card a conventionalized
+outline-picture of some kind of dove or bird of paradise, all curves and
+curlicues, flying very gracefully and carrying in its beak a half-open
+scroll upon which could be inscribed such sentiments as "From a Friend"
+or "With Fond Regards," or even one's own name.
+
+His system of drawing was of his own invention. Over the picture to be
+copied he would paste a great sheet of paper, ruling off the same into
+spaces of about an inch square. He would cut out one of these squares
+and Vandover would copy the portion of the picture thus disclosed. When
+he had copied the whole picture in this fashion the teacher would go
+over it himself, retouching it here and there, labouring to obviate the
+checker-board effect which the process invariably produced.
+
+At other times Vandover copied into his sketch-book, with hard crayons,
+those lithographed studies on buff paper which are published by the firm
+in Berlin. He began with ladders, wheel-barrows and water barrels,
+working up in course of time to rustic buildings set in a bit of
+landscape; stone bridges and rural mills, overhung by some sort of
+linden tree, with ends of broken fences in a corner of the foreground to
+complete the composition. From these he went on to bunches of grapes,
+vases of fruit and at length to more "Ideal heads." The climax was
+reached with a life-sized Head, crowned with honeysuckles and entitled
+_"Flora."_ He was three weeks upon it. It was an achievement, a
+veritable _chef-d'oeuvre._ Vandover gave it to his father upon Christmas
+morning, having signed his name to it with a great ornamental flourish.
+The Old Gentleman was astounded, the housekeeper was called in and
+exclaimed over it, raising her hands to Heaven. Vandover's father gave
+him a five-dollar gold-piece, fresh from the mint, had the picture
+framed in gilt and hung it up in his smoking-room over the clock.
+
+Never for a moment did the Old Gentleman oppose Vandover's wish to
+become an artist and it was he himself who first spoke about Paris to
+the young man. Vandover was delighted; the Latin Quarter became his
+dream. Between the two it was arranged that he should go over as soon as
+he had finished his course at the High School. The Old Gentleman was to
+take him across, returning only when he was well established in some
+suitable studio.
+
+At length Vandover graduated, and within three weeks of that event was
+on his way to Europe with his father. He never got farther than Boston.
+
+At the last moment the Old Gentleman wavered. Vandover was still very
+young and would be entirely alone in Paris, ignorant of the language,
+exposed to every temptation. Besides this, his education would stop
+where it was. Somehow he could not make it seem right to him to cut the
+young man adrift in this fashion. On the other hand, the Old Gentleman
+had a great many old-time friends and business acquaintances in Boston
+who could be trusted with a nominal supervision of his son for four
+years. He had no college education himself, but in some vague way he
+felt convinced that Vandover would be a better artist for a four years'
+course at Harvard.
+
+Vandover took his father's decision hardly. He had never thought of
+being a college-man and nothing in that life appealed to him. He urged
+upon his father the loss of time that the course would entail, but his
+father met this objection by offering to pay for any artistic tuition
+that would not interfere with the regular college work.
+
+Little by little the idea of college life became more attractive to
+Vandover; at the worst, it was only postponing the Paris trip, not
+abandoning it. Besides this, two of his chums from the High School were
+expecting to enter Harvard that fall, and he could look forward to a
+very pleasant four years spent in their company.
+
+Out at Cambridge the term was just closing. The Old Gentleman's friends
+procured him tickets to several of the more important functions. From
+the gallery of Memorial Hall Vandover and his father saw some of the
+great dinners; they went up to New London for the boat-race; they gained
+admittance to the historic Yard on Class-day, and saw the strange
+football rush for flowers around the "Tree." They heard the seniors sing
+"Fair Harvard" for the last time, and later saw them receive their
+diplomas at Sander's Theatre.
+
+The great ceremonies of the place, the picturesqueness of the elm-shaded
+Yard, the old red dormitories covered with ivy, the associations and
+traditions of the buildings, the venerable pump, Longfellow's room, the
+lecture hall where the minute-men had barracked, all of these things, in
+the end, appealed strongly to Vandover's imagination. Instead of passing
+the summer months in an ocean voyage and a continental journey, he at
+last became content to settle down to work under a tutor, "boning up"
+for the examinations. His father returned to San Francisco in July.
+
+Vandover matriculated the September of the same year; on the first of
+October he signed the college rolls and became a Harvard freshman. At
+that time he was eighteen years old.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Two
+
+
+There was little of the stubborn or unyielding about Vandover, his
+personality was not strong, his nature pliable and he rearranged himself
+to suit his new environment at Harvard very rapidly. Before the end of
+the first semester he had become to all outward appearances a typical
+Harvardian. He wore corduroy vests and a gray felt hat, the brim turned
+down over his eyes. He smoked a pipe and bought himself a brindled
+bull-terrier. He cut his lectures as often as he dared, "ragged" signs
+and barber-poles, and was in continual evidence about Foster's and among
+Leavitt and Pierce's billiard-tables. When the great football games came
+off he worked himself into a frenzy of excitement over them and even
+tried to make several of his class teams, though without success.
+
+He chummed with Charlie Geary and with young Dolliver Haight, the two
+San Francisco boys. The three were continually together. They took the
+same courses, dined at the same table in Memorial Hall and would have
+shared the same room if it had been possible. Vandover and Charlie Geary
+were fortunate enough to get a room in Matthew's on the lower floor
+looking out upon the Yard; young Haight was obliged to put up with an
+outside room in a boarding house.
+
+Vandover had grown up with these fellows and during all his life was
+thrown in their company. Haight was a well-bred young boy of good
+family, very quiet; almost every morning he went to Chapel. He was
+always polite, even to his two friends. He invariably tried to be
+pleasant and agreeable and had a way of making people like him.
+Otherwise, his character was not strongly marked.
+
+Geary was quite different. He never could forget himself. He was
+incessantly talking about what he had done or was going to do. In the
+morning he would inform Vandover of how many hours he had slept and of
+the dreams he had dreamed. In the evening he would tell him everything
+he had done that day; the things he had said, how many lectures he had
+cut, what brilliant recitations he had made, and even what food he had
+eaten at Memorial. He was pushing, self-confident, very shrewd and
+clever, devoured with an inordinate ambition and particularly pleased
+when he could get the better of anybody, even of Vandover or of young
+Haight. He delighted to assume the management of things. Vandover, he
+made his protégé, taking over the charge of such business as the two had
+in common. It was he who had found the room in Matthew's, getting it
+away from all other applicants, securing it at the eleventh hour. He put
+Vandover's name on the waiting list at Memorial, saw that he filled out
+his blanks at the proper time, helped him balance his accounts, guided
+him in the choice of his courses and in the making out of his
+study-card.
+
+"Look here, Charlie," Vandover would exclaim, throwing down the
+Announcement of Courses, "I can't make this thing out. It's all in a
+tangle. See here, I've got to fill up my hours some way or other; _you_
+straighten this thing out for me. Find me some nice little course, two
+hours a week, say, that comes late in the morning, a good hour after
+breakfast; something easy, all lectures, no outside reading, nice
+instructor and all that." And Geary would glance over the complicated
+schedule, cleverly untangling it at once and would find two or three
+such courses as Vandover desired.
+
+Vandover's yielding disposition led him to submit to Geary's
+dictatorship and he thus early began to contract easy, irresponsible
+habits, becoming indolent, shirking his duty whenever he could, sure
+that Geary would think for the two and pull him out of any difficulty
+into which he might drift.
+
+Otherwise the three freshmen were very much alike. They were hardly more
+than boys and full of boyish spirits and activity. They began to see
+"college life." Vandover was already smoking; pretty soon he began to
+drink. He affected beer, whisky he loathed, and such wine as was not too
+expensive was either too sweet or too sour. It became a custom for the
+three to go into town two or three nights in the week and have beer and
+Welsh rabbits at Billy Park's. On these occasions, however, young Haight
+drank only beer, he never touched wine or spirits.
+
+It was in Billy Park's the evening after the football game between the
+Yale and Harvard freshmen that Vandover was drunk for the first time. He
+was not so drunk but that he knew he was, and the knowledge of the fact
+so terrified him that it kept him from getting very bad. The first
+sensation soon wore off, and by the time that Geary took charge of him
+and brought him back to Cambridge he was disposed to treat the affair
+less seriously. Nevertheless when he got to his room he looked at
+himself in the mirror a long time, saying to himself over and over
+again, "I'm drunk--just regularly drunk. Good Heavens! what _would_ the
+governor say to _this_?"
+
+In the morning he was surprised to find that he felt so little ashamed.
+Geary and young Haight treated the matter as a huge joke and told him of
+certain funny things he had said and done and which he had entirely
+forgotten. It was impossible for him to take the matter seriously even
+if he had wished to, and within a few weeks he was drunk again. He found
+that he was not an exception; Geary was often drunk with him, fully a
+third of all the Harvard men he knew were intoxicated at different
+times. It was out of the question for Vandover to consider them as
+drunkards. Certainly, neither he nor any of the others drank because
+they liked the beer; after the fifth or sixth glass it was all they
+could do to force down another. Such being the case, Vandover often
+asked himself why he got drunk at all. This question he was never able
+to answer.
+
+It was the same with gambling. At first the idea of playing cards for
+money shocked him beyond all expression. But soon he found that a great
+many of the fellows, fellows like young Haight, beyond question steady,
+sensible and even worthy of emulation in other ways, "went in for that
+sort of thing." Every now and then Vandover's "crowd" got together in
+his room in Matthew's, and played Van John "for keeps," as they said,
+until far into the night. Vandover joined them. The stakes were small,
+he lost as often as he won, but the habit of the cards never grew upon
+him. It was like the beer, he "went in for it" because the others did,
+without knowing why. Geary, however, drew his line at gambling; he never
+talked against it or tried to influence Vandover, but he never could be
+induced to play "for keeps" himself.
+
+One very warm Sunday afternoon in the first days of April, when the last
+snows were melting, Vandover and Geary were in their room, sitting at
+opposite ends of their window-seat, Geary translating his Monday's
+"Horace" by the help of a Bonn's translation, Vandover making a pen and
+ink drawing for the next _Lampoon_. A couple of young women passed down
+the walk, going across the Yard toward the Square. They were cheaply and
+showily dressed. One of them wore a mannish shirtwaist, with a high
+collar and scarf. The other had taken off her gloves and was swinging a
+bright red cape in one of her bare hands. As the couple passed they
+stared calmly at the two young fellows in the window; Vandover lowered
+his eyes over his work, blushing, he could not tell why. Geary stared
+back at them, following them with his eyes until they had gone by.
+
+All at once he began laughing and pounding on the window.
+
+"Oh, for goodness sake, quit!" exclaimed Vandover in great alarm,
+twisting off the window-seat and shrinking back out of sight into the
+room. "Quit, Charlie; you don't want to insult a girl that way." Geary
+looked at him over his shoulder in some surprise, and was about to
+answer when he turned to the window again and exclaimed, grinning and
+waving his hand:
+
+"Oh, just come here, Skinny; get on to this, will you? Ah, come here and
+look, you old chump! Do you think they're nice girls? Just take a _look_
+at them." Vandover peered timidly around Geary's head and saw that the
+two girls were looking back and laughing, and that the one with the red
+cape was waving it at them.
+
+At supper that night they saw the girls in the gallery of Memorial. They
+pointed them out to young Haight, and Geary at length managed to attract
+their attention. After supper the three freshmen, together with two of
+their sophomore acquaintances, strolled slowly over toward the Yard,
+lighting their pipes and cigarettes. All at once, as they turned into
+the lower gate, they came full upon the same pair of girls. They were
+walking fast, talking and laughing very loudly.
+
+"Track!" called out one of the sophomores, and the group of young
+fellows parted to let them pass. The sophomore exclaimed in a tone of
+regret, "Don't be in such a hurry, girls." Vandover became scarlet and
+turned his face away, but the girls looked back and laughed
+good-naturedly. "Come on," said the sophomore. The group closed around
+the girls and brought them to a standstill; they were not in the least
+embarrassed at this, but laughed more than ever. Neither of them was
+pretty, but there was a certain attraction about them that pleased
+Vandover immensely. He was very excited.
+
+Then there was a very embarrassing pause. No one knew what to say. Geary
+alone regained his assurance at length, and began a lively interchange
+of chaff with one of them. The others could only stand about and smile.
+
+"Well," cried the other girl after a while, "I ain't going to stand here
+in the snow all _night_. Let's take a walk; come along. I choose _you_."
+Before Vandover knew it she had taken his arm. The sophomore managed in
+some way to pair off with the other girl; Haight had already left the
+group; the two couples started off, while Geary and the other sophomore
+who were left out followed awkwardly in the rear for a little way and
+then disappeared.
+
+Vandover was so excited that he could scarcely speak. This was a new
+experience. At first it attracted him, but the hopeless vulgarity of the
+girl at his side, her tawdry clothes, her sordid, petty talk, her slang,
+her miserable profanity, soon began to revolt him. He felt that he could
+not keep his self-respect while such a girl hung upon his arm.
+
+"Say," said the girl at length, "didn't I see you in town the other
+afternoon on Washington Street?"
+
+"Maybe you did," answered Vandover, trying to be polite. "I'm down there
+pretty often."
+
+"Well, I guess yes," she answered. "You Harvard sports make a regular
+promenade out o' Washington Street Saturday afternoons. I suppose I've
+seen you down there pretty often, but didn't notice. Do you stand or
+walk?"
+
+Vandover's gorge rose with disgust. He stopped abruptly and pulled away
+from the girl. Not only did she disgust him, but he felt sorry for her;
+he felt ashamed and pitiful for a woman who had fallen so low. Still he
+tried to be polite to her; he did not know how to be rude with any kind
+of woman.
+
+"You'll have to excuse me," he said, taking off his hat. "I don't
+believe I can take a walk with you to-night. I--you see--I've got a good
+deal of work to do; I think I'll have to leave you." Then he bowed to
+her with his hat in his hand, hurrying away before she could answer him
+a word.
+
+He found Geary alone in their room, cribbing "'Horace" again.
+
+"Ah, you bet," Geary said. "I shook those chippies. I sized them up
+right away. I was clever enough for that. They were no good. I thought
+you would get enough of it."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Vandover after a while, as he settled to his
+drawing. "She was pretty common, but anyhow I don't want to help bring
+down a poor girl like that any lower than she is already." This saying
+struck Vandover as being very good and noble, and he found occasion to
+repeat it to young Haight the next day.
+
+But within three days of this, at the time when Vandover would have
+fancied himself farthest from such a thing, he underwent a curious
+reaction. On a certain evening, moved by an unreasoned instinct, he
+sought out the girl who had just filled him with such deep pity and such
+violent disgust, and that night did not come back to the room in
+Matthew's. The thing was done almost before he knew it. He could not
+tell why he had acted as he did, and he certainly would not have
+believed himself capable of it.
+
+He passed the next few days in a veritable agony of repentance,
+overwhelmed by a sense of shame and dishonour that were almost feminine
+in their bitterness and intensity. He felt himself lost, unworthy, and
+as if he could never again look a pure woman in the eyes unless with an
+abominable hypocrisy. He was ashamed even before Geary and young Haight,
+and went so far as to send a long letter to his father acknowledging and
+deploring what he had done, asking for his forgiveness and reiterating
+his resolve to shun such a thing forever after.
+
+What had been bashfulness in the boy developed in the young man to a
+profound respect and an instinctive regard for women. This stood him in
+good stead throughout all his four years of Harvard life. In general, he
+kept himself pretty straight. There were plenty of fast girls and lost
+women about Cambridge, but Vandover found that he could not associate
+with them to any degree of satisfaction. He never knew how to take them,
+never could rid himself of the idea that they were to be treated as
+ladies. They, on their part, did not like him; he was too diffident, too
+courteous, too "slow." They preferred the rough self-assertion and easy
+confidence of Geary, who never took "no" as an answer and who could
+chaff with them on their own ground.
+
+Vandover did poor work at Harvard and only graduated, as Geary said, "by
+a squeak." Besides his regular studies he took time to pass three
+afternoons a week in the studio of a Boston artist, where he studied
+anatomy and composition and drew figures from the nude. In the summer
+vacations he did not return home, but accompanied this artist on
+sketching tours along the coast of Maine. His style improved immensely
+the moment he abandoned flat studies and began to work directly from
+Nature. He drew figures well, showed a feeling for desolate landscapes,
+and even gave promise of a good eye for colour. But he allowed his
+fondness for art to interfere constantly with his college work. By the
+middle of his senior year he was so loaded with conditions that it was
+only Geary's unwearied coaching that pulled him through at all--as
+Vandover knew it would, for that matter.
+
+Vandover returned to San Francisco when he was twenty-two. It was
+astonishing; he had gone away a pimply, overgrown boy, raw and callow as
+a fledgling, constrained in society, diffident, awkward. Now he
+returned, a tall, well-formed Harvardian, as careful as a woman in the
+matter of dress, very refined in his manners. Besides, he was a
+delightful conversationalist. His father was rejoiced; every one
+declared he was a charming fellow.
+
+They were right. Vandover was at his best at this time; it was
+undeniable that he had great talent, but he was so modest about it that
+few knew how clever he really was.
+
+He went out to dinners and receptions and began to move a little in
+society. He became very popular: the men liked him because he was so
+unaffected, so straightforward, and the women because he was so
+respectful and so deferential.
+
+He had no vices. He had gone through the ordeal of college life and had
+come out without contracting any habit more serious than a vague
+distaste for responsibility, and an inclination to shirk disagreeable
+duties. Cards he never thought of. It was rare that he drank so much as
+a glass of beer.
+
+However, he had come back to a great disappointment. Business in San
+Francisco had entered upon a long period of decline, and values were
+decreasing; for ten years rents had been sagging lower and lower. At the
+same time the interest on loans and insurances had increased, and real
+estate was brought to a standstill; one spoke bitterly of a certain
+great monopoly that was ruining both the city and state. Vandover's
+father had suffered with the rest, and now told his son that he could
+not at this time afford to send him to Paris. He would have to wait for
+better times.
+
+At first this was a sharp grief to Vandover; for years he had looked
+forward to an artist's life in the Quarter. For a time he was
+inconsolable, then at length readjusted himself good-naturedly to suit
+the new order of things with as little compunction as before, when he
+had entered Harvard. He found that he could be contented in almost any
+environment, the weakness, the certain pliability of his character
+easily fitting itself into new grooves, reshaping itself to suit new
+circumstances. He prevailed upon his father to allow him to have a
+downtown studio. In a little while he was perfectly happy again.
+
+Vandover's love for his art was keen. On the whole he kept pretty
+steadily to his work, spending a good six hours at his easel every day,
+very absorbed over the picture in hand. He was working up into large
+canvases the sketches he had made along the Maine coast, great, empty
+expanses of sea, sky, and sand-dune, full of wind and sun. They were
+really admirable. He even sold one of them. The Old Gentleman was
+delighted, signed him a check for twenty dollars, and told him that in
+three years he could afford to send him abroad.
+
+In the meanwhile Vandover set himself to enjoy the new life. Little by
+little his "set" formed around him; Geary and young Haight, of course,
+and some half dozen young men of the city: young lawyers, medical
+students, and clerks in insurance offices. As Vandover thus began to see
+the different phases of that life which lay beyond the limits of the
+college, he perceived more and more clearly that he was an exception
+among men for his temperance, his purity, and his clean living.
+
+At their clubs and in their smoking-rooms he heard certain practices,
+which he had always believed to be degrading and abominable, discussed
+with shouts of laughter. Those matters which until now he had regarded
+with an almost sacred veneration were subjects for immense jokes. A few
+years ago he would have been horrified at it all, but the fine quality
+of this first sensitiveness had been blunted since his experience at
+college. He tolerated these things in his friends now.
+
+Gradually Vandover allowed his ideas and tastes to be moulded by this
+new order of things. He assumed the manners of these young men of the
+city, very curious to see for himself the other lower side of their life
+that began after midnight in the private rooms of fast cafés and that
+was continued in the heavy musk-laden air of certain parlours amid the
+rustle of heavy silks.
+
+Slowly the fascination of this thing grew upon him until it mounted to a
+veritable passion. His strong artist's imagination began to be filled
+with a world of charming sensuous pictures.
+
+He commenced to chafe under his innate respect and deference for women,
+to resent and to despise it. As the desire of vice, the blind, reckless
+desire of the male, grew upon him, he set himself to destroy this
+barrier that had so long stood in his way. He knew that it was the
+wilful and deliberate corruption of part of that which was best in him;
+he was sorry for it, but persevered, nevertheless, ashamed of his
+old-time timidity, his ignorance, his boyish purity.
+
+For a second time the animal in him, the perverse evil brute, awoke and
+stirred. The idea of resistance hardly occurred to Vandover; it would be
+hard, it would be disagreeable to resist, and Vandover had not
+accustomed himself to the performance of hard, disagreeable duties. They
+were among the unpleasant things that he shirked. He told himself that
+later on, when he had grown older and steadier and had profited by
+experience and knowledge of the world, when he was stronger, in a word,
+he would curb the thing and restrain it. He saw no danger in such a
+course. It was what other men did with impunity.
+
+In company with Geary and young Haight he had come to frequent a certain
+one of the fast cafés of the city. Here he met and became acquainted
+with a girl called Flossie. It was the opportunity for which he was
+waiting, and he seized it at once.
+
+This time there was no recoil of conscience, no shame, no remorse; he
+even felt a better estimation of himself, that self-respect that comes
+with wider experiences and with larger views of life. He told himself
+that all men should at one time see certain phases of the world; it
+rounded out one's life. After all, one had to be a man of the world.
+Those men only were perverted who allowed themselves to be corrupted by
+such vice.
+
+Thus it was that Vandover, by degrees, drifted into the life of a
+certain class of the young men of the city. Vice had no hold on him. The
+brute had grown larger in him, but he knew that he had the creature in
+hand. He was its master, and only on rare occasions did he permit
+himself to gratify its demands, feeding its abominable hunger from that
+part of him which he knew to be the purest, the cleanest, and the best.
+
+Three years passed in this fashion.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Three
+
+
+Vandover had decided at lunch that day that he would not go back to work
+at his studio in the afternoon, but would stay at home instead and read
+a very interesting story about two men who had bought a wrecked opium
+ship for fifty thousand dollars, and had afterward discovered that she
+contained only a few tins of the drug. He was curious to see how it
+turned out; the studio was a long way downtown, the day was a little
+cold, and he felt that he would enjoy a little relaxation. Anyhow, he
+meant to stay at home and put in the whole afternoon on a good novel.
+
+But even when he had made up his mind to do this he did not immediately
+get out his book and settle down to it. After lunch he loitered about
+the house while his meal digested, feeling very comfortable and
+contented. He strummed his banjo a little and played over upon the piano
+the three pieces he had picked up: two were polkas, and the third, the
+air of a topical song; he always played the three together and in the
+same sequence. Then he strolled up to his room, and brushed his hair for
+a while, trying to make it lie very flat and smooth. After this he went
+out to look at Mr. Corkle, the terrier, and let him run a bit in the
+garden; then he felt as though he must have a smoke, and so went back to
+his room and filled his pipe. When it was going well, he took down his
+book and threw himself into a deep leather chair, only to jump up again
+to put on his smoking-jacket. All at once he became convinced that he
+must have something to eat while he read, and so went to the kitchen and
+got himself some apples and a huge slice of fresh bread. Ever since
+Vandover was a little boy he had loved fresh bread and apples. Through
+the windows of the dining-room he saw Mr. Corkle digging up great holes
+in the geranium beds. He went out and abused him and finally let him
+come back into the house and took him upstairs with him.
+
+Then at last he settled down to his novel, in the very comfortable
+leather chair, before a little fire, for the last half of August is cold
+in San Francisco. The room was warm and snug, the fresh bread and apples
+were delicious, the good tobacco in his pipe purred like a sleeping
+kitten, and his novel was interesting and well written. He felt calm and
+soothed and perfectly content, and took in the pleasure of the occasion
+with the lazy complacency of a drowsing cat.
+
+Vandover was self-indulgent--he loved these sensuous pleasures, he loved
+to eat good things, he loved to be warm, he loved to sleep. He hated to
+be bored and worried--he liked to have a good time.
+
+At about half-past four o'clock he came to a good stopping-place in his
+book; the two men had got to quarrelling, and his interest flagged a
+little. He pushed Mr. Corkle off his lap and got up yawning and went to
+the window.
+
+Vandover's home was on California Street not far from Franklin. It was a
+large frame house of two stories; all the windows in the front were bay.
+The front door was directly in the middle between the windows of the
+parlour and those of the library, while over the vestibule was a sort of
+balcony that no one ever thought of using. The house was set in a large
+well-kept yard. The lawn was pretty; an enormous eucalyptus tree grew at
+one corner. Nearer to the house were magnolia and banana trees growing
+side by side with pines and firs. Humming-birds built in these, and one
+could hear their curious little warbling mingling with the hoarse chirp
+of the English sparrows which nested under the eaves. The back yard was
+separated from the lawn by a high fence of green lattice-work. The hens
+and chickens were kept here and two roosters, one of which crowed every
+time a cable-car passed the house. On the door cut through the
+lattice-fence was a sign, "Look Out for the Dog." Close to the unused
+barn stood an immense windmill with enormous arms; when the wind blew in
+the afternoon the sails whirled about at a surprising speed, pumping up
+water from the artesian well sunk beneath. There was a small
+conservatory where the orchids were kept. Altogether, it was a charming
+place. However, adjoining it was a huge vacant lot with cows in it. It
+was full of dry weeds and heaps of ashes, while around it was an
+enormous fence painted with signs of cigars, patent bitters, and soap.
+
+Vandover stood at a front window and looked out on a rather dreary
+prospect. The inevitable afternoon trades had been blowing hard since
+three, strong and brisk from the ocean, driving hard through the Golden
+Gate and filling the city with a taint of salt. Now the fog was coming
+in; Vandover could see great patches of it sweeping along between him
+and the opposite houses. All the eucalyptus trees were dripping, and
+occasionally there came the faint moan of the fog-horn out at the heads.
+He could see up the street for nearly two miles as it climbed over Nob
+Hill. It was almost deserted; a cable-car now and then crawled up and
+down its length, and at times a delivery wagon rattled across it; but
+that was about all. On the opposite sidewalk two boys and a girl were
+coasting downhill on their roller-skates and their brake-wagons. The
+cable in its slot kept up an incessant burr and clack. The whole view
+was rather forlorn, and Vandover turned his back on it, taking up his
+book again.
+
+About five o'clock his father came home from his office. "Hello!" said
+he, looking into the room; "aren't you home a little early to-day? Ah, I
+thought you weren't going to bring that dog into the house any more. I
+wish you wouldn't, son; he gets hair and fleas about everywhere."
+
+"All right, governor," answered Vandover. "I'll take him out. Come
+along, Cork."
+
+"But aren't you home earlier than usual to-day?" persisted his father as
+Vandover got up.
+
+"Yes," said Vandover, "I guess I am, a little."
+
+After supper the same evening when Vandover came downstairs, drawing on
+his gloves, his father looked over his paper, saying pleasantly:
+
+"Well, where are you going to-night?"
+
+"I'm going to see my girl," said Vandover, smiling; then foreseeing the
+usual question, he added, "I'll be home about eleven, I guess."
+
+"Got your latch-key?" asked the Old Gentleman, as he always did when
+Vandover went out.
+
+"Yep," called back Vandover as he opened the door. "I'll not forget it
+again. Good-night, governor."
+
+Vandover used to call on Turner Ravis about twice a week; people said
+they were engaged. This was not so.
+
+Vandover had met Miss Ravis some two years before. For a time the two
+had been sincerely in love with each other, and though there was never
+any talk of marriage between them, they seemed to have some sort of
+tacit understanding. But by this time Vandover had somehow outgrown the
+idea of marrying Turner. He still kept up the fiction, persuaded that
+Turner must understand the way things had come to be. However, he was
+still very fond of her; she was a frank, sweet-tempered girl and very
+pretty, and it was delightful to have her care for him.
+
+Vandover could not shut his eyes to the fact that young Haight was very
+seriously in love with Turner. But he was sure that Turner preferred him
+to his chum. She was too sincere, too frank, too conscientious to
+practise any deception on him.
+
+There was quite a party at the Ravises' house that evening when Vandover
+arrived. Young Haight was there, of course, and Charlie Geary. Besides
+Turner herself there was Henrietta Vance, a stout, pretty girl, with pop
+eyes and a little nose, who laughed all the time and who was very
+popular. These were all part of Vandover's set; they called each other
+by their first names and went everywhere together. Almost every Saturday
+evening they got together at Turner's house and played whist, or euchre,
+or sometimes even poker. "Just for love," as Turner said.
+
+When Vandover came in they were all talking at the same time, disputing
+about a little earthquake that had occurred the night before. Henrietta
+Vance declared that it had happened early in the morning.
+
+"_Wasn't_ it just about midnight, Van?" cried Turner.
+
+"I don't know," answered Vandover. "It didn't wake me up. I didn't even
+know there was one."
+
+"Well, I know I heard our clock strike two just about half an hour
+afterward," protested young Haight.
+
+"Oh, it was almost five o'clock when it came," cried Henrietta Vance.
+
+"Well, now, you're _all_ off," said Charlie Geary. "I know just when she
+quaked to the fraction of a minute, because it stopped our hall clock at
+just a little after three."
+
+They were silent. It was an argument which was hard to contradict. By
+and by, young Haight declared, "There must have been two of them then,
+because--"
+
+"How about whist or euchre or whatever it is to be?" said Charlie
+Geary, addressing Turner and interrupting in an annoying way that was
+peculiar to him. "Can't we start in now that Van has come?" They played
+euchre for a while, but Geary did not like the game, and by and by
+suggested poker.
+
+"Well--if it's only just for love," said Turner, "because, you know,
+mamma doesn't like it any other way."
+
+At ten o'clock Geary said, "Let's quit after this hand round--what do
+you say?" The rest were willing and so they all took account of their
+chips after the next deal. Geary was protesting against his poor luck.
+Honestly he hadn't held better than three tens more than twice during
+the evening. It was Henrietta Vance who took in everything; did one ever
+_see_ anything to beat her luck? "the funniest thing!"
+
+They began to do tricks with the cards. Young Haight showed them a very
+good trick by which he could make the pack break every time at the ace
+of clubs. Vandover exclaimed: "Lend me a silk hat and ninety dollars and
+I'll show you the queerest trick you ever saw," which sent Henrietta
+Vance off into shrieks of laughter. Then Geary took the cards out of
+young Haight's hands, asking them if they knew _this_ trick.
+
+Turner said yes, she knew it, but the others did not, and Geary showed
+it to them. It was interminable. Henrietta Vance chose a card and put it
+back into the deck. Then the deck was shuffled and divided into three
+piles. After this Geary made a mental calculation, selected one of these
+piles, shuffled it, and gave it back to her, asking her if she saw her
+card in it; then more shuffling and dividing until their interest and
+patience were quite exhausted. When Geary finally produced a jack of
+hearts and demanded triumphantly if that was her card, Henrietta began
+to laugh and declared she had forgotten _what_ card she chose. Geary
+said he would do the trick all over for her. At this, however, they all
+cried out, and he had to give it up, very irritated at Henrietta's
+stupidity.
+
+Vexed at the ill success of this first trick, he retired a little from
+their conversation, puzzling over the cards, thinking out new tricks.
+Every now and then he came back among them, going about from one to
+another, holding out the deck and exclaiming, "Choose any card--choose
+any card."
+
+After a while they all adjourned to the dining-room and Turner and
+Vandover went out into the kitchen, foraging among the drawers and
+shelves. They came back bringing with them a box of sardines, a tin of
+_paté_, three quart bottles of blue-ribbon beer, and what Vandover
+called "devilish-ham" sandwiches.
+
+"Now do we want _tamales_ to go with these?" said Turner, as she spread
+the lunch on the table. Henrietta Vance cried out joyfully at this, and
+young Haight volunteered to go out to get them. "Get six," Turner cried
+out after him. "Henrietta can always eat two. Hurry up, and we won't eat
+till you get back."
+
+While he was gone Turner got out some half-dozen glasses for their beer.
+"Do you know," she said as she set the glasses on the table, "the
+funniest thing happened this morning to mamma. It was at breakfast; she
+had just drunk a glass of water and was holding the glass in her hand
+like this"--Turner took one of the thin beer glasses in her hand to show
+them how--"and was talking to pa, when all at once the glass broke right
+straight around a ring, just below the brim, you know, and fell all--"
+On a sudden Turner uttered a shrill exclamation; the others started up;
+the very glass she held in her hand at the moment cracked and broke in
+precisely the manner she was describing. A narrow ring snapped from the
+top, dropping on the floor, breaking into a hundred bits.
+
+Turner drew in a long breath, open-mouthed, her hand in the air still
+holding the body of the glass that remained in her fingers. They all
+began to exclaim over the wonder.
+
+"Well, did you ever in all your _life_?" shouted Miss Vance, breaking
+into a peal of laughter. Geary cried out, "Cæsar's ghost!" and Vandover
+swore under his breath.
+
+"If that isn't the strangest thing I ever saw!" cried Turner. "_Isn't_
+that funny--why--oh! I'm going _to try it with another glass_!" But the
+second glass remained intact. Geary recovered from his surprise and
+tried to explain how it could happen.
+
+"It was the heat from your fingers and the glass was cold, you know," he
+said again and again.
+
+But the strangeness of the thing still held them. Turner set down the
+glass with the others and dropped into a chair, letting her hands fall
+in her lap, looking into their faces, nodding her head and shutting her
+lips:
+
+"Ah, _no_," she said after a while. "That _is_ funny. It kind of scares
+one." She was actually pale.
+
+"Oh, there's Dolly Haight!" cried Henrietta Vance as the door bell rang.
+They all rushed to the door, running and scrambling, eager to tell the
+news. Young Haight stood bewildered on the door mat in the vestibule,
+his arms full of brown-paper packages, while they recounted the marvel.
+They all spoke at once, holding imaginary beer glasses toward him in
+their outstretched hands. Geary, however, refused to be carried away by
+their excitement, and one heard him from time to time repeating, between
+their ejaculations, "It was the heat from her fingers, you know, and the
+glass was cold."
+
+Young Haight was confused, incredulous; he could not at first make out
+what _had_ happened.
+
+"Well, just come and _look_ at the broken _glass_ on the _floor_,"
+shouted Turner decisively, dragging him into the dining-room. They
+waited, breathless, to hear what he would say. He looked at the broken
+glass and then into their faces. Then he suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"Ah, you're joking me."
+
+"No, honestly," protested Vandover, "that was just the way it happened."
+
+It was some little time before they could get over their impression of
+queerness, but by and by Geary cried out that the _tamales_ were getting
+cold. They settled down to their lunch, and the first thing young Haight
+did was to cut his lip on the edge of the broken glass. Turner had set
+it down with the others and he had inadvertently filled it for himself.
+
+It was a trifling cut. Turner fetched some court-plaster, and his lip
+was patched up. For all that, it bled quite a little. He was very
+embarrassed; he kept his handkerchief to his mouth and told them
+repeatedly to go on with their lunch and not to mind him.
+
+As soon as they were eating and drinking they began to be very jolly,
+and Vandover was especially good-humoured and entertaining. He made
+Henrietta Vance shout with laughter by pretending that the olive in his
+_tamale_ was a green hen's egg.
+
+About half-past ten young Haight rose from the table saying he thought
+it was about time to say good-night. "Don't be in a hurry," said
+Turner. "It's early yet." After that, however, they broke up very
+quickly.
+
+Before he left Vandover saw Turner in the dining-room alone for a
+minute.
+
+"Will I see you at church to-morrow?" he asked, as she held his overcoat
+for him.
+
+"I don't know, Van," she answered. "You know Henrietta is going to stay
+all night with me, and I think she will want me to go home with her
+to-morrow morning and then stay to dinner with her. But I'm going to
+early communion to-morrow morning; why can't you meet me there?"
+
+"Why, I can," answered Vandover, settling his collar. "I should like to
+very much."
+
+"Well, then," she replied, "you can meet me in front of the church at
+half-past seven o'clock."
+
+"Hey, break away there!" cried Geary from the front door. "Come along,
+Van, if you are going with us."
+
+Turner let Vandover kiss her before they joined the others. "I'll see
+you at seven-thirty to-morrow morning," he said as he went away.
+
+The three young men went off down the street, arm in arm, smoking their
+cigars and cigarettes. As soon as they were alone, Charlie Geary began
+to tell the other two of everything he had been doing since he had last
+seen them.
+
+"Well, sir," he said as he took an arm of each, "well, sir, I had a fine
+sleep last night; went to bed at ten and never woke up till half-past
+eight this morning. Ah, you bet I needed it, though. I've been working
+like a slave this week. You know I take my law-examinations in about ten
+days. I'll pass all right. I'm right up to the handle in everything. I
+don't believe the judge could stick me anywhere in the subject of
+torts."
+
+"Say, boys," said Vandover, pausing and looking at his watch, "it isn't
+very late; let's go downtown and have some oysters."
+
+"That's a good idea," answered young Haight. "How about you, Charlie?"
+
+Geary said he was willing. "Ah," he added, "you ought to have seen the
+beefsteak I had this evening at the Grillroom." And as they rode
+downtown he told them of the steak in question. "I had a little mug of
+ale with it, too, and a dish of salad. Ah, it went great."
+
+They decided after some discussion that they would go to the Imperial.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Four
+
+
+The Imperial was a resort not far from the corner of Sutter and Kearney
+streets, a few doors below a certain well-known drug store, in one
+window of which was a showcase full of live snakes.
+
+The front of the Imperial was painted white, and there was a cigar-stand
+in the vestibule of the main entrance. At the right of this main
+entrance was another smaller one, a ladies' entrance, on the frosted
+pane of which one read, "Oyster Cafe."
+
+The main entrance opened directly into the barroom. It was a handsome
+room, paved with marble flags. To the left was the bar, whose counter
+was a single slab of polished redwood. Behind it was a huge, plate-glass
+mirror, balanced on one side by the cash-register and on the other by a
+statuette of the Diving Girl in tinted bisque. Between the two were
+pyramids of glasses and bottles, liqueur flasks in wicker cases, and a
+great bouquet of sweet-peas.
+
+The three bartenders, in clean linen coats and aprons, moved about here
+and there, opening bottles, mixing drinks, and occasionally turning to
+punch the indicator of the register.
+
+On the other side of the room, facing the bar, hung a large copy of a
+French picture representing a _Sabbath_, witches, goats, and naked girls
+whirling through the air. Underneath it was the lunch counter, where
+clam-fritters, the specialty of the place, could be had four afternoons
+in the week.
+
+Elsewhere were nickel-in-the-slot machines, cigar-lighters, a vase of
+wax flowers under glass, and a racing chart setting forth the day's
+odds, weights, and entries. On the end wall over the pantry-slides was a
+second "barroom" picture, representing the ladies of a harem at their
+bath.
+
+But its "private rooms" were the chief attraction of the Imperial. These
+were reached by going in through the smaller door to the right of the
+main vestibule. Any one coming in through this entrance found himself in
+a long and narrow passage. On the right of this passage were eight
+private rooms, very small, and open at the top as the law required.
+Half-way down its length the passage grew wider. Here the rooms were on
+both sides and were much larger than those in front.
+
+It was this part of the Imperial that was most frequented, and that had
+made its reputation. In the smaller rooms in front one had beer and
+Welsh rabbits; in the larger rooms, champagne and terrapin.
+
+Vandover, Haight, and Geary came in through the ladies' entrance of the
+Imperial at about eleven o'clock, going slowly down the passage, looking
+into each of the little rooms, searching for one that was empty. All at
+once Vandover, who was in the lead, cried out:
+
+"Well, if here isn't that man Ellis, drinking whisky by himself. Bah! a
+man that will drink whisky all _alone_! Glad to see you just the same,
+Bandy; move along, will you--give a man some room."
+
+"Hello, hello, Bandy!" cried Geary and young Haight, hitting him in the
+back, while Geary added: "How long have you been down here? _I've_ just
+come from making a call with the boys. Had a fine time; what are you
+drinking, whisky? _I'm_ going to have something to eat. Didn't have much
+of a lunch to-day, but you ought to have seen the steak I had at the
+Grillroom--as thick as that, and tender! Oh, it went great! Here, hang
+my coat up there on that side, will you?"
+
+Bancroft Ellis was one of the young men of the city with whom the three
+fellows had become acquainted just after their return from college. For
+the most part, they met him at downtown restaurants, in the foyers and
+vestibules of the theatres, on Kearney Street of a Saturday afternoon,
+or, as now, in the little rooms of the Imperial, where he was a
+recognized habitué and where he invariably called for whisky, finishing
+from three to five "ponies" at every sitting. On very rare occasions
+they saw him in society, at the houses where their "set" was received.
+At these functions Ellis could never be persuaded to remain in the
+parlours; he slipped up to the gentlemen's dressing-rooms at the
+earliest opportunity, and spent the evening silently smoking the cigars
+and cigarettes furnished by the host. When Vandover and his friends came
+up between dances, to brush their hair or to rearrange their neckties,
+they found him enveloped in a blue haze of smoke, his feet on a chair,
+his shirt bosom broken, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. He would tell them
+that he was bored and thirsty and ask how much longer they were going to
+stay. He knew but few of their friends; his home was in a little town in
+the interior and he prided himself on being a "Native Son of the Golden
+West." He was a clerk in an insurance office on California Street, and
+had never been out of the state.
+
+For the rest he was a good enough fellow and the three others liked him
+very much. He had a curious passion for facts and statistics, and his
+pockets were full of little books and cards to which he was constantly
+referring. He had one of those impossible pocket-diaries, the first half
+dozen pages loaded with information of every kind printed in blinding
+type, postal rates to every country in the world, statistics as to
+population and rates of death, weights and measures, the highest
+mountains in the world, the greatest depths of the ocean. He kept a
+little book in his left-hand vest pocket that gave the plan and seating
+capacity of every theatre in the city, while in the right-hand pocket
+was a tiny Webster's dictionary which was his especial pride. The
+calendar for the current year was pasted in the lining of his hat,
+together with the means to be employed in the resuscitation of a
+half-drowned person. He also carried about a "Vest Pocket Edition of
+Popular Information," which had never been of the slightest use to him.
+
+The room in which they were now seated was very small and opened
+directly upon the passage. On either side of the table was a seat that
+would hold two, and on the wall opposite the door hung a mirror, its
+gilt frame enclosed in pink netting. The table itself was covered with a
+tolerably clean cloth, though it was of coarse linen and rather damp.
+
+There were the usual bottles of olives and pepper sauce, a plate of
+broken crackers, and a ribbed match-safe of china. The sugar bowl was of
+plated ware and on it were scratched numberless dates together with the
+first names of a great many girls, "Nannie," "Ida," "Flossie."
+
+Between the castor bottles was the bill of fare, held by a thin string
+between two immense leather covers which were stamped with wine
+merchants' advertisements. Geary reached for this before any of the
+others, saying at the same time, "Well, what are you going to have?
+_I'm_ going to have a Welsh rabbit and a pint of ale." He looked from
+one to the other as if demanding whether or no they approved of his
+choice. He assumed the management of what was going on, advising the
+others what to have, telling Vandover not to order certain dishes that
+he liked because it took so long to cook them. He had young Haight ring
+for the waiter, and when he had come, Geary read off the entire order to
+him twice over, making sure that he had taken it correctly. "That's what
+we want all right, all right--isn't it?" he said, looking around at the
+rest.
+
+The waiter, whose eyes were red from lack of sleep, put down before them
+a plate of limp, soft shrimps.
+
+"Hello, Toby!" said Vandover.
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen," answered Toby. "Why, good evening, Mr.
+Vandover; haven't seen you 'round here for some time." He took their
+order, and as he was going away, Vandover called him back:
+
+"Say, Toby," said he, "has Flossie been around to-night?"
+
+"No," answered Toby, "she hasn't shown up yet. Her running-mate was in
+about nine, but she went out again right away."
+
+"Well," said Vandover, smiling, "if Flossie comes 'round show her in
+here, will you?"
+
+The others laughed, and joked him about this, and Vandover settled back
+in his seat, easing his position.
+
+"Ah," he exclaimed, "I like it in here. It's always pleasant and warm
+and quiet and the service is good and you get such good things to eat."
+
+Now that the young fellows were by themselves, and could relax that
+restraint, that good breeding and delicacy which had been natural to
+them in the early part of the evening at the Ravises', their manners
+changed: they lounged clumsily upon their seats, their legs stretched
+out, their waistcoats unbuttoned, caring only to be at their ease. Their
+talk and manners became blunt, rude, unconstrained, the coarser
+masculine fibre reasserting itself. With the exception of young Haight
+they were all profane enough, and it was not very long before their
+conversation became obscene.
+
+Geary told them how he had spent the afternoon promenading Kearney and
+Market streets and just where he had gone to get his cocktail and his
+cigar. "Ah," he added, "you ought to have seen Ida Wade and Bessie
+Laguna. Oh, Ida was rigged up to beat the band; honestly her _hat_ was
+as broad across as that. You know there's no use talking, she's an
+awfully handsome girl."
+
+A discussion arose over the girl's virtue. Ellis, Geary, and young
+Haight maintained that Ida was only fast; Vandover, however, had his
+doubts.
+
+"For that matter," said Ellis after a while, "I like Bessie Laguna a
+good deal better than I do Ida."
+
+"Ah, yes," retorted young Haight, "you like Bessie Laguna too much
+anyhow."
+
+Young Haight had a theory that one should never care in any way for that
+kind of a girl nor become at all intimate with her.
+
+"The matter of liking her or not liking her," he said, "ought not to
+enter into the question at all. You are both of you out for a good time
+and that's all; you have a jolly flirtation with her for an hour or two,
+and you never see her again. That's the way it ought to be! This idea of
+getting intimate with that sort of a piece, and trying to get her to
+care for you, is all wrong."
+
+"Oh," said Vandover deprecatingly, "you take all the pleasure out of it;
+where does your good time come in if you don't at least pretend that you
+like the girl and try to make her like you?"
+
+"But don't you see," answered Haight, "what a dreadful thing it would be
+if a girl like that came to care for you seriously? It isn't the same as
+if it were a girl of your own class."
+
+"Ah, Dolly, you've got a bean," muttered Ellis, sipping his whisky.
+
+Meanwhile, the Imperial had been filling up; at about eleven the
+theatres were over, and now the barroom was full of men. They came in by
+twos and threes and sometimes even by noisy parties of a half dozen or
+more. The white swing doors of the main entrance flapped back and forth
+continually, letting out into the street puffs of tepid air tainted with
+the smell of alcohol. The men entered and ordered their drinks, and
+leaning their elbows upon the bar continued the conversation they had
+begun outside. Afterward they passed over to the lunch counter and
+helped themselves to a plate of stewed tripe or potato salad, eating it
+in a secluded corner, leaning over so as not to stain their coats. There
+was a continual clinking of glasses and popping of corks, and at every
+instant the cash-register clucked and rang its bell.
+
+Between the barroom and the other part of the house was a door hung with
+blue plush curtains, looped back; the waiters constantly passed back and
+forth through this, carrying plates of oysters, smoking rarebits, tiny
+glasses of liqueurs, and goblets of cigars.
+
+All the private rooms opening from either passage were full; the men
+came in, walking slowly, looking for their friends; but more often, the
+women and girls passed up and down with a chatter of conversation, a
+rattle of stiff skirts and petticoats, and a heavy whiff of musk. There
+was a continual going and coming, a monotonous shuffle of feet and hum
+of talk. A heavy odorous warmth in which were mingled the smells of
+sweetened whisky, tobacco, the fumes of cooking, and the scent of
+perfume, exhaled into the air. A gay and noisy party developed in one of
+the large back rooms; at every moment one could hear gales of laughter,
+the rattle of chairs and glassware, mingled with the sounds of men's
+voices and the little screams and cries of women. Every time the waiter
+opened the door to deliver an order he let out a momentary torrent of
+noises.
+
+Girls, habitués of the place, continued to pass the door of the room
+where Vandover and his friends were seated. Each time a particularly
+handsome one went by, the four looked out after her, shutting their lips
+and eyes and nodding their heads.
+
+Young Haight had called for more drinks, ordering, however, mineral
+water for himself, and Vandover was just telling about posing the female
+models in a certain life-class to which he belonged, when he looked up
+and broke off, exclaiming:
+
+"Well, well, here we are at last! How are you, Flossie? Come right in."
+
+Flossie stood in the doorway smiling good-humouredly at them, without a
+trace of embarrassment or of confusion in her manner. She was an immense
+girl, quite six feet tall, broad and well-made, in proportion. She was
+very handsome, full-throated, heavy-eyed, and slow in her movements.
+Her eyes and mouth, like everything about her, were large, but each time
+she spoke or smiled, she disclosed her teeth, which were as white, as
+well-set, and as regular as the rows of kernels on an ear of green corn.
+In her ears were small yellow diamonds, the only jewellery she wore.
+There was no perceptible cosmetic on her face, which had a clean and
+healthy look as though she had just given it a vigorous washing.
+
+She wore a black hat with a great flare to the brim on one side. It was
+trimmed very dashingly with black feathers, imitation jet, and a little
+puff of plush--robin's-egg blue. Her dress was of rough, black camel's
+hair, tailor-made, and but for the immense balloon sleeves, absolutely
+plain. It was cut in such a way that from neck to waist there was no
+break, the buttons being on the shoulder and under the arm. The skirt
+was full and stiff, and without the least trimming. Everything was
+black--hat, dress, gloves--and the effect was of a simplicity and
+severity so pronounced as to be very striking.
+
+However, around her waist she wore as a belt a thick rope of oxidized
+silver, while her shoes, or rather walking slippers, were of white
+canvas.
+
+She belonged to that class of women who are not to know one's last name
+or address, and whose hate and love are equally to be dreaded. There was
+upon her face the unmistakable traces of a ruined virtue and a vanished
+innocence. Her slightest action suggested her profession; as soon as she
+removed her veil and gloves it was as though she were partially
+undressed, and her uncovered face and hands seemed to be only portions
+of her nudity.
+
+The general conception of women of her class is a painted and broken
+wreck. Flossie radiated health; her eyes were clear, her nerves steady,
+her flesh hard and even as a child's. There hung about her an air of
+cleanliness, of freshness, of good nature, of fine, high spirits, while
+with every movement she exhaled a delicious perfume that was not only
+musk, but that seemed to come alike from her dress, her hair, her neck,
+her very flesh and body.
+
+Vandover was no longer the same as he had been during his college days.
+He was familiar now with this odour of abandoned women, this foul sweet
+savour of the great city's vice, that quickened his breath and that sent
+his heart knocking at his throat. It was the sensitive artist nature in
+him that responded instantly to anything sensuously attractive. Each
+kind and class of beautiful women could arouse in Vandover passions of
+equal force, though of far different kind. Turner Ravis influenced him
+upon his best side, calling out in him all that was cleanest, finest,
+and most delicate. Flossie appealed only to the animal and the beast in
+him, the evil, hideous brute that made instant answer.
+
+"What will you take, Flossie?" asked Vandover, as she settled herself
+among them. "We are all drinking beer except Ellis. He's filling up with
+whisky." But Flossie never drank. It was one of the peculiarities for
+which she was well known.
+
+"I don't want either," she answered, and turning to the waiter, she
+added, "You can bring me some Apollinaris water, Toby."
+
+Flossie betrayed herself as soon as she spoke, the effect of her
+appearance was spoiled. Her voice was hoarse, a low-pitched rasp, husky,
+throaty, and full of brutal, vulgar modulations.
+
+"Smoke, Flossie?" said Geary, pushing his cigarette case across to her.
+Flossie took a cigarette, rolled it to make it loose, and smoked it
+while she told them how she had once tried to draw up the smoke through
+her nose as it came out between her lips.
+
+"And honestly, boys," she growled, "it made me that sick that I just had
+to go to bed."
+
+"Who is the crowd out back?" asked Geary for the sake of saying
+something. Flossie embarrassed them all a little, and conversation with
+girls of her class was difficult.
+
+"Oh, that's May and Nannie with some men from a banquet at the Palace
+Hotel," she answered.
+
+The talk dragged along little by little and Flossie began badgering
+young Haight. "Say, you over there," she exclaimed, "what's the matter
+with you? You don't say anything."
+
+Young Haight blushed and answered very much embarrassed: "Oh, I'm just
+listening." He was anxious to get away. He got up and reached for his
+hat and coat, saying with a good-natured smile: "Well, boys and girls,
+I think I shall have to leave you."
+
+"Don't let me frighten you away," said Flossie, laughing.
+
+"Oh, no," he answered, trying to hide his embarrassment, "I have to go
+anyhow."
+
+While the others were saying good night to him and asking when they
+should see him again, Flossie leaned over to him, crying out, "Good
+night!" All at once, and before he knew what she was about, she kissed
+him full on the mouth. He started sharply at this, but was not angry,
+simply pulling away from her, blushing, very embarrassed, and more and
+more anxious to get away. Toby, the waiter, appeared at their door.
+
+"That last was on me, you know," said young Haight, intercepting
+Vandover and settling for the round of drinks.
+
+"Hello!" exclaimed Toby, "what's the matter with your lip?"
+
+"I cut it a little while ago on a broken glass," answered young Haight.
+"Is it bleeding again?" he added, putting two fingers on his lips.
+
+"It is sure enough," said Geary. "Here," he went on, wetting the corner
+of a napkin from the water bottle, "hold that on it."
+
+The others began to laugh. "Flossie did that," Vandover explained to
+Toby. Ellis was hastily looking through his pockets, fumbling about
+among his little books.
+
+"I had something here," he kept muttering, "if I can only _find_ it,
+that told just what to do when you cut yourself with glass. There may be
+glass _in_ it, you know."
+
+"Oh, that's all right, that's all right," exclaimed young Haight, now
+altogether disconcerted. "It don't amount to anything."
+
+"I tell you what," observed Geary; "get some court-plaster at the snake
+doctor's just above here."
+
+"No, no, that's all right," returned young Haight, moving off. "Good
+night. I'll see you again pretty soon."
+
+He went away. Ellis, who was still searching through his little books,
+suddenly uttered an exclamation. He leaned out into the passage, crying:
+"The half of a hot onion; tie it right on the cut." But Haight had
+already gone. "You see," explained Ellis, "that draws out any little
+particles of glass. Look at this," he added, reading an item just below
+the one he had found. "You can use cigar ashes for eczema."
+
+Flossie nodded her head at him, smiling and saying: "Well, the next time
+I have eczema I will remember that."
+
+Flossie left them a little after this, joining Nannie and May in the
+larger room that held the noisy party. The three fellows had another
+round of drinks.
+
+All the evening Ellis had been drinking whisky. Now he astonished the
+others by suddenly calling for beer. He persisted in drinking it out of
+the celery glass, which he emptied at a single pull. Then Vandover had
+claret-punches all round, protesting that his mouth felt dry as a
+dust-bin. Geary at length declared that he felt pretty far gone, adding
+that he was in the humour for having "a high old time."
+
+"Say, boys," he exclaimed, bringing his hand down on the table, "what do
+you say that we all go to every joint in town, and wind up at the
+Turkish baths? We'll have a regular _time_. Let's see now how much money
+I have."
+
+Thereat they all took account of their money. Vandover had fourteen
+dollars, but he owed for materials at his art dealer's, and so put away
+eight of it in an inside pocket. The others followed his example, each
+one reserving five dollars for immediate use.
+
+"That will be one dollar for the Hammam," said Geary, "and four dollars
+apiece for drinks. You can get all we want on four dollars." They had a
+last claret-punch and, having settled with Toby, went out.
+
+Coming out into the cold night air from the warm interior of the
+Imperial affected Vandover and Geary in a few minutes. But apparently
+nothing could affect Ellis, neither whisky, claret-punch nor beer. He
+walked steadily between Vandover and Geary, linking an arm in each of
+theirs.
+
+These two became very drunk almost at once. At every minute Vandover
+would cry out, "Yee-ee-_ow_! Thash way I feel, jush like that." Geary
+made a "Josh" that was a masterpiece, the success of the occasion. It
+consisted in exclaiming from time to time, "Cherries are ripe!" This was
+funny. It seemed to have some ludicrous, hidden double-meaning that was
+irresistible. It stuck to them all the evening; when a girl passed them
+on Kearney Street and Geary cried out at her that "Cherries were ripe!"
+it threw them all into spasms of laughter.
+
+They went first to the Palace Garden near the Tivoli Theatre, where
+Geary and Vandover had beer and Ellis a whisky cocktail. The performance
+was just finishing, and they voted that they were not at all amused at a
+lean, overworked girl whom they saw performing a song and dance through
+a blue haze of tobacco smoke; so they all exclaimed, "Cherries are
+ripe!" and tramped out again to visit the Luxembourg. The beer began to
+go against Vandover's stomach by this time, but he forced it down his
+throat, shutting his eyes. Then they said they would go to the toughest
+place in town, "Steve Casey's"; this was on a side-street. The walls
+were covered with yellowed photographs of once-famous pugilists and
+old-time concert-hall singers. There was sand on the floor, and in the
+dancing room at the back, where nobody danced, a jaded young man was
+banging out polkas and quick-steps at a cheap piano.
+
+At the Crystal Palace, where they all had shandy-gaff, they met one of
+Ellis's friends, a young fellow of about twenty. He was stone deaf, and
+in consequence had become dumb; but for all that he was very eager to
+associate with the young men of the city and would not hear of being
+separated and set apart with the other deaf mutes. He was very pleased
+to meet them and joined them at once. They all knew him pretty well and
+called him the "Dummy."
+
+In the course of the evening the patty was seen at nearly every bar and
+saloon in the neighbourhood of Market and Kearney streets. Geary and
+Vandover were very drunk indeed. Vandover was having a glorious time; he
+was not silent a minute, talking, laughing, and singing, and crying out
+continually, "Cherries are ripe!" When he could think of nothing else to
+say he would exclaim, "Yee-ee-_ow_! Thash way I feel."
+
+For two hours they drank steadily. Vandover was in a dreadful condition;
+the Dummy got so drunk that he could talk, a peculiarity which at times
+had been known to occur to him. As will sometimes happen, Geary sobered
+up a little and at the "Grotto" bathed his head and face in the
+washroom. After this he became pretty steady, he stopped drinking, and
+tried to assume the management of the party, ordering their drinks for
+them, and casting up the amount of the check.
+
+About two o'clock they returned toward the Luxembourg, staggering and
+swaying. The Luxembourg was a sort of German restaurant under a theatre
+where one could get some very good German dishes. There Vandover had
+beer and sauerkraut, but Ellis took more whisky. The Dummy continued to
+make peculiar sounds in his throat, half-noise, half-speech, and Geary
+gravely informed the waiter that cherries were ripe.
+
+All at once Ellis was drunk, collapsing in a moment. The skin around his
+eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves were contracted, and
+their range of vision seemed to stop at about a yard in front of his
+face. Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all
+from off the table with a single movement of his arm.
+
+They all jumped up, sober in a minute, knowing that a scene was at hand.
+The waiter rushed at Ellis, but Ellis knocked him down and tried to
+stamp on his face. Vandover and the Dummy tried to hold his arms and
+pull him off. He turned on the Dummy in a silent frenzy of rage and
+brought his knuckles down upon his head again and again. For the moment
+Ellis could neither hear, nor see, nor speak; he was blind, dumb,
+fighting drunk, and his fighting was not the fighting of Vandover.
+
+"Get in here and help, will you?" panted Vandover to Geary, as he
+struggled with Ellis. "He can kill people when he's like this. Oh, damn
+the whisky anyhow! Look out--don't let him get that knife! Grab his
+other arm, there! now, kick his feet from under him! Oh, kick hard! Sit
+on his legs; there now. Ah! Hell! he's bitten me! Look out! here comes
+the bouncer!"
+
+The bouncer and three other waiters charged into them while they were
+struggling on the floor. Vandover was twice knocked down and the Dummy
+had his lip split. Ellis struggled to his feet again and, still silent,
+fought them all alike, a fine line of froth gathering at the corners of
+his lips.
+
+When they were finally ejected, and pulled themselves together in the
+street outside, Geary had disappeared. He had left them during the
+struggle with Ellis and had gone home. Ah, you bet he wasn't going to
+stay any longer with the crowd when they got like that. If Ellis was
+fool enough to get as drunk as that it was his own lookout. _He_ wasn't
+going to stay and get thrown out of any saloon; ah, no, you bet he was
+too clever for that. He was sober enough now and would go home to bed
+and get a good sleep.
+
+The fight in the saloon had completely sobered the rest of them. Ellis
+was tractable enough again, and very sorry for having got them into such
+a row. Vandover was horribly sick at his stomach.
+
+The three locked arms and started slowly toward the Turkish baths. On
+their way they stopped at an all-night drug store and had some seltzer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vandover had about three hours' sleep that night. He was awakened by the
+attendant shaking his arm and crying:
+
+"Half-past six, sir."
+
+"Huh!" he exclaimed, starting up. "What about half-past six? I don't
+want to get up."
+
+"Told me to call you, sir, at half-past six; quarter to seven now."
+
+"Oh, all right, very well," answered Vandover. He turned away his face
+on the pillow, while a wretched feeling of nausea crept over him; every
+movement of his head made it ache to bursting. Behind his temples the
+blood throbbed and pumped like the knocking of hammers. His mouth would
+have been dry but for a thick slime that filled it and that tasted of
+oil. He felt weak, his hands trembled, his forehead was cold and seemed
+wet and sticky.
+
+He could recall hardly anything of the previous night. He remembered,
+however, of going to the Imperial and of seeing Flossie, and he _did_
+remember at last of leaving word to be called at half-past six.
+
+He got up without waking the other two fellows and took a plunge in the
+cold tank, dressed very slowly, and went out. The stores were all
+closed, the streets were almost deserted. He walked to the nearest
+uptown car-line and took an outside seat, feeling better and steadier
+for every moment of the sharp morning air.
+
+Van Ness Avenue was very still. It was about half-past seven. The
+curtains were down in all the houses; here and there a servant could be
+seen washing down the front steps. In the vestibules of some of the
+smaller houses were loaves of French bread and glass jars of cream,
+while near them lay the damp twisted roll of the morning's paper. There
+was everywhere a great chittering of sparrows, and the cable-cars, as
+yet empty, trundled down the cross streets, the conductors cleaning the
+windows and metal work. From far down at one end of the avenue came the
+bells of the Catholic Cathedral ringing for early mass; and a
+respectable-looking second girl hurried past him carrying her
+prayer-book. At the other end of the avenue was a blue vista of the bay,
+the great bulk of Mount Tamalpais rearing itself out of the water like a
+waking lion.
+
+In front of the little church Turner was waiting for him. She was
+dressed very prettily and the cold morning air had given her a fine
+colour.
+
+"You don't look more than half awake," she said, as Vandover came up.
+"It was awfully good of you to come. Oh, Van, you look dreadfully. It is
+too bad to make you get up so early."
+
+"No, no," protested Vandover. "I was only too glad to come. I didn't
+sleep well last night. I hope I haven't kept you waiting."
+
+"I've only just come," answered Turner. "But I think it is time to go
+in."
+
+The little organ was muttering softly to itself as they entered. It was
+very still otherwise. The morning sun struck through the stained windows
+and made pretty lights about the altar; besides themselves there were
+some half dozen other worshippers. The little organ ceased with a long
+droning sigh, and the minister in his white robes turned about, facing
+his auditors, and in the midst of a great silence opened the communion
+service with the words: "Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of
+your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbours--"
+
+As Vandover rose with the rest the blood rushed to his head and a
+feeling of nausea and exhaustion, the dregs of his previous night's
+debauch, came over him again for a moment, so that he took hold of the
+back of the pew in front of him to steady himself.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Five
+
+
+In the afternoons Vandover worked in his studio, which was on Sacramento
+Street, but in the mornings he was accustomed to study in the life-class
+at the School of Design.
+
+This was on California Street over the Market, an immense room
+partitioned by enormous wooden screens into alcoves, where the
+still-life classes worked, painting carrots, grapes, and dusty brown
+stone-jugs.
+
+All about were a multitude of casts, the fighting gladiator, the
+discobulus, the Venus of Milo, and hundreds of smaller pieces, masks,
+torsos, and the heads of the Parthenon horses. Flattened paint-tubes and
+broken bits of charcoal littered the floor and cluttered the chairs and
+shelves. A strong odour of turpentine and fixative was in the air,
+mingled with the stronger odours of linseed oil and sour, stale French
+bread.
+
+Every afternoon a portrait class of some thirty-odd assembled in one of
+the larger alcoves near the door. Several of the well-known street
+characters of the city had posed for this class, and at one time Father
+Elphick, the white-haired, bare-headed vegetarian, with his crooked
+stick and white clothes, had sat to it for his head.
+
+Vandover was probably the most promising member of the school. His style
+was sketchy, conscientious, and full of strength and decision. He worked
+in large lines, broad surfaces and masses of light or shade. His colour
+was good, running to purples, reds, and admirable greens, full of
+bitumen and raw sienna.
+
+Though he had no idea of composition, he was clever enough to
+acknowledge it. His finished pictures were broad reaches of landscape,
+deserts, shores, and moors in which he placed solitary figures of men or
+animals in a way that was very effective--as, for instance, a great
+strip of shore and in the foreground the body of a drowned sailor; a
+lion drinking in the midst of an immense Sahara; or, one that he called
+"The Remnant of an Army," a dying war horse wandering on an empty plain,
+the saddle turned under his belly, his mane and tail snarled with burrs.
+
+Some time before there had come to him the idea for a great picture. It
+was to be his first masterpiece, his salon picture when he should get to
+Paris. A British cavalryman and his horse, both dying of thirst and
+wounds, were to be lost on a Soudanese desert, and in the middle
+distance on a ridge of sand a lion should be drawing in upon them,
+crouched on his belly, his tail stiff, his lower jaw hanging. The
+melodrama of the old English "Home Book of Art" still influenced
+Vandover. He was in love with this idea for a picture and had determined
+to call it "The Last Enemy." The effects he wished to produce were
+isolation and intense heat; as to the soldier, he was as yet undecided
+whether to represent him facing death resignedly, calmly, or grasping
+the barrel of his useless rifle, determined to fight to the last.
+
+Vandover loved to paint and to draw. He was perfectly contented when his
+picture was "coming right," and when he felt sure he was doing good
+work. He often did better than he thought he would, but never so well as
+he thought he _could_.
+
+However, it bored him to work very hard, and when he did not enjoy his
+work he stopped it at once. He would tell himself on these occasions
+that one had to be in the mood and that he should wait for the
+inspiration, although he knew very well how absurd such excuses were,
+how false and how pernicious.
+
+That certain little weakness of Vandover's character, his
+self-indulgence, _had_ brought him to such a point that he thought he
+had to be amused. If his painting amused him, very good; if not, he
+found something else that would.
+
+On the following Monday as he worked in the life-class, Vandover was
+thinking, or, rather, trying not to think, of what he had done the
+Sunday morning previous when he had gone to communion with Turner Ravis.
+For a long time he evaded the thought because he knew that if he allowed
+it to come into his mind it would worry and harass him. But by and by
+the effort of dodging the enemy became itself too disagreeable, so he
+gave it up and allowed himself to look the matter squarely in the face.
+
+Ah, yes; it was an ugly thing he had done there, a really awful thing.
+He must have been still drunk when he had knelt in the chancel. Vandover
+shuddered as he thought of this, and told himself that one could hardly
+commit a worse sacrilege, and that some time he would surely be called
+to account for it. But here he checked himself suddenly, not daring to
+go further. One would have no peace of mind left if one went on brooding
+over such things in this fashion. He realized the enormity of what he
+had done. He had tried to be sorry for it. It was perhaps the worst
+thing he had ever done, but now he had reached the lowest point. He
+would take care never to do such a thing again. After this he would be
+better.
+
+But this was not so. Unconsciously, Vandover had shut a door behind him;
+he would never again be exactly the same, and the keeping of his
+appointment with Turner Ravis that Sunday morning was, as it were, a
+long step onward in his progress of ruin and pollution.
+
+He shook himself as though relieving his shoulders of a weight. The
+model in the life-class had just been posed for the week, and the others
+had begun work. The model for that week was a woman, a fact that pleased
+Vandover, for he drew these nude women better than any one in the
+school, perhaps better than any one in the city. Portrait work and the
+power to catch subtle intellectual distinctions in a face were sometimes
+beyond him, but his feeling for the flesh, and for the movement and
+character of a pose, was admirable.
+
+He set himself to work. Holding his stick of charcoal toward the model
+at arm's-length, he measured off the heads, five in all, and laid off an
+equal number of spaces upon his paper. After this, by aid of his mirror,
+he studied the general character of the pose for nearly half an hour.
+Then, with a few strokes of his charcoal he laid off his larger
+construction lines with a freedom and a precision that were excellent.
+Upon these lines he made a second drawing a little more detailed, though
+as yet everything was blocked in, angularly and roughly. Then, putting a
+thin flat edge upon his charcoal, he started the careful and finished
+outline.
+
+By the end of an hour the first sketch of his drawing was complete. It
+was astonishingly good, vigorous and solid; better than all, it had that
+feeling for form that makes just the difference between the amateur and
+the genuine artist.
+
+By this time Vandover's interest began to flag. Four times he had drawn
+and redrawn the articulation of the model's left shoulder. As she stood,
+turned sideways to him, one hand on her hip, the deltoid muscle was at
+once contracted and foreshortened. It was a difficult bit of anatomy to
+draw. Vandover was annoyed at his ill success--such close attention and
+continued effort wearied him a little--the room was overheated and
+close, and the gas stove, which was placed near the throne to warm the
+model, leaked and filled the room with a nasty brassy smell. Vandover
+remembered that the previous week he had been looking over some old
+bound copies of _l'Art_ in the Mechanics Library and had found them of
+absorbing interest. There was a pleasant corner and a huge comfortable
+chair near where they were in the reading-room, and from the window one
+could occasionally look out upon the street. It was a quiet spot, and he
+would not be disturbed all the morning. The idea was so attractive that
+he put away his portfolio and drawing things and went out.
+
+For an hour he gave himself up to the enjoyment of _l'Art_, excusing his
+indolence by telling himself that it was all in his profession and was
+not time lost. A reproduction of a picture by Gérome gave him some
+suggestions for the "Last Enemy," which he noted very carefully.
+
+He was interrupted by a rustle of starched skirts and a voice that said:
+
+"Why, hello, Van!"
+
+He looked up quickly to see a young girl of about twenty dressed in a
+black close-fitting bolero jacket of imitation astrakhan with big
+leg-of-mutton sleeves, a striped silk skirt, and a very broad hat tilted
+to one side. Her hair was very blond, though coarse and dry from being
+bleached, and a little flat curl of it lay very low on her forehead. She
+was marvellously pretty. Vandover was delighted.
+
+"Why, _Ida_!" he exclaimed, holding her hand; "_it's_ awfully nice to
+see you here; won't you sit down?" and he pushed his chair toward her.
+
+But Ida Wade said no, she had just come in after a new book, and of
+course it had to be out. But where had he kept himself so long? That was
+the way he threw off on her; ah, yes, he was going with Miss Ravis now
+and wouldn't look at any one else.
+
+Vandover protested against this, and Ida Wade went on to ask him why he
+couldn't come up to call on her that very night, adding:
+
+"We might go to the Tivoli or somewhere." All at once she interrupted
+herself, laughing, "Oh, I heard all about you the other night.
+_'Cherries are ripe_!' You and the boys painted the town red, didn't
+you? Ah, Van, I'm right on to _you_!"
+
+She would not tell him how she heard, but took herself off, laughing and
+reminding him to come up early.
+
+Ida Wade belonged to a certain type of young girl that was very common
+in the city. She was what men, among each other, called "gay," though
+that was the worst that could be said of her. She was virtuous, but the
+very fact that it was necessary to say so was enough to cause the
+statement to be doubted. When she was younger and had been a pupil at
+the Girls' High School, she had known and had even been the companion of
+such girls as Turner Ravis and Henrietta Vance, but since that time
+girls of that class had ignored her. Now, almost all of her
+acquaintances were men, and to half of these she had never been
+introduced. They had managed to get acquainted with her on Kearney
+Street, at theatres, at the Mechanics' Fair, and at baseball games. She
+loved to have a "gay" time, which for her meant to drink California
+champagne, to smoke cigarettes, and to kick at the chandelier. She was
+still virtuous and meant to stay so; there was nothing vicious about
+her, and she was as far removed from Flossie's class as from that of
+Turner Ravis.
+
+She was very clever; half of her acquaintances, even the men, did not
+know how very "gay" she was. Only those--like Vandover--who knew her
+best, knew her for what she was, for Ida was morbidly careful of
+appearances, and as jealous of her reputation as only fast girls are.
+
+Bessie Laguna was her counterpart. Bessie was "the girl she went with,"
+just as Henrietta Vance was Turner's "chum" and Nannie was Flossie's
+"running-mate."
+
+Ida lived with her people on Golden Gate Avenue not far from Larkin
+Street. Her father had a three-fourths interest in a carpet-cleaning
+establishment on Howard Street, and her mother gave lessons in painting
+on china and on velvet. Ida had just been graduated from the normal
+school, and often substituted at various kindergartens in the city. She
+hoped soon to get a permanent place.
+
+Vandover arrived at Ida's house that night at about eight o'clock in the
+midst of a drenching fog. The parlour and front room on the second floor
+were furnished with bay windows decorated with some meaningless sort of
+millwork. The front door stood at the right of the parlour windows. Two
+Corinthian pillars on either side of the vestibule supported a balcony;
+these pillars had iron capitals which were painted to imitate the wood
+of the house, which in its turn was painted to imitate stone. The house
+was but two stories high, and the roof was topped with an iron cresting.
+There was a microscopical front yard in which one saw a tiny gravel
+walk, two steps long, that led to a door under the front steps, where
+the gas-meter was kept. A few dusty and straggling calla-lilies grew
+about.
+
+Ida opened the door for Vandover almost as soon as he rang, and pulled
+him into the entry, exclaiming: "Come in out of the wet, as the whale
+said to Jonah. _Isn't_ it a nasty night?" Vandover noticed as he came in
+that the house smelt of upholstery, cooking, and turpentine. He did not
+take off his overcoat, but went with her into the parlour.
+
+The parlour was a little room with tinted plaster walls shut off from
+the "back-parlour" by sliding doors. A ply carpet covered the floor, a
+cheap piano stood across one corner of the room, and a greenish sofa
+across another. The mantelpiece was of white marble with gray spots; on
+one side of it stood an Alaskan "grass basket" full of photographs, and
+on the other an inverted section of a sewer-pipe painted with daisies
+and full of gilded cat-tails tied with a blue ribbon. Near the piano
+straddled a huge easel of imitation brass up-holding the crayon picture
+of Ida's baby sister enlarged from a photograph. Across one corner of
+this picture was a yellow "drape." There were a great many of these
+"drapes" all about the room, hanging over the corners of the chairs,
+upon an edge of the mantelpiece, and even twisted about the chandelier.
+In the exact middle of the mantelpiece itself was the clock, one of the
+chief ornaments of the room, almost the first thing one saw upon
+entering; it was a round-faced timepiece perversely set in one corner of
+an immense red plush palette; the palette itself was tilted to one
+side, and was upheld by an easel of twisted brass wire. Out of the
+thumb-hole stuck half a dozen brushes wired together in a round bunch
+and covered with gilt paint. The clock never was wound. It went so fast
+that it was useless as a timepiece. Over it, however, hung a large and
+striking picture, a species of cheap photogravure, a lion lying in his
+cage, looking mildly at the spectator over his shoulder. In front of the
+picture were real iron bars, with real straw tucked in behind them.
+
+Ida sat down on the piano stool, twisting back and forth, leaning her
+elbows on the keys.
+
+"All the folks have gone out to a whist-party, and I'm left all alone in
+the house with Maggie," she said. Then she added: "Bessie and Bandy
+Ellis said they would come down to-night, and I thought we could all go
+downtown to the Tivoli or somewhere, in the open-air boxes, you know,
+way up at the top." Hardly had she spoken the words when Bessie and
+Ellis arrived.
+
+Ida went upstairs to get on her hat at once, because it was so late, and
+Bessie went with her.
+
+Ellis and Vandover laughed as soon as they saw each other, and Ellis
+exclaimed mockingly, "Ye-e-ow, thash jush way I feel." Vandover grinned:
+
+"That's so," he answered. "I _do_ remember now of having made that
+remark several times. But _you_--oh, you were fearful. Do you remember
+the row in the Luxembourg? Look there where you bit me."
+
+Ellis was incensed with Geary because he had forsaken their party.
+
+"Oh, that's Charlie Geary, all over," answered Vandover.
+
+As they were speaking there came a sudden outburst of bells in various
+parts of the city and simultaneously they heard the hoarse croaking of a
+whistle down by the waterfront.
+
+"Fire," said Vandover indifferently.
+
+Ellis was already fumbling in his pockets, keeping count of the strokes.
+
+"That's one," he exclaimed, pulling out and studying his list of
+alarm-boxes, "and one-two-three, that's three and one-two-three-_four_,
+one thirty-four. Let's see now! That's Bush and Hyde streets, not very
+far off," and he returned his card to the inside pocket of his coat as
+though he had accomplished a duty.
+
+He lit a cigar. "I wonder now," he said, hesitating. "I guess I better
+not smoke in here. I'll go outside and get a mouthful of smoke before
+the girls come down." He went out and Vandover sat down to the cheap
+piano and played his three inevitable pieces, the two polkas and the air
+of the topical song; but he was interrupted by Ellis, who opened the
+door, crying out:
+
+"Oh, come out here and see the _fire_, will you? Devil of a blaze!"
+Vandover ran out and saw a great fan-shaped haze of red through the fog
+over the roofs of the houses.
+
+"Oh, say, girls," he shouted, jumping back to the foot of the stairs;
+"Ida, Bessie, there's a fire. Just look out of your windows. Hark, there
+go the engines."
+
+Bessie came tearing down the stairs and out on the front steps, where
+the two fellows were standing hatless.
+
+"Where? Oh, show me where! O-o-oh, sure enough! That's a _big_ fire.
+Just hear the engines. _Oh, let's go_!"
+
+"Sure; come on, let's go!" exclaimed Vandover. "Tell Ida to hurry up."
+
+"Oh, Ida," cried Bessie up the stairs, "there's an awful big fire right
+near here, and we're going."
+
+"Oh, wait!" shouted Ida, her mouth full of pins. "I had to change my
+waist. Oh, _do_ wait for me. Where is it _at_? Please wait; I'm coming
+right down in just a minute."
+
+"Hurry up, hurry up!" cried Vandover. "It will be all out by the time we
+get there. I'm coming up to help."
+
+"No, no, no!" she screamed. "Don't; you rattle me. I'm all mixed up. Oh,
+_darn_ it, I can't find my czarina!"
+
+But at last she came running down, breathless, shrugging herself into
+her bolero jacket. They all hurried into the street and turned in the
+direction of the blaze. Other people were walking rapidly in the same
+direction, and there was an opening and shutting of windows and front
+doors. A steamer thundered past, clanging and smoking, followed by a
+score of half-exhausted boys. It took them longer to reach the fire than
+they expected, and by the time they had come within two blocks of it
+they were quite out of breath. Here the excitement was lively; the
+sidewalks were full of people going in the same direction; on all sides
+there were guesses as to where the fire was. On the front steps of many
+houses stood middle-aged gentlemen, still holding their evening papers
+and cigars, very amused and interested in watching the crowd go past.
+One heard them from time to time calling to their little sons, who were
+dancing on the sidewalks, forbidding them to go; in the open windows
+above could be seen the other members of the family, their faces faintly
+tinged with the glow, looking and pointing, or calling across the street
+to their friends in the opposite houses. Every one was in good humour;
+it was an event, a fête for the entire neighbourhood.
+
+Vandover and his party came at last to the first engines violently
+pumping and coughing, the huge gray horses standing near by, already
+unhitched and blanketed, indifferently feeding in their nosebags. Some
+of the crowd preferred to watch the engines rather than the fire, and
+there were even some who were coming away from it, exclaiming "false
+alarm" or "all out now."
+
+The party had come up quite close; they could smell the burning wood and
+could see the roofs of the nearer houses beginning to stand out sharp
+and black against the red glow beyond. It was a barn behind a huge frame
+house that was afire, the dry hay burning like powder, and by the time
+they reached it the flames were already dwindling. The hose was lying
+like a python all about the streets, while upon the neighbouring roofs
+were groups of firemen with helmets and axes; some were shouting into
+the street below, and others were holding the spouting nozzles of the
+hose. "Ah," exclaimed an old man, standing near to Ida and Vandover,
+"ah, _I_ was here when it first broke out; you ought to have seen the
+flames then! Look, there's a tree catching!"
+
+The crowd became denser; policemen pushed it back and stretched a rope
+across the street. There was a world of tumbling yellow smoke that made
+one's eyes smart, and a great crackling and snapping of flames. Terribly
+excited little boys were about everywhere whistling and calling for each
+other as the crowd separated them.
+
+They watched the fire for some time, standing on a pile of boards in
+front of a half-built house, but as it dwindled they wearied of it.
+
+"Want to go?" asked Vandover at last.
+
+"Yes," answered Ida, "we might as well. Oh, where's Bessie and Ellis?"
+They were nowhere to be seen. Vandover whistled and Ida even called, but
+in vain. The little boys in the crowd mimicked Ida, crying back, "Hey!
+Bessie! Oh, _Bes-see_, mommer wants you!" The men who stood near laughed
+at this, but it annoyed Vandover much more than it did Ida.
+
+"Ah, well, never mind," she said at length. "Let them go. Now shall _we_
+go?"
+
+It was too late for the theatre, but to return home was out of the
+question. They started off aimlessly downtown.
+
+While he talked Vandover was perplexed. Ida was gayly dressed and was
+one of those girls who cannot open their mouths nor raise a finger in
+the street without attracting attention. Vandover was not at all certain
+that he cared to be seen on Kearney Street as Ida Wade's escort; one
+never knew who one was going to meet. Ida was not a bad girl, she was
+not notorious, but, confound it, it would look queer; and at the same
+time, while Ida was the kind of girl that one did not want to be seen
+with, she was not the kind of girl that could be told so. In an upper
+box at the Tivoli it would have been different--one could keep in the
+background; but to appear on Kearney Street with a girl who wore a hat
+like that and who would not put on her gloves--ah, no, it was out of the
+question.
+
+Ida was talking away endlessly about a kindergarten in which she had
+substituted the last week.
+
+She told him about the funny little nigger girl, and about the games and
+songs and how they played birds and hopped around and cried, "Twit,
+twit," and the game of the butterflies visiting the flowers. She even
+sang part of a song about the waves.
+
+    "Every little wave had its night-cap on;
+    Its white-cap, night-cap, white-cap on."
+
+"It's more _fun_ than enough," she said.
+
+"Say, Ida," interrupted Vandover at length, "I'm pretty hungry. Can't we
+go somewhere and eat something? I'd like a Welsh rabbit."
+
+"All right," she answered. "Where do you want to go?"
+
+"Well," replied Vandover, running over in his mind the places he might
+reach by unfrequented streets. "There's Marchand's or Tortoni's or the
+Poodle Dog."
+
+"Suits _me_," she answered, "any one you like. Say, Van," she added,
+"weren't you boys at the Imperial the other night? What kind of a place
+is that?"
+
+On the instant Vandover wondered what she could mean. Was it possible
+that Ida would go to a place like that with him?
+
+"The Imperial?" he answered. "Oh, I don't know; the Imperial is a sort
+of a nice place. It has private rooms, like all of these places. The
+cooking is simply out of sight. I think there is a bar connected with
+it." Then he went on to talk indifferently about the kindergarten,
+though his pulse was beating fast, and his nerves were strung taut. By
+and by Ida said:
+
+"I didn't know there was a bar at the Imperial. I thought it was just
+some kind of an oyster joint. Why, I heard of a very nice girl, a swell
+girl, going in there."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Vandover, "they do. I say, Ida," he went on, "what's the
+matter with going down _there_?"
+
+"The _Imperial_?" exclaimed Ida. "Well, I guess _not_!"
+
+"Why, it's all right, if I'm with you," retorted Vandover, "but if you
+don't like it we can go anywhere else."
+
+"Well, I guess we _will_ go anywhere else," returned Ida, and for the
+time the subject was dropped.
+
+They took a Sutter Street car and got off at Grant Avenue, having
+decided to go to Marchand's.
+
+"That's the Imperial down there, isn't it?" asked Ida as they reached
+the sidewalk. Vandover made a last attempt:
+
+"I say, Ida, come on, let's go there. It's all right if I'm with you.
+Ah, come along; what's the odds?"
+
+"_No_--_no_--NO," she answered decisively. "What kind of a girl do you
+think I am, anyway?"
+
+"Well, I tell you what," answered Vandover, "just come down _by_ the
+place, and if you don't like the looks of it you needn't go in. I want
+to get some cigarettes, anyhow. You can walk down with me till I do
+_that_."
+
+"I'll walk down with you," replied Ida, "but I shan't go in."
+
+They drew near to the Imperial. The street about was deserted, even the
+usual hacks that had their stand there were gone.
+
+"You see," explained Vandover as they passed slowly in front of the
+doors, "this is all quiet enough. If you pulled down your veil no one
+would know the difference, and here's the ladies' entrance, you see,
+right at the side."
+
+"All right, come along, let's go in," exclaimed Ida suddenly, and before
+he knew it they had swung open the little door of the ladies' entrance
+with its frosted pane of glass and had stepped inside.
+
+It was between nine and ten o'clock, and the Imperial was quiet as yet;
+a few men were drinking in the barroom outside, and Toby, the red-eyed
+waiter, was talking in low tones to a girl under one of the electric
+lights.
+
+Vandover and Ida went into one of the larger rooms in the rear passage
+and shut the door. Ida pushed her bolero jacket from her shoulders,
+saying, "This seems nice and quiet enough."
+
+"Well, of course," answered Vandover, as though dismissing the question
+for good. "Now, what are we going to have? I say we have champagne and
+oysters."
+
+"Let's have Cliquot, then," exclaimed Ida, which was the only champagne
+she had ever heard of besides the California brands.
+
+She was very excited. This was the kind of "gay" time she delighted in,
+tête-à-tête champagne suppers with men late at night. She had never been
+in such a place as the Imperial before, and the daring and novelty of
+what she had done, the whiff of the great city's vice caught in this
+manner, sent a little tremor of pleasure and excitement over all her
+nerves.
+
+They did not hurry over their little supper, but ate and drank slowly,
+and had more oysters to go with the last half of their bottle. Ida's
+face was ablaze, her eyes flashing, her blond hair disordered and
+falling about her cheeks.
+
+Vandover put his arm about her neck and drew her toward him, and as she
+sank down upon him, smiling and complaisant, her hair tumbling upon her
+shoulders and her head and throat bent back, he leaned his cheek against
+hers, speaking in a low voice.
+
+"No--no," she murmured, smiling; "never--ah, if I hadn't come--no,
+Van--please--" And then with a long breath she abandoned herself.
+
+About midnight he left her at the door of her house on Golden Gate
+Avenue. On their way home Ida had grown more serious than he had ever
+known her to be. Now she began to cry softly to herself. "Oh, Van," she
+said, putting her head down upon his shoulder, "oh, I am so _sorry_. You
+don't think any less of me, do you? Oh, Van, you must be true to me
+now!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Six
+
+
+Everybody in San Francisco knew of the Ravises and always made it a
+point to speak of them as one of the best families of the city. They
+were not new and they were not particularly rich. They had lived in the
+same house on California Street for nearly twenty years and had always
+been comfortably well off. As things go in San Francisco, they were
+old-fashioned. They had family traditions and usages and time-worn
+customs. Their library had been in process of collection for the past
+half century and the pictures on the walls were oil paintings of steel
+engravings and genuine old-fashioned chromos, beyond price to-day.
+
+Their furniture and ornaments were of the preceding generation, solid,
+conservative. They were not chosen with reference to any one style, nor
+all bought at the same time. Each separate piece had an individuality of
+its own. The Ravises kept their old things, long after the fashion had
+gone out, preferring them to the smarter "art" objects on account of
+their associations.
+
+There were six in the family, Mr. and Mrs. Ravis, Turner, and her older
+brother, Stanley, Yale '88, a very serious young gentleman of
+twenty-seven, continually professing an interest in economics and
+finance. Besides these were the two children, Howard, nine years old,
+and his sister, aged fourteen, who had been christened Virginia.
+
+They were a home-loving race. Mr. Ravis, senior, belonged to the
+Bohemian Club, but was seldom seen there. Stanley was absorbed in his
+law business, and Turner went out but little. They much preferred each
+other's society to that of three fourths of their acquaintances, most of
+their friends being "friends of the family," who came to dinner three or
+four times a year.
+
+It was a custom of theirs to spend the evenings in the big dining-room
+at the back of the house, after the table had been cleared away, Mr.
+Ravis and Stanley reading the papers, the one smoking his cigar, the
+other his pipe; Mrs. Ravis, with the magazines and Turner with the
+_Chautauquan_. Howard and Virginia appropriated the table to themselves
+where they played with their soldiers and backgammon board.
+
+The family kept two servants, June the "China boy," who had been with
+them since the beginning of things, and Delphine the cook, a more recent
+acquisition. June was, in a way, butler and second boy combined; he did
+all the downstairs work and the heavy sweeping, but it was another
+time-worn custom for Mrs. Ravis and Turner to spend part of every
+morning in putting the bedrooms to rights, dusting and making up the
+beds. Besides this, Turner exercised a sort of supervision over Howard
+and Virginia, who were too old for a nurse but too young to take care of
+themselves. She had them to bed at nine, mended some of their clothes,
+made them take their baths regularly, reëstablished peace between them
+in their hourly quarrels, and, most arduous task of all, saw that Howard
+properly washed himself every morning, and on Wednesday and Saturday
+afternoons that he was suitably dressed in time for dancing school.
+
+It was Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Ravis was reading to her husband, who lay
+on the sofa in the back-parlour smoking a cigar. Stanley had gone out to
+make a call, while Howard and Virginia had forgathered in the bathroom
+to sail their boats and cigar boxes in the tub. Toward half-past three,
+as Turner was in her room writing letters, the door-bell rang. She
+stopped, with her pen in the air, wondering if it might be Vandover. It
+was June's afternoon out. In a few minutes the bell rang again, and
+Turner ran down to answer it herself, intercepting Delphine, who took
+June's place on these occasions, but who was hopelessly stupid.
+
+Mrs. Ravis had peered out through the curtains of the parlour window to
+see who it was, and Turner met her and Mr. Ravis coming upstairs,
+abandoning the parlour to Turner's caller.
+
+"Mamma and I are going upstairs to read," explained Mr. Ravis. "It's
+some one of your young men. You can bring him right in the parlour."
+
+"I think it's Mr. Haight," said Turner's mother. "Ask him to stay to
+tea."
+
+"Well," said Turner doubtfully, as she paused at the foot of the stairs,
+"I will, but you know we never have anything to speak of for Sunday
+evening tea. June is out, and you know how clumsy and stupid Delphine is
+when she waits on the table."
+
+It _was_ young Haight. Turner was very glad to see him, for next to
+Vandover she liked him better than any of the others. She was never
+bored by being obliged to entertain him, and he always had something to
+say and some clever way of saying it.
+
+About half-past five, as they were talking about amateur photography,
+Mrs. Ravis came in and called them to tea.
+
+Tea with the Ravises was the old-fashioned tea of twenty years ago. One
+never saw any of the modern "delicacies" on their Sunday evening table,
+no enticing cold lunch, no spices, not even catsups or pepper sauces.
+The turkey or chicken they had had for dinner was served cold in slices;
+there was canned fruit, preserves, tea, crackers, bread and butter, a
+large dish of cold pork and beans, and a huge glass pitcher of
+ice-water.
+
+In the absence of June, Delphine the cook went through the agony of
+waiting on the table, very nervous and embarrassed in her clean calico
+gown and starched apron. Her hands were red and knotty, smelling of
+soap, and they touched the chinaware with an over-zealous and
+constraining tenderness as if the plates and dishes had been delicate
+glass butterflies. She stood off at a distance from the table making
+sudden and awkward dabs at it. When it came to passing the plates, she
+passed them on the wrong side and remembered herself at the wrong moment
+with a stammering apology. In her excess of politeness she kept up a
+constant murmur as she attended to their wants. Another fork? Yes, sir.
+She'd get it right away, sir. Did Mrs. Ravis want another cuppa tea? No?
+No more tea? Well, she'd pass the bread. Some bread, Master Howard? Nice
+French bread, he always liked that. Some more preserved pears, Miss
+Ravis? Yes, miss, she'd get them right away; they were just over here on
+the sideboard. Yes, here they were. No more? Now she'd go and put them
+back. And at last when she had set the nerves of all of them in a
+jangle, was dismissed to the kitchen and retired with a gasp of
+unspeakable relief.
+
+Somewhat later in the evening young Haight was alone with Turner, and
+their conversation had taken a very unusual and personal turn. All at
+once Turner exclaimed:
+
+"I often wonder what good I am in the world to anybody. I don't _know_ a
+thing, I can't _do_ a thing. I couldn't cook the plainest kind of a meal
+to _save_ me, and it took me all of two hours yesterday to do just a
+little buttonhole stitching. I'm not good for anything. I'm not a help
+to anybody."
+
+Young Haight looked into the blue flame of the gas-log, almost the only
+modern innovation throughout the entire house, and was silent for a
+moment; then he leaned his elbows on his knees and, still looking at the
+flame, replied:
+
+"I don't know about that. You have been a considerable help to _me_."
+
+"To _you_!" exclaimed Turner, surprised. "A help to _you_? Why, how do
+you mean?"
+
+"Well," he answered, still without looking at her, "one always has one's
+influence, you know."
+
+"Ah, lots of influence _I_ have over anybody," retorted Turner,
+incredulously.
+
+"Yes, you have," he insisted. "You have plenty of influence over the
+people that care for you. You have plenty of influence over me."
+
+Turner, very much embarrassed, and not knowing how to answer, bent down
+to the side of the mantelpiece and turned up the flame of the gas-log a
+little. Young Haight continued, almost as embarrassed as she:
+
+"I suppose I'm a bad lot, perhaps a little worse than most others, but I
+think--I hope--there's some good in me. I know all this sounds absurd
+and affected, but _really_ I'm not posing; you won't mind if I speak
+just as I think, for this once. I promise," he went on with a half
+smile, "not to do it again. You know my mother died when I was little
+and I have lived mostly with men. You have been to me what the society
+of women has been to other fellows. You see, you are the only girl I
+ever knew very well--the only one I ever wanted to know. I have cared
+for you the way other men have cared for the different women that come
+into their lives; as they have cared for their mothers, their
+sisters--and their wives. You have already influenced me as a mother or
+sister should have done; what if I should ever ask you to be--to be the
+_other_ to me, the one that's best of all?"
+
+Young Haight turned toward her as he finished and looked at her for the
+first time. Turner was still very much embarrassed.
+
+"Oh, I'm very glad if I've been a help to--to anybody--to you," she
+said, confusedly. "But I never knew that you cared--that you thought
+about me--in that way. But you mustn't, you know, you mustn't care for
+me in that way. I ought to tell you right away that I never could care
+for you more than--I always have done; I mean care for you only as a
+very, very good friend. You don't know, Dolly," she went on eagerly,
+"how it hurts me to tell you so, because I care so much for you in every
+other way that I wouldn't hurt your feelings for anything; but then you
+know at the same time it would hurt you a great deal more if I
+_shouldn't_ tell you, but encourage you, and let you go on thinking that
+perhaps I liked you more than any one else, when I _didn't_. Now
+wouldn't that be wrong? You don't know how glad it makes me feel that I
+have been of some good to you, and that is just why I want to be sincere
+_now_ and not make you think any less of me--think any worse of me."
+
+"Oh, I know," answered young Haight. "I know I shouldn't have said
+anything about it. I knew beforehand, or thought I knew, that you didn't
+care in that way."
+
+"Maybe I have been wrong," she replied, "in not seeing that you cared so
+much, and have given you a wrong impression. I thought you knew how it
+was all the time."
+
+"Knew how what was?" he asked, looking up.
+
+"Why," she said, "knew how Van and I were."
+
+"I knew that Van cared for you a great deal."
+
+"Yes, but you know," she went on, hesitating and confused, "you know we
+are engaged. We have been engaged for nearly two years."
+
+"But _he_ don't consider himself as engaged!" The words were almost out
+of Haight's mouth, but he shut his teeth against them and kept
+silence--he hardly knew why.
+
+"Suppose Vandover were out of the question," he said, getting up and
+smiling in order not to seem as serious as he really was.
+
+"Ah," she said, smiling back at him. "I don't know; that's a hard
+question to answer. I've never _asked_ myself _that_ question."
+
+"Well, I'm saving you the trouble, you see," he answered, still smiling.
+"I am asking it _for_ you."
+
+"But I don't want to answer such a question off-hand like that; how can
+I tell? It would only be _perhaps_, just now."
+
+Young Haight answered quickly that "just now" he would be contented with
+that "perhaps"; but Turner did not hear this. She had spoken at the same
+time as he, exclaiming, "But what is the good of talking of that?
+Because no matter what happened I feel as though I could not break my
+promise to Van, even if I should want to. Because I have talked like
+this, Dolly," she went on more seriously, "you must not be deceived or
+get a wrong impression. You understand how things are, don't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes," he answered, still trying to carry it off with a laugh. "I
+know, I know. But now I hope you won't let anything I have said bother
+you, and that things will go on just as if I hadn't spoken, just as if
+nothing had happened."
+
+"Why, of course," she said, laughing with him again. "Of _course_, why
+shouldn't they?"
+
+They were both at their ease again by the time young Haight stood at the
+door with his hat in his hand ready to go.
+
+He raised his free hand over her head, and said, with burlesque,
+dramatic effect, trying to keep down a smile:
+
+"Bless you both; go, go marry Vandover and be happy; I forgive you."
+
+"Ah--don't be so _utterly_ absurd," she cried, beginning to laugh.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Seven
+
+
+On a certain evening about four months later Ellis and Vandover had a
+"date" with Ida Wade and Bessie Laguna at the Mechanics' Fair. Ellis,
+Bessie, and Ida were to meet Vandover there in the Art Gallery, as he
+had to make a call with his father, and could not get there until
+half-past nine. They were all to walk about the Fair until ten, after
+which the two men proposed to take the girls out to the Cliff House in
+separate coupés. The whole thing had been arranged by Ellis and Bessie,
+and Vandover was irritated. Ellis ought to have had more sense; rushing
+the girls was all very well, but everybody went to the Mechanics' Fair,
+and he didn't like to have nice girls like Turner or Henrietta Vance see
+him with chippies like that. It was all very well for Ellis, who had no
+social position, but for _him_, Vandover, it would look too confounded
+queer. Of course he was in for it now, and would have to face the music.
+You can't tell a girl like that that you're ashamed to be seen with her,
+but very likely he would get himself into a regular box with it all.
+
+When he arrived at the Mechanics' Pavilion, it was about twenty minutes
+of ten, and as he pushed through the wicket he let himself into a huge
+amphitheatre full of colour and movement.
+
+There was a vast shuffling of thousands of feet and a subdued roar of
+conversation like the noise of a great mill; mingled with these were the
+purring of distant machinery, the splashing of a temporary fountain and
+the rhythmic clamour of a brass band, while in the piano exhibit the
+hired performer was playing a concert-grand with a great flourish.
+Nearer at hand one could catch ends of conversation and notes of
+laughter, the creaking of boots, and the rustle of moving dresses and
+stiff skirts. Here and there groups of school children elbowed their way
+through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement
+pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips with pewter whistles on
+the butts, while the air itself was full of the smell of fresh popcorn.
+
+Ellis and Bessie were in the Art Gallery upstairs. Mrs. Wade, Ida's
+mother, who gave lessons in hand painting, had an exhibit there which
+they were interested to find; a bunch of yellow poppies painted on
+velvet and framed in gilt. They stood before it some little time
+hazarding their opinions and then moved on from one picture to another;
+Ellis bought a catalogue and made it a duty to find the title of every
+picture. Bessie professed to be very fond of painting; she had 'taken it
+up' at one time and had abandoned it, only because the oil or turpentine
+or something was unhealthy for her. "Of course," she said, "I'm no
+critic, I only know what I like. Now that one over there, I like _that_.
+I think those ideal heads like that are lovely, don't you, Bandy? Oh,
+there's Van!"
+
+"Hello!" said Vandover, coming up. "Where's Ida?"
+
+"Hello, Van!" answered Bessie. "Ida wouldn't come. Isn't it too mean?
+She said she couldn't come because she had a cold, but she was just
+talking through her face, I know. She's just got kind of a streak on and
+you can't get anything out of her. You two haven't had a row, have you?
+Well, I didn't _think_ you had. But she's worried about something or
+other. I don't believe she's been out of the house this week. But isn't
+it mean of her to throw cold water on the procession like this? She's
+been giving me a lecture, too, and says she's going to reform."
+
+"Well," said Vandover, greatly relieved, "that's too bad. We could have
+had a lot of fun to-night. I'm awfully sorry. Well, what are you two
+going to do?"
+
+"Oh, I guess we'll follow out our part of the programme," said Ellis.
+"You are kind of left out, though."
+
+"I don't know," answered Vandover. "Maybe I'll go downtown, and see if I
+can find some of the boys."
+
+"Oh, Dolly Haight is around here somewheres," said Ellis. "We saw him
+just now over by the chess machine."
+
+"I guess I'll try and find him, then," responded Vandover. "Well, I hope
+you two enjoy yourselves." As he was turning away Bessie Laguna came
+running back, and taking him a little to one side said:
+
+"You'd better go round and see Ida pretty soon if you can. She's all
+broke up about something, I'm sure. I think she'd like to see you pretty
+well. Honestly," she said, suddenly very grave, "I never saw Ida so cut
+up in my life. She's been taking on over something in a dreadful way,
+and I think she'd like to see you. She won't tell _me_ anything. You go
+around and see her."
+
+"All right," answered Vandover smiling, "I'll go."
+
+As he was going down the stairs on his way to find young Haight it
+occurred to him what Ida's trouble might be. He was all at once struck
+with a great fear, so that for an instant he turned cold and weak, and
+reached out his hand to steady himself against the railing of the
+stairs. Ah, what a calamity that would be! What a calamity! What a
+dreadful responsibility! What a crime! He could not keep the thought out
+of his mind. He tried to tell himself that Ida had practically given her
+consent by going into such a place; that he was not the only one, after
+all; that there was nothing certain as yet. He stood on the stairway,
+empty for that moment, biting the end of his thumb, saying to himself in
+a low voice:
+
+"What a calamity, what a horrible calamity that would be! Ah, you
+scoundrel! You damned fool, not to have thought!" A couple of girls, the
+counter girls at one of the candy booths, came down the stairs behind
+him with a great babble of talk. Vandover gave an irritated shrug of his
+shoulders as if freeing himself from the disagreeable subject and went
+on.
+
+He could not find young Haight down stairs and so went up into the
+gallery again. After a long time he came upon him sitting on an empty
+bench nursing his cane and watching the crowd go past.
+
+"Hello, old man!" he exclaimed. "Ellis told me I would find you around
+somewhere. I was just going to give you up." He sat down beside his
+chum, and the two began to talk about the people as they passed. "Ah,
+get on to the red hat!" exclaimed Vandover on a sudden. "That's the
+third time she's passed."
+
+"Has Ellis gone off with Bessie Laguna?" asked young Haight.
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover. "They're going to have a time at the Cliff
+House."
+
+"That's too bad," young Haight replied. "Ellis has just thrown himself
+away with that girl. He might have known some very nice people when he
+first came here. Between that girl and his whisky he has managed to
+spoil every chance he might have had."
+
+"There's Charlie Geary," Vandover exclaimed suddenly, whistling and
+beckoning. "Hey, there, Charlie! where you going? Oh," he cried on a
+sudden as Geary came up, "oh, get on to his new store clothes, will
+you?" They both pretended to be overwhelmed by the elegance of Geary's
+new suit.
+
+"O-oh!" cried young Haight. "The bloody, bloomin', bloated swell. Just
+let me _touch_ them!"
+
+Vandover shaded his eyes and turned away as though dazzled. "This is
+_too_ much," he gasped. "Such magnificence, such purple and fine linen."
+Then suddenly he shouted, "Oh, _oh! look_ at the crease in those
+trousers. No; it's too much, I can't stand it."
+
+"Oh, shut up," said Geary, irritated, as they had intended he should be.
+"Yes," he went on, "I thought I'd blow myself. I've been working like a
+dog the whole month. I'm trying to get in Beale's office. Beale and
+Storey, you know. I got the promise of a berth last week, so I thought
+I'd blow myself for some rags. I've been over to San Rafael all day
+visiting my cousins; had a great time; went out to row. Oh, and had a
+great feed: lettuce sandwiches with mayonnaise. Simply out of sight. I
+came back on the four o'clock boat and held down the 'line' on Kearney
+Street for an hour or two."
+
+"Yes?" young Haight said perfunctorily, adding after a moment, "Isn't
+this a gay crowd, a typical San Francisco crowd and--"
+
+"I had a cocktail in the Imperial at about quarter of five," said Geary,
+"and got a cigar at the Elite; then I went around to get my clothes. Oh,
+you ought to have heard the blowing up I gave my tailor! I let him have
+it right straight."
+
+Geary paused a moment, and Vandover said: "Come on, let's walk around a
+little; don't you want to? We might run on to the red hat again."
+
+"I told him," continued Geary without moving, "that if he wanted to do
+any more work for me, he'd have to get in front of himself in a hurry,
+and that _I_ wasn't full of bubbles, if _he_ was. 'Why,' says he, 'why,
+Mr. Geary, I've never had a customer talk like this to me before since
+I've been in the business!' 'Well, Mr. Allen,' says I, 'it's time you
+_had_! Oh, sure, I gave it to him straight."
+
+"Vandover has gone daft over a girl in a red hat," said young Haight,
+as they got up and began to walk. "Have you noticed her up here?"
+
+"I went to the Grillroom after I left the tailor's," continued Geary,
+"and had supper downtown. Ah, you ought to have seen the steak they gave
+me! Just about as thick as it was wide. I gave the slavey a four-bit
+tip. Oh, it's just as well, you know, to keep in with them, if you go
+there often. I lunch there four or five times a week."
+
+They descended to the ground floor and promenaded the central aisle
+watching for pretty girls. In front of a candy-counter, where there was
+a soda fountain, they saw the red hat again. Vandover looked her
+squarely in the face and laughed a little. When he had passed he looked
+back; the girl caught his eye and turned away with a droll smile.
+Vandover paused, grinning, and raising his hat; "I guess that's mine,"
+he said.
+
+"You are not going, are you?" exclaimed young Haight, as Vandover
+stopped. "Oh, for goodness' sake, Van, do leave the girls alone for one
+hour in the day. Come on! Come on downtown with us."
+
+"No, no," answered Vandover. "I'm going to chase it up. Good-bye. I may
+see you fellows later," and he turned back and went up to the girl.
+
+"Look at that!" said young Haight, exasperated. "He knows he's liable to
+meet his acquaintances here, and yet there he goes, almost arm in arm
+with a girl like that. It's too bad; why _can't_ a fellow keep straight
+when there are such a lot of _nice_ girls?"
+
+Geary never liked to see anything done better than he could do it
+himself. Just now he was vexed because Vandover had got in ahead of him.
+He looked after the girl a moment and muttered scornfully:
+
+"Cheap meat!" adding, "Ah, you bet _I_ wouldn't do that. I flatter
+myself that I'm a little too clever to cut my own throat in that
+fashion. I look out after my interests better than that. Well, Dolly,"
+he concluded, "_I've_ got a thirst on. Van and Ellis have gone off with
+their girls; let's you and I go somewhere and have something wet."
+
+"All right. What's the matter with the Luxembourg?" answered young
+Haight.
+
+"Luxembourg goes, then," assented Geary, and they turned about and
+started for the door. As they were passing out some one came running up
+behind them and took an arm of each: it was Vandover.
+
+"Hello," cried Geary, delighted, "your girl shook you, didn't she?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," answered Vandover. "Oh, but say, she is out of sight!
+Says her name is Grace Irving. No, she didn't shake me. I made a date
+with her for next Wednesday night. I didn't want to be seen around here
+with her, you know."
+
+"Of _course_ she will keep that date!" said Geary.
+
+"Well, now, I think she will," protested Vandover.
+
+"Well, come along," interrupted young Haight. "We'll all go down to the
+Luxembourg and have something cold and wet."
+
+"Ah, make it the Imperial instead," objected Vandover. "We may find
+Flossie."
+
+"Say," cried Geary, "can't you _live_ without trailing around after some
+kind of petticoats?"
+
+"You're right," admitted Vandover, "I can't," but he persuaded them to
+go to the Imperial for all that.
+
+At the Imperial, Toby, the red-eyed waiter, came to take their order.
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen," he said. "Haven't seen you around here for
+some time."
+
+"No, no," said Geary. "I've been too busy. I've been working like a dog
+lately to get into a certain office. You bet I'll make it all right--all
+right. Bring me a stringy rabbit and a pint of dog's-head."
+
+"You bet I've been working," he continued after they had settled down to
+their beer and rabbits, "working like a dog. A man's got to rustle if
+he's going to make a success at law. _I'm_ going to make it go, by
+George, or I'll know the reason why. I'll make my way in this town and
+my pile. There's money to be made here and _I_ might just as well make
+it as the next man. Every man for himself, that's what _I_ say; that's
+the way to get along. It may be selfish, but you've got to do it. By
+God! it's human nature. Isn't that right, hey? Isn't that right?"
+
+"Oh, that's right," admitted young Haight, trying to be polite. After
+this the conversation lagged a little. Young Haight drank his
+Apollinaris lemonade through a straw, Geary sipped his ale, and Vandover
+fed himself Welsh rabbit and Spanish olives with the silent enjoyment of
+a glutton. By and by, when they had finished and had lighted their
+cigars and cigarettes, they began to talk about the last Cotillon, to
+which Vandover and Haight belonged.
+
+"Say, Van," said young Haight, tilting his head to one side and shutting
+one eye to avoid the smoke from his cigar, "say, didn't I see you
+dancing with Mrs. Doane after supper?"
+
+"Yes," said Vandover laughing; "all the men were trying to get a dance
+with her. She had an edge on."
+
+"No?" exclaimed Geary, incredulously.
+
+"That's a fact," admitted young Haight. "Van is right."
+
+"She was opposite to me at table," said Vandover, "and _I_ saw her empty
+a whole bottle of champagne."
+
+"Why, I didn't know they got drunk like that at the Cotillons," said
+Geary. "I thought they were very swell."
+
+"Well, of course, they don't as a rule," returned Vandover. "Of course
+there are girls like--like Henrietta Vance who belong to the Cotillon
+and make it what it is, and what it ought to be. But there are other
+girls like Mrs. Doane and Lilly Stannard and the Trafford girls that
+like their champagne pretty well now, and don't you forget it! Oh, you
+know, I wouldn't call it getting drunk, though."
+
+"Well, why not?" exclaimed young Haight impatiently. "Why not call it
+'getting drunk?' Why not call things by their right name? You can see
+just how bad they are then; and I think it's shameful that such things
+can go on in an organization that is supposed to contain the very best
+people in the city. Now, I just want to tell you what I saw at one of
+these same Cotillons in the first part of the season. Lilly Stannard
+disappeared after supper and people said she was sick and was going
+home, but I knew exactly what was the matter, because I had seen her at
+the supper table. Well, I had gone outside on the steps to get a
+mouthful of smoke, and my little cousin, Hetty, who has just come out
+and who is only nineteen, was out there with me because it was so warm
+inside, and _she_ had seen Lilly Stannard filling up with champagne at
+supper, and didn't know what to make of it. Well, we were just talking
+about it, and I was trying to make her believe too that Lilly Stannard
+was sick, when here comes Lilly herself out to her carriage. Her maid
+was supporting her, just about half-carrying her. Lilly's face was so
+pale that the powder on it looked like ashes, her hair was all coming
+down, and she was hiccoughing. Now," continued young Haight, his eyes
+snapping, and his voice raised so as to make itself heard above the
+exclamations of his two friends, "now, that's a _fact_; I give you my
+word of honour that it actually happened. It's not hearsay; I saw it
+myself. It's fine, isn't it?" he went on, wrathfully. "It sounds well,
+don't it, when it's told _just as it happened_? The girl was dead drunk.
+Oh, she may have made a mistake; it may have been the first time; but
+the fact remains that she always drinks a lot of champagne at the
+Cotillons, and other girls have been drunk there, too. Mrs. Doane, that
+Van tells about, was _drunk_; that's the word for it. She was dead drunk
+that night, and there was my little cousin, Hetty, who had never seen
+even a man the worse for his liquor, standing there and taking it all
+in. Of course, every one hushed the thing up or else said the poor girl
+was sick; but Hetty knew, and what effect do you suppose it had upon a
+little girl like that, who had always been told what nice,
+irreproachable people went to the Cotillons? Hetty will never be the
+same little girl now that she was before. Oh, it makes me damned tired."
+
+"Well, I don't see," said Geary, "why the girls should make such a fuss
+about the men keeping straight. I daresay now that this Stannard girl
+would cut us all dead if she knew how drunk we were that night about
+four months ago--that night that you fellows got thrown out of the
+Luxembourg."
+
+"No, I don't believe she would at all," said young Haight.
+
+"She'd think better of you for it," put in Vandover. "Look here," he
+went on, "all this talk of women demanding the same moral standard for
+men as men do for women is fine on paper, but how does it work in real
+life? The women don't demand it at all. Take the average society girl in
+a big city like this. The girls that we meet at teas and receptions and
+functions--don't you suppose they know the life we men lead? Of course
+they do. They may not know it in detail, but they know in a general way
+that we get drunk a good deal and go to disreputable houses and that
+sort of thing, and do they ever cut us for that? No, sir; not much.
+Why, I tell you, they even have a little more respect for us. They like
+a man to know things, to be experienced. A man that keeps himself
+straight and clean and never goes around with fast women, they think is
+ridiculous. Of course, a girl don't want to know the particulars of a
+man's vice; what they want is that a man should have the knowledge of
+good and evil, yes, and lots of evil. To a large extent I really believe
+it's the women's fault that the men are what they are. If they demanded
+a higher moral standard the men would come up to it; they encourage a
+man to go to the devil and then--and then when he's rotten with disease
+and ruins his wife and has children--what is it--_'spotted
+toads'_--_then_ there's a great cry raised against the men, and women
+write books and all, when half the time the woman has only encouraged
+him to be what he is."
+
+"Oh, well now," retorted young Haight, "you know that all the girls are
+not like that."
+
+"Most of them that you meet in society are."
+
+"But they are the best people, aren't they?" demanded Geary.
+
+"No," answered Vandover and young Haight in a breath, and young Haight
+continued:
+
+"No; I believe that very few of what you would call the 'best people' go
+out in society--people like the Ravises, who have good principles, and
+keep up old-fashioned virtues and all that. You know," he added, "they
+have family prayers down there every morning after breakfast."
+
+Geary began to smile.
+
+"Well, now, I don't care," retorted young Haight, "I like that sort of
+thing."
+
+"So do I," said Vandover. "Up home, now, the governor asks a blessing at
+each meal, and somehow I wouldn't like to see him leave it off. But you
+can't tell me," he went on, going back to the original subject of their
+discussion, "you can't tell me that American society girls, city-bred,
+and living at the end of the nineteenth century, don't know about
+things. Why, man alive, how can they help but know? Look at those that
+have brothers--don't you suppose they know, and if they know, why don't
+they use their influence to stop it? I tell you if any one were to write
+up the lives that we young men of the city lead after dark, people
+wouldn't believe it. At that party that Henrietta Vance gave last month
+there were about twenty fellows there and I knew every one, and I was
+looking around the supper-table and wondering how many of those young
+fellows had never been inside of a disreputable house, and there was
+only _one_ beside Dolly Haight!"
+
+Young Haight exclaimed at this, laughing good-naturedly, twirling his
+thumbs, and casting down his eyes with mock-modesty.
+
+"Well, that's the truth just the same," Vandover went on. "We young men
+of the cities are a fine lot. I'm not doing the baby act. I'm not laying
+the blame on the girls altogether, but I say that in a measure the girls
+are responsible. They want a man to be a _man_, to be up to date, to be
+a man of the world and to go in for that sort of vice, but they don't
+know, they don't dream, how rotten and disgusting it is. Oh, I'm not
+preaching. I know I'm just as bad as the rest, and I'm going to have a
+good time while I can, but sometimes when you stop and think, and as
+Dolly says 'call things by their right names,' why you feel, don't you
+know--_queer_."
+
+"I don't believe, Van," responded young Haight, "that it's _quite_ as
+bad as you say. But it's even wrong, I think, that a good girl should
+know anything about vice at all."
+
+"Oh, that's nonsense," broke in Geary; "you can't expect nowadays that a
+girl, an American girl, can live twenty years in a city and not know
+things. Do you think the average modern girl is going to be the
+absolutely pure and innocent girl of, say, fifty years ago? Not much;
+they are right on to things to-day. You can't tell them much. And it's
+all right, too; they know how to look out for themselves, then. It's
+part of their education; and I think if they haven't the knowledge of
+evil, and don't know what sort of life the average young man leads, that
+their mothers ought to tell them."
+
+"Well, I don't agree with you," retorted young Haight. "There's
+something revolting in the idea that it's necessary a young girl should
+be instructed in that sort of nastiness."
+
+"Why, not at all," answered Geary. "Without it she might be ruined by
+the first man that came along. It's a protection to her virtue."
+
+"Oh, pshaw! I don't believe it at all," cried young Haight,
+impatiently. "I believe that a girl is born with a natural intuitive
+purity that will lead her to protect her virtue just as instinctively as
+she would dodge a blow; if she wants to go wrong she will have to make
+an effort herself to overcome that instinct."
+
+"And if she don't," cried Vandover eagerly, "if she don't--if she don't
+protect her virtue, I say a man has a right to go as far with her as he
+can."
+
+"If _he_ don't, some one else will," said Geary.
+
+"Ah, you can't get around it that way," answered young Haight, smiling.
+"It's a man's duty to protect a girl, even if he has to protect her
+against herself."
+
+When he got home that night Vandover thought over this remark of young
+Haight's and in its light reviewed what had occurred in the room at the
+Imperial. He felt aroused, nervous, miserably anxious. At length he
+tried to dismiss the subject from his mind; he woke up his drowsing
+grate fire, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying, "Wake up
+there, you!" When he was undressed, he sat down before it in his
+bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously, musing into the coals,
+scratching himself as was his custom. But for all that he fretted
+nervously and did not sleep well that night.
+
+Next morning he took his bath. Vandover enjoyed his bath and usually
+spent two or three hours over it. When the water was very warm he got
+into it with his novel on a rack in front of him and a box of chocolates
+conveniently near. Here he stayed, for over an hour, eating and reading,
+and occasionally smoking a cigarette, until at length the enervating
+heat of the steam gradually overcame him and he dropped off to sleep.
+
+On this particular morning between nine and ten Geary called, and as was
+his custom came right up to Vandover's room. Mr. Corkle, lying on the
+wolfskin in the bay window, jumped up with a gruff bark, but,
+recognizing him, came up wiggling his short tail. Geary saw Vandover's
+clothes thrown about the floor and the closed door of the bathroom.
+
+"Hey, Van!" he called. "It's Charlie Geary. Are you taking a bath?"
+
+"Hello! What? Who is it?" came from behind the door. "Oh, is that you,
+Charlie? Hello! how are you? Yes, I'm taking a bath. I must have been
+asleep. Wait a minute; I'll be out."
+
+"No, I can't stop," answered Geary. "I've an appointment downtown;
+overslept myself, and had to go without my breakfast; makes me feel all
+broke up. I'll get something at the Grillroom about eleven; a steak, I
+guess. But that isn't what I came to say. Ida Wade has killed herself!
+Isn't it fearful? I thought I'd drop in on my way downtown and speak to
+you about it. It's dreadful! It's all in the morning papers. She must
+have been out of her head."
+
+"What is it--what has she done?" came back Vandover's voice. "Papers--I
+haven't seen--what has she done? Tell me--what has she done?"
+
+"Why, she committed suicide last night by taking laudanum," answered
+Geary, "and nobody knows why. She didn't leave any message or letter or
+anything of the kind. It's a fearful thing to happen so suddenly, but it
+seems she has been very despondent and broke up about something or other
+for a week or two. They found her in her room last night about ten
+o'clock lying across her table with only her wrapper on. She was
+unconscious then, and between one and two she died. She was unconscious
+all the time. Well, I can't stop any longer, Van; I've an appointment
+downtown. I was just going past the house and I thought I would run up
+and speak to you about Ida. I'll see you again pretty soon and we'll
+talk this over."
+
+Mr. Corkle politely attended Geary to the head of the stairs, then went
+back to Vandover's room, and after blowing under the crack of the
+bathroom door to see if his master was still there returned to the
+wolfskin and sat down on his short tail and yawned. He was impatient to
+see Vandover and thought he stayed in his bath an unnecessarily long
+time. He went up to the door again and listened. It was very still
+inside; he could not hear the slightest sound, and he wondered again
+what could keep Vandover in there so long. He had too much self-respect
+to whine, so he went back to the wolfskin and curled up in the sun, but
+did not go to sleep.
+
+By and by, after a very long time, the bathroom door swung open, and
+Vandover came out. He had not dried himself and was naked and wet. He
+went directly to the table in the centre of the room and picked up the
+morning paper, looking for the article of which Geary had spoken. At
+first he could not find it, and then it suddenly jumped into prominence
+from out the gray blur of the print on an inside page beside an
+advertisement of a charity concert for the benefit of a home for
+incurable children. There was a picture of Ida taken from a photograph
+like one that she had given him, and which even then was thrust between
+the frame and glass of his mirror. He read the article through; it
+sketched her life and character and the circumstances of her death with
+the relentless terseness of the writer cramped for space. According to
+this view, the causes of her death were unknown. It had been remarked
+that she had of late been despondent and in ill health.
+
+Vandover threw the paper down and straightened up, naked and dripping,
+putting both hands to his head. In a low voice under his breath he said:
+
+"What have I done? What have I done now?"
+
+Like the sudden unrolling of a great scroll he saw his responsibility
+for her death and for the ruin of that something in her which was more
+than life. What would become of her now? And what would become of him?
+For a single brief instant he tried to persuade himself that Ida had
+consented after all. But he knew that this was not so. She had
+consented, but he had forced her consent; he was none the less guilty.
+And then in that dreadful moment when he saw things in their true light,
+all the screens of conventionality and sophistry torn away, the words
+that young Haight had spoken came back to him. No matter if she had
+consented, it was his duty to have protected her, even against herself.
+
+He walked the floor with great strides, steaming with the warm water,
+striking his head with his hands and crying out, "Oh, this is fearful,
+fearful! What have I done now? I have killed her; yes, and worse!"
+
+He could think of nothing worse that could have happened to him. What a
+weight of responsibility to carry--he who hated responsibility of any
+kind, who had always tried to escape from anything that was even
+irksome, who loved his ease, his comfort, his peace of mind!
+
+At every moment now he saw the different consequences of what he had
+done. Now, it was that his life was ruined, and that all through its
+course this crime would hang like a millstone about his neck. There
+could be no more enjoyment of anything for him; all the little pleasures
+and little self-indulgences which till now had delighted him were
+spoiled and rendered impossible. The rest of his life would have to be
+one long penitence; any pleasure he might take would only make his crime
+seem more abominable.
+
+Now, it was a furious revolt against his mistake that had led him to
+such a fearful misunderstanding of Ida; a silent impotent rage against
+himself and against the brute in him that he had permitted to drag him
+to this thing.
+
+Now, it was a wave of an immense pity for the dead girl that overcame
+him, and he saw himself as another person, destroying what she most
+cherished for the sake of gratifying an unclean passion.
+
+Now, it was a terror for himself. What would they do to him? His part in
+the affair was sure to be found out. He tried to think what the
+punishment for such crime would be; but would he not be considered a
+murderer as well? Could he not hang for this? His imagination was never
+more active; his fear never more keen. At once a thousand plans of
+concealment or escape were tossed up in his mind.
+
+But worse than all was the thought of that punishment from which there
+was absolutely no escape, and of that strange other place where his
+crime would assume right proportions and receive right judgment, no
+matter how it was palliated or evaded here. Then for an instant it was
+as if a gulf without bottom had opened under him, and he had to fight
+himself back from its edge for sheer self-preservation. To look too long
+in that direction was simple insanity beyond any doubt.
+
+And all this time he threw himself to and fro in his room, his long
+white arms agitated and shaking, his wet and shining hair streaming far
+over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all
+straight and trickling with moisture. At times an immense unreasoning
+terror would come upon him all of a sudden, horrible, crushing, so that
+he rolled upon the bed groaning and sobbing, digging his nails into his
+scalp, shutting his teeth against a desire to scream out, writhing in
+the throes of terrible mental agony.
+
+That day and the next were fearful. To Vandover everything in his world
+was changed. All that had happened before the morning of Geary's visit
+appeared to him to have occurred in another phase of his life, years and
+years ago. He lay awake all night long, listening to the creaking of the
+house and the drip of the water faucets. He turned from his food with
+repugnance, told his father that he was sick, and kept indoors as much
+as he could, reading all the papers to see if he had been found out. To
+his great surprise and relief, a theory gained ground that Ida was
+subject to spells of ill-health, to long fits of despondency, and that
+her suicide had occurred during one of these. If Ida's family knew
+anything of the truth, it was apparent that they were doing their best
+to cover up their disgrace. Vandover was too thoroughly terrified for
+his own safety to feel humiliated at this possible explanation of his
+security. There was as yet not even a guess that implicated him.
+
+He thought that he was bearing up under the strain well enough, but on
+the evening of the second day, as he was pretending to eat his supper,
+his father sent the servant out and turning to him, said kindly:
+
+"What is it, Van? Aren't you well nowadays?"
+
+"Not very, sir," answered Vandover. "My throat is troubling me again."
+
+"You look deathly pale," returned his father. "Your eyes are sunken and
+you don't eat."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Vandover. "I'm not feeling well at all. I think I'll
+go to bed early to-night. I don't know"--he continued, after a pause,
+feeling a desire to escape from his father's observation--"I don't know
+but what I'll go up now. Will you tell the cook to feed Mr. Corkle for
+me?"
+
+His father looked at him as he pushed back from the table.
+
+"What's the matter, Van?" he said. "Is there anything wrong?"
+
+"Oh, I'll be all right in the morning," he replied nervously. "I feel a
+little under the weather just now."
+
+"Don't you think you had better tell me what the trouble is?" said his
+father, kindly.
+
+"There _isn't_ any trouble, sir," insisted Vandover. "I just feel a
+little under the weather."
+
+But as he was starting to undress in his room a sudden impulse took
+possession of him, an overwhelming childish desire to tell his father
+all about it. It was beginning to be more than he was able to bear
+alone. He did not allow himself to stop and reason with this impulse,
+but slipped on his vest again and went downstairs. He found his father
+in the smoking-room, sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before
+the fireplace.
+
+As Vandover came in the Old Gentleman rose and without a word, as if he
+had been expecting him, went to the door and shut and locked it. He came
+back and stood before the fireplace watching Vandover as he approached
+and took the chair he had just vacated. Vandover told him of the affair
+in two or three phrases, without choosing his words, repeating the same
+expressions over and over again, moved only with the desire to have it
+over and done with.
+
+It was like a burst of thunder. The worst his father had feared was not
+as bad as this. He had expected some rather serious boyish trouble, but
+this was the crime of a man. Still watching his son, he put out his
+hand, groping for the edge of the mantelpiece, and took hold of it with
+a firm grasp. For a moment he said nothing; then:
+
+"And--and you say you seduced her."
+
+Without looking up, Vandover answered, "Yes, sir," and then he added,
+"It is horrible; when I think of it I sometimes feel as though I should
+go off my head. I--"
+
+But the Old Gentleman interrupted him, putting out his hand:
+
+"Don't," he said quickly, "don't say anything now--please."
+
+They were both silent for a long time, Vandover gazing stupidly at a
+little blue and red vase on the table, wondering how his father would
+take the news, what next he would say; the Old Gentleman drawing his
+breath short, occasionally clearing his throat, his eyes wandering
+vaguely about the walls of the room, his fingers dancing upon the edge
+of the mantelpiece. Then at last he put his hand to his neck as though
+loosening his collar and said, looking away from Vandover:
+
+"Won't you--won't you please go out--go away for a little while--leave
+me alone for a little while."
+
+When Vandover closed the door, he shut the edge of a rug between it and
+the sill; as he reopened it to push the rug out of the way he saw his
+father sink into the chair and, resting his arm upon the table, bow his
+head upon it.
+
+He did not see his father again that night, and at breakfast next
+morning not a word was exchanged between them, but his father did not go
+downtown to his office that forenoon, as was his custom. Vandover went
+up to his room immediately after breakfast and sat down before the
+window that overlooked the little garden in the rear of the house.
+
+He was utterly miserable, his nerves were gone, and at times he would
+feel again a touch of that hysterical, unreasoning terror that had come
+upon him so suddenly the other morning.
+
+Now there was a new trouble: the blow he had given his father. He could
+see that the Old Gentleman was crushed under it, and that he had never
+imagined that his son could have been so base as this. Vandover wondered
+what he was going to do. It would seem as if he had destroyed all of his
+father's affection for him, and he trembled lest the Old Gentleman
+should cast him off, everything. Even if his father did not disown him,
+he did not see how they could ever be the same. They might go on living
+together in the same house, but as far apart from each other as
+strangers. This, however, did not seem natural; it was much more likely
+that his father would send him away, anywhere out of his sight,
+forwarding, perhaps through his lawyer or agents, enough money to keep
+him alive. The more Vandover thought of this, the more he became
+convinced that such would be his father's decision. The Old Gentleman
+had spent the night over it, time enough to make up his mind, and the
+fact that he had neither spoken to him nor looked at him that morning
+was only an indication of what Vandover was to expect. He fancied he
+knew his father well enough to foresee how this decision would be
+carried out, not with any imprecations or bursts of rage, but calmly,
+sadly, inevitably.
+
+Toward noon his father came into the room, and Vandover turned to face
+him and to hear what he had to say as best he could. He knew he should
+not break down under it, for he felt as though his misery had reached
+its limit, and that nothing could touch or affect him much now.
+
+His father had a decanter of port in one hand and a glass in the other;
+he filled the glass and held it toward Vandover, saying gently:
+
+"I think you had better take some of this: you've hardly eaten anything
+in three days. Do you feel pretty bad, Van?"
+
+Vandover put the glass down and got upon his feet. All at once a great
+sob shook him.
+
+"Oh, governor!" he cried.
+
+It was as if it had been a mother or a dear sister. The prodigal son put
+his arms about his father's neck for the first time since he had been a
+little boy, and clung to him and wept as though his heart were breaking.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eight
+
+
+"We will begin all over again, Van," his father said later that same
+day. "We will start in again and try to forget all this, not as much as
+we _can_, but as much as we _ought_, and live it down, and from now on
+we'll try to do the thing that is right and brave and good."
+
+"Just try me, sir!" cried Vandover.
+
+That was it, begin all over again. He had never seen more clearly than
+now that other life which it was possible for him to live, a life that
+was above the level of self-indulgence and animal pleasures, a life that
+was not made up of the society of lost women or fast girls, but yet a
+life of keen enjoyment.
+
+Whenever he had been deeply moved about anything, the power and desire
+of art had grown big within him, and he turned to it now, instinctively
+and ardently.
+
+It was all the better half of him that was aroused--the better half that
+he had kept in check ever since his college days, the better half that
+could respond to the influences of his father and of Turner Ravis, that
+other Vandover whom he felt was his real self, Vandover the true man,
+Vandover the artist, not Vandover the easy-going, the self-indulgent,
+not Vandover the lover of women.
+
+From this time forward he was resolved to give up the world that he had
+hitherto known, and devote himself with all his strength to his art. In
+the first glow of that resolution he thought that he had never been
+happier; he wondered how he could have been blind so long; what was all
+that life worth compared with the life of a great artist, compared even
+with a life of sturdy, virile effort and patient labour even though
+barren of achievement?
+
+And then something very curious happened: The little picture of Turner
+Ravis that hung over his mantelpiece caught his glance, looking out at
+him with her honest eyes and sweet smile. In an instant he seemed to
+love her as he had never imagined he could love any one. All that was
+best in him went out toward her in a wave of immense tenderness; the
+tears came to his eyes, he could not tell why. Ah, he was not good
+enough for her now, but he would love her so well that he would grow
+better, and between her and his good father and his art, the better
+Vandover, the real Vandover, would grow so large and strong within him
+that there should be no room for the other Vandover, the Vandover of
+Flossie and of the Imperial, the Vandover of the brute.
+
+During the course of talk that day between himself and his father, it
+was decided that Vandover should go away for a little while. He was in a
+fair way to be sick from worry and nervous exhaustion, and a sea trip to
+San Diego and back seemed to be what he stood most in need of. Besides
+this, his father told him, it was inevitable that his share in Ida's
+death would soon be known; in any case it would be better for him to be
+away from the city.
+
+"You take whatever steamer sails next," said his father, "and! go down
+to Coronado and stay there as long as you like, three weeks anyway; stay
+there until you get well, and when you get back, Van, we'll have a talk
+about Paris again. Perhaps you would like to get away this winter, maybe
+as soon as next month. You think it over while you are away, and when
+you want to go, why, we'll go over together, Van. What do you think?
+Would you like to have your old governor along for a little while?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The _Santa Rosa_ cast off the company's docks the next day about noon in
+the midst of a thick, cold mist that was half rain. The Old Gentleman
+came to see Vandover off.
+
+The steamer, which seemed gigantic, was roped and cabled to the piers,
+feeling the water occasionally with her screw to keep the hawsers taut.
+About the forward gangway a band of overworked stevedores were stowing
+in the last of the cargo, aided by a donkey engine, which every now and
+then broke out into a spasm of sputtering coughs. At the passenger
+gangway a great crowd was gathered, laughing and exchanging remarks with
+the other crowd that leaned over the railings of the decks.
+
+There was a smell of pitch and bilge in the air mingled with the reek of
+hot oil from the engines. About twelve o'clock an odour of cooking
+arose, and the steward went about the decks drumming upon a snoring gong
+for dinner.
+
+Half an hour later the great whistle roared interminably, drowning out
+the chorus of "good-byes" that rose on all sides. Long before it had
+ceased, the huge bulk had stirred, almost imperceptibly at first, then,
+gathering headway, swung out into the stream and headed for the Golden
+Gate.
+
+Vandover was in the stern upon the hurricane deck, shaking his hat
+toward his father, who had tied his handkerchief to his cane and was
+waving it at him as he stood upon an empty packing-case. As the throng
+of those who were left behind dwindled away, one by one, Vandover could
+see him standing there, almost the last of all, and long after the
+figure itself was lost in the blur of the background he still saw the
+tiny white dot of the handkerchief moving back and forth, as if spelling
+out a signal to him across the water.
+
+The fog drew a little higher as they passed down the bay. To the left
+was the city swarming upon its hills, a dull gray mass, cut in parallel
+furrows by the streets; straggling and uneven where it approached the
+sand-dunes in the direction of the Presidio. To the right the long slope
+of Tamalpais climbed up and was lost in the fog, while directly in front
+of them was the Golden Gate, a bleak prospect of fog-drenched headlands
+on either side of a narrow strip of yellow, frothy water. Beyond that,
+the open Pacific.
+
+A brisk cannonade was going on from the Presidio and from Black Point,
+and both forts were hidden behind a great curtain of tumbling white
+smoke that rolled up to mingle with the fog. Everybody was on that side
+of the deck watching and making guesses as to the reason of it. It was
+perhaps target practice. Ah, it was a good thing that the steamer was
+not in line with the target. Perhaps, though, that was the safest place
+to be. Some one told about a derelict that was anchored as a target off
+the heads, and shot at for fifteen hours without being touched once. Oh,
+they were great gunners at the Presidio! But just the same the sound of
+cannon was a fine thing to hear; it excited one. A noisy party of
+gentlemen already installed in the smoking-room came out on deck for a
+moment with their cards in their hands, and declared laughingly that the
+whole thing was only a salute in the _Santa Rosa's_ honour.
+
+By the middle of the afternoon, Vandover began to see that for him the
+trip was going to be tedious. He knew no one on board and had come away
+so hurriedly that he had neglected to get himself any interesting books.
+He spent an hour or two promenading the upper deck until the cold wind
+that was blowing drove him to the smoking-room, where he tried to
+interest himself in watching some of the whist games that were in
+progress.
+
+It surprised him that he could find occasion to be bored so soon after
+what had happened; but he no longer wished to occupy his mind by
+brooding over anything so disagreeable and wanted some sort of amusement
+to divert and entertain him. Vandover had so accustomed himself to that
+kind of self-indulgence that he could not go long without it. It had
+become a simple necessity for him to be amused, and just now he thought
+himself justified in seeking it in order to forget about Ida's death. He
+had dwelt upon this now for nearly four days, until it had come to be
+some sort of a formless horror that it was necessary to avoid. He could
+get little present enjoyment by looking forward to the new life that he
+was going to begin and in which his father, his art, and Turner Ravis
+were to be the chief influences. The thought of this prospect did give
+him pleasure, but he had for so long a time fed his mind upon the more
+tangible and concrete enjoyments of the hour and minute that it demanded
+them now continually.
+
+He sat for a long time upon the slippery leather cushions of the
+smoking-room trying desperately to become interested in the whist game,
+or gazing awestruck at the man at his elbow who was smoking black
+Perrique in a pipe, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out through his
+nose. After a while he returned to the deck.
+
+There it was cold and wet and a strong wind was blowing from the ocean.
+Four miles to the east an endless procession of brown, bare hills filed
+slowly past under the fog. The sky was a dreary brown and the leagues of
+shifting water a melancholy desert of gray. Besides these there was
+nothing but the bleached hills and the drifting fog; the wind blew
+continually, passing between the immense reaches of sea and sky with
+prolonged sighs of infinite sadness.
+
+Three seagulls followed the vessel, now in a long line, now abreast, and
+now in a triangle. They sailed slowly about, dipping and rising in the
+vast hollows between the waves, turning their heads constantly from side
+to side.
+
+Vandover went to the stern and for a time found amusement in watching
+the indicator of the patent log, and listening for its bell. But his
+interest in this was soon exhausted, and he returned to the smoking-room
+again, reflecting that this was only the first afternoon and that there
+still remained two days that somehow had to be gone through with.
+
+About five o'clock, as he was on his way to get a glass of seltzer, he
+saw Grace Irving, the girl of the red hat whom he had met at the
+Mechanics' Fair, sitting on a camp-stool just inside of her stateroom
+eating a banana. The sight of her startled him out of all composure for
+the minute. His first impulse was to speak to her, but he reflected that
+he was done with all that now and that it was better for him to pass on
+as though he had not seen her, but as he came in front of her she looked
+up quickly and nodded to him very pleasantly in such a way that it was
+evident she had already known he was on board. It was impossible for
+Vandover to ignore her, and though he did not stop, he looked back at
+her and smiled as he took off his hat.
+
+He went down to supper in considerable agitation, marvelling at the
+coincidence that had brought them together again. He wondered, too, how
+she could be so pleasant to him now, for as a matter of course he had
+not kept the engagement he had made with her at the Fair. At the same
+time, he felt that she must think him a great fool not to have stopped
+and spoken to her; either he should have done that or else have ignored
+her little bow entirely. He was firmly resolved to have nothing to do
+with her, yet it chafed him to feel that she thought him diffident. It
+seemed now as though he owed it to himself to speak to her if only for a
+minute and make some sort of an excuse. By the time he had finished his
+supper, he had made up his mind to do this, and then to avoid her for
+the rest of the trip.
+
+As he was leaving the dining saloon he met her coming down the stairs
+alone, dressed very prettily in a checked travelling ulster with a gray
+velvet collar, and a little fore and aft cap to match. He stopped her
+and made his excuses; she did not say much in reply and seemed a little
+offended, so that Vandover could not refrain from adding that he was
+very glad to see her on board.
+
+"Ah, you don't seem as if you were, very," she said, putting out her
+chin at him prettily and passing on. It was an awkward and embarrassing
+little scene and Vandover was glad that it was over. But the thing had
+been done now, he had managed to show the girl that he did not wish to
+keep up the acquaintance begun at the Fair, and from now on she would
+keep out of his way.
+
+He took a few turns on the upper deck, smoking his pipe, walking about
+fast, while his dinner digested. The sun went down behind the black
+horizon in an immense blood-red nebula of mist, the sea turned from gray
+to dull green and then to a lifeless brown, and the _Santa Rosa's_
+lights began to glow at her quarters and at her masthead; in her stern
+the screw drummed and threshed monotonously, a puff of warm air reeking
+with the smell of hot oil came from the engine hatch, and in an instant
+Vandover saw again the curved roof of the immense iron-vaulted depot,
+the passengers on the platform staring curiously at the group around the
+invalid's chair, the repair gang in spotted blue overalls, and the huge
+white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.
+
+The wind freshened and he returned to the smoking-room to get warm. The
+same game of whist was going on, and the man with the Perrique tobacco
+had filled another pipe and continued to blow the smoke through his
+nose.
+
+After a while Vandover went back to the main deck and wandered aft,
+where he stood a long time looking over the stern, interested in
+watching the receding water. It was dark by this time, the wind had
+increased and had blown the fog to landward, and the ocean had changed
+to a deep blue, the blue of the sky at night; here and there a wave
+broke, leaving a line of white on the sea like the trail of a falling
+star across the heavens, while the white haze of the steamer's wake
+wandered vaguely across the intense blue like the milky way across the
+zenith.
+
+Vandover was horribly bored. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to
+amuse him, unless, indeed, he should decide to renew his acquaintance
+with Grace Irving. But this was out of the question now, for he knew
+what it would lead to. Even if he should yield to the temptation, he
+did not see how he could take any great pleasure in that sort of thing
+again, after what had happened.
+
+Of all the consequences of what he had done, the one which had come to
+afflict him the most poignantly was that his enjoyment of life was
+spoiled. At first he had thought that he never could take pleasure in
+anything again so long as he should live, that his good times were gone.
+But as his pliable character rearranged itself to suit the new
+environment, he began to see that there would come a time when he would
+grow accustomed to Ida's death and when his grief would lose its
+sharpness. He had even commenced to look forward to this time and to
+long for it as a sort of respite and relief. He believed at first that
+it would not be for a great many years; but even so soon after the
+suicide as this, he saw with a little thrill of comfort that it would be
+but a matter of months. At the same time Vandover was surprised and even
+troubled at the ease with which he was recovering from the first shock.
+He wondered at himself, because he knew he had been sincere in his talk
+with his father. Vandover was not given to self-analysis, but now for a
+minute he was wondering if this reaction were due to his youth, his good
+health and his good spirits, or whether there was something wrong with
+him. However, he dismissed these thoughts with a shrug of his shoulders
+as though freeing himself from some disagreeable burden. Ah, he was no
+worse than the average; one could get accustomed to almost anything; it
+was only in the books that people had their lives ruined; and to brood
+over such things was unnatural and morbid. Ah! what a dreadful thing to
+become morbid! He could not bring Ida back, or mitigate what he had
+done, or be any more sorry for it by making himself miserable. Well,
+then! Only he would let that sort of thing alone after this, the lesson
+had been too terrible; he would try and enjoy himself again, only it
+should be in other ways.
+
+Later in the evening, about nine o'clock, when nearly all the passengers
+were in bed, and Vandover was leaning over the side of the boat
+finishing his pipe before turning in himself, Grace Irving came out of
+her stateroom and sat down at a little distance from him, looking out
+over the water, humming a little song. She and Vandover were the only
+people to be seen on the deserted promenade.
+
+Vandover saw her without moving, only closing his teeth tighter on his
+pipe. It was evident that Grace expected him to speak to her and had
+given him a chance for an admirable little tête-à-tête. For a moment
+Vandover's heart knocked at his throat; he drew his breath once or twice
+sharply through his nose. In an instant all the old evil instincts were
+back again, urging and clamouring never so strong, never so insistent.
+But Vandover set his face against them, honestly, recalling his
+resolution, telling himself that he was done with that life. As he had
+said, the lesson had been too terrible.
+
+He turned about resolutely, and walked slowly away from her. The girl
+looked after him a moment, surprised, and then called out:
+
+"Oh, Mr. Vandover!"
+
+Vandover paused a moment, looking back.
+
+"Where are you going?" she went on. "Didn't you see me here? Don't you
+want to come and talk to me?"
+
+"No," answered Vandover, smiling good-humouredly, trying to be as polite
+as was possible. "No, I don't." Then he took a sudden resolution, and
+added gravely, "I don't want to have anything to do with you."
+
+In his stateroom, as he sat on the edge of his berth winding his watch
+before going to bed, he thought over what he had said. "That was a mean
+way to talk to a girl," he told himself, "but," he added, "it's the only
+thing to do. I simply couldn't start in again after all that's happened.
+Oh, yes, that was the right thing to do!"
+
+He felt a glow of self-respect for his firmness and his decision, a
+pride in the unexpected strength, the fine moral rigour that he had
+developed at the critical moment. He _could_ turn sharp around when he
+wanted to, after all. Ah, yes, that was the only thing to do if one was
+to begin all over again and live down what had happened. He wished that
+the governor might know how well he had acted.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Nine
+
+
+Vandover stayed for two weeks at Coronado Beach and managed to pass the
+time very pleasantly. He was fortunate enough to find a party at the
+hotel whom he knew very well. In the morning they bathed or sailed on
+the bay, and in the afternoon rode out with a pack of greyhounds and
+coursed jack-rabbits on the lower end of the island. Vandover's good
+spirits began to come back to him, his appetite returned, his nerves
+steadied themselves, he slept eight hours every night. But for all that
+he did not think that things were the same with him. He said to himself
+that he was a changed man; that he was older, more serious.
+
+During this time he received several letters from his father which he
+answered very promptly. In the course of their correspondence it was
+arranged that they should both leave for Europe on the twenty-fifth of
+that month, and that consequently, Vandover should return to the city
+not later than the fifteenth. Vandover was having such a good time,
+however, that he stayed over the regular steamer in order to go upon a
+moonlight picnic down on the beach. The next afternoon he took passage
+for San Francisco on a second-class boat.
+
+This homeward passage turned out to be one long misery for Vandover. He
+had never been upon a second-class boat before and had never imagined
+that anything could be so horribly uncomfortable or disagreeable. The
+_Mazatlan_ was overcrowded, improperly ballasted, and rolled
+continually. The table was bad, the accommodations inadequate, the
+passengers hopelessly uncongenial. Cold and foggy weather accompanied
+the boat continually. The same endless procession of bleached hills
+still filed past under the mist, going now in the opposite direction,
+and the same interminable game of whist was played in the smoking-room,
+only with greasier, second-class cards, amidst the acrid smoke of
+second-class tobacco. At supper, the first day out, a little Jew who sat
+next to Vandover, and who invariably wore a plush skull-cap with
+ear-laps, tried to sell him two flawed and yellow diamonds.
+
+The evening after leaving Port Hartford the _Mazatlan_ ran into dirty
+weather. It was not stormy--simply rough, disagreeable, the wind and sea
+directly ahead. Half an hour after supper Vandover began to be sick. For
+a long time he sat on the slippery leather cushions in the nasty
+smoking-room, sucking limes, drinking seltzer, and trying to be
+interested in the card games. He dozed a little and awoke, feeling
+wretched, covered with a cold sweat, racked by a pain in the back of his
+head, and tortured by an abominable nausea. He groped his way out upon
+the swaying, gusty deck, descended to his cabin, and went to bed.
+
+The _Mazatlan_ had booked more passengers than could be accommodated,
+the steward being obliged to make up beds on the floor of the dining
+saloon and even upon some of the tables. Vandover had not been able to
+get a stateroom, and so had put up with a bunk in the common cabin at
+the stern of the vessel.
+
+About two o'clock in the morning he woke up in this place frightfully
+sick at the stomach and wretched in body and mind. He had an upper bunk,
+and for a long time he lay on his back rolling about with the rolling of
+the steamer, vaguely staring straight above him at the roof of the
+cabin, hardly a hand's-breadth above his face. The roof was iron,
+painted with a white paint very thick and shiny, and was studded with
+innumerable bolt-heads and enormous nuts. By and by, for no particular
+reason, he rose on his elbow and, leaning over the side of his berth,
+looked about him.
+
+The light streaming from two strong-smelling ship's lanterns showed the
+cabin, long and narrow. There were two cramped passageways, on either
+side of which the tiers of bunks, mere open racks filled with bedding,
+rose to the roof, those occupied by women hung with spotted turkey-red
+calico.
+
+The cabin was two decks below the open air and every berth was occupied,
+the only ventilation being through the door. The air was foul with the
+stench of bilge, the reek of the untrimmed lamps, the exhalation of so
+many breaths, and the close, stale smell of warm bedding.
+
+A vague murmur rose in the air, the sound of deep breathing, the moving
+of restless bodies between the coarse sheets, the momentary noise of the
+scratching of blunt finger-tips, a subdued cough, the moan of a sleeping
+child. All the while the shaft of the screw, seemingly close beneath
+the floor, pounded and rumbled without a moment's stop.
+
+Immediately underneath Vandover two men, saloonkeepers, awoke and lit
+their cigars and began a long discussion on the question of license. Two
+or three bunks distant, a woman, a Salvation Army lassie, one of a large
+party of Salvationists who were on board, began to cough violently,
+choking for breath. Across the aisle the little Jew of the plush
+skull-cap with ear-laps snored monotonously in alternate keys, one a
+guttural bass, the other a rasping treble. The _Mazatlan_ was rolling
+worse than ever, now up and down, now from side to side, and now with
+long forward lurches that combined the other two motions. During one of
+these latter the little Jew was half awakened. He stopped snoring,
+leaving an abrupt silence in the air. Then Vandover could hear him
+threshing about uneasily; still half asleep he began to mutter and
+swear: "Dat's it, r-roll; I woult if I were you; r-roll, dat's
+righd--dhere, soh--ah, geep it oop--r-roll, you damnt ole tub, yust
+_r-r-roll_."
+
+The continued pitching, the foul air, and the bitter smoke from the
+saloonkeepers' cigars became more than Vandover could stand. His stomach
+turned, at every instant he gagged and choked. He suddenly made up his
+mind that he could stand it no longer, and determined to go on deck,
+preferring to walk the night out rather than spend it in the cabin. He
+drew on his shoes without lacing them, and dressed himself hurriedly,
+omitting his collar and scarf; he put his hat on his tumbled hair, swung
+into his overcoat, and, wrapping his travelling-rug around him, started
+up toward the deck. On the stairs he was seized with such a nausea that
+he could hardly keep from vomiting where he stood, but he rushed out
+upon the lower deck, gaining the rail with a swimming head.
+
+He sank back upon an iron capstan with a groan, weak and trembling, his
+eyes full of tears, a bursting feeling in his head. He was utterly
+miserable.
+
+It was about half-past two in the morning, and a cold raw wind was
+whistling through the cordage and flinging the steamer's smoke down upon
+the decks and upon the water like a great veil of crêpe. A sickly
+half-light was spread out between the sea and the heavens. By its means
+he could barely distinguish great, livid blotches of fog or cloud
+whirling across the black sky, and the unnumbered multitude of
+white-topped waves rushing past, plunging and rising like a vast herd of
+black horses galloping on with shaking white manes. Low in the northeast
+horizon lay a long pale blur of light against which the bow of the
+steamer, inky black, rose and fell and heaved and sank incessantly. To
+the landward side and very near at hand, so near that he could hear the
+surf at their feet, the long procession of hills continually defiled,
+vague and formless masses between the sea and sky. The wind, the noise
+of the waves rushing past, the roll of the breakers and the groaning of
+the cordage all blended together and filled the air with a prolonged
+minor note, lamentable beyond words. The atmosphere was cold and damp,
+the spray flying like icy bullets. The sombre light that hung over the
+sea reflected itself in long blurred streaks upon the wet decks and
+slippery iron rods. Here and there about the rigging a tremulous ball of
+orange haze showed where the ship's lanterns were swung. Directly under
+him in the stern the screw snarled incessantly in a vortex of boiling
+water that forever swirled away and was lost in the darkness. From time
+to time the indicator of the patent log, just beside him, rang its tiny
+bell.
+
+Vandover drew his rug about him and went up to the main deck, dragging
+his shoelaces after him. The wind was stronger here, but he bent his
+head against it and went on toward the smoking-room, for the idea had
+occurred to him that he could shut himself in there and pass the rest of
+the night upon the cushions; anything was better than returning to the
+cabin downstairs.
+
+The deck was jerked away from beneath his feet, and he was hurled
+forward, many times his own length, against a companionway, breaking his
+thumb as he fell. A second shock threw him down again as he rose;
+everything about him shook and danced like glassware upon a jarred
+table. Then the whole ship rose under his feet as no wave had ever
+lifted it, and fell again, not into yielding water, but upon something
+that drove through its sides as if they had been paper. A deafening,
+crashing noise split the mournful howl of the wind, and far underneath
+him Vandover heard a rapid series of blows, a dreadful rumbling and
+pounding that thrilled and quivered through all the vessel's framework
+up to her very mast-tips. On all fours upon the deck, holding to a cleat
+with one hand, he braced himself, watching and listening, his senses all
+alive, his muscles tense. In the direction of the engine-room he heard
+the furious ringing of a bell. The screw stopped. The _Mazatlan_
+wallowed helplessly in the trough of the sea.
+
+Vandover's very first impulse was a wild desire of saving himself; he
+had not the least thought for any one else. Every soul on board might
+drown, so only he should be saved. It was the primitive animal instinct,
+the blind adherence to the first great law, an impulse that in this
+first moment of excitement could not be resisted. He ran forward and
+snatched a life-preserver from the pile that was stored beneath the
+bridge.
+
+As he was fastening it about him, the passengers began to pour out upon
+the deck, from their staterooms, from the companionways, and from the
+dining saloon. In an instant the deck was crowded. Men and women ran
+about in all directions, pushing and elbowing each other, calling
+shrilly over one another's heads. Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only
+in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again
+and again for a certain "August." She wrung her hands in her excitement;
+at times the man shouted "August!" in a quavering bass voice. "August,
+here we are over _here_!" "Oh, where _is_ Gussie?" wailed the woman.
+"Here, here I am," another voice answered at length; "here I am, I'm all
+right." "Oh," exclaimed the woman with a sob of relief, "here's Gussie;
+now let's all keep together whatever happens."
+
+All about the decks just such scenes were going on; most of the women
+wore only their night-gowns or dressing-gowns, their hair tumbling down
+and blowing about their cheeks, their bare feet slipping and sliding on
+the heaving wet decks. The men were in shirt and drawers, standing in
+the centre of their family groups, silent, excited, very watchful;
+others of them ran about searching for life-preservers, shouting
+hoarsely, talking to themselves, speaking all their thoughts aloud.
+
+But there was no panic; there was excitement, confusion, bewilderment,
+but no excess of fear, no unreasoning terror, deaf, blind, utterly
+reckless.
+
+All at once a man parted the crowd with shoulders and elbows, passing
+along the deck with great strides. It was the captain. The next instant
+Vandover saw him on the bridge, hatless, without his vest or his coat,
+just as he had sprung from his berth. From time to time he shouted his
+orders, leaning over the rail, gesturing with his arm. The crew ran
+about, carrying out his directions, jostling the men out of the way,
+knocking over women and children, speaking to no one, intent only upon
+their work.
+
+In a few moments the deck steward and one of the officers appeared amid
+the crowd of passengers. They were very calm, and at every instant
+shouted, "There is no danger; every one go back to his berth; clear the
+deck, please; no danger, gentlemen; everybody be quiet; go back to your
+berths!" The steward even came up to Vandover and pulled at the straps
+of his life-preserver, exclaiming, "Take this off! There is no danger;
+you're only exciting the other passengers. Come on, take it off and go
+back to your berth."
+
+Vandover obeyed him, slowly loosening the buckles, looking around him,
+bewildered, but still holding the preserver in his hands.
+
+Best of all, however, was the example of a huge old fellow wearing the
+cap and clothes of a boatswain's mate of a United States battleship; he
+seemed to dominate the excited throng in a moment, going about from
+group to group, quieting them all, spreading a feeling of confidence and
+courage throughout the whole ship. He was an inspiration to Vandover,
+who began to be ashamed of having yielded to the first selfish instinct
+of preservation.
+
+Just as the boatswain's mate was offering his flask to the woman whom
+Vandover had heard calling for "August," the _Mazatlan_ lurched heavily
+once or twice, and then slowly listed to the port side, going over
+farther and farther every instant. Vandover heard a renewed rumbling and
+smashing noise far beneath him, and in some way knew that the cargo was
+shifting. Instead of righting herself, the ship began to heave over more
+and more. The whole sea on the port side seemed to rise up to meet the
+rail; under Vandover's feet the incline of the deck grew steeper and
+steeper. All at once his excitement came back upon him with the
+sharpness of a blow, and he caught at the brass grating of a skylight
+exclaiming: "By God! We're going _over_." The women screamed with
+terror; one heard the men shouting, "Look out! hold on! catch hold
+there!" An old man, wearing only a gray flannel shirt, lost his footing;
+he fell, and rolled over and over down the deck stupidly, inertly,
+without making the slightest effort to save himself, without uttering
+the least cry; he brought up suddenly against the rail, with a great
+jar, the shock of his soft, withered body against the hard wood sounding
+like the sodden impact of a bundle of damp clothes. There was a cry;
+they thought him killed--Vandover had seen his head gashed against a
+sharp angle of iron--but he jumped up with sudden agility, clambering up
+the slope of the deck with the strength and rapidity of an acrobat.
+
+There had been a great rush to the other side of the ship, a wild
+scrambling up the steep deck, over skylights and between masts and
+ventilators. People clung to anything, to cleats, to steamer chairs, to
+the brass railings, to the person who stood next to them. They no longer
+listened to the protestations of the brave boatswain's mate; that last
+long roll had terrified them. The sense of a great catastrophe began to
+spread and widen all about like the rising of some fearful invisible
+mist. "_What_ had happened? What was to become of them?"
+
+While Vandover clung to the starboard rail, rolling his eyes wildly,
+trying to control himself again, a young man, a waiter in the dining
+saloon, rushed up to him from out of the crowd, holding out his hand.
+"It's all up!" he shouted.
+
+Vandover grasped his extended palm, shaking hands with him fervently,
+without knowing why. The two looked straight into each other's eyes,
+their hands gripped close; then the waiter turned away, and dropping on
+his knees began to pray silently to himself.
+
+Vandover saw a great many others praying; there was even a large group
+gathered about the band of Salvationists trying to raise a hymn. Every
+now and then their voices could be heard, singing all out of tune, a
+medley of discords.
+
+At one time Vandover caught sight of the little Jew of the plush cap
+with the ear-laps; he was grovelling upon the deck, huddling a small
+black satchel to his breast; without a moment's pause he screamed, "God
+'a' mercy! God 'a' mercy!"
+
+The sight revolted Vandover and in a great measure helped to calm him.
+In a few moments he had himself in hand again, cool and self-collected,
+resolved not to act like a fool before the others, but to help them if
+he could.
+
+Near to him a Salvation Army lassie was down upon her knees trying to
+cord up a huge bundle wrapped in sail-cloth. "Here," exclaimed Vandover
+coming up to her, "let me help. I'll tie this for you--you put _this_
+on." He took the wet, stiff ropes from between her fingers and held the
+life-preserver toward her; but she refused it.
+
+"No," she cried enthusiastically, "I'm going to be saved anyhow; I ain't
+going to drown; Jesus is watching over me. Oh!" she suddenly exclaimed
+with a burst of fervor, "Jesus is going to save me. I _know_ I'm going
+to be saved. I feel it, I feel it _here_," and she struck her palm on
+the breast of the man's red jersey she was wearing.
+
+"Well, I wish _I_ could have such a confidence," answered Vandover,
+sincerely envying the plain little woman under the ugly blue bonnet.
+
+She seemed as if inspired, her face glowing. "Only _believe_; that's
+all," she told him. "It isn't too late for you now. Ah," she went on,
+smiling, "ah, you don't know what it is in a time like this! What a
+comfort! What a support! Oh, _look, look_!" she cried, breaking off and
+starting to her feet. "That man is going to jump!"
+
+It was the boatswain's mate, the hero who had filled all the passengers
+with his own coolness and courage, who had been Vandover's inspiration.
+Some strange reaction seemed to have seized upon him. Of a sudden he
+rushed to the rail, the starboard rail that was heaved so high out of
+the water, stood upon it for a moment, and then with a great shout
+jumped over the side. His folly was as infectious as his courage. Four
+more men followed him, three going over all at the same time, and a
+fourth a little later, hanging an instant upon the outside of the rail,
+then dropping down feet first, disappearing with a great splash that
+made itself heard in the great silence that had suddenly fallen upon the
+throng.
+
+Every one had seen what had happened; a thrill of fear and apprehension
+passed over them all like a cold breath. They were silent, struck dumb,
+feeling the presence of death close by.
+
+Suddenly a long flash of yellow upon the bridge made a momentary streak
+on the darkness, and there was the report of a gun. A minute later it
+was fired again, and alternating with it the _Mazatlan's_ whistle began
+to roar, like a hoarse shout for help. Between these sounds could be
+heard the renewed clamour upon the decks, the shouting, the screaming,
+and the rush of many feet; the little children clung about the knees of
+their mothers, shrieking and wailing monotonously, "Oh, ma_ma_--oh,
+ma_ma_!" rolling their eyes fearfully behind them.
+
+But many of the children, even some of the older passengers, were
+absolutely silent, dazed, stupefied with terror and excitement, their
+eyes vague and distended, looking slowly about them, scarcely daring to
+move a limb.
+
+Meanwhile the _Mazatlan_ was settling forward, and already the spray was
+beginning to fly over the decks. Little by little the terror increased;
+people threw themselves down upon the deck, rising up again, their arms
+raised to heaven, praying aloud, screaming the same things over and over
+again. The Salvationists tried to raise another hymn, but the sound of
+their voices was drowned out by the tumult, the roaring of the whistle,
+the barking of the minute guns, the straining and snapping of the
+cordage, and the sound of waves drawing closer and closer. Prone upon
+the deck, his arms still clasped about his black satchel, the little Jew
+of the plush cap went into some kind of fit, his eyes rolled back, his
+teeth grinding upon each other. Vandover turned from him in disgust.
+Then he looked around and above him, drawing a long breath, saying aloud
+to himself:
+
+"It looks as though it were the end--well!"
+
+All at once Vandover knew that the water had reached the boilers; there
+came a noise of hissing: deafening, stunning; white billows of steam
+poured up over the deck.
+
+It was no longer the _Mazatlan_, no longer a thing of wood and iron, but
+some strange huge living creature that was dying there under his feet,
+some enormous brute that was plunging and writhing in its last agony,
+its belly ripped open by a hidden enemy that struck from beneath, its
+entrails torn out, its life-breath going from it in great gasps of
+steam. Suddenly its bellow collapsed; the great bulk was sinking lower;
+the enemy was in its very vitals. The great hoarse roar dwindled to a
+long death rattle, then to a guttural rasp; all at once it ceased; the
+brute was dead--the _Mazatlan_ was a wreck.
+
+Almost at the moment, he heard an order shouted twice from the bridge,
+where he could see the shadowy figures of the captain and officers
+moving about through the clouds of steam and smoke and mist. Immediately
+there followed the shrill piping of the boatswain's whistle; one of the
+officers, the first engineer, and some half dozen of the crew came
+dashing through the crowd, and there was a great shout of "The boats!
+The boats!"
+
+The crowd broke up, rushing here and there about the ship, reforming
+again in smaller bands by the boats and life-rafts. Vandover followed
+the first engineer, running forward toward one of the boats in the bow.
+
+"Come on!" he shouted to the little Salvationist lassie, pausing a
+moment to help her with her heavy canvas-covered bundle. "Come on!
+they're going to lower the boats."
+
+She started up to follow him and the boom of the foremast, which the
+accident had in some way loosened, swung across the deck at the same
+moment. Vandover was already out of its path but it struck the young
+woman squarely across the back. She dropped in a heap upon the deck,
+then her body slowly straightened out, stiff and rigid, her eyes rapidly
+opened and shut, and a great puff of white froth slowly started from her
+mouth. Vandover ran forward and lifted her up, but her back was broken;
+she was already dead. He rose to his feet exclaiming to himself, "But
+she was so sure--she _knew_ she was going to be saved," then suddenly
+fell silent again, gazing wonderingly at the body, disturbed, very
+thoughtful.
+
+When Vandover finally reached the lifeboat, he found a great crowd
+gathered there; three people were already in the boat itself. The first
+engineer, who commanded that boat, and three of the crew stood by the
+falls preparing to cast off. Just below on the deck of the _Mazatlan_
+stood two sailors keeping the crowd in order, continually shouting,
+"Women and children first!" As the women passed their children forward,
+the sailors lifted them into the boats, some shrieking, others silent
+and stupid as if stunned. Then the women were helped up; the men,
+Vandover among them, climbing in afterward. The davits were turned out
+and the boat was swung clear of the ship's side.
+
+Vandover looked out and below him and then made an involuntary movement
+to regain the ship's deck. Far below him, or so at least it seemed, were
+mountains of tumbling green water, huge, relentless, irresistible,
+rushing on by thousands, to shatter themselves with dreadful force
+against the ship's side. It seemed simple madness to attempt to launch
+the boat; even the sinking wreck would be safer than this chance.
+Vandover was terrified, again deserted by all his calmness and
+self-restraint.
+
+The sailors standing in the bow and the stern let out the ropes little
+by little, the vast black hulk of the ship began to loom up above them
+all, higher and higher, and to their eyes the lifeboat began to grow
+smaller and smaller, more and more frail, more and more pitiful.
+
+All at once it struck the water with a crash, in an instant it was
+tossed up again in the air, heaving on the crest of a wave, was carried
+in and dashed up against the ship, all the oars on that side snapping in
+an instant. It was a fearful moment; the little boat was unmanageable in
+an instant, leaping and plunging among the waves like a terrified horse,
+banged and battered between the heaving water and the hull of the
+steamer itself. Vandover believed that all was over; he partially rose
+from his seat preparing to jump before the boat should swamp.
+
+There was an interval of shouting and confusion, the first engineer and
+the crew leaning over the sides fending off the boat with the stumps of
+the oars and with long boathooks. Some oars were shipped to the other
+side to take the place of the broken ones, and a score of hands tugging
+at them, the boat was at length pulled away out of danger.
+
+The lifeboat had been built to hold thirty-five people; more than forty
+had crowded into it, and it needed all prudence and care to keep it
+afloat in the heavy seas that were running. The sailors and two of the
+passengers were at the oars, while the first engineer took command,
+standing in the stern at the steering-oar. He was dressed in a suit of
+oilskins, a life-preserver strapped under his arms; he wore no hat, and
+at every gust his drenched hair and beard whipped across his face.
+
+Just as the boat was pulling away from the wreck, Vandover and the
+others saw the little Jew of the plush cap with the ear-laps standing
+upon the rail of the steamer, holding to a stanchion. He believed that
+he had been abandoned, and screamed after them, stretching out his
+hands. The engineer turned and saw him, but shook his head. "Give way
+there!" he commanded the men; "there's no more room."
+
+The Jew flung his satchel from him and jumped; for a moment he
+disappeared, then suddenly came up on the crest of a wave, quite close
+to them, gasping and beating his hands, the water running out of his
+mouth, and his plush cap, glossy with wet, all awry and twisted so that
+one ear-lap hung over his eye like a shade. In another moment he had
+grasped one of the oar-blades. Every one was watching and there was a
+cry, "Draw him in!" But the engineer refused.
+
+"It's too late!" he shouted, partly to the Jew and partly to the boat.
+"One more and we are swamped. Let go there!"
+
+"But you can't let him drown," cried Vandover and the others who sat
+near. "Oh, take him in anyhow; we must risk it."
+
+"Risk hell!" thundered the engineer. "Look here, you!" he cried to
+Vandover and the rest. "I'm in command here and am responsible for the
+lives of all of you. It's a matter of his life or ours; one life or
+forty. One more and we are swamped. Let go there!"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried some. "It's too late! there's no more room!"
+
+But others still protested. "It's too horrible; don't let him drown;
+take him in." They threw him their life-preservers and the stumps of the
+broken oars. But the Jew saw nothing, heard nothing, clinging to the
+oar-blade, panting and stupid, his eyes wide and staring.
+
+"Shake him off!" commanded the engineer. The sailor at the oar jerked
+and twisted it, but the Jew still held on, silent and breathing hard.
+Vandover glanced at the fearfully overloaded boat and saw the necessity
+of it and held his peace, watching the thing that was being done. The
+sailor still attempted to tear the oar from the Jew's grip, but the Jew
+held on, panting, almost exhausted; they could hear his breathing in the
+boat. "Oh, don't!" he gasped, rolling his eyes.
+
+"Unship that oar and throw it overboard," shouted the engineer.
+
+"Better not, sir," answered the sailor. "Extra oars all broken." The Jew
+was hindering the progress of the boat and at every moment it threatened
+to turn broad on to the seas.
+
+"God damn you, let go there!" shouted the engineer, himself wrenching
+and twisting at the oar. "Let go or I'll shoot!"
+
+But the Jew, deaf and stupid, drew himself along the oar, hand over
+hand, and in a moment had caught hold of the gunwale of the boat. It
+careened on the instant. There was a great cry. "Push him off! We're
+swamping! Push him off!" And one of the women cried to the mate, "Don't
+let my little girls drown, sir! Push him away! Save my little girls! Let
+him drown!"
+
+It was the animal in them all that had come to the surface in an
+instant, the primal instinct of the brute striving for its life and for
+the life of its young.
+
+The engineer, exasperated, caught up the stump of one of the broken oars
+and beat on the Jew's hands where they were gripped whitely upon the
+boat's rim, shouting, "Let go! let go!" But as soon as the Jew relaxed
+one hand he caught again with the other. He uttered no cry, but his face
+as it came and went over the gunwale of the boat was white and writhing.
+When he was at length beaten from the boat he caught again at the oar;
+it was drawn in, and the engineer clubbed his head and arms and hands
+till the water near by grew red. The little Jew clung to the end of the
+oar like a cat, writhing and grunting, his mouth open, and his eyes
+fixed and staring. When his hands were gone, he tried to embrace the oar
+with his arms. He slid off in the hollow of a wave, his body turned over
+twice, and then he sank, his head thrown back, his eyes still open and
+staring, and a silver chain of bubbles escaping from his mouth.
+
+"Give way, men!" said the engineer.
+
+"Oh, God!" exclaimed Vandover, turning away and vomiting over the side.
+
+A little while later some one on the bow of the boat called to the
+engineer asking why it was they were not heading for the shore. The
+engineer did not answer, but Vandover in some way understood that it was
+too dangerous to attempt to run the breakers in such heavy weather, and
+that they must keep in the open, holding the boat head on to the seas
+until either the wind fell or they were picked up by some other vessel.
+
+It was still very dark, and seen under the night from the little boat,
+the ocean and the sky seemed immense and terrible; the great waves grew
+out of the obscurity ahead of them, rushing down upon the boat, big,
+swelling, silent, their crests occasionally hissing and breaking into
+irruptions of cold white froth. As one of them would draw near, the boat
+would rise upon it as though it would never stop, would hang a moment
+upon its summit and then topple into the black gulf that followed,
+sending the bitter icy spray high into the air. The wind blew steadily.
+Suddenly toward three o'clock it began to rain.
+
+Vandover, the engineer, all the five sailors, and two of the passengers
+were clothed. The rest of the passengers were little better than naked.
+Here and there a man had snatched a blanket from his berth, and one or
+two of them were wearing their trousers, but the rest were clothed for
+the most part only with their shirts and drawers. There were eighteen
+women and five little girls in the boat. The little girls were well
+looked after. Two were wrapped in Vandover's travelling-rug and a couple
+of men had put their coats around the third. But there were not wraps
+enough to go around among the women, by far the larger part of them were
+covered only by their night-dresses or their bed-gowns.
+
+It was abominably cold; the rain fell continually, and the wind blew in
+long gusts, piercing, cutting. Every plunge of the boat threw icy
+bullets of spray into the air, which the wind caught up and flung down
+broad upon the boat. Sometimes even a huge wave would break just upon
+their quarter, and then great torrents of bitter, freezing water would
+fall over them in a deluge, leaving a sediment of salt that cracked the
+skin. The women were huddled upon the bottom of the boat near the waist,
+where they had been placed for greater safety. They were fouled with
+the muddy water that gathered there, their long hair dishevelled,
+dripping with sleet, clinging to their wet cheeks and throats, their
+bodies showing pink with cold, through their thin, soaked coverings,
+their limbs racked with long incessant shudderings, a wretched group,
+miserable beyond words. One of them close by Vandover's feet, he noticed
+particularly, had but a single garment to cover her. She was drenched
+through and through, her bare feet were blue with the cold, her head was
+thrown back, her eyes closed. She was silent except when an unusual gust
+of wind whipped the rain and spray across her body like the long, fine
+lash of a whip. Then with every breath she moaned, drawing in her breath
+between her teeth with a little whistling gasp, too weak, too exhausted,
+too nearly unconscious to attempt to shield herself in any way.
+
+Vandover could do nothing; he had almost stripped himself to help clothe
+the others. Nothing more could be done. The suffering had to go on, and
+he began to wonder how human beings could endure such stress and yet
+live.
+
+But Vandover himself suffered too keenly to take much thought for the
+sufferings of the others, while besides that anguish which he shared
+with the whole boat, the pain in his broken thumb gnawed incessantly
+like a rat. From time to time he stared listlessly about him, looking at
+the dark sky, the tumbling ocean, and the crowded groups in the
+plunging, rolling lifeboat.
+
+There was nothing picturesque about it all, nothing heroic. It was
+unlike any pictures he had seen of lifeboat rescues, unlike anything he
+had ever imagined. It was all sordid, miserable, and the sight of the
+half-clad women, dirty, sodden, unkempt, stirred him rather to disgust
+than to pity.
+
+At last the dawn came and grew white over a world of tumbling green
+billows and scudding wrack. Some three miles distant, seen only when the
+boat topped a higher wave, the same procession of bleached hills moved
+gradually to the south under the fog, their feet covered by the white
+line of the surf. Not far behind in the wake of the boat the stern of
+the _Mazatlan_ rose out of a ring of white foam, the waves breaking over
+her as if she had been there for ages, the screw writhing its flanges
+into the air like some enormous starfish already fastened upon the hulk.
+
+One of the other boats could be seen now and then between them and the
+shore, a momentary dot of black on the vast blur of green and gray.
+
+There was no conversation; the men relieved each other at the oars or
+bailed out the water with their caps and hands, scarcely interchanging a
+word. The only utterance was an occasional moaning from among the women
+and children. There was nothing to eat; long since the two whisky flasks
+had been exhausted. The rain fell steadily into the sea with a prolonged
+rippling noise.
+
+Vandover was leaning upon the gunwale of the boat, his head buried in
+his arms, when suddenly he raised himself and asked of the man who sat
+next to him:
+
+"What was the matter last night? What caused the accident?"
+
+The other shook his head, wearily, turning away again. However, the
+engineer answered:
+
+"We couldn't carry coal enough to keep up the right pressure of steam
+and drifted in upon a reef. I said once before that it would happen some
+time."
+
+About an hour later Vandover dropped off to sleep, in spite of the cold,
+the wet, and the torment in his thumb. He dozed and woke, and dozed
+again all through the morning. About noon he was awakened by a more
+violent rolling of the boat, the sound of voices, and a stir among the
+other passengers.
+
+It was still raining; the boat was no longer cutting the waves with her
+nose, but was being rowed seaward flank on; a sailor stood in the bow
+holding a coil of rope. Close in and seen over the tops of the waves
+were the shaking and slatting sails of a pilot-boat, lying to. One of
+the sails bore an enormous number six.
+
+Vandover slept all that day and the night following, rolled in hot
+blankets. The next morning he awoke with a strange sense of unreality
+and of having dropped a day somewhere. As he lay in his stuffy little
+bunk between decks, and felt the rolling of the pilot-boat under him, he
+still fancied himself upon the _Mazatlan_; he felt the pain in his
+bandaged thumb and wondered how it came there. Then his fall on the deck
+came back to him, the wreck of the steamer, the excitement on board,
+the reports of the rifle fired as a minute gun, the clouds of steam that
+smelt of a great laundry, and the drowning of the little Jew of the
+plush cap with the ear-laps. He shuddered and grew sick again for a
+minute, telling himself that he would never forget that scene.
+
+Such of the passengers as could get about breakfasted as best they could
+in the cabin with the boatkeeper and four of the pilots. Here they were
+informed as to what was to be done with them. The schooner would not go
+in for two weeks, and it was out of the question to keep the castaways
+on board for that length of time. However, at that moment the pilots
+were cruising in the neighbourhood on the lookout for two Cape Horners
+that were expected to be up at any moment. It was decided that when the
+first of these should be met with the party should be transferred.
+
+An hour after they had been picked up, the wind had begun to freshen. By
+noon of the second day it had come on to blow half a gale. One could
+hope only for the best as regarded the rest of the _Mazatlan's_ boats
+and rafts. Not another sign of the wreck was seen by the schooner.
+
+The castaways filled the little schooner to overflowing, hindering her
+management, and getting in the way at every step. The pilot crew hustled
+them about without ceremony, and after dinner one had to intervene to
+prevent a fight between one of them and a sailor from the _Mazatlan_
+over the question of a broken pipe. The women of the _Mazatlan_ kept in
+their berths continually, rolled in hot blankets, dosed with steaming
+whisky punches. In the afternoon, however, Vandover saw two of them in
+the lee of the house attempting to dry their hair; one of them was the
+woman he had particularly noticed in the lifeboat clad in a night-dress,
+and he wondered vaguely where the dress had come from she now was
+wearing.
+
+About three o'clock of the afternoon of the following day Vandover was
+sitting on the deck near the stern, fastening on his shoes with a length
+of tarred rope, the laces which he had left trailing having long before
+broken and pulled out. By that time the wind was blowing squally out of
+the northeast. The schooner was put under try sails, "a three-reefed
+mitten with the thumb brailed up," as he heard the boatkeeper call it.
+This latter was at the wheel for a moment, but in a little while he
+called up a young man dressed in a suit of oilskins and a pea jacket and
+gave him the charge. For a long time Vandover watched the boy turning
+the spokes back and forth, his eyes alternating between the binocle and
+the horizon.
+
+In the evening about half-past ten, the lookout in the crow's nest sang
+out: "Smoke--oh!" sounding upon his fish horn. The boatkeeper ran aft
+and lit a huge calcium flare, holding it so as to illuminate the big
+number on the mainsail. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile off their
+weather-bow, a couple of rockets left a long trail of yellow against the
+night. It was the Cape Horner, and presently Vandover made out her
+lights, two glowing spots moving upon the darkness, like the eyes of
+some nocturnal sea-monster. In a few minutes she showed a blue light on
+the bridge; she wanted a pilot.
+
+The schooner approached and was laid to, and the towering mass of the
+great deep-sea tramp began to be dimly seen through the darkness. There
+was little confusion in making the transfer of the castaways. Most of
+them seemed still benumbed with their recent terrible exposure. They
+docilely allowed themselves to be pushed into the pilot tender and again
+endured the experience of being lowered to the shifting waves below.
+Silently, like frightened sheep, they stood up in turn in the rocking
+tender and allowed the life preserver to be fitted about their shoulders
+to protect them from the bite of the rope's noose beneath their arms.
+There followed a sickening upward whirl between sea and sky, and then
+the comforting grasp of many welcoming hands from the deck above. By
+three o'clock in the morning the transfer had been made.
+
+Vandover boarded the Cape Horner in company with the pilot and the rest
+and reached San Francisco late on the next day, which happened to be a
+Sunday.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Ten
+
+
+About ten o'clock Vandover went ashore in the ship's yawl and landed in
+the city on a literally perfect day in early November. It seemed many
+years since he had been there. The drizzly morning upon which the _Santa
+Rosa_ had cast off was already too long ago to be remembered. The city
+itself as he walked up Market Street toward Kearney seemed to have taken
+on a strange appearance.
+
+It was Sunday, the downtown streets were deserted except for the
+cable-cars and an occasional newsboy. The stores were closed and in
+their vestibules one saw the peddlers who were never there on week-days,
+venders of canes and peddlers of glue with heavy weights attached to
+mended china plates.
+
+Vandover had had no breakfast and was conscious of feeling desperately
+hungry. He determined to breakfast downtown, as he would arrive home too
+late for one meal and too early for the other.
+
+Almost all of his money had been lost with the _Mazatlan_; he found he
+had but a dollar left. He would have preferred breakfasting at the
+Grillroom, but concluded he was too shabby in appearance, and he knew he
+would get more for his money at the Imperial.
+
+It was absolutely quiet in the Imperial at the hour when he arrived. The
+single bartender was reading a paper, and in the passage between the
+private rooms a Chinese with a clean napkin wound around his head was
+polishing the brass and woodwork. In the passage he met Toby, the
+red-eyed waiter, just going off night duty, without his usual apron or
+white coat, dressed very carefully, wearing a brown felt hat.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Vandover?" exclaimed Toby. "Haven't seen you
+round here for some time." Vandover was about to answer when the other
+interrupted:
+
+"Well, what's happened to _you_? Look as though you'd been drawn through
+hell backward and beaten with a cat!"
+
+In fact Vandover's appearance was extraordinary. His hat was torn and
+broken, and his clothes, stained with tar and dirt, shrunken and
+wrinkled by sea-water. His shoes were fastened with bits of tarred rope;
+he was wearing a red flannel shirt with bone buttons which the
+boatkeeper on the pilot boat had given him, tied at the neck with a
+purple handkerchief of pongee silk; his hair was long, and a week's
+growth of beard was upon his lip and cheeks.
+
+"That's a fact," he answered grimly. "I do look queer. I was in a wreck
+down the coast," he added hastily.
+
+"The _Mazatlan!_" exclaimed Toby. "That's a fact; the papers have been
+full of it. That's so, you were one of the survivors."
+
+"The survivors!" echoed Vandover with wondering curiosity. "Tell me--you
+know I haven't heard a word yet--were there many lives lost?" He
+marvelled at the strangeness of the situation, that this bar waiter
+should know more of the wreck than he himself who had been upon it.
+
+"You bet there were!" answered Toby. "Twenty-three altogether; one boat
+capsized; Kelly, 'Bug' Kelly, son of that fellow that runs the Crystal
+Grotto, _he_ was drowned, and one of Hocheimer's--Hocheimer, the
+jeweller, you know--one of his travelling salesmen was drowned; a little
+Jew named Brann, a diamond expert; he jumped overboard and--"
+
+"Don't!" said Vandover with a sharp gesture. "I saw him drown--it was
+sickening."
+
+"Were you in that boat?" exclaimed Toby. "Well, wait till I tell you;
+the authorities here are right after that first engineer with a sharp
+stick, and some of the passengers, too, for not taking him in. A woman
+in one of the other boats saw it all and gave the whole thing away. A
+thing like that is regular murder, you know." Vandover shut his teeth
+against answering, and after a little Toby went on, willing to talk.
+"You know, we've got a new man for the day-work down here now--George
+isn't here any more. No, he's going to start a roadhouse out on the
+almshouse drive in a few months; swell place, you know. I'll have him
+send you cards for the opening."
+
+Vandover ordered oysters, an omelette, and a pint of claret from the new
+waiter who did the day-work, and ate and drank the meal--the like of
+which he had not tasted since leaving Coronado--with delicious
+enjoyment.
+
+He delayed over it long, taking a great pleasure in satisfying the
+demands of the animal in him. The wine made him heavy, warm, stupid; he
+felt calm, soothed, and perfectly contented, and had to struggle
+against a desire to go to sleep where he was. The atmosphere of the
+Imperial was warm and there was a tepid languor in the air as of the
+traces of many past debauches, a stale odour of sweetened whisky and of
+musk. After the roughness and hardships of the last week he felt a
+pleasant sense of quiet, of relaxation, of enervation. He even began to
+wish that Flossie would come in. This, however, made him rouse himself;
+he shook himself, and started home, paying his carfare with his last
+nickel.
+
+He sat on the outside of the car, wondering if any one he knew would see
+him, half hoping that such a thing might happen, realizing the dramatic
+interest that would centre about him now in his present condition as a
+survivor of a wreck. The idea soon attracted him immensely and he began
+to look out for any possible acquaintance as the car began to climb over
+Nob Hill.
+
+At the crossing of Polk Street he saw Ida Wade's mother in deep
+mourning, standing near a grocery store holding a little pink parcel.
+
+It was like a blow between the eyes. Vandover caught his breath and
+started violently, feeling again for an instant the cold grip of the
+hysterical terror that had so nearly overcome him on the morning after
+Ida's death. It slowly relaxed, however, and by the time he had reached
+the house on California Street he was almost himself again.
+
+It was about church time when Vandover arrived at home once more. There
+was a Sunday quiet in the air. The bells were ringing, and here and
+there family groups on their way to church, the children walking in
+front, very sedate in their best clothes, carrying the prayer-books
+carefully, by special privilege.
+
+The butler was working in the garden, as he sometimes did of a Sunday
+morning, pottering about a certain bed of sweet-peas, and it was the
+housekeeper who answered his ring. She recognized him with a prolonged
+exclamation, raising her hands to heaven.
+
+"O-oh, and is it you, Mr. Vandover, sir? Ah, how we've been upset about
+you and all, and it's glad to see you back again your father will be!
+Oh, such times as we had when we heard about the wreck and knowing you
+were on it! Yes, sir, your father's _pretty_ well, though he was main
+poorly yesterday morning. But he's better now. You'll find him in the
+smoking-room now, sir."
+
+Vandover pushed open the door of the smoking-room quietly. His father
+was sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before the fireplace.
+He was dead, and must have died some considerable time before, as he was
+already cold. He could have suffered no pain, hardly a muscle had moved,
+and his attitude was quite natural, the legs crossed, the right hand
+holding the morning's paper. However, as soon as Vandover touched the
+body it collapsed and slid down into a heap in the depth of the chair,
+the jaw dropping open, the head rolling sidewise upon his shoulder.
+
+Vandover ran out into the hall, waving his arms, shouting for the
+servants. "Oh, why didn't you tell me?" he cried to the housekeeper "Why
+did you let me find him so? When did he die?" The housekeeper was
+distraught. She couldn't believe it. Only a little while ago he had
+called her to say there were no more matches in the little brass
+matchsafe. She began to utter long cries and lamentations like a hen in
+distress, raising her hands to heaven. All at once they heard some one
+rushing up the stairs. It was the butler, in his shirt-sleeves and his
+enormous apron of ticking, still carrying his trowel in his hand. He was
+bewildered, his eyes protruding, while all about him he spread the smell
+of fresh earth. At every instant he exclaimed:
+
+"What? What? What's the matter?"
+
+"Oh, my dear old governor--and all alone!" cried Vandover through shut
+teeth.
+
+"Oh, oh, the good God!" exclaimed the housekeeper, crossing herself and
+rolling her eyes. "And him asking for matches in the little brass box
+only a minute since. Oh, the good, kind master!"
+
+Suddenly Vandover rushed down the stairs and through the front hall,
+snatching his hat from the hatrack as he passed. He ran to call the
+family doctor, who lived some two blocks below on the same street. He
+caught him just as he was getting into the carry-all with his family,
+bound for church.
+
+Vandover and the physician rode back together in the carry-all, the two
+gray horses going up the steep hill at a trot. The doctor was dressed
+for church; he wore red gloves with thick white seams, a spray of
+lilies-of-the-valley in his lapel.
+
+"I'm afraid we can do nothing," he said warningly. "It's your father's
+old enemy, I suppose. This was--it was sure to happen sooner or later.
+Any sudden shock, you know."
+
+Vandover scarcely listened, holding the door of the carry-all open with
+one hand, ready to jump out, beating the other hand upon his knee.
+
+"Go back and take the rest of them to church now," said the doctor to
+his coachman when the carry-all stopped in front of Vandover's house.
+
+The whole house was in the greatest agitation all the rest of the day.
+The curtains were drawn, the door bell rang incessantly, strange faces
+passed the windows, and the noise of strange footsteps continually
+mounted and descended the staircase. The hours for meals were all
+deranged, the table stood ready all day long, and one ate when there was
+a chance. The telephone was in constant use, and at every moment
+messenger boys came and went, people spoke in low tones, walking on
+tiptoe; the florist's wagon drove to the door again and again, and the
+house began to smell of tuberoses. Reporters came, waiting patiently for
+interviews, sitting on the leather chairs in the dining-room, or writing
+rapidly on a corner of the dining-table, the cloth pushed back. The
+undertaker's assistants went about in their shirt-sleeves, working very
+hard, and toward the middle of the afternoon the undertaker himself tied
+the crêpe to the bell handle.
+
+Little by little a subdued excitement spread throughout the vicinity.
+The neighbours appeared at their windows, looking down into the street,
+watching everything that went on. It was a veritable event, a matter of
+comment and interest for the whole block. Women found excuses to call on
+each other, talking over what had happened, as they sat near their
+parlour windows, shaking their heads at each other, peering out between
+the lace curtains. The people on the cable-cars and the pedestrians
+looked again and again at the crêpe on the bell handle, and the
+curtained windows, craning their necks backward when they had passed.
+The neighbours' children collected in little groups on the sidewalk near
+the house, looking and pointing, drawn close together, talking in low
+tones. At last even a policeman appeared, walking deliberately, casting
+the shadow of his huge stomach upon the fence that was about the vacant
+lot. He frowned upon the children, ordering them away. But suddenly he
+discovered an acquaintance, the driver of an express-wagon that had just
+driven up with an enormous anchor of violets. He paused, exclaiming:
+
+"Why, hello, Connors!"
+
+"Why, hello, Mister Brodhead!"
+
+Then a long conversation was begun, the policeman standing on the
+curbstone, one foot resting upon the hub of a wheel, the expressman
+leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, twirling his whip between his
+hands. The expressman told some sort of story, pointing with his elbow
+toward the house, but the other was incredulous, gravely shaking his
+head, putting his chin in the air, and closing his eyes.
+
+Inside the house itself there was a hushed and subdued bustling that
+centred about a particular room. The undertaker's assistants and the
+barber called in low voices through the halls for basins of water and
+towels. There was a search for the Old Gentleman's best clothes and his
+clean linen; bureau drawers were opened and shut, closet doors softly
+closed. Relatives and friends called and departed or stayed to help. A
+vague murmur arose, a mingled sound of whispers and light foot-steps,
+the rustle of silks, and the noise of stifled weeping, and then at last
+silence, night, solitude, a single gas-jet burning, and Vandover was
+left alone.
+
+The suddenness of the thing had stunned and dizzied him, and he had gone
+through with all the various affairs of the day wondering at his
+calmness and fortitude. Toward eleven o'clock, however, after the
+suppressed excitement of the last hours, as he was going to bed, the
+sense of his grief and loss came upon him all of a sudden, with their
+real force for the first time, and he threw himself upon the bed face
+downward, weeping and groaning. During the rest of the night pictures of
+his father returned to him as he had seen him upon different occasions,
+particularly three such pictures came and went through his mind.
+
+In one the Old Gentleman stood in that very room, with the decanter in
+his hand, asking him kindly if he felt very bad; in another he was on
+the pier with his handkerchief tied to his cane, waving it after
+Vandover as though spelling out a signal to him across the water. But in
+a third, he was in the smoking-room, fallen into the leather chair, his
+arm resting on the table and his head bowed upon it.
+
+After the funeral, which took place from the house, Vandover drove back
+alone in the hired carriage to his home. He would have paid the driver,
+but the other told him that the undertaker looked out for that. Vandover
+watched him a moment as he started his horses downhill, the brake as it
+scraped against the tire making a noise like the yelping of a dog. Then
+he turned and faced the house. It was near four o'clock in the
+afternoon, and everything about the house was very quiet. All the
+curtains were down except in one of the rooms upstairs. The butler had
+already opened these windows and was airing the room. Vandover could
+hear him moving about, sweeping up, rearranging the furniture, making up
+the bed again. In front of him, between the horse-block and the front
+door, one or two smilax leaves were still fallen, and a tuberose,
+already yellow. Behind him in the street he had already noticed the
+marks of the wheels of the hearse where it had backed up to the curb.
+
+The crêpe was still on the bell handle. Vandover did not know whether it
+had been forgotten, or whether it was proper to leave it there longer.
+At any rate he took it off and carried it into the house with him.
+
+His father's hat, a stiff brown derby hat, flat on the top, hung on the
+hatrack. This had always been a sign to Vandover that his father was at
+home. The sight was so familiar, so natural, that the same idea occurred
+to him now involuntarily, and for an instant it was as though he had
+dreamed of his father's death; he even wondered what was this terrible
+grief that had overwhelmed him, and thought that he must go and tell his
+father about it. He took the hat in his hands, turning it about
+tenderly, catching the faint odour of the Old Gentleman's hair oil that
+hung about it. It all brought back his father to him as no picture ever
+could; he could almost _see_ the kind old face underneath the broad curl
+of the brim. His grief came over him again keener than ever and he put
+his arms clumsily about the old hat, weeping and whispering to himself:
+
+"Oh, my poor, dear old dad--I'm never going to see you again, never,
+never! Oh, my dear, kind old governor!"
+
+He took the hat up to his room with him, putting it carefully away. Then
+he sat down before the window that overlooked the little garden in the
+rear of the house, looking out with eyes that saw nothing.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eleven
+
+
+The following days as they began to pass were miserable. Vandover had
+never known until now how much he loved his father, how large a place he
+had filled in his life. He felt horribly alone now, and a veritable
+feminine weakness overcame him, a crying need to be loved as his father
+had loved him, and also to love some one as he himself had loved his
+father. Worst of all, however, was his loneliness. He could think of no
+one who cared in the least for him; the very thought of Turner Ravis or
+young Haight wrought in him an expression of scorn. He was sure that he
+was nothing to them, though they were the ones whom he considered his
+best friends.
+
+Another cause of misery was the fact that his father's death in leaving
+him alone had also thrown him upon his own resources. Now he would have
+to shoulder responsibilities which hitherto his father had assumed, and
+decide questions which until now his father had answered.
+
+However, he felt that his father's death had sobered him as nothing
+else, not even Ida's suicide, had done. The time was come at length for
+him to take life seriously. He would settle down now to work at his art.
+He would go to Paris as his father had wished, and devote himself
+earnestly to painting. Yes, the time was come for him to steady himself,
+and give over the vicious life into which he had been drifting.
+
+But it was not long before Vandover had become accustomed to his
+father's death, and had again rearranged himself to suit the new
+environment which it had occasioned. He wondered at himself because of
+the quickness with which he had recovered from this grief, just as
+before he had marvelled at the ease with which he had forgotten Ida's
+death. Could it be true, then, that nothing affected him very deeply?
+Was his nature shallow?
+
+However, he was wrong in this respect; his nature was not shallow. It
+had merely become deteriorated.
+
+Two days after his father's death Vandover went into the Old Gentleman's
+room to get a certain high-backed chair which had been moved there from
+his own room during the confusion of the funeral, and which, pending
+the arrival of the trestles, had been used to support the coffin.
+
+As he was carrying it back his eye fell upon a little heap of objects
+carefully set down upon the bureau. They were the contents of the Old
+Gentleman's pockets that the undertaker had removed when the body was
+dressed for burial.
+
+Vandover turned them over, sadly interested in them. There was the
+watch, some old business letters and envelopes covered with memoranda,
+his fountain-pen, a couple of cigars, a bank-book, a small amount of
+change, his pen-knife, and one or two tablets of chewing-gum.
+
+Vandover thrust the pen and the knife into his own pocket. The
+bank-book, letters, and change he laid away in his father's desk, but
+the cigars and the tablets of gum, together with the crumpled
+pocket-handkerchief that he found on another part of the dressing-case,
+he put into the Old Gentleman's hat, which he had hidden on the top
+shelf of his clothes closet. The watch he hung upon a little brass
+thermometer that always stood on his centre table. He even wound up the
+watch with the resolve never to let it run down so long as he should
+live.
+
+The keys, however, disturbed him, and he kept changing them from one
+hand to the other, looking at them very thoughtfully. They suggested to
+him the inquiry as to whether or no his father had made a will, and how
+much money he, Vandover, could now command. One of the keys was a long
+brass key. Vandover knew that this unlocked a little iron box that from
+time out of mind had been screwed upon the lower shelf of the clothes
+closet in his father's room. It was in this box that the Old Gentleman
+kept his ready money and a few important papers.
+
+For a long time Vandover stood undecided, changing the keys about from
+one hand to the other, hesitating before opening this iron box; he could
+not tell why. By and by, however, he went softly into his father's room,
+and into the clothes closet near the head of the bed. Holding the key
+toward the lock, he paused listening; it was impossible to rid his mind
+of the idea that he was doing something criminal. He shook himself,
+smiling at the fancy, assuring himself of the honesty of the thing, yet
+opening the box stealthily, holding the key firmly in order that it
+might not spring back with a loud click, looking over his shoulder the
+while and breathing short through his nose.
+
+The first thing that he saw inside was a loaded revolver, the sudden
+view of which sent a little qualm through the pit of his stomach. He
+took it out gingerly, holding it at arm's length, throwing open the
+cylinder and spilling out the cartridges on the bed, very careful to let
+none of them fall on the floor lest they should explode.
+
+Next he drew out the familiar little canvas sack. In it were
+twenty-dollar gold-pieces, the coin that used to be "Good for the
+Masses." Behind that was about thirty dollars in two rolls, and last of
+all in an old, oblong tin cracker-box a great bundle of papers. A list
+of these papers was pasted on one end of the box. They comprised deeds,
+titles, insurance policies, tax receipts, mortgages, and all the papers
+relating to the property. Besides these there was the will.
+
+He took out this box, laying it on the shelf beside him. He was closing
+the small iron safe again very quietly when all at once, before he could
+think of what he was doing, he ran his hand into the mouth of the canvas
+sack, furtively, slyly, snatched one of the heavy round coins, and
+thrust it into his vest pocket, looking all about him, listening
+intently, saying to himself with a nervous laugh, "Well, isn't it mine
+anyway?"
+
+In spite of himself he could not help feeling a joy in the possession of
+this money as if of some treasure-trove dug up on an abandoned shore. He
+even began to plan vaguely how he should spend it.
+
+However, he could not bring himself to open any of the papers, but sent
+them instead to a lawyer, whom he knew his father had often consulted. A
+few days later he received a typewritten letter asking him to call at
+his earliest convenience.
+
+It was at his residence and not at his office that Vandover saw the
+lawyer, as the latter was not well at the time and kept to his bed.
+However, he was not so sick but that his doctor allowed him to transact
+at least some of his business. Vandover found him in his room, a huge
+apartment, one side entirely taken up by book-shelves filled with works
+of fiction. The walls were covered with rough stone-blue paper, forming
+an admirable background to small plaster casts of Assyrian
+_bas-reliefs_ and large photogravures of Renaissance portraits.
+Underneath an enormous baize-covered table in the centre of the room
+were green cloth bags filled apparently with books, padlocked tin
+chests, and green pasteboard deed-boxes. The lawyer was sitting up in
+bed, wearing his dressing-gown and occasionally drinking hot water from
+a glass. He was a thin, small man, middle-aged, with a very round head
+and a small pointed beard.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Vandover?" he said, very pleasantly as Vandover
+passed by the servant holding open the door and came in.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Field?" answered Vandover, shaking his hand. "Well,
+I'm sorry to see you like this."
+
+"Yes," answered the lawyer, "I'm--I have trouble with my digestion
+sometimes, more annoying than dangerous, I suppose. Take a chair, won't
+you? You can find a place for your hat and coat right on the table
+there. Well," he added, settling back on the pillows and looking at
+Vandover pleasantly, "I think you've grown thinner since the last time I
+saw you, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover grimly, "I guess I have."
+
+"Yes, yes, I suppose so, of course," responded the lawyer with a vague
+air of apology and sympathy. "You have had a trying time of it lately,
+taking it by and large. I was _very_ painfully shocked to hear of your
+father's death. I had met him at lunch hardly a week before; he was a
+far heartier man than I was. Eat? You should have seen--splendid
+appetite. He spoke at length of you, I remember; told me you expected to
+go abroad soon to study painting; in fact, I believe he was to go to
+Paris with you. It was very sad and very sudden. But you know we've all
+been expecting--been fearing--that for some time."
+
+They both were silent for a moment, the lawyer looking absently at the
+foot-board of the bed, nodding his head slowly from time to time,
+repeating, "Yes, sir--yes, sir." Suddenly he exclaimed, "Well--now,
+let's see." He cleared his throat, coming back to himself again, and
+continued in a very businesslike and systematic tone:
+
+"I have looked over your father's papers, Mr. Vandover, as you
+requested me to, and I have taken the liberty of sending for you to let
+you know exactly how you stand."
+
+"That's the idea, sir," said Vandover, very attentive, drawing up his
+chair.
+
+Mr. Field took a great package of oblong papers from the small table
+that stood at the head of his bed, and looked them over, adjusting his
+eyeglasses. "Well, now, suppose we take up the real property first," he
+continued, drawing out three or four of these papers and unfolding them.
+"All of your father's money was invested in what we call 'improved
+realty.'"
+
+He talked for something over an hour, occasionally stopping to answer a
+question of Vandover's, or interrupting himself to ask him if he
+understood. At the end it amounted to this:
+
+The bulk of the estate was residence property in distant quarters of the
+city. Some twenty-six houses, very cheaply built, each, on an average,
+renting for twenty-eight dollars. When all of these were rented, the
+gross monthly income was seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars. At this
+time, however, six were vacant, bringing down the gross receipts per
+month to five hundred and sixty dollars. The expenses, which included
+water, commissions for collecting, repairs, taxes, interest on
+insurance, etc., when expressed in the terms of a monthly average,
+amounted to one hundred and eighty-six dollars.
+
+"Well, now, let's see," said Vandover, figuring on his cuff, "one
+hundred and eighty-six from five hundred and sixty leaves me a net
+monthly income of three hundred and eighty-four--no, seventy-four. Three
+hundred and seventy-four dollars."
+
+The lawyer shook his head while he drank another glass of hot water:
+
+"You see," he said, wiping his moustache in the hollow of his palm, "you
+see, we haven't figured on the mortgages yet."
+
+"Mortgages?" echoed Vandover.
+
+"Yes," answered Mr. Field, "when I spoke of expenses I was basing them
+upon the monthly statements of Adams & Brunt, your father's agents. But
+they never looked after the mortgages. Your father acted directly with
+the banks in that matter. I find that there are mortgages that cover the
+entire property, even the homestead. They are for 6-1/2 and 7 per cent.
+In some cases there are two mortgages on the same piece of property."
+
+"Well," said Vandover.
+
+"Well," answered the lawyer, "the interest on these foots up to about
+two hundred and ninety dollars a month."
+
+Vandover made another hasty calculation on his cuff, and leaned back in
+his chair staring at the lawyer, saying:
+
+"Why, that leaves eighty-four dollars a month, net."
+
+"Yes," assented Field. "I made it that, too."
+
+"Why, the governor used to allow _me_ fifty a month," returned Vandover,
+"just for pocket money."
+
+"I'm afraid you mustn't expect anything like that, now, Mr. Vandover,"
+replied Field, smiling. "You see, when your father was alive and
+pursuing his profession, he made a comfortable income besides that which
+he derived from his realty. His law business I consider to have been
+excellent when you take everything into consideration. He often made
+five hundred dollars a month at it. Such are the figures his papers
+show. He could make you a handsome allowance while he was alive, but all
+that is stopped now!"
+
+"Well, but didn't he--didn't he leave any money, any--any--any lump
+sum?" inquired Vandover incredulously.
+
+"There was his bank account," answered the other. "You see, he invested
+most of his savings in this same realty, and since he stopped building
+he seems to have lived right up to his income."
+
+"But eighty-four dollars!" repeated Vandover; "why, look at the house on
+California Street where we live. It costs that much to run it, the
+servants and all."
+
+"Here's your father's domestic-account book," answered Field, taking it
+up and turning the leaves. "One hundred and seventy-five dollars a month
+were the average running expenses."
+
+_"One hundred and seventy-five!"_ shouted Vandover, feeling suddenly as
+if the ground were opening under him. "Why, great heavens! Mr. Field,
+where am I going to get--what am I going to _do_?"
+
+Mr. Field smiled a little. "Well," he said, "you must make up your mind
+to live more modestly."
+
+"Modestly?" exclaimed Vandover, scornfully.
+
+"You'll have to rent the house and take rooms."
+
+Vandover gave a gasp of relief.
+
+"I hadn't thought of that," he answered, subsiding at once. "How much
+would it bring--the house?"
+
+The lawyer hesitated as to this. "That I could hardly tell you
+definitely," he answered, shaking his head. "Adams & Brunt could give
+you more exact figures. In fact, I would suggest that you put it into
+their hands. California near Franklin, isn't it? Yes; the neighbourhood
+isn't what it used to be, you know. Every one wants to live out on
+Pacific Heights now. Double house? Yes, well--with the furniture, I
+suppose--oh, I don't know--say, a hundred and fifty. But, you know, my
+estimate is only guesswork. Brunt is the man you want to see."
+
+"Well," answered Vandover, solaced, "that makes--two thirty-four; that's
+more like it. But," he added, hastily, "you say the homestead is
+mortgaged as well; how about the interest on that?"
+
+"You needn't be bothered about that," answered Mr. Field. "The interest
+on _that_ mortgage is included in the two hundred and ninety that I
+spoke of, and the insurance interest on the homestead is included in
+Adams & Brunt's statement. That was on the whole estate _with_ the
+homestead, you understand? But there is another thing you must look out
+for. Most of the mortgages are for one year, and every time they are
+renewed there is an expense of between forty and fifty dollars."
+
+"Yes, I see," assented Vandover.
+
+"Now," resumed the lawyer, "here is your father's bank account. He had
+in the First National to his credit between nine and ten thousand
+dollars; nine thousand seven hundred and ninety, to be exact. His
+professional account book shows that there is now due him in bills and
+notes eight hundred and thirty dollars; on the debit side he owes in all
+nine hundred; the difference, you see, is seventy. Nine thousand seven
+hundred and ninety less seventy leaves a balance of nine thousand seven
+hundred and twenty. All clear?" he asked, interrupting himself. Vandover
+nodded and the other continued:
+
+"Now, your father left a will; here it is. I drew it for him a year ago
+last September. He has given fifteen hundred dollars to some cousin in
+the southern part of the state, and six hundred to a few charities here
+in the city. The remainder, seven thousand five hundred and twenty, and
+all the rest of the estate is left to you with the wish that you pursue
+your art studies abroad. Brunt, of Adams & Brunt, and myself are
+appointed executors. So now, that is just how you stand as far as I can
+see: seventy-five hundred dollars in ready money and, if we suppose you
+rent the California Street house, income property that nets you two
+hundred and thirty-four a month. The will will have to be probated some
+time next month and you will have to appear; however, I shall let you
+know about that in time."
+
+During the next two weeks Vandover was plunged into the affairs of
+business for the first time in his life. It interested and amused him,
+and he felt a certain self-importance in handling large sums of money,
+and in figuring interest, rents, and percentages. Three days after his
+interview with Mr. Field the sale of his father's office effects took
+place, and the consequent five hundred dollars Vandover turned over into
+the hands of the lawyer, who was already looking for an investment for
+the eighty-nine hundred. This matter had given Vandover considerable
+anxiety.
+
+"I don't want anything fancy," he said to Field. "No big per cents. and
+bigger risks. If I've got to live economically I want something that's
+secure. A good solid investment, don't you know, with a fair interest;
+that's what I'm looking for."
+
+"Yes," answered the lawyer grimly; "I've been looking for that myself
+ever since I was your age."
+
+They both laughed, and the lawyer added: "Has Brunt found a tenant for
+the California Street house yet? No? Well, perhaps you had better keep
+that five hundred for your running expenses until he does. It will
+probably take some time."
+
+"All right," answered Vandover. "There were a couple of women up to look
+at the place yesterday, but they wanted to use it for a boarding-house.
+I won't hear to that. Brunt says they would ruin it, dead sure."
+
+"I suppose you are looking around, yourself, for rooms?" inquired Mr.
+Field. "Have you found anything to suit you?"
+
+"No," answered Vandover, "I have not. I don't like the idea of living
+in one of the downtown hotels, and as far as I have looked, the uptown
+flats are rather steep. However, I haven't gone around very much as yet.
+I've been so busy. Oh, how about the paving of the street in front of
+those Bush Street houses of mine? Brunt says that the supervisors have
+passed a resolution of intention to that effect. Now shall I let the
+city contractor have the job or give it to Brunt's man?"
+
+"Better let the city people do it," advised Field. "They may charge
+more, but you needn't pay _them_ for a long time."
+
+By the end of three weeks Vandover had sickened of the whole thing. The
+novelty was gone, and business affairs no longer amused him. Besides
+this, he was anxious to settle down in some comfortable rooms. It was
+now the middle of winter and he had determined that it was not the
+season for a European trip. He would wait until the summer before going
+to Paris.
+
+Little by little Vandover turned over the supervision and management of
+his affairs and his property to Adams & Brunt, declaring that he could
+not afford to be bothered with them any longer. This course was much
+more expensive and by no means so satisfactory from a business point of
+view, but Vandover felt as though the loss in money was more than offset
+by his freedom from annoyance and responsibility.
+
+He was eager to get settled. The idea of taking rooms that should be all
+his own and that he could fit up to suit his taste attracted him
+immensely. Already he saw himself installed in charming bachelor's
+apartments, the walls covered with rough stone-blue paper forming an
+admirable background for small plaster casts of Assyrian _bas-reliefs_
+and photogravures of Velasquez portraits. There would be a pipe-rack
+over the mantelpiece, and a window-seat with a corduroy cushion such as
+he had had in his room in Matthew's.
+
+Very slowly his father's affairs were settled, and by degrees the estate
+began to adjust itself to the new grooves in which it was to run. By the
+middle of December everything was beginning to go smoothly, and the day
+before Christmas Mr. Field announced to Vandover that he had invested
+his eighty-nine hundred in registered U.S. 4 per cents. They had had
+several long talks concerning this sum of money, and in the end had
+concluded that it would be better to invest it in some such fashion
+rather than to take up any of the mortgages that were on the houses.
+
+During the first weeks of the new year the house on California Street
+was rented for one hundred and twenty-five dollars to an English
+gentleman, the president of a fruit syndicate in the southern part of
+the state. There were but three in the family, and though the rent was
+below that which Vandover had desired, Brunt advised him to close the
+transaction at once, as they were desirable tenants and would probably
+stay in the house a long time.
+
+On the last evening which he was to spend in his home, Vandover cast up
+his accounts and made out a schedule as to his monthly income.
+
+    Rent from realty, net average                                  $ 84.00
+    Rent from homestead property on California Street               125.00
+    Interest on U.S. bonds, 4 per cent.                              23.00
+                                                                   _______
+        Total                                                      $232.00
+    In small iron safe                                             $170.00
+    Received from sale of office effects                           $500.00
+                                                                   _______
+                                                                   $670.00
+    Expenses, outstanding bills, lawyer's fees, undertaker's
+      bill, expenses for collecting, etc                            587.00
+                                                                   _______
+    Balance, January 16th                                           $83.00
+
+Then with a shrug of the shoulders he dismissed the whole burdensome
+business from his mind. Brunt would manage his property, sending him
+regularly the monthly statement in order to keep him informed. The
+English gentleman of the fruit syndicate would add his hundred and
+twenty-five, and the 4 per cents., faithfully brooding over his
+eighty-nine hundred in the dark of the safety deposit drawer, would
+bring forth their little quota of twenty-three with absolute certainty.
+Two thirty-two a month. Yes, he was comfortably fixed and was free now
+to do exactly as he pleased.
+
+His first object now was to settle down for the winter in some pleasant
+rooms. He had decided that he would look for a suite of three--a
+bedroom, studio, and sitting-room. The bedroom he was not particular
+about, the studio he hoped would have plenty of light from the north,
+but the sitting-room _must_ be sunny and overlook the street, else what
+would be the use of a window-seat? As to the neighbourhood, he thought
+he would prefer Sutter Street anywhere between Leavenworth and Powell.
+
+In the downtown part this street was entirely given over to business
+houses; in the far, uptown quarter it was lined with residences; but
+between these two undesirable extremes was an intermediate district
+where the residences had given place to flats, and the business blocks
+to occasional stores. It was a neighbourhood affected by doctors,
+dentists, and reputable music-teachers; drug stores occupied many of the
+corners, here and there a fine residence still withstood the advance of
+business, there were a number of great apartment houses, and even one or
+two club buildings.
+
+It was a gay locality, not too noisy, not too quiet. The street was one
+of the great arteries of travel between the business and the residence
+portions of the city, and its cable-cars were frequented by ladies going
+to their shopping or downtown marketing or to and from the matinées.
+Acquaintances of Vandover were almost sure to pass at every hour.
+
+He took rooms temporarily at the Palace and at once set about locating
+on Sutter Street. He had recourse again to Brunt, who furnished him with
+a long list of vacancies in that neighbourhood. Apartment-hunting was an
+agreeable pastime to Vandover, though in the end it began to bore him.
+Altogether, he visited some fifteen or twenty suites, in each case
+trying to fit himself into the rooms, imagining how the window-seat
+would look in such a window, how the pipe-rack would show over such a
+mantel, just where on such walls the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ could be
+placed to the best advantage, and if his easel could receive enough
+steady light from such windows. Then he considered the conveniences, the
+baths, the electric light, and the heat.
+
+After a two weeks' search, he had decided upon one of two suites; both
+of these were in the desired neighbourhood but differed widely in other
+respects.
+
+The first was reasonable enough in the matter of rent, and had even been
+occupied by an artist for some three or four years previous. However,
+the room that Vandover proposed to use as a sitting-room was small and
+had no double windows, thus making the window-seat an impossibility.
+There did not seem to be any suitable place for the Assyrian
+_bas-reliefs_, and the mantelpiece was of old-fashioned white marble
+like the mantelpiece in Mrs. Wade's front parlour, a veritable horror.
+It revolted Vandover even to think of putting a pipe-rack over it. These
+defects were offset by the studio, a large and splendid room with
+hardwood floors and an enormous north light, the legendary studio, the
+dream of an artist, precisely such a studio as Vandover had hoped he
+would occupy in the Quarter.
+
+The other suite was in a great apartment house, a hotel in fact, but
+very expensive, with electric bulbs and bells, and with a tiled bathroom
+connecting with the bedroom. The room which he would be obliged to use
+as his studio was small, dark, the light coming from the west. But the
+sitting-room was perfect. It had the sun all day long through a huge bay
+window that seemed to have been made for a window-seat; there were
+admirable, well-lighted spaces on the walls for casts and pictures, and
+the mantelpiece was charming, extremely high, and made of oak; in a
+word, the exact sitting-room that Vandover had in mind. Already he saw
+himself settled there as comfortably and snugly as a kernel in a
+nutshell. It was true that upon investigation he found that the grate
+had been plastered up and the flue arranged for a stove. But for that
+matter there were open-grate stoves to be had that would permit the fire
+to be seen and that would look just as cheerful as a grate. He had even
+seen such a stove in the window of a hardware store downtown, a tiled
+stove with a brass fender and with curious flamboyant ornaments of
+cast-iron--a jewel of a stove.
+
+For two days Vandover hesitated between these two suites, undecided
+whether he should sacrifice his studio for his sitting-room, or his
+sitting-room for his studio. At length he came to the conclusion that as
+he was now to be an artist a good studio ought to be the first
+consideration, and that since he was to settle down to hard, serious
+work at last he owed it to himself to have a fitting place in which to
+paint; yes, decidedly he would take the suite with the studio. He went
+to the agent, told him of his decision, and put up a deposit to secure
+the rooms.
+
+The same day upon which he took this decided step he had occasion to
+pass by both places in question. As he approached the apartment house
+in which the rejected suite was situated it occurred to him to tell the
+clerk in the office that he had decided against the rooms; he could take
+a last look at them at the same time.
+
+He was shown up to the rooms again, and walked about in the
+sitting-room, asking the same questions about the heat, the plumbing,
+and the baths. He even went to the window and looked out into the
+street. It _was_ a first-rate berth just the same, and how jolly it
+would be to lounge in the window-seat of a morning, with a paper, a
+cigarette, and a cup of coffee, watching the people on their way
+downtown; the women going to their shopping and morning's marketing.
+Then all at once he remembered that at most he would only have these
+rooms for five months, and reflected that if his whole life was to be
+devoted to painting he might easily put up with an inconvenient studio
+for a few months. Once at Paris all would be different.
+
+At that the rooms took on a more charming aspect than ever; never had
+they appeared cheerier, sunnier, more comfortable; never had the oak
+mantel and the tiled stove with the flamboyant ornaments been more
+desirable; never had a window-seat seemed more luxurious, never a
+pipe-rack more delectable, while at the same time, the other rooms, the
+rooms of the big studio, presented themselves to his imagination more
+sombre, uncomfortable, and forbidding than ever. It was out of the
+question to think of living there; he was angry with himself for having
+hesitated so long. But suddenly he remembered the deposit he had already
+made; it was ten dollars; for a moment he paused, then dismissed the
+matter with an impatient shrug of the shoulders. "So much the worse," he
+said. "What's ten dollars?" He made up his mind then and there and went
+downstairs, walking on his heels, to tell the clerk that after all he
+would engage the rooms from that date.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twelve
+
+
+Vandover took formal possession of his rooms on Sutter Street during the
+first few days of February. For a week previous they had been in the
+greatest confusion: the studio filled with a great number of trunks,
+crates, packing cases, and furniture still in its sacking. In the
+bedroom was stored the furniture that had been moved out of the
+sitting-room, while the sitting-room itself was given over to the
+paperhangers and carpenters. Vandover himself appeared from time to
+time, inquiring anxiously as to the arrival of his "stuff," or sitting
+on a packing-case, his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back, and a
+cigarette between his lips.
+
+He had passed a delightful week selecting the wall paper and the pattern
+for the frieze, buying rugs, screens, Assyrian _bas-reliefs_,
+photogravures of Renaissance portraits, and the famous tiled stove with
+its flamboyant ornaments. Just after renting his home he had had a talk
+with the English gentleman of the fruit syndicate and had spoken about
+certain ornaments and bits of furniture, valuable chiefly to himself,
+which he wished to keep. The president of the fruit syndicate had been
+very gracious in the matter, and as soon as Vandover had taken his rooms
+he had removed two great cases of such articles from the California
+Street house and had stored them in the studio.
+
+After the workmen were gone away Vandover began the labour of
+arrangement, aided by one of the paperhangers he had retained for that
+purpose. It was a work of three days, but at last everything was in its
+place, and one evening toward the middle of the month Vandover stood in
+the middle of the sitting-room in his shirt-sleeves, holding the
+tweezers and a length of picture-wire in his hand, and looked around him
+in his new home.
+
+The walls were hung with dull blue paper of a very rough texture set off
+by a narrow picture moulding of ivory white. A dark red carpet covered
+with rugs and skins lay on the floor. Upon the left-hand wall, reaching
+to the floor, hung a huge rug of sombre colours against which were fixed
+a fencing trophy, a pair of antlers, a little water colour sketch of a
+Norwegian fjord, and Vandover's banjo; underneath it was a low but very
+broad divan covered with corduroy. To the right and left of this divan
+stood breast-high bookcases with olive green curtains, their tops
+serving as shelves for a multitude of small ornaments, casts of animals
+by Fremiet and Barye, Donatello's lovely _femme inconnue_, beer steins,
+a little bronze clock, a calendar, and a yellow satin slipper of
+Flossie's in which Vandover kept Turkish cigarettes. The writing-desk
+with the huge blue blotter in a silver frame, the paper-cutter, and the
+enormous brass inkstand filled the corner to the right of the divan,
+while drawn up to it was the huge leather chair, the chair in which the
+Old Gentleman had died. In the drawer of the desk Vandover kept his
+father's revolver; he never thought of loading it; of late he had only
+used it to drive tacks with, when he could not find the hammer. Opposite
+the divan, on the other side of the room, was the famous tiled stove
+with the flamboyant ornaments; back of this the mantel, and over the
+mantel a row of twelve grotesque heads in plaster, with a space between
+each for a pipe. To the left in the angle of the room stood the Japanese
+screen in black and gold, and close to this a tea-table of bamboo and a
+piano-lamp with a great shade of crinkly red paper that Turner Ravis had
+given to Vandover one Christmas. The bay window was filled by the
+window-seat, covered with corduroy like the divan and heaped with
+cushions, one of them of flaming yellow, the one spot of vivid colour
+amidst the dull browns and sombre blues of the room. A great sideboard
+with decanters and glasses and chafing-dishes faced the window from the
+end wall. The entrance to the studio opened to the left of it, which
+entrance Vandover had hung with curtains of dust-brown plush.
+
+The casts of the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ were against the wall upon
+either side of the window. There were three of them, two representing
+scenes from the life of the king, the third the wounded lioness which
+Vandover never wearied of admiring.
+
+Upon the wall over the mantel hung two very large photogravures, one of
+Rembrandt's "Night Watch," the other a portrait of Velasquez
+representing a young man with a hunting spear. Above one of the
+bookcases was an admirable reproduction of the "Mona Lisa"; above the
+other, a carbon print of a Vandyke, a Dutch lady in a silk gown and very
+high ruff.
+
+By the side of the "Mona Lisa," however, was a cheap brass rack stuffed
+with photographs: actresses in tights, French quadrille dancers, high
+kickers, and chorus girls.
+
+In the studio, Vandover had tacked great squares and stripes of
+turkey-red cloth against the walls to serve as a background for his
+sketches. Some dozen or more portfolios and stretchers were leaned
+against the baseboard, and a few ornaments and pieces of furniture, such
+things as Vandover set but little store by, were carelessly arranged
+about the room. The throne and huge easel were disposed so as to receive
+as much light as was possible.
+
+Beyond the studio was the bedroom, but here there was only the
+regulation furniture. Some scores of photographs of Vandover's friends
+were tacked upon the walls, or thrust between the wood and glass of the
+mirror.
+
+A new life now began for Vandover, a life of luxury and aimlessness
+which he found charming. He had no duties, no cares, no
+responsibilities. But there could be no doubt that he was in a manner
+changed; the old life of dissipation seemed to have lost its charm. For
+nearly twenty-six years nothing extraordinary had happened to break in
+upon the uneventful and ordinary course of his existence, and then,
+suddenly, three great catastrophes had befallen, like the springing of
+three successive mines beneath his feet: Ida's suicide, the wreck, and
+his father's death, all within a month. The whole fabric of his
+character had been shaken, jostled out of its old shape. His desire of
+vice was numbed, his evil habits all deranged; here, if ever, was the
+chance to begin anew, to commence all over again. It seemed an easy
+matter: he would merely have to remain inactive, impassive, and his
+character would of itself re-form upon the new conditions.
+
+But Vandover made another fatal mistake: the brute in him had only been
+stunned; the snake was only soothed. His better self was as sluggish as
+the brute, and his desire of art as numb as his desire of vice. It was
+not a continued state of inaction and idleness that could help him, but
+rather an active and energetic arousing and spurring up of those better
+qualities in him still dormant and inert. The fabric of his nature was
+shaken and broken up, it was true, but if he left it to itself there was
+danger that it would re-form upon the old lines.
+
+And this was precisely what Vandover did. As rapidly as ever his pliable
+character adapted itself to the new environment; he had nothing to do;
+there was lacking both the desire and necessity to keep him at his
+easel; he neglected his painting utterly. He never thought of attending
+the life-class at the art school; long since he had given up his
+downtown studio. He was content to be idle, listless, apathetic, letting
+the days bring whatever they chose, making no effort toward any fixed
+routine, allowing his habits to be formed by the exigencies of the hour.
+
+He rose late and took his breakfast in his room; after breakfast he sat
+in his window-seat, reading his paper, smoking his pipe, drinking his
+coffee, and watching the women on their way downtown to their morning's
+shopping or marketing. Then, as the fancy moved him, he read a novel,
+wrote a few letters, or passed an hour in the studio dabbling with some
+sketches for the "Last Enemy." Very often he put in the whole morning
+doing pen and inks of pretty, smartly dressed girls, after Gibson's
+manner, which he gave away afterward to his friends. In the afternoon he
+read or picked the banjo or, sitting down to the little piano he had
+rented, played over his three pieces, the two polkas and the air of the
+topical song. At three o'clock, especially of Wednesday and Saturday
+afternoons, he bestirred himself, dressed very carefully, and went
+downtown to promenade Kearney and Market streets, stopping occasionally
+at the Imperial, where he sometimes found Ellis and Geary and where he
+took cocktails in their company.
+
+He rarely went out in the evenings; his father's death had changed all
+that, at least for a while. He had not seen Turner Ravis nor Henrietta
+Vance for nearly two months.
+
+Vandover took his greatest pleasure while in his new quarters, delighted
+to be pottering about his sitting-room by the hour, setting it to
+rights, rearranging the smaller ornaments, adjusting the calendar,
+winding the clock and, above all, tending the famous tiled stove.
+
+In his idleness he grew to have small and petty ways. The entire day
+went in doing little things. He passed one whole afternoon delightfully,
+whittling out a new banjo bridge from the cover of a cigar-box, scraping
+it smooth afterward with a bit of glass. The winding of his clock was
+quite an occurrence in the course of the day, something to be looked
+forward to. The mixing of his tobacco was a positive event and
+undertaken with all gravity, while the task of keeping it moist and ripe
+in the blue china jar, with the sponge attachment, that always stood on
+the bamboo tea-table by the Japanese screen, was a wearing anxiety that
+was yet a pleasure.
+
+It became a fad with him to do without matches, using as a substitute
+"lights," tapers of twisted paper to be ignited at the famous stove. He
+found amusement for two days in twisting and rolling these "lights,"
+cutting frills in the larger ends with a pair of scissors, and stacking
+them afterward in a Chinese flower jar he had bought for the purpose and
+stood on top of the bookcases. The lights were admirably made and looked
+very pretty. When he had done he counted them. He had made two hundred
+exactly. What a coincidence!
+
+But the stove, the famous tiled stove with flamboyant ornaments, was the
+chiefest joy of Vandover's new life. He was delighted with it; it was so
+artistic, so curious, it kept the fire so well, it looked so cheerful
+and inviting; a stove that was the life and soul of the whole room, a
+stove to draw up to and talk to; no, never was there such a stove! There
+was hardly a minute of the day he was not fussing with it, raking it
+down, turning the damper off and on, opening and shutting the door,
+filling it with coal, putting the blower on and then taking it off
+again, sweeping away the ashes with a little brass-handled broom, or
+studying the pictures upon the tiles: the "Punishment of Caliban and His
+Associates," "Romeo and Juliet," the "Fall of Phaeton." He even
+pretended to the chambermaid that he alone understood how to manage the
+stove, forbidding her to touch it, assuring her that it had to be coaxed
+and humoured. Often late in the evening as he was going to bed he would
+find the fire in it drowsing; then he would hustle it sharply to arouse
+it, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying: "Wake up there,
+you!" And then when the fire was snapping he would sit before it in his
+bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously and scratching himself, as was
+his custom, for over an hour.
+
+But very often in the evening he would have the boys, Ellis, Geary, and
+young Haight, up to a little improvised supper. They would bring home
+_tamales_ with them, and Vandover would try to make Welsh rabbits, which
+did not always come out well and which they oftentimes drank instead of
+ate. Ellis, always very silent, would mix and drink cocktails
+continually. Vandover would pick his banjo, and together with young
+Haight would listen to Geary.
+
+"Ah, you bet," this one would say, "I'm going to make my pile in this
+town. I can do it. Beale sent me to court the other morning to get the
+judge's signature. He had a grouch on, and wanted to put me off. You
+ought to have heard me jolly him. I talked right up to him! Yes, sir;
+you bet! Didn't I have the gall? That's the way you want to do to get
+along--get right in and not be afraid. I got his signature, you bet. Ah,
+I'm right in it with Beale; he thinks I'm hot stuff."
+
+Now that there was nothing to worry him, and little to occupy his mind,
+Vandover gave himself over considerably to those animal pleasures which
+he enjoyed so much. He lay abed late in the morning, dozing between the
+warm sheets; he overfed himself at table, and drank too much wine; he
+ate between meals, having filled his sideboard with canned patés, potted
+birds, and devilled meats; while upon the bamboo table stood a tin box
+of chocolates out of which he ate whole handfuls at a time. He would
+take this box into the bathroom with him and eat while he lay in the hot
+water until he was overcome by the enervating warmth and by the steam
+and would then drop off to sleep.
+
+It was during these days that Vandover took up his banjo-playing
+seriously, if it could be said that he did anything seriously at this
+time. He took occasional lessons of a Mexican in a room above a
+wigmaker's store on Market Street, and learned to play by note. For a
+little time he really applied himself; after he had mastered the
+customary style of play he began to affect the more brilliant and fancy
+performances, playing two banjos at once, or putting nickels under the
+bridge and picking the strings with a calling-card to imitate a
+mandolin. He even made up some comical pieces that had a great success
+among the boys. One of these he called the "Pleasing Pan-Hellenic
+Production"; another was the imitation of the "Midway Plaisance Music,"
+and a third had for title "A Sailor Robbing a Ship," in which he managed
+to imitate the sounds of the lapping of the water, the creaking of the
+oarlocks, the tramp of the sailor's feet upon the deck, the pistol shot
+that destroyed him, and--by running up the frets on the bass-string--his
+dying groans, a finale that never failed to produce a tremendous effect.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Thirteen
+
+
+Just before Lent, and about three months after the death of Vandover's
+father, Henrietta Vance gave a reception and dance at her house. The
+affair was one of a series that the girls of the Cotillon had been
+giving to the men of the same club. Vandover had gone to all but the
+last, which had occurred while he was at Coronado. He was sure of
+meeting Geary, young Haight, Turner Ravis, and all the people of his set
+at these functions, and had always managed to have a very jolly time. He
+had been very quiet since his father's death and had hardly gone out at
+all; in fact, since Ida Wade's death and his trip down the coast he had
+seen none of his acquaintances except the boys. But he determined now
+that he would go to this dance and in so doing return once more to the
+world that he knew. By this time he had become pretty well accustomed to
+his father's death and saw no reason why he should not have a good time.
+
+At first he thought he would ask Turner to go with him, but in the end
+made up his mind to go alone, instead; one always had a better time when
+one went alone. Young Haight would have liked to have asked Turner, but
+did not because he supposed, of course, that Vandover would take her. In
+the end Turner had Delphine act as her escort.
+
+Vandover arrived at Henrietta Vance's house at about half-past eight. A
+couple of workmen were stretching the last guy ropes of the awning that
+reached over the sidewalk; every window of the house was lighted. The
+front door was opened for the guest before he could ring, and he passed
+up the stairs, catching a glimpse of the parlours through the portières
+of the doors. As yet they were empty of guests, the floors were covered
+with canvas, and the walls decorated with fern leaves. In a window
+recess one of the caterer's men was setting out two punch bowls and a
+multitude of glass cups; three or four musicians were gathered about the
+piano, tuning up, and one heard the subdued note of a cornet; the air
+was heavy with the smell of pinks and of La France roses.
+
+At the turn of the stairs the Vances' second girl in a white lawn cap
+directed him to the gentlemen's dressing-room, which was the room of
+Henrietta Vance's older brother. About a dozen men were here before him,
+some rolling up their overcoats into balls and stowing them with their
+canes in the corners of the room; others laughing and smoking together,
+and still others who were either brushing their hair before the mirrors
+or sitting on the bed in their stocking feet, breathing upon their
+patent leathers, warming them before putting them on. There were one or
+two who knew no one and who stood about unhappily, twisting the tissue
+paper from the buttons of their new gloves, and looking stupidly at the
+pictures on the walls of the room. Occasionally one of the gentlemen
+would step to the door and look out into the hall to see if the ladies
+whom they were escorting were yet come out of their dressing-room, ready
+to go down.
+
+On the centre table stood three boxes of cigars and a great many
+packages of cigarettes, while extra hairbrushes, whiskbrooms, and papers
+of pins had been placed about the bureau.
+
+As Vandover came in, he nodded pleasantly to such of the men as he knew,
+and, after hiding his hat and coat under the bed, shook himself into his
+clothes again and rearranged his dress tie.
+
+The house was filling up rapidly; one heard the deadened roll of wheels
+in the street outside, the banging of carriage doors, and an incessant
+rustle of stiff skirts ascending the stairs. From the ladies'
+dressing-room came an increasing soprano chatter, while downstairs the
+orchestra around the piano in the back parlour began to snarl and whine
+louder and louder. About the halls and stairs one caught brief glimpses
+of white and blue opera cloaks edged with swan's-down alternating with
+the gleam of a starched shirt bosom and the glint of a highly polished
+silk hat. Odours of sachet and violets came and went elusively or
+mingled with those of the roses and pinks. An air of gayety and
+excitement began to spread throughout the house.
+
+"Hello, old man!" "Hello, Van!" Charlie Geary, young Haight, and Ellis
+came in together. "Hello, boys!" answered Vandover, hairbrush in hand,
+turning about from the mirror, where he had been trying to make his hair
+lie very flat and smooth.
+
+"Look here," said Geary, showing him a dance-card already full, "I've
+got every dance promised. I looked out for that at the last one of these
+affairs; made all my arrangements and engagements then. Ah, you bet, I
+don't get left on any dance. That's the way you want to rustle. Ah," he
+went on, "had a bully sleep last night. I knew I was going to be out
+late to-night, so I went to bed at nine; didn't wake up till seven. Had
+a fine cutlet for breakfast."
+
+It was precisely at this moment that Geary got his first advancement in
+life. Mr. Beale, Jr., head clerk in the great firm of Beale & Story,
+came up to him as he was drawing off his overcoat:
+
+"How is Fischer?" asked Geary.
+
+Beale, Jr., pulled him over into a corner, talking in a low voice. "He's
+even worse than yesterday," he answered. "I think we shall have to give
+him a vacation, and that's what I want to speak to you about. If you
+can, Geary, I should like to have you take his place for a while, at
+least until we get through with this contract case. I don't know about
+Fischer. He's sick so often, I'm afraid we may have to let him go
+altogether."
+
+Suddenly the orchestra downstairs broke out into a clash of harmony and
+then swung off with the beat and cadence of a waltz. The dance was
+beginning; a great bustle and hurrying commenced about the
+dressing-rooms and at the head of the stairs; everybody went down. In
+the front parlour by the mantel Henrietta Vance and Turner stood on
+either side of Mrs. Vance, receiving, shaking hands, and laughing and
+talking with the different guests who came up singly, in couples, or in
+noisy groups.
+
+No one was dancing yet. The orchestra stopped with a flourish of the
+cornet, and at once a great crowding and pushing began amidst a vast hum
+of talk. The cards were being filled up, a swarm of men gathered about
+each of the more popular girls, passing her card from hand to hand while
+she smiled upon them all helplessly and good-naturedly. The dance-cards
+had run short and some of the men were obliged to use their visiting
+cards; with these in one hand and the stump of a pencil in the other,
+they ran about from group to group, pushing, elbowing, and calling over
+one another's heads like brokers in a stock exchange.
+
+Geary, however, walked about calmly, smiling contentedly, very
+good-humoured. From time to time he stopped such a one of the hurrying,
+excited men as he knew and showed him his card made out weeks before,
+saying, "Ah, how's that? _I_ am all fixed; made all my engagements at
+the last one of these affairs, even up to six extras. That's the way you
+want to rustle."
+
+Young Haight was very popular; everywhere the girls nodded and smiled at
+him, many even saving a place on their cards for him before he had
+asked.
+
+Ellis took advantage of the confusion to disappear. He went up into the
+deserted dressing-room, chose a cigar, unbuttoned his vest and sat down
+in one chair, putting his feet upon another. The hum of the dance came
+to him in a prolonged and soothing murmur and he enjoyed it in some
+strange way of his own, listening and smoking, stretched out at ease in
+the deserted dressing-room.
+
+Vandover went up to Turner Ravis smiling and holding out his hand. She
+seemed to be curiously embarrassed when she saw him, and did not smile
+back at him. He asked to see her card, but she drew her hand quickly
+from his, telling him that she was going home early and was not dancing
+at all, that in fact she had to "receive" instead of dance. It was
+evident to Vandover that he had done something to displease her, and he
+quickly concluded that it was because he had not asked her to go with
+him that evening.
+
+He turned from her to Henrietta Vance as though nothing unusual had
+happened, resolving to see her later in the evening and in the meanwhile
+invent some suitable excuse. Henrietta Vance did not even see his hand;
+she was a very jolly girl, ordinarily, and laughed all the time. Now she
+looked him squarely in the face without so much as a smile, at once
+angry and surprised; never had anything seemed so hateful and
+disagreeable. Vandover put his hand back into his pocket, trying to
+carry it all off with a laugh, saying in order to make her laugh with
+him as he used to do, "Hello! how do you do this evening? It's a
+pleasant morning this afternoon." "How do you do?" she answered
+nervously, refusing to laugh. Then she turned from him abruptly to talk
+to young Haight's little cousin Hetty.
+
+Mrs. Vance was neither embarrassed nor nervous as the girls had been.
+She stared calmly at Vandover and said with a peculiar smile, "I am
+surprised to see you here, Mr. Vandover."
+
+An hour later the dance was in full swing. Almost every number was a
+waltz or a two-step, the music being the topical songs and popular airs
+of the day set to dance music.
+
+About half-past ten o'clock, between two dances, the cornet sounded a
+trumpet call; the conversation ceased in a moment, and Henrietta Vance's
+brother, standing by the piano, called out, "The next dance will be the
+_first extra_," adding immediately, "a _waltz_." The dance recommenced;
+in the pauses of the music one heard the rhythmic movement of the feet
+shuffling regularly in one-two-three time.
+
+Some of the couples waltzed fast, whirling about the rooms, bearing
+around corners with a swirl and swing of silk skirts, the girls' faces
+flushed and perspiring, their eyes half-closed, their bare, white
+throats warm, moist, and alternately swelling and contracting with their
+quick breathing. On certain of these girls the dancing produced a
+peculiar effect. The continued motion, the whirl of the lights, the heat
+of the room, the heavy perfume of the flowers, the cadence of the music,
+even the physical fatigue, reacted in some strange way upon their
+oversensitive feminine nerves, the monotony of repeated sensation
+producing some sort of mildly hypnotic effect, a morbid hysterical
+pleasure the more exquisite because mixed with pain. These were the
+girls whom one heard declaring that they could dance all night, the
+girls who could dance until they dropped.
+
+Other of the couples danced with the greatest languor and gravity, their
+arms held out rigid and at right angles with their bodies.
+
+About the doors and hallways stood the unhappy gentlemen who knew no
+one, watching the others dance, feigning to be amused. Some of them,
+however, had ascended to the dressing-room and began to strike up an
+acquaintance with each other and with Ellis, smoking incessantly,
+discussing business, politics, and even religion.
+
+In the ladies' dressing-room two of the maids were holding a long
+conversation in low tones, their heads together; evidently it was
+concerning something dreadful. They continually exclaimed "Oh!" and
+"Ah!" suddenly sitting back from each other, shaking their heads, and
+biting their nether lips. On the top floor in the hall the servants in
+their best clothes leaned over the balustrade, nudging each other,
+talking in hoarse whispers or pointing with thick fingers swollen with
+dish-water. All up and down the stairs were the couples who were sitting
+out the dance, some of them even upon the circular sofa in the hall over
+the first landing.
+
+The music stopped, leaving a babel of talk in the air, the couples fell
+apart for an instant, but a great clapping of hands broke out and the
+tired musicians heroically recommenced.
+
+As soon as the short _encore_ was done there was a rush for the lemonade
+and punch bowls. The guests thronged around them joking each other.
+"Hello! are you here _again_?" "Oh, this is dreadful!" "This makes _six_
+times I've seen you here."
+
+A smell of coffee rose into the air from the basement. It was about
+half-past eleven; the next dance was the supper dance and the gentlemen
+hurried about anxiously searching the stairs, the parlours, and the
+conservatory for the girls who had promised them this dance weeks
+before. The musicians were playing a march, and the couples crowded down
+the narrow stairs in single file, the ladies drawing off their gloves.
+The tired musicians stretched themselves, rubbed their eyes, and began
+to talk aloud in the deserted parlours.
+
+Supper was served in the huge billiard-room in the basement and was
+eaten in a storm of gayety. The same parties and "sets" tried to get
+together at the same table; Henrietta Vance's party was particularly
+noisy: at her table there was an incessant clamour of screams and shouts
+of laughter. One ate oysters _à la poulette_, terrapin-salads, and
+croquettes; the wines were Sauternes and champagnes. With the nuts and
+dessert the caps came on, and in a few minutes were cracking and
+snapping all over the room.
+
+Six of the unfortunates who knew no one, but who had managed through a
+common affliction to become acquainted with each other, gathered at a
+separate table. Ellis was one of their number; he levied a twenty-five
+assessment, and tipped the waiter a dollar and a half. This one
+accordingly brought them extra bottles of champagne in which they found
+consolation for all the _ennui_ of the evening.
+
+After supper the dancing began again. The little stiffness and
+constraint of the earlier part of the evening was gone; by this time
+nearly everybody, except the unfortunates, knew everybody else. The good
+dinner and the champagne had put them all into an excellent humour, and
+they all commenced to be very jolly. They began a Virginia Reel still
+wearing the magician's caps and Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper.
+
+Young Haight was with Turner Ravis as much as possible during the
+evening, very happy and excited. Something had happened; it was
+impossible for him to say precisely what, for on the face of things
+Turner was the same as ever. Nothing in her speech or actions was
+different, but there was in her manner, in the very air that surrounded
+her, something elusive and subtle that set him all in a tremor. There
+was a change in his favour; he felt that she liked to have him with her
+and that she was trying to have him feel as much in some mysterious way
+of her own. He could see, however, that she was hardly conscious of
+doing this and that the change was more apparent to his eyes than it was
+to hers.
+
+"Must you really go home now?" he said, as Turner began to talk of
+leaving, soon after supper. They had been sitting out the dance under a
+palm at the angle of the stairs.
+
+"Yes," answered Turner; "Howard has the measles and I promised to be
+home early. Delphine was to come for me and she ought to be here now."
+
+"Delphine?" exclaimed young Haight. "Didn't you come with Van?"
+
+"No," answered Turner quietly. Only by her manner, and by something in
+the way she said the word, Haight knew at once that she had broken
+definitely with Vandover. The talk he had had with her at her house came
+back to him on the instant. He hesitated a moment and then asked:
+
+"There is something wrong? Has Van done anything--never mind, I don't
+mean that; it's no business of mine, I suppose. But I know you care for
+him. I'm sorry if--"
+
+But he was not sorry. Try as he would, his heart was leaping in him for
+joy. With Vandover out of the way, he knew that all would be different;
+Turner herself had said so.
+
+"Oh, everything is wrong," said Turner, with tears in her eyes. "I have
+been so disappointed in Van; oh, terribly disappointed."
+
+"I know; yes, I think I know what you mean," answered young Haight in a
+low voice.
+
+"Oh, please don't let's talk about it at all," cried Turner. But young
+Haight could not stop now.
+
+"Is Van really out of the question, then?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, not seeing what he was coming to. "Oh, yes;
+how could I--how _could_ I care for him after--after what has happened?"
+
+Very much embarrassed, young Haight went on: "I know it's unfair to take
+advantage of you now, but do you remember what you said once? That if
+Vandover were out of the question, that _'perhaps'_ you might--that it
+would be--that there might be a chance for me?"
+
+Turner was silent for a long time, and then she said: "Yes, I remember."
+
+"Well, how about that _now_?" asked young Haight with a nervous laugh.
+
+"Ah," answered Turner, "how do I know--so soon!"
+
+"But what do you _think_, Turner?" he persisted.
+
+"But I haven't thought at all," she returned.
+
+"Well, think now!" he went on. "Tell me--how about that?"
+
+"About _what_?"
+
+"Ah, you know what I mean," young Haight replied, feeling like a little
+boy, "about what you said at your house that Sunday night. Please tell
+me; you don't know how much it means to me."
+
+"Oh, there's Delphine at the door!" suddenly exclaimed Turner. "Now,
+really, I _must_ go down. She doesn't know where to go; she's so
+stupid!"
+
+"No," he answered, "not until you tell me!" He caught her hand, refusing
+to let it go.
+
+"Ah, how mean you are to corner me so!" she cried laughing and
+embarrassed. "Must I--well--I know I shouldn't. _O-oh_, I just _detest_
+you!" Young Haight turned her hand palm upward and kissed the little
+circle of crumpled flesh that showed where her glove buttoned. Then she
+tore her hand away and ran downstairs, while he followed more slowly.
+
+On her way back to the dressing-room she met him again, crossing the
+hall.
+
+"Don't you want to see me home?" she said.
+
+"Do I _want_ to?" shouted young Haight.
+
+"Oh, but I forgot," she cried. "You can't. I won't let you. You have
+your other dances engaged!"
+
+"Oh, damn the other dances!" he exclaimed, but instead of being
+offended, Turner only smiled.
+
+Toward one o'clock there was a general movement to go. Henrietta Vance
+and Mrs. Vance were inquired for, and the blue and white opera cloaks
+reappeared, descending the stairs, disturbing the couples who were
+seated there. The banging of carriage doors and the rumble of wheels
+recommenced in the street. The musicians played a little longer. As the
+party thinned out, there was greater dance room and a consequent greater
+pleasure in dancing. These last dances at the end of the evening were
+enjoyed more than all the others. But the party was breaking up fast:
+Turner had already gone home; Mrs. Vance and Henrietta were back at
+their places in front of the mantel, surrounded by a group of gentlemen
+in capecoats and ladies in opera wraps. Every one was crying "Good-bye"
+or "Good night!" and assuring Mrs. Vance and Henrietta of the
+enjoyableness of the occasion. Suddenly the musicians played "Home Sweet
+Home." Those still dancing uttered an exclamation of regret, but
+continued waltzing to this air the same as ever. Some began to dance
+again in their overcoats and opera wraps. Then at last the tired
+musicians stopped and reached for the cases of their instruments, and
+the remaining guests, seized with a sudden panic lest they should be the
+last to leave, fled to the dressing-rooms. These were in the greatest
+confusion, every one was in a hurry; in the gentlemen's dressing-room
+there was a great putting on of coats and mufflers and a searching for
+misplaced gloves, hats and canes. A base hum of talk rose in the air,
+bits and ends of conversation being tossed back and forth across the
+room. "_You_ haven't seen my hat, have you, Jimmy?" "Did you meet that
+girl I was telling you about?" "Hello, old man! have a good time
+to-night?" "Lost your hat? No, I haven't seen it." "Yes, about half-past
+ten!" "Well, I told him that myself!" "Ah, you bet it's the man that
+rustles that gets there." "Come round about four, then." "What's the
+matter with coming home in _our_ carriage?"
+
+At the doors of the dressing-rooms the ladies joined their escorts, and
+a great crowd formed in the halls, worming down the stairs and out upon
+the front steps. As the first groups reached the open air there was a
+great cry: "Why, it's pouring rain!" This was taken up and repeated and
+carried all the way back into the house. There were exclamations of
+dismay and annoyance: "Why, it's raining right _down_!" "What _shall_ we
+do!" Tempers were lost, brothers and sisters quarrelling with each other
+over the question of umbrellas. "Ah," said Geary, delighted, peeling the
+cover from his umbrella in the vestibule, "I _thought_ it was going to
+rain before I left and brought mine along with me. Ah, you bet I always
+look out for rain!" On the horse-block stood the caller, chanting up the
+carriages at the top of his voice. The street was full of coupés,
+carriages, and hacks, the raindrops showing in a golden blur as they
+fell across the streaming light of their lamps. The horses were smoking
+and restless, and the drivers in oilskins and rubber blankets were
+wrangling and shouting. At every instant there was a long roll of wheels
+interrupted by the banging of the doors. Near the caller stood a useless
+policeman, his shield pinned on the outside of his wet rubber coat, on
+which the carriage lamps were momentarily reflected in long vertical
+streaks.
+
+In a short time all the guests were gone except the one young lady whose
+maid and carriage had somehow not been sent. Henrietta Vance's brother
+took this one home in a hired hack. Mrs. Vance and Henrietta sat down to
+rest for a moment in the empty parlours. The canvas-covered floors were
+littered with leaves of smilax and La France roses, with bits of ribbon,
+ends of lace, and discarded Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper. The butler
+and the second girl were already turning down the gas in the other
+rooms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long before the party broke up Vandover had gone home, stunned and
+dazed, as yet hardly able to realize the meaning of what had happened.
+Some strange and dreadful change had taken place; things were different,
+people were different to him; not every one had been so outspoken as
+Turner, Henrietta Vance and her mother, but even amongst others who had
+talked to him politely and courteously enough, the change was no less
+apparent. It was in the air, a certain vague shrinking and turning of
+the shoulder, a general atmosphere of aversion and repulsion, an unseen
+frown, an unexpressed rebuff, intangible, illusive, but as unmistakable
+as his own existence. The world he had known knew him now no longer. It
+was ostracism at last.
+
+But why? Why? Sitting over his tiled flamboyant stove, brooding into the
+winking coals, Vandover asked himself the question in vain. He knew what
+latitude young men were allowed by society; he was sure nothing short of
+discovered crime could affect them. True enough he had at one time
+allowed himself to drift into considerable dissipation, but he was done
+with that now, he had reformed, he had turned over a new leaf. Even at
+his worst he had only lived the life of the other young men around him,
+the other young men who were received as much as ever, even though
+people, the girls themselves, practically knew of what they did, knew
+that they were often drunk, and that they frequented the society of
+abandoned women. What had he done to merit this casting off? What
+_could_ he have done? He even went so far as to wonder if there was
+anything wrong about his father or his sudden death.
+
+A little after one o'clock he heard Geary's whistle in the street
+outside. "Hello, old man!" he cried as Vandover opened the window. "I
+was just on my way home from the hoe-down; saw a light in your window
+and thought I'd call you up. Say, have you got anything wet up there?
+I'm extra dry."
+
+"Yes," said Vandover, "come on up!"
+
+"Did you hear what Beale said to me this evening?" said Geary, as he
+mixed himself a cocktail at the sideboard. "Oh, I tell you, I'm getting
+right in, down at that office. Beale wants me to take the place of one
+of the assistants in the firm, a fellow who's got the consumption,
+coughing up his lungs all the time. It's an important place, hundred a
+month; that's right. Yes, sir; you bet, I'm going to get in and rustle
+now and make myself so indispensable in that fellow's place that they
+can't get along without me. I'll crowd him right out; I know it may be
+selfish, but, damn it! that's what you have to do to get along. It's
+human nature. I'll tell you right here to-night," he exclaimed with
+sudden energy, clenching his fist and slowly rapping the knuckles on the
+table to emphasize each word, "that I'll be the head of that firm some
+day, or I'll know the reason why."
+
+When Geary finally became silent, the two looked into the fire for some
+time without speaking. At last Geary said:
+
+"You came home early to-night, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover, stirring uneasily. "Yes, I did."
+
+There was another silence. Then Geary said abruptly: "It's too bad. They
+are kind of stinky-pinky to you."
+
+"Yes," said Vandover with a grin. "_I_ don't know what's the matter.
+Everybody seems nasty!"
+
+"It's that business with Ida Wade, you know," replied Geary. "It got
+around somehow that she killed herself on your account. Everybody seems
+to be on to it. I heard it--oh, nearly a month ago."
+
+"Oh," said Vandover with a short laugh, "that's it, is it? I was
+wondering."
+
+"Yes, that's it," answered Geary. "You see they don't know for sure; no
+one _knows_, but all at once every one seemed to be talking about it,
+and they suspect an awful lot. I guess they are pretty near right,
+aren't they?" He did not wait for an answer, but laughed clumsily and
+went on: "You see, you always have to be awfully careful in those
+things, or you'll get into a box. Ah, you bet I don't let any girl _I_
+go with know _my_ last name or _my_ address if I can help it. I'm clever
+enough for that; you have to manage very carefully; ah, you bet! You
+ought to have looked out for that, old man!" He paused a moment and then
+went on: "Oh, I guess it will be all right, all right, in a little
+while. They will forget about it, you know. I wouldn't worry. I guess it
+will be all right."
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover absently, "I guess so--perhaps."
+
+A few days later Vandover was in the reading-room of the Mechanics
+Library, listlessly turning over the pages of a volume of _l'Art_. It
+was Saturday morning and the place was full of ladies who were downtown
+for their shopping and marketing, and who had come in either to change
+their books or to keep appointments with each other. On a sudden
+Vandover saw Turner just passing into the Biography alcove. He got up
+and followed her. She was standing at the end of the dim book-lined
+tunnel, searching the upper shelves, her head and throat bent back, and
+her gloved finger on her lip. The faint odour of the perfume she always
+affected came to him mingled with the fragrance of the jonquils at her
+belt and the smell of leather and of books that exhaled from the shelves
+on either side. He did not offer to take her hand, but came up slowly,
+speaking in a low voice.
+
+It was the last time that Vandover ever met Turner Ravis. They talked
+for upward of an hour, leaning against the opposite book-shelves,
+Vandover with his fists in his pockets, his head bent down, and the
+point of his shoe tracing the pattern in the linoleum carpet; Turner,
+her hands clasped in front of her, looking him squarely in the face,
+speaking calmly and frankly.
+
+"Now, I hope you see just how it is, Van," she said at length. "What has
+happened hasn't made me cease to care for you, because if I had really
+cared for you the way I thought I did, the way a girl ought to care for
+the man she wants to marry, I would have stood by you through
+everything, no matter what you did. I don't do so now, because I find I
+don't care for you as much as I thought I did. What has happened has
+only shown me that. I'm sorry, oh, so sorry to be disappointed in you,
+but it's because I only think of you as being once a very good friend of
+mine, not because I love you as you think I did. Once--a long time
+ago--when we first knew each other, then, perhaps--things were different
+then. But somehow we seem to have grown away from that. Since then we
+have both been mistaken; you thought I cared for you in that way, and I
+thought so, too, and I thought you cared for me; but it was only that we
+were keeping up appearances, pretending to ourselves just for the sake
+of old times. We don't love each other now; you know it. But I have
+never intentionally deceived you or tried to lead you on; when I told
+you I cared for you I really thought I did. I meant to be sincere; I
+always thought so until this happened, and then when I saw how easily I
+could let you go, it only proved to me that I did not care for you as I
+thought I did. It was wrong of me, I know, and I should have known my
+own mind before, but I didn't, I didn't. You talk about Dolly Haight;
+but it is not Dolly Haight at all who has changed my affection for you.
+I will be just as frank as I can with you, Van. I may learn really to
+love Dolly Haight; I don't know, I think perhaps I will, but it isn't
+that I care for him _just_ because I don't care for you. Can't you see,
+it's just as if I had never met you. You know it's very hard for me to
+say this to you, Van, and I suppose it's all mixed up, but I can't help
+it. You don't know how sorry I am, because we have been such old
+friends--because I really did care for you as a friend; it's a proof of
+it, that there is no other man in the world I could talk to like this. I
+think, too, Van, that was the only way you cared for me, just as a good
+friend--except perhaps at first, when we first knew each other. You know
+yourself that is so. We really haven't loved each other at all for a
+long time, and now we have found it out before it was too late. And even
+if everything were different, Van, don't you know how it is with girls?
+They really love the man who loves them the most. Half the time they're
+just in love with being loved. That's the way most girls love nowadays,
+and you know yourself, Van, that Dolly Haight really loves me more than
+you do." She gathered up her books and went on after a pause,
+straightening up, ready to go: "If I should let myself think of what you
+have done, I feel--as if--as if--why, dreadful--I--that I should hate
+you, loathe you; but I try not to do that. I have been thinking it all
+over since the other night. I shall always try to think of you at your
+best; I have tried to forget everything else, and in forgetting it I
+forgive you. I can honestly say that," she said, holding out her hand,
+"I forgive you, and you must forgive me because once, by deceiving
+myself, I deceived you, and made you think that I cared for you in that
+way when I didn't." As their hands fell apart Turner faced him and
+added, with tears in her eyes: "You know this must be good-bye for good.
+You don't know how it hurts me to tell you. I know it looks as if I were
+deserting you when you were alone in the world and had most need of some
+one to influence you for the good. But, Van, won't you be better now?
+Won't you break from it all and be your own self again? I have faith in
+you. I believe it's in you to become a great man and a good man. It
+isn't too late to begin all over again. Just be your better self; live
+up to the best that's in you; if not for your own sake, then for the
+sake of that other girl that's coming into your life some time; that
+other girl who is good and sweet and pure, whom you will really, really
+love and who will really, really love you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All the rest of that month Vandover was wretched. So great was his shame
+and humiliation over this fresh disaster that he hardly dared to show
+himself out of doors. His grief was genuine and it was profound. Yet he
+took his punishment in the right spirit. He did not blame any one but
+himself; it was only a just retribution for the thing he had done. Only
+what made it hard to bear was the fact that the chastisement had fallen
+upon him long after he had repented of the crime, long after he had
+resolved to lead a new and upright life; but with shut teeth he
+determined still to carry out that resolve; he would devote all his
+future life to living down the past. It might be hard; it might be one
+long struggle through many, many years, but he would do it. Ah, yes, he
+would show them; they had cast him off, but he would go away to Paris
+now as he had always intended. As invariably happened when he was deeply
+moved, he turned to his art, blindly and instinctively. He would go to
+Paris now and study his paintings, five, ten years, and come back at
+last a great artist, when these same people who had cast him off would
+be proud to receive him. Turner was right in saying that he had in him
+the making of a great man. He _knew_ that she was right; knew that if he
+only gave the better part of him, the other Vandover, the chance, that
+he would become a great artist. Well, he would do so, and then when he
+came back again, when all the world was at his feet, and there were long
+articles in the paper announcing his arrival, these people would throng
+around him; he would show them what a great and noble nature he really
+had; he would forgive them; he would ignore what they had done. He even
+dramatized a little scene between himself and Turner, then Mrs. Haight.
+They would both be pretty old then and he would take her children on his
+lap and look at her over their heads--he could almost see those heads,
+white, silky and very soft--and he would nod at her thoughtfully, and
+say, "Well, I have taken your advice, do you remember?" and she was to
+answer, "Yes, I remember." There were actually tears in his eyes as he
+saw the scene.
+
+At the very first he thought that he could not live without Turner; that
+he loved her too much to be able to give her up. But in a little while
+he saw that this was not so. She was right, too, in saying that he had
+long since outlived his first sincere affection for her. He had felt for
+a long time that he did not love her well enough to marry her; that he
+did not love her as young Haight did, and he acknowledged to himself
+that this affair at least had ended rightly. The two loved each other,
+he could see that; at last he even told himself that he would be glad to
+see Turner married to Dolly Haight, who was his best friend. But for all
+that, it came very hard at first to give up Turner altogether; never to
+see her or speak to her again.
+
+As the first impressions of the whole affair grew dull and blunt by the
+lapse of time, this humble penitential mood of Vandover's passed away
+and was succeeded by a feeling of gloomy revolt, a sullen rage at the
+world that had cast him off _only_ because he had been found out. He
+thought it a matter of self-respect to resent the insult they had put
+upon him. But little by little he ceased to regret his exile; the new
+life was not so bad as he had at first anticipated, and his relations
+with the men whom he knew best, Ellis, Geary, and young Haight, were in
+nowise changed. He was no longer invited anywhere, and the girls he had
+known never saw him when he passed them on the street. It was
+humiliating enough at first, but he got used to it after a while, and by
+dint of thrusting the disagreeable subject from his thoughts, by
+refusing to let the disgrace sink deep in his mind, by forgetting the
+whole business as much as he could, he arrived after a time to be
+passably contented. His pliable character had again rearranged itself to
+suit the new environment.
+
+Along with this, however, came a sense of freedom. Now he no longer had
+anything to fear from society; it had shot its bolt, it had done its
+worst, there was no longer anything to restrain him, now he could do
+anything.
+
+He was in precisely this state of mind when he received the cards for
+the opening of the roadhouse, the "resort" out on the Almshouse drive,
+about which Toby, the waiter at the Imperial, had spoken to him.
+
+Vandover attended it. It was a debauch of forty-eight hours, the longest
+and the worst he had ever indulged in. For a long time the brute had
+been numb and dormant; now at last when he woke he was raging, more
+insatiable, more irresistible than ever.
+
+The affair at the roadhouse was but the beginning. All at once Vandover
+rushed into a career of dissipation, consumed with the desire of vice,
+the perverse, blind, and reckless desire of the male. Drunkenness,
+sensuality, gambling, debauchery, he knew them all. He rubbed elbows
+with street walkers, with bookmakers, with saloonkeepers, with the
+exploiters of lost women. The bartenders of the city called him by his
+first name, the policemen, the night detail, were familiar with his
+face, the drivers of the nighthawks recognized his figure by the street
+lamps, paling in the light of many an early dawn. At one time and
+another he was associated with all the different types of people in the
+low "sporting set," acquaintances of an evening, whose names grew faint
+to his recollection amidst the jingle of glasses and the popping of
+corks, whose faces faded from his memory in the haze of tobacco smoke
+and the fumes of whisky; young men of the city, rich without apparent
+means of livelihood, women and girls "recently from the East" with rooms
+over the fast restaurants; owners of trotting horses, actresses without
+engagements, billiard-markers, pool-sellers and the sons of the
+proprietors of halfway houses and "resorts." With all these Vandover
+kept the pace at the Imperial, at the race-track, at the gambling tables
+in the saloons and bars along Kearney and Market streets, and in the
+disreputable houses amid the strong odours of musk and the rustle of
+heavy silk dresses. It lasted for a year; by the end of that time he had
+about forgotten his determination to go to Paris and had grown out of
+touch with his three old friends, Ellis, Geary, and Haight. He seldom
+saw them now; occasionally he met them in one of the little rooms of the
+Imperial over their beer and Welsh rabbits, but now he always went on to
+the larger rooms where one had champagne and terrapin. He felt that he
+no longer was one of them.
+
+That year the opera came to San Francisco, and Vandover hired a
+messenger boy to stand in line all night at the door of the music store
+where the tickets were to be sold. Vandover could still love music. In
+the wreckage of all that was good that had been going on in him his love
+for all art was yet intact. It was the strongest side of his nature and
+it would be the last to go.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Fourteen
+
+
+The house was crowded to the doors; there was no longer any standing
+room and many were even sitting on the steps of the aisles. In the boxes
+the gentlemen were standing up behind the chairs of large plain ladies
+in showy toilets and diamonds. The atmosphere was heavy with the smell
+of gas, of plush upholstery, of wilting bouquets and of sachet. A fine
+vapour as of the visible exhalation of many breaths pervaded the house,
+blurring the lowered lights and dimming the splendour of the great glass
+chandelier.
+
+It was warm to suffocation, a dry, irritating warmth that perspiration
+did not relieve, while the air itself was stale and close as though
+fouled by being breathed over and over again. In the topmost galleries,
+banked with tiers of watching faces, the heat must have been unbearable.
+
+The only movement perceptible throughout the audience was the little
+swaying of gay-coloured fans like the balancing of butterflies about to
+light. Occasionally there would be a vast rustling like the sound of
+wind in a forest, as the holders of librettos turned the leaves
+simultaneously.
+
+The orchestra thundered; the French horns snarling, the first violins
+wailing in unison, while all the bows went up and down together like
+parts of a well-regulated machine; the kettle-drums rolled sonorously at
+exact intervals, and now and then one heard the tinkling of the harp
+like the pattering of raindrops between peals of thunder. The leader
+swayed from side to side in his place, beating time with his baton, his
+hand, and his head.
+
+On the stage itself the act was drawing to a close. There had just been
+a duel. The baritone lay stretched upon the floor at left centre, his
+sword fallen at some paces from him. On the left of the scene, front,
+stood the tenor who had killed him, singing in his highest register,
+very red in the face, continually striking his hand upon his breast and
+pointing with his sword toward his fallen enemy. Next him on the extreme
+left was his friend the basso, in high leather boots, growling from time
+to time during a sustained chord, "_Mon honneur et ma foi._" In the
+centre of the stage, the soprano, the star, the prima donna chanted a
+fervid but ineffectual appeal to the tenor who cried, "_Jamais,
+jamais!_" striking his breast and pointing with his sword. The prima
+donna cried, "_Ah, mon Dieu, ayez pitié de moi._" Her confidante, the
+mezzo-soprano, came to her support, repeating her words with an
+impersonal meaning, "_Ayez pitié d'elle._" "_Mon honneur et ma foi_,"
+growled the basso. The contralto, dressed as a man, turned toward the
+audience on the extreme right, bringing out her notes with a wrench and
+a twist of her body and neck, and intoning, "_Ah, malheureuse! Mon Dieu,
+ayez pitié d'elle._"
+
+The leader of the chorus, costumed as the captain of the watch, leaned
+over the dead baritone and sang, "_Il est mort, il est mort. Mon Dieu,
+ayez pitié de lui._" The soldiers of the watch were huddled together
+immediately back of him. They wore tin helmets, much too large, and
+green peplums, and repeated his words continually.
+
+The chorus itself was made up of citizens of the town; it was in a
+semicircle at the back of the stage--the men on one side, the women on
+the other. They made all their gestures together and chanted without
+ceasing: "_O horreur, O mystére! Il est mort. Mon Dieu, ayez pitié de
+nous!_"
+
+"_De Grace!_" cried the prima donna.
+
+"_Jamais, jamais!_" echoed the tenor, striking his breast and pointing
+with his sword.
+
+"_O mystére!_" chanted the chorus, while the basso struck his hand upon
+his sword hilt, growling "_Mon honneur et ma foi._"
+
+The orchestra redoubled. The finale began; all the pieces of the
+orchestra, all the voices on the stage, commenced over again very loud.
+They all took a step forward, and the rhythm became more rapid, till it
+reached a climax where the prima donna's voice jumped to a C in alt,
+holding it long enough for the basso to thunder, "_Mon honneur et ma
+foi_" twice. Then they all struck the attitudes for the closing tableau
+and in one last burst of music sang all together, "_Mon Dieu, ayez pitié
+de moi_" and "_de lui_" and "_d'elle_" and "_de nous_." Then the
+orchestra closed with a long roll of the kettle-drums, and the prima
+donna fainted into the arms of her confidante. The curtain fell.
+
+There was a roar of applause. The gallery whistled and stamped. Every
+one relaxed his or her position, drawing a long breath, looking about.
+There was a general stir; the lights in the great glass chandelier
+clicked and blazed up, and a murmur of conversation arose. The
+footlights were lowered and the orchestra left their places and
+disappeared underneath the stage, leaving the audience with the
+conviction that they had gone out after beer. All over the house one
+heard the shrill voices of boys crying out, "Op'ra books--books for the
+op'ra--words and music for the op'ra."
+
+Throughout the boxes a great coming and going took place and an
+interchange of visits. The gentlemen out in the foyer stood about
+conversing in groups or walked up and down smoking cigarettes, often
+pausing in front of the big floral piece that was to be given to the
+prima donna at the end of the great scene in the fourth act.
+
+There was a little titter of an electric bell. The curtain was about to
+go up, and a great rush for seats began. The orchestra were coming back
+and tuning up. They sent up a prolonged medley of sounds, little minor
+chirps and cries from the violins, liquid runs and mellow gurgles from
+the oboes, flutes, and wood-wind instruments, and an occasional
+deep-toned purring from the bass viols. A bell rang faintly from behind
+the wings, the house lights sank, and the footlights blazed up. The
+leader tapped with his baton; a great silence fell upon the house, while
+here and there one heard an energetic "Ssh! ssh!" The fourth act was
+about to begin.
+
+When the curtain rose on the fourth act one saw the prima donna standing
+in a very dejected pose in the midst of a vast apartment that might have
+been a bedchamber, a council hall, or a hall of audience. She was alone.
+She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms
+were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to
+her girdle. She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and
+the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for
+the famous quartet in the "great scene."
+
+But for all this, the music had little by little taken possession of
+Vandover, and little by little he had forgotten his surroundings, the
+stifling air of the house, the blinding glitter of the stage and the
+discomfort of his limbs cramped into the narrow orchestra chair. All
+music was music to him; he loved it with an unreasoned, uncritical
+love, enjoying even the barrel organs and hand pianos of the streets.
+For the present the slow beat and cadence of the melodies of the opera
+had cradled all his senses, carrying him away into a kind of exalted
+dream. The quartet began; for him it was wonderfully sweet, the
+long-sustained chords breathing over the subdued orchestral
+accompaniment, like some sweet south wind passing in long sighs over the
+pulse of a great ocean. It seemed to him infinitely beautiful,
+infinitely sad, subdued minor plaints recurring persistently again and
+again like sighs of parting, but could not be restrained, like voices of
+regret for the things that were never to be again. Or it was a pathos, a
+joy in all things good, a vast tenderness, so sweet, so divinely pure
+that it could not be framed in words, so great and so deep that it found
+its only expression in tears. There came over him a vague sense of those
+things which are too beautiful to be comprehended, of a nobility, a
+self-oblivion, an immortal eternal love and kindness, all goodness, all
+benignity, all pity for sin, all sorrow for grief, all joy for the true,
+the right, and the pure.
+
+To be better, to be true and right and pure, these were the only things
+that were worth while, these were the things that he seemed to feel in
+the music. It was as if for the moment he had become a little child
+again, not ashamed to be innocent, ignorant of vice, still believing in
+all his illusions, still near to the great white gates of life.
+
+The appeal had been made directly to what was best and strongest in
+Vandover, and the answer was quick and over-powering. All the good that
+still survived in him leaped to life again in an instant, clamouring for
+recognition, pleading for existence. The other Vandover, the better
+Vandover, wrestled with the brute in him once more, never before so
+strong, never so persistent. He had not yet destroyed all that was good
+in him; now it had turned in one more revolt, crying out against him,
+protesting for the last time against its own perversion and destruction.
+Vandover felt that he was at the great crisis of his life.
+
+After all was over he walked home through the silent streets, proceeding
+slowly, his hands in his pockets, his head bent down, his mind very
+busy. Once in his rooms he threw off his things and, having stirred up
+the drowsing fire in the tiled stove, sat down before it in his
+shirt-sleeves, the bosom of his full dress shirt bulging from his vest
+and faintly creaking as from time to time he drew a long breath. He had
+been lured into a mood where he was himself at his very best, where the
+other Vandover, the better Vandover, drew apart with eyes turned
+askance, looking inward and downward into the depths of his own
+character, shuddering, terrified. Far down there in the darkest, lowest
+places he had seen the brute, squat, deformed, hideous; he had seen it
+crawling to and fro dimly, through a dark shadow he had heard it
+growling, chafing at the least restraint, restless to be free. For now
+at last it was huge, strong, insatiable, swollen and distorted out of
+all size, grown to be a monster, glutted yet still ravenous, some
+fearful bestial satyr, grovelling, perverse, horrible beyond words.
+
+And with the eyes of this better self he saw again, little by little,
+the course of his whole life, and witnessed again the eternal struggle
+between good and evil that had been going on within him since his very
+earliest years. He was sure that at the first the good had been the
+strongest. Little by little the brute had grown, and he,
+pleasure-loving, adapting himself to every change of environment,
+luxurious, self-indulgent, shrinking with the shrinking of a sensuous
+artist-nature from all that was irksome and disagreeable, had shut his
+ears to the voices that shouted warnings of the danger, and had allowed
+the brute to thrive and to grow, its abominable famine gorged from the
+store of that in him which he felt to be the purest, the cleanest, and
+the best, its bulk fattened upon the rot and the decay of all that was
+good, growing larger day by day, noisome, swollen, poddy, a filthy
+inordinate ghoul, gorged and bloated by feeding on the good things that
+were dead.
+
+Besides this he saw how one by one he had wrenched himself free from all
+those influences that had tended to foster and to cultivate all the
+better part of him.
+
+First of all, long ago it seemed now, he had allowed to be destroyed
+that first instinctive purity, that fragile, delicate innocence which
+dies young in almost every human being, and that one sees evaporating
+under the earliest taint of vice with a smile partly of contempt,
+partly of pity, partly of genuine regret.
+
+Next it had been his father. The Old Gentleman had exerted a great
+influence over Vandover; he had never forgotten that scene the morning
+after he had told him of his measure of responsibility in Ida Wade's
+suicide, the recovery from the first shock of dazed bewilderment and
+then the forgiveness, the solicitude and the encouragement to begin over
+again, to live it down and to do that which was right and good and true.
+Not only had he stopped his ears to this voice, but also, something told
+him, he had done much to silence it forever. Despite the Old Gentleman's
+apparent fortitude the blow must have carried home. What must he not
+have suffered during those long weeks while Vandover was away, what
+lonely broodings in the empty house; and then the news of the wreck, the
+days of suspense!
+
+It all must have told; the Old Gentleman was not strong; Vandover could
+not but feel that he had hastened his death, and that in so doing he had
+destroyed another influence which would have cultivated and fostered his
+better self, would have made it strong against the attacks of the brute.
+
+The other person who had helped to bring out all that was best in
+Vandover had been Turner Ravis. There was no denying that when he had
+first known her he had loved her sincerely. Things were vastly different
+with him when Turner had been his companion; things that were unworthy,
+that were low, that were impure and vicious, did not seem worth while
+then; not only did they have no attraction for him, but he even shunned
+and avoided them. He knew he was a better man for loving her; invariably
+she made him wish to be better. But little by little as he frequented
+the society of such girls as Ida Wade, Grace Irving, and Flossie, his
+affection for Turner faded. As the habits of passionate and unhealthy
+excitement grew upon him he lost first the taste and then the very
+capacity for a calm, pure feeling. His affection for her he frittered
+away with fast girls and abandoned women, strangled it in the foul
+musk-laden air of disreputable houses, dragged and defiled it in the
+wine-lees of the Imperial. In the end he had quite destroyed it,
+wilfully, wantonly killed it. As Turner herself had said, she could only
+be in love with being loved; her affection for him had dwindled as
+well; at last they had come to be indifferent to each other, she no
+longer inspired him to be better, and thus he had shaken off this good
+influence as well.
+
+Public opinion had been a great check upon him, the fear of scandal, the
+desire to stand well with the world he knew. Trivial though he felt it
+to be, the dread of what people would say had to a great extent held
+Vandover back. He had a position to maintain, a reputation to keep up in
+the parlours and at the dinner tables where he was received. It could
+not be denied that society had influenced Vandover for good. But this,
+too, like all the others, he had cast from him. Now he was ostracized,
+society cared no longer what he did, his position was gone, his
+reputation was destroyed. There was no one now to stand in his way.
+
+Vandover could not fall back on any religious influence. Religion had
+never affected him very deeply. It was true that he had been baptized,
+confirmed, and had gone to church with considerable regularity. If he
+had been asked if he was a Christian and believed in God he would have
+answered "Certainly, certainly." Until the time of his father's death he
+had even said his prayers every night, the last thing before turning out
+the gas, sitting upon the edge of his bed in his night-gown, his head in
+both his hands. He added to the Lord's Prayer certain other petitions as
+to those who were in trouble, sorrow, poverty, or any other privations;
+he asked for blessings upon his father and upon himself, praying for the
+former's health and prosperity, and for himself, that he might become a
+great artist, that the "Last Enemy" might be admitted to the Salon when
+he had painted it, and that it might make him famous. But, as a rule,
+Vandover thought very little about religious matters and when he did,
+told himself that he was too intelligent to believe in a literal heaven,
+a literal hell, and a personal God personally interfering in human
+affairs like any Jove or Odin. But the moment he rejected a concrete
+religion Vandover was almost helpless. He was not mystic enough to find
+any meaning in signs or symbols, nor philosophic enough to grasp vague
+and immense abstractions. Infinities, Presences, Forces, could not help
+him withstand temptation, could not strengthen him against the brute. He
+felt that somewhere, some time, there was punishment for evildoing,
+but, as happened in the case of Ida Wade's death, to dwell on such
+thoughts disturbed and terrified him. He did not dare to look long in
+that direction. Conscience, remorse, repentance, all these had been keen
+enough at first, but he had so persistently kicked against the pricks
+that little by little he had ceased to feel them at all.
+
+Then an immense and overwhelming terror seized upon him. Was there
+nothing, then--nothing left which he could lay hold of to save him? He
+knew that he could not deliver himself by his own exertions. Religion
+could not help him, he had killed his father, estranged the girl he
+might have loved, outraged the world, and at a single breath blighted
+the fine innate purity of his early years. It was as if he had entered
+into his life in the world as into some vast labyrinth, wandering on
+aimlessly, flinging from him one by one the threads, the clues, that
+might have led him again to a safe exit, going down deeper and deeper
+until, when near the centre, he had suddenly felt the presence of the
+brute, had heard its loathsome muttering growl, had at last seen it far
+down at the end of a passage, dimly and in a dark shadow; terrified, he
+had started back, looking wildly about for any avenue of escape,
+searching with frantic haste and eagerness for any one of those clues he
+had so carelessly cast from him, realizing that without such guidance he
+would inevitably tend down again to that fatal central place where the
+brute had its lair.
+
+There was nothing, nothing. He clearly saw the fate toward which he was
+hurrying; it was not too late to save himself if he only could find
+help, but he could find _no_ help. His terror increased almost to
+hysteria. It was one of those dreadful moments that men sometimes
+undergo that must be met alone, and that when past, remain in the memory
+for all time; a glimpse far down into the springs and wheels of life; a
+glimpse that does not come often lest the reason brought to the edge of
+the fearful gulf should grow dizzy at the sight, and reeling, topple
+headlong.
+
+But suddenly Vandover rose to his feet, the tears came to his eyes, and
+with a long breath he exclaimed: "Thank God for it!" He grew calmer in a
+moment, the crisis had passed, he had found a clue beneath his groping
+fingers.
+
+He had remembered his art, turning to it instinctively as he always did
+when greatly moved. This was the one good thing that yet survived. It
+was the strongest side of him; it would be the last to go; he felt it
+there yet. It was the one thing that could save him.
+
+The thought had come to him so suddenly and with such marvellous
+clearness that in his present exalted state of mind it filled him with a
+vague sense of awe, it seemed like a manifestation, a writing on the
+wall. Might it not be some sort of miracle? He had heard of men
+reforming their lives, transformed almost in an instant, and had scoffed
+at the idea. But might it not be true, after all? What was this
+wonderful thing that had happened to him? Was this less strange than a
+miracle? Less divine?
+
+The following day Vandover rented a studio. It was the lofty room with
+hardwood floors and the immense north light in that suite which he had
+rejected when looking for rooms on the former occasion. He gave notice
+to the clerk in the apartment house where his quarters were situated
+that he intended to vacate after the first of the month. Charming as he
+had found these rooms, he gave up, with scarcely a regret, the idea of
+living in them any longer. In a month it would be summer and he would be
+on his way to Paris.
+
+But so great was his desire for work now, so eager was he to start the
+"Last Enemy," so strong was the new energy that shook him, that Vandover
+could not wait until summer to begin work again. He grudged everything
+now that kept him away from his easel.
+
+He disappeared from the sight of his ordinary companions; he did not
+even seek the society of Geary or of young Haight. All the sketches he
+had made for the "Last Enemy," together with his easel and his disused
+palette, his colour-box, tubes, brushes and all the other materials and
+tools for his work, he caused to be transferred to the new studio.
+Besides this he had the stretcher made, best twill canvas on a frame
+four feet long, two and a half feet high. This was for the large sketch
+of the picture. But the finished work he calculated would demand an
+eight by five stretcher.
+
+He did not think of decorating the room, of putting any ornaments about
+the wall. He was too serious, too much in earnest now to think of that.
+The studio was not to be his lounging place, but his workshop. His art
+was work with him now, hard, serious work. It was above all _work_ that
+he needed to set him right again, regular work, steady, earnest work,
+not the dilettante fancy of an amateur content with making pretty
+things.
+
+Never in his life had Vandover been so happy. He came and went
+continually between his rooms, his studio, and his art dealers, tramping
+grandly about the city, whistling to himself, strong, elated, filled
+with energy, vigour, ambition. At times his mind was full of
+thankfulness at this deliverance at the eleventh hour; at times it was
+busy with the details of the picture, its composition, its colour
+scheme. The main effects he wanted to produce were isolation and intense
+heat, the shadows on the sand would be blue, the horizon line high on
+the canvas, the sky would be light in tone, almost white near the earth.
+
+The morning when he first began to work was charming. His new studio was
+in the top floor of a five-story building, and on arriving there,
+breathless from his long climb up the stairs, Vandover threw open the
+window and gazed out and down upon the city spread out below him,
+enjoying the view a moment before settling to his work.
+
+A little later the trades would be blowing strong and brisk from the
+ocean, driving steadily through the Golden Gate, filling the city with a
+taint of salt; but at present the air was calm, touched with a certain
+nimbleness, a sparkling effervescence, invigourating, exhilarating.
+
+It was early in the forenoon, not yet past nine o'clock, and the mist
+that gathers over the city just before dawn was steaming off under the
+sun, very thin and delicate, turning all distant objects a flat tone of
+pale blue. Over the roofs of the houses he could catch a glimpse of the
+distant mountains, faint purple masses against the pale edge of the sky,
+rimming the horizon round with a fillet of delicate colour. But any
+larger view was barred by a huge frame house with a slated mansard roof,
+directly opposite him across the street, a residence house, one of the
+few in the neighbourhood. It had been newly painted white and showed
+brave and gay against the dark blue of the sky and the ruddy greens of
+the great garden in which it stood. Vandover from his window could from
+time to time catch the smell of eucalyptus trees coming to him in long
+aromatic breaths mingled with the odour of wet grass and fresh paint.
+Somewhere he heard a hummingbird singing, a tiny tweedling thread of
+song, while farther off two roosters were crowing back and forth at each
+other with strained and raucous trumpet calls.
+
+Vandover turned back to his work. Under the huge north light was the
+easel, and clamped upon it the stretcher, blank, and untouched. The very
+sight of the heavy cream-white twill was an inspiration. Already
+Vandover saw a great picture upon it; a great wave of emotion suddenly
+welled up within him and he cried with enthusiasm:
+
+"By God! it is in moods like this that _chef d'oeuvres_ are made."
+
+Around the baseboard of the room were a row of _esquisses_ for the
+picture, on small landscape-stretchers, mere blotches of colour laid on
+with the palette knife and large brushes, almost unintelligible to any
+one but Vandover. He selected two or three of these and fastened them to
+the easel above the big stretcher where he could have them continually
+in his eye. He lit his pipe, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and standing
+before the easel, began to sharpen a stick of charcoal with an old
+razor, drawing the blade toward him so as to keep the point of the stick
+from breaking. Then at last with a deep breath of satisfaction he began
+blocking in the first large construction lines of his picture.
+
+It was one o'clock before he knew it. He went downtown and had a hasty
+lunch, jealous of every moment that was not spent on his picture. The
+sight of it as he re-entered the room sent a thrill all over him; he was
+succeeding better than he could have expected, doing better than he
+thought he would. He felt sure that now he should do good work; every
+stage of the picture's progress was an inspiration for the next one. At
+this time the figures had only been "placed," broadly sketched in large
+lines, "blocked in" as he called it. The next step was the second
+drawing, much more finished.
+
+He rapped the stretcher sharply with his knuckles; it responded
+sonorously like a drumhead, the vibration shaking the charcoal from the
+tracings, filling the air with a fine dust. The outlines grew faint,
+just perceptible enough to guide him in the second more detailed
+drawing.
+
+He brought his stick of charcoal to a very fine edge and set to work
+carefully. In a moment he stopped and, with his chamois cloth, dusted
+out what he had drawn. He had made a false start, he began but could not
+recall how the lines should run, his fingers were willing enough; in his
+imagination he saw just how the outlines should be, but somehow he could
+not make his hand interpret what was in his head. Some third medium
+through which the one used to act upon the other was sluggish, dull;
+worse than that, it seemed to be absent. _"Well,"_ he muttered, "can't I
+make this come out right?" Then he tried more carefully. His imagination
+saw the picture clearer, his hand moved with more assurance, but the two
+seemed to act independently of each other. The forms he made on the
+canvas were no adequate reflection of those in his brain; some third
+delicate and subtle faculty that coordinated the other two and that
+called forth a sure and instant response to the dictates of his mind,
+was lacking. The lines on his canvas were those of a child just learning
+to draw; one saw for what they were intended, but they were crude, they
+had no life, no meaning. The very thing that would have made them
+intelligible, interpretive, that would have made them art, was absent. A
+third, a fourth, and a fifth time Vandover made the attempt. It was
+useless. He knew that it was not because his hand lacked cunning on
+account of long disuse; such a thing, in spite of popular belief, never
+happened to artists--a good artist might abandon his work for five
+years, ten years--and take it up again precisely where he had laid it
+down with no loss of technical skill. No, this thing seemed more subtle,
+so subtle that at first he could hardly grasp it. But suddenly a great
+fear came upon him, a momentary return of that wild hysterical terror
+from which he believed he had forever escaped.
+
+"Is it gone?" he cried out. "Is it gone from me? My art? Steady," he
+went on, passing his hand over his face with a reassuring smile;
+"steady, old man, this won't do, again--and so soon! It won't do for you
+to get scared twice like that. This is just nervousness, you are
+overexcited. Pshaw! What's the matter with me? Let's get to work."
+
+Still another time he dusted out what he had done and recommenced,
+concentrating all his attention with a tremendous effort of the will.
+Grotesque and meaningless shapes, the mocking caricatures of those he
+saw in his fancy, grew under his charcoal, while slowly, slowly, a
+queer, numb feeling came in his head, like a rising fog, and the touch
+of that unreasoning terror returned, this time stronger, more
+persistent, more tenacious than before.
+
+Vandover nerved himself against it, not daring to give in, fearing to
+allow himself to see what this really meant. He passed one hand over his
+cheek and along the side of his head, the fingers dancing. "Hum!" he
+muttered, looking vaguely about him, "this is bad. I mustn't let this
+get the better of me now. I'll knock off for to-day, take a little rest,
+begin again to-morrow."
+
+In ten minutes he was back at his easel again. His charcoal wandered,
+tracing empty lines on his canvas, the strange numbness grew again in
+his head. All the objects in the range of his eyes seemed to move back
+and stand on the same plane. He became a little dizzy.
+
+"It's the _tobacco_," he exclaimed. "That pipe always was too strong."
+He turned away to the open window, feeling an irresistible need of
+distraction, of amusement, and he remained there resting on his elbows,
+listening and looking, trying to be interested.
+
+It was toward the middle of the afternoon. The morning mist was long
+since evaporated and the first faint puffs of the inevitable trade wind
+were just stirring the leaves of the eucalyptus across the street. In
+the music-room of the white house the young lady of the family had
+opened the piano and was practising finger-exercises. The scales and
+arpeggios following one another without interruption, came to his ears
+in a pleasant monotone. A Chinese "boy" in a stiff blouse of white
+linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a
+bucket of water and the garden hose. Grocery and delivery wagons came
+and went, rattling over the cobbles and car-tracks, while occasionally a
+whistle blew very far off. At the corner of the street by a
+livery-stable a little boy in a flat-topped leather cap was calling
+incessantly for some unseen dog, whistling and slapping his knees. An ex
+press-wagon stopped a few doors below the white house and the driver
+pulled down the back-board with a strident rattle of chains; the cable
+in its slot kept up an unceasing burr and clack while the cars
+themselves trundled up and down the street, starting and stopping with a
+jangling of bells, the jostled glass windows whirring in a prolonged
+vibrant note. All these sounds played lightly over the steady muffled
+roar that seemed to come from all quarters at once; it was that deep
+murmur, that great minor diapason that always disengages itself from
+vast bodies, from mountains, from oceans, from forests, from sleeping
+armies.
+
+The desire for movement, for diversion, for anything that would keep him
+from thinking was not to be resisted. Vandover caught up his hat and
+fled from the room, not daring to look again at the easel. Once outside,
+he began to walk, anywhere, straight before him, going on with great
+strides, his head in the air.
+
+He found Charlie Geary and took him to supper. Vandover talked
+continually on all sorts of subjects, speaking very rapidly. In the
+evening he insisted on Geary going to the theatre with him. He paid the
+closest attention to the play, letting it occupy his mind entirely. When
+the play was over and the two were about to say good night, Vandover
+began to urge Geary to sleep up at his rooms that night. He overrode his
+objections, interrupting him, taking hold of his arm, and starting off.
+But Geary, a little surprised at his manner, refused. There were certain
+law papers he had taken home with him from the office that afternoon and
+that it was necessary he should return in the morning. Ah, you bet, he
+would get it right in the neck if old Beale didn't have those
+depositions the first thing when the office was open. Ah, he was getting
+to be indispensable down there. He had had Fischer's place now for a
+year. Fischer had never come back, and he had the promise of being taken
+on as head clerk as soon as Beale Jr. went into the partnership with old
+Beale. "I'll make my way in this town yet," he declared. "I'll be in
+that partnership myself some day. You see; yes, sir; ah, you bet!"
+
+The idea of passing the night alone terrified Vandover. He started
+toward home, walking up Sutter Street, proceeding slowly, his hands in
+his pockets. All at once he stopped, without knowing why; he roused
+himself and looked about him. There was a smell of eucalyptus in the
+air. Across the street was the huge white house, and he found that he
+had stopped just before the door of the building on the top floor of
+which his studio was situated. All day Vandover's mind had been in the
+greatest agitation, his ideas leaping and darting hither and thither
+like terrified birds in a cage. Just now he underwent a sudden reaction.
+It had all been a matter of fancy, nothing but nervousness; he had not
+drawn for some time, his hand lacked cunning from long disuse. The
+desire for work came upon him again overpoweringly. He wanted to see
+again if he could not draw just as truly and freely as in the old days.
+No, he could not wait till morning; he must put himself to the test
+again at once, at the very instant. It was a sudden feminine caprice,
+induced, no doubt, by the exalted, strained, and unnatural condition of
+his nerves, a caprice that could not be reasoned with, that could not be
+withstood. He had his keys with him, he opened the outside door and
+groped his way up the four long flights of stairs to his studio.
+
+The studio was full of a sombre half-light, like a fog, spreading
+downward from the great north light in the sloping roof. The window was
+still wide open, the stretcher showed a pale gray blur. Vandover was
+about to light the gas when he checked himself, his arm still raised
+above his head. Ah, no; he did not dare to look at the result of his
+day's work. It would be better to start in afresh from the beginning. He
+found the chamois skin on the tray of the easel and rubbed out all the
+drawing on the canvas. Then he lit the gas.
+
+As he turned to his work once more a little thrill of joy and of relief
+passed over him. This time his hand was sure, steady, his head was
+clear. It had been nervousness after all. As he picked up his charcoal
+he even exclaimed to himself, "Just the same, that _was_ a curious
+experience this afternoon."
+
+But the curious experience repeated itself again that night as soon as
+he tried to work. Once more certain shapes and figures were born upon
+his canvas, but they were no longer the true children of his
+imagination, they were no longer his own; they were changelings,
+grotesque abortions. It was as if the brute in him, like some malicious
+witch, had stolen away the true offspring of his mind, putting in their
+place these deformed dwarfs, its own hideous spawn.
+
+Through the numbness and giddiness that gradually came into his head
+like a poisonous murk he saw one thing clearly: It was gone--his art was
+gone, the one thing that could save him. That, too, like all the other
+good things of his life, he had destroyed. At some time during those
+years of debauchery it had died, that subtle, elusive something,
+delicate as a flower; he had ruined it. Little by little it had exhaled
+away, wilting in the air of unrestrained debauches, perishing in the
+warm musk-laden atmosphere of disreputable houses, defiled by the breath
+of abandoned women, trampled into the spilt wine-lees of the Imperial,
+dragged all fouled and polluted through the lowest mire of the great
+city's vice.
+
+For a moment Vandover felt as though he was losing his hold upon his
+reason; the return of the hysteria shook him like a dry, light leaf. He
+suddenly had a sensation that the room was too small to hold him; he
+ran, almost reeled, to the open window, drawing his breath deep and
+fast, inhaling the cool night air, rolling his eyes wildly.
+
+It was night. He looked out into a vast blue-gray space sown with points
+of light, winking lamps, and steady slow-burning stars. Below him was
+the sleeping city. All the lesser staccato noises of the day had long
+since died to silence; there only remained that prolonged and sullen
+diapason, coming from all quarters at once. It was like the breathing of
+some infinitely great monster, alive and palpitating, the sistole and
+diastole of some gigantic heart. The whole existence of the great
+slumbering city passed upward there before him through the still night
+air in one long wave of sound.
+
+It was Life, the murmur of the great, mysterious force that spun the
+wheels of Nature and that sent it onward like some enormous engine,
+resistless, relentless; an engine that sped straight forward, driving
+before it the infinite herd of humanity, driving it on at breathless
+speed through all eternity, driving it no one knew whither, crushing out
+inexorably all those who lagged behind the herd and who fell from
+exhaustion, grinding them to dust beneath its myriad iron wheels, riding
+over them, still driving on the herd that yet remained, driving it
+recklessly, blindly on and on toward some far-distant goal, some vague
+unknown end, some mysterious, fearful bourne forever hidden in thick
+darkness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Fifteen
+
+
+About a week later Hiram Wade, Ida's father, brought suit against
+Vandover to recover twenty-five thousand dollars, claiming that his
+daughter had killed herself because she had been ruined by him and that
+he alone was responsible for her suicide.
+
+Vandover had passed this week in an agony of grief over the loss of his
+art, a grief that seemed even sharper than that which he had felt over
+the death of his father. For this last calamity was like the death of a
+child of his, some dear, sweet child, that might have been his companion
+throughout all his life. At times it seemed to him impossible that his
+art should fail him in this manner, and again and again he would put
+himself at his easel, only to experience afresh the return of the
+numbness in his brain, the impotency of his fingers.
+
+He had begun little by little to pick up the course of his life once
+more, and on a certain Wednesday morning was looking listlessly through
+the morning paper as he sat in his window-seat. The room was delightful,
+flooded with the morning sun, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ just touched
+with a ruddy light, the Renaissance portraits looking down at him
+through a fine golden haze; a little fire, just enough to blunt the
+keenness of the early morning air, snapping in the famous tiled and
+flamboyant stove. All about the room was a pleasant fragrance of coffee
+and good tobacco.
+
+Vandover caught sight of the announcement of the suit with a sudden
+sharp intake of breath that was half gasp, half cry, starting up from
+the window-seat, reading it over again and again with staring eyes.
+
+It was a very short paragraph, not more than a dozen lines, lost at the
+bottom of a column, among the cheap advertisements. It made no allusion
+to any former stage of the affair; from its tone Ida might have killed
+herself only the day before. It seemed hardly more than a notice that
+some enterprising reporter, burrowing in the records at the City Hall,
+had unearthed and brought to light with the idea that it might be of
+possible interest to a few readers of the paper. But there was his name
+staring back at him from out the gray blur of the type, like some
+reflection of himself seen in a mirror. Insignificant as the paragraph
+was, it seemed to Vandover as though it was the only item in the whole
+paper. One might as well have trumpeted his crime through the streets.
+
+"But twenty-five thousand dollars!" exclaimed Vandover, terrified.
+"Where will _I_ find twenty-five thousand dollars?" And at once he fell
+to wondering as to whether or no in default of payment he could be sent
+to the penitentiary. The idea of winning the suit did not enter his mind
+an instant; he did not even dream of fighting it.
+
+For the moment it was like fire driving out fire. He forgot the loss of
+his art, his mind filled only with the sense of the last disaster. What
+could he do? Twenty-five thousand dollars! It would ruin him. A cry of
+exasperation, of rage at his own folly, escaped him. "Ah, what a fool
+I've been!"
+
+For an hour he raged to and fro in the delightful sunlit room, pacing
+back and forth in its longest dimension between the bamboo tea-table and
+the low bookcase, a thousand different plans and projects coming and
+going in his head. As his wits steadied themselves he began to see that
+he must consult at once with some lawyer--Field, of course--perhaps
+something could be done; a clever lawyer might make out a case for him
+after all. But all at once he became convinced that Field would not
+undertake his defence; he knew he had no case; so what could Field do
+for him? He would have to tell him the truth, and he saw with absolute
+clearness that the lawyer would refuse to try to defend him. The thing
+could not honourably be done. But, then, what _should_ he do? He must
+have legal advice from some quarter.
+
+He was still in this state of perplexity when Charlie Geary arrived,
+pounding on the door and opening it immediately afterward as was his
+custom.
+
+"Hello!" said Vandover, surprised. "Hello, Charlie! is that you?"
+
+"Say," exclaimed Geary without returning his greeting, holding up his
+hand as if to interrupt him; "say, have you seen your lawyer yet--seen
+_any_ lawyer?"
+
+"No," answered Vandover, shaking his head gravely; "no, I've only this
+minute read about it in the paper." He was glad that Geary had come; at
+once he felt a desire to throw this burden upon his chum's shoulders,
+to let him assume the management of the affair, just as in the old
+college days he had willingly, weakly, submitted to the dictatorship of
+the shrewder, stronger man who smoothed out his difficulties for him,
+and extricated him from all his scrapes. He knew Geary to be full of
+energy and resource, and he had confidence in his ability as a lawyer,
+even though he was so young in years and experience. Besides this, he
+was his friend, his college chum; for all Geary's disagreeable qualities
+he knew he would do the right thing by him now.
+
+"You're the one man of all others I wanted to see," he exclaimed as he
+gripped his hand. "By George! I'm glad you have come. Here, sit down and
+let's talk this over." Geary took the big leather chair behind the desk,
+and Vandover flung himself again upon the window-seat. It was as if the
+two were back in the room in Matthew's; hundreds of times in those days
+they had occupied precisely these positions, Geary bending over at the
+study table, intent, nervous, very keen, Vandover lounging idly upon the
+window-seat, resting easily on his elbow listening to the other man's
+advice.
+
+"Now, what must I do, Charlie?" Vandover began. "See my lawyer, I
+suppose? But do you think a lawyer like Field would take my case? You
+know I haven't a leg to stand on."
+
+"But you haven't seen him?" inquired Geary sharply. "Haven't seen
+anybody about it?" Vandover shook his head. "Sure?" insisted Geary
+anxiously.
+
+"Why, I have only just heard about it twenty minutes ago," protested
+Vandover. "Why are you so particular about that?" he added. Then Geary
+exploded his mine.
+
+"Because," he said, with a smile of triumph that he could not restrain,
+"because we are the counsel for the other side. I am on the case."
+
+Vandover bounded from the window-seat speechless with astonishment,
+bitterly disappointed. "_You?_ he shouted. Geary slowly nodded his head,
+enjoying Vandover's bewilderment. Vandover dropped back upon the
+cushions again, staring at him wildly with growing suspicion and anger.
+He would not have thought it possible that Geary could so sacrifice
+their old friendship to his own personal interest. The two continued
+staring at each other across the table for a moment. In the silence
+they heard the long rumble of a cable-car passing the house, and the
+persistent jangling of its bell as it approached the street crossing. A
+grocery wagon went up the side street, the horses' hoofs making a
+cadenced clapping sound upon the asphalt.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Vandover scornfully, "I suppose that's business, but I
+would call it damned unkind!"
+
+"Now, look here, old man," returned Geary consolingly. "Don't you take
+the monkey-wrench off the safety valve like that. What am I here for if
+it isn't to help you? Maybe you don't know that this is a mighty
+unprofessional thing to do. Ah, you bet, if old Beale knew this I would
+get it right in the neck. Don't you suppose I can help you more as
+Wade's lawyer than I could as yours? And now that's the very first thing
+I've got to tell you--to keep this dark, that I have seen you. I can't
+do anything for you if you don't promise that."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," returned Vandover, reassured. "That's all right,
+you can--"
+
+"It's not considered the right thing to do," Geary continued, not
+heeding Vandover's answer, "but I just do it because"--he began to make
+awkward gestures with both his hands--"because we're old friends, like
+that. That was the very first thing I thought of when Beale Jr. told me
+that we two had the case--that I could get you out of this hole better
+as Wade's lawyer than as your own. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to
+see that the first thing."
+
+"I'm sure it was awfully good of you, old man," said Vandover sincerely.
+"I'm in a lot of trouble nowadays!"
+
+"Well, now don't you bother, Van," answered Geary consolingly. "I guess
+we can pull you out of this all right." He drew up to the table, looking
+about from side to side. "Got any writing paper concealed about the
+premises?" he asked. Vandover pushed him over his writing pad, and
+Geary, taking the cap from his fountain pen, began asking a series of
+questions, taking down his answers in shorthand. After he had asked him
+as to his age, length of residence in the city, his property, and some
+few other technical matters, he leaned back in his chair and said:
+
+"Now, let's hear your side of the story, Van. I don't suppose you like
+to go over the thing again, but you see I ought to know." Vandover told
+of the affair, Geary making notes as he went along. It was nearly noon
+before their interview was at an end. Then Geary gathered up the papers
+and reached for his hat and stick, saying:
+
+"Well, now, that's all we can do to-day. I think I'll be up to see you
+again day after to-morrow, in the afternoon. Beale Jr. and I have a date
+with Mr. Wade again to-morrow, I think, and I can talk to you more
+definitely after that. You know this is the devil of a thing to do," he
+suddenly exclaimed apprehensively, "this playing back and forth between
+the two parties like this; regularly dishonourable, don't you know?"
+
+"If you think it's dishonourable," said Vandover as he accompanied Geary
+to the door, "if you think it's dishonourable, Charlie, why, don't do
+it! I don't want to ask you to do anything dishonourable for me."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," replied Geary uneasily; "I had just as soon do
+it for you, only listen to this: don't you say a word about the case to
+anybody, not to your lawyer, nor to anybody. If Field should write to
+you, you tell him you have counsel already. And, look here! you may have
+the reporters up here pretty soon, and don't you open your face to them;
+you mind that; don't you let them get a thing out of you. And there's
+another thing you must understand: I'm not your lawyer, of course; you
+see that. I could be disbarred if I was lawyer for both sides. It's like
+this, you see: I'm Wade's lawyer--at least the firm I am with are his
+lawyers--and of course I'm acting in Wade's interest. But you're an old
+chum of mine, and if I can I'm going to try and make it easier for you.
+You understand, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, I understand, Charlie," answered Vandover, "and you are just a
+brick."
+
+Vandover passed the rest of the day in his sitting-room, the suspense of
+the situation slowly screwing his nerves tenser and tenser. He walked
+for hours back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back, his head
+bent down, his forehead drawn into a frown of anxiety and exasperation,
+or he stood for a long time at the window looking out into the street
+with eyes that saw nothing. At supper that night he found that his
+appetite had left him; the very thought of food revolted him. He
+returned to his room between seven and eight o'clock, his body and mind
+completely fagged, feeling a crying need of some diversion, some escape
+from the thoughts that had been hounding him all day.
+
+He made up his mind to read a little before going to bed, and all at
+once remembered a book that he had once begun a long time ago but had
+never finished: the story of two men who had bought a wrecked opium ship
+for fifty thousand dollars and had afterward discovered that she
+contained only a few tins of the drug. He had never read on to find how
+that story turned out. Suddenly he found himself repeating, "Twenty-five
+thousand dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars--where will _I_ find
+twenty-five thousand dollars?" He wondered if he would go to jail if he
+failed to pay. His interest in the book was gone in a moment, and he
+took up another of his favourite novels, the story of a boy at the time
+of Christ, a Jewish boy unjustly condemned to the galleys, liberated
+afterward, and devoting his life to the overthrow of his enemy, whom at
+last he overcame and humbled, fouling him in a chariot race, all but
+killing him.
+
+He sat down in the huge leather chair, and, drawing it up to the piano
+lamp and cocking his feet upon the table, began to read. In a few
+moments the same numbness stole into his head like a rising fog, a
+queer, tense feeling, growing at the back of his forehead and at the
+base of his skull, a dulness, a strange stupefying sensation as of some
+torpid, murky atmosphere. He looked about him quickly; all the objects
+in the range of his vision--the corner of the desk, the corduroy couch,
+the low bookcase with Flossie's yellow slipper and Barye's lioness upon
+it--seemed to move back and stand upon the same plane; the objects
+themselves appeared immovable enough, but the sensation of them in his
+brain somewhere behind his eyes began to move about in a slow, dizzy
+whirl. The old touch of unreasoning terror came back, together with a
+sudden terror of the spirit, a sickening sinking of the heart, a
+loathing of life, terrible beyond words.
+
+Vandover started up, striving to keep himself in hand, fighting against
+a wild desire to rush about from wall to wall, shrieking and waving his
+arms. Over and over again he exclaimed, "Oh, _what_ is the matter with
+me?" The strangeness of the thing was what unsettled and unnerved him.
+He had all the sensations of terror, but without any assignable reason,
+and this groundless fear became in the end the cause of a new fear: he
+was afraid of this fear that was afraid of nothing.
+
+Very gradually, however, the crisis passed away. He became a little
+calmer, and as he was mixing himself a glass of whisky and water at the
+sideboard he decided that he would go to bed. He was sure that he would
+be better for a good night's rest; evidently his nerves were out of
+order; it would not do for him to read late at night. He realized all at
+once that his mind and body alike were exhausted.
+
+He passed a miserable night, dozing and waking at alternate hours until
+three o'clock, when he found it impossible to get to sleep; hour after
+hour he lay flat on his back staring open-eyed into the darkness,
+listening to the ticking of the clock, the mysterious footsteps that
+creaked the floors overhead, and the persistent drip of a water faucet.
+Outside in the street he heard at long intervals the rattling of wheels
+as the early milk wagons came and went; a dog began to bark, three gruff
+notes repeated monotonously at exact intervals; all at once there was a
+long muffled roll and an abrupt clacking noise; it ceased, then broke
+out again sharply, paused once more, then recommenced, settling to a
+prolonged minor hum; the cable was starting up; it was almost morning,
+the window of his room began to show a brighter blur in the darkness,
+while very far off he could hear the steady puffing of a locomotive. As
+the first cable-car trundled by the house he dropped off to sleep for
+the last time, being waked again toward nine o'clock by the sound of
+some one shovelling coal outside under his window, the shovel clinking
+and rasping upon the stone sidewalk.
+
+He felt a little refreshed, but as he entered the dining-room for his
+late breakfast the smell of food repulsed him; his appetite was gone; it
+was impossible for him to eat. Toward eleven o'clock that same morning
+he was pottering idly about his sitting-room, winding his clock and
+shaking down the ashes in the tiled flamboyant stove; his mind was still
+busy going over for the hundredth time all the possibilities of Hiram
+Wade's suit, and he was just wondering whether something in the way of a
+compromise might not be arranged, when with the suddenness of a blow
+between the eyes the numbness in his head returned, together with the
+same unreasoning fear, the same depression of spirits, the same fearful
+sinking of the heart. What! it was coming back again, this strange
+attack, coming back even when his attention was not concentrated, even
+when there was no unusual exertion of his brain!
+
+Then the torment began. This time the crisis did not pass off; from now
+on it persisted continually. Vandover began to feel strange. At first
+the room looked unfamiliar to him, then his own daily life no longer
+seemed recognizable, and, finally, all of a sudden, it was the whole
+world, all the existing order of things, that appeared to draw off like
+a refluent tide, leaving him alone, abandoned, cast upon some fearful,
+mysterious shore.
+
+Nothing seemed worth while; all the thousand little trivial things that
+made up the course of his life and in which he found diversion and
+amusement palled upon him. A fearful melancholia settled over him, a
+despair, an abhorrence of living that could not be uttered. This only
+was during the day. It was that night that Vandover went down into the
+pit.
+
+He went to bed early, his brain in a whirl, his frame worn out as if
+from long physical exertion. He was just dropping into a grateful sleep
+when his whole body twitched suddenly with a shock and a recoil of all
+his nerves; in an instant he was broad awake, panting and exhausted as
+if from a long run. Once more he settled himself upon the pillow, and
+once more the same leap, the same sharp spasm of his nerves caught him
+back to consciousness with the suddenness of a relaxed spring. At last
+sleep was out of the question; his drowsiness of the early part of the
+evening passed away, and he lay back, his hands clasped behind his head,
+staring up into the darkness, his thoughts galloping incessantly through
+his brain, suffering without pain as he had never imagined a human being
+could suffer though racked with torture from head to heel.
+
+From time to time a slow torsion and crisping of all his nerves,
+beginning at his ankles, spread to every corner of his body till he had
+to shut his fists and teeth against the blind impulse to leap from his
+bed screaming. His hands felt light and, as he told himself, "jumpy."
+All at once he felt a peculiar sensation in them: they seemed to swell,
+the fingers puffing to an enormous size, the palms bulging, the whole
+member from the wrist to the nails distended like a glove when one has
+blown into it to straighten it out. Then he had a feeling that his head
+was swelling in the same way. He had to rub his hands together, to pass
+them again and again over his face to rid himself of the fancy.
+
+But the strange numb feeling at the base of the skull did not keep him
+from thinking--he would have been glad if it had--and now at last when
+the terror overcame him it was no longer causeless; he knew now what he
+feared--he feared that he was going mad.
+
+It was the punishment that he had brought upon himself, some fearful
+nervous disease, the result of his long indulgence of vice, his vile
+submission to the brute that was to destroy his reason; some collapse of
+all his faculties, beginning first with that which was highest, most
+sensitive--his art--spreading onward and downward till he should have
+reached the last stages of idiocy. It was Nature inexorably exacting. It
+was the vast fearful engine riding him down beneath its myriad spinning
+wheels, remorselessly, irresistibly.
+
+The dreadful calamities that he had brought upon himself recoiled upon
+his head, crushing him to the dust with their weight of anguish and
+remorse: Ida Wade's suicide, his father's death, his social banishment,
+the loss of his art, Hiram Wade's lawsuit menacing him with beggary, and
+now this last, this approaching insanity. It was no longer fire driving
+out fire; the sense of all these disasters seemed to come back upon him
+at once, as keen, as bitter as when they had first befallen. He had told
+himself that he did not believe in a hell. Could there be a worse hell
+than this?
+
+But all at once, without knowing why, moved by an impulse, a blind,
+resistless instinct, Vandover started up in bed, raising his clasped
+hands above him, crying out, "Oh, help me! Why don't you _help_ me? You
+can if you only will!" Who was it to whom he had cried with such
+unerring intuition? He gave no name to this mysterious "You," this
+strange supernatural being, this mighty superhuman power. It was the cry
+of a soul in torment that does not stop to reason, the wild last hope
+that feels its own helplessness, that responds to an intuition of a
+force outside of itself--the force that can save it in its time of
+peril.
+
+Trembling, his hands still clasped above him, Vandover waited for an
+answer, waited for the miracle. In the tortured exalted state of his
+nerves he seemed suddenly possessed of a sixth sense; he fancied that he
+would know, there in that room, in a few seconds, while yet his hands
+remained clasped above his head. It was his last hope: if this failed
+him there was nothing left. Still he waited; he felt that he should know
+when the miracle came, that he would suddenly be filled with a sense of
+peace, of quiet joy. Still he waited--there was nothing, nothing but the
+vast silence, the unbroken blackness of the night, a night that was to
+last forever. There was no answer, nothing but the deaf silence, the
+blind darkness. But in a moment he felt that the very silence, the very
+lack of answer, was answer in itself; there was nothing for him. Even
+that vast mysterious power to which he had cried could not help him now,
+_could_ not help him, could not stay the inexorable law of nature, could
+not reverse that vast terrible engine with its myriad spinning wheels
+that was riding him down relentlessly, grinding him into the dust. And
+afterward? After the engine had done its work, when that strange other
+time should come, that other life, what then? No, not even then, nothing
+but outer darkness then and the gnashing of teeth, nothing but the deaf
+silence, nothing but the blind darkness, nothing but the unbroken
+blackness of an eternal night.
+
+It was the end of everything! With a muffled cry, "Oh, I can't stand
+this!" Vandover threw himself from his bed, groping his way out into the
+sitting-room. By this time he was only conscious of a suffering too
+great to be borne, everything else was blurred as in a thick mist. For
+nearly an hour he stumbled about in the darkened room, bruising himself
+against the furniture, dazed, numb, trying in vain to find the drawer of
+the desk where he kept his father's revolver. At last his hand closed
+upon it, gripping it so tightly that the hundreds of little nicks and
+scratches made by the contact of the tacks and nails which he had
+hammered with it nipped and bit into his palm like the teeth of tiny
+mice. A vague feeling of shame overcame him at the last moment: he had
+no wish to be found sprawling upon the floor, dressed only in his
+night-gown. He lit the gas and put on his bathrobe, drawing the cords
+securely about his waist and neck.
+
+When he turned about to pick up the revolver again he found that his
+determination had weakened considerably, and he was obliged to reflect
+again upon the wreck of his life and soul before he was back once more
+to the proper pitch of resolution. It was five minutes to two, and he
+made up his mind to kill himself when the clock struck the hour. He
+spent the intervening moments in arranging the details of the matter. At
+first he thought he would do it standing, but he abandoned that idea,
+fearing to strike his head against the furniture as he fell. He was
+about to decide upon the huge leather chair, when the remembrance of his
+father's death made that impossible. He finally concluded to sit upon
+the edge of his bed, leaning a little backward so as not to fall upon
+the floor, and he dragged the bed out into the sitting-room, preferring
+somehow to die there. For a moment the idea of lying at length upon the
+bed occurred to him, but in an instant he recoiled from it, horrified at
+the thought of the death that struck from above; no, it would be best to
+sit upon the edge of the bed, falling backward with the shot. Then he
+wondered as to which it should be, his heart or his head; evidently the
+head was the better; there upon the right side in the little hollow of
+the temple, and the next moment he found himself curiously touching and
+pressing the spot with his fingers. All at once he heard the little
+clicking noise that the clock makes a minute or so before the hour. It
+was almost two; he sat down upon the edge of the bed, cocking the
+revolver, waiting for the clock to strike. An idea came to him, and he
+looked at the calendar that stood at the right of the clock upon the top
+of the low bookcase. It was the twelfth of April, Thursday; that, then,
+was to be the date of his death--Thursday, April twelfth, at two in the
+morning, so it would read upon his gravestone. For an instant the
+awfulness of the thing he was to do came upon him, and the next instant
+he found himself wondering if they still coursed jack-rabbits with
+greyhounds down at Coronado the way they used to do when he was there.
+All at once the clock struck two, and at the very last instant a
+strange impulse to seat himself before the mirror came upon him. He drew
+up a chair before it, watching his reflection intently, but even as he
+raised the revolver he suddenly changed his purpose without knowing why,
+and all at once crammed the muzzle into his mouth. He drew the trigger.
+
+He heard no sound of a report; he felt no shock, but a great feebleness
+ran throughout his limbs, a relaxing and weakening of all his muscles;
+his eyes were open and he saw everything small and seemingly very far
+off as through the reversed end of an opera-glass. Suddenly he fainted.
+
+When Vandover came to himself again it was early morning. The room was
+full of daylight, but the gas was still burning. Little by little the
+fearful things of the night came back to him; he realized that he had
+shot himself, and he waited for the end, not daring to move, his eyes
+closed, his hand still gripping the scratched butt of the revolver in
+his lap. For a long time he lay back in the chair, motionless, his
+consciousness slowly returning like an incoming tide. At length he
+started to his feet with an expression of scorn and incredulity; he was
+as sound as ever, there was neither scratch nor scar upon him; he had
+not shot himself after all.
+
+Curiously, he looked at the revolver, throwing open the breech--the
+cylinder was empty; he had forgotten to load it. "What a fool!" he
+exclaimed, laughing scornfully, and still laughing he walked to the
+centre of the room under the chandelier and turned out the gas.
+
+But when he turned about, facing the day once more, facing that day and
+the next and the next throughout all the course of his life, the sense
+of his misery returned upon him in its full strength and he raised his
+clenched fist to his eyes, shutting out the light. Ah, no, he could not
+endure it--the horror of life overpassed the horror of death; he could
+not go on living. A new thought had come to him. Wretched as he was, he
+saw that in time his anguish of conscience, even his dread of losing his
+reason, would pass from him; he would become used to them; yes, even
+become used to the dread of insanity, and then he would return once more
+to vice, return once more into the power of the brute, the perverse and
+evil monster that was knitted to him now irrevocably, part for part,
+fibre for fibre. He saw clearly that nothing could save him, he had had
+his answer that night, there was to be no miracle. Was it not right,
+then, that he should destroy himself? Was it not even his duty? The
+better part of him seemed to demand the act; should he not comply while
+there yet was any better part left? In a little while the brute was to
+take all.
+
+On the shelves above his washstand Vandover found the cartridges in a
+green pasteboard box, and loaded all the chambers of the revolver,
+carefully. He closed the breech; but as he was about to draw back the
+hammer all his courage, all his resolution, crumbled in an instant like
+a tower of sand. He did not dare to shoot himself--he was afraid. The
+night before he had been brave enough; how was it now that he could not
+call up the same courage, the same determination? When he thought over
+the wreck, the wretched failure of his life, the dreadful prospect of
+the future years, his anguish and his terror were as keen as ever. But
+now there was a shrinking of his every nerve from the thought of
+suicide, the instinctive animal fear of death, stronger than himself.
+His suffering had to go on, had to run its course, even death would not
+help him. Let it go on, it was only the better part of him that was
+suffering; in a little while this better part would be dead, leaving
+only the brute. It would die a natural death without any intervention
+from him. Was there any need of suicide? Suicide! Great God! his whole
+life had been one long suicide.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That same morning Charlie Geary had eaten a very thick underdone steak
+for breakfast after enjoying a fine long sleep of eight hours. Toward
+eight o'clock he went downtown. He did not take a car; he preferred to
+walk; it helped his digestion and it gave him exercise. At night he
+walked home as well; that gave him an appetite; besides, with the ten
+cents that he saved in this way, he bought himself a nice cigar that he
+smoked in the evening to help digest his supper. He was very careful of
+his health. Ah, you bet, one had to look out for one's health.
+
+At the office that morning he had a long talk with Beale, Jr., as to
+Hiram Wade's suit. The great firm of Beale & Storey, into whose office
+Geary had been received, made a specialty of damage suits, and
+especially those suits that were brought against a certain great
+monopoly which it was claimed was ruining the city and the state; such a
+case involving nearly a quarter of a million of dollars was now
+occupying the attention of the heads of the firm and, indeed, of the
+whole office. Hiram Wade's suit was assigned to the assistants. Beale,
+Jr., was one of these, and Charlie Geary had managed to push himself
+into the position of his confidential clerk. But Beale, Jr., himself
+took little interest in the Wade suit; the suit against the great
+monopoly was coming to a head; it was a battle of giants; the whole
+office found itself embroiled, and little by little Beale, Jr., allowed
+himself to be drawn into the struggle. The management of the Wade case
+was given over to Geary's hands.
+
+When he had first heard of his assignment to the case Geary had been
+unwilling to act against his old chum, but it was the first legal affair
+of any great importance with which he had been connected, and he was
+soon devoured with an inordinate ambition to distinguish himself in the
+eyes of the firm, to get a "lift," to take a long step forward toward
+the end of his desires, which was to become one of the firm itself. He
+knew he could make a brilliant success of the case. Geary was at this
+time nearly twenty-eight, keen, energetic, immensely clever; and the
+case against Vandover was strong. No one knew better than he himself how
+intimate Vandover had been with Ida Wade; Vandover had told him much of
+the details of their acquaintance. Besides this, a letter which Ida had
+written to Vandover the day before her suicide had been found, torn in
+three pieces, thrust between the leaves of one of the books that she
+used to study at the normal school. It directly implicated Vandover--it
+was evidence that could not be gainsaid. Geary had resolved to push the
+case against his old chum. Vandover ought to see that with Geary it was
+a matter of business; he, Geary, was only an instrument of the law; if
+Geary did not take the case some other lawyer would. At any rate,
+whether Van would see it in this light or not, Geary was determined to
+take the case; it was too good an opportunity to let slip; he was going
+to make his way in the law or he would know the reason why. Every man
+for himself, that was what he said. It might be damned selfish, but it
+was human nature; if he had to sacrifice Van, so much the worse. It was
+evident that his old college chum was going to the dogs anyway, but come
+whatever would, _he_, Geary, was going to be a _success_. Ah, you bet,
+he would make his way and he would make his money.
+
+Ever since he had come into his little patrimony Geary had been making
+offers to Vandover for his block in the Mission. Geary would offer only
+eight thousand dollars, but Brunt steadily advised Vandover against
+listening to such a figure, assuring him that the property was valued at
+twelve thousand six hundred. Vandover had often wondered at Geary's
+persistence in the matter, and had often asked him what he could
+possibly want of the block. But Geary was very vague in his replies,
+generally telling Vandover that there was money in the investment if one
+could and would give the proper attention to pushing it. He told
+Vandover that he--Vandover--was no business man, which was the
+lamentable truth, and would much prefer to live upon the interest of his
+bonds rather than to be continually annoyed by defective plumbing,
+complaints, and repairs. The truth of the matter was that Geary knew
+that a certain immense boot and shoe concern was after the same piece of
+property. The houses themselves were nothing to the boot and shoe
+people; they wanted the land in order to build their manufactory upon
+it. A siding of the railroad ran down the alley just back of the
+property, a fact that hurt the lot for residence purposes, but that was
+indispensable for the boot and shoe people. Geary knew that the heads of
+the manufactory were determined to buy the lot, and he was sure that if
+properly handled by clever brokers they could be induced to offer at
+least one third more than its appraised valuation. It was a chance for a
+fine speculation, and it was torture to Geary to think that Vandover, or
+in fact any one besides himself, was going to profit by it.
+
+The afternoon of the day upon which Hiram Wade had brought suit for
+twenty-five thousand dollars, while Geary was pottering about his swivel
+office chair with an oil can trying to find out where it creaked, a
+brilliant idea had suddenly occurred to him, a stroke of genius, a
+veritable inspiration. Why could he not make the Wade suit a machine
+with which to force Vandover into the sale of the property?
+
+His first idea had been to push the case so vigorously that Vandover
+would surely lose it. But on second thought this course did not seem to
+promise any satisfactory results. Geary knew very well that though Hiram
+Wade had sued for twenty-five thousand dollars he could not recover more
+than five thousand, if as much as that. Geary did not know the exact
+state of Vandover's affairs, but he did not think that his chum would
+sell any property in order to make the payment of damages. It was much
+more likely that he would raise the five thousand, or whatever it might
+be, by placing a second mortgage on some of his property. This, however,
+was presuming that Wade would get judgment for about five thousand
+dollars. But suppose that Vandover thought that Wade could actually
+recover twenty-five thousand! Suppose that Geary himself should see
+Vandover and induce him to believe such a story, and to settle the
+affair out of court! Vandover was as ignorant of law as he was of
+business. Geary might frighten him into a sale. Yet this plan seemed
+very impracticable. In the first place, it would be unprofessional for
+Geary to have an interview with Vandover under such circumstances, the
+story was almost too monstrous even for Vandover's credibility, and
+besides, Geary would not pay, could not pay twenty-five thousand for the
+property. This last was a serious tangle. In order to get Vandover to
+sell, Geary would have to represent the damage suit as involving a
+larger sum of money than Geary was willing to give for the block, even a
+far larger sum than that which the boot and shoe manufacturers could be
+induced to pay for it. It seemed to be a deadlock. Geary began to see
+that the whole idea was out of the question. Yet the desire of it came
+back upon him again and again. He dwelt upon it constantly, smelling out
+the chance for a "deal" somewhere in the tangle with the instinct of the
+keen man of business. At last he seemed to have straightened it out. The
+idea of a compromise came into his mind. What if Vandover and Hiram Wade
+could be made to compromise upon eight thousand dollars! Geary would be
+willing to pay Vandover eight thousand for the block. That was his
+original offer. Wade, though he had sued for twenty-five thousand, could
+easily be made to see that eight thousand was as much as he could
+reasonably expect, and Geary knew the boot and shoe manufacturers would
+pay fifteen thousand for the lot, perhaps more.
+
+But in order to carry out the delicate and complicated affair it was
+absolutely necessary to keep Vandover from seeing a lawyer. Geary knew
+that any lawyer would fight the proposition of a compromise at eight
+thousand dollars: five thousand was as much as Wade could possibly get
+in court, and if judgment for such amount was rendered, Vandover's
+counsel would advise him to raise the sum by mortgaging some property
+instead of selling the block.
+
+Yet as soon as Geary arrived at a solution of the problem, as soon as
+the "deal" began to seem feasible, he commenced to hesitate. It was not
+so much that the affair was crooked, that his rôle in it was, to say the
+least, unprofessional, as it was the fact that Vandover was his old
+college chum and that, to put the matter into plain words, Geary was
+swindling his best friend out of a piece of property valued at twelve
+thousand six hundred dollars, and preventing him from reselling the same
+piece at a very advanced figure. Again and again he wished that it was
+some other than Vandover; he told himself that in such case he would put
+the screw on without the least compunction. All through one night Geary
+was on the rack torn between his friendship for his chum and his
+devouring, inordinate ambition to make his way and to make his pile. In
+the end Vandover was sacrificed--the opportunity was too good--Geary
+could not resist the chance for a "deal." Ah, you bet, just think of it,
+after all, not only would Vandover believe that Geary was doing him a
+great service, but the office would be delighted with him for winning
+his first case, they would get a heavy fee from Wade, and he would
+nearly double his money invested in the block in the Mission. As soon as
+he had made up his mind to put the "deal" through, he had seen Vandover
+at his rooms early in the morning and had induced him to promise not to
+engage any other counsel and in general keep very quiet about the whole
+business.
+
+The day after, he and Beale, Jr., had an appointment with Hiram Wade,
+but toward noon Beale, Jr., disappeared, leaving word for Geary that he
+had gone to court with his father to hear the closing arguments in the
+great suit against the monopoly, the last struggle in the tremendous
+legal battle that had embroiled the whole office; Geary was to use his
+own judgment in the Wade case. Geary laboured with Hiram Wade all that
+afternoon. The old fellow mistrusted him on account of his youth and his
+inexperience, was unwilling to arrive at any definite conclusion without
+the sanction of Geary's older associate, and for a long time would
+listen to nothing less than ten thousand dollars, crying out that his
+gray hairs had been dishonoured, and striking his palm upon his
+forehead. Nothing could move him. He, also, had his ambitions; it was
+his dream to own the carpet-cleaning establishment in which he now had
+but a three-fourths interest. Summer was coming, the time of year when
+people were going into the country, leaving their carpets to be cleaned
+in their absence. If he could obtain complete ownership of his business
+within the month he fancied that he saw an opportunity to make more
+money than he had done before at any previous season.
+
+"Why, I tell you, Mister Geary," he exclaimed indignantly, wagging his
+head, "it would seem like selling my daughter's honour if we should
+compromise at any less figure. I am a father. I--I have my feelings,
+haven't I?"
+
+"Well, now, it isn't like that at all, Mr. Wade," answered Geary, making
+awkward gestures with both his hands. "It isn't what we _ought_ to get
+out of him. Could any sum of money, could millions compensate you for
+Miss Ida's death? I guess not. It's what we _can_ get. If this thing
+comes into court we won't get but five thousand out of him; I'll tell
+you that right now. He could raise that by a mortgage, easy; but if we
+compromise we can squeeze him for eight thousand. You see, the fact that
+we can act directly with him instead of through counsel makes it easier
+for us. Of course, as I tell you, it isn't just the legal thing to do,
+but I'm willing to do it for you because I think you've been wronged and
+outraged."
+
+Wade struck his hand to his head. "I tell you, he's brought dishonour
+upon my gray hairs," he exclaimed.
+
+"Exactly, of course, I understand how you feel," replied Geary, "but now
+about this eight thousand? I tell you what I'll do." He had resolved to
+stake everything upon one last hazard. "See here, Mr. Wade, there's a
+difference, of course, between eight thousand dollars and ten thousand,
+but the use of money is worth something, isn't it? And money down, cold
+hard cash, is worth something, isn't it? Well, now, suppose you got that
+eight thousand dollars money down within three days?"
+
+Hiram Wade still demurred a little longer for the sake of his own
+self-respect and his dishonoured hairs, but in the end it was agreed
+that if the money was paid over to him in full before the end of the
+following week he would be content and would agree to the compromise.
+Eight thousand dollars would still be enough to buy out his partner's
+interest, and even then he would have a little left over with which to
+improve a certain steaming apparatus. If the amount was paid in full
+within a week he could get control of the cleaning-works in time to
+catch all of the summer trade.
+
+Geary had calculated that this last argument would have its weight; the
+great difficulty now was to get Vandover to sell at such a low figure
+and upon such short notice. He almost despaired of his success in this
+quarter; however, it all depended upon Vandover now.
+
+Early in the forenoon of the next day Geary pounded on the door of
+Vandover's sitting-room, pushing it open without waiting for an answer.
+Vandover was lying in his shirt-sleeves on the corduroy divan under the
+huge rug of sombre colours that hung against the wall, and he did not
+get up as Geary came in; in fact, he hardly stirred.
+
+"Hello!" cried Geary, closing the door with his heel. "Didn't expect to
+find _you_ up so early. _I've_ been up since half-past six; had
+breakfast at seven, fine cutlet, and then got down to the office at
+twenty minutes of eight. How's that for rustling, hey?"
+
+"Yes?" said Vandover, dully.
+
+"But, say," exclaimed Geary, "what's all the matter with _you_? You look
+all frazzled out, all pale around the wattles. Ah, you've been hitting
+up a pace again. You're a bird, Van, there's no use talking! All night
+racket this trip?".
+
+"I suppose so," answered Vandover, never moving.
+
+"But you _do_ look gone-in this morning, sure," continued Geary, seating
+himself on the edge of the table and pushing back his hat. "Never saw
+you looking so bad; you ought to be more careful, Van; there'll be a
+smash some time. Ah, you bet a man ought to look out for his health. I
+walk downtown every morning, and three times a week I take a cold shower
+as soon as I get up. Ah, I tell you, that braces a fellow up; you ought
+to try it; it's better than a dozen cocktails. You keep on getting thin
+like you have for the past few days and I'll have to be calling you
+Skinny Seldom-fed again, like we used to. Now, tell the truth, what time
+did you get to bed last night? Did you go to bed at all?"
+
+"No," replied Vandover with a long breath, looking vaguely at the
+pipe-rack on the opposite wall.
+
+"I thought as much," answered Geary. "Well, that's like you." He paused
+a moment, and then went on, nervously gesturing with both his hands
+simultaneously. "Well, I've had a long talk with Wade. I tell you, Van,
+that old boy is as stubborn as a mule. You see, he knows he's got a
+case. I couldn't talk him out of that. I'll tell you how it is,"
+continued Geary, preparing to spring another mine; "he's found a letter
+Ida wrote you the day before she killed herself." He paused to watch the
+effect upon Vandover. Vandover waited for him to go on, but seeing that
+he did not and that he expected him to say something, nodded his head
+once and answered:
+
+"I see."
+
+"Don't you know, that letter that she wrote to you telling you how it
+was, how she was fixed?" repeated Geary, puzzled and irritated at
+Vandover's indifference.
+
+"I know."
+
+"Well, he's got it, anyhow," pursued Geary, "and of course that tells
+against you. Well, I had a long talk with him yesterday afternoon and I
+got him to compromise. Of course, you know in suits like this one a
+party sues for a great deal more than he expects to get. At first you
+know he said twenty-five thousand; that figure was decided upon at the
+first interview he had with us. Of course, he could never get judgment
+for that much. But he hung out at ten thousand; said it would be selling
+his daughter if he took any less. Now I knew you couldn't raise that
+much on any property you have, especially in these hard times--" Geary
+paused for the fraction of an instant; he had thrown out the last remark
+as a feeler, to see what Vandover would say; but his chum said nothing,
+staring vaguely at the opposite wall, merely making a faint sign to show
+that he understood, closing his eyes and bending his head. "And so,"
+continued the other, "I jewed him down, and what do you suppose? Well,
+sir, from twenty-five thousand I brought him right down to, say, eight
+thousand. I could see that he had some scheme that he wants to go into
+right away, and that he wants ready money, right on the nail, you know,
+to carry it through. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to see that. I
+waltzed him right over when I began to speak of ready money, cash down.
+As soon as he'd squeal I'd spring cold cash on him, money down, and he's
+hit gravel like an ostrich. Well," he went on deliberately after a
+pause, getting up from the table and standing before Vandover, his hands
+in his pockets, "well, I think that's the best I can do for you, Van.
+It's a good deal better than I expected, but I've done the best I could
+for you, and I would advise you to see him on the proposition."
+
+"All right," said Vandover. "Go ahead."
+
+Geary was perplexed. "Well, you think that's a good thing, don't you?
+You think I've done my best for you? You see it as I do, don't you?"
+
+Vandover withdrew his eyes from the other wall, glancing under heavy
+eyelids at Geary, and with a slight movement of his head and shoulders
+replied:
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Have you got the money?" asked Geary eagerly; then, irritated at his
+indiscretion, hastened to interrupt himself. "You see, he hasn't put his
+proposition into writing yet, but it's like this: if you can pay him
+eight thousand dollars in cash before the end of next week he'll sign a
+document to the effect that he is satisfied."
+
+"I've got no money," said Vandover quietly.
+
+"I was afraid you wouldn't have," said Geary, "but you can raise it
+somewhere. You had better close with the old man as soon as you can,
+Van, while he's in the mood for it; you'll make a clear two thousand by
+it. You can see that as well as I can. Now, where can you--how is your
+property fixed? Let's see! Here's the statement you made to me the other
+day," continued Geary, drawing his shorthand notes from his portfolio.
+"How about this piece on California Street, the one that you have
+rented, the homestead, you know?"
+
+"Yes, there's that," answered Vandover, changing the position of his
+head upon his clasped hands.
+
+"But that's pretty well papered up already," returned Geary, consulting
+his notes. "You couldn't very well raise another mortgage on that.'"
+
+"I'd forgotten," answered Vandover. "There's the block in the Mission.
+He can have _that_."
+
+Geary began to tremble with excitement. It looked as though he might be
+able to make the deal after all. But the next instant he grew
+suspicious. Vandover's indifference puzzled him. Might he not have some
+game of his own? The idea of playing off his cleverness against that of
+an opponent strung his nerves in an instant; the notion of an impending
+struggle was almost an inspiration, and his innate desire of getting the
+better of a competitor, even though it was his closest friend, aroused
+his wits and sharpened his faculties like a stimulant. He had no
+hesitancy in sacrificing his chum. It was business now; friendship
+ceased to be a factor in the affair. Ah, Van was going to be foxy; he'd
+show him that he could be foxy, too.
+
+"He can have it?" echoed Geary. "You don't mean to sign it over to him
+bodily?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose it could be mortgaged," answered Vandover.
+
+"Yes, that's the idea," returned Geary. "You want me to figure that out
+for you? I can just as well as not. Well, now, let's see," he went on,
+settling himself at the desk, and figuring upon a sheet of Vandover's
+stamped letter-paper. "The banks will never give you more than two
+thirds of the appraised value; that's as much as we can expect; that
+would come to--well, let's see--that would come to six thousand on that
+piece; then you could mortgage something else to make up the
+difference."
+
+"Wouldn't it be more than six thousand?" asked Vandover with a little
+show of interest. "I think that block has been appraised at something
+over twelve thousand."
+
+"Ah, yes," returned Geary, putting his chin in the air, "that was your
+agent's valuation five years ago; but you know property out there, in
+fact, property all over the city, what they call inside property, has
+been going right down for the last ten years. That's what I've always
+been telling you. You couldn't possibly get more than nine thousand for
+that block to-day. You see the railroad there hurts it."
+
+"I suppose so," replied Vandover. "I've heard the governor say as much
+in his time."
+
+"Of course," exclaimed Geary, delighted at this unexpected turn.
+
+"Well, then, he can have my bonds," said Vandover. "I've got eighty-nine
+hundred in bonds; he can have those. Let him have anything he wants."
+
+"Oh, don't touch your bonds," answered Geary. "Hang on to those. Bonds
+are always good--U.S. bonds. You don't want to sell those, Van. You see,
+the homestead is already mortgaged. And, besides, you know, too, that
+the banks are asking an awful big per cent. for mortgages on real
+estate; it's seven and a half nowadays. Don't sell your bonds. I'll tell
+you why: U.S. bonds are always good; they never depreciate, but it's
+different with realty, especially in this city just now. It's been
+depreciating ever since your father's time, and it's going to go right
+on depreciating. If you want to sell anything, sell your realty before
+it gets any lower. Now you don't want to sell your home, do you? You
+don't like that idea. You've lived there so long, and then what would
+you do with the furniture; besides, the rent of that," he glanced again
+at his notes, "is bringing you in a good hundred and twenty-five a
+month. If you've got to sell at all, why not sell your Mission block?"
+
+"All right," said Vandover, as if wearied by Geary's clamour, "I'll sign
+it over to him."
+
+"No, that's not the idea at all," Geary insisted. "He wants the ready
+money; he don't want depreciated real estate. You'll have to find a
+purchaser in the next week if you possibly can in such a short time, and
+make over the money to Wade. But if you can't sell in that time you will
+have to dig up ten thousand instead of eight. It's a hard position for
+you, Van; it's just a chance, you know, but I thought I would give you
+the benefit of that chance. If you want to give me a power of attorney
+I'll try and sell it for you."
+
+"I guess Brunt would do that," replied Vandover.
+
+"Yes," retorted Geary, watchful as a lynx, "but they would charge you a
+big commission. Of course _I_ wouldn't think of asking you anything more
+than the actual costs. I am afraid that they would try to sell it at
+auction, too, if they knew you had to realize on it in so short a time,
+and it would go for a mere song then; you know how it is."
+
+"I thought," inquired Vandover, "that you wanted that property."
+
+"Yes," replied Geary, hesitating, "I--I did want to buy it of you once;
+well, for that matter I do now. But you know how it is with me."
+
+"I might as well sell it to you as to any one else," returned Vandover.
+
+"Well, now, it's like this, Van," said Geary. "I know that block is
+worth nine thousand dollars; I won't deceive you. But I can only give
+you eight thousand for it. That's all the money I've got. But I'm not
+going to take advantage of your position to jew you down. I want the
+block, I'll admit that, but I'm not going to have you sacrifice it for
+me, or for any one else. I think you can get nine thousand for it. I
+know you could if we had a little more time, and I'm not sure but what I
+could find a purchaser for you within the next week that would give you
+nine thousand."
+
+"Oh, I don't care, Charlie; I'm sick of everything; eight thousand, nine
+thousand, anything you like; take it at your own figure."
+
+Geary began to tremble once more, and this time his excitement was so
+great that he hardly dared to trust himself to speak; his breath grew
+short, his hands in his pockets twitched nervously, and curled
+themselves into fists, his heart seemed to him to beat high in his
+throat; he hesitated long, pretending to deliberate as he steadied
+himself.
+
+Vandover remained silent, his hands still clasped back of his head,
+staring at the opposite wall with eyes that saw nothing. The little
+clock began to strike ten.
+
+"I don't know, Van," said Geary; "I don't like to do this, and yet I
+would like to help you out of this muss. You see, if I should ever
+benefit by the property you would feel as though I had taken advantage
+of you at this time and worked a flim-flam on you!"
+
+"Oh, I'll look out for that," returned Vandover.
+
+"No, no, I don't feel quite right about it," answered Geary, wagging his
+head and shutting his eyes. "Better see what we can do at a forced
+sale."
+
+"Why, don't you see you would be doing me a favour?" said Vandover
+wearily. "I _ask_ you to buy the block. I don't care what your figure
+is!"
+
+Once more Geary hesitated, for the last time going over the whole deal
+in his mind from beginning to end, testing it, looking for weak points.
+It was almost perfect. Suppose the boot and shoe people did not buy the
+lot? He could resell it elsewhere, even below its appraised value and
+yet make money by the transaction; the lot was cheap at ten thousand; it
+might bring twelve; even as an ordinary, legitimate speculation it was
+to be desired at such a figure. Suppose the boot and shoe people backed
+out entirely, suppose even he could not find another purchaser for the
+property, why, then, he could hold on to it; the income from the rents
+was fully 10 per cent. of the price he would have paid for it.
+
+"Well, Van," he said at last, making a slow, awkward gesture with his
+left hand, all the fingers extended, "well, I'll take you up--but I
+don't feel as though I should--" He suddenly interrupted himself with a
+burst of sincerity, exclaiming: "Sure, old man, if I had nine thousand
+I'd give it to you for the block, that's straight goods." He felt that
+he was conscientious in saying this. It was true he would have given
+nine thousand if he had had it. For that matter he might have given ten
+or twelve.
+
+"Can't we settle the whole matter to-day?" said Vandover. "Right
+here--now. I'm sick of it, sick of everything. Let's get it done with."
+
+Geary nearly bounded from his seat. He had been wondering how he might
+accomplish this very thing. "All right," he said briskly, "no reason in
+waiting." He had seen to it that he should be prepared to close the sale
+the moment that Vandover was willing. Long ago, when he had first had
+the idea of buying the block, he had spent a day in the offices of the
+county recorder, the tax collector, and the assessor, assuring himself
+of the validity of the title, and only two days ago he had gone over the
+matter again in order to be sure that no encumbrances had been added to
+the block in the meanwhile. He found nothing; the title was clear.
+
+"Isn't this rather rushing the thing through?" he asked. "Maybe you
+might regret it afterward. Don't you want to take two or three days to
+think it over?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Sure now?" persisted Geary.
+
+"But I've _got_ to sell before three days," answered Vandover.
+"Otherwise he'll want ten thousand."
+
+"That's a fact," admitted the other. "Well," he went on, "if your mind's
+made up, why--we can go right ahead. As I say, there's no reason for
+waiting; better take up Wade while he's in the mood for it. You see, he
+hasn't signed any proposition as yet, and he might go back on us."
+Vandover drew a long breath and got up slowly, heavily, from the couch,
+saying:
+
+"What's the odds to me what I sell for? _I_ don't get the money."
+
+"Well, what do you say if we go right down to a notary's office and put
+this thing right through," Geary suggested.
+
+"Come on, then."
+
+"Have you got your abstract here, the abstract of the block?" Vandover
+nodded. "Better bring it along, then," said Geary.
+
+The office of the notary adjoined those of the firm of Beale & Storey;
+in fact, he was in a sense an attaché of the great firm and transacted a
+great deal of legal business for them. Vandover and Geary fell upon him
+in an idle moment. A man had come to regulate the water filter, which
+took the place of an ice cooler in a corner of one of the anterooms, and
+while he was engaged at his work the notary stood at his back, abusing
+him and exclaiming at the ineffectiveness of the contrivance. The notary
+was a middle-aged man with a swollen, purple face; he had a toothpick
+behind each ear and wore an office coat of gray linen, ripped at the
+shoulders.
+
+Then the transfer was made. It was all settled in less than half an
+hour, unceremoniously, almost hastily. For the sake of form Geary signed
+a check for eight thousand dollars which Vandover in his turn made over
+to Hiram Wade. The notary filled out a deed of grant, bargain, and sale,
+pasting on his certificate of acknowledgment as soon as Vandover and
+Geary had signed. Geary took the abstract, thrusting it into his
+breast-pocket. As far as Vandover was concerned, the sale was complete,
+but he had neither his properly nor its equivalent in money.
+
+"Well," declared Geary at length, "I guess that's all there is to be
+done. I'll get a release from old man Wade and send it to you to-morrow
+or next day. Now, let's go down to the Imperial and have a drink on it."
+They went out, but the notary returned to the anteroom, turning the
+spigot of the filter to right and left, frowning at it suspiciously,
+refusing to be satisfied.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Sixteen
+
+
+That particular room in the Lick House was well toward the rear of the
+building, on one of the upper floors, and from its window, one looked
+out upon a vast reach of roofs that rose little by little to meet the
+abrupt rise of Telegraph Hill. It was a sordid and grimy wilderness,
+topped with a gray maze of wires and pierced with thousands of chimney
+stacks. Many of the roofs were covered with tin long since blackened by
+rust and soot. Here and there could be seen clothes hung out to dry.
+Occasionally upon the flanking walls of some of the larger buildings was
+displayed an enormous painted sign, a violent contrast of intense black
+and staring white amidst the sooty brown and gray, advertising some
+tobacco, some newspaper, or some department store. Not far in the
+distance two tall smokestacks of blackened tin rose high in the air,
+above the roof of a steam laundry, one very large like the stack of a
+Cunarder, the other slender, graceful, with a funnel-shaped top. All day
+and all night these stacks were smoking; from the first, the larger one,
+rolled a heavy black smoke, very gloomy, waving with a slow and
+continued movement like the plume of some sullen warrior. But the other
+one, the tall and slender pipe, threw off a series of little white
+puffs, three at a time, that rose buoyant and joyous into the air like
+so many white doves, vanishing at last, melting away in the higher
+sunshine, only to be followed by another flight. They came three at a
+time, the pipe tossing them out with a sharp gay sound like a note of
+laughter interrupted by a cough.
+
+But the interior of the room presented the usual dreary aspect of the
+hotel bedroom--cheerless, lamentable.
+
+The walls were whitewashed and bare of pictures or ornaments, and the
+floor was covered with a dull red carpet. The furniture was a "set," all
+the pieces having a family resemblance. On entering, one saw the bed
+standing against the right-hand wall, a huge double bed with the name of
+the hotel in the corners of its spread and pillowcases. In the exact
+middle of the room underneath the gas fixture was the centre-table, and
+upon it a pitcher of ice-water. The blank, white monotony of one side
+of the room was jarred upon by the grate and mantelpiece, iron, painted
+black, while on the mantelpiece itself stood a little porcelain
+matchsafe with ribbed sides in the form of a truncated cone. Precisely
+opposite the chimney was the bureau, flanked on one side by the door of
+the closet, and on the other in the corner of the room by the stationary
+washstand with its new cake of soap and its three clean, glossy towels.
+On the wall to the left of the door was the electric bell and the
+directions for using it, and tacked upon the door itself a card as to
+the hours for meals, the rules of the hotel, and the extract of the code
+defining the liabilities of innkeepers, all printed in bright red.
+Everything was clean, defiantly, aggressively clean, and there was a
+clean smell of new soap in the air.
+
+But the room was bare of any personality. Of the hundreds who had lived
+there, perhaps suffered and died there, not a trace, not a suggestion
+remained; their different characters had not left the least impress upon
+its air or appearance. Only a few hairpins were scattered on the bottom
+of one of the bureau drawers, and two forgotten medicine bottles still
+remained upon the top shelf of the closet.
+
+This had been the appearance of Vandover's new home when he had first
+come to it, after leaving his suite of rooms in the huge apartment house
+on Sutter Street. He had lived here now for something over a year.
+
+It had all commenced with the seizure of his furniture by the
+proprietors of the apartment house. Almost before he knew it he owed for
+six months' room and board; when the extras were added to this bill it
+swelled to nearly a thousand dollars. At first he would not believe it;
+it was not possible that so large a bill could accumulate without his
+knowledge. He declared there was a mistake, tossing back the bill to the
+clerk who had presented it, and shaking his head incredulously. This
+other became angry, offered to show the books of the house. The manager
+was called in and attempted to prove the clerk's statement by figures,
+dates, and extracts from the entries. Vandover was confused by their
+noise, and grew angry in his turn; vociferating that he did not propose
+to be cheated, the others retorted in a rage, the interview ended in a
+scene.
+
+But in the end they gained their point; they were right, and at length
+Vandover was brought around to see that he was in the wrong, but he had
+no ready money, and while he hesitated, unwilling to part with any of
+his bonds or to put an additional mortgage upon the homestead, the
+hotel, after two warnings, suddenly seized upon his furniture. What a
+misery!
+
+In a moment of time it was all taken from him, all the lovely
+bric-à-brac, all the heavy pieces, all the little articles of _vertu_
+which he had bought with such intense delight and amongst which he had
+lived with such happiness, such contentment, such never-failing
+pleasure. Everything went--the Renaissance portraits, the pipe-rack, the
+chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_
+and, worst of all, the stove, the famous tiled stove, the delightful
+cheery iron stove with the beautified flamboyant ornaments. For the
+first few months after the seizure Vandover was furious with rage and
+disappointment, persuaded that he could never live anywhere but in just
+such a room; it was as if he had been uprooted and cast away upon some
+barren, uncongenial soil. His new room in the hotel filled him with
+horror, and for a long time he used it only as a place where he could
+sleep and wash. For a long time even his pliable character refused to
+fit itself to such surroundings, refused to be content between four
+enormous white walls, a stuccoed ceiling, and a dark red carpet. He
+passed most of his time elsewhere, reading the papers at the Mechanics
+Library in the morning, and in the afternoon sitting about the hotel
+office and parlours until it was time to take his usual little four
+o'clock stroll on Kearney and Market streets. He had long since become a
+familiar figure on this promenade. Even the women and girls of Flossie's
+type had ceased to be interested in this tall, thin young man with the
+tired, heavy eyes and blue-white face. One day, however, a curious
+incident did for a moment invest Vandover with a sudden dramatic
+interest. It was just after he had moved down to the Lick House, about a
+month after he had sold the block in the Mission. Vandover was standing
+at Lotta's fountain at the corner of Kearney and Market streets,
+interested in watching a policeman and two boys reharnessing a horse
+after its tumble. All at once he fell over flat into the street,
+jostling one of the flower venders and nearly upsetting him. He struck
+the ground with a sodden shock, his arms doubled under him, his hat
+rolling away into the mud. Bewildered, he picked himself up; very few
+had seen him fall, but a little crowd gathered for all that. One asked
+if the man was drunk, and Vandover, terrified lest the policeman should
+call the patrol wagon, hurried off to a basement barber shop near by,
+where he brushed his clothes, still bewildered, confused, wondering how
+it had happened.
+
+The fearful nervous crisis which Vandover had undergone had passed off
+slowly. Little by little, bit by bit, he had got himself in hand again.
+However, the queer numbness in his head remained, and as soon as he
+concentrated his attention on any certain line of thought, as soon as he
+had read for any length of time, especially if late at night, the
+numbness increased. Somewhere back of his eyes a strange blurring mist
+would seem to rise; he would find it impossible to keep his mind fixed
+upon any subject; the words of a printed page would little by little
+lose their meaning. At first this had been a source of infinite terror
+to him. He fancied it to be the symptoms of some approaching mental
+collapse, but, as the weeks went by and nothing unusual occurred, he
+became used to it, and refused to let it worry him. If it made his head
+feel queer to read, the remedy was easy enough--he simply would not
+read; and though he had been a great reader, and at one time had been
+used to spend many delightful afternoons lost in the pages of a novel,
+he now gave it all up with an easy indifference.
+
+But, besides all this, the attack had left him with nerves all unstrung;
+even his little afternoon walk on Kearney and Market streets exhausted
+him; any trifling and sudden noise, the closing of a door, the striking
+of a clock, would cause him to start from his place with a gasp and a
+quick catch at the heart. Toward evening this little spasm of nerves
+would sometimes come upon him even when there was nothing to cause it,
+and now he could no longer drop off to sleep without first undergoing a
+whole series of these recoils and starts, that would sometimes bring him
+violently up to a sitting posture, his breath coming short and quick,
+his heart galloping, startled at he knew not what.
+
+At first he had intended to see a doctor, but he had put off carrying
+his intention into effect until he had grown accustomed to the whole
+matter; otherwise, he was well enough, his appetite was good, and when
+he finally did get to sleep he would not wake up for a good eight hours.
+
+One evening, however, about three months after the first crisis and just
+as Vandover was becoming well accustomed to the condition of body and
+mind in which it had left him, the second attack came on. It was
+fearful, much worse than on the first occasion, and this time there was
+no room for doubt. Vandover knew that for the moment he was actually
+insane.
+
+Ellis had been with Vandover most of that afternoon, the two had been
+playing cards in Vandover's room until nearly six o'clock. All the
+afternoon they had been drinking whisky while they played, and by
+supper-time neither of them had any appetite. Ellis refused to go down,
+declaring that if he should eat now it would make him sick. Vandover
+went down alone, but once in the dining-room he found that _he_ could
+not eat either. However, he knew that it was not the whisky. For two
+days his appetite had been failing him. The smell of food revolted him,
+and he left the supper-table, going up to his bare and lamentable room
+with the feeling that he was about to undergo a long spell of sickness.
+In the deserted hall, between the elevator and the door of his room, the
+second crisis came upon him all at once. It was so sudden that it was as
+if some enemy had leaped upon his back, springing out of the shadow,
+gripping him from behind, holding him close. Once more the hysteria
+shook him like a dry leaf. The little nervous starts came so fast that
+they ran together, mingling to form one long thrill of terror, the
+blind, unreasoning terror of something unknown; the numbness weighed
+down upon his brain until consciousness dwindled to a mere point and
+mercifully dulled the torture of his crisping nerves. It seemed to him
+that his hands and head were rapidly swelling to enormous size.
+
+All this he had felt before; it was his old enemy, but now with this
+second attack began a new and even stranger sensation. In his distorted
+wits he fancied that he was in some manner changing, that he was
+becoming another man; worse than that, it seemed to him that he was no
+longer human, that he was sinking, all in a moment, to the level of
+some dreadful beast.
+
+Later on in that same evening Ellis met young Haight coming out of one
+of the theatres, and told him a story that Haight did not believe. Ellis
+was very pale, and he seemed to young Haight to be trying to keep down
+some tremendous excitement.
+
+"If he was drunk," said Ellis, "it was the strangest drunk I ever saw.
+He came back into the room on all fours--not on his hands and knees, you
+understand, but running along the floor upon the palms of his hands and
+his toes--and he pushed the door of the room open with his head,
+nuzzling at the crack like any dog. Oh, it was horrible. _I_ don't know
+what's the matter with Van. You should have seen him; his head was
+hanging way down, and swinging from side to side as he came along; it
+shook all his hair over his eyes. He kept rattling his teeth together,
+and every now and then he would say, way down in his throat so it
+sounded like growls, 'Wolf--wolf--wolf.' I got hold of him and pulled
+him up to his feet. It was just as though he was asleep, and when I
+shook him he came to all at once and began to laugh. 'What's the matter,
+Van?' says I. 'What are you crawling on the floor that way for?' 'I'm
+damned if I know,' says he, rubbing his eyes. 'I guess I must have been
+out of my head. Too much whisky!' Then he says: 'Put me to bed, will
+you, Bandy? I feel all gone in.' Well, I put him to bed and went out to
+get some bromide of potassium; he said that made him sleep and kept his
+nerves steady. Coming back, I met a bell-boy just outside of Van's door,
+and told him to ask the hotel doctor to come up. You see, I had not
+opened the door of the room yet, and while I was talking to the bell-boy
+I could hear the sound of something four-footed going back and forth
+inside the room. When I got inside there was Van, perfectly naked, going
+back and forth along the wall, swinging his head very low, grumbling to
+himself. But he came to again as soon as I shook him, and seemed
+dreadfully ashamed, and went to bed all right. He got to sleep finally,
+and I left the doctor with him, to come out and get something for my own
+nerves."
+
+"What did the doctor say was the matter?" asked young Haight, in horror.
+
+"_Lycanthropy-Pathesis_. I never heard the name before--some kind of
+nervous disease. I guess Van had been hitting up a pretty rapid gait,
+and then I suppose he's had a good deal to worry him, too."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once more the attack passed off, leaving Vandover exhausted, his nerves
+all jangling, his health impaired. Every day he seemed to grow thinner,
+great brown hollows grew under his eyes, and the skin of his forehead
+looked blue and tightly drawn. By degrees a deep gloom overcame him
+permanently, nothing could interest him, nothing seemed worth while. Not
+only were his nerves out of tune, but they were jaded, deadened, slack;
+they were like harpstrings that had been played upon so long and so
+violently that now they could no longer vibrate unless swept with a very
+whirlwind.
+
+As he had foreseen, Vandover had returned again to vice, to the vice
+that was knitted into him now, fibre for fibre, to the ways of the brute
+that by degrees was taking entire possession of him. But he no longer
+found pleasure even in vice; once it had been his amusement, now it was
+his occupation. It was the only thing that seemed to ease the horrible
+nervousness that of late had begun to prey upon him constantly.
+
+But though nothing could amuse him, on the other hand nothing could
+worry him; in the end the very riot of his nerves ceased even to annoy
+him. He had arrived at a state of absolute indifference. He had so often
+rearranged his pliable nature to suit his changing environment that at
+last he found that he could be content in almost any circumstances. He
+had no pleasures, no cares, no ambitions, no regrets, no hopes. It was
+mere passive existence, an inert, plantlike vegetation, the moment's
+pause before the final decay, the last inevitable rot.
+
+One day after he had been living nearly a year at the Lick House, Adams
+& Brunt, the real estate agents, sent him word that they had an offer
+for his property on California Street. It was the homestead. The English
+gentleman, the president of the fruit syndicate who had rented the house
+of Vandover, was now willing to buy it. His business was by this time on
+a firm and paying basis and he had decided to make his home in San
+Francisco. He offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the house,
+including the furniture.
+
+Brunt had several talks with Vandover and easily induced him to sell.
+"You can figure it out for yourself, Mr. Vandover," he said, as he
+pointed out his own calculations to him; "property has been going down
+in the city for the last ten years, and it will continue to do so until
+we can get a competing railroad through. Better sell when you can, and
+twenty-five thousand is a fair price. Of course, you will have to pay
+off the mortgage; you won't get but about fifteen thousand out of it,
+but at the same time you won't have to pay the interest on that mortgage
+to the banks; that will be so much saved a month; add that to what you
+could get for your fifteen thousand at, say, 6 per cent., and you would
+have a monthly income nearly equal to the present rent of the house, and
+much more certain, too. Suppose your tenant should go out, then where
+would you be?"
+
+"All right, all right," answered Vandover, nodding his head vaguely. "Go
+ahead, _I_ don't care." He parted from his old home with as much
+indifference as he had parted from his block in the Mission.
+
+Vandover signed the deed that made him homeless, and at about the same
+time the first payment was made. Ten thousand dollars was deposited in
+one of the banks to his credit, and a check sent to him for the amount.
+The very next day Vandover drew against it for five hundred dollars.
+
+At one time he had had an ambition to buy back his furniture from the
+huge apartment house in which he had formerly lived, and with it to make
+his cheerless bedroom in the Lick House seem more like a home. He felt
+it almost as a dishonour to have strangers using this furniture, sitting
+in the great leather chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, staring
+stupidly at his Renaissance portraits and copies of Assyrian
+_bas-reliefs_. Above all, it was torture to think that other hands than
+his own would tend the famous tiled and flamboyant stove, a stove that
+had its moods, its caprices, like any living person, a stove that had to
+be coaxed and humoured, a stove that he alone could understand. He had
+told himself that if ever again he should have money enough he would
+bring back this furniture to him. At first its absence had been a matter
+for the keenest regret and grief. He had been so used to pleasant
+surroundings that he languished in his new quarters as in a prison. His
+indulgent, luxurious character continually hungered after subdued,
+harmonious colours, pictures, ornaments, and soft rugs. His imagination
+was forever covering the white walls with rough stone-blue paper, and
+placing screens, divans, and window-seats in different parts of the cold
+bare room. One morning he had even gone so far as to pin about the walls
+little placards which he had painted with a twisted roll of the hotel
+letter-paper dipped into the inkstand. "Pipe-rack Here." "Mona Lisa
+Here." "Stove Here." "Window-seat Here." He had left them up there ever
+since, in spite of the chambermaid's protests and Ellis' clumsy satire.
+
+Now, however, he had plenty of money. He would have his furniture back
+within the week. He came back from the bank, the money in his pocket,
+and went up to the room directly, with some vague intention of writing
+to the proprietors of the apartment house at once. But as he shut the
+door behind him, leaning his back against it and looking about, he
+suddenly realized that his old-time desire was passed; he had become so
+used to these surroundings that it now no longer made any difference to
+him whether or not they were cheerless, lamentable, barren. It was like
+all his other little ambitions--he had lost the taste for them, nothing
+made much difference after all. His money had come too late.
+
+Why should he spend his five hundred dollars on something that could no
+longer amuse him? It would be much wiser to spend it all in having a
+good time somewhere--champagne dinners with Flossie, or betting on the
+races--he did not know exactly what. It was true that even these
+alternatives would not amuse him very much--he would fall back upon them
+as things of habit. For that matter everything was an _ennui_, and
+Vandover began to long for some new pleasure, some violent untried
+excitement.
+
+Since the sale of the block in the Mission he had seen but little of
+Geary; young Haight had not been his companion since the time when
+Turner Ravis had broken with him, but little by little he had begun to
+associate with Ellis and his friend the Dummy. Almost every evening the
+three were together, sometimes at the theatre, sometimes in the back
+rooms of the Imperial, sometimes even in the parlours of certain houses,
+amid the murmur of heavy silks and the rustle of stiffly starched
+skirts. At times they would be drunk four nights of the week, and on
+these occasions it was tacitly understood between Ellis and Vandover
+that they should try to get the Dummy so full that he could talk.
+
+However, Ellis' vice was gambling; he and the Dummy often passed the
+whole night over their cards, and as Vandover came more and more under
+Ellis' influence--succumbing to it as weakly as he had succumbed to the
+influence of Charlie Geary--he began to join these parties. They played
+Van John at five dollars a corner. Vandover won as often as he lost, but
+the habit of cards grew upon him steadily.
+
+Toward eleven o'clock the evening of the day upon which he had drawn his
+five hundred, Vandover went around to the Imperial looking for his two
+friends. He found Ellis drinking whisky all alone in one of the little
+rooms, as was his custom; fifteen minutes later the Dummy and Flossie
+joined them. Flossie had grown stouter since Vandover had first known
+her, nearly ten years ago. She had a double chin, and puffy, discoloured
+pockets had come under her eyes. Now her hair was dyed, her cheeks and
+lips rouged, and her former air of health and good spirits gone. She
+never laughed. She had smoked so many cigarettes that now her voice
+hardly rose above a whisper. At one time she had been accustomed to
+boast that she never drank, and it had been one of her peculiarities for
+which she was well known. But on this occasion she joined Ellis in his
+whisky. She had long since departed from her old-time rule of
+temperance, and nowadays drank nothing else but whisky. She had even
+become well known for the quantity of whisky she could drink.
+
+For half an hour the four sat around the little table, talking about the
+new, enormous Sutro Baths that were building at that time. After a while
+Flossie left them, and the Dummy began to imitate the motions of some
+one dealing cards, looking at the same time inquiringly into their
+faces.
+
+"How about that, Bandy?" asked Vandover. "Shall we have a game
+to-night?"
+
+The man of few words merely nodded his head and drank off the rest of
+his whisky at a swallow. They all went up to Vandover's room. Vandover
+got out the cards, the celluloid chips, and a fresh box of cigars. The
+Dummy held up two fingers of his left hand, shutting them together
+afterward with his right and making a hissing noise between his teeth.
+He raised his eyebrows at Vandover. Vandover understood, and, ringing
+for a bell-boy, ordered up three bottles of soda in siphon bottles.
+
+The game was _vingt et un_, or, as they called it, Van John. They cut
+for banker. Ellis turned the first ace, and Vandover bought the bank
+from him. For the first hour they were very jolly, laughing and talking
+back and forth at each other; the Dummy especially communicative,
+continually scribbling upon his writing-pad, holding it toward the
+others. But it was not necessary for them to put their replies in
+writing--he understood from watching the movement of their lips. The
+luck had not declared itself as yet; none of them had lost or won very
+much. The bell-boy brought up the siphons. The Dummy took off his coat,
+and the other two followed his example. They were all smoking, and an
+acrid blue haze filled the room, making a golden blur about each gas
+globe.
+
+But little by little the passion of the gambling seized upon them. The
+luck had begun to declare itself, alternating between Ellis and the
+Dummy. Vandover lost steadily; twice already his bank had been broken,
+and he had been forced to buy in. The play resolved itself into two
+parts, Vandover struggling to keep up with the game on one side, and on
+the other a great battle going on between Ellis and the Dummy. Long
+since they had ceased to laugh, and not a word was spoken; each one was
+absorbed in the game, intently watching the cards as they were turned.
+The four gas-jets of the chandelier flared steadily, filling the room
+with a crude raw light that was reflected with a blinding glare from the
+four staring white walls, the room grew hot, the layer of foul warm air
+just beneath the ceiling, slowly descending. The acrid tobacco smoke no
+longer rose, but hung in long, slow-waving threads just above their
+heads. They played on steadily; a great stillness grew in the room, a
+stillness broken only by the little rattle of chips and subdued rustle
+of the shuffled cards. Once Vandover stopped, just time enough to throw
+off his vest, his collar, and his scarf. For a moment the luck seemed
+about to settle on him. He was still banking, and twice in succession
+he drew Van John, both times winning heavily from the Dummy, and a
+little later tied Ellis at twenty when the latter had staked on nearly a
+third of his chips. But in the next half-dozen hands Ellis got back the
+lead again, winning from both the others. From this time on it was
+settled. The luck suddenly declared openly for Ellis, the Dummy and
+Vandover merely fighting for second place. Ellis held his lead; at one
+o'clock he was nearly fifty dollars ahead of the game. The profound
+silence of the room seemed to widen about them. After midnight the
+noises in the hotel, the ringing of distant call bells, the rattle of
+dishes from the kitchens, the clash of closing elevator doors, gradually
+ceased; only at long intervals one heard the hurried step of a bell-boy
+in the hall outside and the clink of the ice in the water pitcher that
+he was carrying. Outside a great quiet seemed in a sense to rise from
+the sleeping city, the noises in the streets died away. The last
+electric car went down Kearney Street, getting under way with a long
+minor wail. Occasionally a belated coupé, a nighthawk, rattled over the
+cobbles, while close by, from over the roofs, the tall slender stack
+upon the steam laundry puffed incessantly, three puffs at a time, like
+some kind of halting clock. The room became more and more close, none of
+them would take the time to open the window, from ceiling to floor the
+air was fouled by their breathing, by the tobacco smoke and by the four
+flaring gas-jets. By this time a sombre excitement burnt in their eyes
+and quivered in their fingers. Never for an instant did their glances
+leave the cards. Ellis was drinking whisky again, mixed with soda, his
+hand continually groping for the glass with a mechanical gesture; the
+Dummy was so excited he could not keep his cigar alight, and contented
+himself with chewing the end with an hysterical motion of his jaws. The
+perspiration stood in beads on the back of Vandover's hands, running
+down in tiny rivulets between his fingers, his teeth were shut close
+together and he was breathing short through his nose, a fine trembling
+had seized upon his hands so that the chips in his palm rattled like
+castanets. In the stale and murky atmosphere of the overheated room in
+the midst of the vast silence of the sleeping city they played on
+steadily.
+
+Then they began to "plunge," agreeing to play a no limit game and
+raising the value of a red chip to ten dollars; at times they even
+played with the coins themselves when their chips were exhausted.
+Vandover had lost all his ready money, and now for a long time had been
+gambling with the five hundred dollars he had that day drawn from the
+bank. Ellis had practically put the Dummy out of the play, and now the
+game was between him and Vandover. Ellis was banking, and at length
+offered to sell the bank to either one of them. For the first time since
+the real gambling began they commenced to talk a little, but in short,
+brief sentences, answering by monosyllables and by signs.
+
+"How much for the bank?" inquired Ellis, holding up the deck and looking
+from one to the other. Instantly the Dummy wrote ten dollars, in
+figures, on his pad, and showed it to him. Vandover looked at what the
+Dummy had written, and said:
+
+"Fifteen."
+
+"Twenty," scribbled the Dummy, as he watched Vandover's lips form the
+word.
+
+"Twenty-five," returned Vandover. The Dummy hesitated a moment and then
+wrote "thirty." Ellis shook his head saying, "I'll keep the bank myself
+at that."
+
+"Forty dollars!" cried Vandover. The Dummy shook his head, leaning back
+in his chair. Ellis shoved the pack across the table to Vandover, and
+Vandover gave him a twenty-dollar bill and two red chips.
+
+On Vandover's very first deal around, the Dummy "stood" on the second
+card, for twelve chips; Ellis bet twenty-five on his first card, and, as
+he got the second, turned both of them face up. He had two jacks.
+"Twenty-five on each of these," he said. "I'll draw to each one."
+Vandover looked at his own card; it was a ten-spot. All at once he grew
+reckless, and seized with a sudden folly, resolved to attempt a great
+_coup_. "Double up!" he ordered. The Dummy set out twelve more chips,
+and Ellis another fifty, making his bet an even hundred. Vandover began
+to deal to Ellis. On the first jack Ellis drew eighteen and stood at
+that; the first card that fell to the second jack was an ace. "Van
+John," he remarked quietly. The Dummy drew three cards and stood on
+nineteen. Vandover turned up his own card and began to deal for himself.
+He already had a ten; now he drew a seven-spot and king in succession.
+
+"The bank pays," he exclaimed. He paid the Dummy twenty-four chips. He
+gave Ellis fifty for the eighteen he had drawn on his first jack, and
+one hundred for the Van John upon the second, since the latter
+combination called for double the amount wagered; besides this, the bank
+was lost to him. Including the forty that he had paid for the bank, he
+had lost in all two hundred and fourteen dollars.
+
+Never in his life had Vandover played so high a game, never before had
+he won or lost more than fifty dollars at a sitting. But he was content
+to have it thus. Here at last was the new pleasure for which he had
+longed, the fresh violent excitement that alone could rouse his jaded
+nerves, the one thing that could amuse him. However, the failure of his
+_coup_ had left him without chips; he was out of the game. He decided
+that he would stop; more than half of his five hundred dollars was gone
+already. He drank off a glass of soda, the dregs of one of the siphon
+bottles, and got up yawning, shivering a little and stretching his arms
+high above. The other two played on steadily. The Dummy began to gain
+slowly upon Ellis, playing very cautiously, betting only upon face
+cards, aces, and ten-spots. Twice Ellis offered to sell him the bank,
+but he refused, fearful lest it should change his luck.
+
+Vandover sat behind the Dummy's chair, watching his game, but at length,
+worn out, he began to drop off to sleep, waking every now and then with
+a sudden leap and recoil of all his nerves. An hour later the persistent
+scratching of a match awoke him. Ellis and the Dummy were still playing,
+and the Dummy was once more relighting the stump of his cigar. Ellis
+continued to deal, winning at almost every play; a great pile of chips
+and money lay at his elbow. For a few minutes Vandover watched the
+Dummy's game, leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees. But
+it was evident that the Dummy had lost his nerve. Ellis' continued
+winnings had at length demoralized him. At one time he would bet heavily
+on worthless cards, and at another would throw back nines and tens for
+no apparent reason. Finally Ellis dealt him a queen, which he kept,
+betting ten chips. His next card was a seven-spot. He signed to Ellis
+that he would stand. Ellis drew twenty in three cards. Vandover could
+not restrain an exclamation of impatience at the Dummy's stupidity. What
+a fool a man must be to stand on seventeen with only two in the game.
+All at once he tossed twenty dollars across the table to Ellis, saying,
+"Give me that in chips. I'm coming in again." Once more he resumed his
+seat at the table, and Ellis dealt him a hand.
+
+But Vandover's interruption had for an instant taken Ellis' mind from
+the game. He stirred in his chair and looked about the room, puffing out
+his cheeks and blowing between his lips.
+
+"Say, this room is close enough to strangle you. Open the window behind
+you, Van, you're nearest to it." As Vandover raised the curtain he
+uttered a cry: "Look here! will you?"
+
+It was morning; the city was flooded by the light of the sun already an
+hour high. The sky was without a cloud. Over the roofs and amongst the
+gray maze of telegraph wires swarms of sparrows were chittering
+hoarsely, and as Vandover raised the window he could hear the newsboys
+far below in the streets chanting the morning's papers.
+
+"Come on, Van!" exclaimed Ellis impatiently; "we're waiting for you."
+
+That night decided it. From that time on, Vandover's only pleasure was
+gambling. Night and day he sat over the cards, the passion growing upon
+him as he continued to lose, for his ill luck was extraordinary. It was
+a veritable mania, a wild blind frenzy that knew no limit. At first he
+had contented himself with a game in which twenty or thirty dollars was
+as much as he could win or lose at a sitting, but soon this palled upon
+him; he was obliged to raise the stakes continually in order to arouse
+in him the interest, the keen tense excitement, that his jaded nerves
+craved.
+
+The five hundred dollars that he had drawn from the ten thousand, the
+first payment on his old home, melted away within a week. Only a few
+years ago Vandover would have stopped to reflect upon the meaning of
+this, would have resisted the temptation that drew him constantly to the
+gambling-table, but the idea of resistance never so much as occurred to
+him. He did not invest his fifteen thousand, but drew upon it
+continually to satisfy his last new craze. It was not with any hope of
+winning that he gambled--the desire of money was never strong in him--it
+was only the love of the excitement of the moment.
+
+Little by little the fifteen thousand in the bank dwindled. It did not
+all go in cards. Certain habits of extravagance grew upon Vandover, the
+natural outcome of his persistent gambling, the desire of winning easily
+being balanced by the impulses to spend quickly. He took a certain
+hysterical delight in flinging away money with both hands. Now it was
+the chartering of a yacht for a ten-days' cruise about the bay, or it
+was a bicycle bought one week and thrown away the next, a fresh suit of
+clothes each month, gloves worn but once, gold-pieces thrust into
+Flossie's pockets, suppers given to bouffe actresses--twenty-four-hour
+acquaintances--a racehorse bought for eight hundred dollars, resold for
+two hundred and fifty--rings and scarf-pins given away to the women and
+girls of the Imperial, and a whole world of follies that his poor
+distorted wits conceived from hour to hour. His judgment was gone, his
+mind unbalanced. All his life Vandover had been sinking slowly lower and
+lower; this, however, was the beginning of the last plunge. The process
+of degeneration, though inevitable, had been gradual as long as he
+indulged generally in all forms of evil; it was only now when a passion
+for one particular vice absorbed him that he commenced to rush headlong
+to his ruin.
+
+The fifteen thousand dollars--the price of his old home--he gambled or
+flung away in a little less than a year. He never invested it, but ate
+into it day after day, sometimes to pay his gambling debts, sometimes to
+indulge an absurd and extravagant whim, sometimes to pay his bill at the
+Lick House, and sometimes for no reason at all, moved simply by a
+reckless desire for spending.
+
+On the evening of a certain Thanksgiving day, nine months after he had
+sold the house, Vandover came in through the ladies' entrance of the
+Imperial, going slowly down the passageway, looking into the little
+rooms on his right for Ellis or the Dummy. There had been a great
+intercollegiate football game that day, and Vandover, remembering that
+he had once found an interest in such things, had at first determined to
+see it. But toward eleven o'clock in the morning the rain had begun to
+fall, and Ellis, who was to have gone with him, declared that he did not
+care enough about the game to go out to it in the rain. Vandover was
+disappointed; he fancied that he could have enjoyed the game--as much as
+he could enjoy anything of late--but he hated to go to places alone. In
+the end, however, he resolved to go whether Ellis went or not. It was a
+holiday. Vandover had Ellis and the Dummy to lunch with him at the
+hotel, where they arranged the menu of a famous Thanksgiving dinner for
+that evening: they would meet in one of the little rooms of the Imperial
+and go from there to the restaurant. As they were finishing their lunch
+Vandover said:
+
+"I got a new kind of liqueur yesterday--has a colour like violets and
+smells like cologne. You fellows better come up to my room and try it.
+I've got to go up and change anyway, if I go out to that game." They all
+went up to Vandover's cheerless room, and Ellis began to argue with
+Vandover against the folly of going anywhere in the rain.
+
+"_You_ don't want to go to that game, Van. Just look how it's raining.
+I'll bet there won't be a thousand people there. They'll probably
+postpone the game anyway. Say, this _is_ queer looking stuff. What do
+you call it?"
+
+"_Crème violette._"
+
+The Dummy set down his emptied liqueur glass on the mantelshelf, and
+nodded approvingly at Vandover; then he scribbled, "Out of sight," on
+his tablet.
+
+"Tastes like cough syrup and alcohol," growled Ellis, scowling and
+sipping. "I think a pint of this would make the Dummy talk Dutch. Keep
+it up, Dummy," he continued, articulating distinctly so that the other
+could catch the movement of his lips. "Drink some more--make you talk."
+Vandover was cutting the string around a pasteboard box that had just
+come from his tailor's; it was a new suit of clothes, rough cheviot,
+brown with small checks. He dressed slowly and tipped forward the
+swinging mirror of the bureau to see how the trousers set. Meanwhile
+Ellis and the Dummy had got out the cards and chips from the drawer of
+the centre-table and had begun a game.
+
+"Better change your mind, Van," said Ellis without raising his eyes from
+the cards.
+
+"No, sir," answered Van. "You don't know how it is--you never were a
+college man. Why, I wouldn't miss a football game for anything. Talk
+about your horse-racing, talk about your baseball--I tell you there's
+nothing in the world so exciting as a hot football game." He swung into
+his long high-coloured waterproof and stood behind Ellis, watching his
+game for a moment while he tied a couple of long silk streamers to his
+umbrella handle.
+
+"It's one of the college colours," he explained. "Seems like old times
+back at Harvard." Ellis snorted with contempt.
+
+"Such kids!" he growled.
+
+"I saw one of the coaches go down the street a little while ago,"
+continued Vandover, still watching Ellis shuffle and deal. "There were
+about twenty college men on top, and they had a big bulldog all
+harnessed out in their colours, and they were blowing fish-horns, and I
+tell you it made me wish I was one of them again." Ellis did not answer;
+it was probable he did not hear. Both he and the Dummy were settling
+down for a game that no doubt would last all the afternoon. Vandover
+made them free of his room, and they often gambled there when he was
+away. But it invariably made Ellis nervous to have any one stand behind
+his chair while he was playing; he began to move about uneasily. By and
+by he looked at his watch. "Better get a move on," he said, "you'll be
+late."
+
+"Just a minute," answered Vandover, more and more interested in the
+game. "Go on playing; don't bother about me. Oh, I saw Charlie Geary,
+too," he continued, "on another coach; there was a party of them.
+Charlie was with Turner Ravis on the box seat. You remember Turner
+Ravis, don't you, Bandy? The girl I used to go with."
+
+"There's a girl I never liked," observed Ellis. "She always struck me as
+being one of these regular snobs."
+
+"Ah, snob is no name for it," assented Vandover. "She thought she was
+too damned high-toned for me. As soon as I got into that mess about Ida
+Wade, she threw me over. No, she didn't want to be associated with me
+any longer. Well, she can go to the devil. Geary's welcome to her."
+
+"I thought Dolly Haight was going to marry her," said Ellis. "What was
+the matter _there_?"
+
+"I don't know," returned Vandover; "probably Dolly Haight didn't have
+enough money to suit her. Guess she wants a man that will make his pile
+in this town and make his way, too. Ah, you bet!"
+
+Half an hour later he was still behind Ellis' chair. Ellis had become so
+fidgety that he was losing steadily. Once more he turned to Vandover,
+speaking over his shoulder, "Come on, come on, Van, go along to your
+football; you make me nervous standing there." Vandover pushed a
+ten-dollar gold-piece across the table to the Dummy, who was banking,
+and said:
+
+"Give me that in chips. I'm coming in."
+
+"I thought you were going to the game?" inquired Ellis.
+
+"Ah, the devil!" answered Vandover. "Too much rain."
+
+They had played without interruption all that afternoon, and for once
+Vandover had all the luck. When they broke up about five o'clock with
+the understanding to meet again in the Imperial at seven, he had won
+nearly a hundred dollars.
+
+When Vandover went out to keep this appointment he found the
+streets--especially Kearney and Market streets--crowded. It was about
+half-past six. The football game was over and the college men had
+returned. They were everywhere, marching about in long files, chain-gang
+fashion, each file headed by a man beating upon a gong, or parading the
+sidewalks ten abreast, singing college songs or shouting their slogan.
+At every moment one heard the college yells answering each other from
+street corner to street corner, "Rah, rah, rah--Rah, rah, rah!" Vandover
+found the Imperial crowded with students. The barroom was packed to the
+doors, every one of the little rooms in the front hall was full, while
+Flossie and Nannie had a great party of the young fellows in one of the
+larger rooms in the rear. Among the crowd in the barroom, three members
+of the winning team--heroes, with bandages about their heads--were
+breaking training, smoking and drinking for the first time in many long
+weeks.
+
+Vandover found Ellis and the Dummy leaning against the wall in the
+crowded front passage. They were both in bad humour, the Dummy sulking
+because Flossie had left him for one of the football men, the full-back,
+a young blond giant with two dislocated fingers; Ellis in a rage because
+he could get no cocktails at the bar, only straight drinks that
+night--too much of a crowd. These damn college sports thought they
+owned the town. "Ah, let's get out of here, Van!" he called over the
+heads of the throng as soon as Vandover came in sight.
+
+They went out into the street and started in the direction of the
+restaurant where they had decided to eat their Thanksgiving dinner.
+After leaving Vandover that afternoon Ellis had seen the head waiter of
+this restaurant and had explained to him the bill of fare that Vandover,
+the Dummy, and himself had arranged during their lunch at the Lick
+House. The streets had relapsed into a momentary quiet--it was between
+half-past six and seven--and most of the college men were gathered into
+the hotels and cafés eating dinner. About an hour later they would
+reappear again for a moment on their way to the theatre, which they were
+to attend in a body.
+
+But Vandover suddenly discovered that he could not eat a mouthful, the
+smell of food revolted him, and little by little an irregular twitching
+had overcome his hands and forearms.
+
+He had received a great shock. That same evening, as he was leaving the
+hotel, the clerk at the office had handed him some letters that had
+accumulated in his box. Vandover could never think to ask for his mail
+in the morning as he went in to breakfast. Something was surely wrong
+with his head of late. Every day he found it harder and harder to
+remember things. There were three letters altogether: one was the
+tailor's bill mailed the same day that his last suit had been finished;
+a second was an advertisement announcing the near opening of the Sutro
+Baths that were building at that time; and the third a notice from the
+bank calling his attention to the fact that his account was overdrawn by
+some sixty dollars.
+
+At first Vandover did not see the meaning of this notice, and thrust it
+back in his pocket together with the tailor's bill; then slowly an idea
+struggled into his mind. Was it possible that he no longer had any money
+at the bank? Was his fifteen thousand gone? From time to time his
+bank-book had been balanced, and invariably during the first days of
+each month his checks had come back to him, used and crumpled, covered
+with strange signatures and stamped in blue ink; but after the first few
+months he had never paid the least attention to these; he never kept
+accounts, having a veritable feminine horror of figures. But it was
+absurd to think that his money was gone. Pshaw! one could not spend
+fifteen thousand in nine months! It was preposterous! This notice was
+some technicality that he could not understand. He would look into it
+the next day. And so he dismissed the wearisome matter from his mind
+with a shrug of his shoulders as though ridding himself of some
+troublesome burden. However, the idea persisted. Somehow, between the
+lines of the printed form he smelt out a fresh disaster. He read it over
+again and again. All at once as he stood in the doorway of the hotel,
+turning up the collar of his waterproof and watching the little pools in
+the hollows of the asphalt pavement to see if it were still raining, the
+conviction came upon him. In a second he knew that he was ruined. The
+true meaning of the notice became apparent with the swiftness of a great
+flash of light. He had spent his fifteen thousand dollars!
+
+The blow was strong enough, sudden enough to penetrate even Vandover's
+clouded and distorted wits. His nerves were gone in a minute, a sudden
+stupefying numbness fell upon his brain, and the fear of something
+unknown, the immense unreasoning terror that had gripped him for the
+first time the morning after Ida Wade's suicide came back upon him,
+horrible, crushing, so that he had to shut his teeth against a wild
+hysterical desire to rush through the streets screaming and waving his
+arms.
+
+By the time the three friends had reached the restaurant where they were
+to eat their Thanksgiving dinner, Vandover's appetite had given place to
+a loathing of the very smell of food, his nervousness was fast
+approaching hysteria, the little nerve clusters all over his body seemed
+to be crisping and writhing like balls of tiny serpents, at intervals he
+would twitch sharply as though startled at some sudden noise, his breath
+coming short, his heart beating quick.
+
+They had their dinner in one of the private rooms of the restaurant on
+the second floor. All through the meal Vandover struggled to keep
+himself in hand, fighting with all his strength against this
+reappearance of his old enemy, this sudden return of the dreadful
+crisis, determined not to make an exhibition of himself before the
+others. He pretended to eat, and forced himself to talk, joining in with
+Ellis, who was badgering the Dummy about Flossie. The proper thing to
+do was to fill the Dummy's glass while his attention was otherwise
+absorbed, and in the end to get him so drunk that he could talk. Toward
+the end of the dinner Ellis was successful. All at once the Dummy got
+upon his feet, his eyes were glazed with drunkenness, he swayed about in
+an irregular circle, holding up, now by the table, now by the
+chair-back, and now by the wall behind him. He was very angry,
+exasperated beyond control by Ellis' raillery and abuse. He forgot
+himself and uttered a series of peculiar cries very faint and shrill,
+like the sounds of a voice heard through a telephone when some
+imperfection of transmission prevents one from distinguishing the words.
+His mouth was wide open and his tongue rolled about in an absurd way
+between his teeth. Now and then one could catch a word or two. Ellis
+went into spasms of laughter, holding his sides, gasping for breath.
+Vandover could not help being amused, and the two laughed at the Dummy's
+stammering rage until their breath was spent. Throughout the rest of the
+evening the Dummy recommenced from time to time, rising unsteadily to
+his feet, shaking his fists, pouring out a stream of little ineffectual
+birdlike twitterings, trying to give Ellis abuse for abuse, trying to
+talk long after it had ceased to amuse the other two. Ellis had been
+drinking for nearly six hours, without the liquor producing the
+slightest effect upon him; long since, the Dummy was hopelessly drunk;
+and now Vandover, who had been drinking upon an empty stomach, began to
+grow very noisy and boisterous. Little by little Ellis himself commenced
+to lose his self-control. By and by he and Vandover began to sing, each
+independent of the other, very hoarse and loud. The Dummy joined them,
+making a hideous and lamentable noise which so affected Ellis that he
+pretended to howl at it like a little dog overcome by mournful music.
+But suddenly Ellis had an idea, crying out thickly, between two
+hiccoughs:
+
+"Hey, there, Van, do your dog-act for us! Go on! Bark for us!"
+
+By this time Vandover was very nearly out of his head, his drunkenness
+finishing what his nervousness had begun. The attack was fast
+approaching culmination; strange and unnatural fancies began to come and
+go in his brain.
+
+"Go on, Van!" urged Ellis, his eyes heavy with alcohol. "Go on, do your
+dog-act!"
+
+All at once it was as though an angry dog were snarling and barking over
+a bone there under the table about their feet. Ellis roared with
+laughter, but suddenly he himself was drunk. All the afternoon he had
+kept himself in hand; now his intoxication came upon him in a moment.
+The skin around his eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves
+were contracted; they grew darker, taking on the colour of bitumen.
+Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all from
+off the table with a single movement of his arm. Then the alcohol
+overcame him all in an instant like a poisonous gas. He swayed forward
+in his chair and fell across the stripped table, his head rolling
+inertly between his outstretched arms. He did not move again.
+
+In a neighbouring room young Haight had been dining with some college
+fellows, fraternity men, all friends of his, upon whose coach he had
+ridden to and from the game. He had heard Vandover and Ellis in the room
+across the hall and had recognized their voices. Haight had never been a
+friend of Ellis, but no one, not even Turner, had grieved more over
+Vandover's ruin than had his old-time college chum.
+
+Young Haight heard the noise of the falling crockery as Ellis swept the
+table clear, and turned his head sharply, listening. There was a
+moment's silence after this, and Haight, fearing some accident had
+happened, stepped out into the hall and stood there a moment listening
+again; his head inclined toward the closed door. He heard no groaning,
+no exclamations of pain, not even any noise of conversation; only
+through the closed door came a steady sound of barking.
+
+Puzzled, he tried the door and, finding it locked, as he had expected,
+put one foot upon the knob and, catching hold of the top jamb, raised
+himself up and looked down through the open space that answered for a
+transom.
+
+The room was very warm, the air thick with the smell of cooked food, the
+fumes of whisky, and the acrid odour of cigar smoke. Ellis had rolled
+from his chair and lay upon the floor sprawling on his face in the wreck
+of the table. Near to him, likewise upon the floor, but sitting up, his
+back against the wall, was the Dummy. He was muttering incessantly to
+himself, as if delighted at having found his tongue, his head swaying
+on his shoulders, and a strange murmur, soft, birdlike, meaningless,
+like sounds heard from a vast distance, coming from his wide-open mouth.
+
+Vandover was sitting bolt upright in his chair, his hands gripping the
+table, his eyes staring straight before him. He was barking incessantly.
+It was evident that now he could not stop himself; it was like
+hysterical laughter, a thing beyond his control. Twice young Haight
+called him by name, kicking the door as his leg hung against it. At last
+Vandover heard him. Then as he caught sight of his face over the door he
+raised his upper lip above his teeth and snarled at him, long and
+viciously.
+
+As Haight dropped down into the hall a waiter came running up; he, too,
+had heard the noise of the breaking dishes. As he thrust his key into
+the lock he paused a moment, listening and looking in a puzzled way at
+young Haight. "They have a dog in here, then? They had no dog when they
+came. That's funny!"
+
+"Open the door," said young Haight quietly. Once inside Haight went
+directly to Vandover, crying out: "Come! come on, Van! come home with
+me." Vandover started suddenly, looking about him bewildered, drawing
+his hand across his face.
+
+"Home," he repeated vaguely; "yes, that's the idea. Let's go home. I
+want to go to bed. Hello, Dolly! where did _you_ come from? Say, Dolly,
+let me tell you--listen here--come down here close; you mustn't mind me;
+you know I'm a wolf mostly!"
+
+They went down toward the Lick House. Vandover grew steadier after a few
+minutes in the open air. Young Haight locked arms with him; they went on
+together in silence. By this time the streets were crowded again, the
+theatres were over, and the college men were once more at large. Now
+they were all gathered together into one immense procession, headed by a
+brass band in a brewer's wagon, and they tramped aimlessly to and fro
+about Kearney and Market streets, making a hideous noise. At the head
+the band was playing a popular quick-step with a great banging of a bass
+drum. The college men in the front ranks were singing one song, those
+in the rear another, while the middle of the column was given over to an
+abominable medley of fish-horns, policemen's rattles and great Chinese
+gongs. At stated intervals the throng would halt and give the college
+yell.
+
+"Dolly, you and I used to do that," said Vandover, looking after the
+procession. He had himself well in hand by this time. "What was the
+matter with me back there at the restaurant, Dolly?" he asked after a
+while.
+
+"Oh, you'd been drinking a good deal, I guess," answered young Haight.
+"You--you had some queer idea about yourself!"
+
+"Yes, I know," answered Vandover quickly. "Fancied I was some kind of a
+beast, didn't I--some kind of wolf? I have that notion sometimes and I
+can't get it out of my head. It's curious just the same."
+
+They went up to Vandover's room. Vandover lit the gas, but he could
+hardly keep back an exclamation as the glare suddenly struck young
+Haight's face. What in heaven's name was the matter with his old-time
+chum? He seemed to be blighted, shattered, struck down by some terrible,
+overwhelming calamity. A dreadful anguish looked through his eyes. The
+sense of a hopeless misery had drawn and twisted his face. There could
+be no doubt that something had made shipwreck of his life. Vandover was
+looking at a ruined man.
+
+"My God, Dolly!" exclaimed Vandover, "what's happened to you? You look
+like a death's-head, man! What's gone wrong? Aren't you well?"
+
+Haight caught his friend's searching gaze, and for a moment they looked
+at each other without speaking. There was no mistaking the fearful grief
+that smouldered behind Haight's dull, listless eyes. For a moment
+Vandover thought of Turner Ravis. But even if she had turned him off,
+that alone would not account for his friend's fearful condition of mind
+and body.
+
+"What is it, Dolly?" persisted Vandover. "We used to be pretty good
+chums, not so long ago."
+
+They sat down on the edge of the bed, and for a moment their positions
+seemed reversed: Haight the one to be protected and consoled, Vandover
+the shielding and self-reliant one.
+
+Young Haight passed his hand over his face before he answered, and
+Vandover noticed that his fingers trembled like an old man's.
+
+"Do you remember that night, Van, when you and Charlie and I all went
+out to Turner's house, and we had _tamales_ and beer, and a glass broke
+in that peculiar way, and I cut my lip?"
+
+Vandover nodded, forcing his attention against the alcoholic fumes, to
+follow his friend's words.
+
+"We went down to the Imperial afterward," Haight continued, "and ran
+into Ellis, and we had something more to eat. Do you remember that as we
+sat there, Toby, the waiter, brought Flossie in, and she sat there with
+us a while?"
+
+He paused, choosing his words. Vandover listened closely, trying to
+recall the incident.
+
+"She kissed me," said young Haight slowly, "and the court-plaster came
+off. You know I never had anything to do with women, Van. I always tried
+to keep away from them. But that's where my life practically came to an
+end."
+
+"You mean--" began Vandover. "You mean--that you--that Flossie--?"
+
+Haight nodded.
+
+"Good God! I can't believe it. It's not possible! I _know_ Flossie!"
+
+Haight shook his head, smiling grimly.
+
+"I can't help that, Van," said he. "There's no denying facts, there's no
+other possible explanation! As soon as I knew, I went to the doctors
+here, and then I went to New York for treatment, but there's no hope. I
+didn't know, you see. I didn't believe it possible. Turner Ravis and I
+were engaged. I waited too long! There's only one escape for me now."
+His voice dropped, he stared for a moment at the floor. Then he
+straightened up, and said in a different tone, "But, damn it, Van, let's
+not talk about it! I'm haunted with the thing day and night. I want to
+talk to you! I want to talk to you seriously. You know you are ruining
+yourself, old man!"
+
+But Vandover interrupted him with a gesture, saying, "Don't go on,
+Dolly; it isn't the least use. There _was_ a time for that, but that was
+long ago. I used to care, I used to be sorry and all that, but I'm not
+now. Ruining myself? Why, I _have_ ruined myself long ago. We're both
+ruined--only in your case it wasn't your fault. It's too late for me
+now, and I'm even not sorry that it _is_ too late. Dolly, I don't _want_
+to pull up. You can't imagine a man fallen as low as that, can you? I
+couldn't imagine it myself a few years ago. I'm going right straight to
+the devil now, and you might as well stand aside and give me a free
+course, for I'm bound to get there sooner or later. I suppose you would
+think that a man who could see this as plainly as I do would be afraid,
+would have remorse and all that sort of thing. Well, I did at first.
+I'll never forget the night when I first saw it; came near shooting
+myself, but I got over it, and now I'm used to the idea. Dolly, _I can
+get used to almost anything_. Nothing makes much difference to me
+nowadays--only I like to play cards. Look here!" he went on, laying out
+the notice from the bank upon the table, "this came to-day. You see what
+it is! I sold the old house on California Street. Well, I've gambled
+away that money in less than a year. It seems that I'm a financial ruin
+now, but"--and he began to laugh--"I live through it somehow. The news
+didn't prevent me from getting drunk to-night."
+
+After young Haight was gone, Vandover went to bed, turning out the gas
+and drawing down the window half-way from the top. The wine had made him
+sleepy; he was dropping away into a very grateful doze when a sudden
+shock, a violent leap of every nerve in his body, brought him up to a
+sitting posture, gasping for breath, his heart fluttering, his hands
+beating at the empty air. He settled down again, turning upon his
+pillow, closing his eyes, very weary, longing for a good night's sleep.
+Dolly Haight's terrible story, his unjustified fate, and the hopeless
+tragedy of it, came back to him. Vandover would gladly have changed
+places with him. Young Haight had the affection and respect of even
+those that knew. He, Vandover, had thrown away his friends' love and
+their esteem with the rest of the things he had once valued. His
+thoughts, released from all control of his will, began to come and go
+through his head with incredible rapidity, confused ideas,
+half-remembered scenes, incidents of the past few days, bits and ends of
+conversation recalled for no especial reason, all galloping across his
+brain like a long herd of terrified horses; an excitement grew upon
+him, a strange thrill of exhilaration. He was broad awake now, but
+suddenly his left leg, his left arm and wrist, all his left side jerked
+with the suddenness of a sprung trap; so violent was the shock that the
+entire bed shook and creaked with it. Then the inevitable reaction
+followed, the slow crisping and torsion of his nerves, twisting upon
+each other like a vast swarm of tiny serpents; it seemed to begin with
+his ankles, spreading slowly to every part of his body; it was a
+veritable torture, so poignant that Vandover groaned under it, shutting
+his eyes. He could not keep quiet a second--to lie in bed was an
+impossibility; he threw the bed-clothes from him and sprang up. He did
+not light the gas, but threw on his bathrobe and began to walk the
+floor. Even as he walked, his eyelids drooped lower and lower. The need
+of sleep overcame him like a narcotic, but as soon as he was about to
+lose himself he would be suddenly and violently awakened by the same
+shock, the same jangling recoil of his nerves. Then his hands and head
+seemed to swell; next, it was as though the whole room was too small for
+him. He threw open the window and, leaning upon his elbows, looked out.
+
+The clouds had begun to break, the rain was gradually ceasing, leaving
+in the air a damp, fresh smell, the smell of wet asphalt and the odour
+of dripping woodwork. It was warm; the atmosphere was dank, heavy,
+tepid. One or two stars were out, and a faint gray light showed him the
+vast reach of roofs below stretching away to meet the abrupt rise of
+Telegraph Hill. Not far off the slender, graceful smokestack puffed
+steadily, throwing off continually the little flock of white jets that
+rose into the air very brave and gay, but in the end dwindled
+irresolutely, discouraged, disheartened, fading sadly away, vanishing
+under the night, like illusions disappearing at the first touch of the
+outside world. As Vandover leaned from his window, looking out into the
+night with eyes that saw nothing, the college slogan rose again from the
+great crowd of students who still continued to hold the streets.
+
+"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
+
+He turned back into the room, groping among the bottles on his washstand
+for his bromide of potassium. As he poured out the required dose into
+the teaspoon his hand twitched again sharply, flirting the medicine
+over his bared neck and chest, exposed by the bathrobe which he had left
+open at the throat. It was cold, and he shivered a bit as he wiped it
+dry with the back of his hand.
+
+He knew very well that his nervous attack was coming on again. As he set
+down the bottle upon the washstand he muttered to himself, "Now I'm
+going to have a night of it." He began to walk the floor again with
+great strides, fighting with all his pitiful, shattered mind against the
+increasing hysteria, trying to keep out of his brain the strange
+hallucination that assailed it from time to time, the hallucination of a
+thing four-footed, a thing that sulked and snarled. The hotel grew
+quiet; a watchman went down the hall turning out each alternate gas jet.
+Just outside of the door was a burner in a red globe, fixed at a stair
+landing to show the exit in case of fire. This burned all night and it
+streamed through the transom of Vandover's room, splotching the ceiling
+with a great square of red light. Vandover was in a torment, overcome
+now by that same fear with which he had at last become so familiar, the
+unreasoning terror of something unknown. He uttered an exclamation, a
+suppressed cry of despair, of misery, and then suddenly checked himself,
+astonished, seized with the fancy that his cry was not human, was not of
+himself, but of something four-footed, the snarl of some exasperated
+brute. He paused abruptly in his walk, listening, for what he did not
+know. The silence of the great city spread itself around him, like the
+still waters of some vast lagoon. Through the silence he heard the noise
+of the throng of college youths. They were returning, doubling upon
+their line of march. A long puff of tepid air breathing through the open
+window brought to his ears the distant joyous sound of their slogan:
+
+"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
+
+They passed by along the adjacent street, their sounds growing faint.
+Vandover took up his restless pacing again. Little by little the
+hallucination gained upon him; little by little his mind slipped from
+his grasp. The wolf--the beast--whatever the creature was, seemed in his
+diseased fancy to grow stronger in him from moment to moment. But with
+all his strength he fought against it, fought against this strange
+mania, that overcame him at these periodical intervals--fought with his
+hands so tightly clenched that the knuckles grew white, that the nails
+bit into the palm. It seemed to him that in some way his personality
+divided itself into three. There was himself, the real Vandover of every
+day, the same familiar Vandover that looked back at him from his mirror;
+then there was the wolf, the beast, whatever the creature was that lived
+in his flesh, and that struggled with him now, striving to gain the
+ascendency, to absorb the real Vandover into its own hideous identity;
+and last of all, there was a third self, formless, very vague, elusive,
+that stood aside and watched the strife of the other two. But as he
+fought against his madness, concentrating all his attention with a
+tremendous effort of the will, the queer numbness that came upon his
+mind whenever he exerted it enwrapped his brain like a fog, and this
+third self grew vaguer than ever, dwindled and disappeared. Somehow it
+seemed to be associated with consciousness, for after this the sense of
+the reality of things grew dim and blurred to him. He ceased to know
+exactly what he was doing. His intellectual parts dropped away one by
+one, leaving only the instincts, the blind, unreasoning impulses of the
+animal.
+
+Still he continued his restless, lurching walk back and forth in his
+room, his head hanging low and swinging from side to side with the
+movement of his gait. He had become so nervous that the restraint
+imposed upon his freedom of movement by his bathrobe and his loose
+night-clothes chafed and irritated him. At length he had stripped off
+everything.
+
+Suddenly and without the slightest warning Vandover's hands came slowly
+above his head and he dropped forward, landing upon his palms. All in an
+instant he had given way, yielding in a second to the strange
+hallucination of that four-footed thing that sulked and snarled. Now
+without a moment's stop he ran back and forth along the wall of the
+room, upon the palms of his hands and his toes, a ludicrous figure, like
+that of certain clowns one sees at the circus, contortionists walking
+about the sawdust, imitating some kind of enormous dog. Still he swung
+his head from side to side with the motion of his shuffling gait, his
+eyes dull and fixed. At long intervals he uttered a sound, half word,
+half cry, "Wolf--wolf!" but it was muffled, indistinct, raucous, coming
+more from his throat than from his lips. It might easily have been the
+growl of an animal. A long time passed. Naked, four-footed, Vandover ran
+back and forth the length of the room.
+
+By an hour after midnight the sky was clear, all the stars were out, the
+moon a thin, low-swinging scimitar, set behind the black mass of the
+roofs of the city, leaving a pale bluish light that seemed to come from
+all quarters of the horizon. As the great stillness grew more and more
+complete, the persistent puffing of the slender tin stack, the three gay
+and joyous little noises, each sounding like a note of discreet laughter
+interrupted by a cough, became clear and distinct. Inside the room there
+was no sound except the persistent patter of something four-footed going
+up and down. At length even this sound ceased abruptly. Worn out,
+Vandover had just fallen, dropping forward upon his face with a long
+breath. He lay still, sleeping at last. The remnant of the great band of
+college men went down an adjacent street, raising their cadenced slogan
+for the last time. It came through the open window, softened as it were
+by the warm air, thick with damp, through which it travelled:
+
+"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
+
+Naked, exhausted, Vandover slept profoundly, stretched at full length at
+the foot of the bare, white wall of the room beneath two of the little
+placards, scrawled with ink, that read, "Stove Here"; "Mona Lisa Here."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Seventeen
+
+
+On A certain Saturday morning two years later Vandover awoke in his room
+at the Reno House, the room he had now occupied for fifteen months.
+
+One might almost say that he had been expelled from the Lick House. For
+a time he had tried to retain his room there with the idea of paying his
+bills by the money he should win at gambling. But his bad luck was now
+become a settled thing--almost invariably he lost. At last Ellis and the
+Dummy had refused to play with him, since he was never able to pay them
+when they won. They had had a great quarrel. Ellis broke with him
+sullenly, growling wrathfully under his heavy moustache, and the Dummy
+had written upon his pad--so hastily and angrily that the words could
+hardly be read--that he would not play with professional gamblers, men
+who supported themselves by their winnings. Damn it! one had to be a
+gentleman.
+
+Next, Vandover had tried to borrow some money of Charlie Geary. Geary
+had told him that he could not afford as much as Vandover needed. Then
+Vandover became enraged. He had long since seen that Geary had
+practically swindled him out of his block in the Mission, and at that
+very moment the huge boot and shoe "concern" was completing the factory
+built upon the ground that Vandover had once owned. Geary had cleared
+seven thousand dollars on his "deal." His refusal to loan his old-time
+friend fifty dollars upon this occasion had exasperated Vandover out of
+all bounds. There was a scene. Vandover told Geary what he thought of
+his "deal" in very plain words. They shouted "swindler" and "gambler"
+into each other's faces; the whole office was aroused; Vandover was
+ejected by force. On a stair landing half-way to the street he sat down
+and cried into his arms folded upon his knees. When he returned to his
+room he had a sudden return of his dreadful nervous malady and barked
+and whined under the bed.
+
+Then Vandover wrote a fifty-dollar check on the bank--the same bank that
+had just notified him that he was overdrawn--and passed it upon young
+Haight. How he came to do the thing he could not tell; it might have
+been the influence of Geary's successful robbery, or it might have been
+that he had at last lost all principle, all sense of honour and
+integrity. At any rate, he could not bring himself to feel very sorry.
+He knew that young Haight would not prosecute him for the dishonesty; he
+traded upon Haight's magnanimity; he only felt glad that he had the
+fifty dollars. But by this time Vandover did not even wonder at his own
+baseness and degradation. A few years ago this would have been the case;
+now his character was so changed that the theft seemed somehow
+consistent. He had destroyed young Haight's friendship for him. He had
+cast from him his college chum, his best friend, but neither did this
+affect him. Nothing made much difference to him now.
+
+Nevertheless, Vandover was evicted from the Lick House three days after
+he had stolen young Haight's money. Instead of paying his bills with the
+amount, he gambled it away in a back room of a new café on Market Street
+with Toby, the red-eyed waiter from the Imperial, and a certain German
+"professor," a billiard marker, who wore a waistcoat figured with little
+designs of the Eiffel Tower, and who was a third owner in a trotting
+mare named Tomato Ketchup.
+
+Vandover was now left with only his bonds, his U.S. 4 per cents. These
+brought him in but sixty-nine dollars a quarter, or as he had had it
+arranged, twenty-three dollars a month. Just at this time, as if by a
+miracle, a veritable God from the Machine, Vandover's lawyer, Mr. Field,
+found him an opportunity to earn some money. For the first and only time
+in his life Vandover knew what it was to work for a living. The work
+that Field secured for him was the work of painting those little
+pictures on the lacquered surface of iron safes, those little oval
+landscapes between the lines of red and gold lettering--landscapes,
+rugged gorges, ocean steamships under all sail, mountain lakes with
+sailboats careening upon their surfaces, the boat indicated by two
+little triangular dabs of Chinese white, one for the sail itself and the
+other for its reflection in the water. Sometimes even he was called upon
+to paint other little pictures upon the sides of big express wagons--two
+horses, one white and the other bay, galloping very free in an open
+field, their manes and tails flying, or a bulldog, very savage, sitting
+upon a green and black safe, or the head of a mastiff with a spiked
+collar about his neck.
+
+What with the pay for this sort of work and the interest of his bonds,
+Vandover managed to lead a haphazard sort of life, living about in cheap
+lodging-houses and cheap restaurants. But he was never more than a
+second-class workman, and he was so irregular that he could never be
+depended upon.
+
+The moment he began to paint again--even to paint such pitiful little
+pictures as these--the same familiar experience repeated itself, the
+unwillingness of his fingers, their failure to rightly interpret his
+ideas, the resulting crudity of his work, the sudden numbness in his
+brain, the queer, tense sensation behind his eyes. But Vandover had long
+since become accustomed to these symptoms and would not have minded them
+at this time had it not been that they were occasionally followed by a
+nervous twitching and jerking of his whole arm, so that sometimes he
+could not hold the brush steady a minute at a time.
+
+For two years he had drifted about the city, living now here and now
+there, a real hand-to-mouth existence, sinking a little lower each day.
+Now, no one knew him. He had completely passed out of the lives of
+Haight, Geary, and Ellis, just as before he had passed out of the life of
+Turner Ravis. At the end of the first year they had ceased even to think
+about him. For a long time they thought that he was dead, until one day
+Ellis declared that he had seen him far down on Kearney Street, near the
+Barbary Coast, looking at the pictures in the illustrated weeklies that
+were tacked upon the show-board on the sidewalk in front of a
+stationer's. Ellis had told the others that on this occasion Vandover
+seemed to be more sickly than ever; he described his appearance in
+detail, wagging his head at his own story, pursing his lips, putting his
+chin in the air. Vandover had worn an old paint-stained pair of blue
+trousers, fastened with a strap, so that his shirt showed below his
+vest; he had no collar, and he had allowed his beard to grow, a
+straggling thin beard, through which one could see the buttons of his
+shirt, a dirty beard full of the cracker crumbs from the free
+lunch-counters of cheap saloons; he had on a hat which he had worn when
+they had known him; but one should see that hat now!
+
+It was all true: little by little Vandover had abandoned all interest
+in his personal appearance. Of course it was impossible for him to dress
+well at this time, but he had even lost regard for decency and
+cleanliness. He washed himself but rarely. He had even acquired the
+habit of sleeping with all his clothes on during the colder nights of
+the year.
+
+Nothing made any difference. Gradually his mind grew more and more
+clouded; he became stupid, sluggish. He went about the city from dawn to
+dark, his feet dragging, his head hanging low and swinging from side to
+side with the motion of his gait. He rarely spoke; his eyes took on a
+dull, glazed appearance, filmy, like the eyes of a dead fish. At certain
+intervals his mania came upon him, the strange hallucination of
+something four-footed, the persistent fancy that the brute in him had
+now grown so large, so insatiable, that it had taken everything, even to
+his very self, his own identity--that he had literally _become the
+brute_. The attack passed off and left him wondering, perplexed.
+
+The Reno House, where Vandover had lived for some fifteen months, was a
+sort of hotel on Sacramento Street below Kearney. The neighbourhood was
+low--just on the edge of the Barbary Coast, abounding in stores for
+second-hand clothing, saloons, pawnshops, gun-stores, bird-stores, and
+the shops of Chinese cobblers. Around the corner on Kearney Street was a
+concert hall, a dive, to which the admission was free. Near by was the
+old Plaza.
+
+Underneath the hotel on the ground floor were two saloons, a barber
+shop, and a broom manufactory. The lodgers themselves were for the most
+part "transients," sailors lounging about shore between two voyages,
+Swedes and Danes, farmhands, grape-pickers, and cow-punchers from
+distant parts of the state, a few lost women, and Japanese cooks and
+second-boys remaining there while they advertised for positions.
+
+Vandover sank to the grade of these people at once with that fatal
+adaptability to environment which he had permitted himself to foster
+throughout his entire life, and which had led him to be contented in
+almost any circumstances. It was as if the brute in him were forever
+seeking a lower level, wallowing itself lower and lower into the filth
+and into the mire, content to be foul, content to be prone, to be inert
+and supine.
+
+It was Saturday morning about a quarter of nine. The wet season had
+begun early that year. Though this was but the middle of September, the
+rain had fallen steadily since the previous Wednesday. Its steady
+murmur, prolonged and soothing like the purring of a great cat, filled
+Vandover's room with a pleasant sound. The air of the room was thick and
+foul, heavy with the odour of cooking, onions, and stale bedding. It was
+very warm; there was no ventilation. Vandover lay upon the bed half
+awake, dozing under the thick coarse blankets and soiled counterpane.
+With the exception of his shoes and coat he wore all his clothes. He was
+glad to be warm, to be stupefied by the heat of the bedding and the bad
+air of the room.
+
+In the next room a Portuguese fruit vender, very drunk, was fighting
+with the tin pitcher and pasteboard bowl on his wash-stand, trying to
+wet his head, swearing and making a hideous clatter. At length he tipped
+them over upon the floor and gave the pitcher a great kick. The noise
+roused Vandover; he sat up in bed, stretching, rubbing his hands over
+his face. About the same moment the clock in the office downstairs
+struck nine. Vandover let his feet drop to the floor and sat on the edge
+of the bed, looking vaguely about him. His face, ordinarily very pale,
+was oily from sleep and red upon one side from long contact with the
+pillow, the marks of the creases still showing upon his cheek. His long
+straight hair fell about his eyes and ears like a tangled mane. A thin
+straggling beard and moustache, of a brown much lighter than his hair,
+covered the lower part of his face. His nose was long and pinched, while
+brown and puffed pockets hung beneath his eyes.
+
+He wore a white shirt very crumpled and dirty, a low standing collar and
+a black four-in-hand necktie, very greasy. His trousers were striped and
+of a slate blue colour--the "blue pants" of the ready-made clothing
+stores. Still sitting on the bed, Vandover continued his stupid gaze
+about the room.
+
+The room was small, and at some long-forgotten, almost prehistoric
+period had been covered with a yellowish paper, stamped with a huge
+pattern of flowers that looked like the flora of a carboniferous
+strata, a pattern repeated to infinity wherever the eye turned.
+Newspapers were pasted upon the ceiling and a great square of very dirty
+matting covered the floor. There were a few pieces of furniture, very
+old-fashioned, made of pine, with a black walnut veneer, two chairs, a
+washstand and the bed. A great pile of old newspapers tied up with bale
+rope was kicked into one corner. Two gas brackets without globes
+stretched forth their long arms over the empty space where the bureau
+should have been. Under the single window was Vandover's trunk, and upon
+it his colour box and pots of paint. His hat hung upon a hook screwed to
+the door. The hat had once been black, but it had long since turned to a
+greenish hue, and sweat stains were showing about the band.
+
+Vandover dressed slowly. He straightened his hair a bit before the cheap
+mirror that hung over the washstand, putting on his hat immediately
+after to keep it in place. He washed his hands in the dirty water that
+had stood in his pasteboard bowl since the previous afternoon, but left
+his face as it was. He put on his coat, an old cutaway which had been
+his best years ago, but which was now absurdly small for him, the breast
+all spotted and streaked with old stains of soup and gravy. Last of all
+he drew on his shoes. They were new. Vandover had bought them two days
+before for a dollar and ninety cents. They were lined so as to make
+socks superfluous.
+
+It had been a bad week with Vandover. The paint-shop had given him no
+work to do for ten days, and he had been forced to get along in some way
+upon the interest of his bonds--that is to say, upon five dollars and
+seventy-five cents a week. Two dollars and seventy-five cents of this
+went for his room rent, one dollar and ninety for his shoes, and Tuesday
+afternoon he had bought a package of cigarettes for ten cents. By
+Saturday morning he had spent seventy-five cents for food.
+
+When the paint-shop gave him enough work it was Vandover's custom to buy
+a week's commutation ticket at a certain restaurant. He never ate at the
+hotel; it was too expensive. By the commutation system he could buy two
+dollars and twenty-five cents' worth of meals for two dollars, paying in
+tickets at each meal.
+
+But such a thing had been impossible this week. He had been forced to
+fall back upon the free-lunch system. In two years Vandover had learned
+a great deal; even his dulled wits had been sharpened when it had come
+to a question of food. The brute in him might destroy all his finer
+qualities, but even the brute had to feed. When work failed him at the
+beginning of the week Vandover was not unprepared for the contingency;
+the thing had happened before and he knew how to meet it.
+
+On Monday he beat up and down the Barbary Coast, picking out fifteen or
+twenty saloons which supported a free-lunch counter in connection with
+the bar. He took his breakfast Monday morning at the first of these. He
+paid five cents for a glass of beer and ate his morning's meal at the
+lunch counter: stew, bread, and cheese. At noon he made his dinner at
+the second saloon on his route. Here he had another glass of beer, a
+great plate of soup, potato salad, and pretzels. Thus he managed to feed
+himself throughout the week.
+
+It was always his great desire to feed well at Sunday's dinner, to spend
+at least a quarter on that meal. It was something to be looked forward
+to throughout the entire week. But to get twenty-five cents ahead when
+he was out of work was bitter hard. That week he had started out with
+the determination to eat but two meals a day. He would thus save five
+cents daily and by Sunday morning would be thirty cents to the good. But
+each day his resolution broke down. At breakfast he would resolve to go
+without his lunch, at lunch he would make up his mind to go without
+supper, and at supper he would tell himself that now at least his
+determination was irrevocable--he would eat no breakfast the next
+morning. But on each and every occasion his hunger proved too strong,
+his feet carried him irresistibly to the saloon lunch counters, whether
+he would or no. At no time in his life had Vandover accustomed himself
+to self-denial; he could hardly begin now.
+
+At length Saturday morning had come, and while he was dressing he
+realized that he could not look forward to any unusual dinner the next
+day at noon. The disappointment had all the force of an unexpected
+disaster and he began keenly to regret his weakness of the past week.
+Suddenly Vandover resolved that he would go without food all that day;
+it would be a saving of fifteen cents, which, added to the five cents
+that he would spend anyway for his dinner, would almost make a quarter.
+He knew where he could dine excellently well for twenty cents. However,
+he could not make up his mind to go without his Sunday morning's
+breakfast. That, he told himself, he must eat.
+
+Once dressed, Vandover went out. Fortunately, the rain had stopped. He
+went on down through the reeking, steaming streets to one of the big
+fruit markets not far from the water front. The Portuguese fruit vender
+who roomed next to him at the Reno House was employed at a stall here.
+Vandover knew him a little, and it was not hard for him to get a thin
+slice of cocoanut out from the inside rind of one of those that were
+lying cracked open among his other wares.
+
+All the morning Vandover chewed this slice of cocoanut, at the same time
+drinking a great deal of water; for hours he deadened the pang of hunger
+by this means. He passed the time for the most part sitting on the
+benches in the Plaza reading an old newspaper that he had found under a
+seat. The sun came out a little; Vandover found the warmth very
+grateful. He told himself that he could easily hold out until the next
+morning.
+
+He had forgotten about the time and was surprised when the whistles all
+over the town began to blow for noon. In an instant Vandover was hungry
+again. It was all one that he chewed the little pulp of cocoanut rind
+more vigorously than ever, swallowed great draughts of water at the
+public fountains; the little gnawing just between his chest and his
+stomach began to persist. He got up and began to walk. He left the Plaza
+behind him, crossed Kearney Street and went on down Clay Street till he
+reached the water front. For a time he found a certain diversion among
+the shipping and especially in watching a gang of caulkers knocking away
+at the seams of an immense coal steamer. He sat upon a great iron
+clamped pile, spitting into the yellow water below. The air was full of
+the smell of bilge and oakum and fish; the thousands of masts made a
+gray maze against the sky; occasionally an empty truck trundled over the
+hollow docks with a sound of distant cannon. A weakness, a little
+trembling that seemed to come from the pit of his stomach, began upon
+Vandover. He was very hungry. Evidently the slice of cocoanut was no
+longer effective. He swallowed it and lit a cigarette, one of the
+half-dozen still left of the pack he had bought the Tuesday before.
+
+He smoked the cigarette slowly, inhaling as much of the smoke as he
+could. This quieted him for an hour, but he had the folly to smoke again
+at the end of that time, and at once--as he might have known--was hungry
+again. Until dark he struggled along, drinking water continually,
+chewing chips of wood, toothpicks, bits of straw, anything so that the
+action of his jaws might cheat the demands of his stomach. Toward
+half-past seven in the evening he returned to his room in the Reno
+House. If he could get to sleep that would be best of all. On the stairs
+of the hotel, while going up to his room, the strong smell of cooking
+onions came suddenly to his nostrils. It was delicious. Vandover
+breathed in the warm savour with long sighs, closing his eyes; a great
+feebleness overcame him. He asked himself how he could get through the
+next twelve hours.
+
+An hour later he went to bed, hiccoughing from the water he had been
+drinking all day. By this time he had torn the paper from one of his
+cigarettes and was chewing the tobacco. This was his last resort, an
+expedient which he fell back upon only in great extremity, as it
+invariably made him sick to his stomach. He slept a little, but in half
+an hour was broad awake again, gagging and retching dreadfully. There
+was nothing on his stomach to throw up, and now at length the hunger in
+him raged like a wolf. Vandover was in veritable torment.
+
+He could not keep his thoughts away from the money in his pocket, a
+nickel and two dimes. He could eat if he wanted to, could satisfy this
+incessant craving. At every moment the temptation grew stronger. Why
+should he wait until morning? He had the money; it was only a matter of
+a few minutes' walk to the nearest saloon. But he set his face against
+this desire; he had held out so long that it would be a pity to give in
+now; he was not so very hungry after all. No, no; he would not give in,
+he was strong enough; as long as he used his will he need not succumb.
+It was just a question of asserting his strength of mind, of calling up
+the better part of him. Even better than eating would be the
+satisfaction of knowing that he had shown himself stronger than his
+lower animal appetite. No; he would not give in.
+
+Hardly a minute after he had arrived at this resolution Vandover found
+himself drawing on his coat and shoes making ready to go out--to go out
+and eat.
+
+The gas in the room was lit, his money, the nickel and the two dimes,
+was shut in one of his fists. He was dressing himself with one hand,
+dressing with feverish, precipitate haste. What had happened? He
+marvelled at himself, but did not check his preparations an instant. He
+could not stop, whether he would or no; there was something in him
+stronger than himself, something that urged him on his feet, that drove
+him out into the street, something that clamoured for food and that
+would not be gainsaid. It was the animal in him, the brute, that would
+be fed, the evil, hideous brute grown now so strong that Vandover could
+not longer resist it--the brute that had long since destroyed all his
+finer qualities but that still demanded to be fed, still demanded to
+live. All the little money that Vandover had saved during the day he
+spent that night among the coffee houses, the restaurants, and the
+saloons of the Barbary Coast, continuing to eat even after his hunger
+was satisfied. Toward daylight he returned to his room, and all dressed
+as he was flung himself face downward among the coarse blankets and
+greasy counterpane. For nearly eight hours he slept profoundly, with
+long snores, prone, inert, crammed and gorged with food.
+
+It was the middle of Sunday afternoon when he awoke. He roused himself
+and going over to the Plaza sat for a long while upon one of the
+benches. It was a very bright afternoon and Vandover sat motionless for
+a long time in the sun while his heavy meal digested, very happy,
+content merely to be warm, to be well fed, to be comfortable.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eighteen
+
+
+That winter passed, then the summer; September and October came and
+went, and by the middle of November the rains set in. One very wet
+afternoon toward the end of the month Charlie Geary sat at his desk in
+his own private office. He was unoccupied for the moment, leaning back
+in his swivel chair, his feet on the table, smoking a cigar. Geary had
+broken from his old-time habit of smoking only so many cigars as he
+could pay for by saving carfare. He was doing so well now that he could
+afford to smoke whenever he chose. He was still with the great firm of
+Beale & Storey, and while not in the partnership as yet, had worked up
+to the position of an assistant. He had cases of his own now, a great
+many of them, for the most part damage suits against that certain
+enormous corporation whom it was said was ruining the city and entire
+state. Geary posed as one of its bitterest enemies, pushing each suit
+brought against it with a tireless energy, with a zeal that was almost
+vindictive. He began to fit into his own niche, in the eyes of the
+public, and just in proportion as the corporation was hated, Geary was
+admired. Money came to him very fast. He was hardly thirty at this time,
+but could already be called a rich man.
+
+His "deal" with Vandover had given him a taste for real estate, and now
+and then, with the greatest caution, he made a few discreet investments.
+At present he had just completed a row of small cottages across the
+street from the boot and shoe factory. The cottages held two rooms and a
+large kitchen. Geary had calculated that the boot and shoe concern would
+employ nearly a thousand operatives, and he had built his row with the
+view of accommodating a few of them who had families and who desired to
+live near the factory. His agents were Adams & Brunt.
+
+It was toward half-past five, there was nothing more that Geary could do
+that day, and for a moment he leaned back in his swivel chair, before
+going home, smiling a little, very well pleased with himself. He was
+still as clever and shrewd as ever, still devoured with an incarnate
+ambition, still delighted when he could get the better of any one. He
+was yet a young man; with the start he had secured for himself, and
+with the exceptional faculties, the faculties of self-confidence and
+"push" that he knew himself to possess, there was no telling to what
+position he might attain. He knew that it was only a question of
+time--of a short time even--when he would be the practical head of the
+great firm. Everything he turned his hand to was a success. His row of
+houses in the Mission might be enlarged to a veritable settlement for
+every workman in the neighbourhood. His youth, his cleverness, and his
+ambition, supported by his money on the one hand, and on the other by
+the vast machinery of the great law firm, could raise him to a great
+place in the world of men. Gazing through the little blue haze of his
+cigar smoke, he began to have vague ideas, ideas of advancement, of
+political successes. Politics fascinated him--such a field of action
+seemed to be the domain for which he was precisely suited--not the
+politics of the city or of the state; not the nasty little squabbling of
+boodlers, lobbyists, and supervisors, but something large, something
+inspiring, something on a tremendous scale, something to which one could
+give up one's whole life and energy, something to which one could
+sacrifice everything--friendships, fortunes, scruples, principles, life
+itself, no matter what, anything to be a "success," to "arrive," to "get
+there," to attain the desired object in spite of the whole world, to
+ride on at it, trampling down or smashing through everything that stood
+in the way, blind, deaf, fists and teeth shut tight. Not the little
+squabbling politics of the city or state, but national politics, the
+sway and government of a whole people, the House, the Senate, the
+cabinet and the next--why not?--the highest, the best of all, the
+Executive. Yes, Geary aspired even to the Presidency.
+
+For a moment he allowed himself the indulgence of the delightful dream,
+then laughed a bit at his own absurdity. But even the entertainment of
+so vast an idea had made his mind, as it were, big; it was hard to come
+down to the level again. In spite of himself he went on reasoning in
+stupendous thoughts, in enormous ideas, figuring with immense
+abstractions. And then after all, why not? Other men had striven and
+attained; other men were even now striving, other men would "arrive";
+why should not he? As well he as another. Every man for himself--that
+was his maxim. It might be damned selfish, but it was human nature: the
+weakest to the wall, the strongest to the front. Why should not he be in
+the front? Why not in the very front rank? Why not be even before the
+front rank itself--the leader? Vast, vague ideas passed slowly across
+the vision of his mind, ideas that could hardly be formulated into
+thought, ideas of the infinite herd of humanity, driven on as if by some
+enormous, relentless engine, driven on toward some fearful distant
+bourne, driven on recklessly at headlong speed. All life was but a
+struggle to keep from under those myriad spinning wheels that dashed so
+close behind. Those were happiest who were farthest to the front. To lag
+behind was peril; to fall was to perish, to be ridden down, to be beaten
+to the dust, to be inexorably crushed and blotted out beneath that
+myriad of spinning iron wheels. Geary looked up quickly and saw Vandover
+standing in the doorway.
+
+For the moment Geary did not recognize the gaunt, shambling figure with
+the long hair and dirty beard, the greenish hat, and the streaked and
+spotted coat, but when he did it was with a feeling of anger and
+exasperation.
+
+"Look here!" he cried, "don't you think you'd better knock before you
+come in?"
+
+Vandover raised a hand slowly as if in deprecation, and answered slowly
+and with a feeble, tremulous voice, the voice of an old man: "I did
+knock, Mister Geary; I didn't mean no offence." He sat down on the edge
+of the nearest chair, looking vaguely and stupidly about on the floor,
+moving his head instead of his eyes, repeating under his breath from
+time to time, "No offence--no, sir--no offence!"
+
+"Shut that door!" commanded Geary. Vandover obeyed. He wore no vest, and
+the old cutaway coat, fastened by the single remaining button, exposed
+his shirt to view, abominably filthy, bulging at the waist like a
+blouse. The "blue pants," held up by a strap, were all foul with mud and
+grease and paint, and there hung about him a certain odour, that
+peculiar smell of poverty and of degradation, the smell of stale clothes
+and of unwashed bodies.
+
+"Well?" said Geary abruptly.
+
+Vandover put the tips of his fingers to his lips and rolled his eyes
+about the room, avoiding Geary's glance; then he dropped them to the
+floor again, looking at the pattern in the carpet.
+
+"Well," repeated Geary, irritated, "you know I haven't got all the time
+in the world." All at once Vandover began to cry, very softly, snuffling
+with his nose, his chin twitching, the tears running through his thin,
+sparse beard.
+
+"Ah, get on to yourself!" shouted Geary, now thoroughly disgusted. "Quit
+that! Be a man, will you? Stop that! do you hear?" Vandover obeyed,
+catching his breath and slowly wiping his eyes with the side of his
+hand.
+
+"I'm no good!" he said at length, wagging his head and blinking through
+his tears. "I'm--I'm done for and I ain't got no money; yet, of course,
+you see I don't mean no offence. What I want, you see, is to be a man
+and not give in and not let the wolf get me, and then I'll go back to
+Paris. Everything goes round here, very slow, and seems far off; that's
+why I can't get along, and I'm that hungry that sometimes I twitch all
+over. I'm down. I ain't got another cent of money and I lost my job at
+the paint-shop. There's where I drew down twenty dollars a week painting
+landscapes on safes, you know, and then--"
+
+Geary interrupted him, crying out, "You haven't a cent? Why, what have
+you done with your bonds?"
+
+"Bonds?" repeated Vandover, dazed and bewildered. "I ain't never had any
+bonds. What bonds? Oh, yes," he exclaimed, suddenly remembering, "yes, I
+know, my bonds, of course; yes, yes--well, I--those--those, I had to
+sell those bonds--had some debts, you see, my board and my tailor's
+bill. They got out some sort of paper after me. Yes, I had forgotten
+about my bonds. I lost every damned one of them playing cards--gambled
+'em all away. Ain't I no good? But I was winner once--just in two nights
+I won ten thousand dollars. Then I must have lost it again. You see, I
+get so hungry sometimes that I twitch all over--so, just like that. Lend
+me a dollar."
+
+For a few moments Geary was silent, watching Vandover curiously, as he
+sat in a heap on the edge of the chair, fumbling his greenish hat,
+looking about the floor. Presently he asked:
+
+"When did you lose your job at the paint-shop?"
+
+"Day before yesterday."
+
+"And you are out of work now?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover. "I'm broke; I haven't a cent. I'm blest if I
+know how I'm to get along. Lately I've been working for a paint-shop,
+painting landscapes on safes. I drew down fifty dollars a week there,
+but I've lost my job."
+
+"Good Lord, Van!" Geary suddenly exclaimed, nodding his head toward him
+reflectively, "I'm sorry for you!"
+
+The other laughed. "Yes; I suppose I'm a pitiable looking object, but
+I'm used to it. I don't mind much now as long as I can have a place to
+sleep and enough to eat. If you can put me in the way of some work,
+Charlie, I'd be much obliged. You see, that's what I want--work. I don't
+want to run any bunco game. I'm an honest man--I'm too honest. I gave
+away all my money to help another poor duck; gave him thousands, he was
+good to me when I was on my uppers and I meant to repay him. I was
+grateful. I signed a paper that gave him everything I had. It was in
+Paris. There's where my bonds went to. He was a struggling artist."
+
+"Look here!" said Geary, willing to be interested, "you might as well be
+truthful with me. You can't lie to me. Have you gambled away all those
+bonds, or have you been victimized, or have you still got them? Come,
+now, spit it out."
+
+"Charlie, I haven't a cent!" answered Vandover, looking him squarely in
+the face. "Would I be around here and trying to get work from you if I
+had? No; I gambled it all away. You know I had eighty-nine hundred in
+U.S. 4 per cents. Well, first I began to pawn things when my money got
+short--the Old Gentleman's watch that I said I never would part with,
+then my clothes. I couldn't keep away from the cards. Of course, you
+can't understand that; gambling was the only thing that could amuse me.
+Then I began to mortgage my bonds, very little at first. Oh, I went
+slow! Then I got to selling them. Well, somehow, they all went. For a
+time I got along by the work at the paint-shop. But they have let me out
+now; said I was so irregular. I owe for nearly a month at my
+lodging-place." His eyes sought the floor again, rolling about stupidly.
+"Nearly a month, and that's what makes me jump and tremble so. You ought
+to see me sometimes--_b-r-r-r-h!_--and I get to barking! I'm a wolf
+mostly, you know, or some kind of an animal, some kind of a brute. But
+I'd be all right if everything didn't go round very slowly, and seem far
+off. But I'm a wolf. You look out for me; best take care I don't bite
+you! Wolf--wolf! Ah! It's up four flights at the end of the hall, very
+dark, eight thousand dollars in a green cloth sack, and lots of lights
+a-burning. See how long my finger nails are--regular claws; that's the
+wolf, the brute! Why can't I talk in my mouth instead of in my throat?
+That's the devil of it. When you paint on steel and iron your colours
+don't dry out true; all the yellows turn green. But it would 'a' been
+all straight if they hadn't fired me! I never talked to anybody--that
+was _my_ business, wasn't it? And when all those eight thousand little
+lights begin to burn red, why, of course that makes you nervous! So I
+have to drink a great deal of water and chew butcher's paper. That fools
+him and he thinks he's eating. Just so as I can lay quiet in the Plaza
+when the sun is out. There's a hack-stand there, you know, and every
+time that horse tosses his head so's to get the oats in the bottom of
+the nose-bag he jingles the chains on the poles and, by God! that's
+funny; makes me laugh every time; sounds gay, and the chain sparkles
+mighty pretty! Oh, I don't complain. Give me a dollar and I'll bark for
+you!"
+
+Geary leaned back in his chair listening to Vandover, struck with
+wonder, marvelling at that which his old chum had come to be. He was
+sorry for him, too, yet, nevertheless, he felt a certain indefinite
+satisfaction, a faint exultation over his misfortunes, glad that their
+positions were not reversed, pleased that he had been clever enough to
+keep free from those habits, those modes of life that ended in such
+fashion. He rapped sharply on the table. Vandover straightened up,
+raising his eyes:
+
+"You want some work?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes; that's what I'm after," answered Vandover, adding, "I must have
+it!"
+
+"Well," said Geary, hesitatingly, "I can give you something to do, but
+it will be pretty dirty."
+
+Vandover smiled a little, saying, "I guess you can't give me any work
+that would be too dirty for me!" With the words he suddenly began to cry
+again. "I want to be honest, Mister Geary," he exclaimed, drawing the
+backs of his fingers across his lips; "I want to be honest; I'm down and
+I don't mean no offence. Charlie, you and I were old chums once at
+Harvard. My God! to think I was a Harvard man once! Oh, I'm a goner now
+and I ain't got a friend. When I was in the paint-shop they paid me
+well. I've been in a paint-shop lately painting the little pictures on
+the safes, little landscapes, you know, and lakes with mountains around
+them. I pulled down my twenty dollars and findings!"
+
+"Oh, don't be a fool!" cried Geary, ashamed even to see such an
+exhibition. "If you can't be a man, you can get out. Now, see here, you
+came up here once and insulted me in my office, and called me a
+swindler. Ah, you bet you had the swelled head then and insulted me,
+attacked my honesty and charged me with shoving the queer. Now I never
+forget those things generally, but I am willing to let that pass this
+time. I could be nasty now and tell you to rustle for yourself. If you
+want half a dollar now to get something to eat, why, I'll give it to
+you. But I don't propose to support you. Ah, no; I guess not! If you
+want to work I'll give you a chance, but I shall expect you to do good
+work if I give you my good money for it. You may be drunk now or--_I_
+don't know what's the matter with you. But you come up here to-morrow at
+noon, and if you come up here sober or straight or"--Geary began to make
+awkward gestures in the air with both hands--"come up here to talk
+_business_, I may have something for you, but I can't stop any longer
+this evening."
+
+Vandover got upon his feet slowly, turning his greenish hat about by the
+brim, nodding his head. "All right, all right," he answered. "Thank you
+very much, Mister Geary. It's very good of you, I'm sure. I'll be around
+at noon sure."
+
+When Geary was left alone, he walked slowly to his window, and stood
+there a moment looking aimlessly down into the street, shaking his head
+repeatedly, astonished at the degradation of his old-time chum. While he
+stood there he saw Vandover come out upon the sidewalk from the door of
+the great office building. Geary watched him, very interested.
+
+Vandover paused a moment upon the sidewalk, turning up the collar of his
+old cutaway coat against the cold trade wind that was tearing through
+the streets; he thrust both his hands deep into his trousers pockets,
+gripping his sides with his elbows and drawing his shoulders together,
+shrinking into a small compass in order to be warm. The wind blew the
+tails of his cutaway about him like flapping wings. He went up the
+street, walking fast, keeping to the outside of the sidewalk, his
+shoulders bent, his head inclined against the wind, his feet dragging
+after him as he walked. For a moment Geary lost sight of him amid a
+group of men who were hoisting a piano upon a dray. The street was
+rather crowded with office boys, clerks, and typewriters going home to
+supper, and Geary did not catch sight of him again immediately; then all
+at once he saw him hesitating on a corner of Kearney Street, waiting for
+an electric car to pass; he crossed the street, running, his hands still
+in his pockets, and went on hurriedly, dodging in and out of the throng,
+his high shoulders, long neck, and greenish hat coming into sight at
+intervals. For a moment he paused to glance into the show window of a
+tobacconist and pipe-seller's store. A Chinese woman passed him,
+pattering along lamely, her green jade ear-rings twinkling in the light
+of a street lamp, newly lighted. Vandover looked after her a moment,
+gazing stupidly, then suddenly took up his walk again, zigzagging amid
+the groups on the asphalt, striding along at a great pace, his head low
+and swinging from side to side as he walked. He was already far down the
+street; it was dusk; Geary could only catch glimpses of his head and
+shoulders at long intervals. He disappeared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About ten minutes before one the next day as Geary came back from lunch
+he was surprised to see Vandover peeping through the half-open door of
+his office. He had not thought that Vandover would come back.
+
+Of the many different stories that Vandover had told about the
+disappearance of his bonds, the one that was probably truest was the one
+that accounted for the thing by his passion for gambling. For a long
+time after his advent at the Reno House this passion had been dormant;
+he knew no one with whom he could play, and every cent of his income now
+went for food and lodging. But one day, about six months before his
+visit to Geary's office, Vandover saw that the proprietor of the Reno
+House had set up a great bagatelle board in a corner of the
+reading-room. A group of men, sailors, ranchmen, and fruit venders were
+already playing. Vandover approached and watched the game, very
+interested in watching the uncertain course of the marble jog-jogging
+among the pins. The clear little note of the bell or the dry rattle as
+the marble settled quickly into one of the lucky pockets thrilled him
+from head to foot; his hands trembled, all at once his whole left side
+twitched sharply.
+
+From that day the fate of the rest of Vandover's little money was
+decided. In two weeks he had lost twenty dollars at bagatelle, obtaining
+the money by selling a portion of his bonds at a certain broker's on
+Montgomery Street. As soon as he had begun to gamble again the old
+habits of extravagance had come back upon him. From the moment he knew
+that he could get all the money he wanted by the mere signing of a
+paper, he ceased to be economical, scorning the former niggardliness
+that had led him to starve on one day that he might feast the next; now,
+he feasted every day. He still kept his room at the Reno House, but
+instead of taking his meals by any ticket system, he began to affect the
+restaurants of the Spanish quarter, gorging himself with the hot spiced
+meals three and four times a day. He quickly abandoned the bagatelle
+board for the card-table, gambling furiously with two of the ranchmen.
+Almost invariably Vandover lost, and the more he lost the more eager and
+reckless he became.
+
+In a little time he had sold every one of his bonds and had gambled away
+all but twenty dollars of the money received from the last one sold.
+This sum, this twenty dollars, Vandover decided to husband carefully. It
+was all that was left between him and starvation. He made up his mind
+that he must stop gambling and find something to do. He had long since
+abandoned his work at the paint-shop, but at this time he returned there
+and asked for his old occupation. They laughed in his face. Was that the
+way he thought they did business? Not much; another man had his job, a
+much better man and one who was regular, who could be depended on. That
+same evening Vandover broke his twenty dollars and became very drunk. A
+game of poker was started in a back room of one of the saloons on the
+Barbary Coast. One of the players was a rancher named Toedt, a
+fellow-boarder at the Reno House, but the two other players were
+strangers; and there in that narrow, dirty room, sawdust on the floor,
+festoons of fly-specked red and blue tissue paper adorning the single
+swinging lamp, figures cut from bill-posters of the Black Crook pasted
+on the walls, there in the still hours after midnight, long after the
+barroom outside had been closed for the night, the last penny of
+Vandover's estate was gambled away.
+
+The game ended in a quarrel, Vandover, very drunk, and exasperated at
+his ill luck, accusing his friend Toedt, the rancher, of cheating. Toedt
+kicked him in the stomach and made him abominably sick. Then they went
+away and left Vandover alone in the little dirty room, racked with
+nausea, very drunk, fallen forward upon the table and crying into his
+folded arms. After a little he went to sleep, but the nausea continued,
+nevertheless, and in a few moments he gagged and vomited. He never
+moved. He was too drunk to wake. His hands and his coat-sleeves, the
+table all about him, were foul beyond words, but he slept on in the
+midst of it all, inert, stupefied, a great swarm of flies buzzing about
+his head and face. It was the day after this that he had come to see
+Geary.
+
+"Ah," said Geary, as he came up, "it's you, is it? Well, I didn't expect
+to see you again. Sit down outside there in the hall and wait a few
+minutes. I'm not ready to go yet--or, wait; here, I tell you what to
+do." Geary wrote off a list of articles on a slip of paper and pushed it
+across the table toward Vandover, together with a little money. "You get
+those at the nearest grocery and by the time you are back I'll be ready
+to go."
+
+That day Geary took Vandover out to the Mission. They went out in the
+cable-car, Geary sitting inside reading the morning's paper, Vandover
+standing on the front platform, carrying the things that Geary had told
+him to buy: a bar of soap, a scrubbing brush, some wiping cloths, a
+broom, and a pail.
+
+Almost at the end of the car-line they got off and crossed over to where
+Geary's property stood. Vandover looked about him. The ground on which
+his own block had once stood was now occupied by an immense red brick
+building with white stone trimmings; in front on either side of the main
+entrance were white stone medallions upon which were chiselled the head
+of a workman wearing the square paper cap that the workman never wears,
+and a bent-up forearm, the biceps enormous, the fist gripping the short
+hammer that the workman never uses. An enormous round chimney sprouted
+from one corner; through the open windows came the vast purring of
+machinery. It was a boot and shoe factory, built by the great concern
+who had bought the piece of property from Geary for fifteen thousand
+dollars, the same property Geary had bought from Vandover for eight.
+
+Across the street from the factory was a long row of little cottages,
+very neat, each having a tiny garden in front where nasturtiums grew.
+There were fifteen of these cottages; three of them only were vacant.
+
+"That was _my_ idea," observed Geary, as they approached the row,
+willing to explain even though he thought Vandover would not comprehend,
+"and it pays like a nitrate bed. I was clever enough to see that
+cottages like these were just what's wanted by the workmen in the
+factory that have families. I made some money when I sold out my block
+to the boot and shoe people, and I invested it again in these cottages.
+They are cheap and serviceable and they meet the demand." Vandover
+nodded his head in assent, looking vaguely about him, now at the
+cottages, now at the great building across the street. Geary got the
+keys to one of the vacant cottages and the two went inside.
+
+"Now here's what I want you to do," began Geary, pointing about with his
+stick. "You see, when some of these people go out they leave the rooms
+nasty, and that tells against the house when parties come to look at it.
+I want you to go all over it, top and bottom, end to end, and give it a
+good cleaning, sweep the floor, and wash the paint, you know. And now
+these windows, you see how dirty they are; wash those inside and out,
+but don't disturb the agents' signs; you understand?"
+
+"Yes, I understand."
+
+"Now come out here into the kitchen. Look at these laundry tubs and that
+sink. See all that grease! Clean that all out, and underneath the sink
+here. See that rubbish! Take that out, too. Now in here--look at that
+bathtub and toilet. You see how nasty they have left them. You want to
+make 'em look like new!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Now come downstairs. You see I give 'em a little floored basement,
+here; kind of a storeroom and coalroom. Here's where most of the dirt
+and rubbish is. Just look at it! See all that pile over there?"
+
+"I see."
+
+"Take it all out and pile it in the back yard. I'll have an ashman come
+and remove it. Whew! there is a dead hen under here; sling that out the
+first thing."
+
+They went back through the house again, and Geary pointed out the tiny
+garden to Vandover. "Straighten that up a bit, pick up those old
+newspapers and the tin cans. Make it look neat. Now you understand just
+what I want? You make a good job of it, and when you are through with
+this house, you begin on the next vacant one farther down the row. You
+can get the keys at the same place. You get to work right away. I should
+think you ought to finish this house this afternoon."
+
+"All right," answered Vandover.
+
+"I'm going to look around a little. I'll drop in again in about an hour
+and see how you're getting on."
+
+With that Geary went away. It was Saturday afternoon, and as the law
+office closed at noon that day, Geary very often spent the time until
+evening looking about his property. He left Vandover and went slowly
+down the street, noting each particular house with immense satisfaction,
+even entering some of them, talking with the womenfolk, all the men
+being at the factory.
+
+Vandover took off his coat, his old and greasy cutaway, and began work.
+He drew a pail of water from the garden faucet in a neighbour's yard,
+and commenced washing the windows. First he washed the panes from the
+inside, very careful not to disturb Adams & Brunt's signs, and then
+cleaned the outside, sitting upon the window ledge, his body half in and
+half out of the house.
+
+Geary enjoyed himself immensely. The news of the landlord's visit had
+spread from cottage to cottage, awakening a mild excitement throughout
+the length of the row. The women showed themselves on the steps or on
+the sidewalks, very slatternly, without corsets, their hair coming down,
+dressed in faded calico wrappers just as they had come from the laundry
+tubs or the cook-stove. They bethought them of their various grievances,
+a leak here, a broken door-bell there, a certain bad smell that was
+supposed to have some connection with a rash upon the children's faces.
+They waited for Geary's appearance by ones and twos, timid, very
+respectful, but querulous for all that, filling the air with their
+lamentations.
+
+Vandover had finished with the windows. Now he was cleaning out the sink
+and the laundry tubs. They smelt very badly and were all foul with a
+greasy mixture of old lard, soap, soot, and dust; a little mould was
+even beginning to form about the faucets of the tubs. The escape pipe of
+the sink was clogged, and he had to run his finger into it again and
+again to get it free. The kitchen was very dirty; old bottles of sweet
+oil, mouldy vinegar and flat beer cluttered the dusty shelves of the
+pantry.
+
+Meanwhile Geary continued his rounds. He went about among the groups of
+his tenants, very pleased and contented, smiling affably upon them. He
+enlarged himself, giving himself the airs of an English lord in the
+midst of his tenantry, listening to their complaints with a
+good-humoured smile of toleration. A few men were about, some of whom
+were out of work for the moment; others who were sick. To these Geary
+was particularly condescending. He sat in their parlours, little,
+crowded rooms, smelling of stale upholstery and of the last meal, where
+knitted worsted tidies, very gaudy, covered the backs of the larger
+chairs and where one inevitably discovered the whatnot standing in one
+corner, its shelves filled with shell-boxes, broken thermometers and
+little alabaster jars, shaped like funeral urns, where one kept the
+matches. The wife brought the children in, very dirty, looking solemnly
+at Geary, their eyes enlarged in the direct unwinking gaze of cows.
+
+By this time Vandover had finished with the sinks and tubs and was down
+upon his hands and knees scrubbing the stains of grease upon the floor
+of the kitchen. It was very hard work, as his water was cold. He was
+still working about this spot when Geary returned. By this time Vandover
+was so tired that he trembled all over, his spine seemed to be breaking
+in two, and every now and then he paused and passed his hand over the
+small of his back, closing his eyes and drawing a long breath.
+
+"Well, how are you getting on?" asked Geary, as he came into the
+kitchen, drawing on his gloves, about ready to go home.
+
+"Oh, I'm getting along," replied Vandover, rising up to his knees.
+
+"You want to hurry up," answered Geary. "You must be done with this
+house by this evening. You see, I want to advertise it in to-morrow's
+papers."
+
+"All right; I'll have it done."
+
+"Pretty dirty, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, pretty dirty."
+
+"You may have to work here a little later than usual this afternoon, but
+be sure you have everything cleaned up before you leave," Geary said.
+
+"All right," answered Vandover, bending to his work again.
+
+Just as Geary was leaving he had the admirable good fortune to meet on
+the steps of the cottage a little group who were house-hunting; two
+young women and a little boy. The mother of the little boy, so she
+explained to him, was married to one of the burnishers in the factory;
+the other woman was her sister.
+
+Geary showed them about the little house, very eager to secure them as
+tenants then and there. He began to sing its praises, its nearness to
+the factory, its excellent plumbing, its bathroom and its one stationary
+washstand; its little garden and its location on the sunny side of the
+street. "I'm a good landlord," he said to them, as he ushered them into
+the kitchen. "Any one in the row will tell you that. I make it a point
+to keep my houses in good repair and to keep them clean. You see, I have
+a man here now cleaning out." Vandover glanced up at the women an
+instant. The two of them and the little boy looked down at him on all
+fours upon the floor. Then he went on with his work.
+
+"This is the kitchen, you see," pursued Geary. "Notice how large it is;
+you see, here are your laundry tubs, your iron sink, your boiler,
+everything you need. Of course, it's a little grimy now, but by the time
+the man gets through, it will be as clean as your face. Now come
+downstairs here and I'll show the basement."
+
+In a moment their voices sounded through the floor of the kitchen, an
+indistinct, continuous murmur. Then the party returned and passed by
+Vandover again and stood for a long time in the front room haggling. The
+cottage rented for fifteen dollars. The young woman was willing to take
+it at that, but with the understanding that Geary should pay the water
+rent. Geary refused, unwilling even to listen to such a thing. Every
+other tenant in the row paid for his own water. The young women went
+away shaking their heads sadly. Geary let them get half-way down the
+front steps and then called them back. He offered a compromise, the
+young women should pay for the water, but half of their first month's
+rent should be remitted. The burnisher's wife still hesitated, saying,
+"You know yourself this house is awfully dirty."
+
+"Well, you see I'm having it cleaned!"
+
+"It'll have to be cleaned pretty thoroughly. I can't stand _dirt._"
+
+"It _will_ be cleaned thoroughly," persisted Geary. "The man will work
+at it until it is. You can keep an eye on him and see that the work is
+done to suit you."
+
+"You see," objected the burnisher's wife, "I would want to move in right
+away. I don't want to wait all week for the man to get through."
+
+"But he is going to be through with this house to-night," exclaimed
+Geary delighted. "Come now, I know you want this cottage and I would
+like to have such nice-looking people have it. I know you would make
+good tenants. I can find lots of other tenants for this house, only you
+know how it is, a nasty, slovenly woman about the house and a raft of
+dirty children. And you don't like dirt, I can see that. Better call it
+a bargain, and let it go at that."
+
+In the end the burnisher's wife took the house. Geary even induced her
+to deposit five dollars with him in order to secure it.
+
+Vandover was down in the basement filling a barrel with the odds and
+ends of rubbish left by the previous tenants: broken bottles, old
+corsets, bones, rusty bedsprings. The dead hen he had taken out first of
+all, carrying it by one leg. It was a gruesome horror, partly eaten by
+rats, swollen, abnormally heavy, one side flattened from lying so long
+upon the floor. He could hardly stand; each time he bent over it seemed
+as though his backbone was disjointing. After cleaning out the debris he
+began to sweep. The dust was fearful, choking, blinding, so thick that
+he could hardly see what he was about. By and by he dimly made out
+Geary's figure in the doorway.
+
+"Those people have taken the house," he called out, "and I promised them
+you would be through with it by this evening. So you want to stay with
+it now till you're finished. I guess there's not much more to do. Don't
+forget the little garden in front."
+
+"No; I won't forget!"
+
+Geary went away, and for another hour Vandover kept at his work,
+stolidly, his mind empty of all thought, knowing only that he was very
+tired, that his back pained him. He finished with the basement, but as
+he was pottering about the little garden, picking up the discoloured
+newspapers with which it was littered, the burnisher's wife returned,
+together with her sister and the little boy; the little boy eating a
+slice of bread and butter. They re-entered the house; Vandover heard
+their voices, now in one room, now in another. They were looking over
+their future home again; evidently they lived close by.
+
+Suddenly the burnisher's wife came out upon the front steps, looking
+down into the little garden, calling for Vandover. She was not pretty;
+she had a nose like a man and her chin was broad.
+
+"Say, there," she called to Vandover, "do you mean to say that you've
+finished inside here?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover, straightening up, nodding his head. "Yes, I've
+finished."
+
+"Well, just come in here and look at this."
+
+Vandover followed her into the little parlour. Her sister was there,
+very fat, smelling somehow of tallow candles and cooked cabbage; nearby
+stood the little boy still eating his bread and butter.
+
+"Look at that baseboard," exclaimed the burnisher's wife. "You never
+touched that, I'll bet a hat." Vandover did not answer; he brought in
+the pail of water, and soaping his scrubbing brush, went down again on
+his hands and knees, washing the paint on the baseboard where the
+burnisher's wife indicated. The two women stood by, looking on and
+directing his movements. The little boy watched everything, never
+speaking a word, slowly eating his bread and butter. Streaks of butter
+and bread clung to his cheeks, stretching from the corners of his mouth
+to his ears.
+
+"I don't see how you come to overlook that," said the burnisher's wife
+to Vandover. "That's the dirtiest baseboard I ever saw. Oh, my! I just
+can't naturally stand _dirt_! There, you didn't get that stain off.
+That's tobacco juice, I guess. Go back and wash that over again."
+Vandover obeyed, holding the brush in one hand, crawling back along the
+floor upon one palm and his two knees, a pool of soapy, dirty water very
+cold gathered about him, soaking in through the old "blue pants" and
+wetting him to the skin, but he slovened through it indifferently. "Put
+a little more elbow grease to it," continued the burnisher's wife. "You
+have to rub them spots pretty hard to get 'em out. Now scrub all along
+here near the floor. You see that streak there--that's all gormed up
+with something or other. Bugs get in there mighty quick. There, that'll
+do, I guess. Now, is everything else all clean? Mister Geary said it was
+to be done to my satisfaction, and that you were to stay here until
+everything was all right."
+
+All at once her voice was interrupted by the prolonged roar of the
+factory's whistle, blowing as though it would never stop. It was
+half-past five. In an instant the faint purring of the machinery
+dwindled and ceased, leaving an abrupt silence in the air. A moment
+later the army of operatives began to pour out of the main entrance; men
+and girls and young boys, all in a great hurry, the men settling their
+coat collars as they ran down the steps. The usually quiet street was
+crowded in an instant.
+
+The burnisher's wife stood on the steps of the vacant house with her
+sister, watching the throng debouch into the street. All at once the
+sister exclaimed, "There he is!" and the other began to call, "Oscar,
+Oscar!" waving her hand to one of the workmen on the other side of the
+street. It was her husband, the burnisher, and he came across the
+street, crowding his lunch basket into the pocket of his coat. He was a
+thin little man with a timid air, his face white and fat and covered
+with a sparse unshaven stubble of a pale straw colour. An odour as of a
+harness shop hung about him. Vandover gathered up his broom and pail and
+soap preparing to go home.
+
+"Well, Oscar, I've taken the house!" said his wife to the burnisher as
+he came up the steps. "But I couldn't get him to say that he'd let me
+have it for fifteen, water _included_. The landlord himself, Mr. Geary,
+was here to-day and I made the dicker with him. He's had a man here all
+day cleaning up." She explained the bargain, the burnisher approving of
+everything, nodding his head continually. His wife showed him about the
+house, her sister and the little boy following in silence. "He's a good
+landlord, I guess," continued the young woman; "anybody in the row will
+tell you that, and he means to keep his houses in good repair. Now you
+see, here's the kitchen. You see how big it is. Here's our laundry tubs,
+our iron sink, our boiler, and everything we want. It's all as clean as
+a whistle; and get on to this big cubby under the sink where I can stow
+away things." She opened its door to show her husband, but all at once
+straightened up, exclaiming, "Well, dear me _suz_--did you _ever_ see
+anything like that?" The cubby under the sink was abominably dirty.
+Vandover had altogether forgotten it.
+
+The little burnisher himself bent down and peered in.
+
+"Oh, that'll never do!" he cried. "Has that man gone home yet? He
+mustn't; he's got to clean this out first!" He had a weak, faint voice,
+small and timid like his figure. He hurried out to the front door and
+called Vandover back just as he was going down the steps. The two went
+back into the kitchen and stood in front of the sink. "Look under
+there!" piped the burnisher. "You can't leave that, that way."
+
+"You know," protested his wife, "that this all was to be done to our
+satisfaction. Mr. Geary said so. That's the only way I came to take the
+house."
+
+"It's about six o'clock, though," observed her fat sister, who smelt of
+cooked cabbage. "Perhaps he'd want to go home to his dinner." But at
+this both the others cried out in one voice, the burnisher exclaiming:
+"I can't help _that_, this has got to be done first," while his wife
+protested that she couldn't naturally stand dirt, adding, "This all was
+to be done to our satisfaction, and we ain't satisfied yet by a long
+shot." Delighted at this excitement, the little boy forgot to eat into
+his bread and butter, rolling his eyes wildly from one to the other,
+still silent.
+
+Meanwhile, without replying, Vandover had gone down upon the floor
+again, poking about amid the filth under the sink. The four others, the
+burnisher, his wife, his sister-in-law and his little boy, stood about
+in a half-circle behind him, seeing to it that he did the work properly,
+giving orders as to how he should proceed.
+
+"Now, be sure you get everything out that's under there," said the
+burnisher. "Ouf! how it smells! They made a regular dump heap of it."
+
+"What's that over in the corner there?" cried the wife, bending down. "I
+can't see, it's so dark under there--something gray; can't you see, in
+under there? You'll have to crawl way in to get at it--go way in!"
+Vandover obeyed. The sink pipes were so close above him that he was
+obliged to crouch lower and lower; at length he lay flat upon his
+stomach. Prone in the filth under the sink, in the sour water, the
+grease, the refuse, he groped about with his hand searching for the
+something gray that the burnisher's wife had seen. He found it and drew
+it out. It was an old hambone covered with a greenish fuzz.
+
+"Oh, did you _ever_!" cried the burnisher, holding up his hands. "Here,
+don't drop that on my clean floor; put it in your pail. Now get out the
+rest of the dirt, and hurry up, it's late." Vandover crawled back, half
+the way under the sink again, this time bringing out a rusty pan half
+full of some kind of congealed gravy that exhaled a choking, acrid
+odour; next it was an old stocking, and then an ink bottle, a broken
+rat-trap, a battered teapot lacking a nozzle, a piece of rubber hose, an
+old comb choked with a great handful of hair, a torn overshoe,
+newspapers, and a great quantity of other debris that had accumulated
+there during the occupancy of the previous tenant.
+
+"Now go over the floor with a rag," ordered the little burnisher, when
+the last of these articles had been brought out. "Wipe up all that nasty
+muck! Look there by your knee to your left! Scrub that big spot there
+with your brush--looks like grease. That's the style--scrub it hard!"
+His wife joined her directions to his. Then it was over here, and over
+there, now in that corner, now in this, and now with his brush and soap,
+and now with his dry rag, and hurry up all the time because it was
+growing late. But the little boy, carried away by the interest of the
+occasion, suddenly broke silence for the first time, crying out shrilly,
+his mouth full of bread and butter, "Hey there! Get up, you old
+lazee-bones!"
+
+The others shouted with laughter. _There_ was a smart little boy for
+you. Ah, he'd be a man before his mother. It was wonderful how that boy
+saw everything that went on. He took an _interest_, that was it. You
+ought to see, he watched everything, and sometimes he'd plump out with
+things that were astonishing for a boy of his years. Only four and a
+half, too, and they reminded each other of the first day he put on
+knickerbockers; stood in front of the house on the sidewalk all day long
+with his hands in his pockets. The interest was directed from Vandover,
+they turned their backs, grouping themselves about the little boy. The
+burnisher's sister-in-law felt called upon to tell about her little
+girl, a matter of family pride. _She_ was going on twelve, and would you
+suppose that little thing was in next to the last grade in the grammar
+school? Her teacher had said that she was a real wonder; never had had
+such a bright pupil. Ah, but one should see how she studied over her
+books all the time. Next year they were to try to get her into the high
+school. Of course she was not ready for the high school yet, and it was
+against the rule to let children in that way, she was too young, but
+they had a pull, you understand. Oh, yes, for sure they had a pull.
+_They'd_ work her in all right. The burnisher's wife was not listening.
+She wanted to draw the interest back to her own little boy. She bent
+down and straightened out his little jacket, saying, "Does he like his
+bread 'n butter? Well, he could have all he wanted!" But the little boy
+paid no attention to her. He had made a _bon-mot_, ambition stirred in
+him, he had tasted the delights of an appreciative audience. Bread and
+butter had fallen in his esteem. He wished to repeat his former success,
+and cried out shriller than ever:
+
+"Hey, there! Get up, you old lazee-bones!"
+
+But his father corrected him--his mother ought not to encourage him to
+be rude. "That's not right, Oscar," he observed, shaking his head. "You
+must be kind to the poor man."
+
+Vandover was sitting back on his heels to rest his back, waiting till
+the others should finish.
+
+"Well, all through?" inquired the burnisher in his thin voice. Vandover
+nodded. But his wife was not satisfied until she had herself carefully
+peered into the cubby, while her husband held a lighted match for her.
+"Ah, that's something like," she said finally.
+
+It was nearly seven. Vandover prepared to go home a second time. The
+little boy stood in front of him, looking down at him as he made his
+brush and rags and broom into a bundle; the boy slowly eating his bread
+and butter the while. In one corner of the room an excited whispered
+conference was going on between the burnisher, his wife, and his fat
+sister-in-law. From time to time one heard such expressions as
+"Overtime, you know--not afraid of work--ah! think I'd better, looks as
+though he needed it." In a moment the two women went out, calling in
+vain for the little boy to follow, and the burnisher crossed the room
+toward Vandover. Vandover was on his knees tying up his bundle with a
+bit of bale rope.
+
+"I'm sorry," began the burnisher awkwardly. "We didn't mean to keep you
+from your supper--here," he went on, holding out a quarter to Vandover,
+"here, you take this, that's all right--you worked overtime for us,
+that's all right. Come along, Oscar; come along, m'son."
+
+Vandover put the quarter in his vest pocket.
+
+"Thank you, sir," he said.
+
+The burnisher hurried away, calling back, "Come along, m'son; don't keep
+your mama waiting for supper." But the little boy remained very
+interested in watching Vandover, still on the floor, tying the last
+knots. As he finished, he glanced up. For an instant the two remained
+there motionless, looking into each other's eyes, Vandover on the floor,
+one hand twisted into the bale rope about his bundle, the little boy
+standing before him eating the last mouthful of his bread and butter.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14712 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14712 ***</div>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vandover and the Brute, by Frank Norris</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h1>VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE</h1>
+
+<h3>By</h3>
+
+<h2>Frank Norris</h2>
+
+
+<h3>1914</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<div style="margin-left: 46%; margin-left: 25%;">
+<p>
+ <a href="#Chapter_One"><b>Chapter One</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Two"><b>Chapter Two</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Three"><b>Chapter Three</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Four"><b>Chapter Four</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Five"><b>Chapter Five</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Six"><b>Chapter Six</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Seven"><b>Chapter Seven</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Eight"><b>Chapter Eight</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Nine"><b>Chapter Nine</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Ten"><b>Chapter Ten</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Eleven"><b>Chapter Eleven</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Twelve"><b>Chapter Twelve</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Thirteen"><b>Chapter Thirteen</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Fourteen"><b>Chapter Fourteen</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Fifteen"><b>Chapter Fifteen</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Sixteen"><b>Chapter Sixteen</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Seventeen"><b>Chapter Seventeen</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Eighteen"><b>Chapter Eighteen</b></a><br />
+ </p>
+</div>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_One" id="Chapter_One" /><i>Chapter One</i></h2>
+<p><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3" /></p>
+
+<p>It was always a matter of wonder to Vandover that he was able to recall
+so little of his past life. With the exception of the most recent events
+he could remember nothing connectedly. What he at first imagined to be
+the story of his life, on closer inspection turned out to be but a few
+disconnected incidents that his memory had preserved with the greatest
+capriciousness, absolutely independent of their importance. One of these
+incidents might be a great sorrow, a tragedy, a death in his family; and
+another, recalled with the same vividness, the same accuracy of detail,
+might be a matter of the least moment.</p>
+
+<p>A certain one of these wilful fillips of memory would always bring
+before him a particular scene during the migration of his family from
+Boston to their new home in San Francisco, at a time when Vandover was
+about eight years old.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the depot of one of the larger towns in western New York. The
+day had been hot and after the long ride on the crowded day coach the
+cool shadow under the curved roof of the immense iron vaulted depot
+seemed very pleasant. The porter, the brakeman and Vandover's father
+very carefully lifted his mother from the car. She was lying back on
+pillows in a long steamer chair. The three men let the chair slowly
+down, the brakeman went away, but the porter remained, taking off his
+cap and wiping his forehead with the back of his left hand, which in
+turn he wiped against the pink palm of his right. The other train, the
+train to which they were to change, had not yet arrived. It was rather
+still; at the far end of the depot a locomotive, sitting back on its
+motionless drivers like some huge sphinx crouching along the rails, was
+steaming quietly, drawing long breaths. The repair gang in greasy caps
+and spotted blue overalls were inspecting the train, pottering about the
+trucks, opening and closing the journal-boxes, striking clear notes on
+the wheels with long-handled hammers.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover stood close to his father, his thin legs wide apart, holding in
+both his hands the satchel he had been permitted to carry. He looked
+about him continually, rolling his big eyes vaguely, watching now the<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4" />
+repair-gang, now a huge white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.</p>
+
+<p>Several passengers were walking up and down the platform, staring
+curiously at the invalid lying back in the steamer chair.</p>
+
+<p>The journey was too much for her. She was very weak and very pale, her
+eyelids were heavy, the skin of her forehead looked blue and tightly
+drawn, and tiny beads of perspiration gathered around the corners of her
+mouth. Vandover's father put his hand and arm along the back of the
+chair and his sick wife rested against him, leaning her head on his
+waistcoat over the pocket where he kept his cigars and pocket-comb. They
+were all silent.</p>
+
+<p>By and by she drew a long sigh, her face became the face of an imbecile,
+stupid, without expression, her eyes half-closed, her mouth half-open.
+Her head rolled forward as though she were nodding in her sleep, while a
+long drip of saliva trailed from her lower lip. Vandover's father bent
+over her quickly, crying out sharply, &quot;Hallie!&mdash;what is it?&quot; All at once
+the train for which they were waiting charged into the depot, filling
+the place with a hideous clangor and with the smell of steam and of hot
+oil.</p>
+
+<p>This scene of her death was the only thing that Vandover could remember
+of his mother.</p>
+
+<p>As he looked back over his life he could recall nothing after this for
+nearly five years. Even after that lapse of time the only scene he could
+picture with any degree of clearness was one of the greatest triviality
+in which he saw himself, a rank thirteen-year-old boy, sitting on a bit
+of carpet in the back yard of the San Francisco house playing with his
+guinea-pigs.</p>
+
+<p>In order to get at his life during his teens, Vandover would have been
+obliged to collect these scattered memory pictures as best he could,
+rearrange them in some more orderly sequence, piece out what he could
+imperfectly recall and fill in the many gaps by mere guesswork and
+conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>It was the summer of 1880 that they had come to San Francisco. Once
+settled there, Vandover's father began to build small residence houses
+and cheap flats which he rented at various prices, the cheapest at ten
+dollars, the more expensive at thirty-five and forty. He had closed out
+his business in the<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5" /> East, coming out to California on account of his
+wife's ill health. He had made his money in Boston and had intended to
+retire.</p>
+
+<p>But he soon found that he could not do this. At this time he was an old
+man, nearly sixty. He had given his entire life to his business to the
+exclusion of everything else, and now when his fortune had been made and
+when he could afford to enjoy it, discovered that he had lost the
+capacity for enjoying anything but the business itself. Nothing else
+could interest him. He was not what would be called in America a rich
+man, but he had made money enough to travel, to allow himself any
+reasonable relaxation, to cultivate a taste for art, music, literature
+or the drama, to indulge in any harmless fad, such as collecting
+etchings, china or bric-&agrave;-brac, or even to permit himself the luxury of
+horses. In the place of all these he found himself, at nearly sixty
+years of age, forced again into the sordid round of business as the only
+escape from the mortal <i>ennui</i> and weariness of the spirit that preyed
+upon him during every leisure hour of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Early and late he went about the city, personally superintending the
+building of his little houses and cheap flats, sitting on saw-horses and
+piles of lumber, watching the carpenters at work. In the evening he came
+home to a late supper, completely fagged, bringing with him the smell of
+mortar and of pine shavings.</p>
+
+<p>On the first of each month when his agents turned over the rents to him
+he was in great spirits. He would bring home the little canvas sack of
+coin with him before banking it, and call his son's attention to the
+amount, never failing to stick a twenty-dollar gold-piece in each eye,
+monocle fashion, exclaiming, &quot;Good for the masses,&quot; a meaningless jest
+that had been one of the family's household words for years.</p>
+
+<p>His plan of building was peculiar. His credit was good, and having
+chosen his lot he would find out from the banks how much they would loan
+him upon it in case he should become the owner. If this amount suited
+him, he would buy the lot, making one large payment outright and giving
+his note for the balance. The lot once his, the banks loaned him the
+desired amount. With this money and with money of his own he would make
+the final payment on the lot and would begin <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6" />the building itself,
+paying his labour on the nail, but getting his material, lumber, brick
+and fittings on time. When the building was half-way up he would
+negotiate a second loan from the banks in order to complete it and in
+order to meet the notes he had given to his contractors for material.</p>
+
+<p>He believed this to be a shrewd business operation, since the rents as
+they returned to him were equal to the interest on a far larger sum than
+that which he had originally invested. He said little about the double
+mortgage on each piece of property &quot;improved&quot; after this fashion and
+which often represented a full two-thirds of its entire value. The
+interest on each loan was far more than covered by the rents; he chose
+his neighbourhoods with great discrimination; real estate was
+flourishing in the rapidly growing city, and the new houses, although
+built so cheaply that they were mere shells of lath and plaster, were
+nevertheless made gay and brave with varnish and cheap mill-work. They
+rented well at first, scarcely a one was ever vacant. People spoke of
+the Old Gentleman as one of the most successful realty owners in the
+city. So pleased did he become with the success of his new venture that
+in course of time all his money was reinvested after this fashion.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of his father's greatest prosperity Vandover himself began
+to draw toward his fifteenth year, entering upon that period of change
+when the first raw elements of character began to assert themselves and
+when, if ever, there was a crying need for the influence of his mother.
+Any feminine influence would have been well for him at this time: that
+of an older sister, even that of a hired governess. The housekeeper
+looked after him a little, mended his clothes, saw that he took his bath
+Saturday nights, and that he did not dig tunnels under the garden walks.
+But her influence was entirely negative and prohibitory and the two were
+constantly at war. Vandover grew in a haphazard way and after school
+hours ran about the streets almost at will.</p>
+
+<p>At fifteen he put on long trousers, and the fall of the same year
+entered the High School. He had grown too fast and at this time was tall
+and very lean; his limbs were straight, angular, out of all proportion,
+with huge articulations at the elbows and knees. His neck was long and
+thin and his head <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7" />large, his face was sallow and covered with pimples,
+his ears were big, red and stuck out stiff from either side of his head.
+His hair he wore &quot;pompadour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Within a month after his entry of the High School he had a nickname. The
+boys called him &quot;Skinny-seldom-fed,&quot; to his infinite humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little the crude virility of the young man began to develop in
+him. It was a distressing, uncanny period. Had Vandover been a girl he
+would at this time have been subject to all sorts of abnormal vagaries,
+such as eating his slate pencil, nibbling bits of chalk, wishing he were
+dead, and drifting into states of unreasoned melancholy. As it was, his
+voice began to change, a little golden down appeared on his cheeks and
+upon the nape of his neck, while his first summer vacation was
+altogether spoiled by a long spell of mumps.</p>
+
+<p>His appetite was enormous. He ate heavy meat three times a day, but took
+little or no exercise. The pimples on his face became worse and worse.
+He grew peevish and nervous. He hated girls, and when in their society
+was a very bull-calf for bashfulness and awkward self-consciousness. At
+times the strangest and most morbid fancies took possession of him,
+chief of which was that every one was looking at him while he was
+walking in the street.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was a good little boy. Every night he said his prayers, going
+down upon his huge knees at the side of his bed. To the Lord's Prayer he
+added various petitions of his own. He prayed that he might be a good
+boy and live a long time and go to Heaven when he died and see his
+mother; that the next Saturday might be sunny all day long, and that the
+end of the world might not come while he was alive.</p>
+
+<p>It was during Vandover's first year at the High School that his eyes
+were opened and that he acquired the knowledge of good and evil. Till
+very late he kept his innocence, the crude raw innocence of the boy,
+like that of a young animal, at once charming and absurd. But by and by
+he became very curious, stirred with a blind unreasoned instinct. In the
+Bible which he read Sunday afternoons, because his father gave him a
+quarter for doing so, he came across a great many things that filled him
+with vague and strange ideas; and one Sunday at church, when the
+minister was intoning the Litany, he <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8" />remarked for the first time the
+words, &quot;all women in the perils of child-birth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He puzzled over this for a long time, smelling out a mystery beneath the
+words, feeling the presence of something hidden, with the instinct of a
+young brute. He could get no satisfaction from his father and by and by
+began to be ashamed to ask him; why, he did not know. Although he could
+not help hearing the abominable talk of the High School boys, he at
+first refused to believe that part of it which he could understand. For
+all that he was ashamed of his innocence and ignorance and affected to
+appreciate their stories nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>At length one day he heard the terse and brutal truth. In an instant he
+believed it, some lower, animal intuition in him reiterating and
+confirming the fact. But even then he hated to think that people were so
+low, so vile. One day, however, he was looking through the volumes of
+the old Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica in his father's library, hoping that he
+might find a dollar bill which the Old Gentleman told him had been at
+one time misplaced between the leaves of some one of the great tomes.
+All at once he came upon the long article &quot;Obstetrics,&quot; profusely
+illustrated with old-fashioned plates and steel engravings. He read it
+from beginning to end.</p>
+
+<p>It was the end of all his childish ideals, the destruction of all his
+first illusions. The whole of his rude little standard of morality was
+lowered immediately. Even his mother, whom he had always believed to be
+some kind of an angel, fell at once in his estimation. She could never
+be the same to him after this, never so sweet, so good and so pure as he
+had hitherto imagined her.</p>
+
+<p>It was very cruel, the whole thing was a grief to him, a blow, a great
+shock; he hated to think of it. Then little by little the first taint
+crept in, the innate vice stirred in him, the brute began to make itself
+felt, and a multitude of perverse and vicious ideas commenced to buzz
+about him like a swarm of nasty flies.</p>
+
+<p>A certain word, the blunt Anglo-Saxon name for a lost woman, that he
+heard on one occasion among the boys at school, opened to him a vista of
+incredible wickedness, but now after the first moment of revolt the
+thing began to seem <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9" />less horrible. There was even a certain attraction
+about it. Vandover soon became filled with an overwhelming curiosity,
+the eager evil curiosity of the schoolboy, the perverse craving for the
+knowledge of vice. He listened with all his ears to everything that was
+said and went about through the great city with eyes open only to its
+foulness. He even looked up in the dictionary the meanings of the new
+words, finding in the cold, scientific definitions some strange sort of
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>There was no feminine influence about Vandover at this critical time to
+help him see the world in the right light and to gauge things correctly,
+and he might have been totally corrupted while in his earliest teens had
+it not been for another side of his character that began to develop
+about the same time.</p>
+
+<p>This was his artistic side. He seemed to be a born artist. At first he
+only showed bent for all general art. He drew well, he made curious
+little modellings in clayey mud; he had a capital ear for music and
+managed in some unknown way of his own to pick out certain tunes on the
+piano. At one time he gave evidence of a genuine talent for the stage.
+For days he would pretend to be some dreadful sort of character, he did
+not know whom, talking to himself, stamping and shaking his fists; then
+he would dress himself in an old smoking-cap, a red table-cloth and one
+of his father's discarded Templar swords, and pose before the long
+mirrors ranting and scowling. At another time he would devote his
+attention to literature, making up endless stories with which he
+terrified himself, telling them to himself in a low voice for hours
+after he had got into bed. Sometimes he would write out these stories
+and read them to his father after supper, standing up between the
+folding doors of the library, acting out the whole narrative with
+furious gestures. Once he even wrote a little poem which seriously
+disturbed the Old Gentleman, filling him with formless ideas and vague
+hopes for the future.</p>
+
+<p>In a suitable environment Vandover might easily have become an author,
+actor or musician, since it was evident that he possessed the
+fundamental <i>afflatus</i> that underlies all branches of art. As it was,
+the merest chance decided his career.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10" />In the same library where he had found the famous encyclop&aelig;dia article
+was &quot;A Home Book of Art,&quot; one of those showily bound gift books one sees
+lying about conspicuously on parlour centre tables. It was an English
+publication calculated to meet popular and general demand. There were a
+great many full-page pictures of lonely women, called &quot;Reveries&quot; or
+&quot;Idylls,&quot; ideal &quot;Heads&quot; of gipsy girls, of coquettes, and heads of
+little girls crowned with cherries and illustrative of such titles as
+&quot;Spring,&quot; &quot;Youth,&quot; &quot;Innocence.&quot; Besides these were sentimental pictures,
+as, for instance, one entitled &quot;It Might Have Been,&quot; a sad-eyed girl,
+with long hair, musing over a miniature portrait, and another especially
+impressive which represented a handsomely dressed woman flung upon a
+<i>Louis Quinze</i> sofa, weeping, her hands clasped over her head. She was
+alone; it was twilight; on the floor was a heap of opened letters. The
+picture was called &quot;Memories.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover thought this last a wonderful work of art and made a hideous
+copy of it with very soft pencils. He was so pleased with it that he
+copied another one of the pictures and then another. By and by he had
+copied almost all of them. His father gave him a dollar and Vandover
+began to add to his usual evening petition the prayer that he might
+become a great artist. Thus it was that his career was decided upon.</p>
+
+<p>He was allowed to have a drawing teacher. This was an elderly German, an
+immense old fellow, who wore a wig and breathed loudly through his nose.
+His voice was like a trumpet and he walked with a great striding gait
+like a colonel of cavalry. Besides drawing he taught ornamental writing
+and engrossing. With a dozen curved and flowing strokes of an ordinary
+writing pen he could draw upon a calling card a conventionalized
+outline-picture of some kind of dove or bird of paradise, all curves and
+curlicues, flying very gracefully and carrying in its beak a half-open
+scroll upon which could be inscribed such sentiments as &quot;From a Friend&quot;
+or &quot;With Fond Regards,&quot; or even one's own name.</p>
+
+<p>His system of drawing was of his own invention. Over the picture to be
+copied he would paste a great sheet of paper, ruling off the same into
+spaces of about an inch square. He would cut out one of these squares
+and Vandover would copy the portion of the picture thus disclosed. When
+he had copied <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11" />the whole picture in this fashion the teacher would go
+over it himself, retouching it here and there, labouring to obviate the
+checker-board effect which the process invariably produced.</p>
+
+<p>At other times Vandover copied into his sketch-book, with hard crayons,
+those lithographed studies on buff paper which are published by the firm
+in Berlin. He began with ladders, wheel-barrows and water barrels,
+working up in course of time to rustic buildings set in a bit of
+landscape; stone bridges and rural mills, overhung by some sort of
+linden tree, with ends of broken fences in a corner of the foreground to
+complete the composition. From these he went on to bunches of grapes,
+vases of fruit and at length to more &quot;Ideal heads.&quot; The climax was
+reached with a life-sized Head, crowned with honeysuckles and entitled
+<i>&quot;Flora.&quot;</i> He was three weeks upon it. It was an achievement, a
+veritable <i>chef-d'oeuvre.</i> Vandover gave it to his father upon Christmas
+morning, having signed his name to it with a great ornamental flourish.
+The Old Gentleman was astounded, the housekeeper was called in and
+exclaimed over it, raising her hands to Heaven. Vandover's father gave
+him a five-dollar gold-piece, fresh from the mint, had the picture
+framed in gilt and hung it up in his smoking-room over the clock.</p>
+
+<p>Never for a moment did the Old Gentleman oppose Vandover's wish to
+become an artist and it was he himself who first spoke about Paris to
+the young man. Vandover was delighted; the Latin Quarter became his
+dream. Between the two it was arranged that he should go over as soon as
+he had finished his course at the High School. The Old Gentleman was to
+take him across, returning only when he was well established in some
+suitable studio.</p>
+
+<p>At length Vandover graduated, and within three weeks of that event was
+on his way to Europe with his father. He never got farther than Boston.</p>
+
+<p>At the last moment the Old Gentleman wavered. Vandover was still very
+young and would be entirely alone in Paris, ignorant of the language,
+exposed to every temptation. Besides this, his education would stop
+where it was. Somehow he could not make it seem right to him to cut the
+young man adrift in this fashion. On the other hand, the Old Gentleman
+had a great many old-time friends and business acquaintances <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12" />in Boston
+who could be trusted with a nominal supervision of his son for four
+years. He had no college education himself, but in some vague way he
+felt convinced that Vandover would be a better artist for a four years'
+course at Harvard.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover took his father's decision hardly. He had never thought of
+being a college-man and nothing in that life appealed to him. He urged
+upon his father the loss of time that the course would entail, but his
+father met this objection by offering to pay for any artistic tuition
+that would not interfere with the regular college work.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little the idea of college life became more attractive to
+Vandover; at the worst, it was only postponing the Paris trip, not
+abandoning it. Besides this, two of his chums from the High School were
+expecting to enter Harvard that fall, and he could look forward to a
+very pleasant four years spent in their company.</p>
+
+<p>Out at Cambridge the term was just closing. The Old Gentleman's friends
+procured him tickets to several of the more important functions. From
+the gallery of Memorial Hall Vandover and his father saw some of the
+great dinners; they went up to New London for the boat-race; they gained
+admittance to the historic Yard on Class-day, and saw the strange
+football rush for flowers around the &quot;Tree.&quot; They heard the seniors sing
+&quot;Fair Harvard&quot; for the last time, and later saw them receive their
+diplomas at Sander's Theatre.</p>
+
+<p>The great ceremonies of the place, the picturesqueness of the elm-shaded
+Yard, the old red dormitories covered with ivy, the associations and
+traditions of the buildings, the venerable pump, Longfellow's room, the
+lecture hall where the minute-men had barracked, all of these things, in
+the end, appealed strongly to Vandover's imagination. Instead of passing
+the summer months in an ocean voyage and a continental journey, he at
+last became content to settle down to work under a tutor, &quot;boning up&quot;
+for the examinations. His father returned to San Francisco in July.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover matriculated the September of the same year; on the first of
+October he signed the college rolls and became a Harvard freshman. At
+that time he was eighteen years old.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Two" id="Chapter_Two" /><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13" /><i>Chapter Two</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>There was little of the stubborn or unyielding about Vandover, his
+personality was not strong, his nature pliable and he rearranged himself
+to suit his new environment at Harvard very rapidly. Before the end of
+the first semester he had become to all outward appearances a typical
+Harvardian. He wore corduroy vests and a gray felt hat, the brim turned
+down over his eyes. He smoked a pipe and bought himself a brindled
+bull-terrier. He cut his lectures as often as he dared, &quot;ragged&quot; signs
+and barber-poles, and was in continual evidence about Foster's and among
+Leavitt and Pierce's billiard-tables. When the great football games came
+off he worked himself into a frenzy of excitement over them and even
+tried to make several of his class teams, though without success.</p>
+
+<p>He chummed with Charlie Geary and with young Dolliver Haight, the two
+San Francisco boys. The three were continually together. They took the
+same courses, dined at the same table in Memorial Hall and would have
+shared the same room if it had been possible. Vandover and Charlie Geary
+were fortunate enough to get a room in Matthew's on the lower floor
+looking out upon the Yard; young Haight was obliged to put up with an
+outside room in a boarding house.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover had grown up with these fellows and during all his life was
+thrown in their company. Haight was a well-bred young boy of good
+family, very quiet; almost every morning he went to Chapel. He was
+always polite, even to his two friends. He invariably tried to be
+pleasant and agreeable and had a way of making people like him.
+Otherwise, his character was not strongly marked.</p>
+
+<p>Geary was quite different. He never could forget himself. He was
+incessantly talking about what he had done or was going to do. In the
+morning he would inform Vandover of how many hours he had slept and of
+the dreams he had dreamed. In the evening he would tell him everything
+he had done that day; the things he had said, how many lectures he had
+cut, what brilliant recitations he had made, and even what food he had
+eaten at Memorial. He was pushing, self-<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14" />confident, very shrewd and
+clever, devoured with an inordinate ambition and particularly pleased
+when he could get the better of anybody, even of Vandover or of young
+Haight. He delighted to assume the management of things. Vandover, he
+made his prot&eacute;g&eacute;, taking over the charge of such business as the two had
+in common. It was he who had found the room in Matthew's, getting it
+away from all other applicants, securing it at the eleventh hour. He put
+Vandover's name on the waiting list at Memorial, saw that he filled out
+his blanks at the proper time, helped him balance his accounts, guided
+him in the choice of his courses and in the making out of his
+study-card.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here, Charlie,&quot; Vandover would exclaim, throwing down the
+Announcement of Courses, &quot;I can't make this thing out. It's all in a
+tangle. See here, I've got to fill up my hours some way or other; <i>you</i>
+straighten this thing out for me. Find me some nice little course, two
+hours a week, say, that comes late in the morning, a good hour after
+breakfast; something easy, all lectures, no outside reading, nice
+instructor and all that.&quot; And Geary would glance over the complicated
+schedule, cleverly untangling it at once and would find two or three
+such courses as Vandover desired.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover's yielding disposition led him to submit to Geary's
+dictatorship and he thus early began to contract easy, irresponsible
+habits, becoming indolent, shirking his duty whenever he could, sure
+that Geary would think for the two and pull him out of any difficulty
+into which he might drift.</p>
+
+<p>Otherwise the three freshmen were very much alike. They were hardly more
+than boys and full of boyish spirits and activity. They began to see
+&quot;college life.&quot; Vandover was already smoking; pretty soon he began to
+drink. He affected beer, whisky he loathed, and such wine as was not too
+expensive was either too sweet or too sour. It became a custom for the
+three to go into town two or three nights in the week and have beer and
+Welsh rabbits at Billy Park's. On these occasions, however, young Haight
+drank only beer, he never touched wine or spirits.</p>
+
+<p>It was in Billy Park's the evening after the football game between the
+Yale and Harvard freshmen that Vandover was drunk for the first time. He
+was not so drunk but that he <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15" />knew he was, and the knowledge of the fact
+so terrified him that it kept him from getting very bad. The first
+sensation soon wore off, and by the time that Geary took charge of him
+and brought him back to Cambridge he was disposed to treat the affair
+less seriously. Nevertheless when he got to his room he looked at
+himself in the mirror a long time, saying to himself over and over
+again, &quot;I'm drunk&mdash;just regularly drunk. Good Heavens! what <i>would</i> the
+governor say to <i>this</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he was surprised to find that he felt so little ashamed.
+Geary and young Haight treated the matter as a huge joke and told him of
+certain funny things he had said and done and which he had entirely
+forgotten. It was impossible for him to take the matter seriously even
+if he had wished to, and within a few weeks he was drunk again. He found
+that he was not an exception; Geary was often drunk with him, fully a
+third of all the Harvard men he knew were intoxicated at different
+times. It was out of the question for Vandover to consider them as
+drunkards. Certainly, neither he nor any of the others drank because
+they liked the beer; after the fifth or sixth glass it was all they
+could do to force down another. Such being the case, Vandover often
+asked himself why he got drunk at all. This question he was never able
+to answer.</p>
+
+<p>It was the same with gambling. At first the idea of playing cards for
+money shocked him beyond all expression. But soon he found that a great
+many of the fellows, fellows like young Haight, beyond question steady,
+sensible and even worthy of emulation in other ways, &quot;went in for that
+sort of thing.&quot; Every now and then Vandover's &quot;crowd&quot; got together in
+his room in Matthew's, and played Van John &quot;for keeps,&quot; as they said,
+until far into the night. Vandover joined them. The stakes were small,
+he lost as often as he won, but the habit of the cards never grew upon
+him. It was like the beer, he &quot;went in for it&quot; because the others did,
+without knowing why. Geary, however, drew his line at gambling; he never
+talked against it or tried to influence Vandover, but he never could be
+induced to play &quot;for keeps&quot; himself.</p>
+
+<p>One very warm Sunday afternoon in the first days of April, when the last
+snows were melting, Vandover and Geary were in their room, sitting at
+opposite ends of their window-seat,<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16" /> Geary translating his Monday's
+&quot;Horace&quot; by the help of a Bonn's translation, Vandover making a pen and
+ink drawing for the next <i>Lampoon</i>. A couple of young women passed down
+the walk, going across the Yard toward the Square. They were cheaply and
+showily dressed. One of them wore a mannish shirtwaist, with a high
+collar and scarf. The other had taken off her gloves and was swinging a
+bright red cape in one of her bare hands. As the couple passed they
+stared calmly at the two young fellows in the window; Vandover lowered
+his eyes over his work, blushing, he could not tell why. Geary stared
+back at them, following them with his eyes until they had gone by.</p>
+
+<p>All at once he began laughing and pounding on the window.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, for goodness sake, quit!&quot; exclaimed Vandover in great alarm,
+twisting off the window-seat and shrinking back out of sight into the
+room. &quot;Quit, Charlie; you don't want to insult a girl that way.&quot; Geary
+looked at him over his shoulder in some surprise, and was about to
+answer when he turned to the window again and exclaimed, grinning and
+waving his hand:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, just come here, Skinny; get on to this, will you? Ah, come here and
+look, you old chump! Do you think they're nice girls? Just take a <i>look</i>
+at them.&quot; Vandover peered timidly around Geary's head and saw that the
+two girls were looking back and laughing, and that the one with the red
+cape was waving it at them.</p>
+
+<p>At supper that night they saw the girls in the gallery of Memorial. They
+pointed them out to young Haight, and Geary at length managed to attract
+their attention. After supper the three freshmen, together with two of
+their sophomore acquaintances, strolled slowly over toward the Yard,
+lighting their pipes and cigarettes. All at once, as they turned into
+the lower gate, they came full upon the same pair of girls. They were
+walking fast, talking and laughing very loudly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Track!&quot; called out one of the sophomores, and the group of young
+fellows parted to let them pass. The sophomore exclaimed in a tone of
+regret, &quot;Don't be in such a hurry, girls.&quot; Vandover became scarlet and
+turned his face away, but the girls looked back and laughed
+good-naturedly. &quot;Come on,&quot; said the sophomore. The group closed around
+the girls and brought them to a standstill; they were not in the least
+<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17" />embarrassed at this, but laughed more than ever. Neither of them was
+pretty, but there was a certain attraction about them that pleased
+Vandover immensely. He was very excited.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a very embarrassing pause. No one knew what to say. Geary
+alone regained his assurance at length, and began a lively interchange
+of chaff with one of them. The others could only stand about and smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; cried the other girl after a while, &quot;I ain't going to stand here
+in the snow all <i>night</i>. Let's take a walk; come along. I choose <i>you</i>.&quot;
+Before Vandover knew it she had taken his arm. The sophomore managed in
+some way to pair off with the other girl; Haight had already left the
+group; the two couples started off, while Geary and the other sophomore
+who were left out followed awkwardly in the rear for a little way and
+then disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was so excited that he could scarcely speak. This was a new
+experience. At first it attracted him, but the hopeless vulgarity of the
+girl at his side, her tawdry clothes, her sordid, petty talk, her slang,
+her miserable profanity, soon began to revolt him. He felt that he could
+not keep his self-respect while such a girl hung upon his arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say,&quot; said the girl at length, &quot;didn't I see you in town the other
+afternoon on Washington Street?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Maybe you did,&quot; answered Vandover, trying to be polite. &quot;I'm down there
+pretty often.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I guess yes,&quot; she answered. &quot;You Harvard sports make a regular
+promenade out o' Washington Street Saturday afternoons. I suppose I've
+seen you down there pretty often, but didn't notice. Do you stand or
+walk?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover's gorge rose with disgust. He stopped abruptly and pulled away
+from the girl. Not only did she disgust him, but he felt sorry for her;
+he felt ashamed and pitiful for a woman who had fallen so low. Still he
+tried to be polite to her; he did not know how to be rude with any kind
+of woman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll have to excuse me,&quot; he said, taking off his hat. &quot;I don't
+believe I can take a walk with you to-night. I&mdash;you see&mdash;I've got a good
+deal of work to do; I think I'll have to leave you.&quot; Then he bowed to
+her with his hat in his hand, hurrying away before she could answer him
+a word.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18" />He found Geary alone in their room, cribbing &quot;'Horace&quot; again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you bet,&quot; Geary said. &quot;I shook those chippies. I sized them up
+right away. I was clever enough for that. They were no good. I thought
+you would get enough of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I don't know,&quot; said Vandover after a while, as he settled to his
+drawing. &quot;She was pretty common, but anyhow I don't want to help bring
+down a poor girl like that any lower than she is already.&quot; This saying
+struck Vandover as being very good and noble, and he found occasion to
+repeat it to young Haight the next day.</p>
+
+<p>But within three days of this, at the time when Vandover would have
+fancied himself farthest from such a thing, he underwent a curious
+reaction. On a certain evening, moved by an unreasoned instinct, he
+sought out the girl who had just filled him with such deep pity and such
+violent disgust, and that night did not come back to the room in
+Matthew's. The thing was done almost before he knew it. He could not
+tell why he had acted as he did, and he certainly would not have
+believed himself capable of it.</p>
+
+<p>He passed the next few days in a veritable agony of repentance,
+overwhelmed by a sense of shame and dishonour that were almost feminine
+in their bitterness and intensity. He felt himself lost, unworthy, and
+as if he could never again look a pure woman in the eyes unless with an
+abominable hypocrisy. He was ashamed even before Geary and young Haight,
+and went so far as to send a long letter to his father acknowledging and
+deploring what he had done, asking for his forgiveness and reiterating
+his resolve to shun such a thing forever after.</p>
+
+<p>What had been bashfulness in the boy developed in the young man to a
+profound respect and an instinctive regard for women. This stood him in
+good stead throughout all his four years of Harvard life. In general, he
+kept himself pretty straight. There were plenty of fast girls and lost
+women about Cambridge, but Vandover found that he could not associate
+with them to any degree of satisfaction. He never knew how to take them,
+never could rid himself of the idea that they were to be treated as
+ladies. They, on their part, did not like him; he was too diffident, too
+courteous, too &quot;slow.&quot; They <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19" />preferred the rough self-assertion and easy
+confidence of Geary, who never took &quot;no&quot; as an answer and who could
+chaff with them on their own ground.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover did poor work at Harvard and only graduated, as Geary said, &quot;by
+a squeak.&quot; Besides his regular studies he took time to pass three
+afternoons a week in the studio of a Boston artist, where he studied
+anatomy and composition and drew figures from the nude. In the summer
+vacations he did not return home, but accompanied this artist on
+sketching tours along the coast of Maine. His style improved immensely
+the moment he abandoned flat studies and began to work directly from
+Nature. He drew figures well, showed a feeling for desolate landscapes,
+and even gave promise of a good eye for colour. But he allowed his
+fondness for art to interfere constantly with his college work. By the
+middle of his senior year he was so loaded with conditions that it was
+only Geary's unwearied coaching that pulled him through at all&mdash;as
+Vandover knew it would, for that matter.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover returned to San Francisco when he was twenty-two. It was
+astonishing; he had gone away a pimply, overgrown boy, raw and callow as
+a fledgling, constrained in society, diffident, awkward. Now he
+returned, a tall, well-formed Harvardian, as careful as a woman in the
+matter of dress, very refined in his manners. Besides, he was a
+delightful conversationalist. His father was rejoiced; every one
+declared he was a charming fellow.</p>
+
+<p>They were right. Vandover was at his best at this time; it was
+undeniable that he had great talent, but he was so modest about it that
+few knew how clever he really was.</p>
+
+<p>He went out to dinners and receptions and began to move a little in
+society. He became very popular: the men liked him because he was so
+unaffected, so straightforward, and the women because he was so
+respectful and so deferential.</p>
+
+<p>He had no vices. He had gone through the ordeal of college life and had
+come out without contracting any habit more serious than a vague
+distaste for responsibility, and an inclination to shirk disagreeable
+duties. Cards he never thought of. It was rare that he drank so much as
+a glass of beer.</p>
+
+<p>However, he had come back to a great disappointment.<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20" /> Business in San
+Francisco had entered upon a long period of decline, and values were
+decreasing; for ten years rents had been sagging lower and lower. At the
+same time the interest on loans and insurances had increased, and real
+estate was brought to a standstill; one spoke bitterly of a certain
+great monopoly that was ruining both the city and state. Vandover's
+father had suffered with the rest, and now told his son that he could
+not at this time afford to send him to Paris. He would have to wait for
+better times.</p>
+
+<p>At first this was a sharp grief to Vandover; for years he had looked
+forward to an artist's life in the Quarter. For a time he was
+inconsolable, then at length readjusted himself good-naturedly to suit
+the new order of things with as little compunction as before, when he
+had entered Harvard. He found that he could be contented in almost any
+environment, the weakness, the certain pliability of his character
+easily fitting itself into new grooves, reshaping itself to suit new
+circumstances. He prevailed upon his father to allow him to have a
+downtown studio. In a little while he was perfectly happy again.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover's love for his art was keen. On the whole he kept pretty
+steadily to his work, spending a good six hours at his easel every day,
+very absorbed over the picture in hand. He was working up into large
+canvases the sketches he had made along the Maine coast, great, empty
+expanses of sea, sky, and sand-dune, full of wind and sun. They were
+really admirable. He even sold one of them. The Old Gentleman was
+delighted, signed him a check for twenty dollars, and told him that in
+three years he could afford to send him abroad.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Vandover set himself to enjoy the new life. Little by
+little his &quot;set&quot; formed around him; Geary and young Haight, of course,
+and some half dozen young men of the city: young lawyers, medical
+students, and clerks in insurance offices. As Vandover thus began to see
+the different phases of that life which lay beyond the limits of the
+college, he perceived more and more clearly that he was an exception
+among men for his temperance, his purity, and his clean living.</p>
+
+<p>At their clubs and in their smoking-rooms he heard certain practices,
+which he had always believed to be degrading and abominable, discussed
+with shouts of laughter. Those matters <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21" />which until now he had regarded
+with an almost sacred veneration were subjects for immense jokes. A few
+years ago he would have been horrified at it all, but the fine quality
+of this first sensitiveness had been blunted since his experience at
+college. He tolerated these things in his friends now.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually Vandover allowed his ideas and tastes to be moulded by this
+new order of things. He assumed the manners of these young men of the
+city, very curious to see for himself the other lower side of their life
+that began after midnight in the private rooms of fast caf&eacute;s and that
+was continued in the heavy musk-laden air of certain parlours amid the
+rustle of heavy silks.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the fascination of this thing grew upon him until it mounted to a
+veritable passion. His strong artist's imagination began to be filled
+with a world of charming sensuous pictures.</p>
+
+<p>He commenced to chafe under his innate respect and deference for women,
+to resent and to despise it. As the desire of vice, the blind, reckless
+desire of the male, grew upon him, he set himself to destroy this
+barrier that had so long stood in his way. He knew that it was the
+wilful and deliberate corruption of part of that which was best in him;
+he was sorry for it, but persevered, nevertheless, ashamed of his
+old-time timidity, his ignorance, his boyish purity.</p>
+
+<p>For a second time the animal in him, the perverse evil brute, awoke and
+stirred. The idea of resistance hardly occurred to Vandover; it would be
+hard, it would be disagreeable to resist, and Vandover had not
+accustomed himself to the performance of hard, disagreeable duties. They
+were among the unpleasant things that he shirked. He told himself that
+later on, when he had grown older and steadier and had profited by
+experience and knowledge of the world, when he was stronger, in a word,
+he would curb the thing and restrain it. He saw no danger in such a
+course. It was what other men did with impunity.</p>
+
+<p>In company with Geary and young Haight he had come to frequent a certain
+one of the fast caf&eacute;s of the city. Here he met and became acquainted
+with a girl called Flossie. It was the opportunity for which he was
+waiting, and he seized it at once.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22" />This time there was no recoil of conscience, no shame, no remorse; he
+even felt a better estimation of himself, that self-respect that comes
+with wider experiences and with larger views of life. He told himself
+that all men should at one time see certain phases of the world; it
+rounded out one's life. After all, one had to be a man of the world.
+Those men only were perverted who allowed themselves to be corrupted by
+such vice.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that Vandover, by degrees, drifted into the life of a
+certain class of the young men of the city. Vice had no hold on him. The
+brute had grown larger in him, but he knew that he had the creature in
+hand. He was its master, and only on rare occasions did he permit
+himself to gratify its demands, feeding its abominable hunger from that
+part of him which he knew to be the purest, the cleanest, and the best.</p>
+
+<p>Three years passed in this fashion.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Three" id="Chapter_Three" /><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23" /><i>Chapter Three</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Vandover had decided at lunch that day that he would not go back to work
+at his studio in the afternoon, but would stay at home instead and read
+a very interesting story about two men who had bought a wrecked opium
+ship for fifty thousand dollars, and had afterward discovered that she
+contained only a few tins of the drug. He was curious to see how it
+turned out; the studio was a long way downtown, the day was a little
+cold, and he felt that he would enjoy a little relaxation. Anyhow, he
+meant to stay at home and put in the whole afternoon on a good novel.</p>
+
+<p>But even when he had made up his mind to do this he did not immediately
+get out his book and settle down to it. After lunch he loitered about
+the house while his meal digested, feeling very comfortable and
+contented. He strummed his banjo a little and played over upon the piano
+the three pieces he had picked up: two were polkas, and the third, the
+air of a topical song; he always played the three together and in the
+same sequence. Then he strolled up to his room, and brushed his hair for
+a while, trying to make it lie very flat and smooth. After this he went
+out to look at Mr. Corkle, the terrier, and let him run a bit in the
+garden; then he felt as though he must have a smoke, and so went back to
+his room and filled his pipe. When it was going well, he took down his
+book and threw himself into a deep leather chair, only to jump up again
+to put on his smoking-jacket. All at once he became convinced that he
+must have something to eat while he read, and so went to the kitchen and
+got himself some apples and a huge slice of fresh bread. Ever since
+Vandover was a little boy he had loved fresh bread and apples. Through
+the windows of the dining-room he saw Mr. Corkle digging up great holes
+in the geranium beds. He went out and abused him and finally let him
+come back into the house and took him upstairs with him.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last he settled down to his novel, in the very comfortable
+leather chair, before a little fire, for the last half of August is cold
+in San Francisco. The room was warm and snug, the fresh bread and apples
+were delicious, the good <a name="Page_24" id="Page_24" />tobacco in his pipe purred like a sleeping
+kitten, and his novel was interesting and well written. He felt calm and
+soothed and perfectly content, and took in the pleasure of the occasion
+with the lazy complacency of a drowsing cat.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was self-indulgent&mdash;he loved these sensuous pleasures, he loved
+to eat good things, he loved to be warm, he loved to sleep. He hated to
+be bored and worried&mdash;he liked to have a good time.</p>
+
+<p>At about half-past four o'clock he came to a good stopping-place in his
+book; the two men had got to quarrelling, and his interest flagged a
+little. He pushed Mr. Corkle off his lap and got up yawning and went to
+the window.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover's home was on California Street not far from Franklin. It was a
+large frame house of two stories; all the windows in the front were bay.
+The front door was directly in the middle between the windows of the
+parlour and those of the library, while over the vestibule was a sort of
+balcony that no one ever thought of using. The house was set in a large
+well-kept yard. The lawn was pretty; an enormous eucalyptus tree grew at
+one corner. Nearer to the house were magnolia and banana trees growing
+side by side with pines and firs. Humming-birds built in these, and one
+could hear their curious little warbling mingling with the hoarse chirp
+of the English sparrows which nested under the eaves. The back yard was
+separated from the lawn by a high fence of green lattice-work. The hens
+and chickens were kept here and two roosters, one of which crowed every
+time a cable-car passed the house. On the door cut through the
+lattice-fence was a sign, &quot;Look Out for the Dog.&quot; Close to the unused
+barn stood an immense windmill with enormous arms; when the wind blew in
+the afternoon the sails whirled about at a surprising speed, pumping up
+water from the artesian well sunk beneath. There was a small
+conservatory where the orchids were kept. Altogether, it was a charming
+place. However, adjoining it was a huge vacant lot with cows in it. It
+was full of dry weeds and heaps of ashes, while around it was an
+enormous fence painted with signs of cigars, patent bitters, and soap.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover stood at a front window and looked out on a rather dreary
+prospect. The inevitable afternoon trades had <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25" />been blowing hard since
+three, strong and brisk from the ocean, driving hard through the Golden
+Gate and filling the city with a taint of salt. Now the fog was coming
+in; Vandover could see great patches of it sweeping along between him
+and the opposite houses. All the eucalyptus trees were dripping, and
+occasionally there came the faint moan of the fog-horn out at the heads.
+He could see up the street for nearly two miles as it climbed over Nob
+Hill. It was almost deserted; a cable-car now and then crawled up and
+down its length, and at times a delivery wagon rattled across it; but
+that was about all. On the opposite sidewalk two boys and a girl were
+coasting downhill on their roller-skates and their brake-wagons. The
+cable in its slot kept up an incessant burr and clack. The whole view
+was rather forlorn, and Vandover turned his back on it, taking up his
+book again.</p>
+
+<p>About five o'clock his father came home from his office. &quot;Hello!&quot; said
+he, looking into the room; &quot;aren't you home a little early to-day? Ah, I
+thought you weren't going to bring that dog into the house any more. I
+wish you wouldn't, son; he gets hair and fleas about everywhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, governor,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;I'll take him out. Come
+along, Cork.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But aren't you home earlier than usual to-day?&quot; persisted his father as
+Vandover got up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Vandover, &quot;I guess I am, a little.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After supper the same evening when Vandover came downstairs, drawing on
+his gloves, his father looked over his paper, saying pleasantly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, where are you going to-night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm going to see my girl,&quot; said Vandover, smiling; then foreseeing the
+usual question, he added, &quot;I'll be home about eleven, I guess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Got your latch-key?&quot; asked the Old Gentleman, as he always did when
+Vandover went out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yep,&quot; called back Vandover as he opened the door. &quot;I'll not forget it
+again. Good-night, governor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover used to call on Turner Ravis about twice a week; people said
+they were engaged. This was not so.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover had met Miss Ravis some two years before. For a time the two
+had been sincerely in love with each other, <a name="Page_26" id="Page_26" />and though there was never
+any talk of marriage between them, they seemed to have some sort of
+tacit understanding. But by this time Vandover had somehow outgrown the
+idea of marrying Turner. He still kept up the fiction, persuaded that
+Turner must understand the way things had come to be. However, he was
+still very fond of her; she was a frank, sweet-tempered girl and very
+pretty, and it was delightful to have her care for him.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover could not shut his eyes to the fact that young Haight was very
+seriously in love with Turner. But he was sure that Turner preferred him
+to his chum. She was too sincere, too frank, too conscientious to
+practise any deception on him.</p>
+
+<p>There was quite a party at the Ravises' house that evening when Vandover
+arrived. Young Haight was there, of course, and Charlie Geary. Besides
+Turner herself there was Henrietta Vance, a stout, pretty girl, with pop
+eyes and a little nose, who laughed all the time and who was very
+popular. These were all part of Vandover's set; they called each other
+by their first names and went everywhere together. Almost every Saturday
+evening they got together at Turner's house and played whist, or euchre,
+or sometimes even poker. &quot;Just for love,&quot; as Turner said.</p>
+
+<p>When Vandover came in they were all talking at the same time, disputing
+about a little earthquake that had occurred the night before. Henrietta
+Vance declared that it had happened early in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Wasn't</i> it just about midnight, Van?&quot; cried Turner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;It didn't wake me up. I didn't even
+know there was one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I know I heard our clock strike two just about half an hour
+afterward,&quot; protested young Haight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, it was almost five o'clock when it came,&quot; cried Henrietta Vance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, you're <i>all</i> off,&quot; said Charlie Geary. &quot;I know just when she
+quaked to the fraction of a minute, because it stopped our hall clock at
+just a little after three.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They were silent. It was an argument which was hard to contradict. By
+and by, young Haight declared, &quot;There must have been two of them then,
+because&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27" />How about whist or euchre or whatever it is to be?&quot; said Charlie
+Geary, addressing Turner and interrupting in an annoying way that was
+peculiar to him. &quot;Can't we start in now that Van has come?&quot; They played
+euchre for a while, but Geary did not like the game, and by and by
+suggested poker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well&mdash;if it's only just for love,&quot; said Turner, &quot;because, you know,
+mamma doesn't like it any other way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At ten o'clock Geary said, &quot;Let's quit after this hand round&mdash;what do
+you say?&quot; The rest were willing and so they all took account of their
+chips after the next deal. Geary was protesting against his poor luck.
+Honestly he hadn't held better than three tens more than twice during
+the evening. It was Henrietta Vance who took in everything; did one ever
+<i>see</i> anything to beat her luck? &quot;the funniest thing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They began to do tricks with the cards. Young Haight showed them a very
+good trick by which he could make the pack break every time at the ace
+of clubs. Vandover exclaimed: &quot;Lend me a silk hat and ninety dollars and
+I'll show you the queerest trick you ever saw,&quot; which sent Henrietta
+Vance off into shrieks of laughter. Then Geary took the cards out of
+young Haight's hands, asking them if they knew <i>this</i> trick.</p>
+
+<p>Turner said yes, she knew it, but the others did not, and Geary showed
+it to them. It was interminable. Henrietta Vance chose a card and put it
+back into the deck. Then the deck was shuffled and divided into three
+piles. After this Geary made a mental calculation, selected one of these
+piles, shuffled it, and gave it back to her, asking her if she saw her
+card in it; then more shuffling and dividing until their interest and
+patience were quite exhausted. When Geary finally produced a jack of
+hearts and demanded triumphantly if that was her card, Henrietta began
+to laugh and declared she had forgotten <i>what</i> card she chose. Geary
+said he would do the trick all over for her. At this, however, they all
+cried out, and he had to give it up, very irritated at Henrietta's
+stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>Vexed at the ill success of this first trick, he retired a little from
+their conversation, puzzling over the cards, thinking out new tricks.
+Every now and then he came back among them, going about from one to
+another, holding out the deck and exclaiming, &quot;Choose any card&mdash;choose
+any card.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After a while they all adjourned to the dining-room and<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28" /> Turner and
+Vandover went out into the kitchen, foraging among the drawers and
+shelves. They came back bringing with them a box of sardines, a tin of
+<i>pat&eacute;</i>, three quart bottles of blue-ribbon beer, and what Vandover
+called &quot;devilish-ham&quot; sandwiches.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now do we want <i>tamales</i> to go with these?&quot; said Turner, as she spread
+the lunch on the table. Henrietta Vance cried out joyfully at this, and
+young Haight volunteered to go out to get them. &quot;Get six,&quot; Turner cried
+out after him. &quot;Henrietta can always eat two. Hurry up, and we won't eat
+till you get back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While he was gone Turner got out some half-dozen glasses for their beer.
+&quot;Do you know,&quot; she said as she set the glasses on the table, &quot;the
+funniest thing happened this morning to mamma. It was at breakfast; she
+had just drunk a glass of water and was holding the glass in her hand
+like this&quot;&mdash;Turner took one of the thin beer glasses in her hand to show
+them how&mdash;&quot;and was talking to pa, when all at once the glass broke right
+straight around a ring, just below the brim, you know, and fell all&mdash;&quot;
+On a sudden Turner uttered a shrill exclamation; the others started up;
+the very glass she held in her hand at the moment cracked and broke in
+precisely the manner she was describing. A narrow ring snapped from the
+top, dropping on the floor, breaking into a hundred bits.</p>
+
+<p>Turner drew in a long breath, open-mouthed, her hand in the air still
+holding the body of the glass that remained in her fingers. They all
+began to exclaim over the wonder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, did you ever in all your <i>life</i>?&quot; shouted Miss Vance, breaking
+into a peal of laughter. Geary cried out, &quot;C&aelig;sar's ghost!&quot; and Vandover
+swore under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If that isn't the strangest thing I ever saw!&quot; cried Turner. &quot;<i>Isn't</i>
+that funny&mdash;why&mdash;oh! I'm going <i>to try it with another glass</i>!&quot; But the
+second glass remained intact. Geary recovered from his surprise and
+tried to explain how it could happen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was the heat from your fingers and the glass was cold, you know,&quot; he
+said again and again.</p>
+
+<p>But the strangeness of the thing still held them. Turner set down the
+glass with the others and dropped into a chair, letting her hands fall
+in her lap, looking into their faces, nodding her head and shutting her
+lips:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_29" id="Page_29" />Ah, <i>no</i>,&quot; she said after a while. &quot;That <i>is</i> funny. It kind of scares
+one.&quot; She was actually pale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, there's Dolly Haight!&quot; cried Henrietta Vance as the door bell rang.
+They all rushed to the door, running and scrambling, eager to tell the
+news. Young Haight stood bewildered on the door mat in the vestibule,
+his arms full of brown-paper packages, while they recounted the marvel.
+They all spoke at once, holding imaginary beer glasses toward him in
+their outstretched hands. Geary, however, refused to be carried away by
+their excitement, and one heard him from time to time repeating, between
+their ejaculations, &quot;It was the heat from her fingers, you know, and the
+glass was cold.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight was confused, incredulous; he could not at first make out
+what <i>had</i> happened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, just come and <i>look</i> at the broken <i>glass</i> on the <i>floor</i>,&quot;
+shouted Turner decisively, dragging him into the dining-room. They
+waited, breathless, to hear what he would say. He looked at the broken
+glass and then into their faces. Then he suddenly exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you're joking me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, honestly,&quot; protested Vandover, &quot;that was just the way it happened.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was some little time before they could get over their impression of
+queerness, but by and by Geary cried out that the <i>tamales</i> were getting
+cold. They settled down to their lunch, and the first thing young Haight
+did was to cut his lip on the edge of the broken glass. Turner had set
+it down with the others and he had inadvertently filled it for himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was a trifling cut. Turner fetched some court-plaster, and his lip
+was patched up. For all that, it bled quite a little. He was very
+embarrassed; he kept his handkerchief to his mouth and told them
+repeatedly to go on with their lunch and not to mind him.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they were eating and drinking they began to be very jolly,
+and Vandover was especially good-humoured and entertaining. He made
+Henrietta Vance shout with laughter by pretending that the olive in his
+<i>tamale</i> was a green hen's egg.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past ten young Haight rose from the table saying he thought
+it was about time to say good-night. &quot;Don't <a name="Page_30" id="Page_30" />be in a hurry,&quot; said
+Turner. &quot;It's early yet.&quot; After that, however, they broke up very
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Before he left Vandover saw Turner in the dining-room alone for a
+minute.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Will I see you at church to-morrow?&quot; he asked, as she held his overcoat
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, Van,&quot; she answered. &quot;You know Henrietta is going to stay
+all night with me, and I think she will want me to go home with her
+to-morrow morning and then stay to dinner with her. But I'm going to
+early communion to-morrow morning; why can't you meet me there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, I can,&quot; answered Vandover, settling his collar. &quot;I should like to
+very much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then,&quot; she replied, &quot;you can meet me in front of the church at
+half-past seven o'clock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hey, break away there!&quot; cried Geary from the front door. &quot;Come along,
+Van, if you are going with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Turner let Vandover kiss her before they joined the others. &quot;I'll see
+you at seven-thirty to-morrow morning,&quot; he said as he went away.</p>
+
+<p>The three young men went off down the street, arm in arm, smoking their
+cigars and cigarettes. As soon as they were alone, Charlie Geary began
+to tell the other two of everything he had been doing since he had last
+seen them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, sir,&quot; he said as he took an arm of each, &quot;well, sir, I had a fine
+sleep last night; went to bed at ten and never woke up till half-past
+eight this morning. Ah, you bet I needed it, though. I've been working
+like a slave this week. You know I take my law-examinations in about ten
+days. I'll pass all right. I'm right up to the handle in everything. I
+don't believe the judge could stick me anywhere in the subject of
+torts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, boys,&quot; said Vandover, pausing and looking at his watch, &quot;it isn't
+very late; let's go downtown and have some oysters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's a good idea,&quot; answered young Haight. &quot;How about you, Charlie?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary said he was willing. &quot;Ah,&quot; he added, &quot;you ought to have seen the
+beefsteak I had this evening at the Grillroom.&quot; And as they rode
+downtown he told them of the steak in <a name="Page_31" id="Page_31" />question. &quot;I had a little mug of
+ale with it, too, and a dish of salad. Ah, it went great.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They decided after some discussion that they would go to the Imperial.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Four" id="Chapter_Four" /><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32" /><i>Chapter Four</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>The Imperial was a resort not far from the corner of Sutter and Kearney
+streets, a few doors below a certain well-known drug store, in one
+window of which was a showcase full of live snakes.</p>
+
+<p>The front of the Imperial was painted white, and there was a cigar-stand
+in the vestibule of the main entrance. At the right of this main
+entrance was another smaller one, a ladies' entrance, on the frosted
+pane of which one read, &quot;Oyster Cafe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The main entrance opened directly into the barroom. It was a handsome
+room, paved with marble flags. To the left was the bar, whose counter
+was a single slab of polished redwood. Behind it was a huge, plate-glass
+mirror, balanced on one side by the cash-register and on the other by a
+statuette of the Diving Girl in tinted bisque. Between the two were
+pyramids of glasses and bottles, liqueur flasks in wicker cases, and a
+great bouquet of sweet-peas.</p>
+
+<p>The three bartenders, in clean linen coats and aprons, moved about here
+and there, opening bottles, mixing drinks, and occasionally turning to
+punch the indicator of the register.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of the room, facing the bar, hung a large copy of a
+French picture representing a <i>Sabbath</i>, witches, goats, and naked girls
+whirling through the air. Underneath it was the lunch counter, where
+clam-fritters, the specialty of the place, could be had four afternoons
+in the week.</p>
+
+<p>Elsewhere were nickel-in-the-slot machines, cigar-lighters, a vase of
+wax flowers under glass, and a racing chart setting forth the day's
+odds, weights, and entries. On the end wall over the pantry-slides was a
+second &quot;barroom&quot; picture, representing the ladies of a harem at their
+bath.</p>
+
+<p>But its &quot;private rooms&quot; were the chief attraction of the Imperial. These
+were reached by going in through the smaller door to the right of the
+main vestibule. Any one coming in through this entrance found himself in
+a long and narrow passage. On the right of this passage were eight
+private rooms, very small, and open at the top as the law required.<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33" />
+Half-way down its length the passage grew wider. Here the rooms were on
+both sides and were much larger than those in front.</p>
+
+<p>It was this part of the Imperial that was most frequented, and that had
+made its reputation. In the smaller rooms in front one had beer and
+Welsh rabbits; in the larger rooms, champagne and terrapin.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover, Haight, and Geary came in through the ladies' entrance of the
+Imperial at about eleven o'clock, going slowly down the passage, looking
+into each of the little rooms, searching for one that was empty. All at
+once Vandover, who was in the lead, cried out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, if here isn't that man Ellis, drinking whisky by himself. Bah! a
+man that will drink whisky all <i>alone</i>! Glad to see you just the same,
+Bandy; move along, will you&mdash;give a man some room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, hello, Bandy!&quot; cried Geary and young Haight, hitting him in the
+back, while Geary added: &quot;How long have you been down here? <i>I've</i> just
+come from making a call with the boys. Had a fine time; what are you
+drinking, whisky? <i>I'm</i> going to have something to eat. Didn't have much
+of a lunch to-day, but you ought to have seen the steak I had at the
+Grillroom&mdash;as thick as that, and tender! Oh, it went great! Here, hang
+my coat up there on that side, will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Bancroft Ellis was one of the young men of the city with whom the three
+fellows had become acquainted just after their return from college. For
+the most part, they met him at downtown restaurants, in the foyers and
+vestibules of the theatres, on Kearney Street of a Saturday afternoon,
+or, as now, in the little rooms of the Imperial, where he was a
+recognized habitu&eacute; and where he invariably called for whisky, finishing
+from three to five &quot;ponies&quot; at every sitting. On very rare occasions
+they saw him in society, at the houses where their &quot;set&quot; was received.
+At these functions Ellis could never be persuaded to remain in the
+parlours; he slipped up to the gentlemen's dressing-rooms at the
+earliest opportunity, and spent the evening silently smoking the cigars
+and cigarettes furnished by the host. When Vandover and his friends came
+up between dances, to brush their hair or to rearrange their neckties,
+they found him enveloped in a blue haze of smoke, <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34" />his feet on a chair,
+his shirt bosom broken, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. He would tell them
+that he was bored and thirsty and ask how much longer they were going to
+stay. He knew but few of their friends; his home was in a little town in
+the interior and he prided himself on being a &quot;Native Son of the Golden
+West.&quot; He was a clerk in an insurance office on California Street, and
+had never been out of the state.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest he was a good enough fellow and the three others liked him
+very much. He had a curious passion for facts and statistics, and his
+pockets were full of little books and cards to which he was constantly
+referring. He had one of those impossible pocket-diaries, the first half
+dozen pages loaded with information of every kind printed in blinding
+type, postal rates to every country in the world, statistics as to
+population and rates of death, weights and measures, the highest
+mountains in the world, the greatest depths of the ocean. He kept a
+little book in his left-hand vest pocket that gave the plan and seating
+capacity of every theatre in the city, while in the right-hand pocket
+was a tiny Webster's dictionary which was his especial pride. The
+calendar for the current year was pasted in the lining of his hat,
+together with the means to be employed in the resuscitation of a
+half-drowned person. He also carried about a &quot;Vest Pocket Edition of
+Popular Information,&quot; which had never been of the slightest use to him.</p>
+
+<p>The room in which they were now seated was very small and opened
+directly upon the passage. On either side of the table was a seat that
+would hold two, and on the wall opposite the door hung a mirror, its
+gilt frame enclosed in pink netting. The table itself was covered with a
+tolerably clean cloth, though it was of coarse linen and rather damp.</p>
+
+<p>There were the usual bottles of olives and pepper sauce, a plate of
+broken crackers, and a ribbed match-safe of china. The sugar bowl was of
+plated ware and on it were scratched numberless dates together with the
+first names of a great many girls, &quot;Nannie,&quot; &quot;Ida,&quot; &quot;Flossie.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Between the castor bottles was the bill of fare, held by a thin string
+between two immense leather covers which were stamped with wine
+merchants' advertisements. Geary reached for this before any of the
+others, saying at the same time, &quot;Well, what are you going to have?
+<i>I'm</i> going to have a Welsh <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35" />rabbit and a pint of ale.&quot; He looked from
+one to the other as if demanding whether or no they approved of his
+choice. He assumed the management of what was going on, advising the
+others what to have, telling Vandover not to order certain dishes that
+he liked because it took so long to cook them. He had young Haight ring
+for the waiter, and when he had come, Geary read off the entire order to
+him twice over, making sure that he had taken it correctly. &quot;That's what
+we want all right, all right&mdash;isn't it?&quot; he said, looking around at the
+rest.</p>
+
+<p>The waiter, whose eyes were red from lack of sleep, put down before them
+a plate of limp, soft shrimps.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, Toby!&quot; said Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good evening, gentlemen,&quot; answered Toby. &quot;Why, good evening, Mr.
+Vandover; haven't seen you 'round here for some time.&quot; He took their
+order, and as he was going away, Vandover called him back:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, Toby,&quot; said he, &quot;has Flossie been around to-night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Toby, &quot;she hasn't shown up yet. Her running-mate was in
+about nine, but she went out again right away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Vandover, smiling, &quot;if Flossie comes 'round show her in
+here, will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The others laughed, and joked him about this, and Vandover settled back
+in his seat, easing his position.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; he exclaimed, &quot;I like it in here. It's always pleasant and warm
+and quiet and the service is good and you get such good things to eat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now that the young fellows were by themselves, and could relax that
+restraint, that good breeding and delicacy which had been natural to
+them in the early part of the evening at the Ravises', their manners
+changed: they lounged clumsily upon their seats, their legs stretched
+out, their waistcoats unbuttoned, caring only to be at their ease. Their
+talk and manners became blunt, rude, unconstrained, the coarser
+masculine fibre reasserting itself. With the exception of young Haight
+they were all profane enough, and it was not very long before their
+conversation became obscene.</p>
+
+<p>Geary told them how he had spent the afternoon promenading Kearney and
+Market streets and just where he had <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36" />gone to get his cocktail and his
+cigar. &quot;Ah,&quot; he added, &quot;you ought to have seen Ida Wade and Bessie
+Laguna. Oh, Ida was rigged up to beat the band; honestly her <i>hat</i> was
+as broad across as that. You know there's no use talking, she's an
+awfully handsome girl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A discussion arose over the girl's virtue. Ellis, Geary, and young
+Haight maintained that Ida was only fast; Vandover, however, had his
+doubts.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For that matter,&quot; said Ellis after a while, &quot;I like Bessie Laguna a
+good deal better than I do Ida.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes,&quot; retorted young Haight, &quot;you like Bessie Laguna too much
+anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight had a theory that one should never care in any way for that
+kind of a girl nor become at all intimate with her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The matter of liking her or not liking her,&quot; he said, &quot;ought not to
+enter into the question at all. You are both of you out for a good time
+and that's all; you have a jolly flirtation with her for an hour or two,
+and you never see her again. That's the way it ought to be! This idea of
+getting intimate with that sort of a piece, and trying to get her to
+care for you, is all wrong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh,&quot; said Vandover deprecatingly, &quot;you take all the pleasure out of it;
+where does your good time come in if you don't at least pretend that you
+like the girl and try to make her like you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But don't you see,&quot; answered Haight, &quot;what a dreadful thing it would be
+if a girl like that came to care for you seriously? It isn't the same as
+if it were a girl of your own class.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, Dolly, you've got a bean,&quot; muttered Ellis, sipping his whisky.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the Imperial had been filling up; at about eleven the
+theatres were over, and now the barroom was full of men. They came in by
+twos and threes and sometimes even by noisy parties of a half dozen or
+more. The white swing doors of the main entrance flapped back and forth
+continually, letting out into the street puffs of tepid air tainted with
+the smell of alcohol. The men entered and ordered their drinks, and
+leaning their elbows upon the bar continued the conversation they had
+begun outside. Afterward they passed <a name="Page_37" id="Page_37" />over to the lunch counter and
+helped themselves to a plate of stewed tripe or potato salad, eating it
+in a secluded corner, leaning over so as not to stain their coats. There
+was a continual clinking of glasses and popping of corks, and at every
+instant the cash-register clucked and rang its bell.</p>
+
+<p>Between the barroom and the other part of the house was a door hung with
+blue plush curtains, looped back; the waiters constantly passed back and
+forth through this, carrying plates of oysters, smoking rarebits, tiny
+glasses of liqueurs, and goblets of cigars.</p>
+
+<p>All the private rooms opening from either passage were full; the men
+came in, walking slowly, looking for their friends; but more often, the
+women and girls passed up and down with a chatter of conversation, a
+rattle of stiff skirts and petticoats, and a heavy whiff of musk. There
+was a continual going and coming, a monotonous shuffle of feet and hum
+of talk. A heavy odorous warmth in which were mingled the smells of
+sweetened whisky, tobacco, the fumes of cooking, and the scent of
+perfume, exhaled into the air. A gay and noisy party developed in one of
+the large back rooms; at every moment one could hear gales of laughter,
+the rattle of chairs and glassware, mingled with the sounds of men's
+voices and the little screams and cries of women. Every time the waiter
+opened the door to deliver an order he let out a momentary torrent of
+noises.</p>
+
+<p>Girls, habitu&eacute;s of the place, continued to pass the door of the room
+where Vandover and his friends were seated. Each time a particularly
+handsome one went by, the four looked out after her, shutting their lips
+and eyes and nodding their heads.</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight had called for more drinks, ordering, however, mineral
+water for himself, and Vandover was just telling about posing the female
+models in a certain life-class to which he belonged, when he looked up
+and broke off, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, well, here we are at last! How are you, Flossie? Come right in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Flossie stood in the doorway smiling good-humouredly at them, without a
+trace of embarrassment or of confusion in her manner. She was an immense
+girl, quite six feet tall, broad and well-made, in proportion. She was
+very handsome, full-<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38" />throated, heavy-eyed, and slow in her movements.
+Her eyes and mouth, like everything about her, were large, but each time
+she spoke or smiled, she disclosed her teeth, which were as white, as
+well-set, and as regular as the rows of kernels on an ear of green corn.
+In her ears were small yellow diamonds, the only jewellery she wore.
+There was no perceptible cosmetic on her face, which had a clean and
+healthy look as though she had just given it a vigorous washing.</p>
+
+<p>She wore a black hat with a great flare to the brim on one side. It was
+trimmed very dashingly with black feathers, imitation jet, and a little
+puff of plush&mdash;robin's-egg blue. Her dress was of rough, black camel's
+hair, tailor-made, and but for the immense balloon sleeves, absolutely
+plain. It was cut in such a way that from neck to waist there was no
+break, the buttons being on the shoulder and under the arm. The skirt
+was full and stiff, and without the least trimming. Everything was
+black&mdash;hat, dress, gloves&mdash;and the effect was of a simplicity and
+severity so pronounced as to be very striking.</p>
+
+<p>However, around her waist she wore as a belt a thick rope of oxidized
+silver, while her shoes, or rather walking slippers, were of white
+canvas.</p>
+
+<p>She belonged to that class of women who are not to know one's last name
+or address, and whose hate and love are equally to be dreaded. There was
+upon her face the unmistakable traces of a ruined virtue and a vanished
+innocence. Her slightest action suggested her profession; as soon as she
+removed her veil and gloves it was as though she were partially
+undressed, and her uncovered face and hands seemed to be only portions
+of her nudity.</p>
+
+<p>The general conception of women of her class is a painted and broken
+wreck. Flossie radiated health; her eyes were clear, her nerves steady,
+her flesh hard and even as a child's. There hung about her an air of
+cleanliness, of freshness, of good nature, of fine, high spirits, while
+with every movement she exhaled a delicious perfume that was not only
+musk, but that seemed to come alike from her dress, her hair, her neck,
+her very flesh and body.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was no longer the same as he had been during his college days.
+He was familiar now with this odour of <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39" />abandoned women, this foul sweet
+savour of the great city's vice, that quickened his breath and that sent
+his heart knocking at his throat. It was the sensitive artist nature in
+him that responded instantly to anything sensuously attractive. Each
+kind and class of beautiful women could arouse in Vandover passions of
+equal force, though of far different kind. Turner Ravis influenced him
+upon his best side, calling out in him all that was cleanest, finest,
+and most delicate. Flossie appealed only to the animal and the beast in
+him, the evil, hideous brute that made instant answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What will you take, Flossie?&quot; asked Vandover, as she settled herself
+among them. &quot;We are all drinking beer except Ellis. He's filling up with
+whisky.&quot; But Flossie never drank. It was one of the peculiarities for
+which she was well known.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't want either,&quot; she answered, and turning to the waiter, she
+added, &quot;You can bring me some Apollinaris water, Toby.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Flossie betrayed herself as soon as she spoke, the effect of her
+appearance was spoiled. Her voice was hoarse, a low-pitched rasp, husky,
+throaty, and full of brutal, vulgar modulations.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Smoke, Flossie?&quot; said Geary, pushing his cigarette case across to her.
+Flossie took a cigarette, rolled it to make it loose, and smoked it
+while she told them how she had once tried to draw up the smoke through
+her nose as it came out between her lips.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And honestly, boys,&quot; she growled, &quot;it made me that sick that I just had
+to go to bed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is the crowd out back?&quot; asked Geary for the sake of saying
+something. Flossie embarrassed them all a little, and conversation with
+girls of her class was difficult.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's May and Nannie with some men from a banquet at the Palace
+Hotel,&quot; she answered.</p>
+
+<p>The talk dragged along little by little and Flossie began badgering
+young Haight. &quot;Say, you over there,&quot; she exclaimed, &quot;what's the matter
+with you? You don't say anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight blushed and answered very much embarrassed: &quot;Oh, I'm just
+listening.&quot; He was anxious to get away. He got up and reached for his
+hat and coat, saying with a <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40" />good-natured smile: &quot;Well, boys and girls,
+I think I shall have to leave you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't let me frighten you away,&quot; said Flossie, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, no,&quot; he answered, trying to hide his embarrassment, &quot;I have to go
+anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While the others were saying good night to him and asking when they
+should see him again, Flossie leaned over to him, crying out, &quot;Good
+night!&quot; All at once, and before he knew what she was about, she kissed
+him full on the mouth. He started sharply at this, but was not angry,
+simply pulling away from her, blushing, very embarrassed, and more and
+more anxious to get away. Toby, the waiter, appeared at their door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That last was on me, you know,&quot; said young Haight, intercepting
+Vandover and settling for the round of drinks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello!&quot; exclaimed Toby, &quot;what's the matter with your lip?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cut it a little while ago on a broken glass,&quot; answered young Haight.
+&quot;Is it bleeding again?&quot; he added, putting two fingers on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is sure enough,&quot; said Geary. &quot;Here,&quot; he went on, wetting the corner
+of a napkin from the water bottle, &quot;hold that on it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The others began to laugh. &quot;Flossie did that,&quot; Vandover explained to
+Toby. Ellis was hastily looking through his pockets, fumbling about
+among his little books.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had something here,&quot; he kept muttering, &quot;if I can only <i>find</i> it,
+that told just what to do when you cut yourself with glass. There may be
+glass <i>in</i> it, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's all right, that's all right,&quot; exclaimed young Haight, now
+altogether disconcerted. &quot;It don't amount to anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I tell you what,&quot; observed Geary; &quot;get some court-plaster at the snake
+doctor's just above here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, that's all right,&quot; returned young Haight, moving off. &quot;Good
+night. I'll see you again pretty soon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He went away. Ellis, who was still searching through his little books,
+suddenly uttered an exclamation. He leaned out into the passage, crying:
+&quot;The half of a hot onion; tie it right on the cut.&quot; But Haight had
+already gone. &quot;You see,&quot; explained Ellis, &quot;that draws out any little
+particles of glass. Look <a name="Page_41" id="Page_41" />at this,&quot; he added, reading an item just below
+the one he had found. &quot;You can use cigar ashes for eczema.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Flossie nodded her head at him, smiling and saying: &quot;Well, the next time
+I have eczema I will remember that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Flossie left them a little after this, joining Nannie and May in the
+larger room that held the noisy party. The three fellows had another
+round of drinks.</p>
+
+<p>All the evening Ellis had been drinking whisky. Now he astonished the
+others by suddenly calling for beer. He persisted in drinking it out of
+the celery glass, which he emptied at a single pull. Then Vandover had
+claret-punches all round, protesting that his mouth felt dry as a
+dust-bin. Geary at length declared that he felt pretty far gone, adding
+that he was in the humour for having &quot;a high old time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, boys,&quot; he exclaimed, bringing his hand down on the table, &quot;what do
+you say that we all go to every joint in town, and wind up at the
+Turkish baths? We'll have a regular <i>time</i>. Let's see now how much money
+I have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thereat they all took account of their money. Vandover had fourteen
+dollars, but he owed for materials at his art dealer's, and so put away
+eight of it in an inside pocket. The others followed his example, each
+one reserving five dollars for immediate use.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That will be one dollar for the Hammam,&quot; said Geary, &quot;and four dollars
+apiece for drinks. You can get all we want on four dollars.&quot; They had a
+last claret-punch and, having settled with Toby, went out.</p>
+
+<p>Coming out into the cold night air from the warm interior of the
+Imperial affected Vandover and Geary in a few minutes. But apparently
+nothing could affect Ellis, neither whisky, claret-punch nor beer. He
+walked steadily between Vandover and Geary, linking an arm in each of
+theirs.</p>
+
+<p>These two became very drunk almost at once. At every minute Vandover
+would cry out, &quot;Yee-ee-<i>ow</i>! Thash way I feel, jush like that.&quot; Geary
+made a &quot;Josh&quot; that was a masterpiece, the success of the occasion. It
+consisted in exclaiming from time to time, &quot;Cherries are ripe!&quot; This was
+funny. It seemed to have some ludicrous, hidden double-meaning that was
+irresistible. It stuck to them all the evening; when a girl passed them
+on Kearney Street and Geary cried out at her <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42" />that &quot;Cherries were ripe!&quot;
+it threw them all into spasms of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>They went first to the Palace Garden near the Tivoli Theatre, where
+Geary and Vandover had beer and Ellis a whisky cocktail. The performance
+was just finishing, and they voted that they were not at all amused at a
+lean, overworked girl whom they saw performing a song and dance through
+a blue haze of tobacco smoke; so they all exclaimed, &quot;Cherries are
+ripe!&quot; and tramped out again to visit the Luxembourg. The beer began to
+go against Vandover's stomach by this time, but he forced it down his
+throat, shutting his eyes. Then they said they would go to the toughest
+place in town, &quot;Steve Casey's&quot;; this was on a side-street. The walls
+were covered with yellowed photographs of once-famous pugilists and
+old-time concert-hall singers. There was sand on the floor, and in the
+dancing room at the back, where nobody danced, a jaded young man was
+banging out polkas and quick-steps at a cheap piano.</p>
+
+<p>At the Crystal Palace, where they all had shandy-gaff, they met one of
+Ellis's friends, a young fellow of about twenty. He was stone deaf, and
+in consequence had become dumb; but for all that he was very eager to
+associate with the young men of the city and would not hear of being
+separated and set apart with the other deaf mutes. He was very pleased
+to meet them and joined them at once. They all knew him pretty well and
+called him the &quot;Dummy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the evening the patty was seen at nearly every bar and
+saloon in the neighbourhood of Market and Kearney streets. Geary and
+Vandover were very drunk indeed. Vandover was having a glorious time; he
+was not silent a minute, talking, laughing, and singing, and crying out
+continually, &quot;Cherries are ripe!&quot; When he could think of nothing else to
+say he would exclaim, &quot;Yee-ee-<i>ow</i>! Thash way I feel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For two hours they drank steadily. Vandover was in a dreadful condition;
+the Dummy got so drunk that he could talk, a peculiarity which at times
+had been known to occur to him. As will sometimes happen, Geary sobered
+up a little and at the &quot;Grotto&quot; bathed his head and face in the
+washroom. After this he became pretty steady, he stopped drinking, and
+<a name="Page_43" id="Page_43" />tried to assume the management of the party, ordering their drinks for
+them, and casting up the amount of the check.</p>
+
+<p>About two o'clock they returned toward the Luxembourg, staggering and
+swaying. The Luxembourg was a sort of German restaurant under a theatre
+where one could get some very good German dishes. There Vandover had
+beer and sauerkraut, but Ellis took more whisky. The Dummy continued to
+make peculiar sounds in his throat, half-noise, half-speech, and Geary
+gravely informed the waiter that cherries were ripe.</p>
+
+<p>All at once Ellis was drunk, collapsing in a moment. The skin around his
+eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves were contracted, and
+their range of vision seemed to stop at about a yard in front of his
+face. Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all
+from off the table with a single movement of his arm.</p>
+
+<p>They all jumped up, sober in a minute, knowing that a scene was at hand.
+The waiter rushed at Ellis, but Ellis knocked him down and tried to
+stamp on his face. Vandover and the Dummy tried to hold his arms and
+pull him off. He turned on the Dummy in a silent frenzy of rage and
+brought his knuckles down upon his head again and again. For the moment
+Ellis could neither hear, nor see, nor speak; he was blind, dumb,
+fighting drunk, and his fighting was not the fighting of Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get in here and help, will you?&quot; panted Vandover to Geary, as he
+struggled with Ellis. &quot;He can kill people when he's like this. Oh, damn
+the whisky anyhow! Look out&mdash;don't let him get that knife! Grab his
+other arm, there! now, kick his feet from under him! Oh, kick hard! Sit
+on his legs; there now. Ah! Hell! he's bitten me! Look out! here comes
+the bouncer!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The bouncer and three other waiters charged into them while they were
+struggling on the floor. Vandover was twice knocked down and the Dummy
+had his lip split. Ellis struggled to his feet again and, still silent,
+fought them all alike, a fine line of froth gathering at the corners of
+his lips.</p>
+
+<p>When they were finally ejected, and pulled themselves together in the
+street outside, Geary had disappeared. He had left them during the
+struggle with Ellis and had gone home.<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44" /> Ah, you bet he wasn't going to
+stay any longer with the crowd when they got like that. If Ellis was
+fool enough to get as drunk as that it was his own lookout. <i>He</i> wasn't
+going to stay and get thrown out of any saloon; ah, no, you bet he was
+too clever for that. He was sober enough now and would go home to bed
+and get a good sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The fight in the saloon had completely sobered the rest of them. Ellis
+was tractable enough again, and very sorry for having got them into such
+a row. Vandover was horribly sick at his stomach.</p>
+
+<p>The three locked arms and started slowly toward the Turkish baths. On
+their way they stopped at an all-night drug store and had some seltzer.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Vandover had about three hours' sleep that night. He was awakened by the
+attendant shaking his arm and crying:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Half-past six, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Huh!&quot; he exclaimed, starting up. &quot;What about half-past six? I don't
+want to get up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Told me to call you, sir, at half-past six; quarter to seven now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, all right, very well,&quot; answered Vandover. He turned away his face
+on the pillow, while a wretched feeling of nausea crept over him; every
+movement of his head made it ache to bursting. Behind his temples the
+blood throbbed and pumped like the knocking of hammers. His mouth would
+have been dry but for a thick slime that filled it and that tasted of
+oil. He felt weak, his hands trembled, his forehead was cold and seemed
+wet and sticky.</p>
+
+<p>He could recall hardly anything of the previous night. He remembered,
+however, of going to the Imperial and of seeing Flossie, and he <i>did</i>
+remember at last of leaving word to be called at half-past six.</p>
+
+<p>He got up without waking the other two fellows and took a plunge in the
+cold tank, dressed very slowly, and went out. The stores were all
+closed, the streets were almost deserted. He walked to the nearest
+uptown car-line and took an outside seat, feeling better and steadier
+for every moment of the sharp morning air.</p>
+
+<p>Van Ness Avenue was very still. It was about half-past seven.<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45" /> The
+curtains were down in all the houses; here and there a servant could be
+seen washing down the front steps. In the vestibules of some of the
+smaller houses were loaves of French bread and glass jars of cream,
+while near them lay the damp twisted roll of the morning's paper. There
+was everywhere a great chittering of sparrows, and the cable-cars, as
+yet empty, trundled down the cross streets, the conductors cleaning the
+windows and metal work. From far down at one end of the avenue came the
+bells of the Catholic Cathedral ringing for early mass; and a
+respectable-looking second girl hurried past him carrying her
+prayer-book. At the other end of the avenue was a blue vista of the bay,
+the great bulk of Mount Tamalpais rearing itself out of the water like a
+waking lion.</p>
+
+<p>In front of the little church Turner was waiting for him. She was
+dressed very prettily and the cold morning air had given her a fine
+colour.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't look more than half awake,&quot; she said, as Vandover came up.
+&quot;It was awfully good of you to come. Oh, Van, you look dreadfully. It is
+too bad to make you get up so early.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no,&quot; protested Vandover. &quot;I was only too glad to come. I didn't
+sleep well last night. I hope I haven't kept you waiting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've only just come,&quot; answered Turner. &quot;But I think it is time to go
+in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little organ was muttering softly to itself as they entered. It was
+very still otherwise. The morning sun struck through the stained windows
+and made pretty lights about the altar; besides themselves there were
+some half dozen other worshippers. The little organ ceased with a long
+droning sigh, and the minister in his white robes turned about, facing
+his auditors, and in the midst of a great silence opened the communion
+service with the words: &quot;Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of
+your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbours&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As Vandover rose with the rest the blood rushed to his head and a
+feeling of nausea and exhaustion, the dregs of his previous night's
+debauch, came over him again for a moment, so that he took hold of the
+back of the pew in front of him to steady himself.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Five" id="Chapter_Five" /><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46" /><i>Chapter Five</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>In the afternoons Vandover worked in his studio, which was on Sacramento
+Street, but in the mornings he was accustomed to study in the life-class
+at the School of Design.</p>
+
+<p>This was on California Street over the Market, an immense room
+partitioned by enormous wooden screens into alcoves, where the
+still-life classes worked, painting carrots, grapes, and dusty brown
+stone-jugs.</p>
+
+<p>All about were a multitude of casts, the fighting gladiator, the
+discobulus, the Venus of Milo, and hundreds of smaller pieces, masks,
+torsos, and the heads of the Parthenon horses. Flattened paint-tubes and
+broken bits of charcoal littered the floor and cluttered the chairs and
+shelves. A strong odour of turpentine and fixative was in the air,
+mingled with the stronger odours of linseed oil and sour, stale French
+bread.</p>
+
+<p>Every afternoon a portrait class of some thirty-odd assembled in one of
+the larger alcoves near the door. Several of the well-known street
+characters of the city had posed for this class, and at one time Father
+Elphick, the white-haired, bare-headed vegetarian, with his crooked
+stick and white clothes, had sat to it for his head.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was probably the most promising member of the school. His style
+was sketchy, conscientious, and full of strength and decision. He worked
+in large lines, broad surfaces and masses of light or shade. His colour
+was good, running to purples, reds, and admirable greens, full of
+bitumen and raw sienna.</p>
+
+<p>Though he had no idea of composition, he was clever enough to
+acknowledge it. His finished pictures were broad reaches of landscape,
+deserts, shores, and moors in which he placed solitary figures of men or
+animals in a way that was very effective&mdash;as, for instance, a great
+strip of shore and in the foreground the body of a drowned sailor; a
+lion drinking in the midst of an immense Sahara; or, one that he called
+&quot;The Remnant of an Army,&quot; a dying war horse wandering on an empty plain,
+the saddle turned under his belly, his mane and tail snarled with burrs.</p>
+
+<p>Some time before there had come to him the idea for a <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47" />great picture. It
+was to be his first masterpiece, his salon picture when he should get to
+Paris. A British cavalryman and his horse, both dying of thirst and
+wounds, were to be lost on a Soudanese desert, and in the middle
+distance on a ridge of sand a lion should be drawing in upon them,
+crouched on his belly, his tail stiff, his lower jaw hanging. The
+melodrama of the old English &quot;Home Book of Art&quot; still influenced
+Vandover. He was in love with this idea for a picture and had determined
+to call it &quot;The Last Enemy.&quot; The effects he wished to produce were
+isolation and intense heat; as to the soldier, he was as yet undecided
+whether to represent him facing death resignedly, calmly, or grasping
+the barrel of his useless rifle, determined to fight to the last.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover loved to paint and to draw. He was perfectly contented when his
+picture was &quot;coming right,&quot; and when he felt sure he was doing good
+work. He often did better than he thought he would, but never so well as
+he thought he <i>could</i>.</p>
+
+<p>However, it bored him to work very hard, and when he did not enjoy his
+work he stopped it at once. He would tell himself on these occasions
+that one had to be in the mood and that he should wait for the
+inspiration, although he knew very well how absurd such excuses were,
+how false and how pernicious.</p>
+
+<p>That certain little weakness of Vandover's character, his
+self-indulgence, <i>had</i> brought him to such a point that he thought he
+had to be amused. If his painting amused him, very good; if not, he
+found something else that would.</p>
+
+<p>On the following Monday as he worked in the life-class, Vandover was
+thinking, or, rather, trying not to think, of what he had done the
+Sunday morning previous when he had gone to communion with Turner Ravis.
+For a long time he evaded the thought because he knew that if he allowed
+it to come into his mind it would worry and harass him. But by and by
+the effort of dodging the enemy became itself too disagreeable, so he
+gave it up and allowed himself to look the matter squarely in the face.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, yes; it was an ugly thing he had done there, a really awful thing.
+He must have been still drunk when he had knelt in the chancel. Vandover
+shuddered as he thought of <a name="Page_48" id="Page_48" />this, and told himself that one could hardly
+commit a worse sacrilege, and that some time he would surely be called
+to account for it. But here he checked himself suddenly, not daring to
+go further. One would have no peace of mind left if one went on brooding
+over such things in this fashion. He realized the enormity of what he
+had done. He had tried to be sorry for it. It was perhaps the worst
+thing he had ever done, but now he had reached the lowest point. He
+would take care never to do such a thing again. After this he would be
+better.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not so. Unconsciously, Vandover had shut a door behind him;
+he would never again be exactly the same, and the keeping of his
+appointment with Turner Ravis that Sunday morning was, as it were, a
+long step onward in his progress of ruin and pollution.</p>
+
+<p>He shook himself as though relieving his shoulders of a weight. The
+model in the life-class had just been posed for the week, and the others
+had begun work. The model for that week was a woman, a fact that pleased
+Vandover, for he drew these nude women better than any one in the
+school, perhaps better than any one in the city. Portrait work and the
+power to catch subtle intellectual distinctions in a face were sometimes
+beyond him, but his feeling for the flesh, and for the movement and
+character of a pose, was admirable.</p>
+
+<p>He set himself to work. Holding his stick of charcoal toward the model
+at arm's-length, he measured off the heads, five in all, and laid off an
+equal number of spaces upon his paper. After this, by aid of his mirror,
+he studied the general character of the pose for nearly half an hour.
+Then, with a few strokes of his charcoal he laid off his larger
+construction lines with a freedom and a precision that were excellent.
+Upon these lines he made a second drawing a little more detailed, though
+as yet everything was blocked in, angularly and roughly. Then, putting a
+thin flat edge upon his charcoal, he started the careful and finished
+outline.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of an hour the first sketch of his drawing was complete. It
+was astonishingly good, vigorous and solid; better than all, it had that
+feeling for form that makes just the difference between the amateur and
+the genuine artist.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Vandover's interest began to flag. Four times <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49" />he had drawn
+and redrawn the articulation of the model's left shoulder. As she stood,
+turned sideways to him, one hand on her hip, the deltoid muscle was at
+once contracted and foreshortened. It was a difficult bit of anatomy to
+draw. Vandover was annoyed at his ill success&mdash;such close attention and
+continued effort wearied him a little&mdash;the room was overheated and
+close, and the gas stove, which was placed near the throne to warm the
+model, leaked and filled the room with a nasty brassy smell. Vandover
+remembered that the previous week he had been looking over some old
+bound copies of <i>l'Art</i> in the Mechanics Library and had found them of
+absorbing interest. There was a pleasant corner and a huge comfortable
+chair near where they were in the reading-room, and from the window one
+could occasionally look out upon the street. It was a quiet spot, and he
+would not be disturbed all the morning. The idea was so attractive that
+he put away his portfolio and drawing things and went out.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour he gave himself up to the enjoyment of <i>l'Art</i>, excusing his
+indolence by telling himself that it was all in his profession and was
+not time lost. A reproduction of a picture by G&eacute;rome gave him some
+suggestions for the &quot;Last Enemy,&quot; which he noted very carefully.</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by a rustle of starched skirts and a voice that said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, hello, Van!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked up quickly to see a young girl of about twenty dressed in a
+black close-fitting bolero jacket of imitation astrakhan with big
+leg-of-mutton sleeves, a striped silk skirt, and a very broad hat tilted
+to one side. Her hair was very blond, though coarse and dry from being
+bleached, and a little flat curl of it lay very low on her forehead. She
+was marvellously pretty. Vandover was delighted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, <i>Ida</i>!&quot; he exclaimed, holding her hand; &quot;<i>it's</i> awfully nice to
+see you here; won't you sit down?&quot; and he pushed his chair toward her.</p>
+
+<p>But Ida Wade said no, she had just come in after a new book, and of
+course it had to be out. But where had he kept himself so long? That was
+the way he threw off on her; ah, yes, he was going with Miss Ravis now
+and wouldn't look at any one else.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50" />Vandover protested against this, and Ida Wade went on to ask him why he
+couldn't come up to call on her that very night, adding:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We might go to the Tivoli or somewhere.&quot; All at once she interrupted
+herself, laughing, &quot;Oh, I heard all about you the other night.
+<i>'Cherries are ripe</i>!' You and the boys painted the town red, didn't
+you? Ah, Van, I'm right on to <i>you</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She would not tell him how she heard, but took herself off, laughing and
+reminding him to come up early.</p>
+
+<p>Ida Wade belonged to a certain type of young girl that was very common
+in the city. She was what men, among each other, called &quot;gay,&quot; though
+that was the worst that could be said of her. She was virtuous, but the
+very fact that it was necessary to say so was enough to cause the
+statement to be doubted. When she was younger and had been a pupil at
+the Girls' High School, she had known and had even been the companion of
+such girls as Turner Ravis and Henrietta Vance, but since that time
+girls of that class had ignored her. Now, almost all of her
+acquaintances were men, and to half of these she had never been
+introduced. They had managed to get acquainted with her on Kearney
+Street, at theatres, at the Mechanics' Fair, and at baseball games. She
+loved to have a &quot;gay&quot; time, which for her meant to drink California
+champagne, to smoke cigarettes, and to kick at the chandelier. She was
+still virtuous and meant to stay so; there was nothing vicious about
+her, and she was as far removed from Flossie's class as from that of
+Turner Ravis.</p>
+
+<p>She was very clever; half of her acquaintances, even the men, did not
+know how very &quot;gay&quot; she was. Only those&mdash;like Vandover&mdash;who knew her
+best, knew her for what she was, for Ida was morbidly careful of
+appearances, and as jealous of her reputation as only fast girls are.</p>
+
+<p>Bessie Laguna was her counterpart. Bessie was &quot;the girl she went with,&quot;
+just as Henrietta Vance was Turner's &quot;chum&quot; and Nannie was Flossie's
+&quot;running-mate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ida lived with her people on Golden Gate Avenue not far from Larkin
+Street. Her father had a three-fourths interest in a carpet-cleaning
+establishment on Howard Street, and her mother gave lessons in painting
+on china and on velvet. Ida had just been graduated from the normal
+school, and often <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51" />substituted at various kindergartens in the city. She
+hoped soon to get a permanent place.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover arrived at Ida's house that night at about eight o'clock in the
+midst of a drenching fog. The parlour and front room on the second floor
+were furnished with bay windows decorated with some meaningless sort of
+millwork. The front door stood at the right of the parlour windows. Two
+Corinthian pillars on either side of the vestibule supported a balcony;
+these pillars had iron capitals which were painted to imitate the wood
+of the house, which in its turn was painted to imitate stone. The house
+was but two stories high, and the roof was topped with an iron cresting.
+There was a microscopical front yard in which one saw a tiny gravel
+walk, two steps long, that led to a door under the front steps, where
+the gas-meter was kept. A few dusty and straggling calla-lilies grew
+about.</p>
+
+<p>Ida opened the door for Vandover almost as soon as he rang, and pulled
+him into the entry, exclaiming: &quot;Come in out of the wet, as the whale
+said to Jonah. <i>Isn't</i> it a nasty night?&quot; Vandover noticed as he came in
+that the house smelt of upholstery, cooking, and turpentine. He did not
+take off his overcoat, but went with her into the parlour.</p>
+
+<p>The parlour was a little room with tinted plaster walls shut off from
+the &quot;back-parlour&quot; by sliding doors. A ply carpet covered the floor, a
+cheap piano stood across one corner of the room, and a greenish sofa
+across another. The mantelpiece was of white marble with gray spots; on
+one side of it stood an Alaskan &quot;grass basket&quot; full of photographs, and
+on the other an inverted section of a sewer-pipe painted with daisies
+and full of gilded cat-tails tied with a blue ribbon. Near the piano
+straddled a huge easel of imitation brass up-holding the crayon picture
+of Ida's baby sister enlarged from a photograph. Across one corner of
+this picture was a yellow &quot;drape.&quot; There were a great many of these
+&quot;drapes&quot; all about the room, hanging over the corners of the chairs,
+upon an edge of the mantelpiece, and even twisted about the chandelier.
+In the exact middle of the mantelpiece itself was the clock, one of the
+chief ornaments of the room, almost the first thing one saw upon
+entering; it was a round-faced timepiece perversely set in one corner of
+an immense red plush palette; <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52" />the palette itself was tilted to one
+side, and was upheld by an easel of twisted brass wire. Out of the
+thumb-hole stuck half a dozen brushes wired together in a round bunch
+and covered with gilt paint. The clock never was wound. It went so fast
+that it was useless as a timepiece. Over it, however, hung a large and
+striking picture, a species of cheap photogravure, a lion lying in his
+cage, looking mildly at the spectator over his shoulder. In front of the
+picture were real iron bars, with real straw tucked in behind them.</p>
+
+<p>Ida sat down on the piano stool, twisting back and forth, leaning her
+elbows on the keys.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All the folks have gone out to a whist-party, and I'm left all alone in
+the house with Maggie,&quot; she said. Then she added: &quot;Bessie and Bandy
+Ellis said they would come down to-night, and I thought we could all go
+downtown to the Tivoli or somewhere, in the open-air boxes, you know,
+way up at the top.&quot; Hardly had she spoken the words when Bessie and
+Ellis arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Ida went upstairs to get on her hat at once, because it was so late, and
+Bessie went with her.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis and Vandover laughed as soon as they saw each other, and Ellis
+exclaimed mockingly, &quot;Ye-e-ow, thash jush way I feel.&quot; Vandover grinned:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's so,&quot; he answered. &quot;I <i>do</i> remember now of having made that
+remark several times. But <i>you</i>&mdash;oh, you were fearful. Do you remember
+the row in the Luxembourg? Look there where you bit me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ellis was incensed with Geary because he had forsaken their party.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's Charlie Geary, all over,&quot; answered Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>As they were speaking there came a sudden outburst of bells in various
+parts of the city and simultaneously they heard the hoarse croaking of a
+whistle down by the waterfront.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fire,&quot; said Vandover indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis was already fumbling in his pockets, keeping count of the strokes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's one,&quot; he exclaimed, pulling out and studying his list of
+alarm-boxes, &quot;and one-two-three, that's three and one-two-three-<i>four</i>,
+one thirty-four. Let's see now! That's Bush and Hyde streets, not very
+far off,&quot; and he returned his card <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53" />to the inside pocket of his coat as
+though he had accomplished a duty.</p>
+
+<p>He lit a cigar. &quot;I wonder now,&quot; he said, hesitating. &quot;I guess I better
+not smoke in here. I'll go outside and get a mouthful of smoke before
+the girls come down.&quot; He went out and Vandover sat down to the cheap
+piano and played his three inevitable pieces, the two polkas and the air
+of the topical song; but he was interrupted by Ellis, who opened the
+door, crying out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, come out here and see the <i>fire</i>, will you? Devil of a blaze!&quot;
+Vandover ran out and saw a great fan-shaped haze of red through the fog
+over the roofs of the houses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, say, girls,&quot; he shouted, jumping back to the foot of the stairs;
+&quot;Ida, Bessie, there's a fire. Just look out of your windows. Hark, there
+go the engines.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Bessie came tearing down the stairs and out on the front steps, where
+the two fellows were standing hatless.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where? Oh, show me where! O-o-oh, sure enough! That's a <i>big</i> fire.
+Just hear the engines. <i>Oh, let's go</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sure; come on, let's go!&quot; exclaimed Vandover. &quot;Tell Ida to hurry up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Ida,&quot; cried Bessie up the stairs, &quot;there's an awful big fire right
+near here, and we're going.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, wait!&quot; shouted Ida, her mouth full of pins. &quot;I had to change my
+waist. Oh, <i>do</i> wait for me. Where is it <i>at</i>? Please wait; I'm coming
+right down in just a minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hurry up, hurry up!&quot; cried Vandover. &quot;It will be all out by the time we
+get there. I'm coming up to help.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, no!&quot; she screamed. &quot;Don't; you rattle me. I'm all mixed up. Oh,
+<i>darn</i> it, I can't find my czarina!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But at last she came running down, breathless, shrugging herself into
+her bolero jacket. They all hurried into the street and turned in the
+direction of the blaze. Other people were walking rapidly in the same
+direction, and there was an opening and shutting of windows and front
+doors. A steamer thundered past, clanging and smoking, followed by a
+score of half-exhausted boys. It took them longer to reach the fire than
+they expected, and by the time they had come within two blocks of it
+they were quite out of breath. Here the excitement was lively; the
+sidewalks were full of people going in <a name="Page_54" id="Page_54" />the same direction; on all sides
+there were guesses as to where the fire was. On the front steps of many
+houses stood middle-aged gentlemen, still holding their evening papers
+and cigars, very amused and interested in watching the crowd go past.
+One heard them from time to time calling to their little sons, who were
+dancing on the sidewalks, forbidding them to go; in the open windows
+above could be seen the other members of the family, their faces faintly
+tinged with the glow, looking and pointing, or calling across the street
+to their friends in the opposite houses. Every one was in good humour;
+it was an event, a f&ecirc;te for the entire neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover and his party came at last to the first engines violently
+pumping and coughing, the huge gray horses standing near by, already
+unhitched and blanketed, indifferently feeding in their nosebags. Some
+of the crowd preferred to watch the engines rather than the fire, and
+there were even some who were coming away from it, exclaiming &quot;false
+alarm&quot; or &quot;all out now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The party had come up quite close; they could smell the burning wood and
+could see the roofs of the nearer houses beginning to stand out sharp
+and black against the red glow beyond. It was a barn behind a huge frame
+house that was afire, the dry hay burning like powder, and by the time
+they reached it the flames were already dwindling. The hose was lying
+like a python all about the streets, while upon the neighbouring roofs
+were groups of firemen with helmets and axes; some were shouting into
+the street below, and others were holding the spouting nozzles of the
+hose. &quot;Ah,&quot; exclaimed an old man, standing near to Ida and Vandover,
+&quot;ah, <i>I</i> was here when it first broke out; you ought to have seen the
+flames then! Look, there's a tree catching!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The crowd became denser; policemen pushed it back and stretched a rope
+across the street. There was a world of tumbling yellow smoke that made
+one's eyes smart, and a great crackling and snapping of flames. Terribly
+excited little boys were about everywhere whistling and calling for each
+other as the crowd separated them.</p>
+
+<p>They watched the fire for some time, standing on a pile of boards in
+front of a half-built house, but as it dwindled they wearied of it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55" />Want to go?&quot; asked Vandover at last.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Ida, &quot;we might as well. Oh, where's Bessie and Ellis?&quot;
+They were nowhere to be seen. Vandover whistled and Ida even called, but
+in vain. The little boys in the crowd mimicked Ida, crying back, &quot;Hey!
+Bessie! Oh, <i>Bes-see</i>, mommer wants you!&quot; The men who stood near laughed
+at this, but it annoyed Vandover much more than it did Ida.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, well, never mind,&quot; she said at length. &quot;Let them go. Now shall <i>we</i>
+go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was too late for the theatre, but to return home was out of the
+question. They started off aimlessly downtown.</p>
+
+<p>While he talked Vandover was perplexed. Ida was gayly dressed and was
+one of those girls who cannot open their mouths nor raise a finger in
+the street without attracting attention. Vandover was not at all certain
+that he cared to be seen on Kearney Street as Ida Wade's escort; one
+never knew who one was going to meet. Ida was not a bad girl, she was
+not notorious, but, confound it, it would look queer; and at the same
+time, while Ida was the kind of girl that one did not want to be seen
+with, she was not the kind of girl that could be told so. In an upper
+box at the Tivoli it would have been different&mdash;one could keep in the
+background; but to appear on Kearney Street with a girl who wore a hat
+like that and who would not put on her gloves&mdash;ah, no, it was out of the
+question.</p>
+
+<p>Ida was talking away endlessly about a kindergarten in which she had
+substituted the last week.</p>
+
+<p>She told him about the funny little nigger girl, and about the games and
+songs and how they played birds and hopped around and cried, &quot;Twit,
+twit,&quot; and the game of the butterflies visiting the flowers. She even
+sang part of a song about the waves.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&quot;Every little wave had its night-cap on;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Its white-cap, night-cap, white-cap on.&quot;</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's more <i>fun</i> than enough,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, Ida,&quot; interrupted Vandover at length, &quot;I'm pretty hungry. Can't we
+go somewhere and eat something? I'd like a Welsh rabbit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56" />All right,&quot; she answered. &quot;Where do you want to go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; replied Vandover, running over in his mind the places he might
+reach by unfrequented streets. &quot;There's Marchand's or Tortoni's or the
+Poodle Dog.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Suits <i>me</i>,&quot; she answered, &quot;any one you like. Say, Van,&quot; she added,
+&quot;weren't you boys at the Imperial the other night? What kind of a place
+is that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On the instant Vandover wondered what she could mean. Was it possible
+that Ida would go to a place like that with him?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Imperial?&quot; he answered. &quot;Oh, I don't know; the Imperial is a sort
+of a nice place. It has private rooms, like all of these places. The
+cooking is simply out of sight. I think there is a bar connected with
+it.&quot; Then he went on to talk indifferently about the kindergarten,
+though his pulse was beating fast, and his nerves were strung taut. By
+and by Ida said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I didn't know there was a bar at the Imperial. I thought it was just
+some kind of an oyster joint. Why, I heard of a very nice girl, a swell
+girl, going in there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; said Vandover, &quot;they do. I say, Ida,&quot; he went on, &quot;what's the
+matter with going down <i>there</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>Imperial</i>?&quot; exclaimed Ida. &quot;Well, I guess <i>not</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, it's all right, if I'm with you,&quot; retorted Vandover, &quot;but if you
+don't like it we can go anywhere else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I guess we <i>will</i> go anywhere else,&quot; returned Ida, and for the
+time the subject was dropped.</p>
+
+<p>They took a Sutter Street car and got off at Grant Avenue, having
+decided to go to Marchand's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the Imperial down there, isn't it?&quot; asked Ida as they reached
+the sidewalk. Vandover made a last attempt:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say, Ida, come on, let's go there. It's all right if I'm with you.
+Ah, come along; what's the odds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>No</i>&mdash;<i>no</i>&mdash;NO,&quot; she answered decisively. &quot;What kind of a girl do you
+think I am, anyway?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I tell you what,&quot; answered Vandover, &quot;just come down <i>by</i> the
+place, and if you don't like the looks of it you needn't go in. I want
+to get some cigarettes, anyhow. You can walk down with me till I do
+<i>that</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll walk down with you,&quot; replied Ida, &quot;but I shan't go in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They drew near to the Imperial. The street about was de<a name="Page_57" id="Page_57" />serted, even the
+usual hacks that had their stand there were gone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; explained Vandover as they passed slowly in front of the
+doors, &quot;this is all quiet enough. If you pulled down your veil no one
+would know the difference, and here's the ladies' entrance, you see,
+right at the side.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, come along, let's go in,&quot; exclaimed Ida suddenly, and before
+he knew it they had swung open the little door of the ladies' entrance
+with its frosted pane of glass and had stepped inside.</p>
+
+<p>It was between nine and ten o'clock, and the Imperial was quiet as yet;
+a few men were drinking in the barroom outside, and Toby, the red-eyed
+waiter, was talking in low tones to a girl under one of the electric
+lights.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover and Ida went into one of the larger rooms in the rear passage
+and shut the door. Ida pushed her bolero jacket from her shoulders,
+saying, &quot;This seems nice and quiet enough.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, of course,&quot; answered Vandover, as though dismissing the question
+for good. &quot;Now, what are we going to have? I say we have champagne and
+oysters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let's have Cliquot, then,&quot; exclaimed Ida, which was the only champagne
+she had ever heard of besides the California brands.</p>
+
+<p>She was very excited. This was the kind of &quot;gay&quot; time she delighted in,
+t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te champagne suppers with men late at night. She had never been
+in such a place as the Imperial before, and the daring and novelty of
+what she had done, the whiff of the great city's vice caught in this
+manner, sent a little tremor of pleasure and excitement over all her
+nerves.</p>
+
+<p>They did not hurry over their little supper, but ate and drank slowly,
+and had more oysters to go with the last half of their bottle. Ida's
+face was ablaze, her eyes flashing, her blond hair disordered and
+falling about her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover put his arm about her neck and drew her toward him, and as she
+sank down upon him, smiling and complaisant, her hair tumbling upon her
+shoulders and her head and throat bent back, he leaned his cheek against
+hers, speaking in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No&mdash;no,&quot; she murmured, smiling; &quot;never&mdash;ah, if I hadn't <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58" />come&mdash;no,
+Van&mdash;please&mdash;&quot; And then with a long breath she abandoned herself.</p>
+
+<p>About midnight he left her at the door of her house on Golden Gate
+Avenue. On their way home Ida had grown more serious than he had ever
+known her to be. Now she began to cry softly to herself. &quot;Oh, Van,&quot; she
+said, putting her head down upon his shoulder, &quot;oh, I am so <i>sorry</i>. You
+don't think any less of me, do you? Oh, Van, you must be true to me
+now!&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Six" id="Chapter_Six" /><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59" /><i>Chapter Six</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Everybody in San Francisco knew of the Ravises and always made it a
+point to speak of them as one of the best families of the city. They
+were not new and they were not particularly rich. They had lived in the
+same house on California Street for nearly twenty years and had always
+been comfortably well off. As things go in San Francisco, they were
+old-fashioned. They had family traditions and usages and time-worn
+customs. Their library had been in process of collection for the past
+half century and the pictures on the walls were oil paintings of steel
+engravings and genuine old-fashioned chromos, beyond price to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Their furniture and ornaments were of the preceding generation, solid,
+conservative. They were not chosen with reference to any one style, nor
+all bought at the same time. Each separate piece had an individuality of
+its own. The Ravises kept their old things, long after the fashion had
+gone out, preferring them to the smarter &quot;art&quot; objects on account of
+their associations.</p>
+
+<p>There were six in the family, Mr. and Mrs. Ravis, Turner, and her older
+brother, Stanley, Yale '88, a very serious young gentleman of
+twenty-seven, continually professing an interest in economics and
+finance. Besides these were the two children, Howard, nine years old,
+and his sister, aged fourteen, who had been christened Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>They were a home-loving race. Mr. Ravis, senior, belonged to the
+Bohemian Club, but was seldom seen there. Stanley was absorbed in his
+law business, and Turner went out but little. They much preferred each
+other's society to that of three fourths of their acquaintances, most of
+their friends being &quot;friends of the family,&quot; who came to dinner three or
+four times a year.</p>
+
+<p>It was a custom of theirs to spend the evenings in the big dining-room
+at the back of the house, after the table had been cleared away, Mr.
+Ravis and Stanley reading the papers, the one smoking his cigar, the
+other his pipe; Mrs. Ravis, with the magazines and Turner with the
+<i>Chautauquan</i>. Howard <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60" />and Virginia appropriated the table to themselves
+where they played with their soldiers and backgammon board.</p>
+
+<p>The family kept two servants, June the &quot;China boy,&quot; who had been with
+them since the beginning of things, and Delphine the cook, a more recent
+acquisition. June was, in a way, butler and second boy combined; he did
+all the downstairs work and the heavy sweeping, but it was another
+time-worn custom for Mrs. Ravis and Turner to spend part of every
+morning in putting the bedrooms to rights, dusting and making up the
+beds. Besides this, Turner exercised a sort of supervision over Howard
+and Virginia, who were too old for a nurse but too young to take care of
+themselves. She had them to bed at nine, mended some of their clothes,
+made them take their baths regularly, re&euml;stablished peace between them
+in their hourly quarrels, and, most arduous task of all, saw that Howard
+properly washed himself every morning, and on Wednesday and Saturday
+afternoons that he was suitably dressed in time for dancing school.</p>
+
+<p>It was Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Ravis was reading to her husband, who lay
+on the sofa in the back-parlour smoking a cigar. Stanley had gone out to
+make a call, while Howard and Virginia had forgathered in the bathroom
+to sail their boats and cigar boxes in the tub. Toward half-past three,
+as Turner was in her room writing letters, the door-bell rang. She
+stopped, with her pen in the air, wondering if it might be Vandover. It
+was June's afternoon out. In a few minutes the bell rang again, and
+Turner ran down to answer it herself, intercepting Delphine, who took
+June's place on these occasions, but who was hopelessly stupid.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ravis had peered out through the curtains of the parlour window to
+see who it was, and Turner met her and Mr. Ravis coming upstairs,
+abandoning the parlour to Turner's caller.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mamma and I are going upstairs to read,&quot; explained Mr. Ravis. &quot;It's
+some one of your young men. You can bring him right in the parlour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think it's Mr. Haight,&quot; said Turner's mother. &quot;Ask him to stay to
+tea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Turner doubtfully, as she paused at the foot of the stairs,
+&quot;I will, but you know we never have anything to <a name="Page_61" id="Page_61" />speak of for Sunday
+evening tea. June is out, and you know how clumsy and stupid Delphine is
+when she waits on the table.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It <i>was</i> young Haight. Turner was very glad to see him, for next to
+Vandover she liked him better than any of the others. She was never
+bored by being obliged to entertain him, and he always had something to
+say and some clever way of saying it.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past five, as they were talking about amateur photography,
+Mrs. Ravis came in and called them to tea.</p>
+
+<p>Tea with the Ravises was the old-fashioned tea of twenty years ago. One
+never saw any of the modern &quot;delicacies&quot; on their Sunday evening table,
+no enticing cold lunch, no spices, not even catsups or pepper sauces.
+The turkey or chicken they had had for dinner was served cold in slices;
+there was canned fruit, preserves, tea, crackers, bread and butter, a
+large dish of cold pork and beans, and a huge glass pitcher of
+ice-water.</p>
+
+<p>In the absence of June, Delphine the cook went through the agony of
+waiting on the table, very nervous and embarrassed in her clean calico
+gown and starched apron. Her hands were red and knotty, smelling of
+soap, and they touched the chinaware with an over-zealous and
+constraining tenderness as if the plates and dishes had been delicate
+glass butterflies. She stood off at a distance from the table making
+sudden and awkward dabs at it. When it came to passing the plates, she
+passed them on the wrong side and remembered herself at the wrong moment
+with a stammering apology. In her excess of politeness she kept up a
+constant murmur as she attended to their wants. Another fork? Yes, sir.
+She'd get it right away, sir. Did Mrs. Ravis want another cuppa tea? No?
+No more tea? Well, she'd pass the bread. Some bread, Master Howard? Nice
+French bread, he always liked that. Some more preserved pears, Miss
+Ravis? Yes, miss, she'd get them right away; they were just over here on
+the sideboard. Yes, here they were. No more? Now she'd go and put them
+back. And at last when she had set the nerves of all of them in a
+jangle, was dismissed to the kitchen and retired with a gasp of
+unspeakable relief.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat later in the evening young Haight was alone <a name="Page_62" id="Page_62" />with Turner, and
+their conversation had taken a very unusual and personal turn. All at
+once Turner exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I often wonder what good I am in the world to anybody. I don't <i>know</i> a
+thing, I can't <i>do</i> a thing. I couldn't cook the plainest kind of a meal
+to <i>save</i> me, and it took me all of two hours yesterday to do just a
+little buttonhole stitching. I'm not good for anything. I'm not a help
+to anybody.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight looked into the blue flame of the gas-log, almost the only
+modern innovation throughout the entire house, and was silent for a
+moment; then he leaned his elbows on his knees and, still looking at the
+flame, replied:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know about that. You have been a considerable help to <i>me</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To <i>you</i>!&quot; exclaimed Turner, surprised. &quot;A help to <i>you</i>? Why, how do
+you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; he answered, still without looking at her, &quot;one always has one's
+influence, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, lots of influence <i>I</i> have over anybody,&quot; retorted Turner,
+incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, you have,&quot; he insisted. &quot;You have plenty of influence over the
+people that care for you. You have plenty of influence over me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Turner, very much embarrassed, and not knowing how to answer, bent down
+to the side of the mantelpiece and turned up the flame of the gas-log a
+little. Young Haight continued, almost as embarrassed as she:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose I'm a bad lot, perhaps a little worse than most others, but I
+think&mdash;I hope&mdash;there's some good in me. I know all this sounds absurd
+and affected, but <i>really</i> I'm not posing; you won't mind if I speak
+just as I think, for this once. I promise,&quot; he went on with a half
+smile, &quot;not to do it again. You know my mother died when I was little
+and I have lived mostly with men. You have been to me what the society
+of women has been to other fellows. You see, you are the only girl I
+ever knew very well&mdash;the only one I ever wanted to know. I have cared
+for you the way other men have cared for the different women that come
+into their lives; as they have cared for their mothers, their
+sisters&mdash;and their wives. You have already influenced me as a mother or
+sister should have done; what if I should ever <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63" />ask you to be&mdash;to be the
+<i>other</i> to me, the one that's best of all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight turned toward her as he finished and looked at her for the
+first time. Turner was still very much embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I'm very glad if I've been a help to&mdash;to anybody&mdash;to you,&quot; she
+said, confusedly. &quot;But I never knew that you cared&mdash;that you thought
+about me&mdash;in that way. But you mustn't, you know, you mustn't care for
+me in that way. I ought to tell you right away that I never could care
+for you more than&mdash;I always have done; I mean care for you only as a
+very, very good friend. You don't know, Dolly,&quot; she went on eagerly,
+&quot;how it hurts me to tell you so, because I care so much for you in every
+other way that I wouldn't hurt your feelings for anything; but then you
+know at the same time it would hurt you a great deal more if I
+<i>shouldn't</i> tell you, but encourage you, and let you go on thinking that
+perhaps I liked you more than any one else, when I <i>didn't</i>. Now
+wouldn't that be wrong? You don't know how glad it makes me feel that I
+have been of some good to you, and that is just why I want to be sincere
+<i>now</i> and not make you think any less of me&mdash;think any worse of me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I know,&quot; answered young Haight. &quot;I know I shouldn't have said
+anything about it. I knew beforehand, or thought I knew, that you didn't
+care in that way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Maybe I have been wrong,&quot; she replied, &quot;in not seeing that you cared so
+much, and have given you a wrong impression. I thought you knew how it
+was all the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Knew how what was?&quot; he asked, looking up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why,&quot; she said, &quot;knew how Van and I were.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I knew that Van cared for you a great deal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but you know,&quot; she went on, hesitating and confused, &quot;you know we
+are engaged. We have been engaged for nearly two years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But <i>he</i> don't consider himself as engaged!&quot; The words were almost out
+of Haight's mouth, but he shut his teeth against them and kept
+silence&mdash;he hardly knew why.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Suppose Vandover were out of the question,&quot; he said, getting up and
+smiling in order not to seem as serious as he really was.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64" />Ah,&quot; she said, smiling back at him. &quot;I don't know; that's a hard
+question to answer. I've never <i>asked</i> myself <i>that</i> question.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I'm saving you the trouble, you see,&quot; he answered, still smiling.
+&quot;I am asking it <i>for</i> you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I don't want to answer such a question off-hand like that; how can
+I tell? It would only be <i>perhaps</i>, just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight answered quickly that &quot;just now&quot; he would be contented with
+that &quot;perhaps&quot;; but Turner did not hear this. She had spoken at the same
+time as he, exclaiming, &quot;But what is the good of talking of that?
+Because no matter what happened I feel as though I could not break my
+promise to Van, even if I should want to. Because I have talked like
+this, Dolly,&quot; she went on more seriously, &quot;you must not be deceived or
+get a wrong impression. You understand how things are, don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; he answered, still trying to carry it off with a laugh. &quot;I
+know, I know. But now I hope you won't let anything I have said bother
+you, and that things will go on just as if I hadn't spoken, just as if
+nothing had happened.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, of course,&quot; she said, laughing with him again. &quot;Of <i>course</i>, why
+shouldn't they?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They were both at their ease again by the time young Haight stood at the
+door with his hat in his hand ready to go.</p>
+
+<p>He raised his free hand over her head, and said, with burlesque,
+dramatic effect, trying to keep down a smile:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bless you both; go, go marry Vandover and be happy; I forgive you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah&mdash;don't be so <i>utterly</i> absurd,&quot; she cried, beginning to laugh.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Seven" id="Chapter_Seven" /><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65" /><i>Chapter Seven</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>On a certain evening about four months later Ellis and Vandover had a
+&quot;date&quot; with Ida Wade and Bessie Laguna at the Mechanics' Fair. Ellis,
+Bessie, and Ida were to meet Vandover there in the Art Gallery, as he
+had to make a call with his father, and could not get there until
+half-past nine. They were all to walk about the Fair until ten, after
+which the two men proposed to take the girls out to the Cliff House in
+separate coup&eacute;s. The whole thing had been arranged by Ellis and Bessie,
+and Vandover was irritated. Ellis ought to have had more sense; rushing
+the girls was all very well, but everybody went to the Mechanics' Fair,
+and he didn't like to have nice girls like Turner or Henrietta Vance see
+him with chippies like that. It was all very well for Ellis, who had no
+social position, but for <i>him</i>, Vandover, it would look too confounded
+queer. Of course he was in for it now, and would have to face the music.
+You can't tell a girl like that that you're ashamed to be seen with her,
+but very likely he would get himself into a regular box with it all.</p>
+
+<p>When he arrived at the Mechanics' Pavilion, it was about twenty minutes
+of ten, and as he pushed through the wicket he let himself into a huge
+amphitheatre full of colour and movement.</p>
+
+<p>There was a vast shuffling of thousands of feet and a subdued roar of
+conversation like the noise of a great mill; mingled with these were the
+purring of distant machinery, the splashing of a temporary fountain and
+the rhythmic clamour of a brass band, while in the piano exhibit the
+hired performer was playing a concert-grand with a great flourish.
+Nearer at hand one could catch ends of conversation and notes of
+laughter, the creaking of boots, and the rustle of moving dresses and
+stiff skirts. Here and there groups of school children elbowed their way
+through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement
+pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips with pewter whistles on
+the butts, while the air itself was full of the smell of fresh popcorn.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis and Bessie were in the Art Gallery upstairs. Mrs. Wade, Ida's
+mother, who gave lessons in hand painting, had <a name="Page_66" id="Page_66" />an exhibit there which
+they were interested to find; a bunch of yellow poppies painted on
+velvet and framed in gilt. They stood before it some little time
+hazarding their opinions and then moved on from one picture to another;
+Ellis bought a catalogue and made it a duty to find the title of every
+picture. Bessie professed to be very fond of painting; she had 'taken it
+up' at one time and had abandoned it, only because the oil or turpentine
+or something was unhealthy for her. &quot;Of course,&quot; she said, &quot;I'm no
+critic, I only know what I like. Now that one over there, I like <i>that</i>.
+I think those ideal heads like that are lovely, don't you, Bandy? Oh,
+there's Van!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello!&quot; said Vandover, coming up. &quot;Where's Ida?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, Van!&quot; answered Bessie. &quot;Ida wouldn't come. Isn't it too mean?
+She said she couldn't come because she had a cold, but she was just
+talking through her face, I know. She's just got kind of a streak on and
+you can't get anything out of her. You two haven't had a row, have you?
+Well, I didn't <i>think</i> you had. But she's worried about something or
+other. I don't believe she's been out of the house this week. But isn't
+it mean of her to throw cold water on the procession like this? She's
+been giving me a lecture, too, and says she's going to reform.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Vandover, greatly relieved, &quot;that's too bad. We could have
+had a lot of fun to-night. I'm awfully sorry. Well, what are you two
+going to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I guess we'll follow out our part of the programme,&quot; said Ellis.
+&quot;You are kind of left out, though.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;Maybe I'll go downtown, and see if I
+can find some of the boys.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Dolly Haight is around here somewheres,&quot; said Ellis. &quot;We saw him
+just now over by the chess machine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I guess I'll try and find him, then,&quot; responded Vandover. &quot;Well, I hope
+you two enjoy yourselves.&quot; As he was turning away Bessie Laguna came
+running back, and taking him a little to one side said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'd better go round and see Ida pretty soon if you can. She's all
+broke up about something, I'm sure. I think she'd like to see you pretty
+well. Honestly,&quot; she said, suddenly very grave, &quot;I never saw Ida so cut
+up in my life. She's been taking on over something in a dreadful way,
+and I think she'd like <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67" />to see you. She won't tell <i>me</i> anything. You go
+around and see her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; answered Vandover smiling, &quot;I'll go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he was going down the stairs on his way to find young Haight it
+occurred to him what Ida's trouble might be. He was all at once struck
+with a great fear, so that for an instant he turned cold and weak, and
+reached out his hand to steady himself against the railing of the
+stairs. Ah, what a calamity that would be! What a calamity! What a
+dreadful responsibility! What a crime! He could not keep the thought out
+of his mind. He tried to tell himself that Ida had practically given her
+consent by going into such a place; that he was not the only one, after
+all; that there was nothing certain as yet. He stood on the stairway,
+empty for that moment, biting the end of his thumb, saying to himself in
+a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a calamity, what a horrible calamity that would be! Ah, you
+scoundrel! You damned fool, not to have thought!&quot; A couple of girls, the
+counter girls at one of the candy booths, came down the stairs behind
+him with a great babble of talk. Vandover gave an irritated shrug of his
+shoulders as if freeing himself from the disagreeable subject and went
+on.</p>
+
+<p>He could not find young Haight down stairs and so went up into the
+gallery again. After a long time he came upon him sitting on an empty
+bench nursing his cane and watching the crowd go past.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, old man!&quot; he exclaimed. &quot;Ellis told me I would find you around
+somewhere. I was just going to give you up.&quot; He sat down beside his
+chum, and the two began to talk about the people as they passed. &quot;Ah,
+get on to the red hat!&quot; exclaimed Vandover on a sudden. &quot;That's the
+third time she's passed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has Ellis gone off with Bessie Laguna?&quot; asked young Haight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;They're going to have a time at the Cliff
+House.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's too bad,&quot; young Haight replied. &quot;Ellis has just thrown himself
+away with that girl. He might have known some very nice people when he
+first came here. Between that girl and his whisky he has managed to
+spoil every chance he might have had.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68" />There's Charlie Geary,&quot; Vandover exclaimed suddenly, whistling and
+beckoning. &quot;Hey, there, Charlie! where you going? Oh,&quot; he cried on a
+sudden as Geary came up, &quot;oh, get on to his new store clothes, will
+you?&quot; They both pretended to be overwhelmed by the elegance of Geary's
+new suit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O-oh!&quot; cried young Haight. &quot;The bloody, bloomin', bloated swell. Just
+let me <i>touch</i> them!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover shaded his eyes and turned away as though dazzled. &quot;This is
+<i>too</i> much,&quot; he gasped. &quot;Such magnificence, such purple and fine linen.&quot;
+Then suddenly he shouted, &quot;Oh, <i>oh! look</i> at the crease in those
+trousers. No; it's too much, I can't stand it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, shut up,&quot; said Geary, irritated, as they had intended he should be.
+&quot;Yes,&quot; he went on, &quot;I thought I'd blow myself. I've been working like a
+dog the whole month. I'm trying to get in Beale's office. Beale and
+Storey, you know. I got the promise of a berth last week, so I thought
+I'd blow myself for some rags. I've been over to San Rafael all day
+visiting my cousins; had a great time; went out to row. Oh, and had a
+great feed: lettuce sandwiches with mayonnaise. Simply out of sight. I
+came back on the four o'clock boat and held down the 'line' on Kearney
+Street for an hour or two.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes?&quot; young Haight said perfunctorily, adding after a moment, &quot;Isn't
+this a gay crowd, a typical San Francisco crowd and&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had a cocktail in the Imperial at about quarter of five,&quot; said Geary,
+&quot;and got a cigar at the Elite; then I went around to get my clothes. Oh,
+you ought to have heard the blowing up I gave my tailor! I let him have
+it right straight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary paused a moment, and Vandover said: &quot;Come on, let's walk around a
+little; don't you want to? We might run on to the red hat again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I told him,&quot; continued Geary without moving, &quot;that if he wanted to do
+any more work for me, he'd have to get in front of himself in a hurry,
+and that <i>I</i> wasn't full of bubbles, if <i>he</i> was. 'Why,' says he, 'why,
+Mr. Geary, I've never had a customer talk like this to me before since
+I've been in the business!' 'Well, Mr. Allen,' says I, 'it's time you
+<i>had</i>! Oh, sure, I gave it to him straight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vandover has gone daft over a girl in a red hat,&quot; said <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69" />young Haight,
+as they got up and began to walk. &quot;Have you noticed her up here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I went to the Grillroom after I left the tailor's,&quot; continued Geary,
+&quot;and had supper downtown. Ah, you ought to have seen the steak they gave
+me! Just about as thick as it was wide. I gave the slavey a four-bit
+tip. Oh, it's just as well, you know, to keep in with them, if you go
+there often. I lunch there four or five times a week.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They descended to the ground floor and promenaded the central aisle
+watching for pretty girls. In front of a candy-counter, where there was
+a soda fountain, they saw the red hat again. Vandover looked her
+squarely in the face and laughed a little. When he had passed he looked
+back; the girl caught his eye and turned away with a droll smile.
+Vandover paused, grinning, and raising his hat; &quot;I guess that's mine,&quot;
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not going, are you?&quot; exclaimed young Haight, as Vandover
+stopped. &quot;Oh, for goodness' sake, Van, do leave the girls alone for one
+hour in the day. Come on! Come on downtown with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;I'm going to chase it up. Good-bye. I may
+see you fellows later,&quot; and he turned back and went up to the girl.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look at that!&quot; said young Haight, exasperated. &quot;He knows he's liable to
+meet his acquaintances here, and yet there he goes, almost arm in arm
+with a girl like that. It's too bad; why <i>can't</i> a fellow keep straight
+when there are such a lot of <i>nice</i> girls?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary never liked to see anything done better than he could do it
+himself. Just now he was vexed because Vandover had got in ahead of him.
+He looked after the girl a moment and muttered scornfully:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cheap meat!&quot; adding, &quot;Ah, you bet <i>I</i> wouldn't do that. I flatter
+myself that I'm a little too clever to cut my own throat in that
+fashion. I look out after my interests better than that. Well, Dolly,&quot;
+he concluded, &quot;<i>I've</i> got a thirst on. Van and Ellis have gone off with
+their girls; let's you and I go somewhere and have something wet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right. What's the matter with the Luxembourg?&quot; answered young
+Haight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_70" id="Page_70" />Luxembourg goes, then,&quot; assented Geary, and they turned about and
+started for the door. As they were passing out some one came running up
+behind them and took an arm of each: it was Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello,&quot; cried Geary, delighted, &quot;your girl shook you, didn't she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a bit of it,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;Oh, but say, she is out of sight!
+Says her name is Grace Irving. No, she didn't shake me. I made a date
+with her for next Wednesday night. I didn't want to be seen around here
+with her, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of <i>course</i> she will keep that date!&quot; said Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, I think she will,&quot; protested Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, come along,&quot; interrupted young Haight. &quot;We'll all go down to the
+Luxembourg and have something cold and wet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, make it the Imperial instead,&quot; objected Vandover. &quot;We may find
+Flossie.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say,&quot; cried Geary, &quot;can't you <i>live</i> without trailing around after some
+kind of petticoats?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're right,&quot; admitted Vandover, &quot;I can't,&quot; but he persuaded them to
+go to the Imperial for all that.</p>
+
+<p>At the Imperial, Toby, the red-eyed waiter, came to take their order.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good evening, gentlemen,&quot; he said. &quot;Haven't seen you around here for
+some time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no,&quot; said Geary. &quot;I've been too busy. I've been working like a dog
+lately to get into a certain office. You bet I'll make it all right&mdash;all
+right. Bring me a stringy rabbit and a pint of dog's-head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You bet I've been working,&quot; he continued after they had settled down to
+their beer and rabbits, &quot;working like a dog. A man's got to rustle if
+he's going to make a success at law. <i>I'm</i> going to make it go, by
+George, or I'll know the reason why. I'll make my way in this town and
+my pile. There's money to be made here and <i>I</i> might just as well make
+it as the next man. Every man for himself, that's what <i>I</i> say; that's
+the way to get along. It may be selfish, but you've got to do it. By
+God! it's human nature. Isn't that right, hey? Isn't that right?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's right,&quot; admitted young Haight, trying to be <a name="Page_71" id="Page_71" />polite. After
+this the conversation lagged a little. Young Haight drank his
+Apollinaris lemonade through a straw, Geary sipped his ale, and Vandover
+fed himself Welsh rabbit and Spanish olives with the silent enjoyment of
+a glutton. By and by, when they had finished and had lighted their
+cigars and cigarettes, they began to talk about the last Cotillon, to
+which Vandover and Haight belonged.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, Van,&quot; said young Haight, tilting his head to one side and shutting
+one eye to avoid the smoke from his cigar, &quot;say, didn't I see you
+dancing with Mrs. Doane after supper?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Vandover laughing; &quot;all the men were trying to get a dance
+with her. She had an edge on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No?&quot; exclaimed Geary, incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's a fact,&quot; admitted young Haight. &quot;Van is right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She was opposite to me at table,&quot; said Vandover, &quot;and <i>I</i> saw her empty
+a whole bottle of champagne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, I didn't know they got drunk like that at the Cotillons,&quot; said
+Geary. &quot;I thought they were very swell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, of course, they don't as a rule,&quot; returned Vandover. &quot;Of course
+there are girls like&mdash;like Henrietta Vance who belong to the Cotillon
+and make it what it is, and what it ought to be. But there are other
+girls like Mrs. Doane and Lilly Stannard and the Trafford girls that
+like their champagne pretty well now, and don't you forget it! Oh, you
+know, I wouldn't call it getting drunk, though.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, why not?&quot; exclaimed young Haight impatiently. &quot;Why not call it
+'getting drunk?' Why not call things by their right name? You can see
+just how bad they are then; and I think it's shameful that such things
+can go on in an organization that is supposed to contain the very best
+people in the city. Now, I just want to tell you what I saw at one of
+these same Cotillons in the first part of the season. Lilly Stannard
+disappeared after supper and people said she was sick and was going
+home, but I knew exactly what was the matter, because I had seen her at
+the supper table. Well, I had gone outside on the steps to get a
+mouthful of smoke, and my little cousin, Hetty, who has just come out
+and who is only nineteen, was out there with me because it was so warm
+inside, and <i>she</i> had seen Lilly Stannard filling up with champagne at
+supper, and didn't know what to make of it. Well, we were just talking
+<a name="Page_72" id="Page_72" />about it, and I was trying to make her believe too that Lilly Stannard
+was sick, when here comes Lilly herself out to her carriage. Her maid
+was supporting her, just about half-carrying her. Lilly's face was so
+pale that the powder on it looked like ashes, her hair was all coming
+down, and she was hiccoughing. Now,&quot; continued young Haight, his eyes
+snapping, and his voice raised so as to make itself heard above the
+exclamations of his two friends, &quot;now, that's a <i>fact</i>; I give you my
+word of honour that it actually happened. It's not hearsay; I saw it
+myself. It's fine, isn't it?&quot; he went on, wrathfully. &quot;It sounds well,
+don't it, when it's told <i>just as it happened</i>? The girl was dead drunk.
+Oh, she may have made a mistake; it may have been the first time; but
+the fact remains that she always drinks a lot of champagne at the
+Cotillons, and other girls have been drunk there, too. Mrs. Doane, that
+Van tells about, was <i>drunk</i>; that's the word for it. She was dead drunk
+that night, and there was my little cousin, Hetty, who had never seen
+even a man the worse for his liquor, standing there and taking it all
+in. Of course, every one hushed the thing up or else said the poor girl
+was sick; but Hetty knew, and what effect do you suppose it had upon a
+little girl like that, who had always been told what nice,
+irreproachable people went to the Cotillons? Hetty will never be the
+same little girl now that she was before. Oh, it makes me damned tired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I don't see,&quot; said Geary, &quot;why the girls should make such a fuss
+about the men keeping straight. I daresay now that this Stannard girl
+would cut us all dead if she knew how drunk we were that night about
+four months ago&mdash;that night that you fellows got thrown out of the
+Luxembourg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I don't believe she would at all,&quot; said young Haight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She'd think better of you for it,&quot; put in Vandover. &quot;Look here,&quot; he
+went on, &quot;all this talk of women demanding the same moral standard for
+men as men do for women is fine on paper, but how does it work in real
+life? The women don't demand it at all. Take the average society girl in
+a big city like this. The girls that we meet at teas and receptions and
+functions&mdash;don't you suppose they know the life we men lead? Of course
+they do. They may not know it in detail, but they know in a general way
+that we get drunk a good deal and go to disreputable houses and that
+sort of thing, and do they <a name="Page_73" id="Page_73" />ever cut us for that? No, sir; not much.
+Why, I tell you, they even have a little more respect for us. They like
+a man to know things, to be experienced. A man that keeps himself
+straight and clean and never goes around with fast women, they think is
+ridiculous. Of course, a girl don't want to know the particulars of a
+man's vice; what they want is that a man should have the knowledge of
+good and evil, yes, and lots of evil. To a large extent I really believe
+it's the women's fault that the men are what they are. If they demanded
+a higher moral standard the men would come up to it; they encourage a
+man to go to the devil and then&mdash;and then when he's rotten with disease
+and ruins his wife and has children&mdash;what is it&mdash;<i>'spotted
+toads'</i>&mdash;<i>then</i> there's a great cry raised against the men, and women
+write books and all, when half the time the woman has only encouraged
+him to be what he is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, well now,&quot; retorted young Haight, &quot;you know that all the girls are
+not like that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Most of them that you meet in society are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But they are the best people, aren't they?&quot; demanded Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Vandover and young Haight in a breath, and young Haight
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; I believe that very few of what you would call the 'best people' go
+out in society&mdash;people like the Ravises, who have good principles, and
+keep up old-fashioned virtues and all that. You know,&quot; he added, &quot;they
+have family prayers down there every morning after breakfast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary began to smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, I don't care,&quot; retorted young Haight, &quot;I like that sort of
+thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So do I,&quot; said Vandover. &quot;Up home, now, the governor asks a blessing at
+each meal, and somehow I wouldn't like to see him leave it off. But you
+can't tell me,&quot; he went on, going back to the original subject of their
+discussion, &quot;you can't tell me that American society girls, city-bred,
+and living at the end of the nineteenth century, don't know about
+things. Why, man alive, how can they help but know? Look at those that
+have brothers&mdash;don't you suppose they know, and if they know, why don't
+they use their influence to stop it? I tell you if any one were to write
+up the lives that we <a name="Page_74" id="Page_74" />young men of the city lead after dark, people
+wouldn't believe it. At that party that Henrietta Vance gave last month
+there were about twenty fellows there and I knew every one, and I was
+looking around the supper-table and wondering how many of those young
+fellows had never been inside of a disreputable house, and there was
+only <i>one</i> beside Dolly Haight!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight exclaimed at this, laughing good-naturedly, twirling his
+thumbs, and casting down his eyes with mock-modesty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, that's the truth just the same,&quot; Vandover went on. &quot;We young men
+of the cities are a fine lot. I'm not doing the baby act. I'm not laying
+the blame on the girls altogether, but I say that in a measure the girls
+are responsible. They want a man to be a <i>man</i>, to be up to date, to be
+a man of the world and to go in for that sort of vice, but they don't
+know, they don't dream, how rotten and disgusting it is. Oh, I'm not
+preaching. I know I'm just as bad as the rest, and I'm going to have a
+good time while I can, but sometimes when you stop and think, and as
+Dolly says 'call things by their right names,' why you feel, don't you
+know&mdash;<i>queer</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't believe, Van,&quot; responded young Haight, &quot;that it's <i>quite</i> as
+bad as you say. But it's even wrong, I think, that a good girl should
+know anything about vice at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's nonsense,&quot; broke in Geary; &quot;you can't expect nowadays that a
+girl, an American girl, can live twenty years in a city and not know
+things. Do you think the average modern girl is going to be the
+absolutely pure and innocent girl of, say, fifty years ago? Not much;
+they are right on to things to-day. You can't tell them much. And it's
+all right, too; they know how to look out for themselves, then. It's
+part of their education; and I think if they haven't the knowledge of
+evil, and don't know what sort of life the average young man leads, that
+their mothers ought to tell them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I don't agree with you,&quot; retorted young Haight. &quot;There's
+something revolting in the idea that it's necessary a young girl should
+be instructed in that sort of nastiness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, not at all,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;Without it she might be ruined by
+the first man that came along. It's a protection to her virtue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_75" id="Page_75" />Oh, pshaw! I don't believe it at all,&quot; cried young Haight,
+impatiently. &quot;I believe that a girl is born with a natural intuitive
+purity that will lead her to protect her virtue just as instinctively as
+she would dodge a blow; if she wants to go wrong she will have to make
+an effort herself to overcome that instinct.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if she don't,&quot; cried Vandover eagerly, &quot;if she don't&mdash;if she don't
+protect her virtue, I say a man has a right to go as far with her as he
+can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If <i>he</i> don't, some one else will,&quot; said Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you can't get around it that way,&quot; answered young Haight, smiling.
+&quot;It's a man's duty to protect a girl, even if he has to protect her
+against herself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When he got home that night Vandover thought over this remark of young
+Haight's and in its light reviewed what had occurred in the room at the
+Imperial. He felt aroused, nervous, miserably anxious. At length he
+tried to dismiss the subject from his mind; he woke up his drowsing
+grate fire, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying, &quot;Wake up
+there, you!&quot; When he was undressed, he sat down before it in his
+bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously, musing into the coals,
+scratching himself as was his custom. But for all that he fretted
+nervously and did not sleep well that night.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he took his bath. Vandover enjoyed his bath and usually
+spent two or three hours over it. When the water was very warm he got
+into it with his novel on a rack in front of him and a box of chocolates
+conveniently near. Here he stayed, for over an hour, eating and reading,
+and occasionally smoking a cigarette, until at length the enervating
+heat of the steam gradually overcame him and he dropped off to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular morning between nine and ten Geary called, and as was
+his custom came right up to Vandover's room. Mr. Corkle, lying on the
+wolfskin in the bay window, jumped up with a gruff bark, but,
+recognizing him, came up wiggling his short tail. Geary saw Vandover's
+clothes thrown about the floor and the closed door of the bathroom.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hey, Van!&quot; he called. &quot;It's Charlie Geary. Are you taking a bath?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76" />Hello! What? Who is it?&quot; came from behind the door. &quot;Oh, is that you,
+Charlie? Hello! how are you? Yes, I'm taking a bath. I must have been
+asleep. Wait a minute; I'll be out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I can't stop,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;I've an appointment downtown;
+overslept myself, and had to go without my breakfast; makes me feel all
+broke up. I'll get something at the Grillroom about eleven; a steak, I
+guess. But that isn't what I came to say. Ida Wade has killed herself!
+Isn't it fearful? I thought I'd drop in on my way downtown and speak to
+you about it. It's dreadful! It's all in the morning papers. She must
+have been out of her head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it&mdash;what has she done?&quot; came back Vandover's voice. &quot;Papers&mdash;I
+haven't seen&mdash;what has she done? Tell me&mdash;what has she done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, she committed suicide last night by taking laudanum,&quot; answered
+Geary, &quot;and nobody knows why. She didn't leave any message or letter or
+anything of the kind. It's a fearful thing to happen so suddenly, but it
+seems she has been very despondent and broke up about something or other
+for a week or two. They found her in her room last night about ten
+o'clock lying across her table with only her wrapper on. She was
+unconscious then, and between one and two she died. She was unconscious
+all the time. Well, I can't stop any longer, Van; I've an appointment
+downtown. I was just going past the house and I thought I would run up
+and speak to you about Ida. I'll see you again pretty soon and we'll
+talk this over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Corkle politely attended Geary to the head of the stairs, then went
+back to Vandover's room, and after blowing under the crack of the
+bathroom door to see if his master was still there returned to the
+wolfskin and sat down on his short tail and yawned. He was impatient to
+see Vandover and thought he stayed in his bath an unnecessarily long
+time. He went up to the door again and listened. It was very still
+inside; he could not hear the slightest sound, and he wondered again
+what could keep Vandover in there so long. He had too much self-respect
+to whine, so he went back to the wolfskin and curled up in the sun, but
+did not go to sleep.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77" />By and by, after a very long time, the bathroom door swung open, and
+Vandover came out. He had not dried himself and was naked and wet. He
+went directly to the table in the centre of the room and picked up the
+morning paper, looking for the article of which Geary had spoken. At
+first he could not find it, and then it suddenly jumped into prominence
+from out the gray blur of the print on an inside page beside an
+advertisement of a charity concert for the benefit of a home for
+incurable children. There was a picture of Ida taken from a photograph
+like one that she had given him, and which even then was thrust between
+the frame and glass of his mirror. He read the article through; it
+sketched her life and character and the circumstances of her death with
+the relentless terseness of the writer cramped for space. According to
+this view, the causes of her death were unknown. It had been remarked
+that she had of late been despondent and in ill health.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover threw the paper down and straightened up, naked and dripping,
+putting both hands to his head. In a low voice under his breath he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What have I done? What have I done now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Like the sudden unrolling of a great scroll he saw his responsibility
+for her death and for the ruin of that something in her which was more
+than life. What would become of her now? And what would become of him?
+For a single brief instant he tried to persuade himself that Ida had
+consented after all. But he knew that this was not so. She had
+consented, but he had forced her consent; he was none the less guilty.
+And then in that dreadful moment when he saw things in their true light,
+all the screens of conventionality and sophistry torn away, the words
+that young Haight had spoken came back to him. No matter if she had
+consented, it was his duty to have protected her, even against herself.</p>
+
+<p>He walked the floor with great strides, steaming with the warm water,
+striking his head with his hands and crying out, &quot;Oh, this is fearful,
+fearful! What have I done now? I have killed her; yes, and worse!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He could think of nothing worse that could have happened to him. What a
+weight of responsibility to carry&mdash;he who hated responsibility of any
+kind, who had always tried to <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78" />escape from anything that was even
+irksome, who loved his ease, his comfort, his peace of mind!</p>
+
+<p>At every moment now he saw the different consequences of what he had
+done. Now, it was that his life was ruined, and that all through its
+course this crime would hang like a millstone about his neck. There
+could be no more enjoyment of anything for him; all the little pleasures
+and little self-indulgences which till now had delighted him were
+spoiled and rendered impossible. The rest of his life would have to be
+one long penitence; any pleasure he might take would only make his crime
+seem more abominable.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it was a furious revolt against his mistake that had led him to
+such a fearful misunderstanding of Ida; a silent impotent rage against
+himself and against the brute in him that he had permitted to drag him
+to this thing.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it was a wave of an immense pity for the dead girl that overcame
+him, and he saw himself as another person, destroying what she most
+cherished for the sake of gratifying an unclean passion.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it was a terror for himself. What would they do to him? His part in
+the affair was sure to be found out. He tried to think what the
+punishment for such crime would be; but would he not be considered a
+murderer as well? Could he not hang for this? His imagination was never
+more active; his fear never more keen. At once a thousand plans of
+concealment or escape were tossed up in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>But worse than all was the thought of that punishment from which there
+was absolutely no escape, and of that strange other place where his
+crime would assume right proportions and receive right judgment, no
+matter how it was palliated or evaded here. Then for an instant it was
+as if a gulf without bottom had opened under him, and he had to fight
+himself back from its edge for sheer self-preservation. To look too long
+in that direction was simple insanity beyond any doubt.</p>
+
+<p>And all this time he threw himself to and fro in his room, his long
+white arms agitated and shaking, his wet and shining hair streaming far
+over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all
+straight and trickling with moisture. At times an immense unreasoning
+terror would come upon <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79" />him all of a sudden, horrible, crushing, so that
+he rolled upon the bed groaning and sobbing, digging his nails into his
+scalp, shutting his teeth against a desire to scream out, writhing in
+the throes of terrible mental agony.</p>
+
+<p>That day and the next were fearful. To Vandover everything in his world
+was changed. All that had happened before the morning of Geary's visit
+appeared to him to have occurred in another phase of his life, years and
+years ago. He lay awake all night long, listening to the creaking of the
+house and the drip of the water faucets. He turned from his food with
+repugnance, told his father that he was sick, and kept indoors as much
+as he could, reading all the papers to see if he had been found out. To
+his great surprise and relief, a theory gained ground that Ida was
+subject to spells of ill-health, to long fits of despondency, and that
+her suicide had occurred during one of these. If Ida's family knew
+anything of the truth, it was apparent that they were doing their best
+to cover up their disgrace. Vandover was too thoroughly terrified for
+his own safety to feel humiliated at this possible explanation of his
+security. There was as yet not even a guess that implicated him.</p>
+
+<p>He thought that he was bearing up under the strain well enough, but on
+the evening of the second day, as he was pretending to eat his supper,
+his father sent the servant out and turning to him, said kindly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it, Van? Aren't you well nowadays?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not very, sir,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;My throat is troubling me again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You look deathly pale,&quot; returned his father. &quot;Your eyes are sunken and
+you don't eat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I know,&quot; said Vandover. &quot;I'm not feeling well at all. I think I'll
+go to bed early to-night. I don't know&quot;&mdash;he continued, after a pause,
+feeling a desire to escape from his father's observation&mdash;&quot;I don't know
+but what I'll go up now. Will you tell the cook to feed Mr. Corkle for
+me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His father looked at him as he pushed back from the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's the matter, Van?&quot; he said. &quot;Is there anything wrong?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I'll be all right in the morning,&quot; he replied nervously. &quot;I feel a
+little under the weather just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80" />Don't you think you had better tell me what the trouble is?&quot; said his
+father, kindly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There <i>isn't</i> any trouble, sir,&quot; insisted Vandover. &quot;I just feel a
+little under the weather.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But as he was starting to undress in his room a sudden impulse took
+possession of him, an overwhelming childish desire to tell his father
+all about it. It was beginning to be more than he was able to bear
+alone. He did not allow himself to stop and reason with this impulse,
+but slipped on his vest again and went downstairs. He found his father
+in the smoking-room, sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before
+the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>As Vandover came in the Old Gentleman rose and without a word, as if he
+had been expecting him, went to the door and shut and locked it. He came
+back and stood before the fireplace watching Vandover as he approached
+and took the chair he had just vacated. Vandover told him of the affair
+in two or three phrases, without choosing his words, repeating the same
+expressions over and over again, moved only with the desire to have it
+over and done with.</p>
+
+<p>It was like a burst of thunder. The worst his father had feared was not
+as bad as this. He had expected some rather serious boyish trouble, but
+this was the crime of a man. Still watching his son, he put out his
+hand, groping for the edge of the mantelpiece, and took hold of it with
+a firm grasp. For a moment he said nothing; then:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And&mdash;and you say you seduced her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without looking up, Vandover answered, &quot;Yes, sir,&quot; and then he added,
+&quot;It is horrible; when I think of it I sometimes feel as though I should
+go off my head. I&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the Old Gentleman interrupted him, putting out his hand:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't,&quot; he said quickly, &quot;don't say anything now&mdash;please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They were both silent for a long time, Vandover gazing stupidly at a
+little blue and red vase on the table, wondering how his father would
+take the news, what next he would say; the Old Gentleman drawing his
+breath short, occasionally clearing his throat, his eyes wandering
+vaguely about the <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81" />walls of the room, his fingers dancing upon the edge
+of the mantelpiece. Then at last he put his hand to his neck as though
+loosening his collar and said, looking away from Vandover:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Won't you&mdash;won't you please go out&mdash;go away for a little while&mdash;leave
+me alone for a little while.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Vandover closed the door, he shut the edge of a rug between it and
+the sill; as he reopened it to push the rug out of the way he saw his
+father sink into the chair and, resting his arm upon the table, bow his
+head upon it.</p>
+
+<p>He did not see his father again that night, and at breakfast next
+morning not a word was exchanged between them, but his father did not go
+downtown to his office that forenoon, as was his custom. Vandover went
+up to his room immediately after breakfast and sat down before the
+window that overlooked the little garden in the rear of the house.</p>
+
+<p>He was utterly miserable, his nerves were gone, and at times he would
+feel again a touch of that hysterical, unreasoning terror that had come
+upon him so suddenly the other morning.</p>
+
+<p>Now there was a new trouble: the blow he had given his father. He could
+see that the Old Gentleman was crushed under it, and that he had never
+imagined that his son could have been so base as this. Vandover wondered
+what he was going to do. It would seem as if he had destroyed all of his
+father's affection for him, and he trembled lest the Old Gentleman
+should cast him off, everything. Even if his father did not disown him,
+he did not see how they could ever be the same. They might go on living
+together in the same house, but as far apart from each other as
+strangers. This, however, did not seem natural; it was much more likely
+that his father would send him away, anywhere out of his sight,
+forwarding, perhaps through his lawyer or agents, enough money to keep
+him alive. The more Vandover thought of this, the more he became
+convinced that such would be his father's decision. The Old Gentleman
+had spent the night over it, time enough to make up his mind, and the
+fact that he had neither spoken to him nor looked at him that morning
+was only an indication of what Vandover was to expect. He fancied he
+knew his <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82" />father well enough to foresee how this decision would be
+carried out, not with any imprecations or bursts of rage, but calmly,
+sadly, inevitably.</p>
+
+<p>Toward noon his father came into the room, and Vandover turned to face
+him and to hear what he had to say as best he could. He knew he should
+not break down under it, for he felt as though his misery had reached
+its limit, and that nothing could touch or affect him much now.</p>
+
+<p>His father had a decanter of port in one hand and a glass in the other;
+he filled the glass and held it toward Vandover, saying gently:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think you had better take some of this: you've hardly eaten anything
+in three days. Do you feel pretty bad, Van?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover put the glass down and got upon his feet. All at once a great
+sob shook him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, governor!&quot; he cried.</p>
+
+<p>It was as if it had been a mother or a dear sister. The prodigal son put
+his arms about his father's neck for the first time since he had been a
+little boy, and clung to him and wept as though his heart were breaking.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Eight" id="Chapter_Eight" /><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83" /><i>Chapter Eight</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>&quot;We will begin all over again, Van,&quot; his father said later that same
+day. &quot;We will start in again and try to forget all this, not as much as
+we <i>can</i>, but as much as we <i>ought</i>, and live it down, and from now on
+we'll try to do the thing that is right and brave and good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just try me, sir!&quot; cried Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>That was it, begin all over again. He had never seen more clearly than
+now that other life which it was possible for him to live, a life that
+was above the level of self-indulgence and animal pleasures, a life that
+was not made up of the society of lost women or fast girls, but yet a
+life of keen enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever he had been deeply moved about anything, the power and desire
+of art had grown big within him, and he turned to it now, instinctively
+and ardently.</p>
+
+<p>It was all the better half of him that was aroused&mdash;the better half that
+he had kept in check ever since his college days, the better half that
+could respond to the influences of his father and of Turner Ravis, that
+other Vandover whom he felt was his real self, Vandover the true man,
+Vandover the artist, not Vandover the easy-going, the self-indulgent,
+not Vandover the lover of women.</p>
+
+<p>From this time forward he was resolved to give up the world that he had
+hitherto known, and devote himself with all his strength to his art. In
+the first glow of that resolution he thought that he had never been
+happier; he wondered how he could have been blind so long; what was all
+that life worth compared with the life of a great artist, compared even
+with a life of sturdy, virile effort and patient labour even though
+barren of achievement?</p>
+
+<p>And then something very curious happened: The little picture of Turner
+Ravis that hung over his mantelpiece caught his glance, looking out at
+him with her honest eyes and sweet smile. In an instant he seemed to
+love her as he had never imagined he could love any one. All that was
+best in him went out toward her in a wave of immense tenderness; the
+tears came to his eyes, he could not tell why. Ah, he was not good
+enough for her now, but he would love her so well that <a name="Page_84" id="Page_84" />he would grow
+better, and between her and his good father and his art, the better
+Vandover, the real Vandover, would grow so large and strong within him
+that there should be no room for the other Vandover, the Vandover of
+Flossie and of the Imperial, the Vandover of the brute.</p>
+
+<p>During the course of talk that day between himself and his father, it
+was decided that Vandover should go away for a little while. He was in a
+fair way to be sick from worry and nervous exhaustion, and a sea trip to
+San Diego and back seemed to be what he stood most in need of. Besides
+this, his father told him, it was inevitable that his share in Ida's
+death would soon be known; in any case it would be better for him to be
+away from the city.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You take whatever steamer sails next,&quot; said his father, &quot;and! go down
+to Coronado and stay there as long as you like, three weeks anyway; stay
+there until you get well, and when you get back, Van, we'll have a talk
+about Paris again. Perhaps you would like to get away this winter, maybe
+as soon as next month. You think it over while you are away, and when
+you want to go, why, we'll go over together, Van. What do you think?
+Would you like to have your old governor along for a little while?&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The <i>Santa Rosa</i> cast off the company's docks the next day about noon in
+the midst of a thick, cold mist that was half rain. The Old Gentleman
+came to see Vandover off.</p>
+
+<p>The steamer, which seemed gigantic, was roped and cabled to the piers,
+feeling the water occasionally with her screw to keep the hawsers taut.
+About the forward gangway a band of overworked stevedores were stowing
+in the last of the cargo, aided by a donkey engine, which every now and
+then broke out into a spasm of sputtering coughs. At the passenger
+gangway a great crowd was gathered, laughing and exchanging remarks with
+the other crowd that leaned over the railings of the decks.</p>
+
+<p>There was a smell of pitch and bilge in the air mingled with the reek of
+hot oil from the engines. About twelve o'clock an odour of cooking
+arose, and the steward went about the decks drumming upon a snoring gong
+for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later the great whistle roared interminably, <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85" />drowning out
+the chorus of &quot;good-byes&quot; that rose on all sides. Long before it had
+ceased, the huge bulk had stirred, almost imperceptibly at first, then,
+gathering headway, swung out into the stream and headed for the Golden
+Gate.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was in the stern upon the hurricane deck, shaking his hat
+toward his father, who had tied his handkerchief to his cane and was
+waving it at him as he stood upon an empty packing-case. As the throng
+of those who were left behind dwindled away, one by one, Vandover could
+see him standing there, almost the last of all, and long after the
+figure itself was lost in the blur of the background he still saw the
+tiny white dot of the handkerchief moving back and forth, as if spelling
+out a signal to him across the water.</p>
+
+<p>The fog drew a little higher as they passed down the bay. To the left
+was the city swarming upon its hills, a dull gray mass, cut in parallel
+furrows by the streets; straggling and uneven where it approached the
+sand-dunes in the direction of the Presidio. To the right the long slope
+of Tamalpais climbed up and was lost in the fog, while directly in front
+of them was the Golden Gate, a bleak prospect of fog-drenched headlands
+on either side of a narrow strip of yellow, frothy water. Beyond that,
+the open Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>A brisk cannonade was going on from the Presidio and from Black Point,
+and both forts were hidden behind a great curtain of tumbling white
+smoke that rolled up to mingle with the fog. Everybody was on that side
+of the deck watching and making guesses as to the reason of it. It was
+perhaps target practice. Ah, it was a good thing that the steamer was
+not in line with the target. Perhaps, though, that was the safest place
+to be. Some one told about a derelict that was anchored as a target off
+the heads, and shot at for fifteen hours without being touched once. Oh,
+they were great gunners at the Presidio! But just the same the sound of
+cannon was a fine thing to hear; it excited one. A noisy party of
+gentlemen already installed in the smoking-room came out on deck for a
+moment with their cards in their hands, and declared laughingly that the
+whole thing was only a salute in the <i>Santa Rosa's</i> honour.</p>
+
+<p>By the middle of the afternoon, Vandover began to see that for him the
+trip was going to be tedious. He knew no one on <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86" />board and had come away
+so hurriedly that he had neglected to get himself any interesting books.
+He spent an hour or two promenading the upper deck until the cold wind
+that was blowing drove him to the smoking-room, where he tried to
+interest himself in watching some of the whist games that were in
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>It surprised him that he could find occasion to be bored so soon after
+what had happened; but he no longer wished to occupy his mind by
+brooding over anything so disagreeable and wanted some sort of amusement
+to divert and entertain him. Vandover had so accustomed himself to that
+kind of self-indulgence that he could not go long without it. It had
+become a simple necessity for him to be amused, and just now he thought
+himself justified in seeking it in order to forget about Ida's death. He
+had dwelt upon this now for nearly four days, until it had come to be
+some sort of a formless horror that it was necessary to avoid. He could
+get little present enjoyment by looking forward to the new life that he
+was going to begin and in which his father, his art, and Turner Ravis
+were to be the chief influences. The thought of this prospect did give
+him pleasure, but he had for so long a time fed his mind upon the more
+tangible and concrete enjoyments of the hour and minute that it demanded
+them now continually.</p>
+
+<p>He sat for a long time upon the slippery leather cushions of the
+smoking-room trying desperately to become interested in the whist game,
+or gazing awestruck at the man at his elbow who was smoking black
+Perrique in a pipe, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out through his
+nose. After a while he returned to the deck.</p>
+
+<p>There it was cold and wet and a strong wind was blowing from the ocean.
+Four miles to the east an endless procession of brown, bare hills filed
+slowly past under the fog. The sky was a dreary brown and the leagues of
+shifting water a melancholy desert of gray. Besides these there was
+nothing but the bleached hills and the drifting fog; the wind blew
+continually, passing between the immense reaches of sea and sky with
+prolonged sighs of infinite sadness.</p>
+
+<p>Three seagulls followed the vessel, now in a long line, now abreast, and
+now in a triangle. They sailed slowly about, <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87" />dipping and rising in the
+vast hollows between the waves, turning their heads constantly from side
+to side.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover went to the stern and for a time found amusement in watching
+the indicator of the patent log, and listening for its bell. But his
+interest in this was soon exhausted, and he returned to the smoking-room
+again, reflecting that this was only the first afternoon and that there
+still remained two days that somehow had to be gone through with.</p>
+
+<p>About five o'clock, as he was on his way to get a glass of seltzer, he
+saw Grace Irving, the girl of the red hat whom he had met at the
+Mechanics' Fair, sitting on a camp-stool just inside of her stateroom
+eating a banana. The sight of her startled him out of all composure for
+the minute. His first impulse was to speak to her, but he reflected that
+he was done with all that now and that it was better for him to pass on
+as though he had not seen her, but as he came in front of her she looked
+up quickly and nodded to him very pleasantly in such a way that it was
+evident she had already known he was on board. It was impossible for
+Vandover to ignore her, and though he did not stop, he looked back at
+her and smiled as he took off his hat.</p>
+
+<p>He went down to supper in considerable agitation, marvelling at the
+coincidence that had brought them together again. He wondered, too, how
+she could be so pleasant to him now, for as a matter of course he had
+not kept the engagement he had made with her at the Fair. At the same
+time, he felt that she must think him a great fool not to have stopped
+and spoken to her; either he should have done that or else have ignored
+her little bow entirely. He was firmly resolved to have nothing to do
+with her, yet it chafed him to feel that she thought him diffident. It
+seemed now as though he owed it to himself to speak to her if only for a
+minute and make some sort of an excuse. By the time he had finished his
+supper, he had made up his mind to do this, and then to avoid her for
+the rest of the trip.</p>
+
+<p>As he was leaving the dining saloon he met her coming down the stairs
+alone, dressed very prettily in a checked travelling ulster with a gray
+velvet collar, and a little fore and aft cap to match. He stopped her
+and made his excuses; she did not say much in reply and seemed a little
+offended, so that<a name="Page_88" id="Page_88" /> Vandover could not refrain from adding that he was
+very glad to see her on board.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you don't seem as if you were, very,&quot; she said, putting out her
+chin at him prettily and passing on. It was an awkward and embarrassing
+little scene and Vandover was glad that it was over. But the thing had
+been done now, he had managed to show the girl that he did not wish to
+keep up the acquaintance begun at the Fair, and from now on she would
+keep out of his way.</p>
+
+<p>He took a few turns on the upper deck, smoking his pipe, walking about
+fast, while his dinner digested. The sun went down behind the black
+horizon in an immense blood-red nebula of mist, the sea turned from gray
+to dull green and then to a lifeless brown, and the <i>Santa Rosa's</i>
+lights began to glow at her quarters and at her masthead; in her stern
+the screw drummed and threshed monotonously, a puff of warm air reeking
+with the smell of hot oil came from the engine hatch, and in an instant
+Vandover saw again the curved roof of the immense iron-vaulted depot,
+the passengers on the platform staring curiously at the group around the
+invalid's chair, the repair gang in spotted blue overalls, and the huge
+white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.</p>
+
+<p>The wind freshened and he returned to the smoking-room to get warm. The
+same game of whist was going on, and the man with the Perrique tobacco
+had filled another pipe and continued to blow the smoke through his
+nose.</p>
+
+<p>After a while Vandover went back to the main deck and wandered aft,
+where he stood a long time looking over the stern, interested in
+watching the receding water. It was dark by this time, the wind had
+increased and had blown the fog to landward, and the ocean had changed
+to a deep blue, the blue of the sky at night; here and there a wave
+broke, leaving a line of white on the sea like the trail of a falling
+star across the heavens, while the white haze of the steamer's wake
+wandered vaguely across the intense blue like the milky way across the
+zenith.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was horribly bored. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to
+amuse him, unless, indeed, he should decide to renew his acquaintance
+with Grace Irving. But this was out of the question now, for he knew
+what it would lead to. Even <a name="Page_89" id="Page_89" />if he should yield to the temptation, he
+did not see how he could take any great pleasure in that sort of thing
+again, after what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the consequences of what he had done, the one which had come to
+afflict him the most poignantly was that his enjoyment of life was
+spoiled. At first he had thought that he never could take pleasure in
+anything again so long as he should live, that his good times were gone.
+But as his pliable character rearranged itself to suit the new
+environment, he began to see that there would come a time when he would
+grow accustomed to Ida's death and when his grief would lose its
+sharpness. He had even commenced to look forward to this time and to
+long for it as a sort of respite and relief. He believed at first that
+it would not be for a great many years; but even so soon after the
+suicide as this, he saw with a little thrill of comfort that it would be
+but a matter of months. At the same time Vandover was surprised and even
+troubled at the ease with which he was recovering from the first shock.
+He wondered at himself, because he knew he had been sincere in his talk
+with his father. Vandover was not given to self-analysis, but now for a
+minute he was wondering if this reaction were due to his youth, his good
+health and his good spirits, or whether there was something wrong with
+him. However, he dismissed these thoughts with a shrug of his shoulders
+as though freeing himself from some disagreeable burden. Ah, he was no
+worse than the average; one could get accustomed to almost anything; it
+was only in the books that people had their lives ruined; and to brood
+over such things was unnatural and morbid. Ah! what a dreadful thing to
+become morbid! He could not bring Ida back, or mitigate what he had
+done, or be any more sorry for it by making himself miserable. Well,
+then! Only he would let that sort of thing alone after this, the lesson
+had been too terrible; he would try and enjoy himself again, only it
+should be in other ways.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the evening, about nine o'clock, when nearly all the passengers
+were in bed, and Vandover was leaning over the side of the boat
+finishing his pipe before turning in himself, Grace Irving came out of
+her stateroom and sat down at a little distance from him, looking out
+over the water, <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90" />humming a little song. She and Vandover were the only
+people to be seen on the deserted promenade.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover saw her without moving, only closing his teeth tighter on his
+pipe. It was evident that Grace expected him to speak to her and had
+given him a chance for an admirable little t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te. For a moment
+Vandover's heart knocked at his throat; he drew his breath once or twice
+sharply through his nose. In an instant all the old evil instincts were
+back again, urging and clamouring never so strong, never so insistent.
+But Vandover set his face against them, honestly, recalling his
+resolution, telling himself that he was done with that life. As he had
+said, the lesson had been too terrible.</p>
+
+<p>He turned about resolutely, and walked slowly away from her. The girl
+looked after him a moment, surprised, and then called out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Mr. Vandover!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover paused a moment, looking back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where are you going?&quot; she went on. &quot;Didn't you see me here? Don't you
+want to come and talk to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Vandover, smiling good-humouredly, trying to be as polite
+as was possible. &quot;No, I don't.&quot; Then he took a sudden resolution, and
+added gravely, &quot;I don't want to have anything to do with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In his stateroom, as he sat on the edge of his berth winding his watch
+before going to bed, he thought over what he had said. &quot;That was a mean
+way to talk to a girl,&quot; he told himself, &quot;but,&quot; he added, &quot;it's the only
+thing to do. I simply couldn't start in again after all that's happened.
+Oh, yes, that was the right thing to do!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He felt a glow of self-respect for his firmness and his decision, a
+pride in the unexpected strength, the fine moral rigour that he had
+developed at the critical moment. He <i>could</i> turn sharp around when he
+wanted to, after all. Ah, yes, that was the only thing to do if one was
+to begin all over again and live down what had happened. He wished that
+the governor might know how well he had acted.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Nine" id="Chapter_Nine" /><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91" /><i>Chapter Nine</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Vandover stayed for two weeks at Coronado Beach and managed to pass the
+time very pleasantly. He was fortunate enough to find a party at the
+hotel whom he knew very well. In the morning they bathed or sailed on
+the bay, and in the afternoon rode out with a pack of greyhounds and
+coursed jack-rabbits on the lower end of the island. Vandover's good
+spirits began to come back to him, his appetite returned, his nerves
+steadied themselves, he slept eight hours every night. But for all that
+he did not think that things were the same with him. He said to himself
+that he was a changed man; that he was older, more serious.</p>
+
+<p>During this time he received several letters from his father which he
+answered very promptly. In the course of their correspondence it was
+arranged that they should both leave for Europe on the twenty-fifth of
+that month, and that consequently, Vandover should return to the city
+not later than the fifteenth. Vandover was having such a good time,
+however, that he stayed over the regular steamer in order to go upon a
+moonlight picnic down on the beach. The next afternoon he took passage
+for San Francisco on a second-class boat.</p>
+
+<p>This homeward passage turned out to be one long misery for Vandover. He
+had never been upon a second-class boat before and had never imagined
+that anything could be so horribly uncomfortable or disagreeable. The
+<i>Mazatlan</i> was overcrowded, improperly ballasted, and rolled
+continually. The table was bad, the accommodations inadequate, the
+passengers hopelessly uncongenial. Cold and foggy weather accompanied
+the boat continually. The same endless procession of bleached hills
+still filed past under the mist, going now in the opposite direction,
+and the same interminable game of whist was played in the smoking-room,
+only with greasier, second-class cards, amidst the acrid smoke of
+second-class tobacco. At supper, the first day out, a little Jew who sat
+next to Vandover, and who invariably wore a plush skull-cap with
+ear-laps, tried to sell him two flawed and yellow diamonds.</p>
+
+<p>The evening after leaving Port Hartford the <i>Mazatlan</i> ran <a name="Page_92" id="Page_92" />into dirty
+weather. It was not stormy&mdash;simply rough, disagreeable, the wind and sea
+directly ahead. Half an hour after supper Vandover began to be sick. For
+a long time he sat on the slippery leather cushions in the nasty
+smoking-room, sucking limes, drinking seltzer, and trying to be
+interested in the card games. He dozed a little and awoke, feeling
+wretched, covered with a cold sweat, racked by a pain in the back of his
+head, and tortured by an abominable nausea. He groped his way out upon
+the swaying, gusty deck, descended to his cabin, and went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Mazatlan</i> had booked more passengers than could be accommodated,
+the steward being obliged to make up beds on the floor of the dining
+saloon and even upon some of the tables. Vandover had not been able to
+get a stateroom, and so had put up with a bunk in the common cabin at
+the stern of the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>About two o'clock in the morning he woke up in this place frightfully
+sick at the stomach and wretched in body and mind. He had an upper bunk,
+and for a long time he lay on his back rolling about with the rolling of
+the steamer, vaguely staring straight above him at the roof of the
+cabin, hardly a hand's-breadth above his face. The roof was iron,
+painted with a white paint very thick and shiny, and was studded with
+innumerable bolt-heads and enormous nuts. By and by, for no particular
+reason, he rose on his elbow and, leaning over the side of his berth,
+looked about him.</p>
+
+<p>The light streaming from two strong-smelling ship's lanterns showed the
+cabin, long and narrow. There were two cramped passageways, on either
+side of which the tiers of bunks, mere open racks filled with bedding,
+rose to the roof, those occupied by women hung with spotted turkey-red
+calico.</p>
+
+<p>The cabin was two decks below the open air and every berth was occupied,
+the only ventilation being through the door. The air was foul with the
+stench of bilge, the reek of the untrimmed lamps, the exhalation of so
+many breaths, and the close, stale smell of warm bedding.</p>
+
+<p>A vague murmur rose in the air, the sound of deep breathing, the moving
+of restless bodies between the coarse sheets, the momentary noise of the
+scratching of blunt finger-tips, a subdued cough, the moan of a sleeping
+child. All the while <a name="Page_93" id="Page_93" />the shaft of the screw, seemingly close beneath
+the floor, pounded and rumbled without a moment's stop.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately underneath Vandover two men, saloonkeepers, awoke and lit
+their cigars and began a long discussion on the question of license. Two
+or three bunks distant, a woman, a Salvation Army lassie, one of a large
+party of Salvationists who were on board, began to cough violently,
+choking for breath. Across the aisle the little Jew of the plush
+skull-cap with ear-laps snored monotonously in alternate keys, one a
+guttural bass, the other a rasping treble. The <i>Mazatlan</i> was rolling
+worse than ever, now up and down, now from side to side, and now with
+long forward lurches that combined the other two motions. During one of
+these latter the little Jew was half awakened. He stopped snoring,
+leaving an abrupt silence in the air. Then Vandover could hear him
+threshing about uneasily; still half asleep he began to mutter and
+swear: &quot;Dat's it, r-roll; I woult if I were you; r-roll, dat's
+righd&mdash;dhere, soh&mdash;ah, geep it oop&mdash;r-roll, you damnt ole tub, yust
+<i>r-r-roll</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The continued pitching, the foul air, and the bitter smoke from the
+saloonkeepers' cigars became more than Vandover could stand. His stomach
+turned, at every instant he gagged and choked. He suddenly made up his
+mind that he could stand it no longer, and determined to go on deck,
+preferring to walk the night out rather than spend it in the cabin. He
+drew on his shoes without lacing them, and dressed himself hurriedly,
+omitting his collar and scarf; he put his hat on his tumbled hair, swung
+into his overcoat, and, wrapping his travelling-rug around him, started
+up toward the deck. On the stairs he was seized with such a nausea that
+he could hardly keep from vomiting where he stood, but he rushed out
+upon the lower deck, gaining the rail with a swimming head.</p>
+
+<p>He sank back upon an iron capstan with a groan, weak and trembling, his
+eyes full of tears, a bursting feeling in his head. He was utterly
+miserable.</p>
+
+<p>It was about half-past two in the morning, and a cold raw wind was
+whistling through the cordage and flinging the steamer's smoke down upon
+the decks and upon the water like a great veil of cr&ecirc;pe. A sickly
+half-light was spread out between the sea and the heavens. By its means
+he could barely <a name="Page_94" id="Page_94" />distinguish great, livid blotches of fog or cloud
+whirling across the black sky, and the unnumbered multitude of
+white-topped waves rushing past, plunging and rising like a vast herd of
+black horses galloping on with shaking white manes. Low in the northeast
+horizon lay a long pale blur of light against which the bow of the
+steamer, inky black, rose and fell and heaved and sank incessantly. To
+the landward side and very near at hand, so near that he could hear the
+surf at their feet, the long procession of hills continually defiled,
+vague and formless masses between the sea and sky. The wind, the noise
+of the waves rushing past, the roll of the breakers and the groaning of
+the cordage all blended together and filled the air with a prolonged
+minor note, lamentable beyond words. The atmosphere was cold and damp,
+the spray flying like icy bullets. The sombre light that hung over the
+sea reflected itself in long blurred streaks upon the wet decks and
+slippery iron rods. Here and there about the rigging a tremulous ball of
+orange haze showed where the ship's lanterns were swung. Directly under
+him in the stern the screw snarled incessantly in a vortex of boiling
+water that forever swirled away and was lost in the darkness. From time
+to time the indicator of the patent log, just beside him, rang its tiny
+bell.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover drew his rug about him and went up to the main deck, dragging
+his shoelaces after him. The wind was stronger here, but he bent his
+head against it and went on toward the smoking-room, for the idea had
+occurred to him that he could shut himself in there and pass the rest of
+the night upon the cushions; anything was better than returning to the
+cabin downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>The deck was jerked away from beneath his feet, and he was hurled
+forward, many times his own length, against a companionway, breaking his
+thumb as he fell. A second shock threw him down again as he rose;
+everything about him shook and danced like glassware upon a jarred
+table. Then the whole ship rose under his feet as no wave had ever
+lifted it, and fell again, not into yielding water, but upon something
+that drove through its sides as if they had been paper. A deafening,
+crashing noise split the mournful howl of the wind, and far underneath
+him Vandover heard a rapid series of <a name="Page_95" id="Page_95" />blows, a dreadful rumbling and
+pounding that thrilled and quivered through all the vessel's framework
+up to her very mast-tips. On all fours upon the deck, holding to a cleat
+with one hand, he braced himself, watching and listening, his senses all
+alive, his muscles tense. In the direction of the engine-room he heard
+the furious ringing of a bell. The screw stopped. The <i>Mazatlan</i>
+wallowed helplessly in the trough of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover's very first impulse was a wild desire of saving himself; he
+had not the least thought for any one else. Every soul on board might
+drown, so only he should be saved. It was the primitive animal instinct,
+the blind adherence to the first great law, an impulse that in this
+first moment of excitement could not be resisted. He ran forward and
+snatched a life-preserver from the pile that was stored beneath the
+bridge.</p>
+
+<p>As he was fastening it about him, the passengers began to pour out upon
+the deck, from their staterooms, from the companionways, and from the
+dining saloon. In an instant the deck was crowded. Men and women ran
+about in all directions, pushing and elbowing each other, calling
+shrilly over one another's heads. Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only
+in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again
+and again for a certain &quot;August.&quot; She wrung her hands in her excitement;
+at times the man shouted &quot;August!&quot; in a quavering bass voice. &quot;August,
+here we are over <i>here</i>!&quot; &quot;Oh, where <i>is</i> Gussie?&quot; wailed the woman.
+&quot;Here, here I am,&quot; another voice answered at length; &quot;here I am, I'm all
+right.&quot; &quot;Oh,&quot; exclaimed the woman with a sob of relief, &quot;here's Gussie;
+now let's all keep together whatever happens.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All about the decks just such scenes were going on; most of the women
+wore only their night-gowns or dressing-gowns, their hair tumbling down
+and blowing about their cheeks, their bare feet slipping and sliding on
+the heaving wet decks. The men were in shirt and drawers, standing in
+the centre of their family groups, silent, excited, very watchful;
+others of them ran about searching for life-preservers, shouting
+hoarsely, talking to themselves, speaking all their thoughts aloud.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no panic; there was excitement, confusion, <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96" />bewilderment,
+but no excess of fear, no unreasoning terror, deaf, blind, utterly
+reckless.</p>
+
+<p>All at once a man parted the crowd with shoulders and elbows, passing
+along the deck with great strides. It was the captain. The next instant
+Vandover saw him on the bridge, hatless, without his vest or his coat,
+just as he had sprung from his berth. From time to time he shouted his
+orders, leaning over the rail, gesturing with his arm. The crew ran
+about, carrying out his directions, jostling the men out of the way,
+knocking over women and children, speaking to no one, intent only upon
+their work.</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments the deck steward and one of the officers appeared amid
+the crowd of passengers. They were very calm, and at every instant
+shouted, &quot;There is no danger; every one go back to his berth; clear the
+deck, please; no danger, gentlemen; everybody be quiet; go back to your
+berths!&quot; The steward even came up to Vandover and pulled at the straps
+of his life-preserver, exclaiming, &quot;Take this off! There is no danger;
+you're only exciting the other passengers. Come on, take it off and go
+back to your berth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover obeyed him, slowly loosening the buckles, looking around him,
+bewildered, but still holding the preserver in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Best of all, however, was the example of a huge old fellow wearing the
+cap and clothes of a boatswain's mate of a United States battleship; he
+seemed to dominate the excited throng in a moment, going about from
+group to group, quieting them all, spreading a feeling of confidence and
+courage throughout the whole ship. He was an inspiration to Vandover,
+who began to be ashamed of having yielded to the first selfish instinct
+of preservation.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the boatswain's mate was offering his flask to the woman whom
+Vandover had heard calling for &quot;August,&quot; the <i>Mazatlan</i> lurched heavily
+once or twice, and then slowly listed to the port side, going over
+farther and farther every instant. Vandover heard a renewed rumbling and
+smashing noise far beneath him, and in some way knew that the cargo was
+shifting. Instead of righting herself, the ship began to heave over more
+and more. The whole sea on the port side seemed to rise up to meet the
+rail; under Vandover's feet the <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97" />incline of the deck grew steeper and
+steeper. All at once his excitement came back upon him with the
+sharpness of a blow, and he caught at the brass grating of a skylight
+exclaiming: &quot;By God! We're going <i>over</i>.&quot; The women screamed with
+terror; one heard the men shouting, &quot;Look out! hold on! catch hold
+there!&quot; An old man, wearing only a gray flannel shirt, lost his footing;
+he fell, and rolled over and over down the deck stupidly, inertly,
+without making the slightest effort to save himself, without uttering
+the least cry; he brought up suddenly against the rail, with a great
+jar, the shock of his soft, withered body against the hard wood sounding
+like the sodden impact of a bundle of damp clothes. There was a cry;
+they thought him killed&mdash;Vandover had seen his head gashed against a
+sharp angle of iron&mdash;but he jumped up with sudden agility, clambering up
+the slope of the deck with the strength and rapidity of an acrobat.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a great rush to the other side of the ship, a wild
+scrambling up the steep deck, over skylights and between masts and
+ventilators. People clung to anything, to cleats, to steamer chairs, to
+the brass railings, to the person who stood next to them. They no longer
+listened to the protestations of the brave boatswain's mate; that last
+long roll had terrified them. The sense of a great catastrophe began to
+spread and widen all about like the rising of some fearful invisible
+mist. &quot;<i>What</i> had happened? What was to become of them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While Vandover clung to the starboard rail, rolling his eyes wildly,
+trying to control himself again, a young man, a waiter in the dining
+saloon, rushed up to him from out of the crowd, holding out his hand.
+&quot;It's all up!&quot; he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover grasped his extended palm, shaking hands with him fervently,
+without knowing why. The two looked straight into each other's eyes,
+their hands gripped close; then the waiter turned away, and dropping on
+his knees began to pray silently to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover saw a great many others praying; there was even a large group
+gathered about the band of Salvationists trying to raise a hymn. Every
+now and then their voices could be heard, singing all out of tune, a
+medley of discords.</p>
+
+<p>At one time Vandover caught sight of the little Jew of the <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98" />plush cap
+with the ear-laps; he was grovelling upon the deck, huddling a small
+black satchel to his breast; without a moment's pause he screamed, &quot;God
+'a' mercy! God 'a' mercy!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sight revolted Vandover and in a great measure helped to calm him.
+In a few moments he had himself in hand again, cool and self-collected,
+resolved not to act like a fool before the others, but to help them if
+he could.</p>
+
+<p>Near to him a Salvation Army lassie was down upon her knees trying to
+cord up a huge bundle wrapped in sail-cloth. &quot;Here,&quot; exclaimed Vandover
+coming up to her, &quot;let me help. I'll tie this for you&mdash;you put <i>this</i>
+on.&quot; He took the wet, stiff ropes from between her fingers and held the
+life-preserver toward her; but she refused it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; she cried enthusiastically, &quot;I'm going to be saved anyhow; I ain't
+going to drown; Jesus is watching over me. Oh!&quot; she suddenly exclaimed
+with a burst of fervor, &quot;Jesus is going to save me. I <i>know</i> I'm going
+to be saved. I feel it, I feel it <i>here</i>,&quot; and she struck her palm on
+the breast of the man's red jersey she was wearing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I wish <i>I</i> could have such a confidence,&quot; answered Vandover,
+sincerely envying the plain little woman under the ugly blue bonnet.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed as if inspired, her face glowing. &quot;Only <i>believe</i>; that's
+all,&quot; she told him. &quot;It isn't too late for you now. Ah,&quot; she went on,
+smiling, &quot;ah, you don't know what it is in a time like this! What a
+comfort! What a support! Oh, <i>look, look</i>!&quot; she cried, breaking off and
+starting to her feet. &quot;That man is going to jump!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was the boatswain's mate, the hero who had filled all the passengers
+with his own coolness and courage, who had been Vandover's inspiration.
+Some strange reaction seemed to have seized upon him. Of a sudden he
+rushed to the rail, the starboard rail that was heaved so high out of
+the water, stood upon it for a moment, and then with a great shout
+jumped over the side. His folly was as infectious as his courage. Four
+more men followed him, three going over all at the same time, and a
+fourth a little later, hanging an instant upon the outside of the rail,
+then dropping down feet first, disappearing with a great splash that
+made itself heard in the great silence that had suddenly fallen upon the
+throng.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99" />Every one had seen what had happened; a thrill of fear and apprehension
+passed over them all like a cold breath. They were silent, struck dumb,
+feeling the presence of death close by.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a long flash of yellow upon the bridge made a momentary streak
+on the darkness, and there was the report of a gun. A minute later it
+was fired again, and alternating with it the <i>Mazatlan's</i> whistle began
+to roar, like a hoarse shout for help. Between these sounds could be
+heard the renewed clamour upon the decks, the shouting, the screaming,
+and the rush of many feet; the little children clung about the knees of
+their mothers, shrieking and wailing monotonously, &quot;Oh, ma<i>ma</i>&mdash;oh,
+ma<i>ma</i>!&quot; rolling their eyes fearfully behind them.</p>
+
+<p>But many of the children, even some of the older passengers, were
+absolutely silent, dazed, stupefied with terror and excitement, their
+eyes vague and distended, looking slowly about them, scarcely daring to
+move a limb.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the <i>Mazatlan</i> was settling forward, and already the spray was
+beginning to fly over the decks. Little by little the terror increased;
+people threw themselves down upon the deck, rising up again, their arms
+raised to heaven, praying aloud, screaming the same things over and over
+again. The Salvationists tried to raise another hymn, but the sound of
+their voices was drowned out by the tumult, the roaring of the whistle,
+the barking of the minute guns, the straining and snapping of the
+cordage, and the sound of waves drawing closer and closer. Prone upon
+the deck, his arms still clasped about his black satchel, the little Jew
+of the plush cap went into some kind of fit, his eyes rolled back, his
+teeth grinding upon each other. Vandover turned from him in disgust.
+Then he looked around and above him, drawing a long breath, saying aloud
+to himself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It looks as though it were the end&mdash;well!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All at once Vandover knew that the water had reached the boilers; there
+came a noise of hissing: deafening, stunning; white billows of steam
+poured up over the deck.</p>
+
+<p>It was no longer the <i>Mazatlan</i>, no longer a thing of wood and iron, but
+some strange huge living creature that was dying there under his feet,
+some enormous brute that was plunging and writhing in its last agony,
+its belly ripped open <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100" />by a hidden enemy that struck from beneath, its
+entrails torn out, its life-breath going from it in great gasps of
+steam. Suddenly its bellow collapsed; the great bulk was sinking lower;
+the enemy was in its very vitals. The great hoarse roar dwindled to a
+long death rattle, then to a guttural rasp; all at once it ceased; the
+brute was dead&mdash;the <i>Mazatlan</i> was a wreck.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the moment, he heard an order shouted twice from the bridge,
+where he could see the shadowy figures of the captain and officers
+moving about through the clouds of steam and smoke and mist. Immediately
+there followed the shrill piping of the boatswain's whistle; one of the
+officers, the first engineer, and some half dozen of the crew came
+dashing through the crowd, and there was a great shout of &quot;The boats!
+The boats!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The crowd broke up, rushing here and there about the ship, reforming
+again in smaller bands by the boats and life-rafts. Vandover followed
+the first engineer, running forward toward one of the boats in the bow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come on!&quot; he shouted to the little Salvationist lassie, pausing a
+moment to help her with her heavy canvas-covered bundle. &quot;Come on!
+they're going to lower the boats.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She started up to follow him and the boom of the foremast, which the
+accident had in some way loosened, swung across the deck at the same
+moment. Vandover was already out of its path but it struck the young
+woman squarely across the back. She dropped in a heap upon the deck,
+then her body slowly straightened out, stiff and rigid, her eyes rapidly
+opened and shut, and a great puff of white froth slowly started from her
+mouth. Vandover ran forward and lifted her up, but her back was broken;
+she was already dead. He rose to his feet exclaiming to himself, &quot;But
+she was so sure&mdash;she <i>knew</i> she was going to be saved,&quot; then suddenly
+fell silent again, gazing wonderingly at the body, disturbed, very
+thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>When Vandover finally reached the lifeboat, he found a great crowd
+gathered there; three people were already in the boat itself. The first
+engineer, who commanded that boat, and three of the crew stood by the
+falls preparing to cast off. Just below on the deck of the <i>Mazatlan</i>
+stood two sailors keeping the crowd in order, continually shouting,
+&quot;Women and <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101" />children first!&quot; As the women passed their children forward,
+the sailors lifted them into the boats, some shrieking, others silent
+and stupid as if stunned. Then the women were helped up; the men,
+Vandover among them, climbing in afterward. The davits were turned out
+and the boat was swung clear of the ship's side.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover looked out and below him and then made an involuntary movement
+to regain the ship's deck. Far below him, or so at least it seemed, were
+mountains of tumbling green water, huge, relentless, irresistible,
+rushing on by thousands, to shatter themselves with dreadful force
+against the ship's side. It seemed simple madness to attempt to launch
+the boat; even the sinking wreck would be safer than this chance.
+Vandover was terrified, again deserted by all his calmness and
+self-restraint.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors standing in the bow and the stern let out the ropes little
+by little, the vast black hulk of the ship began to loom up above them
+all, higher and higher, and to their eyes the lifeboat began to grow
+smaller and smaller, more and more frail, more and more pitiful.</p>
+
+<p>All at once it struck the water with a crash, in an instant it was
+tossed up again in the air, heaving on the crest of a wave, was carried
+in and dashed up against the ship, all the oars on that side snapping in
+an instant. It was a fearful moment; the little boat was unmanageable in
+an instant, leaping and plunging among the waves like a terrified horse,
+banged and battered between the heaving water and the hull of the
+steamer itself. Vandover believed that all was over; he partially rose
+from his seat preparing to jump before the boat should swamp.</p>
+
+<p>There was an interval of shouting and confusion, the first engineer and
+the crew leaning over the sides fending off the boat with the stumps of
+the oars and with long boathooks. Some oars were shipped to the other
+side to take the place of the broken ones, and a score of hands tugging
+at them, the boat was at length pulled away out of danger.</p>
+
+<p>The lifeboat had been built to hold thirty-five people; more than forty
+had crowded into it, and it needed all prudence and care to keep it
+afloat in the heavy seas that were running. The sailors and two of the
+passengers were at the oars, while <a name="Page_102" id="Page_102" />the first engineer took command,
+standing in the stern at the steering-oar. He was dressed in a suit of
+oilskins, a life-preserver strapped under his arms; he wore no hat, and
+at every gust his drenched hair and beard whipped across his face.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the boat was pulling away from the wreck, Vandover and the
+others saw the little Jew of the plush cap with the ear-laps standing
+upon the rail of the steamer, holding to a stanchion. He believed that
+he had been abandoned, and screamed after them, stretching out his
+hands. The engineer turned and saw him, but shook his head. &quot;Give way
+there!&quot; he commanded the men; &quot;there's no more room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Jew flung his satchel from him and jumped; for a moment he
+disappeared, then suddenly came up on the crest of a wave, quite close
+to them, gasping and beating his hands, the water running out of his
+mouth, and his plush cap, glossy with wet, all awry and twisted so that
+one ear-lap hung over his eye like a shade. In another moment he had
+grasped one of the oar-blades. Every one was watching and there was a
+cry, &quot;Draw him in!&quot; But the engineer refused.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's too late!&quot; he shouted, partly to the Jew and partly to the boat.
+&quot;One more and we are swamped. Let go there!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you can't let him drown,&quot; cried Vandover and the others who sat
+near. &quot;Oh, take him in anyhow; we must risk it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Risk hell!&quot; thundered the engineer. &quot;Look here, you!&quot; he cried to
+Vandover and the rest. &quot;I'm in command here and am responsible for the
+lives of all of you. It's a matter of his life or ours; one life or
+forty. One more and we are swamped. Let go there!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, yes,&quot; cried some. &quot;It's too late! there's no more room!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But others still protested. &quot;It's too horrible; don't let him drown;
+take him in.&quot; They threw him their life-preservers and the stumps of the
+broken oars. But the Jew saw nothing, heard nothing, clinging to the
+oar-blade, panting and stupid, his eyes wide and staring.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shake him off!&quot; commanded the engineer. The sailor at the oar jerked
+and twisted it, but the Jew still held on, silent and breathing hard.
+Vandover glanced at the fearfully overloaded boat and saw the necessity
+of it and held his peace, <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103" />watching the thing that was being done. The
+sailor still attempted to tear the oar from the Jew's grip, but the Jew
+held on, panting, almost exhausted; they could hear his breathing in the
+boat. &quot;Oh, don't!&quot; he gasped, rolling his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unship that oar and throw it overboard,&quot; shouted the engineer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Better not, sir,&quot; answered the sailor. &quot;Extra oars all broken.&quot; The Jew
+was hindering the progress of the boat and at every moment it threatened
+to turn broad on to the seas.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God damn you, let go there!&quot; shouted the engineer, himself wrenching
+and twisting at the oar. &quot;Let go or I'll shoot!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the Jew, deaf and stupid, drew himself along the oar, hand over
+hand, and in a moment had caught hold of the gunwale of the boat. It
+careened on the instant. There was a great cry. &quot;Push him off! We're
+swamping! Push him off!&quot; And one of the women cried to the mate, &quot;Don't
+let my little girls drown, sir! Push him away! Save my little girls! Let
+him drown!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was the animal in them all that had come to the surface in an
+instant, the primal instinct of the brute striving for its life and for
+the life of its young.</p>
+
+<p>The engineer, exasperated, caught up the stump of one of the broken oars
+and beat on the Jew's hands where they were gripped whitely upon the
+boat's rim, shouting, &quot;Let go! let go!&quot; But as soon as the Jew relaxed
+one hand he caught again with the other. He uttered no cry, but his face
+as it came and went over the gunwale of the boat was white and writhing.
+When he was at length beaten from the boat he caught again at the oar;
+it was drawn in, and the engineer clubbed his head and arms and hands
+till the water near by grew red. The little Jew clung to the end of the
+oar like a cat, writhing and grunting, his mouth open, and his eyes
+fixed and staring. When his hands were gone, he tried to embrace the oar
+with his arms. He slid off in the hollow of a wave, his body turned over
+twice, and then he sank, his head thrown back, his eyes still open and
+staring, and a silver chain of bubbles escaping from his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give way, men!&quot; said the engineer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, God!&quot; exclaimed Vandover, turning away and vomiting over the side.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104" />A little while later some one on the bow of the boat called to the
+engineer asking why it was they were not heading for the shore. The
+engineer did not answer, but Vandover in some way understood that it was
+too dangerous to attempt to run the breakers in such heavy weather, and
+that they must keep in the open, holding the boat head on to the seas
+until either the wind fell or they were picked up by some other vessel.</p>
+
+<p>It was still very dark, and seen under the night from the little boat,
+the ocean and the sky seemed immense and terrible; the great waves grew
+out of the obscurity ahead of them, rushing down upon the boat, big,
+swelling, silent, their crests occasionally hissing and breaking into
+irruptions of cold white froth. As one of them would draw near, the boat
+would rise upon it as though it would never stop, would hang a moment
+upon its summit and then topple into the black gulf that followed,
+sending the bitter icy spray high into the air. The wind blew steadily.
+Suddenly toward three o'clock it began to rain.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover, the engineer, all the five sailors, and two of the passengers
+were clothed. The rest of the passengers were little better than naked.
+Here and there a man had snatched a blanket from his berth, and one or
+two of them were wearing their trousers, but the rest were clothed for
+the most part only with their shirts and drawers. There were eighteen
+women and five little girls in the boat. The little girls were well
+looked after. Two were wrapped in Vandover's travelling-rug and a couple
+of men had put their coats around the third. But there were not wraps
+enough to go around among the women, by far the larger part of them were
+covered only by their night-dresses or their bed-gowns.</p>
+
+<p>It was abominably cold; the rain fell continually, and the wind blew in
+long gusts, piercing, cutting. Every plunge of the boat threw icy
+bullets of spray into the air, which the wind caught up and flung down
+broad upon the boat. Sometimes even a huge wave would break just upon
+their quarter, and then great torrents of bitter, freezing water would
+fall over them in a deluge, leaving a sediment of salt that cracked the
+skin. The women were huddled upon the bottom of the boat near the waist,
+where they had been placed for greater <a name="Page_105" id="Page_105" />safety. They were fouled with
+the muddy water that gathered there, their long hair dishevelled,
+dripping with sleet, clinging to their wet cheeks and throats, their
+bodies showing pink with cold, through their thin, soaked coverings,
+their limbs racked with long incessant shudderings, a wretched group,
+miserable beyond words. One of them close by Vandover's feet, he noticed
+particularly, had but a single garment to cover her. She was drenched
+through and through, her bare feet were blue with the cold, her head was
+thrown back, her eyes closed. She was silent except when an unusual gust
+of wind whipped the rain and spray across her body like the long, fine
+lash of a whip. Then with every breath she moaned, drawing in her breath
+between her teeth with a little whistling gasp, too weak, too exhausted,
+too nearly unconscious to attempt to shield herself in any way.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover could do nothing; he had almost stripped himself to help clothe
+the others. Nothing more could be done. The suffering had to go on, and
+he began to wonder how human beings could endure such stress and yet
+live.</p>
+
+<p>But Vandover himself suffered too keenly to take much thought for the
+sufferings of the others, while besides that anguish which he shared
+with the whole boat, the pain in his broken thumb gnawed incessantly
+like a rat. From time to time he stared listlessly about him, looking at
+the dark sky, the tumbling ocean, and the crowded groups in the
+plunging, rolling lifeboat.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing picturesque about it all, nothing heroic. It was
+unlike any pictures he had seen of lifeboat rescues, unlike anything he
+had ever imagined. It was all sordid, miserable, and the sight of the
+half-clad women, dirty, sodden, unkempt, stirred him rather to disgust
+than to pity.</p>
+
+<p>At last the dawn came and grew white over a world of tumbling green
+billows and scudding wrack. Some three miles distant, seen only when the
+boat topped a higher wave, the same procession of bleached hills moved
+gradually to the south under the fog, their feet covered by the white
+line of the surf. Not far behind in the wake of the boat the stern of
+the <i>Mazatlan</i> rose out of a ring of white foam, the waves breaking over
+her as if she had been there for ages, the screw <a name="Page_106" id="Page_106" />writhing its flanges
+into the air like some enormous starfish already fastened upon the hulk.</p>
+
+<p>One of the other boats could be seen now and then between them and the
+shore, a momentary dot of black on the vast blur of green and gray.</p>
+
+<p>There was no conversation; the men relieved each other at the oars or
+bailed out the water with their caps and hands, scarcely interchanging a
+word. The only utterance was an occasional moaning from among the women
+and children. There was nothing to eat; long since the two whisky flasks
+had been exhausted. The rain fell steadily into the sea with a prolonged
+rippling noise.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was leaning upon the gunwale of the boat, his head buried in
+his arms, when suddenly he raised himself and asked of the man who sat
+next to him:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What was the matter last night? What caused the accident?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The other shook his head, wearily, turning away again. However, the
+engineer answered:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We couldn't carry coal enough to keep up the right pressure of steam
+and drifted in upon a reef. I said once before that it would happen some
+time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>About an hour later Vandover dropped off to sleep, in spite of the cold,
+the wet, and the torment in his thumb. He dozed and woke, and dozed
+again all through the morning. About noon he was awakened by a more
+violent rolling of the boat, the sound of voices, and a stir among the
+other passengers.</p>
+
+<p>It was still raining; the boat was no longer cutting the waves with her
+nose, but was being rowed seaward flank on; a sailor stood in the bow
+holding a coil of rope. Close in and seen over the tops of the waves
+were the shaking and slatting sails of a pilot-boat, lying to. One of
+the sails bore an enormous number six.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover slept all that day and the night following, rolled in hot
+blankets. The next morning he awoke with a strange sense of unreality
+and of having dropped a day somewhere. As he lay in his stuffy little
+bunk between decks, and felt the rolling of the pilot-boat under him, he
+still fancied himself upon the <i>Mazatlan</i>; he felt the pain in his
+bandaged thumb and wondered how it came there. Then his fall on the deck
+<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107" />came back to him, the wreck of the steamer, the excitement on board,
+the reports of the rifle fired as a minute gun, the clouds of steam that
+smelt of a great laundry, and the drowning of the little Jew of the
+plush cap with the ear-laps. He shuddered and grew sick again for a
+minute, telling himself that he would never forget that scene.</p>
+
+<p>Such of the passengers as could get about breakfasted as best they could
+in the cabin with the boatkeeper and four of the pilots. Here they were
+informed as to what was to be done with them. The schooner would not go
+in for two weeks, and it was out of the question to keep the castaways
+on board for that length of time. However, at that moment the pilots
+were cruising in the neighbourhood on the lookout for two Cape Horners
+that were expected to be up at any moment. It was decided that when the
+first of these should be met with the party should be transferred.</p>
+
+<p>An hour after they had been picked up, the wind had begun to freshen. By
+noon of the second day it had come on to blow half a gale. One could
+hope only for the best as regarded the rest of the <i>Mazatlan's</i> boats
+and rafts. Not another sign of the wreck was seen by the schooner.</p>
+
+<p>The castaways filled the little schooner to overflowing, hindering her
+management, and getting in the way at every step. The pilot crew hustled
+them about without ceremony, and after dinner one had to intervene to
+prevent a fight between one of them and a sailor from the <i>Mazatlan</i>
+over the question of a broken pipe. The women of the <i>Mazatlan</i> kept in
+their berths continually, rolled in hot blankets, dosed with steaming
+whisky punches. In the afternoon, however, Vandover saw two of them in
+the lee of the house attempting to dry their hair; one of them was the
+woman he had particularly noticed in the lifeboat clad in a night-dress,
+and he wondered vaguely where the dress had come from she now was
+wearing.</p>
+
+<p>About three o'clock of the afternoon of the following day Vandover was
+sitting on the deck near the stern, fastening on his shoes with a length
+of tarred rope, the laces which he had left trailing having long before
+broken and pulled out. By that time the wind was blowing squally out of
+the northeast. The schooner was put under try sails, &quot;a three-reefed
+mitten with the thumb brailed up,&quot; as he heard the boatkeeper call it.
+This <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108" />latter was at the wheel for a moment, but in a little while he
+called up a young man dressed in a suit of oilskins and a pea jacket and
+gave him the charge. For a long time Vandover watched the boy turning
+the spokes back and forth, his eyes alternating between the binocle and
+the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening about half-past ten, the lookout in the crow's nest sang
+out: &quot;Smoke&mdash;oh!&quot; sounding upon his fish horn. The boatkeeper ran aft
+and lit a huge calcium flare, holding it so as to illuminate the big
+number on the mainsail. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile off their
+weather-bow, a couple of rockets left a long trail of yellow against the
+night. It was the Cape Horner, and presently Vandover made out her
+lights, two glowing spots moving upon the darkness, like the eyes of
+some nocturnal sea-monster. In a few minutes she showed a blue light on
+the bridge; she wanted a pilot.</p>
+
+<p>The schooner approached and was laid to, and the towering mass of the
+great deep-sea tramp began to be dimly seen through the darkness. There
+was little confusion in making the transfer of the castaways. Most of
+them seemed still benumbed with their recent terrible exposure. They
+docilely allowed themselves to be pushed into the pilot tender and again
+endured the experience of being lowered to the shifting waves below.
+Silently, like frightened sheep, they stood up in turn in the rocking
+tender and allowed the life preserver to be fitted about their shoulders
+to protect them from the bite of the rope's noose beneath their arms.
+There followed a sickening upward whirl between sea and sky, and then
+the comforting grasp of many welcoming hands from the deck above. By
+three o'clock in the morning the transfer had been made.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover boarded the Cape Horner in company with the pilot and the rest
+and reached San Francisco late on the next day, which happened to be a
+Sunday.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Ten" id="Chapter_Ten" /><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109" /><i>Chapter Ten</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>About ten o'clock Vandover went ashore in the ship's yawl and landed in
+the city on a literally perfect day in early November. It seemed many
+years since he had been there. The drizzly morning upon which the <i>Santa
+Rosa</i> had cast off was already too long ago to be remembered. The city
+itself as he walked up Market Street toward Kearney seemed to have taken
+on a strange appearance.</p>
+
+<p>It was Sunday, the downtown streets were deserted except for the
+cable-cars and an occasional newsboy. The stores were closed and in
+their vestibules one saw the peddlers who were never there on week-days,
+venders of canes and peddlers of glue with heavy weights attached to
+mended china plates.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover had had no breakfast and was conscious of feeling desperately
+hungry. He determined to breakfast downtown, as he would arrive home too
+late for one meal and too early for the other.</p>
+
+<p>Almost all of his money had been lost with the <i>Mazatlan</i>; he found he
+had but a dollar left. He would have preferred breakfasting at the
+Grillroom, but concluded he was too shabby in appearance, and he knew he
+would get more for his money at the Imperial.</p>
+
+<p>It was absolutely quiet in the Imperial at the hour when he arrived. The
+single bartender was reading a paper, and in the passage between the
+private rooms a Chinese with a clean napkin wound around his head was
+polishing the brass and woodwork. In the passage he met Toby, the
+red-eyed waiter, just going off night duty, without his usual apron or
+white coat, dressed very carefully, wearing a brown felt hat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, how do you do, Mr. Vandover?&quot; exclaimed Toby. &quot;Haven't seen you
+round here for some time.&quot; Vandover was about to answer when the other
+interrupted:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what's happened to <i>you</i>? Look as though you'd been drawn through
+hell backward and beaten with a cat!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In fact Vandover's appearance was extraordinary. His hat was torn and
+broken, and his clothes, stained with tar and dirt, shrunken and
+wrinkled by sea-water. His shoes were fastened with bits of tarred rope;
+he was wearing a red flannel <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110" />shirt with bone buttons which the
+boatkeeper on the pilot boat had given him, tied at the neck with a
+purple handkerchief of pongee silk; his hair was long, and a week's
+growth of beard was upon his lip and cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's a fact,&quot; he answered grimly. &quot;I do look queer. I was in a wreck
+down the coast,&quot; he added hastily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>Mazatlan!</i>&quot; exclaimed Toby. &quot;That's a fact; the papers have been
+full of it. That's so, you were one of the survivors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The survivors!&quot; echoed Vandover with wondering curiosity. &quot;Tell me&mdash;you
+know I haven't heard a word yet&mdash;were there many lives lost?&quot; He
+marvelled at the strangeness of the situation, that this bar waiter
+should know more of the wreck than he himself who had been upon it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You bet there were!&quot; answered Toby. &quot;Twenty-three altogether; one boat
+capsized; Kelly, 'Bug' Kelly, son of that fellow that runs the Crystal
+Grotto, <i>he</i> was drowned, and one of Hocheimer's&mdash;Hocheimer, the
+jeweller, you know&mdash;one of his travelling salesmen was drowned; a little
+Jew named Brann, a diamond expert; he jumped overboard and&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't!&quot; said Vandover with a sharp gesture. &quot;I saw him drown&mdash;it was
+sickening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were you in that boat?&quot; exclaimed Toby. &quot;Well, wait till I tell you;
+the authorities here are right after that first engineer with a sharp
+stick, and some of the passengers, too, for not taking him in. A woman
+in one of the other boats saw it all and gave the whole thing away. A
+thing like that is regular murder, you know.&quot; Vandover shut his teeth
+against answering, and after a little Toby went on, willing to talk.
+&quot;You know, we've got a new man for the day-work down here now&mdash;George
+isn't here any more. No, he's going to start a roadhouse out on the
+almshouse drive in a few months; swell place, you know. I'll have him
+send you cards for the opening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover ordered oysters, an omelette, and a pint of claret from the new
+waiter who did the day-work, and ate and drank the meal&mdash;the like of
+which he had not tasted since leaving Coronado&mdash;with delicious
+enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>He delayed over it long, taking a great pleasure in satisfying the
+demands of the animal in him. The wine made him heavy, warm, stupid; he
+felt calm, soothed, and perfectly <a name="Page_111" id="Page_111" />contented, and had to struggle
+against a desire to go to sleep where he was. The atmosphere of the
+Imperial was warm and there was a tepid languor in the air as of the
+traces of many past debauches, a stale odour of sweetened whisky and of
+musk. After the roughness and hardships of the last week he felt a
+pleasant sense of quiet, of relaxation, of enervation. He even began to
+wish that Flossie would come in. This, however, made him rouse himself;
+he shook himself, and started home, paying his carfare with his last
+nickel.</p>
+
+<p>He sat on the outside of the car, wondering if any one he knew would see
+him, half hoping that such a thing might happen, realizing the dramatic
+interest that would centre about him now in his present condition as a
+survivor of a wreck. The idea soon attracted him immensely and he began
+to look out for any possible acquaintance as the car began to climb over
+Nob Hill.</p>
+
+<p>At the crossing of Polk Street he saw Ida Wade's mother in deep
+mourning, standing near a grocery store holding a little pink parcel.</p>
+
+<p>It was like a blow between the eyes. Vandover caught his breath and
+started violently, feeling again for an instant the cold grip of the
+hysterical terror that had so nearly overcome him on the morning after
+Ida's death. It slowly relaxed, however, and by the time he had reached
+the house on California Street he was almost himself again.</p>
+
+<p>It was about church time when Vandover arrived at home once more. There
+was a Sunday quiet in the air. The bells were ringing, and here and
+there family groups on their way to church, the children walking in
+front, very sedate in their best clothes, carrying the prayer-books
+carefully, by special privilege.</p>
+
+<p>The butler was working in the garden, as he sometimes did of a Sunday
+morning, pottering about a certain bed of sweet-peas, and it was the
+housekeeper who answered his ring. She recognized him with a prolonged
+exclamation, raising her hands to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O-oh, and is it you, Mr. Vandover, sir? Ah, how we've been upset about
+you and all, and it's glad to see you back again your father will be!
+Oh, such times as we had when we heard about the wreck and knowing you
+were on it! Yes, sir, <a name="Page_112" id="Page_112" />your father's <i>pretty</i> well, though he was main
+poorly yesterday morning. But he's better now. You'll find him in the
+smoking-room now, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover pushed open the door of the smoking-room quietly. His father
+was sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before the fireplace.
+He was dead, and must have died some considerable time before, as he was
+already cold. He could have suffered no pain, hardly a muscle had moved,
+and his attitude was quite natural, the legs crossed, the right hand
+holding the morning's paper. However, as soon as Vandover touched the
+body it collapsed and slid down into a heap in the depth of the chair,
+the jaw dropping open, the head rolling sidewise upon his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover ran out into the hall, waving his arms, shouting for the
+servants. &quot;Oh, why didn't you tell me?&quot; he cried to the housekeeper &quot;Why
+did you let me find him so? When did he die?&quot; The housekeeper was
+distraught. She couldn't believe it. Only a little while ago he had
+called her to say there were no more matches in the little brass
+matchsafe. She began to utter long cries and lamentations like a hen in
+distress, raising her hands to heaven. All at once they heard some one
+rushing up the stairs. It was the butler, in his shirt-sleeves and his
+enormous apron of ticking, still carrying his trowel in his hand. He was
+bewildered, his eyes protruding, while all about him he spread the smell
+of fresh earth. At every instant he exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What? What? What's the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, my dear old governor&mdash;and all alone!&quot; cried Vandover through shut
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, oh, the good God!&quot; exclaimed the housekeeper, crossing herself and
+rolling her eyes. &quot;And him asking for matches in the little brass box
+only a minute since. Oh, the good, kind master!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Vandover rushed down the stairs and through the front hall,
+snatching his hat from the hatrack as he passed. He ran to call the
+family doctor, who lived some two blocks below on the same street. He
+caught him just as he was getting into the carry-all with his family,
+bound for church.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover and the physician rode back together in the carry-all, the two
+gray horses going up the steep hill at a trot. The <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113" />doctor was dressed
+for church; he wore red gloves with thick white seams, a spray of
+lilies-of-the-valley in his lapel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid we can do nothing,&quot; he said warningly. &quot;It's your father's
+old enemy, I suppose. This was&mdash;it was sure to happen sooner or later.
+Any sudden shock, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover scarcely listened, holding the door of the carry-all open with
+one hand, ready to jump out, beating the other hand upon his knee.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go back and take the rest of them to church now,&quot; said the doctor to
+his coachman when the carry-all stopped in front of Vandover's house.</p>
+
+<p>The whole house was in the greatest agitation all the rest of the day.
+The curtains were drawn, the door bell rang incessantly, strange faces
+passed the windows, and the noise of strange footsteps continually
+mounted and descended the staircase. The hours for meals were all
+deranged, the table stood ready all day long, and one ate when there was
+a chance. The telephone was in constant use, and at every moment
+messenger boys came and went, people spoke in low tones, walking on
+tiptoe; the florist's wagon drove to the door again and again, and the
+house began to smell of tuberoses. Reporters came, waiting patiently for
+interviews, sitting on the leather chairs in the dining-room, or writing
+rapidly on a corner of the dining-table, the cloth pushed back. The
+undertaker's assistants went about in their shirt-sleeves, working very
+hard, and toward the middle of the afternoon the undertaker himself tied
+the cr&ecirc;pe to the bell handle.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little a subdued excitement spread throughout the vicinity.
+The neighbours appeared at their windows, looking down into the street,
+watching everything that went on. It was a veritable event, a matter of
+comment and interest for the whole block. Women found excuses to call on
+each other, talking over what had happened, as they sat near their
+parlour windows, shaking their heads at each other, peering out between
+the lace curtains. The people on the cable-cars and the pedestrians
+looked again and again at the cr&ecirc;pe on the bell handle, and the
+curtained windows, craning their necks backward when they had passed.
+The neighbours' children collected in little groups on the sidewalk near
+the house, looking and pointing, drawn close together, talking in low
+tones. At <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114" />last even a policeman appeared, walking deliberately, casting
+the shadow of his huge stomach upon the fence that was about the vacant
+lot. He frowned upon the children, ordering them away. But suddenly he
+discovered an acquaintance, the driver of an express-wagon that had just
+driven up with an enormous anchor of violets. He paused, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, hello, Connors!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, hello, Mister Brodhead!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then a long conversation was begun, the policeman standing on the
+curbstone, one foot resting upon the hub of a wheel, the expressman
+leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, twirling his whip between his
+hands. The expressman told some sort of story, pointing with his elbow
+toward the house, but the other was incredulous, gravely shaking his
+head, putting his chin in the air, and closing his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the house itself there was a hushed and subdued bustling that
+centred about a particular room. The undertaker's assistants and the
+barber called in low voices through the halls for basins of water and
+towels. There was a search for the Old Gentleman's best clothes and his
+clean linen; bureau drawers were opened and shut, closet doors softly
+closed. Relatives and friends called and departed or stayed to help. A
+vague murmur arose, a mingled sound of whispers and light foot-steps,
+the rustle of silks, and the noise of stifled weeping, and then at last
+silence, night, solitude, a single gas-jet burning, and Vandover was
+left alone.</p>
+
+<p>The suddenness of the thing had stunned and dizzied him, and he had gone
+through with all the various affairs of the day wondering at his
+calmness and fortitude. Toward eleven o'clock, however, after the
+suppressed excitement of the last hours, as he was going to bed, the
+sense of his grief and loss came upon him all of a sudden, with their
+real force for the first time, and he threw himself upon the bed face
+downward, weeping and groaning. During the rest of the night pictures of
+his father returned to him as he had seen him upon different occasions,
+particularly three such pictures came and went through his mind.</p>
+
+<p>In one the Old Gentleman stood in that very room, with the decanter in
+his hand, asking him kindly if he felt very bad; in another he was on
+the pier with his handkerchief tied to <a name="Page_115" id="Page_115" />his cane, waving it after
+Vandover as though spelling out a signal to him across the water. But in
+a third, he was in the smoking-room, fallen into the leather chair, his
+arm resting on the table and his head bowed upon it.</p>
+
+<p>After the funeral, which took place from the house, Vandover drove back
+alone in the hired carriage to his home. He would have paid the driver,
+but the other told him that the undertaker looked out for that. Vandover
+watched him a moment as he started his horses downhill, the brake as it
+scraped against the tire making a noise like the yelping of a dog. Then
+he turned and faced the house. It was near four o'clock in the
+afternoon, and everything about the house was very quiet. All the
+curtains were down except in one of the rooms upstairs. The butler had
+already opened these windows and was airing the room. Vandover could
+hear him moving about, sweeping up, rearranging the furniture, making up
+the bed again. In front of him, between the horse-block and the front
+door, one or two smilax leaves were still fallen, and a tuberose,
+already yellow. Behind him in the street he had already noticed the
+marks of the wheels of the hearse where it had backed up to the curb.</p>
+
+<p>The cr&ecirc;pe was still on the bell handle. Vandover did not know whether it
+had been forgotten, or whether it was proper to leave it there longer.
+At any rate he took it off and carried it into the house with him.</p>
+
+<p>His father's hat, a stiff brown derby hat, flat on the top, hung on the
+hatrack. This had always been a sign to Vandover that his father was at
+home. The sight was so familiar, so natural, that the same idea occurred
+to him now involuntarily, and for an instant it was as though he had
+dreamed of his father's death; he even wondered what was this terrible
+grief that had overwhelmed him, and thought that he must go and tell his
+father about it. He took the hat in his hands, turning it about
+tenderly, catching the faint odour of the Old Gentleman's hair oil that
+hung about it. It all brought back his father to him as no picture ever
+could; he could almost <i>see</i> the kind old face underneath the broad curl
+of the brim. His grief came over him again keener than ever and he put
+his arms clumsily about the old hat, weeping and whispering to himself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116" />Oh, my poor, dear old dad&mdash;I'm never going to see you again, never,
+never! Oh, my dear, kind old governor!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He took the hat up to his room with him, putting it carefully away. Then
+he sat down before the window that overlooked the little garden in the
+rear of the house, looking out with eyes that saw nothing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Eleven" id="Chapter_Eleven" /><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117" /><i>Chapter Eleven</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>The following days as they began to pass were miserable. Vandover had
+never known until now how much he loved his father, how large a place he
+had filled in his life. He felt horribly alone now, and a veritable
+feminine weakness overcame him, a crying need to be loved as his father
+had loved him, and also to love some one as he himself had loved his
+father. Worst of all, however, was his loneliness. He could think of no
+one who cared in the least for him; the very thought of Turner Ravis or
+young Haight wrought in him an expression of scorn. He was sure that he
+was nothing to them, though they were the ones whom he considered his
+best friends.</p>
+
+<p>Another cause of misery was the fact that his father's death in leaving
+him alone had also thrown him upon his own resources. Now he would have
+to shoulder responsibilities which hitherto his father had assumed, and
+decide questions which until now his father had answered.</p>
+
+<p>However, he felt that his father's death had sobered him as nothing
+else, not even Ida's suicide, had done. The time was come at length for
+him to take life seriously. He would settle down now to work at his art.
+He would go to Paris as his father had wished, and devote himself
+earnestly to painting. Yes, the time was come for him to steady himself,
+and give over the vicious life into which he had been drifting.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not long before Vandover had become accustomed to his
+father's death, and had again rearranged himself to suit the new
+environment which it had occasioned. He wondered at himself because of
+the quickness with which he had recovered from this grief, just as
+before he had marvelled at the ease with which he had forgotten Ida's
+death. Could it be true, then, that nothing affected him very deeply?
+Was his nature shallow?</p>
+
+<p>However, he was wrong in this respect; his nature was not shallow. It
+had merely become deteriorated.</p>
+
+<p>Two days after his father's death Vandover went into the Old Gentleman's
+room to get a certain high-backed chair which had been moved there from
+his own room during the <a name="Page_118" id="Page_118" />confusion of the funeral, and which, pending
+the arrival of the trestles, had been used to support the coffin.</p>
+
+<p>As he was carrying it back his eye fell upon a little heap of objects
+carefully set down upon the bureau. They were the contents of the Old
+Gentleman's pockets that the undertaker had removed when the body was
+dressed for burial.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover turned them over, sadly interested in them. There was the
+watch, some old business letters and envelopes covered with memoranda,
+his fountain-pen, a couple of cigars, a bank-book, a small amount of
+change, his pen-knife, and one or two tablets of chewing-gum.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover thrust the pen and the knife into his own pocket. The
+bank-book, letters, and change he laid away in his father's desk, but
+the cigars and the tablets of gum, together with the crumpled
+pocket-handkerchief that he found on another part of the dressing-case,
+he put into the Old Gentleman's hat, which he had hidden on the top
+shelf of his clothes closet. The watch he hung upon a little brass
+thermometer that always stood on his centre table. He even wound up the
+watch with the resolve never to let it run down so long as he should
+live.</p>
+
+<p>The keys, however, disturbed him, and he kept changing them from one
+hand to the other, looking at them very thoughtfully. They suggested to
+him the inquiry as to whether or no his father had made a will, and how
+much money he, Vandover, could now command. One of the keys was a long
+brass key. Vandover knew that this unlocked a little iron box that from
+time out of mind had been screwed upon the lower shelf of the clothes
+closet in his father's room. It was in this box that the Old Gentleman
+kept his ready money and a few important papers.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time Vandover stood undecided, changing the keys about from
+one hand to the other, hesitating before opening this iron box; he could
+not tell why. By and by, however, he went softly into his father's room,
+and into the clothes closet near the head of the bed. Holding the key
+toward the lock, he paused listening; it was impossible to rid his mind
+of the idea that he was doing something criminal. He shook himself,
+smiling at the fancy, assuring himself of the honesty of the thing, yet
+opening the box stealthily, <a name="Page_119" id="Page_119" />holding the key firmly in order that it
+might not spring back with a loud click, looking over his shoulder the
+while and breathing short through his nose.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing that he saw inside was a loaded revolver, the sudden
+view of which sent a little qualm through the pit of his stomach. He
+took it out gingerly, holding it at arm's length, throwing open the
+cylinder and spilling out the cartridges on the bed, very careful to let
+none of them fall on the floor lest they should explode.</p>
+
+<p>Next he drew out the familiar little canvas sack. In it were
+twenty-dollar gold-pieces, the coin that used to be &quot;Good for the
+Masses.&quot; Behind that was about thirty dollars in two rolls, and last of
+all in an old, oblong tin cracker-box a great bundle of papers. A list
+of these papers was pasted on one end of the box. They comprised deeds,
+titles, insurance policies, tax receipts, mortgages, and all the papers
+relating to the property. Besides these there was the will.</p>
+
+<p>He took out this box, laying it on the shelf beside him. He was closing
+the small iron safe again very quietly when all at once, before he could
+think of what he was doing, he ran his hand into the mouth of the canvas
+sack, furtively, slyly, snatched one of the heavy round coins, and
+thrust it into his vest pocket, looking all about him, listening
+intently, saying to himself with a nervous laugh, &quot;Well, isn't it mine
+anyway?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In spite of himself he could not help feeling a joy in the possession of
+this money as if of some treasure-trove dug up on an abandoned shore. He
+even began to plan vaguely how he should spend it.</p>
+
+<p>However, he could not bring himself to open any of the papers, but sent
+them instead to a lawyer, whom he knew his father had often consulted. A
+few days later he received a typewritten letter asking him to call at
+his earliest convenience.</p>
+
+<p>It was at his residence and not at his office that Vandover saw the
+lawyer, as the latter was not well at the time and kept to his bed.
+However, he was not so sick but that his doctor allowed him to transact
+at least some of his business. Vandover found him in his room, a huge
+apartment, one side entirely taken up by book-shelves filled with works
+of fiction. The walls were covered with rough stone-blue paper, forming
+<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120" />an admirable background to small plaster casts of Assyrian
+<i>bas-reliefs</i> and large photogravures of Renaissance portraits.
+Underneath an enormous baize-covered table in the centre of the room
+were green cloth bags filled apparently with books, padlocked tin
+chests, and green pasteboard deed-boxes. The lawyer was sitting up in
+bed, wearing his dressing-gown and occasionally drinking hot water from
+a glass. He was a thin, small man, middle-aged, with a very round head
+and a small pointed beard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How do you do, Mr. Vandover?&quot; he said, very pleasantly as Vandover
+passed by the servant holding open the door and came in.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How do you do, Mr. Field?&quot; answered Vandover, shaking his hand. &quot;Well,
+I'm sorry to see you like this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered the lawyer, &quot;I'm&mdash;I have trouble with my digestion
+sometimes, more annoying than dangerous, I suppose. Take a chair, won't
+you? You can find a place for your hat and coat right on the table
+there. Well,&quot; he added, settling back on the pillows and looking at
+Vandover pleasantly, &quot;I think you've grown thinner since the last time I
+saw you, haven't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover grimly, &quot;I guess I have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, yes, I suppose so, of course,&quot; responded the lawyer with a vague
+air of apology and sympathy. &quot;You have had a trying time of it lately,
+taking it by and large. I was <i>very</i> painfully shocked to hear of your
+father's death. I had met him at lunch hardly a week before; he was a
+far heartier man than I was. Eat? You should have seen&mdash;splendid
+appetite. He spoke at length of you, I remember; told me you expected to
+go abroad soon to study painting; in fact, I believe he was to go to
+Paris with you. It was very sad and very sudden. But you know we've all
+been expecting&mdash;been fearing&mdash;that for some time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They both were silent for a moment, the lawyer looking absently at the
+foot-board of the bed, nodding his head slowly from time to time,
+repeating, &quot;Yes, sir&mdash;yes, sir.&quot; Suddenly he exclaimed, &quot;Well&mdash;now,
+let's see.&quot; He cleared his throat, coming back to himself again, and
+continued in a very businesslike and systematic tone:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have looked over your father's papers, Mr. Vandover, as <a name="Page_121" id="Page_121" />you
+requested me to, and I have taken the liberty of sending for you to let
+you know exactly how you stand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the idea, sir,&quot; said Vandover, very attentive, drawing up his
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Field took a great package of oblong papers from the small table
+that stood at the head of his bed, and looked them over, adjusting his
+eyeglasses. &quot;Well, now, suppose we take up the real property first,&quot; he
+continued, drawing out three or four of these papers and unfolding them.
+&quot;All of your father's money was invested in what we call 'improved
+realty.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He talked for something over an hour, occasionally stopping to answer a
+question of Vandover's, or interrupting himself to ask him if he
+understood. At the end it amounted to this:</p>
+
+<p>The bulk of the estate was residence property in distant quarters of the
+city. Some twenty-six houses, very cheaply built, each, on an average,
+renting for twenty-eight dollars. When all of these were rented, the
+gross monthly income was seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars. At this
+time, however, six were vacant, bringing down the gross receipts per
+month to five hundred and sixty dollars. The expenses, which included
+water, commissions for collecting, repairs, taxes, interest on
+insurance, etc., when expressed in the terms of a monthly average,
+amounted to one hundred and eighty-six dollars.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, let's see,&quot; said Vandover, figuring on his cuff, &quot;one
+hundred and eighty-six from five hundred and sixty leaves me a net
+monthly income of three hundred and eighty-four&mdash;no, seventy-four. Three
+hundred and seventy-four dollars.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer shook his head while he drank another glass of hot water:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; he said, wiping his moustache in the hollow of his palm, &quot;you
+see, we haven't figured on the mortgages yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mortgages?&quot; echoed Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Mr. Field, &quot;when I spoke of expenses I was basing them
+upon the monthly statements of Adams &amp; Brunt, your father's agents. But
+they never looked after the mortgages. Your father acted directly with
+the banks in that matter. I find that there are mortgages that cover the
+entire <a name="Page_122" id="Page_122" />property, even the homestead. They are for 6-1/2 and 7 per cent.
+In some cases there are two mortgages on the same piece of property.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; answered the lawyer, &quot;the interest on these foots up to about
+two hundred and ninety dollars a month.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover made another hasty calculation on his cuff, and leaned back in
+his chair staring at the lawyer, saying:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, that leaves eighty-four dollars a month, net.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; assented Field. &quot;I made it that, too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, the governor used to allow <i>me</i> fifty a month,&quot; returned Vandover,
+&quot;just for pocket money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid you mustn't expect anything like that, now, Mr. Vandover,&quot;
+replied Field, smiling. &quot;You see, when your father was alive and
+pursuing his profession, he made a comfortable income besides that which
+he derived from his realty. His law business I consider to have been
+excellent when you take everything into consideration. He often made
+five hundred dollars a month at it. Such are the figures his papers
+show. He could make you a handsome allowance while he was alive, but all
+that is stopped now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, but didn't he&mdash;didn't he leave any money, any&mdash;any&mdash;any lump
+sum?&quot; inquired Vandover incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There was his bank account,&quot; answered the other. &quot;You see, he invested
+most of his savings in this same realty, and since he stopped building
+he seems to have lived right up to his income.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But eighty-four dollars!&quot; repeated Vandover; &quot;why, look at the house on
+California Street where we live. It costs that much to run it, the
+servants and all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here's your father's domestic-account book,&quot; answered Field, taking it
+up and turning the leaves. &quot;One hundred and seventy-five dollars a month
+were the average running expenses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><i>&quot;One hundred and seventy-five!&quot;</i> shouted Vandover, feeling suddenly as
+if the ground were opening under him. &quot;Why, great heavens! Mr. Field,
+where am I going to get&mdash;what am I going to <i>do</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Field smiled a little. &quot;Well,&quot; he said, &quot;you must make up your mind
+to live more modestly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123" />Modestly?&quot; exclaimed Vandover, scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll have to rent the house and take rooms.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover gave a gasp of relief.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hadn't thought of that,&quot; he answered, subsiding at once. &quot;How much
+would it bring&mdash;the house?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer hesitated as to this. &quot;That I could hardly tell you
+definitely,&quot; he answered, shaking his head. &quot;Adams &amp; Brunt could give
+you more exact figures. In fact, I would suggest that you put it into
+their hands. California near Franklin, isn't it? Yes; the neighbourhood
+isn't what it used to be, you know. Every one wants to live out on
+Pacific Heights now. Double house? Yes, well&mdash;with the furniture, I
+suppose&mdash;oh, I don't know&mdash;say, a hundred and fifty. But, you know, my
+estimate is only guesswork. Brunt is the man you want to see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; answered Vandover, solaced, &quot;that makes&mdash;two thirty-four; that's
+more like it. But,&quot; he added, hastily, &quot;you say the homestead is
+mortgaged as well; how about the interest on that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You needn't be bothered about that,&quot; answered Mr. Field. &quot;The interest
+on <i>that</i> mortgage is included in the two hundred and ninety that I
+spoke of, and the insurance interest on the homestead is included in
+Adams &amp; Brunt's statement. That was on the whole estate <i>with</i> the
+homestead, you understand? But there is another thing you must look out
+for. Most of the mortgages are for one year, and every time they are
+renewed there is an expense of between forty and fifty dollars.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I see,&quot; assented Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; resumed the lawyer, &quot;here is your father's bank account. He had
+in the First National to his credit between nine and ten thousand
+dollars; nine thousand seven hundred and ninety, to be exact. His
+professional account book shows that there is now due him in bills and
+notes eight hundred and thirty dollars; on the debit side he owes in all
+nine hundred; the difference, you see, is seventy. Nine thousand seven
+hundred and ninety less seventy leaves a balance of nine thousand seven
+hundred and twenty. All clear?&quot; he asked, interrupting himself. Vandover
+nodded and the other continued:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, your father left a will; here it is. I drew it for him a <a name="Page_124" id="Page_124" />year ago
+last September. He has given fifteen hundred dollars to some cousin in
+the southern part of the state, and six hundred to a few charities here
+in the city. The remainder, seven thousand five hundred and twenty, and
+all the rest of the estate is left to you with the wish that you pursue
+your art studies abroad. Brunt, of Adams &amp; Brunt, and myself are
+appointed executors. So now, that is just how you stand as far as I can
+see: seventy-five hundred dollars in ready money and, if we suppose you
+rent the California Street house, income property that nets you two
+hundred and thirty-four a month. The will will have to be probated some
+time next month and you will have to appear; however, I shall let you
+know about that in time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>During the next two weeks Vandover was plunged into the affairs of
+business for the first time in his life. It interested and amused him,
+and he felt a certain self-importance in handling large sums of money,
+and in figuring interest, rents, and percentages. Three days after his
+interview with Mr. Field the sale of his father's office effects took
+place, and the consequent five hundred dollars Vandover turned over into
+the hands of the lawyer, who was already looking for an investment for
+the eighty-nine hundred. This matter had given Vandover considerable
+anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't want anything fancy,&quot; he said to Field. &quot;No big per cents. and
+bigger risks. If I've got to live economically I want something that's
+secure. A good solid investment, don't you know, with a fair interest;
+that's what I'm looking for.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered the lawyer grimly; &quot;I've been looking for that myself
+ever since I was your age.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They both laughed, and the lawyer added: &quot;Has Brunt found a tenant for
+the California Street house yet? No? Well, perhaps you had better keep
+that five hundred for your running expenses until he does. It will
+probably take some time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;There were a couple of women up to look
+at the place yesterday, but they wanted to use it for a boarding-house.
+I won't hear to that. Brunt says they would ruin it, dead sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose you are looking around, yourself, for rooms?&quot; inquired Mr.
+Field. &quot;Have you found anything to suit you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Vandover, &quot;I have not. I don't like the idea <a name="Page_125" id="Page_125" />of living
+in one of the downtown hotels, and as far as I have looked, the uptown
+flats are rather steep. However, I haven't gone around very much as yet.
+I've been so busy. Oh, how about the paving of the street in front of
+those Bush Street houses of mine? Brunt says that the supervisors have
+passed a resolution of intention to that effect. Now shall I let the
+city contractor have the job or give it to Brunt's man?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Better let the city people do it,&quot; advised Field. &quot;They may charge
+more, but you needn't pay <i>them</i> for a long time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By the end of three weeks Vandover had sickened of the whole thing. The
+novelty was gone, and business affairs no longer amused him. Besides
+this, he was anxious to settle down in some comfortable rooms. It was
+now the middle of winter and he had determined that it was not the
+season for a European trip. He would wait until the summer before going
+to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little Vandover turned over the supervision and management of
+his affairs and his property to Adams &amp; Brunt, declaring that he could
+not afford to be bothered with them any longer. This course was much
+more expensive and by no means so satisfactory from a business point of
+view, but Vandover felt as though the loss in money was more than offset
+by his freedom from annoyance and responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>He was eager to get settled. The idea of taking rooms that should be all
+his own and that he could fit up to suit his taste attracted him
+immensely. Already he saw himself installed in charming bachelor's
+apartments, the walls covered with rough stone-blue paper forming an
+admirable background for small plaster casts of Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i>
+and photogravures of Velasquez portraits. There would be a pipe-rack
+over the mantelpiece, and a window-seat with a corduroy cushion such as
+he had had in his room in Matthew's.</p>
+
+<p>Very slowly his father's affairs were settled, and by degrees the estate
+began to adjust itself to the new grooves in which it was to run. By the
+middle of December everything was beginning to go smoothly, and the day
+before Christmas Mr. Field announced to Vandover that he had invested
+his eighty-nine hundred in registered U.S. 4 per cents. They had had
+several long talks concerning this sum of money, and in the end had
+concluded that it would be better to invest it in some <a name="Page_126" id="Page_126" />such fashion
+rather than to take up any of the mortgages that were on the houses.</p>
+
+<p>During the first weeks of the new year the house on California Street
+was rented for one hundred and twenty-five dollars to an English
+gentleman, the president of a fruit syndicate in the southern part of
+the state. There were but three in the family, and though the rent was
+below that which Vandover had desired, Brunt advised him to close the
+transaction at once, as they were desirable tenants and would probably
+stay in the house a long time.</p>
+
+<p>On the last evening which he was to spend in his home, Vandover cast up
+his accounts and made out a schedule as to his monthly income.</p>
+
+<table border='0'>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Rent from realty, net average</td>                                  <td class='tdrt'>$ 84.00</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Rent from homestead property on California Street</td>               <td class='tdrt'>125.00</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Interest on U.S. bonds, 4 per cent.</td>                              <td class='tdrt'>23.00</td></tr>
+      <tr><td></td> <td class='tdrt'>_______</td></tr>
+            <tr><td class='lti'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Total</td>                                                      <td class='tdrt'>$232.00</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>In small iron safe</td>                                             <td class='tdrt'>$170.00</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Received from sale of office effects</td>                           <td class='tdrt'>$500.00</td></tr>
+      <tr><td></td> <td class='tdrt'>_______</td></tr>
+      <tr><td></td> <td class='tdrt'>$670.00</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Expenses, outstanding bills, lawyer's fees, undertaker's</td></tr>
+          <tr><td class='lti'>&nbsp;&nbsp;bill, expenses for collecting, etc.</td>                            <td class='tdrt'>587.00</td></tr>
+      <tr><td></td> <td class='tdrt'>_______</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Balance, January 16th</td>                                          <td class='tdrt'>$83.00</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<p>Then with a shrug of the shoulders he dismissed the whole burdensome
+business from his mind. Brunt would manage his property, sending him
+regularly the monthly statement in order to keep him informed. The
+English gentleman of the fruit syndicate would add his hundred and
+twenty-five, and the 4 per cents., faithfully brooding over his
+eighty-nine hundred in the dark of the safety deposit drawer, would
+bring forth their little quota of twenty-three with absolute certainty.
+Two thirty-two a month. Yes, he was comfortably fixed and was free now
+to do exactly as he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>His first object now was to settle down for the winter in some pleasant
+rooms. He had decided that he would look for a suite of three&mdash;a
+bedroom, studio, and sitting-room. The bedroom he was not particular
+about, the studio he hoped would have plenty of light from the north,
+but the sitting-room <i>must</i> be sunny and overlook the street, else what
+would be the use of a window-seat? As to the neighbourhood, he <a name="Page_127" id="Page_127" />thought
+he would prefer Sutter Street anywhere between Leavenworth and Powell.</p>
+
+<p>In the downtown part this street was entirely given over to business
+houses; in the far, uptown quarter it was lined with residences; but
+between these two undesirable extremes was an intermediate district
+where the residences had given place to flats, and the business blocks
+to occasional stores. It was a neighbourhood affected by doctors,
+dentists, and reputable music-teachers; drug stores occupied many of the
+corners, here and there a fine residence still withstood the advance of
+business, there were a number of great apartment houses, and even one or
+two club buildings.</p>
+
+<p>It was a gay locality, not too noisy, not too quiet. The street was one
+of the great arteries of travel between the business and the residence
+portions of the city, and its cable-cars were frequented by ladies going
+to their shopping or downtown marketing or to and from the matin&eacute;es.
+Acquaintances of Vandover were almost sure to pass at every hour.</p>
+
+<p>He took rooms temporarily at the Palace and at once set about locating
+on Sutter Street. He had recourse again to Brunt, who furnished him with
+a long list of vacancies in that neighbourhood. Apartment-hunting was an
+agreeable pastime to Vandover, though in the end it began to bore him.
+Altogether, he visited some fifteen or twenty suites, in each case
+trying to fit himself into the rooms, imagining how the window-seat
+would look in such a window, how the pipe-rack would show over such a
+mantel, just where on such walls the Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i> could be
+placed to the best advantage, and if his easel could receive enough
+steady light from such windows. Then he considered the conveniences, the
+baths, the electric light, and the heat.</p>
+
+<p>After a two weeks' search, he had decided upon one of two suites; both
+of these were in the desired neighbourhood but differed widely in other
+respects.</p>
+
+<p>The first was reasonable enough in the matter of rent, and had even been
+occupied by an artist for some three or four years previous. However,
+the room that Vandover proposed to use as a sitting-room was small and
+had no double windows, thus making the window-seat an impossibility.
+There did not seem to be any suitable place for the Assyrian<a name="Page_128" id="Page_128" />
+<i>bas-reliefs</i>, and the mantelpiece was of old-fashioned white marble
+like the mantelpiece in Mrs. Wade's front parlour, a veritable horror.
+It revolted Vandover even to think of putting a pipe-rack over it. These
+defects were offset by the studio, a large and splendid room with
+hardwood floors and an enormous north light, the legendary studio, the
+dream of an artist, precisely such a studio as Vandover had hoped he
+would occupy in the Quarter.</p>
+
+<p>The other suite was in a great apartment house, a hotel in fact, but
+very expensive, with electric bulbs and bells, and with a tiled bathroom
+connecting with the bedroom. The room which he would be obliged to use
+as his studio was small, dark, the light coming from the west. But the
+sitting-room was perfect. It had the sun all day long through a huge bay
+window that seemed to have been made for a window-seat; there were
+admirable, well-lighted spaces on the walls for casts and pictures, and
+the mantelpiece was charming, extremely high, and made of oak; in a
+word, the exact sitting-room that Vandover had in mind. Already he saw
+himself settled there as comfortably and snugly as a kernel in a
+nutshell. It was true that upon investigation he found that the grate
+had been plastered up and the flue arranged for a stove. But for that
+matter there were open-grate stoves to be had that would permit the fire
+to be seen and that would look just as cheerful as a grate. He had even
+seen such a stove in the window of a hardware store downtown, a tiled
+stove with a brass fender and with curious flamboyant ornaments of
+cast-iron&mdash;a jewel of a stove.</p>
+
+<p>For two days Vandover hesitated between these two suites, undecided
+whether he should sacrifice his studio for his sitting-room, or his
+sitting-room for his studio. At length he came to the conclusion that as
+he was now to be an artist a good studio ought to be the first
+consideration, and that since he was to settle down to hard, serious
+work at last he owed it to himself to have a fitting place in which to
+paint; yes, decidedly he would take the suite with the studio. He went
+to the agent, told him of his decision, and put up a deposit to secure
+the rooms.</p>
+
+<p>The same day upon which he took this decided step he had occasion to
+pass by both places in question. As he approached <a name="Page_129" id="Page_129" />the apartment house
+in which the rejected suite was situated it occurred to him to tell the
+clerk in the office that he had decided against the rooms; he could take
+a last look at them at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>He was shown up to the rooms again, and walked about in the
+sitting-room, asking the same questions about the heat, the plumbing,
+and the baths. He even went to the window and looked out into the
+street. It <i>was</i> a first-rate berth just the same, and how jolly it
+would be to lounge in the window-seat of a morning, with a paper, a
+cigarette, and a cup of coffee, watching the people on their way
+downtown; the women going to their shopping and morning's marketing.
+Then all at once he remembered that at most he would only have these
+rooms for five months, and reflected that if his whole life was to be
+devoted to painting he might easily put up with an inconvenient studio
+for a few months. Once at Paris all would be different.</p>
+
+<p>At that the rooms took on a more charming aspect than ever; never had
+they appeared cheerier, sunnier, more comfortable; never had the oak
+mantel and the tiled stove with the flamboyant ornaments been more
+desirable; never had a window-seat seemed more luxurious, never a
+pipe-rack more delectable, while at the same time, the other rooms, the
+rooms of the big studio, presented themselves to his imagination more
+sombre, uncomfortable, and forbidding than ever. It was out of the
+question to think of living there; he was angry with himself for having
+hesitated so long. But suddenly he remembered the deposit he had already
+made; it was ten dollars; for a moment he paused, then dismissed the
+matter with an impatient shrug of the shoulders. &quot;So much the worse,&quot; he
+said. &quot;What's ten dollars?&quot; He made up his mind then and there and went
+downstairs, walking on his heels, to tell the clerk that after all he
+would engage the rooms from that date.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Twelve" id="Chapter_Twelve" /><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130" /><i>Chapter Twelve</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Vandover took formal possession of his rooms on Sutter Street during the
+first few days of February. For a week previous they had been in the
+greatest confusion: the studio filled with a great number of trunks,
+crates, packing cases, and furniture still in its sacking. In the
+bedroom was stored the furniture that had been moved out of the
+sitting-room, while the sitting-room itself was given over to the
+paperhangers and carpenters. Vandover himself appeared from time to
+time, inquiring anxiously as to the arrival of his &quot;stuff,&quot; or sitting
+on a packing-case, his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back, and a
+cigarette between his lips.</p>
+
+<p>He had passed a delightful week selecting the wall paper and the pattern
+for the frieze, buying rugs, screens, Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i>,
+photogravures of Renaissance portraits, and the famous tiled stove with
+its flamboyant ornaments. Just after renting his home he had had a talk
+with the English gentleman of the fruit syndicate and had spoken about
+certain ornaments and bits of furniture, valuable chiefly to himself,
+which he wished to keep. The president of the fruit syndicate had been
+very gracious in the matter, and as soon as Vandover had taken his rooms
+he had removed two great cases of such articles from the California
+Street house and had stored them in the studio.</p>
+
+<p>After the workmen were gone away Vandover began the labour of
+arrangement, aided by one of the paperhangers he had retained for that
+purpose. It was a work of three days, but at last everything was in its
+place, and one evening toward the middle of the month Vandover stood in
+the middle of the sitting-room in his shirt-sleeves, holding the
+tweezers and a length of picture-wire in his hand, and looked around him
+in his new home.</p>
+
+<p>The walls were hung with dull blue paper of a very rough texture set off
+by a narrow picture moulding of ivory white. A dark red carpet covered
+with rugs and skins lay on the floor. Upon the left-hand wall, reaching
+to the floor, hung a huge rug of sombre colours against which were fixed
+a fencing trophy, a pair of antlers, a little water colour sketch of a<a name="Page_131" id="Page_131" />
+Norwegian fjord, and Vandover's banjo; underneath it was a low but very
+broad divan covered with corduroy. To the right and left of this divan
+stood breast-high bookcases with olive green curtains, their tops
+serving as shelves for a multitude of small ornaments, casts of animals
+by Fremiet and Barye, Donatello's lovely <i>femme inconnue</i>, beer steins,
+a little bronze clock, a calendar, and a yellow satin slipper of
+Flossie's in which Vandover kept Turkish cigarettes. The writing-desk
+with the huge blue blotter in a silver frame, the paper-cutter, and the
+enormous brass inkstand filled the corner to the right of the divan,
+while drawn up to it was the huge leather chair, the chair in which the
+Old Gentleman had died. In the drawer of the desk Vandover kept his
+father's revolver; he never thought of loading it; of late he had only
+used it to drive tacks with, when he could not find the hammer. Opposite
+the divan, on the other side of the room, was the famous tiled stove
+with the flamboyant ornaments; back of this the mantel, and over the
+mantel a row of twelve grotesque heads in plaster, with a space between
+each for a pipe. To the left in the angle of the room stood the Japanese
+screen in black and gold, and close to this a tea-table of bamboo and a
+piano-lamp with a great shade of crinkly red paper that Turner Ravis had
+given to Vandover one Christmas. The bay window was filled by the
+window-seat, covered with corduroy like the divan and heaped with
+cushions, one of them of flaming yellow, the one spot of vivid colour
+amidst the dull browns and sombre blues of the room. A great sideboard
+with decanters and glasses and chafing-dishes faced the window from the
+end wall. The entrance to the studio opened to the left of it, which
+entrance Vandover had hung with curtains of dust-brown plush.</p>
+
+<p>The casts of the Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i> were against the wall upon
+either side of the window. There were three of them, two representing
+scenes from the life of the king, the third the wounded lioness which
+Vandover never wearied of admiring.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the wall over the mantel hung two very large photogravures, one of
+Rembrandt's &quot;Night Watch,&quot; the other a portrait of Velasquez
+representing a young man with a hunting spear. Above one of the
+bookcases was an admirable <a name="Page_132" id="Page_132" />reproduction of the &quot;Mona Lisa&quot;; above the
+other, a carbon print of a Vandyke, a Dutch lady in a silk gown and very
+high ruff.</p>
+
+<p>By the side of the &quot;Mona Lisa,&quot; however, was a cheap brass rack stuffed
+with photographs: actresses in tights, French quadrille dancers, high
+kickers, and chorus girls.</p>
+
+<p>In the studio, Vandover had tacked great squares and stripes of
+turkey-red cloth against the walls to serve as a background for his
+sketches. Some dozen or more portfolios and stretchers were leaned
+against the baseboard, and a few ornaments and pieces of furniture, such
+things as Vandover set but little store by, were carelessly arranged
+about the room. The throne and huge easel were disposed so as to receive
+as much light as was possible.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the studio was the bedroom, but here there was only the
+regulation furniture. Some scores of photographs of Vandover's friends
+were tacked upon the walls, or thrust between the wood and glass of the
+mirror.</p>
+
+<p>A new life now began for Vandover, a life of luxury and aimlessness
+which he found charming. He had no duties, no cares, no
+responsibilities. But there could be no doubt that he was in a manner
+changed; the old life of dissipation seemed to have lost its charm. For
+nearly twenty-six years nothing extraordinary had happened to break in
+upon the uneventful and ordinary course of his existence, and then,
+suddenly, three great catastrophes had befallen, like the springing of
+three successive mines beneath his feet: Ida's suicide, the wreck, and
+his father's death, all within a month. The whole fabric of his
+character had been shaken, jostled out of its old shape. His desire of
+vice was numbed, his evil habits all deranged; here, if ever, was the
+chance to begin anew, to commence all over again. It seemed an easy
+matter: he would merely have to remain inactive, impassive, and his
+character would of itself re-form upon the new conditions.</p>
+
+<p>But Vandover made another fatal mistake: the brute in him had only been
+stunned; the snake was only soothed. His better self was as sluggish as
+the brute, and his desire of art as numb as his desire of vice. It was
+not a continued state of inaction and idleness that could help him, but
+rather an active and energetic arousing and spurring up of those better
+<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133" />qualities in him still dormant and inert. The fabric of his nature was
+shaken and broken up, it was true, but if he left it to itself there was
+danger that it would re-form upon the old lines.</p>
+
+<p>And this was precisely what Vandover did. As rapidly as ever his pliable
+character adapted itself to the new environment; he had nothing to do;
+there was lacking both the desire and necessity to keep him at his
+easel; he neglected his painting utterly. He never thought of attending
+the life-class at the art school; long since he had given up his
+downtown studio. He was content to be idle, listless, apathetic, letting
+the days bring whatever they chose, making no effort toward any fixed
+routine, allowing his habits to be formed by the exigencies of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>He rose late and took his breakfast in his room; after breakfast he sat
+in his window-seat, reading his paper, smoking his pipe, drinking his
+coffee, and watching the women on their way downtown to their morning's
+shopping or marketing. Then, as the fancy moved him, he read a novel,
+wrote a few letters, or passed an hour in the studio dabbling with some
+sketches for the &quot;Last Enemy.&quot; Very often he put in the whole morning
+doing pen and inks of pretty, smartly dressed girls, after Gibson's
+manner, which he gave away afterward to his friends. In the afternoon he
+read or picked the banjo or, sitting down to the little piano he had
+rented, played over his three pieces, the two polkas and the air of the
+topical song. At three o'clock, especially of Wednesday and Saturday
+afternoons, he bestirred himself, dressed very carefully, and went
+downtown to promenade Kearney and Market streets, stopping occasionally
+at the Imperial, where he sometimes found Ellis and Geary and where he
+took cocktails in their company.</p>
+
+<p>He rarely went out in the evenings; his father's death had changed all
+that, at least for a while. He had not seen Turner Ravis nor Henrietta
+Vance for nearly two months.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover took his greatest pleasure while in his new quarters, delighted
+to be pottering about his sitting-room by the hour, setting it to
+rights, rearranging the smaller ornaments, adjusting the calendar,
+winding the clock and, above all, tending the famous tiled stove.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134" />In his idleness he grew to have small and petty ways. The entire day
+went in doing little things. He passed one whole afternoon delightfully,
+whittling out a new banjo bridge from the cover of a cigar-box, scraping
+it smooth afterward with a bit of glass. The winding of his clock was
+quite an occurrence in the course of the day, something to be looked
+forward to. The mixing of his tobacco was a positive event and
+undertaken with all gravity, while the task of keeping it moist and ripe
+in the blue china jar, with the sponge attachment, that always stood on
+the bamboo tea-table by the Japanese screen, was a wearing anxiety that
+was yet a pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>It became a fad with him to do without matches, using as a substitute
+&quot;lights,&quot; tapers of twisted paper to be ignited at the famous stove. He
+found amusement for two days in twisting and rolling these &quot;lights,&quot;
+cutting frills in the larger ends with a pair of scissors, and stacking
+them afterward in a Chinese flower jar he had bought for the purpose and
+stood on top of the bookcases. The lights were admirably made and looked
+very pretty. When he had done he counted them. He had made two hundred
+exactly. What a coincidence!</p>
+
+<p>But the stove, the famous tiled stove with flamboyant ornaments, was the
+chiefest joy of Vandover's new life. He was delighted with it; it was so
+artistic, so curious, it kept the fire so well, it looked so cheerful
+and inviting; a stove that was the life and soul of the whole room, a
+stove to draw up to and talk to; no, never was there such a stove! There
+was hardly a minute of the day he was not fussing with it, raking it
+down, turning the damper off and on, opening and shutting the door,
+filling it with coal, putting the blower on and then taking it off
+again, sweeping away the ashes with a little brass-handled broom, or
+studying the pictures upon the tiles: the &quot;Punishment of Caliban and His
+Associates,&quot; &quot;Romeo and Juliet,&quot; the &quot;Fall of Phaeton.&quot; He even
+pretended to the chambermaid that he alone understood how to manage the
+stove, forbidding her to touch it, assuring her that it had to be coaxed
+and humoured. Often late in the evening as he was going to bed he would
+find the fire in it drowsing; then he would hustle it sharply to arouse
+it, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying: &quot;Wake up there,
+you!&quot; And then when the fire was snapping he would sit before it in his
+bath<a name="Page_135" id="Page_135" />robe, absorbing its heat luxuriously and scratching himself, as was
+his custom, for over an hour.</p>
+
+<p>But very often in the evening he would have the boys, Ellis, Geary, and
+young Haight, up to a little improvised supper. They would bring home
+<i>tamales</i> with them, and Vandover would try to make Welsh rabbits, which
+did not always come out well and which they oftentimes drank instead of
+ate. Ellis, always very silent, would mix and drink cocktails
+continually. Vandover would pick his banjo, and together with young
+Haight would listen to Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you bet,&quot; this one would say, &quot;I'm going to make my pile in this
+town. I can do it. Beale sent me to court the other morning to get the
+judge's signature. He had a grouch on, and wanted to put me off. You
+ought to have heard me jolly him. I talked right up to him! Yes, sir;
+you bet! Didn't I have the gall? That's the way you want to do to get
+along&mdash;get right in and not be afraid. I got his signature, you bet. Ah,
+I'm right in it with Beale; he thinks I'm hot stuff.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now that there was nothing to worry him, and little to occupy his mind,
+Vandover gave himself over considerably to those animal pleasures which
+he enjoyed so much. He lay abed late in the morning, dozing between the
+warm sheets; he overfed himself at table, and drank too much wine; he
+ate between meals, having filled his sideboard with canned pat&eacute;s, potted
+birds, and devilled meats; while upon the bamboo table stood a tin box
+of chocolates out of which he ate whole handfuls at a time. He would
+take this box into the bathroom with him and eat while he lay in the hot
+water until he was overcome by the enervating warmth and by the steam
+and would then drop off to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>It was during these days that Vandover took up his banjo-playing
+seriously, if it could be said that he did anything seriously at this
+time. He took occasional lessons of a Mexican in a room above a
+wigmaker's store on Market Street, and learned to play by note. For a
+little time he really applied himself; after he had mastered the
+customary style of play he began to affect the more brilliant and fancy
+performances, playing two banjos at once, or putting nickels under the
+bridge and picking the strings with a calling-card to imitate a
+mandolin. He even made up some comical pieces that had a <a name="Page_136" id="Page_136" />great success
+among the boys. One of these he called the &quot;Pleasing Pan-Hellenic
+Production&quot;; another was the imitation of the &quot;Midway Plaisance Music,&quot;
+and a third had for title &quot;A Sailor Robbing a Ship,&quot; in which he managed
+to imitate the sounds of the lapping of the water, the creaking of the
+oarlocks, the tramp of the sailor's feet upon the deck, the pistol shot
+that destroyed him, and&mdash;by running up the frets on the bass-string&mdash;his
+dying groans, a finale that never failed to produce a tremendous effect.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Thirteen" id="Chapter_Thirteen" /><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137" /><i>Chapter Thirteen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Just before Lent, and about three months after the death of Vandover's
+father, Henrietta Vance gave a reception and dance at her house. The
+affair was one of a series that the girls of the Cotillon had been
+giving to the men of the same club. Vandover had gone to all but the
+last, which had occurred while he was at Coronado. He was sure of
+meeting Geary, young Haight, Turner Ravis, and all the people of his set
+at these functions, and had always managed to have a very jolly time. He
+had been very quiet since his father's death and had hardly gone out at
+all; in fact, since Ida Wade's death and his trip down the coast he had
+seen none of his acquaintances except the boys. But he determined now
+that he would go to this dance and in so doing return once more to the
+world that he knew. By this time he had become pretty well accustomed to
+his father's death and saw no reason why he should not have a good time.</p>
+
+<p>At first he thought he would ask Turner to go with him, but in the end
+made up his mind to go alone, instead; one always had a better time when
+one went alone. Young Haight would have liked to have asked Turner, but
+did not because he supposed, of course, that Vandover would take her. In
+the end Turner had Delphine act as her escort.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover arrived at Henrietta Vance's house at about half-past eight. A
+couple of workmen were stretching the last guy ropes of the awning that
+reached over the sidewalk; every window of the house was lighted. The
+front door was opened for the guest before he could ring, and he passed
+up the stairs, catching a glimpse of the parlours through the porti&egrave;res
+of the doors. As yet they were empty of guests, the floors were covered
+with canvas, and the walls decorated with fern leaves. In a window
+recess one of the caterer's men was setting out two punch bowls and a
+multitude of glass cups; three or four musicians were gathered about the
+piano, tuning up, and one heard the subdued note of a cornet; the air
+was heavy with the smell of pinks and of La France roses.</p>
+
+<p>At the turn of the stairs the Vances' second girl in a white lawn cap
+directed him to the gentlemen's dressing-room, <a name="Page_138" id="Page_138" />which was the room of
+Henrietta Vance's older brother. About a dozen men were here before him,
+some rolling up their overcoats into balls and stowing them with their
+canes in the corners of the room; others laughing and smoking together,
+and still others who were either brushing their hair before the mirrors
+or sitting on the bed in their stocking feet, breathing upon their
+patent leathers, warming them before putting them on. There were one or
+two who knew no one and who stood about unhappily, twisting the tissue
+paper from the buttons of their new gloves, and looking stupidly at the
+pictures on the walls of the room. Occasionally one of the gentlemen
+would step to the door and look out into the hall to see if the ladies
+whom they were escorting were yet come out of their dressing-room, ready
+to go down.</p>
+
+<p>On the centre table stood three boxes of cigars and a great many
+packages of cigarettes, while extra hairbrushes, whiskbrooms, and papers
+of pins had been placed about the bureau.</p>
+
+<p>As Vandover came in, he nodded pleasantly to such of the men as he knew,
+and, after hiding his hat and coat under the bed, shook himself into his
+clothes again and rearranged his dress tie.</p>
+
+<p>The house was filling up rapidly; one heard the deadened roll of wheels
+in the street outside, the banging of carriage doors, and an incessant
+rustle of stiff skirts ascending the stairs. From the ladies'
+dressing-room came an increasing soprano chatter, while downstairs the
+orchestra around the piano in the back parlour began to snarl and whine
+louder and louder. About the halls and stairs one caught brief glimpses
+of white and blue opera cloaks edged with swan's-down alternating with
+the gleam of a starched shirt bosom and the glint of a highly polished
+silk hat. Odours of sachet and violets came and went elusively or
+mingled with those of the roses and pinks. An air of gayety and
+excitement began to spread throughout the house.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, old man!&quot; &quot;Hello, Van!&quot; Charlie Geary, young Haight, and Ellis
+came in together. &quot;Hello, boys!&quot; answered Vandover, hairbrush in hand,
+turning about from the mirror, where he had been trying to make his hair
+lie very flat and smooth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here,&quot; said Geary, showing him a dance-card already <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139" />full, &quot;I've
+got every dance promised. I looked out for that at the last one of these
+affairs; made all my arrangements and engagements then. Ah, you bet, I
+don't get left on any dance. That's the way you want to rustle. Ah,&quot; he
+went on, &quot;had a bully sleep last night. I knew I was going to be out
+late to-night, so I went to bed at nine; didn't wake up till seven. Had
+a fine cutlet for breakfast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was precisely at this moment that Geary got his first advancement in
+life. Mr. Beale, Jr., head clerk in the great firm of Beale &amp; Story,
+came up to him as he was drawing off his overcoat:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How is Fischer?&quot; asked Geary.</p>
+
+<p>Beale, Jr., pulled him over into a corner, talking in a low voice. &quot;He's
+even worse than yesterday,&quot; he answered. &quot;I think we shall have to give
+him a vacation, and that's what I want to speak to you about. If you
+can, Geary, I should like to have you take his place for a while, at
+least until we get through with this contract case. I don't know about
+Fischer. He's sick so often, I'm afraid we may have to let him go
+altogether.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the orchestra downstairs broke out into a clash of harmony and
+then swung off with the beat and cadence of a waltz. The dance was
+beginning; a great bustle and hurrying commenced about the
+dressing-rooms and at the head of the stairs; everybody went down. In
+the front parlour by the mantel Henrietta Vance and Turner stood on
+either side of Mrs. Vance, receiving, shaking hands, and laughing and
+talking with the different guests who came up singly, in couples, or in
+noisy groups.</p>
+
+<p>No one was dancing yet. The orchestra stopped with a flourish of the
+cornet, and at once a great crowding and pushing began amidst a vast hum
+of talk. The cards were being filled up, a swarm of men gathered about
+each of the more popular girls, passing her card from hand to hand while
+she smiled upon them all helplessly and good-naturedly. The dance-cards
+had run short and some of the men were obliged to use their visiting
+cards; with these in one hand and the stump of a pencil in the other,
+they ran about from group to group, pushing, elbowing, and calling over
+one another's heads like brokers in a stock exchange.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140" />Geary, however, walked about calmly, smiling contentedly, very
+good-humoured. From time to time he stopped such a one of the hurrying,
+excited men as he knew and showed him his card made out weeks before,
+saying, &quot;Ah, how's that? <i>I</i> am all fixed; made all my engagements at
+the last one of these affairs, even up to six extras. That's the way you
+want to rustle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight was very popular; everywhere the girls nodded and smiled at
+him, many even saving a place on their cards for him before he had
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis took advantage of the confusion to disappear. He went up into the
+deserted dressing-room, chose a cigar, unbuttoned his vest and sat down
+in one chair, putting his feet upon another. The hum of the dance came
+to him in a prolonged and soothing murmur and he enjoyed it in some
+strange way of his own, listening and smoking, stretched out at ease in
+the deserted dressing-room.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover went up to Turner Ravis smiling and holding out his hand. She
+seemed to be curiously embarrassed when she saw him, and did not smile
+back at him. He asked to see her card, but she drew her hand quickly
+from his, telling him that she was going home early and was not dancing
+at all, that in fact she had to &quot;receive&quot; instead of dance. It was
+evident to Vandover that he had done something to displease her, and he
+quickly concluded that it was because he had not asked her to go with
+him that evening.</p>
+
+<p>He turned from her to Henrietta Vance as though nothing unusual had
+happened, resolving to see her later in the evening and in the meanwhile
+invent some suitable excuse. Henrietta Vance did not even see his hand;
+she was a very jolly girl, ordinarily, and laughed all the time. Now she
+looked him squarely in the face without so much as a smile, at once
+angry and surprised; never had anything seemed so hateful and
+disagreeable. Vandover put his hand back into his pocket, trying to
+carry it all off with a laugh, saying in order to make her laugh with
+him as he used to do, &quot;Hello! how do you do this evening? It's a
+pleasant morning this afternoon.&quot; &quot;How do you do?&quot; she answered
+nervously, refusing to laugh. Then she turned from him abruptly to talk
+to young Haight's little cousin Hetty.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141" />Mrs. Vance was neither embarrassed nor nervous as the girls had been.
+She stared calmly at Vandover and said with a peculiar smile, &quot;I am
+surprised to see you here, Mr. Vandover.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>An hour later the dance was in full swing. Almost every number was a
+waltz or a two-step, the music being the topical songs and popular airs
+of the day set to dance music.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past ten o'clock, between two dances, the cornet sounded a
+trumpet call; the conversation ceased in a moment, and Henrietta Vance's
+brother, standing by the piano, called out, &quot;The next dance will be the
+<i>first extra</i>,&quot; adding immediately, &quot;a <i>waltz</i>.&quot; The dance recommenced;
+in the pauses of the music one heard the rhythmic movement of the feet
+shuffling regularly in one-two-three time.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the couples waltzed fast, whirling about the rooms, bearing
+around corners with a swirl and swing of silk skirts, the girls' faces
+flushed and perspiring, their eyes half-closed, their bare, white
+throats warm, moist, and alternately swelling and contracting with their
+quick breathing. On certain of these girls the dancing produced a
+peculiar effect. The continued motion, the whirl of the lights, the heat
+of the room, the heavy perfume of the flowers, the cadence of the music,
+even the physical fatigue, reacted in some strange way upon their
+oversensitive feminine nerves, the monotony of repeated sensation
+producing some sort of mildly hypnotic effect, a morbid hysterical
+pleasure the more exquisite because mixed with pain. These were the
+girls whom one heard declaring that they could dance all night, the
+girls who could dance until they dropped.</p>
+
+<p>Other of the couples danced with the greatest languor and gravity, their
+arms held out rigid and at right angles with their bodies.</p>
+
+<p>About the doors and hallways stood the unhappy gentlemen who knew no
+one, watching the others dance, feigning to be amused. Some of them,
+however, had ascended to the dressing-room and began to strike up an
+acquaintance with each other and with Ellis, smoking incessantly,
+discussing business, politics, and even religion.</p>
+
+<p>In the ladies' dressing-room two of the maids were holding a long
+conversation in low tones, their heads together; <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142" />evidently it was
+concerning something dreadful. They continually exclaimed &quot;Oh!&quot; and
+&quot;Ah!&quot; suddenly sitting back from each other, shaking their heads, and
+biting their nether lips. On the top floor in the hall the servants in
+their best clothes leaned over the balustrade, nudging each other,
+talking in hoarse whispers or pointing with thick fingers swollen with
+dish-water. All up and down the stairs were the couples who were sitting
+out the dance, some of them even upon the circular sofa in the hall over
+the first landing.</p>
+
+<p>The music stopped, leaving a babel of talk in the air, the couples fell
+apart for an instant, but a great clapping of hands broke out and the
+tired musicians heroically recommenced.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the short <i>encore</i> was done there was a rush for the lemonade
+and punch bowls. The guests thronged around them joking each other.
+&quot;Hello! are you here <i>again</i>?&quot; &quot;Oh, this is dreadful!&quot; &quot;This makes <i>six</i>
+times I've seen you here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A smell of coffee rose into the air from the basement. It was about
+half-past eleven; the next dance was the supper dance and the gentlemen
+hurried about anxiously searching the stairs, the parlours, and the
+conservatory for the girls who had promised them this dance weeks
+before. The musicians were playing a march, and the couples crowded down
+the narrow stairs in single file, the ladies drawing off their gloves.
+The tired musicians stretched themselves, rubbed their eyes, and began
+to talk aloud in the deserted parlours.</p>
+
+<p>Supper was served in the huge billiard-room in the basement and was
+eaten in a storm of gayety. The same parties and &quot;sets&quot; tried to get
+together at the same table; Henrietta Vance's party was particularly
+noisy: at her table there was an incessant clamour of screams and shouts
+of laughter. One ate oysters <i>&agrave; la poulette</i>, terrapin-salads, and
+croquettes; the wines were Sauternes and champagnes. With the nuts and
+dessert the caps came on, and in a few minutes were cracking and
+snapping all over the room.</p>
+
+<p>Six of the unfortunates who knew no one, but who had managed through a
+common affliction to become acquainted with each other, gathered at a
+separate table. Ellis was one of their number; he levied a twenty-five
+assessment, and tipped the waiter a dollar and a half. This one
+accordingly brought <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143" />them extra bottles of champagne in which they found
+consolation for all the <i>ennui</i> of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>After supper the dancing began again. The little stiffness and
+constraint of the earlier part of the evening was gone; by this time
+nearly everybody, except the unfortunates, knew everybody else. The good
+dinner and the champagne had put them all into an excellent humour, and
+they all commenced to be very jolly. They began a Virginia Reel still
+wearing the magician's caps and Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper.</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight was with Turner Ravis as much as possible during the
+evening, very happy and excited. Something had happened; it was
+impossible for him to say precisely what, for on the face of things
+Turner was the same as ever. Nothing in her speech or actions was
+different, but there was in her manner, in the very air that surrounded
+her, something elusive and subtle that set him all in a tremor. There
+was a change in his favour; he felt that she liked to have him with her
+and that she was trying to have him feel as much in some mysterious way
+of her own. He could see, however, that she was hardly conscious of
+doing this and that the change was more apparent to his eyes than it was
+to hers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Must you really go home now?&quot; he said, as Turner began to talk of
+leaving, soon after supper. They had been sitting out the dance under a
+palm at the angle of the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Turner; &quot;Howard has the measles and I promised to be
+home early. Delphine was to come for me and she ought to be here now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Delphine?&quot; exclaimed young Haight. &quot;Didn't you come with Van?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Turner quietly. Only by her manner, and by something in
+the way she said the word, Haight knew at once that she had broken
+definitely with Vandover. The talk he had had with her at her house came
+back to him on the instant. He hesitated a moment and then asked:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is something wrong? Has Van done anything&mdash;never mind, I don't
+mean that; it's no business of mine, I suppose. But I know you care for
+him. I'm sorry if&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But he was not sorry. Try as he would, his heart was leaping in him for
+joy. With Vandover out of the way, he knew that all would be different;
+Turner herself had said so.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144" />Oh, everything is wrong,&quot; said Turner, with tears in her eyes. &quot;I have
+been so disappointed in Van; oh, terribly disappointed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know; yes, I think I know what you mean,&quot; answered young Haight in a
+low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, please don't let's talk about it at all,&quot; cried Turner. But young
+Haight could not stop now.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Van really out of the question, then?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; she exclaimed, not seeing what he was coming to. &quot;Oh, yes;
+how could I&mdash;how <i>could</i> I care for him after&mdash;after what has happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Very much embarrassed, young Haight went on: &quot;I know it's unfair to take
+advantage of you now, but do you remember what you said once? That if
+Vandover were out of the question, that <i>'perhaps'</i> you might&mdash;that it
+would be&mdash;that there might be a chance for me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Turner was silent for a long time, and then she said: &quot;Yes, I remember.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, how about that <i>now</i>?&quot; asked young Haight with a nervous laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; answered Turner, &quot;how do I know&mdash;so soon!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what do you <i>think</i>, Turner?&quot; he persisted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I haven't thought at all,&quot; she returned.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, think now!&quot; he went on. &quot;Tell me&mdash;how about that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About <i>what</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you know what I mean,&quot; young Haight replied, feeling like a little
+boy, &quot;about what you said at your house that Sunday night. Please tell
+me; you don't know how much it means to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, there's Delphine at the door!&quot; suddenly exclaimed Turner. &quot;Now,
+really, I <i>must</i> go down. She doesn't know where to go; she's so
+stupid!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; he answered, &quot;not until you tell me!&quot; He caught her hand, refusing
+to let it go.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, how mean you are to corner me so!&quot; she cried laughing and
+embarrassed. &quot;Must I&mdash;well&mdash;I know I shouldn't. <i>O-oh</i>, I just <i>detest</i>
+you!&quot; Young Haight turned her hand palm upward and kissed the little
+circle of crumpled flesh that showed where her glove buttoned. Then she
+tore her hand away and ran downstairs, while he followed more slowly.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145" />On her way back to the dressing-room she met him again, crossing the
+hall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you want to see me home?&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do I <i>want</i> to?&quot; shouted young Haight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, but I forgot,&quot; she cried. &quot;You can't. I won't let you. You have
+your other dances engaged!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, damn the other dances!&quot; he exclaimed, but instead of being
+offended, Turner only smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Toward one o'clock there was a general movement to go. Henrietta Vance
+and Mrs. Vance were inquired for, and the blue and white opera cloaks
+reappeared, descending the stairs, disturbing the couples who were
+seated there. The banging of carriage doors and the rumble of wheels
+recommenced in the street. The musicians played a little longer. As the
+party thinned out, there was greater dance room and a consequent greater
+pleasure in dancing. These last dances at the end of the evening were
+enjoyed more than all the others. But the party was breaking up fast:
+Turner had already gone home; Mrs. Vance and Henrietta were back at
+their places in front of the mantel, surrounded by a group of gentlemen
+in capecoats and ladies in opera wraps. Every one was crying &quot;Good-bye&quot;
+or &quot;Good night!&quot; and assuring Mrs. Vance and Henrietta of the
+enjoyableness of the occasion. Suddenly the musicians played &quot;Home Sweet
+Home.&quot; Those still dancing uttered an exclamation of regret, but
+continued waltzing to this air the same as ever. Some began to dance
+again in their overcoats and opera wraps. Then at last the tired
+musicians stopped and reached for the cases of their instruments, and
+the remaining guests, seized with a sudden panic lest they should be the
+last to leave, fled to the dressing-rooms. These were in the greatest
+confusion, every one was in a hurry; in the gentlemen's dressing-room
+there was a great putting on of coats and mufflers and a searching for
+misplaced gloves, hats and canes. A base hum of talk rose in the air,
+bits and ends of conversation being tossed back and forth across the
+room. &quot;<i>You</i> haven't seen my hat, have you, Jimmy?&quot; &quot;Did you meet that
+girl I was telling you about?&quot; &quot;Hello, old man! have a good time
+to-night?&quot; &quot;Lost your hat? No, I haven't seen it.&quot; &quot;Yes, about half-past
+ten!&quot; &quot;Well, I told him that myself!&quot; &quot;Ah, you bet it's the man that
+rustles that gets there.&quot; &quot;Come <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146" />round about four, then.&quot; &quot;What's the
+matter with coming home in <i>our</i> carriage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At the doors of the dressing-rooms the ladies joined their escorts, and
+a great crowd formed in the halls, worming down the stairs and out upon
+the front steps. As the first groups reached the open air there was a
+great cry: &quot;Why, it's pouring rain!&quot; This was taken up and repeated and
+carried all the way back into the house. There were exclamations of
+dismay and annoyance: &quot;Why, it's raining right <i>down</i>!&quot; &quot;What <i>shall</i> we
+do!&quot; Tempers were lost, brothers and sisters quarrelling with each other
+over the question of umbrellas. &quot;Ah,&quot; said Geary, delighted, peeling the
+cover from his umbrella in the vestibule, &quot;I <i>thought</i> it was going to
+rain before I left and brought mine along with me. Ah, you bet I always
+look out for rain!&quot; On the horse-block stood the caller, chanting up the
+carriages at the top of his voice. The street was full of coup&eacute;s,
+carriages, and hacks, the raindrops showing in a golden blur as they
+fell across the streaming light of their lamps. The horses were smoking
+and restless, and the drivers in oilskins and rubber blankets were
+wrangling and shouting. At every instant there was a long roll of wheels
+interrupted by the banging of the doors. Near the caller stood a useless
+policeman, his shield pinned on the outside of his wet rubber coat, on
+which the carriage lamps were momentarily reflected in long vertical
+streaks.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time all the guests were gone except the one young lady whose
+maid and carriage had somehow not been sent. Henrietta Vance's brother
+took this one home in a hired hack. Mrs. Vance and Henrietta sat down to
+rest for a moment in the empty parlours. The canvas-covered floors were
+littered with leaves of smilax and La France roses, with bits of ribbon,
+ends of lace, and discarded Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper. The butler
+and the second girl were already turning down the gas in the other
+rooms.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Long before the party broke up Vandover had gone home, stunned and
+dazed, as yet hardly able to realize the meaning of what had happened.
+Some strange and dreadful change had taken place; things were different,
+people were different to him; not every one had been so outspoken as
+Turner,<a name="Page_147" id="Page_147" /> Henrietta Vance and her mother, but even amongst others who had
+talked to him politely and courteously enough, the change was no less
+apparent. It was in the air, a certain vague shrinking and turning of
+the shoulder, a general atmosphere of aversion and repulsion, an unseen
+frown, an unexpressed rebuff, intangible, illusive, but as unmistakable
+as his own existence. The world he had known knew him now no longer. It
+was ostracism at last.</p>
+
+<p>But why? Why? Sitting over his tiled flamboyant stove, brooding into the
+winking coals, Vandover asked himself the question in vain. He knew what
+latitude young men were allowed by society; he was sure nothing short of
+discovered crime could affect them. True enough he had at one time
+allowed himself to drift into considerable dissipation, but he was done
+with that now, he had reformed, he had turned over a new leaf. Even at
+his worst he had only lived the life of the other young men around him,
+the other young men who were received as much as ever, even though
+people, the girls themselves, practically knew of what they did, knew
+that they were often drunk, and that they frequented the society of
+abandoned women. What had he done to merit this casting off? What
+<i>could</i> he have done? He even went so far as to wonder if there was
+anything wrong about his father or his sudden death.</p>
+
+<p>A little after one o'clock he heard Geary's whistle in the street
+outside. &quot;Hello, old man!&quot; he cried as Vandover opened the window. &quot;I
+was just on my way home from the hoe-down; saw a light in your window
+and thought I'd call you up. Say, have you got anything wet up there?
+I'm extra dry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Vandover, &quot;come on up!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you hear what Beale said to me this evening?&quot; said Geary, as he
+mixed himself a cocktail at the sideboard. &quot;Oh, I tell you, I'm getting
+right in, down at that office. Beale wants me to take the place of one
+of the assistants in the firm, a fellow who's got the consumption,
+coughing up his lungs all the time. It's an important place, hundred a
+month; that's right. Yes, sir; you bet, I'm going to get in and rustle
+now and make myself so indispensable in that fellow's place that they
+can't get along without me. I'll crowd him right out; I know it may be
+selfish, but, damn it! that's what you have to <a name="Page_148" id="Page_148" />do to get along. It's
+human nature. I'll tell you right here to-night,&quot; he exclaimed with
+sudden energy, clenching his fist and slowly rapping the knuckles on the
+table to emphasize each word, &quot;that I'll be the head of that firm some
+day, or I'll know the reason why.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Geary finally became silent, the two looked into the fire for some
+time without speaking. At last Geary said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You came home early to-night, didn't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover, stirring uneasily. &quot;Yes, I did.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was another silence. Then Geary said abruptly: &quot;It's too bad. They
+are kind of stinky-pinky to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Vandover with a grin. &quot;<i>I</i> don't know what's the matter.
+Everybody seems nasty!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's that business with Ida Wade, you know,&quot; replied Geary. &quot;It got
+around somehow that she killed herself on your account. Everybody seems
+to be on to it. I heard it&mdash;oh, nearly a month ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh,&quot; said Vandover with a short laugh, &quot;that's it, is it? I was
+wondering.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that's it,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;You see they don't know for sure; no
+one <i>knows</i>, but all at once every one seemed to be talking about it,
+and they suspect an awful lot. I guess they are pretty near right,
+aren't they?&quot; He did not wait for an answer, but laughed clumsily and
+went on: &quot;You see, you always have to be awfully careful in those
+things, or you'll get into a box. Ah, you bet I don't let any girl <i>I</i>
+go with know <i>my</i> last name or <i>my</i> address if I can help it. I'm clever
+enough for that; you have to manage very carefully; ah, you bet! You
+ought to have looked out for that, old man!&quot; He paused a moment and then
+went on: &quot;Oh, I guess it will be all right, all right, in a little
+while. They will forget about it, you know. I wouldn't worry. I guess it
+will be all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover absently, &quot;I guess so&mdash;perhaps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A few days later Vandover was in the reading-room of the Mechanics
+Library, listlessly turning over the pages of a volume of <i>l'Art</i>. It
+was Saturday morning and the place was full of ladies who were downtown
+for their shopping and marketing, and who had come in either to change
+their books or to keep appointments with each other. On a sudden
+Vandover saw Turner just passing into the Biography alcove. He got up
+<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149" />and followed her. She was standing at the end of the dim book-lined
+tunnel, searching the upper shelves, her head and throat bent back, and
+her gloved finger on her lip. The faint odour of the perfume she always
+affected came to him mingled with the fragrance of the jonquils at her
+belt and the smell of leather and of books that exhaled from the shelves
+on either side. He did not offer to take her hand, but came up slowly,
+speaking in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>It was the last time that Vandover ever met Turner Ravis. They talked
+for upward of an hour, leaning against the opposite book-shelves,
+Vandover with his fists in his pockets, his head bent down, and the
+point of his shoe tracing the pattern in the linoleum carpet; Turner,
+her hands clasped in front of her, looking him squarely in the face,
+speaking calmly and frankly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, I hope you see just how it is, Van,&quot; she said at length. &quot;What has
+happened hasn't made me cease to care for you, because if I had really
+cared for you the way I thought I did, the way a girl ought to care for
+the man she wants to marry, I would have stood by you through
+everything, no matter what you did. I don't do so now, because I find I
+don't care for you as much as I thought I did. What has happened has
+only shown me that. I'm sorry, oh, so sorry to be disappointed in you,
+but it's because I only think of you as being once a very good friend of
+mine, not because I love you as you think I did. Once&mdash;a long time
+ago&mdash;when we first knew each other, then, perhaps&mdash;things were different
+then. But somehow we seem to have grown away from that. Since then we
+have both been mistaken; you thought I cared for you in that way, and I
+thought so, too, and I thought you cared for me; but it was only that we
+were keeping up appearances, pretending to ourselves just for the sake
+of old times. We don't love each other now; you know it. But I have
+never intentionally deceived you or tried to lead you on; when I told
+you I cared for you I really thought I did. I meant to be sincere; I
+always thought so until this happened, and then when I saw how easily I
+could let you go, it only proved to me that I did not care for you as I
+thought I did. It was wrong of me, I know, and I should have known my
+own mind before, but I didn't, I didn't. You talk about Dolly<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150" /> Haight;
+but it is not Dolly Haight at all who has changed my affection for you.
+I will be just as frank as I can with you, Van. I may learn really to
+love Dolly Haight; I don't know, I think perhaps I will, but it isn't
+that I care for him <i>just</i> because I don't care for you. Can't you see,
+it's just as if I had never met you. You know it's very hard for me to
+say this to you, Van, and I suppose it's all mixed up, but I can't help
+it. You don't know how sorry I am, because we have been such old
+friends&mdash;because I really did care for you as a friend; it's a proof of
+it, that there is no other man in the world I could talk to like this. I
+think, too, Van, that was the only way you cared for me, just as a good
+friend&mdash;except perhaps at first, when we first knew each other. You know
+yourself that is so. We really haven't loved each other at all for a
+long time, and now we have found it out before it was too late. And even
+if everything were different, Van, don't you know how it is with girls?
+They really love the man who loves them the most. Half the time they're
+just in love with being loved. That's the way most girls love nowadays,
+and you know yourself, Van, that Dolly Haight really loves me more than
+you do.&quot; She gathered up her books and went on after a pause,
+straightening up, ready to go: &quot;If I should let myself think of what you
+have done, I feel&mdash;as if&mdash;as if&mdash;why, dreadful&mdash;I&mdash;that I should hate
+you, loathe you; but I try not to do that. I have been thinking it all
+over since the other night. I shall always try to think of you at your
+best; I have tried to forget everything else, and in forgetting it I
+forgive you. I can honestly say that,&quot; she said, holding out her hand,
+&quot;I forgive you, and you must forgive me because once, by deceiving
+myself, I deceived you, and made you think that I cared for you in that
+way when I didn't.&quot; As their hands fell apart Turner faced him and
+added, with tears in her eyes: &quot;You know this must be good-bye for good.
+You don't know how it hurts me to tell you. I know it looks as if I were
+deserting you when you were alone in the world and had most need of some
+one to influence you for the good. But, Van, won't you be better now?
+Won't you break from it all and be your own self again? I have faith in
+you. I believe it's in you to become a great man and a good man. It
+isn't too late to begin all over again. Just be your better self; live
+up to the best that's in you; if <a name="Page_151" id="Page_151" />not for your own sake, then for the
+sake of that other girl that's coming into your life some time; that
+other girl who is good and sweet and pure, whom you will really, really
+love and who will really, really love you.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>All the rest of that month Vandover was wretched. So great was his shame
+and humiliation over this fresh disaster that he hardly dared to show
+himself out of doors. His grief was genuine and it was profound. Yet he
+took his punishment in the right spirit. He did not blame any one but
+himself; it was only a just retribution for the thing he had done. Only
+what made it hard to bear was the fact that the chastisement had fallen
+upon him long after he had repented of the crime, long after he had
+resolved to lead a new and upright life; but with shut teeth he
+determined still to carry out that resolve; he would devote all his
+future life to living down the past. It might be hard; it might be one
+long struggle through many, many years, but he would do it. Ah, yes, he
+would show them; they had cast him off, but he would go away to Paris
+now as he had always intended. As invariably happened when he was deeply
+moved, he turned to his art, blindly and instinctively. He would go to
+Paris now and study his paintings, five, ten years, and come back at
+last a great artist, when these same people who had cast him off would
+be proud to receive him. Turner was right in saying that he had in him
+the making of a great man. He <i>knew</i> that she was right; knew that if he
+only gave the better part of him, the other Vandover, the chance, that
+he would become a great artist. Well, he would do so, and then when he
+came back again, when all the world was at his feet, and there were long
+articles in the paper announcing his arrival, these people would throng
+around him; he would show them what a great and noble nature he really
+had; he would forgive them; he would ignore what they had done. He even
+dramatized a little scene between himself and Turner, then Mrs. Haight.
+They would both be pretty old then and he would take her children on his
+lap and look at her over their heads&mdash;he could almost see those heads,
+white, silky and very soft&mdash;and he would nod at her thoughtfully, and
+say, &quot;Well, I have taken your advice, do you remember?&quot; and she was to
+answer, &quot;Yes, I <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152" />remember.&quot; There were actually tears in his eyes as he
+saw the scene.</p>
+
+<p>At the very first he thought that he could not live without Turner; that
+he loved her too much to be able to give her up. But in a little while
+he saw that this was not so. She was right, too, in saying that he had
+long since outlived his first sincere affection for her. He had felt for
+a long time that he did not love her well enough to marry her; that he
+did not love her as young Haight did, and he acknowledged to himself
+that this affair at least had ended rightly. The two loved each other,
+he could see that; at last he even told himself that he would be glad to
+see Turner married to Dolly Haight, who was his best friend. But for all
+that, it came very hard at first to give up Turner altogether; never to
+see her or speak to her again.</p>
+
+<p>As the first impressions of the whole affair grew dull and blunt by the
+lapse of time, this humble penitential mood of Vandover's passed away
+and was succeeded by a feeling of gloomy revolt, a sullen rage at the
+world that had cast him off <i>only</i> because he had been found out. He
+thought it a matter of self-respect to resent the insult they had put
+upon him. But little by little he ceased to regret his exile; the new
+life was not so bad as he had at first anticipated, and his relations
+with the men whom he knew best, Ellis, Geary, and young Haight, were in
+nowise changed. He was no longer invited anywhere, and the girls he had
+known never saw him when he passed them on the street. It was
+humiliating enough at first, but he got used to it after a while, and by
+dint of thrusting the disagreeable subject from his thoughts, by
+refusing to let the disgrace sink deep in his mind, by forgetting the
+whole business as much as he could, he arrived after a time to be
+passably contented. His pliable character had again rearranged itself to
+suit the new environment.</p>
+
+<p>Along with this, however, came a sense of freedom. Now he no longer had
+anything to fear from society; it had shot its bolt, it had done its
+worst, there was no longer anything to restrain him, now he could do
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>He was in precisely this state of mind when he received the cards for
+the opening of the roadhouse, the &quot;resort&quot; out on <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153" />the Almshouse drive,
+about which Toby, the waiter at the Imperial, had spoken to him.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover attended it. It was a debauch of forty-eight hours, the longest
+and the worst he had ever indulged in. For a long time the brute had
+been numb and dormant; now at last when he woke he was raging, more
+insatiable, more irresistible than ever.</p>
+
+<p>The affair at the roadhouse was but the beginning. All at once Vandover
+rushed into a career of dissipation, consumed with the desire of vice,
+the perverse, blind, and reckless desire of the male. Drunkenness,
+sensuality, gambling, debauchery, he knew them all. He rubbed elbows
+with street walkers, with bookmakers, with saloonkeepers, with the
+exploiters of lost women. The bartenders of the city called him by his
+first name, the policemen, the night detail, were familiar with his
+face, the drivers of the nighthawks recognized his figure by the street
+lamps, paling in the light of many an early dawn. At one time and
+another he was associated with all the different types of people in the
+low &quot;sporting set,&quot; acquaintances of an evening, whose names grew faint
+to his recollection amidst the jingle of glasses and the popping of
+corks, whose faces faded from his memory in the haze of tobacco smoke
+and the fumes of whisky; young men of the city, rich without apparent
+means of livelihood, women and girls &quot;recently from the East&quot; with rooms
+over the fast restaurants; owners of trotting horses, actresses without
+engagements, billiard-markers, pool-sellers and the sons of the
+proprietors of halfway houses and &quot;resorts.&quot; With all these Vandover
+kept the pace at the Imperial, at the race-track, at the gambling tables
+in the saloons and bars along Kearney and Market streets, and in the
+disreputable houses amid the strong odours of musk and the rustle of
+heavy silk dresses. It lasted for a year; by the end of that time he had
+about forgotten his determination to go to Paris and had grown out of
+touch with his three old friends, Ellis, Geary, and Haight. He seldom
+saw them now; occasionally he met them in one of the little rooms of the
+Imperial over their beer and Welsh rabbits, but now he always went on to
+the larger rooms where one had champagne and terrapin. He felt that he
+no longer was one of them.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154" />That year the opera came to San Francisco, and Vandover hired a
+messenger boy to stand in line all night at the door of the music store
+where the tickets were to be sold. Vandover could still love music. In
+the wreckage of all that was good that had been going on in him his love
+for all art was yet intact. It was the strongest side of his nature and
+it would be the last to go.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Fourteen" id="Chapter_Fourteen" /><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155" /><i>Chapter Fourteen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>The house was crowded to the doors; there was no longer any standing
+room and many were even sitting on the steps of the aisles. In the boxes
+the gentlemen were standing up behind the chairs of large plain ladies
+in showy toilets and diamonds. The atmosphere was heavy with the smell
+of gas, of plush upholstery, of wilting bouquets and of sachet. A fine
+vapour as of the visible exhalation of many breaths pervaded the house,
+blurring the lowered lights and dimming the splendour of the great glass
+chandelier.</p>
+
+<p>It was warm to suffocation, a dry, irritating warmth that perspiration
+did not relieve, while the air itself was stale and close as though
+fouled by being breathed over and over again. In the topmost galleries,
+banked with tiers of watching faces, the heat must have been unbearable.</p>
+
+<p>The only movement perceptible throughout the audience was the little
+swaying of gay-coloured fans like the balancing of butterflies about to
+light. Occasionally there would be a vast rustling like the sound of
+wind in a forest, as the holders of librettos turned the leaves
+simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra thundered; the French horns snarling, the first violins
+wailing in unison, while all the bows went up and down together like
+parts of a well-regulated machine; the kettle-drums rolled sonorously at
+exact intervals, and now and then one heard the tinkling of the harp
+like the pattering of raindrops between peals of thunder. The leader
+swayed from side to side in his place, beating time with his baton, his
+hand, and his head.</p>
+
+<p>On the stage itself the act was drawing to a close. There had just been
+a duel. The baritone lay stretched upon the floor at left centre, his
+sword fallen at some paces from him. On the left of the scene, front,
+stood the tenor who had killed him, singing in his highest register,
+very red in the face, continually striking his hand upon his breast and
+pointing with his sword toward his fallen enemy. Next him on the extreme
+left was his friend the basso, in high leather boots, growling from time
+to time during a sustained chord, &quot;<i>Mon honneur et ma foi.</i>&quot; In the
+centre of the stage, the soprano, the star, the <a name="Page_156" id="Page_156" />prima donna chanted a
+fervid but ineffectual appeal to the tenor who cried, &quot;<i>Jamais,
+jamais!</i>&quot; striking his breast and pointing with his sword. The prima
+donna cried, &quot;<i>Ah, mon Dieu, ayez piti&eacute; de moi.</i>&quot; Her confidante, the
+mezzo-soprano, came to her support, repeating her words with an
+impersonal meaning, &quot;<i>Ayez piti&eacute; d'elle.</i>&quot; &quot;<i>Mon honneur et ma foi</i>,&quot;
+growled the basso. The contralto, dressed as a man, turned toward the
+audience on the extreme right, bringing out her notes with a wrench and
+a twist of her body and neck, and intoning, &quot;<i>Ah, malheureuse! Mon Dieu,
+ayez piti&eacute; d'elle.</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The leader of the chorus, costumed as the captain of the watch, leaned
+over the dead baritone and sang, &quot;<i>Il est mort, il est mort. Mon Dieu,
+ayez piti&eacute; de lui.</i>&quot; The soldiers of the watch were huddled together
+immediately back of him. They wore tin helmets, much too large, and
+green peplums, and repeated his words continually.</p>
+
+<p>The chorus itself was made up of citizens of the town; it was in a
+semicircle at the back of the stage&mdash;the men on one side, the women on
+the other. They made all their gestures together and chanted without
+ceasing: &quot;<i>O horreur, O myst&eacute;re! Il est mort. Mon Dieu, ayez piti&eacute; de
+nous!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>De Grace!</i>&quot; cried the prima donna.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Jamais, jamais!</i>&quot; echoed the tenor, striking his breast and pointing
+with his sword.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>O myst&eacute;re!</i>&quot; chanted the chorus, while the basso struck his hand upon
+his sword hilt, growling &quot;<i>Mon honneur et ma foi.</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra redoubled. The finale began; all the pieces of the
+orchestra, all the voices on the stage, commenced over again very loud.
+They all took a step forward, and the rhythm became more rapid, till it
+reached a climax where the prima donna's voice jumped to a C in alt,
+holding it long enough for the basso to thunder, &quot;<i>Mon honneur et ma
+foi</i>&quot; twice. Then they all struck the attitudes for the closing tableau
+and in one last burst of music sang all together, &quot;<i>Mon Dieu, ayez piti&eacute;
+de moi</i>&quot; and &quot;<i>de lui</i>&quot; and &quot;<i>d'elle</i>&quot; and &quot;<i>de nous</i>.&quot; Then the
+orchestra closed with a long roll of the kettle-drums, and the prima
+donna fainted into the arms of her confidante. The curtain fell.</p>
+
+<p>There was a roar of applause. The gallery whistled and stamped. Every
+one relaxed his or her position, drawing a <a name="Page_157" id="Page_157" />long breath, looking about.
+There was a general stir; the lights in the great glass chandelier
+clicked and blazed up, and a murmur of conversation arose. The
+footlights were lowered and the orchestra left their places and
+disappeared underneath the stage, leaving the audience with the
+conviction that they had gone out after beer. All over the house one
+heard the shrill voices of boys crying out, &quot;Op'ra books&mdash;books for the
+op'ra&mdash;words and music for the op'ra.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the boxes a great coming and going took place and an
+interchange of visits. The gentlemen out in the foyer stood about
+conversing in groups or walked up and down smoking cigarettes, often
+pausing in front of the big floral piece that was to be given to the
+prima donna at the end of the great scene in the fourth act.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little titter of an electric bell. The curtain was about to
+go up, and a great rush for seats began. The orchestra were coming back
+and tuning up. They sent up a prolonged medley of sounds, little minor
+chirps and cries from the violins, liquid runs and mellow gurgles from
+the oboes, flutes, and wood-wind instruments, and an occasional
+deep-toned purring from the bass viols. A bell rang faintly from behind
+the wings, the house lights sank, and the footlights blazed up. The
+leader tapped with his baton; a great silence fell upon the house, while
+here and there one heard an energetic &quot;Ssh! ssh!&quot; The fourth act was
+about to begin.</p>
+
+<p>When the curtain rose on the fourth act one saw the prima donna standing
+in a very dejected pose in the midst of a vast apartment that might have
+been a bedchamber, a council hall, or a hall of audience. She was alone.
+She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms
+were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to
+her girdle. She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and
+the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for
+the famous quartet in the &quot;great scene.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But for all this, the music had little by little taken possession of
+Vandover, and little by little he had forgotten his surroundings, the
+stifling air of the house, the blinding glitter of the stage and the
+discomfort of his limbs cramped into the narrow orchestra chair. All
+music was music to him; he loved <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158" />it with an unreasoned, uncritical
+love, enjoying even the barrel organs and hand pianos of the streets.
+For the present the slow beat and cadence of the melodies of the opera
+had cradled all his senses, carrying him away into a kind of exalted
+dream. The quartet began; for him it was wonderfully sweet, the
+long-sustained chords breathing over the subdued orchestral
+accompaniment, like some sweet south wind passing in long sighs over the
+pulse of a great ocean. It seemed to him infinitely beautiful,
+infinitely sad, subdued minor plaints recurring persistently again and
+again like sighs of parting, but could not be restrained, like voices of
+regret for the things that were never to be again. Or it was a pathos, a
+joy in all things good, a vast tenderness, so sweet, so divinely pure
+that it could not be framed in words, so great and so deep that it found
+its only expression in tears. There came over him a vague sense of those
+things which are too beautiful to be comprehended, of a nobility, a
+self-oblivion, an immortal eternal love and kindness, all goodness, all
+benignity, all pity for sin, all sorrow for grief, all joy for the true,
+the right, and the pure.</p>
+
+<p>To be better, to be true and right and pure, these were the only things
+that were worth while, these were the things that he seemed to feel in
+the music. It was as if for the moment he had become a little child
+again, not ashamed to be innocent, ignorant of vice, still believing in
+all his illusions, still near to the great white gates of life.</p>
+
+<p>The appeal had been made directly to what was best and strongest in
+Vandover, and the answer was quick and over-powering. All the good that
+still survived in him leaped to life again in an instant, clamouring for
+recognition, pleading for existence. The other Vandover, the better
+Vandover, wrestled with the brute in him once more, never before so
+strong, never so persistent. He had not yet destroyed all that was good
+in him; now it had turned in one more revolt, crying out against him,
+protesting for the last time against its own perversion and destruction.
+Vandover felt that he was at the great crisis of his life.</p>
+
+<p>After all was over he walked home through the silent streets, proceeding
+slowly, his hands in his pockets, his head bent down, his mind very
+busy. Once in his rooms he threw <a name="Page_159" id="Page_159" />off his things and, having stirred up
+the drowsing fire in the tiled stove, sat down before it in his
+shirt-sleeves, the bosom of his full dress shirt bulging from his vest
+and faintly creaking as from time to time he drew a long breath. He had
+been lured into a mood where he was himself at his very best, where the
+other Vandover, the better Vandover, drew apart with eyes turned
+askance, looking inward and downward into the depths of his own
+character, shuddering, terrified. Far down there in the darkest, lowest
+places he had seen the brute, squat, deformed, hideous; he had seen it
+crawling to and fro dimly, through a dark shadow he had heard it
+growling, chafing at the least restraint, restless to be free. For now
+at last it was huge, strong, insatiable, swollen and distorted out of
+all size, grown to be a monster, glutted yet still ravenous, some
+fearful bestial satyr, grovelling, perverse, horrible beyond words.</p>
+
+<p>And with the eyes of this better self he saw again, little by little,
+the course of his whole life, and witnessed again the eternal struggle
+between good and evil that had been going on within him since his very
+earliest years. He was sure that at the first the good had been the
+strongest. Little by little the brute had grown, and he,
+pleasure-loving, adapting himself to every change of environment,
+luxurious, self-indulgent, shrinking with the shrinking of a sensuous
+artist-nature from all that was irksome and disagreeable, had shut his
+ears to the voices that shouted warnings of the danger, and had allowed
+the brute to thrive and to grow, its abominable famine gorged from the
+store of that in him which he felt to be the purest, the cleanest, and
+the best, its bulk fattened upon the rot and the decay of all that was
+good, growing larger day by day, noisome, swollen, poddy, a filthy
+inordinate ghoul, gorged and bloated by feeding on the good things that
+were dead.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this he saw how one by one he had wrenched himself free from all
+those influences that had tended to foster and to cultivate all the
+better part of him.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, long ago it seemed now, he had allowed to be destroyed
+that first instinctive purity, that fragile, delicate innocence which
+dies young in almost every human being, and that one sees evaporating
+under the earliest taint of vice with <a name="Page_160" id="Page_160" />a smile partly of contempt,
+partly of pity, partly of genuine regret.</p>
+
+<p>Next it had been his father. The Old Gentleman had exerted a great
+influence over Vandover; he had never forgotten that scene the morning
+after he had told him of his measure of responsibility in Ida Wade's
+suicide, the recovery from the first shock of dazed bewilderment and
+then the forgiveness, the solicitude and the encouragement to begin over
+again, to live it down and to do that which was right and good and true.
+Not only had he stopped his ears to this voice, but also, something told
+him, he had done much to silence it forever. Despite the Old Gentleman's
+apparent fortitude the blow must have carried home. What must he not
+have suffered during those long weeks while Vandover was away, what
+lonely broodings in the empty house; and then the news of the wreck, the
+days of suspense!</p>
+
+<p>It all must have told; the Old Gentleman was not strong; Vandover could
+not but feel that he had hastened his death, and that in so doing he had
+destroyed another influence which would have cultivated and fostered his
+better self, would have made it strong against the attacks of the brute.</p>
+
+<p>The other person who had helped to bring out all that was best in
+Vandover had been Turner Ravis. There was no denying that when he had
+first known her he had loved her sincerely. Things were vastly different
+with him when Turner had been his companion; things that were unworthy,
+that were low, that were impure and vicious, did not seem worth while
+then; not only did they have no attraction for him, but he even shunned
+and avoided them. He knew he was a better man for loving her; invariably
+she made him wish to be better. But little by little as he frequented
+the society of such girls as Ida Wade, Grace Irving, and Flossie, his
+affection for Turner faded. As the habits of passionate and unhealthy
+excitement grew upon him he lost first the taste and then the very
+capacity for a calm, pure feeling. His affection for her he frittered
+away with fast girls and abandoned women, strangled it in the foul
+musk-laden air of disreputable houses, dragged and defiled it in the
+wine-lees of the Imperial. In the end he had quite destroyed it,
+wilfully, wantonly killed it. As Turner herself had said, she could only
+be in love with being <a name="Page_161" id="Page_161" />loved; her affection for him had dwindled as
+well; at last they had come to be indifferent to each other, she no
+longer inspired him to be better, and thus he had shaken off this good
+influence as well.</p>
+
+<p>Public opinion had been a great check upon him, the fear of scandal, the
+desire to stand well with the world he knew. Trivial though he felt it
+to be, the dread of what people would say had to a great extent held
+Vandover back. He had a position to maintain, a reputation to keep up in
+the parlours and at the dinner tables where he was received. It could
+not be denied that society had influenced Vandover for good. But this,
+too, like all the others, he had cast from him. Now he was ostracized,
+society cared no longer what he did, his position was gone, his
+reputation was destroyed. There was no one now to stand in his way.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover could not fall back on any religious influence. Religion had
+never affected him very deeply. It was true that he had been baptized,
+confirmed, and had gone to church with considerable regularity. If he
+had been asked if he was a Christian and believed in God he would have
+answered &quot;Certainly, certainly.&quot; Until the time of his father's death he
+had even said his prayers every night, the last thing before turning out
+the gas, sitting upon the edge of his bed in his night-gown, his head in
+both his hands. He added to the Lord's Prayer certain other petitions as
+to those who were in trouble, sorrow, poverty, or any other privations;
+he asked for blessings upon his father and upon himself, praying for the
+former's health and prosperity, and for himself, that he might become a
+great artist, that the &quot;Last Enemy&quot; might be admitted to the Salon when
+he had painted it, and that it might make him famous. But, as a rule,
+Vandover thought very little about religious matters and when he did,
+told himself that he was too intelligent to believe in a literal heaven,
+a literal hell, and a personal God personally interfering in human
+affairs like any Jove or Odin. But the moment he rejected a concrete
+religion Vandover was almost helpless. He was not mystic enough to find
+any meaning in signs or symbols, nor philosophic enough to grasp vague
+and immense abstractions. Infinities, Presences, Forces, could not help
+him withstand temptation, could not strengthen him against the brute. He
+<a name="Page_162" id="Page_162" />felt that somewhere, some time, there was punishment for evildoing,
+but, as happened in the case of Ida Wade's death, to dwell on such
+thoughts disturbed and terrified him. He did not dare to look long in
+that direction. Conscience, remorse, repentance, all these had been keen
+enough at first, but he had so persistently kicked against the pricks
+that little by little he had ceased to feel them at all.</p>
+
+<p>Then an immense and overwhelming terror seized upon him. Was there
+nothing, then&mdash;nothing left which he could lay hold of to save him? He
+knew that he could not deliver himself by his own exertions. Religion
+could not help him, he had killed his father, estranged the girl he
+might have loved, outraged the world, and at a single breath blighted
+the fine innate purity of his early years. It was as if he had entered
+into his life in the world as into some vast labyrinth, wandering on
+aimlessly, flinging from him one by one the threads, the clues, that
+might have led him again to a safe exit, going down deeper and deeper
+until, when near the centre, he had suddenly felt the presence of the
+brute, had heard its loathsome muttering growl, had at last seen it far
+down at the end of a passage, dimly and in a dark shadow; terrified, he
+had started back, looking wildly about for any avenue of escape,
+searching with frantic haste and eagerness for any one of those clues he
+had so carelessly cast from him, realizing that without such guidance he
+would inevitably tend down again to that fatal central place where the
+brute had its lair.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing, nothing. He clearly saw the fate toward which he was
+hurrying; it was not too late to save himself if he only could find
+help, but he could find <i>no</i> help. His terror increased almost to
+hysteria. It was one of those dreadful moments that men sometimes
+undergo that must be met alone, and that when past, remain in the memory
+for all time; a glimpse far down into the springs and wheels of life; a
+glimpse that does not come often lest the reason brought to the edge of
+the fearful gulf should grow dizzy at the sight, and reeling, topple
+headlong.</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly Vandover rose to his feet, the tears came to his eyes, and
+with a long breath he exclaimed: &quot;Thank God for it!&quot; He grew calmer in a
+moment, the crisis had passed, he had found a clue beneath his groping
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163" />He had remembered his art, turning to it instinctively as he always did
+when greatly moved. This was the one good thing that yet survived. It
+was the strongest side of him; it would be the last to go; he felt it
+there yet. It was the one thing that could save him.</p>
+
+<p>The thought had come to him so suddenly and with such marvellous
+clearness that in his present exalted state of mind it filled him with a
+vague sense of awe, it seemed like a manifestation, a writing on the
+wall. Might it not be some sort of miracle? He had heard of men
+reforming their lives, transformed almost in an instant, and had scoffed
+at the idea. But might it not be true, after all? What was this
+wonderful thing that had happened to him? Was this less strange than a
+miracle? Less divine?</p>
+
+<p>The following day Vandover rented a studio. It was the lofty room with
+hardwood floors and the immense north light in that suite which he had
+rejected when looking for rooms on the former occasion. He gave notice
+to the clerk in the apartment house where his quarters were situated
+that he intended to vacate after the first of the month. Charming as he
+had found these rooms, he gave up, with scarcely a regret, the idea of
+living in them any longer. In a month it would be summer and he would be
+on his way to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>But so great was his desire for work now, so eager was he to start the
+&quot;Last Enemy,&quot; so strong was the new energy that shook him, that Vandover
+could not wait until summer to begin work again. He grudged everything
+now that kept him away from his easel.</p>
+
+<p>He disappeared from the sight of his ordinary companions; he did not
+even seek the society of Geary or of young Haight. All the sketches he
+had made for the &quot;Last Enemy,&quot; together with his easel and his disused
+palette, his colour-box, tubes, brushes and all the other materials and
+tools for his work, he caused to be transferred to the new studio.
+Besides this he had the stretcher made, best twill canvas on a frame
+four feet long, two and a half feet high. This was for the large sketch
+of the picture. But the finished work he calculated would demand an
+eight by five stretcher.</p>
+
+<p>He did not think of decorating the room, of putting any ornaments about
+the wall. He was too serious, too much in <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164" />earnest now to think of that.
+The studio was not to be his lounging place, but his workshop. His art
+was work with him now, hard, serious work. It was above all <i>work</i> that
+he needed to set him right again, regular work, steady, earnest work,
+not the dilettante fancy of an amateur content with making pretty
+things.</p>
+
+<p>Never in his life had Vandover been so happy. He came and went
+continually between his rooms, his studio, and his art dealers, tramping
+grandly about the city, whistling to himself, strong, elated, filled
+with energy, vigour, ambition. At times his mind was full of
+thankfulness at this deliverance at the eleventh hour; at times it was
+busy with the details of the picture, its composition, its colour
+scheme. The main effects he wanted to produce were isolation and intense
+heat, the shadows on the sand would be blue, the horizon line high on
+the canvas, the sky would be light in tone, almost white near the earth.</p>
+
+<p>The morning when he first began to work was charming. His new studio was
+in the top floor of a five-story building, and on arriving there,
+breathless from his long climb up the stairs, Vandover threw open the
+window and gazed out and down upon the city spread out below him,
+enjoying the view a moment before settling to his work.</p>
+
+<p>A little later the trades would be blowing strong and brisk from the
+ocean, driving steadily through the Golden Gate, filling the city with a
+taint of salt; but at present the air was calm, touched with a certain
+nimbleness, a sparkling effervescence, invigourating, exhilarating.</p>
+
+<p>It was early in the forenoon, not yet past nine o'clock, and the mist
+that gathers over the city just before dawn was steaming off under the
+sun, very thin and delicate, turning all distant objects a flat tone of
+pale blue. Over the roofs of the houses he could catch a glimpse of the
+distant mountains, faint purple masses against the pale edge of the sky,
+rimming the horizon round with a fillet of delicate colour. But any
+larger view was barred by a huge frame house with a slated mansard roof,
+directly opposite him across the street, a residence house, one of the
+few in the neighbourhood. It had been newly painted white and showed
+brave and gay against the dark blue of the sky and the ruddy greens of
+the great <a name="Page_165" id="Page_165" />garden in which it stood. Vandover from his window could from
+time to time catch the smell of eucalyptus trees coming to him in long
+aromatic breaths mingled with the odour of wet grass and fresh paint.
+Somewhere he heard a hummingbird singing, a tiny tweedling thread of
+song, while farther off two roosters were crowing back and forth at each
+other with strained and raucous trumpet calls.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover turned back to his work. Under the huge north light was the
+easel, and clamped upon it the stretcher, blank, and untouched. The very
+sight of the heavy cream-white twill was an inspiration. Already
+Vandover saw a great picture upon it; a great wave of emotion suddenly
+welled up within him and he cried with enthusiasm:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By God! it is in moods like this that <i>chef d'oeuvres</i> are made.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Around the baseboard of the room were a row of <i>esquisses</i> for the
+picture, on small landscape-stretchers, mere blotches of colour laid on
+with the palette knife and large brushes, almost unintelligible to any
+one but Vandover. He selected two or three of these and fastened them to
+the easel above the big stretcher where he could have them continually
+in his eye. He lit his pipe, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and standing
+before the easel, began to sharpen a stick of charcoal with an old
+razor, drawing the blade toward him so as to keep the point of the stick
+from breaking. Then at last with a deep breath of satisfaction he began
+blocking in the first large construction lines of his picture.</p>
+
+<p>It was one o'clock before he knew it. He went downtown and had a hasty
+lunch, jealous of every moment that was not spent on his picture. The
+sight of it as he re-entered the room sent a thrill all over him; he was
+succeeding better than he could have expected, doing better than he
+thought he would. He felt sure that now he should do good work; every
+stage of the picture's progress was an inspiration for the next one. At
+this time the figures had only been &quot;placed,&quot; broadly sketched in large
+lines, &quot;blocked in&quot; as he called it. The next step was the second
+drawing, much more finished.</p>
+
+<p>He rapped the stretcher sharply with his knuckles; it responded
+sonorously like a drumhead, the vibration shaking the charcoal from the
+tracings, filling the air with a fine dust.<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166" /> The outlines grew faint,
+just perceptible enough to guide him in the second more detailed
+drawing.</p>
+
+<p>He brought his stick of charcoal to a very fine edge and set to work
+carefully. In a moment he stopped and, with his chamois cloth, dusted
+out what he had drawn. He had made a false start, he began but could not
+recall how the lines should run, his fingers were willing enough; in his
+imagination he saw just how the outlines should be, but somehow he could
+not make his hand interpret what was in his head. Some third medium
+through which the one used to act upon the other was sluggish, dull;
+worse than that, it seemed to be absent. <i>&quot;Well,&quot;</i> he muttered, &quot;can't I
+make this come out right?&quot; Then he tried more carefully. His imagination
+saw the picture clearer, his hand moved with more assurance, but the two
+seemed to act independently of each other. The forms he made on the
+canvas were no adequate reflection of those in his brain; some third
+delicate and subtle faculty that coordinated the other two and that
+called forth a sure and instant response to the dictates of his mind,
+was lacking. The lines on his canvas were those of a child just learning
+to draw; one saw for what they were intended, but they were crude, they
+had no life, no meaning. The very thing that would have made them
+intelligible, interpretive, that would have made them art, was absent. A
+third, a fourth, and a fifth time Vandover made the attempt. It was
+useless. He knew that it was not because his hand lacked cunning on
+account of long disuse; such a thing, in spite of popular belief, never
+happened to artists&mdash;a good artist might abandon his work for five
+years, ten years&mdash;and take it up again precisely where he had laid it
+down with no loss of technical skill. No, this thing seemed more subtle,
+so subtle that at first he could hardly grasp it. But suddenly a great
+fear came upon him, a momentary return of that wild hysterical terror
+from which he believed he had forever escaped.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it gone?&quot; he cried out. &quot;Is it gone from me? My art? Steady,&quot; he
+went on, passing his hand over his face with a reassuring smile;
+&quot;steady, old man, this won't do, again&mdash;and so soon! It won't do for you
+to get scared twice like that. This is just nervousness, you are
+overexcited. Pshaw! What's the matter with me? Let's get to work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167" />Still another time he dusted out what he had done and recommenced,
+concentrating all his attention with a tremendous effort of the will.
+Grotesque and meaningless shapes, the mocking caricatures of those he
+saw in his fancy, grew under his charcoal, while slowly, slowly, a
+queer, numb feeling came in his head, like a rising fog, and the touch
+of that unreasoning terror returned, this time stronger, more
+persistent, more tenacious than before.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover nerved himself against it, not daring to give in, fearing to
+allow himself to see what this really meant. He passed one hand over his
+cheek and along the side of his head, the fingers dancing. &quot;Hum!&quot; he
+muttered, looking vaguely about him, &quot;this is bad. I mustn't let this
+get the better of me now. I'll knock off for to-day, take a little rest,
+begin again to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In ten minutes he was back at his easel again. His charcoal wandered,
+tracing empty lines on his canvas, the strange numbness grew again in
+his head. All the objects in the range of his eyes seemed to move back
+and stand on the same plane. He became a little dizzy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's the <i>tobacco</i>,&quot; he exclaimed. &quot;That pipe always was too strong.&quot;
+He turned away to the open window, feeling an irresistible need of
+distraction, of amusement, and he remained there resting on his elbows,
+listening and looking, trying to be interested.</p>
+
+<p>It was toward the middle of the afternoon. The morning mist was long
+since evaporated and the first faint puffs of the inevitable trade wind
+were just stirring the leaves of the eucalyptus across the street. In
+the music-room of the white house the young lady of the family had
+opened the piano and was practising finger-exercises. The scales and
+arpeggios following one another without interruption, came to his ears
+in a pleasant monotone. A Chinese &quot;boy&quot; in a stiff blouse of white
+linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a
+bucket of water and the garden hose. Grocery and delivery wagons came
+and went, rattling over the cobbles and car-tracks, while occasionally a
+whistle blew very far off. At the corner of the street by a
+livery-stable a little boy in a flat-topped leather cap was calling
+incessantly for some unseen dog, whistling and slapping his knees. An ex
+<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168" />press-wagon stopped a few doors below the white house and the driver
+pulled down the back-board with a strident rattle of chains; the cable
+in its slot kept up an unceasing burr and clack while the cars
+themselves trundled up and down the street, starting and stopping with a
+jangling of bells, the jostled glass windows whirring in a prolonged
+vibrant note. All these sounds played lightly over the steady muffled
+roar that seemed to come from all quarters at once; it was that deep
+murmur, that great minor diapason that always disengages itself from
+vast bodies, from mountains, from oceans, from forests, from sleeping
+armies.</p>
+
+<p>The desire for movement, for diversion, for anything that would keep him
+from thinking was not to be resisted. Vandover caught up his hat and
+fled from the room, not daring to look again at the easel. Once outside,
+he began to walk, anywhere, straight before him, going on with great
+strides, his head in the air.</p>
+
+<p>He found Charlie Geary and took him to supper. Vandover talked
+continually on all sorts of subjects, speaking very rapidly. In the
+evening he insisted on Geary going to the theatre with him. He paid the
+closest attention to the play, letting it occupy his mind entirely. When
+the play was over and the two were about to say good night, Vandover
+began to urge Geary to sleep up at his rooms that night. He overrode his
+objections, interrupting him, taking hold of his arm, and starting off.
+But Geary, a little surprised at his manner, refused. There were certain
+law papers he had taken home with him from the office that afternoon and
+that it was necessary he should return in the morning. Ah, you bet, he
+would get it right in the neck if old Beale didn't have those
+depositions the first thing when the office was open. Ah, he was getting
+to be indispensable down there. He had had Fischer's place now for a
+year. Fischer had never come back, and he had the promise of being taken
+on as head clerk as soon as Beale Jr. went into the partnership with old
+Beale. &quot;I'll make my way in this town yet,&quot; he declared. &quot;I'll be in
+that partnership myself some day. You see; yes, sir; ah, you bet!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The idea of passing the night alone terrified Vandover. He started
+toward home, walking up Sutter Street, proceeding slowly, his hands in
+his pockets. All at once he stopped, <a name="Page_169" id="Page_169" />without knowing why; he roused
+himself and looked about him. There was a smell of eucalyptus in the
+air. Across the street was the huge white house, and he found that he
+had stopped just before the door of the building on the top floor of
+which his studio was situated. All day Vandover's mind had been in the
+greatest agitation, his ideas leaping and darting hither and thither
+like terrified birds in a cage. Just now he underwent a sudden reaction.
+It had all been a matter of fancy, nothing but nervousness; he had not
+drawn for some time, his hand lacked cunning from long disuse. The
+desire for work came upon him again overpoweringly. He wanted to see
+again if he could not draw just as truly and freely as in the old days.
+No, he could not wait till morning; he must put himself to the test
+again at once, at the very instant. It was a sudden feminine caprice,
+induced, no doubt, by the exalted, strained, and unnatural condition of
+his nerves, a caprice that could not be reasoned with, that could not be
+withstood. He had his keys with him, he opened the outside door and
+groped his way up the four long flights of stairs to his studio.</p>
+
+<p>The studio was full of a sombre half-light, like a fog, spreading
+downward from the great north light in the sloping roof. The window was
+still wide open, the stretcher showed a pale gray blur. Vandover was
+about to light the gas when he checked himself, his arm still raised
+above his head. Ah, no; he did not dare to look at the result of his
+day's work. It would be better to start in afresh from the beginning. He
+found the chamois skin on the tray of the easel and rubbed out all the
+drawing on the canvas. Then he lit the gas.</p>
+
+<p>As he turned to his work once more a little thrill of joy and of relief
+passed over him. This time his hand was sure, steady, his head was
+clear. It had been nervousness after all. As he picked up his charcoal
+he even exclaimed to himself, &quot;Just the same, that <i>was</i> a curious
+experience this afternoon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the curious experience repeated itself again that night as soon as
+he tried to work. Once more certain shapes and figures were born upon
+his canvas, but they were no longer the true children of his
+imagination, they were no longer his own; they were changelings,
+grotesque abortions. It was as if <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170" />the brute in him, like some malicious
+witch, had stolen away the true offspring of his mind, putting in their
+place these deformed dwarfs, its own hideous spawn.</p>
+
+<p>Through the numbness and giddiness that gradually came into his head
+like a poisonous murk he saw one thing clearly: It was gone&mdash;his art was
+gone, the one thing that could save him. That, too, like all the other
+good things of his life, he had destroyed. At some time during those
+years of debauchery it had died, that subtle, elusive something,
+delicate as a flower; he had ruined it. Little by little it had exhaled
+away, wilting in the air of unrestrained debauches, perishing in the
+warm musk-laden atmosphere of disreputable houses, defiled by the breath
+of abandoned women, trampled into the spilt wine-lees of the Imperial,
+dragged all fouled and polluted through the lowest mire of the great
+city's vice.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Vandover felt as though he was losing his hold upon his
+reason; the return of the hysteria shook him like a dry, light leaf. He
+suddenly had a sensation that the room was too small to hold him; he
+ran, almost reeled, to the open window, drawing his breath deep and
+fast, inhaling the cool night air, rolling his eyes wildly.</p>
+
+<p>It was night. He looked out into a vast blue-gray space sown with points
+of light, winking lamps, and steady slow-burning stars. Below him was
+the sleeping city. All the lesser staccato noises of the day had long
+since died to silence; there only remained that prolonged and sullen
+diapason, coming from all quarters at once. It was like the breathing of
+some infinitely great monster, alive and palpitating, the sistole and
+diastole of some gigantic heart. The whole existence of the great
+slumbering city passed upward there before him through the still night
+air in one long wave of sound.</p>
+
+<p>It was Life, the murmur of the great, mysterious force that spun the
+wheels of Nature and that sent it onward like some enormous engine,
+resistless, relentless; an engine that sped straight forward, driving
+before it the infinite herd of humanity, driving it on at breathless
+speed through all eternity, driving it no one knew whither, crushing out
+inexorably all those who lagged behind the herd and who fell from
+exhaustion, grinding them to dust beneath its myriad iron wheels, riding
+over them, still driving on the herd that yet remained, driving <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171" />it
+recklessly, blindly on and on toward some far-distant goal, some vague
+unknown end, some mysterious, fearful bourne forever hidden in thick
+darkness.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Fifteen" id="Chapter_Fifteen" /><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172" /><i>Chapter Fifteen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>About a week later Hiram Wade, Ida's father, brought suit against
+Vandover to recover twenty-five thousand dollars, claiming that his
+daughter had killed herself because she had been ruined by him and that
+he alone was responsible for her suicide.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover had passed this week in an agony of grief over the loss of his
+art, a grief that seemed even sharper than that which he had felt over
+the death of his father. For this last calamity was like the death of a
+child of his, some dear, sweet child, that might have been his companion
+throughout all his life. At times it seemed to him impossible that his
+art should fail him in this manner, and again and again he would put
+himself at his easel, only to experience afresh the return of the
+numbness in his brain, the impotency of his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>He had begun little by little to pick up the course of his life once
+more, and on a certain Wednesday morning was looking listlessly through
+the morning paper as he sat in his window-seat. The room was delightful,
+flooded with the morning sun, the Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i> just touched
+with a ruddy light, the Renaissance portraits looking down at him
+through a fine golden haze; a little fire, just enough to blunt the
+keenness of the early morning air, snapping in the famous tiled and
+flamboyant stove. All about the room was a pleasant fragrance of coffee
+and good tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover caught sight of the announcement of the suit with a sudden
+sharp intake of breath that was half gasp, half cry, starting up from
+the window-seat, reading it over again and again with staring eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was a very short paragraph, not more than a dozen lines, lost at the
+bottom of a column, among the cheap advertisements. It made no allusion
+to any former stage of the affair; from its tone Ida might have killed
+herself only the day before. It seemed hardly more than a notice that
+some enterprising reporter, burrowing in the records at the City Hall,
+had unearthed and brought to light with the idea that it might be of
+possible interest to a few readers of the paper. But there was his name
+staring back at him from out the gray <a name="Page_173" id="Page_173" />blur of the type, like some
+reflection of himself seen in a mirror. Insignificant as the paragraph
+was, it seemed to Vandover as though it was the only item in the whole
+paper. One might as well have trumpeted his crime through the streets.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But twenty-five thousand dollars!&quot; exclaimed Vandover, terrified.
+&quot;Where will <i>I</i> find twenty-five thousand dollars?&quot; And at once he fell
+to wondering as to whether or no in default of payment he could be sent
+to the penitentiary. The idea of winning the suit did not enter his mind
+an instant; he did not even dream of fighting it.</p>
+
+<p>For the moment it was like fire driving out fire. He forgot the loss of
+his art, his mind filled only with the sense of the last disaster. What
+could he do? Twenty-five thousand dollars! It would ruin him. A cry of
+exasperation, of rage at his own folly, escaped him. &quot;Ah, what a fool
+I've been!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For an hour he raged to and fro in the delightful sunlit room, pacing
+back and forth in its longest dimension between the bamboo tea-table and
+the low bookcase, a thousand different plans and projects coming and
+going in his head. As his wits steadied themselves he began to see that
+he must consult at once with some lawyer&mdash;Field, of course&mdash;perhaps
+something could be done; a clever lawyer might make out a case for him
+after all. But all at once he became convinced that Field would not
+undertake his defence; he knew he had no case; so what could Field do
+for him? He would have to tell him the truth, and he saw with absolute
+clearness that the lawyer would refuse to try to defend him. The thing
+could not honourably be done. But, then, what <i>should</i> he do? He must
+have legal advice from some quarter.</p>
+
+<p>He was still in this state of perplexity when Charlie Geary arrived,
+pounding on the door and opening it immediately afterward as was his
+custom.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello!&quot; said Vandover, surprised. &quot;Hello, Charlie! is that you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say,&quot; exclaimed Geary without returning his greeting, holding up his
+hand as if to interrupt him; &quot;say, have you seen your lawyer yet&mdash;seen
+<i>any</i> lawyer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Vandover, shaking his head gravely; &quot;no, I've only this
+minute read about it in the paper.&quot; He was glad that Geary had come; at
+once he felt a desire to throw this <a name="Page_174" id="Page_174" />burden upon his chum's shoulders,
+to let him assume the management of the affair, just as in the old
+college days he had willingly, weakly, submitted to the dictatorship of
+the shrewder, stronger man who smoothed out his difficulties for him,
+and extricated him from all his scrapes. He knew Geary to be full of
+energy and resource, and he had confidence in his ability as a lawyer,
+even though he was so young in years and experience. Besides this, he
+was his friend, his college chum; for all Geary's disagreeable qualities
+he knew he would do the right thing by him now.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're the one man of all others I wanted to see,&quot; he exclaimed as he
+gripped his hand. &quot;By George! I'm glad you have come. Here, sit down and
+let's talk this over.&quot; Geary took the big leather chair behind the desk,
+and Vandover flung himself again upon the window-seat. It was as if the
+two were back in the room in Matthew's; hundreds of times in those days
+they had occupied precisely these positions, Geary bending over at the
+study table, intent, nervous, very keen, Vandover lounging idly upon the
+window-seat, resting easily on his elbow listening to the other man's
+advice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, what must I do, Charlie?&quot; Vandover began. &quot;See my lawyer, I
+suppose? But do you think a lawyer like Field would take my case? You
+know I haven't a leg to stand on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you haven't seen him?&quot; inquired Geary sharply. &quot;Haven't seen
+anybody about it?&quot; Vandover shook his head. &quot;Sure?&quot; insisted Geary
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, I have only just heard about it twenty minutes ago,&quot; protested
+Vandover. &quot;Why are you so particular about that?&quot; he added. Then Geary
+exploded his mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because,&quot; he said, with a smile of triumph that he could not restrain,
+&quot;because we are the counsel for the other side. I am on the case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover bounded from the window-seat speechless with astonishment,
+bitterly disappointed. &quot;<i>You?</i> he shouted. Geary slowly nodded his head,
+enjoying Vandover's bewilderment. Vandover dropped back upon the
+cushions again, staring at him wildly with growing suspicion and anger.
+He would not have thought it possible that Geary could so sacrifice
+their old friendship to his own personal interest. The two continued
+staring at each other across the table for a <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175" />moment. In the silence
+they heard the long rumble of a cable-car passing the house, and the
+persistent jangling of its bell as it approached the street crossing. A
+grocery wagon went up the side street, the horses' hoofs making a
+cadenced clapping sound upon the asphalt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; exclaimed Vandover scornfully, &quot;I suppose that's business, but I
+would call it damned unkind!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, look here, old man,&quot; returned Geary consolingly. &quot;Don't you take
+the monkey-wrench off the safety valve like that. What am I here for if
+it isn't to help you? Maybe you don't know that this is a mighty
+unprofessional thing to do. Ah, you bet, if old Beale knew this I would
+get it right in the neck. Don't you suppose I can help you more as
+Wade's lawyer than I could as yours? And now that's the very first thing
+I've got to tell you&mdash;to keep this dark, that I have seen you. I can't
+do anything for you if you don't promise that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's all right,&quot; returned Vandover, reassured. &quot;That's all right,
+you can&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's not considered the right thing to do,&quot; Geary continued, not
+heeding Vandover's answer, &quot;but I just do it because&quot;&mdash;he began to make
+awkward gestures with both his hands&mdash;&quot;because we're old friends, like
+that. That was the very first thing I thought of when Beale Jr. told me
+that we two had the case&mdash;that I could get you out of this hole better
+as Wade's lawyer than as your own. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to
+see that the first thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm sure it was awfully good of you, old man,&quot; said Vandover sincerely.
+&quot;I'm in a lot of trouble nowadays!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now don't you bother, Van,&quot; answered Geary consolingly. &quot;I guess
+we can pull you out of this all right.&quot; He drew up to the table, looking
+about from side to side. &quot;Got any writing paper concealed about the
+premises?&quot; he asked. Vandover pushed him over his writing pad, and
+Geary, taking the cap from his fountain pen, began asking a series of
+questions, taking down his answers in shorthand. After he had asked him
+as to his age, length of residence in the city, his property, and some
+few other technical matters, he leaned back in his chair and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, let's hear your side of the story, Van. I don't suppose you like
+to go over the thing again, but you see I ought <a name="Page_176" id="Page_176" />to know.&quot; Vandover told
+of the affair, Geary making notes as he went along. It was nearly noon
+before their interview was at an end. Then Geary gathered up the papers
+and reached for his hat and stick, saying:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, that's all we can do to-day. I think I'll be up to see you
+again day after to-morrow, in the afternoon. Beale Jr. and I have a date
+with Mr. Wade again to-morrow, I think, and I can talk to you more
+definitely after that. You know this is the devil of a thing to do,&quot; he
+suddenly exclaimed apprehensively, &quot;this playing back and forth between
+the two parties like this; regularly dishonourable, don't you know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you think it's dishonourable,&quot; said Vandover as he accompanied Geary
+to the door, &quot;if you think it's dishonourable, Charlie, why, don't do
+it! I don't want to ask you to do anything dishonourable for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's all right,&quot; replied Geary uneasily; &quot;I had just as soon do
+it for you, only listen to this: don't you say a word about the case to
+anybody, not to your lawyer, nor to anybody. If Field should write to
+you, you tell him you have counsel already. And, look here! you may have
+the reporters up here pretty soon, and don't you open your face to them;
+you mind that; don't you let them get a thing out of you. And there's
+another thing you must understand: I'm not your lawyer, of course; you
+see that. I could be disbarred if I was lawyer for both sides. It's like
+this, you see: I'm Wade's lawyer&mdash;at least the firm I am with are his
+lawyers&mdash;and of course I'm acting in Wade's interest. But you're an old
+chum of mine, and if I can I'm going to try and make it easier for you.
+You understand, don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I understand, Charlie,&quot; answered Vandover, &quot;and you are just a
+brick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover passed the rest of the day in his sitting-room, the suspense of
+the situation slowly screwing his nerves tenser and tenser. He walked
+for hours back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back, his head
+bent down, his forehead drawn into a frown of anxiety and exasperation,
+or he stood for a long time at the window looking out into the street
+with eyes that saw nothing. At supper that night he found that his
+appetite had left him; the very thought of food revolted him.<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177" /> He
+returned to his room between seven and eight o'clock, his body and mind
+completely fagged, feeling a crying need of some diversion, some escape
+from the thoughts that had been hounding him all day.</p>
+
+<p>He made up his mind to read a little before going to bed, and all at
+once remembered a book that he had once begun a long time ago but had
+never finished: the story of two men who had bought a wrecked opium ship
+for fifty thousand dollars and had afterward discovered that she
+contained only a few tins of the drug. He had never read on to find how
+that story turned out. Suddenly he found himself repeating, &quot;Twenty-five
+thousand dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars&mdash;where will <i>I</i> find
+twenty-five thousand dollars?&quot; He wondered if he would go to jail if he
+failed to pay. His interest in the book was gone in a moment, and he
+took up another of his favourite novels, the story of a boy at the time
+of Christ, a Jewish boy unjustly condemned to the galleys, liberated
+afterward, and devoting his life to the overthrow of his enemy, whom at
+last he overcame and humbled, fouling him in a chariot race, all but
+killing him.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down in the huge leather chair, and, drawing it up to the piano
+lamp and cocking his feet upon the table, began to read. In a few
+moments the same numbness stole into his head like a rising fog, a
+queer, tense feeling, growing at the back of his forehead and at the
+base of his skull, a dulness, a strange stupefying sensation as of some
+torpid, murky atmosphere. He looked about him quickly; all the objects
+in the range of his vision&mdash;the corner of the desk, the corduroy couch,
+the low bookcase with Flossie's yellow slipper and Barye's lioness upon
+it&mdash;seemed to move back and stand upon the same plane; the objects
+themselves appeared immovable enough, but the sensation of them in his
+brain somewhere behind his eyes began to move about in a slow, dizzy
+whirl. The old touch of unreasoning terror came back, together with a
+sudden terror of the spirit, a sickening sinking of the heart, a
+loathing of life, terrible beyond words.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover started up, striving to keep himself in hand, fighting against
+a wild desire to rush about from wall to wall, shrieking and waving his
+arms. Over and over again he exclaimed, &quot;Oh, <i>what</i> is the matter with
+me?&quot; The strangeness <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178" />of the thing was what unsettled and unnerved him.
+He had all the sensations of terror, but without any assignable reason,
+and this groundless fear became in the end the cause of a new fear: he
+was afraid of this fear that was afraid of nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Very gradually, however, the crisis passed away. He became a little
+calmer, and as he was mixing himself a glass of whisky and water at the
+sideboard he decided that he would go to bed. He was sure that he would
+be better for a good night's rest; evidently his nerves were out of
+order; it would not do for him to read late at night. He realized all at
+once that his mind and body alike were exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>He passed a miserable night, dozing and waking at alternate hours until
+three o'clock, when he found it impossible to get to sleep; hour after
+hour he lay flat on his back staring open-eyed into the darkness,
+listening to the ticking of the clock, the mysterious footsteps that
+creaked the floors overhead, and the persistent drip of a water faucet.
+Outside in the street he heard at long intervals the rattling of wheels
+as the early milk wagons came and went; a dog began to bark, three gruff
+notes repeated monotonously at exact intervals; all at once there was a
+long muffled roll and an abrupt clacking noise; it ceased, then broke
+out again sharply, paused once more, then recommenced, settling to a
+prolonged minor hum; the cable was starting up; it was almost morning,
+the window of his room began to show a brighter blur in the darkness,
+while very far off he could hear the steady puffing of a locomotive. As
+the first cable-car trundled by the house he dropped off to sleep for
+the last time, being waked again toward nine o'clock by the sound of
+some one shovelling coal outside under his window, the shovel clinking
+and rasping upon the stone sidewalk.</p>
+
+<p>He felt a little refreshed, but as he entered the dining-room for his
+late breakfast the smell of food repulsed him; his appetite was gone; it
+was impossible for him to eat. Toward eleven o'clock that same morning
+he was pottering idly about his sitting-room, winding his clock and
+shaking down the ashes in the tiled flamboyant stove; his mind was still
+busy going over for the hundredth time all the possibilities of Hiram
+Wade's suit, and he was just wondering whether something in the way of a
+compromise might not be arranged, <a name="Page_179" id="Page_179" />when with the suddenness of a blow
+between the eyes the numbness in his head returned, together with the
+same unreasoning fear, the same depression of spirits, the same fearful
+sinking of the heart. What! it was coming back again, this strange
+attack, coming back even when his attention was not concentrated, even
+when there was no unusual exertion of his brain!</p>
+
+<p>Then the torment began. This time the crisis did not pass off; from now
+on it persisted continually. Vandover began to feel strange. At first
+the room looked unfamiliar to him, then his own daily life no longer
+seemed recognizable, and, finally, all of a sudden, it was the whole
+world, all the existing order of things, that appeared to draw off like
+a refluent tide, leaving him alone, abandoned, cast upon some fearful,
+mysterious shore.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing seemed worth while; all the thousand little trivial things that
+made up the course of his life and in which he found diversion and
+amusement palled upon him. A fearful melancholia settled over him, a
+despair, an abhorrence of living that could not be uttered. This only
+was during the day. It was that night that Vandover went down into the
+pit.</p>
+
+<p>He went to bed early, his brain in a whirl, his frame worn out as if
+from long physical exertion. He was just dropping into a grateful sleep
+when his whole body twitched suddenly with a shock and a recoil of all
+his nerves; in an instant he was broad awake, panting and exhausted as
+if from a long run. Once more he settled himself upon the pillow, and
+once more the same leap, the same sharp spasm of his nerves caught him
+back to consciousness with the suddenness of a relaxed spring. At last
+sleep was out of the question; his drowsiness of the early part of the
+evening passed away, and he lay back, his hands clasped behind his head,
+staring up into the darkness, his thoughts galloping incessantly through
+his brain, suffering without pain as he had never imagined a human being
+could suffer though racked with torture from head to heel.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time a slow torsion and crisping of all his nerves,
+beginning at his ankles, spread to every corner of his body till he had
+to shut his fists and teeth against the blind impulse to leap from his
+bed screaming. His hands felt light <a name="Page_180" id="Page_180" />and, as he told himself, &quot;jumpy.&quot;
+All at once he felt a peculiar sensation in them: they seemed to swell,
+the fingers puffing to an enormous size, the palms bulging, the whole
+member from the wrist to the nails distended like a glove when one has
+blown into it to straighten it out. Then he had a feeling that his head
+was swelling in the same way. He had to rub his hands together, to pass
+them again and again over his face to rid himself of the fancy.</p>
+
+<p>But the strange numb feeling at the base of the skull did not keep him
+from thinking&mdash;he would have been glad if it had&mdash;and now at last when
+the terror overcame him it was no longer causeless; he knew now what he
+feared&mdash;he feared that he was going mad.</p>
+
+<p>It was the punishment that he had brought upon himself, some fearful
+nervous disease, the result of his long indulgence of vice, his vile
+submission to the brute that was to destroy his reason; some collapse of
+all his faculties, beginning first with that which was highest, most
+sensitive&mdash;his art&mdash;spreading onward and downward till he should have
+reached the last stages of idiocy. It was Nature inexorably exacting. It
+was the vast fearful engine riding him down beneath its myriad spinning
+wheels, remorselessly, irresistibly.</p>
+
+<p>The dreadful calamities that he had brought upon himself recoiled upon
+his head, crushing him to the dust with their weight of anguish and
+remorse: Ida Wade's suicide, his father's death, his social banishment,
+the loss of his art, Hiram Wade's lawsuit menacing him with beggary, and
+now this last, this approaching insanity. It was no longer fire driving
+out fire; the sense of all these disasters seemed to come back upon him
+at once, as keen, as bitter as when they had first befallen. He had told
+himself that he did not believe in a hell. Could there be a worse hell
+than this?</p>
+
+<p>But all at once, without knowing why, moved by an impulse, a blind,
+resistless instinct, Vandover started up in bed, raising his clasped
+hands above him, crying out, &quot;Oh, help me! Why don't you <i>help</i> me? You
+can if you only will!&quot; Who was it to whom he had cried with such
+unerring intuition? He gave no name to this mysterious &quot;You,&quot; this
+strange supernatural being, this mighty superhuman power. It was the cry
+of a soul in torment that does not stop to reason, the wild <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181" />last hope
+that feels its own helplessness, that responds to an intuition of a
+force outside of itself&mdash;the force that can save it in its time of
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>Trembling, his hands still clasped above him, Vandover waited for an
+answer, waited for the miracle. In the tortured exalted state of his
+nerves he seemed suddenly possessed of a sixth sense; he fancied that he
+would know, there in that room, in a few seconds, while yet his hands
+remained clasped above his head. It was his last hope: if this failed
+him there was nothing left. Still he waited; he felt that he should know
+when the miracle came, that he would suddenly be filled with a sense of
+peace, of quiet joy. Still he waited&mdash;there was nothing, nothing but the
+vast silence, the unbroken blackness of the night, a night that was to
+last forever. There was no answer, nothing but the deaf silence, the
+blind darkness. But in a moment he felt that the very silence, the very
+lack of answer, was answer in itself; there was nothing for him. Even
+that vast mysterious power to which he had cried could not help him now,
+<i>could</i> not help him, could not stay the inexorable law of nature, could
+not reverse that vast terrible engine with its myriad spinning wheels
+that was riding him down relentlessly, grinding him into the dust. And
+afterward? After the engine had done its work, when that strange other
+time should come, that other life, what then? No, not even then, nothing
+but outer darkness then and the gnashing of teeth, nothing but the deaf
+silence, nothing but the blind darkness, nothing but the unbroken
+blackness of an eternal night.</p>
+
+<p>It was the end of everything! With a muffled cry, &quot;Oh, I can't stand
+this!&quot; Vandover threw himself from his bed, groping his way out into the
+sitting-room. By this time he was only conscious of a suffering too
+great to be borne, everything else was blurred as in a thick mist. For
+nearly an hour he stumbled about in the darkened room, bruising himself
+against the furniture, dazed, numb, trying in vain to find the drawer of
+the desk where he kept his father's revolver. At last his hand closed
+upon it, gripping it so tightly that the hundreds of little nicks and
+scratches made by the contact of the tacks and nails which he had
+hammered with it nipped and bit into his palm like the teeth of tiny
+mice. A vague <a name="Page_182" id="Page_182" />feeling of shame overcame him at the last moment: he had
+no wish to be found sprawling upon the floor, dressed only in his
+night-gown. He lit the gas and put on his bathrobe, drawing the cords
+securely about his waist and neck.</p>
+
+<p>When he turned about to pick up the revolver again he found that his
+determination had weakened considerably, and he was obliged to reflect
+again upon the wreck of his life and soul before he was back once more
+to the proper pitch of resolution. It was five minutes to two, and he
+made up his mind to kill himself when the clock struck the hour. He
+spent the intervening moments in arranging the details of the matter. At
+first he thought he would do it standing, but he abandoned that idea,
+fearing to strike his head against the furniture as he fell. He was
+about to decide upon the huge leather chair, when the remembrance of his
+father's death made that impossible. He finally concluded to sit upon
+the edge of his bed, leaning a little backward so as not to fall upon
+the floor, and he dragged the bed out into the sitting-room, preferring
+somehow to die there. For a moment the idea of lying at length upon the
+bed occurred to him, but in an instant he recoiled from it, horrified at
+the thought of the death that struck from above; no, it would be best to
+sit upon the edge of the bed, falling backward with the shot. Then he
+wondered as to which it should be, his heart or his head; evidently the
+head was the better; there upon the right side in the little hollow of
+the temple, and the next moment he found himself curiously touching and
+pressing the spot with his fingers. All at once he heard the little
+clicking noise that the clock makes a minute or so before the hour. It
+was almost two; he sat down upon the edge of the bed, cocking the
+revolver, waiting for the clock to strike. An idea came to him, and he
+looked at the calendar that stood at the right of the clock upon the top
+of the low bookcase. It was the twelfth of April, Thursday; that, then,
+was to be the date of his death&mdash;Thursday, April twelfth, at two in the
+morning, so it would read upon his gravestone. For an instant the
+awfulness of the thing he was to do came upon him, and the next instant
+he found himself wondering if they still coursed jack-rabbits with
+greyhounds down at Coronado the way they used to do when he was there.
+All at once the clock struck two, and at <a name="Page_183" id="Page_183" />the very last instant a
+strange impulse to seat himself before the mirror came upon him. He drew
+up a chair before it, watching his reflection intently, but even as he
+raised the revolver he suddenly changed his purpose without knowing why,
+and all at once crammed the muzzle into his mouth. He drew the trigger.</p>
+
+<p>He heard no sound of a report; he felt no shock, but a great feebleness
+ran throughout his limbs, a relaxing and weakening of all his muscles;
+his eyes were open and he saw everything small and seemingly very far
+off as through the reversed end of an opera-glass. Suddenly he fainted.</p>
+
+<p>When Vandover came to himself again it was early morning. The room was
+full of daylight, but the gas was still burning. Little by little the
+fearful things of the night came back to him; he realized that he had
+shot himself, and he waited for the end, not daring to move, his eyes
+closed, his hand still gripping the scratched butt of the revolver in
+his lap. For a long time he lay back in the chair, motionless, his
+consciousness slowly returning like an incoming tide. At length he
+started to his feet with an expression of scorn and incredulity; he was
+as sound as ever, there was neither scratch nor scar upon him; he had
+not shot himself after all.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously, he looked at the revolver, throwing open the breech&mdash;the
+cylinder was empty; he had forgotten to load it. &quot;What a fool!&quot; he
+exclaimed, laughing scornfully, and still laughing he walked to the
+centre of the room under the chandelier and turned out the gas.</p>
+
+<p>But when he turned about, facing the day once more, facing that day and
+the next and the next throughout all the course of his life, the sense
+of his misery returned upon him in its full strength and he raised his
+clenched fist to his eyes, shutting out the light. Ah, no, he could not
+endure it&mdash;the horror of life overpassed the horror of death; he could
+not go on living. A new thought had come to him. Wretched as he was, he
+saw that in time his anguish of conscience, even his dread of losing his
+reason, would pass from him; he would become used to them; yes, even
+become used to the dread of insanity, and then he would return once more
+to vice, return once more into the power of the brute, the perverse and
+evil monster that was knitted to him now irrevocably, part for <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184" />part,
+fibre for fibre. He saw clearly that nothing could save him, he had had
+his answer that night, there was to be no miracle. Was it not right,
+then, that he should destroy himself? Was it not even his duty? The
+better part of him seemed to demand the act; should he not comply while
+there yet was any better part left? In a little while the brute was to
+take all.</p>
+
+<p>On the shelves above his washstand Vandover found the cartridges in a
+green pasteboard box, and loaded all the chambers of the revolver,
+carefully. He closed the breech; but as he was about to draw back the
+hammer all his courage, all his resolution, crumbled in an instant like
+a tower of sand. He did not dare to shoot himself&mdash;he was afraid. The
+night before he had been brave enough; how was it now that he could not
+call up the same courage, the same determination? When he thought over
+the wreck, the wretched failure of his life, the dreadful prospect of
+the future years, his anguish and his terror were as keen as ever. But
+now there was a shrinking of his every nerve from the thought of
+suicide, the instinctive animal fear of death, stronger than himself.
+His suffering had to go on, had to run its course, even death would not
+help him. Let it go on, it was only the better part of him that was
+suffering; in a little while this better part would be dead, leaving
+only the brute. It would die a natural death without any intervention
+from him. Was there any need of suicide? Suicide! Great God! his whole
+life had been one long suicide.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>That same morning Charlie Geary had eaten a very thick underdone steak
+for breakfast after enjoying a fine long sleep of eight hours. Toward
+eight o'clock he went downtown. He did not take a car; he preferred to
+walk; it helped his digestion and it gave him exercise. At night he
+walked home as well; that gave him an appetite; besides, with the ten
+cents that he saved in this way, he bought himself a nice cigar that he
+smoked in the evening to help digest his supper. He was very careful of
+his health. Ah, you bet, one had to look out for one's health.</p>
+
+<p>At the office that morning he had a long talk with Beale, Jr., as to
+Hiram Wade's suit. The great firm of Beale &amp; Storey, into whose office
+Geary had been received, made a <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185" />specialty of damage suits, and
+especially those suits that were brought against a certain great
+monopoly which it was claimed was ruining the city and the state; such a
+case involving nearly a quarter of a million of dollars was now
+occupying the attention of the heads of the firm and, indeed, of the
+whole office. Hiram Wade's suit was assigned to the assistants. Beale,
+Jr., was one of these, and Charlie Geary had managed to push himself
+into the position of his confidential clerk. But Beale, Jr., himself
+took little interest in the Wade suit; the suit against the great
+monopoly was coming to a head; it was a battle of giants; the whole
+office found itself embroiled, and little by little Beale, Jr., allowed
+himself to be drawn into the struggle. The management of the Wade case
+was given over to Geary's hands.</p>
+
+<p>When he had first heard of his assignment to the case Geary had been
+unwilling to act against his old chum, but it was the first legal affair
+of any great importance with which he had been connected, and he was
+soon devoured with an inordinate ambition to distinguish himself in the
+eyes of the firm, to get a &quot;lift,&quot; to take a long step forward toward
+the end of his desires, which was to become one of the firm itself. He
+knew he could make a brilliant success of the case. Geary was at this
+time nearly twenty-eight, keen, energetic, immensely clever; and the
+case against Vandover was strong. No one knew better than he himself how
+intimate Vandover had been with Ida Wade; Vandover had told him much of
+the details of their acquaintance. Besides this, a letter which Ida had
+written to Vandover the day before her suicide had been found, torn in
+three pieces, thrust between the leaves of one of the books that she
+used to study at the normal school. It directly implicated Vandover&mdash;it
+was evidence that could not be gainsaid. Geary had resolved to push the
+case against his old chum. Vandover ought to see that with Geary it was
+a matter of business; he, Geary, was only an instrument of the law; if
+Geary did not take the case some other lawyer would. At any rate,
+whether Van would see it in this light or not, Geary was determined to
+take the case; it was too good an opportunity to let slip; he was going
+to make his way in the law or he would know the reason why. Every man
+for himself, that was what he said. It might be damned selfish, but it
+was human <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186" />nature; if he had to sacrifice Van, so much the worse. It was
+evident that his old college chum was going to the dogs anyway, but come
+whatever would, <i>he</i>, Geary, was going to be a <i>success</i>. Ah, you bet,
+he would make his way and he would make his money.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since he had come into his little patrimony Geary had been making
+offers to Vandover for his block in the Mission. Geary would offer only
+eight thousand dollars, but Brunt steadily advised Vandover against
+listening to such a figure, assuring him that the property was valued at
+twelve thousand six hundred. Vandover had often wondered at Geary's
+persistence in the matter, and had often asked him what he could
+possibly want of the block. But Geary was very vague in his replies,
+generally telling Vandover that there was money in the investment if one
+could and would give the proper attention to pushing it. He told
+Vandover that he&mdash;Vandover&mdash;was no business man, which was the
+lamentable truth, and would much prefer to live upon the interest of his
+bonds rather than to be continually annoyed by defective plumbing,
+complaints, and repairs. The truth of the matter was that Geary knew
+that a certain immense boot and shoe concern was after the same piece of
+property. The houses themselves were nothing to the boot and shoe
+people; they wanted the land in order to build their manufactory upon
+it. A siding of the railroad ran down the alley just back of the
+property, a fact that hurt the lot for residence purposes, but that was
+indispensable for the boot and shoe people. Geary knew that the heads of
+the manufactory were determined to buy the lot, and he was sure that if
+properly handled by clever brokers they could be induced to offer at
+least one third more than its appraised valuation. It was a chance for a
+fine speculation, and it was torture to Geary to think that Vandover, or
+in fact any one besides himself, was going to profit by it.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon of the day upon which Hiram Wade had brought suit for
+twenty-five thousand dollars, while Geary was pottering about his swivel
+office chair with an oil can trying to find out where it creaked, a
+brilliant idea had suddenly occurred to him, a stroke of genius, a
+veritable inspiration. Why could he not make the Wade suit a machine
+with which to force Vandover into the sale of the property?</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187" />His first idea had been to push the case so vigorously that Vandover
+would surely lose it. But on second thought this course did not seem to
+promise any satisfactory results. Geary knew very well that though Hiram
+Wade had sued for twenty-five thousand dollars he could not recover more
+than five thousand, if as much as that. Geary did not know the exact
+state of Vandover's affairs, but he did not think that his chum would
+sell any property in order to make the payment of damages. It was much
+more likely that he would raise the five thousand, or whatever it might
+be, by placing a second mortgage on some of his property. This, however,
+was presuming that Wade would get judgment for about five thousand
+dollars. But suppose that Vandover thought that Wade could actually
+recover twenty-five thousand! Suppose that Geary himself should see
+Vandover and induce him to believe such a story, and to settle the
+affair out of court! Vandover was as ignorant of law as he was of
+business. Geary might frighten him into a sale. Yet this plan seemed
+very impracticable. In the first place, it would be unprofessional for
+Geary to have an interview with Vandover under such circumstances, the
+story was almost too monstrous even for Vandover's credibility, and
+besides, Geary would not pay, could not pay twenty-five thousand for the
+property. This last was a serious tangle. In order to get Vandover to
+sell, Geary would have to represent the damage suit as involving a
+larger sum of money than Geary was willing to give for the block, even a
+far larger sum than that which the boot and shoe manufacturers could be
+induced to pay for it. It seemed to be a deadlock. Geary began to see
+that the whole idea was out of the question. Yet the desire of it came
+back upon him again and again. He dwelt upon it constantly, smelling out
+the chance for a &quot;deal&quot; somewhere in the tangle with the instinct of the
+keen man of business. At last he seemed to have straightened it out. The
+idea of a compromise came into his mind. What if Vandover and Hiram Wade
+could be made to compromise upon eight thousand dollars! Geary would be
+willing to pay Vandover eight thousand for the block. That was his
+original offer. Wade, though he had sued for twenty-five thousand, could
+easily be made to see that eight thousand was as much as he could
+reasonably expect, and Geary knew the boot and <a name="Page_188" id="Page_188" />shoe manufacturers would
+pay fifteen thousand for the lot, perhaps more.</p>
+
+<p>But in order to carry out the delicate and complicated affair it was
+absolutely necessary to keep Vandover from seeing a lawyer. Geary knew
+that any lawyer would fight the proposition of a compromise at eight
+thousand dollars: five thousand was as much as Wade could possibly get
+in court, and if judgment for such amount was rendered, Vandover's
+counsel would advise him to raise the sum by mortgaging some property
+instead of selling the block.</p>
+
+<p>Yet as soon as Geary arrived at a solution of the problem, as soon as
+the &quot;deal&quot; began to seem feasible, he commenced to hesitate. It was not
+so much that the affair was crooked, that his r&ocirc;le in it was, to say the
+least, unprofessional, as it was the fact that Vandover was his old
+college chum and that, to put the matter into plain words, Geary was
+swindling his best friend out of a piece of property valued at twelve
+thousand six hundred dollars, and preventing him from reselling the same
+piece at a very advanced figure. Again and again he wished that it was
+some other than Vandover; he told himself that in such case he would put
+the screw on without the least compunction. All through one night Geary
+was on the rack torn between his friendship for his chum and his
+devouring, inordinate ambition to make his way and to make his pile. In
+the end Vandover was sacrificed&mdash;the opportunity was too good&mdash;Geary
+could not resist the chance for a &quot;deal.&quot; Ah, you bet, just think of it,
+after all, not only would Vandover believe that Geary was doing him a
+great service, but the office would be delighted with him for winning
+his first case, they would get a heavy fee from Wade, and he would
+nearly double his money invested in the block in the Mission. As soon as
+he had made up his mind to put the &quot;deal&quot; through, he had seen Vandover
+at his rooms early in the morning and had induced him to promise not to
+engage any other counsel and in general keep very quiet about the whole
+business.</p>
+
+<p>The day after, he and Beale, Jr., had an appointment with Hiram Wade,
+but toward noon Beale, Jr., disappeared, leaving word for Geary that he
+had gone to court with his father to hear the closing arguments in the
+great suit against the <a name="Page_189" id="Page_189" />monopoly, the last struggle in the tremendous
+legal battle that had embroiled the whole office; Geary was to use his
+own judgment in the Wade case. Geary laboured with Hiram Wade all that
+afternoon. The old fellow mistrusted him on account of his youth and his
+inexperience, was unwilling to arrive at any definite conclusion without
+the sanction of Geary's older associate, and for a long time would
+listen to nothing less than ten thousand dollars, crying out that his
+gray hairs had been dishonoured, and striking his palm upon his
+forehead. Nothing could move him. He, also, had his ambitions; it was
+his dream to own the carpet-cleaning establishment in which he now had
+but a three-fourths interest. Summer was coming, the time of year when
+people were going into the country, leaving their carpets to be cleaned
+in their absence. If he could obtain complete ownership of his business
+within the month he fancied that he saw an opportunity to make more
+money than he had done before at any previous season.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, I tell you, Mister Geary,&quot; he exclaimed indignantly, wagging his
+head, &quot;it would seem like selling my daughter's honour if we should
+compromise at any less figure. I am a father. I&mdash;I have my feelings,
+haven't I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, it isn't like that at all, Mr. Wade,&quot; answered Geary, making
+awkward gestures with both his hands. &quot;It isn't what we <i>ought</i> to get
+out of him. Could any sum of money, could millions compensate you for
+Miss Ida's death? I guess not. It's what we <i>can</i> get. If this thing
+comes into court we won't get but five thousand out of him; I'll tell
+you that right now. He could raise that by a mortgage, easy; but if we
+compromise we can squeeze him for eight thousand. You see, the fact that
+we can act directly with him instead of through counsel makes it easier
+for us. Of course, as I tell you, it isn't just the legal thing to do,
+but I'm willing to do it for you because I think you've been wronged and
+outraged.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Wade struck his hand to his head. &quot;I tell you, he's brought dishonour
+upon my gray hairs,&quot; he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly, of course, I understand how you feel,&quot; replied Geary, &quot;but now
+about this eight thousand? I tell you what I'll do.&quot; He had resolved to
+stake everything upon one last <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190" />hazard. &quot;See here, Mr. Wade, there's a
+difference, of course, between eight thousand dollars and ten thousand,
+but the use of money is worth something, isn't it? And money down, cold
+hard cash, is worth something, isn't it? Well, now, suppose you got that
+eight thousand dollars money down within three days?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Wade still demurred a little longer for the sake of his own
+self-respect and his dishonoured hairs, but in the end it was agreed
+that if the money was paid over to him in full before the end of the
+following week he would be content and would agree to the compromise.
+Eight thousand dollars would still be enough to buy out his partner's
+interest, and even then he would have a little left over with which to
+improve a certain steaming apparatus. If the amount was paid in full
+within a week he could get control of the cleaning-works in time to
+catch all of the summer trade.</p>
+
+<p>Geary had calculated that this last argument would have its weight; the
+great difficulty now was to get Vandover to sell at such a low figure
+and upon such short notice. He almost despaired of his success in this
+quarter; however, it all depended upon Vandover now.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the forenoon of the next day Geary pounded on the door of
+Vandover's sitting-room, pushing it open without waiting for an answer.
+Vandover was lying in his shirt-sleeves on the corduroy divan under the
+huge rug of sombre colours that hung against the wall, and he did not
+get up as Geary came in; in fact, he hardly stirred.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello!&quot; cried Geary, closing the door with his heel. &quot;Didn't expect to
+find <i>you</i> up so early. <i>I've</i> been up since half-past six; had
+breakfast at seven, fine cutlet, and then got down to the office at
+twenty minutes of eight. How's that for rustling, hey?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes?&quot; said Vandover, dully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, say,&quot; exclaimed Geary, &quot;what's all the matter with <i>you</i>? You look
+all frazzled out, all pale around the wattles. Ah, you've been hitting
+up a pace again. You're a bird, Van, there's no use talking! All night
+racket this trip?&quot;.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose so,&quot; answered Vandover, never moving.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you <i>do</i> look gone-in this morning, sure,&quot; continued Geary, seating
+himself on the edge of the table and pushing <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191" />back his hat. &quot;Never saw
+you looking so bad; you ought to be more careful, Van; there'll be a
+smash some time. Ah, you bet a man ought to look out for his health. I
+walk downtown every morning, and three times a week I take a cold shower
+as soon as I get up. Ah, I tell you, that braces a fellow up; you ought
+to try it; it's better than a dozen cocktails. You keep on getting thin
+like you have for the past few days and I'll have to be calling you
+Skinny Seldom-fed again, like we used to. Now, tell the truth, what time
+did you get to bed last night? Did you go to bed at all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; replied Vandover with a long breath, looking vaguely at the
+pipe-rack on the opposite wall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought as much,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;Well, that's like you.&quot; He paused
+a moment, and then went on, nervously gesturing with both his hands
+simultaneously. &quot;Well, I've had a long talk with Wade. I tell you, Van,
+that old boy is as stubborn as a mule. You see, he knows he's got a
+case. I couldn't talk him out of that. I'll tell you how it is,&quot;
+continued Geary, preparing to spring another mine; &quot;he's found a letter
+Ida wrote you the day before she killed herself.&quot; He paused to watch the
+effect upon Vandover. Vandover waited for him to go on, but seeing that
+he did not and that he expected him to say something, nodded his head
+once and answered:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you know, that letter that she wrote to you telling you how it
+was, how she was fixed?&quot; repeated Geary, puzzled and irritated at
+Vandover's indifference.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, he's got it, anyhow,&quot; pursued Geary, &quot;and of course that tells
+against you. Well, I had a long talk with him yesterday afternoon and I
+got him to compromise. Of course, you know in suits like this one a
+party sues for a great deal more than he expects to get. At first you
+know he said twenty-five thousand; that figure was decided upon at the
+first interview he had with us. Of course, he could never get judgment
+for that much. But he hung out at ten thousand; said it would be selling
+his daughter if he took any less. Now I knew you couldn't raise that
+much on any property you have, especially in these hard times&mdash;&quot; Geary
+paused for the fraction of an instant; he had thrown out the last remark
+as a feeler, to see <a name="Page_192" id="Page_192" />what Vandover would say; but his chum said nothing,
+staring vaguely at the opposite wall, merely making a faint sign to show
+that he understood, closing his eyes and bending his head. &quot;And so,&quot;
+continued the other, &quot;I jewed him down, and what do you suppose? Well,
+sir, from twenty-five thousand I brought him right down to, say, eight
+thousand. I could see that he had some scheme that he wants to go into
+right away, and that he wants ready money, right on the nail, you know,
+to carry it through. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to see that. I
+waltzed him right over when I began to speak of ready money, cash down.
+As soon as he'd squeal I'd spring cold cash on him, money down, and he's
+hit gravel like an ostrich. Well,&quot; he went on deliberately after a
+pause, getting up from the table and standing before Vandover, his hands
+in his pockets, &quot;well, I think that's the best I can do for you, Van.
+It's a good deal better than I expected, but I've done the best I could
+for you, and I would advise you to see him on the proposition.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; said Vandover. &quot;Go ahead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary was perplexed. &quot;Well, you think that's a good thing, don't you?
+You think I've done my best for you? You see it as I do, don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover withdrew his eyes from the other wall, glancing under heavy
+eyelids at Geary, and with a slight movement of his head and shoulders
+replied:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you got the money?&quot; asked Geary eagerly; then, irritated at his
+indiscretion, hastened to interrupt himself. &quot;You see, he hasn't put his
+proposition into writing yet, but it's like this: if you can pay him
+eight thousand dollars in cash before the end of next week he'll sign a
+document to the effect that he is satisfied.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've got no money,&quot; said Vandover quietly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was afraid you wouldn't have,&quot; said Geary, &quot;but you can raise it
+somewhere. You had better close with the old man as soon as you can,
+Van, while he's in the mood for it; you'll make a clear two thousand by
+it. You can see that as well as I can. Now, where can you&mdash;how is your
+property fixed? Let's see! Here's the statement you made to me the other
+day,&quot; continued Geary, drawing his shorthand notes from his port<a name="Page_193" id="Page_193" />folio.
+&quot;How about this piece on California Street, the one that you have
+rented, the homestead, you know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, there's that,&quot; answered Vandover, changing the position of his
+head upon his clasped hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that's pretty well papered up already,&quot; returned Geary, consulting
+his notes. &quot;You couldn't very well raise another mortgage on that.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'd forgotten,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;There's the block in the Mission.
+He can have <i>that</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary began to tremble with excitement. It looked as though he might be
+able to make the deal after all. But the next instant he grew
+suspicious. Vandover's indifference puzzled him. Might he not have some
+game of his own? The idea of playing off his cleverness against that of
+an opponent strung his nerves in an instant; the notion of an impending
+struggle was almost an inspiration, and his innate desire of getting the
+better of a competitor, even though it was his closest friend, aroused
+his wits and sharpened his faculties like a stimulant. He had no
+hesitancy in sacrificing his chum. It was business now; friendship
+ceased to be a factor in the affair. Ah, Van was going to be foxy; he'd
+show him that he could be foxy, too.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He can have it?&quot; echoed Geary. &quot;You don't mean to sign it over to him
+bodily?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I suppose it could be mortgaged,&quot; answered Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that's the idea,&quot; returned Geary. &quot;You want me to figure that out
+for you? I can just as well as not. Well, now, let's see,&quot; he went on,
+settling himself at the desk, and figuring upon a sheet of Vandover's
+stamped letter-paper. &quot;The banks will never give you more than two
+thirds of the appraised value; that's as much as we can expect; that
+would come to&mdash;well, let's see&mdash;that would come to six thousand on that
+piece; then you could mortgage something else to make up the
+difference.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wouldn't it be more than six thousand?&quot; asked Vandover with a little
+show of interest. &quot;I think that block has been appraised at something
+over twelve thousand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes,&quot; returned Geary, putting his chin in the air, &quot;that was your
+agent's valuation five years ago; but you know <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194" />property out there, in
+fact, property all over the city, what they call inside property, has
+been going right down for the last ten years. That's what I've always
+been telling you. You couldn't possibly get more than nine thousand for
+that block to-day. You see the railroad there hurts it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose so,&quot; replied Vandover. &quot;I've heard the governor say as much
+in his time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course,&quot; exclaimed Geary, delighted at this unexpected turn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then, he can have my bonds,&quot; said Vandover. &quot;I've got eighty-nine
+hundred in bonds; he can have those. Let him have anything he wants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, don't touch your bonds,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;Hang on to those. Bonds
+are always good&mdash;U.S. bonds. You don't want to sell those, Van. You see,
+the homestead is already mortgaged. And, besides, you know, too, that
+the banks are asking an awful big per cent. for mortgages on real
+estate; it's seven and a half nowadays. Don't sell your bonds. I'll tell
+you why: U.S. bonds are always good; they never depreciate, but it's
+different with realty, especially in this city just now. It's been
+depreciating ever since your father's time, and it's going to go right
+on depreciating. If you want to sell anything, sell your realty before
+it gets any lower. Now you don't want to sell your home, do you? You
+don't like that idea. You've lived there so long, and then what would
+you do with the furniture; besides, the rent of that,&quot; he glanced again
+at his notes, &quot;is bringing you in a good hundred and twenty-five a
+month. If you've got to sell at all, why not sell your Mission block?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; said Vandover, as if wearied by Geary's clamour, &quot;I'll sign
+it over to him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, that's not the idea at all,&quot; Geary insisted. &quot;He wants the ready
+money; he don't want depreciated real estate. You'll have to find a
+purchaser in the next week if you possibly can in such a short time, and
+make over the money to Wade. But if you can't sell in that time you will
+have to dig up ten thousand instead of eight. It's a hard position for
+you, Van; it's just a chance, you know, but I thought I would give you
+the benefit of that chance. If you want to give me a power of attorney
+I'll try and sell it for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I guess Brunt would do that,&quot; replied Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195" />Yes,&quot; retorted Geary, watchful as a lynx, &quot;but they would charge you a
+big commission. Of course <i>I</i> wouldn't think of asking you anything more
+than the actual costs. I am afraid that they would try to sell it at
+auction, too, if they knew you had to realize on it in so short a time,
+and it would go for a mere song then; you know how it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought,&quot; inquired Vandover, &quot;that you wanted that property.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; replied Geary, hesitating, &quot;I&mdash;I did want to buy it of you once;
+well, for that matter I do now. But you know how it is with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I might as well sell it to you as to any one else,&quot; returned Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, it's like this, Van,&quot; said Geary. &quot;I know that block is
+worth nine thousand dollars; I won't deceive you. But I can only give
+you eight thousand for it. That's all the money I've got. But I'm not
+going to take advantage of your position to jew you down. I want the
+block, I'll admit that, but I'm not going to have you sacrifice it for
+me, or for any one else. I think you can get nine thousand for it. I
+know you could if we had a little more time, and I'm not sure but what I
+could find a purchaser for you within the next week that would give you
+nine thousand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I don't care, Charlie; I'm sick of everything; eight thousand, nine
+thousand, anything you like; take it at your own figure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary began to tremble once more, and this time his excitement was so
+great that he hardly dared to trust himself to speak; his breath grew
+short, his hands in his pockets twitched nervously, and curled
+themselves into fists, his heart seemed to him to beat high in his
+throat; he hesitated long, pretending to deliberate as he steadied
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover remained silent, his hands still clasped back of his head,
+staring at the opposite wall with eyes that saw nothing. The little
+clock began to strike ten.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, Van,&quot; said Geary; &quot;I don't like to do this, and yet I
+would like to help you out of this muss. You see, if I should ever
+benefit by the property you would feel as though I had taken advantage
+of you at this time and worked a flim-flam on you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_196" id="Page_196" />Oh, I'll look out for that,&quot; returned Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, I don't feel quite right about it,&quot; answered Geary, wagging his
+head and shutting his eyes. &quot;Better see what we can do at a forced
+sale.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, don't you see you would be doing me a favour?&quot; said Vandover
+wearily. &quot;I <i>ask</i> you to buy the block. I don't care what your figure
+is!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Once more Geary hesitated, for the last time going over the whole deal
+in his mind from beginning to end, testing it, looking for weak points.
+It was almost perfect. Suppose the boot and shoe people did not buy the
+lot? He could resell it elsewhere, even below its appraised value and
+yet make money by the transaction; the lot was cheap at ten thousand; it
+might bring twelve; even as an ordinary, legitimate speculation it was
+to be desired at such a figure. Suppose the boot and shoe people backed
+out entirely, suppose even he could not find another purchaser for the
+property, why, then, he could hold on to it; the income from the rents
+was fully 10 per cent. of the price he would have paid for it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Van,&quot; he said at last, making a slow, awkward gesture with his
+left hand, all the fingers extended, &quot;well, I'll take you up&mdash;but I
+don't feel as though I should&mdash;&quot; He suddenly interrupted himself with a
+burst of sincerity, exclaiming: &quot;Sure, old man, if I had nine thousand
+I'd give it to you for the block, that's straight goods.&quot; He felt that
+he was conscientious in saying this. It was true he would have given
+nine thousand if he had had it. For that matter he might have given ten
+or twelve.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can't we settle the whole matter to-day?&quot; said Vandover. &quot;Right
+here&mdash;now. I'm sick of it, sick of everything. Let's get it done with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary nearly bounded from his seat. He had been wondering how he might
+accomplish this very thing. &quot;All right,&quot; he said briskly, &quot;no reason in
+waiting.&quot; He had seen to it that he should be prepared to close the sale
+the moment that Vandover was willing. Long ago, when he had first had
+the idea of buying the block, he had spent a day in the offices of the
+county recorder, the tax collector, and the assessor, assuring himself
+of the validity of the title, and only two days ago he had gone over the
+matter again in order to be sure that no <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197" />encumbrances had been added to
+the block in the meanwhile. He found nothing; the title was clear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Isn't this rather rushing the thing through?&quot; he asked. &quot;Maybe you
+might regret it afterward. Don't you want to take two or three days to
+think it over?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sure now?&quot; persisted Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I've <i>got</i> to sell before three days,&quot; answered Vandover.
+&quot;Otherwise he'll want ten thousand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's a fact,&quot; admitted the other. &quot;Well,&quot; he went on, &quot;if your mind's
+made up, why&mdash;we can go right ahead. As I say, there's no reason for
+waiting; better take up Wade while he's in the mood for it. You see, he
+hasn't signed any proposition as yet, and he might go back on us.&quot;
+Vandover drew a long breath and got up slowly, heavily, from the couch,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's the odds to me what I sell for? <i>I</i> don't get the money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what do you say if we go right down to a notary's office and put
+this thing right through,&quot; Geary suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come on, then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you got your abstract here, the abstract of the block?&quot; Vandover
+nodded. &quot;Better bring it along, then,&quot; said Geary.</p>
+
+<p>The office of the notary adjoined those of the firm of Beale &amp; Storey;
+in fact, he was in a sense an attach&eacute; of the great firm and transacted a
+great deal of legal business for them. Vandover and Geary fell upon him
+in an idle moment. A man had come to regulate the water filter, which
+took the place of an ice cooler in a corner of one of the anterooms, and
+while he was engaged at his work the notary stood at his back, abusing
+him and exclaiming at the ineffectiveness of the contrivance. The notary
+was a middle-aged man with a swollen, purple face; he had a toothpick
+behind each ear and wore an office coat of gray linen, ripped at the
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Then the transfer was made. It was all settled in less than half an
+hour, unceremoniously, almost hastily. For the sake of form Geary signed
+a check for eight thousand dollars which Vandover in his turn made over
+to Hiram Wade. The notary filled out a deed of grant, bargain, and sale,
+pasting on his certificate of acknowledgment as soon as Vandover and
+Geary <a name="Page_198" id="Page_198" />had signed. Geary took the abstract, thrusting it into his
+breast-pocket. As far as Vandover was concerned, the sale was complete,
+but he had neither his properly nor its equivalent in money.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; declared Geary at length, &quot;I guess that's all there is to be
+done. I'll get a release from old man Wade and send it to you to-morrow
+or next day. Now, let's go down to the Imperial and have a drink on it.&quot;
+They went out, but the notary returned to the anteroom, turning the
+spigot of the filter to right and left, frowning at it suspiciously,
+refusing to be satisfied.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Sixteen" id="Chapter_Sixteen" /><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199" /><i>Chapter Sixteen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>That particular room in the Lick House was well toward the rear of the
+building, on one of the upper floors, and from its window, one looked
+out upon a vast reach of roofs that rose little by little to meet the
+abrupt rise of Telegraph Hill. It was a sordid and grimy wilderness,
+topped with a gray maze of wires and pierced with thousands of chimney
+stacks. Many of the roofs were covered with tin long since blackened by
+rust and soot. Here and there could be seen clothes hung out to dry.
+Occasionally upon the flanking walls of some of the larger buildings was
+displayed an enormous painted sign, a violent contrast of intense black
+and staring white amidst the sooty brown and gray, advertising some
+tobacco, some newspaper, or some department store. Not far in the
+distance two tall smokestacks of blackened tin rose high in the air,
+above the roof of a steam laundry, one very large like the stack of a
+Cunarder, the other slender, graceful, with a funnel-shaped top. All day
+and all night these stacks were smoking; from the first, the larger one,
+rolled a heavy black smoke, very gloomy, waving with a slow and
+continued movement like the plume of some sullen warrior. But the other
+one, the tall and slender pipe, threw off a series of little white
+puffs, three at a time, that rose buoyant and joyous into the air like
+so many white doves, vanishing at last, melting away in the higher
+sunshine, only to be followed by another flight. They came three at a
+time, the pipe tossing them out with a sharp gay sound like a note of
+laughter interrupted by a cough.</p>
+
+<p>But the interior of the room presented the usual dreary aspect of the
+hotel bedroom&mdash;cheerless, lamentable.</p>
+
+<p>The walls were whitewashed and bare of pictures or ornaments, and the
+floor was covered with a dull red carpet. The furniture was a &quot;set,&quot; all
+the pieces having a family resemblance. On entering, one saw the bed
+standing against the right-hand wall, a huge double bed with the name of
+the hotel in the corners of its spread and pillowcases. In the exact
+middle of the room underneath the gas fixture was the centre-table, and
+upon it a pitcher of ice-water. The blank, white <a name="Page_200" id="Page_200" />monotony of one side
+of the room was jarred upon by the grate and mantelpiece, iron, painted
+black, while on the mantelpiece itself stood a little porcelain
+matchsafe with ribbed sides in the form of a truncated cone. Precisely
+opposite the chimney was the bureau, flanked on one side by the door of
+the closet, and on the other in the corner of the room by the stationary
+washstand with its new cake of soap and its three clean, glossy towels.
+On the wall to the left of the door was the electric bell and the
+directions for using it, and tacked upon the door itself a card as to
+the hours for meals, the rules of the hotel, and the extract of the code
+defining the liabilities of innkeepers, all printed in bright red.
+Everything was clean, defiantly, aggressively clean, and there was a
+clean smell of new soap in the air.</p>
+
+<p>But the room was bare of any personality. Of the hundreds who had lived
+there, perhaps suffered and died there, not a trace, not a suggestion
+remained; their different characters had not left the least impress upon
+its air or appearance. Only a few hairpins were scattered on the bottom
+of one of the bureau drawers, and two forgotten medicine bottles still
+remained upon the top shelf of the closet.</p>
+
+<p>This had been the appearance of Vandover's new home when he had first
+come to it, after leaving his suite of rooms in the huge apartment house
+on Sutter Street. He had lived here now for something over a year.</p>
+
+<p>It had all commenced with the seizure of his furniture by the
+proprietors of the apartment house. Almost before he knew it he owed for
+six months' room and board; when the extras were added to this bill it
+swelled to nearly a thousand dollars. At first he would not believe it;
+it was not possible that so large a bill could accumulate without his
+knowledge. He declared there was a mistake, tossing back the bill to the
+clerk who had presented it, and shaking his head incredulously. This
+other became angry, offered to show the books of the house. The manager
+was called in and attempted to prove the clerk's statement by figures,
+dates, and extracts from the entries. Vandover was confused by their
+noise, and grew angry in his turn; vociferating that he did not propose
+to be cheated, the others retorted in a rage, the interview ended in a
+scene.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201" />But in the end they gained their point; they were right, and at length
+Vandover was brought around to see that he was in the wrong, but he had
+no ready money, and while he hesitated, unwilling to part with any of
+his bonds or to put an additional mortgage upon the homestead, the
+hotel, after two warnings, suddenly seized upon his furniture. What a
+misery!</p>
+
+<p>In a moment of time it was all taken from him, all the lovely
+bric-&agrave;-brac, all the heavy pieces, all the little articles of <i>vertu</i>
+which he had bought with such intense delight and amongst which he had
+lived with such happiness, such contentment, such never-failing
+pleasure. Everything went&mdash;the Renaissance portraits, the pipe-rack, the
+chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, the Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i>
+and, worst of all, the stove, the famous tiled stove, the delightful
+cheery iron stove with the beautified flamboyant ornaments. For the
+first few months after the seizure Vandover was furious with rage and
+disappointment, persuaded that he could never live anywhere but in just
+such a room; it was as if he had been uprooted and cast away upon some
+barren, uncongenial soil. His new room in the hotel filled him with
+horror, and for a long time he used it only as a place where he could
+sleep and wash. For a long time even his pliable character refused to
+fit itself to such surroundings, refused to be content between four
+enormous white walls, a stuccoed ceiling, and a dark red carpet. He
+passed most of his time elsewhere, reading the papers at the Mechanics
+Library in the morning, and in the afternoon sitting about the hotel
+office and parlours until it was time to take his usual little four
+o'clock stroll on Kearney and Market streets. He had long since become a
+familiar figure on this promenade. Even the women and girls of Flossie's
+type had ceased to be interested in this tall, thin young man with the
+tired, heavy eyes and blue-white face. One day, however, a curious
+incident did for a moment invest Vandover with a sudden dramatic
+interest. It was just after he had moved down to the Lick House, about a
+month after he had sold the block in the Mission. Vandover was standing
+at Lotta's fountain at the corner of Kearney and Market streets,
+interested in watching a policeman and two boys reharnessing a horse
+after its tumble. All at once he fell over flat into the <a name="Page_202" id="Page_202" />street,
+jostling one of the flower venders and nearly upsetting him. He struck
+the ground with a sodden shock, his arms doubled under him, his hat
+rolling away into the mud. Bewildered, he picked himself up; very few
+had seen him fall, but a little crowd gathered for all that. One asked
+if the man was drunk, and Vandover, terrified lest the policeman should
+call the patrol wagon, hurried off to a basement barber shop near by,
+where he brushed his clothes, still bewildered, confused, wondering how
+it had happened.</p>
+
+<p>The fearful nervous crisis which Vandover had undergone had passed off
+slowly. Little by little, bit by bit, he had got himself in hand again.
+However, the queer numbness in his head remained, and as soon as he
+concentrated his attention on any certain line of thought, as soon as he
+had read for any length of time, especially if late at night, the
+numbness increased. Somewhere back of his eyes a strange blurring mist
+would seem to rise; he would find it impossible to keep his mind fixed
+upon any subject; the words of a printed page would little by little
+lose their meaning. At first this had been a source of infinite terror
+to him. He fancied it to be the symptoms of some approaching mental
+collapse, but, as the weeks went by and nothing unusual occurred, he
+became used to it, and refused to let it worry him. If it made his head
+feel queer to read, the remedy was easy enough&mdash;he simply would not
+read; and though he had been a great reader, and at one time had been
+used to spend many delightful afternoons lost in the pages of a novel,
+he now gave it all up with an easy indifference.</p>
+
+<p>But, besides all this, the attack had left him with nerves all unstrung;
+even his little afternoon walk on Kearney and Market streets exhausted
+him; any trifling and sudden noise, the closing of a door, the striking
+of a clock, would cause him to start from his place with a gasp and a
+quick catch at the heart. Toward evening this little spasm of nerves
+would sometimes come upon him even when there was nothing to cause it,
+and now he could no longer drop off to sleep without first undergoing a
+whole series of these recoils and starts, that would sometimes bring him
+violently up to a sitting posture, his breath coming short and quick,
+his heart galloping, startled at he knew not what.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203" />At first he had intended to see a doctor, but he had put off carrying
+his intention into effect until he had grown accustomed to the whole
+matter; otherwise, he was well enough, his appetite was good, and when
+he finally did get to sleep he would not wake up for a good eight hours.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, however, about three months after the first crisis and just
+as Vandover was becoming well accustomed to the condition of body and
+mind in which it had left him, the second attack came on. It was
+fearful, much worse than on the first occasion, and this time there was
+no room for doubt. Vandover knew that for the moment he was actually
+insane.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis had been with Vandover most of that afternoon, the two had been
+playing cards in Vandover's room until nearly six o'clock. All the
+afternoon they had been drinking whisky while they played, and by
+supper-time neither of them had any appetite. Ellis refused to go down,
+declaring that if he should eat now it would make him sick. Vandover
+went down alone, but once in the dining-room he found that <i>he</i> could
+not eat either. However, he knew that it was not the whisky. For two
+days his appetite had been failing him. The smell of food revolted him,
+and he left the supper-table, going up to his bare and lamentable room
+with the feeling that he was about to undergo a long spell of sickness.
+In the deserted hall, between the elevator and the door of his room, the
+second crisis came upon him all at once. It was so sudden that it was as
+if some enemy had leaped upon his back, springing out of the shadow,
+gripping him from behind, holding him close. Once more the hysteria
+shook him like a dry leaf. The little nervous starts came so fast that
+they ran together, mingling to form one long thrill of terror, the
+blind, unreasoning terror of something unknown; the numbness weighed
+down upon his brain until consciousness dwindled to a mere point and
+mercifully dulled the torture of his crisping nerves. It seemed to him
+that his hands and head were rapidly swelling to enormous size.</p>
+
+<p>All this he had felt before; it was his old enemy, but now with this
+second attack began a new and even stranger sensation. In his distorted
+wits he fancied that he was in some manner changing, that he was
+becoming another man; worse than that, it seemed to him that he was no
+longer human, <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204" />that he was sinking, all in a moment, to the level of
+some dreadful beast.</p>
+
+<p>Later on in that same evening Ellis met young Haight coming out of one
+of the theatres, and told him a story that Haight did not believe. Ellis
+was very pale, and he seemed to young Haight to be trying to keep down
+some tremendous excitement.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If he was drunk,&quot; said Ellis, &quot;it was the strangest drunk I ever saw.
+He came back into the room on all fours&mdash;not on his hands and knees, you
+understand, but running along the floor upon the palms of his hands and
+his toes&mdash;and he pushed the door of the room open with his head,
+nuzzling at the crack like any dog. Oh, it was horrible. <i>I</i> don't know
+what's the matter with Van. You should have seen him; his head was
+hanging way down, and swinging from side to side as he came along; it
+shook all his hair over his eyes. He kept rattling his teeth together,
+and every now and then he would say, way down in his throat so it
+sounded like growls, 'Wolf&mdash;wolf&mdash;wolf.' I got hold of him and pulled
+him up to his feet. It was just as though he was asleep, and when I
+shook him he came to all at once and began to laugh. 'What's the matter,
+Van?' says I. 'What are you crawling on the floor that way for?' 'I'm
+damned if I know,' says he, rubbing his eyes. 'I guess I must have been
+out of my head. Too much whisky!' Then he says: 'Put me to bed, will
+you, Bandy? I feel all gone in.' Well, I put him to bed and went out to
+get some bromide of potassium; he said that made him sleep and kept his
+nerves steady. Coming back, I met a bell-boy just outside of Van's door,
+and told him to ask the hotel doctor to come up. You see, I had not
+opened the door of the room yet, and while I was talking to the bell-boy
+I could hear the sound of something four-footed going back and forth
+inside the room. When I got inside there was Van, perfectly naked, going
+back and forth along the wall, swinging his head very low, grumbling to
+himself. But he came to again as soon as I shook him, and seemed
+dreadfully ashamed, and went to bed all right. He got to sleep finally,
+and I left the doctor with him, to come out and get something for my own
+nerves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What did the doctor say was the matter?&quot; asked young Haight, in horror.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_205" id="Page_205" /><i>Lycanthropy-Pathesis</i>. I never heard the name before&mdash;some kind of
+nervous disease. I guess Van had been hitting up a pretty rapid gait,
+and then I suppose he's had a good deal to worry him, too.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Once more the attack passed off, leaving Vandover exhausted, his nerves
+all jangling, his health impaired. Every day he seemed to grow thinner,
+great brown hollows grew under his eyes, and the skin of his forehead
+looked blue and tightly drawn. By degrees a deep gloom overcame him
+permanently, nothing could interest him, nothing seemed worth while. Not
+only were his nerves out of tune, but they were jaded, deadened, slack;
+they were like harpstrings that had been played upon so long and so
+violently that now they could no longer vibrate unless swept with a very
+whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p>As he had foreseen, Vandover had returned again to vice, to the vice
+that was knitted into him now, fibre for fibre, to the ways of the brute
+that by degrees was taking entire possession of him. But he no longer
+found pleasure even in vice; once it had been his amusement, now it was
+his occupation. It was the only thing that seemed to ease the horrible
+nervousness that of late had begun to prey upon him constantly.</p>
+
+<p>But though nothing could amuse him, on the other hand nothing could
+worry him; in the end the very riot of his nerves ceased even to annoy
+him. He had arrived at a state of absolute indifference. He had so often
+rearranged his pliable nature to suit his changing environment that at
+last he found that he could be content in almost any circumstances. He
+had no pleasures, no cares, no ambitions, no regrets, no hopes. It was
+mere passive existence, an inert, plantlike vegetation, the moment's
+pause before the final decay, the last inevitable rot.</p>
+
+<p>One day after he had been living nearly a year at the Lick House, Adams
+&amp; Brunt, the real estate agents, sent him word that they had an offer
+for his property on California Street. It was the homestead. The English
+gentleman, the president of the fruit syndicate who had rented the house
+of Vandover, was now willing to buy it. His business was by this time on
+a firm and paying basis and he had decided to make his home in San
+Francisco. He offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the house,
+including the furniture.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206" />Brunt had several talks with Vandover and easily induced him to sell.
+&quot;You can figure it out for yourself, Mr. Vandover,&quot; he said, as he
+pointed out his own calculations to him; &quot;property has been going down
+in the city for the last ten years, and it will continue to do so until
+we can get a competing railroad through. Better sell when you can, and
+twenty-five thousand is a fair price. Of course, you will have to pay
+off the mortgage; you won't get but about fifteen thousand out of it,
+but at the same time you won't have to pay the interest on that mortgage
+to the banks; that will be so much saved a month; add that to what you
+could get for your fifteen thousand at, say, 6 per cent., and you would
+have a monthly income nearly equal to the present rent of the house, and
+much more certain, too. Suppose your tenant should go out, then where
+would you be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, all right,&quot; answered Vandover, nodding his head vaguely. &quot;Go
+ahead, <i>I</i> don't care.&quot; He parted from his old home with as much
+indifference as he had parted from his block in the Mission.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover signed the deed that made him homeless, and at about the same
+time the first payment was made. Ten thousand dollars was deposited in
+one of the banks to his credit, and a check sent to him for the amount.
+The very next day Vandover drew against it for five hundred dollars.</p>
+
+<p>At one time he had had an ambition to buy back his furniture from the
+huge apartment house in which he had formerly lived, and with it to make
+his cheerless bedroom in the Lick House seem more like a home. He felt
+it almost as a dishonour to have strangers using this furniture, sitting
+in the great leather chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, staring
+stupidly at his Renaissance portraits and copies of Assyrian
+<i>bas-reliefs</i>. Above all, it was torture to think that other hands than
+his own would tend the famous tiled and flamboyant stove, a stove that
+had its moods, its caprices, like any living person, a stove that had to
+be coaxed and humoured, a stove that he alone could understand. He had
+told himself that if ever again he should have money enough he would
+bring back this furniture to him. At first its absence had been a matter
+for the keenest regret and grief. He had been so used to pleasant
+surroundings that he languished in his new quar<a name="Page_207" id="Page_207" />ters as in a prison. His
+indulgent, luxurious character continually hungered after subdued,
+harmonious colours, pictures, ornaments, and soft rugs. His imagination
+was forever covering the white walls with rough stone-blue paper, and
+placing screens, divans, and window-seats in different parts of the cold
+bare room. One morning he had even gone so far as to pin about the walls
+little placards which he had painted with a twisted roll of the hotel
+letter-paper dipped into the inkstand. &quot;Pipe-rack Here.&quot; &quot;Mona Lisa
+Here.&quot; &quot;Stove Here.&quot; &quot;Window-seat Here.&quot; He had left them up there ever
+since, in spite of the chambermaid's protests and Ellis' clumsy satire.</p>
+
+<p>Now, however, he had plenty of money. He would have his furniture back
+within the week. He came back from the bank, the money in his pocket,
+and went up to the room directly, with some vague intention of writing
+to the proprietors of the apartment house at once. But as he shut the
+door behind him, leaning his back against it and looking about, he
+suddenly realized that his old-time desire was passed; he had become so
+used to these surroundings that it now no longer made any difference to
+him whether or not they were cheerless, lamentable, barren. It was like
+all his other little ambitions&mdash;he had lost the taste for them, nothing
+made much difference after all. His money had come too late.</p>
+
+<p>Why should he spend his five hundred dollars on something that could no
+longer amuse him? It would be much wiser to spend it all in having a
+good time somewhere&mdash;champagne dinners with Flossie, or betting on the
+races&mdash;he did not know exactly what. It was true that even these
+alternatives would not amuse him very much&mdash;he would fall back upon them
+as things of habit. For that matter everything was an <i>ennui</i>, and
+Vandover began to long for some new pleasure, some violent untried
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Since the sale of the block in the Mission he had seen but little of
+Geary; young Haight had not been his companion since the time when
+Turner Ravis had broken with him, but little by little he had begun to
+associate with Ellis and his friend the Dummy. Almost every evening the
+three were together, sometimes at the theatre, sometimes in the back
+rooms of the Imperial, sometimes even in the parlours of certain houses,
+amid the murmur of heavy silks and the rustle of <a name="Page_208" id="Page_208" />stiffly starched
+skirts. At times they would be drunk four nights of the week, and on
+these occasions it was tacitly understood between Ellis and Vandover
+that they should try to get the Dummy so full that he could talk.</p>
+
+<p>However, Ellis' vice was gambling; he and the Dummy often passed the
+whole night over their cards, and as Vandover came more and more under
+Ellis' influence&mdash;succumbing to it as weakly as he had succumbed to the
+influence of Charlie Geary&mdash;he began to join these parties. They played
+Van John at five dollars a corner. Vandover won as often as he lost, but
+the habit of cards grew upon him steadily.</p>
+
+<p>Toward eleven o'clock the evening of the day upon which he had drawn his
+five hundred, Vandover went around to the Imperial looking for his two
+friends. He found Ellis drinking whisky all alone in one of the little
+rooms, as was his custom; fifteen minutes later the Dummy and Flossie
+joined them. Flossie had grown stouter since Vandover had first known
+her, nearly ten years ago. She had a double chin, and puffy, discoloured
+pockets had come under her eyes. Now her hair was dyed, her cheeks and
+lips rouged, and her former air of health and good spirits gone. She
+never laughed. She had smoked so many cigarettes that now her voice
+hardly rose above a whisper. At one time she had been accustomed to
+boast that she never drank, and it had been one of her peculiarities for
+which she was well known. But on this occasion she joined Ellis in his
+whisky. She had long since departed from her old-time rule of
+temperance, and nowadays drank nothing else but whisky. She had even
+become well known for the quantity of whisky she could drink.</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour the four sat around the little table, talking about the
+new, enormous Sutro Baths that were building at that time. After a while
+Flossie left them, and the Dummy began to imitate the motions of some
+one dealing cards, looking at the same time inquiringly into their
+faces.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How about that, Bandy?&quot; asked Vandover. &quot;Shall we have a game
+to-night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man of few words merely nodded his head and drank off the rest of
+his whisky at a swallow. They all went up to Vandover's room. Vandover
+got out the cards, the celluloid chips, and a fresh box of cigars. The
+Dummy held up two <a name="Page_209" id="Page_209" />fingers of his left hand, shutting them together
+afterward with his right and making a hissing noise between his teeth.
+He raised his eyebrows at Vandover. Vandover understood, and, ringing
+for a bell-boy, ordered up three bottles of soda in siphon bottles.</p>
+
+<p>The game was <i>vingt et un</i>, or, as they called it, Van John. They cut
+for banker. Ellis turned the first ace, and Vandover bought the bank
+from him. For the first hour they were very jolly, laughing and talking
+back and forth at each other; the Dummy especially communicative,
+continually scribbling upon his writing-pad, holding it toward the
+others. But it was not necessary for them to put their replies in
+writing&mdash;he understood from watching the movement of their lips. The
+luck had not declared itself as yet; none of them had lost or won very
+much. The bell-boy brought up the siphons. The Dummy took off his coat,
+and the other two followed his example. They were all smoking, and an
+acrid blue haze filled the room, making a golden blur about each gas
+globe.</p>
+
+<p>But little by little the passion of the gambling seized upon them. The
+luck had begun to declare itself, alternating between Ellis and the
+Dummy. Vandover lost steadily; twice already his bank had been broken,
+and he had been forced to buy in. The play resolved itself into two
+parts, Vandover struggling to keep up with the game on one side, and on
+the other a great battle going on between Ellis and the Dummy. Long
+since they had ceased to laugh, and not a word was spoken; each one was
+absorbed in the game, intently watching the cards as they were turned.
+The four gas-jets of the chandelier flared steadily, filling the room
+with a crude raw light that was reflected with a blinding glare from the
+four staring white walls, the room grew hot, the layer of foul warm air
+just beneath the ceiling, slowly descending. The acrid tobacco smoke no
+longer rose, but hung in long, slow-waving threads just above their
+heads. They played on steadily; a great stillness grew in the room, a
+stillness broken only by the little rattle of chips and subdued rustle
+of the shuffled cards. Once Vandover stopped, just time enough to throw
+off his vest, his collar, and his scarf. For a moment the luck seemed
+about to settle on him. He was still banking, and <a name="Page_210" id="Page_210" />twice in succession
+he drew Van John, both times winning heavily from the Dummy, and a
+little later tied Ellis at twenty when the latter had staked on nearly a
+third of his chips. But in the next half-dozen hands Ellis got back the
+lead again, winning from both the others. From this time on it was
+settled. The luck suddenly declared openly for Ellis, the Dummy and
+Vandover merely fighting for second place. Ellis held his lead; at one
+o'clock he was nearly fifty dollars ahead of the game. The profound
+silence of the room seemed to widen about them. After midnight the
+noises in the hotel, the ringing of distant call bells, the rattle of
+dishes from the kitchens, the clash of closing elevator doors, gradually
+ceased; only at long intervals one heard the hurried step of a bell-boy
+in the hall outside and the clink of the ice in the water pitcher that
+he was carrying. Outside a great quiet seemed in a sense to rise from
+the sleeping city, the noises in the streets died away. The last
+electric car went down Kearney Street, getting under way with a long
+minor wail. Occasionally a belated coup&eacute;, a nighthawk, rattled over the
+cobbles, while close by, from over the roofs, the tall slender stack
+upon the steam laundry puffed incessantly, three puffs at a time, like
+some kind of halting clock. The room became more and more close, none of
+them would take the time to open the window, from ceiling to floor the
+air was fouled by their breathing, by the tobacco smoke and by the four
+flaring gas-jets. By this time a sombre excitement burnt in their eyes
+and quivered in their fingers. Never for an instant did their glances
+leave the cards. Ellis was drinking whisky again, mixed with soda, his
+hand continually groping for the glass with a mechanical gesture; the
+Dummy was so excited he could not keep his cigar alight, and contented
+himself with chewing the end with an hysterical motion of his jaws. The
+perspiration stood in beads on the back of Vandover's hands, running
+down in tiny rivulets between his fingers, his teeth were shut close
+together and he was breathing short through his nose, a fine trembling
+had seized upon his hands so that the chips in his palm rattled like
+castanets. In the stale and murky atmosphere of the overheated room in
+the midst of the vast silence of the sleeping city they played on
+steadily.</p>
+
+<p>Then they began to &quot;plunge,&quot; agreeing to play a no limit <a name="Page_211" id="Page_211" />game and
+raising the value of a red chip to ten dollars; at times they even
+played with the coins themselves when their chips were exhausted.
+Vandover had lost all his ready money, and now for a long time had been
+gambling with the five hundred dollars he had that day drawn from the
+bank. Ellis had practically put the Dummy out of the play, and now the
+game was between him and Vandover. Ellis was banking, and at length
+offered to sell the bank to either one of them. For the first time since
+the real gambling began they commenced to talk a little, but in short,
+brief sentences, answering by monosyllables and by signs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How much for the bank?&quot; inquired Ellis, holding up the deck and looking
+from one to the other. Instantly the Dummy wrote ten dollars, in
+figures, on his pad, and showed it to him. Vandover looked at what the
+Dummy had written, and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fifteen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty,&quot; scribbled the Dummy, as he watched Vandover's lips form the
+word.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty-five,&quot; returned Vandover. The Dummy hesitated a moment and then
+wrote &quot;thirty.&quot; Ellis shook his head saying, &quot;I'll keep the bank myself
+at that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Forty dollars!&quot; cried Vandover. The Dummy shook his head, leaning back
+in his chair. Ellis shoved the pack across the table to Vandover, and
+Vandover gave him a twenty-dollar bill and two red chips.</p>
+
+<p>On Vandover's very first deal around, the Dummy &quot;stood&quot; on the second
+card, for twelve chips; Ellis bet twenty-five on his first card, and, as
+he got the second, turned both of them face up. He had two jacks.
+&quot;Twenty-five on each of these,&quot; he said. &quot;I'll draw to each one.&quot;
+Vandover looked at his own card; it was a ten-spot. All at once he grew
+reckless, and seized with a sudden folly, resolved to attempt a great
+<i>coup</i>. &quot;Double up!&quot; he ordered. The Dummy set out twelve more chips,
+and Ellis another fifty, making his bet an even hundred. Vandover began
+to deal to Ellis. On the first jack Ellis drew eighteen and stood at
+that; the first card that fell to the second jack was an ace. &quot;Van
+John,&quot; he remarked quietly. The Dummy drew three cards and stood on
+nineteen. Vandover turned up his own card and began to deal for himself.
+He <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212" />already had a ten; now he drew a seven-spot and king in succession.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The bank pays,&quot; he exclaimed. He paid the Dummy twenty-four chips. He
+gave Ellis fifty for the eighteen he had drawn on his first jack, and
+one hundred for the Van John upon the second, since the latter
+combination called for double the amount wagered; besides this, the bank
+was lost to him. Including the forty that he had paid for the bank, he
+had lost in all two hundred and fourteen dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Never in his life had Vandover played so high a game, never before had
+he won or lost more than fifty dollars at a sitting. But he was content
+to have it thus. Here at last was the new pleasure for which he had
+longed, the fresh violent excitement that alone could rouse his jaded
+nerves, the one thing that could amuse him. However, the failure of his
+<i>coup</i> had left him without chips; he was out of the game. He decided
+that he would stop; more than half of his five hundred dollars was gone
+already. He drank off a glass of soda, the dregs of one of the siphon
+bottles, and got up yawning, shivering a little and stretching his arms
+high above. The other two played on steadily. The Dummy began to gain
+slowly upon Ellis, playing very cautiously, betting only upon face
+cards, aces, and ten-spots. Twice Ellis offered to sell him the bank,
+but he refused, fearful lest it should change his luck.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover sat behind the Dummy's chair, watching his game, but at length,
+worn out, he began to drop off to sleep, waking every now and then with
+a sudden leap and recoil of all his nerves. An hour later the persistent
+scratching of a match awoke him. Ellis and the Dummy were still playing,
+and the Dummy was once more relighting the stump of his cigar. Ellis
+continued to deal, winning at almost every play; a great pile of chips
+and money lay at his elbow. For a few minutes Vandover watched the
+Dummy's game, leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees. But
+it was evident that the Dummy had lost his nerve. Ellis' continued
+winnings had at length demoralized him. At one time he would bet heavily
+on worthless cards, and at another would throw back nines and tens for
+no apparent reason. Finally Ellis dealt him a queen, which he kept,
+betting ten chips. His next card was a seven-spot. He signed to Ellis
+that he would stand. Ellis <a name="Page_213" id="Page_213" />drew twenty in three cards. Vandover could
+not restrain an exclamation of impatience at the Dummy's stupidity. What
+a fool a man must be to stand on seventeen with only two in the game.
+All at once he tossed twenty dollars across the table to Ellis, saying,
+&quot;Give me that in chips. I'm coming in again.&quot; Once more he resumed his
+seat at the table, and Ellis dealt him a hand.</p>
+
+<p>But Vandover's interruption had for an instant taken Ellis' mind from
+the game. He stirred in his chair and looked about the room, puffing out
+his cheeks and blowing between his lips.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, this room is close enough to strangle you. Open the window behind
+you, Van, you're nearest to it.&quot; As Vandover raised the curtain he
+uttered a cry: &quot;Look here! will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was morning; the city was flooded by the light of the sun already an
+hour high. The sky was without a cloud. Over the roofs and amongst the
+gray maze of telegraph wires swarms of sparrows were chittering
+hoarsely, and as Vandover raised the window he could hear the newsboys
+far below in the streets chanting the morning's papers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come on, Van!&quot; exclaimed Ellis impatiently; &quot;we're waiting for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That night decided it. From that time on, Vandover's only pleasure was
+gambling. Night and day he sat over the cards, the passion growing upon
+him as he continued to lose, for his ill luck was extraordinary. It was
+a veritable mania, a wild blind frenzy that knew no limit. At first he
+had contented himself with a game in which twenty or thirty dollars was
+as much as he could win or lose at a sitting, but soon this palled upon
+him; he was obliged to raise the stakes continually in order to arouse
+in him the interest, the keen tense excitement, that his jaded nerves
+craved.</p>
+
+<p>The five hundred dollars that he had drawn from the ten thousand, the
+first payment on his old home, melted away within a week. Only a few
+years ago Vandover would have stopped to reflect upon the meaning of
+this, would have resisted the temptation that drew him constantly to the
+gambling-table, but the idea of resistance never so much as occurred to
+him. He did not invest his fifteen thousand, but drew upon it
+continually to satisfy his last new craze. It was <a name="Page_214" id="Page_214" />not with any hope of
+winning that he gambled&mdash;the desire of money was never strong in him&mdash;it
+was only the love of the excitement of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little the fifteen thousand in the bank dwindled. It did not
+all go in cards. Certain habits of extravagance grew upon Vandover, the
+natural outcome of his persistent gambling, the desire of winning easily
+being balanced by the impulses to spend quickly. He took a certain
+hysterical delight in flinging away money with both hands. Now it was
+the chartering of a yacht for a ten-days' cruise about the bay, or it
+was a bicycle bought one week and thrown away the next, a fresh suit of
+clothes each month, gloves worn but once, gold-pieces thrust into
+Flossie's pockets, suppers given to bouffe actresses&mdash;twenty-four-hour
+acquaintances&mdash;a racehorse bought for eight hundred dollars, resold for
+two hundred and fifty&mdash;rings and scarf-pins given away to the women and
+girls of the Imperial, and a whole world of follies that his poor
+distorted wits conceived from hour to hour. His judgment was gone, his
+mind unbalanced. All his life Vandover had been sinking slowly lower and
+lower; this, however, was the beginning of the last plunge. The process
+of degeneration, though inevitable, had been gradual as long as he
+indulged generally in all forms of evil; it was only now when a passion
+for one particular vice absorbed him that he commenced to rush headlong
+to his ruin.</p>
+
+<p>The fifteen thousand dollars&mdash;the price of his old home&mdash;he gambled or
+flung away in a little less than a year. He never invested it, but ate
+into it day after day, sometimes to pay his gambling debts, sometimes to
+indulge an absurd and extravagant whim, sometimes to pay his bill at the
+Lick House, and sometimes for no reason at all, moved simply by a
+reckless desire for spending.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of a certain Thanksgiving day, nine months after he had
+sold the house, Vandover came in through the ladies' entrance of the
+Imperial, going slowly down the passageway, looking into the little
+rooms on his right for Ellis or the Dummy. There had been a great
+intercollegiate football game that day, and Vandover, remembering that
+he had once found an interest in such things, had at first determined to
+see it. But toward eleven o'clock in the morning the rain had <a name="Page_215" id="Page_215" />begun to
+fall, and Ellis, who was to have gone with him, declared that he did not
+care enough about the game to go out to it in the rain. Vandover was
+disappointed; he fancied that he could have enjoyed the game&mdash;as much as
+he could enjoy anything of late&mdash;but he hated to go to places alone. In
+the end, however, he resolved to go whether Ellis went or not. It was a
+holiday. Vandover had Ellis and the Dummy to lunch with him at the
+hotel, where they arranged the menu of a famous Thanksgiving dinner for
+that evening: they would meet in one of the little rooms of the Imperial
+and go from there to the restaurant. As they were finishing their lunch
+Vandover said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I got a new kind of liqueur yesterday&mdash;has a colour like violets and
+smells like cologne. You fellows better come up to my room and try it.
+I've got to go up and change anyway, if I go out to that game.&quot; They all
+went up to Vandover's cheerless room, and Ellis began to argue with
+Vandover against the folly of going anywhere in the rain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>You</i> don't want to go to that game, Van. Just look how it's raining.
+I'll bet there won't be a thousand people there. They'll probably
+postpone the game anyway. Say, this <i>is</i> queer looking stuff. What do
+you call it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Cr&egrave;me violette.</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Dummy set down his emptied liqueur glass on the mantelshelf, and
+nodded approvingly at Vandover; then he scribbled, &quot;Out of sight,&quot; on
+his tablet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tastes like cough syrup and alcohol,&quot; growled Ellis, scowling and
+sipping. &quot;I think a pint of this would make the Dummy talk Dutch. Keep
+it up, Dummy,&quot; he continued, articulating distinctly so that the other
+could catch the movement of his lips. &quot;Drink some more&mdash;make you talk.&quot;
+Vandover was cutting the string around a pasteboard box that had just
+come from his tailor's; it was a new suit of clothes, rough cheviot,
+brown with small checks. He dressed slowly and tipped forward the
+swinging mirror of the bureau to see how the trousers set. Meanwhile
+Ellis and the Dummy had got out the cards and chips from the drawer of
+the centre-table and had begun a game.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Better change your mind, Van,&quot; said Ellis without raising his eyes from
+the cards.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_216" id="Page_216" />No, sir,&quot; answered Van. &quot;You don't know how it is&mdash;you never were a
+college man. Why, I wouldn't miss a football game for anything. Talk
+about your horse-racing, talk about your baseball&mdash;I tell you there's
+nothing in the world so exciting as a hot football game.&quot; He swung into
+his long high-coloured waterproof and stood behind Ellis, watching his
+game for a moment while he tied a couple of long silk streamers to his
+umbrella handle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's one of the college colours,&quot; he explained. &quot;Seems like old times
+back at Harvard.&quot; Ellis snorted with contempt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Such kids!&quot; he growled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I saw one of the coaches go down the street a little while ago,&quot;
+continued Vandover, still watching Ellis shuffle and deal. &quot;There were
+about twenty college men on top, and they had a big bulldog all
+harnessed out in their colours, and they were blowing fish-horns, and I
+tell you it made me wish I was one of them again.&quot; Ellis did not answer;
+it was probable he did not hear. Both he and the Dummy were settling
+down for a game that no doubt would last all the afternoon. Vandover
+made them free of his room, and they often gambled there when he was
+away. But it invariably made Ellis nervous to have any one stand behind
+his chair while he was playing; he began to move about uneasily. By and
+by he looked at his watch. &quot;Better get a move on,&quot; he said, &quot;you'll be
+late.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just a minute,&quot; answered Vandover, more and more interested in the
+game. &quot;Go on playing; don't bother about me. Oh, I saw Charlie Geary,
+too,&quot; he continued, &quot;on another coach; there was a party of them.
+Charlie was with Turner Ravis on the box seat. You remember Turner
+Ravis, don't you, Bandy? The girl I used to go with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There's a girl I never liked,&quot; observed Ellis. &quot;She always struck me as
+being one of these regular snobs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, snob is no name for it,&quot; assented Vandover. &quot;She thought she was
+too damned high-toned for me. As soon as I got into that mess about Ida
+Wade, she threw me over. No, she didn't want to be associated with me
+any longer. Well, she can go to the devil. Geary's welcome to her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought Dolly Haight was going to marry her,&quot; said Ellis. &quot;What was
+the matter <i>there</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know,&quot; returned Vandover; &quot;probably Dolly<a name="Page_217" id="Page_217" /> Haight didn't have
+enough money to suit her. Guess she wants a man that will make his pile
+in this town and make his way, too. Ah, you bet!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he was still behind Ellis' chair. Ellis had become so
+fidgety that he was losing steadily. Once more he turned to Vandover,
+speaking over his shoulder, &quot;Come on, come on, Van, go along to your
+football; you make me nervous standing there.&quot; Vandover pushed a
+ten-dollar gold-piece across the table to the Dummy, who was banking,
+and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give me that in chips. I'm coming in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought you were going to the game?&quot; inquired Ellis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, the devil!&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;Too much rain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had played without interruption all that afternoon, and for once
+Vandover had all the luck. When they broke up about five o'clock with
+the understanding to meet again in the Imperial at seven, he had won
+nearly a hundred dollars.</p>
+
+<p>When Vandover went out to keep this appointment he found the
+streets&mdash;especially Kearney and Market streets&mdash;crowded. It was about
+half-past six. The football game was over and the college men had
+returned. They were everywhere, marching about in long files, chain-gang
+fashion, each file headed by a man beating upon a gong, or parading the
+sidewalks ten abreast, singing college songs or shouting their slogan.
+At every moment one heard the college yells answering each other from
+street corner to street corner, &quot;Rah, rah, rah&mdash;Rah, rah, rah!&quot; Vandover
+found the Imperial crowded with students. The barroom was packed to the
+doors, every one of the little rooms in the front hall was full, while
+Flossie and Nannie had a great party of the young fellows in one of the
+larger rooms in the rear. Among the crowd in the barroom, three members
+of the winning team&mdash;heroes, with bandages about their heads&mdash;were
+breaking training, smoking and drinking for the first time in many long
+weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover found Ellis and the Dummy leaning against the wall in the
+crowded front passage. They were both in bad humour, the Dummy sulking
+because Flossie had left him for one of the football men, the full-back,
+a young blond giant with two dislocated fingers; Ellis in a rage because
+he could get no cocktails at the bar, only straight drinks that
+night&mdash;too<a name="Page_218" id="Page_218" /> much of a crowd. These damn college sports thought they
+owned the town. &quot;Ah, let's get out of here, Van!&quot; he called over the
+heads of the throng as soon as Vandover came in sight.</p>
+
+<p>They went out into the street and started in the direction of the
+restaurant where they had decided to eat their Thanksgiving dinner.
+After leaving Vandover that afternoon Ellis had seen the head waiter of
+this restaurant and had explained to him the bill of fare that Vandover,
+the Dummy, and himself had arranged during their lunch at the Lick
+House. The streets had relapsed into a momentary quiet&mdash;it was between
+half-past six and seven&mdash;and most of the college men were gathered into
+the hotels and caf&eacute;s eating dinner. About an hour later they would
+reappear again for a moment on their way to the theatre, which they were
+to attend in a body.</p>
+
+<p>But Vandover suddenly discovered that he could not eat a mouthful, the
+smell of food revolted him, and little by little an irregular twitching
+had overcome his hands and forearms.</p>
+
+<p>He had received a great shock. That same evening, as he was leaving the
+hotel, the clerk at the office had handed him some letters that had
+accumulated in his box. Vandover could never think to ask for his mail
+in the morning as he went in to breakfast. Something was surely wrong
+with his head of late. Every day he found it harder and harder to
+remember things. There were three letters altogether: one was the
+tailor's bill mailed the same day that his last suit had been finished;
+a second was an advertisement announcing the near opening of the Sutro
+Baths that were building at that time; and the third a notice from the
+bank calling his attention to the fact that his account was overdrawn by
+some sixty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>At first Vandover did not see the meaning of this notice, and thrust it
+back in his pocket together with the tailor's bill; then slowly an idea
+struggled into his mind. Was it possible that he no longer had any money
+at the bank? Was his fifteen thousand gone? From time to time his
+bank-book had been balanced, and invariably during the first days of
+each month his checks had come back to him, used and crumpled, covered
+with strange signatures and stamped in blue ink; but after the first few
+months he had never paid the least attention to these; he never kept
+accounts, having a veritable feminine <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219" />horror of figures. But it was
+absurd to think that his money was gone. Pshaw! one could not spend
+fifteen thousand in nine months! It was preposterous! This notice was
+some technicality that he could not understand. He would look into it
+the next day. And so he dismissed the wearisome matter from his mind
+with a shrug of his shoulders as though ridding himself of some
+troublesome burden. However, the idea persisted. Somehow, between the
+lines of the printed form he smelt out a fresh disaster. He read it over
+again and again. All at once as he stood in the doorway of the hotel,
+turning up the collar of his waterproof and watching the little pools in
+the hollows of the asphalt pavement to see if it were still raining, the
+conviction came upon him. In a second he knew that he was ruined. The
+true meaning of the notice became apparent with the swiftness of a great
+flash of light. He had spent his fifteen thousand dollars!</p>
+
+<p>The blow was strong enough, sudden enough to penetrate even Vandover's
+clouded and distorted wits. His nerves were gone in a minute, a sudden
+stupefying numbness fell upon his brain, and the fear of something
+unknown, the immense unreasoning terror that had gripped him for the
+first time the morning after Ida Wade's suicide came back upon him,
+horrible, crushing, so that he had to shut his teeth against a wild
+hysterical desire to rush through the streets screaming and waving his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>By the time the three friends had reached the restaurant where they were
+to eat their Thanksgiving dinner, Vandover's appetite had given place to
+a loathing of the very smell of food, his nervousness was fast
+approaching hysteria, the little nerve clusters all over his body seemed
+to be crisping and writhing like balls of tiny serpents, at intervals he
+would twitch sharply as though startled at some sudden noise, his breath
+coming short, his heart beating quick.</p>
+
+<p>They had their dinner in one of the private rooms of the restaurant on
+the second floor. All through the meal Vandover struggled to keep
+himself in hand, fighting with all his strength against this
+reappearance of his old enemy, this sudden return of the dreadful
+crisis, determined not to make an exhibition of himself before the
+others. He pretended to eat, and forced himself to talk, joining in with
+Ellis, who was <a name="Page_220" id="Page_220" />badgering the Dummy about Flossie. The proper thing to
+do was to fill the Dummy's glass while his attention was otherwise
+absorbed, and in the end to get him so drunk that he could talk. Toward
+the end of the dinner Ellis was successful. All at once the Dummy got
+upon his feet, his eyes were glazed with drunkenness, he swayed about in
+an irregular circle, holding up, now by the table, now by the
+chair-back, and now by the wall behind him. He was very angry,
+exasperated beyond control by Ellis' raillery and abuse. He forgot
+himself and uttered a series of peculiar cries very faint and shrill,
+like the sounds of a voice heard through a telephone when some
+imperfection of transmission prevents one from distinguishing the words.
+His mouth was wide open and his tongue rolled about in an absurd way
+between his teeth. Now and then one could catch a word or two. Ellis
+went into spasms of laughter, holding his sides, gasping for breath.
+Vandover could not help being amused, and the two laughed at the Dummy's
+stammering rage until their breath was spent. Throughout the rest of the
+evening the Dummy recommenced from time to time, rising unsteadily to
+his feet, shaking his fists, pouring out a stream of little ineffectual
+birdlike twitterings, trying to give Ellis abuse for abuse, trying to
+talk long after it had ceased to amuse the other two. Ellis had been
+drinking for nearly six hours, without the liquor producing the
+slightest effect upon him; long since, the Dummy was hopelessly drunk;
+and now Vandover, who had been drinking upon an empty stomach, began to
+grow very noisy and boisterous. Little by little Ellis himself commenced
+to lose his self-control. By and by he and Vandover began to sing, each
+independent of the other, very hoarse and loud. The Dummy joined them,
+making a hideous and lamentable noise which so affected Ellis that he
+pretended to howl at it like a little dog overcome by mournful music.
+But suddenly Ellis had an idea, crying out thickly, between two
+hiccoughs:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hey, there, Van, do your dog-act for us! Go on! Bark for us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By this time Vandover was very nearly out of his head, his drunkenness
+finishing what his nervousness had begun. The attack was fast
+approaching culmination; strange and unnatural fancies began to come and
+go in his brain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221" />Go on, Van!&quot; urged Ellis, his eyes heavy with alcohol. &quot;Go on, do your
+dog-act!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All at once it was as though an angry dog were snarling and barking over
+a bone there under the table about their feet. Ellis roared with
+laughter, but suddenly he himself was drunk. All the afternoon he had
+kept himself in hand; now his intoxication came upon him in a moment.
+The skin around his eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves
+were contracted; they grew darker, taking on the colour of bitumen.
+Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all from
+off the table with a single movement of his arm. Then the alcohol
+overcame him all in an instant like a poisonous gas. He swayed forward
+in his chair and fell across the stripped table, his head rolling
+inertly between his outstretched arms. He did not move again.</p>
+
+<p>In a neighbouring room young Haight had been dining with some college
+fellows, fraternity men, all friends of his, upon whose coach he had
+ridden to and from the game. He had heard Vandover and Ellis in the room
+across the hall and had recognized their voices. Haight had never been a
+friend of Ellis, but no one, not even Turner, had grieved more over
+Vandover's ruin than had his old-time college chum.</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight heard the noise of the falling crockery as Ellis swept the
+table clear, and turned his head sharply, listening. There was a
+moment's silence after this, and Haight, fearing some accident had
+happened, stepped out into the hall and stood there a moment listening
+again; his head inclined toward the closed door. He heard no groaning,
+no exclamations of pain, not even any noise of conversation; only
+through the closed door came a steady sound of barking.</p>
+
+<p>Puzzled, he tried the door and, finding it locked, as he had expected,
+put one foot upon the knob and, catching hold of the top jamb, raised
+himself up and looked down through the open space that answered for a
+transom.</p>
+
+<p>The room was very warm, the air thick with the smell of cooked food, the
+fumes of whisky, and the acrid odour of cigar smoke. Ellis had rolled
+from his chair and lay upon the floor sprawling on his face in the wreck
+of the table. Near to him, likewise upon the floor, but sitting up, his
+back against the wall, was the Dummy. He was muttering incessantly to
+<a name="Page_222" id="Page_222" />himself, as if delighted at having found his tongue, his head swaying
+on his shoulders, and a strange murmur, soft, birdlike, meaningless,
+like sounds heard from a vast distance, coming from his wide-open mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was sitting bolt upright in his chair, his hands gripping the
+table, his eyes staring straight before him. He was barking incessantly.
+It was evident that now he could not stop himself; it was like
+hysterical laughter, a thing beyond his control. Twice young Haight
+called him by name, kicking the door as his leg hung against it. At last
+Vandover heard him. Then as he caught sight of his face over the door he
+raised his upper lip above his teeth and snarled at him, long and
+viciously.</p>
+
+<p>As Haight dropped down into the hall a waiter came running up; he, too,
+had heard the noise of the breaking dishes. As he thrust his key into
+the lock he paused a moment, listening and looking in a puzzled way at
+young Haight. &quot;They have a dog in here, then? They had no dog when they
+came. That's funny!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Open the door,&quot; said young Haight quietly. Once inside Haight went
+directly to Vandover, crying out: &quot;Come! come on, Van! come home with
+me.&quot; Vandover started suddenly, looking about him bewildered, drawing
+his hand across his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Home,&quot; he repeated vaguely; &quot;yes, that's the idea. Let's go home. I
+want to go to bed. Hello, Dolly! where did <i>you</i> come from? Say, Dolly,
+let me tell you&mdash;listen here&mdash;come down here close; you mustn't mind me;
+you know I'm a wolf mostly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They went down toward the Lick House. Vandover grew steadier after a few
+minutes in the open air. Young Haight locked arms with him; they went on
+together in silence. By this time the streets were crowded again, the
+theatres were over, and the college men were once more at large. Now
+they were all gathered together into one immense procession, headed by a
+brass band in a brewer's wagon, and they tramped aimlessly to and fro
+about Kearney and Market streets, making a hideous noise. At the head
+the band was playing a popular quick-step with a great banging of a bass
+drum. The college men in the front ranks were singing one <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223" />song, those
+in the rear another, while the middle of the column was given over to an
+abominable medley of fish-horns, policemen's rattles and great Chinese
+gongs. At stated intervals the throng would halt and give the college
+yell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dolly, you and I used to do that,&quot; said Vandover, looking after the
+procession. He had himself well in hand by this time. &quot;What was the
+matter with me back there at the restaurant, Dolly?&quot; he asked after a
+while.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you'd been drinking a good deal, I guess,&quot; answered young Haight.
+&quot;You&mdash;you had some queer idea about yourself!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I know,&quot; answered Vandover quickly. &quot;Fancied I was some kind of a
+beast, didn't I&mdash;some kind of wolf? I have that notion sometimes and I
+can't get it out of my head. It's curious just the same.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They went up to Vandover's room. Vandover lit the gas, but he could
+hardly keep back an exclamation as the glare suddenly struck young
+Haight's face. What in heaven's name was the matter with his old-time
+chum? He seemed to be blighted, shattered, struck down by some terrible,
+overwhelming calamity. A dreadful anguish looked through his eyes. The
+sense of a hopeless misery had drawn and twisted his face. There could
+be no doubt that something had made shipwreck of his life. Vandover was
+looking at a ruined man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My God, Dolly!&quot; exclaimed Vandover, &quot;what's happened to you? You look
+like a death's-head, man! What's gone wrong? Aren't you well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Haight caught his friend's searching gaze, and for a moment they looked
+at each other without speaking. There was no mistaking the fearful grief
+that smouldered behind Haight's dull, listless eyes. For a moment
+Vandover thought of Turner Ravis. But even if she had turned him off,
+that alone would not account for his friend's fearful condition of mind
+and body.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it, Dolly?&quot; persisted Vandover. &quot;We used to be pretty good
+chums, not so long ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They sat down on the edge of the bed, and for a moment their positions
+seemed reversed: Haight the one to be protected and consoled, Vandover
+the shielding and self-reliant one.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224" />Young Haight passed his hand over his face before he answered, and
+Vandover noticed that his fingers trembled like an old man's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you remember that night, Van, when you and Charlie and I all went
+out to Turner's house, and we had <i>tamales</i> and beer, and a glass broke
+in that peculiar way, and I cut my lip?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover nodded, forcing his attention against the alcoholic fumes, to
+follow his friend's words.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We went down to the Imperial afterward,&quot; Haight continued, &quot;and ran
+into Ellis, and we had something more to eat. Do you remember that as we
+sat there, Toby, the waiter, brought Flossie in, and she sat there with
+us a while?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused, choosing his words. Vandover listened closely, trying to
+recall the incident.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She kissed me,&quot; said young Haight slowly, &quot;and the court-plaster came
+off. You know I never had anything to do with women, Van. I always tried
+to keep away from them. But that's where my life practically came to an
+end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You mean&mdash;&quot; began Vandover. &quot;You mean&mdash;that you&mdash;that Flossie&mdash;?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Haight nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good God! I can't believe it. It's not possible! I <i>know</i> Flossie!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Haight shook his head, smiling grimly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't help that, Van,&quot; said he. &quot;There's no denying facts, there's no
+other possible explanation! As soon as I knew, I went to the doctors
+here, and then I went to New York for treatment, but there's no hope. I
+didn't know, you see. I didn't believe it possible. Turner Ravis and I
+were engaged. I waited too long! There's only one escape for me now.&quot;
+His voice dropped, he stared for a moment at the floor. Then he
+straightened up, and said in a different tone, &quot;But, damn it, Van, let's
+not talk about it! I'm haunted with the thing day and night. I want to
+talk to you! I want to talk to you seriously. You know you are ruining
+yourself, old man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But Vandover interrupted him with a gesture, saying, &quot;Don't go on,
+Dolly; it isn't the least use. There <i>was</i> a time for that, but that was
+long ago. I used to care, I used to be sorry and all that, but I'm not
+now. Ruining myself? Why, I<a name="Page_225" id="Page_225" /> <i>have</i> ruined myself long ago. We're both
+ruined&mdash;only in your case it wasn't your fault. It's too late for me
+now, and I'm even not sorry that it <i>is</i> too late. Dolly, I don't <i>want</i>
+to pull up. You can't imagine a man fallen as low as that, can you? I
+couldn't imagine it myself a few years ago. I'm going right straight to
+the devil now, and you might as well stand aside and give me a free
+course, for I'm bound to get there sooner or later. I suppose you would
+think that a man who could see this as plainly as I do would be afraid,
+would have remorse and all that sort of thing. Well, I did at first.
+I'll never forget the night when I first saw it; came near shooting
+myself, but I got over it, and now I'm used to the idea. Dolly, <i>I can
+get used to almost anything</i>. Nothing makes much difference to me
+nowadays&mdash;only I like to play cards. Look here!&quot; he went on, laying out
+the notice from the bank upon the table, &quot;this came to-day. You see what
+it is! I sold the old house on California Street. Well, I've gambled
+away that money in less than a year. It seems that I'm a financial ruin
+now, but&quot;&mdash;and he began to laugh&mdash;&quot;I live through it somehow. The news
+didn't prevent me from getting drunk to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After young Haight was gone, Vandover went to bed, turning out the gas
+and drawing down the window half-way from the top. The wine had made him
+sleepy; he was dropping away into a very grateful doze when a sudden
+shock, a violent leap of every nerve in his body, brought him up to a
+sitting posture, gasping for breath, his heart fluttering, his hands
+beating at the empty air. He settled down again, turning upon his
+pillow, closing his eyes, very weary, longing for a good night's sleep.
+Dolly Haight's terrible story, his unjustified fate, and the hopeless
+tragedy of it, came back to him. Vandover would gladly have changed
+places with him. Young Haight had the affection and respect of even
+those that knew. He, Vandover, had thrown away his friends' love and
+their esteem with the rest of the things he had once valued. His
+thoughts, released from all control of his will, began to come and go
+through his head with incredible rapidity, confused ideas,
+half-remembered scenes, incidents of the past few days, bits and ends of
+conversation recalled for no especial reason, all galloping across his
+brain like a long herd of terrified <a name="Page_226" id="Page_226" />horses; an excitement grew upon
+him, a strange thrill of exhilaration. He was broad awake now, but
+suddenly his left leg, his left arm and wrist, all his left side jerked
+with the suddenness of a sprung trap; so violent was the shock that the
+entire bed shook and creaked with it. Then the inevitable reaction
+followed, the slow crisping and torsion of his nerves, twisting upon
+each other like a vast swarm of tiny serpents; it seemed to begin with
+his ankles, spreading slowly to every part of his body; it was a
+veritable torture, so poignant that Vandover groaned under it, shutting
+his eyes. He could not keep quiet a second&mdash;to lie in bed was an
+impossibility; he threw the bed-clothes from him and sprang up. He did
+not light the gas, but threw on his bathrobe and began to walk the
+floor. Even as he walked, his eyelids drooped lower and lower. The need
+of sleep overcame him like a narcotic, but as soon as he was about to
+lose himself he would be suddenly and violently awakened by the same
+shock, the same jangling recoil of his nerves. Then his hands and head
+seemed to swell; next, it was as though the whole room was too small for
+him. He threw open the window and, leaning upon his elbows, looked out.</p>
+
+<p>The clouds had begun to break, the rain was gradually ceasing, leaving
+in the air a damp, fresh smell, the smell of wet asphalt and the odour
+of dripping woodwork. It was warm; the atmosphere was dank, heavy,
+tepid. One or two stars were out, and a faint gray light showed him the
+vast reach of roofs below stretching away to meet the abrupt rise of
+Telegraph Hill. Not far off the slender, graceful smokestack puffed
+steadily, throwing off continually the little flock of white jets that
+rose into the air very brave and gay, but in the end dwindled
+irresolutely, discouraged, disheartened, fading sadly away, vanishing
+under the night, like illusions disappearing at the first touch of the
+outside world. As Vandover leaned from his window, looking out into the
+night with eyes that saw nothing, the college slogan rose again from the
+great crowd of students who still continued to hold the streets.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He turned back into the room, groping among the bottles on his washstand
+for his bromide of potassium. As he poured out the required dose into
+the teaspoon his hand twitched <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227" />again sharply, flirting the medicine
+over his bared neck and chest, exposed by the bathrobe which he had left
+open at the throat. It was cold, and he shivered a bit as he wiped it
+dry with the back of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>He knew very well that his nervous attack was coming on again. As he set
+down the bottle upon the washstand he muttered to himself, &quot;Now I'm
+going to have a night of it.&quot; He began to walk the floor again with
+great strides, fighting with all his pitiful, shattered mind against the
+increasing hysteria, trying to keep out of his brain the strange
+hallucination that assailed it from time to time, the hallucination of a
+thing four-footed, a thing that sulked and snarled. The hotel grew
+quiet; a watchman went down the hall turning out each alternate gas jet.
+Just outside of the door was a burner in a red globe, fixed at a stair
+landing to show the exit in case of fire. This burned all night and it
+streamed through the transom of Vandover's room, splotching the ceiling
+with a great square of red light. Vandover was in a torment, overcome
+now by that same fear with which he had at last become so familiar, the
+unreasoning terror of something unknown. He uttered an exclamation, a
+suppressed cry of despair, of misery, and then suddenly checked himself,
+astonished, seized with the fancy that his cry was not human, was not of
+himself, but of something four-footed, the snarl of some exasperated
+brute. He paused abruptly in his walk, listening, for what he did not
+know. The silence of the great city spread itself around him, like the
+still waters of some vast lagoon. Through the silence he heard the noise
+of the throng of college youths. They were returning, doubling upon
+their line of march. A long puff of tepid air breathing through the open
+window brought to his ears the distant joyous sound of their slogan:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They passed by along the adjacent street, their sounds growing faint.
+Vandover took up his restless pacing again. Little by little the
+hallucination gained upon him; little by little his mind slipped from
+his grasp. The wolf&mdash;the beast&mdash;whatever the creature was, seemed in his
+diseased fancy to grow stronger in him from moment to moment. But with
+all his strength he fought against it, fought against this strange
+mania, that overcame him at these periodical intervals&mdash;fought<a name="Page_228" id="Page_228" /> with his
+hands so tightly clenched that the knuckles grew white, that the nails
+bit into the palm. It seemed to him that in some way his personality
+divided itself into three. There was himself, the real Vandover of every
+day, the same familiar Vandover that looked back at him from his mirror;
+then there was the wolf, the beast, whatever the creature was that lived
+in his flesh, and that struggled with him now, striving to gain the
+ascendency, to absorb the real Vandover into its own hideous identity;
+and last of all, there was a third self, formless, very vague, elusive,
+that stood aside and watched the strife of the other two. But as he
+fought against his madness, concentrating all his attention with a
+tremendous effort of the will, the queer numbness that came upon his
+mind whenever he exerted it enwrapped his brain like a fog, and this
+third self grew vaguer than ever, dwindled and disappeared. Somehow it
+seemed to be associated with consciousness, for after this the sense of
+the reality of things grew dim and blurred to him. He ceased to know
+exactly what he was doing. His intellectual parts dropped away one by
+one, leaving only the instincts, the blind, unreasoning impulses of the
+animal.</p>
+
+<p>Still he continued his restless, lurching walk back and forth in his
+room, his head hanging low and swinging from side to side with the
+movement of his gait. He had become so nervous that the restraint
+imposed upon his freedom of movement by his bathrobe and his loose
+night-clothes chafed and irritated him. At length he had stripped off
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly and without the slightest warning Vandover's hands came slowly
+above his head and he dropped forward, landing upon his palms. All in an
+instant he had given way, yielding in a second to the strange
+hallucination of that four-footed thing that sulked and snarled. Now
+without a moment's stop he ran back and forth along the wall of the
+room, upon the palms of his hands and his toes, a ludicrous figure, like
+that of certain clowns one sees at the circus, contortionists walking
+about the sawdust, imitating some kind of enormous dog. Still he swung
+his head from side to side with the motion of his shuffling gait, his
+eyes dull and fixed. At long intervals he uttered a sound, half word,
+half cry, &quot;Wolf&mdash;wolf!&quot; but it was muffled, indistinct, raucous, coming
+more <a name="Page_229" id="Page_229" />from his throat than from his lips. It might easily have been the
+growl of an animal. A long time passed. Naked, four-footed, Vandover ran
+back and forth the length of the room.</p>
+
+<p>By an hour after midnight the sky was clear, all the stars were out, the
+moon a thin, low-swinging scimitar, set behind the black mass of the
+roofs of the city, leaving a pale bluish light that seemed to come from
+all quarters of the horizon. As the great stillness grew more and more
+complete, the persistent puffing of the slender tin stack, the three gay
+and joyous little noises, each sounding like a note of discreet laughter
+interrupted by a cough, became clear and distinct. Inside the room there
+was no sound except the persistent patter of something four-footed going
+up and down. At length even this sound ceased abruptly. Worn out,
+Vandover had just fallen, dropping forward upon his face with a long
+breath. He lay still, sleeping at last. The remnant of the great band of
+college men went down an adjacent street, raising their cadenced slogan
+for the last time. It came through the open window, softened as it were
+by the warm air, thick with damp, through which it travelled:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Naked, exhausted, Vandover slept profoundly, stretched at full length at
+the foot of the bare, white wall of the room beneath two of the little
+placards, scrawled with ink, that read, &quot;Stove Here&quot;; &quot;Mona Lisa Here.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Seventeen" id="Chapter_Seventeen" /><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230" /><i>Chapter Seventeen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>On A certain Saturday morning two years later Vandover awoke in his room
+at the Reno House, the room he had now occupied for fifteen months.</p>
+
+<p>One might almost say that he had been expelled from the Lick House. For
+a time he had tried to retain his room there with the idea of paying his
+bills by the money he should win at gambling. But his bad luck was now
+become a settled thing&mdash;almost invariably he lost. At last Ellis and the
+Dummy had refused to play with him, since he was never able to pay them
+when they won. They had had a great quarrel. Ellis broke with him
+sullenly, growling wrathfully under his heavy moustache, and the Dummy
+had written upon his pad&mdash;so hastily and angrily that the words could
+hardly be read&mdash;that he would not play with professional gamblers, men
+who supported themselves by their winnings. Damn it! one had to be a
+gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Next, Vandover had tried to borrow some money of Charlie Geary. Geary
+had told him that he could not afford as much as Vandover needed. Then
+Vandover became enraged. He had long since seen that Geary had
+practically swindled him out of his block in the Mission, and at that
+very moment the huge boot and shoe &quot;concern&quot; was completing the factory
+built upon the ground that Vandover had once owned. Geary had cleared
+seven thousand dollars on his &quot;deal.&quot; His refusal to loan his old-time
+friend fifty dollars upon this occasion had exasperated Vandover out of
+all bounds. There was a scene. Vandover told Geary what he thought of
+his &quot;deal&quot; in very plain words. They shouted &quot;swindler&quot; and &quot;gambler&quot;
+into each other's faces; the whole office was aroused; Vandover was
+ejected by force. On a stair landing half-way to the street he sat down
+and cried into his arms folded upon his knees. When he returned to his
+room he had a sudden return of his dreadful nervous malady and barked
+and whined under the bed.</p>
+
+<p>Then Vandover wrote a fifty-dollar check on the bank&mdash;the same bank that
+had just notified him that he was overdrawn&mdash;and passed it upon young
+Haight. How he came to <a name="Page_231" id="Page_231" />do the thing he could not tell; it might have
+been the influence of Geary's successful robbery, or it might have been
+that he had at last lost all principle, all sense of honour and
+integrity. At any rate, he could not bring himself to feel very sorry.
+He knew that young Haight would not prosecute him for the dishonesty; he
+traded upon Haight's magnanimity; he only felt glad that he had the
+fifty dollars. But by this time Vandover did not even wonder at his own
+baseness and degradation. A few years ago this would have been the case;
+now his character was so changed that the theft seemed somehow
+consistent. He had destroyed young Haight's friendship for him. He had
+cast from him his college chum, his best friend, but neither did this
+affect him. Nothing made much difference to him now.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Vandover was evicted from the Lick House three days after
+he had stolen young Haight's money. Instead of paying his bills with the
+amount, he gambled it away in a back room of a new caf&eacute; on Market Street
+with Toby, the red-eyed waiter from the Imperial, and a certain German
+&quot;professor,&quot; a billiard marker, who wore a waistcoat figured with little
+designs of the Eiffel Tower, and who was a third owner in a trotting
+mare named Tomato Ketchup.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was now left with only his bonds, his U.S. 4 per cents. These
+brought him in but sixty-nine dollars a quarter, or as he had had it
+arranged, twenty-three dollars a month. Just at this time, as if by a
+miracle, a veritable God from the Machine, Vandover's lawyer, Mr. Field,
+found him an opportunity to earn some money. For the first and only time
+in his life Vandover knew what it was to work for a living. The work
+that Field secured for him was the work of painting those little
+pictures on the lacquered surface of iron safes, those little oval
+landscapes between the lines of red and gold lettering&mdash;landscapes,
+rugged gorges, ocean steamships under all sail, mountain lakes with
+sailboats careening upon their surfaces, the boat indicated by two
+little triangular dabs of Chinese white, one for the sail itself and the
+other for its reflection in the water. Sometimes even he was called upon
+to paint other little pictures upon the sides of big express wagons&mdash;two
+horses, one white and the other bay, galloping very free in an open
+field, their manes and tails flying, or a bull<a name="Page_232" id="Page_232" />dog, very savage, sitting
+upon a green and black safe, or the head of a mastiff with a spiked
+collar about his neck.</p>
+
+<p>What with the pay for this sort of work and the interest of his bonds,
+Vandover managed to lead a haphazard sort of life, living about in cheap
+lodging-houses and cheap restaurants. But he was never more than a
+second-class workman, and he was so irregular that he could never be
+depended upon.</p>
+
+<p>The moment he began to paint again&mdash;even to paint such pitiful little
+pictures as these&mdash;the same familiar experience repeated itself, the
+unwillingness of his fingers, their failure to rightly interpret his
+ideas, the resulting crudity of his work, the sudden numbness in his
+brain, the queer, tense sensation behind his eyes. But Vandover had long
+since become accustomed to these symptoms and would not have minded them
+at this time had it not been that they were occasionally followed by a
+nervous twitching and jerking of his whole arm, so that sometimes he
+could not hold the brush steady a minute at a time.</p>
+
+<p>For two years he had drifted about the city, living now here and now
+there, a real hand-to-mouth existence, sinking a little lower each day.
+Now, no one knew him. He had completely passed out of the lives of
+Haight, Geary, and Ellis, just s before he had passed out of the life of
+Turner Ravis. At the end of the first year they had ceased even to think
+about him. For a long time they thought that he was dead, until one day
+Ellis declared that he had seen him far down on Kearney Street, near the
+Barbary Coast, looking at the pictures in the illustrated weeklies that
+were tacked upon the show-board on the sidewalk in front of a
+stationer's. Ellis had told the others that on this occasion Vandover
+seemed to be more sickly than ever; he described his appearance in
+detail, wagging his head at his own story, pursing his lips, putting his
+chin in the air. Vandover had worn an old paint-stained pair of blue
+trousers, fastened with a strap, so that his shirt showed below his
+vest; he had no collar, and he had allowed his beard to grow, a
+straggling thin beard, through which one could see the buttons of his
+shirt, a dirty beard full of the cracker crumbs from the free
+lunch-counters of cheap saloons; he had on a hat which he had worn when
+they had known him; but one should see that hat now!</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233" />It was all true: little by little Vandover had abandoned all interest
+in his personal appearance. Of course it was impossible for him to dress
+well at this time, but he had even lost regard for decency and
+cleanliness. He washed himself but rarely. He had even acquired the
+habit of sleeping with all his clothes on during the colder nights of
+the year.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing made any difference. Gradually his mind grew more and more
+clouded; he became stupid, sluggish. He went about the city from dawn to
+dark, his feet dragging, his head hanging low and swinging from side to
+side with the motion of his gait. He rarely spoke; his eyes took on a
+dull, glazed appearance, filmy, like the eyes of a dead fish. At certain
+intervals his mania came upon him, the strange hallucination of
+something four-footed, the persistent fancy that the brute in him had
+now grown so large, so insatiable, that it had taken everything, even to
+his very self, his own identity&mdash;that he had literally <i>become the
+brute</i>. The attack passed off and left him wondering, perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>The Reno House, where Vandover had lived for some fifteen months, was a
+sort of hotel on Sacramento Street below Kearney. The neighbourhood was
+low&mdash;just on the edge of the Barbary Coast, abounding in stores for
+second-hand clothing, saloons, pawnshops, gun-stores, bird-stores, and
+the shops of Chinese cobblers. Around the corner on Kearney Street was a
+concert hall, a dive, to which the admission was free. Near by was the
+old Plaza.</p>
+
+<p>Underneath the hotel on the ground floor were two saloons, a barber
+shop, and a broom manufactory. The lodgers themselves were for the most
+part &quot;transients,&quot; sailors lounging about shore between two voyages,
+Swedes and Danes, farmhands, grape-pickers, and cow-punchers from
+distant parts of the state, a few lost women, and Japanese cooks and
+second-boys remaining there while they advertised for positions.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover sank to the grade of these people at once with that fatal
+adaptability to environment which he had permitted himself to foster
+throughout his entire life, and which had led him to be contented in
+almost any circumstances. It was as if the brute in him were forever
+seeking a lower level, wallowing itself lower and lower into the filth
+and into the mire, <a name="Page_234" id="Page_234" />content to be foul, content to be prone, to be inert
+and supine.</p>
+
+<p>It was Saturday morning about a quarter of nine. The wet season had
+begun early that year. Though this was but the middle of September, the
+rain had fallen steadily since the previous Wednesday. Its steady
+murmur, prolonged and soothing like the purring of a great cat, filled
+Vandover's room with a pleasant sound. The air of the room was thick and
+foul, heavy with the odour of cooking, onions, and stale bedding. It was
+very warm; there was no ventilation. Vandover lay upon the bed half
+awake, dozing under the thick coarse blankets and soiled counterpane.
+With the exception of his shoes and coat he wore all his clothes. He was
+glad to be warm, to be stupefied by the heat of the bedding and the bad
+air of the room.</p>
+
+<p>In the next room a Portuguese fruit vender, very drunk, was fighting
+with the tin pitcher and pasteboard bowl on his wash-stand, trying to
+wet his head, swearing and making a hideous clatter. At length he tipped
+them over upon the floor and gave the pitcher a great kick. The noise
+roused Vandover; he sat up in bed, stretching, rubbing his hands over
+his face. About the same moment the clock in the office downstairs
+struck nine. Vandover let his feet drop to the floor and sat on the edge
+of the bed, looking vaguely about him. His face, ordinarily very pale,
+was oily from sleep and red upon one side from long contact with the
+pillow, the marks of the creases still showing upon his cheek. His long
+straight hair fell about his eyes and ears like a tangled mane. A thin
+straggling beard and moustache, of a brown much lighter than his hair,
+covered the lower part of his face. His nose was long and pinched, while
+brown and puffed pockets hung beneath his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He wore a white shirt very crumpled and dirty, a low standing collar and
+a black four-in-hand necktie, very greasy. His trousers were striped and
+of a slate blue colour&mdash;the &quot;blue pants&quot; of the ready-made clothing
+stores. Still sitting on the bed, Vandover continued his stupid gaze
+about the room.</p>
+
+<p>The room was small, and at some long-forgotten, almost prehistoric
+period had been covered with a yellowish paper, stamped with a huge
+pattern of flowers that looked like the <a name="Page_235" id="Page_235" />flora of a carboniferous
+strata, a pattern repeated to infinity wherever the eye turned.
+Newspapers were pasted upon the ceiling and a great square of very dirty
+matting covered the floor. There were a few pieces of furniture, very
+old-fashioned, made of pine, with a black walnut veneer, two chairs, a
+washstand and the bed. A great pile of old newspapers tied up with bale
+rope was kicked into one corner. Two gas brackets without globes
+stretched forth their long arms over the empty space where the bureau
+should have been. Under the single window was Vandover's trunk, and upon
+it his colour box and pots of paint. His hat hung upon a hook screwed to
+the door. The hat had once been black, but it had long since turned to a
+greenish hue, and sweat stains were showing about the band.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover dressed slowly. He straightened his hair a bit before the cheap
+mirror that hung over the washstand, putting on his hat immediately
+after to keep it in place. He washed his hands in the dirty water that
+had stood in his pasteboard bowl since the previous afternoon, but left
+his face as it was. He put on his coat, an old cutaway which had been
+his best years ago, but which was now absurdly small for him, the breast
+all spotted and streaked with old stains of soup and gravy. Last of all
+he drew on his shoes. They were new. Vandover had bought them two days
+before for a dollar and ninety cents. They were lined so as to make
+socks superfluous.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a bad week with Vandover. The paint-shop had given him no
+work to do for ten days, and he had been forced to get along in some way
+upon the interest of his bonds&mdash;that is to say, upon five dollars and
+seventy-five cents a week. Two dollars and seventy-five cents of this
+went for his room rent, one dollar and ninety for his shoes, and Tuesday
+afternoon he had bought a package of cigarettes for ten cents. By
+Saturday morning he had spent seventy-five cents for food.</p>
+
+<p>When the paint-shop gave him enough work it was Vandover's custom to buy
+a week's commutation ticket at a certain restaurant. He never ate at the
+hotel; it was too expensive. By the commutation system he could buy two
+dollars and twenty-five cents' worth of meals for two dollars, paying in
+tickets at each meal.</p>
+
+<p>But such a thing had been impossible this week. He had <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236" />been forced to
+fall back upon the free-lunch system. In two years Vandover had learned
+a great deal; even his dulled wits had been sharpened when it had come
+to a question of food. The brute in him might destroy all his finer
+qualities, but even the brute had to feed. When work failed him at the
+beginning of the week Vandover was not unprepared for the contingency;
+the thing had happened before and he knew how to meet it.</p>
+
+<p>On Monday he beat up and down the Barbary Coast, picking out fifteen or
+twenty saloons which supported a free-lunch counter in connection with
+the bar. He took his breakfast Monday morning at the first of these. He
+paid five cents for a glass of beer and ate his morning's meal at the
+lunch counter: stew, bread, and cheese. At noon he made his dinner at
+the second saloon on his route. Here he had another glass of beer, a
+great plate of soup, potato salad, and pretzels. Thus he managed to feed
+himself throughout the week.</p>
+
+<p>It was always his great desire to feed well at Sunday's dinner, to spend
+at least a quarter on that meal. It was something to be looked forward
+to throughout the entire week. But to get twenty-five cents ahead when
+he was out of work was bitter hard. That week he had started out with
+the determination to eat but two meals a day. He would thus save five
+cents daily and by Sunday morning would be thirty cents to the good. But
+each day his resolution broke down. At breakfast he would resolve to go
+without his lunch, at lunch he would make up his mind to go without
+supper, and at supper he would tell himself that now at least his
+determination was irrevocable&mdash;he would eat no breakfast the next
+morning. But on each and every occasion his hunger proved too strong,
+his feet carried him irresistibly to the saloon lunch counters, whether
+he would or no. At no time in his life had Vandover accustomed himself
+to self-denial; he could hardly begin now.</p>
+
+<p>At length Saturday morning had come, and while he was dressing he
+realized that he could not look forward to any unusual dinner the next
+day at noon. The disappointment had all the force of an unexpected
+disaster and he began keenly to regret his weakness of the past week.
+Suddenly Vandover resolved that he would go without food all that day;
+it would be a saving of fifteen cents, which, added to the five cents
+that <a name="Page_237" id="Page_237" />he would spend anyway for his dinner, would almost make a quarter.
+He knew where he could dine excellently well for twenty cents. However,
+he could not make up his mind to go without his Sunday morning's
+breakfast. That, he told himself, he must eat.</p>
+
+<p>Once dressed, Vandover went out. Fortunately, the rain had stopped. He
+went on down through the reeking, steaming streets to one of the big
+fruit markets not far from the water front. The Portuguese fruit vender
+who roomed next to him at the Reno House was employed at a stall here.
+Vandover knew him a little, and it was not hard for him to get a thin
+slice of cocoanut out from the inside rind of one of those that were
+lying cracked open among his other wares.</p>
+
+<p>All the morning Vandover chewed this slice of cocoanut, at the same time
+drinking a great deal of water; for hours he deadened the pang of hunger
+by this means. He passed the time for the most part sitting on the
+benches in the Plaza reading an old newspaper that he had found under a
+seat. The sun came out a little; Vandover found the warmth very
+grateful. He told himself that he could easily hold out until the next
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>He had forgotten about the time and was surprised when the whistles all
+over the town began to blow for noon. In an instant Vandover was hungry
+again. It was all one that he chewed the little pulp of cocoanut rind
+more vigorously than ever, swallowed great draughts of water at the
+public fountains; the little gnawing just between his chest and his
+stomach began to persist. He got up and began to walk. He left the Plaza
+behind him, crossed Kearney Street and went on down Clay Street till he
+reached the water front. For a time he found a certain diversion among
+the shipping and especially in watching a gang of caulkers knocking away
+at the seams of an immense coal steamer. He sat upon a great iron
+clamped pile, spitting into the yellow water below. The air was full of
+the smell of bilge and oakum and fish; the thousands of masts made a
+gray maze against the sky; occasionally an empty truck trundled over the
+hollow docks with a sound of distant cannon. A weakness, a little
+trembling that seemed to come from the pit of his stomach, began upon
+Vandover. He was very hungry. Evidently the slice of cocoanut was no
+<a name="Page_238" id="Page_238" />longer effective. He swallowed it and lit a cigarette, one of the
+half-dozen still left of the pack he had bought the Tuesday before.</p>
+
+<p>He smoked the cigarette slowly, inhaling as much of the smoke as he
+could. This quieted him for an hour, but he had the folly to smoke again
+at the end of that time, and at once&mdash;as he might have known&mdash;was hungry
+again. Until dark he struggled along, drinking water continually,
+chewing chips of wood, toothpicks, bits of straw, anything so that the
+action of his jaws might cheat the demands of his stomach. Toward
+half-past seven in the evening he returned to his room in the Reno
+House. If he could get to sleep that would be best of all. On the stairs
+of the hotel, while going up to his room, the strong smell of cooking
+onions came suddenly to his nostrils. It was delicious. Vandover
+breathed in the warm savour with long sighs, closing his eyes; a great
+feebleness overcame him. He asked himself how he could get through the
+next twelve hours.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later he went to bed, hiccoughing from the water he had been
+drinking all day. By this time he had torn the paper from one of his
+cigarettes and was chewing the tobacco. This was his last resort, an
+expedient which he fell back upon only in great extremity, as it
+invariably made him sick to his stomach. He slept a little, but in half
+an hour was broad awake again, gagging and retching dreadfully. There
+was nothing on his stomach to throw up, and now at length the hunger in
+him raged like a wolf. Vandover was in veritable torment.</p>
+
+<p>He could not keep his thoughts away from the money in his pocket, a
+nickel and two dimes. He could eat if he wanted to, could satisfy this
+incessant craving. At every moment the temptation grew stronger. Why
+should he wait until morning? He had the money; it was only a matter of
+a few minutes' walk to the nearest saloon. But he set his face against
+this desire; he had held out so long that it would be a pity to give in
+now; he was not so very hungry after all. No, no; he would not give in,
+he was strong enough; as long as he used his will he need not succumb.
+It was just a question of asserting his strength of mind, of calling up
+the better part of him. Even better than eating would be the
+satisfaction of knowing <a name="Page_239" id="Page_239" />that he had shown himself stronger than his
+lower animal appetite. No; he would not give in.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly a minute after he had arrived at this resolution Vandover found
+himself drawing on his coat and shoes making ready to go out&mdash;to go out
+and eat.</p>
+
+<p>The gas in the room was lit, his money, the nickel and the two dimes,
+was shut in one of his fists. He was dressing himself with one hand,
+dressing with feverish, precipitate haste. What had happened? He
+marvelled at himself, but did not check his preparations an instant. He
+could not stop, whether he would or no; there was something in him
+stronger than himself, something that urged him on his feet, that drove
+him out into the street, something that clamoured for food and that
+would not be gainsaid. It was the animal in him, the brute, that would
+be fed, the evil, hideous brute grown now so strong that Vandover could
+not longer resist it&mdash;the brute that had long since destroyed all his
+finer qualities but that still demanded to be fed, still demanded to
+live. All the little money that Vandover had saved during the day he
+spent that night among the coffee houses, the restaurants, and the
+saloons of the Barbary Coast, continuing to eat even after his hunger
+was satisfied. Toward daylight he returned to his room, and all dressed
+as he was flung himself face downward among the coarse blankets and
+greasy counterpane. For nearly eight hours he slept profoundly, with
+long snores, prone, inert, crammed and gorged with food.</p>
+
+<p>It was the middle of Sunday afternoon when he awoke. He roused himself
+and going over to the Plaza sat for a long while upon one of the
+benches. It was a very bright afternoon and Vandover sat motionless for
+a long time in the sun while his heavy meal digested, very happy,
+content merely to be warm, to be well fed, to be comfortable.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Eighteen" id="Chapter_Eighteen" /><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240" /><i>Chapter Eighteen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>That winter passed, then the summer; September and October came and
+went, and by the middle of November the rains set in. One very wet
+afternoon toward the end of the month Charlie Geary sat at his desk in
+his own private office. He was unoccupied for the moment, leaning back
+in his swivel chair, his feet on the table, smoking a cigar. Geary had
+broken from his old-time habit of smoking only so many cigars as he
+could pay for by saving carfare. He was doing so well now that he could
+afford to smoke whenever he chose. He was still with the great firm of
+Beale &amp; Storey, and while not in the partnership as yet, had worked up
+to the position of an assistant. He had cases of his own now, a great
+many of them, for the most part damage suits against that certain
+enormous corporation whom it was said was ruining the city and entire
+state. Geary posed as one of its bitterest enemies, pushing each suit
+brought against it with a tireless energy, with a zeal that was almost
+vindictive. He began to fit into his own niche, in the eyes of the
+public, and just in proportion as the corporation was hated, Geary was
+admired. Money came to him very fast. He was hardly thirty at this time,
+but could already be called a rich man.</p>
+
+<p>His &quot;deal&quot; with Vandover had given him a taste for real estate, and now
+and then, with the greatest caution, he made a few discreet investments.
+At present he had just completed a row of small cottages across the
+street from the boot and shoe factory. The cottages held two rooms and a
+large kitchen. Geary had calculated that the boot and shoe concern would
+employ nearly a thousand operatives, and he had built his row with the
+view of accommodating a few of them who had families and who desired to
+live near the factory. His agents were Adams &amp; Brunt.</p>
+
+<p>It was toward half-past five, there was nothing more that Geary could do
+that day, and for a moment he leaned back in his swivel chair, before
+going home, smiling a little, very well pleased with himself. He was
+still as clever and shrewd as ever, still devoured with an incarnate
+ambition, still delighted when he could get the better of any one. He
+was yet a young <a name="Page_241" id="Page_241" />man; with the start he had secured for himself, and
+with the exceptional faculties, the faculties of self-confidence and
+&quot;push&quot; that he knew himself to possess, there was no telling to what
+position he might attain. He knew that it was only a question of
+time&mdash;of a short time even&mdash;when he would be the practical head of the
+great firm. Everything he turned his hand to was a success. His row of
+houses in the Mission might be enlarged to a veritable settlement for
+every workman in the neighbourhood. His youth, his cleverness, and his
+ambition, supported by his money on the one hand, and on the other by
+the vast machinery of the great law firm, could raise him to a great
+place in the world of men. Gazing through the little blue haze of his
+cigar smoke, he began to have vague ideas, ideas of advancement, of
+political successes. Politics fascinated him&mdash;such a field of action
+seemed to be the domain for which he was precisely suited&mdash;not the
+politics of the city or of the state; not the nasty little squabbling of
+boodlers, lobbyists, and supervisors, but something large, something
+inspiring, something on a tremendous scale, something to which one could
+give up one's whole life and energy, something to which one could
+sacrifice everything&mdash;friendships, fortunes, scruples, principles, life
+itself, no matter what, anything to be a &quot;success,&quot; to &quot;arrive,&quot; to &quot;get
+there,&quot; to attain the desired object in spite of the whole world, to
+ride on at it, trampling down or smashing through everything that stood
+in the way, blind, deaf, fists and teeth shut tight. Not the little
+squabbling politics of the city or state, but national politics, the
+sway and government of a whole people, the House, the Senate, the
+cabinet and the next&mdash;why not?&mdash;the highest, the best of all, the
+Executive. Yes, Geary aspired even to the Presidency.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he allowed himself the indulgence of the delightful dream,
+then laughed a bit at his own absurdity. But even the entertainment of
+so vast an idea had made his mind, as it were, big; it was hard to come
+down to the level again. In spite of himself he went on reasoning in
+stupendous thoughts, in enormous ideas, figuring with immense
+abstractions. And then after all, why not? Other men had striven and
+attained; other men were even now striving, other men would &quot;arrive&quot;;
+why should not he? As well he as another. Every <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242" />man for himself&mdash;that
+was his maxim. It might be damned selfish, but it was human nature: the
+weakest to the wall, the strongest to the front. Why should not he be in
+the front? Why not in the very front rank? Why not be even before the
+front rank itself&mdash;the leader? Vast, vague ideas passed slowly across
+the vision of his mind, ideas that could hardly be formulated into
+thought, ideas of the infinite herd of humanity, driven on as if by some
+enormous, relentless engine, driven on toward some fearful distant
+bourne, driven on recklessly at headlong speed. All life was but a
+struggle to keep from under those myriad spinning wheels that dashed so
+close behind. Those were happiest who were farthest to the front. To lag
+behind was peril; to fall was to perish, to be ridden down, to be beaten
+to the dust, to be inexorably crushed and blotted out beneath that
+myriad of spinning iron wheels. Geary looked up quickly and saw Vandover
+standing in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>For the moment Geary did not recognize the gaunt, shambling figure with
+the long hair and dirty beard, the greenish hat, and the streaked and
+spotted coat, but when he did it was with a feeling of anger and
+exasperation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here!&quot; he cried, &quot;don't you think you'd better knock before you
+come in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover raised a hand slowly as if in deprecation, and answered slowly
+and with a feeble, tremulous voice, the voice of an old man: &quot;I did
+knock, Mister Geary; I didn't mean no offence.&quot; He sat down on the edge
+of the nearest chair, looking vaguely and stupidly about on the floor,
+moving his head instead of his eyes, repeating under his breath from
+time to time, &quot;No offence&mdash;no, sir&mdash;no offence!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shut that door!&quot; commanded Geary. Vandover obeyed. He wore no vest, and
+the old cutaway coat, fastened by the single remaining button, exposed
+his shirt to view, abominably filthy, bulging at the waist like a
+blouse. The &quot;blue pants,&quot; held up by a strap, were all foul with mud and
+grease and paint, and there hung about him a certain odour, that
+peculiar smell of poverty and of degradation, the smell of stale clothes
+and of unwashed bodies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; said Geary abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover put the tips of his fingers to his lips and rolled <a name="Page_243" id="Page_243" />his eyes
+about the room, avoiding Geary's glance; then he dropped them to the
+floor again, looking at the pattern in the carpet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; repeated Geary, irritated, &quot;you know I haven't got all the time
+in the world.&quot; All at once Vandover began to cry, very softly, snuffling
+with his nose, his chin twitching, the tears running through his thin,
+sparse beard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, get on to yourself!&quot; shouted Geary, now thoroughly disgusted. &quot;Quit
+that! Be a man, will you? Stop that! do you hear?&quot; Vandover obeyed,
+catching his breath and slowly wiping his eyes with the side of his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm no good!&quot; he said at length, wagging his head and blinking through
+his tears. &quot;I'm&mdash;I'm done for and I ain't got no money; yet, of course,
+you see I don't mean no offence. What I want, you see, is to be a man
+and not give in and not let the wolf get me, and then I'll go back to
+Paris. Everything goes round here, very slow, and seems far off; that's
+why I can't get along, and I'm that hungry that sometimes I twitch all
+over. I'm down. I ain't got another cent of money and I lost my job at
+the paint-shop. There's where I drew down twenty dollars a week painting
+landscapes on safes, you know, and then&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary interrupted him, crying out, &quot;You haven't a cent? Why, what have
+you done with your bonds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bonds?&quot; repeated Vandover, dazed and bewildered. &quot;I ain't never had any
+bonds. What bonds? Oh, yes,&quot; he exclaimed, suddenly remembering, &quot;yes, I
+know, my bonds, of course; yes, yes&mdash;well, I&mdash;those&mdash;those, I had to
+sell those bonds&mdash;had some debts, you see, my board and my tailor's
+bill. They got out some sort of paper after me. Yes, I had forgotten
+about my bonds. I lost every damned one of them playing cards&mdash;gambled
+'em all away. Ain't I no good? But I was winner once&mdash;just in two nights
+I won ten thousand dollars. Then I must have lost it again. You see, I
+get so hungry sometimes that I twitch all over&mdash;so, just like that. Lend
+me a dollar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments Geary was silent, watching Vandover curiously, as he
+sat in a heap on the edge of the chair, fumbling his greenish hat,
+looking about the floor. Presently he asked:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_244" id="Page_244" />When did you lose your job at the paint-shop?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Day before yesterday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you are out of work now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;I'm broke; I haven't a cent. I'm blest if I
+know how I'm to get along. Lately I've been working for a paint-shop,
+painting landscapes on safes. I drew down fifty dollars a week there,
+but I've lost my job.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good Lord, Van!&quot; Geary suddenly exclaimed, nodding his head toward him
+reflectively, &quot;I'm sorry for you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The other laughed. &quot;Yes; I suppose I'm a pitiable looking object, but
+I'm used to it. I don't mind much now as long as I can have a place to
+sleep and enough to eat. If you can put me in the way of some work,
+Charlie, I'd be much obliged. You see, that's what I want&mdash;work. I don't
+want to run any bunco game. I'm an honest man&mdash;I'm too honest. I gave
+away all my money to help another poor duck; gave him thousands, he was
+good to me when I was on my uppers and I meant to repay him. I was
+grateful. I signed a paper that gave him everything I had. It was in
+Paris. There's where my bonds went to. He was a struggling artist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here!&quot; said Geary, willing to be interested, &quot;you might as well be
+truthful with me. You can't lie to me. Have you gambled away all those
+bonds, or have you been victimized, or have you still got them? Come,
+now, spit it out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Charlie, I haven't a cent!&quot; answered Vandover, looking him squarely in
+the face. &quot;Would I be around here and trying to get work from you if I
+had? No; I gambled it all away. You know I had eighty-nine hundred in
+U.S. 4 per cents. Well, first I began to pawn things when my money got
+short&mdash;the Old Gentleman's watch that I said I never would part with,
+then my clothes. I couldn't keep away from the cards. Of course, you
+can't understand that; gambling was the only thing that could amuse me.
+Then I began to mortgage my bonds, very little at first. Oh, I went
+slow! Then I got to selling them. Well, somehow, they all went. For a
+time I got along by the work at the paint-shop. But they have let me out
+now; said I was so irregular. I owe for nearly a month at my
+lodging-place.&quot; His eyes sought the floor again, rolling about stupidly.
+&quot;Nearly a month, and that's what makes me jump and tremble so. You ought
+to see me sometimes&mdash;<i>b-r-r-r-h!</i>&mdash;and<a name="Page_245" id="Page_245" /> I get to barking! I'm a wolf
+mostly, you know, or some kind of an animal, some kind of a brute. But
+I'd be all right if everything didn't go round very slowly, and seem far
+off. But I'm a wolf. You look out for me; best take care I don't bite
+you! Wolf&mdash;wolf! Ah! It's up four flights at the end of the hall, very
+dark, eight thousand dollars in a green cloth sack, and lots of lights
+a-burning. See how long my finger nails are&mdash;regular claws; that's the
+wolf, the brute! Why can't I talk in my mouth instead of in my throat?
+That's the devil of it. When you paint on steel and iron your colours
+don't dry out true; all the yellows turn green. But it would 'a' been
+all straight if they hadn't fired me! I never talked to anybody&mdash;that
+was <i>my</i> business, wasn't it? And when all those eight thousand little
+lights begin to burn red, why, of course that makes you nervous! So I
+have to drink a great deal of water and chew butcher's paper. That fools
+him and he thinks he's eating. Just so as I can lay quiet in the Plaza
+when the sun is out. There's a hack-stand there, you know, and every
+time that horse tosses his head so's to get the oats in the bottom of
+the nose-bag he jingles the chains on the poles and, by God! that's
+funny; makes me laugh every time; sounds gay, and the chain sparkles
+mighty pretty! Oh, I don't complain. Give me a dollar and I'll bark for
+you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary leaned back in his chair listening to Vandover, struck with
+wonder, marvelling at that which his old chum had come to be. He was
+sorry for him, too, yet, nevertheless, he felt a certain indefinite
+satisfaction, a faint exultation over his misfortunes, glad that their
+positions were not reversed, pleased that he had been clever enough to
+keep free from those habits, those modes of life that ended in such
+fashion. He rapped sharply on the table. Vandover straightened up,
+raising his eyes:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You want some work?&quot; he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; that's what I'm after,&quot; answered Vandover, adding, &quot;I must have
+it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Geary, hesitatingly, &quot;I can give you something to do, but
+it will be pretty dirty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover smiled a little, saying, &quot;I guess you can't give me any work
+that would be too dirty for me!&quot; With the words he suddenly began to cry
+again. &quot;I want to be honest, Mister<a name="Page_246" id="Page_246" /> Geary,&quot; he exclaimed, drawing the
+backs of his fingers across his lips; &quot;I want to be honest; I'm down and
+I don't mean no offence. Charlie, you and I were old chums once at
+Harvard. My God! to think I was a Harvard man once! Oh, I'm a goner now
+and I ain't got a friend. When I was in the paint-shop they paid me
+well. I've been in a paint-shop lately painting the little pictures on
+the safes, little landscapes, you know, and lakes with mountains around
+them. I pulled down my twenty dollars and findings!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, don't be a fool!&quot; cried Geary, ashamed even to see such an
+exhibition. &quot;If you can't be a man, you can get out. Now, see here, you
+came up here once and insulted me in my office, and called me a
+swindler. Ah, you bet you had the swelled head then and insulted me,
+attacked my honesty and charged me with shoving the queer. Now I never
+forget those things generally, but I am willing to let that pass this
+time. I could be nasty now and tell you to rustle for yourself. If you
+want half a dollar now to get something to eat, why, I'll give it to
+you. But I don't propose to support you. Ah, no; I guess not! If you
+want to work I'll give you a chance, but I shall expect you to do good
+work if I give you my good money for it. You may be drunk now or&mdash;<i>I</i>
+don't know what's the matter with you. But you come up here to-morrow at
+noon, and if you come up here sober or straight or&quot;&mdash;Geary began to make
+awkward gestures in the air with both hands&mdash;&quot;come up here to talk
+<i>business</i>, I may have something for you, but I can't stop any longer
+this evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover got upon his feet slowly, turning his greenish hat about by the
+brim, nodding his head. &quot;All right, all right,&quot; he answered. &quot;Thank you
+very much, Mister Geary. It's very good of you, I'm sure. I'll be around
+at noon sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Geary was left alone, he walked slowly to his window, and stood
+there a moment looking aimlessly down into the street, shaking his head
+repeatedly, astonished at the degradation of his old-time chum. While he
+stood there he saw Vandover come out upon the sidewalk from the door of
+the great office building. Geary watched him, very interested.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover paused a moment upon the sidewalk, turning up the collar of his
+old cutaway coat against the cold trade wind that was tearing through
+the streets; he thrust both his hands <a name="Page_247" id="Page_247" />deep into his trousers pockets,
+gripping his sides with his elbows and drawing his shoulders together,
+shrinking into a small compass in order to be warm. The wind blew the
+tails of his cutaway about him like flapping wings. He went up the
+street, walking fast, keeping to the outside of the sidewalk, his
+shoulders bent, his head inclined against the wind, his feet dragging
+after him as he walked. For a moment Geary lost sight of him amid a
+group of men who were hoisting a piano upon a dray. The street was
+rather crowded with office boys, clerks, and typewriters going home to
+supper, and Geary did not catch sight of him again immediately; then all
+at once he saw him hesitating on a corner of Kearney Street, waiting for
+an electric car to pass; he crossed the street, running, his hands still
+in his pockets, and went on hurriedly, dodging in and out of the throng,
+his high shoulders, long neck, and greenish hat coming into sight at
+intervals. For a moment he paused to glance into the show window of a
+tobacconist and pipe-seller's store. A Chinese woman passed him,
+pattering along lamely, her green jade ear-rings twinkling in the light
+of a street lamp, newly lighted. Vandover looked after her a moment,
+gazing stupidly, then suddenly took up his walk again, zigzagging amid
+the groups on the asphalt, striding along at a great pace, his head low
+and swinging from side to side as he walked. He was already far down the
+street; it was dusk; Geary could only catch glimpses of his head and
+shoulders at long intervals. He disappeared.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>About ten minutes before one the next day as Geary came back from lunch
+he was surprised to see Vandover peeping through the half-open door of
+his office. He had not thought that Vandover would come back.</p>
+
+<p>Of the many different stories that Vandover had told about the
+disappearance of his bonds, the one that was probably truest was the one
+that accounted for the thing by his passion for gambling. For a long
+time after his advent at the Reno House this passion had been dormant;
+he knew no one with whom he could play, and every cent of his income now
+went for food and lodging. But one day, about six months before his
+visit to Geary's office, Vandover saw that the proprietor of the Reno
+House had set up a great bagatelle board in a <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248" />corner of the
+reading-room. A group of men, sailors, ranchmen, and fruit venders were
+already playing. Vandover approached and watched the game, very
+interested in watching the uncertain course of the marble jog-jogging
+among the pins. The clear little note of the bell or the dry rattle as
+the marble settled quickly into one of the lucky pockets thrilled him
+from head to foot; his hands trembled, all at once his whole left side
+twitched sharply.</p>
+
+<p>From that day the fate of the rest of Vandover's little money was
+decided. In two weeks he had lost twenty dollars at bagatelle, obtaining
+the money by selling a portion of his bonds at a certain broker's on
+Montgomery Street. As soon as he had begun to gamble again the old
+habits of extravagance had come back upon him. From the moment he knew
+that he could get all the money he wanted by the mere signing of a
+paper, he ceased to be economical, scorning the former niggardliness
+that had led him to starve on one day that he might feast the next; now,
+he feasted every day. He still kept his room at the Reno House, but
+instead of taking his meals by any ticket system, he began to affect the
+restaurants of the Spanish quarter, gorging himself with the hot spiced
+meals three and four times a day. He quickly abandoned the bagatelle
+board for the card-table, gambling furiously with two of the ranchmen.
+Almost invariably Vandover lost, and the more he lost the more eager and
+reckless he became.</p>
+
+<p>In a little time he had sold every one of his bonds and had gambled away
+all but twenty dollars of the money received from the last one sold.
+This sum, this twenty dollars, Vandover decided to husband carefully. It
+was all that was left between him and starvation. He made up his mind
+that he must stop gambling and find something to do. He had long since
+abandoned his work at the paint-shop, but at this time he returned there
+and asked for his old occupation. They laughed in his face. Was that the
+way he thought they did business? Not much; another man had his job, a
+much better man and one who was regular, who could be depended on. That
+same evening Vandover broke his twenty dollars and became very drunk. A
+game of poker was started in a back room of one of the saloons on the
+Barbary Coast. One of the players was a rancher named Toedt, a
+fellow-boarder at the Reno<a name="Page_249" id="Page_249" /> House, but the two other players were
+strangers; and there in that narrow, dirty room, sawdust on the floor,
+festoons of fly-specked red and blue tissue paper adorning the single
+swinging lamp, figures cut from bill-posters of the Black Crook pasted
+on the walls, there in the still hours after midnight, long after the
+barroom outside had been closed for the night, the last penny of
+Vandover's estate was gambled away.</p>
+
+<p>The game ended in a quarrel, Vandover, very drunk, and exasperated at
+his ill luck, accusing his friend Toedt, the rancher, of cheating. Toedt
+kicked him in the stomach and made him abominably sick. Then they went
+away and left Vandover alone in the little dirty room, racked with
+nausea, very drunk, fallen forward upon the table and crying into his
+folded arms. After a little he went to sleep, but the nausea continued,
+nevertheless, and in a few moments he gagged and vomited. He never
+moved. He was too drunk to wake. His hands and his coat-sleeves, the
+table all about him, were foul beyond words, but he slept on in the
+midst of it all, inert, stupefied, a great swarm of flies buzzing about
+his head and face. It was the day after this that he had come to see
+Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; said Geary, as he came up, &quot;it's you, is it? Well, I didn't expect
+to see you again. Sit down outside there in the hall and wait a few
+minutes. I'm not ready to go yet&mdash;or, wait; here, I tell you what to
+do.&quot; Geary wrote off a list of articles on a slip of paper and pushed it
+across the table toward Vandover, together with a little money. &quot;You get
+those at the nearest grocery and by the time you are back I'll be ready
+to go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That day Geary took Vandover out to the Mission. They went out in the
+cable-car, Geary sitting inside reading the morning's paper, Vandover
+standing on the front platform, carrying the things that Geary had told
+him to buy: a bar of soap, a scrubbing brush, some wiping cloths, a
+broom, and a pail.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the end of the car-line they got off and crossed over to where
+Geary's property stood. Vandover looked about him. The ground on which
+his own block had once stood was now occupied by an immense red brick
+building with white stone trimmings; in front on either side of the main
+entrance were white stone medallions upon which were <a name="Page_250" id="Page_250" />chiselled the head
+of a workman wearing the square paper cap that the workman never wears,
+and a bent-up forearm, the biceps enormous, the fist gripping the short
+hammer that the workman never uses. An enormous round chimney sprouted
+from one corner; through the open windows came the vast purring of
+machinery. It was a boot and shoe factory, built by the great concern
+who had bought the piece of property from Geary for fifteen thousand
+dollars, the same property Geary had bought from Vandover for eight.</p>
+
+<p>Across the street from the factory was a long row of little cottages,
+very neat, each having a tiny garden in front where nasturtiums grew.
+There were fifteen of these cottages; three of them only were vacant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was <i>my</i> idea,&quot; observed Geary, as they approached the row,
+willing to explain even though he thought Vandover would not comprehend,
+&quot;and it pays like a nitrate bed. I was clever enough to see that
+cottages like these were just what's wanted by the workmen in the
+factory that have families. I made some money when I sold out my block
+to the boot and shoe people, and I invested it again in these cottages.
+They are cheap and serviceable and they meet the demand.&quot; Vandover
+nodded his head in assent, looking vaguely about him, now at the
+cottages, now at the great building across the street. Geary got the
+keys to one of the vacant cottages and the two went inside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now here's what I want you to do,&quot; began Geary, pointing about with his
+stick. &quot;You see, when some of these people go out they leave the rooms
+nasty, and that tells against the house when parties come to look at it.
+I want you to go all over it, top and bottom, end to end, and give it a
+good cleaning, sweep the floor, and wash the paint, you know. And now
+these windows, you see how dirty they are; wash those inside and out,
+but don't disturb the agents' signs; you understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now come out here into the kitchen. Look at these laundry tubs and that
+sink. See all that grease! Clean that all out, and underneath the sink
+here. See that rubbish! Take that out, too. Now in here&mdash;look at that
+bathtub and toilet. You see how nasty they have left them. You want to
+make 'em look like new!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_251" id="Page_251" />Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now come downstairs. You see I give 'em a little floored basement,
+here; kind of a storeroom and coalroom. Here's where most of the dirt
+and rubbish is. Just look at it! See all that pile over there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take it all out and pile it in the back yard. I'll have an ashman come
+and remove it. Whew! there is a dead hen under here; sling that out the
+first thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They went back through the house again, and Geary pointed out the tiny
+garden to Vandover. &quot;Straighten that up a bit, pick up those old
+newspapers and the tin cans. Make it look neat. Now you understand just
+what I want? You make a good job of it, and when you are through with
+this house, you begin on the next vacant one farther down the row. You
+can get the keys at the same place. You get to work right away. I should
+think you ought to finish this house this afternoon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; answered Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm going to look around a little. I'll drop in again in about an hour
+and see how you're getting on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that Geary went away. It was Saturday afternoon, and as the law
+office closed at noon that day, Geary very often spent the time until
+evening looking about his property. He left Vandover and went slowly
+down the street, noting each particular house with immense satisfaction,
+even entering some of them, talking with the womenfolk, all the men
+being at the factory.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover took off his coat, his old and greasy cutaway, and began work.
+He drew a pail of water from the garden faucet in a neighbour's yard,
+and commenced washing the windows. First he washed the panes from the
+inside, very careful not to disturb Adams &amp; Brunt's signs, and then
+cleaned the outside, sitting upon the window ledge, his body half in and
+half out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Geary enjoyed himself immensely. The news of the landlord's visit had
+spread from cottage to cottage, awakening a mild excitement throughout
+the length of the row. The women showed themselves on the steps or on
+the sidewalks, very slatternly, without corsets, their hair coming down,
+<a name="Page_252" id="Page_252" />dressed in faded calico wrappers just as they had come from the laundry
+tubs or the cook-stove. They bethought them of their various grievances,
+a leak here, a broken door-bell there, a certain bad smell that was
+supposed to have some connection with a rash upon the children's faces.
+They waited for Geary's appearance by ones and twos, timid, very
+respectful, but querulous for all that, filling the air with their
+lamentations.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover had finished with the windows. Now he was cleaning out the sink
+and the laundry tubs. They smelt very badly and were all foul with a
+greasy mixture of old lard, soap, soot, and dust; a little mould was
+even beginning to form about the faucets of the tubs. The escape pipe of
+the sink was clogged, and he had to run his finger into it again and
+again to get it free. The kitchen was very dirty; old bottles of sweet
+oil, mouldy vinegar and flat beer cluttered the dusty shelves of the
+pantry.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Geary continued his rounds. He went about among the groups of
+his tenants, very pleased and contented, smiling affably upon them. He
+enlarged himself, giving himself the airs of an English lord in the
+midst of his tenantry, listening to their complaints with a
+good-humoured smile of toleration. A few men were about, some of whom
+were out of work for the moment; others who were sick. To these Geary
+was particularly condescending. He sat in their parlours, little,
+crowded rooms, smelling of stale upholstery and of the last meal, where
+knitted worsted tidies, very gaudy, covered the backs of the larger
+chairs and where one inevitably discovered the whatnot standing in one
+corner, its shelves filled with shell-boxes, broken thermometers and
+little alabaster jars, shaped like funeral urns, where one kept the
+matches. The wife brought the children in, very dirty, looking solemnly
+at Geary, their eyes enlarged in the direct unwinking gaze of cows.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Vandover had finished with the sinks and tubs and was down
+upon his hands and knees scrubbing the stains of grease upon the floor
+of the kitchen. It was very hard work, as his water was cold. He was
+still working about this spot when Geary returned. By this time Vandover
+was so tired that he trembled all over, his spine seemed to be <a name="Page_253" id="Page_253" />breaking
+in two, and every now and then he paused and passed his hand over the
+small of his back, closing his eyes and drawing a long breath.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, how are you getting on?&quot; asked Geary, as he came into the
+kitchen, drawing on his gloves, about ready to go home.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I'm getting along,&quot; replied Vandover, rising up to his knees.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You want to hurry up,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;You must be done with this
+house by this evening. You see, I want to advertise it in to-morrow's
+papers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right; I'll have it done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pretty dirty, wasn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, pretty dirty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You may have to work here a little later than usual this afternoon, but
+be sure you have everything cleaned up before you leave,&quot; Geary said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; answered Vandover, bending to his work again.</p>
+
+<p>Just as Geary was leaving he had the admirable good fortune to meet on
+the steps of the cottage a little group who were house-hunting; two
+young women and a little boy. The mother of the little boy, so she
+explained to him, was married to one of the burnishers in the factory;
+the other woman was her sister.</p>
+
+<p>Geary showed them about the little house, very eager to secure them as
+tenants then and there. He began to sing its praises, its nearness to
+the factory, its excellent plumbing, its bathroom and its one stationary
+washstand; its little garden and its location on the sunny side of the
+street. &quot;I'm a good landlord,&quot; he said to them, as he ushered them into
+the kitchen. &quot;Any one in the row will tell you that. I make it a point
+to keep my houses in good repair and to keep them clean. You see, I have
+a man here now cleaning out.&quot; Vandover glanced up at the women an
+instant. The two of them and the little boy looked down at him on all
+fours upon the floor. Then he went on with his work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is the kitchen, you see,&quot; pursued Geary. &quot;Notice how large it is;
+you see, here are your laundry tubs, your iron sink, your boiler,
+everything you need. Of course, it's a little grimy now, but by the time
+the man gets through, it will be as clean <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254" />as your face. Now come
+downstairs here and I'll show the basement.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In a moment their voices sounded through the floor of the kitchen, an
+indistinct, continuous murmur. Then the party returned and passed by
+Vandover again and stood for a long time in the front room haggling. The
+cottage rented for fifteen dollars. The young woman was willing to take
+it at that, but with the understanding that Geary should pay the water
+rent. Geary refused, unwilling even to listen to such a thing. Every
+other tenant in the row paid for his own water. The young women went
+away shaking their heads sadly. Geary let them get half-way down the
+front steps and then called them back. He offered a compromise, the
+young women should pay for the water, but half of their first month's
+rent should be remitted. The burnisher's wife still hesitated, saying,
+&quot;You know yourself this house is awfully dirty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you see I'm having it cleaned!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It'll have to be cleaned pretty thoroughly. I can't stand <i>dirt.</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It <i>will</i> be cleaned thoroughly,&quot; persisted Geary. &quot;The man will work
+at it until it is. You can keep an eye on him and see that the work is
+done to suit you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; objected the burnisher's wife, &quot;I would want to move in right
+away. I don't want to wait all week for the man to get through.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But he is going to be through with this house to-night,&quot; exclaimed
+Geary delighted. &quot;Come now, I know you want this cottage and I would
+like to have such nice-looking people have it. I know you would make
+good tenants. I can find lots of other tenants for this house, only you
+know how it is, a nasty, slovenly woman about the house and a raft of
+dirty children. And you don't like dirt, I can see that. Better call it
+a bargain, and let it go at that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the end the burnisher's wife took the house. Geary even induced her
+to deposit five dollars with him in order to secure it.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was down in the basement filling a barrel with the odds and
+ends of rubbish left by the previous tenants: broken bottles, old
+corsets, bones, rusty bedsprings. The dead hen he had taken out first of
+all, carrying it by one leg. It was a gruesome horror, partly eaten by
+rats, swollen, abnormally <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255" />heavy, one side flattened from lying so long
+upon the floor. He could hardly stand; each time he bent over it seemed
+as though his backbone was disjointing. After cleaning out the debris he
+began to sweep. The dust was fearful, choking, blinding, so thick that
+he could hardly see what he was about. By and by he dimly made out
+Geary's figure in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Those people have taken the house,&quot; he called out, &quot;and I promised them
+you would be through with it by this evening. So you want to stay with
+it now till you're finished. I guess there's not much more to do. Don't
+forget the little garden in front.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; I won't forget!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary went away, and for another hour Vandover kept at his work,
+stolidly, his mind empty of all thought, knowing only that he was very
+tired, that his back pained him. He finished with the basement, but as
+he was pottering about the little garden, picking up the discoloured
+newspapers with which it was littered, the burnisher's wife returned,
+together with her sister and the little boy; the little boy eating a
+slice of bread and butter. They re-entered the house; Vandover heard
+their voices, now in one room, now in another. They were looking over
+their future home again; evidently they lived close by.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the burnisher's wife came out upon the front steps, looking
+down into the little garden, calling for Vandover. She was not pretty;
+she had a nose like a man and her chin was broad.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, there,&quot; she called to Vandover, &quot;do you mean to say that you've
+finished inside here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover, straightening up, nodding his head. &quot;Yes, I've
+finished.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, just come in here and look at this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover followed her into the little parlour. Her sister was there,
+very fat, smelling somehow of tallow candles and cooked cabbage; nearby
+stood the little boy still eating his bread and butter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look at that baseboard,&quot; exclaimed the burnisher's wife. &quot;You never
+touched that, I'll bet a hat.&quot; Vandover did not answer; he brought in
+the pail of water, and soaping his scrubbing brush, went down again on
+his hands and knees, <a name="Page_256" id="Page_256" />washing the paint on the baseboard where the
+burnisher's wife indicated. The two women stood by, looking on and
+directing his movements. The little boy watched everything, never
+speaking a word, slowly eating his bread and butter. Streaks of butter
+and bread clung to his cheeks, stretching from the corners of his mouth
+to his ears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't see how you come to overlook that,&quot; said the burnisher's wife
+to Vandover. &quot;That's the dirtiest baseboard I ever saw. Oh, my! I just
+can't naturally stand <i>dirt</i>! There, you didn't get that stain off.
+That's tobacco juice, I guess. Go back and wash that over again.&quot;
+Vandover obeyed, holding the brush in one hand, crawling back along the
+floor upon one palm and his two knees, a pool of soapy, dirty water very
+cold gathered about him, soaking in through the old &quot;blue pants&quot; and
+wetting him to the skin, but he slovened through it indifferently. &quot;Put
+a little more elbow grease to it,&quot; continued the burnisher's wife. &quot;You
+have to rub them spots pretty hard to get 'em out. Now scrub all along
+here near the floor. You see that streak there&mdash;that's all gormed up
+with something or other. Bugs get in there mighty quick. There, that'll
+do, I guess. Now, is everything else all clean? Mister Geary said it was
+to be done to my satisfaction, and that you were to stay here until
+everything was all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All at once her voice was interrupted by the prolonged roar of the
+factory's whistle, blowing as though it would never stop. It was
+half-past five. In an instant the faint purring of the machinery
+dwindled and ceased, leaving an abrupt silence in the air. A moment
+later the army of operatives began to pour out of the main entrance; men
+and girls and young boys, all in a great hurry, the men settling their
+coat collars as they ran down the steps. The usually quiet street was
+crowded in an instant.</p>
+
+<p>The burnisher's wife stood on the steps of the vacant house with her
+sister, watching the throng debouch into the street. All at once the
+sister exclaimed, &quot;There he is!&quot; and the other began to call, &quot;Oscar,
+Oscar!&quot; waving her hand to one of the workmen on the other side of the
+street. It was her husband, the burnisher, and he came across the
+street, crowding his lunch basket into the pocket of his coat. He was a
+thin little man with a timid air, his face white and fat and covered
+with <a name="Page_257" id="Page_257" />a sparse unshaven stubble of a pale straw colour. An odour as of a
+harness shop hung about him. Vandover gathered up his broom and pail and
+soap preparing to go home.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Oscar, I've taken the house!&quot; said his wife to the burnisher as
+he came up the steps. &quot;But I couldn't get him to say that he'd let me
+have it for fifteen, water <i>included</i>. The landlord himself, Mr. Geary,
+was here to-day and I made the dicker with him. He's had a man here all
+day cleaning up.&quot; She explained the bargain, the burnisher approving of
+everything, nodding his head continually. His wife showed him about the
+house, her sister and the little boy following in silence. &quot;He's a good
+landlord, I guess,&quot; continued the young woman; &quot;anybody in the row will
+tell you that, and he means to keep his houses in good repair. Now you
+see, here's the kitchen. You see how big it is. Here's our laundry tubs,
+our iron sink, our boiler, and everything we want. It's all as clean as
+a whistle; and get on to this big cubby under the sink where I can stow
+away things.&quot; She opened its door to show her husband, but all at once
+straightened up, exclaiming, &quot;Well, dear me <i>suz</i>&mdash;did you <i>ever</i> see
+anything like that?&quot; The cubby under the sink was abominably dirty.
+Vandover had altogether forgotten it.</p>
+
+<p>The little burnisher himself bent down and peered in.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that'll never do!&quot; he cried. &quot;Has that man gone home yet? He
+mustn't; he's got to clean this out first!&quot; He had a weak, faint voice,
+small and timid like his figure. He hurried out to the front door and
+called Vandover back just as he was going down the steps. The two went
+back into the kitchen and stood in front of the sink. &quot;Look under
+there!&quot; piped the burnisher. &quot;You can't leave that, that way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know,&quot; protested his wife, &quot;that this all was to be done to our
+satisfaction. Mr. Geary said so. That's the only way I came to take the
+house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's about six o'clock, though,&quot; observed her fat sister, who smelt of
+cooked cabbage. &quot;Perhaps he'd want to go home to his dinner.&quot; But at
+this both the others cried out in one voice, the burnisher exclaiming:
+&quot;I can't help <i>that</i>, this has got to be done first,&quot; while his wife
+protested that she couldn't naturally stand dirt, adding, &quot;This all was
+to be done to our satisfaction, and we ain't satisfied yet by a long
+shot.&quot;<a name="Page_258" id="Page_258" /> Delighted at this excitement, the little boy forgot to eat into
+his bread and butter, rolling his eyes wildly from one to the other,
+still silent.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, without replying, Vandover had gone down upon the floor
+again, poking about amid the filth under the sink. The four others, the
+burnisher, his wife, his sister-in-law and his little boy, stood about
+in a half-circle behind him, seeing to it that he did the work properly,
+giving orders as to how he should proceed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, be sure you get everything out that's under there,&quot; said the
+burnisher. &quot;Ouf! how it smells! They made a regular dump heap of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's that over in the corner there?&quot; cried the wife, bending down. &quot;I
+can't see, it's so dark under there&mdash;something gray; can't you see, in
+under there? You'll have to crawl way in to get at it&mdash;go way in!&quot;
+Vandover obeyed. The sink pipes were so close above him that he was
+obliged to crouch lower and lower; at length he lay flat upon his
+stomach. Prone in the filth under the sink, in the sour water, the
+grease, the refuse, he groped about with his hand searching for the
+something gray that the burnisher's wife had seen. He found it and drew
+it out. It was an old hambone covered with a greenish fuzz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, did you <i>ever</i>!&quot; cried the burnisher, holding up his hands. &quot;Here,
+don't drop that on my clean floor; put it in your pail. Now get out the
+rest of the dirt, and hurry up, it's late.&quot; Vandover crawled back, half
+the way under the sink again, this time bringing out a rusty pan half
+full of some kind of congealed gravy that exhaled a choking, acrid
+odour; next it was an old stocking, and then an ink bottle, a broken
+rat-trap, a battered teapot lacking a nozzle, a piece of rubber hose, an
+old comb choked with a great handful of hair, a torn overshoe,
+newspapers, and a great quantity of other debris that had accumulated
+there during the occupancy of the previous tenant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now go over the floor with a rag,&quot; ordered the little burnisher, when
+the last of these articles had been brought out. &quot;Wipe up all that nasty
+muck! Look there by your knee to your left! Scrub that big spot there
+with your brush&mdash;looks like grease. That's the style&mdash;scrub it hard!&quot;
+His wife joined <a name="Page_259" id="Page_259" />her directions to his. Then it was over here, and over
+there, now in that corner, now in this, and now with his brush and soap,
+and now with his dry rag, and hurry up all the time because it was
+growing late. But the little boy, carried away by the interest of the
+occasion, suddenly broke silence for the first time, crying out shrilly,
+his mouth full of bread and butter, &quot;Hey there! Get up, you old
+lazee-bones!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The others shouted with laughter. <i>There</i> was a smart little boy for
+you. Ah, he'd be a man before his mother. It was wonderful how that boy
+saw everything that went on. He took an <i>interest</i>, that was it. You
+ought to see, he watched everything, and sometimes he'd plump out with
+things that were astonishing for a boy of his years. Only four and a
+half, too, and they reminded each other of the first day he put on
+knickerbockers; stood in front of the house on the sidewalk all day long
+with his hands in his pockets. The interest was directed from Vandover,
+they turned their backs, grouping themselves about the little boy. The
+burnisher's sister-in-law felt called upon to tell about her little
+girl, a matter of family pride. <i>She</i> was going on twelve, and would you
+suppose that little thing was in next to the last grade in the grammar
+school? Her teacher had said that she was a real wonder; never had had
+such a bright pupil. Ah, but one should see how she studied over her
+books all the time. Next year they were to try to get her into the high
+school. Of course she was not ready for the high school yet, and it was
+against the rule to let children in that way, she was too young, but
+they had a pull, you understand. Oh, yes, for sure they had a pull.
+<i>They'd</i> work her in all right. The burnisher's wife was not listening.
+She wanted to draw the interest back to her own little boy. She bent
+down and straightened out his little jacket, saying, &quot;Does he like his
+bread 'n butter? Well, he could have all he wanted!&quot; But the little boy
+paid no attention to her. He had made a <i>bon-mot</i>, ambition stirred in
+him, he had tasted the delights of an appreciative audience. Bread and
+butter had fallen in his esteem. He wished to repeat his former success,
+and cried out shriller than ever:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hey, there! Get up, you old lazee-bones!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But his father corrected him&mdash;his mother ought not to encourage him to
+be rude. &quot;That's not right, Oscar,&quot; he <a name="Page_260" id="Page_260" />observed, shaking his head. &quot;You
+must be kind to the poor man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was sitting back on his heels to rest his back, waiting till
+the others should finish.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, all through?&quot; inquired the burnisher in his thin voice. Vandover
+nodded. But his wife was not satisfied until she had herself carefully
+peered into the cubby, while her husband held a lighted match for her.
+&quot;Ah, that's something like,&quot; she said finally.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly seven. Vandover prepared to go home a second time. The
+little boy stood in front of him, looking down at him as he made his
+brush and rags and broom into a bundle; the boy slowly eating his bread
+and butter the while. In one corner of the room an excited whispered
+conference was going on between the burnisher, his wife, and his fat
+sister-in-law. From time to time one heard such expressions as
+&quot;Overtime, you know&mdash;not afraid of work&mdash;ah! think I'd better, looks as
+though he needed it.&quot; In a moment the two women went out, calling in
+vain for the little boy to follow, and the burnisher crossed the room
+toward Vandover. Vandover was on his knees tying up his bundle with a
+bit of bale rope.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm sorry,&quot; began the burnisher awkwardly. &quot;We didn't mean to keep you
+from your supper&mdash;here,&quot; he went on, holding out a quarter to Vandover,
+&quot;here, you take this, that's all right&mdash;you worked overtime for us,
+that's all right. Come along, Oscar; come along, m'son.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover put the quarter in his vest pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you, sir,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>The burnisher hurried away, calling back, &quot;Come along, m'son; don't keep
+your mama waiting for supper.&quot; But the little boy remained very
+interested in watching Vandover, still on the floor, tying the last
+knots. As he finished, he glanced up. For an instant the two remained
+there motionless, looking into each other's eyes, Vandover on the floor,
+one hand twisted into the bale rope about his bundle, the little boy
+standing before him eating the last mouthful of his bread and butter.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14712 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #14712 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14712)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vandover and the Brute, by Frank Norris
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Vandover and the Brute
+
+Author: Frank Norris
+
+Release Date: January 17, 2005  [eBook #14712]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE
+
+By
+
+Frank Norris
+
+1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter One
+
+
+It was always a matter of wonder to Vandover that he was able to recall
+so little of his past life. With the exception of the most recent events
+he could remember nothing connectedly. What he at first imagined to be
+the story of his life, on closer inspection turned out to be but a few
+disconnected incidents that his memory had preserved with the greatest
+capriciousness, absolutely independent of their importance. One of these
+incidents might be a great sorrow, a tragedy, a death in his family; and
+another, recalled with the same vividness, the same accuracy of detail,
+might be a matter of the least moment.
+
+A certain one of these wilful fillips of memory would always bring
+before him a particular scene during the migration of his family from
+Boston to their new home in San Francisco, at a time when Vandover was
+about eight years old.
+
+It was in the depot of one of the larger towns in western New York. The
+day had been hot and after the long ride on the crowded day coach the
+cool shadow under the curved roof of the immense iron vaulted depot
+seemed very pleasant. The porter, the brakeman and Vandover's father
+very carefully lifted his mother from the car. She was lying back on
+pillows in a long steamer chair. The three men let the chair slowly
+down, the brakeman went away, but the porter remained, taking off his
+cap and wiping his forehead with the back of his left hand, which in
+turn he wiped against the pink palm of his right. The other train, the
+train to which they were to change, had not yet arrived. It was rather
+still; at the far end of the depot a locomotive, sitting back on its
+motionless drivers like some huge sphinx crouching along the rails, was
+steaming quietly, drawing long breaths. The repair gang in greasy caps
+and spotted blue overalls were inspecting the train, pottering about the
+trucks, opening and closing the journal-boxes, striking clear notes on
+the wheels with long-handled hammers.
+
+Vandover stood close to his father, his thin legs wide apart, holding in
+both his hands the satchel he had been permitted to carry. He looked
+about him continually, rolling his big eyes vaguely, watching now the
+repair-gang, now a huge white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.
+
+Several passengers were walking up and down the platform, staring
+curiously at the invalid lying back in the steamer chair.
+
+The journey was too much for her. She was very weak and very pale, her
+eyelids were heavy, the skin of her forehead looked blue and tightly
+drawn, and tiny beads of perspiration gathered around the corners of her
+mouth. Vandover's father put his hand and arm along the back of the
+chair and his sick wife rested against him, leaning her head on his
+waistcoat over the pocket where he kept his cigars and pocket-comb. They
+were all silent.
+
+By and by she drew a long sigh, her face became the face of an imbecile,
+stupid, without expression, her eyes half-closed, her mouth half-open.
+Her head rolled forward as though she were nodding in her sleep, while a
+long drip of saliva trailed from her lower lip. Vandover's father bent
+over her quickly, crying out sharply, "Hallie!--what is it?" All at once
+the train for which they were waiting charged into the depot, filling
+the place with a hideous clangor and with the smell of steam and of hot
+oil.
+
+This scene of her death was the only thing that Vandover could remember
+of his mother.
+
+As he looked back over his life he could recall nothing after this for
+nearly five years. Even after that lapse of time the only scene he could
+picture with any degree of clearness was one of the greatest triviality
+in which he saw himself, a rank thirteen-year-old boy, sitting on a bit
+of carpet in the back yard of the San Francisco house playing with his
+guinea-pigs.
+
+In order to get at his life during his teens, Vandover would have been
+obliged to collect these scattered memory pictures as best he could,
+rearrange them in some more orderly sequence, piece out what he could
+imperfectly recall and fill in the many gaps by mere guesswork and
+conjecture.
+
+It was the summer of 1880 that they had come to San Francisco. Once
+settled there, Vandover's father began to build small residence houses
+and cheap flats which he rented at various prices, the cheapest at ten
+dollars, the more expensive at thirty-five and forty. He had closed out
+his business in the East, coming out to California on account of his
+wife's ill health. He had made his money in Boston and had intended to
+retire.
+
+But he soon found that he could not do this. At this time he was an old
+man, nearly sixty. He had given his entire life to his business to the
+exclusion of everything else, and now when his fortune had been made and
+when he could afford to enjoy it, discovered that he had lost the
+capacity for enjoying anything but the business itself. Nothing else
+could interest him. He was not what would be called in America a rich
+man, but he had made money enough to travel, to allow himself any
+reasonable relaxation, to cultivate a taste for art, music, literature
+or the drama, to indulge in any harmless fad, such as collecting
+etchings, china or bric-à-brac, or even to permit himself the luxury of
+horses. In the place of all these he found himself, at nearly sixty
+years of age, forced again into the sordid round of business as the only
+escape from the mortal _ennui_ and weariness of the spirit that preyed
+upon him during every leisure hour of the day.
+
+Early and late he went about the city, personally superintending the
+building of his little houses and cheap flats, sitting on saw-horses and
+piles of lumber, watching the carpenters at work. In the evening he came
+home to a late supper, completely fagged, bringing with him the smell of
+mortar and of pine shavings.
+
+On the first of each month when his agents turned over the rents to him
+he was in great spirits. He would bring home the little canvas sack of
+coin with him before banking it, and call his son's attention to the
+amount, never failing to stick a twenty-dollar gold-piece in each eye,
+monocle fashion, exclaiming, "Good for the masses," a meaningless jest
+that had been one of the family's household words for years.
+
+His plan of building was peculiar. His credit was good, and having
+chosen his lot he would find out from the banks how much they would loan
+him upon it in case he should become the owner. If this amount suited
+him, he would buy the lot, making one large payment outright and giving
+his note for the balance. The lot once his, the banks loaned him the
+desired amount. With this money and with money of his own he would make
+the final payment on the lot and would begin the building itself,
+paying his labour on the nail, but getting his material, lumber, brick
+and fittings on time. When the building was half-way up he would
+negotiate a second loan from the banks in order to complete it and in
+order to meet the notes he had given to his contractors for material.
+
+He believed this to be a shrewd business operation, since the rents as
+they returned to him were equal to the interest on a far larger sum than
+that which he had originally invested. He said little about the double
+mortgage on each piece of property "improved" after this fashion and
+which often represented a full two-thirds of its entire value. The
+interest on each loan was far more than covered by the rents; he chose
+his neighbourhoods with great discrimination; real estate was
+flourishing in the rapidly growing city, and the new houses, although
+built so cheaply that they were mere shells of lath and plaster, were
+nevertheless made gay and brave with varnish and cheap mill-work. They
+rented well at first, scarcely a one was ever vacant. People spoke of
+the Old Gentleman as one of the most successful realty owners in the
+city. So pleased did he become with the success of his new venture that
+in course of time all his money was reinvested after this fashion.
+
+At the time of his father's greatest prosperity Vandover himself began
+to draw toward his fifteenth year, entering upon that period of change
+when the first raw elements of character began to assert themselves and
+when, if ever, there was a crying need for the influence of his mother.
+Any feminine influence would have been well for him at this time: that
+of an older sister, even that of a hired governess. The housekeeper
+looked after him a little, mended his clothes, saw that he took his bath
+Saturday nights, and that he did not dig tunnels under the garden walks.
+But her influence was entirely negative and prohibitory and the two were
+constantly at war. Vandover grew in a haphazard way and after school
+hours ran about the streets almost at will.
+
+At fifteen he put on long trousers, and the fall of the same year
+entered the High School. He had grown too fast and at this time was tall
+and very lean; his limbs were straight, angular, out of all proportion,
+with huge articulations at the elbows and knees. His neck was long and
+thin and his head large, his face was sallow and covered with pimples,
+his ears were big, red and stuck out stiff from either side of his head.
+His hair he wore "pompadour."
+
+Within a month after his entry of the High School he had a nickname. The
+boys called him "Skinny-seldom-fed," to his infinite humiliation.
+
+Little by little the crude virility of the young man began to develop in
+him. It was a distressing, uncanny period. Had Vandover been a girl he
+would at this time have been subject to all sorts of abnormal vagaries,
+such as eating his slate pencil, nibbling bits of chalk, wishing he were
+dead, and drifting into states of unreasoned melancholy. As it was, his
+voice began to change, a little golden down appeared on his cheeks and
+upon the nape of his neck, while his first summer vacation was
+altogether spoiled by a long spell of mumps.
+
+His appetite was enormous. He ate heavy meat three times a day, but took
+little or no exercise. The pimples on his face became worse and worse.
+He grew peevish and nervous. He hated girls, and when in their society
+was a very bull-calf for bashfulness and awkward self-consciousness. At
+times the strangest and most morbid fancies took possession of him,
+chief of which was that every one was looking at him while he was
+walking in the street.
+
+Vandover was a good little boy. Every night he said his prayers, going
+down upon his huge knees at the side of his bed. To the Lord's Prayer he
+added various petitions of his own. He prayed that he might be a good
+boy and live a long time and go to Heaven when he died and see his
+mother; that the next Saturday might be sunny all day long, and that the
+end of the world might not come while he was alive.
+
+It was during Vandover's first year at the High School that his eyes
+were opened and that he acquired the knowledge of good and evil. Till
+very late he kept his innocence, the crude raw innocence of the boy,
+like that of a young animal, at once charming and absurd. But by and by
+he became very curious, stirred with a blind unreasoned instinct. In the
+Bible which he read Sunday afternoons, because his father gave him a
+quarter for doing so, he came across a great many things that filled him
+with vague and strange ideas; and one Sunday at church, when the
+minister was intoning the Litany, he remarked for the first time the
+words, "all women in the perils of child-birth."
+
+He puzzled over this for a long time, smelling out a mystery beneath the
+words, feeling the presence of something hidden, with the instinct of a
+young brute. He could get no satisfaction from his father and by and by
+began to be ashamed to ask him; why, he did not know. Although he could
+not help hearing the abominable talk of the High School boys, he at
+first refused to believe that part of it which he could understand. For
+all that he was ashamed of his innocence and ignorance and affected to
+appreciate their stories nevertheless.
+
+At length one day he heard the terse and brutal truth. In an instant he
+believed it, some lower, animal intuition in him reiterating and
+confirming the fact. But even then he hated to think that people were so
+low, so vile. One day, however, he was looking through the volumes of
+the old Encyclopædia Britannica in his father's library, hoping that he
+might find a dollar bill which the Old Gentleman told him had been at
+one time misplaced between the leaves of some one of the great tomes.
+All at once he came upon the long article "Obstetrics," profusely
+illustrated with old-fashioned plates and steel engravings. He read it
+from beginning to end.
+
+It was the end of all his childish ideals, the destruction of all his
+first illusions. The whole of his rude little standard of morality was
+lowered immediately. Even his mother, whom he had always believed to be
+some kind of an angel, fell at once in his estimation. She could never
+be the same to him after this, never so sweet, so good and so pure as he
+had hitherto imagined her.
+
+It was very cruel, the whole thing was a grief to him, a blow, a great
+shock; he hated to think of it. Then little by little the first taint
+crept in, the innate vice stirred in him, the brute began to make itself
+felt, and a multitude of perverse and vicious ideas commenced to buzz
+about him like a swarm of nasty flies.
+
+A certain word, the blunt Anglo-Saxon name for a lost woman, that he
+heard on one occasion among the boys at school, opened to him a vista of
+incredible wickedness, but now after the first moment of revolt the
+thing began to seem less horrible. There was even a certain attraction
+about it. Vandover soon became filled with an overwhelming curiosity,
+the eager evil curiosity of the schoolboy, the perverse craving for the
+knowledge of vice. He listened with all his ears to everything that was
+said and went about through the great city with eyes open only to its
+foulness. He even looked up in the dictionary the meanings of the new
+words, finding in the cold, scientific definitions some strange sort of
+satisfaction.
+
+There was no feminine influence about Vandover at this critical time to
+help him see the world in the right light and to gauge things correctly,
+and he might have been totally corrupted while in his earliest teens had
+it not been for another side of his character that began to develop
+about the same time.
+
+This was his artistic side. He seemed to be a born artist. At first he
+only showed bent for all general art. He drew well, he made curious
+little modellings in clayey mud; he had a capital ear for music and
+managed in some unknown way of his own to pick out certain tunes on the
+piano. At one time he gave evidence of a genuine talent for the stage.
+For days he would pretend to be some dreadful sort of character, he did
+not know whom, talking to himself, stamping and shaking his fists; then
+he would dress himself in an old smoking-cap, a red table-cloth and one
+of his father's discarded Templar swords, and pose before the long
+mirrors ranting and scowling. At another time he would devote his
+attention to literature, making up endless stories with which he
+terrified himself, telling them to himself in a low voice for hours
+after he had got into bed. Sometimes he would write out these stories
+and read them to his father after supper, standing up between the
+folding doors of the library, acting out the whole narrative with
+furious gestures. Once he even wrote a little poem which seriously
+disturbed the Old Gentleman, filling him with formless ideas and vague
+hopes for the future.
+
+In a suitable environment Vandover might easily have become an author,
+actor or musician, since it was evident that he possessed the
+fundamental _afflatus_ that underlies all branches of art. As it was,
+the merest chance decided his career.
+
+In the same library where he had found the famous encyclopædia article
+was "A Home Book of Art," one of those showily bound gift books one sees
+lying about conspicuously on parlour centre tables. It was an English
+publication calculated to meet popular and general demand. There were a
+great many full-page pictures of lonely women, called "Reveries" or
+"Idylls," ideal "Heads" of gipsy girls, of coquettes, and heads of
+little girls crowned with cherries and illustrative of such titles as
+"Spring," "Youth," "Innocence." Besides these were sentimental pictures,
+as, for instance, one entitled "It Might Have Been," a sad-eyed girl,
+with long hair, musing over a miniature portrait, and another especially
+impressive which represented a handsomely dressed woman flung upon a
+_Louis Quinze_ sofa, weeping, her hands clasped over her head. She was
+alone; it was twilight; on the floor was a heap of opened letters. The
+picture was called "Memories."
+
+Vandover thought this last a wonderful work of art and made a hideous
+copy of it with very soft pencils. He was so pleased with it that he
+copied another one of the pictures and then another. By and by he had
+copied almost all of them. His father gave him a dollar and Vandover
+began to add to his usual evening petition the prayer that he might
+become a great artist. Thus it was that his career was decided upon.
+
+He was allowed to have a drawing teacher. This was an elderly German, an
+immense old fellow, who wore a wig and breathed loudly through his nose.
+His voice was like a trumpet and he walked with a great striding gait
+like a colonel of cavalry. Besides drawing he taught ornamental writing
+and engrossing. With a dozen curved and flowing strokes of an ordinary
+writing pen he could draw upon a calling card a conventionalized
+outline-picture of some kind of dove or bird of paradise, all curves and
+curlicues, flying very gracefully and carrying in its beak a half-open
+scroll upon which could be inscribed such sentiments as "From a Friend"
+or "With Fond Regards," or even one's own name.
+
+His system of drawing was of his own invention. Over the picture to be
+copied he would paste a great sheet of paper, ruling off the same into
+spaces of about an inch square. He would cut out one of these squares
+and Vandover would copy the portion of the picture thus disclosed. When
+he had copied the whole picture in this fashion the teacher would go
+over it himself, retouching it here and there, labouring to obviate the
+checker-board effect which the process invariably produced.
+
+At other times Vandover copied into his sketch-book, with hard crayons,
+those lithographed studies on buff paper which are published by the firm
+in Berlin. He began with ladders, wheel-barrows and water barrels,
+working up in course of time to rustic buildings set in a bit of
+landscape; stone bridges and rural mills, overhung by some sort of
+linden tree, with ends of broken fences in a corner of the foreground to
+complete the composition. From these he went on to bunches of grapes,
+vases of fruit and at length to more "Ideal heads." The climax was
+reached with a life-sized Head, crowned with honeysuckles and entitled
+_"Flora."_ He was three weeks upon it. It was an achievement, a
+veritable _chef-d'oeuvre._ Vandover gave it to his father upon Christmas
+morning, having signed his name to it with a great ornamental flourish.
+The Old Gentleman was astounded, the housekeeper was called in and
+exclaimed over it, raising her hands to Heaven. Vandover's father gave
+him a five-dollar gold-piece, fresh from the mint, had the picture
+framed in gilt and hung it up in his smoking-room over the clock.
+
+Never for a moment did the Old Gentleman oppose Vandover's wish to
+become an artist and it was he himself who first spoke about Paris to
+the young man. Vandover was delighted; the Latin Quarter became his
+dream. Between the two it was arranged that he should go over as soon as
+he had finished his course at the High School. The Old Gentleman was to
+take him across, returning only when he was well established in some
+suitable studio.
+
+At length Vandover graduated, and within three weeks of that event was
+on his way to Europe with his father. He never got farther than Boston.
+
+At the last moment the Old Gentleman wavered. Vandover was still very
+young and would be entirely alone in Paris, ignorant of the language,
+exposed to every temptation. Besides this, his education would stop
+where it was. Somehow he could not make it seem right to him to cut the
+young man adrift in this fashion. On the other hand, the Old Gentleman
+had a great many old-time friends and business acquaintances in Boston
+who could be trusted with a nominal supervision of his son for four
+years. He had no college education himself, but in some vague way he
+felt convinced that Vandover would be a better artist for a four years'
+course at Harvard.
+
+Vandover took his father's decision hardly. He had never thought of
+being a college-man and nothing in that life appealed to him. He urged
+upon his father the loss of time that the course would entail, but his
+father met this objection by offering to pay for any artistic tuition
+that would not interfere with the regular college work.
+
+Little by little the idea of college life became more attractive to
+Vandover; at the worst, it was only postponing the Paris trip, not
+abandoning it. Besides this, two of his chums from the High School were
+expecting to enter Harvard that fall, and he could look forward to a
+very pleasant four years spent in their company.
+
+Out at Cambridge the term was just closing. The Old Gentleman's friends
+procured him tickets to several of the more important functions. From
+the gallery of Memorial Hall Vandover and his father saw some of the
+great dinners; they went up to New London for the boat-race; they gained
+admittance to the historic Yard on Class-day, and saw the strange
+football rush for flowers around the "Tree." They heard the seniors sing
+"Fair Harvard" for the last time, and later saw them receive their
+diplomas at Sander's Theatre.
+
+The great ceremonies of the place, the picturesqueness of the elm-shaded
+Yard, the old red dormitories covered with ivy, the associations and
+traditions of the buildings, the venerable pump, Longfellow's room, the
+lecture hall where the minute-men had barracked, all of these things, in
+the end, appealed strongly to Vandover's imagination. Instead of passing
+the summer months in an ocean voyage and a continental journey, he at
+last became content to settle down to work under a tutor, "boning up"
+for the examinations. His father returned to San Francisco in July.
+
+Vandover matriculated the September of the same year; on the first of
+October he signed the college rolls and became a Harvard freshman. At
+that time he was eighteen years old.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Two
+
+
+There was little of the stubborn or unyielding about Vandover, his
+personality was not strong, his nature pliable and he rearranged himself
+to suit his new environment at Harvard very rapidly. Before the end of
+the first semester he had become to all outward appearances a typical
+Harvardian. He wore corduroy vests and a gray felt hat, the brim turned
+down over his eyes. He smoked a pipe and bought himself a brindled
+bull-terrier. He cut his lectures as often as he dared, "ragged" signs
+and barber-poles, and was in continual evidence about Foster's and among
+Leavitt and Pierce's billiard-tables. When the great football games came
+off he worked himself into a frenzy of excitement over them and even
+tried to make several of his class teams, though without success.
+
+He chummed with Charlie Geary and with young Dolliver Haight, the two
+San Francisco boys. The three were continually together. They took the
+same courses, dined at the same table in Memorial Hall and would have
+shared the same room if it had been possible. Vandover and Charlie Geary
+were fortunate enough to get a room in Matthew's on the lower floor
+looking out upon the Yard; young Haight was obliged to put up with an
+outside room in a boarding house.
+
+Vandover had grown up with these fellows and during all his life was
+thrown in their company. Haight was a well-bred young boy of good
+family, very quiet; almost every morning he went to Chapel. He was
+always polite, even to his two friends. He invariably tried to be
+pleasant and agreeable and had a way of making people like him.
+Otherwise, his character was not strongly marked.
+
+Geary was quite different. He never could forget himself. He was
+incessantly talking about what he had done or was going to do. In the
+morning he would inform Vandover of how many hours he had slept and of
+the dreams he had dreamed. In the evening he would tell him everything
+he had done that day; the things he had said, how many lectures he had
+cut, what brilliant recitations he had made, and even what food he had
+eaten at Memorial. He was pushing, self-confident, very shrewd and
+clever, devoured with an inordinate ambition and particularly pleased
+when he could get the better of anybody, even of Vandover or of young
+Haight. He delighted to assume the management of things. Vandover, he
+made his protégé, taking over the charge of such business as the two had
+in common. It was he who had found the room in Matthew's, getting it
+away from all other applicants, securing it at the eleventh hour. He put
+Vandover's name on the waiting list at Memorial, saw that he filled out
+his blanks at the proper time, helped him balance his accounts, guided
+him in the choice of his courses and in the making out of his
+study-card.
+
+"Look here, Charlie," Vandover would exclaim, throwing down the
+Announcement of Courses, "I can't make this thing out. It's all in a
+tangle. See here, I've got to fill up my hours some way or other; _you_
+straighten this thing out for me. Find me some nice little course, two
+hours a week, say, that comes late in the morning, a good hour after
+breakfast; something easy, all lectures, no outside reading, nice
+instructor and all that." And Geary would glance over the complicated
+schedule, cleverly untangling it at once and would find two or three
+such courses as Vandover desired.
+
+Vandover's yielding disposition led him to submit to Geary's
+dictatorship and he thus early began to contract easy, irresponsible
+habits, becoming indolent, shirking his duty whenever he could, sure
+that Geary would think for the two and pull him out of any difficulty
+into which he might drift.
+
+Otherwise the three freshmen were very much alike. They were hardly more
+than boys and full of boyish spirits and activity. They began to see
+"college life." Vandover was already smoking; pretty soon he began to
+drink. He affected beer, whisky he loathed, and such wine as was not too
+expensive was either too sweet or too sour. It became a custom for the
+three to go into town two or three nights in the week and have beer and
+Welsh rabbits at Billy Park's. On these occasions, however, young Haight
+drank only beer, he never touched wine or spirits.
+
+It was in Billy Park's the evening after the football game between the
+Yale and Harvard freshmen that Vandover was drunk for the first time. He
+was not so drunk but that he knew he was, and the knowledge of the fact
+so terrified him that it kept him from getting very bad. The first
+sensation soon wore off, and by the time that Geary took charge of him
+and brought him back to Cambridge he was disposed to treat the affair
+less seriously. Nevertheless when he got to his room he looked at
+himself in the mirror a long time, saying to himself over and over
+again, "I'm drunk--just regularly drunk. Good Heavens! what _would_ the
+governor say to _this_?"
+
+In the morning he was surprised to find that he felt so little ashamed.
+Geary and young Haight treated the matter as a huge joke and told him of
+certain funny things he had said and done and which he had entirely
+forgotten. It was impossible for him to take the matter seriously even
+if he had wished to, and within a few weeks he was drunk again. He found
+that he was not an exception; Geary was often drunk with him, fully a
+third of all the Harvard men he knew were intoxicated at different
+times. It was out of the question for Vandover to consider them as
+drunkards. Certainly, neither he nor any of the others drank because
+they liked the beer; after the fifth or sixth glass it was all they
+could do to force down another. Such being the case, Vandover often
+asked himself why he got drunk at all. This question he was never able
+to answer.
+
+It was the same with gambling. At first the idea of playing cards for
+money shocked him beyond all expression. But soon he found that a great
+many of the fellows, fellows like young Haight, beyond question steady,
+sensible and even worthy of emulation in other ways, "went in for that
+sort of thing." Every now and then Vandover's "crowd" got together in
+his room in Matthew's, and played Van John "for keeps," as they said,
+until far into the night. Vandover joined them. The stakes were small,
+he lost as often as he won, but the habit of the cards never grew upon
+him. It was like the beer, he "went in for it" because the others did,
+without knowing why. Geary, however, drew his line at gambling; he never
+talked against it or tried to influence Vandover, but he never could be
+induced to play "for keeps" himself.
+
+One very warm Sunday afternoon in the first days of April, when the last
+snows were melting, Vandover and Geary were in their room, sitting at
+opposite ends of their window-seat, Geary translating his Monday's
+"Horace" by the help of a Bonn's translation, Vandover making a pen and
+ink drawing for the next _Lampoon_. A couple of young women passed down
+the walk, going across the Yard toward the Square. They were cheaply and
+showily dressed. One of them wore a mannish shirtwaist, with a high
+collar and scarf. The other had taken off her gloves and was swinging a
+bright red cape in one of her bare hands. As the couple passed they
+stared calmly at the two young fellows in the window; Vandover lowered
+his eyes over his work, blushing, he could not tell why. Geary stared
+back at them, following them with his eyes until they had gone by.
+
+All at once he began laughing and pounding on the window.
+
+"Oh, for goodness sake, quit!" exclaimed Vandover in great alarm,
+twisting off the window-seat and shrinking back out of sight into the
+room. "Quit, Charlie; you don't want to insult a girl that way." Geary
+looked at him over his shoulder in some surprise, and was about to
+answer when he turned to the window again and exclaimed, grinning and
+waving his hand:
+
+"Oh, just come here, Skinny; get on to this, will you? Ah, come here and
+look, you old chump! Do you think they're nice girls? Just take a _look_
+at them." Vandover peered timidly around Geary's head and saw that the
+two girls were looking back and laughing, and that the one with the red
+cape was waving it at them.
+
+At supper that night they saw the girls in the gallery of Memorial. They
+pointed them out to young Haight, and Geary at length managed to attract
+their attention. After supper the three freshmen, together with two of
+their sophomore acquaintances, strolled slowly over toward the Yard,
+lighting their pipes and cigarettes. All at once, as they turned into
+the lower gate, they came full upon the same pair of girls. They were
+walking fast, talking and laughing very loudly.
+
+"Track!" called out one of the sophomores, and the group of young
+fellows parted to let them pass. The sophomore exclaimed in a tone of
+regret, "Don't be in such a hurry, girls." Vandover became scarlet and
+turned his face away, but the girls looked back and laughed
+good-naturedly. "Come on," said the sophomore. The group closed around
+the girls and brought them to a standstill; they were not in the least
+embarrassed at this, but laughed more than ever. Neither of them was
+pretty, but there was a certain attraction about them that pleased
+Vandover immensely. He was very excited.
+
+Then there was a very embarrassing pause. No one knew what to say. Geary
+alone regained his assurance at length, and began a lively interchange
+of chaff with one of them. The others could only stand about and smile.
+
+"Well," cried the other girl after a while, "I ain't going to stand here
+in the snow all _night_. Let's take a walk; come along. I choose _you_."
+Before Vandover knew it she had taken his arm. The sophomore managed in
+some way to pair off with the other girl; Haight had already left the
+group; the two couples started off, while Geary and the other sophomore
+who were left out followed awkwardly in the rear for a little way and
+then disappeared.
+
+Vandover was so excited that he could scarcely speak. This was a new
+experience. At first it attracted him, but the hopeless vulgarity of the
+girl at his side, her tawdry clothes, her sordid, petty talk, her slang,
+her miserable profanity, soon began to revolt him. He felt that he could
+not keep his self-respect while such a girl hung upon his arm.
+
+"Say," said the girl at length, "didn't I see you in town the other
+afternoon on Washington Street?"
+
+"Maybe you did," answered Vandover, trying to be polite. "I'm down there
+pretty often."
+
+"Well, I guess yes," she answered. "You Harvard sports make a regular
+promenade out o' Washington Street Saturday afternoons. I suppose I've
+seen you down there pretty often, but didn't notice. Do you stand or
+walk?"
+
+Vandover's gorge rose with disgust. He stopped abruptly and pulled away
+from the girl. Not only did she disgust him, but he felt sorry for her;
+he felt ashamed and pitiful for a woman who had fallen so low. Still he
+tried to be polite to her; he did not know how to be rude with any kind
+of woman.
+
+"You'll have to excuse me," he said, taking off his hat. "I don't
+believe I can take a walk with you to-night. I--you see--I've got a good
+deal of work to do; I think I'll have to leave you." Then he bowed to
+her with his hat in his hand, hurrying away before she could answer him
+a word.
+
+He found Geary alone in their room, cribbing "'Horace" again.
+
+"Ah, you bet," Geary said. "I shook those chippies. I sized them up
+right away. I was clever enough for that. They were no good. I thought
+you would get enough of it."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Vandover after a while, as he settled to his
+drawing. "She was pretty common, but anyhow I don't want to help bring
+down a poor girl like that any lower than she is already." This saying
+struck Vandover as being very good and noble, and he found occasion to
+repeat it to young Haight the next day.
+
+But within three days of this, at the time when Vandover would have
+fancied himself farthest from such a thing, he underwent a curious
+reaction. On a certain evening, moved by an unreasoned instinct, he
+sought out the girl who had just filled him with such deep pity and such
+violent disgust, and that night did not come back to the room in
+Matthew's. The thing was done almost before he knew it. He could not
+tell why he had acted as he did, and he certainly would not have
+believed himself capable of it.
+
+He passed the next few days in a veritable agony of repentance,
+overwhelmed by a sense of shame and dishonour that were almost feminine
+in their bitterness and intensity. He felt himself lost, unworthy, and
+as if he could never again look a pure woman in the eyes unless with an
+abominable hypocrisy. He was ashamed even before Geary and young Haight,
+and went so far as to send a long letter to his father acknowledging and
+deploring what he had done, asking for his forgiveness and reiterating
+his resolve to shun such a thing forever after.
+
+What had been bashfulness in the boy developed in the young man to a
+profound respect and an instinctive regard for women. This stood him in
+good stead throughout all his four years of Harvard life. In general, he
+kept himself pretty straight. There were plenty of fast girls and lost
+women about Cambridge, but Vandover found that he could not associate
+with them to any degree of satisfaction. He never knew how to take them,
+never could rid himself of the idea that they were to be treated as
+ladies. They, on their part, did not like him; he was too diffident, too
+courteous, too "slow." They preferred the rough self-assertion and easy
+confidence of Geary, who never took "no" as an answer and who could
+chaff with them on their own ground.
+
+Vandover did poor work at Harvard and only graduated, as Geary said, "by
+a squeak." Besides his regular studies he took time to pass three
+afternoons a week in the studio of a Boston artist, where he studied
+anatomy and composition and drew figures from the nude. In the summer
+vacations he did not return home, but accompanied this artist on
+sketching tours along the coast of Maine. His style improved immensely
+the moment he abandoned flat studies and began to work directly from
+Nature. He drew figures well, showed a feeling for desolate landscapes,
+and even gave promise of a good eye for colour. But he allowed his
+fondness for art to interfere constantly with his college work. By the
+middle of his senior year he was so loaded with conditions that it was
+only Geary's unwearied coaching that pulled him through at all--as
+Vandover knew it would, for that matter.
+
+Vandover returned to San Francisco when he was twenty-two. It was
+astonishing; he had gone away a pimply, overgrown boy, raw and callow as
+a fledgling, constrained in society, diffident, awkward. Now he
+returned, a tall, well-formed Harvardian, as careful as a woman in the
+matter of dress, very refined in his manners. Besides, he was a
+delightful conversationalist. His father was rejoiced; every one
+declared he was a charming fellow.
+
+They were right. Vandover was at his best at this time; it was
+undeniable that he had great talent, but he was so modest about it that
+few knew how clever he really was.
+
+He went out to dinners and receptions and began to move a little in
+society. He became very popular: the men liked him because he was so
+unaffected, so straightforward, and the women because he was so
+respectful and so deferential.
+
+He had no vices. He had gone through the ordeal of college life and had
+come out without contracting any habit more serious than a vague
+distaste for responsibility, and an inclination to shirk disagreeable
+duties. Cards he never thought of. It was rare that he drank so much as
+a glass of beer.
+
+However, he had come back to a great disappointment. Business in San
+Francisco had entered upon a long period of decline, and values were
+decreasing; for ten years rents had been sagging lower and lower. At the
+same time the interest on loans and insurances had increased, and real
+estate was brought to a standstill; one spoke bitterly of a certain
+great monopoly that was ruining both the city and state. Vandover's
+father had suffered with the rest, and now told his son that he could
+not at this time afford to send him to Paris. He would have to wait for
+better times.
+
+At first this was a sharp grief to Vandover; for years he had looked
+forward to an artist's life in the Quarter. For a time he was
+inconsolable, then at length readjusted himself good-naturedly to suit
+the new order of things with as little compunction as before, when he
+had entered Harvard. He found that he could be contented in almost any
+environment, the weakness, the certain pliability of his character
+easily fitting itself into new grooves, reshaping itself to suit new
+circumstances. He prevailed upon his father to allow him to have a
+downtown studio. In a little while he was perfectly happy again.
+
+Vandover's love for his art was keen. On the whole he kept pretty
+steadily to his work, spending a good six hours at his easel every day,
+very absorbed over the picture in hand. He was working up into large
+canvases the sketches he had made along the Maine coast, great, empty
+expanses of sea, sky, and sand-dune, full of wind and sun. They were
+really admirable. He even sold one of them. The Old Gentleman was
+delighted, signed him a check for twenty dollars, and told him that in
+three years he could afford to send him abroad.
+
+In the meanwhile Vandover set himself to enjoy the new life. Little by
+little his "set" formed around him; Geary and young Haight, of course,
+and some half dozen young men of the city: young lawyers, medical
+students, and clerks in insurance offices. As Vandover thus began to see
+the different phases of that life which lay beyond the limits of the
+college, he perceived more and more clearly that he was an exception
+among men for his temperance, his purity, and his clean living.
+
+At their clubs and in their smoking-rooms he heard certain practices,
+which he had always believed to be degrading and abominable, discussed
+with shouts of laughter. Those matters which until now he had regarded
+with an almost sacred veneration were subjects for immense jokes. A few
+years ago he would have been horrified at it all, but the fine quality
+of this first sensitiveness had been blunted since his experience at
+college. He tolerated these things in his friends now.
+
+Gradually Vandover allowed his ideas and tastes to be moulded by this
+new order of things. He assumed the manners of these young men of the
+city, very curious to see for himself the other lower side of their life
+that began after midnight in the private rooms of fast cafés and that
+was continued in the heavy musk-laden air of certain parlours amid the
+rustle of heavy silks.
+
+Slowly the fascination of this thing grew upon him until it mounted to a
+veritable passion. His strong artist's imagination began to be filled
+with a world of charming sensuous pictures.
+
+He commenced to chafe under his innate respect and deference for women,
+to resent and to despise it. As the desire of vice, the blind, reckless
+desire of the male, grew upon him, he set himself to destroy this
+barrier that had so long stood in his way. He knew that it was the
+wilful and deliberate corruption of part of that which was best in him;
+he was sorry for it, but persevered, nevertheless, ashamed of his
+old-time timidity, his ignorance, his boyish purity.
+
+For a second time the animal in him, the perverse evil brute, awoke and
+stirred. The idea of resistance hardly occurred to Vandover; it would be
+hard, it would be disagreeable to resist, and Vandover had not
+accustomed himself to the performance of hard, disagreeable duties. They
+were among the unpleasant things that he shirked. He told himself that
+later on, when he had grown older and steadier and had profited by
+experience and knowledge of the world, when he was stronger, in a word,
+he would curb the thing and restrain it. He saw no danger in such a
+course. It was what other men did with impunity.
+
+In company with Geary and young Haight he had come to frequent a certain
+one of the fast cafés of the city. Here he met and became acquainted
+with a girl called Flossie. It was the opportunity for which he was
+waiting, and he seized it at once.
+
+This time there was no recoil of conscience, no shame, no remorse; he
+even felt a better estimation of himself, that self-respect that comes
+with wider experiences and with larger views of life. He told himself
+that all men should at one time see certain phases of the world; it
+rounded out one's life. After all, one had to be a man of the world.
+Those men only were perverted who allowed themselves to be corrupted by
+such vice.
+
+Thus it was that Vandover, by degrees, drifted into the life of a
+certain class of the young men of the city. Vice had no hold on him. The
+brute had grown larger in him, but he knew that he had the creature in
+hand. He was its master, and only on rare occasions did he permit
+himself to gratify its demands, feeding its abominable hunger from that
+part of him which he knew to be the purest, the cleanest, and the best.
+
+Three years passed in this fashion.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Three
+
+
+Vandover had decided at lunch that day that he would not go back to work
+at his studio in the afternoon, but would stay at home instead and read
+a very interesting story about two men who had bought a wrecked opium
+ship for fifty thousand dollars, and had afterward discovered that she
+contained only a few tins of the drug. He was curious to see how it
+turned out; the studio was a long way downtown, the day was a little
+cold, and he felt that he would enjoy a little relaxation. Anyhow, he
+meant to stay at home and put in the whole afternoon on a good novel.
+
+But even when he had made up his mind to do this he did not immediately
+get out his book and settle down to it. After lunch he loitered about
+the house while his meal digested, feeling very comfortable and
+contented. He strummed his banjo a little and played over upon the piano
+the three pieces he had picked up: two were polkas, and the third, the
+air of a topical song; he always played the three together and in the
+same sequence. Then he strolled up to his room, and brushed his hair for
+a while, trying to make it lie very flat and smooth. After this he went
+out to look at Mr. Corkle, the terrier, and let him run a bit in the
+garden; then he felt as though he must have a smoke, and so went back to
+his room and filled his pipe. When it was going well, he took down his
+book and threw himself into a deep leather chair, only to jump up again
+to put on his smoking-jacket. All at once he became convinced that he
+must have something to eat while he read, and so went to the kitchen and
+got himself some apples and a huge slice of fresh bread. Ever since
+Vandover was a little boy he had loved fresh bread and apples. Through
+the windows of the dining-room he saw Mr. Corkle digging up great holes
+in the geranium beds. He went out and abused him and finally let him
+come back into the house and took him upstairs with him.
+
+Then at last he settled down to his novel, in the very comfortable
+leather chair, before a little fire, for the last half of August is cold
+in San Francisco. The room was warm and snug, the fresh bread and apples
+were delicious, the good tobacco in his pipe purred like a sleeping
+kitten, and his novel was interesting and well written. He felt calm and
+soothed and perfectly content, and took in the pleasure of the occasion
+with the lazy complacency of a drowsing cat.
+
+Vandover was self-indulgent--he loved these sensuous pleasures, he loved
+to eat good things, he loved to be warm, he loved to sleep. He hated to
+be bored and worried--he liked to have a good time.
+
+At about half-past four o'clock he came to a good stopping-place in his
+book; the two men had got to quarrelling, and his interest flagged a
+little. He pushed Mr. Corkle off his lap and got up yawning and went to
+the window.
+
+Vandover's home was on California Street not far from Franklin. It was a
+large frame house of two stories; all the windows in the front were bay.
+The front door was directly in the middle between the windows of the
+parlour and those of the library, while over the vestibule was a sort of
+balcony that no one ever thought of using. The house was set in a large
+well-kept yard. The lawn was pretty; an enormous eucalyptus tree grew at
+one corner. Nearer to the house were magnolia and banana trees growing
+side by side with pines and firs. Humming-birds built in these, and one
+could hear their curious little warbling mingling with the hoarse chirp
+of the English sparrows which nested under the eaves. The back yard was
+separated from the lawn by a high fence of green lattice-work. The hens
+and chickens were kept here and two roosters, one of which crowed every
+time a cable-car passed the house. On the door cut through the
+lattice-fence was a sign, "Look Out for the Dog." Close to the unused
+barn stood an immense windmill with enormous arms; when the wind blew in
+the afternoon the sails whirled about at a surprising speed, pumping up
+water from the artesian well sunk beneath. There was a small
+conservatory where the orchids were kept. Altogether, it was a charming
+place. However, adjoining it was a huge vacant lot with cows in it. It
+was full of dry weeds and heaps of ashes, while around it was an
+enormous fence painted with signs of cigars, patent bitters, and soap.
+
+Vandover stood at a front window and looked out on a rather dreary
+prospect. The inevitable afternoon trades had been blowing hard since
+three, strong and brisk from the ocean, driving hard through the Golden
+Gate and filling the city with a taint of salt. Now the fog was coming
+in; Vandover could see great patches of it sweeping along between him
+and the opposite houses. All the eucalyptus trees were dripping, and
+occasionally there came the faint moan of the fog-horn out at the heads.
+He could see up the street for nearly two miles as it climbed over Nob
+Hill. It was almost deserted; a cable-car now and then crawled up and
+down its length, and at times a delivery wagon rattled across it; but
+that was about all. On the opposite sidewalk two boys and a girl were
+coasting downhill on their roller-skates and their brake-wagons. The
+cable in its slot kept up an incessant burr and clack. The whole view
+was rather forlorn, and Vandover turned his back on it, taking up his
+book again.
+
+About five o'clock his father came home from his office. "Hello!" said
+he, looking into the room; "aren't you home a little early to-day? Ah, I
+thought you weren't going to bring that dog into the house any more. I
+wish you wouldn't, son; he gets hair and fleas about everywhere."
+
+"All right, governor," answered Vandover. "I'll take him out. Come
+along, Cork."
+
+"But aren't you home earlier than usual to-day?" persisted his father as
+Vandover got up.
+
+"Yes," said Vandover, "I guess I am, a little."
+
+After supper the same evening when Vandover came downstairs, drawing on
+his gloves, his father looked over his paper, saying pleasantly:
+
+"Well, where are you going to-night?"
+
+"I'm going to see my girl," said Vandover, smiling; then foreseeing the
+usual question, he added, "I'll be home about eleven, I guess."
+
+"Got your latch-key?" asked the Old Gentleman, as he always did when
+Vandover went out.
+
+"Yep," called back Vandover as he opened the door. "I'll not forget it
+again. Good-night, governor."
+
+Vandover used to call on Turner Ravis about twice a week; people said
+they were engaged. This was not so.
+
+Vandover had met Miss Ravis some two years before. For a time the two
+had been sincerely in love with each other, and though there was never
+any talk of marriage between them, they seemed to have some sort of
+tacit understanding. But by this time Vandover had somehow outgrown the
+idea of marrying Turner. He still kept up the fiction, persuaded that
+Turner must understand the way things had come to be. However, he was
+still very fond of her; she was a frank, sweet-tempered girl and very
+pretty, and it was delightful to have her care for him.
+
+Vandover could not shut his eyes to the fact that young Haight was very
+seriously in love with Turner. But he was sure that Turner preferred him
+to his chum. She was too sincere, too frank, too conscientious to
+practise any deception on him.
+
+There was quite a party at the Ravises' house that evening when Vandover
+arrived. Young Haight was there, of course, and Charlie Geary. Besides
+Turner herself there was Henrietta Vance, a stout, pretty girl, with pop
+eyes and a little nose, who laughed all the time and who was very
+popular. These were all part of Vandover's set; they called each other
+by their first names and went everywhere together. Almost every Saturday
+evening they got together at Turner's house and played whist, or euchre,
+or sometimes even poker. "Just for love," as Turner said.
+
+When Vandover came in they were all talking at the same time, disputing
+about a little earthquake that had occurred the night before. Henrietta
+Vance declared that it had happened early in the morning.
+
+"_Wasn't_ it just about midnight, Van?" cried Turner.
+
+"I don't know," answered Vandover. "It didn't wake me up. I didn't even
+know there was one."
+
+"Well, I know I heard our clock strike two just about half an hour
+afterward," protested young Haight.
+
+"Oh, it was almost five o'clock when it came," cried Henrietta Vance.
+
+"Well, now, you're _all_ off," said Charlie Geary. "I know just when she
+quaked to the fraction of a minute, because it stopped our hall clock at
+just a little after three."
+
+They were silent. It was an argument which was hard to contradict. By
+and by, young Haight declared, "There must have been two of them then,
+because--"
+
+"How about whist or euchre or whatever it is to be?" said Charlie
+Geary, addressing Turner and interrupting in an annoying way that was
+peculiar to him. "Can't we start in now that Van has come?" They played
+euchre for a while, but Geary did not like the game, and by and by
+suggested poker.
+
+"Well--if it's only just for love," said Turner, "because, you know,
+mamma doesn't like it any other way."
+
+At ten o'clock Geary said, "Let's quit after this hand round--what do
+you say?" The rest were willing and so they all took account of their
+chips after the next deal. Geary was protesting against his poor luck.
+Honestly he hadn't held better than three tens more than twice during
+the evening. It was Henrietta Vance who took in everything; did one ever
+_see_ anything to beat her luck? "the funniest thing!"
+
+They began to do tricks with the cards. Young Haight showed them a very
+good trick by which he could make the pack break every time at the ace
+of clubs. Vandover exclaimed: "Lend me a silk hat and ninety dollars and
+I'll show you the queerest trick you ever saw," which sent Henrietta
+Vance off into shrieks of laughter. Then Geary took the cards out of
+young Haight's hands, asking them if they knew _this_ trick.
+
+Turner said yes, she knew it, but the others did not, and Geary showed
+it to them. It was interminable. Henrietta Vance chose a card and put it
+back into the deck. Then the deck was shuffled and divided into three
+piles. After this Geary made a mental calculation, selected one of these
+piles, shuffled it, and gave it back to her, asking her if she saw her
+card in it; then more shuffling and dividing until their interest and
+patience were quite exhausted. When Geary finally produced a jack of
+hearts and demanded triumphantly if that was her card, Henrietta began
+to laugh and declared she had forgotten _what_ card she chose. Geary
+said he would do the trick all over for her. At this, however, they all
+cried out, and he had to give it up, very irritated at Henrietta's
+stupidity.
+
+Vexed at the ill success of this first trick, he retired a little from
+their conversation, puzzling over the cards, thinking out new tricks.
+Every now and then he came back among them, going about from one to
+another, holding out the deck and exclaiming, "Choose any card--choose
+any card."
+
+After a while they all adjourned to the dining-room and Turner and
+Vandover went out into the kitchen, foraging among the drawers and
+shelves. They came back bringing with them a box of sardines, a tin of
+_paté_, three quart bottles of blue-ribbon beer, and what Vandover
+called "devilish-ham" sandwiches.
+
+"Now do we want _tamales_ to go with these?" said Turner, as she spread
+the lunch on the table. Henrietta Vance cried out joyfully at this, and
+young Haight volunteered to go out to get them. "Get six," Turner cried
+out after him. "Henrietta can always eat two. Hurry up, and we won't eat
+till you get back."
+
+While he was gone Turner got out some half-dozen glasses for their beer.
+"Do you know," she said as she set the glasses on the table, "the
+funniest thing happened this morning to mamma. It was at breakfast; she
+had just drunk a glass of water and was holding the glass in her hand
+like this"--Turner took one of the thin beer glasses in her hand to show
+them how--"and was talking to pa, when all at once the glass broke right
+straight around a ring, just below the brim, you know, and fell all--"
+On a sudden Turner uttered a shrill exclamation; the others started up;
+the very glass she held in her hand at the moment cracked and broke in
+precisely the manner she was describing. A narrow ring snapped from the
+top, dropping on the floor, breaking into a hundred bits.
+
+Turner drew in a long breath, open-mouthed, her hand in the air still
+holding the body of the glass that remained in her fingers. They all
+began to exclaim over the wonder.
+
+"Well, did you ever in all your _life_?" shouted Miss Vance, breaking
+into a peal of laughter. Geary cried out, "Cæsar's ghost!" and Vandover
+swore under his breath.
+
+"If that isn't the strangest thing I ever saw!" cried Turner. "_Isn't_
+that funny--why--oh! I'm going _to try it with another glass_!" But the
+second glass remained intact. Geary recovered from his surprise and
+tried to explain how it could happen.
+
+"It was the heat from your fingers and the glass was cold, you know," he
+said again and again.
+
+But the strangeness of the thing still held them. Turner set down the
+glass with the others and dropped into a chair, letting her hands fall
+in her lap, looking into their faces, nodding her head and shutting her
+lips:
+
+"Ah, _no_," she said after a while. "That _is_ funny. It kind of scares
+one." She was actually pale.
+
+"Oh, there's Dolly Haight!" cried Henrietta Vance as the door bell rang.
+They all rushed to the door, running and scrambling, eager to tell the
+news. Young Haight stood bewildered on the door mat in the vestibule,
+his arms full of brown-paper packages, while they recounted the marvel.
+They all spoke at once, holding imaginary beer glasses toward him in
+their outstretched hands. Geary, however, refused to be carried away by
+their excitement, and one heard him from time to time repeating, between
+their ejaculations, "It was the heat from her fingers, you know, and the
+glass was cold."
+
+Young Haight was confused, incredulous; he could not at first make out
+what _had_ happened.
+
+"Well, just come and _look_ at the broken _glass_ on the _floor_,"
+shouted Turner decisively, dragging him into the dining-room. They
+waited, breathless, to hear what he would say. He looked at the broken
+glass and then into their faces. Then he suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"Ah, you're joking me."
+
+"No, honestly," protested Vandover, "that was just the way it happened."
+
+It was some little time before they could get over their impression of
+queerness, but by and by Geary cried out that the _tamales_ were getting
+cold. They settled down to their lunch, and the first thing young Haight
+did was to cut his lip on the edge of the broken glass. Turner had set
+it down with the others and he had inadvertently filled it for himself.
+
+It was a trifling cut. Turner fetched some court-plaster, and his lip
+was patched up. For all that, it bled quite a little. He was very
+embarrassed; he kept his handkerchief to his mouth and told them
+repeatedly to go on with their lunch and not to mind him.
+
+As soon as they were eating and drinking they began to be very jolly,
+and Vandover was especially good-humoured and entertaining. He made
+Henrietta Vance shout with laughter by pretending that the olive in his
+_tamale_ was a green hen's egg.
+
+About half-past ten young Haight rose from the table saying he thought
+it was about time to say good-night. "Don't be in a hurry," said
+Turner. "It's early yet." After that, however, they broke up very
+quickly.
+
+Before he left Vandover saw Turner in the dining-room alone for a
+minute.
+
+"Will I see you at church to-morrow?" he asked, as she held his overcoat
+for him.
+
+"I don't know, Van," she answered. "You know Henrietta is going to stay
+all night with me, and I think she will want me to go home with her
+to-morrow morning and then stay to dinner with her. But I'm going to
+early communion to-morrow morning; why can't you meet me there?"
+
+"Why, I can," answered Vandover, settling his collar. "I should like to
+very much."
+
+"Well, then," she replied, "you can meet me in front of the church at
+half-past seven o'clock."
+
+"Hey, break away there!" cried Geary from the front door. "Come along,
+Van, if you are going with us."
+
+Turner let Vandover kiss her before they joined the others. "I'll see
+you at seven-thirty to-morrow morning," he said as he went away.
+
+The three young men went off down the street, arm in arm, smoking their
+cigars and cigarettes. As soon as they were alone, Charlie Geary began
+to tell the other two of everything he had been doing since he had last
+seen them.
+
+"Well, sir," he said as he took an arm of each, "well, sir, I had a fine
+sleep last night; went to bed at ten and never woke up till half-past
+eight this morning. Ah, you bet I needed it, though. I've been working
+like a slave this week. You know I take my law-examinations in about ten
+days. I'll pass all right. I'm right up to the handle in everything. I
+don't believe the judge could stick me anywhere in the subject of
+torts."
+
+"Say, boys," said Vandover, pausing and looking at his watch, "it isn't
+very late; let's go downtown and have some oysters."
+
+"That's a good idea," answered young Haight. "How about you, Charlie?"
+
+Geary said he was willing. "Ah," he added, "you ought to have seen the
+beefsteak I had this evening at the Grillroom." And as they rode
+downtown he told them of the steak in question. "I had a little mug of
+ale with it, too, and a dish of salad. Ah, it went great."
+
+They decided after some discussion that they would go to the Imperial.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Four
+
+
+The Imperial was a resort not far from the corner of Sutter and Kearney
+streets, a few doors below a certain well-known drug store, in one
+window of which was a showcase full of live snakes.
+
+The front of the Imperial was painted white, and there was a cigar-stand
+in the vestibule of the main entrance. At the right of this main
+entrance was another smaller one, a ladies' entrance, on the frosted
+pane of which one read, "Oyster Cafe."
+
+The main entrance opened directly into the barroom. It was a handsome
+room, paved with marble flags. To the left was the bar, whose counter
+was a single slab of polished redwood. Behind it was a huge, plate-glass
+mirror, balanced on one side by the cash-register and on the other by a
+statuette of the Diving Girl in tinted bisque. Between the two were
+pyramids of glasses and bottles, liqueur flasks in wicker cases, and a
+great bouquet of sweet-peas.
+
+The three bartenders, in clean linen coats and aprons, moved about here
+and there, opening bottles, mixing drinks, and occasionally turning to
+punch the indicator of the register.
+
+On the other side of the room, facing the bar, hung a large copy of a
+French picture representing a _Sabbath_, witches, goats, and naked girls
+whirling through the air. Underneath it was the lunch counter, where
+clam-fritters, the specialty of the place, could be had four afternoons
+in the week.
+
+Elsewhere were nickel-in-the-slot machines, cigar-lighters, a vase of
+wax flowers under glass, and a racing chart setting forth the day's
+odds, weights, and entries. On the end wall over the pantry-slides was a
+second "barroom" picture, representing the ladies of a harem at their
+bath.
+
+But its "private rooms" were the chief attraction of the Imperial. These
+were reached by going in through the smaller door to the right of the
+main vestibule. Any one coming in through this entrance found himself in
+a long and narrow passage. On the right of this passage were eight
+private rooms, very small, and open at the top as the law required.
+Half-way down its length the passage grew wider. Here the rooms were on
+both sides and were much larger than those in front.
+
+It was this part of the Imperial that was most frequented, and that had
+made its reputation. In the smaller rooms in front one had beer and
+Welsh rabbits; in the larger rooms, champagne and terrapin.
+
+Vandover, Haight, and Geary came in through the ladies' entrance of the
+Imperial at about eleven o'clock, going slowly down the passage, looking
+into each of the little rooms, searching for one that was empty. All at
+once Vandover, who was in the lead, cried out:
+
+"Well, if here isn't that man Ellis, drinking whisky by himself. Bah! a
+man that will drink whisky all _alone_! Glad to see you just the same,
+Bandy; move along, will you--give a man some room."
+
+"Hello, hello, Bandy!" cried Geary and young Haight, hitting him in the
+back, while Geary added: "How long have you been down here? _I've_ just
+come from making a call with the boys. Had a fine time; what are you
+drinking, whisky? _I'm_ going to have something to eat. Didn't have much
+of a lunch to-day, but you ought to have seen the steak I had at the
+Grillroom--as thick as that, and tender! Oh, it went great! Here, hang
+my coat up there on that side, will you?"
+
+Bancroft Ellis was one of the young men of the city with whom the three
+fellows had become acquainted just after their return from college. For
+the most part, they met him at downtown restaurants, in the foyers and
+vestibules of the theatres, on Kearney Street of a Saturday afternoon,
+or, as now, in the little rooms of the Imperial, where he was a
+recognized habitué and where he invariably called for whisky, finishing
+from three to five "ponies" at every sitting. On very rare occasions
+they saw him in society, at the houses where their "set" was received.
+At these functions Ellis could never be persuaded to remain in the
+parlours; he slipped up to the gentlemen's dressing-rooms at the
+earliest opportunity, and spent the evening silently smoking the cigars
+and cigarettes furnished by the host. When Vandover and his friends came
+up between dances, to brush their hair or to rearrange their neckties,
+they found him enveloped in a blue haze of smoke, his feet on a chair,
+his shirt bosom broken, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. He would tell them
+that he was bored and thirsty and ask how much longer they were going to
+stay. He knew but few of their friends; his home was in a little town in
+the interior and he prided himself on being a "Native Son of the Golden
+West." He was a clerk in an insurance office on California Street, and
+had never been out of the state.
+
+For the rest he was a good enough fellow and the three others liked him
+very much. He had a curious passion for facts and statistics, and his
+pockets were full of little books and cards to which he was constantly
+referring. He had one of those impossible pocket-diaries, the first half
+dozen pages loaded with information of every kind printed in blinding
+type, postal rates to every country in the world, statistics as to
+population and rates of death, weights and measures, the highest
+mountains in the world, the greatest depths of the ocean. He kept a
+little book in his left-hand vest pocket that gave the plan and seating
+capacity of every theatre in the city, while in the right-hand pocket
+was a tiny Webster's dictionary which was his especial pride. The
+calendar for the current year was pasted in the lining of his hat,
+together with the means to be employed in the resuscitation of a
+half-drowned person. He also carried about a "Vest Pocket Edition of
+Popular Information," which had never been of the slightest use to him.
+
+The room in which they were now seated was very small and opened
+directly upon the passage. On either side of the table was a seat that
+would hold two, and on the wall opposite the door hung a mirror, its
+gilt frame enclosed in pink netting. The table itself was covered with a
+tolerably clean cloth, though it was of coarse linen and rather damp.
+
+There were the usual bottles of olives and pepper sauce, a plate of
+broken crackers, and a ribbed match-safe of china. The sugar bowl was of
+plated ware and on it were scratched numberless dates together with the
+first names of a great many girls, "Nannie," "Ida," "Flossie."
+
+Between the castor bottles was the bill of fare, held by a thin string
+between two immense leather covers which were stamped with wine
+merchants' advertisements. Geary reached for this before any of the
+others, saying at the same time, "Well, what are you going to have?
+_I'm_ going to have a Welsh rabbit and a pint of ale." He looked from
+one to the other as if demanding whether or no they approved of his
+choice. He assumed the management of what was going on, advising the
+others what to have, telling Vandover not to order certain dishes that
+he liked because it took so long to cook them. He had young Haight ring
+for the waiter, and when he had come, Geary read off the entire order to
+him twice over, making sure that he had taken it correctly. "That's what
+we want all right, all right--isn't it?" he said, looking around at the
+rest.
+
+The waiter, whose eyes were red from lack of sleep, put down before them
+a plate of limp, soft shrimps.
+
+"Hello, Toby!" said Vandover.
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen," answered Toby. "Why, good evening, Mr.
+Vandover; haven't seen you 'round here for some time." He took their
+order, and as he was going away, Vandover called him back:
+
+"Say, Toby," said he, "has Flossie been around to-night?"
+
+"No," answered Toby, "she hasn't shown up yet. Her running-mate was in
+about nine, but she went out again right away."
+
+"Well," said Vandover, smiling, "if Flossie comes 'round show her in
+here, will you?"
+
+The others laughed, and joked him about this, and Vandover settled back
+in his seat, easing his position.
+
+"Ah," he exclaimed, "I like it in here. It's always pleasant and warm
+and quiet and the service is good and you get such good things to eat."
+
+Now that the young fellows were by themselves, and could relax that
+restraint, that good breeding and delicacy which had been natural to
+them in the early part of the evening at the Ravises', their manners
+changed: they lounged clumsily upon their seats, their legs stretched
+out, their waistcoats unbuttoned, caring only to be at their ease. Their
+talk and manners became blunt, rude, unconstrained, the coarser
+masculine fibre reasserting itself. With the exception of young Haight
+they were all profane enough, and it was not very long before their
+conversation became obscene.
+
+Geary told them how he had spent the afternoon promenading Kearney and
+Market streets and just where he had gone to get his cocktail and his
+cigar. "Ah," he added, "you ought to have seen Ida Wade and Bessie
+Laguna. Oh, Ida was rigged up to beat the band; honestly her _hat_ was
+as broad across as that. You know there's no use talking, she's an
+awfully handsome girl."
+
+A discussion arose over the girl's virtue. Ellis, Geary, and young
+Haight maintained that Ida was only fast; Vandover, however, had his
+doubts.
+
+"For that matter," said Ellis after a while, "I like Bessie Laguna a
+good deal better than I do Ida."
+
+"Ah, yes," retorted young Haight, "you like Bessie Laguna too much
+anyhow."
+
+Young Haight had a theory that one should never care in any way for that
+kind of a girl nor become at all intimate with her.
+
+"The matter of liking her or not liking her," he said, "ought not to
+enter into the question at all. You are both of you out for a good time
+and that's all; you have a jolly flirtation with her for an hour or two,
+and you never see her again. That's the way it ought to be! This idea of
+getting intimate with that sort of a piece, and trying to get her to
+care for you, is all wrong."
+
+"Oh," said Vandover deprecatingly, "you take all the pleasure out of it;
+where does your good time come in if you don't at least pretend that you
+like the girl and try to make her like you?"
+
+"But don't you see," answered Haight, "what a dreadful thing it would be
+if a girl like that came to care for you seriously? It isn't the same as
+if it were a girl of your own class."
+
+"Ah, Dolly, you've got a bean," muttered Ellis, sipping his whisky.
+
+Meanwhile, the Imperial had been filling up; at about eleven the
+theatres were over, and now the barroom was full of men. They came in by
+twos and threes and sometimes even by noisy parties of a half dozen or
+more. The white swing doors of the main entrance flapped back and forth
+continually, letting out into the street puffs of tepid air tainted with
+the smell of alcohol. The men entered and ordered their drinks, and
+leaning their elbows upon the bar continued the conversation they had
+begun outside. Afterward they passed over to the lunch counter and
+helped themselves to a plate of stewed tripe or potato salad, eating it
+in a secluded corner, leaning over so as not to stain their coats. There
+was a continual clinking of glasses and popping of corks, and at every
+instant the cash-register clucked and rang its bell.
+
+Between the barroom and the other part of the house was a door hung with
+blue plush curtains, looped back; the waiters constantly passed back and
+forth through this, carrying plates of oysters, smoking rarebits, tiny
+glasses of liqueurs, and goblets of cigars.
+
+All the private rooms opening from either passage were full; the men
+came in, walking slowly, looking for their friends; but more often, the
+women and girls passed up and down with a chatter of conversation, a
+rattle of stiff skirts and petticoats, and a heavy whiff of musk. There
+was a continual going and coming, a monotonous shuffle of feet and hum
+of talk. A heavy odorous warmth in which were mingled the smells of
+sweetened whisky, tobacco, the fumes of cooking, and the scent of
+perfume, exhaled into the air. A gay and noisy party developed in one of
+the large back rooms; at every moment one could hear gales of laughter,
+the rattle of chairs and glassware, mingled with the sounds of men's
+voices and the little screams and cries of women. Every time the waiter
+opened the door to deliver an order he let out a momentary torrent of
+noises.
+
+Girls, habitués of the place, continued to pass the door of the room
+where Vandover and his friends were seated. Each time a particularly
+handsome one went by, the four looked out after her, shutting their lips
+and eyes and nodding their heads.
+
+Young Haight had called for more drinks, ordering, however, mineral
+water for himself, and Vandover was just telling about posing the female
+models in a certain life-class to which he belonged, when he looked up
+and broke off, exclaiming:
+
+"Well, well, here we are at last! How are you, Flossie? Come right in."
+
+Flossie stood in the doorway smiling good-humouredly at them, without a
+trace of embarrassment or of confusion in her manner. She was an immense
+girl, quite six feet tall, broad and well-made, in proportion. She was
+very handsome, full-throated, heavy-eyed, and slow in her movements.
+Her eyes and mouth, like everything about her, were large, but each time
+she spoke or smiled, she disclosed her teeth, which were as white, as
+well-set, and as regular as the rows of kernels on an ear of green corn.
+In her ears were small yellow diamonds, the only jewellery she wore.
+There was no perceptible cosmetic on her face, which had a clean and
+healthy look as though she had just given it a vigorous washing.
+
+She wore a black hat with a great flare to the brim on one side. It was
+trimmed very dashingly with black feathers, imitation jet, and a little
+puff of plush--robin's-egg blue. Her dress was of rough, black camel's
+hair, tailor-made, and but for the immense balloon sleeves, absolutely
+plain. It was cut in such a way that from neck to waist there was no
+break, the buttons being on the shoulder and under the arm. The skirt
+was full and stiff, and without the least trimming. Everything was
+black--hat, dress, gloves--and the effect was of a simplicity and
+severity so pronounced as to be very striking.
+
+However, around her waist she wore as a belt a thick rope of oxidized
+silver, while her shoes, or rather walking slippers, were of white
+canvas.
+
+She belonged to that class of women who are not to know one's last name
+or address, and whose hate and love are equally to be dreaded. There was
+upon her face the unmistakable traces of a ruined virtue and a vanished
+innocence. Her slightest action suggested her profession; as soon as she
+removed her veil and gloves it was as though she were partially
+undressed, and her uncovered face and hands seemed to be only portions
+of her nudity.
+
+The general conception of women of her class is a painted and broken
+wreck. Flossie radiated health; her eyes were clear, her nerves steady,
+her flesh hard and even as a child's. There hung about her an air of
+cleanliness, of freshness, of good nature, of fine, high spirits, while
+with every movement she exhaled a delicious perfume that was not only
+musk, but that seemed to come alike from her dress, her hair, her neck,
+her very flesh and body.
+
+Vandover was no longer the same as he had been during his college days.
+He was familiar now with this odour of abandoned women, this foul sweet
+savour of the great city's vice, that quickened his breath and that sent
+his heart knocking at his throat. It was the sensitive artist nature in
+him that responded instantly to anything sensuously attractive. Each
+kind and class of beautiful women could arouse in Vandover passions of
+equal force, though of far different kind. Turner Ravis influenced him
+upon his best side, calling out in him all that was cleanest, finest,
+and most delicate. Flossie appealed only to the animal and the beast in
+him, the evil, hideous brute that made instant answer.
+
+"What will you take, Flossie?" asked Vandover, as she settled herself
+among them. "We are all drinking beer except Ellis. He's filling up with
+whisky." But Flossie never drank. It was one of the peculiarities for
+which she was well known.
+
+"I don't want either," she answered, and turning to the waiter, she
+added, "You can bring me some Apollinaris water, Toby."
+
+Flossie betrayed herself as soon as she spoke, the effect of her
+appearance was spoiled. Her voice was hoarse, a low-pitched rasp, husky,
+throaty, and full of brutal, vulgar modulations.
+
+"Smoke, Flossie?" said Geary, pushing his cigarette case across to her.
+Flossie took a cigarette, rolled it to make it loose, and smoked it
+while she told them how she had once tried to draw up the smoke through
+her nose as it came out between her lips.
+
+"And honestly, boys," she growled, "it made me that sick that I just had
+to go to bed."
+
+"Who is the crowd out back?" asked Geary for the sake of saying
+something. Flossie embarrassed them all a little, and conversation with
+girls of her class was difficult.
+
+"Oh, that's May and Nannie with some men from a banquet at the Palace
+Hotel," she answered.
+
+The talk dragged along little by little and Flossie began badgering
+young Haight. "Say, you over there," she exclaimed, "what's the matter
+with you? You don't say anything."
+
+Young Haight blushed and answered very much embarrassed: "Oh, I'm just
+listening." He was anxious to get away. He got up and reached for his
+hat and coat, saying with a good-natured smile: "Well, boys and girls,
+I think I shall have to leave you."
+
+"Don't let me frighten you away," said Flossie, laughing.
+
+"Oh, no," he answered, trying to hide his embarrassment, "I have to go
+anyhow."
+
+While the others were saying good night to him and asking when they
+should see him again, Flossie leaned over to him, crying out, "Good
+night!" All at once, and before he knew what she was about, she kissed
+him full on the mouth. He started sharply at this, but was not angry,
+simply pulling away from her, blushing, very embarrassed, and more and
+more anxious to get away. Toby, the waiter, appeared at their door.
+
+"That last was on me, you know," said young Haight, intercepting
+Vandover and settling for the round of drinks.
+
+"Hello!" exclaimed Toby, "what's the matter with your lip?"
+
+"I cut it a little while ago on a broken glass," answered young Haight.
+"Is it bleeding again?" he added, putting two fingers on his lips.
+
+"It is sure enough," said Geary. "Here," he went on, wetting the corner
+of a napkin from the water bottle, "hold that on it."
+
+The others began to laugh. "Flossie did that," Vandover explained to
+Toby. Ellis was hastily looking through his pockets, fumbling about
+among his little books.
+
+"I had something here," he kept muttering, "if I can only _find_ it,
+that told just what to do when you cut yourself with glass. There may be
+glass _in_ it, you know."
+
+"Oh, that's all right, that's all right," exclaimed young Haight, now
+altogether disconcerted. "It don't amount to anything."
+
+"I tell you what," observed Geary; "get some court-plaster at the snake
+doctor's just above here."
+
+"No, no, that's all right," returned young Haight, moving off. "Good
+night. I'll see you again pretty soon."
+
+He went away. Ellis, who was still searching through his little books,
+suddenly uttered an exclamation. He leaned out into the passage, crying:
+"The half of a hot onion; tie it right on the cut." But Haight had
+already gone. "You see," explained Ellis, "that draws out any little
+particles of glass. Look at this," he added, reading an item just below
+the one he had found. "You can use cigar ashes for eczema."
+
+Flossie nodded her head at him, smiling and saying: "Well, the next time
+I have eczema I will remember that."
+
+Flossie left them a little after this, joining Nannie and May in the
+larger room that held the noisy party. The three fellows had another
+round of drinks.
+
+All the evening Ellis had been drinking whisky. Now he astonished the
+others by suddenly calling for beer. He persisted in drinking it out of
+the celery glass, which he emptied at a single pull. Then Vandover had
+claret-punches all round, protesting that his mouth felt dry as a
+dust-bin. Geary at length declared that he felt pretty far gone, adding
+that he was in the humour for having "a high old time."
+
+"Say, boys," he exclaimed, bringing his hand down on the table, "what do
+you say that we all go to every joint in town, and wind up at the
+Turkish baths? We'll have a regular _time_. Let's see now how much money
+I have."
+
+Thereat they all took account of their money. Vandover had fourteen
+dollars, but he owed for materials at his art dealer's, and so put away
+eight of it in an inside pocket. The others followed his example, each
+one reserving five dollars for immediate use.
+
+"That will be one dollar for the Hammam," said Geary, "and four dollars
+apiece for drinks. You can get all we want on four dollars." They had a
+last claret-punch and, having settled with Toby, went out.
+
+Coming out into the cold night air from the warm interior of the
+Imperial affected Vandover and Geary in a few minutes. But apparently
+nothing could affect Ellis, neither whisky, claret-punch nor beer. He
+walked steadily between Vandover and Geary, linking an arm in each of
+theirs.
+
+These two became very drunk almost at once. At every minute Vandover
+would cry out, "Yee-ee-_ow_! Thash way I feel, jush like that." Geary
+made a "Josh" that was a masterpiece, the success of the occasion. It
+consisted in exclaiming from time to time, "Cherries are ripe!" This was
+funny. It seemed to have some ludicrous, hidden double-meaning that was
+irresistible. It stuck to them all the evening; when a girl passed them
+on Kearney Street and Geary cried out at her that "Cherries were ripe!"
+it threw them all into spasms of laughter.
+
+They went first to the Palace Garden near the Tivoli Theatre, where
+Geary and Vandover had beer and Ellis a whisky cocktail. The performance
+was just finishing, and they voted that they were not at all amused at a
+lean, overworked girl whom they saw performing a song and dance through
+a blue haze of tobacco smoke; so they all exclaimed, "Cherries are
+ripe!" and tramped out again to visit the Luxembourg. The beer began to
+go against Vandover's stomach by this time, but he forced it down his
+throat, shutting his eyes. Then they said they would go to the toughest
+place in town, "Steve Casey's"; this was on a side-street. The walls
+were covered with yellowed photographs of once-famous pugilists and
+old-time concert-hall singers. There was sand on the floor, and in the
+dancing room at the back, where nobody danced, a jaded young man was
+banging out polkas and quick-steps at a cheap piano.
+
+At the Crystal Palace, where they all had shandy-gaff, they met one of
+Ellis's friends, a young fellow of about twenty. He was stone deaf, and
+in consequence had become dumb; but for all that he was very eager to
+associate with the young men of the city and would not hear of being
+separated and set apart with the other deaf mutes. He was very pleased
+to meet them and joined them at once. They all knew him pretty well and
+called him the "Dummy."
+
+In the course of the evening the patty was seen at nearly every bar and
+saloon in the neighbourhood of Market and Kearney streets. Geary and
+Vandover were very drunk indeed. Vandover was having a glorious time; he
+was not silent a minute, talking, laughing, and singing, and crying out
+continually, "Cherries are ripe!" When he could think of nothing else to
+say he would exclaim, "Yee-ee-_ow_! Thash way I feel."
+
+For two hours they drank steadily. Vandover was in a dreadful condition;
+the Dummy got so drunk that he could talk, a peculiarity which at times
+had been known to occur to him. As will sometimes happen, Geary sobered
+up a little and at the "Grotto" bathed his head and face in the
+washroom. After this he became pretty steady, he stopped drinking, and
+tried to assume the management of the party, ordering their drinks for
+them, and casting up the amount of the check.
+
+About two o'clock they returned toward the Luxembourg, staggering and
+swaying. The Luxembourg was a sort of German restaurant under a theatre
+where one could get some very good German dishes. There Vandover had
+beer and sauerkraut, but Ellis took more whisky. The Dummy continued to
+make peculiar sounds in his throat, half-noise, half-speech, and Geary
+gravely informed the waiter that cherries were ripe.
+
+All at once Ellis was drunk, collapsing in a moment. The skin around his
+eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves were contracted, and
+their range of vision seemed to stop at about a yard in front of his
+face. Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all
+from off the table with a single movement of his arm.
+
+They all jumped up, sober in a minute, knowing that a scene was at hand.
+The waiter rushed at Ellis, but Ellis knocked him down and tried to
+stamp on his face. Vandover and the Dummy tried to hold his arms and
+pull him off. He turned on the Dummy in a silent frenzy of rage and
+brought his knuckles down upon his head again and again. For the moment
+Ellis could neither hear, nor see, nor speak; he was blind, dumb,
+fighting drunk, and his fighting was not the fighting of Vandover.
+
+"Get in here and help, will you?" panted Vandover to Geary, as he
+struggled with Ellis. "He can kill people when he's like this. Oh, damn
+the whisky anyhow! Look out--don't let him get that knife! Grab his
+other arm, there! now, kick his feet from under him! Oh, kick hard! Sit
+on his legs; there now. Ah! Hell! he's bitten me! Look out! here comes
+the bouncer!"
+
+The bouncer and three other waiters charged into them while they were
+struggling on the floor. Vandover was twice knocked down and the Dummy
+had his lip split. Ellis struggled to his feet again and, still silent,
+fought them all alike, a fine line of froth gathering at the corners of
+his lips.
+
+When they were finally ejected, and pulled themselves together in the
+street outside, Geary had disappeared. He had left them during the
+struggle with Ellis and had gone home. Ah, you bet he wasn't going to
+stay any longer with the crowd when they got like that. If Ellis was
+fool enough to get as drunk as that it was his own lookout. _He_ wasn't
+going to stay and get thrown out of any saloon; ah, no, you bet he was
+too clever for that. He was sober enough now and would go home to bed
+and get a good sleep.
+
+The fight in the saloon had completely sobered the rest of them. Ellis
+was tractable enough again, and very sorry for having got them into such
+a row. Vandover was horribly sick at his stomach.
+
+The three locked arms and started slowly toward the Turkish baths. On
+their way they stopped at an all-night drug store and had some seltzer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vandover had about three hours' sleep that night. He was awakened by the
+attendant shaking his arm and crying:
+
+"Half-past six, sir."
+
+"Huh!" he exclaimed, starting up. "What about half-past six? I don't
+want to get up."
+
+"Told me to call you, sir, at half-past six; quarter to seven now."
+
+"Oh, all right, very well," answered Vandover. He turned away his face
+on the pillow, while a wretched feeling of nausea crept over him; every
+movement of his head made it ache to bursting. Behind his temples the
+blood throbbed and pumped like the knocking of hammers. His mouth would
+have been dry but for a thick slime that filled it and that tasted of
+oil. He felt weak, his hands trembled, his forehead was cold and seemed
+wet and sticky.
+
+He could recall hardly anything of the previous night. He remembered,
+however, of going to the Imperial and of seeing Flossie, and he _did_
+remember at last of leaving word to be called at half-past six.
+
+He got up without waking the other two fellows and took a plunge in the
+cold tank, dressed very slowly, and went out. The stores were all
+closed, the streets were almost deserted. He walked to the nearest
+uptown car-line and took an outside seat, feeling better and steadier
+for every moment of the sharp morning air.
+
+Van Ness Avenue was very still. It was about half-past seven. The
+curtains were down in all the houses; here and there a servant could be
+seen washing down the front steps. In the vestibules of some of the
+smaller houses were loaves of French bread and glass jars of cream,
+while near them lay the damp twisted roll of the morning's paper. There
+was everywhere a great chittering of sparrows, and the cable-cars, as
+yet empty, trundled down the cross streets, the conductors cleaning the
+windows and metal work. From far down at one end of the avenue came the
+bells of the Catholic Cathedral ringing for early mass; and a
+respectable-looking second girl hurried past him carrying her
+prayer-book. At the other end of the avenue was a blue vista of the bay,
+the great bulk of Mount Tamalpais rearing itself out of the water like a
+waking lion.
+
+In front of the little church Turner was waiting for him. She was
+dressed very prettily and the cold morning air had given her a fine
+colour.
+
+"You don't look more than half awake," she said, as Vandover came up.
+"It was awfully good of you to come. Oh, Van, you look dreadfully. It is
+too bad to make you get up so early."
+
+"No, no," protested Vandover. "I was only too glad to come. I didn't
+sleep well last night. I hope I haven't kept you waiting."
+
+"I've only just come," answered Turner. "But I think it is time to go
+in."
+
+The little organ was muttering softly to itself as they entered. It was
+very still otherwise. The morning sun struck through the stained windows
+and made pretty lights about the altar; besides themselves there were
+some half dozen other worshippers. The little organ ceased with a long
+droning sigh, and the minister in his white robes turned about, facing
+his auditors, and in the midst of a great silence opened the communion
+service with the words: "Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of
+your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbours--"
+
+As Vandover rose with the rest the blood rushed to his head and a
+feeling of nausea and exhaustion, the dregs of his previous night's
+debauch, came over him again for a moment, so that he took hold of the
+back of the pew in front of him to steady himself.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Five
+
+
+In the afternoons Vandover worked in his studio, which was on Sacramento
+Street, but in the mornings he was accustomed to study in the life-class
+at the School of Design.
+
+This was on California Street over the Market, an immense room
+partitioned by enormous wooden screens into alcoves, where the
+still-life classes worked, painting carrots, grapes, and dusty brown
+stone-jugs.
+
+All about were a multitude of casts, the fighting gladiator, the
+discobulus, the Venus of Milo, and hundreds of smaller pieces, masks,
+torsos, and the heads of the Parthenon horses. Flattened paint-tubes and
+broken bits of charcoal littered the floor and cluttered the chairs and
+shelves. A strong odour of turpentine and fixative was in the air,
+mingled with the stronger odours of linseed oil and sour, stale French
+bread.
+
+Every afternoon a portrait class of some thirty-odd assembled in one of
+the larger alcoves near the door. Several of the well-known street
+characters of the city had posed for this class, and at one time Father
+Elphick, the white-haired, bare-headed vegetarian, with his crooked
+stick and white clothes, had sat to it for his head.
+
+Vandover was probably the most promising member of the school. His style
+was sketchy, conscientious, and full of strength and decision. He worked
+in large lines, broad surfaces and masses of light or shade. His colour
+was good, running to purples, reds, and admirable greens, full of
+bitumen and raw sienna.
+
+Though he had no idea of composition, he was clever enough to
+acknowledge it. His finished pictures were broad reaches of landscape,
+deserts, shores, and moors in which he placed solitary figures of men or
+animals in a way that was very effective--as, for instance, a great
+strip of shore and in the foreground the body of a drowned sailor; a
+lion drinking in the midst of an immense Sahara; or, one that he called
+"The Remnant of an Army," a dying war horse wandering on an empty plain,
+the saddle turned under his belly, his mane and tail snarled with burrs.
+
+Some time before there had come to him the idea for a great picture. It
+was to be his first masterpiece, his salon picture when he should get to
+Paris. A British cavalryman and his horse, both dying of thirst and
+wounds, were to be lost on a Soudanese desert, and in the middle
+distance on a ridge of sand a lion should be drawing in upon them,
+crouched on his belly, his tail stiff, his lower jaw hanging. The
+melodrama of the old English "Home Book of Art" still influenced
+Vandover. He was in love with this idea for a picture and had determined
+to call it "The Last Enemy." The effects he wished to produce were
+isolation and intense heat; as to the soldier, he was as yet undecided
+whether to represent him facing death resignedly, calmly, or grasping
+the barrel of his useless rifle, determined to fight to the last.
+
+Vandover loved to paint and to draw. He was perfectly contented when his
+picture was "coming right," and when he felt sure he was doing good
+work. He often did better than he thought he would, but never so well as
+he thought he _could_.
+
+However, it bored him to work very hard, and when he did not enjoy his
+work he stopped it at once. He would tell himself on these occasions
+that one had to be in the mood and that he should wait for the
+inspiration, although he knew very well how absurd such excuses were,
+how false and how pernicious.
+
+That certain little weakness of Vandover's character, his
+self-indulgence, _had_ brought him to such a point that he thought he
+had to be amused. If his painting amused him, very good; if not, he
+found something else that would.
+
+On the following Monday as he worked in the life-class, Vandover was
+thinking, or, rather, trying not to think, of what he had done the
+Sunday morning previous when he had gone to communion with Turner Ravis.
+For a long time he evaded the thought because he knew that if he allowed
+it to come into his mind it would worry and harass him. But by and by
+the effort of dodging the enemy became itself too disagreeable, so he
+gave it up and allowed himself to look the matter squarely in the face.
+
+Ah, yes; it was an ugly thing he had done there, a really awful thing.
+He must have been still drunk when he had knelt in the chancel. Vandover
+shuddered as he thought of this, and told himself that one could hardly
+commit a worse sacrilege, and that some time he would surely be called
+to account for it. But here he checked himself suddenly, not daring to
+go further. One would have no peace of mind left if one went on brooding
+over such things in this fashion. He realized the enormity of what he
+had done. He had tried to be sorry for it. It was perhaps the worst
+thing he had ever done, but now he had reached the lowest point. He
+would take care never to do such a thing again. After this he would be
+better.
+
+But this was not so. Unconsciously, Vandover had shut a door behind him;
+he would never again be exactly the same, and the keeping of his
+appointment with Turner Ravis that Sunday morning was, as it were, a
+long step onward in his progress of ruin and pollution.
+
+He shook himself as though relieving his shoulders of a weight. The
+model in the life-class had just been posed for the week, and the others
+had begun work. The model for that week was a woman, a fact that pleased
+Vandover, for he drew these nude women better than any one in the
+school, perhaps better than any one in the city. Portrait work and the
+power to catch subtle intellectual distinctions in a face were sometimes
+beyond him, but his feeling for the flesh, and for the movement and
+character of a pose, was admirable.
+
+He set himself to work. Holding his stick of charcoal toward the model
+at arm's-length, he measured off the heads, five in all, and laid off an
+equal number of spaces upon his paper. After this, by aid of his mirror,
+he studied the general character of the pose for nearly half an hour.
+Then, with a few strokes of his charcoal he laid off his larger
+construction lines with a freedom and a precision that were excellent.
+Upon these lines he made a second drawing a little more detailed, though
+as yet everything was blocked in, angularly and roughly. Then, putting a
+thin flat edge upon his charcoal, he started the careful and finished
+outline.
+
+By the end of an hour the first sketch of his drawing was complete. It
+was astonishingly good, vigorous and solid; better than all, it had that
+feeling for form that makes just the difference between the amateur and
+the genuine artist.
+
+By this time Vandover's interest began to flag. Four times he had drawn
+and redrawn the articulation of the model's left shoulder. As she stood,
+turned sideways to him, one hand on her hip, the deltoid muscle was at
+once contracted and foreshortened. It was a difficult bit of anatomy to
+draw. Vandover was annoyed at his ill success--such close attention and
+continued effort wearied him a little--the room was overheated and
+close, and the gas stove, which was placed near the throne to warm the
+model, leaked and filled the room with a nasty brassy smell. Vandover
+remembered that the previous week he had been looking over some old
+bound copies of _l'Art_ in the Mechanics Library and had found them of
+absorbing interest. There was a pleasant corner and a huge comfortable
+chair near where they were in the reading-room, and from the window one
+could occasionally look out upon the street. It was a quiet spot, and he
+would not be disturbed all the morning. The idea was so attractive that
+he put away his portfolio and drawing things and went out.
+
+For an hour he gave himself up to the enjoyment of _l'Art_, excusing his
+indolence by telling himself that it was all in his profession and was
+not time lost. A reproduction of a picture by Gérome gave him some
+suggestions for the "Last Enemy," which he noted very carefully.
+
+He was interrupted by a rustle of starched skirts and a voice that said:
+
+"Why, hello, Van!"
+
+He looked up quickly to see a young girl of about twenty dressed in a
+black close-fitting bolero jacket of imitation astrakhan with big
+leg-of-mutton sleeves, a striped silk skirt, and a very broad hat tilted
+to one side. Her hair was very blond, though coarse and dry from being
+bleached, and a little flat curl of it lay very low on her forehead. She
+was marvellously pretty. Vandover was delighted.
+
+"Why, _Ida_!" he exclaimed, holding her hand; "_it's_ awfully nice to
+see you here; won't you sit down?" and he pushed his chair toward her.
+
+But Ida Wade said no, she had just come in after a new book, and of
+course it had to be out. But where had he kept himself so long? That was
+the way he threw off on her; ah, yes, he was going with Miss Ravis now
+and wouldn't look at any one else.
+
+Vandover protested against this, and Ida Wade went on to ask him why he
+couldn't come up to call on her that very night, adding:
+
+"We might go to the Tivoli or somewhere." All at once she interrupted
+herself, laughing, "Oh, I heard all about you the other night.
+_'Cherries are ripe_!' You and the boys painted the town red, didn't
+you? Ah, Van, I'm right on to _you_!"
+
+She would not tell him how she heard, but took herself off, laughing and
+reminding him to come up early.
+
+Ida Wade belonged to a certain type of young girl that was very common
+in the city. She was what men, among each other, called "gay," though
+that was the worst that could be said of her. She was virtuous, but the
+very fact that it was necessary to say so was enough to cause the
+statement to be doubted. When she was younger and had been a pupil at
+the Girls' High School, she had known and had even been the companion of
+such girls as Turner Ravis and Henrietta Vance, but since that time
+girls of that class had ignored her. Now, almost all of her
+acquaintances were men, and to half of these she had never been
+introduced. They had managed to get acquainted with her on Kearney
+Street, at theatres, at the Mechanics' Fair, and at baseball games. She
+loved to have a "gay" time, which for her meant to drink California
+champagne, to smoke cigarettes, and to kick at the chandelier. She was
+still virtuous and meant to stay so; there was nothing vicious about
+her, and she was as far removed from Flossie's class as from that of
+Turner Ravis.
+
+She was very clever; half of her acquaintances, even the men, did not
+know how very "gay" she was. Only those--like Vandover--who knew her
+best, knew her for what she was, for Ida was morbidly careful of
+appearances, and as jealous of her reputation as only fast girls are.
+
+Bessie Laguna was her counterpart. Bessie was "the girl she went with,"
+just as Henrietta Vance was Turner's "chum" and Nannie was Flossie's
+"running-mate."
+
+Ida lived with her people on Golden Gate Avenue not far from Larkin
+Street. Her father had a three-fourths interest in a carpet-cleaning
+establishment on Howard Street, and her mother gave lessons in painting
+on china and on velvet. Ida had just been graduated from the normal
+school, and often substituted at various kindergartens in the city. She
+hoped soon to get a permanent place.
+
+Vandover arrived at Ida's house that night at about eight o'clock in the
+midst of a drenching fog. The parlour and front room on the second floor
+were furnished with bay windows decorated with some meaningless sort of
+millwork. The front door stood at the right of the parlour windows. Two
+Corinthian pillars on either side of the vestibule supported a balcony;
+these pillars had iron capitals which were painted to imitate the wood
+of the house, which in its turn was painted to imitate stone. The house
+was but two stories high, and the roof was topped with an iron cresting.
+There was a microscopical front yard in which one saw a tiny gravel
+walk, two steps long, that led to a door under the front steps, where
+the gas-meter was kept. A few dusty and straggling calla-lilies grew
+about.
+
+Ida opened the door for Vandover almost as soon as he rang, and pulled
+him into the entry, exclaiming: "Come in out of the wet, as the whale
+said to Jonah. _Isn't_ it a nasty night?" Vandover noticed as he came in
+that the house smelt of upholstery, cooking, and turpentine. He did not
+take off his overcoat, but went with her into the parlour.
+
+The parlour was a little room with tinted plaster walls shut off from
+the "back-parlour" by sliding doors. A ply carpet covered the floor, a
+cheap piano stood across one corner of the room, and a greenish sofa
+across another. The mantelpiece was of white marble with gray spots; on
+one side of it stood an Alaskan "grass basket" full of photographs, and
+on the other an inverted section of a sewer-pipe painted with daisies
+and full of gilded cat-tails tied with a blue ribbon. Near the piano
+straddled a huge easel of imitation brass up-holding the crayon picture
+of Ida's baby sister enlarged from a photograph. Across one corner of
+this picture was a yellow "drape." There were a great many of these
+"drapes" all about the room, hanging over the corners of the chairs,
+upon an edge of the mantelpiece, and even twisted about the chandelier.
+In the exact middle of the mantelpiece itself was the clock, one of the
+chief ornaments of the room, almost the first thing one saw upon
+entering; it was a round-faced timepiece perversely set in one corner of
+an immense red plush palette; the palette itself was tilted to one
+side, and was upheld by an easel of twisted brass wire. Out of the
+thumb-hole stuck half a dozen brushes wired together in a round bunch
+and covered with gilt paint. The clock never was wound. It went so fast
+that it was useless as a timepiece. Over it, however, hung a large and
+striking picture, a species of cheap photogravure, a lion lying in his
+cage, looking mildly at the spectator over his shoulder. In front of the
+picture were real iron bars, with real straw tucked in behind them.
+
+Ida sat down on the piano stool, twisting back and forth, leaning her
+elbows on the keys.
+
+"All the folks have gone out to a whist-party, and I'm left all alone in
+the house with Maggie," she said. Then she added: "Bessie and Bandy
+Ellis said they would come down to-night, and I thought we could all go
+downtown to the Tivoli or somewhere, in the open-air boxes, you know,
+way up at the top." Hardly had she spoken the words when Bessie and
+Ellis arrived.
+
+Ida went upstairs to get on her hat at once, because it was so late, and
+Bessie went with her.
+
+Ellis and Vandover laughed as soon as they saw each other, and Ellis
+exclaimed mockingly, "Ye-e-ow, thash jush way I feel." Vandover grinned:
+
+"That's so," he answered. "I _do_ remember now of having made that
+remark several times. But _you_--oh, you were fearful. Do you remember
+the row in the Luxembourg? Look there where you bit me."
+
+Ellis was incensed with Geary because he had forsaken their party.
+
+"Oh, that's Charlie Geary, all over," answered Vandover.
+
+As they were speaking there came a sudden outburst of bells in various
+parts of the city and simultaneously they heard the hoarse croaking of a
+whistle down by the waterfront.
+
+"Fire," said Vandover indifferently.
+
+Ellis was already fumbling in his pockets, keeping count of the strokes.
+
+"That's one," he exclaimed, pulling out and studying his list of
+alarm-boxes, "and one-two-three, that's three and one-two-three-_four_,
+one thirty-four. Let's see now! That's Bush and Hyde streets, not very
+far off," and he returned his card to the inside pocket of his coat as
+though he had accomplished a duty.
+
+He lit a cigar. "I wonder now," he said, hesitating. "I guess I better
+not smoke in here. I'll go outside and get a mouthful of smoke before
+the girls come down." He went out and Vandover sat down to the cheap
+piano and played his three inevitable pieces, the two polkas and the air
+of the topical song; but he was interrupted by Ellis, who opened the
+door, crying out:
+
+"Oh, come out here and see the _fire_, will you? Devil of a blaze!"
+Vandover ran out and saw a great fan-shaped haze of red through the fog
+over the roofs of the houses.
+
+"Oh, say, girls," he shouted, jumping back to the foot of the stairs;
+"Ida, Bessie, there's a fire. Just look out of your windows. Hark, there
+go the engines."
+
+Bessie came tearing down the stairs and out on the front steps, where
+the two fellows were standing hatless.
+
+"Where? Oh, show me where! O-o-oh, sure enough! That's a _big_ fire.
+Just hear the engines. _Oh, let's go_!"
+
+"Sure; come on, let's go!" exclaimed Vandover. "Tell Ida to hurry up."
+
+"Oh, Ida," cried Bessie up the stairs, "there's an awful big fire right
+near here, and we're going."
+
+"Oh, wait!" shouted Ida, her mouth full of pins. "I had to change my
+waist. Oh, _do_ wait for me. Where is it _at_? Please wait; I'm coming
+right down in just a minute."
+
+"Hurry up, hurry up!" cried Vandover. "It will be all out by the time we
+get there. I'm coming up to help."
+
+"No, no, no!" she screamed. "Don't; you rattle me. I'm all mixed up. Oh,
+_darn_ it, I can't find my czarina!"
+
+But at last she came running down, breathless, shrugging herself into
+her bolero jacket. They all hurried into the street and turned in the
+direction of the blaze. Other people were walking rapidly in the same
+direction, and there was an opening and shutting of windows and front
+doors. A steamer thundered past, clanging and smoking, followed by a
+score of half-exhausted boys. It took them longer to reach the fire than
+they expected, and by the time they had come within two blocks of it
+they were quite out of breath. Here the excitement was lively; the
+sidewalks were full of people going in the same direction; on all sides
+there were guesses as to where the fire was. On the front steps of many
+houses stood middle-aged gentlemen, still holding their evening papers
+and cigars, very amused and interested in watching the crowd go past.
+One heard them from time to time calling to their little sons, who were
+dancing on the sidewalks, forbidding them to go; in the open windows
+above could be seen the other members of the family, their faces faintly
+tinged with the glow, looking and pointing, or calling across the street
+to their friends in the opposite houses. Every one was in good humour;
+it was an event, a fête for the entire neighbourhood.
+
+Vandover and his party came at last to the first engines violently
+pumping and coughing, the huge gray horses standing near by, already
+unhitched and blanketed, indifferently feeding in their nosebags. Some
+of the crowd preferred to watch the engines rather than the fire, and
+there were even some who were coming away from it, exclaiming "false
+alarm" or "all out now."
+
+The party had come up quite close; they could smell the burning wood and
+could see the roofs of the nearer houses beginning to stand out sharp
+and black against the red glow beyond. It was a barn behind a huge frame
+house that was afire, the dry hay burning like powder, and by the time
+they reached it the flames were already dwindling. The hose was lying
+like a python all about the streets, while upon the neighbouring roofs
+were groups of firemen with helmets and axes; some were shouting into
+the street below, and others were holding the spouting nozzles of the
+hose. "Ah," exclaimed an old man, standing near to Ida and Vandover,
+"ah, _I_ was here when it first broke out; you ought to have seen the
+flames then! Look, there's a tree catching!"
+
+The crowd became denser; policemen pushed it back and stretched a rope
+across the street. There was a world of tumbling yellow smoke that made
+one's eyes smart, and a great crackling and snapping of flames. Terribly
+excited little boys were about everywhere whistling and calling for each
+other as the crowd separated them.
+
+They watched the fire for some time, standing on a pile of boards in
+front of a half-built house, but as it dwindled they wearied of it.
+
+"Want to go?" asked Vandover at last.
+
+"Yes," answered Ida, "we might as well. Oh, where's Bessie and Ellis?"
+They were nowhere to be seen. Vandover whistled and Ida even called, but
+in vain. The little boys in the crowd mimicked Ida, crying back, "Hey!
+Bessie! Oh, _Bes-see_, mommer wants you!" The men who stood near laughed
+at this, but it annoyed Vandover much more than it did Ida.
+
+"Ah, well, never mind," she said at length. "Let them go. Now shall _we_
+go?"
+
+It was too late for the theatre, but to return home was out of the
+question. They started off aimlessly downtown.
+
+While he talked Vandover was perplexed. Ida was gayly dressed and was
+one of those girls who cannot open their mouths nor raise a finger in
+the street without attracting attention. Vandover was not at all certain
+that he cared to be seen on Kearney Street as Ida Wade's escort; one
+never knew who one was going to meet. Ida was not a bad girl, she was
+not notorious, but, confound it, it would look queer; and at the same
+time, while Ida was the kind of girl that one did not want to be seen
+with, she was not the kind of girl that could be told so. In an upper
+box at the Tivoli it would have been different--one could keep in the
+background; but to appear on Kearney Street with a girl who wore a hat
+like that and who would not put on her gloves--ah, no, it was out of the
+question.
+
+Ida was talking away endlessly about a kindergarten in which she had
+substituted the last week.
+
+She told him about the funny little nigger girl, and about the games and
+songs and how they played birds and hopped around and cried, "Twit,
+twit," and the game of the butterflies visiting the flowers. She even
+sang part of a song about the waves.
+
+    "Every little wave had its night-cap on;
+    Its white-cap, night-cap, white-cap on."
+
+"It's more _fun_ than enough," she said.
+
+"Say, Ida," interrupted Vandover at length, "I'm pretty hungry. Can't we
+go somewhere and eat something? I'd like a Welsh rabbit."
+
+"All right," she answered. "Where do you want to go?"
+
+"Well," replied Vandover, running over in his mind the places he might
+reach by unfrequented streets. "There's Marchand's or Tortoni's or the
+Poodle Dog."
+
+"Suits _me_," she answered, "any one you like. Say, Van," she added,
+"weren't you boys at the Imperial the other night? What kind of a place
+is that?"
+
+On the instant Vandover wondered what she could mean. Was it possible
+that Ida would go to a place like that with him?
+
+"The Imperial?" he answered. "Oh, I don't know; the Imperial is a sort
+of a nice place. It has private rooms, like all of these places. The
+cooking is simply out of sight. I think there is a bar connected with
+it." Then he went on to talk indifferently about the kindergarten,
+though his pulse was beating fast, and his nerves were strung taut. By
+and by Ida said:
+
+"I didn't know there was a bar at the Imperial. I thought it was just
+some kind of an oyster joint. Why, I heard of a very nice girl, a swell
+girl, going in there."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Vandover, "they do. I say, Ida," he went on, "what's the
+matter with going down _there_?"
+
+"The _Imperial_?" exclaimed Ida. "Well, I guess _not_!"
+
+"Why, it's all right, if I'm with you," retorted Vandover, "but if you
+don't like it we can go anywhere else."
+
+"Well, I guess we _will_ go anywhere else," returned Ida, and for the
+time the subject was dropped.
+
+They took a Sutter Street car and got off at Grant Avenue, having
+decided to go to Marchand's.
+
+"That's the Imperial down there, isn't it?" asked Ida as they reached
+the sidewalk. Vandover made a last attempt:
+
+"I say, Ida, come on, let's go there. It's all right if I'm with you.
+Ah, come along; what's the odds?"
+
+"_No_--_no_--NO," she answered decisively. "What kind of a girl do you
+think I am, anyway?"
+
+"Well, I tell you what," answered Vandover, "just come down _by_ the
+place, and if you don't like the looks of it you needn't go in. I want
+to get some cigarettes, anyhow. You can walk down with me till I do
+_that_."
+
+"I'll walk down with you," replied Ida, "but I shan't go in."
+
+They drew near to the Imperial. The street about was deserted, even the
+usual hacks that had their stand there were gone.
+
+"You see," explained Vandover as they passed slowly in front of the
+doors, "this is all quiet enough. If you pulled down your veil no one
+would know the difference, and here's the ladies' entrance, you see,
+right at the side."
+
+"All right, come along, let's go in," exclaimed Ida suddenly, and before
+he knew it they had swung open the little door of the ladies' entrance
+with its frosted pane of glass and had stepped inside.
+
+It was between nine and ten o'clock, and the Imperial was quiet as yet;
+a few men were drinking in the barroom outside, and Toby, the red-eyed
+waiter, was talking in low tones to a girl under one of the electric
+lights.
+
+Vandover and Ida went into one of the larger rooms in the rear passage
+and shut the door. Ida pushed her bolero jacket from her shoulders,
+saying, "This seems nice and quiet enough."
+
+"Well, of course," answered Vandover, as though dismissing the question
+for good. "Now, what are we going to have? I say we have champagne and
+oysters."
+
+"Let's have Cliquot, then," exclaimed Ida, which was the only champagne
+she had ever heard of besides the California brands.
+
+She was very excited. This was the kind of "gay" time she delighted in,
+tête-à-tête champagne suppers with men late at night. She had never been
+in such a place as the Imperial before, and the daring and novelty of
+what she had done, the whiff of the great city's vice caught in this
+manner, sent a little tremor of pleasure and excitement over all her
+nerves.
+
+They did not hurry over their little supper, but ate and drank slowly,
+and had more oysters to go with the last half of their bottle. Ida's
+face was ablaze, her eyes flashing, her blond hair disordered and
+falling about her cheeks.
+
+Vandover put his arm about her neck and drew her toward him, and as she
+sank down upon him, smiling and complaisant, her hair tumbling upon her
+shoulders and her head and throat bent back, he leaned his cheek against
+hers, speaking in a low voice.
+
+"No--no," she murmured, smiling; "never--ah, if I hadn't come--no,
+Van--please--" And then with a long breath she abandoned herself.
+
+About midnight he left her at the door of her house on Golden Gate
+Avenue. On their way home Ida had grown more serious than he had ever
+known her to be. Now she began to cry softly to herself. "Oh, Van," she
+said, putting her head down upon his shoulder, "oh, I am so _sorry_. You
+don't think any less of me, do you? Oh, Van, you must be true to me
+now!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Six
+
+
+Everybody in San Francisco knew of the Ravises and always made it a
+point to speak of them as one of the best families of the city. They
+were not new and they were not particularly rich. They had lived in the
+same house on California Street for nearly twenty years and had always
+been comfortably well off. As things go in San Francisco, they were
+old-fashioned. They had family traditions and usages and time-worn
+customs. Their library had been in process of collection for the past
+half century and the pictures on the walls were oil paintings of steel
+engravings and genuine old-fashioned chromos, beyond price to-day.
+
+Their furniture and ornaments were of the preceding generation, solid,
+conservative. They were not chosen with reference to any one style, nor
+all bought at the same time. Each separate piece had an individuality of
+its own. The Ravises kept their old things, long after the fashion had
+gone out, preferring them to the smarter "art" objects on account of
+their associations.
+
+There were six in the family, Mr. and Mrs. Ravis, Turner, and her older
+brother, Stanley, Yale '88, a very serious young gentleman of
+twenty-seven, continually professing an interest in economics and
+finance. Besides these were the two children, Howard, nine years old,
+and his sister, aged fourteen, who had been christened Virginia.
+
+They were a home-loving race. Mr. Ravis, senior, belonged to the
+Bohemian Club, but was seldom seen there. Stanley was absorbed in his
+law business, and Turner went out but little. They much preferred each
+other's society to that of three fourths of their acquaintances, most of
+their friends being "friends of the family," who came to dinner three or
+four times a year.
+
+It was a custom of theirs to spend the evenings in the big dining-room
+at the back of the house, after the table had been cleared away, Mr.
+Ravis and Stanley reading the papers, the one smoking his cigar, the
+other his pipe; Mrs. Ravis, with the magazines and Turner with the
+_Chautauquan_. Howard and Virginia appropriated the table to themselves
+where they played with their soldiers and backgammon board.
+
+The family kept two servants, June the "China boy," who had been with
+them since the beginning of things, and Delphine the cook, a more recent
+acquisition. June was, in a way, butler and second boy combined; he did
+all the downstairs work and the heavy sweeping, but it was another
+time-worn custom for Mrs. Ravis and Turner to spend part of every
+morning in putting the bedrooms to rights, dusting and making up the
+beds. Besides this, Turner exercised a sort of supervision over Howard
+and Virginia, who were too old for a nurse but too young to take care of
+themselves. She had them to bed at nine, mended some of their clothes,
+made them take their baths regularly, reëstablished peace between them
+in their hourly quarrels, and, most arduous task of all, saw that Howard
+properly washed himself every morning, and on Wednesday and Saturday
+afternoons that he was suitably dressed in time for dancing school.
+
+It was Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Ravis was reading to her husband, who lay
+on the sofa in the back-parlour smoking a cigar. Stanley had gone out to
+make a call, while Howard and Virginia had forgathered in the bathroom
+to sail their boats and cigar boxes in the tub. Toward half-past three,
+as Turner was in her room writing letters, the door-bell rang. She
+stopped, with her pen in the air, wondering if it might be Vandover. It
+was June's afternoon out. In a few minutes the bell rang again, and
+Turner ran down to answer it herself, intercepting Delphine, who took
+June's place on these occasions, but who was hopelessly stupid.
+
+Mrs. Ravis had peered out through the curtains of the parlour window to
+see who it was, and Turner met her and Mr. Ravis coming upstairs,
+abandoning the parlour to Turner's caller.
+
+"Mamma and I are going upstairs to read," explained Mr. Ravis. "It's
+some one of your young men. You can bring him right in the parlour."
+
+"I think it's Mr. Haight," said Turner's mother. "Ask him to stay to
+tea."
+
+"Well," said Turner doubtfully, as she paused at the foot of the stairs,
+"I will, but you know we never have anything to speak of for Sunday
+evening tea. June is out, and you know how clumsy and stupid Delphine is
+when she waits on the table."
+
+It _was_ young Haight. Turner was very glad to see him, for next to
+Vandover she liked him better than any of the others. She was never
+bored by being obliged to entertain him, and he always had something to
+say and some clever way of saying it.
+
+About half-past five, as they were talking about amateur photography,
+Mrs. Ravis came in and called them to tea.
+
+Tea with the Ravises was the old-fashioned tea of twenty years ago. One
+never saw any of the modern "delicacies" on their Sunday evening table,
+no enticing cold lunch, no spices, not even catsups or pepper sauces.
+The turkey or chicken they had had for dinner was served cold in slices;
+there was canned fruit, preserves, tea, crackers, bread and butter, a
+large dish of cold pork and beans, and a huge glass pitcher of
+ice-water.
+
+In the absence of June, Delphine the cook went through the agony of
+waiting on the table, very nervous and embarrassed in her clean calico
+gown and starched apron. Her hands were red and knotty, smelling of
+soap, and they touched the chinaware with an over-zealous and
+constraining tenderness as if the plates and dishes had been delicate
+glass butterflies. She stood off at a distance from the table making
+sudden and awkward dabs at it. When it came to passing the plates, she
+passed them on the wrong side and remembered herself at the wrong moment
+with a stammering apology. In her excess of politeness she kept up a
+constant murmur as she attended to their wants. Another fork? Yes, sir.
+She'd get it right away, sir. Did Mrs. Ravis want another cuppa tea? No?
+No more tea? Well, she'd pass the bread. Some bread, Master Howard? Nice
+French bread, he always liked that. Some more preserved pears, Miss
+Ravis? Yes, miss, she'd get them right away; they were just over here on
+the sideboard. Yes, here they were. No more? Now she'd go and put them
+back. And at last when she had set the nerves of all of them in a
+jangle, was dismissed to the kitchen and retired with a gasp of
+unspeakable relief.
+
+Somewhat later in the evening young Haight was alone with Turner, and
+their conversation had taken a very unusual and personal turn. All at
+once Turner exclaimed:
+
+"I often wonder what good I am in the world to anybody. I don't _know_ a
+thing, I can't _do_ a thing. I couldn't cook the plainest kind of a meal
+to _save_ me, and it took me all of two hours yesterday to do just a
+little buttonhole stitching. I'm not good for anything. I'm not a help
+to anybody."
+
+Young Haight looked into the blue flame of the gas-log, almost the only
+modern innovation throughout the entire house, and was silent for a
+moment; then he leaned his elbows on his knees and, still looking at the
+flame, replied:
+
+"I don't know about that. You have been a considerable help to _me_."
+
+"To _you_!" exclaimed Turner, surprised. "A help to _you_? Why, how do
+you mean?"
+
+"Well," he answered, still without looking at her, "one always has one's
+influence, you know."
+
+"Ah, lots of influence _I_ have over anybody," retorted Turner,
+incredulously.
+
+"Yes, you have," he insisted. "You have plenty of influence over the
+people that care for you. You have plenty of influence over me."
+
+Turner, very much embarrassed, and not knowing how to answer, bent down
+to the side of the mantelpiece and turned up the flame of the gas-log a
+little. Young Haight continued, almost as embarrassed as she:
+
+"I suppose I'm a bad lot, perhaps a little worse than most others, but I
+think--I hope--there's some good in me. I know all this sounds absurd
+and affected, but _really_ I'm not posing; you won't mind if I speak
+just as I think, for this once. I promise," he went on with a half
+smile, "not to do it again. You know my mother died when I was little
+and I have lived mostly with men. You have been to me what the society
+of women has been to other fellows. You see, you are the only girl I
+ever knew very well--the only one I ever wanted to know. I have cared
+for you the way other men have cared for the different women that come
+into their lives; as they have cared for their mothers, their
+sisters--and their wives. You have already influenced me as a mother or
+sister should have done; what if I should ever ask you to be--to be the
+_other_ to me, the one that's best of all?"
+
+Young Haight turned toward her as he finished and looked at her for the
+first time. Turner was still very much embarrassed.
+
+"Oh, I'm very glad if I've been a help to--to anybody--to you," she
+said, confusedly. "But I never knew that you cared--that you thought
+about me--in that way. But you mustn't, you know, you mustn't care for
+me in that way. I ought to tell you right away that I never could care
+for you more than--I always have done; I mean care for you only as a
+very, very good friend. You don't know, Dolly," she went on eagerly,
+"how it hurts me to tell you so, because I care so much for you in every
+other way that I wouldn't hurt your feelings for anything; but then you
+know at the same time it would hurt you a great deal more if I
+_shouldn't_ tell you, but encourage you, and let you go on thinking that
+perhaps I liked you more than any one else, when I _didn't_. Now
+wouldn't that be wrong? You don't know how glad it makes me feel that I
+have been of some good to you, and that is just why I want to be sincere
+_now_ and not make you think any less of me--think any worse of me."
+
+"Oh, I know," answered young Haight. "I know I shouldn't have said
+anything about it. I knew beforehand, or thought I knew, that you didn't
+care in that way."
+
+"Maybe I have been wrong," she replied, "in not seeing that you cared so
+much, and have given you a wrong impression. I thought you knew how it
+was all the time."
+
+"Knew how what was?" he asked, looking up.
+
+"Why," she said, "knew how Van and I were."
+
+"I knew that Van cared for you a great deal."
+
+"Yes, but you know," she went on, hesitating and confused, "you know we
+are engaged. We have been engaged for nearly two years."
+
+"But _he_ don't consider himself as engaged!" The words were almost out
+of Haight's mouth, but he shut his teeth against them and kept
+silence--he hardly knew why.
+
+"Suppose Vandover were out of the question," he said, getting up and
+smiling in order not to seem as serious as he really was.
+
+"Ah," she said, smiling back at him. "I don't know; that's a hard
+question to answer. I've never _asked_ myself _that_ question."
+
+"Well, I'm saving you the trouble, you see," he answered, still smiling.
+"I am asking it _for_ you."
+
+"But I don't want to answer such a question off-hand like that; how can
+I tell? It would only be _perhaps_, just now."
+
+Young Haight answered quickly that "just now" he would be contented with
+that "perhaps"; but Turner did not hear this. She had spoken at the same
+time as he, exclaiming, "But what is the good of talking of that?
+Because no matter what happened I feel as though I could not break my
+promise to Van, even if I should want to. Because I have talked like
+this, Dolly," she went on more seriously, "you must not be deceived or
+get a wrong impression. You understand how things are, don't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes," he answered, still trying to carry it off with a laugh. "I
+know, I know. But now I hope you won't let anything I have said bother
+you, and that things will go on just as if I hadn't spoken, just as if
+nothing had happened."
+
+"Why, of course," she said, laughing with him again. "Of _course_, why
+shouldn't they?"
+
+They were both at their ease again by the time young Haight stood at the
+door with his hat in his hand ready to go.
+
+He raised his free hand over her head, and said, with burlesque,
+dramatic effect, trying to keep down a smile:
+
+"Bless you both; go, go marry Vandover and be happy; I forgive you."
+
+"Ah--don't be so _utterly_ absurd," she cried, beginning to laugh.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Seven
+
+
+On a certain evening about four months later Ellis and Vandover had a
+"date" with Ida Wade and Bessie Laguna at the Mechanics' Fair. Ellis,
+Bessie, and Ida were to meet Vandover there in the Art Gallery, as he
+had to make a call with his father, and could not get there until
+half-past nine. They were all to walk about the Fair until ten, after
+which the two men proposed to take the girls out to the Cliff House in
+separate coupés. The whole thing had been arranged by Ellis and Bessie,
+and Vandover was irritated. Ellis ought to have had more sense; rushing
+the girls was all very well, but everybody went to the Mechanics' Fair,
+and he didn't like to have nice girls like Turner or Henrietta Vance see
+him with chippies like that. It was all very well for Ellis, who had no
+social position, but for _him_, Vandover, it would look too confounded
+queer. Of course he was in for it now, and would have to face the music.
+You can't tell a girl like that that you're ashamed to be seen with her,
+but very likely he would get himself into a regular box with it all.
+
+When he arrived at the Mechanics' Pavilion, it was about twenty minutes
+of ten, and as he pushed through the wicket he let himself into a huge
+amphitheatre full of colour and movement.
+
+There was a vast shuffling of thousands of feet and a subdued roar of
+conversation like the noise of a great mill; mingled with these were the
+purring of distant machinery, the splashing of a temporary fountain and
+the rhythmic clamour of a brass band, while in the piano exhibit the
+hired performer was playing a concert-grand with a great flourish.
+Nearer at hand one could catch ends of conversation and notes of
+laughter, the creaking of boots, and the rustle of moving dresses and
+stiff skirts. Here and there groups of school children elbowed their way
+through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement
+pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips with pewter whistles on
+the butts, while the air itself was full of the smell of fresh popcorn.
+
+Ellis and Bessie were in the Art Gallery upstairs. Mrs. Wade, Ida's
+mother, who gave lessons in hand painting, had an exhibit there which
+they were interested to find; a bunch of yellow poppies painted on
+velvet and framed in gilt. They stood before it some little time
+hazarding their opinions and then moved on from one picture to another;
+Ellis bought a catalogue and made it a duty to find the title of every
+picture. Bessie professed to be very fond of painting; she had 'taken it
+up' at one time and had abandoned it, only because the oil or turpentine
+or something was unhealthy for her. "Of course," she said, "I'm no
+critic, I only know what I like. Now that one over there, I like _that_.
+I think those ideal heads like that are lovely, don't you, Bandy? Oh,
+there's Van!"
+
+"Hello!" said Vandover, coming up. "Where's Ida?"
+
+"Hello, Van!" answered Bessie. "Ida wouldn't come. Isn't it too mean?
+She said she couldn't come because she had a cold, but she was just
+talking through her face, I know. She's just got kind of a streak on and
+you can't get anything out of her. You two haven't had a row, have you?
+Well, I didn't _think_ you had. But she's worried about something or
+other. I don't believe she's been out of the house this week. But isn't
+it mean of her to throw cold water on the procession like this? She's
+been giving me a lecture, too, and says she's going to reform."
+
+"Well," said Vandover, greatly relieved, "that's too bad. We could have
+had a lot of fun to-night. I'm awfully sorry. Well, what are you two
+going to do?"
+
+"Oh, I guess we'll follow out our part of the programme," said Ellis.
+"You are kind of left out, though."
+
+"I don't know," answered Vandover. "Maybe I'll go downtown, and see if I
+can find some of the boys."
+
+"Oh, Dolly Haight is around here somewheres," said Ellis. "We saw him
+just now over by the chess machine."
+
+"I guess I'll try and find him, then," responded Vandover. "Well, I hope
+you two enjoy yourselves." As he was turning away Bessie Laguna came
+running back, and taking him a little to one side said:
+
+"You'd better go round and see Ida pretty soon if you can. She's all
+broke up about something, I'm sure. I think she'd like to see you pretty
+well. Honestly," she said, suddenly very grave, "I never saw Ida so cut
+up in my life. She's been taking on over something in a dreadful way,
+and I think she'd like to see you. She won't tell _me_ anything. You go
+around and see her."
+
+"All right," answered Vandover smiling, "I'll go."
+
+As he was going down the stairs on his way to find young Haight it
+occurred to him what Ida's trouble might be. He was all at once struck
+with a great fear, so that for an instant he turned cold and weak, and
+reached out his hand to steady himself against the railing of the
+stairs. Ah, what a calamity that would be! What a calamity! What a
+dreadful responsibility! What a crime! He could not keep the thought out
+of his mind. He tried to tell himself that Ida had practically given her
+consent by going into such a place; that he was not the only one, after
+all; that there was nothing certain as yet. He stood on the stairway,
+empty for that moment, biting the end of his thumb, saying to himself in
+a low voice:
+
+"What a calamity, what a horrible calamity that would be! Ah, you
+scoundrel! You damned fool, not to have thought!" A couple of girls, the
+counter girls at one of the candy booths, came down the stairs behind
+him with a great babble of talk. Vandover gave an irritated shrug of his
+shoulders as if freeing himself from the disagreeable subject and went
+on.
+
+He could not find young Haight down stairs and so went up into the
+gallery again. After a long time he came upon him sitting on an empty
+bench nursing his cane and watching the crowd go past.
+
+"Hello, old man!" he exclaimed. "Ellis told me I would find you around
+somewhere. I was just going to give you up." He sat down beside his
+chum, and the two began to talk about the people as they passed. "Ah,
+get on to the red hat!" exclaimed Vandover on a sudden. "That's the
+third time she's passed."
+
+"Has Ellis gone off with Bessie Laguna?" asked young Haight.
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover. "They're going to have a time at the Cliff
+House."
+
+"That's too bad," young Haight replied. "Ellis has just thrown himself
+away with that girl. He might have known some very nice people when he
+first came here. Between that girl and his whisky he has managed to
+spoil every chance he might have had."
+
+"There's Charlie Geary," Vandover exclaimed suddenly, whistling and
+beckoning. "Hey, there, Charlie! where you going? Oh," he cried on a
+sudden as Geary came up, "oh, get on to his new store clothes, will
+you?" They both pretended to be overwhelmed by the elegance of Geary's
+new suit.
+
+"O-oh!" cried young Haight. "The bloody, bloomin', bloated swell. Just
+let me _touch_ them!"
+
+Vandover shaded his eyes and turned away as though dazzled. "This is
+_too_ much," he gasped. "Such magnificence, such purple and fine linen."
+Then suddenly he shouted, "Oh, _oh! look_ at the crease in those
+trousers. No; it's too much, I can't stand it."
+
+"Oh, shut up," said Geary, irritated, as they had intended he should be.
+"Yes," he went on, "I thought I'd blow myself. I've been working like a
+dog the whole month. I'm trying to get in Beale's office. Beale and
+Storey, you know. I got the promise of a berth last week, so I thought
+I'd blow myself for some rags. I've been over to San Rafael all day
+visiting my cousins; had a great time; went out to row. Oh, and had a
+great feed: lettuce sandwiches with mayonnaise. Simply out of sight. I
+came back on the four o'clock boat and held down the 'line' on Kearney
+Street for an hour or two."
+
+"Yes?" young Haight said perfunctorily, adding after a moment, "Isn't
+this a gay crowd, a typical San Francisco crowd and--"
+
+"I had a cocktail in the Imperial at about quarter of five," said Geary,
+"and got a cigar at the Elite; then I went around to get my clothes. Oh,
+you ought to have heard the blowing up I gave my tailor! I let him have
+it right straight."
+
+Geary paused a moment, and Vandover said: "Come on, let's walk around a
+little; don't you want to? We might run on to the red hat again."
+
+"I told him," continued Geary without moving, "that if he wanted to do
+any more work for me, he'd have to get in front of himself in a hurry,
+and that _I_ wasn't full of bubbles, if _he_ was. 'Why,' says he, 'why,
+Mr. Geary, I've never had a customer talk like this to me before since
+I've been in the business!' 'Well, Mr. Allen,' says I, 'it's time you
+_had_! Oh, sure, I gave it to him straight."
+
+"Vandover has gone daft over a girl in a red hat," said young Haight,
+as they got up and began to walk. "Have you noticed her up here?"
+
+"I went to the Grillroom after I left the tailor's," continued Geary,
+"and had supper downtown. Ah, you ought to have seen the steak they gave
+me! Just about as thick as it was wide. I gave the slavey a four-bit
+tip. Oh, it's just as well, you know, to keep in with them, if you go
+there often. I lunch there four or five times a week."
+
+They descended to the ground floor and promenaded the central aisle
+watching for pretty girls. In front of a candy-counter, where there was
+a soda fountain, they saw the red hat again. Vandover looked her
+squarely in the face and laughed a little. When he had passed he looked
+back; the girl caught his eye and turned away with a droll smile.
+Vandover paused, grinning, and raising his hat; "I guess that's mine,"
+he said.
+
+"You are not going, are you?" exclaimed young Haight, as Vandover
+stopped. "Oh, for goodness' sake, Van, do leave the girls alone for one
+hour in the day. Come on! Come on downtown with us."
+
+"No, no," answered Vandover. "I'm going to chase it up. Good-bye. I may
+see you fellows later," and he turned back and went up to the girl.
+
+"Look at that!" said young Haight, exasperated. "He knows he's liable to
+meet his acquaintances here, and yet there he goes, almost arm in arm
+with a girl like that. It's too bad; why _can't_ a fellow keep straight
+when there are such a lot of _nice_ girls?"
+
+Geary never liked to see anything done better than he could do it
+himself. Just now he was vexed because Vandover had got in ahead of him.
+He looked after the girl a moment and muttered scornfully:
+
+"Cheap meat!" adding, "Ah, you bet _I_ wouldn't do that. I flatter
+myself that I'm a little too clever to cut my own throat in that
+fashion. I look out after my interests better than that. Well, Dolly,"
+he concluded, "_I've_ got a thirst on. Van and Ellis have gone off with
+their girls; let's you and I go somewhere and have something wet."
+
+"All right. What's the matter with the Luxembourg?" answered young
+Haight.
+
+"Luxembourg goes, then," assented Geary, and they turned about and
+started for the door. As they were passing out some one came running up
+behind them and took an arm of each: it was Vandover.
+
+"Hello," cried Geary, delighted, "your girl shook you, didn't she?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," answered Vandover. "Oh, but say, she is out of sight!
+Says her name is Grace Irving. No, she didn't shake me. I made a date
+with her for next Wednesday night. I didn't want to be seen around here
+with her, you know."
+
+"Of _course_ she will keep that date!" said Geary.
+
+"Well, now, I think she will," protested Vandover.
+
+"Well, come along," interrupted young Haight. "We'll all go down to the
+Luxembourg and have something cold and wet."
+
+"Ah, make it the Imperial instead," objected Vandover. "We may find
+Flossie."
+
+"Say," cried Geary, "can't you _live_ without trailing around after some
+kind of petticoats?"
+
+"You're right," admitted Vandover, "I can't," but he persuaded them to
+go to the Imperial for all that.
+
+At the Imperial, Toby, the red-eyed waiter, came to take their order.
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen," he said. "Haven't seen you around here for
+some time."
+
+"No, no," said Geary. "I've been too busy. I've been working like a dog
+lately to get into a certain office. You bet I'll make it all right--all
+right. Bring me a stringy rabbit and a pint of dog's-head."
+
+"You bet I've been working," he continued after they had settled down to
+their beer and rabbits, "working like a dog. A man's got to rustle if
+he's going to make a success at law. _I'm_ going to make it go, by
+George, or I'll know the reason why. I'll make my way in this town and
+my pile. There's money to be made here and _I_ might just as well make
+it as the next man. Every man for himself, that's what _I_ say; that's
+the way to get along. It may be selfish, but you've got to do it. By
+God! it's human nature. Isn't that right, hey? Isn't that right?"
+
+"Oh, that's right," admitted young Haight, trying to be polite. After
+this the conversation lagged a little. Young Haight drank his
+Apollinaris lemonade through a straw, Geary sipped his ale, and Vandover
+fed himself Welsh rabbit and Spanish olives with the silent enjoyment of
+a glutton. By and by, when they had finished and had lighted their
+cigars and cigarettes, they began to talk about the last Cotillon, to
+which Vandover and Haight belonged.
+
+"Say, Van," said young Haight, tilting his head to one side and shutting
+one eye to avoid the smoke from his cigar, "say, didn't I see you
+dancing with Mrs. Doane after supper?"
+
+"Yes," said Vandover laughing; "all the men were trying to get a dance
+with her. She had an edge on."
+
+"No?" exclaimed Geary, incredulously.
+
+"That's a fact," admitted young Haight. "Van is right."
+
+"She was opposite to me at table," said Vandover, "and _I_ saw her empty
+a whole bottle of champagne."
+
+"Why, I didn't know they got drunk like that at the Cotillons," said
+Geary. "I thought they were very swell."
+
+"Well, of course, they don't as a rule," returned Vandover. "Of course
+there are girls like--like Henrietta Vance who belong to the Cotillon
+and make it what it is, and what it ought to be. But there are other
+girls like Mrs. Doane and Lilly Stannard and the Trafford girls that
+like their champagne pretty well now, and don't you forget it! Oh, you
+know, I wouldn't call it getting drunk, though."
+
+"Well, why not?" exclaimed young Haight impatiently. "Why not call it
+'getting drunk?' Why not call things by their right name? You can see
+just how bad they are then; and I think it's shameful that such things
+can go on in an organization that is supposed to contain the very best
+people in the city. Now, I just want to tell you what I saw at one of
+these same Cotillons in the first part of the season. Lilly Stannard
+disappeared after supper and people said she was sick and was going
+home, but I knew exactly what was the matter, because I had seen her at
+the supper table. Well, I had gone outside on the steps to get a
+mouthful of smoke, and my little cousin, Hetty, who has just come out
+and who is only nineteen, was out there with me because it was so warm
+inside, and _she_ had seen Lilly Stannard filling up with champagne at
+supper, and didn't know what to make of it. Well, we were just talking
+about it, and I was trying to make her believe too that Lilly Stannard
+was sick, when here comes Lilly herself out to her carriage. Her maid
+was supporting her, just about half-carrying her. Lilly's face was so
+pale that the powder on it looked like ashes, her hair was all coming
+down, and she was hiccoughing. Now," continued young Haight, his eyes
+snapping, and his voice raised so as to make itself heard above the
+exclamations of his two friends, "now, that's a _fact_; I give you my
+word of honour that it actually happened. It's not hearsay; I saw it
+myself. It's fine, isn't it?" he went on, wrathfully. "It sounds well,
+don't it, when it's told _just as it happened_? The girl was dead drunk.
+Oh, she may have made a mistake; it may have been the first time; but
+the fact remains that she always drinks a lot of champagne at the
+Cotillons, and other girls have been drunk there, too. Mrs. Doane, that
+Van tells about, was _drunk_; that's the word for it. She was dead drunk
+that night, and there was my little cousin, Hetty, who had never seen
+even a man the worse for his liquor, standing there and taking it all
+in. Of course, every one hushed the thing up or else said the poor girl
+was sick; but Hetty knew, and what effect do you suppose it had upon a
+little girl like that, who had always been told what nice,
+irreproachable people went to the Cotillons? Hetty will never be the
+same little girl now that she was before. Oh, it makes me damned tired."
+
+"Well, I don't see," said Geary, "why the girls should make such a fuss
+about the men keeping straight. I daresay now that this Stannard girl
+would cut us all dead if she knew how drunk we were that night about
+four months ago--that night that you fellows got thrown out of the
+Luxembourg."
+
+"No, I don't believe she would at all," said young Haight.
+
+"She'd think better of you for it," put in Vandover. "Look here," he
+went on, "all this talk of women demanding the same moral standard for
+men as men do for women is fine on paper, but how does it work in real
+life? The women don't demand it at all. Take the average society girl in
+a big city like this. The girls that we meet at teas and receptions and
+functions--don't you suppose they know the life we men lead? Of course
+they do. They may not know it in detail, but they know in a general way
+that we get drunk a good deal and go to disreputable houses and that
+sort of thing, and do they ever cut us for that? No, sir; not much.
+Why, I tell you, they even have a little more respect for us. They like
+a man to know things, to be experienced. A man that keeps himself
+straight and clean and never goes around with fast women, they think is
+ridiculous. Of course, a girl don't want to know the particulars of a
+man's vice; what they want is that a man should have the knowledge of
+good and evil, yes, and lots of evil. To a large extent I really believe
+it's the women's fault that the men are what they are. If they demanded
+a higher moral standard the men would come up to it; they encourage a
+man to go to the devil and then--and then when he's rotten with disease
+and ruins his wife and has children--what is it--_'spotted
+toads'_--_then_ there's a great cry raised against the men, and women
+write books and all, when half the time the woman has only encouraged
+him to be what he is."
+
+"Oh, well now," retorted young Haight, "you know that all the girls are
+not like that."
+
+"Most of them that you meet in society are."
+
+"But they are the best people, aren't they?" demanded Geary.
+
+"No," answered Vandover and young Haight in a breath, and young Haight
+continued:
+
+"No; I believe that very few of what you would call the 'best people' go
+out in society--people like the Ravises, who have good principles, and
+keep up old-fashioned virtues and all that. You know," he added, "they
+have family prayers down there every morning after breakfast."
+
+Geary began to smile.
+
+"Well, now, I don't care," retorted young Haight, "I like that sort of
+thing."
+
+"So do I," said Vandover. "Up home, now, the governor asks a blessing at
+each meal, and somehow I wouldn't like to see him leave it off. But you
+can't tell me," he went on, going back to the original subject of their
+discussion, "you can't tell me that American society girls, city-bred,
+and living at the end of the nineteenth century, don't know about
+things. Why, man alive, how can they help but know? Look at those that
+have brothers--don't you suppose they know, and if they know, why don't
+they use their influence to stop it? I tell you if any one were to write
+up the lives that we young men of the city lead after dark, people
+wouldn't believe it. At that party that Henrietta Vance gave last month
+there were about twenty fellows there and I knew every one, and I was
+looking around the supper-table and wondering how many of those young
+fellows had never been inside of a disreputable house, and there was
+only _one_ beside Dolly Haight!"
+
+Young Haight exclaimed at this, laughing good-naturedly, twirling his
+thumbs, and casting down his eyes with mock-modesty.
+
+"Well, that's the truth just the same," Vandover went on. "We young men
+of the cities are a fine lot. I'm not doing the baby act. I'm not laying
+the blame on the girls altogether, but I say that in a measure the girls
+are responsible. They want a man to be a _man_, to be up to date, to be
+a man of the world and to go in for that sort of vice, but they don't
+know, they don't dream, how rotten and disgusting it is. Oh, I'm not
+preaching. I know I'm just as bad as the rest, and I'm going to have a
+good time while I can, but sometimes when you stop and think, and as
+Dolly says 'call things by their right names,' why you feel, don't you
+know--_queer_."
+
+"I don't believe, Van," responded young Haight, "that it's _quite_ as
+bad as you say. But it's even wrong, I think, that a good girl should
+know anything about vice at all."
+
+"Oh, that's nonsense," broke in Geary; "you can't expect nowadays that a
+girl, an American girl, can live twenty years in a city and not know
+things. Do you think the average modern girl is going to be the
+absolutely pure and innocent girl of, say, fifty years ago? Not much;
+they are right on to things to-day. You can't tell them much. And it's
+all right, too; they know how to look out for themselves, then. It's
+part of their education; and I think if they haven't the knowledge of
+evil, and don't know what sort of life the average young man leads, that
+their mothers ought to tell them."
+
+"Well, I don't agree with you," retorted young Haight. "There's
+something revolting in the idea that it's necessary a young girl should
+be instructed in that sort of nastiness."
+
+"Why, not at all," answered Geary. "Without it she might be ruined by
+the first man that came along. It's a protection to her virtue."
+
+"Oh, pshaw! I don't believe it at all," cried young Haight,
+impatiently. "I believe that a girl is born with a natural intuitive
+purity that will lead her to protect her virtue just as instinctively as
+she would dodge a blow; if she wants to go wrong she will have to make
+an effort herself to overcome that instinct."
+
+"And if she don't," cried Vandover eagerly, "if she don't--if she don't
+protect her virtue, I say a man has a right to go as far with her as he
+can."
+
+"If _he_ don't, some one else will," said Geary.
+
+"Ah, you can't get around it that way," answered young Haight, smiling.
+"It's a man's duty to protect a girl, even if he has to protect her
+against herself."
+
+When he got home that night Vandover thought over this remark of young
+Haight's and in its light reviewed what had occurred in the room at the
+Imperial. He felt aroused, nervous, miserably anxious. At length he
+tried to dismiss the subject from his mind; he woke up his drowsing
+grate fire, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying, "Wake up
+there, you!" When he was undressed, he sat down before it in his
+bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously, musing into the coals,
+scratching himself as was his custom. But for all that he fretted
+nervously and did not sleep well that night.
+
+Next morning he took his bath. Vandover enjoyed his bath and usually
+spent two or three hours over it. When the water was very warm he got
+into it with his novel on a rack in front of him and a box of chocolates
+conveniently near. Here he stayed, for over an hour, eating and reading,
+and occasionally smoking a cigarette, until at length the enervating
+heat of the steam gradually overcame him and he dropped off to sleep.
+
+On this particular morning between nine and ten Geary called, and as was
+his custom came right up to Vandover's room. Mr. Corkle, lying on the
+wolfskin in the bay window, jumped up with a gruff bark, but,
+recognizing him, came up wiggling his short tail. Geary saw Vandover's
+clothes thrown about the floor and the closed door of the bathroom.
+
+"Hey, Van!" he called. "It's Charlie Geary. Are you taking a bath?"
+
+"Hello! What? Who is it?" came from behind the door. "Oh, is that you,
+Charlie? Hello! how are you? Yes, I'm taking a bath. I must have been
+asleep. Wait a minute; I'll be out."
+
+"No, I can't stop," answered Geary. "I've an appointment downtown;
+overslept myself, and had to go without my breakfast; makes me feel all
+broke up. I'll get something at the Grillroom about eleven; a steak, I
+guess. But that isn't what I came to say. Ida Wade has killed herself!
+Isn't it fearful? I thought I'd drop in on my way downtown and speak to
+you about it. It's dreadful! It's all in the morning papers. She must
+have been out of her head."
+
+"What is it--what has she done?" came back Vandover's voice. "Papers--I
+haven't seen--what has she done? Tell me--what has she done?"
+
+"Why, she committed suicide last night by taking laudanum," answered
+Geary, "and nobody knows why. She didn't leave any message or letter or
+anything of the kind. It's a fearful thing to happen so suddenly, but it
+seems she has been very despondent and broke up about something or other
+for a week or two. They found her in her room last night about ten
+o'clock lying across her table with only her wrapper on. She was
+unconscious then, and between one and two she died. She was unconscious
+all the time. Well, I can't stop any longer, Van; I've an appointment
+downtown. I was just going past the house and I thought I would run up
+and speak to you about Ida. I'll see you again pretty soon and we'll
+talk this over."
+
+Mr. Corkle politely attended Geary to the head of the stairs, then went
+back to Vandover's room, and after blowing under the crack of the
+bathroom door to see if his master was still there returned to the
+wolfskin and sat down on his short tail and yawned. He was impatient to
+see Vandover and thought he stayed in his bath an unnecessarily long
+time. He went up to the door again and listened. It was very still
+inside; he could not hear the slightest sound, and he wondered again
+what could keep Vandover in there so long. He had too much self-respect
+to whine, so he went back to the wolfskin and curled up in the sun, but
+did not go to sleep.
+
+By and by, after a very long time, the bathroom door swung open, and
+Vandover came out. He had not dried himself and was naked and wet. He
+went directly to the table in the centre of the room and picked up the
+morning paper, looking for the article of which Geary had spoken. At
+first he could not find it, and then it suddenly jumped into prominence
+from out the gray blur of the print on an inside page beside an
+advertisement of a charity concert for the benefit of a home for
+incurable children. There was a picture of Ida taken from a photograph
+like one that she had given him, and which even then was thrust between
+the frame and glass of his mirror. He read the article through; it
+sketched her life and character and the circumstances of her death with
+the relentless terseness of the writer cramped for space. According to
+this view, the causes of her death were unknown. It had been remarked
+that she had of late been despondent and in ill health.
+
+Vandover threw the paper down and straightened up, naked and dripping,
+putting both hands to his head. In a low voice under his breath he said:
+
+"What have I done? What have I done now?"
+
+Like the sudden unrolling of a great scroll he saw his responsibility
+for her death and for the ruin of that something in her which was more
+than life. What would become of her now? And what would become of him?
+For a single brief instant he tried to persuade himself that Ida had
+consented after all. But he knew that this was not so. She had
+consented, but he had forced her consent; he was none the less guilty.
+And then in that dreadful moment when he saw things in their true light,
+all the screens of conventionality and sophistry torn away, the words
+that young Haight had spoken came back to him. No matter if she had
+consented, it was his duty to have protected her, even against herself.
+
+He walked the floor with great strides, steaming with the warm water,
+striking his head with his hands and crying out, "Oh, this is fearful,
+fearful! What have I done now? I have killed her; yes, and worse!"
+
+He could think of nothing worse that could have happened to him. What a
+weight of responsibility to carry--he who hated responsibility of any
+kind, who had always tried to escape from anything that was even
+irksome, who loved his ease, his comfort, his peace of mind!
+
+At every moment now he saw the different consequences of what he had
+done. Now, it was that his life was ruined, and that all through its
+course this crime would hang like a millstone about his neck. There
+could be no more enjoyment of anything for him; all the little pleasures
+and little self-indulgences which till now had delighted him were
+spoiled and rendered impossible. The rest of his life would have to be
+one long penitence; any pleasure he might take would only make his crime
+seem more abominable.
+
+Now, it was a furious revolt against his mistake that had led him to
+such a fearful misunderstanding of Ida; a silent impotent rage against
+himself and against the brute in him that he had permitted to drag him
+to this thing.
+
+Now, it was a wave of an immense pity for the dead girl that overcame
+him, and he saw himself as another person, destroying what she most
+cherished for the sake of gratifying an unclean passion.
+
+Now, it was a terror for himself. What would they do to him? His part in
+the affair was sure to be found out. He tried to think what the
+punishment for such crime would be; but would he not be considered a
+murderer as well? Could he not hang for this? His imagination was never
+more active; his fear never more keen. At once a thousand plans of
+concealment or escape were tossed up in his mind.
+
+But worse than all was the thought of that punishment from which there
+was absolutely no escape, and of that strange other place where his
+crime would assume right proportions and receive right judgment, no
+matter how it was palliated or evaded here. Then for an instant it was
+as if a gulf without bottom had opened under him, and he had to fight
+himself back from its edge for sheer self-preservation. To look too long
+in that direction was simple insanity beyond any doubt.
+
+And all this time he threw himself to and fro in his room, his long
+white arms agitated and shaking, his wet and shining hair streaming far
+over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all
+straight and trickling with moisture. At times an immense unreasoning
+terror would come upon him all of a sudden, horrible, crushing, so that
+he rolled upon the bed groaning and sobbing, digging his nails into his
+scalp, shutting his teeth against a desire to scream out, writhing in
+the throes of terrible mental agony.
+
+That day and the next were fearful. To Vandover everything in his world
+was changed. All that had happened before the morning of Geary's visit
+appeared to him to have occurred in another phase of his life, years and
+years ago. He lay awake all night long, listening to the creaking of the
+house and the drip of the water faucets. He turned from his food with
+repugnance, told his father that he was sick, and kept indoors as much
+as he could, reading all the papers to see if he had been found out. To
+his great surprise and relief, a theory gained ground that Ida was
+subject to spells of ill-health, to long fits of despondency, and that
+her suicide had occurred during one of these. If Ida's family knew
+anything of the truth, it was apparent that they were doing their best
+to cover up their disgrace. Vandover was too thoroughly terrified for
+his own safety to feel humiliated at this possible explanation of his
+security. There was as yet not even a guess that implicated him.
+
+He thought that he was bearing up under the strain well enough, but on
+the evening of the second day, as he was pretending to eat his supper,
+his father sent the servant out and turning to him, said kindly:
+
+"What is it, Van? Aren't you well nowadays?"
+
+"Not very, sir," answered Vandover. "My throat is troubling me again."
+
+"You look deathly pale," returned his father. "Your eyes are sunken and
+you don't eat."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Vandover. "I'm not feeling well at all. I think I'll
+go to bed early to-night. I don't know"--he continued, after a pause,
+feeling a desire to escape from his father's observation--"I don't know
+but what I'll go up now. Will you tell the cook to feed Mr. Corkle for
+me?"
+
+His father looked at him as he pushed back from the table.
+
+"What's the matter, Van?" he said. "Is there anything wrong?"
+
+"Oh, I'll be all right in the morning," he replied nervously. "I feel a
+little under the weather just now."
+
+"Don't you think you had better tell me what the trouble is?" said his
+father, kindly.
+
+"There _isn't_ any trouble, sir," insisted Vandover. "I just feel a
+little under the weather."
+
+But as he was starting to undress in his room a sudden impulse took
+possession of him, an overwhelming childish desire to tell his father
+all about it. It was beginning to be more than he was able to bear
+alone. He did not allow himself to stop and reason with this impulse,
+but slipped on his vest again and went downstairs. He found his father
+in the smoking-room, sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before
+the fireplace.
+
+As Vandover came in the Old Gentleman rose and without a word, as if he
+had been expecting him, went to the door and shut and locked it. He came
+back and stood before the fireplace watching Vandover as he approached
+and took the chair he had just vacated. Vandover told him of the affair
+in two or three phrases, without choosing his words, repeating the same
+expressions over and over again, moved only with the desire to have it
+over and done with.
+
+It was like a burst of thunder. The worst his father had feared was not
+as bad as this. He had expected some rather serious boyish trouble, but
+this was the crime of a man. Still watching his son, he put out his
+hand, groping for the edge of the mantelpiece, and took hold of it with
+a firm grasp. For a moment he said nothing; then:
+
+"And--and you say you seduced her."
+
+Without looking up, Vandover answered, "Yes, sir," and then he added,
+"It is horrible; when I think of it I sometimes feel as though I should
+go off my head. I--"
+
+But the Old Gentleman interrupted him, putting out his hand:
+
+"Don't," he said quickly, "don't say anything now--please."
+
+They were both silent for a long time, Vandover gazing stupidly at a
+little blue and red vase on the table, wondering how his father would
+take the news, what next he would say; the Old Gentleman drawing his
+breath short, occasionally clearing his throat, his eyes wandering
+vaguely about the walls of the room, his fingers dancing upon the edge
+of the mantelpiece. Then at last he put his hand to his neck as though
+loosening his collar and said, looking away from Vandover:
+
+"Won't you--won't you please go out--go away for a little while--leave
+me alone for a little while."
+
+When Vandover closed the door, he shut the edge of a rug between it and
+the sill; as he reopened it to push the rug out of the way he saw his
+father sink into the chair and, resting his arm upon the table, bow his
+head upon it.
+
+He did not see his father again that night, and at breakfast next
+morning not a word was exchanged between them, but his father did not go
+downtown to his office that forenoon, as was his custom. Vandover went
+up to his room immediately after breakfast and sat down before the
+window that overlooked the little garden in the rear of the house.
+
+He was utterly miserable, his nerves were gone, and at times he would
+feel again a touch of that hysterical, unreasoning terror that had come
+upon him so suddenly the other morning.
+
+Now there was a new trouble: the blow he had given his father. He could
+see that the Old Gentleman was crushed under it, and that he had never
+imagined that his son could have been so base as this. Vandover wondered
+what he was going to do. It would seem as if he had destroyed all of his
+father's affection for him, and he trembled lest the Old Gentleman
+should cast him off, everything. Even if his father did not disown him,
+he did not see how they could ever be the same. They might go on living
+together in the same house, but as far apart from each other as
+strangers. This, however, did not seem natural; it was much more likely
+that his father would send him away, anywhere out of his sight,
+forwarding, perhaps through his lawyer or agents, enough money to keep
+him alive. The more Vandover thought of this, the more he became
+convinced that such would be his father's decision. The Old Gentleman
+had spent the night over it, time enough to make up his mind, and the
+fact that he had neither spoken to him nor looked at him that morning
+was only an indication of what Vandover was to expect. He fancied he
+knew his father well enough to foresee how this decision would be
+carried out, not with any imprecations or bursts of rage, but calmly,
+sadly, inevitably.
+
+Toward noon his father came into the room, and Vandover turned to face
+him and to hear what he had to say as best he could. He knew he should
+not break down under it, for he felt as though his misery had reached
+its limit, and that nothing could touch or affect him much now.
+
+His father had a decanter of port in one hand and a glass in the other;
+he filled the glass and held it toward Vandover, saying gently:
+
+"I think you had better take some of this: you've hardly eaten anything
+in three days. Do you feel pretty bad, Van?"
+
+Vandover put the glass down and got upon his feet. All at once a great
+sob shook him.
+
+"Oh, governor!" he cried.
+
+It was as if it had been a mother or a dear sister. The prodigal son put
+his arms about his father's neck for the first time since he had been a
+little boy, and clung to him and wept as though his heart were breaking.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eight
+
+
+"We will begin all over again, Van," his father said later that same
+day. "We will start in again and try to forget all this, not as much as
+we _can_, but as much as we _ought_, and live it down, and from now on
+we'll try to do the thing that is right and brave and good."
+
+"Just try me, sir!" cried Vandover.
+
+That was it, begin all over again. He had never seen more clearly than
+now that other life which it was possible for him to live, a life that
+was above the level of self-indulgence and animal pleasures, a life that
+was not made up of the society of lost women or fast girls, but yet a
+life of keen enjoyment.
+
+Whenever he had been deeply moved about anything, the power and desire
+of art had grown big within him, and he turned to it now, instinctively
+and ardently.
+
+It was all the better half of him that was aroused--the better half that
+he had kept in check ever since his college days, the better half that
+could respond to the influences of his father and of Turner Ravis, that
+other Vandover whom he felt was his real self, Vandover the true man,
+Vandover the artist, not Vandover the easy-going, the self-indulgent,
+not Vandover the lover of women.
+
+From this time forward he was resolved to give up the world that he had
+hitherto known, and devote himself with all his strength to his art. In
+the first glow of that resolution he thought that he had never been
+happier; he wondered how he could have been blind so long; what was all
+that life worth compared with the life of a great artist, compared even
+with a life of sturdy, virile effort and patient labour even though
+barren of achievement?
+
+And then something very curious happened: The little picture of Turner
+Ravis that hung over his mantelpiece caught his glance, looking out at
+him with her honest eyes and sweet smile. In an instant he seemed to
+love her as he had never imagined he could love any one. All that was
+best in him went out toward her in a wave of immense tenderness; the
+tears came to his eyes, he could not tell why. Ah, he was not good
+enough for her now, but he would love her so well that he would grow
+better, and between her and his good father and his art, the better
+Vandover, the real Vandover, would grow so large and strong within him
+that there should be no room for the other Vandover, the Vandover of
+Flossie and of the Imperial, the Vandover of the brute.
+
+During the course of talk that day between himself and his father, it
+was decided that Vandover should go away for a little while. He was in a
+fair way to be sick from worry and nervous exhaustion, and a sea trip to
+San Diego and back seemed to be what he stood most in need of. Besides
+this, his father told him, it was inevitable that his share in Ida's
+death would soon be known; in any case it would be better for him to be
+away from the city.
+
+"You take whatever steamer sails next," said his father, "and! go down
+to Coronado and stay there as long as you like, three weeks anyway; stay
+there until you get well, and when you get back, Van, we'll have a talk
+about Paris again. Perhaps you would like to get away this winter, maybe
+as soon as next month. You think it over while you are away, and when
+you want to go, why, we'll go over together, Van. What do you think?
+Would you like to have your old governor along for a little while?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The _Santa Rosa_ cast off the company's docks the next day about noon in
+the midst of a thick, cold mist that was half rain. The Old Gentleman
+came to see Vandover off.
+
+The steamer, which seemed gigantic, was roped and cabled to the piers,
+feeling the water occasionally with her screw to keep the hawsers taut.
+About the forward gangway a band of overworked stevedores were stowing
+in the last of the cargo, aided by a donkey engine, which every now and
+then broke out into a spasm of sputtering coughs. At the passenger
+gangway a great crowd was gathered, laughing and exchanging remarks with
+the other crowd that leaned over the railings of the decks.
+
+There was a smell of pitch and bilge in the air mingled with the reek of
+hot oil from the engines. About twelve o'clock an odour of cooking
+arose, and the steward went about the decks drumming upon a snoring gong
+for dinner.
+
+Half an hour later the great whistle roared interminably, drowning out
+the chorus of "good-byes" that rose on all sides. Long before it had
+ceased, the huge bulk had stirred, almost imperceptibly at first, then,
+gathering headway, swung out into the stream and headed for the Golden
+Gate.
+
+Vandover was in the stern upon the hurricane deck, shaking his hat
+toward his father, who had tied his handkerchief to his cane and was
+waving it at him as he stood upon an empty packing-case. As the throng
+of those who were left behind dwindled away, one by one, Vandover could
+see him standing there, almost the last of all, and long after the
+figure itself was lost in the blur of the background he still saw the
+tiny white dot of the handkerchief moving back and forth, as if spelling
+out a signal to him across the water.
+
+The fog drew a little higher as they passed down the bay. To the left
+was the city swarming upon its hills, a dull gray mass, cut in parallel
+furrows by the streets; straggling and uneven where it approached the
+sand-dunes in the direction of the Presidio. To the right the long slope
+of Tamalpais climbed up and was lost in the fog, while directly in front
+of them was the Golden Gate, a bleak prospect of fog-drenched headlands
+on either side of a narrow strip of yellow, frothy water. Beyond that,
+the open Pacific.
+
+A brisk cannonade was going on from the Presidio and from Black Point,
+and both forts were hidden behind a great curtain of tumbling white
+smoke that rolled up to mingle with the fog. Everybody was on that side
+of the deck watching and making guesses as to the reason of it. It was
+perhaps target practice. Ah, it was a good thing that the steamer was
+not in line with the target. Perhaps, though, that was the safest place
+to be. Some one told about a derelict that was anchored as a target off
+the heads, and shot at for fifteen hours without being touched once. Oh,
+they were great gunners at the Presidio! But just the same the sound of
+cannon was a fine thing to hear; it excited one. A noisy party of
+gentlemen already installed in the smoking-room came out on deck for a
+moment with their cards in their hands, and declared laughingly that the
+whole thing was only a salute in the _Santa Rosa's_ honour.
+
+By the middle of the afternoon, Vandover began to see that for him the
+trip was going to be tedious. He knew no one on board and had come away
+so hurriedly that he had neglected to get himself any interesting books.
+He spent an hour or two promenading the upper deck until the cold wind
+that was blowing drove him to the smoking-room, where he tried to
+interest himself in watching some of the whist games that were in
+progress.
+
+It surprised him that he could find occasion to be bored so soon after
+what had happened; but he no longer wished to occupy his mind by
+brooding over anything so disagreeable and wanted some sort of amusement
+to divert and entertain him. Vandover had so accustomed himself to that
+kind of self-indulgence that he could not go long without it. It had
+become a simple necessity for him to be amused, and just now he thought
+himself justified in seeking it in order to forget about Ida's death. He
+had dwelt upon this now for nearly four days, until it had come to be
+some sort of a formless horror that it was necessary to avoid. He could
+get little present enjoyment by looking forward to the new life that he
+was going to begin and in which his father, his art, and Turner Ravis
+were to be the chief influences. The thought of this prospect did give
+him pleasure, but he had for so long a time fed his mind upon the more
+tangible and concrete enjoyments of the hour and minute that it demanded
+them now continually.
+
+He sat for a long time upon the slippery leather cushions of the
+smoking-room trying desperately to become interested in the whist game,
+or gazing awestruck at the man at his elbow who was smoking black
+Perrique in a pipe, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out through his
+nose. After a while he returned to the deck.
+
+There it was cold and wet and a strong wind was blowing from the ocean.
+Four miles to the east an endless procession of brown, bare hills filed
+slowly past under the fog. The sky was a dreary brown and the leagues of
+shifting water a melancholy desert of gray. Besides these there was
+nothing but the bleached hills and the drifting fog; the wind blew
+continually, passing between the immense reaches of sea and sky with
+prolonged sighs of infinite sadness.
+
+Three seagulls followed the vessel, now in a long line, now abreast, and
+now in a triangle. They sailed slowly about, dipping and rising in the
+vast hollows between the waves, turning their heads constantly from side
+to side.
+
+Vandover went to the stern and for a time found amusement in watching
+the indicator of the patent log, and listening for its bell. But his
+interest in this was soon exhausted, and he returned to the smoking-room
+again, reflecting that this was only the first afternoon and that there
+still remained two days that somehow had to be gone through with.
+
+About five o'clock, as he was on his way to get a glass of seltzer, he
+saw Grace Irving, the girl of the red hat whom he had met at the
+Mechanics' Fair, sitting on a camp-stool just inside of her stateroom
+eating a banana. The sight of her startled him out of all composure for
+the minute. His first impulse was to speak to her, but he reflected that
+he was done with all that now and that it was better for him to pass on
+as though he had not seen her, but as he came in front of her she looked
+up quickly and nodded to him very pleasantly in such a way that it was
+evident she had already known he was on board. It was impossible for
+Vandover to ignore her, and though he did not stop, he looked back at
+her and smiled as he took off his hat.
+
+He went down to supper in considerable agitation, marvelling at the
+coincidence that had brought them together again. He wondered, too, how
+she could be so pleasant to him now, for as a matter of course he had
+not kept the engagement he had made with her at the Fair. At the same
+time, he felt that she must think him a great fool not to have stopped
+and spoken to her; either he should have done that or else have ignored
+her little bow entirely. He was firmly resolved to have nothing to do
+with her, yet it chafed him to feel that she thought him diffident. It
+seemed now as though he owed it to himself to speak to her if only for a
+minute and make some sort of an excuse. By the time he had finished his
+supper, he had made up his mind to do this, and then to avoid her for
+the rest of the trip.
+
+As he was leaving the dining saloon he met her coming down the stairs
+alone, dressed very prettily in a checked travelling ulster with a gray
+velvet collar, and a little fore and aft cap to match. He stopped her
+and made his excuses; she did not say much in reply and seemed a little
+offended, so that Vandover could not refrain from adding that he was
+very glad to see her on board.
+
+"Ah, you don't seem as if you were, very," she said, putting out her
+chin at him prettily and passing on. It was an awkward and embarrassing
+little scene and Vandover was glad that it was over. But the thing had
+been done now, he had managed to show the girl that he did not wish to
+keep up the acquaintance begun at the Fair, and from now on she would
+keep out of his way.
+
+He took a few turns on the upper deck, smoking his pipe, walking about
+fast, while his dinner digested. The sun went down behind the black
+horizon in an immense blood-red nebula of mist, the sea turned from gray
+to dull green and then to a lifeless brown, and the _Santa Rosa's_
+lights began to glow at her quarters and at her masthead; in her stern
+the screw drummed and threshed monotonously, a puff of warm air reeking
+with the smell of hot oil came from the engine hatch, and in an instant
+Vandover saw again the curved roof of the immense iron-vaulted depot,
+the passengers on the platform staring curiously at the group around the
+invalid's chair, the repair gang in spotted blue overalls, and the huge
+white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.
+
+The wind freshened and he returned to the smoking-room to get warm. The
+same game of whist was going on, and the man with the Perrique tobacco
+had filled another pipe and continued to blow the smoke through his
+nose.
+
+After a while Vandover went back to the main deck and wandered aft,
+where he stood a long time looking over the stern, interested in
+watching the receding water. It was dark by this time, the wind had
+increased and had blown the fog to landward, and the ocean had changed
+to a deep blue, the blue of the sky at night; here and there a wave
+broke, leaving a line of white on the sea like the trail of a falling
+star across the heavens, while the white haze of the steamer's wake
+wandered vaguely across the intense blue like the milky way across the
+zenith.
+
+Vandover was horribly bored. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to
+amuse him, unless, indeed, he should decide to renew his acquaintance
+with Grace Irving. But this was out of the question now, for he knew
+what it would lead to. Even if he should yield to the temptation, he
+did not see how he could take any great pleasure in that sort of thing
+again, after what had happened.
+
+Of all the consequences of what he had done, the one which had come to
+afflict him the most poignantly was that his enjoyment of life was
+spoiled. At first he had thought that he never could take pleasure in
+anything again so long as he should live, that his good times were gone.
+But as his pliable character rearranged itself to suit the new
+environment, he began to see that there would come a time when he would
+grow accustomed to Ida's death and when his grief would lose its
+sharpness. He had even commenced to look forward to this time and to
+long for it as a sort of respite and relief. He believed at first that
+it would not be for a great many years; but even so soon after the
+suicide as this, he saw with a little thrill of comfort that it would be
+but a matter of months. At the same time Vandover was surprised and even
+troubled at the ease with which he was recovering from the first shock.
+He wondered at himself, because he knew he had been sincere in his talk
+with his father. Vandover was not given to self-analysis, but now for a
+minute he was wondering if this reaction were due to his youth, his good
+health and his good spirits, or whether there was something wrong with
+him. However, he dismissed these thoughts with a shrug of his shoulders
+as though freeing himself from some disagreeable burden. Ah, he was no
+worse than the average; one could get accustomed to almost anything; it
+was only in the books that people had their lives ruined; and to brood
+over such things was unnatural and morbid. Ah! what a dreadful thing to
+become morbid! He could not bring Ida back, or mitigate what he had
+done, or be any more sorry for it by making himself miserable. Well,
+then! Only he would let that sort of thing alone after this, the lesson
+had been too terrible; he would try and enjoy himself again, only it
+should be in other ways.
+
+Later in the evening, about nine o'clock, when nearly all the passengers
+were in bed, and Vandover was leaning over the side of the boat
+finishing his pipe before turning in himself, Grace Irving came out of
+her stateroom and sat down at a little distance from him, looking out
+over the water, humming a little song. She and Vandover were the only
+people to be seen on the deserted promenade.
+
+Vandover saw her without moving, only closing his teeth tighter on his
+pipe. It was evident that Grace expected him to speak to her and had
+given him a chance for an admirable little tête-à-tête. For a moment
+Vandover's heart knocked at his throat; he drew his breath once or twice
+sharply through his nose. In an instant all the old evil instincts were
+back again, urging and clamouring never so strong, never so insistent.
+But Vandover set his face against them, honestly, recalling his
+resolution, telling himself that he was done with that life. As he had
+said, the lesson had been too terrible.
+
+He turned about resolutely, and walked slowly away from her. The girl
+looked after him a moment, surprised, and then called out:
+
+"Oh, Mr. Vandover!"
+
+Vandover paused a moment, looking back.
+
+"Where are you going?" she went on. "Didn't you see me here? Don't you
+want to come and talk to me?"
+
+"No," answered Vandover, smiling good-humouredly, trying to be as polite
+as was possible. "No, I don't." Then he took a sudden resolution, and
+added gravely, "I don't want to have anything to do with you."
+
+In his stateroom, as he sat on the edge of his berth winding his watch
+before going to bed, he thought over what he had said. "That was a mean
+way to talk to a girl," he told himself, "but," he added, "it's the only
+thing to do. I simply couldn't start in again after all that's happened.
+Oh, yes, that was the right thing to do!"
+
+He felt a glow of self-respect for his firmness and his decision, a
+pride in the unexpected strength, the fine moral rigour that he had
+developed at the critical moment. He _could_ turn sharp around when he
+wanted to, after all. Ah, yes, that was the only thing to do if one was
+to begin all over again and live down what had happened. He wished that
+the governor might know how well he had acted.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Nine
+
+
+Vandover stayed for two weeks at Coronado Beach and managed to pass the
+time very pleasantly. He was fortunate enough to find a party at the
+hotel whom he knew very well. In the morning they bathed or sailed on
+the bay, and in the afternoon rode out with a pack of greyhounds and
+coursed jack-rabbits on the lower end of the island. Vandover's good
+spirits began to come back to him, his appetite returned, his nerves
+steadied themselves, he slept eight hours every night. But for all that
+he did not think that things were the same with him. He said to himself
+that he was a changed man; that he was older, more serious.
+
+During this time he received several letters from his father which he
+answered very promptly. In the course of their correspondence it was
+arranged that they should both leave for Europe on the twenty-fifth of
+that month, and that consequently, Vandover should return to the city
+not later than the fifteenth. Vandover was having such a good time,
+however, that he stayed over the regular steamer in order to go upon a
+moonlight picnic down on the beach. The next afternoon he took passage
+for San Francisco on a second-class boat.
+
+This homeward passage turned out to be one long misery for Vandover. He
+had never been upon a second-class boat before and had never imagined
+that anything could be so horribly uncomfortable or disagreeable. The
+_Mazatlan_ was overcrowded, improperly ballasted, and rolled
+continually. The table was bad, the accommodations inadequate, the
+passengers hopelessly uncongenial. Cold and foggy weather accompanied
+the boat continually. The same endless procession of bleached hills
+still filed past under the mist, going now in the opposite direction,
+and the same interminable game of whist was played in the smoking-room,
+only with greasier, second-class cards, amidst the acrid smoke of
+second-class tobacco. At supper, the first day out, a little Jew who sat
+next to Vandover, and who invariably wore a plush skull-cap with
+ear-laps, tried to sell him two flawed and yellow diamonds.
+
+The evening after leaving Port Hartford the _Mazatlan_ ran into dirty
+weather. It was not stormy--simply rough, disagreeable, the wind and sea
+directly ahead. Half an hour after supper Vandover began to be sick. For
+a long time he sat on the slippery leather cushions in the nasty
+smoking-room, sucking limes, drinking seltzer, and trying to be
+interested in the card games. He dozed a little and awoke, feeling
+wretched, covered with a cold sweat, racked by a pain in the back of his
+head, and tortured by an abominable nausea. He groped his way out upon
+the swaying, gusty deck, descended to his cabin, and went to bed.
+
+The _Mazatlan_ had booked more passengers than could be accommodated,
+the steward being obliged to make up beds on the floor of the dining
+saloon and even upon some of the tables. Vandover had not been able to
+get a stateroom, and so had put up with a bunk in the common cabin at
+the stern of the vessel.
+
+About two o'clock in the morning he woke up in this place frightfully
+sick at the stomach and wretched in body and mind. He had an upper bunk,
+and for a long time he lay on his back rolling about with the rolling of
+the steamer, vaguely staring straight above him at the roof of the
+cabin, hardly a hand's-breadth above his face. The roof was iron,
+painted with a white paint very thick and shiny, and was studded with
+innumerable bolt-heads and enormous nuts. By and by, for no particular
+reason, he rose on his elbow and, leaning over the side of his berth,
+looked about him.
+
+The light streaming from two strong-smelling ship's lanterns showed the
+cabin, long and narrow. There were two cramped passageways, on either
+side of which the tiers of bunks, mere open racks filled with bedding,
+rose to the roof, those occupied by women hung with spotted turkey-red
+calico.
+
+The cabin was two decks below the open air and every berth was occupied,
+the only ventilation being through the door. The air was foul with the
+stench of bilge, the reek of the untrimmed lamps, the exhalation of so
+many breaths, and the close, stale smell of warm bedding.
+
+A vague murmur rose in the air, the sound of deep breathing, the moving
+of restless bodies between the coarse sheets, the momentary noise of the
+scratching of blunt finger-tips, a subdued cough, the moan of a sleeping
+child. All the while the shaft of the screw, seemingly close beneath
+the floor, pounded and rumbled without a moment's stop.
+
+Immediately underneath Vandover two men, saloonkeepers, awoke and lit
+their cigars and began a long discussion on the question of license. Two
+or three bunks distant, a woman, a Salvation Army lassie, one of a large
+party of Salvationists who were on board, began to cough violently,
+choking for breath. Across the aisle the little Jew of the plush
+skull-cap with ear-laps snored monotonously in alternate keys, one a
+guttural bass, the other a rasping treble. The _Mazatlan_ was rolling
+worse than ever, now up and down, now from side to side, and now with
+long forward lurches that combined the other two motions. During one of
+these latter the little Jew was half awakened. He stopped snoring,
+leaving an abrupt silence in the air. Then Vandover could hear him
+threshing about uneasily; still half asleep he began to mutter and
+swear: "Dat's it, r-roll; I woult if I were you; r-roll, dat's
+righd--dhere, soh--ah, geep it oop--r-roll, you damnt ole tub, yust
+_r-r-roll_."
+
+The continued pitching, the foul air, and the bitter smoke from the
+saloonkeepers' cigars became more than Vandover could stand. His stomach
+turned, at every instant he gagged and choked. He suddenly made up his
+mind that he could stand it no longer, and determined to go on deck,
+preferring to walk the night out rather than spend it in the cabin. He
+drew on his shoes without lacing them, and dressed himself hurriedly,
+omitting his collar and scarf; he put his hat on his tumbled hair, swung
+into his overcoat, and, wrapping his travelling-rug around him, started
+up toward the deck. On the stairs he was seized with such a nausea that
+he could hardly keep from vomiting where he stood, but he rushed out
+upon the lower deck, gaining the rail with a swimming head.
+
+He sank back upon an iron capstan with a groan, weak and trembling, his
+eyes full of tears, a bursting feeling in his head. He was utterly
+miserable.
+
+It was about half-past two in the morning, and a cold raw wind was
+whistling through the cordage and flinging the steamer's smoke down upon
+the decks and upon the water like a great veil of crêpe. A sickly
+half-light was spread out between the sea and the heavens. By its means
+he could barely distinguish great, livid blotches of fog or cloud
+whirling across the black sky, and the unnumbered multitude of
+white-topped waves rushing past, plunging and rising like a vast herd of
+black horses galloping on with shaking white manes. Low in the northeast
+horizon lay a long pale blur of light against which the bow of the
+steamer, inky black, rose and fell and heaved and sank incessantly. To
+the landward side and very near at hand, so near that he could hear the
+surf at their feet, the long procession of hills continually defiled,
+vague and formless masses between the sea and sky. The wind, the noise
+of the waves rushing past, the roll of the breakers and the groaning of
+the cordage all blended together and filled the air with a prolonged
+minor note, lamentable beyond words. The atmosphere was cold and damp,
+the spray flying like icy bullets. The sombre light that hung over the
+sea reflected itself in long blurred streaks upon the wet decks and
+slippery iron rods. Here and there about the rigging a tremulous ball of
+orange haze showed where the ship's lanterns were swung. Directly under
+him in the stern the screw snarled incessantly in a vortex of boiling
+water that forever swirled away and was lost in the darkness. From time
+to time the indicator of the patent log, just beside him, rang its tiny
+bell.
+
+Vandover drew his rug about him and went up to the main deck, dragging
+his shoelaces after him. The wind was stronger here, but he bent his
+head against it and went on toward the smoking-room, for the idea had
+occurred to him that he could shut himself in there and pass the rest of
+the night upon the cushions; anything was better than returning to the
+cabin downstairs.
+
+The deck was jerked away from beneath his feet, and he was hurled
+forward, many times his own length, against a companionway, breaking his
+thumb as he fell. A second shock threw him down again as he rose;
+everything about him shook and danced like glassware upon a jarred
+table. Then the whole ship rose under his feet as no wave had ever
+lifted it, and fell again, not into yielding water, but upon something
+that drove through its sides as if they had been paper. A deafening,
+crashing noise split the mournful howl of the wind, and far underneath
+him Vandover heard a rapid series of blows, a dreadful rumbling and
+pounding that thrilled and quivered through all the vessel's framework
+up to her very mast-tips. On all fours upon the deck, holding to a cleat
+with one hand, he braced himself, watching and listening, his senses all
+alive, his muscles tense. In the direction of the engine-room he heard
+the furious ringing of a bell. The screw stopped. The _Mazatlan_
+wallowed helplessly in the trough of the sea.
+
+Vandover's very first impulse was a wild desire of saving himself; he
+had not the least thought for any one else. Every soul on board might
+drown, so only he should be saved. It was the primitive animal instinct,
+the blind adherence to the first great law, an impulse that in this
+first moment of excitement could not be resisted. He ran forward and
+snatched a life-preserver from the pile that was stored beneath the
+bridge.
+
+As he was fastening it about him, the passengers began to pour out upon
+the deck, from their staterooms, from the companionways, and from the
+dining saloon. In an instant the deck was crowded. Men and women ran
+about in all directions, pushing and elbowing each other, calling
+shrilly over one another's heads. Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only
+in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again
+and again for a certain "August." She wrung her hands in her excitement;
+at times the man shouted "August!" in a quavering bass voice. "August,
+here we are over _here_!" "Oh, where _is_ Gussie?" wailed the woman.
+"Here, here I am," another voice answered at length; "here I am, I'm all
+right." "Oh," exclaimed the woman with a sob of relief, "here's Gussie;
+now let's all keep together whatever happens."
+
+All about the decks just such scenes were going on; most of the women
+wore only their night-gowns or dressing-gowns, their hair tumbling down
+and blowing about their cheeks, their bare feet slipping and sliding on
+the heaving wet decks. The men were in shirt and drawers, standing in
+the centre of their family groups, silent, excited, very watchful;
+others of them ran about searching for life-preservers, shouting
+hoarsely, talking to themselves, speaking all their thoughts aloud.
+
+But there was no panic; there was excitement, confusion, bewilderment,
+but no excess of fear, no unreasoning terror, deaf, blind, utterly
+reckless.
+
+All at once a man parted the crowd with shoulders and elbows, passing
+along the deck with great strides. It was the captain. The next instant
+Vandover saw him on the bridge, hatless, without his vest or his coat,
+just as he had sprung from his berth. From time to time he shouted his
+orders, leaning over the rail, gesturing with his arm. The crew ran
+about, carrying out his directions, jostling the men out of the way,
+knocking over women and children, speaking to no one, intent only upon
+their work.
+
+In a few moments the deck steward and one of the officers appeared amid
+the crowd of passengers. They were very calm, and at every instant
+shouted, "There is no danger; every one go back to his berth; clear the
+deck, please; no danger, gentlemen; everybody be quiet; go back to your
+berths!" The steward even came up to Vandover and pulled at the straps
+of his life-preserver, exclaiming, "Take this off! There is no danger;
+you're only exciting the other passengers. Come on, take it off and go
+back to your berth."
+
+Vandover obeyed him, slowly loosening the buckles, looking around him,
+bewildered, but still holding the preserver in his hands.
+
+Best of all, however, was the example of a huge old fellow wearing the
+cap and clothes of a boatswain's mate of a United States battleship; he
+seemed to dominate the excited throng in a moment, going about from
+group to group, quieting them all, spreading a feeling of confidence and
+courage throughout the whole ship. He was an inspiration to Vandover,
+who began to be ashamed of having yielded to the first selfish instinct
+of preservation.
+
+Just as the boatswain's mate was offering his flask to the woman whom
+Vandover had heard calling for "August," the _Mazatlan_ lurched heavily
+once or twice, and then slowly listed to the port side, going over
+farther and farther every instant. Vandover heard a renewed rumbling and
+smashing noise far beneath him, and in some way knew that the cargo was
+shifting. Instead of righting herself, the ship began to heave over more
+and more. The whole sea on the port side seemed to rise up to meet the
+rail; under Vandover's feet the incline of the deck grew steeper and
+steeper. All at once his excitement came back upon him with the
+sharpness of a blow, and he caught at the brass grating of a skylight
+exclaiming: "By God! We're going _over_." The women screamed with
+terror; one heard the men shouting, "Look out! hold on! catch hold
+there!" An old man, wearing only a gray flannel shirt, lost his footing;
+he fell, and rolled over and over down the deck stupidly, inertly,
+without making the slightest effort to save himself, without uttering
+the least cry; he brought up suddenly against the rail, with a great
+jar, the shock of his soft, withered body against the hard wood sounding
+like the sodden impact of a bundle of damp clothes. There was a cry;
+they thought him killed--Vandover had seen his head gashed against a
+sharp angle of iron--but he jumped up with sudden agility, clambering up
+the slope of the deck with the strength and rapidity of an acrobat.
+
+There had been a great rush to the other side of the ship, a wild
+scrambling up the steep deck, over skylights and between masts and
+ventilators. People clung to anything, to cleats, to steamer chairs, to
+the brass railings, to the person who stood next to them. They no longer
+listened to the protestations of the brave boatswain's mate; that last
+long roll had terrified them. The sense of a great catastrophe began to
+spread and widen all about like the rising of some fearful invisible
+mist. "_What_ had happened? What was to become of them?"
+
+While Vandover clung to the starboard rail, rolling his eyes wildly,
+trying to control himself again, a young man, a waiter in the dining
+saloon, rushed up to him from out of the crowd, holding out his hand.
+"It's all up!" he shouted.
+
+Vandover grasped his extended palm, shaking hands with him fervently,
+without knowing why. The two looked straight into each other's eyes,
+their hands gripped close; then the waiter turned away, and dropping on
+his knees began to pray silently to himself.
+
+Vandover saw a great many others praying; there was even a large group
+gathered about the band of Salvationists trying to raise a hymn. Every
+now and then their voices could be heard, singing all out of tune, a
+medley of discords.
+
+At one time Vandover caught sight of the little Jew of the plush cap
+with the ear-laps; he was grovelling upon the deck, huddling a small
+black satchel to his breast; without a moment's pause he screamed, "God
+'a' mercy! God 'a' mercy!"
+
+The sight revolted Vandover and in a great measure helped to calm him.
+In a few moments he had himself in hand again, cool and self-collected,
+resolved not to act like a fool before the others, but to help them if
+he could.
+
+Near to him a Salvation Army lassie was down upon her knees trying to
+cord up a huge bundle wrapped in sail-cloth. "Here," exclaimed Vandover
+coming up to her, "let me help. I'll tie this for you--you put _this_
+on." He took the wet, stiff ropes from between her fingers and held the
+life-preserver toward her; but she refused it.
+
+"No," she cried enthusiastically, "I'm going to be saved anyhow; I ain't
+going to drown; Jesus is watching over me. Oh!" she suddenly exclaimed
+with a burst of fervor, "Jesus is going to save me. I _know_ I'm going
+to be saved. I feel it, I feel it _here_," and she struck her palm on
+the breast of the man's red jersey she was wearing.
+
+"Well, I wish _I_ could have such a confidence," answered Vandover,
+sincerely envying the plain little woman under the ugly blue bonnet.
+
+She seemed as if inspired, her face glowing. "Only _believe_; that's
+all," she told him. "It isn't too late for you now. Ah," she went on,
+smiling, "ah, you don't know what it is in a time like this! What a
+comfort! What a support! Oh, _look, look_!" she cried, breaking off and
+starting to her feet. "That man is going to jump!"
+
+It was the boatswain's mate, the hero who had filled all the passengers
+with his own coolness and courage, who had been Vandover's inspiration.
+Some strange reaction seemed to have seized upon him. Of a sudden he
+rushed to the rail, the starboard rail that was heaved so high out of
+the water, stood upon it for a moment, and then with a great shout
+jumped over the side. His folly was as infectious as his courage. Four
+more men followed him, three going over all at the same time, and a
+fourth a little later, hanging an instant upon the outside of the rail,
+then dropping down feet first, disappearing with a great splash that
+made itself heard in the great silence that had suddenly fallen upon the
+throng.
+
+Every one had seen what had happened; a thrill of fear and apprehension
+passed over them all like a cold breath. They were silent, struck dumb,
+feeling the presence of death close by.
+
+Suddenly a long flash of yellow upon the bridge made a momentary streak
+on the darkness, and there was the report of a gun. A minute later it
+was fired again, and alternating with it the _Mazatlan's_ whistle began
+to roar, like a hoarse shout for help. Between these sounds could be
+heard the renewed clamour upon the decks, the shouting, the screaming,
+and the rush of many feet; the little children clung about the knees of
+their mothers, shrieking and wailing monotonously, "Oh, ma_ma_--oh,
+ma_ma_!" rolling their eyes fearfully behind them.
+
+But many of the children, even some of the older passengers, were
+absolutely silent, dazed, stupefied with terror and excitement, their
+eyes vague and distended, looking slowly about them, scarcely daring to
+move a limb.
+
+Meanwhile the _Mazatlan_ was settling forward, and already the spray was
+beginning to fly over the decks. Little by little the terror increased;
+people threw themselves down upon the deck, rising up again, their arms
+raised to heaven, praying aloud, screaming the same things over and over
+again. The Salvationists tried to raise another hymn, but the sound of
+their voices was drowned out by the tumult, the roaring of the whistle,
+the barking of the minute guns, the straining and snapping of the
+cordage, and the sound of waves drawing closer and closer. Prone upon
+the deck, his arms still clasped about his black satchel, the little Jew
+of the plush cap went into some kind of fit, his eyes rolled back, his
+teeth grinding upon each other. Vandover turned from him in disgust.
+Then he looked around and above him, drawing a long breath, saying aloud
+to himself:
+
+"It looks as though it were the end--well!"
+
+All at once Vandover knew that the water had reached the boilers; there
+came a noise of hissing: deafening, stunning; white billows of steam
+poured up over the deck.
+
+It was no longer the _Mazatlan_, no longer a thing of wood and iron, but
+some strange huge living creature that was dying there under his feet,
+some enormous brute that was plunging and writhing in its last agony,
+its belly ripped open by a hidden enemy that struck from beneath, its
+entrails torn out, its life-breath going from it in great gasps of
+steam. Suddenly its bellow collapsed; the great bulk was sinking lower;
+the enemy was in its very vitals. The great hoarse roar dwindled to a
+long death rattle, then to a guttural rasp; all at once it ceased; the
+brute was dead--the _Mazatlan_ was a wreck.
+
+Almost at the moment, he heard an order shouted twice from the bridge,
+where he could see the shadowy figures of the captain and officers
+moving about through the clouds of steam and smoke and mist. Immediately
+there followed the shrill piping of the boatswain's whistle; one of the
+officers, the first engineer, and some half dozen of the crew came
+dashing through the crowd, and there was a great shout of "The boats!
+The boats!"
+
+The crowd broke up, rushing here and there about the ship, reforming
+again in smaller bands by the boats and life-rafts. Vandover followed
+the first engineer, running forward toward one of the boats in the bow.
+
+"Come on!" he shouted to the little Salvationist lassie, pausing a
+moment to help her with her heavy canvas-covered bundle. "Come on!
+they're going to lower the boats."
+
+She started up to follow him and the boom of the foremast, which the
+accident had in some way loosened, swung across the deck at the same
+moment. Vandover was already out of its path but it struck the young
+woman squarely across the back. She dropped in a heap upon the deck,
+then her body slowly straightened out, stiff and rigid, her eyes rapidly
+opened and shut, and a great puff of white froth slowly started from her
+mouth. Vandover ran forward and lifted her up, but her back was broken;
+she was already dead. He rose to his feet exclaiming to himself, "But
+she was so sure--she _knew_ she was going to be saved," then suddenly
+fell silent again, gazing wonderingly at the body, disturbed, very
+thoughtful.
+
+When Vandover finally reached the lifeboat, he found a great crowd
+gathered there; three people were already in the boat itself. The first
+engineer, who commanded that boat, and three of the crew stood by the
+falls preparing to cast off. Just below on the deck of the _Mazatlan_
+stood two sailors keeping the crowd in order, continually shouting,
+"Women and children first!" As the women passed their children forward,
+the sailors lifted them into the boats, some shrieking, others silent
+and stupid as if stunned. Then the women were helped up; the men,
+Vandover among them, climbing in afterward. The davits were turned out
+and the boat was swung clear of the ship's side.
+
+Vandover looked out and below him and then made an involuntary movement
+to regain the ship's deck. Far below him, or so at least it seemed, were
+mountains of tumbling green water, huge, relentless, irresistible,
+rushing on by thousands, to shatter themselves with dreadful force
+against the ship's side. It seemed simple madness to attempt to launch
+the boat; even the sinking wreck would be safer than this chance.
+Vandover was terrified, again deserted by all his calmness and
+self-restraint.
+
+The sailors standing in the bow and the stern let out the ropes little
+by little, the vast black hulk of the ship began to loom up above them
+all, higher and higher, and to their eyes the lifeboat began to grow
+smaller and smaller, more and more frail, more and more pitiful.
+
+All at once it struck the water with a crash, in an instant it was
+tossed up again in the air, heaving on the crest of a wave, was carried
+in and dashed up against the ship, all the oars on that side snapping in
+an instant. It was a fearful moment; the little boat was unmanageable in
+an instant, leaping and plunging among the waves like a terrified horse,
+banged and battered between the heaving water and the hull of the
+steamer itself. Vandover believed that all was over; he partially rose
+from his seat preparing to jump before the boat should swamp.
+
+There was an interval of shouting and confusion, the first engineer and
+the crew leaning over the sides fending off the boat with the stumps of
+the oars and with long boathooks. Some oars were shipped to the other
+side to take the place of the broken ones, and a score of hands tugging
+at them, the boat was at length pulled away out of danger.
+
+The lifeboat had been built to hold thirty-five people; more than forty
+had crowded into it, and it needed all prudence and care to keep it
+afloat in the heavy seas that were running. The sailors and two of the
+passengers were at the oars, while the first engineer took command,
+standing in the stern at the steering-oar. He was dressed in a suit of
+oilskins, a life-preserver strapped under his arms; he wore no hat, and
+at every gust his drenched hair and beard whipped across his face.
+
+Just as the boat was pulling away from the wreck, Vandover and the
+others saw the little Jew of the plush cap with the ear-laps standing
+upon the rail of the steamer, holding to a stanchion. He believed that
+he had been abandoned, and screamed after them, stretching out his
+hands. The engineer turned and saw him, but shook his head. "Give way
+there!" he commanded the men; "there's no more room."
+
+The Jew flung his satchel from him and jumped; for a moment he
+disappeared, then suddenly came up on the crest of a wave, quite close
+to them, gasping and beating his hands, the water running out of his
+mouth, and his plush cap, glossy with wet, all awry and twisted so that
+one ear-lap hung over his eye like a shade. In another moment he had
+grasped one of the oar-blades. Every one was watching and there was a
+cry, "Draw him in!" But the engineer refused.
+
+"It's too late!" he shouted, partly to the Jew and partly to the boat.
+"One more and we are swamped. Let go there!"
+
+"But you can't let him drown," cried Vandover and the others who sat
+near. "Oh, take him in anyhow; we must risk it."
+
+"Risk hell!" thundered the engineer. "Look here, you!" he cried to
+Vandover and the rest. "I'm in command here and am responsible for the
+lives of all of you. It's a matter of his life or ours; one life or
+forty. One more and we are swamped. Let go there!"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried some. "It's too late! there's no more room!"
+
+But others still protested. "It's too horrible; don't let him drown;
+take him in." They threw him their life-preservers and the stumps of the
+broken oars. But the Jew saw nothing, heard nothing, clinging to the
+oar-blade, panting and stupid, his eyes wide and staring.
+
+"Shake him off!" commanded the engineer. The sailor at the oar jerked
+and twisted it, but the Jew still held on, silent and breathing hard.
+Vandover glanced at the fearfully overloaded boat and saw the necessity
+of it and held his peace, watching the thing that was being done. The
+sailor still attempted to tear the oar from the Jew's grip, but the Jew
+held on, panting, almost exhausted; they could hear his breathing in the
+boat. "Oh, don't!" he gasped, rolling his eyes.
+
+"Unship that oar and throw it overboard," shouted the engineer.
+
+"Better not, sir," answered the sailor. "Extra oars all broken." The Jew
+was hindering the progress of the boat and at every moment it threatened
+to turn broad on to the seas.
+
+"God damn you, let go there!" shouted the engineer, himself wrenching
+and twisting at the oar. "Let go or I'll shoot!"
+
+But the Jew, deaf and stupid, drew himself along the oar, hand over
+hand, and in a moment had caught hold of the gunwale of the boat. It
+careened on the instant. There was a great cry. "Push him off! We're
+swamping! Push him off!" And one of the women cried to the mate, "Don't
+let my little girls drown, sir! Push him away! Save my little girls! Let
+him drown!"
+
+It was the animal in them all that had come to the surface in an
+instant, the primal instinct of the brute striving for its life and for
+the life of its young.
+
+The engineer, exasperated, caught up the stump of one of the broken oars
+and beat on the Jew's hands where they were gripped whitely upon the
+boat's rim, shouting, "Let go! let go!" But as soon as the Jew relaxed
+one hand he caught again with the other. He uttered no cry, but his face
+as it came and went over the gunwale of the boat was white and writhing.
+When he was at length beaten from the boat he caught again at the oar;
+it was drawn in, and the engineer clubbed his head and arms and hands
+till the water near by grew red. The little Jew clung to the end of the
+oar like a cat, writhing and grunting, his mouth open, and his eyes
+fixed and staring. When his hands were gone, he tried to embrace the oar
+with his arms. He slid off in the hollow of a wave, his body turned over
+twice, and then he sank, his head thrown back, his eyes still open and
+staring, and a silver chain of bubbles escaping from his mouth.
+
+"Give way, men!" said the engineer.
+
+"Oh, God!" exclaimed Vandover, turning away and vomiting over the side.
+
+A little while later some one on the bow of the boat called to the
+engineer asking why it was they were not heading for the shore. The
+engineer did not answer, but Vandover in some way understood that it was
+too dangerous to attempt to run the breakers in such heavy weather, and
+that they must keep in the open, holding the boat head on to the seas
+until either the wind fell or they were picked up by some other vessel.
+
+It was still very dark, and seen under the night from the little boat,
+the ocean and the sky seemed immense and terrible; the great waves grew
+out of the obscurity ahead of them, rushing down upon the boat, big,
+swelling, silent, their crests occasionally hissing and breaking into
+irruptions of cold white froth. As one of them would draw near, the boat
+would rise upon it as though it would never stop, would hang a moment
+upon its summit and then topple into the black gulf that followed,
+sending the bitter icy spray high into the air. The wind blew steadily.
+Suddenly toward three o'clock it began to rain.
+
+Vandover, the engineer, all the five sailors, and two of the passengers
+were clothed. The rest of the passengers were little better than naked.
+Here and there a man had snatched a blanket from his berth, and one or
+two of them were wearing their trousers, but the rest were clothed for
+the most part only with their shirts and drawers. There were eighteen
+women and five little girls in the boat. The little girls were well
+looked after. Two were wrapped in Vandover's travelling-rug and a couple
+of men had put their coats around the third. But there were not wraps
+enough to go around among the women, by far the larger part of them were
+covered only by their night-dresses or their bed-gowns.
+
+It was abominably cold; the rain fell continually, and the wind blew in
+long gusts, piercing, cutting. Every plunge of the boat threw icy
+bullets of spray into the air, which the wind caught up and flung down
+broad upon the boat. Sometimes even a huge wave would break just upon
+their quarter, and then great torrents of bitter, freezing water would
+fall over them in a deluge, leaving a sediment of salt that cracked the
+skin. The women were huddled upon the bottom of the boat near the waist,
+where they had been placed for greater safety. They were fouled with
+the muddy water that gathered there, their long hair dishevelled,
+dripping with sleet, clinging to their wet cheeks and throats, their
+bodies showing pink with cold, through their thin, soaked coverings,
+their limbs racked with long incessant shudderings, a wretched group,
+miserable beyond words. One of them close by Vandover's feet, he noticed
+particularly, had but a single garment to cover her. She was drenched
+through and through, her bare feet were blue with the cold, her head was
+thrown back, her eyes closed. She was silent except when an unusual gust
+of wind whipped the rain and spray across her body like the long, fine
+lash of a whip. Then with every breath she moaned, drawing in her breath
+between her teeth with a little whistling gasp, too weak, too exhausted,
+too nearly unconscious to attempt to shield herself in any way.
+
+Vandover could do nothing; he had almost stripped himself to help clothe
+the others. Nothing more could be done. The suffering had to go on, and
+he began to wonder how human beings could endure such stress and yet
+live.
+
+But Vandover himself suffered too keenly to take much thought for the
+sufferings of the others, while besides that anguish which he shared
+with the whole boat, the pain in his broken thumb gnawed incessantly
+like a rat. From time to time he stared listlessly about him, looking at
+the dark sky, the tumbling ocean, and the crowded groups in the
+plunging, rolling lifeboat.
+
+There was nothing picturesque about it all, nothing heroic. It was
+unlike any pictures he had seen of lifeboat rescues, unlike anything he
+had ever imagined. It was all sordid, miserable, and the sight of the
+half-clad women, dirty, sodden, unkempt, stirred him rather to disgust
+than to pity.
+
+At last the dawn came and grew white over a world of tumbling green
+billows and scudding wrack. Some three miles distant, seen only when the
+boat topped a higher wave, the same procession of bleached hills moved
+gradually to the south under the fog, their feet covered by the white
+line of the surf. Not far behind in the wake of the boat the stern of
+the _Mazatlan_ rose out of a ring of white foam, the waves breaking over
+her as if she had been there for ages, the screw writhing its flanges
+into the air like some enormous starfish already fastened upon the hulk.
+
+One of the other boats could be seen now and then between them and the
+shore, a momentary dot of black on the vast blur of green and gray.
+
+There was no conversation; the men relieved each other at the oars or
+bailed out the water with their caps and hands, scarcely interchanging a
+word. The only utterance was an occasional moaning from among the women
+and children. There was nothing to eat; long since the two whisky flasks
+had been exhausted. The rain fell steadily into the sea with a prolonged
+rippling noise.
+
+Vandover was leaning upon the gunwale of the boat, his head buried in
+his arms, when suddenly he raised himself and asked of the man who sat
+next to him:
+
+"What was the matter last night? What caused the accident?"
+
+The other shook his head, wearily, turning away again. However, the
+engineer answered:
+
+"We couldn't carry coal enough to keep up the right pressure of steam
+and drifted in upon a reef. I said once before that it would happen some
+time."
+
+About an hour later Vandover dropped off to sleep, in spite of the cold,
+the wet, and the torment in his thumb. He dozed and woke, and dozed
+again all through the morning. About noon he was awakened by a more
+violent rolling of the boat, the sound of voices, and a stir among the
+other passengers.
+
+It was still raining; the boat was no longer cutting the waves with her
+nose, but was being rowed seaward flank on; a sailor stood in the bow
+holding a coil of rope. Close in and seen over the tops of the waves
+were the shaking and slatting sails of a pilot-boat, lying to. One of
+the sails bore an enormous number six.
+
+Vandover slept all that day and the night following, rolled in hot
+blankets. The next morning he awoke with a strange sense of unreality
+and of having dropped a day somewhere. As he lay in his stuffy little
+bunk between decks, and felt the rolling of the pilot-boat under him, he
+still fancied himself upon the _Mazatlan_; he felt the pain in his
+bandaged thumb and wondered how it came there. Then his fall on the deck
+came back to him, the wreck of the steamer, the excitement on board,
+the reports of the rifle fired as a minute gun, the clouds of steam that
+smelt of a great laundry, and the drowning of the little Jew of the
+plush cap with the ear-laps. He shuddered and grew sick again for a
+minute, telling himself that he would never forget that scene.
+
+Such of the passengers as could get about breakfasted as best they could
+in the cabin with the boatkeeper and four of the pilots. Here they were
+informed as to what was to be done with them. The schooner would not go
+in for two weeks, and it was out of the question to keep the castaways
+on board for that length of time. However, at that moment the pilots
+were cruising in the neighbourhood on the lookout for two Cape Horners
+that were expected to be up at any moment. It was decided that when the
+first of these should be met with the party should be transferred.
+
+An hour after they had been picked up, the wind had begun to freshen. By
+noon of the second day it had come on to blow half a gale. One could
+hope only for the best as regarded the rest of the _Mazatlan's_ boats
+and rafts. Not another sign of the wreck was seen by the schooner.
+
+The castaways filled the little schooner to overflowing, hindering her
+management, and getting in the way at every step. The pilot crew hustled
+them about without ceremony, and after dinner one had to intervene to
+prevent a fight between one of them and a sailor from the _Mazatlan_
+over the question of a broken pipe. The women of the _Mazatlan_ kept in
+their berths continually, rolled in hot blankets, dosed with steaming
+whisky punches. In the afternoon, however, Vandover saw two of them in
+the lee of the house attempting to dry their hair; one of them was the
+woman he had particularly noticed in the lifeboat clad in a night-dress,
+and he wondered vaguely where the dress had come from she now was
+wearing.
+
+About three o'clock of the afternoon of the following day Vandover was
+sitting on the deck near the stern, fastening on his shoes with a length
+of tarred rope, the laces which he had left trailing having long before
+broken and pulled out. By that time the wind was blowing squally out of
+the northeast. The schooner was put under try sails, "a three-reefed
+mitten with the thumb brailed up," as he heard the boatkeeper call it.
+This latter was at the wheel for a moment, but in a little while he
+called up a young man dressed in a suit of oilskins and a pea jacket and
+gave him the charge. For a long time Vandover watched the boy turning
+the spokes back and forth, his eyes alternating between the binocle and
+the horizon.
+
+In the evening about half-past ten, the lookout in the crow's nest sang
+out: "Smoke--oh!" sounding upon his fish horn. The boatkeeper ran aft
+and lit a huge calcium flare, holding it so as to illuminate the big
+number on the mainsail. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile off their
+weather-bow, a couple of rockets left a long trail of yellow against the
+night. It was the Cape Horner, and presently Vandover made out her
+lights, two glowing spots moving upon the darkness, like the eyes of
+some nocturnal sea-monster. In a few minutes she showed a blue light on
+the bridge; she wanted a pilot.
+
+The schooner approached and was laid to, and the towering mass of the
+great deep-sea tramp began to be dimly seen through the darkness. There
+was little confusion in making the transfer of the castaways. Most of
+them seemed still benumbed with their recent terrible exposure. They
+docilely allowed themselves to be pushed into the pilot tender and again
+endured the experience of being lowered to the shifting waves below.
+Silently, like frightened sheep, they stood up in turn in the rocking
+tender and allowed the life preserver to be fitted about their shoulders
+to protect them from the bite of the rope's noose beneath their arms.
+There followed a sickening upward whirl between sea and sky, and then
+the comforting grasp of many welcoming hands from the deck above. By
+three o'clock in the morning the transfer had been made.
+
+Vandover boarded the Cape Horner in company with the pilot and the rest
+and reached San Francisco late on the next day, which happened to be a
+Sunday.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Ten
+
+
+About ten o'clock Vandover went ashore in the ship's yawl and landed in
+the city on a literally perfect day in early November. It seemed many
+years since he had been there. The drizzly morning upon which the _Santa
+Rosa_ had cast off was already too long ago to be remembered. The city
+itself as he walked up Market Street toward Kearney seemed to have taken
+on a strange appearance.
+
+It was Sunday, the downtown streets were deserted except for the
+cable-cars and an occasional newsboy. The stores were closed and in
+their vestibules one saw the peddlers who were never there on week-days,
+venders of canes and peddlers of glue with heavy weights attached to
+mended china plates.
+
+Vandover had had no breakfast and was conscious of feeling desperately
+hungry. He determined to breakfast downtown, as he would arrive home too
+late for one meal and too early for the other.
+
+Almost all of his money had been lost with the _Mazatlan_; he found he
+had but a dollar left. He would have preferred breakfasting at the
+Grillroom, but concluded he was too shabby in appearance, and he knew he
+would get more for his money at the Imperial.
+
+It was absolutely quiet in the Imperial at the hour when he arrived. The
+single bartender was reading a paper, and in the passage between the
+private rooms a Chinese with a clean napkin wound around his head was
+polishing the brass and woodwork. In the passage he met Toby, the
+red-eyed waiter, just going off night duty, without his usual apron or
+white coat, dressed very carefully, wearing a brown felt hat.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Vandover?" exclaimed Toby. "Haven't seen you
+round here for some time." Vandover was about to answer when the other
+interrupted:
+
+"Well, what's happened to _you_? Look as though you'd been drawn through
+hell backward and beaten with a cat!"
+
+In fact Vandover's appearance was extraordinary. His hat was torn and
+broken, and his clothes, stained with tar and dirt, shrunken and
+wrinkled by sea-water. His shoes were fastened with bits of tarred rope;
+he was wearing a red flannel shirt with bone buttons which the
+boatkeeper on the pilot boat had given him, tied at the neck with a
+purple handkerchief of pongee silk; his hair was long, and a week's
+growth of beard was upon his lip and cheeks.
+
+"That's a fact," he answered grimly. "I do look queer. I was in a wreck
+down the coast," he added hastily.
+
+"The _Mazatlan!_" exclaimed Toby. "That's a fact; the papers have been
+full of it. That's so, you were one of the survivors."
+
+"The survivors!" echoed Vandover with wondering curiosity. "Tell me--you
+know I haven't heard a word yet--were there many lives lost?" He
+marvelled at the strangeness of the situation, that this bar waiter
+should know more of the wreck than he himself who had been upon it.
+
+"You bet there were!" answered Toby. "Twenty-three altogether; one boat
+capsized; Kelly, 'Bug' Kelly, son of that fellow that runs the Crystal
+Grotto, _he_ was drowned, and one of Hocheimer's--Hocheimer, the
+jeweller, you know--one of his travelling salesmen was drowned; a little
+Jew named Brann, a diamond expert; he jumped overboard and--"
+
+"Don't!" said Vandover with a sharp gesture. "I saw him drown--it was
+sickening."
+
+"Were you in that boat?" exclaimed Toby. "Well, wait till I tell you;
+the authorities here are right after that first engineer with a sharp
+stick, and some of the passengers, too, for not taking him in. A woman
+in one of the other boats saw it all and gave the whole thing away. A
+thing like that is regular murder, you know." Vandover shut his teeth
+against answering, and after a little Toby went on, willing to talk.
+"You know, we've got a new man for the day-work down here now--George
+isn't here any more. No, he's going to start a roadhouse out on the
+almshouse drive in a few months; swell place, you know. I'll have him
+send you cards for the opening."
+
+Vandover ordered oysters, an omelette, and a pint of claret from the new
+waiter who did the day-work, and ate and drank the meal--the like of
+which he had not tasted since leaving Coronado--with delicious
+enjoyment.
+
+He delayed over it long, taking a great pleasure in satisfying the
+demands of the animal in him. The wine made him heavy, warm, stupid; he
+felt calm, soothed, and perfectly contented, and had to struggle
+against a desire to go to sleep where he was. The atmosphere of the
+Imperial was warm and there was a tepid languor in the air as of the
+traces of many past debauches, a stale odour of sweetened whisky and of
+musk. After the roughness and hardships of the last week he felt a
+pleasant sense of quiet, of relaxation, of enervation. He even began to
+wish that Flossie would come in. This, however, made him rouse himself;
+he shook himself, and started home, paying his carfare with his last
+nickel.
+
+He sat on the outside of the car, wondering if any one he knew would see
+him, half hoping that such a thing might happen, realizing the dramatic
+interest that would centre about him now in his present condition as a
+survivor of a wreck. The idea soon attracted him immensely and he began
+to look out for any possible acquaintance as the car began to climb over
+Nob Hill.
+
+At the crossing of Polk Street he saw Ida Wade's mother in deep
+mourning, standing near a grocery store holding a little pink parcel.
+
+It was like a blow between the eyes. Vandover caught his breath and
+started violently, feeling again for an instant the cold grip of the
+hysterical terror that had so nearly overcome him on the morning after
+Ida's death. It slowly relaxed, however, and by the time he had reached
+the house on California Street he was almost himself again.
+
+It was about church time when Vandover arrived at home once more. There
+was a Sunday quiet in the air. The bells were ringing, and here and
+there family groups on their way to church, the children walking in
+front, very sedate in their best clothes, carrying the prayer-books
+carefully, by special privilege.
+
+The butler was working in the garden, as he sometimes did of a Sunday
+morning, pottering about a certain bed of sweet-peas, and it was the
+housekeeper who answered his ring. She recognized him with a prolonged
+exclamation, raising her hands to heaven.
+
+"O-oh, and is it you, Mr. Vandover, sir? Ah, how we've been upset about
+you and all, and it's glad to see you back again your father will be!
+Oh, such times as we had when we heard about the wreck and knowing you
+were on it! Yes, sir, your father's _pretty_ well, though he was main
+poorly yesterday morning. But he's better now. You'll find him in the
+smoking-room now, sir."
+
+Vandover pushed open the door of the smoking-room quietly. His father
+was sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before the fireplace.
+He was dead, and must have died some considerable time before, as he was
+already cold. He could have suffered no pain, hardly a muscle had moved,
+and his attitude was quite natural, the legs crossed, the right hand
+holding the morning's paper. However, as soon as Vandover touched the
+body it collapsed and slid down into a heap in the depth of the chair,
+the jaw dropping open, the head rolling sidewise upon his shoulder.
+
+Vandover ran out into the hall, waving his arms, shouting for the
+servants. "Oh, why didn't you tell me?" he cried to the housekeeper "Why
+did you let me find him so? When did he die?" The housekeeper was
+distraught. She couldn't believe it. Only a little while ago he had
+called her to say there were no more matches in the little brass
+matchsafe. She began to utter long cries and lamentations like a hen in
+distress, raising her hands to heaven. All at once they heard some one
+rushing up the stairs. It was the butler, in his shirt-sleeves and his
+enormous apron of ticking, still carrying his trowel in his hand. He was
+bewildered, his eyes protruding, while all about him he spread the smell
+of fresh earth. At every instant he exclaimed:
+
+"What? What? What's the matter?"
+
+"Oh, my dear old governor--and all alone!" cried Vandover through shut
+teeth.
+
+"Oh, oh, the good God!" exclaimed the housekeeper, crossing herself and
+rolling her eyes. "And him asking for matches in the little brass box
+only a minute since. Oh, the good, kind master!"
+
+Suddenly Vandover rushed down the stairs and through the front hall,
+snatching his hat from the hatrack as he passed. He ran to call the
+family doctor, who lived some two blocks below on the same street. He
+caught him just as he was getting into the carry-all with his family,
+bound for church.
+
+Vandover and the physician rode back together in the carry-all, the two
+gray horses going up the steep hill at a trot. The doctor was dressed
+for church; he wore red gloves with thick white seams, a spray of
+lilies-of-the-valley in his lapel.
+
+"I'm afraid we can do nothing," he said warningly. "It's your father's
+old enemy, I suppose. This was--it was sure to happen sooner or later.
+Any sudden shock, you know."
+
+Vandover scarcely listened, holding the door of the carry-all open with
+one hand, ready to jump out, beating the other hand upon his knee.
+
+"Go back and take the rest of them to church now," said the doctor to
+his coachman when the carry-all stopped in front of Vandover's house.
+
+The whole house was in the greatest agitation all the rest of the day.
+The curtains were drawn, the door bell rang incessantly, strange faces
+passed the windows, and the noise of strange footsteps continually
+mounted and descended the staircase. The hours for meals were all
+deranged, the table stood ready all day long, and one ate when there was
+a chance. The telephone was in constant use, and at every moment
+messenger boys came and went, people spoke in low tones, walking on
+tiptoe; the florist's wagon drove to the door again and again, and the
+house began to smell of tuberoses. Reporters came, waiting patiently for
+interviews, sitting on the leather chairs in the dining-room, or writing
+rapidly on a corner of the dining-table, the cloth pushed back. The
+undertaker's assistants went about in their shirt-sleeves, working very
+hard, and toward the middle of the afternoon the undertaker himself tied
+the crêpe to the bell handle.
+
+Little by little a subdued excitement spread throughout the vicinity.
+The neighbours appeared at their windows, looking down into the street,
+watching everything that went on. It was a veritable event, a matter of
+comment and interest for the whole block. Women found excuses to call on
+each other, talking over what had happened, as they sat near their
+parlour windows, shaking their heads at each other, peering out between
+the lace curtains. The people on the cable-cars and the pedestrians
+looked again and again at the crêpe on the bell handle, and the
+curtained windows, craning their necks backward when they had passed.
+The neighbours' children collected in little groups on the sidewalk near
+the house, looking and pointing, drawn close together, talking in low
+tones. At last even a policeman appeared, walking deliberately, casting
+the shadow of his huge stomach upon the fence that was about the vacant
+lot. He frowned upon the children, ordering them away. But suddenly he
+discovered an acquaintance, the driver of an express-wagon that had just
+driven up with an enormous anchor of violets. He paused, exclaiming:
+
+"Why, hello, Connors!"
+
+"Why, hello, Mister Brodhead!"
+
+Then a long conversation was begun, the policeman standing on the
+curbstone, one foot resting upon the hub of a wheel, the expressman
+leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, twirling his whip between his
+hands. The expressman told some sort of story, pointing with his elbow
+toward the house, but the other was incredulous, gravely shaking his
+head, putting his chin in the air, and closing his eyes.
+
+Inside the house itself there was a hushed and subdued bustling that
+centred about a particular room. The undertaker's assistants and the
+barber called in low voices through the halls for basins of water and
+towels. There was a search for the Old Gentleman's best clothes and his
+clean linen; bureau drawers were opened and shut, closet doors softly
+closed. Relatives and friends called and departed or stayed to help. A
+vague murmur arose, a mingled sound of whispers and light foot-steps,
+the rustle of silks, and the noise of stifled weeping, and then at last
+silence, night, solitude, a single gas-jet burning, and Vandover was
+left alone.
+
+The suddenness of the thing had stunned and dizzied him, and he had gone
+through with all the various affairs of the day wondering at his
+calmness and fortitude. Toward eleven o'clock, however, after the
+suppressed excitement of the last hours, as he was going to bed, the
+sense of his grief and loss came upon him all of a sudden, with their
+real force for the first time, and he threw himself upon the bed face
+downward, weeping and groaning. During the rest of the night pictures of
+his father returned to him as he had seen him upon different occasions,
+particularly three such pictures came and went through his mind.
+
+In one the Old Gentleman stood in that very room, with the decanter in
+his hand, asking him kindly if he felt very bad; in another he was on
+the pier with his handkerchief tied to his cane, waving it after
+Vandover as though spelling out a signal to him across the water. But in
+a third, he was in the smoking-room, fallen into the leather chair, his
+arm resting on the table and his head bowed upon it.
+
+After the funeral, which took place from the house, Vandover drove back
+alone in the hired carriage to his home. He would have paid the driver,
+but the other told him that the undertaker looked out for that. Vandover
+watched him a moment as he started his horses downhill, the brake as it
+scraped against the tire making a noise like the yelping of a dog. Then
+he turned and faced the house. It was near four o'clock in the
+afternoon, and everything about the house was very quiet. All the
+curtains were down except in one of the rooms upstairs. The butler had
+already opened these windows and was airing the room. Vandover could
+hear him moving about, sweeping up, rearranging the furniture, making up
+the bed again. In front of him, between the horse-block and the front
+door, one or two smilax leaves were still fallen, and a tuberose,
+already yellow. Behind him in the street he had already noticed the
+marks of the wheels of the hearse where it had backed up to the curb.
+
+The crêpe was still on the bell handle. Vandover did not know whether it
+had been forgotten, or whether it was proper to leave it there longer.
+At any rate he took it off and carried it into the house with him.
+
+His father's hat, a stiff brown derby hat, flat on the top, hung on the
+hatrack. This had always been a sign to Vandover that his father was at
+home. The sight was so familiar, so natural, that the same idea occurred
+to him now involuntarily, and for an instant it was as though he had
+dreamed of his father's death; he even wondered what was this terrible
+grief that had overwhelmed him, and thought that he must go and tell his
+father about it. He took the hat in his hands, turning it about
+tenderly, catching the faint odour of the Old Gentleman's hair oil that
+hung about it. It all brought back his father to him as no picture ever
+could; he could almost _see_ the kind old face underneath the broad curl
+of the brim. His grief came over him again keener than ever and he put
+his arms clumsily about the old hat, weeping and whispering to himself:
+
+"Oh, my poor, dear old dad--I'm never going to see you again, never,
+never! Oh, my dear, kind old governor!"
+
+He took the hat up to his room with him, putting it carefully away. Then
+he sat down before the window that overlooked the little garden in the
+rear of the house, looking out with eyes that saw nothing.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eleven
+
+
+The following days as they began to pass were miserable. Vandover had
+never known until now how much he loved his father, how large a place he
+had filled in his life. He felt horribly alone now, and a veritable
+feminine weakness overcame him, a crying need to be loved as his father
+had loved him, and also to love some one as he himself had loved his
+father. Worst of all, however, was his loneliness. He could think of no
+one who cared in the least for him; the very thought of Turner Ravis or
+young Haight wrought in him an expression of scorn. He was sure that he
+was nothing to them, though they were the ones whom he considered his
+best friends.
+
+Another cause of misery was the fact that his father's death in leaving
+him alone had also thrown him upon his own resources. Now he would have
+to shoulder responsibilities which hitherto his father had assumed, and
+decide questions which until now his father had answered.
+
+However, he felt that his father's death had sobered him as nothing
+else, not even Ida's suicide, had done. The time was come at length for
+him to take life seriously. He would settle down now to work at his art.
+He would go to Paris as his father had wished, and devote himself
+earnestly to painting. Yes, the time was come for him to steady himself,
+and give over the vicious life into which he had been drifting.
+
+But it was not long before Vandover had become accustomed to his
+father's death, and had again rearranged himself to suit the new
+environment which it had occasioned. He wondered at himself because of
+the quickness with which he had recovered from this grief, just as
+before he had marvelled at the ease with which he had forgotten Ida's
+death. Could it be true, then, that nothing affected him very deeply?
+Was his nature shallow?
+
+However, he was wrong in this respect; his nature was not shallow. It
+had merely become deteriorated.
+
+Two days after his father's death Vandover went into the Old Gentleman's
+room to get a certain high-backed chair which had been moved there from
+his own room during the confusion of the funeral, and which, pending
+the arrival of the trestles, had been used to support the coffin.
+
+As he was carrying it back his eye fell upon a little heap of objects
+carefully set down upon the bureau. They were the contents of the Old
+Gentleman's pockets that the undertaker had removed when the body was
+dressed for burial.
+
+Vandover turned them over, sadly interested in them. There was the
+watch, some old business letters and envelopes covered with memoranda,
+his fountain-pen, a couple of cigars, a bank-book, a small amount of
+change, his pen-knife, and one or two tablets of chewing-gum.
+
+Vandover thrust the pen and the knife into his own pocket. The
+bank-book, letters, and change he laid away in his father's desk, but
+the cigars and the tablets of gum, together with the crumpled
+pocket-handkerchief that he found on another part of the dressing-case,
+he put into the Old Gentleman's hat, which he had hidden on the top
+shelf of his clothes closet. The watch he hung upon a little brass
+thermometer that always stood on his centre table. He even wound up the
+watch with the resolve never to let it run down so long as he should
+live.
+
+The keys, however, disturbed him, and he kept changing them from one
+hand to the other, looking at them very thoughtfully. They suggested to
+him the inquiry as to whether or no his father had made a will, and how
+much money he, Vandover, could now command. One of the keys was a long
+brass key. Vandover knew that this unlocked a little iron box that from
+time out of mind had been screwed upon the lower shelf of the clothes
+closet in his father's room. It was in this box that the Old Gentleman
+kept his ready money and a few important papers.
+
+For a long time Vandover stood undecided, changing the keys about from
+one hand to the other, hesitating before opening this iron box; he could
+not tell why. By and by, however, he went softly into his father's room,
+and into the clothes closet near the head of the bed. Holding the key
+toward the lock, he paused listening; it was impossible to rid his mind
+of the idea that he was doing something criminal. He shook himself,
+smiling at the fancy, assuring himself of the honesty of the thing, yet
+opening the box stealthily, holding the key firmly in order that it
+might not spring back with a loud click, looking over his shoulder the
+while and breathing short through his nose.
+
+The first thing that he saw inside was a loaded revolver, the sudden
+view of which sent a little qualm through the pit of his stomach. He
+took it out gingerly, holding it at arm's length, throwing open the
+cylinder and spilling out the cartridges on the bed, very careful to let
+none of them fall on the floor lest they should explode.
+
+Next he drew out the familiar little canvas sack. In it were
+twenty-dollar gold-pieces, the coin that used to be "Good for the
+Masses." Behind that was about thirty dollars in two rolls, and last of
+all in an old, oblong tin cracker-box a great bundle of papers. A list
+of these papers was pasted on one end of the box. They comprised deeds,
+titles, insurance policies, tax receipts, mortgages, and all the papers
+relating to the property. Besides these there was the will.
+
+He took out this box, laying it on the shelf beside him. He was closing
+the small iron safe again very quietly when all at once, before he could
+think of what he was doing, he ran his hand into the mouth of the canvas
+sack, furtively, slyly, snatched one of the heavy round coins, and
+thrust it into his vest pocket, looking all about him, listening
+intently, saying to himself with a nervous laugh, "Well, isn't it mine
+anyway?"
+
+In spite of himself he could not help feeling a joy in the possession of
+this money as if of some treasure-trove dug up on an abandoned shore. He
+even began to plan vaguely how he should spend it.
+
+However, he could not bring himself to open any of the papers, but sent
+them instead to a lawyer, whom he knew his father had often consulted. A
+few days later he received a typewritten letter asking him to call at
+his earliest convenience.
+
+It was at his residence and not at his office that Vandover saw the
+lawyer, as the latter was not well at the time and kept to his bed.
+However, he was not so sick but that his doctor allowed him to transact
+at least some of his business. Vandover found him in his room, a huge
+apartment, one side entirely taken up by book-shelves filled with works
+of fiction. The walls were covered with rough stone-blue paper, forming
+an admirable background to small plaster casts of Assyrian
+_bas-reliefs_ and large photogravures of Renaissance portraits.
+Underneath an enormous baize-covered table in the centre of the room
+were green cloth bags filled apparently with books, padlocked tin
+chests, and green pasteboard deed-boxes. The lawyer was sitting up in
+bed, wearing his dressing-gown and occasionally drinking hot water from
+a glass. He was a thin, small man, middle-aged, with a very round head
+and a small pointed beard.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Vandover?" he said, very pleasantly as Vandover
+passed by the servant holding open the door and came in.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Field?" answered Vandover, shaking his hand. "Well,
+I'm sorry to see you like this."
+
+"Yes," answered the lawyer, "I'm--I have trouble with my digestion
+sometimes, more annoying than dangerous, I suppose. Take a chair, won't
+you? You can find a place for your hat and coat right on the table
+there. Well," he added, settling back on the pillows and looking at
+Vandover pleasantly, "I think you've grown thinner since the last time I
+saw you, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover grimly, "I guess I have."
+
+"Yes, yes, I suppose so, of course," responded the lawyer with a vague
+air of apology and sympathy. "You have had a trying time of it lately,
+taking it by and large. I was _very_ painfully shocked to hear of your
+father's death. I had met him at lunch hardly a week before; he was a
+far heartier man than I was. Eat? You should have seen--splendid
+appetite. He spoke at length of you, I remember; told me you expected to
+go abroad soon to study painting; in fact, I believe he was to go to
+Paris with you. It was very sad and very sudden. But you know we've all
+been expecting--been fearing--that for some time."
+
+They both were silent for a moment, the lawyer looking absently at the
+foot-board of the bed, nodding his head slowly from time to time,
+repeating, "Yes, sir--yes, sir." Suddenly he exclaimed, "Well--now,
+let's see." He cleared his throat, coming back to himself again, and
+continued in a very businesslike and systematic tone:
+
+"I have looked over your father's papers, Mr. Vandover, as you
+requested me to, and I have taken the liberty of sending for you to let
+you know exactly how you stand."
+
+"That's the idea, sir," said Vandover, very attentive, drawing up his
+chair.
+
+Mr. Field took a great package of oblong papers from the small table
+that stood at the head of his bed, and looked them over, adjusting his
+eyeglasses. "Well, now, suppose we take up the real property first," he
+continued, drawing out three or four of these papers and unfolding them.
+"All of your father's money was invested in what we call 'improved
+realty.'"
+
+He talked for something over an hour, occasionally stopping to answer a
+question of Vandover's, or interrupting himself to ask him if he
+understood. At the end it amounted to this:
+
+The bulk of the estate was residence property in distant quarters of the
+city. Some twenty-six houses, very cheaply built, each, on an average,
+renting for twenty-eight dollars. When all of these were rented, the
+gross monthly income was seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars. At this
+time, however, six were vacant, bringing down the gross receipts per
+month to five hundred and sixty dollars. The expenses, which included
+water, commissions for collecting, repairs, taxes, interest on
+insurance, etc., when expressed in the terms of a monthly average,
+amounted to one hundred and eighty-six dollars.
+
+"Well, now, let's see," said Vandover, figuring on his cuff, "one
+hundred and eighty-six from five hundred and sixty leaves me a net
+monthly income of three hundred and eighty-four--no, seventy-four. Three
+hundred and seventy-four dollars."
+
+The lawyer shook his head while he drank another glass of hot water:
+
+"You see," he said, wiping his moustache in the hollow of his palm, "you
+see, we haven't figured on the mortgages yet."
+
+"Mortgages?" echoed Vandover.
+
+"Yes," answered Mr. Field, "when I spoke of expenses I was basing them
+upon the monthly statements of Adams & Brunt, your father's agents. But
+they never looked after the mortgages. Your father acted directly with
+the banks in that matter. I find that there are mortgages that cover the
+entire property, even the homestead. They are for 6-1/2 and 7 per cent.
+In some cases there are two mortgages on the same piece of property."
+
+"Well," said Vandover.
+
+"Well," answered the lawyer, "the interest on these foots up to about
+two hundred and ninety dollars a month."
+
+Vandover made another hasty calculation on his cuff, and leaned back in
+his chair staring at the lawyer, saying:
+
+"Why, that leaves eighty-four dollars a month, net."
+
+"Yes," assented Field. "I made it that, too."
+
+"Why, the governor used to allow _me_ fifty a month," returned Vandover,
+"just for pocket money."
+
+"I'm afraid you mustn't expect anything like that, now, Mr. Vandover,"
+replied Field, smiling. "You see, when your father was alive and
+pursuing his profession, he made a comfortable income besides that which
+he derived from his realty. His law business I consider to have been
+excellent when you take everything into consideration. He often made
+five hundred dollars a month at it. Such are the figures his papers
+show. He could make you a handsome allowance while he was alive, but all
+that is stopped now!"
+
+"Well, but didn't he--didn't he leave any money, any--any--any lump
+sum?" inquired Vandover incredulously.
+
+"There was his bank account," answered the other. "You see, he invested
+most of his savings in this same realty, and since he stopped building
+he seems to have lived right up to his income."
+
+"But eighty-four dollars!" repeated Vandover; "why, look at the house on
+California Street where we live. It costs that much to run it, the
+servants and all."
+
+"Here's your father's domestic-account book," answered Field, taking it
+up and turning the leaves. "One hundred and seventy-five dollars a month
+were the average running expenses."
+
+_"One hundred and seventy-five!"_ shouted Vandover, feeling suddenly as
+if the ground were opening under him. "Why, great heavens! Mr. Field,
+where am I going to get--what am I going to _do_?"
+
+Mr. Field smiled a little. "Well," he said, "you must make up your mind
+to live more modestly."
+
+"Modestly?" exclaimed Vandover, scornfully.
+
+"You'll have to rent the house and take rooms."
+
+Vandover gave a gasp of relief.
+
+"I hadn't thought of that," he answered, subsiding at once. "How much
+would it bring--the house?"
+
+The lawyer hesitated as to this. "That I could hardly tell you
+definitely," he answered, shaking his head. "Adams & Brunt could give
+you more exact figures. In fact, I would suggest that you put it into
+their hands. California near Franklin, isn't it? Yes; the neighbourhood
+isn't what it used to be, you know. Every one wants to live out on
+Pacific Heights now. Double house? Yes, well--with the furniture, I
+suppose--oh, I don't know--say, a hundred and fifty. But, you know, my
+estimate is only guesswork. Brunt is the man you want to see."
+
+"Well," answered Vandover, solaced, "that makes--two thirty-four; that's
+more like it. But," he added, hastily, "you say the homestead is
+mortgaged as well; how about the interest on that?"
+
+"You needn't be bothered about that," answered Mr. Field. "The interest
+on _that_ mortgage is included in the two hundred and ninety that I
+spoke of, and the insurance interest on the homestead is included in
+Adams & Brunt's statement. That was on the whole estate _with_ the
+homestead, you understand? But there is another thing you must look out
+for. Most of the mortgages are for one year, and every time they are
+renewed there is an expense of between forty and fifty dollars."
+
+"Yes, I see," assented Vandover.
+
+"Now," resumed the lawyer, "here is your father's bank account. He had
+in the First National to his credit between nine and ten thousand
+dollars; nine thousand seven hundred and ninety, to be exact. His
+professional account book shows that there is now due him in bills and
+notes eight hundred and thirty dollars; on the debit side he owes in all
+nine hundred; the difference, you see, is seventy. Nine thousand seven
+hundred and ninety less seventy leaves a balance of nine thousand seven
+hundred and twenty. All clear?" he asked, interrupting himself. Vandover
+nodded and the other continued:
+
+"Now, your father left a will; here it is. I drew it for him a year ago
+last September. He has given fifteen hundred dollars to some cousin in
+the southern part of the state, and six hundred to a few charities here
+in the city. The remainder, seven thousand five hundred and twenty, and
+all the rest of the estate is left to you with the wish that you pursue
+your art studies abroad. Brunt, of Adams & Brunt, and myself are
+appointed executors. So now, that is just how you stand as far as I can
+see: seventy-five hundred dollars in ready money and, if we suppose you
+rent the California Street house, income property that nets you two
+hundred and thirty-four a month. The will will have to be probated some
+time next month and you will have to appear; however, I shall let you
+know about that in time."
+
+During the next two weeks Vandover was plunged into the affairs of
+business for the first time in his life. It interested and amused him,
+and he felt a certain self-importance in handling large sums of money,
+and in figuring interest, rents, and percentages. Three days after his
+interview with Mr. Field the sale of his father's office effects took
+place, and the consequent five hundred dollars Vandover turned over into
+the hands of the lawyer, who was already looking for an investment for
+the eighty-nine hundred. This matter had given Vandover considerable
+anxiety.
+
+"I don't want anything fancy," he said to Field. "No big per cents. and
+bigger risks. If I've got to live economically I want something that's
+secure. A good solid investment, don't you know, with a fair interest;
+that's what I'm looking for."
+
+"Yes," answered the lawyer grimly; "I've been looking for that myself
+ever since I was your age."
+
+They both laughed, and the lawyer added: "Has Brunt found a tenant for
+the California Street house yet? No? Well, perhaps you had better keep
+that five hundred for your running expenses until he does. It will
+probably take some time."
+
+"All right," answered Vandover. "There were a couple of women up to look
+at the place yesterday, but they wanted to use it for a boarding-house.
+I won't hear to that. Brunt says they would ruin it, dead sure."
+
+"I suppose you are looking around, yourself, for rooms?" inquired Mr.
+Field. "Have you found anything to suit you?"
+
+"No," answered Vandover, "I have not. I don't like the idea of living
+in one of the downtown hotels, and as far as I have looked, the uptown
+flats are rather steep. However, I haven't gone around very much as yet.
+I've been so busy. Oh, how about the paving of the street in front of
+those Bush Street houses of mine? Brunt says that the supervisors have
+passed a resolution of intention to that effect. Now shall I let the
+city contractor have the job or give it to Brunt's man?"
+
+"Better let the city people do it," advised Field. "They may charge
+more, but you needn't pay _them_ for a long time."
+
+By the end of three weeks Vandover had sickened of the whole thing. The
+novelty was gone, and business affairs no longer amused him. Besides
+this, he was anxious to settle down in some comfortable rooms. It was
+now the middle of winter and he had determined that it was not the
+season for a European trip. He would wait until the summer before going
+to Paris.
+
+Little by little Vandover turned over the supervision and management of
+his affairs and his property to Adams & Brunt, declaring that he could
+not afford to be bothered with them any longer. This course was much
+more expensive and by no means so satisfactory from a business point of
+view, but Vandover felt as though the loss in money was more than offset
+by his freedom from annoyance and responsibility.
+
+He was eager to get settled. The idea of taking rooms that should be all
+his own and that he could fit up to suit his taste attracted him
+immensely. Already he saw himself installed in charming bachelor's
+apartments, the walls covered with rough stone-blue paper forming an
+admirable background for small plaster casts of Assyrian _bas-reliefs_
+and photogravures of Velasquez portraits. There would be a pipe-rack
+over the mantelpiece, and a window-seat with a corduroy cushion such as
+he had had in his room in Matthew's.
+
+Very slowly his father's affairs were settled, and by degrees the estate
+began to adjust itself to the new grooves in which it was to run. By the
+middle of December everything was beginning to go smoothly, and the day
+before Christmas Mr. Field announced to Vandover that he had invested
+his eighty-nine hundred in registered U.S. 4 per cents. They had had
+several long talks concerning this sum of money, and in the end had
+concluded that it would be better to invest it in some such fashion
+rather than to take up any of the mortgages that were on the houses.
+
+During the first weeks of the new year the house on California Street
+was rented for one hundred and twenty-five dollars to an English
+gentleman, the president of a fruit syndicate in the southern part of
+the state. There were but three in the family, and though the rent was
+below that which Vandover had desired, Brunt advised him to close the
+transaction at once, as they were desirable tenants and would probably
+stay in the house a long time.
+
+On the last evening which he was to spend in his home, Vandover cast up
+his accounts and made out a schedule as to his monthly income.
+
+    Rent from realty, net average                                  $ 84.00
+    Rent from homestead property on California Street               125.00
+    Interest on U.S. bonds, 4 per cent.                              23.00
+                                                                   _______
+        Total                                                      $232.00
+    In small iron safe                                             $170.00
+    Received from sale of office effects                           $500.00
+                                                                   _______
+                                                                   $670.00
+    Expenses, outstanding bills, lawyer's fees, undertaker's
+      bill, expenses for collecting, etc                            587.00
+                                                                   _______
+    Balance, January 16th                                           $83.00
+
+Then with a shrug of the shoulders he dismissed the whole burdensome
+business from his mind. Brunt would manage his property, sending him
+regularly the monthly statement in order to keep him informed. The
+English gentleman of the fruit syndicate would add his hundred and
+twenty-five, and the 4 per cents., faithfully brooding over his
+eighty-nine hundred in the dark of the safety deposit drawer, would
+bring forth their little quota of twenty-three with absolute certainty.
+Two thirty-two a month. Yes, he was comfortably fixed and was free now
+to do exactly as he pleased.
+
+His first object now was to settle down for the winter in some pleasant
+rooms. He had decided that he would look for a suite of three--a
+bedroom, studio, and sitting-room. The bedroom he was not particular
+about, the studio he hoped would have plenty of light from the north,
+but the sitting-room _must_ be sunny and overlook the street, else what
+would be the use of a window-seat? As to the neighbourhood, he thought
+he would prefer Sutter Street anywhere between Leavenworth and Powell.
+
+In the downtown part this street was entirely given over to business
+houses; in the far, uptown quarter it was lined with residences; but
+between these two undesirable extremes was an intermediate district
+where the residences had given place to flats, and the business blocks
+to occasional stores. It was a neighbourhood affected by doctors,
+dentists, and reputable music-teachers; drug stores occupied many of the
+corners, here and there a fine residence still withstood the advance of
+business, there were a number of great apartment houses, and even one or
+two club buildings.
+
+It was a gay locality, not too noisy, not too quiet. The street was one
+of the great arteries of travel between the business and the residence
+portions of the city, and its cable-cars were frequented by ladies going
+to their shopping or downtown marketing or to and from the matinées.
+Acquaintances of Vandover were almost sure to pass at every hour.
+
+He took rooms temporarily at the Palace and at once set about locating
+on Sutter Street. He had recourse again to Brunt, who furnished him with
+a long list of vacancies in that neighbourhood. Apartment-hunting was an
+agreeable pastime to Vandover, though in the end it began to bore him.
+Altogether, he visited some fifteen or twenty suites, in each case
+trying to fit himself into the rooms, imagining how the window-seat
+would look in such a window, how the pipe-rack would show over such a
+mantel, just where on such walls the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ could be
+placed to the best advantage, and if his easel could receive enough
+steady light from such windows. Then he considered the conveniences, the
+baths, the electric light, and the heat.
+
+After a two weeks' search, he had decided upon one of two suites; both
+of these were in the desired neighbourhood but differed widely in other
+respects.
+
+The first was reasonable enough in the matter of rent, and had even been
+occupied by an artist for some three or four years previous. However,
+the room that Vandover proposed to use as a sitting-room was small and
+had no double windows, thus making the window-seat an impossibility.
+There did not seem to be any suitable place for the Assyrian
+_bas-reliefs_, and the mantelpiece was of old-fashioned white marble
+like the mantelpiece in Mrs. Wade's front parlour, a veritable horror.
+It revolted Vandover even to think of putting a pipe-rack over it. These
+defects were offset by the studio, a large and splendid room with
+hardwood floors and an enormous north light, the legendary studio, the
+dream of an artist, precisely such a studio as Vandover had hoped he
+would occupy in the Quarter.
+
+The other suite was in a great apartment house, a hotel in fact, but
+very expensive, with electric bulbs and bells, and with a tiled bathroom
+connecting with the bedroom. The room which he would be obliged to use
+as his studio was small, dark, the light coming from the west. But the
+sitting-room was perfect. It had the sun all day long through a huge bay
+window that seemed to have been made for a window-seat; there were
+admirable, well-lighted spaces on the walls for casts and pictures, and
+the mantelpiece was charming, extremely high, and made of oak; in a
+word, the exact sitting-room that Vandover had in mind. Already he saw
+himself settled there as comfortably and snugly as a kernel in a
+nutshell. It was true that upon investigation he found that the grate
+had been plastered up and the flue arranged for a stove. But for that
+matter there were open-grate stoves to be had that would permit the fire
+to be seen and that would look just as cheerful as a grate. He had even
+seen such a stove in the window of a hardware store downtown, a tiled
+stove with a brass fender and with curious flamboyant ornaments of
+cast-iron--a jewel of a stove.
+
+For two days Vandover hesitated between these two suites, undecided
+whether he should sacrifice his studio for his sitting-room, or his
+sitting-room for his studio. At length he came to the conclusion that as
+he was now to be an artist a good studio ought to be the first
+consideration, and that since he was to settle down to hard, serious
+work at last he owed it to himself to have a fitting place in which to
+paint; yes, decidedly he would take the suite with the studio. He went
+to the agent, told him of his decision, and put up a deposit to secure
+the rooms.
+
+The same day upon which he took this decided step he had occasion to
+pass by both places in question. As he approached the apartment house
+in which the rejected suite was situated it occurred to him to tell the
+clerk in the office that he had decided against the rooms; he could take
+a last look at them at the same time.
+
+He was shown up to the rooms again, and walked about in the
+sitting-room, asking the same questions about the heat, the plumbing,
+and the baths. He even went to the window and looked out into the
+street. It _was_ a first-rate berth just the same, and how jolly it
+would be to lounge in the window-seat of a morning, with a paper, a
+cigarette, and a cup of coffee, watching the people on their way
+downtown; the women going to their shopping and morning's marketing.
+Then all at once he remembered that at most he would only have these
+rooms for five months, and reflected that if his whole life was to be
+devoted to painting he might easily put up with an inconvenient studio
+for a few months. Once at Paris all would be different.
+
+At that the rooms took on a more charming aspect than ever; never had
+they appeared cheerier, sunnier, more comfortable; never had the oak
+mantel and the tiled stove with the flamboyant ornaments been more
+desirable; never had a window-seat seemed more luxurious, never a
+pipe-rack more delectable, while at the same time, the other rooms, the
+rooms of the big studio, presented themselves to his imagination more
+sombre, uncomfortable, and forbidding than ever. It was out of the
+question to think of living there; he was angry with himself for having
+hesitated so long. But suddenly he remembered the deposit he had already
+made; it was ten dollars; for a moment he paused, then dismissed the
+matter with an impatient shrug of the shoulders. "So much the worse," he
+said. "What's ten dollars?" He made up his mind then and there and went
+downstairs, walking on his heels, to tell the clerk that after all he
+would engage the rooms from that date.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twelve
+
+
+Vandover took formal possession of his rooms on Sutter Street during the
+first few days of February. For a week previous they had been in the
+greatest confusion: the studio filled with a great number of trunks,
+crates, packing cases, and furniture still in its sacking. In the
+bedroom was stored the furniture that had been moved out of the
+sitting-room, while the sitting-room itself was given over to the
+paperhangers and carpenters. Vandover himself appeared from time to
+time, inquiring anxiously as to the arrival of his "stuff," or sitting
+on a packing-case, his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back, and a
+cigarette between his lips.
+
+He had passed a delightful week selecting the wall paper and the pattern
+for the frieze, buying rugs, screens, Assyrian _bas-reliefs_,
+photogravures of Renaissance portraits, and the famous tiled stove with
+its flamboyant ornaments. Just after renting his home he had had a talk
+with the English gentleman of the fruit syndicate and had spoken about
+certain ornaments and bits of furniture, valuable chiefly to himself,
+which he wished to keep. The president of the fruit syndicate had been
+very gracious in the matter, and as soon as Vandover had taken his rooms
+he had removed two great cases of such articles from the California
+Street house and had stored them in the studio.
+
+After the workmen were gone away Vandover began the labour of
+arrangement, aided by one of the paperhangers he had retained for that
+purpose. It was a work of three days, but at last everything was in its
+place, and one evening toward the middle of the month Vandover stood in
+the middle of the sitting-room in his shirt-sleeves, holding the
+tweezers and a length of picture-wire in his hand, and looked around him
+in his new home.
+
+The walls were hung with dull blue paper of a very rough texture set off
+by a narrow picture moulding of ivory white. A dark red carpet covered
+with rugs and skins lay on the floor. Upon the left-hand wall, reaching
+to the floor, hung a huge rug of sombre colours against which were fixed
+a fencing trophy, a pair of antlers, a little water colour sketch of a
+Norwegian fjord, and Vandover's banjo; underneath it was a low but very
+broad divan covered with corduroy. To the right and left of this divan
+stood breast-high bookcases with olive green curtains, their tops
+serving as shelves for a multitude of small ornaments, casts of animals
+by Fremiet and Barye, Donatello's lovely _femme inconnue_, beer steins,
+a little bronze clock, a calendar, and a yellow satin slipper of
+Flossie's in which Vandover kept Turkish cigarettes. The writing-desk
+with the huge blue blotter in a silver frame, the paper-cutter, and the
+enormous brass inkstand filled the corner to the right of the divan,
+while drawn up to it was the huge leather chair, the chair in which the
+Old Gentleman had died. In the drawer of the desk Vandover kept his
+father's revolver; he never thought of loading it; of late he had only
+used it to drive tacks with, when he could not find the hammer. Opposite
+the divan, on the other side of the room, was the famous tiled stove
+with the flamboyant ornaments; back of this the mantel, and over the
+mantel a row of twelve grotesque heads in plaster, with a space between
+each for a pipe. To the left in the angle of the room stood the Japanese
+screen in black and gold, and close to this a tea-table of bamboo and a
+piano-lamp with a great shade of crinkly red paper that Turner Ravis had
+given to Vandover one Christmas. The bay window was filled by the
+window-seat, covered with corduroy like the divan and heaped with
+cushions, one of them of flaming yellow, the one spot of vivid colour
+amidst the dull browns and sombre blues of the room. A great sideboard
+with decanters and glasses and chafing-dishes faced the window from the
+end wall. The entrance to the studio opened to the left of it, which
+entrance Vandover had hung with curtains of dust-brown plush.
+
+The casts of the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ were against the wall upon
+either side of the window. There were three of them, two representing
+scenes from the life of the king, the third the wounded lioness which
+Vandover never wearied of admiring.
+
+Upon the wall over the mantel hung two very large photogravures, one of
+Rembrandt's "Night Watch," the other a portrait of Velasquez
+representing a young man with a hunting spear. Above one of the
+bookcases was an admirable reproduction of the "Mona Lisa"; above the
+other, a carbon print of a Vandyke, a Dutch lady in a silk gown and very
+high ruff.
+
+By the side of the "Mona Lisa," however, was a cheap brass rack stuffed
+with photographs: actresses in tights, French quadrille dancers, high
+kickers, and chorus girls.
+
+In the studio, Vandover had tacked great squares and stripes of
+turkey-red cloth against the walls to serve as a background for his
+sketches. Some dozen or more portfolios and stretchers were leaned
+against the baseboard, and a few ornaments and pieces of furniture, such
+things as Vandover set but little store by, were carelessly arranged
+about the room. The throne and huge easel were disposed so as to receive
+as much light as was possible.
+
+Beyond the studio was the bedroom, but here there was only the
+regulation furniture. Some scores of photographs of Vandover's friends
+were tacked upon the walls, or thrust between the wood and glass of the
+mirror.
+
+A new life now began for Vandover, a life of luxury and aimlessness
+which he found charming. He had no duties, no cares, no
+responsibilities. But there could be no doubt that he was in a manner
+changed; the old life of dissipation seemed to have lost its charm. For
+nearly twenty-six years nothing extraordinary had happened to break in
+upon the uneventful and ordinary course of his existence, and then,
+suddenly, three great catastrophes had befallen, like the springing of
+three successive mines beneath his feet: Ida's suicide, the wreck, and
+his father's death, all within a month. The whole fabric of his
+character had been shaken, jostled out of its old shape. His desire of
+vice was numbed, his evil habits all deranged; here, if ever, was the
+chance to begin anew, to commence all over again. It seemed an easy
+matter: he would merely have to remain inactive, impassive, and his
+character would of itself re-form upon the new conditions.
+
+But Vandover made another fatal mistake: the brute in him had only been
+stunned; the snake was only soothed. His better self was as sluggish as
+the brute, and his desire of art as numb as his desire of vice. It was
+not a continued state of inaction and idleness that could help him, but
+rather an active and energetic arousing and spurring up of those better
+qualities in him still dormant and inert. The fabric of his nature was
+shaken and broken up, it was true, but if he left it to itself there was
+danger that it would re-form upon the old lines.
+
+And this was precisely what Vandover did. As rapidly as ever his pliable
+character adapted itself to the new environment; he had nothing to do;
+there was lacking both the desire and necessity to keep him at his
+easel; he neglected his painting utterly. He never thought of attending
+the life-class at the art school; long since he had given up his
+downtown studio. He was content to be idle, listless, apathetic, letting
+the days bring whatever they chose, making no effort toward any fixed
+routine, allowing his habits to be formed by the exigencies of the hour.
+
+He rose late and took his breakfast in his room; after breakfast he sat
+in his window-seat, reading his paper, smoking his pipe, drinking his
+coffee, and watching the women on their way downtown to their morning's
+shopping or marketing. Then, as the fancy moved him, he read a novel,
+wrote a few letters, or passed an hour in the studio dabbling with some
+sketches for the "Last Enemy." Very often he put in the whole morning
+doing pen and inks of pretty, smartly dressed girls, after Gibson's
+manner, which he gave away afterward to his friends. In the afternoon he
+read or picked the banjo or, sitting down to the little piano he had
+rented, played over his three pieces, the two polkas and the air of the
+topical song. At three o'clock, especially of Wednesday and Saturday
+afternoons, he bestirred himself, dressed very carefully, and went
+downtown to promenade Kearney and Market streets, stopping occasionally
+at the Imperial, where he sometimes found Ellis and Geary and where he
+took cocktails in their company.
+
+He rarely went out in the evenings; his father's death had changed all
+that, at least for a while. He had not seen Turner Ravis nor Henrietta
+Vance for nearly two months.
+
+Vandover took his greatest pleasure while in his new quarters, delighted
+to be pottering about his sitting-room by the hour, setting it to
+rights, rearranging the smaller ornaments, adjusting the calendar,
+winding the clock and, above all, tending the famous tiled stove.
+
+In his idleness he grew to have small and petty ways. The entire day
+went in doing little things. He passed one whole afternoon delightfully,
+whittling out a new banjo bridge from the cover of a cigar-box, scraping
+it smooth afterward with a bit of glass. The winding of his clock was
+quite an occurrence in the course of the day, something to be looked
+forward to. The mixing of his tobacco was a positive event and
+undertaken with all gravity, while the task of keeping it moist and ripe
+in the blue china jar, with the sponge attachment, that always stood on
+the bamboo tea-table by the Japanese screen, was a wearing anxiety that
+was yet a pleasure.
+
+It became a fad with him to do without matches, using as a substitute
+"lights," tapers of twisted paper to be ignited at the famous stove. He
+found amusement for two days in twisting and rolling these "lights,"
+cutting frills in the larger ends with a pair of scissors, and stacking
+them afterward in a Chinese flower jar he had bought for the purpose and
+stood on top of the bookcases. The lights were admirably made and looked
+very pretty. When he had done he counted them. He had made two hundred
+exactly. What a coincidence!
+
+But the stove, the famous tiled stove with flamboyant ornaments, was the
+chiefest joy of Vandover's new life. He was delighted with it; it was so
+artistic, so curious, it kept the fire so well, it looked so cheerful
+and inviting; a stove that was the life and soul of the whole room, a
+stove to draw up to and talk to; no, never was there such a stove! There
+was hardly a minute of the day he was not fussing with it, raking it
+down, turning the damper off and on, opening and shutting the door,
+filling it with coal, putting the blower on and then taking it off
+again, sweeping away the ashes with a little brass-handled broom, or
+studying the pictures upon the tiles: the "Punishment of Caliban and His
+Associates," "Romeo and Juliet," the "Fall of Phaeton." He even
+pretended to the chambermaid that he alone understood how to manage the
+stove, forbidding her to touch it, assuring her that it had to be coaxed
+and humoured. Often late in the evening as he was going to bed he would
+find the fire in it drowsing; then he would hustle it sharply to arouse
+it, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying: "Wake up there,
+you!" And then when the fire was snapping he would sit before it in his
+bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously and scratching himself, as was
+his custom, for over an hour.
+
+But very often in the evening he would have the boys, Ellis, Geary, and
+young Haight, up to a little improvised supper. They would bring home
+_tamales_ with them, and Vandover would try to make Welsh rabbits, which
+did not always come out well and which they oftentimes drank instead of
+ate. Ellis, always very silent, would mix and drink cocktails
+continually. Vandover would pick his banjo, and together with young
+Haight would listen to Geary.
+
+"Ah, you bet," this one would say, "I'm going to make my pile in this
+town. I can do it. Beale sent me to court the other morning to get the
+judge's signature. He had a grouch on, and wanted to put me off. You
+ought to have heard me jolly him. I talked right up to him! Yes, sir;
+you bet! Didn't I have the gall? That's the way you want to do to get
+along--get right in and not be afraid. I got his signature, you bet. Ah,
+I'm right in it with Beale; he thinks I'm hot stuff."
+
+Now that there was nothing to worry him, and little to occupy his mind,
+Vandover gave himself over considerably to those animal pleasures which
+he enjoyed so much. He lay abed late in the morning, dozing between the
+warm sheets; he overfed himself at table, and drank too much wine; he
+ate between meals, having filled his sideboard with canned patés, potted
+birds, and devilled meats; while upon the bamboo table stood a tin box
+of chocolates out of which he ate whole handfuls at a time. He would
+take this box into the bathroom with him and eat while he lay in the hot
+water until he was overcome by the enervating warmth and by the steam
+and would then drop off to sleep.
+
+It was during these days that Vandover took up his banjo-playing
+seriously, if it could be said that he did anything seriously at this
+time. He took occasional lessons of a Mexican in a room above a
+wigmaker's store on Market Street, and learned to play by note. For a
+little time he really applied himself; after he had mastered the
+customary style of play he began to affect the more brilliant and fancy
+performances, playing two banjos at once, or putting nickels under the
+bridge and picking the strings with a calling-card to imitate a
+mandolin. He even made up some comical pieces that had a great success
+among the boys. One of these he called the "Pleasing Pan-Hellenic
+Production"; another was the imitation of the "Midway Plaisance Music,"
+and a third had for title "A Sailor Robbing a Ship," in which he managed
+to imitate the sounds of the lapping of the water, the creaking of the
+oarlocks, the tramp of the sailor's feet upon the deck, the pistol shot
+that destroyed him, and--by running up the frets on the bass-string--his
+dying groans, a finale that never failed to produce a tremendous effect.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Thirteen
+
+
+Just before Lent, and about three months after the death of Vandover's
+father, Henrietta Vance gave a reception and dance at her house. The
+affair was one of a series that the girls of the Cotillon had been
+giving to the men of the same club. Vandover had gone to all but the
+last, which had occurred while he was at Coronado. He was sure of
+meeting Geary, young Haight, Turner Ravis, and all the people of his set
+at these functions, and had always managed to have a very jolly time. He
+had been very quiet since his father's death and had hardly gone out at
+all; in fact, since Ida Wade's death and his trip down the coast he had
+seen none of his acquaintances except the boys. But he determined now
+that he would go to this dance and in so doing return once more to the
+world that he knew. By this time he had become pretty well accustomed to
+his father's death and saw no reason why he should not have a good time.
+
+At first he thought he would ask Turner to go with him, but in the end
+made up his mind to go alone, instead; one always had a better time when
+one went alone. Young Haight would have liked to have asked Turner, but
+did not because he supposed, of course, that Vandover would take her. In
+the end Turner had Delphine act as her escort.
+
+Vandover arrived at Henrietta Vance's house at about half-past eight. A
+couple of workmen were stretching the last guy ropes of the awning that
+reached over the sidewalk; every window of the house was lighted. The
+front door was opened for the guest before he could ring, and he passed
+up the stairs, catching a glimpse of the parlours through the portières
+of the doors. As yet they were empty of guests, the floors were covered
+with canvas, and the walls decorated with fern leaves. In a window
+recess one of the caterer's men was setting out two punch bowls and a
+multitude of glass cups; three or four musicians were gathered about the
+piano, tuning up, and one heard the subdued note of a cornet; the air
+was heavy with the smell of pinks and of La France roses.
+
+At the turn of the stairs the Vances' second girl in a white lawn cap
+directed him to the gentlemen's dressing-room, which was the room of
+Henrietta Vance's older brother. About a dozen men were here before him,
+some rolling up their overcoats into balls and stowing them with their
+canes in the corners of the room; others laughing and smoking together,
+and still others who were either brushing their hair before the mirrors
+or sitting on the bed in their stocking feet, breathing upon their
+patent leathers, warming them before putting them on. There were one or
+two who knew no one and who stood about unhappily, twisting the tissue
+paper from the buttons of their new gloves, and looking stupidly at the
+pictures on the walls of the room. Occasionally one of the gentlemen
+would step to the door and look out into the hall to see if the ladies
+whom they were escorting were yet come out of their dressing-room, ready
+to go down.
+
+On the centre table stood three boxes of cigars and a great many
+packages of cigarettes, while extra hairbrushes, whiskbrooms, and papers
+of pins had been placed about the bureau.
+
+As Vandover came in, he nodded pleasantly to such of the men as he knew,
+and, after hiding his hat and coat under the bed, shook himself into his
+clothes again and rearranged his dress tie.
+
+The house was filling up rapidly; one heard the deadened roll of wheels
+in the street outside, the banging of carriage doors, and an incessant
+rustle of stiff skirts ascending the stairs. From the ladies'
+dressing-room came an increasing soprano chatter, while downstairs the
+orchestra around the piano in the back parlour began to snarl and whine
+louder and louder. About the halls and stairs one caught brief glimpses
+of white and blue opera cloaks edged with swan's-down alternating with
+the gleam of a starched shirt bosom and the glint of a highly polished
+silk hat. Odours of sachet and violets came and went elusively or
+mingled with those of the roses and pinks. An air of gayety and
+excitement began to spread throughout the house.
+
+"Hello, old man!" "Hello, Van!" Charlie Geary, young Haight, and Ellis
+came in together. "Hello, boys!" answered Vandover, hairbrush in hand,
+turning about from the mirror, where he had been trying to make his hair
+lie very flat and smooth.
+
+"Look here," said Geary, showing him a dance-card already full, "I've
+got every dance promised. I looked out for that at the last one of these
+affairs; made all my arrangements and engagements then. Ah, you bet, I
+don't get left on any dance. That's the way you want to rustle. Ah," he
+went on, "had a bully sleep last night. I knew I was going to be out
+late to-night, so I went to bed at nine; didn't wake up till seven. Had
+a fine cutlet for breakfast."
+
+It was precisely at this moment that Geary got his first advancement in
+life. Mr. Beale, Jr., head clerk in the great firm of Beale & Story,
+came up to him as he was drawing off his overcoat:
+
+"How is Fischer?" asked Geary.
+
+Beale, Jr., pulled him over into a corner, talking in a low voice. "He's
+even worse than yesterday," he answered. "I think we shall have to give
+him a vacation, and that's what I want to speak to you about. If you
+can, Geary, I should like to have you take his place for a while, at
+least until we get through with this contract case. I don't know about
+Fischer. He's sick so often, I'm afraid we may have to let him go
+altogether."
+
+Suddenly the orchestra downstairs broke out into a clash of harmony and
+then swung off with the beat and cadence of a waltz. The dance was
+beginning; a great bustle and hurrying commenced about the
+dressing-rooms and at the head of the stairs; everybody went down. In
+the front parlour by the mantel Henrietta Vance and Turner stood on
+either side of Mrs. Vance, receiving, shaking hands, and laughing and
+talking with the different guests who came up singly, in couples, or in
+noisy groups.
+
+No one was dancing yet. The orchestra stopped with a flourish of the
+cornet, and at once a great crowding and pushing began amidst a vast hum
+of talk. The cards were being filled up, a swarm of men gathered about
+each of the more popular girls, passing her card from hand to hand while
+she smiled upon them all helplessly and good-naturedly. The dance-cards
+had run short and some of the men were obliged to use their visiting
+cards; with these in one hand and the stump of a pencil in the other,
+they ran about from group to group, pushing, elbowing, and calling over
+one another's heads like brokers in a stock exchange.
+
+Geary, however, walked about calmly, smiling contentedly, very
+good-humoured. From time to time he stopped such a one of the hurrying,
+excited men as he knew and showed him his card made out weeks before,
+saying, "Ah, how's that? _I_ am all fixed; made all my engagements at
+the last one of these affairs, even up to six extras. That's the way you
+want to rustle."
+
+Young Haight was very popular; everywhere the girls nodded and smiled at
+him, many even saving a place on their cards for him before he had
+asked.
+
+Ellis took advantage of the confusion to disappear. He went up into the
+deserted dressing-room, chose a cigar, unbuttoned his vest and sat down
+in one chair, putting his feet upon another. The hum of the dance came
+to him in a prolonged and soothing murmur and he enjoyed it in some
+strange way of his own, listening and smoking, stretched out at ease in
+the deserted dressing-room.
+
+Vandover went up to Turner Ravis smiling and holding out his hand. She
+seemed to be curiously embarrassed when she saw him, and did not smile
+back at him. He asked to see her card, but she drew her hand quickly
+from his, telling him that she was going home early and was not dancing
+at all, that in fact she had to "receive" instead of dance. It was
+evident to Vandover that he had done something to displease her, and he
+quickly concluded that it was because he had not asked her to go with
+him that evening.
+
+He turned from her to Henrietta Vance as though nothing unusual had
+happened, resolving to see her later in the evening and in the meanwhile
+invent some suitable excuse. Henrietta Vance did not even see his hand;
+she was a very jolly girl, ordinarily, and laughed all the time. Now she
+looked him squarely in the face without so much as a smile, at once
+angry and surprised; never had anything seemed so hateful and
+disagreeable. Vandover put his hand back into his pocket, trying to
+carry it all off with a laugh, saying in order to make her laugh with
+him as he used to do, "Hello! how do you do this evening? It's a
+pleasant morning this afternoon." "How do you do?" she answered
+nervously, refusing to laugh. Then she turned from him abruptly to talk
+to young Haight's little cousin Hetty.
+
+Mrs. Vance was neither embarrassed nor nervous as the girls had been.
+She stared calmly at Vandover and said with a peculiar smile, "I am
+surprised to see you here, Mr. Vandover."
+
+An hour later the dance was in full swing. Almost every number was a
+waltz or a two-step, the music being the topical songs and popular airs
+of the day set to dance music.
+
+About half-past ten o'clock, between two dances, the cornet sounded a
+trumpet call; the conversation ceased in a moment, and Henrietta Vance's
+brother, standing by the piano, called out, "The next dance will be the
+_first extra_," adding immediately, "a _waltz_." The dance recommenced;
+in the pauses of the music one heard the rhythmic movement of the feet
+shuffling regularly in one-two-three time.
+
+Some of the couples waltzed fast, whirling about the rooms, bearing
+around corners with a swirl and swing of silk skirts, the girls' faces
+flushed and perspiring, their eyes half-closed, their bare, white
+throats warm, moist, and alternately swelling and contracting with their
+quick breathing. On certain of these girls the dancing produced a
+peculiar effect. The continued motion, the whirl of the lights, the heat
+of the room, the heavy perfume of the flowers, the cadence of the music,
+even the physical fatigue, reacted in some strange way upon their
+oversensitive feminine nerves, the monotony of repeated sensation
+producing some sort of mildly hypnotic effect, a morbid hysterical
+pleasure the more exquisite because mixed with pain. These were the
+girls whom one heard declaring that they could dance all night, the
+girls who could dance until they dropped.
+
+Other of the couples danced with the greatest languor and gravity, their
+arms held out rigid and at right angles with their bodies.
+
+About the doors and hallways stood the unhappy gentlemen who knew no
+one, watching the others dance, feigning to be amused. Some of them,
+however, had ascended to the dressing-room and began to strike up an
+acquaintance with each other and with Ellis, smoking incessantly,
+discussing business, politics, and even religion.
+
+In the ladies' dressing-room two of the maids were holding a long
+conversation in low tones, their heads together; evidently it was
+concerning something dreadful. They continually exclaimed "Oh!" and
+"Ah!" suddenly sitting back from each other, shaking their heads, and
+biting their nether lips. On the top floor in the hall the servants in
+their best clothes leaned over the balustrade, nudging each other,
+talking in hoarse whispers or pointing with thick fingers swollen with
+dish-water. All up and down the stairs were the couples who were sitting
+out the dance, some of them even upon the circular sofa in the hall over
+the first landing.
+
+The music stopped, leaving a babel of talk in the air, the couples fell
+apart for an instant, but a great clapping of hands broke out and the
+tired musicians heroically recommenced.
+
+As soon as the short _encore_ was done there was a rush for the lemonade
+and punch bowls. The guests thronged around them joking each other.
+"Hello! are you here _again_?" "Oh, this is dreadful!" "This makes _six_
+times I've seen you here."
+
+A smell of coffee rose into the air from the basement. It was about
+half-past eleven; the next dance was the supper dance and the gentlemen
+hurried about anxiously searching the stairs, the parlours, and the
+conservatory for the girls who had promised them this dance weeks
+before. The musicians were playing a march, and the couples crowded down
+the narrow stairs in single file, the ladies drawing off their gloves.
+The tired musicians stretched themselves, rubbed their eyes, and began
+to talk aloud in the deserted parlours.
+
+Supper was served in the huge billiard-room in the basement and was
+eaten in a storm of gayety. The same parties and "sets" tried to get
+together at the same table; Henrietta Vance's party was particularly
+noisy: at her table there was an incessant clamour of screams and shouts
+of laughter. One ate oysters _à la poulette_, terrapin-salads, and
+croquettes; the wines were Sauternes and champagnes. With the nuts and
+dessert the caps came on, and in a few minutes were cracking and
+snapping all over the room.
+
+Six of the unfortunates who knew no one, but who had managed through a
+common affliction to become acquainted with each other, gathered at a
+separate table. Ellis was one of their number; he levied a twenty-five
+assessment, and tipped the waiter a dollar and a half. This one
+accordingly brought them extra bottles of champagne in which they found
+consolation for all the _ennui_ of the evening.
+
+After supper the dancing began again. The little stiffness and
+constraint of the earlier part of the evening was gone; by this time
+nearly everybody, except the unfortunates, knew everybody else. The good
+dinner and the champagne had put them all into an excellent humour, and
+they all commenced to be very jolly. They began a Virginia Reel still
+wearing the magician's caps and Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper.
+
+Young Haight was with Turner Ravis as much as possible during the
+evening, very happy and excited. Something had happened; it was
+impossible for him to say precisely what, for on the face of things
+Turner was the same as ever. Nothing in her speech or actions was
+different, but there was in her manner, in the very air that surrounded
+her, something elusive and subtle that set him all in a tremor. There
+was a change in his favour; he felt that she liked to have him with her
+and that she was trying to have him feel as much in some mysterious way
+of her own. He could see, however, that she was hardly conscious of
+doing this and that the change was more apparent to his eyes than it was
+to hers.
+
+"Must you really go home now?" he said, as Turner began to talk of
+leaving, soon after supper. They had been sitting out the dance under a
+palm at the angle of the stairs.
+
+"Yes," answered Turner; "Howard has the measles and I promised to be
+home early. Delphine was to come for me and she ought to be here now."
+
+"Delphine?" exclaimed young Haight. "Didn't you come with Van?"
+
+"No," answered Turner quietly. Only by her manner, and by something in
+the way she said the word, Haight knew at once that she had broken
+definitely with Vandover. The talk he had had with her at her house came
+back to him on the instant. He hesitated a moment and then asked:
+
+"There is something wrong? Has Van done anything--never mind, I don't
+mean that; it's no business of mine, I suppose. But I know you care for
+him. I'm sorry if--"
+
+But he was not sorry. Try as he would, his heart was leaping in him for
+joy. With Vandover out of the way, he knew that all would be different;
+Turner herself had said so.
+
+"Oh, everything is wrong," said Turner, with tears in her eyes. "I have
+been so disappointed in Van; oh, terribly disappointed."
+
+"I know; yes, I think I know what you mean," answered young Haight in a
+low voice.
+
+"Oh, please don't let's talk about it at all," cried Turner. But young
+Haight could not stop now.
+
+"Is Van really out of the question, then?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, not seeing what he was coming to. "Oh, yes;
+how could I--how _could_ I care for him after--after what has happened?"
+
+Very much embarrassed, young Haight went on: "I know it's unfair to take
+advantage of you now, but do you remember what you said once? That if
+Vandover were out of the question, that _'perhaps'_ you might--that it
+would be--that there might be a chance for me?"
+
+Turner was silent for a long time, and then she said: "Yes, I remember."
+
+"Well, how about that _now_?" asked young Haight with a nervous laugh.
+
+"Ah," answered Turner, "how do I know--so soon!"
+
+"But what do you _think_, Turner?" he persisted.
+
+"But I haven't thought at all," she returned.
+
+"Well, think now!" he went on. "Tell me--how about that?"
+
+"About _what_?"
+
+"Ah, you know what I mean," young Haight replied, feeling like a little
+boy, "about what you said at your house that Sunday night. Please tell
+me; you don't know how much it means to me."
+
+"Oh, there's Delphine at the door!" suddenly exclaimed Turner. "Now,
+really, I _must_ go down. She doesn't know where to go; she's so
+stupid!"
+
+"No," he answered, "not until you tell me!" He caught her hand, refusing
+to let it go.
+
+"Ah, how mean you are to corner me so!" she cried laughing and
+embarrassed. "Must I--well--I know I shouldn't. _O-oh_, I just _detest_
+you!" Young Haight turned her hand palm upward and kissed the little
+circle of crumpled flesh that showed where her glove buttoned. Then she
+tore her hand away and ran downstairs, while he followed more slowly.
+
+On her way back to the dressing-room she met him again, crossing the
+hall.
+
+"Don't you want to see me home?" she said.
+
+"Do I _want_ to?" shouted young Haight.
+
+"Oh, but I forgot," she cried. "You can't. I won't let you. You have
+your other dances engaged!"
+
+"Oh, damn the other dances!" he exclaimed, but instead of being
+offended, Turner only smiled.
+
+Toward one o'clock there was a general movement to go. Henrietta Vance
+and Mrs. Vance were inquired for, and the blue and white opera cloaks
+reappeared, descending the stairs, disturbing the couples who were
+seated there. The banging of carriage doors and the rumble of wheels
+recommenced in the street. The musicians played a little longer. As the
+party thinned out, there was greater dance room and a consequent greater
+pleasure in dancing. These last dances at the end of the evening were
+enjoyed more than all the others. But the party was breaking up fast:
+Turner had already gone home; Mrs. Vance and Henrietta were back at
+their places in front of the mantel, surrounded by a group of gentlemen
+in capecoats and ladies in opera wraps. Every one was crying "Good-bye"
+or "Good night!" and assuring Mrs. Vance and Henrietta of the
+enjoyableness of the occasion. Suddenly the musicians played "Home Sweet
+Home." Those still dancing uttered an exclamation of regret, but
+continued waltzing to this air the same as ever. Some began to dance
+again in their overcoats and opera wraps. Then at last the tired
+musicians stopped and reached for the cases of their instruments, and
+the remaining guests, seized with a sudden panic lest they should be the
+last to leave, fled to the dressing-rooms. These were in the greatest
+confusion, every one was in a hurry; in the gentlemen's dressing-room
+there was a great putting on of coats and mufflers and a searching for
+misplaced gloves, hats and canes. A base hum of talk rose in the air,
+bits and ends of conversation being tossed back and forth across the
+room. "_You_ haven't seen my hat, have you, Jimmy?" "Did you meet that
+girl I was telling you about?" "Hello, old man! have a good time
+to-night?" "Lost your hat? No, I haven't seen it." "Yes, about half-past
+ten!" "Well, I told him that myself!" "Ah, you bet it's the man that
+rustles that gets there." "Come round about four, then." "What's the
+matter with coming home in _our_ carriage?"
+
+At the doors of the dressing-rooms the ladies joined their escorts, and
+a great crowd formed in the halls, worming down the stairs and out upon
+the front steps. As the first groups reached the open air there was a
+great cry: "Why, it's pouring rain!" This was taken up and repeated and
+carried all the way back into the house. There were exclamations of
+dismay and annoyance: "Why, it's raining right _down_!" "What _shall_ we
+do!" Tempers were lost, brothers and sisters quarrelling with each other
+over the question of umbrellas. "Ah," said Geary, delighted, peeling the
+cover from his umbrella in the vestibule, "I _thought_ it was going to
+rain before I left and brought mine along with me. Ah, you bet I always
+look out for rain!" On the horse-block stood the caller, chanting up the
+carriages at the top of his voice. The street was full of coupés,
+carriages, and hacks, the raindrops showing in a golden blur as they
+fell across the streaming light of their lamps. The horses were smoking
+and restless, and the drivers in oilskins and rubber blankets were
+wrangling and shouting. At every instant there was a long roll of wheels
+interrupted by the banging of the doors. Near the caller stood a useless
+policeman, his shield pinned on the outside of his wet rubber coat, on
+which the carriage lamps were momentarily reflected in long vertical
+streaks.
+
+In a short time all the guests were gone except the one young lady whose
+maid and carriage had somehow not been sent. Henrietta Vance's brother
+took this one home in a hired hack. Mrs. Vance and Henrietta sat down to
+rest for a moment in the empty parlours. The canvas-covered floors were
+littered with leaves of smilax and La France roses, with bits of ribbon,
+ends of lace, and discarded Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper. The butler
+and the second girl were already turning down the gas in the other
+rooms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long before the party broke up Vandover had gone home, stunned and
+dazed, as yet hardly able to realize the meaning of what had happened.
+Some strange and dreadful change had taken place; things were different,
+people were different to him; not every one had been so outspoken as
+Turner, Henrietta Vance and her mother, but even amongst others who had
+talked to him politely and courteously enough, the change was no less
+apparent. It was in the air, a certain vague shrinking and turning of
+the shoulder, a general atmosphere of aversion and repulsion, an unseen
+frown, an unexpressed rebuff, intangible, illusive, but as unmistakable
+as his own existence. The world he had known knew him now no longer. It
+was ostracism at last.
+
+But why? Why? Sitting over his tiled flamboyant stove, brooding into the
+winking coals, Vandover asked himself the question in vain. He knew what
+latitude young men were allowed by society; he was sure nothing short of
+discovered crime could affect them. True enough he had at one time
+allowed himself to drift into considerable dissipation, but he was done
+with that now, he had reformed, he had turned over a new leaf. Even at
+his worst he had only lived the life of the other young men around him,
+the other young men who were received as much as ever, even though
+people, the girls themselves, practically knew of what they did, knew
+that they were often drunk, and that they frequented the society of
+abandoned women. What had he done to merit this casting off? What
+_could_ he have done? He even went so far as to wonder if there was
+anything wrong about his father or his sudden death.
+
+A little after one o'clock he heard Geary's whistle in the street
+outside. "Hello, old man!" he cried as Vandover opened the window. "I
+was just on my way home from the hoe-down; saw a light in your window
+and thought I'd call you up. Say, have you got anything wet up there?
+I'm extra dry."
+
+"Yes," said Vandover, "come on up!"
+
+"Did you hear what Beale said to me this evening?" said Geary, as he
+mixed himself a cocktail at the sideboard. "Oh, I tell you, I'm getting
+right in, down at that office. Beale wants me to take the place of one
+of the assistants in the firm, a fellow who's got the consumption,
+coughing up his lungs all the time. It's an important place, hundred a
+month; that's right. Yes, sir; you bet, I'm going to get in and rustle
+now and make myself so indispensable in that fellow's place that they
+can't get along without me. I'll crowd him right out; I know it may be
+selfish, but, damn it! that's what you have to do to get along. It's
+human nature. I'll tell you right here to-night," he exclaimed with
+sudden energy, clenching his fist and slowly rapping the knuckles on the
+table to emphasize each word, "that I'll be the head of that firm some
+day, or I'll know the reason why."
+
+When Geary finally became silent, the two looked into the fire for some
+time without speaking. At last Geary said:
+
+"You came home early to-night, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover, stirring uneasily. "Yes, I did."
+
+There was another silence. Then Geary said abruptly: "It's too bad. They
+are kind of stinky-pinky to you."
+
+"Yes," said Vandover with a grin. "_I_ don't know what's the matter.
+Everybody seems nasty!"
+
+"It's that business with Ida Wade, you know," replied Geary. "It got
+around somehow that she killed herself on your account. Everybody seems
+to be on to it. I heard it--oh, nearly a month ago."
+
+"Oh," said Vandover with a short laugh, "that's it, is it? I was
+wondering."
+
+"Yes, that's it," answered Geary. "You see they don't know for sure; no
+one _knows_, but all at once every one seemed to be talking about it,
+and they suspect an awful lot. I guess they are pretty near right,
+aren't they?" He did not wait for an answer, but laughed clumsily and
+went on: "You see, you always have to be awfully careful in those
+things, or you'll get into a box. Ah, you bet I don't let any girl _I_
+go with know _my_ last name or _my_ address if I can help it. I'm clever
+enough for that; you have to manage very carefully; ah, you bet! You
+ought to have looked out for that, old man!" He paused a moment and then
+went on: "Oh, I guess it will be all right, all right, in a little
+while. They will forget about it, you know. I wouldn't worry. I guess it
+will be all right."
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover absently, "I guess so--perhaps."
+
+A few days later Vandover was in the reading-room of the Mechanics
+Library, listlessly turning over the pages of a volume of _l'Art_. It
+was Saturday morning and the place was full of ladies who were downtown
+for their shopping and marketing, and who had come in either to change
+their books or to keep appointments with each other. On a sudden
+Vandover saw Turner just passing into the Biography alcove. He got up
+and followed her. She was standing at the end of the dim book-lined
+tunnel, searching the upper shelves, her head and throat bent back, and
+her gloved finger on her lip. The faint odour of the perfume she always
+affected came to him mingled with the fragrance of the jonquils at her
+belt and the smell of leather and of books that exhaled from the shelves
+on either side. He did not offer to take her hand, but came up slowly,
+speaking in a low voice.
+
+It was the last time that Vandover ever met Turner Ravis. They talked
+for upward of an hour, leaning against the opposite book-shelves,
+Vandover with his fists in his pockets, his head bent down, and the
+point of his shoe tracing the pattern in the linoleum carpet; Turner,
+her hands clasped in front of her, looking him squarely in the face,
+speaking calmly and frankly.
+
+"Now, I hope you see just how it is, Van," she said at length. "What has
+happened hasn't made me cease to care for you, because if I had really
+cared for you the way I thought I did, the way a girl ought to care for
+the man she wants to marry, I would have stood by you through
+everything, no matter what you did. I don't do so now, because I find I
+don't care for you as much as I thought I did. What has happened has
+only shown me that. I'm sorry, oh, so sorry to be disappointed in you,
+but it's because I only think of you as being once a very good friend of
+mine, not because I love you as you think I did. Once--a long time
+ago--when we first knew each other, then, perhaps--things were different
+then. But somehow we seem to have grown away from that. Since then we
+have both been mistaken; you thought I cared for you in that way, and I
+thought so, too, and I thought you cared for me; but it was only that we
+were keeping up appearances, pretending to ourselves just for the sake
+of old times. We don't love each other now; you know it. But I have
+never intentionally deceived you or tried to lead you on; when I told
+you I cared for you I really thought I did. I meant to be sincere; I
+always thought so until this happened, and then when I saw how easily I
+could let you go, it only proved to me that I did not care for you as I
+thought I did. It was wrong of me, I know, and I should have known my
+own mind before, but I didn't, I didn't. You talk about Dolly Haight;
+but it is not Dolly Haight at all who has changed my affection for you.
+I will be just as frank as I can with you, Van. I may learn really to
+love Dolly Haight; I don't know, I think perhaps I will, but it isn't
+that I care for him _just_ because I don't care for you. Can't you see,
+it's just as if I had never met you. You know it's very hard for me to
+say this to you, Van, and I suppose it's all mixed up, but I can't help
+it. You don't know how sorry I am, because we have been such old
+friends--because I really did care for you as a friend; it's a proof of
+it, that there is no other man in the world I could talk to like this. I
+think, too, Van, that was the only way you cared for me, just as a good
+friend--except perhaps at first, when we first knew each other. You know
+yourself that is so. We really haven't loved each other at all for a
+long time, and now we have found it out before it was too late. And even
+if everything were different, Van, don't you know how it is with girls?
+They really love the man who loves them the most. Half the time they're
+just in love with being loved. That's the way most girls love nowadays,
+and you know yourself, Van, that Dolly Haight really loves me more than
+you do." She gathered up her books and went on after a pause,
+straightening up, ready to go: "If I should let myself think of what you
+have done, I feel--as if--as if--why, dreadful--I--that I should hate
+you, loathe you; but I try not to do that. I have been thinking it all
+over since the other night. I shall always try to think of you at your
+best; I have tried to forget everything else, and in forgetting it I
+forgive you. I can honestly say that," she said, holding out her hand,
+"I forgive you, and you must forgive me because once, by deceiving
+myself, I deceived you, and made you think that I cared for you in that
+way when I didn't." As their hands fell apart Turner faced him and
+added, with tears in her eyes: "You know this must be good-bye for good.
+You don't know how it hurts me to tell you. I know it looks as if I were
+deserting you when you were alone in the world and had most need of some
+one to influence you for the good. But, Van, won't you be better now?
+Won't you break from it all and be your own self again? I have faith in
+you. I believe it's in you to become a great man and a good man. It
+isn't too late to begin all over again. Just be your better self; live
+up to the best that's in you; if not for your own sake, then for the
+sake of that other girl that's coming into your life some time; that
+other girl who is good and sweet and pure, whom you will really, really
+love and who will really, really love you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All the rest of that month Vandover was wretched. So great was his shame
+and humiliation over this fresh disaster that he hardly dared to show
+himself out of doors. His grief was genuine and it was profound. Yet he
+took his punishment in the right spirit. He did not blame any one but
+himself; it was only a just retribution for the thing he had done. Only
+what made it hard to bear was the fact that the chastisement had fallen
+upon him long after he had repented of the crime, long after he had
+resolved to lead a new and upright life; but with shut teeth he
+determined still to carry out that resolve; he would devote all his
+future life to living down the past. It might be hard; it might be one
+long struggle through many, many years, but he would do it. Ah, yes, he
+would show them; they had cast him off, but he would go away to Paris
+now as he had always intended. As invariably happened when he was deeply
+moved, he turned to his art, blindly and instinctively. He would go to
+Paris now and study his paintings, five, ten years, and come back at
+last a great artist, when these same people who had cast him off would
+be proud to receive him. Turner was right in saying that he had in him
+the making of a great man. He _knew_ that she was right; knew that if he
+only gave the better part of him, the other Vandover, the chance, that
+he would become a great artist. Well, he would do so, and then when he
+came back again, when all the world was at his feet, and there were long
+articles in the paper announcing his arrival, these people would throng
+around him; he would show them what a great and noble nature he really
+had; he would forgive them; he would ignore what they had done. He even
+dramatized a little scene between himself and Turner, then Mrs. Haight.
+They would both be pretty old then and he would take her children on his
+lap and look at her over their heads--he could almost see those heads,
+white, silky and very soft--and he would nod at her thoughtfully, and
+say, "Well, I have taken your advice, do you remember?" and she was to
+answer, "Yes, I remember." There were actually tears in his eyes as he
+saw the scene.
+
+At the very first he thought that he could not live without Turner; that
+he loved her too much to be able to give her up. But in a little while
+he saw that this was not so. She was right, too, in saying that he had
+long since outlived his first sincere affection for her. He had felt for
+a long time that he did not love her well enough to marry her; that he
+did not love her as young Haight did, and he acknowledged to himself
+that this affair at least had ended rightly. The two loved each other,
+he could see that; at last he even told himself that he would be glad to
+see Turner married to Dolly Haight, who was his best friend. But for all
+that, it came very hard at first to give up Turner altogether; never to
+see her or speak to her again.
+
+As the first impressions of the whole affair grew dull and blunt by the
+lapse of time, this humble penitential mood of Vandover's passed away
+and was succeeded by a feeling of gloomy revolt, a sullen rage at the
+world that had cast him off _only_ because he had been found out. He
+thought it a matter of self-respect to resent the insult they had put
+upon him. But little by little he ceased to regret his exile; the new
+life was not so bad as he had at first anticipated, and his relations
+with the men whom he knew best, Ellis, Geary, and young Haight, were in
+nowise changed. He was no longer invited anywhere, and the girls he had
+known never saw him when he passed them on the street. It was
+humiliating enough at first, but he got used to it after a while, and by
+dint of thrusting the disagreeable subject from his thoughts, by
+refusing to let the disgrace sink deep in his mind, by forgetting the
+whole business as much as he could, he arrived after a time to be
+passably contented. His pliable character had again rearranged itself to
+suit the new environment.
+
+Along with this, however, came a sense of freedom. Now he no longer had
+anything to fear from society; it had shot its bolt, it had done its
+worst, there was no longer anything to restrain him, now he could do
+anything.
+
+He was in precisely this state of mind when he received the cards for
+the opening of the roadhouse, the "resort" out on the Almshouse drive,
+about which Toby, the waiter at the Imperial, had spoken to him.
+
+Vandover attended it. It was a debauch of forty-eight hours, the longest
+and the worst he had ever indulged in. For a long time the brute had
+been numb and dormant; now at last when he woke he was raging, more
+insatiable, more irresistible than ever.
+
+The affair at the roadhouse was but the beginning. All at once Vandover
+rushed into a career of dissipation, consumed with the desire of vice,
+the perverse, blind, and reckless desire of the male. Drunkenness,
+sensuality, gambling, debauchery, he knew them all. He rubbed elbows
+with street walkers, with bookmakers, with saloonkeepers, with the
+exploiters of lost women. The bartenders of the city called him by his
+first name, the policemen, the night detail, were familiar with his
+face, the drivers of the nighthawks recognized his figure by the street
+lamps, paling in the light of many an early dawn. At one time and
+another he was associated with all the different types of people in the
+low "sporting set," acquaintances of an evening, whose names grew faint
+to his recollection amidst the jingle of glasses and the popping of
+corks, whose faces faded from his memory in the haze of tobacco smoke
+and the fumes of whisky; young men of the city, rich without apparent
+means of livelihood, women and girls "recently from the East" with rooms
+over the fast restaurants; owners of trotting horses, actresses without
+engagements, billiard-markers, pool-sellers and the sons of the
+proprietors of halfway houses and "resorts." With all these Vandover
+kept the pace at the Imperial, at the race-track, at the gambling tables
+in the saloons and bars along Kearney and Market streets, and in the
+disreputable houses amid the strong odours of musk and the rustle of
+heavy silk dresses. It lasted for a year; by the end of that time he had
+about forgotten his determination to go to Paris and had grown out of
+touch with his three old friends, Ellis, Geary, and Haight. He seldom
+saw them now; occasionally he met them in one of the little rooms of the
+Imperial over their beer and Welsh rabbits, but now he always went on to
+the larger rooms where one had champagne and terrapin. He felt that he
+no longer was one of them.
+
+That year the opera came to San Francisco, and Vandover hired a
+messenger boy to stand in line all night at the door of the music store
+where the tickets were to be sold. Vandover could still love music. In
+the wreckage of all that was good that had been going on in him his love
+for all art was yet intact. It was the strongest side of his nature and
+it would be the last to go.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Fourteen
+
+
+The house was crowded to the doors; there was no longer any standing
+room and many were even sitting on the steps of the aisles. In the boxes
+the gentlemen were standing up behind the chairs of large plain ladies
+in showy toilets and diamonds. The atmosphere was heavy with the smell
+of gas, of plush upholstery, of wilting bouquets and of sachet. A fine
+vapour as of the visible exhalation of many breaths pervaded the house,
+blurring the lowered lights and dimming the splendour of the great glass
+chandelier.
+
+It was warm to suffocation, a dry, irritating warmth that perspiration
+did not relieve, while the air itself was stale and close as though
+fouled by being breathed over and over again. In the topmost galleries,
+banked with tiers of watching faces, the heat must have been unbearable.
+
+The only movement perceptible throughout the audience was the little
+swaying of gay-coloured fans like the balancing of butterflies about to
+light. Occasionally there would be a vast rustling like the sound of
+wind in a forest, as the holders of librettos turned the leaves
+simultaneously.
+
+The orchestra thundered; the French horns snarling, the first violins
+wailing in unison, while all the bows went up and down together like
+parts of a well-regulated machine; the kettle-drums rolled sonorously at
+exact intervals, and now and then one heard the tinkling of the harp
+like the pattering of raindrops between peals of thunder. The leader
+swayed from side to side in his place, beating time with his baton, his
+hand, and his head.
+
+On the stage itself the act was drawing to a close. There had just been
+a duel. The baritone lay stretched upon the floor at left centre, his
+sword fallen at some paces from him. On the left of the scene, front,
+stood the tenor who had killed him, singing in his highest register,
+very red in the face, continually striking his hand upon his breast and
+pointing with his sword toward his fallen enemy. Next him on the extreme
+left was his friend the basso, in high leather boots, growling from time
+to time during a sustained chord, "_Mon honneur et ma foi._" In the
+centre of the stage, the soprano, the star, the prima donna chanted a
+fervid but ineffectual appeal to the tenor who cried, "_Jamais,
+jamais!_" striking his breast and pointing with his sword. The prima
+donna cried, "_Ah, mon Dieu, ayez pitié de moi._" Her confidante, the
+mezzo-soprano, came to her support, repeating her words with an
+impersonal meaning, "_Ayez pitié d'elle._" "_Mon honneur et ma foi_,"
+growled the basso. The contralto, dressed as a man, turned toward the
+audience on the extreme right, bringing out her notes with a wrench and
+a twist of her body and neck, and intoning, "_Ah, malheureuse! Mon Dieu,
+ayez pitié d'elle._"
+
+The leader of the chorus, costumed as the captain of the watch, leaned
+over the dead baritone and sang, "_Il est mort, il est mort. Mon Dieu,
+ayez pitié de lui._" The soldiers of the watch were huddled together
+immediately back of him. They wore tin helmets, much too large, and
+green peplums, and repeated his words continually.
+
+The chorus itself was made up of citizens of the town; it was in a
+semicircle at the back of the stage--the men on one side, the women on
+the other. They made all their gestures together and chanted without
+ceasing: "_O horreur, O mystére! Il est mort. Mon Dieu, ayez pitié de
+nous!_"
+
+"_De Grace!_" cried the prima donna.
+
+"_Jamais, jamais!_" echoed the tenor, striking his breast and pointing
+with his sword.
+
+"_O mystére!_" chanted the chorus, while the basso struck his hand upon
+his sword hilt, growling "_Mon honneur et ma foi._"
+
+The orchestra redoubled. The finale began; all the pieces of the
+orchestra, all the voices on the stage, commenced over again very loud.
+They all took a step forward, and the rhythm became more rapid, till it
+reached a climax where the prima donna's voice jumped to a C in alt,
+holding it long enough for the basso to thunder, "_Mon honneur et ma
+foi_" twice. Then they all struck the attitudes for the closing tableau
+and in one last burst of music sang all together, "_Mon Dieu, ayez pitié
+de moi_" and "_de lui_" and "_d'elle_" and "_de nous_." Then the
+orchestra closed with a long roll of the kettle-drums, and the prima
+donna fainted into the arms of her confidante. The curtain fell.
+
+There was a roar of applause. The gallery whistled and stamped. Every
+one relaxed his or her position, drawing a long breath, looking about.
+There was a general stir; the lights in the great glass chandelier
+clicked and blazed up, and a murmur of conversation arose. The
+footlights were lowered and the orchestra left their places and
+disappeared underneath the stage, leaving the audience with the
+conviction that they had gone out after beer. All over the house one
+heard the shrill voices of boys crying out, "Op'ra books--books for the
+op'ra--words and music for the op'ra."
+
+Throughout the boxes a great coming and going took place and an
+interchange of visits. The gentlemen out in the foyer stood about
+conversing in groups or walked up and down smoking cigarettes, often
+pausing in front of the big floral piece that was to be given to the
+prima donna at the end of the great scene in the fourth act.
+
+There was a little titter of an electric bell. The curtain was about to
+go up, and a great rush for seats began. The orchestra were coming back
+and tuning up. They sent up a prolonged medley of sounds, little minor
+chirps and cries from the violins, liquid runs and mellow gurgles from
+the oboes, flutes, and wood-wind instruments, and an occasional
+deep-toned purring from the bass viols. A bell rang faintly from behind
+the wings, the house lights sank, and the footlights blazed up. The
+leader tapped with his baton; a great silence fell upon the house, while
+here and there one heard an energetic "Ssh! ssh!" The fourth act was
+about to begin.
+
+When the curtain rose on the fourth act one saw the prima donna standing
+in a very dejected pose in the midst of a vast apartment that might have
+been a bedchamber, a council hall, or a hall of audience. She was alone.
+She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms
+were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to
+her girdle. She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and
+the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for
+the famous quartet in the "great scene."
+
+But for all this, the music had little by little taken possession of
+Vandover, and little by little he had forgotten his surroundings, the
+stifling air of the house, the blinding glitter of the stage and the
+discomfort of his limbs cramped into the narrow orchestra chair. All
+music was music to him; he loved it with an unreasoned, uncritical
+love, enjoying even the barrel organs and hand pianos of the streets.
+For the present the slow beat and cadence of the melodies of the opera
+had cradled all his senses, carrying him away into a kind of exalted
+dream. The quartet began; for him it was wonderfully sweet, the
+long-sustained chords breathing over the subdued orchestral
+accompaniment, like some sweet south wind passing in long sighs over the
+pulse of a great ocean. It seemed to him infinitely beautiful,
+infinitely sad, subdued minor plaints recurring persistently again and
+again like sighs of parting, but could not be restrained, like voices of
+regret for the things that were never to be again. Or it was a pathos, a
+joy in all things good, a vast tenderness, so sweet, so divinely pure
+that it could not be framed in words, so great and so deep that it found
+its only expression in tears. There came over him a vague sense of those
+things which are too beautiful to be comprehended, of a nobility, a
+self-oblivion, an immortal eternal love and kindness, all goodness, all
+benignity, all pity for sin, all sorrow for grief, all joy for the true,
+the right, and the pure.
+
+To be better, to be true and right and pure, these were the only things
+that were worth while, these were the things that he seemed to feel in
+the music. It was as if for the moment he had become a little child
+again, not ashamed to be innocent, ignorant of vice, still believing in
+all his illusions, still near to the great white gates of life.
+
+The appeal had been made directly to what was best and strongest in
+Vandover, and the answer was quick and over-powering. All the good that
+still survived in him leaped to life again in an instant, clamouring for
+recognition, pleading for existence. The other Vandover, the better
+Vandover, wrestled with the brute in him once more, never before so
+strong, never so persistent. He had not yet destroyed all that was good
+in him; now it had turned in one more revolt, crying out against him,
+protesting for the last time against its own perversion and destruction.
+Vandover felt that he was at the great crisis of his life.
+
+After all was over he walked home through the silent streets, proceeding
+slowly, his hands in his pockets, his head bent down, his mind very
+busy. Once in his rooms he threw off his things and, having stirred up
+the drowsing fire in the tiled stove, sat down before it in his
+shirt-sleeves, the bosom of his full dress shirt bulging from his vest
+and faintly creaking as from time to time he drew a long breath. He had
+been lured into a mood where he was himself at his very best, where the
+other Vandover, the better Vandover, drew apart with eyes turned
+askance, looking inward and downward into the depths of his own
+character, shuddering, terrified. Far down there in the darkest, lowest
+places he had seen the brute, squat, deformed, hideous; he had seen it
+crawling to and fro dimly, through a dark shadow he had heard it
+growling, chafing at the least restraint, restless to be free. For now
+at last it was huge, strong, insatiable, swollen and distorted out of
+all size, grown to be a monster, glutted yet still ravenous, some
+fearful bestial satyr, grovelling, perverse, horrible beyond words.
+
+And with the eyes of this better self he saw again, little by little,
+the course of his whole life, and witnessed again the eternal struggle
+between good and evil that had been going on within him since his very
+earliest years. He was sure that at the first the good had been the
+strongest. Little by little the brute had grown, and he,
+pleasure-loving, adapting himself to every change of environment,
+luxurious, self-indulgent, shrinking with the shrinking of a sensuous
+artist-nature from all that was irksome and disagreeable, had shut his
+ears to the voices that shouted warnings of the danger, and had allowed
+the brute to thrive and to grow, its abominable famine gorged from the
+store of that in him which he felt to be the purest, the cleanest, and
+the best, its bulk fattened upon the rot and the decay of all that was
+good, growing larger day by day, noisome, swollen, poddy, a filthy
+inordinate ghoul, gorged and bloated by feeding on the good things that
+were dead.
+
+Besides this he saw how one by one he had wrenched himself free from all
+those influences that had tended to foster and to cultivate all the
+better part of him.
+
+First of all, long ago it seemed now, he had allowed to be destroyed
+that first instinctive purity, that fragile, delicate innocence which
+dies young in almost every human being, and that one sees evaporating
+under the earliest taint of vice with a smile partly of contempt,
+partly of pity, partly of genuine regret.
+
+Next it had been his father. The Old Gentleman had exerted a great
+influence over Vandover; he had never forgotten that scene the morning
+after he had told him of his measure of responsibility in Ida Wade's
+suicide, the recovery from the first shock of dazed bewilderment and
+then the forgiveness, the solicitude and the encouragement to begin over
+again, to live it down and to do that which was right and good and true.
+Not only had he stopped his ears to this voice, but also, something told
+him, he had done much to silence it forever. Despite the Old Gentleman's
+apparent fortitude the blow must have carried home. What must he not
+have suffered during those long weeks while Vandover was away, what
+lonely broodings in the empty house; and then the news of the wreck, the
+days of suspense!
+
+It all must have told; the Old Gentleman was not strong; Vandover could
+not but feel that he had hastened his death, and that in so doing he had
+destroyed another influence which would have cultivated and fostered his
+better self, would have made it strong against the attacks of the brute.
+
+The other person who had helped to bring out all that was best in
+Vandover had been Turner Ravis. There was no denying that when he had
+first known her he had loved her sincerely. Things were vastly different
+with him when Turner had been his companion; things that were unworthy,
+that were low, that were impure and vicious, did not seem worth while
+then; not only did they have no attraction for him, but he even shunned
+and avoided them. He knew he was a better man for loving her; invariably
+she made him wish to be better. But little by little as he frequented
+the society of such girls as Ida Wade, Grace Irving, and Flossie, his
+affection for Turner faded. As the habits of passionate and unhealthy
+excitement grew upon him he lost first the taste and then the very
+capacity for a calm, pure feeling. His affection for her he frittered
+away with fast girls and abandoned women, strangled it in the foul
+musk-laden air of disreputable houses, dragged and defiled it in the
+wine-lees of the Imperial. In the end he had quite destroyed it,
+wilfully, wantonly killed it. As Turner herself had said, she could only
+be in love with being loved; her affection for him had dwindled as
+well; at last they had come to be indifferent to each other, she no
+longer inspired him to be better, and thus he had shaken off this good
+influence as well.
+
+Public opinion had been a great check upon him, the fear of scandal, the
+desire to stand well with the world he knew. Trivial though he felt it
+to be, the dread of what people would say had to a great extent held
+Vandover back. He had a position to maintain, a reputation to keep up in
+the parlours and at the dinner tables where he was received. It could
+not be denied that society had influenced Vandover for good. But this,
+too, like all the others, he had cast from him. Now he was ostracized,
+society cared no longer what he did, his position was gone, his
+reputation was destroyed. There was no one now to stand in his way.
+
+Vandover could not fall back on any religious influence. Religion had
+never affected him very deeply. It was true that he had been baptized,
+confirmed, and had gone to church with considerable regularity. If he
+had been asked if he was a Christian and believed in God he would have
+answered "Certainly, certainly." Until the time of his father's death he
+had even said his prayers every night, the last thing before turning out
+the gas, sitting upon the edge of his bed in his night-gown, his head in
+both his hands. He added to the Lord's Prayer certain other petitions as
+to those who were in trouble, sorrow, poverty, or any other privations;
+he asked for blessings upon his father and upon himself, praying for the
+former's health and prosperity, and for himself, that he might become a
+great artist, that the "Last Enemy" might be admitted to the Salon when
+he had painted it, and that it might make him famous. But, as a rule,
+Vandover thought very little about religious matters and when he did,
+told himself that he was too intelligent to believe in a literal heaven,
+a literal hell, and a personal God personally interfering in human
+affairs like any Jove or Odin. But the moment he rejected a concrete
+religion Vandover was almost helpless. He was not mystic enough to find
+any meaning in signs or symbols, nor philosophic enough to grasp vague
+and immense abstractions. Infinities, Presences, Forces, could not help
+him withstand temptation, could not strengthen him against the brute. He
+felt that somewhere, some time, there was punishment for evildoing,
+but, as happened in the case of Ida Wade's death, to dwell on such
+thoughts disturbed and terrified him. He did not dare to look long in
+that direction. Conscience, remorse, repentance, all these had been keen
+enough at first, but he had so persistently kicked against the pricks
+that little by little he had ceased to feel them at all.
+
+Then an immense and overwhelming terror seized upon him. Was there
+nothing, then--nothing left which he could lay hold of to save him? He
+knew that he could not deliver himself by his own exertions. Religion
+could not help him, he had killed his father, estranged the girl he
+might have loved, outraged the world, and at a single breath blighted
+the fine innate purity of his early years. It was as if he had entered
+into his life in the world as into some vast labyrinth, wandering on
+aimlessly, flinging from him one by one the threads, the clues, that
+might have led him again to a safe exit, going down deeper and deeper
+until, when near the centre, he had suddenly felt the presence of the
+brute, had heard its loathsome muttering growl, had at last seen it far
+down at the end of a passage, dimly and in a dark shadow; terrified, he
+had started back, looking wildly about for any avenue of escape,
+searching with frantic haste and eagerness for any one of those clues he
+had so carelessly cast from him, realizing that without such guidance he
+would inevitably tend down again to that fatal central place where the
+brute had its lair.
+
+There was nothing, nothing. He clearly saw the fate toward which he was
+hurrying; it was not too late to save himself if he only could find
+help, but he could find _no_ help. His terror increased almost to
+hysteria. It was one of those dreadful moments that men sometimes
+undergo that must be met alone, and that when past, remain in the memory
+for all time; a glimpse far down into the springs and wheels of life; a
+glimpse that does not come often lest the reason brought to the edge of
+the fearful gulf should grow dizzy at the sight, and reeling, topple
+headlong.
+
+But suddenly Vandover rose to his feet, the tears came to his eyes, and
+with a long breath he exclaimed: "Thank God for it!" He grew calmer in a
+moment, the crisis had passed, he had found a clue beneath his groping
+fingers.
+
+He had remembered his art, turning to it instinctively as he always did
+when greatly moved. This was the one good thing that yet survived. It
+was the strongest side of him; it would be the last to go; he felt it
+there yet. It was the one thing that could save him.
+
+The thought had come to him so suddenly and with such marvellous
+clearness that in his present exalted state of mind it filled him with a
+vague sense of awe, it seemed like a manifestation, a writing on the
+wall. Might it not be some sort of miracle? He had heard of men
+reforming their lives, transformed almost in an instant, and had scoffed
+at the idea. But might it not be true, after all? What was this
+wonderful thing that had happened to him? Was this less strange than a
+miracle? Less divine?
+
+The following day Vandover rented a studio. It was the lofty room with
+hardwood floors and the immense north light in that suite which he had
+rejected when looking for rooms on the former occasion. He gave notice
+to the clerk in the apartment house where his quarters were situated
+that he intended to vacate after the first of the month. Charming as he
+had found these rooms, he gave up, with scarcely a regret, the idea of
+living in them any longer. In a month it would be summer and he would be
+on his way to Paris.
+
+But so great was his desire for work now, so eager was he to start the
+"Last Enemy," so strong was the new energy that shook him, that Vandover
+could not wait until summer to begin work again. He grudged everything
+now that kept him away from his easel.
+
+He disappeared from the sight of his ordinary companions; he did not
+even seek the society of Geary or of young Haight. All the sketches he
+had made for the "Last Enemy," together with his easel and his disused
+palette, his colour-box, tubes, brushes and all the other materials and
+tools for his work, he caused to be transferred to the new studio.
+Besides this he had the stretcher made, best twill canvas on a frame
+four feet long, two and a half feet high. This was for the large sketch
+of the picture. But the finished work he calculated would demand an
+eight by five stretcher.
+
+He did not think of decorating the room, of putting any ornaments about
+the wall. He was too serious, too much in earnest now to think of that.
+The studio was not to be his lounging place, but his workshop. His art
+was work with him now, hard, serious work. It was above all _work_ that
+he needed to set him right again, regular work, steady, earnest work,
+not the dilettante fancy of an amateur content with making pretty
+things.
+
+Never in his life had Vandover been so happy. He came and went
+continually between his rooms, his studio, and his art dealers, tramping
+grandly about the city, whistling to himself, strong, elated, filled
+with energy, vigour, ambition. At times his mind was full of
+thankfulness at this deliverance at the eleventh hour; at times it was
+busy with the details of the picture, its composition, its colour
+scheme. The main effects he wanted to produce were isolation and intense
+heat, the shadows on the sand would be blue, the horizon line high on
+the canvas, the sky would be light in tone, almost white near the earth.
+
+The morning when he first began to work was charming. His new studio was
+in the top floor of a five-story building, and on arriving there,
+breathless from his long climb up the stairs, Vandover threw open the
+window and gazed out and down upon the city spread out below him,
+enjoying the view a moment before settling to his work.
+
+A little later the trades would be blowing strong and brisk from the
+ocean, driving steadily through the Golden Gate, filling the city with a
+taint of salt; but at present the air was calm, touched with a certain
+nimbleness, a sparkling effervescence, invigourating, exhilarating.
+
+It was early in the forenoon, not yet past nine o'clock, and the mist
+that gathers over the city just before dawn was steaming off under the
+sun, very thin and delicate, turning all distant objects a flat tone of
+pale blue. Over the roofs of the houses he could catch a glimpse of the
+distant mountains, faint purple masses against the pale edge of the sky,
+rimming the horizon round with a fillet of delicate colour. But any
+larger view was barred by a huge frame house with a slated mansard roof,
+directly opposite him across the street, a residence house, one of the
+few in the neighbourhood. It had been newly painted white and showed
+brave and gay against the dark blue of the sky and the ruddy greens of
+the great garden in which it stood. Vandover from his window could from
+time to time catch the smell of eucalyptus trees coming to him in long
+aromatic breaths mingled with the odour of wet grass and fresh paint.
+Somewhere he heard a hummingbird singing, a tiny tweedling thread of
+song, while farther off two roosters were crowing back and forth at each
+other with strained and raucous trumpet calls.
+
+Vandover turned back to his work. Under the huge north light was the
+easel, and clamped upon it the stretcher, blank, and untouched. The very
+sight of the heavy cream-white twill was an inspiration. Already
+Vandover saw a great picture upon it; a great wave of emotion suddenly
+welled up within him and he cried with enthusiasm:
+
+"By God! it is in moods like this that _chef d'oeuvres_ are made."
+
+Around the baseboard of the room were a row of _esquisses_ for the
+picture, on small landscape-stretchers, mere blotches of colour laid on
+with the palette knife and large brushes, almost unintelligible to any
+one but Vandover. He selected two or three of these and fastened them to
+the easel above the big stretcher where he could have them continually
+in his eye. He lit his pipe, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and standing
+before the easel, began to sharpen a stick of charcoal with an old
+razor, drawing the blade toward him so as to keep the point of the stick
+from breaking. Then at last with a deep breath of satisfaction he began
+blocking in the first large construction lines of his picture.
+
+It was one o'clock before he knew it. He went downtown and had a hasty
+lunch, jealous of every moment that was not spent on his picture. The
+sight of it as he re-entered the room sent a thrill all over him; he was
+succeeding better than he could have expected, doing better than he
+thought he would. He felt sure that now he should do good work; every
+stage of the picture's progress was an inspiration for the next one. At
+this time the figures had only been "placed," broadly sketched in large
+lines, "blocked in" as he called it. The next step was the second
+drawing, much more finished.
+
+He rapped the stretcher sharply with his knuckles; it responded
+sonorously like a drumhead, the vibration shaking the charcoal from the
+tracings, filling the air with a fine dust. The outlines grew faint,
+just perceptible enough to guide him in the second more detailed
+drawing.
+
+He brought his stick of charcoal to a very fine edge and set to work
+carefully. In a moment he stopped and, with his chamois cloth, dusted
+out what he had drawn. He had made a false start, he began but could not
+recall how the lines should run, his fingers were willing enough; in his
+imagination he saw just how the outlines should be, but somehow he could
+not make his hand interpret what was in his head. Some third medium
+through which the one used to act upon the other was sluggish, dull;
+worse than that, it seemed to be absent. _"Well,"_ he muttered, "can't I
+make this come out right?" Then he tried more carefully. His imagination
+saw the picture clearer, his hand moved with more assurance, but the two
+seemed to act independently of each other. The forms he made on the
+canvas were no adequate reflection of those in his brain; some third
+delicate and subtle faculty that coordinated the other two and that
+called forth a sure and instant response to the dictates of his mind,
+was lacking. The lines on his canvas were those of a child just learning
+to draw; one saw for what they were intended, but they were crude, they
+had no life, no meaning. The very thing that would have made them
+intelligible, interpretive, that would have made them art, was absent. A
+third, a fourth, and a fifth time Vandover made the attempt. It was
+useless. He knew that it was not because his hand lacked cunning on
+account of long disuse; such a thing, in spite of popular belief, never
+happened to artists--a good artist might abandon his work for five
+years, ten years--and take it up again precisely where he had laid it
+down with no loss of technical skill. No, this thing seemed more subtle,
+so subtle that at first he could hardly grasp it. But suddenly a great
+fear came upon him, a momentary return of that wild hysterical terror
+from which he believed he had forever escaped.
+
+"Is it gone?" he cried out. "Is it gone from me? My art? Steady," he
+went on, passing his hand over his face with a reassuring smile;
+"steady, old man, this won't do, again--and so soon! It won't do for you
+to get scared twice like that. This is just nervousness, you are
+overexcited. Pshaw! What's the matter with me? Let's get to work."
+
+Still another time he dusted out what he had done and recommenced,
+concentrating all his attention with a tremendous effort of the will.
+Grotesque and meaningless shapes, the mocking caricatures of those he
+saw in his fancy, grew under his charcoal, while slowly, slowly, a
+queer, numb feeling came in his head, like a rising fog, and the touch
+of that unreasoning terror returned, this time stronger, more
+persistent, more tenacious than before.
+
+Vandover nerved himself against it, not daring to give in, fearing to
+allow himself to see what this really meant. He passed one hand over his
+cheek and along the side of his head, the fingers dancing. "Hum!" he
+muttered, looking vaguely about him, "this is bad. I mustn't let this
+get the better of me now. I'll knock off for to-day, take a little rest,
+begin again to-morrow."
+
+In ten minutes he was back at his easel again. His charcoal wandered,
+tracing empty lines on his canvas, the strange numbness grew again in
+his head. All the objects in the range of his eyes seemed to move back
+and stand on the same plane. He became a little dizzy.
+
+"It's the _tobacco_," he exclaimed. "That pipe always was too strong."
+He turned away to the open window, feeling an irresistible need of
+distraction, of amusement, and he remained there resting on his elbows,
+listening and looking, trying to be interested.
+
+It was toward the middle of the afternoon. The morning mist was long
+since evaporated and the first faint puffs of the inevitable trade wind
+were just stirring the leaves of the eucalyptus across the street. In
+the music-room of the white house the young lady of the family had
+opened the piano and was practising finger-exercises. The scales and
+arpeggios following one another without interruption, came to his ears
+in a pleasant monotone. A Chinese "boy" in a stiff blouse of white
+linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a
+bucket of water and the garden hose. Grocery and delivery wagons came
+and went, rattling over the cobbles and car-tracks, while occasionally a
+whistle blew very far off. At the corner of the street by a
+livery-stable a little boy in a flat-topped leather cap was calling
+incessantly for some unseen dog, whistling and slapping his knees. An ex
+press-wagon stopped a few doors below the white house and the driver
+pulled down the back-board with a strident rattle of chains; the cable
+in its slot kept up an unceasing burr and clack while the cars
+themselves trundled up and down the street, starting and stopping with a
+jangling of bells, the jostled glass windows whirring in a prolonged
+vibrant note. All these sounds played lightly over the steady muffled
+roar that seemed to come from all quarters at once; it was that deep
+murmur, that great minor diapason that always disengages itself from
+vast bodies, from mountains, from oceans, from forests, from sleeping
+armies.
+
+The desire for movement, for diversion, for anything that would keep him
+from thinking was not to be resisted. Vandover caught up his hat and
+fled from the room, not daring to look again at the easel. Once outside,
+he began to walk, anywhere, straight before him, going on with great
+strides, his head in the air.
+
+He found Charlie Geary and took him to supper. Vandover talked
+continually on all sorts of subjects, speaking very rapidly. In the
+evening he insisted on Geary going to the theatre with him. He paid the
+closest attention to the play, letting it occupy his mind entirely. When
+the play was over and the two were about to say good night, Vandover
+began to urge Geary to sleep up at his rooms that night. He overrode his
+objections, interrupting him, taking hold of his arm, and starting off.
+But Geary, a little surprised at his manner, refused. There were certain
+law papers he had taken home with him from the office that afternoon and
+that it was necessary he should return in the morning. Ah, you bet, he
+would get it right in the neck if old Beale didn't have those
+depositions the first thing when the office was open. Ah, he was getting
+to be indispensable down there. He had had Fischer's place now for a
+year. Fischer had never come back, and he had the promise of being taken
+on as head clerk as soon as Beale Jr. went into the partnership with old
+Beale. "I'll make my way in this town yet," he declared. "I'll be in
+that partnership myself some day. You see; yes, sir; ah, you bet!"
+
+The idea of passing the night alone terrified Vandover. He started
+toward home, walking up Sutter Street, proceeding slowly, his hands in
+his pockets. All at once he stopped, without knowing why; he roused
+himself and looked about him. There was a smell of eucalyptus in the
+air. Across the street was the huge white house, and he found that he
+had stopped just before the door of the building on the top floor of
+which his studio was situated. All day Vandover's mind had been in the
+greatest agitation, his ideas leaping and darting hither and thither
+like terrified birds in a cage. Just now he underwent a sudden reaction.
+It had all been a matter of fancy, nothing but nervousness; he had not
+drawn for some time, his hand lacked cunning from long disuse. The
+desire for work came upon him again overpoweringly. He wanted to see
+again if he could not draw just as truly and freely as in the old days.
+No, he could not wait till morning; he must put himself to the test
+again at once, at the very instant. It was a sudden feminine caprice,
+induced, no doubt, by the exalted, strained, and unnatural condition of
+his nerves, a caprice that could not be reasoned with, that could not be
+withstood. He had his keys with him, he opened the outside door and
+groped his way up the four long flights of stairs to his studio.
+
+The studio was full of a sombre half-light, like a fog, spreading
+downward from the great north light in the sloping roof. The window was
+still wide open, the stretcher showed a pale gray blur. Vandover was
+about to light the gas when he checked himself, his arm still raised
+above his head. Ah, no; he did not dare to look at the result of his
+day's work. It would be better to start in afresh from the beginning. He
+found the chamois skin on the tray of the easel and rubbed out all the
+drawing on the canvas. Then he lit the gas.
+
+As he turned to his work once more a little thrill of joy and of relief
+passed over him. This time his hand was sure, steady, his head was
+clear. It had been nervousness after all. As he picked up his charcoal
+he even exclaimed to himself, "Just the same, that _was_ a curious
+experience this afternoon."
+
+But the curious experience repeated itself again that night as soon as
+he tried to work. Once more certain shapes and figures were born upon
+his canvas, but they were no longer the true children of his
+imagination, they were no longer his own; they were changelings,
+grotesque abortions. It was as if the brute in him, like some malicious
+witch, had stolen away the true offspring of his mind, putting in their
+place these deformed dwarfs, its own hideous spawn.
+
+Through the numbness and giddiness that gradually came into his head
+like a poisonous murk he saw one thing clearly: It was gone--his art was
+gone, the one thing that could save him. That, too, like all the other
+good things of his life, he had destroyed. At some time during those
+years of debauchery it had died, that subtle, elusive something,
+delicate as a flower; he had ruined it. Little by little it had exhaled
+away, wilting in the air of unrestrained debauches, perishing in the
+warm musk-laden atmosphere of disreputable houses, defiled by the breath
+of abandoned women, trampled into the spilt wine-lees of the Imperial,
+dragged all fouled and polluted through the lowest mire of the great
+city's vice.
+
+For a moment Vandover felt as though he was losing his hold upon his
+reason; the return of the hysteria shook him like a dry, light leaf. He
+suddenly had a sensation that the room was too small to hold him; he
+ran, almost reeled, to the open window, drawing his breath deep and
+fast, inhaling the cool night air, rolling his eyes wildly.
+
+It was night. He looked out into a vast blue-gray space sown with points
+of light, winking lamps, and steady slow-burning stars. Below him was
+the sleeping city. All the lesser staccato noises of the day had long
+since died to silence; there only remained that prolonged and sullen
+diapason, coming from all quarters at once. It was like the breathing of
+some infinitely great monster, alive and palpitating, the sistole and
+diastole of some gigantic heart. The whole existence of the great
+slumbering city passed upward there before him through the still night
+air in one long wave of sound.
+
+It was Life, the murmur of the great, mysterious force that spun the
+wheels of Nature and that sent it onward like some enormous engine,
+resistless, relentless; an engine that sped straight forward, driving
+before it the infinite herd of humanity, driving it on at breathless
+speed through all eternity, driving it no one knew whither, crushing out
+inexorably all those who lagged behind the herd and who fell from
+exhaustion, grinding them to dust beneath its myriad iron wheels, riding
+over them, still driving on the herd that yet remained, driving it
+recklessly, blindly on and on toward some far-distant goal, some vague
+unknown end, some mysterious, fearful bourne forever hidden in thick
+darkness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Fifteen
+
+
+About a week later Hiram Wade, Ida's father, brought suit against
+Vandover to recover twenty-five thousand dollars, claiming that his
+daughter had killed herself because she had been ruined by him and that
+he alone was responsible for her suicide.
+
+Vandover had passed this week in an agony of grief over the loss of his
+art, a grief that seemed even sharper than that which he had felt over
+the death of his father. For this last calamity was like the death of a
+child of his, some dear, sweet child, that might have been his companion
+throughout all his life. At times it seemed to him impossible that his
+art should fail him in this manner, and again and again he would put
+himself at his easel, only to experience afresh the return of the
+numbness in his brain, the impotency of his fingers.
+
+He had begun little by little to pick up the course of his life once
+more, and on a certain Wednesday morning was looking listlessly through
+the morning paper as he sat in his window-seat. The room was delightful,
+flooded with the morning sun, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ just touched
+with a ruddy light, the Renaissance portraits looking down at him
+through a fine golden haze; a little fire, just enough to blunt the
+keenness of the early morning air, snapping in the famous tiled and
+flamboyant stove. All about the room was a pleasant fragrance of coffee
+and good tobacco.
+
+Vandover caught sight of the announcement of the suit with a sudden
+sharp intake of breath that was half gasp, half cry, starting up from
+the window-seat, reading it over again and again with staring eyes.
+
+It was a very short paragraph, not more than a dozen lines, lost at the
+bottom of a column, among the cheap advertisements. It made no allusion
+to any former stage of the affair; from its tone Ida might have killed
+herself only the day before. It seemed hardly more than a notice that
+some enterprising reporter, burrowing in the records at the City Hall,
+had unearthed and brought to light with the idea that it might be of
+possible interest to a few readers of the paper. But there was his name
+staring back at him from out the gray blur of the type, like some
+reflection of himself seen in a mirror. Insignificant as the paragraph
+was, it seemed to Vandover as though it was the only item in the whole
+paper. One might as well have trumpeted his crime through the streets.
+
+"But twenty-five thousand dollars!" exclaimed Vandover, terrified.
+"Where will _I_ find twenty-five thousand dollars?" And at once he fell
+to wondering as to whether or no in default of payment he could be sent
+to the penitentiary. The idea of winning the suit did not enter his mind
+an instant; he did not even dream of fighting it.
+
+For the moment it was like fire driving out fire. He forgot the loss of
+his art, his mind filled only with the sense of the last disaster. What
+could he do? Twenty-five thousand dollars! It would ruin him. A cry of
+exasperation, of rage at his own folly, escaped him. "Ah, what a fool
+I've been!"
+
+For an hour he raged to and fro in the delightful sunlit room, pacing
+back and forth in its longest dimension between the bamboo tea-table and
+the low bookcase, a thousand different plans and projects coming and
+going in his head. As his wits steadied themselves he began to see that
+he must consult at once with some lawyer--Field, of course--perhaps
+something could be done; a clever lawyer might make out a case for him
+after all. But all at once he became convinced that Field would not
+undertake his defence; he knew he had no case; so what could Field do
+for him? He would have to tell him the truth, and he saw with absolute
+clearness that the lawyer would refuse to try to defend him. The thing
+could not honourably be done. But, then, what _should_ he do? He must
+have legal advice from some quarter.
+
+He was still in this state of perplexity when Charlie Geary arrived,
+pounding on the door and opening it immediately afterward as was his
+custom.
+
+"Hello!" said Vandover, surprised. "Hello, Charlie! is that you?"
+
+"Say," exclaimed Geary without returning his greeting, holding up his
+hand as if to interrupt him; "say, have you seen your lawyer yet--seen
+_any_ lawyer?"
+
+"No," answered Vandover, shaking his head gravely; "no, I've only this
+minute read about it in the paper." He was glad that Geary had come; at
+once he felt a desire to throw this burden upon his chum's shoulders,
+to let him assume the management of the affair, just as in the old
+college days he had willingly, weakly, submitted to the dictatorship of
+the shrewder, stronger man who smoothed out his difficulties for him,
+and extricated him from all his scrapes. He knew Geary to be full of
+energy and resource, and he had confidence in his ability as a lawyer,
+even though he was so young in years and experience. Besides this, he
+was his friend, his college chum; for all Geary's disagreeable qualities
+he knew he would do the right thing by him now.
+
+"You're the one man of all others I wanted to see," he exclaimed as he
+gripped his hand. "By George! I'm glad you have come. Here, sit down and
+let's talk this over." Geary took the big leather chair behind the desk,
+and Vandover flung himself again upon the window-seat. It was as if the
+two were back in the room in Matthew's; hundreds of times in those days
+they had occupied precisely these positions, Geary bending over at the
+study table, intent, nervous, very keen, Vandover lounging idly upon the
+window-seat, resting easily on his elbow listening to the other man's
+advice.
+
+"Now, what must I do, Charlie?" Vandover began. "See my lawyer, I
+suppose? But do you think a lawyer like Field would take my case? You
+know I haven't a leg to stand on."
+
+"But you haven't seen him?" inquired Geary sharply. "Haven't seen
+anybody about it?" Vandover shook his head. "Sure?" insisted Geary
+anxiously.
+
+"Why, I have only just heard about it twenty minutes ago," protested
+Vandover. "Why are you so particular about that?" he added. Then Geary
+exploded his mine.
+
+"Because," he said, with a smile of triumph that he could not restrain,
+"because we are the counsel for the other side. I am on the case."
+
+Vandover bounded from the window-seat speechless with astonishment,
+bitterly disappointed. "_You?_ he shouted. Geary slowly nodded his head,
+enjoying Vandover's bewilderment. Vandover dropped back upon the
+cushions again, staring at him wildly with growing suspicion and anger.
+He would not have thought it possible that Geary could so sacrifice
+their old friendship to his own personal interest. The two continued
+staring at each other across the table for a moment. In the silence
+they heard the long rumble of a cable-car passing the house, and the
+persistent jangling of its bell as it approached the street crossing. A
+grocery wagon went up the side street, the horses' hoofs making a
+cadenced clapping sound upon the asphalt.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Vandover scornfully, "I suppose that's business, but I
+would call it damned unkind!"
+
+"Now, look here, old man," returned Geary consolingly. "Don't you take
+the monkey-wrench off the safety valve like that. What am I here for if
+it isn't to help you? Maybe you don't know that this is a mighty
+unprofessional thing to do. Ah, you bet, if old Beale knew this I would
+get it right in the neck. Don't you suppose I can help you more as
+Wade's lawyer than I could as yours? And now that's the very first thing
+I've got to tell you--to keep this dark, that I have seen you. I can't
+do anything for you if you don't promise that."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," returned Vandover, reassured. "That's all right,
+you can--"
+
+"It's not considered the right thing to do," Geary continued, not
+heeding Vandover's answer, "but I just do it because"--he began to make
+awkward gestures with both his hands--"because we're old friends, like
+that. That was the very first thing I thought of when Beale Jr. told me
+that we two had the case--that I could get you out of this hole better
+as Wade's lawyer than as your own. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to
+see that the first thing."
+
+"I'm sure it was awfully good of you, old man," said Vandover sincerely.
+"I'm in a lot of trouble nowadays!"
+
+"Well, now don't you bother, Van," answered Geary consolingly. "I guess
+we can pull you out of this all right." He drew up to the table, looking
+about from side to side. "Got any writing paper concealed about the
+premises?" he asked. Vandover pushed him over his writing pad, and
+Geary, taking the cap from his fountain pen, began asking a series of
+questions, taking down his answers in shorthand. After he had asked him
+as to his age, length of residence in the city, his property, and some
+few other technical matters, he leaned back in his chair and said:
+
+"Now, let's hear your side of the story, Van. I don't suppose you like
+to go over the thing again, but you see I ought to know." Vandover told
+of the affair, Geary making notes as he went along. It was nearly noon
+before their interview was at an end. Then Geary gathered up the papers
+and reached for his hat and stick, saying:
+
+"Well, now, that's all we can do to-day. I think I'll be up to see you
+again day after to-morrow, in the afternoon. Beale Jr. and I have a date
+with Mr. Wade again to-morrow, I think, and I can talk to you more
+definitely after that. You know this is the devil of a thing to do," he
+suddenly exclaimed apprehensively, "this playing back and forth between
+the two parties like this; regularly dishonourable, don't you know?"
+
+"If you think it's dishonourable," said Vandover as he accompanied Geary
+to the door, "if you think it's dishonourable, Charlie, why, don't do
+it! I don't want to ask you to do anything dishonourable for me."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," replied Geary uneasily; "I had just as soon do
+it for you, only listen to this: don't you say a word about the case to
+anybody, not to your lawyer, nor to anybody. If Field should write to
+you, you tell him you have counsel already. And, look here! you may have
+the reporters up here pretty soon, and don't you open your face to them;
+you mind that; don't you let them get a thing out of you. And there's
+another thing you must understand: I'm not your lawyer, of course; you
+see that. I could be disbarred if I was lawyer for both sides. It's like
+this, you see: I'm Wade's lawyer--at least the firm I am with are his
+lawyers--and of course I'm acting in Wade's interest. But you're an old
+chum of mine, and if I can I'm going to try and make it easier for you.
+You understand, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, I understand, Charlie," answered Vandover, "and you are just a
+brick."
+
+Vandover passed the rest of the day in his sitting-room, the suspense of
+the situation slowly screwing his nerves tenser and tenser. He walked
+for hours back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back, his head
+bent down, his forehead drawn into a frown of anxiety and exasperation,
+or he stood for a long time at the window looking out into the street
+with eyes that saw nothing. At supper that night he found that his
+appetite had left him; the very thought of food revolted him. He
+returned to his room between seven and eight o'clock, his body and mind
+completely fagged, feeling a crying need of some diversion, some escape
+from the thoughts that had been hounding him all day.
+
+He made up his mind to read a little before going to bed, and all at
+once remembered a book that he had once begun a long time ago but had
+never finished: the story of two men who had bought a wrecked opium ship
+for fifty thousand dollars and had afterward discovered that she
+contained only a few tins of the drug. He had never read on to find how
+that story turned out. Suddenly he found himself repeating, "Twenty-five
+thousand dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars--where will _I_ find
+twenty-five thousand dollars?" He wondered if he would go to jail if he
+failed to pay. His interest in the book was gone in a moment, and he
+took up another of his favourite novels, the story of a boy at the time
+of Christ, a Jewish boy unjustly condemned to the galleys, liberated
+afterward, and devoting his life to the overthrow of his enemy, whom at
+last he overcame and humbled, fouling him in a chariot race, all but
+killing him.
+
+He sat down in the huge leather chair, and, drawing it up to the piano
+lamp and cocking his feet upon the table, began to read. In a few
+moments the same numbness stole into his head like a rising fog, a
+queer, tense feeling, growing at the back of his forehead and at the
+base of his skull, a dulness, a strange stupefying sensation as of some
+torpid, murky atmosphere. He looked about him quickly; all the objects
+in the range of his vision--the corner of the desk, the corduroy couch,
+the low bookcase with Flossie's yellow slipper and Barye's lioness upon
+it--seemed to move back and stand upon the same plane; the objects
+themselves appeared immovable enough, but the sensation of them in his
+brain somewhere behind his eyes began to move about in a slow, dizzy
+whirl. The old touch of unreasoning terror came back, together with a
+sudden terror of the spirit, a sickening sinking of the heart, a
+loathing of life, terrible beyond words.
+
+Vandover started up, striving to keep himself in hand, fighting against
+a wild desire to rush about from wall to wall, shrieking and waving his
+arms. Over and over again he exclaimed, "Oh, _what_ is the matter with
+me?" The strangeness of the thing was what unsettled and unnerved him.
+He had all the sensations of terror, but without any assignable reason,
+and this groundless fear became in the end the cause of a new fear: he
+was afraid of this fear that was afraid of nothing.
+
+Very gradually, however, the crisis passed away. He became a little
+calmer, and as he was mixing himself a glass of whisky and water at the
+sideboard he decided that he would go to bed. He was sure that he would
+be better for a good night's rest; evidently his nerves were out of
+order; it would not do for him to read late at night. He realized all at
+once that his mind and body alike were exhausted.
+
+He passed a miserable night, dozing and waking at alternate hours until
+three o'clock, when he found it impossible to get to sleep; hour after
+hour he lay flat on his back staring open-eyed into the darkness,
+listening to the ticking of the clock, the mysterious footsteps that
+creaked the floors overhead, and the persistent drip of a water faucet.
+Outside in the street he heard at long intervals the rattling of wheels
+as the early milk wagons came and went; a dog began to bark, three gruff
+notes repeated monotonously at exact intervals; all at once there was a
+long muffled roll and an abrupt clacking noise; it ceased, then broke
+out again sharply, paused once more, then recommenced, settling to a
+prolonged minor hum; the cable was starting up; it was almost morning,
+the window of his room began to show a brighter blur in the darkness,
+while very far off he could hear the steady puffing of a locomotive. As
+the first cable-car trundled by the house he dropped off to sleep for
+the last time, being waked again toward nine o'clock by the sound of
+some one shovelling coal outside under his window, the shovel clinking
+and rasping upon the stone sidewalk.
+
+He felt a little refreshed, but as he entered the dining-room for his
+late breakfast the smell of food repulsed him; his appetite was gone; it
+was impossible for him to eat. Toward eleven o'clock that same morning
+he was pottering idly about his sitting-room, winding his clock and
+shaking down the ashes in the tiled flamboyant stove; his mind was still
+busy going over for the hundredth time all the possibilities of Hiram
+Wade's suit, and he was just wondering whether something in the way of a
+compromise might not be arranged, when with the suddenness of a blow
+between the eyes the numbness in his head returned, together with the
+same unreasoning fear, the same depression of spirits, the same fearful
+sinking of the heart. What! it was coming back again, this strange
+attack, coming back even when his attention was not concentrated, even
+when there was no unusual exertion of his brain!
+
+Then the torment began. This time the crisis did not pass off; from now
+on it persisted continually. Vandover began to feel strange. At first
+the room looked unfamiliar to him, then his own daily life no longer
+seemed recognizable, and, finally, all of a sudden, it was the whole
+world, all the existing order of things, that appeared to draw off like
+a refluent tide, leaving him alone, abandoned, cast upon some fearful,
+mysterious shore.
+
+Nothing seemed worth while; all the thousand little trivial things that
+made up the course of his life and in which he found diversion and
+amusement palled upon him. A fearful melancholia settled over him, a
+despair, an abhorrence of living that could not be uttered. This only
+was during the day. It was that night that Vandover went down into the
+pit.
+
+He went to bed early, his brain in a whirl, his frame worn out as if
+from long physical exertion. He was just dropping into a grateful sleep
+when his whole body twitched suddenly with a shock and a recoil of all
+his nerves; in an instant he was broad awake, panting and exhausted as
+if from a long run. Once more he settled himself upon the pillow, and
+once more the same leap, the same sharp spasm of his nerves caught him
+back to consciousness with the suddenness of a relaxed spring. At last
+sleep was out of the question; his drowsiness of the early part of the
+evening passed away, and he lay back, his hands clasped behind his head,
+staring up into the darkness, his thoughts galloping incessantly through
+his brain, suffering without pain as he had never imagined a human being
+could suffer though racked with torture from head to heel.
+
+From time to time a slow torsion and crisping of all his nerves,
+beginning at his ankles, spread to every corner of his body till he had
+to shut his fists and teeth against the blind impulse to leap from his
+bed screaming. His hands felt light and, as he told himself, "jumpy."
+All at once he felt a peculiar sensation in them: they seemed to swell,
+the fingers puffing to an enormous size, the palms bulging, the whole
+member from the wrist to the nails distended like a glove when one has
+blown into it to straighten it out. Then he had a feeling that his head
+was swelling in the same way. He had to rub his hands together, to pass
+them again and again over his face to rid himself of the fancy.
+
+But the strange numb feeling at the base of the skull did not keep him
+from thinking--he would have been glad if it had--and now at last when
+the terror overcame him it was no longer causeless; he knew now what he
+feared--he feared that he was going mad.
+
+It was the punishment that he had brought upon himself, some fearful
+nervous disease, the result of his long indulgence of vice, his vile
+submission to the brute that was to destroy his reason; some collapse of
+all his faculties, beginning first with that which was highest, most
+sensitive--his art--spreading onward and downward till he should have
+reached the last stages of idiocy. It was Nature inexorably exacting. It
+was the vast fearful engine riding him down beneath its myriad spinning
+wheels, remorselessly, irresistibly.
+
+The dreadful calamities that he had brought upon himself recoiled upon
+his head, crushing him to the dust with their weight of anguish and
+remorse: Ida Wade's suicide, his father's death, his social banishment,
+the loss of his art, Hiram Wade's lawsuit menacing him with beggary, and
+now this last, this approaching insanity. It was no longer fire driving
+out fire; the sense of all these disasters seemed to come back upon him
+at once, as keen, as bitter as when they had first befallen. He had told
+himself that he did not believe in a hell. Could there be a worse hell
+than this?
+
+But all at once, without knowing why, moved by an impulse, a blind,
+resistless instinct, Vandover started up in bed, raising his clasped
+hands above him, crying out, "Oh, help me! Why don't you _help_ me? You
+can if you only will!" Who was it to whom he had cried with such
+unerring intuition? He gave no name to this mysterious "You," this
+strange supernatural being, this mighty superhuman power. It was the cry
+of a soul in torment that does not stop to reason, the wild last hope
+that feels its own helplessness, that responds to an intuition of a
+force outside of itself--the force that can save it in its time of
+peril.
+
+Trembling, his hands still clasped above him, Vandover waited for an
+answer, waited for the miracle. In the tortured exalted state of his
+nerves he seemed suddenly possessed of a sixth sense; he fancied that he
+would know, there in that room, in a few seconds, while yet his hands
+remained clasped above his head. It was his last hope: if this failed
+him there was nothing left. Still he waited; he felt that he should know
+when the miracle came, that he would suddenly be filled with a sense of
+peace, of quiet joy. Still he waited--there was nothing, nothing but the
+vast silence, the unbroken blackness of the night, a night that was to
+last forever. There was no answer, nothing but the deaf silence, the
+blind darkness. But in a moment he felt that the very silence, the very
+lack of answer, was answer in itself; there was nothing for him. Even
+that vast mysterious power to which he had cried could not help him now,
+_could_ not help him, could not stay the inexorable law of nature, could
+not reverse that vast terrible engine with its myriad spinning wheels
+that was riding him down relentlessly, grinding him into the dust. And
+afterward? After the engine had done its work, when that strange other
+time should come, that other life, what then? No, not even then, nothing
+but outer darkness then and the gnashing of teeth, nothing but the deaf
+silence, nothing but the blind darkness, nothing but the unbroken
+blackness of an eternal night.
+
+It was the end of everything! With a muffled cry, "Oh, I can't stand
+this!" Vandover threw himself from his bed, groping his way out into the
+sitting-room. By this time he was only conscious of a suffering too
+great to be borne, everything else was blurred as in a thick mist. For
+nearly an hour he stumbled about in the darkened room, bruising himself
+against the furniture, dazed, numb, trying in vain to find the drawer of
+the desk where he kept his father's revolver. At last his hand closed
+upon it, gripping it so tightly that the hundreds of little nicks and
+scratches made by the contact of the tacks and nails which he had
+hammered with it nipped and bit into his palm like the teeth of tiny
+mice. A vague feeling of shame overcame him at the last moment: he had
+no wish to be found sprawling upon the floor, dressed only in his
+night-gown. He lit the gas and put on his bathrobe, drawing the cords
+securely about his waist and neck.
+
+When he turned about to pick up the revolver again he found that his
+determination had weakened considerably, and he was obliged to reflect
+again upon the wreck of his life and soul before he was back once more
+to the proper pitch of resolution. It was five minutes to two, and he
+made up his mind to kill himself when the clock struck the hour. He
+spent the intervening moments in arranging the details of the matter. At
+first he thought he would do it standing, but he abandoned that idea,
+fearing to strike his head against the furniture as he fell. He was
+about to decide upon the huge leather chair, when the remembrance of his
+father's death made that impossible. He finally concluded to sit upon
+the edge of his bed, leaning a little backward so as not to fall upon
+the floor, and he dragged the bed out into the sitting-room, preferring
+somehow to die there. For a moment the idea of lying at length upon the
+bed occurred to him, but in an instant he recoiled from it, horrified at
+the thought of the death that struck from above; no, it would be best to
+sit upon the edge of the bed, falling backward with the shot. Then he
+wondered as to which it should be, his heart or his head; evidently the
+head was the better; there upon the right side in the little hollow of
+the temple, and the next moment he found himself curiously touching and
+pressing the spot with his fingers. All at once he heard the little
+clicking noise that the clock makes a minute or so before the hour. It
+was almost two; he sat down upon the edge of the bed, cocking the
+revolver, waiting for the clock to strike. An idea came to him, and he
+looked at the calendar that stood at the right of the clock upon the top
+of the low bookcase. It was the twelfth of April, Thursday; that, then,
+was to be the date of his death--Thursday, April twelfth, at two in the
+morning, so it would read upon his gravestone. For an instant the
+awfulness of the thing he was to do came upon him, and the next instant
+he found himself wondering if they still coursed jack-rabbits with
+greyhounds down at Coronado the way they used to do when he was there.
+All at once the clock struck two, and at the very last instant a
+strange impulse to seat himself before the mirror came upon him. He drew
+up a chair before it, watching his reflection intently, but even as he
+raised the revolver he suddenly changed his purpose without knowing why,
+and all at once crammed the muzzle into his mouth. He drew the trigger.
+
+He heard no sound of a report; he felt no shock, but a great feebleness
+ran throughout his limbs, a relaxing and weakening of all his muscles;
+his eyes were open and he saw everything small and seemingly very far
+off as through the reversed end of an opera-glass. Suddenly he fainted.
+
+When Vandover came to himself again it was early morning. The room was
+full of daylight, but the gas was still burning. Little by little the
+fearful things of the night came back to him; he realized that he had
+shot himself, and he waited for the end, not daring to move, his eyes
+closed, his hand still gripping the scratched butt of the revolver in
+his lap. For a long time he lay back in the chair, motionless, his
+consciousness slowly returning like an incoming tide. At length he
+started to his feet with an expression of scorn and incredulity; he was
+as sound as ever, there was neither scratch nor scar upon him; he had
+not shot himself after all.
+
+Curiously, he looked at the revolver, throwing open the breech--the
+cylinder was empty; he had forgotten to load it. "What a fool!" he
+exclaimed, laughing scornfully, and still laughing he walked to the
+centre of the room under the chandelier and turned out the gas.
+
+But when he turned about, facing the day once more, facing that day and
+the next and the next throughout all the course of his life, the sense
+of his misery returned upon him in its full strength and he raised his
+clenched fist to his eyes, shutting out the light. Ah, no, he could not
+endure it--the horror of life overpassed the horror of death; he could
+not go on living. A new thought had come to him. Wretched as he was, he
+saw that in time his anguish of conscience, even his dread of losing his
+reason, would pass from him; he would become used to them; yes, even
+become used to the dread of insanity, and then he would return once more
+to vice, return once more into the power of the brute, the perverse and
+evil monster that was knitted to him now irrevocably, part for part,
+fibre for fibre. He saw clearly that nothing could save him, he had had
+his answer that night, there was to be no miracle. Was it not right,
+then, that he should destroy himself? Was it not even his duty? The
+better part of him seemed to demand the act; should he not comply while
+there yet was any better part left? In a little while the brute was to
+take all.
+
+On the shelves above his washstand Vandover found the cartridges in a
+green pasteboard box, and loaded all the chambers of the revolver,
+carefully. He closed the breech; but as he was about to draw back the
+hammer all his courage, all his resolution, crumbled in an instant like
+a tower of sand. He did not dare to shoot himself--he was afraid. The
+night before he had been brave enough; how was it now that he could not
+call up the same courage, the same determination? When he thought over
+the wreck, the wretched failure of his life, the dreadful prospect of
+the future years, his anguish and his terror were as keen as ever. But
+now there was a shrinking of his every nerve from the thought of
+suicide, the instinctive animal fear of death, stronger than himself.
+His suffering had to go on, had to run its course, even death would not
+help him. Let it go on, it was only the better part of him that was
+suffering; in a little while this better part would be dead, leaving
+only the brute. It would die a natural death without any intervention
+from him. Was there any need of suicide? Suicide! Great God! his whole
+life had been one long suicide.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That same morning Charlie Geary had eaten a very thick underdone steak
+for breakfast after enjoying a fine long sleep of eight hours. Toward
+eight o'clock he went downtown. He did not take a car; he preferred to
+walk; it helped his digestion and it gave him exercise. At night he
+walked home as well; that gave him an appetite; besides, with the ten
+cents that he saved in this way, he bought himself a nice cigar that he
+smoked in the evening to help digest his supper. He was very careful of
+his health. Ah, you bet, one had to look out for one's health.
+
+At the office that morning he had a long talk with Beale, Jr., as to
+Hiram Wade's suit. The great firm of Beale & Storey, into whose office
+Geary had been received, made a specialty of damage suits, and
+especially those suits that were brought against a certain great
+monopoly which it was claimed was ruining the city and the state; such a
+case involving nearly a quarter of a million of dollars was now
+occupying the attention of the heads of the firm and, indeed, of the
+whole office. Hiram Wade's suit was assigned to the assistants. Beale,
+Jr., was one of these, and Charlie Geary had managed to push himself
+into the position of his confidential clerk. But Beale, Jr., himself
+took little interest in the Wade suit; the suit against the great
+monopoly was coming to a head; it was a battle of giants; the whole
+office found itself embroiled, and little by little Beale, Jr., allowed
+himself to be drawn into the struggle. The management of the Wade case
+was given over to Geary's hands.
+
+When he had first heard of his assignment to the case Geary had been
+unwilling to act against his old chum, but it was the first legal affair
+of any great importance with which he had been connected, and he was
+soon devoured with an inordinate ambition to distinguish himself in the
+eyes of the firm, to get a "lift," to take a long step forward toward
+the end of his desires, which was to become one of the firm itself. He
+knew he could make a brilliant success of the case. Geary was at this
+time nearly twenty-eight, keen, energetic, immensely clever; and the
+case against Vandover was strong. No one knew better than he himself how
+intimate Vandover had been with Ida Wade; Vandover had told him much of
+the details of their acquaintance. Besides this, a letter which Ida had
+written to Vandover the day before her suicide had been found, torn in
+three pieces, thrust between the leaves of one of the books that she
+used to study at the normal school. It directly implicated Vandover--it
+was evidence that could not be gainsaid. Geary had resolved to push the
+case against his old chum. Vandover ought to see that with Geary it was
+a matter of business; he, Geary, was only an instrument of the law; if
+Geary did not take the case some other lawyer would. At any rate,
+whether Van would see it in this light or not, Geary was determined to
+take the case; it was too good an opportunity to let slip; he was going
+to make his way in the law or he would know the reason why. Every man
+for himself, that was what he said. It might be damned selfish, but it
+was human nature; if he had to sacrifice Van, so much the worse. It was
+evident that his old college chum was going to the dogs anyway, but come
+whatever would, _he_, Geary, was going to be a _success_. Ah, you bet,
+he would make his way and he would make his money.
+
+Ever since he had come into his little patrimony Geary had been making
+offers to Vandover for his block in the Mission. Geary would offer only
+eight thousand dollars, but Brunt steadily advised Vandover against
+listening to such a figure, assuring him that the property was valued at
+twelve thousand six hundred. Vandover had often wondered at Geary's
+persistence in the matter, and had often asked him what he could
+possibly want of the block. But Geary was very vague in his replies,
+generally telling Vandover that there was money in the investment if one
+could and would give the proper attention to pushing it. He told
+Vandover that he--Vandover--was no business man, which was the
+lamentable truth, and would much prefer to live upon the interest of his
+bonds rather than to be continually annoyed by defective plumbing,
+complaints, and repairs. The truth of the matter was that Geary knew
+that a certain immense boot and shoe concern was after the same piece of
+property. The houses themselves were nothing to the boot and shoe
+people; they wanted the land in order to build their manufactory upon
+it. A siding of the railroad ran down the alley just back of the
+property, a fact that hurt the lot for residence purposes, but that was
+indispensable for the boot and shoe people. Geary knew that the heads of
+the manufactory were determined to buy the lot, and he was sure that if
+properly handled by clever brokers they could be induced to offer at
+least one third more than its appraised valuation. It was a chance for a
+fine speculation, and it was torture to Geary to think that Vandover, or
+in fact any one besides himself, was going to profit by it.
+
+The afternoon of the day upon which Hiram Wade had brought suit for
+twenty-five thousand dollars, while Geary was pottering about his swivel
+office chair with an oil can trying to find out where it creaked, a
+brilliant idea had suddenly occurred to him, a stroke of genius, a
+veritable inspiration. Why could he not make the Wade suit a machine
+with which to force Vandover into the sale of the property?
+
+His first idea had been to push the case so vigorously that Vandover
+would surely lose it. But on second thought this course did not seem to
+promise any satisfactory results. Geary knew very well that though Hiram
+Wade had sued for twenty-five thousand dollars he could not recover more
+than five thousand, if as much as that. Geary did not know the exact
+state of Vandover's affairs, but he did not think that his chum would
+sell any property in order to make the payment of damages. It was much
+more likely that he would raise the five thousand, or whatever it might
+be, by placing a second mortgage on some of his property. This, however,
+was presuming that Wade would get judgment for about five thousand
+dollars. But suppose that Vandover thought that Wade could actually
+recover twenty-five thousand! Suppose that Geary himself should see
+Vandover and induce him to believe such a story, and to settle the
+affair out of court! Vandover was as ignorant of law as he was of
+business. Geary might frighten him into a sale. Yet this plan seemed
+very impracticable. In the first place, it would be unprofessional for
+Geary to have an interview with Vandover under such circumstances, the
+story was almost too monstrous even for Vandover's credibility, and
+besides, Geary would not pay, could not pay twenty-five thousand for the
+property. This last was a serious tangle. In order to get Vandover to
+sell, Geary would have to represent the damage suit as involving a
+larger sum of money than Geary was willing to give for the block, even a
+far larger sum than that which the boot and shoe manufacturers could be
+induced to pay for it. It seemed to be a deadlock. Geary began to see
+that the whole idea was out of the question. Yet the desire of it came
+back upon him again and again. He dwelt upon it constantly, smelling out
+the chance for a "deal" somewhere in the tangle with the instinct of the
+keen man of business. At last he seemed to have straightened it out. The
+idea of a compromise came into his mind. What if Vandover and Hiram Wade
+could be made to compromise upon eight thousand dollars! Geary would be
+willing to pay Vandover eight thousand for the block. That was his
+original offer. Wade, though he had sued for twenty-five thousand, could
+easily be made to see that eight thousand was as much as he could
+reasonably expect, and Geary knew the boot and shoe manufacturers would
+pay fifteen thousand for the lot, perhaps more.
+
+But in order to carry out the delicate and complicated affair it was
+absolutely necessary to keep Vandover from seeing a lawyer. Geary knew
+that any lawyer would fight the proposition of a compromise at eight
+thousand dollars: five thousand was as much as Wade could possibly get
+in court, and if judgment for such amount was rendered, Vandover's
+counsel would advise him to raise the sum by mortgaging some property
+instead of selling the block.
+
+Yet as soon as Geary arrived at a solution of the problem, as soon as
+the "deal" began to seem feasible, he commenced to hesitate. It was not
+so much that the affair was crooked, that his rôle in it was, to say the
+least, unprofessional, as it was the fact that Vandover was his old
+college chum and that, to put the matter into plain words, Geary was
+swindling his best friend out of a piece of property valued at twelve
+thousand six hundred dollars, and preventing him from reselling the same
+piece at a very advanced figure. Again and again he wished that it was
+some other than Vandover; he told himself that in such case he would put
+the screw on without the least compunction. All through one night Geary
+was on the rack torn between his friendship for his chum and his
+devouring, inordinate ambition to make his way and to make his pile. In
+the end Vandover was sacrificed--the opportunity was too good--Geary
+could not resist the chance for a "deal." Ah, you bet, just think of it,
+after all, not only would Vandover believe that Geary was doing him a
+great service, but the office would be delighted with him for winning
+his first case, they would get a heavy fee from Wade, and he would
+nearly double his money invested in the block in the Mission. As soon as
+he had made up his mind to put the "deal" through, he had seen Vandover
+at his rooms early in the morning and had induced him to promise not to
+engage any other counsel and in general keep very quiet about the whole
+business.
+
+The day after, he and Beale, Jr., had an appointment with Hiram Wade,
+but toward noon Beale, Jr., disappeared, leaving word for Geary that he
+had gone to court with his father to hear the closing arguments in the
+great suit against the monopoly, the last struggle in the tremendous
+legal battle that had embroiled the whole office; Geary was to use his
+own judgment in the Wade case. Geary laboured with Hiram Wade all that
+afternoon. The old fellow mistrusted him on account of his youth and his
+inexperience, was unwilling to arrive at any definite conclusion without
+the sanction of Geary's older associate, and for a long time would
+listen to nothing less than ten thousand dollars, crying out that his
+gray hairs had been dishonoured, and striking his palm upon his
+forehead. Nothing could move him. He, also, had his ambitions; it was
+his dream to own the carpet-cleaning establishment in which he now had
+but a three-fourths interest. Summer was coming, the time of year when
+people were going into the country, leaving their carpets to be cleaned
+in their absence. If he could obtain complete ownership of his business
+within the month he fancied that he saw an opportunity to make more
+money than he had done before at any previous season.
+
+"Why, I tell you, Mister Geary," he exclaimed indignantly, wagging his
+head, "it would seem like selling my daughter's honour if we should
+compromise at any less figure. I am a father. I--I have my feelings,
+haven't I?"
+
+"Well, now, it isn't like that at all, Mr. Wade," answered Geary, making
+awkward gestures with both his hands. "It isn't what we _ought_ to get
+out of him. Could any sum of money, could millions compensate you for
+Miss Ida's death? I guess not. It's what we _can_ get. If this thing
+comes into court we won't get but five thousand out of him; I'll tell
+you that right now. He could raise that by a mortgage, easy; but if we
+compromise we can squeeze him for eight thousand. You see, the fact that
+we can act directly with him instead of through counsel makes it easier
+for us. Of course, as I tell you, it isn't just the legal thing to do,
+but I'm willing to do it for you because I think you've been wronged and
+outraged."
+
+Wade struck his hand to his head. "I tell you, he's brought dishonour
+upon my gray hairs," he exclaimed.
+
+"Exactly, of course, I understand how you feel," replied Geary, "but now
+about this eight thousand? I tell you what I'll do." He had resolved to
+stake everything upon one last hazard. "See here, Mr. Wade, there's a
+difference, of course, between eight thousand dollars and ten thousand,
+but the use of money is worth something, isn't it? And money down, cold
+hard cash, is worth something, isn't it? Well, now, suppose you got that
+eight thousand dollars money down within three days?"
+
+Hiram Wade still demurred a little longer for the sake of his own
+self-respect and his dishonoured hairs, but in the end it was agreed
+that if the money was paid over to him in full before the end of the
+following week he would be content and would agree to the compromise.
+Eight thousand dollars would still be enough to buy out his partner's
+interest, and even then he would have a little left over with which to
+improve a certain steaming apparatus. If the amount was paid in full
+within a week he could get control of the cleaning-works in time to
+catch all of the summer trade.
+
+Geary had calculated that this last argument would have its weight; the
+great difficulty now was to get Vandover to sell at such a low figure
+and upon such short notice. He almost despaired of his success in this
+quarter; however, it all depended upon Vandover now.
+
+Early in the forenoon of the next day Geary pounded on the door of
+Vandover's sitting-room, pushing it open without waiting for an answer.
+Vandover was lying in his shirt-sleeves on the corduroy divan under the
+huge rug of sombre colours that hung against the wall, and he did not
+get up as Geary came in; in fact, he hardly stirred.
+
+"Hello!" cried Geary, closing the door with his heel. "Didn't expect to
+find _you_ up so early. _I've_ been up since half-past six; had
+breakfast at seven, fine cutlet, and then got down to the office at
+twenty minutes of eight. How's that for rustling, hey?"
+
+"Yes?" said Vandover, dully.
+
+"But, say," exclaimed Geary, "what's all the matter with _you_? You look
+all frazzled out, all pale around the wattles. Ah, you've been hitting
+up a pace again. You're a bird, Van, there's no use talking! All night
+racket this trip?".
+
+"I suppose so," answered Vandover, never moving.
+
+"But you _do_ look gone-in this morning, sure," continued Geary, seating
+himself on the edge of the table and pushing back his hat. "Never saw
+you looking so bad; you ought to be more careful, Van; there'll be a
+smash some time. Ah, you bet a man ought to look out for his health. I
+walk downtown every morning, and three times a week I take a cold shower
+as soon as I get up. Ah, I tell you, that braces a fellow up; you ought
+to try it; it's better than a dozen cocktails. You keep on getting thin
+like you have for the past few days and I'll have to be calling you
+Skinny Seldom-fed again, like we used to. Now, tell the truth, what time
+did you get to bed last night? Did you go to bed at all?"
+
+"No," replied Vandover with a long breath, looking vaguely at the
+pipe-rack on the opposite wall.
+
+"I thought as much," answered Geary. "Well, that's like you." He paused
+a moment, and then went on, nervously gesturing with both his hands
+simultaneously. "Well, I've had a long talk with Wade. I tell you, Van,
+that old boy is as stubborn as a mule. You see, he knows he's got a
+case. I couldn't talk him out of that. I'll tell you how it is,"
+continued Geary, preparing to spring another mine; "he's found a letter
+Ida wrote you the day before she killed herself." He paused to watch the
+effect upon Vandover. Vandover waited for him to go on, but seeing that
+he did not and that he expected him to say something, nodded his head
+once and answered:
+
+"I see."
+
+"Don't you know, that letter that she wrote to you telling you how it
+was, how she was fixed?" repeated Geary, puzzled and irritated at
+Vandover's indifference.
+
+"I know."
+
+"Well, he's got it, anyhow," pursued Geary, "and of course that tells
+against you. Well, I had a long talk with him yesterday afternoon and I
+got him to compromise. Of course, you know in suits like this one a
+party sues for a great deal more than he expects to get. At first you
+know he said twenty-five thousand; that figure was decided upon at the
+first interview he had with us. Of course, he could never get judgment
+for that much. But he hung out at ten thousand; said it would be selling
+his daughter if he took any less. Now I knew you couldn't raise that
+much on any property you have, especially in these hard times--" Geary
+paused for the fraction of an instant; he had thrown out the last remark
+as a feeler, to see what Vandover would say; but his chum said nothing,
+staring vaguely at the opposite wall, merely making a faint sign to show
+that he understood, closing his eyes and bending his head. "And so,"
+continued the other, "I jewed him down, and what do you suppose? Well,
+sir, from twenty-five thousand I brought him right down to, say, eight
+thousand. I could see that he had some scheme that he wants to go into
+right away, and that he wants ready money, right on the nail, you know,
+to carry it through. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to see that. I
+waltzed him right over when I began to speak of ready money, cash down.
+As soon as he'd squeal I'd spring cold cash on him, money down, and he's
+hit gravel like an ostrich. Well," he went on deliberately after a
+pause, getting up from the table and standing before Vandover, his hands
+in his pockets, "well, I think that's the best I can do for you, Van.
+It's a good deal better than I expected, but I've done the best I could
+for you, and I would advise you to see him on the proposition."
+
+"All right," said Vandover. "Go ahead."
+
+Geary was perplexed. "Well, you think that's a good thing, don't you?
+You think I've done my best for you? You see it as I do, don't you?"
+
+Vandover withdrew his eyes from the other wall, glancing under heavy
+eyelids at Geary, and with a slight movement of his head and shoulders
+replied:
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Have you got the money?" asked Geary eagerly; then, irritated at his
+indiscretion, hastened to interrupt himself. "You see, he hasn't put his
+proposition into writing yet, but it's like this: if you can pay him
+eight thousand dollars in cash before the end of next week he'll sign a
+document to the effect that he is satisfied."
+
+"I've got no money," said Vandover quietly.
+
+"I was afraid you wouldn't have," said Geary, "but you can raise it
+somewhere. You had better close with the old man as soon as you can,
+Van, while he's in the mood for it; you'll make a clear two thousand by
+it. You can see that as well as I can. Now, where can you--how is your
+property fixed? Let's see! Here's the statement you made to me the other
+day," continued Geary, drawing his shorthand notes from his portfolio.
+"How about this piece on California Street, the one that you have
+rented, the homestead, you know?"
+
+"Yes, there's that," answered Vandover, changing the position of his
+head upon his clasped hands.
+
+"But that's pretty well papered up already," returned Geary, consulting
+his notes. "You couldn't very well raise another mortgage on that.'"
+
+"I'd forgotten," answered Vandover. "There's the block in the Mission.
+He can have _that_."
+
+Geary began to tremble with excitement. It looked as though he might be
+able to make the deal after all. But the next instant he grew
+suspicious. Vandover's indifference puzzled him. Might he not have some
+game of his own? The idea of playing off his cleverness against that of
+an opponent strung his nerves in an instant; the notion of an impending
+struggle was almost an inspiration, and his innate desire of getting the
+better of a competitor, even though it was his closest friend, aroused
+his wits and sharpened his faculties like a stimulant. He had no
+hesitancy in sacrificing his chum. It was business now; friendship
+ceased to be a factor in the affair. Ah, Van was going to be foxy; he'd
+show him that he could be foxy, too.
+
+"He can have it?" echoed Geary. "You don't mean to sign it over to him
+bodily?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose it could be mortgaged," answered Vandover.
+
+"Yes, that's the idea," returned Geary. "You want me to figure that out
+for you? I can just as well as not. Well, now, let's see," he went on,
+settling himself at the desk, and figuring upon a sheet of Vandover's
+stamped letter-paper. "The banks will never give you more than two
+thirds of the appraised value; that's as much as we can expect; that
+would come to--well, let's see--that would come to six thousand on that
+piece; then you could mortgage something else to make up the
+difference."
+
+"Wouldn't it be more than six thousand?" asked Vandover with a little
+show of interest. "I think that block has been appraised at something
+over twelve thousand."
+
+"Ah, yes," returned Geary, putting his chin in the air, "that was your
+agent's valuation five years ago; but you know property out there, in
+fact, property all over the city, what they call inside property, has
+been going right down for the last ten years. That's what I've always
+been telling you. You couldn't possibly get more than nine thousand for
+that block to-day. You see the railroad there hurts it."
+
+"I suppose so," replied Vandover. "I've heard the governor say as much
+in his time."
+
+"Of course," exclaimed Geary, delighted at this unexpected turn.
+
+"Well, then, he can have my bonds," said Vandover. "I've got eighty-nine
+hundred in bonds; he can have those. Let him have anything he wants."
+
+"Oh, don't touch your bonds," answered Geary. "Hang on to those. Bonds
+are always good--U.S. bonds. You don't want to sell those, Van. You see,
+the homestead is already mortgaged. And, besides, you know, too, that
+the banks are asking an awful big per cent. for mortgages on real
+estate; it's seven and a half nowadays. Don't sell your bonds. I'll tell
+you why: U.S. bonds are always good; they never depreciate, but it's
+different with realty, especially in this city just now. It's been
+depreciating ever since your father's time, and it's going to go right
+on depreciating. If you want to sell anything, sell your realty before
+it gets any lower. Now you don't want to sell your home, do you? You
+don't like that idea. You've lived there so long, and then what would
+you do with the furniture; besides, the rent of that," he glanced again
+at his notes, "is bringing you in a good hundred and twenty-five a
+month. If you've got to sell at all, why not sell your Mission block?"
+
+"All right," said Vandover, as if wearied by Geary's clamour, "I'll sign
+it over to him."
+
+"No, that's not the idea at all," Geary insisted. "He wants the ready
+money; he don't want depreciated real estate. You'll have to find a
+purchaser in the next week if you possibly can in such a short time, and
+make over the money to Wade. But if you can't sell in that time you will
+have to dig up ten thousand instead of eight. It's a hard position for
+you, Van; it's just a chance, you know, but I thought I would give you
+the benefit of that chance. If you want to give me a power of attorney
+I'll try and sell it for you."
+
+"I guess Brunt would do that," replied Vandover.
+
+"Yes," retorted Geary, watchful as a lynx, "but they would charge you a
+big commission. Of course _I_ wouldn't think of asking you anything more
+than the actual costs. I am afraid that they would try to sell it at
+auction, too, if they knew you had to realize on it in so short a time,
+and it would go for a mere song then; you know how it is."
+
+"I thought," inquired Vandover, "that you wanted that property."
+
+"Yes," replied Geary, hesitating, "I--I did want to buy it of you once;
+well, for that matter I do now. But you know how it is with me."
+
+"I might as well sell it to you as to any one else," returned Vandover.
+
+"Well, now, it's like this, Van," said Geary. "I know that block is
+worth nine thousand dollars; I won't deceive you. But I can only give
+you eight thousand for it. That's all the money I've got. But I'm not
+going to take advantage of your position to jew you down. I want the
+block, I'll admit that, but I'm not going to have you sacrifice it for
+me, or for any one else. I think you can get nine thousand for it. I
+know you could if we had a little more time, and I'm not sure but what I
+could find a purchaser for you within the next week that would give you
+nine thousand."
+
+"Oh, I don't care, Charlie; I'm sick of everything; eight thousand, nine
+thousand, anything you like; take it at your own figure."
+
+Geary began to tremble once more, and this time his excitement was so
+great that he hardly dared to trust himself to speak; his breath grew
+short, his hands in his pockets twitched nervously, and curled
+themselves into fists, his heart seemed to him to beat high in his
+throat; he hesitated long, pretending to deliberate as he steadied
+himself.
+
+Vandover remained silent, his hands still clasped back of his head,
+staring at the opposite wall with eyes that saw nothing. The little
+clock began to strike ten.
+
+"I don't know, Van," said Geary; "I don't like to do this, and yet I
+would like to help you out of this muss. You see, if I should ever
+benefit by the property you would feel as though I had taken advantage
+of you at this time and worked a flim-flam on you!"
+
+"Oh, I'll look out for that," returned Vandover.
+
+"No, no, I don't feel quite right about it," answered Geary, wagging his
+head and shutting his eyes. "Better see what we can do at a forced
+sale."
+
+"Why, don't you see you would be doing me a favour?" said Vandover
+wearily. "I _ask_ you to buy the block. I don't care what your figure
+is!"
+
+Once more Geary hesitated, for the last time going over the whole deal
+in his mind from beginning to end, testing it, looking for weak points.
+It was almost perfect. Suppose the boot and shoe people did not buy the
+lot? He could resell it elsewhere, even below its appraised value and
+yet make money by the transaction; the lot was cheap at ten thousand; it
+might bring twelve; even as an ordinary, legitimate speculation it was
+to be desired at such a figure. Suppose the boot and shoe people backed
+out entirely, suppose even he could not find another purchaser for the
+property, why, then, he could hold on to it; the income from the rents
+was fully 10 per cent. of the price he would have paid for it.
+
+"Well, Van," he said at last, making a slow, awkward gesture with his
+left hand, all the fingers extended, "well, I'll take you up--but I
+don't feel as though I should--" He suddenly interrupted himself with a
+burst of sincerity, exclaiming: "Sure, old man, if I had nine thousand
+I'd give it to you for the block, that's straight goods." He felt that
+he was conscientious in saying this. It was true he would have given
+nine thousand if he had had it. For that matter he might have given ten
+or twelve.
+
+"Can't we settle the whole matter to-day?" said Vandover. "Right
+here--now. I'm sick of it, sick of everything. Let's get it done with."
+
+Geary nearly bounded from his seat. He had been wondering how he might
+accomplish this very thing. "All right," he said briskly, "no reason in
+waiting." He had seen to it that he should be prepared to close the sale
+the moment that Vandover was willing. Long ago, when he had first had
+the idea of buying the block, he had spent a day in the offices of the
+county recorder, the tax collector, and the assessor, assuring himself
+of the validity of the title, and only two days ago he had gone over the
+matter again in order to be sure that no encumbrances had been added to
+the block in the meanwhile. He found nothing; the title was clear.
+
+"Isn't this rather rushing the thing through?" he asked. "Maybe you
+might regret it afterward. Don't you want to take two or three days to
+think it over?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Sure now?" persisted Geary.
+
+"But I've _got_ to sell before three days," answered Vandover.
+"Otherwise he'll want ten thousand."
+
+"That's a fact," admitted the other. "Well," he went on, "if your mind's
+made up, why--we can go right ahead. As I say, there's no reason for
+waiting; better take up Wade while he's in the mood for it. You see, he
+hasn't signed any proposition as yet, and he might go back on us."
+Vandover drew a long breath and got up slowly, heavily, from the couch,
+saying:
+
+"What's the odds to me what I sell for? _I_ don't get the money."
+
+"Well, what do you say if we go right down to a notary's office and put
+this thing right through," Geary suggested.
+
+"Come on, then."
+
+"Have you got your abstract here, the abstract of the block?" Vandover
+nodded. "Better bring it along, then," said Geary.
+
+The office of the notary adjoined those of the firm of Beale & Storey;
+in fact, he was in a sense an attaché of the great firm and transacted a
+great deal of legal business for them. Vandover and Geary fell upon him
+in an idle moment. A man had come to regulate the water filter, which
+took the place of an ice cooler in a corner of one of the anterooms, and
+while he was engaged at his work the notary stood at his back, abusing
+him and exclaiming at the ineffectiveness of the contrivance. The notary
+was a middle-aged man with a swollen, purple face; he had a toothpick
+behind each ear and wore an office coat of gray linen, ripped at the
+shoulders.
+
+Then the transfer was made. It was all settled in less than half an
+hour, unceremoniously, almost hastily. For the sake of form Geary signed
+a check for eight thousand dollars which Vandover in his turn made over
+to Hiram Wade. The notary filled out a deed of grant, bargain, and sale,
+pasting on his certificate of acknowledgment as soon as Vandover and
+Geary had signed. Geary took the abstract, thrusting it into his
+breast-pocket. As far as Vandover was concerned, the sale was complete,
+but he had neither his properly nor its equivalent in money.
+
+"Well," declared Geary at length, "I guess that's all there is to be
+done. I'll get a release from old man Wade and send it to you to-morrow
+or next day. Now, let's go down to the Imperial and have a drink on it."
+They went out, but the notary returned to the anteroom, turning the
+spigot of the filter to right and left, frowning at it suspiciously,
+refusing to be satisfied.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Sixteen
+
+
+That particular room in the Lick House was well toward the rear of the
+building, on one of the upper floors, and from its window, one looked
+out upon a vast reach of roofs that rose little by little to meet the
+abrupt rise of Telegraph Hill. It was a sordid and grimy wilderness,
+topped with a gray maze of wires and pierced with thousands of chimney
+stacks. Many of the roofs were covered with tin long since blackened by
+rust and soot. Here and there could be seen clothes hung out to dry.
+Occasionally upon the flanking walls of some of the larger buildings was
+displayed an enormous painted sign, a violent contrast of intense black
+and staring white amidst the sooty brown and gray, advertising some
+tobacco, some newspaper, or some department store. Not far in the
+distance two tall smokestacks of blackened tin rose high in the air,
+above the roof of a steam laundry, one very large like the stack of a
+Cunarder, the other slender, graceful, with a funnel-shaped top. All day
+and all night these stacks were smoking; from the first, the larger one,
+rolled a heavy black smoke, very gloomy, waving with a slow and
+continued movement like the plume of some sullen warrior. But the other
+one, the tall and slender pipe, threw off a series of little white
+puffs, three at a time, that rose buoyant and joyous into the air like
+so many white doves, vanishing at last, melting away in the higher
+sunshine, only to be followed by another flight. They came three at a
+time, the pipe tossing them out with a sharp gay sound like a note of
+laughter interrupted by a cough.
+
+But the interior of the room presented the usual dreary aspect of the
+hotel bedroom--cheerless, lamentable.
+
+The walls were whitewashed and bare of pictures or ornaments, and the
+floor was covered with a dull red carpet. The furniture was a "set," all
+the pieces having a family resemblance. On entering, one saw the bed
+standing against the right-hand wall, a huge double bed with the name of
+the hotel in the corners of its spread and pillowcases. In the exact
+middle of the room underneath the gas fixture was the centre-table, and
+upon it a pitcher of ice-water. The blank, white monotony of one side
+of the room was jarred upon by the grate and mantelpiece, iron, painted
+black, while on the mantelpiece itself stood a little porcelain
+matchsafe with ribbed sides in the form of a truncated cone. Precisely
+opposite the chimney was the bureau, flanked on one side by the door of
+the closet, and on the other in the corner of the room by the stationary
+washstand with its new cake of soap and its three clean, glossy towels.
+On the wall to the left of the door was the electric bell and the
+directions for using it, and tacked upon the door itself a card as to
+the hours for meals, the rules of the hotel, and the extract of the code
+defining the liabilities of innkeepers, all printed in bright red.
+Everything was clean, defiantly, aggressively clean, and there was a
+clean smell of new soap in the air.
+
+But the room was bare of any personality. Of the hundreds who had lived
+there, perhaps suffered and died there, not a trace, not a suggestion
+remained; their different characters had not left the least impress upon
+its air or appearance. Only a few hairpins were scattered on the bottom
+of one of the bureau drawers, and two forgotten medicine bottles still
+remained upon the top shelf of the closet.
+
+This had been the appearance of Vandover's new home when he had first
+come to it, after leaving his suite of rooms in the huge apartment house
+on Sutter Street. He had lived here now for something over a year.
+
+It had all commenced with the seizure of his furniture by the
+proprietors of the apartment house. Almost before he knew it he owed for
+six months' room and board; when the extras were added to this bill it
+swelled to nearly a thousand dollars. At first he would not believe it;
+it was not possible that so large a bill could accumulate without his
+knowledge. He declared there was a mistake, tossing back the bill to the
+clerk who had presented it, and shaking his head incredulously. This
+other became angry, offered to show the books of the house. The manager
+was called in and attempted to prove the clerk's statement by figures,
+dates, and extracts from the entries. Vandover was confused by their
+noise, and grew angry in his turn; vociferating that he did not propose
+to be cheated, the others retorted in a rage, the interview ended in a
+scene.
+
+But in the end they gained their point; they were right, and at length
+Vandover was brought around to see that he was in the wrong, but he had
+no ready money, and while he hesitated, unwilling to part with any of
+his bonds or to put an additional mortgage upon the homestead, the
+hotel, after two warnings, suddenly seized upon his furniture. What a
+misery!
+
+In a moment of time it was all taken from him, all the lovely
+bric-à-brac, all the heavy pieces, all the little articles of _vertu_
+which he had bought with such intense delight and amongst which he had
+lived with such happiness, such contentment, such never-failing
+pleasure. Everything went--the Renaissance portraits, the pipe-rack, the
+chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_
+and, worst of all, the stove, the famous tiled stove, the delightful
+cheery iron stove with the beautified flamboyant ornaments. For the
+first few months after the seizure Vandover was furious with rage and
+disappointment, persuaded that he could never live anywhere but in just
+such a room; it was as if he had been uprooted and cast away upon some
+barren, uncongenial soil. His new room in the hotel filled him with
+horror, and for a long time he used it only as a place where he could
+sleep and wash. For a long time even his pliable character refused to
+fit itself to such surroundings, refused to be content between four
+enormous white walls, a stuccoed ceiling, and a dark red carpet. He
+passed most of his time elsewhere, reading the papers at the Mechanics
+Library in the morning, and in the afternoon sitting about the hotel
+office and parlours until it was time to take his usual little four
+o'clock stroll on Kearney and Market streets. He had long since become a
+familiar figure on this promenade. Even the women and girls of Flossie's
+type had ceased to be interested in this tall, thin young man with the
+tired, heavy eyes and blue-white face. One day, however, a curious
+incident did for a moment invest Vandover with a sudden dramatic
+interest. It was just after he had moved down to the Lick House, about a
+month after he had sold the block in the Mission. Vandover was standing
+at Lotta's fountain at the corner of Kearney and Market streets,
+interested in watching a policeman and two boys reharnessing a horse
+after its tumble. All at once he fell over flat into the street,
+jostling one of the flower venders and nearly upsetting him. He struck
+the ground with a sodden shock, his arms doubled under him, his hat
+rolling away into the mud. Bewildered, he picked himself up; very few
+had seen him fall, but a little crowd gathered for all that. One asked
+if the man was drunk, and Vandover, terrified lest the policeman should
+call the patrol wagon, hurried off to a basement barber shop near by,
+where he brushed his clothes, still bewildered, confused, wondering how
+it had happened.
+
+The fearful nervous crisis which Vandover had undergone had passed off
+slowly. Little by little, bit by bit, he had got himself in hand again.
+However, the queer numbness in his head remained, and as soon as he
+concentrated his attention on any certain line of thought, as soon as he
+had read for any length of time, especially if late at night, the
+numbness increased. Somewhere back of his eyes a strange blurring mist
+would seem to rise; he would find it impossible to keep his mind fixed
+upon any subject; the words of a printed page would little by little
+lose their meaning. At first this had been a source of infinite terror
+to him. He fancied it to be the symptoms of some approaching mental
+collapse, but, as the weeks went by and nothing unusual occurred, he
+became used to it, and refused to let it worry him. If it made his head
+feel queer to read, the remedy was easy enough--he simply would not
+read; and though he had been a great reader, and at one time had been
+used to spend many delightful afternoons lost in the pages of a novel,
+he now gave it all up with an easy indifference.
+
+But, besides all this, the attack had left him with nerves all unstrung;
+even his little afternoon walk on Kearney and Market streets exhausted
+him; any trifling and sudden noise, the closing of a door, the striking
+of a clock, would cause him to start from his place with a gasp and a
+quick catch at the heart. Toward evening this little spasm of nerves
+would sometimes come upon him even when there was nothing to cause it,
+and now he could no longer drop off to sleep without first undergoing a
+whole series of these recoils and starts, that would sometimes bring him
+violently up to a sitting posture, his breath coming short and quick,
+his heart galloping, startled at he knew not what.
+
+At first he had intended to see a doctor, but he had put off carrying
+his intention into effect until he had grown accustomed to the whole
+matter; otherwise, he was well enough, his appetite was good, and when
+he finally did get to sleep he would not wake up for a good eight hours.
+
+One evening, however, about three months after the first crisis and just
+as Vandover was becoming well accustomed to the condition of body and
+mind in which it had left him, the second attack came on. It was
+fearful, much worse than on the first occasion, and this time there was
+no room for doubt. Vandover knew that for the moment he was actually
+insane.
+
+Ellis had been with Vandover most of that afternoon, the two had been
+playing cards in Vandover's room until nearly six o'clock. All the
+afternoon they had been drinking whisky while they played, and by
+supper-time neither of them had any appetite. Ellis refused to go down,
+declaring that if he should eat now it would make him sick. Vandover
+went down alone, but once in the dining-room he found that _he_ could
+not eat either. However, he knew that it was not the whisky. For two
+days his appetite had been failing him. The smell of food revolted him,
+and he left the supper-table, going up to his bare and lamentable room
+with the feeling that he was about to undergo a long spell of sickness.
+In the deserted hall, between the elevator and the door of his room, the
+second crisis came upon him all at once. It was so sudden that it was as
+if some enemy had leaped upon his back, springing out of the shadow,
+gripping him from behind, holding him close. Once more the hysteria
+shook him like a dry leaf. The little nervous starts came so fast that
+they ran together, mingling to form one long thrill of terror, the
+blind, unreasoning terror of something unknown; the numbness weighed
+down upon his brain until consciousness dwindled to a mere point and
+mercifully dulled the torture of his crisping nerves. It seemed to him
+that his hands and head were rapidly swelling to enormous size.
+
+All this he had felt before; it was his old enemy, but now with this
+second attack began a new and even stranger sensation. In his distorted
+wits he fancied that he was in some manner changing, that he was
+becoming another man; worse than that, it seemed to him that he was no
+longer human, that he was sinking, all in a moment, to the level of
+some dreadful beast.
+
+Later on in that same evening Ellis met young Haight coming out of one
+of the theatres, and told him a story that Haight did not believe. Ellis
+was very pale, and he seemed to young Haight to be trying to keep down
+some tremendous excitement.
+
+"If he was drunk," said Ellis, "it was the strangest drunk I ever saw.
+He came back into the room on all fours--not on his hands and knees, you
+understand, but running along the floor upon the palms of his hands and
+his toes--and he pushed the door of the room open with his head,
+nuzzling at the crack like any dog. Oh, it was horrible. _I_ don't know
+what's the matter with Van. You should have seen him; his head was
+hanging way down, and swinging from side to side as he came along; it
+shook all his hair over his eyes. He kept rattling his teeth together,
+and every now and then he would say, way down in his throat so it
+sounded like growls, 'Wolf--wolf--wolf.' I got hold of him and pulled
+him up to his feet. It was just as though he was asleep, and when I
+shook him he came to all at once and began to laugh. 'What's the matter,
+Van?' says I. 'What are you crawling on the floor that way for?' 'I'm
+damned if I know,' says he, rubbing his eyes. 'I guess I must have been
+out of my head. Too much whisky!' Then he says: 'Put me to bed, will
+you, Bandy? I feel all gone in.' Well, I put him to bed and went out to
+get some bromide of potassium; he said that made him sleep and kept his
+nerves steady. Coming back, I met a bell-boy just outside of Van's door,
+and told him to ask the hotel doctor to come up. You see, I had not
+opened the door of the room yet, and while I was talking to the bell-boy
+I could hear the sound of something four-footed going back and forth
+inside the room. When I got inside there was Van, perfectly naked, going
+back and forth along the wall, swinging his head very low, grumbling to
+himself. But he came to again as soon as I shook him, and seemed
+dreadfully ashamed, and went to bed all right. He got to sleep finally,
+and I left the doctor with him, to come out and get something for my own
+nerves."
+
+"What did the doctor say was the matter?" asked young Haight, in horror.
+
+"_Lycanthropy-Pathesis_. I never heard the name before--some kind of
+nervous disease. I guess Van had been hitting up a pretty rapid gait,
+and then I suppose he's had a good deal to worry him, too."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once more the attack passed off, leaving Vandover exhausted, his nerves
+all jangling, his health impaired. Every day he seemed to grow thinner,
+great brown hollows grew under his eyes, and the skin of his forehead
+looked blue and tightly drawn. By degrees a deep gloom overcame him
+permanently, nothing could interest him, nothing seemed worth while. Not
+only were his nerves out of tune, but they were jaded, deadened, slack;
+they were like harpstrings that had been played upon so long and so
+violently that now they could no longer vibrate unless swept with a very
+whirlwind.
+
+As he had foreseen, Vandover had returned again to vice, to the vice
+that was knitted into him now, fibre for fibre, to the ways of the brute
+that by degrees was taking entire possession of him. But he no longer
+found pleasure even in vice; once it had been his amusement, now it was
+his occupation. It was the only thing that seemed to ease the horrible
+nervousness that of late had begun to prey upon him constantly.
+
+But though nothing could amuse him, on the other hand nothing could
+worry him; in the end the very riot of his nerves ceased even to annoy
+him. He had arrived at a state of absolute indifference. He had so often
+rearranged his pliable nature to suit his changing environment that at
+last he found that he could be content in almost any circumstances. He
+had no pleasures, no cares, no ambitions, no regrets, no hopes. It was
+mere passive existence, an inert, plantlike vegetation, the moment's
+pause before the final decay, the last inevitable rot.
+
+One day after he had been living nearly a year at the Lick House, Adams
+& Brunt, the real estate agents, sent him word that they had an offer
+for his property on California Street. It was the homestead. The English
+gentleman, the president of the fruit syndicate who had rented the house
+of Vandover, was now willing to buy it. His business was by this time on
+a firm and paying basis and he had decided to make his home in San
+Francisco. He offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the house,
+including the furniture.
+
+Brunt had several talks with Vandover and easily induced him to sell.
+"You can figure it out for yourself, Mr. Vandover," he said, as he
+pointed out his own calculations to him; "property has been going down
+in the city for the last ten years, and it will continue to do so until
+we can get a competing railroad through. Better sell when you can, and
+twenty-five thousand is a fair price. Of course, you will have to pay
+off the mortgage; you won't get but about fifteen thousand out of it,
+but at the same time you won't have to pay the interest on that mortgage
+to the banks; that will be so much saved a month; add that to what you
+could get for your fifteen thousand at, say, 6 per cent., and you would
+have a monthly income nearly equal to the present rent of the house, and
+much more certain, too. Suppose your tenant should go out, then where
+would you be?"
+
+"All right, all right," answered Vandover, nodding his head vaguely. "Go
+ahead, _I_ don't care." He parted from his old home with as much
+indifference as he had parted from his block in the Mission.
+
+Vandover signed the deed that made him homeless, and at about the same
+time the first payment was made. Ten thousand dollars was deposited in
+one of the banks to his credit, and a check sent to him for the amount.
+The very next day Vandover drew against it for five hundred dollars.
+
+At one time he had had an ambition to buy back his furniture from the
+huge apartment house in which he had formerly lived, and with it to make
+his cheerless bedroom in the Lick House seem more like a home. He felt
+it almost as a dishonour to have strangers using this furniture, sitting
+in the great leather chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, staring
+stupidly at his Renaissance portraits and copies of Assyrian
+_bas-reliefs_. Above all, it was torture to think that other hands than
+his own would tend the famous tiled and flamboyant stove, a stove that
+had its moods, its caprices, like any living person, a stove that had to
+be coaxed and humoured, a stove that he alone could understand. He had
+told himself that if ever again he should have money enough he would
+bring back this furniture to him. At first its absence had been a matter
+for the keenest regret and grief. He had been so used to pleasant
+surroundings that he languished in his new quarters as in a prison. His
+indulgent, luxurious character continually hungered after subdued,
+harmonious colours, pictures, ornaments, and soft rugs. His imagination
+was forever covering the white walls with rough stone-blue paper, and
+placing screens, divans, and window-seats in different parts of the cold
+bare room. One morning he had even gone so far as to pin about the walls
+little placards which he had painted with a twisted roll of the hotel
+letter-paper dipped into the inkstand. "Pipe-rack Here." "Mona Lisa
+Here." "Stove Here." "Window-seat Here." He had left them up there ever
+since, in spite of the chambermaid's protests and Ellis' clumsy satire.
+
+Now, however, he had plenty of money. He would have his furniture back
+within the week. He came back from the bank, the money in his pocket,
+and went up to the room directly, with some vague intention of writing
+to the proprietors of the apartment house at once. But as he shut the
+door behind him, leaning his back against it and looking about, he
+suddenly realized that his old-time desire was passed; he had become so
+used to these surroundings that it now no longer made any difference to
+him whether or not they were cheerless, lamentable, barren. It was like
+all his other little ambitions--he had lost the taste for them, nothing
+made much difference after all. His money had come too late.
+
+Why should he spend his five hundred dollars on something that could no
+longer amuse him? It would be much wiser to spend it all in having a
+good time somewhere--champagne dinners with Flossie, or betting on the
+races--he did not know exactly what. It was true that even these
+alternatives would not amuse him very much--he would fall back upon them
+as things of habit. For that matter everything was an _ennui_, and
+Vandover began to long for some new pleasure, some violent untried
+excitement.
+
+Since the sale of the block in the Mission he had seen but little of
+Geary; young Haight had not been his companion since the time when
+Turner Ravis had broken with him, but little by little he had begun to
+associate with Ellis and his friend the Dummy. Almost every evening the
+three were together, sometimes at the theatre, sometimes in the back
+rooms of the Imperial, sometimes even in the parlours of certain houses,
+amid the murmur of heavy silks and the rustle of stiffly starched
+skirts. At times they would be drunk four nights of the week, and on
+these occasions it was tacitly understood between Ellis and Vandover
+that they should try to get the Dummy so full that he could talk.
+
+However, Ellis' vice was gambling; he and the Dummy often passed the
+whole night over their cards, and as Vandover came more and more under
+Ellis' influence--succumbing to it as weakly as he had succumbed to the
+influence of Charlie Geary--he began to join these parties. They played
+Van John at five dollars a corner. Vandover won as often as he lost, but
+the habit of cards grew upon him steadily.
+
+Toward eleven o'clock the evening of the day upon which he had drawn his
+five hundred, Vandover went around to the Imperial looking for his two
+friends. He found Ellis drinking whisky all alone in one of the little
+rooms, as was his custom; fifteen minutes later the Dummy and Flossie
+joined them. Flossie had grown stouter since Vandover had first known
+her, nearly ten years ago. She had a double chin, and puffy, discoloured
+pockets had come under her eyes. Now her hair was dyed, her cheeks and
+lips rouged, and her former air of health and good spirits gone. She
+never laughed. She had smoked so many cigarettes that now her voice
+hardly rose above a whisper. At one time she had been accustomed to
+boast that she never drank, and it had been one of her peculiarities for
+which she was well known. But on this occasion she joined Ellis in his
+whisky. She had long since departed from her old-time rule of
+temperance, and nowadays drank nothing else but whisky. She had even
+become well known for the quantity of whisky she could drink.
+
+For half an hour the four sat around the little table, talking about the
+new, enormous Sutro Baths that were building at that time. After a while
+Flossie left them, and the Dummy began to imitate the motions of some
+one dealing cards, looking at the same time inquiringly into their
+faces.
+
+"How about that, Bandy?" asked Vandover. "Shall we have a game
+to-night?"
+
+The man of few words merely nodded his head and drank off the rest of
+his whisky at a swallow. They all went up to Vandover's room. Vandover
+got out the cards, the celluloid chips, and a fresh box of cigars. The
+Dummy held up two fingers of his left hand, shutting them together
+afterward with his right and making a hissing noise between his teeth.
+He raised his eyebrows at Vandover. Vandover understood, and, ringing
+for a bell-boy, ordered up three bottles of soda in siphon bottles.
+
+The game was _vingt et un_, or, as they called it, Van John. They cut
+for banker. Ellis turned the first ace, and Vandover bought the bank
+from him. For the first hour they were very jolly, laughing and talking
+back and forth at each other; the Dummy especially communicative,
+continually scribbling upon his writing-pad, holding it toward the
+others. But it was not necessary for them to put their replies in
+writing--he understood from watching the movement of their lips. The
+luck had not declared itself as yet; none of them had lost or won very
+much. The bell-boy brought up the siphons. The Dummy took off his coat,
+and the other two followed his example. They were all smoking, and an
+acrid blue haze filled the room, making a golden blur about each gas
+globe.
+
+But little by little the passion of the gambling seized upon them. The
+luck had begun to declare itself, alternating between Ellis and the
+Dummy. Vandover lost steadily; twice already his bank had been broken,
+and he had been forced to buy in. The play resolved itself into two
+parts, Vandover struggling to keep up with the game on one side, and on
+the other a great battle going on between Ellis and the Dummy. Long
+since they had ceased to laugh, and not a word was spoken; each one was
+absorbed in the game, intently watching the cards as they were turned.
+The four gas-jets of the chandelier flared steadily, filling the room
+with a crude raw light that was reflected with a blinding glare from the
+four staring white walls, the room grew hot, the layer of foul warm air
+just beneath the ceiling, slowly descending. The acrid tobacco smoke no
+longer rose, but hung in long, slow-waving threads just above their
+heads. They played on steadily; a great stillness grew in the room, a
+stillness broken only by the little rattle of chips and subdued rustle
+of the shuffled cards. Once Vandover stopped, just time enough to throw
+off his vest, his collar, and his scarf. For a moment the luck seemed
+about to settle on him. He was still banking, and twice in succession
+he drew Van John, both times winning heavily from the Dummy, and a
+little later tied Ellis at twenty when the latter had staked on nearly a
+third of his chips. But in the next half-dozen hands Ellis got back the
+lead again, winning from both the others. From this time on it was
+settled. The luck suddenly declared openly for Ellis, the Dummy and
+Vandover merely fighting for second place. Ellis held his lead; at one
+o'clock he was nearly fifty dollars ahead of the game. The profound
+silence of the room seemed to widen about them. After midnight the
+noises in the hotel, the ringing of distant call bells, the rattle of
+dishes from the kitchens, the clash of closing elevator doors, gradually
+ceased; only at long intervals one heard the hurried step of a bell-boy
+in the hall outside and the clink of the ice in the water pitcher that
+he was carrying. Outside a great quiet seemed in a sense to rise from
+the sleeping city, the noises in the streets died away. The last
+electric car went down Kearney Street, getting under way with a long
+minor wail. Occasionally a belated coupé, a nighthawk, rattled over the
+cobbles, while close by, from over the roofs, the tall slender stack
+upon the steam laundry puffed incessantly, three puffs at a time, like
+some kind of halting clock. The room became more and more close, none of
+them would take the time to open the window, from ceiling to floor the
+air was fouled by their breathing, by the tobacco smoke and by the four
+flaring gas-jets. By this time a sombre excitement burnt in their eyes
+and quivered in their fingers. Never for an instant did their glances
+leave the cards. Ellis was drinking whisky again, mixed with soda, his
+hand continually groping for the glass with a mechanical gesture; the
+Dummy was so excited he could not keep his cigar alight, and contented
+himself with chewing the end with an hysterical motion of his jaws. The
+perspiration stood in beads on the back of Vandover's hands, running
+down in tiny rivulets between his fingers, his teeth were shut close
+together and he was breathing short through his nose, a fine trembling
+had seized upon his hands so that the chips in his palm rattled like
+castanets. In the stale and murky atmosphere of the overheated room in
+the midst of the vast silence of the sleeping city they played on
+steadily.
+
+Then they began to "plunge," agreeing to play a no limit game and
+raising the value of a red chip to ten dollars; at times they even
+played with the coins themselves when their chips were exhausted.
+Vandover had lost all his ready money, and now for a long time had been
+gambling with the five hundred dollars he had that day drawn from the
+bank. Ellis had practically put the Dummy out of the play, and now the
+game was between him and Vandover. Ellis was banking, and at length
+offered to sell the bank to either one of them. For the first time since
+the real gambling began they commenced to talk a little, but in short,
+brief sentences, answering by monosyllables and by signs.
+
+"How much for the bank?" inquired Ellis, holding up the deck and looking
+from one to the other. Instantly the Dummy wrote ten dollars, in
+figures, on his pad, and showed it to him. Vandover looked at what the
+Dummy had written, and said:
+
+"Fifteen."
+
+"Twenty," scribbled the Dummy, as he watched Vandover's lips form the
+word.
+
+"Twenty-five," returned Vandover. The Dummy hesitated a moment and then
+wrote "thirty." Ellis shook his head saying, "I'll keep the bank myself
+at that."
+
+"Forty dollars!" cried Vandover. The Dummy shook his head, leaning back
+in his chair. Ellis shoved the pack across the table to Vandover, and
+Vandover gave him a twenty-dollar bill and two red chips.
+
+On Vandover's very first deal around, the Dummy "stood" on the second
+card, for twelve chips; Ellis bet twenty-five on his first card, and, as
+he got the second, turned both of them face up. He had two jacks.
+"Twenty-five on each of these," he said. "I'll draw to each one."
+Vandover looked at his own card; it was a ten-spot. All at once he grew
+reckless, and seized with a sudden folly, resolved to attempt a great
+_coup_. "Double up!" he ordered. The Dummy set out twelve more chips,
+and Ellis another fifty, making his bet an even hundred. Vandover began
+to deal to Ellis. On the first jack Ellis drew eighteen and stood at
+that; the first card that fell to the second jack was an ace. "Van
+John," he remarked quietly. The Dummy drew three cards and stood on
+nineteen. Vandover turned up his own card and began to deal for himself.
+He already had a ten; now he drew a seven-spot and king in succession.
+
+"The bank pays," he exclaimed. He paid the Dummy twenty-four chips. He
+gave Ellis fifty for the eighteen he had drawn on his first jack, and
+one hundred for the Van John upon the second, since the latter
+combination called for double the amount wagered; besides this, the bank
+was lost to him. Including the forty that he had paid for the bank, he
+had lost in all two hundred and fourteen dollars.
+
+Never in his life had Vandover played so high a game, never before had
+he won or lost more than fifty dollars at a sitting. But he was content
+to have it thus. Here at last was the new pleasure for which he had
+longed, the fresh violent excitement that alone could rouse his jaded
+nerves, the one thing that could amuse him. However, the failure of his
+_coup_ had left him without chips; he was out of the game. He decided
+that he would stop; more than half of his five hundred dollars was gone
+already. He drank off a glass of soda, the dregs of one of the siphon
+bottles, and got up yawning, shivering a little and stretching his arms
+high above. The other two played on steadily. The Dummy began to gain
+slowly upon Ellis, playing very cautiously, betting only upon face
+cards, aces, and ten-spots. Twice Ellis offered to sell him the bank,
+but he refused, fearful lest it should change his luck.
+
+Vandover sat behind the Dummy's chair, watching his game, but at length,
+worn out, he began to drop off to sleep, waking every now and then with
+a sudden leap and recoil of all his nerves. An hour later the persistent
+scratching of a match awoke him. Ellis and the Dummy were still playing,
+and the Dummy was once more relighting the stump of his cigar. Ellis
+continued to deal, winning at almost every play; a great pile of chips
+and money lay at his elbow. For a few minutes Vandover watched the
+Dummy's game, leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees. But
+it was evident that the Dummy had lost his nerve. Ellis' continued
+winnings had at length demoralized him. At one time he would bet heavily
+on worthless cards, and at another would throw back nines and tens for
+no apparent reason. Finally Ellis dealt him a queen, which he kept,
+betting ten chips. His next card was a seven-spot. He signed to Ellis
+that he would stand. Ellis drew twenty in three cards. Vandover could
+not restrain an exclamation of impatience at the Dummy's stupidity. What
+a fool a man must be to stand on seventeen with only two in the game.
+All at once he tossed twenty dollars across the table to Ellis, saying,
+"Give me that in chips. I'm coming in again." Once more he resumed his
+seat at the table, and Ellis dealt him a hand.
+
+But Vandover's interruption had for an instant taken Ellis' mind from
+the game. He stirred in his chair and looked about the room, puffing out
+his cheeks and blowing between his lips.
+
+"Say, this room is close enough to strangle you. Open the window behind
+you, Van, you're nearest to it." As Vandover raised the curtain he
+uttered a cry: "Look here! will you?"
+
+It was morning; the city was flooded by the light of the sun already an
+hour high. The sky was without a cloud. Over the roofs and amongst the
+gray maze of telegraph wires swarms of sparrows were chittering
+hoarsely, and as Vandover raised the window he could hear the newsboys
+far below in the streets chanting the morning's papers.
+
+"Come on, Van!" exclaimed Ellis impatiently; "we're waiting for you."
+
+That night decided it. From that time on, Vandover's only pleasure was
+gambling. Night and day he sat over the cards, the passion growing upon
+him as he continued to lose, for his ill luck was extraordinary. It was
+a veritable mania, a wild blind frenzy that knew no limit. At first he
+had contented himself with a game in which twenty or thirty dollars was
+as much as he could win or lose at a sitting, but soon this palled upon
+him; he was obliged to raise the stakes continually in order to arouse
+in him the interest, the keen tense excitement, that his jaded nerves
+craved.
+
+The five hundred dollars that he had drawn from the ten thousand, the
+first payment on his old home, melted away within a week. Only a few
+years ago Vandover would have stopped to reflect upon the meaning of
+this, would have resisted the temptation that drew him constantly to the
+gambling-table, but the idea of resistance never so much as occurred to
+him. He did not invest his fifteen thousand, but drew upon it
+continually to satisfy his last new craze. It was not with any hope of
+winning that he gambled--the desire of money was never strong in him--it
+was only the love of the excitement of the moment.
+
+Little by little the fifteen thousand in the bank dwindled. It did not
+all go in cards. Certain habits of extravagance grew upon Vandover, the
+natural outcome of his persistent gambling, the desire of winning easily
+being balanced by the impulses to spend quickly. He took a certain
+hysterical delight in flinging away money with both hands. Now it was
+the chartering of a yacht for a ten-days' cruise about the bay, or it
+was a bicycle bought one week and thrown away the next, a fresh suit of
+clothes each month, gloves worn but once, gold-pieces thrust into
+Flossie's pockets, suppers given to bouffe actresses--twenty-four-hour
+acquaintances--a racehorse bought for eight hundred dollars, resold for
+two hundred and fifty--rings and scarf-pins given away to the women and
+girls of the Imperial, and a whole world of follies that his poor
+distorted wits conceived from hour to hour. His judgment was gone, his
+mind unbalanced. All his life Vandover had been sinking slowly lower and
+lower; this, however, was the beginning of the last plunge. The process
+of degeneration, though inevitable, had been gradual as long as he
+indulged generally in all forms of evil; it was only now when a passion
+for one particular vice absorbed him that he commenced to rush headlong
+to his ruin.
+
+The fifteen thousand dollars--the price of his old home--he gambled or
+flung away in a little less than a year. He never invested it, but ate
+into it day after day, sometimes to pay his gambling debts, sometimes to
+indulge an absurd and extravagant whim, sometimes to pay his bill at the
+Lick House, and sometimes for no reason at all, moved simply by a
+reckless desire for spending.
+
+On the evening of a certain Thanksgiving day, nine months after he had
+sold the house, Vandover came in through the ladies' entrance of the
+Imperial, going slowly down the passageway, looking into the little
+rooms on his right for Ellis or the Dummy. There had been a great
+intercollegiate football game that day, and Vandover, remembering that
+he had once found an interest in such things, had at first determined to
+see it. But toward eleven o'clock in the morning the rain had begun to
+fall, and Ellis, who was to have gone with him, declared that he did not
+care enough about the game to go out to it in the rain. Vandover was
+disappointed; he fancied that he could have enjoyed the game--as much as
+he could enjoy anything of late--but he hated to go to places alone. In
+the end, however, he resolved to go whether Ellis went or not. It was a
+holiday. Vandover had Ellis and the Dummy to lunch with him at the
+hotel, where they arranged the menu of a famous Thanksgiving dinner for
+that evening: they would meet in one of the little rooms of the Imperial
+and go from there to the restaurant. As they were finishing their lunch
+Vandover said:
+
+"I got a new kind of liqueur yesterday--has a colour like violets and
+smells like cologne. You fellows better come up to my room and try it.
+I've got to go up and change anyway, if I go out to that game." They all
+went up to Vandover's cheerless room, and Ellis began to argue with
+Vandover against the folly of going anywhere in the rain.
+
+"_You_ don't want to go to that game, Van. Just look how it's raining.
+I'll bet there won't be a thousand people there. They'll probably
+postpone the game anyway. Say, this _is_ queer looking stuff. What do
+you call it?"
+
+"_Crème violette._"
+
+The Dummy set down his emptied liqueur glass on the mantelshelf, and
+nodded approvingly at Vandover; then he scribbled, "Out of sight," on
+his tablet.
+
+"Tastes like cough syrup and alcohol," growled Ellis, scowling and
+sipping. "I think a pint of this would make the Dummy talk Dutch. Keep
+it up, Dummy," he continued, articulating distinctly so that the other
+could catch the movement of his lips. "Drink some more--make you talk."
+Vandover was cutting the string around a pasteboard box that had just
+come from his tailor's; it was a new suit of clothes, rough cheviot,
+brown with small checks. He dressed slowly and tipped forward the
+swinging mirror of the bureau to see how the trousers set. Meanwhile
+Ellis and the Dummy had got out the cards and chips from the drawer of
+the centre-table and had begun a game.
+
+"Better change your mind, Van," said Ellis without raising his eyes from
+the cards.
+
+"No, sir," answered Van. "You don't know how it is--you never were a
+college man. Why, I wouldn't miss a football game for anything. Talk
+about your horse-racing, talk about your baseball--I tell you there's
+nothing in the world so exciting as a hot football game." He swung into
+his long high-coloured waterproof and stood behind Ellis, watching his
+game for a moment while he tied a couple of long silk streamers to his
+umbrella handle.
+
+"It's one of the college colours," he explained. "Seems like old times
+back at Harvard." Ellis snorted with contempt.
+
+"Such kids!" he growled.
+
+"I saw one of the coaches go down the street a little while ago,"
+continued Vandover, still watching Ellis shuffle and deal. "There were
+about twenty college men on top, and they had a big bulldog all
+harnessed out in their colours, and they were blowing fish-horns, and I
+tell you it made me wish I was one of them again." Ellis did not answer;
+it was probable he did not hear. Both he and the Dummy were settling
+down for a game that no doubt would last all the afternoon. Vandover
+made them free of his room, and they often gambled there when he was
+away. But it invariably made Ellis nervous to have any one stand behind
+his chair while he was playing; he began to move about uneasily. By and
+by he looked at his watch. "Better get a move on," he said, "you'll be
+late."
+
+"Just a minute," answered Vandover, more and more interested in the
+game. "Go on playing; don't bother about me. Oh, I saw Charlie Geary,
+too," he continued, "on another coach; there was a party of them.
+Charlie was with Turner Ravis on the box seat. You remember Turner
+Ravis, don't you, Bandy? The girl I used to go with."
+
+"There's a girl I never liked," observed Ellis. "She always struck me as
+being one of these regular snobs."
+
+"Ah, snob is no name for it," assented Vandover. "She thought she was
+too damned high-toned for me. As soon as I got into that mess about Ida
+Wade, she threw me over. No, she didn't want to be associated with me
+any longer. Well, she can go to the devil. Geary's welcome to her."
+
+"I thought Dolly Haight was going to marry her," said Ellis. "What was
+the matter _there_?"
+
+"I don't know," returned Vandover; "probably Dolly Haight didn't have
+enough money to suit her. Guess she wants a man that will make his pile
+in this town and make his way, too. Ah, you bet!"
+
+Half an hour later he was still behind Ellis' chair. Ellis had become so
+fidgety that he was losing steadily. Once more he turned to Vandover,
+speaking over his shoulder, "Come on, come on, Van, go along to your
+football; you make me nervous standing there." Vandover pushed a
+ten-dollar gold-piece across the table to the Dummy, who was banking,
+and said:
+
+"Give me that in chips. I'm coming in."
+
+"I thought you were going to the game?" inquired Ellis.
+
+"Ah, the devil!" answered Vandover. "Too much rain."
+
+They had played without interruption all that afternoon, and for once
+Vandover had all the luck. When they broke up about five o'clock with
+the understanding to meet again in the Imperial at seven, he had won
+nearly a hundred dollars.
+
+When Vandover went out to keep this appointment he found the
+streets--especially Kearney and Market streets--crowded. It was about
+half-past six. The football game was over and the college men had
+returned. They were everywhere, marching about in long files, chain-gang
+fashion, each file headed by a man beating upon a gong, or parading the
+sidewalks ten abreast, singing college songs or shouting their slogan.
+At every moment one heard the college yells answering each other from
+street corner to street corner, "Rah, rah, rah--Rah, rah, rah!" Vandover
+found the Imperial crowded with students. The barroom was packed to the
+doors, every one of the little rooms in the front hall was full, while
+Flossie and Nannie had a great party of the young fellows in one of the
+larger rooms in the rear. Among the crowd in the barroom, three members
+of the winning team--heroes, with bandages about their heads--were
+breaking training, smoking and drinking for the first time in many long
+weeks.
+
+Vandover found Ellis and the Dummy leaning against the wall in the
+crowded front passage. They were both in bad humour, the Dummy sulking
+because Flossie had left him for one of the football men, the full-back,
+a young blond giant with two dislocated fingers; Ellis in a rage because
+he could get no cocktails at the bar, only straight drinks that
+night--too much of a crowd. These damn college sports thought they
+owned the town. "Ah, let's get out of here, Van!" he called over the
+heads of the throng as soon as Vandover came in sight.
+
+They went out into the street and started in the direction of the
+restaurant where they had decided to eat their Thanksgiving dinner.
+After leaving Vandover that afternoon Ellis had seen the head waiter of
+this restaurant and had explained to him the bill of fare that Vandover,
+the Dummy, and himself had arranged during their lunch at the Lick
+House. The streets had relapsed into a momentary quiet--it was between
+half-past six and seven--and most of the college men were gathered into
+the hotels and cafés eating dinner. About an hour later they would
+reappear again for a moment on their way to the theatre, which they were
+to attend in a body.
+
+But Vandover suddenly discovered that he could not eat a mouthful, the
+smell of food revolted him, and little by little an irregular twitching
+had overcome his hands and forearms.
+
+He had received a great shock. That same evening, as he was leaving the
+hotel, the clerk at the office had handed him some letters that had
+accumulated in his box. Vandover could never think to ask for his mail
+in the morning as he went in to breakfast. Something was surely wrong
+with his head of late. Every day he found it harder and harder to
+remember things. There were three letters altogether: one was the
+tailor's bill mailed the same day that his last suit had been finished;
+a second was an advertisement announcing the near opening of the Sutro
+Baths that were building at that time; and the third a notice from the
+bank calling his attention to the fact that his account was overdrawn by
+some sixty dollars.
+
+At first Vandover did not see the meaning of this notice, and thrust it
+back in his pocket together with the tailor's bill; then slowly an idea
+struggled into his mind. Was it possible that he no longer had any money
+at the bank? Was his fifteen thousand gone? From time to time his
+bank-book had been balanced, and invariably during the first days of
+each month his checks had come back to him, used and crumpled, covered
+with strange signatures and stamped in blue ink; but after the first few
+months he had never paid the least attention to these; he never kept
+accounts, having a veritable feminine horror of figures. But it was
+absurd to think that his money was gone. Pshaw! one could not spend
+fifteen thousand in nine months! It was preposterous! This notice was
+some technicality that he could not understand. He would look into it
+the next day. And so he dismissed the wearisome matter from his mind
+with a shrug of his shoulders as though ridding himself of some
+troublesome burden. However, the idea persisted. Somehow, between the
+lines of the printed form he smelt out a fresh disaster. He read it over
+again and again. All at once as he stood in the doorway of the hotel,
+turning up the collar of his waterproof and watching the little pools in
+the hollows of the asphalt pavement to see if it were still raining, the
+conviction came upon him. In a second he knew that he was ruined. The
+true meaning of the notice became apparent with the swiftness of a great
+flash of light. He had spent his fifteen thousand dollars!
+
+The blow was strong enough, sudden enough to penetrate even Vandover's
+clouded and distorted wits. His nerves were gone in a minute, a sudden
+stupefying numbness fell upon his brain, and the fear of something
+unknown, the immense unreasoning terror that had gripped him for the
+first time the morning after Ida Wade's suicide came back upon him,
+horrible, crushing, so that he had to shut his teeth against a wild
+hysterical desire to rush through the streets screaming and waving his
+arms.
+
+By the time the three friends had reached the restaurant where they were
+to eat their Thanksgiving dinner, Vandover's appetite had given place to
+a loathing of the very smell of food, his nervousness was fast
+approaching hysteria, the little nerve clusters all over his body seemed
+to be crisping and writhing like balls of tiny serpents, at intervals he
+would twitch sharply as though startled at some sudden noise, his breath
+coming short, his heart beating quick.
+
+They had their dinner in one of the private rooms of the restaurant on
+the second floor. All through the meal Vandover struggled to keep
+himself in hand, fighting with all his strength against this
+reappearance of his old enemy, this sudden return of the dreadful
+crisis, determined not to make an exhibition of himself before the
+others. He pretended to eat, and forced himself to talk, joining in with
+Ellis, who was badgering the Dummy about Flossie. The proper thing to
+do was to fill the Dummy's glass while his attention was otherwise
+absorbed, and in the end to get him so drunk that he could talk. Toward
+the end of the dinner Ellis was successful. All at once the Dummy got
+upon his feet, his eyes were glazed with drunkenness, he swayed about in
+an irregular circle, holding up, now by the table, now by the
+chair-back, and now by the wall behind him. He was very angry,
+exasperated beyond control by Ellis' raillery and abuse. He forgot
+himself and uttered a series of peculiar cries very faint and shrill,
+like the sounds of a voice heard through a telephone when some
+imperfection of transmission prevents one from distinguishing the words.
+His mouth was wide open and his tongue rolled about in an absurd way
+between his teeth. Now and then one could catch a word or two. Ellis
+went into spasms of laughter, holding his sides, gasping for breath.
+Vandover could not help being amused, and the two laughed at the Dummy's
+stammering rage until their breath was spent. Throughout the rest of the
+evening the Dummy recommenced from time to time, rising unsteadily to
+his feet, shaking his fists, pouring out a stream of little ineffectual
+birdlike twitterings, trying to give Ellis abuse for abuse, trying to
+talk long after it had ceased to amuse the other two. Ellis had been
+drinking for nearly six hours, without the liquor producing the
+slightest effect upon him; long since, the Dummy was hopelessly drunk;
+and now Vandover, who had been drinking upon an empty stomach, began to
+grow very noisy and boisterous. Little by little Ellis himself commenced
+to lose his self-control. By and by he and Vandover began to sing, each
+independent of the other, very hoarse and loud. The Dummy joined them,
+making a hideous and lamentable noise which so affected Ellis that he
+pretended to howl at it like a little dog overcome by mournful music.
+But suddenly Ellis had an idea, crying out thickly, between two
+hiccoughs:
+
+"Hey, there, Van, do your dog-act for us! Go on! Bark for us!"
+
+By this time Vandover was very nearly out of his head, his drunkenness
+finishing what his nervousness had begun. The attack was fast
+approaching culmination; strange and unnatural fancies began to come and
+go in his brain.
+
+"Go on, Van!" urged Ellis, his eyes heavy with alcohol. "Go on, do your
+dog-act!"
+
+All at once it was as though an angry dog were snarling and barking over
+a bone there under the table about their feet. Ellis roared with
+laughter, but suddenly he himself was drunk. All the afternoon he had
+kept himself in hand; now his intoxication came upon him in a moment.
+The skin around his eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves
+were contracted; they grew darker, taking on the colour of bitumen.
+Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all from
+off the table with a single movement of his arm. Then the alcohol
+overcame him all in an instant like a poisonous gas. He swayed forward
+in his chair and fell across the stripped table, his head rolling
+inertly between his outstretched arms. He did not move again.
+
+In a neighbouring room young Haight had been dining with some college
+fellows, fraternity men, all friends of his, upon whose coach he had
+ridden to and from the game. He had heard Vandover and Ellis in the room
+across the hall and had recognized their voices. Haight had never been a
+friend of Ellis, but no one, not even Turner, had grieved more over
+Vandover's ruin than had his old-time college chum.
+
+Young Haight heard the noise of the falling crockery as Ellis swept the
+table clear, and turned his head sharply, listening. There was a
+moment's silence after this, and Haight, fearing some accident had
+happened, stepped out into the hall and stood there a moment listening
+again; his head inclined toward the closed door. He heard no groaning,
+no exclamations of pain, not even any noise of conversation; only
+through the closed door came a steady sound of barking.
+
+Puzzled, he tried the door and, finding it locked, as he had expected,
+put one foot upon the knob and, catching hold of the top jamb, raised
+himself up and looked down through the open space that answered for a
+transom.
+
+The room was very warm, the air thick with the smell of cooked food, the
+fumes of whisky, and the acrid odour of cigar smoke. Ellis had rolled
+from his chair and lay upon the floor sprawling on his face in the wreck
+of the table. Near to him, likewise upon the floor, but sitting up, his
+back against the wall, was the Dummy. He was muttering incessantly to
+himself, as if delighted at having found his tongue, his head swaying
+on his shoulders, and a strange murmur, soft, birdlike, meaningless,
+like sounds heard from a vast distance, coming from his wide-open mouth.
+
+Vandover was sitting bolt upright in his chair, his hands gripping the
+table, his eyes staring straight before him. He was barking incessantly.
+It was evident that now he could not stop himself; it was like
+hysterical laughter, a thing beyond his control. Twice young Haight
+called him by name, kicking the door as his leg hung against it. At last
+Vandover heard him. Then as he caught sight of his face over the door he
+raised his upper lip above his teeth and snarled at him, long and
+viciously.
+
+As Haight dropped down into the hall a waiter came running up; he, too,
+had heard the noise of the breaking dishes. As he thrust his key into
+the lock he paused a moment, listening and looking in a puzzled way at
+young Haight. "They have a dog in here, then? They had no dog when they
+came. That's funny!"
+
+"Open the door," said young Haight quietly. Once inside Haight went
+directly to Vandover, crying out: "Come! come on, Van! come home with
+me." Vandover started suddenly, looking about him bewildered, drawing
+his hand across his face.
+
+"Home," he repeated vaguely; "yes, that's the idea. Let's go home. I
+want to go to bed. Hello, Dolly! where did _you_ come from? Say, Dolly,
+let me tell you--listen here--come down here close; you mustn't mind me;
+you know I'm a wolf mostly!"
+
+They went down toward the Lick House. Vandover grew steadier after a few
+minutes in the open air. Young Haight locked arms with him; they went on
+together in silence. By this time the streets were crowded again, the
+theatres were over, and the college men were once more at large. Now
+they were all gathered together into one immense procession, headed by a
+brass band in a brewer's wagon, and they tramped aimlessly to and fro
+about Kearney and Market streets, making a hideous noise. At the head
+the band was playing a popular quick-step with a great banging of a bass
+drum. The college men in the front ranks were singing one song, those
+in the rear another, while the middle of the column was given over to an
+abominable medley of fish-horns, policemen's rattles and great Chinese
+gongs. At stated intervals the throng would halt and give the college
+yell.
+
+"Dolly, you and I used to do that," said Vandover, looking after the
+procession. He had himself well in hand by this time. "What was the
+matter with me back there at the restaurant, Dolly?" he asked after a
+while.
+
+"Oh, you'd been drinking a good deal, I guess," answered young Haight.
+"You--you had some queer idea about yourself!"
+
+"Yes, I know," answered Vandover quickly. "Fancied I was some kind of a
+beast, didn't I--some kind of wolf? I have that notion sometimes and I
+can't get it out of my head. It's curious just the same."
+
+They went up to Vandover's room. Vandover lit the gas, but he could
+hardly keep back an exclamation as the glare suddenly struck young
+Haight's face. What in heaven's name was the matter with his old-time
+chum? He seemed to be blighted, shattered, struck down by some terrible,
+overwhelming calamity. A dreadful anguish looked through his eyes. The
+sense of a hopeless misery had drawn and twisted his face. There could
+be no doubt that something had made shipwreck of his life. Vandover was
+looking at a ruined man.
+
+"My God, Dolly!" exclaimed Vandover, "what's happened to you? You look
+like a death's-head, man! What's gone wrong? Aren't you well?"
+
+Haight caught his friend's searching gaze, and for a moment they looked
+at each other without speaking. There was no mistaking the fearful grief
+that smouldered behind Haight's dull, listless eyes. For a moment
+Vandover thought of Turner Ravis. But even if she had turned him off,
+that alone would not account for his friend's fearful condition of mind
+and body.
+
+"What is it, Dolly?" persisted Vandover. "We used to be pretty good
+chums, not so long ago."
+
+They sat down on the edge of the bed, and for a moment their positions
+seemed reversed: Haight the one to be protected and consoled, Vandover
+the shielding and self-reliant one.
+
+Young Haight passed his hand over his face before he answered, and
+Vandover noticed that his fingers trembled like an old man's.
+
+"Do you remember that night, Van, when you and Charlie and I all went
+out to Turner's house, and we had _tamales_ and beer, and a glass broke
+in that peculiar way, and I cut my lip?"
+
+Vandover nodded, forcing his attention against the alcoholic fumes, to
+follow his friend's words.
+
+"We went down to the Imperial afterward," Haight continued, "and ran
+into Ellis, and we had something more to eat. Do you remember that as we
+sat there, Toby, the waiter, brought Flossie in, and she sat there with
+us a while?"
+
+He paused, choosing his words. Vandover listened closely, trying to
+recall the incident.
+
+"She kissed me," said young Haight slowly, "and the court-plaster came
+off. You know I never had anything to do with women, Van. I always tried
+to keep away from them. But that's where my life practically came to an
+end."
+
+"You mean--" began Vandover. "You mean--that you--that Flossie--?"
+
+Haight nodded.
+
+"Good God! I can't believe it. It's not possible! I _know_ Flossie!"
+
+Haight shook his head, smiling grimly.
+
+"I can't help that, Van," said he. "There's no denying facts, there's no
+other possible explanation! As soon as I knew, I went to the doctors
+here, and then I went to New York for treatment, but there's no hope. I
+didn't know, you see. I didn't believe it possible. Turner Ravis and I
+were engaged. I waited too long! There's only one escape for me now."
+His voice dropped, he stared for a moment at the floor. Then he
+straightened up, and said in a different tone, "But, damn it, Van, let's
+not talk about it! I'm haunted with the thing day and night. I want to
+talk to you! I want to talk to you seriously. You know you are ruining
+yourself, old man!"
+
+But Vandover interrupted him with a gesture, saying, "Don't go on,
+Dolly; it isn't the least use. There _was_ a time for that, but that was
+long ago. I used to care, I used to be sorry and all that, but I'm not
+now. Ruining myself? Why, I _have_ ruined myself long ago. We're both
+ruined--only in your case it wasn't your fault. It's too late for me
+now, and I'm even not sorry that it _is_ too late. Dolly, I don't _want_
+to pull up. You can't imagine a man fallen as low as that, can you? I
+couldn't imagine it myself a few years ago. I'm going right straight to
+the devil now, and you might as well stand aside and give me a free
+course, for I'm bound to get there sooner or later. I suppose you would
+think that a man who could see this as plainly as I do would be afraid,
+would have remorse and all that sort of thing. Well, I did at first.
+I'll never forget the night when I first saw it; came near shooting
+myself, but I got over it, and now I'm used to the idea. Dolly, _I can
+get used to almost anything_. Nothing makes much difference to me
+nowadays--only I like to play cards. Look here!" he went on, laying out
+the notice from the bank upon the table, "this came to-day. You see what
+it is! I sold the old house on California Street. Well, I've gambled
+away that money in less than a year. It seems that I'm a financial ruin
+now, but"--and he began to laugh--"I live through it somehow. The news
+didn't prevent me from getting drunk to-night."
+
+After young Haight was gone, Vandover went to bed, turning out the gas
+and drawing down the window half-way from the top. The wine had made him
+sleepy; he was dropping away into a very grateful doze when a sudden
+shock, a violent leap of every nerve in his body, brought him up to a
+sitting posture, gasping for breath, his heart fluttering, his hands
+beating at the empty air. He settled down again, turning upon his
+pillow, closing his eyes, very weary, longing for a good night's sleep.
+Dolly Haight's terrible story, his unjustified fate, and the hopeless
+tragedy of it, came back to him. Vandover would gladly have changed
+places with him. Young Haight had the affection and respect of even
+those that knew. He, Vandover, had thrown away his friends' love and
+their esteem with the rest of the things he had once valued. His
+thoughts, released from all control of his will, began to come and go
+through his head with incredible rapidity, confused ideas,
+half-remembered scenes, incidents of the past few days, bits and ends of
+conversation recalled for no especial reason, all galloping across his
+brain like a long herd of terrified horses; an excitement grew upon
+him, a strange thrill of exhilaration. He was broad awake now, but
+suddenly his left leg, his left arm and wrist, all his left side jerked
+with the suddenness of a sprung trap; so violent was the shock that the
+entire bed shook and creaked with it. Then the inevitable reaction
+followed, the slow crisping and torsion of his nerves, twisting upon
+each other like a vast swarm of tiny serpents; it seemed to begin with
+his ankles, spreading slowly to every part of his body; it was a
+veritable torture, so poignant that Vandover groaned under it, shutting
+his eyes. He could not keep quiet a second--to lie in bed was an
+impossibility; he threw the bed-clothes from him and sprang up. He did
+not light the gas, but threw on his bathrobe and began to walk the
+floor. Even as he walked, his eyelids drooped lower and lower. The need
+of sleep overcame him like a narcotic, but as soon as he was about to
+lose himself he would be suddenly and violently awakened by the same
+shock, the same jangling recoil of his nerves. Then his hands and head
+seemed to swell; next, it was as though the whole room was too small for
+him. He threw open the window and, leaning upon his elbows, looked out.
+
+The clouds had begun to break, the rain was gradually ceasing, leaving
+in the air a damp, fresh smell, the smell of wet asphalt and the odour
+of dripping woodwork. It was warm; the atmosphere was dank, heavy,
+tepid. One or two stars were out, and a faint gray light showed him the
+vast reach of roofs below stretching away to meet the abrupt rise of
+Telegraph Hill. Not far off the slender, graceful smokestack puffed
+steadily, throwing off continually the little flock of white jets that
+rose into the air very brave and gay, but in the end dwindled
+irresolutely, discouraged, disheartened, fading sadly away, vanishing
+under the night, like illusions disappearing at the first touch of the
+outside world. As Vandover leaned from his window, looking out into the
+night with eyes that saw nothing, the college slogan rose again from the
+great crowd of students who still continued to hold the streets.
+
+"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
+
+He turned back into the room, groping among the bottles on his washstand
+for his bromide of potassium. As he poured out the required dose into
+the teaspoon his hand twitched again sharply, flirting the medicine
+over his bared neck and chest, exposed by the bathrobe which he had left
+open at the throat. It was cold, and he shivered a bit as he wiped it
+dry with the back of his hand.
+
+He knew very well that his nervous attack was coming on again. As he set
+down the bottle upon the washstand he muttered to himself, "Now I'm
+going to have a night of it." He began to walk the floor again with
+great strides, fighting with all his pitiful, shattered mind against the
+increasing hysteria, trying to keep out of his brain the strange
+hallucination that assailed it from time to time, the hallucination of a
+thing four-footed, a thing that sulked and snarled. The hotel grew
+quiet; a watchman went down the hall turning out each alternate gas jet.
+Just outside of the door was a burner in a red globe, fixed at a stair
+landing to show the exit in case of fire. This burned all night and it
+streamed through the transom of Vandover's room, splotching the ceiling
+with a great square of red light. Vandover was in a torment, overcome
+now by that same fear with which he had at last become so familiar, the
+unreasoning terror of something unknown. He uttered an exclamation, a
+suppressed cry of despair, of misery, and then suddenly checked himself,
+astonished, seized with the fancy that his cry was not human, was not of
+himself, but of something four-footed, the snarl of some exasperated
+brute. He paused abruptly in his walk, listening, for what he did not
+know. The silence of the great city spread itself around him, like the
+still waters of some vast lagoon. Through the silence he heard the noise
+of the throng of college youths. They were returning, doubling upon
+their line of march. A long puff of tepid air breathing through the open
+window brought to his ears the distant joyous sound of their slogan:
+
+"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
+
+They passed by along the adjacent street, their sounds growing faint.
+Vandover took up his restless pacing again. Little by little the
+hallucination gained upon him; little by little his mind slipped from
+his grasp. The wolf--the beast--whatever the creature was, seemed in his
+diseased fancy to grow stronger in him from moment to moment. But with
+all his strength he fought against it, fought against this strange
+mania, that overcame him at these periodical intervals--fought with his
+hands so tightly clenched that the knuckles grew white, that the nails
+bit into the palm. It seemed to him that in some way his personality
+divided itself into three. There was himself, the real Vandover of every
+day, the same familiar Vandover that looked back at him from his mirror;
+then there was the wolf, the beast, whatever the creature was that lived
+in his flesh, and that struggled with him now, striving to gain the
+ascendency, to absorb the real Vandover into its own hideous identity;
+and last of all, there was a third self, formless, very vague, elusive,
+that stood aside and watched the strife of the other two. But as he
+fought against his madness, concentrating all his attention with a
+tremendous effort of the will, the queer numbness that came upon his
+mind whenever he exerted it enwrapped his brain like a fog, and this
+third self grew vaguer than ever, dwindled and disappeared. Somehow it
+seemed to be associated with consciousness, for after this the sense of
+the reality of things grew dim and blurred to him. He ceased to know
+exactly what he was doing. His intellectual parts dropped away one by
+one, leaving only the instincts, the blind, unreasoning impulses of the
+animal.
+
+Still he continued his restless, lurching walk back and forth in his
+room, his head hanging low and swinging from side to side with the
+movement of his gait. He had become so nervous that the restraint
+imposed upon his freedom of movement by his bathrobe and his loose
+night-clothes chafed and irritated him. At length he had stripped off
+everything.
+
+Suddenly and without the slightest warning Vandover's hands came slowly
+above his head and he dropped forward, landing upon his palms. All in an
+instant he had given way, yielding in a second to the strange
+hallucination of that four-footed thing that sulked and snarled. Now
+without a moment's stop he ran back and forth along the wall of the
+room, upon the palms of his hands and his toes, a ludicrous figure, like
+that of certain clowns one sees at the circus, contortionists walking
+about the sawdust, imitating some kind of enormous dog. Still he swung
+his head from side to side with the motion of his shuffling gait, his
+eyes dull and fixed. At long intervals he uttered a sound, half word,
+half cry, "Wolf--wolf!" but it was muffled, indistinct, raucous, coming
+more from his throat than from his lips. It might easily have been the
+growl of an animal. A long time passed. Naked, four-footed, Vandover ran
+back and forth the length of the room.
+
+By an hour after midnight the sky was clear, all the stars were out, the
+moon a thin, low-swinging scimitar, set behind the black mass of the
+roofs of the city, leaving a pale bluish light that seemed to come from
+all quarters of the horizon. As the great stillness grew more and more
+complete, the persistent puffing of the slender tin stack, the three gay
+and joyous little noises, each sounding like a note of discreet laughter
+interrupted by a cough, became clear and distinct. Inside the room there
+was no sound except the persistent patter of something four-footed going
+up and down. At length even this sound ceased abruptly. Worn out,
+Vandover had just fallen, dropping forward upon his face with a long
+breath. He lay still, sleeping at last. The remnant of the great band of
+college men went down an adjacent street, raising their cadenced slogan
+for the last time. It came through the open window, softened as it were
+by the warm air, thick with damp, through which it travelled:
+
+"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
+
+Naked, exhausted, Vandover slept profoundly, stretched at full length at
+the foot of the bare, white wall of the room beneath two of the little
+placards, scrawled with ink, that read, "Stove Here"; "Mona Lisa Here."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Seventeen
+
+
+On A certain Saturday morning two years later Vandover awoke in his room
+at the Reno House, the room he had now occupied for fifteen months.
+
+One might almost say that he had been expelled from the Lick House. For
+a time he had tried to retain his room there with the idea of paying his
+bills by the money he should win at gambling. But his bad luck was now
+become a settled thing--almost invariably he lost. At last Ellis and the
+Dummy had refused to play with him, since he was never able to pay them
+when they won. They had had a great quarrel. Ellis broke with him
+sullenly, growling wrathfully under his heavy moustache, and the Dummy
+had written upon his pad--so hastily and angrily that the words could
+hardly be read--that he would not play with professional gamblers, men
+who supported themselves by their winnings. Damn it! one had to be a
+gentleman.
+
+Next, Vandover had tried to borrow some money of Charlie Geary. Geary
+had told him that he could not afford as much as Vandover needed. Then
+Vandover became enraged. He had long since seen that Geary had
+practically swindled him out of his block in the Mission, and at that
+very moment the huge boot and shoe "concern" was completing the factory
+built upon the ground that Vandover had once owned. Geary had cleared
+seven thousand dollars on his "deal." His refusal to loan his old-time
+friend fifty dollars upon this occasion had exasperated Vandover out of
+all bounds. There was a scene. Vandover told Geary what he thought of
+his "deal" in very plain words. They shouted "swindler" and "gambler"
+into each other's faces; the whole office was aroused; Vandover was
+ejected by force. On a stair landing half-way to the street he sat down
+and cried into his arms folded upon his knees. When he returned to his
+room he had a sudden return of his dreadful nervous malady and barked
+and whined under the bed.
+
+Then Vandover wrote a fifty-dollar check on the bank--the same bank that
+had just notified him that he was overdrawn--and passed it upon young
+Haight. How he came to do the thing he could not tell; it might have
+been the influence of Geary's successful robbery, or it might have been
+that he had at last lost all principle, all sense of honour and
+integrity. At any rate, he could not bring himself to feel very sorry.
+He knew that young Haight would not prosecute him for the dishonesty; he
+traded upon Haight's magnanimity; he only felt glad that he had the
+fifty dollars. But by this time Vandover did not even wonder at his own
+baseness and degradation. A few years ago this would have been the case;
+now his character was so changed that the theft seemed somehow
+consistent. He had destroyed young Haight's friendship for him. He had
+cast from him his college chum, his best friend, but neither did this
+affect him. Nothing made much difference to him now.
+
+Nevertheless, Vandover was evicted from the Lick House three days after
+he had stolen young Haight's money. Instead of paying his bills with the
+amount, he gambled it away in a back room of a new café on Market Street
+with Toby, the red-eyed waiter from the Imperial, and a certain German
+"professor," a billiard marker, who wore a waistcoat figured with little
+designs of the Eiffel Tower, and who was a third owner in a trotting
+mare named Tomato Ketchup.
+
+Vandover was now left with only his bonds, his U.S. 4 per cents. These
+brought him in but sixty-nine dollars a quarter, or as he had had it
+arranged, twenty-three dollars a month. Just at this time, as if by a
+miracle, a veritable God from the Machine, Vandover's lawyer, Mr. Field,
+found him an opportunity to earn some money. For the first and only time
+in his life Vandover knew what it was to work for a living. The work
+that Field secured for him was the work of painting those little
+pictures on the lacquered surface of iron safes, those little oval
+landscapes between the lines of red and gold lettering--landscapes,
+rugged gorges, ocean steamships under all sail, mountain lakes with
+sailboats careening upon their surfaces, the boat indicated by two
+little triangular dabs of Chinese white, one for the sail itself and the
+other for its reflection in the water. Sometimes even he was called upon
+to paint other little pictures upon the sides of big express wagons--two
+horses, one white and the other bay, galloping very free in an open
+field, their manes and tails flying, or a bulldog, very savage, sitting
+upon a green and black safe, or the head of a mastiff with a spiked
+collar about his neck.
+
+What with the pay for this sort of work and the interest of his bonds,
+Vandover managed to lead a haphazard sort of life, living about in cheap
+lodging-houses and cheap restaurants. But he was never more than a
+second-class workman, and he was so irregular that he could never be
+depended upon.
+
+The moment he began to paint again--even to paint such pitiful little
+pictures as these--the same familiar experience repeated itself, the
+unwillingness of his fingers, their failure to rightly interpret his
+ideas, the resulting crudity of his work, the sudden numbness in his
+brain, the queer, tense sensation behind his eyes. But Vandover had long
+since become accustomed to these symptoms and would not have minded them
+at this time had it not been that they were occasionally followed by a
+nervous twitching and jerking of his whole arm, so that sometimes he
+could not hold the brush steady a minute at a time.
+
+For two years he had drifted about the city, living now here and now
+there, a real hand-to-mouth existence, sinking a little lower each day.
+Now, no one knew him. He had completely passed out of the lives of
+Haight, Geary, and Ellis, just as before he had passed out of the life of
+Turner Ravis. At the end of the first year they had ceased even to think
+about him. For a long time they thought that he was dead, until one day
+Ellis declared that he had seen him far down on Kearney Street, near the
+Barbary Coast, looking at the pictures in the illustrated weeklies that
+were tacked upon the show-board on the sidewalk in front of a
+stationer's. Ellis had told the others that on this occasion Vandover
+seemed to be more sickly than ever; he described his appearance in
+detail, wagging his head at his own story, pursing his lips, putting his
+chin in the air. Vandover had worn an old paint-stained pair of blue
+trousers, fastened with a strap, so that his shirt showed below his
+vest; he had no collar, and he had allowed his beard to grow, a
+straggling thin beard, through which one could see the buttons of his
+shirt, a dirty beard full of the cracker crumbs from the free
+lunch-counters of cheap saloons; he had on a hat which he had worn when
+they had known him; but one should see that hat now!
+
+It was all true: little by little Vandover had abandoned all interest
+in his personal appearance. Of course it was impossible for him to dress
+well at this time, but he had even lost regard for decency and
+cleanliness. He washed himself but rarely. He had even acquired the
+habit of sleeping with all his clothes on during the colder nights of
+the year.
+
+Nothing made any difference. Gradually his mind grew more and more
+clouded; he became stupid, sluggish. He went about the city from dawn to
+dark, his feet dragging, his head hanging low and swinging from side to
+side with the motion of his gait. He rarely spoke; his eyes took on a
+dull, glazed appearance, filmy, like the eyes of a dead fish. At certain
+intervals his mania came upon him, the strange hallucination of
+something four-footed, the persistent fancy that the brute in him had
+now grown so large, so insatiable, that it had taken everything, even to
+his very self, his own identity--that he had literally _become the
+brute_. The attack passed off and left him wondering, perplexed.
+
+The Reno House, where Vandover had lived for some fifteen months, was a
+sort of hotel on Sacramento Street below Kearney. The neighbourhood was
+low--just on the edge of the Barbary Coast, abounding in stores for
+second-hand clothing, saloons, pawnshops, gun-stores, bird-stores, and
+the shops of Chinese cobblers. Around the corner on Kearney Street was a
+concert hall, a dive, to which the admission was free. Near by was the
+old Plaza.
+
+Underneath the hotel on the ground floor were two saloons, a barber
+shop, and a broom manufactory. The lodgers themselves were for the most
+part "transients," sailors lounging about shore between two voyages,
+Swedes and Danes, farmhands, grape-pickers, and cow-punchers from
+distant parts of the state, a few lost women, and Japanese cooks and
+second-boys remaining there while they advertised for positions.
+
+Vandover sank to the grade of these people at once with that fatal
+adaptability to environment which he had permitted himself to foster
+throughout his entire life, and which had led him to be contented in
+almost any circumstances. It was as if the brute in him were forever
+seeking a lower level, wallowing itself lower and lower into the filth
+and into the mire, content to be foul, content to be prone, to be inert
+and supine.
+
+It was Saturday morning about a quarter of nine. The wet season had
+begun early that year. Though this was but the middle of September, the
+rain had fallen steadily since the previous Wednesday. Its steady
+murmur, prolonged and soothing like the purring of a great cat, filled
+Vandover's room with a pleasant sound. The air of the room was thick and
+foul, heavy with the odour of cooking, onions, and stale bedding. It was
+very warm; there was no ventilation. Vandover lay upon the bed half
+awake, dozing under the thick coarse blankets and soiled counterpane.
+With the exception of his shoes and coat he wore all his clothes. He was
+glad to be warm, to be stupefied by the heat of the bedding and the bad
+air of the room.
+
+In the next room a Portuguese fruit vender, very drunk, was fighting
+with the tin pitcher and pasteboard bowl on his wash-stand, trying to
+wet his head, swearing and making a hideous clatter. At length he tipped
+them over upon the floor and gave the pitcher a great kick. The noise
+roused Vandover; he sat up in bed, stretching, rubbing his hands over
+his face. About the same moment the clock in the office downstairs
+struck nine. Vandover let his feet drop to the floor and sat on the edge
+of the bed, looking vaguely about him. His face, ordinarily very pale,
+was oily from sleep and red upon one side from long contact with the
+pillow, the marks of the creases still showing upon his cheek. His long
+straight hair fell about his eyes and ears like a tangled mane. A thin
+straggling beard and moustache, of a brown much lighter than his hair,
+covered the lower part of his face. His nose was long and pinched, while
+brown and puffed pockets hung beneath his eyes.
+
+He wore a white shirt very crumpled and dirty, a low standing collar and
+a black four-in-hand necktie, very greasy. His trousers were striped and
+of a slate blue colour--the "blue pants" of the ready-made clothing
+stores. Still sitting on the bed, Vandover continued his stupid gaze
+about the room.
+
+The room was small, and at some long-forgotten, almost prehistoric
+period had been covered with a yellowish paper, stamped with a huge
+pattern of flowers that looked like the flora of a carboniferous
+strata, a pattern repeated to infinity wherever the eye turned.
+Newspapers were pasted upon the ceiling and a great square of very dirty
+matting covered the floor. There were a few pieces of furniture, very
+old-fashioned, made of pine, with a black walnut veneer, two chairs, a
+washstand and the bed. A great pile of old newspapers tied up with bale
+rope was kicked into one corner. Two gas brackets without globes
+stretched forth their long arms over the empty space where the bureau
+should have been. Under the single window was Vandover's trunk, and upon
+it his colour box and pots of paint. His hat hung upon a hook screwed to
+the door. The hat had once been black, but it had long since turned to a
+greenish hue, and sweat stains were showing about the band.
+
+Vandover dressed slowly. He straightened his hair a bit before the cheap
+mirror that hung over the washstand, putting on his hat immediately
+after to keep it in place. He washed his hands in the dirty water that
+had stood in his pasteboard bowl since the previous afternoon, but left
+his face as it was. He put on his coat, an old cutaway which had been
+his best years ago, but which was now absurdly small for him, the breast
+all spotted and streaked with old stains of soup and gravy. Last of all
+he drew on his shoes. They were new. Vandover had bought them two days
+before for a dollar and ninety cents. They were lined so as to make
+socks superfluous.
+
+It had been a bad week with Vandover. The paint-shop had given him no
+work to do for ten days, and he had been forced to get along in some way
+upon the interest of his bonds--that is to say, upon five dollars and
+seventy-five cents a week. Two dollars and seventy-five cents of this
+went for his room rent, one dollar and ninety for his shoes, and Tuesday
+afternoon he had bought a package of cigarettes for ten cents. By
+Saturday morning he had spent seventy-five cents for food.
+
+When the paint-shop gave him enough work it was Vandover's custom to buy
+a week's commutation ticket at a certain restaurant. He never ate at the
+hotel; it was too expensive. By the commutation system he could buy two
+dollars and twenty-five cents' worth of meals for two dollars, paying in
+tickets at each meal.
+
+But such a thing had been impossible this week. He had been forced to
+fall back upon the free-lunch system. In two years Vandover had learned
+a great deal; even his dulled wits had been sharpened when it had come
+to a question of food. The brute in him might destroy all his finer
+qualities, but even the brute had to feed. When work failed him at the
+beginning of the week Vandover was not unprepared for the contingency;
+the thing had happened before and he knew how to meet it.
+
+On Monday he beat up and down the Barbary Coast, picking out fifteen or
+twenty saloons which supported a free-lunch counter in connection with
+the bar. He took his breakfast Monday morning at the first of these. He
+paid five cents for a glass of beer and ate his morning's meal at the
+lunch counter: stew, bread, and cheese. At noon he made his dinner at
+the second saloon on his route. Here he had another glass of beer, a
+great plate of soup, potato salad, and pretzels. Thus he managed to feed
+himself throughout the week.
+
+It was always his great desire to feed well at Sunday's dinner, to spend
+at least a quarter on that meal. It was something to be looked forward
+to throughout the entire week. But to get twenty-five cents ahead when
+he was out of work was bitter hard. That week he had started out with
+the determination to eat but two meals a day. He would thus save five
+cents daily and by Sunday morning would be thirty cents to the good. But
+each day his resolution broke down. At breakfast he would resolve to go
+without his lunch, at lunch he would make up his mind to go without
+supper, and at supper he would tell himself that now at least his
+determination was irrevocable--he would eat no breakfast the next
+morning. But on each and every occasion his hunger proved too strong,
+his feet carried him irresistibly to the saloon lunch counters, whether
+he would or no. At no time in his life had Vandover accustomed himself
+to self-denial; he could hardly begin now.
+
+At length Saturday morning had come, and while he was dressing he
+realized that he could not look forward to any unusual dinner the next
+day at noon. The disappointment had all the force of an unexpected
+disaster and he began keenly to regret his weakness of the past week.
+Suddenly Vandover resolved that he would go without food all that day;
+it would be a saving of fifteen cents, which, added to the five cents
+that he would spend anyway for his dinner, would almost make a quarter.
+He knew where he could dine excellently well for twenty cents. However,
+he could not make up his mind to go without his Sunday morning's
+breakfast. That, he told himself, he must eat.
+
+Once dressed, Vandover went out. Fortunately, the rain had stopped. He
+went on down through the reeking, steaming streets to one of the big
+fruit markets not far from the water front. The Portuguese fruit vender
+who roomed next to him at the Reno House was employed at a stall here.
+Vandover knew him a little, and it was not hard for him to get a thin
+slice of cocoanut out from the inside rind of one of those that were
+lying cracked open among his other wares.
+
+All the morning Vandover chewed this slice of cocoanut, at the same time
+drinking a great deal of water; for hours he deadened the pang of hunger
+by this means. He passed the time for the most part sitting on the
+benches in the Plaza reading an old newspaper that he had found under a
+seat. The sun came out a little; Vandover found the warmth very
+grateful. He told himself that he could easily hold out until the next
+morning.
+
+He had forgotten about the time and was surprised when the whistles all
+over the town began to blow for noon. In an instant Vandover was hungry
+again. It was all one that he chewed the little pulp of cocoanut rind
+more vigorously than ever, swallowed great draughts of water at the
+public fountains; the little gnawing just between his chest and his
+stomach began to persist. He got up and began to walk. He left the Plaza
+behind him, crossed Kearney Street and went on down Clay Street till he
+reached the water front. For a time he found a certain diversion among
+the shipping and especially in watching a gang of caulkers knocking away
+at the seams of an immense coal steamer. He sat upon a great iron
+clamped pile, spitting into the yellow water below. The air was full of
+the smell of bilge and oakum and fish; the thousands of masts made a
+gray maze against the sky; occasionally an empty truck trundled over the
+hollow docks with a sound of distant cannon. A weakness, a little
+trembling that seemed to come from the pit of his stomach, began upon
+Vandover. He was very hungry. Evidently the slice of cocoanut was no
+longer effective. He swallowed it and lit a cigarette, one of the
+half-dozen still left of the pack he had bought the Tuesday before.
+
+He smoked the cigarette slowly, inhaling as much of the smoke as he
+could. This quieted him for an hour, but he had the folly to smoke again
+at the end of that time, and at once--as he might have known--was hungry
+again. Until dark he struggled along, drinking water continually,
+chewing chips of wood, toothpicks, bits of straw, anything so that the
+action of his jaws might cheat the demands of his stomach. Toward
+half-past seven in the evening he returned to his room in the Reno
+House. If he could get to sleep that would be best of all. On the stairs
+of the hotel, while going up to his room, the strong smell of cooking
+onions came suddenly to his nostrils. It was delicious. Vandover
+breathed in the warm savour with long sighs, closing his eyes; a great
+feebleness overcame him. He asked himself how he could get through the
+next twelve hours.
+
+An hour later he went to bed, hiccoughing from the water he had been
+drinking all day. By this time he had torn the paper from one of his
+cigarettes and was chewing the tobacco. This was his last resort, an
+expedient which he fell back upon only in great extremity, as it
+invariably made him sick to his stomach. He slept a little, but in half
+an hour was broad awake again, gagging and retching dreadfully. There
+was nothing on his stomach to throw up, and now at length the hunger in
+him raged like a wolf. Vandover was in veritable torment.
+
+He could not keep his thoughts away from the money in his pocket, a
+nickel and two dimes. He could eat if he wanted to, could satisfy this
+incessant craving. At every moment the temptation grew stronger. Why
+should he wait until morning? He had the money; it was only a matter of
+a few minutes' walk to the nearest saloon. But he set his face against
+this desire; he had held out so long that it would be a pity to give in
+now; he was not so very hungry after all. No, no; he would not give in,
+he was strong enough; as long as he used his will he need not succumb.
+It was just a question of asserting his strength of mind, of calling up
+the better part of him. Even better than eating would be the
+satisfaction of knowing that he had shown himself stronger than his
+lower animal appetite. No; he would not give in.
+
+Hardly a minute after he had arrived at this resolution Vandover found
+himself drawing on his coat and shoes making ready to go out--to go out
+and eat.
+
+The gas in the room was lit, his money, the nickel and the two dimes,
+was shut in one of his fists. He was dressing himself with one hand,
+dressing with feverish, precipitate haste. What had happened? He
+marvelled at himself, but did not check his preparations an instant. He
+could not stop, whether he would or no; there was something in him
+stronger than himself, something that urged him on his feet, that drove
+him out into the street, something that clamoured for food and that
+would not be gainsaid. It was the animal in him, the brute, that would
+be fed, the evil, hideous brute grown now so strong that Vandover could
+not longer resist it--the brute that had long since destroyed all his
+finer qualities but that still demanded to be fed, still demanded to
+live. All the little money that Vandover had saved during the day he
+spent that night among the coffee houses, the restaurants, and the
+saloons of the Barbary Coast, continuing to eat even after his hunger
+was satisfied. Toward daylight he returned to his room, and all dressed
+as he was flung himself face downward among the coarse blankets and
+greasy counterpane. For nearly eight hours he slept profoundly, with
+long snores, prone, inert, crammed and gorged with food.
+
+It was the middle of Sunday afternoon when he awoke. He roused himself
+and going over to the Plaza sat for a long while upon one of the
+benches. It was a very bright afternoon and Vandover sat motionless for
+a long time in the sun while his heavy meal digested, very happy,
+content merely to be warm, to be well fed, to be comfortable.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eighteen
+
+
+That winter passed, then the summer; September and October came and
+went, and by the middle of November the rains set in. One very wet
+afternoon toward the end of the month Charlie Geary sat at his desk in
+his own private office. He was unoccupied for the moment, leaning back
+in his swivel chair, his feet on the table, smoking a cigar. Geary had
+broken from his old-time habit of smoking only so many cigars as he
+could pay for by saving carfare. He was doing so well now that he could
+afford to smoke whenever he chose. He was still with the great firm of
+Beale & Storey, and while not in the partnership as yet, had worked up
+to the position of an assistant. He had cases of his own now, a great
+many of them, for the most part damage suits against that certain
+enormous corporation whom it was said was ruining the city and entire
+state. Geary posed as one of its bitterest enemies, pushing each suit
+brought against it with a tireless energy, with a zeal that was almost
+vindictive. He began to fit into his own niche, in the eyes of the
+public, and just in proportion as the corporation was hated, Geary was
+admired. Money came to him very fast. He was hardly thirty at this time,
+but could already be called a rich man.
+
+His "deal" with Vandover had given him a taste for real estate, and now
+and then, with the greatest caution, he made a few discreet investments.
+At present he had just completed a row of small cottages across the
+street from the boot and shoe factory. The cottages held two rooms and a
+large kitchen. Geary had calculated that the boot and shoe concern would
+employ nearly a thousand operatives, and he had built his row with the
+view of accommodating a few of them who had families and who desired to
+live near the factory. His agents were Adams & Brunt.
+
+It was toward half-past five, there was nothing more that Geary could do
+that day, and for a moment he leaned back in his swivel chair, before
+going home, smiling a little, very well pleased with himself. He was
+still as clever and shrewd as ever, still devoured with an incarnate
+ambition, still delighted when he could get the better of any one. He
+was yet a young man; with the start he had secured for himself, and
+with the exceptional faculties, the faculties of self-confidence and
+"push" that he knew himself to possess, there was no telling to what
+position he might attain. He knew that it was only a question of
+time--of a short time even--when he would be the practical head of the
+great firm. Everything he turned his hand to was a success. His row of
+houses in the Mission might be enlarged to a veritable settlement for
+every workman in the neighbourhood. His youth, his cleverness, and his
+ambition, supported by his money on the one hand, and on the other by
+the vast machinery of the great law firm, could raise him to a great
+place in the world of men. Gazing through the little blue haze of his
+cigar smoke, he began to have vague ideas, ideas of advancement, of
+political successes. Politics fascinated him--such a field of action
+seemed to be the domain for which he was precisely suited--not the
+politics of the city or of the state; not the nasty little squabbling of
+boodlers, lobbyists, and supervisors, but something large, something
+inspiring, something on a tremendous scale, something to which one could
+give up one's whole life and energy, something to which one could
+sacrifice everything--friendships, fortunes, scruples, principles, life
+itself, no matter what, anything to be a "success," to "arrive," to "get
+there," to attain the desired object in spite of the whole world, to
+ride on at it, trampling down or smashing through everything that stood
+in the way, blind, deaf, fists and teeth shut tight. Not the little
+squabbling politics of the city or state, but national politics, the
+sway and government of a whole people, the House, the Senate, the
+cabinet and the next--why not?--the highest, the best of all, the
+Executive. Yes, Geary aspired even to the Presidency.
+
+For a moment he allowed himself the indulgence of the delightful dream,
+then laughed a bit at his own absurdity. But even the entertainment of
+so vast an idea had made his mind, as it were, big; it was hard to come
+down to the level again. In spite of himself he went on reasoning in
+stupendous thoughts, in enormous ideas, figuring with immense
+abstractions. And then after all, why not? Other men had striven and
+attained; other men were even now striving, other men would "arrive";
+why should not he? As well he as another. Every man for himself--that
+was his maxim. It might be damned selfish, but it was human nature: the
+weakest to the wall, the strongest to the front. Why should not he be in
+the front? Why not in the very front rank? Why not be even before the
+front rank itself--the leader? Vast, vague ideas passed slowly across
+the vision of his mind, ideas that could hardly be formulated into
+thought, ideas of the infinite herd of humanity, driven on as if by some
+enormous, relentless engine, driven on toward some fearful distant
+bourne, driven on recklessly at headlong speed. All life was but a
+struggle to keep from under those myriad spinning wheels that dashed so
+close behind. Those were happiest who were farthest to the front. To lag
+behind was peril; to fall was to perish, to be ridden down, to be beaten
+to the dust, to be inexorably crushed and blotted out beneath that
+myriad of spinning iron wheels. Geary looked up quickly and saw Vandover
+standing in the doorway.
+
+For the moment Geary did not recognize the gaunt, shambling figure with
+the long hair and dirty beard, the greenish hat, and the streaked and
+spotted coat, but when he did it was with a feeling of anger and
+exasperation.
+
+"Look here!" he cried, "don't you think you'd better knock before you
+come in?"
+
+Vandover raised a hand slowly as if in deprecation, and answered slowly
+and with a feeble, tremulous voice, the voice of an old man: "I did
+knock, Mister Geary; I didn't mean no offence." He sat down on the edge
+of the nearest chair, looking vaguely and stupidly about on the floor,
+moving his head instead of his eyes, repeating under his breath from
+time to time, "No offence--no, sir--no offence!"
+
+"Shut that door!" commanded Geary. Vandover obeyed. He wore no vest, and
+the old cutaway coat, fastened by the single remaining button, exposed
+his shirt to view, abominably filthy, bulging at the waist like a
+blouse. The "blue pants," held up by a strap, were all foul with mud and
+grease and paint, and there hung about him a certain odour, that
+peculiar smell of poverty and of degradation, the smell of stale clothes
+and of unwashed bodies.
+
+"Well?" said Geary abruptly.
+
+Vandover put the tips of his fingers to his lips and rolled his eyes
+about the room, avoiding Geary's glance; then he dropped them to the
+floor again, looking at the pattern in the carpet.
+
+"Well," repeated Geary, irritated, "you know I haven't got all the time
+in the world." All at once Vandover began to cry, very softly, snuffling
+with his nose, his chin twitching, the tears running through his thin,
+sparse beard.
+
+"Ah, get on to yourself!" shouted Geary, now thoroughly disgusted. "Quit
+that! Be a man, will you? Stop that! do you hear?" Vandover obeyed,
+catching his breath and slowly wiping his eyes with the side of his
+hand.
+
+"I'm no good!" he said at length, wagging his head and blinking through
+his tears. "I'm--I'm done for and I ain't got no money; yet, of course,
+you see I don't mean no offence. What I want, you see, is to be a man
+and not give in and not let the wolf get me, and then I'll go back to
+Paris. Everything goes round here, very slow, and seems far off; that's
+why I can't get along, and I'm that hungry that sometimes I twitch all
+over. I'm down. I ain't got another cent of money and I lost my job at
+the paint-shop. There's where I drew down twenty dollars a week painting
+landscapes on safes, you know, and then--"
+
+Geary interrupted him, crying out, "You haven't a cent? Why, what have
+you done with your bonds?"
+
+"Bonds?" repeated Vandover, dazed and bewildered. "I ain't never had any
+bonds. What bonds? Oh, yes," he exclaimed, suddenly remembering, "yes, I
+know, my bonds, of course; yes, yes--well, I--those--those, I had to
+sell those bonds--had some debts, you see, my board and my tailor's
+bill. They got out some sort of paper after me. Yes, I had forgotten
+about my bonds. I lost every damned one of them playing cards--gambled
+'em all away. Ain't I no good? But I was winner once--just in two nights
+I won ten thousand dollars. Then I must have lost it again. You see, I
+get so hungry sometimes that I twitch all over--so, just like that. Lend
+me a dollar."
+
+For a few moments Geary was silent, watching Vandover curiously, as he
+sat in a heap on the edge of the chair, fumbling his greenish hat,
+looking about the floor. Presently he asked:
+
+"When did you lose your job at the paint-shop?"
+
+"Day before yesterday."
+
+"And you are out of work now?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover. "I'm broke; I haven't a cent. I'm blest if I
+know how I'm to get along. Lately I've been working for a paint-shop,
+painting landscapes on safes. I drew down fifty dollars a week there,
+but I've lost my job."
+
+"Good Lord, Van!" Geary suddenly exclaimed, nodding his head toward him
+reflectively, "I'm sorry for you!"
+
+The other laughed. "Yes; I suppose I'm a pitiable looking object, but
+I'm used to it. I don't mind much now as long as I can have a place to
+sleep and enough to eat. If you can put me in the way of some work,
+Charlie, I'd be much obliged. You see, that's what I want--work. I don't
+want to run any bunco game. I'm an honest man--I'm too honest. I gave
+away all my money to help another poor duck; gave him thousands, he was
+good to me when I was on my uppers and I meant to repay him. I was
+grateful. I signed a paper that gave him everything I had. It was in
+Paris. There's where my bonds went to. He was a struggling artist."
+
+"Look here!" said Geary, willing to be interested, "you might as well be
+truthful with me. You can't lie to me. Have you gambled away all those
+bonds, or have you been victimized, or have you still got them? Come,
+now, spit it out."
+
+"Charlie, I haven't a cent!" answered Vandover, looking him squarely in
+the face. "Would I be around here and trying to get work from you if I
+had? No; I gambled it all away. You know I had eighty-nine hundred in
+U.S. 4 per cents. Well, first I began to pawn things when my money got
+short--the Old Gentleman's watch that I said I never would part with,
+then my clothes. I couldn't keep away from the cards. Of course, you
+can't understand that; gambling was the only thing that could amuse me.
+Then I began to mortgage my bonds, very little at first. Oh, I went
+slow! Then I got to selling them. Well, somehow, they all went. For a
+time I got along by the work at the paint-shop. But they have let me out
+now; said I was so irregular. I owe for nearly a month at my
+lodging-place." His eyes sought the floor again, rolling about stupidly.
+"Nearly a month, and that's what makes me jump and tremble so. You ought
+to see me sometimes--_b-r-r-r-h!_--and I get to barking! I'm a wolf
+mostly, you know, or some kind of an animal, some kind of a brute. But
+I'd be all right if everything didn't go round very slowly, and seem far
+off. But I'm a wolf. You look out for me; best take care I don't bite
+you! Wolf--wolf! Ah! It's up four flights at the end of the hall, very
+dark, eight thousand dollars in a green cloth sack, and lots of lights
+a-burning. See how long my finger nails are--regular claws; that's the
+wolf, the brute! Why can't I talk in my mouth instead of in my throat?
+That's the devil of it. When you paint on steel and iron your colours
+don't dry out true; all the yellows turn green. But it would 'a' been
+all straight if they hadn't fired me! I never talked to anybody--that
+was _my_ business, wasn't it? And when all those eight thousand little
+lights begin to burn red, why, of course that makes you nervous! So I
+have to drink a great deal of water and chew butcher's paper. That fools
+him and he thinks he's eating. Just so as I can lay quiet in the Plaza
+when the sun is out. There's a hack-stand there, you know, and every
+time that horse tosses his head so's to get the oats in the bottom of
+the nose-bag he jingles the chains on the poles and, by God! that's
+funny; makes me laugh every time; sounds gay, and the chain sparkles
+mighty pretty! Oh, I don't complain. Give me a dollar and I'll bark for
+you!"
+
+Geary leaned back in his chair listening to Vandover, struck with
+wonder, marvelling at that which his old chum had come to be. He was
+sorry for him, too, yet, nevertheless, he felt a certain indefinite
+satisfaction, a faint exultation over his misfortunes, glad that their
+positions were not reversed, pleased that he had been clever enough to
+keep free from those habits, those modes of life that ended in such
+fashion. He rapped sharply on the table. Vandover straightened up,
+raising his eyes:
+
+"You want some work?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes; that's what I'm after," answered Vandover, adding, "I must have
+it!"
+
+"Well," said Geary, hesitatingly, "I can give you something to do, but
+it will be pretty dirty."
+
+Vandover smiled a little, saying, "I guess you can't give me any work
+that would be too dirty for me!" With the words he suddenly began to cry
+again. "I want to be honest, Mister Geary," he exclaimed, drawing the
+backs of his fingers across his lips; "I want to be honest; I'm down and
+I don't mean no offence. Charlie, you and I were old chums once at
+Harvard. My God! to think I was a Harvard man once! Oh, I'm a goner now
+and I ain't got a friend. When I was in the paint-shop they paid me
+well. I've been in a paint-shop lately painting the little pictures on
+the safes, little landscapes, you know, and lakes with mountains around
+them. I pulled down my twenty dollars and findings!"
+
+"Oh, don't be a fool!" cried Geary, ashamed even to see such an
+exhibition. "If you can't be a man, you can get out. Now, see here, you
+came up here once and insulted me in my office, and called me a
+swindler. Ah, you bet you had the swelled head then and insulted me,
+attacked my honesty and charged me with shoving the queer. Now I never
+forget those things generally, but I am willing to let that pass this
+time. I could be nasty now and tell you to rustle for yourself. If you
+want half a dollar now to get something to eat, why, I'll give it to
+you. But I don't propose to support you. Ah, no; I guess not! If you
+want to work I'll give you a chance, but I shall expect you to do good
+work if I give you my good money for it. You may be drunk now or--_I_
+don't know what's the matter with you. But you come up here to-morrow at
+noon, and if you come up here sober or straight or"--Geary began to make
+awkward gestures in the air with both hands--"come up here to talk
+_business_, I may have something for you, but I can't stop any longer
+this evening."
+
+Vandover got upon his feet slowly, turning his greenish hat about by the
+brim, nodding his head. "All right, all right," he answered. "Thank you
+very much, Mister Geary. It's very good of you, I'm sure. I'll be around
+at noon sure."
+
+When Geary was left alone, he walked slowly to his window, and stood
+there a moment looking aimlessly down into the street, shaking his head
+repeatedly, astonished at the degradation of his old-time chum. While he
+stood there he saw Vandover come out upon the sidewalk from the door of
+the great office building. Geary watched him, very interested.
+
+Vandover paused a moment upon the sidewalk, turning up the collar of his
+old cutaway coat against the cold trade wind that was tearing through
+the streets; he thrust both his hands deep into his trousers pockets,
+gripping his sides with his elbows and drawing his shoulders together,
+shrinking into a small compass in order to be warm. The wind blew the
+tails of his cutaway about him like flapping wings. He went up the
+street, walking fast, keeping to the outside of the sidewalk, his
+shoulders bent, his head inclined against the wind, his feet dragging
+after him as he walked. For a moment Geary lost sight of him amid a
+group of men who were hoisting a piano upon a dray. The street was
+rather crowded with office boys, clerks, and typewriters going home to
+supper, and Geary did not catch sight of him again immediately; then all
+at once he saw him hesitating on a corner of Kearney Street, waiting for
+an electric car to pass; he crossed the street, running, his hands still
+in his pockets, and went on hurriedly, dodging in and out of the throng,
+his high shoulders, long neck, and greenish hat coming into sight at
+intervals. For a moment he paused to glance into the show window of a
+tobacconist and pipe-seller's store. A Chinese woman passed him,
+pattering along lamely, her green jade ear-rings twinkling in the light
+of a street lamp, newly lighted. Vandover looked after her a moment,
+gazing stupidly, then suddenly took up his walk again, zigzagging amid
+the groups on the asphalt, striding along at a great pace, his head low
+and swinging from side to side as he walked. He was already far down the
+street; it was dusk; Geary could only catch glimpses of his head and
+shoulders at long intervals. He disappeared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About ten minutes before one the next day as Geary came back from lunch
+he was surprised to see Vandover peeping through the half-open door of
+his office. He had not thought that Vandover would come back.
+
+Of the many different stories that Vandover had told about the
+disappearance of his bonds, the one that was probably truest was the one
+that accounted for the thing by his passion for gambling. For a long
+time after his advent at the Reno House this passion had been dormant;
+he knew no one with whom he could play, and every cent of his income now
+went for food and lodging. But one day, about six months before his
+visit to Geary's office, Vandover saw that the proprietor of the Reno
+House had set up a great bagatelle board in a corner of the
+reading-room. A group of men, sailors, ranchmen, and fruit venders were
+already playing. Vandover approached and watched the game, very
+interested in watching the uncertain course of the marble jog-jogging
+among the pins. The clear little note of the bell or the dry rattle as
+the marble settled quickly into one of the lucky pockets thrilled him
+from head to foot; his hands trembled, all at once his whole left side
+twitched sharply.
+
+From that day the fate of the rest of Vandover's little money was
+decided. In two weeks he had lost twenty dollars at bagatelle, obtaining
+the money by selling a portion of his bonds at a certain broker's on
+Montgomery Street. As soon as he had begun to gamble again the old
+habits of extravagance had come back upon him. From the moment he knew
+that he could get all the money he wanted by the mere signing of a
+paper, he ceased to be economical, scorning the former niggardliness
+that had led him to starve on one day that he might feast the next; now,
+he feasted every day. He still kept his room at the Reno House, but
+instead of taking his meals by any ticket system, he began to affect the
+restaurants of the Spanish quarter, gorging himself with the hot spiced
+meals three and four times a day. He quickly abandoned the bagatelle
+board for the card-table, gambling furiously with two of the ranchmen.
+Almost invariably Vandover lost, and the more he lost the more eager and
+reckless he became.
+
+In a little time he had sold every one of his bonds and had gambled away
+all but twenty dollars of the money received from the last one sold.
+This sum, this twenty dollars, Vandover decided to husband carefully. It
+was all that was left between him and starvation. He made up his mind
+that he must stop gambling and find something to do. He had long since
+abandoned his work at the paint-shop, but at this time he returned there
+and asked for his old occupation. They laughed in his face. Was that the
+way he thought they did business? Not much; another man had his job, a
+much better man and one who was regular, who could be depended on. That
+same evening Vandover broke his twenty dollars and became very drunk. A
+game of poker was started in a back room of one of the saloons on the
+Barbary Coast. One of the players was a rancher named Toedt, a
+fellow-boarder at the Reno House, but the two other players were
+strangers; and there in that narrow, dirty room, sawdust on the floor,
+festoons of fly-specked red and blue tissue paper adorning the single
+swinging lamp, figures cut from bill-posters of the Black Crook pasted
+on the walls, there in the still hours after midnight, long after the
+barroom outside had been closed for the night, the last penny of
+Vandover's estate was gambled away.
+
+The game ended in a quarrel, Vandover, very drunk, and exasperated at
+his ill luck, accusing his friend Toedt, the rancher, of cheating. Toedt
+kicked him in the stomach and made him abominably sick. Then they went
+away and left Vandover alone in the little dirty room, racked with
+nausea, very drunk, fallen forward upon the table and crying into his
+folded arms. After a little he went to sleep, but the nausea continued,
+nevertheless, and in a few moments he gagged and vomited. He never
+moved. He was too drunk to wake. His hands and his coat-sleeves, the
+table all about him, were foul beyond words, but he slept on in the
+midst of it all, inert, stupefied, a great swarm of flies buzzing about
+his head and face. It was the day after this that he had come to see
+Geary.
+
+"Ah," said Geary, as he came up, "it's you, is it? Well, I didn't expect
+to see you again. Sit down outside there in the hall and wait a few
+minutes. I'm not ready to go yet--or, wait; here, I tell you what to
+do." Geary wrote off a list of articles on a slip of paper and pushed it
+across the table toward Vandover, together with a little money. "You get
+those at the nearest grocery and by the time you are back I'll be ready
+to go."
+
+That day Geary took Vandover out to the Mission. They went out in the
+cable-car, Geary sitting inside reading the morning's paper, Vandover
+standing on the front platform, carrying the things that Geary had told
+him to buy: a bar of soap, a scrubbing brush, some wiping cloths, a
+broom, and a pail.
+
+Almost at the end of the car-line they got off and crossed over to where
+Geary's property stood. Vandover looked about him. The ground on which
+his own block had once stood was now occupied by an immense red brick
+building with white stone trimmings; in front on either side of the main
+entrance were white stone medallions upon which were chiselled the head
+of a workman wearing the square paper cap that the workman never wears,
+and a bent-up forearm, the biceps enormous, the fist gripping the short
+hammer that the workman never uses. An enormous round chimney sprouted
+from one corner; through the open windows came the vast purring of
+machinery. It was a boot and shoe factory, built by the great concern
+who had bought the piece of property from Geary for fifteen thousand
+dollars, the same property Geary had bought from Vandover for eight.
+
+Across the street from the factory was a long row of little cottages,
+very neat, each having a tiny garden in front where nasturtiums grew.
+There were fifteen of these cottages; three of them only were vacant.
+
+"That was _my_ idea," observed Geary, as they approached the row,
+willing to explain even though he thought Vandover would not comprehend,
+"and it pays like a nitrate bed. I was clever enough to see that
+cottages like these were just what's wanted by the workmen in the
+factory that have families. I made some money when I sold out my block
+to the boot and shoe people, and I invested it again in these cottages.
+They are cheap and serviceable and they meet the demand." Vandover
+nodded his head in assent, looking vaguely about him, now at the
+cottages, now at the great building across the street. Geary got the
+keys to one of the vacant cottages and the two went inside.
+
+"Now here's what I want you to do," began Geary, pointing about with his
+stick. "You see, when some of these people go out they leave the rooms
+nasty, and that tells against the house when parties come to look at it.
+I want you to go all over it, top and bottom, end to end, and give it a
+good cleaning, sweep the floor, and wash the paint, you know. And now
+these windows, you see how dirty they are; wash those inside and out,
+but don't disturb the agents' signs; you understand?"
+
+"Yes, I understand."
+
+"Now come out here into the kitchen. Look at these laundry tubs and that
+sink. See all that grease! Clean that all out, and underneath the sink
+here. See that rubbish! Take that out, too. Now in here--look at that
+bathtub and toilet. You see how nasty they have left them. You want to
+make 'em look like new!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Now come downstairs. You see I give 'em a little floored basement,
+here; kind of a storeroom and coalroom. Here's where most of the dirt
+and rubbish is. Just look at it! See all that pile over there?"
+
+"I see."
+
+"Take it all out and pile it in the back yard. I'll have an ashman come
+and remove it. Whew! there is a dead hen under here; sling that out the
+first thing."
+
+They went back through the house again, and Geary pointed out the tiny
+garden to Vandover. "Straighten that up a bit, pick up those old
+newspapers and the tin cans. Make it look neat. Now you understand just
+what I want? You make a good job of it, and when you are through with
+this house, you begin on the next vacant one farther down the row. You
+can get the keys at the same place. You get to work right away. I should
+think you ought to finish this house this afternoon."
+
+"All right," answered Vandover.
+
+"I'm going to look around a little. I'll drop in again in about an hour
+and see how you're getting on."
+
+With that Geary went away. It was Saturday afternoon, and as the law
+office closed at noon that day, Geary very often spent the time until
+evening looking about his property. He left Vandover and went slowly
+down the street, noting each particular house with immense satisfaction,
+even entering some of them, talking with the womenfolk, all the men
+being at the factory.
+
+Vandover took off his coat, his old and greasy cutaway, and began work.
+He drew a pail of water from the garden faucet in a neighbour's yard,
+and commenced washing the windows. First he washed the panes from the
+inside, very careful not to disturb Adams & Brunt's signs, and then
+cleaned the outside, sitting upon the window ledge, his body half in and
+half out of the house.
+
+Geary enjoyed himself immensely. The news of the landlord's visit had
+spread from cottage to cottage, awakening a mild excitement throughout
+the length of the row. The women showed themselves on the steps or on
+the sidewalks, very slatternly, without corsets, their hair coming down,
+dressed in faded calico wrappers just as they had come from the laundry
+tubs or the cook-stove. They bethought them of their various grievances,
+a leak here, a broken door-bell there, a certain bad smell that was
+supposed to have some connection with a rash upon the children's faces.
+They waited for Geary's appearance by ones and twos, timid, very
+respectful, but querulous for all that, filling the air with their
+lamentations.
+
+Vandover had finished with the windows. Now he was cleaning out the sink
+and the laundry tubs. They smelt very badly and were all foul with a
+greasy mixture of old lard, soap, soot, and dust; a little mould was
+even beginning to form about the faucets of the tubs. The escape pipe of
+the sink was clogged, and he had to run his finger into it again and
+again to get it free. The kitchen was very dirty; old bottles of sweet
+oil, mouldy vinegar and flat beer cluttered the dusty shelves of the
+pantry.
+
+Meanwhile Geary continued his rounds. He went about among the groups of
+his tenants, very pleased and contented, smiling affably upon them. He
+enlarged himself, giving himself the airs of an English lord in the
+midst of his tenantry, listening to their complaints with a
+good-humoured smile of toleration. A few men were about, some of whom
+were out of work for the moment; others who were sick. To these Geary
+was particularly condescending. He sat in their parlours, little,
+crowded rooms, smelling of stale upholstery and of the last meal, where
+knitted worsted tidies, very gaudy, covered the backs of the larger
+chairs and where one inevitably discovered the whatnot standing in one
+corner, its shelves filled with shell-boxes, broken thermometers and
+little alabaster jars, shaped like funeral urns, where one kept the
+matches. The wife brought the children in, very dirty, looking solemnly
+at Geary, their eyes enlarged in the direct unwinking gaze of cows.
+
+By this time Vandover had finished with the sinks and tubs and was down
+upon his hands and knees scrubbing the stains of grease upon the floor
+of the kitchen. It was very hard work, as his water was cold. He was
+still working about this spot when Geary returned. By this time Vandover
+was so tired that he trembled all over, his spine seemed to be breaking
+in two, and every now and then he paused and passed his hand over the
+small of his back, closing his eyes and drawing a long breath.
+
+"Well, how are you getting on?" asked Geary, as he came into the
+kitchen, drawing on his gloves, about ready to go home.
+
+"Oh, I'm getting along," replied Vandover, rising up to his knees.
+
+"You want to hurry up," answered Geary. "You must be done with this
+house by this evening. You see, I want to advertise it in to-morrow's
+papers."
+
+"All right; I'll have it done."
+
+"Pretty dirty, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, pretty dirty."
+
+"You may have to work here a little later than usual this afternoon, but
+be sure you have everything cleaned up before you leave," Geary said.
+
+"All right," answered Vandover, bending to his work again.
+
+Just as Geary was leaving he had the admirable good fortune to meet on
+the steps of the cottage a little group who were house-hunting; two
+young women and a little boy. The mother of the little boy, so she
+explained to him, was married to one of the burnishers in the factory;
+the other woman was her sister.
+
+Geary showed them about the little house, very eager to secure them as
+tenants then and there. He began to sing its praises, its nearness to
+the factory, its excellent plumbing, its bathroom and its one stationary
+washstand; its little garden and its location on the sunny side of the
+street. "I'm a good landlord," he said to them, as he ushered them into
+the kitchen. "Any one in the row will tell you that. I make it a point
+to keep my houses in good repair and to keep them clean. You see, I have
+a man here now cleaning out." Vandover glanced up at the women an
+instant. The two of them and the little boy looked down at him on all
+fours upon the floor. Then he went on with his work.
+
+"This is the kitchen, you see," pursued Geary. "Notice how large it is;
+you see, here are your laundry tubs, your iron sink, your boiler,
+everything you need. Of course, it's a little grimy now, but by the time
+the man gets through, it will be as clean as your face. Now come
+downstairs here and I'll show the basement."
+
+In a moment their voices sounded through the floor of the kitchen, an
+indistinct, continuous murmur. Then the party returned and passed by
+Vandover again and stood for a long time in the front room haggling. The
+cottage rented for fifteen dollars. The young woman was willing to take
+it at that, but with the understanding that Geary should pay the water
+rent. Geary refused, unwilling even to listen to such a thing. Every
+other tenant in the row paid for his own water. The young women went
+away shaking their heads sadly. Geary let them get half-way down the
+front steps and then called them back. He offered a compromise, the
+young women should pay for the water, but half of their first month's
+rent should be remitted. The burnisher's wife still hesitated, saying,
+"You know yourself this house is awfully dirty."
+
+"Well, you see I'm having it cleaned!"
+
+"It'll have to be cleaned pretty thoroughly. I can't stand _dirt._"
+
+"It _will_ be cleaned thoroughly," persisted Geary. "The man will work
+at it until it is. You can keep an eye on him and see that the work is
+done to suit you."
+
+"You see," objected the burnisher's wife, "I would want to move in right
+away. I don't want to wait all week for the man to get through."
+
+"But he is going to be through with this house to-night," exclaimed
+Geary delighted. "Come now, I know you want this cottage and I would
+like to have such nice-looking people have it. I know you would make
+good tenants. I can find lots of other tenants for this house, only you
+know how it is, a nasty, slovenly woman about the house and a raft of
+dirty children. And you don't like dirt, I can see that. Better call it
+a bargain, and let it go at that."
+
+In the end the burnisher's wife took the house. Geary even induced her
+to deposit five dollars with him in order to secure it.
+
+Vandover was down in the basement filling a barrel with the odds and
+ends of rubbish left by the previous tenants: broken bottles, old
+corsets, bones, rusty bedsprings. The dead hen he had taken out first of
+all, carrying it by one leg. It was a gruesome horror, partly eaten by
+rats, swollen, abnormally heavy, one side flattened from lying so long
+upon the floor. He could hardly stand; each time he bent over it seemed
+as though his backbone was disjointing. After cleaning out the debris he
+began to sweep. The dust was fearful, choking, blinding, so thick that
+he could hardly see what he was about. By and by he dimly made out
+Geary's figure in the doorway.
+
+"Those people have taken the house," he called out, "and I promised them
+you would be through with it by this evening. So you want to stay with
+it now till you're finished. I guess there's not much more to do. Don't
+forget the little garden in front."
+
+"No; I won't forget!"
+
+Geary went away, and for another hour Vandover kept at his work,
+stolidly, his mind empty of all thought, knowing only that he was very
+tired, that his back pained him. He finished with the basement, but as
+he was pottering about the little garden, picking up the discoloured
+newspapers with which it was littered, the burnisher's wife returned,
+together with her sister and the little boy; the little boy eating a
+slice of bread and butter. They re-entered the house; Vandover heard
+their voices, now in one room, now in another. They were looking over
+their future home again; evidently they lived close by.
+
+Suddenly the burnisher's wife came out upon the front steps, looking
+down into the little garden, calling for Vandover. She was not pretty;
+she had a nose like a man and her chin was broad.
+
+"Say, there," she called to Vandover, "do you mean to say that you've
+finished inside here?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover, straightening up, nodding his head. "Yes, I've
+finished."
+
+"Well, just come in here and look at this."
+
+Vandover followed her into the little parlour. Her sister was there,
+very fat, smelling somehow of tallow candles and cooked cabbage; nearby
+stood the little boy still eating his bread and butter.
+
+"Look at that baseboard," exclaimed the burnisher's wife. "You never
+touched that, I'll bet a hat." Vandover did not answer; he brought in
+the pail of water, and soaping his scrubbing brush, went down again on
+his hands and knees, washing the paint on the baseboard where the
+burnisher's wife indicated. The two women stood by, looking on and
+directing his movements. The little boy watched everything, never
+speaking a word, slowly eating his bread and butter. Streaks of butter
+and bread clung to his cheeks, stretching from the corners of his mouth
+to his ears.
+
+"I don't see how you come to overlook that," said the burnisher's wife
+to Vandover. "That's the dirtiest baseboard I ever saw. Oh, my! I just
+can't naturally stand _dirt_! There, you didn't get that stain off.
+That's tobacco juice, I guess. Go back and wash that over again."
+Vandover obeyed, holding the brush in one hand, crawling back along the
+floor upon one palm and his two knees, a pool of soapy, dirty water very
+cold gathered about him, soaking in through the old "blue pants" and
+wetting him to the skin, but he slovened through it indifferently. "Put
+a little more elbow grease to it," continued the burnisher's wife. "You
+have to rub them spots pretty hard to get 'em out. Now scrub all along
+here near the floor. You see that streak there--that's all gormed up
+with something or other. Bugs get in there mighty quick. There, that'll
+do, I guess. Now, is everything else all clean? Mister Geary said it was
+to be done to my satisfaction, and that you were to stay here until
+everything was all right."
+
+All at once her voice was interrupted by the prolonged roar of the
+factory's whistle, blowing as though it would never stop. It was
+half-past five. In an instant the faint purring of the machinery
+dwindled and ceased, leaving an abrupt silence in the air. A moment
+later the army of operatives began to pour out of the main entrance; men
+and girls and young boys, all in a great hurry, the men settling their
+coat collars as they ran down the steps. The usually quiet street was
+crowded in an instant.
+
+The burnisher's wife stood on the steps of the vacant house with her
+sister, watching the throng debouch into the street. All at once the
+sister exclaimed, "There he is!" and the other began to call, "Oscar,
+Oscar!" waving her hand to one of the workmen on the other side of the
+street. It was her husband, the burnisher, and he came across the
+street, crowding his lunch basket into the pocket of his coat. He was a
+thin little man with a timid air, his face white and fat and covered
+with a sparse unshaven stubble of a pale straw colour. An odour as of a
+harness shop hung about him. Vandover gathered up his broom and pail and
+soap preparing to go home.
+
+"Well, Oscar, I've taken the house!" said his wife to the burnisher as
+he came up the steps. "But I couldn't get him to say that he'd let me
+have it for fifteen, water _included_. The landlord himself, Mr. Geary,
+was here to-day and I made the dicker with him. He's had a man here all
+day cleaning up." She explained the bargain, the burnisher approving of
+everything, nodding his head continually. His wife showed him about the
+house, her sister and the little boy following in silence. "He's a good
+landlord, I guess," continued the young woman; "anybody in the row will
+tell you that, and he means to keep his houses in good repair. Now you
+see, here's the kitchen. You see how big it is. Here's our laundry tubs,
+our iron sink, our boiler, and everything we want. It's all as clean as
+a whistle; and get on to this big cubby under the sink where I can stow
+away things." She opened its door to show her husband, but all at once
+straightened up, exclaiming, "Well, dear me _suz_--did you _ever_ see
+anything like that?" The cubby under the sink was abominably dirty.
+Vandover had altogether forgotten it.
+
+The little burnisher himself bent down and peered in.
+
+"Oh, that'll never do!" he cried. "Has that man gone home yet? He
+mustn't; he's got to clean this out first!" He had a weak, faint voice,
+small and timid like his figure. He hurried out to the front door and
+called Vandover back just as he was going down the steps. The two went
+back into the kitchen and stood in front of the sink. "Look under
+there!" piped the burnisher. "You can't leave that, that way."
+
+"You know," protested his wife, "that this all was to be done to our
+satisfaction. Mr. Geary said so. That's the only way I came to take the
+house."
+
+"It's about six o'clock, though," observed her fat sister, who smelt of
+cooked cabbage. "Perhaps he'd want to go home to his dinner." But at
+this both the others cried out in one voice, the burnisher exclaiming:
+"I can't help _that_, this has got to be done first," while his wife
+protested that she couldn't naturally stand dirt, adding, "This all was
+to be done to our satisfaction, and we ain't satisfied yet by a long
+shot." Delighted at this excitement, the little boy forgot to eat into
+his bread and butter, rolling his eyes wildly from one to the other,
+still silent.
+
+Meanwhile, without replying, Vandover had gone down upon the floor
+again, poking about amid the filth under the sink. The four others, the
+burnisher, his wife, his sister-in-law and his little boy, stood about
+in a half-circle behind him, seeing to it that he did the work properly,
+giving orders as to how he should proceed.
+
+"Now, be sure you get everything out that's under there," said the
+burnisher. "Ouf! how it smells! They made a regular dump heap of it."
+
+"What's that over in the corner there?" cried the wife, bending down. "I
+can't see, it's so dark under there--something gray; can't you see, in
+under there? You'll have to crawl way in to get at it--go way in!"
+Vandover obeyed. The sink pipes were so close above him that he was
+obliged to crouch lower and lower; at length he lay flat upon his
+stomach. Prone in the filth under the sink, in the sour water, the
+grease, the refuse, he groped about with his hand searching for the
+something gray that the burnisher's wife had seen. He found it and drew
+it out. It was an old hambone covered with a greenish fuzz.
+
+"Oh, did you _ever_!" cried the burnisher, holding up his hands. "Here,
+don't drop that on my clean floor; put it in your pail. Now get out the
+rest of the dirt, and hurry up, it's late." Vandover crawled back, half
+the way under the sink again, this time bringing out a rusty pan half
+full of some kind of congealed gravy that exhaled a choking, acrid
+odour; next it was an old stocking, and then an ink bottle, a broken
+rat-trap, a battered teapot lacking a nozzle, a piece of rubber hose, an
+old comb choked with a great handful of hair, a torn overshoe,
+newspapers, and a great quantity of other debris that had accumulated
+there during the occupancy of the previous tenant.
+
+"Now go over the floor with a rag," ordered the little burnisher, when
+the last of these articles had been brought out. "Wipe up all that nasty
+muck! Look there by your knee to your left! Scrub that big spot there
+with your brush--looks like grease. That's the style--scrub it hard!"
+His wife joined her directions to his. Then it was over here, and over
+there, now in that corner, now in this, and now with his brush and soap,
+and now with his dry rag, and hurry up all the time because it was
+growing late. But the little boy, carried away by the interest of the
+occasion, suddenly broke silence for the first time, crying out shrilly,
+his mouth full of bread and butter, "Hey there! Get up, you old
+lazee-bones!"
+
+The others shouted with laughter. _There_ was a smart little boy for
+you. Ah, he'd be a man before his mother. It was wonderful how that boy
+saw everything that went on. He took an _interest_, that was it. You
+ought to see, he watched everything, and sometimes he'd plump out with
+things that were astonishing for a boy of his years. Only four and a
+half, too, and they reminded each other of the first day he put on
+knickerbockers; stood in front of the house on the sidewalk all day long
+with his hands in his pockets. The interest was directed from Vandover,
+they turned their backs, grouping themselves about the little boy. The
+burnisher's sister-in-law felt called upon to tell about her little
+girl, a matter of family pride. _She_ was going on twelve, and would you
+suppose that little thing was in next to the last grade in the grammar
+school? Her teacher had said that she was a real wonder; never had had
+such a bright pupil. Ah, but one should see how she studied over her
+books all the time. Next year they were to try to get her into the high
+school. Of course she was not ready for the high school yet, and it was
+against the rule to let children in that way, she was too young, but
+they had a pull, you understand. Oh, yes, for sure they had a pull.
+_They'd_ work her in all right. The burnisher's wife was not listening.
+She wanted to draw the interest back to her own little boy. She bent
+down and straightened out his little jacket, saying, "Does he like his
+bread 'n butter? Well, he could have all he wanted!" But the little boy
+paid no attention to her. He had made a _bon-mot_, ambition stirred in
+him, he had tasted the delights of an appreciative audience. Bread and
+butter had fallen in his esteem. He wished to repeat his former success,
+and cried out shriller than ever:
+
+"Hey, there! Get up, you old lazee-bones!"
+
+But his father corrected him--his mother ought not to encourage him to
+be rude. "That's not right, Oscar," he observed, shaking his head. "You
+must be kind to the poor man."
+
+Vandover was sitting back on his heels to rest his back, waiting till
+the others should finish.
+
+"Well, all through?" inquired the burnisher in his thin voice. Vandover
+nodded. But his wife was not satisfied until she had herself carefully
+peered into the cubby, while her husband held a lighted match for her.
+"Ah, that's something like," she said finally.
+
+It was nearly seven. Vandover prepared to go home a second time. The
+little boy stood in front of him, looking down at him as he made his
+brush and rags and broom into a bundle; the boy slowly eating his bread
+and butter the while. In one corner of the room an excited whispered
+conference was going on between the burnisher, his wife, and his fat
+sister-in-law. From time to time one heard such expressions as
+"Overtime, you know--not afraid of work--ah! think I'd better, looks as
+though he needed it." In a moment the two women went out, calling in
+vain for the little boy to follow, and the burnisher crossed the room
+toward Vandover. Vandover was on his knees tying up his bundle with a
+bit of bale rope.
+
+"I'm sorry," began the burnisher awkwardly. "We didn't mean to keep you
+from your supper--here," he went on, holding out a quarter to Vandover,
+"here, you take this, that's all right--you worked overtime for us,
+that's all right. Come along, Oscar; come along, m'son."
+
+Vandover put the quarter in his vest pocket.
+
+"Thank you, sir," he said.
+
+The burnisher hurried away, calling back, "Come along, m'son; don't keep
+your mama waiting for supper." But the little boy remained very
+interested in watching Vandover, still on the floor, tying the last
+knots. As he finished, he glanced up. For an instant the two remained
+there motionless, looking into each other's eyes, Vandover on the floor,
+one hand twisted into the bale rope about his bundle, the little boy
+standing before him eating the last mouthful of his bread and butter.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE***
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Vandover and the Brute, by Frank Norris</title>
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vandover and the Brute, by Frank Norris</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Vandover and the Brute</p>
+<p>Author: Frank Norris</p>
+<p>Release Date: January 17, 2005  [eBook #14712]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Melissa Er-Raqabi,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h1>VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE</h1>
+
+<h3>By</h3>
+
+<h2>Frank Norris</h2>
+
+
+<h3>1914</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<div style="margin-left: 46%; margin-left: 25%;">
+<p>
+ <a href="#Chapter_One"><b>Chapter One</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Two"><b>Chapter Two</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Three"><b>Chapter Three</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Four"><b>Chapter Four</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Five"><b>Chapter Five</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Six"><b>Chapter Six</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Seven"><b>Chapter Seven</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Eight"><b>Chapter Eight</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Nine"><b>Chapter Nine</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Ten"><b>Chapter Ten</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Eleven"><b>Chapter Eleven</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Twelve"><b>Chapter Twelve</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Thirteen"><b>Chapter Thirteen</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Fourteen"><b>Chapter Fourteen</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Fifteen"><b>Chapter Fifteen</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Sixteen"><b>Chapter Sixteen</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Seventeen"><b>Chapter Seventeen</b></a><br />
+ <a href="#Chapter_Eighteen"><b>Chapter Eighteen</b></a><br />
+ </p>
+</div>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_One" id="Chapter_One" /><i>Chapter One</i></h2>
+<p><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3" /></p>
+
+<p>It was always a matter of wonder to Vandover that he was able to recall
+so little of his past life. With the exception of the most recent events
+he could remember nothing connectedly. What he at first imagined to be
+the story of his life, on closer inspection turned out to be but a few
+disconnected incidents that his memory had preserved with the greatest
+capriciousness, absolutely independent of their importance. One of these
+incidents might be a great sorrow, a tragedy, a death in his family; and
+another, recalled with the same vividness, the same accuracy of detail,
+might be a matter of the least moment.</p>
+
+<p>A certain one of these wilful fillips of memory would always bring
+before him a particular scene during the migration of his family from
+Boston to their new home in San Francisco, at a time when Vandover was
+about eight years old.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the depot of one of the larger towns in western New York. The
+day had been hot and after the long ride on the crowded day coach the
+cool shadow under the curved roof of the immense iron vaulted depot
+seemed very pleasant. The porter, the brakeman and Vandover's father
+very carefully lifted his mother from the car. She was lying back on
+pillows in a long steamer chair. The three men let the chair slowly
+down, the brakeman went away, but the porter remained, taking off his
+cap and wiping his forehead with the back of his left hand, which in
+turn he wiped against the pink palm of his right. The other train, the
+train to which they were to change, had not yet arrived. It was rather
+still; at the far end of the depot a locomotive, sitting back on its
+motionless drivers like some huge sphinx crouching along the rails, was
+steaming quietly, drawing long breaths. The repair gang in greasy caps
+and spotted blue overalls were inspecting the train, pottering about the
+trucks, opening and closing the journal-boxes, striking clear notes on
+the wheels with long-handled hammers.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover stood close to his father, his thin legs wide apart, holding in
+both his hands the satchel he had been permitted to carry. He looked
+about him continually, rolling his big eyes vaguely, watching now the<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4" />
+repair-gang, now a huge white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.</p>
+
+<p>Several passengers were walking up and down the platform, staring
+curiously at the invalid lying back in the steamer chair.</p>
+
+<p>The journey was too much for her. She was very weak and very pale, her
+eyelids were heavy, the skin of her forehead looked blue and tightly
+drawn, and tiny beads of perspiration gathered around the corners of her
+mouth. Vandover's father put his hand and arm along the back of the
+chair and his sick wife rested against him, leaning her head on his
+waistcoat over the pocket where he kept his cigars and pocket-comb. They
+were all silent.</p>
+
+<p>By and by she drew a long sigh, her face became the face of an imbecile,
+stupid, without expression, her eyes half-closed, her mouth half-open.
+Her head rolled forward as though she were nodding in her sleep, while a
+long drip of saliva trailed from her lower lip. Vandover's father bent
+over her quickly, crying out sharply, &quot;Hallie!&mdash;what is it?&quot; All at once
+the train for which they were waiting charged into the depot, filling
+the place with a hideous clangor and with the smell of steam and of hot
+oil.</p>
+
+<p>This scene of her death was the only thing that Vandover could remember
+of his mother.</p>
+
+<p>As he looked back over his life he could recall nothing after this for
+nearly five years. Even after that lapse of time the only scene he could
+picture with any degree of clearness was one of the greatest triviality
+in which he saw himself, a rank thirteen-year-old boy, sitting on a bit
+of carpet in the back yard of the San Francisco house playing with his
+guinea-pigs.</p>
+
+<p>In order to get at his life during his teens, Vandover would have been
+obliged to collect these scattered memory pictures as best he could,
+rearrange them in some more orderly sequence, piece out what he could
+imperfectly recall and fill in the many gaps by mere guesswork and
+conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>It was the summer of 1880 that they had come to San Francisco. Once
+settled there, Vandover's father began to build small residence houses
+and cheap flats which he rented at various prices, the cheapest at ten
+dollars, the more expensive at thirty-five and forty. He had closed out
+his business in the<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5" /> East, coming out to California on account of his
+wife's ill health. He had made his money in Boston and had intended to
+retire.</p>
+
+<p>But he soon found that he could not do this. At this time he was an old
+man, nearly sixty. He had given his entire life to his business to the
+exclusion of everything else, and now when his fortune had been made and
+when he could afford to enjoy it, discovered that he had lost the
+capacity for enjoying anything but the business itself. Nothing else
+could interest him. He was not what would be called in America a rich
+man, but he had made money enough to travel, to allow himself any
+reasonable relaxation, to cultivate a taste for art, music, literature
+or the drama, to indulge in any harmless fad, such as collecting
+etchings, china or bric-&agrave;-brac, or even to permit himself the luxury of
+horses. In the place of all these he found himself, at nearly sixty
+years of age, forced again into the sordid round of business as the only
+escape from the mortal <i>ennui</i> and weariness of the spirit that preyed
+upon him during every leisure hour of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Early and late he went about the city, personally superintending the
+building of his little houses and cheap flats, sitting on saw-horses and
+piles of lumber, watching the carpenters at work. In the evening he came
+home to a late supper, completely fagged, bringing with him the smell of
+mortar and of pine shavings.</p>
+
+<p>On the first of each month when his agents turned over the rents to him
+he was in great spirits. He would bring home the little canvas sack of
+coin with him before banking it, and call his son's attention to the
+amount, never failing to stick a twenty-dollar gold-piece in each eye,
+monocle fashion, exclaiming, &quot;Good for the masses,&quot; a meaningless jest
+that had been one of the family's household words for years.</p>
+
+<p>His plan of building was peculiar. His credit was good, and having
+chosen his lot he would find out from the banks how much they would loan
+him upon it in case he should become the owner. If this amount suited
+him, he would buy the lot, making one large payment outright and giving
+his note for the balance. The lot once his, the banks loaned him the
+desired amount. With this money and with money of his own he would make
+the final payment on the lot and would begin <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6" />the building itself,
+paying his labour on the nail, but getting his material, lumber, brick
+and fittings on time. When the building was half-way up he would
+negotiate a second loan from the banks in order to complete it and in
+order to meet the notes he had given to his contractors for material.</p>
+
+<p>He believed this to be a shrewd business operation, since the rents as
+they returned to him were equal to the interest on a far larger sum than
+that which he had originally invested. He said little about the double
+mortgage on each piece of property &quot;improved&quot; after this fashion and
+which often represented a full two-thirds of its entire value. The
+interest on each loan was far more than covered by the rents; he chose
+his neighbourhoods with great discrimination; real estate was
+flourishing in the rapidly growing city, and the new houses, although
+built so cheaply that they were mere shells of lath and plaster, were
+nevertheless made gay and brave with varnish and cheap mill-work. They
+rented well at first, scarcely a one was ever vacant. People spoke of
+the Old Gentleman as one of the most successful realty owners in the
+city. So pleased did he become with the success of his new venture that
+in course of time all his money was reinvested after this fashion.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of his father's greatest prosperity Vandover himself began
+to draw toward his fifteenth year, entering upon that period of change
+when the first raw elements of character began to assert themselves and
+when, if ever, there was a crying need for the influence of his mother.
+Any feminine influence would have been well for him at this time: that
+of an older sister, even that of a hired governess. The housekeeper
+looked after him a little, mended his clothes, saw that he took his bath
+Saturday nights, and that he did not dig tunnels under the garden walks.
+But her influence was entirely negative and prohibitory and the two were
+constantly at war. Vandover grew in a haphazard way and after school
+hours ran about the streets almost at will.</p>
+
+<p>At fifteen he put on long trousers, and the fall of the same year
+entered the High School. He had grown too fast and at this time was tall
+and very lean; his limbs were straight, angular, out of all proportion,
+with huge articulations at the elbows and knees. His neck was long and
+thin and his head <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7" />large, his face was sallow and covered with pimples,
+his ears were big, red and stuck out stiff from either side of his head.
+His hair he wore &quot;pompadour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Within a month after his entry of the High School he had a nickname. The
+boys called him &quot;Skinny-seldom-fed,&quot; to his infinite humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little the crude virility of the young man began to develop in
+him. It was a distressing, uncanny period. Had Vandover been a girl he
+would at this time have been subject to all sorts of abnormal vagaries,
+such as eating his slate pencil, nibbling bits of chalk, wishing he were
+dead, and drifting into states of unreasoned melancholy. As it was, his
+voice began to change, a little golden down appeared on his cheeks and
+upon the nape of his neck, while his first summer vacation was
+altogether spoiled by a long spell of mumps.</p>
+
+<p>His appetite was enormous. He ate heavy meat three times a day, but took
+little or no exercise. The pimples on his face became worse and worse.
+He grew peevish and nervous. He hated girls, and when in their society
+was a very bull-calf for bashfulness and awkward self-consciousness. At
+times the strangest and most morbid fancies took possession of him,
+chief of which was that every one was looking at him while he was
+walking in the street.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was a good little boy. Every night he said his prayers, going
+down upon his huge knees at the side of his bed. To the Lord's Prayer he
+added various petitions of his own. He prayed that he might be a good
+boy and live a long time and go to Heaven when he died and see his
+mother; that the next Saturday might be sunny all day long, and that the
+end of the world might not come while he was alive.</p>
+
+<p>It was during Vandover's first year at the High School that his eyes
+were opened and that he acquired the knowledge of good and evil. Till
+very late he kept his innocence, the crude raw innocence of the boy,
+like that of a young animal, at once charming and absurd. But by and by
+he became very curious, stirred with a blind unreasoned instinct. In the
+Bible which he read Sunday afternoons, because his father gave him a
+quarter for doing so, he came across a great many things that filled him
+with vague and strange ideas; and one Sunday at church, when the
+minister was intoning the Litany, he <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8" />remarked for the first time the
+words, &quot;all women in the perils of child-birth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He puzzled over this for a long time, smelling out a mystery beneath the
+words, feeling the presence of something hidden, with the instinct of a
+young brute. He could get no satisfaction from his father and by and by
+began to be ashamed to ask him; why, he did not know. Although he could
+not help hearing the abominable talk of the High School boys, he at
+first refused to believe that part of it which he could understand. For
+all that he was ashamed of his innocence and ignorance and affected to
+appreciate their stories nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>At length one day he heard the terse and brutal truth. In an instant he
+believed it, some lower, animal intuition in him reiterating and
+confirming the fact. But even then he hated to think that people were so
+low, so vile. One day, however, he was looking through the volumes of
+the old Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica in his father's library, hoping that he
+might find a dollar bill which the Old Gentleman told him had been at
+one time misplaced between the leaves of some one of the great tomes.
+All at once he came upon the long article &quot;Obstetrics,&quot; profusely
+illustrated with old-fashioned plates and steel engravings. He read it
+from beginning to end.</p>
+
+<p>It was the end of all his childish ideals, the destruction of all his
+first illusions. The whole of his rude little standard of morality was
+lowered immediately. Even his mother, whom he had always believed to be
+some kind of an angel, fell at once in his estimation. She could never
+be the same to him after this, never so sweet, so good and so pure as he
+had hitherto imagined her.</p>
+
+<p>It was very cruel, the whole thing was a grief to him, a blow, a great
+shock; he hated to think of it. Then little by little the first taint
+crept in, the innate vice stirred in him, the brute began to make itself
+felt, and a multitude of perverse and vicious ideas commenced to buzz
+about him like a swarm of nasty flies.</p>
+
+<p>A certain word, the blunt Anglo-Saxon name for a lost woman, that he
+heard on one occasion among the boys at school, opened to him a vista of
+incredible wickedness, but now after the first moment of revolt the
+thing began to seem <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9" />less horrible. There was even a certain attraction
+about it. Vandover soon became filled with an overwhelming curiosity,
+the eager evil curiosity of the schoolboy, the perverse craving for the
+knowledge of vice. He listened with all his ears to everything that was
+said and went about through the great city with eyes open only to its
+foulness. He even looked up in the dictionary the meanings of the new
+words, finding in the cold, scientific definitions some strange sort of
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>There was no feminine influence about Vandover at this critical time to
+help him see the world in the right light and to gauge things correctly,
+and he might have been totally corrupted while in his earliest teens had
+it not been for another side of his character that began to develop
+about the same time.</p>
+
+<p>This was his artistic side. He seemed to be a born artist. At first he
+only showed bent for all general art. He drew well, he made curious
+little modellings in clayey mud; he had a capital ear for music and
+managed in some unknown way of his own to pick out certain tunes on the
+piano. At one time he gave evidence of a genuine talent for the stage.
+For days he would pretend to be some dreadful sort of character, he did
+not know whom, talking to himself, stamping and shaking his fists; then
+he would dress himself in an old smoking-cap, a red table-cloth and one
+of his father's discarded Templar swords, and pose before the long
+mirrors ranting and scowling. At another time he would devote his
+attention to literature, making up endless stories with which he
+terrified himself, telling them to himself in a low voice for hours
+after he had got into bed. Sometimes he would write out these stories
+and read them to his father after supper, standing up between the
+folding doors of the library, acting out the whole narrative with
+furious gestures. Once he even wrote a little poem which seriously
+disturbed the Old Gentleman, filling him with formless ideas and vague
+hopes for the future.</p>
+
+<p>In a suitable environment Vandover might easily have become an author,
+actor or musician, since it was evident that he possessed the
+fundamental <i>afflatus</i> that underlies all branches of art. As it was,
+the merest chance decided his career.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10" />In the same library where he had found the famous encyclop&aelig;dia article
+was &quot;A Home Book of Art,&quot; one of those showily bound gift books one sees
+lying about conspicuously on parlour centre tables. It was an English
+publication calculated to meet popular and general demand. There were a
+great many full-page pictures of lonely women, called &quot;Reveries&quot; or
+&quot;Idylls,&quot; ideal &quot;Heads&quot; of gipsy girls, of coquettes, and heads of
+little girls crowned with cherries and illustrative of such titles as
+&quot;Spring,&quot; &quot;Youth,&quot; &quot;Innocence.&quot; Besides these were sentimental pictures,
+as, for instance, one entitled &quot;It Might Have Been,&quot; a sad-eyed girl,
+with long hair, musing over a miniature portrait, and another especially
+impressive which represented a handsomely dressed woman flung upon a
+<i>Louis Quinze</i> sofa, weeping, her hands clasped over her head. She was
+alone; it was twilight; on the floor was a heap of opened letters. The
+picture was called &quot;Memories.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover thought this last a wonderful work of art and made a hideous
+copy of it with very soft pencils. He was so pleased with it that he
+copied another one of the pictures and then another. By and by he had
+copied almost all of them. His father gave him a dollar and Vandover
+began to add to his usual evening petition the prayer that he might
+become a great artist. Thus it was that his career was decided upon.</p>
+
+<p>He was allowed to have a drawing teacher. This was an elderly German, an
+immense old fellow, who wore a wig and breathed loudly through his nose.
+His voice was like a trumpet and he walked with a great striding gait
+like a colonel of cavalry. Besides drawing he taught ornamental writing
+and engrossing. With a dozen curved and flowing strokes of an ordinary
+writing pen he could draw upon a calling card a conventionalized
+outline-picture of some kind of dove or bird of paradise, all curves and
+curlicues, flying very gracefully and carrying in its beak a half-open
+scroll upon which could be inscribed such sentiments as &quot;From a Friend&quot;
+or &quot;With Fond Regards,&quot; or even one's own name.</p>
+
+<p>His system of drawing was of his own invention. Over the picture to be
+copied he would paste a great sheet of paper, ruling off the same into
+spaces of about an inch square. He would cut out one of these squares
+and Vandover would copy the portion of the picture thus disclosed. When
+he had copied <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11" />the whole picture in this fashion the teacher would go
+over it himself, retouching it here and there, labouring to obviate the
+checker-board effect which the process invariably produced.</p>
+
+<p>At other times Vandover copied into his sketch-book, with hard crayons,
+those lithographed studies on buff paper which are published by the firm
+in Berlin. He began with ladders, wheel-barrows and water barrels,
+working up in course of time to rustic buildings set in a bit of
+landscape; stone bridges and rural mills, overhung by some sort of
+linden tree, with ends of broken fences in a corner of the foreground to
+complete the composition. From these he went on to bunches of grapes,
+vases of fruit and at length to more &quot;Ideal heads.&quot; The climax was
+reached with a life-sized Head, crowned with honeysuckles and entitled
+<i>&quot;Flora.&quot;</i> He was three weeks upon it. It was an achievement, a
+veritable <i>chef-d'oeuvre.</i> Vandover gave it to his father upon Christmas
+morning, having signed his name to it with a great ornamental flourish.
+The Old Gentleman was astounded, the housekeeper was called in and
+exclaimed over it, raising her hands to Heaven. Vandover's father gave
+him a five-dollar gold-piece, fresh from the mint, had the picture
+framed in gilt and hung it up in his smoking-room over the clock.</p>
+
+<p>Never for a moment did the Old Gentleman oppose Vandover's wish to
+become an artist and it was he himself who first spoke about Paris to
+the young man. Vandover was delighted; the Latin Quarter became his
+dream. Between the two it was arranged that he should go over as soon as
+he had finished his course at the High School. The Old Gentleman was to
+take him across, returning only when he was well established in some
+suitable studio.</p>
+
+<p>At length Vandover graduated, and within three weeks of that event was
+on his way to Europe with his father. He never got farther than Boston.</p>
+
+<p>At the last moment the Old Gentleman wavered. Vandover was still very
+young and would be entirely alone in Paris, ignorant of the language,
+exposed to every temptation. Besides this, his education would stop
+where it was. Somehow he could not make it seem right to him to cut the
+young man adrift in this fashion. On the other hand, the Old Gentleman
+had a great many old-time friends and business acquaintances <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12" />in Boston
+who could be trusted with a nominal supervision of his son for four
+years. He had no college education himself, but in some vague way he
+felt convinced that Vandover would be a better artist for a four years'
+course at Harvard.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover took his father's decision hardly. He had never thought of
+being a college-man and nothing in that life appealed to him. He urged
+upon his father the loss of time that the course would entail, but his
+father met this objection by offering to pay for any artistic tuition
+that would not interfere with the regular college work.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little the idea of college life became more attractive to
+Vandover; at the worst, it was only postponing the Paris trip, not
+abandoning it. Besides this, two of his chums from the High School were
+expecting to enter Harvard that fall, and he could look forward to a
+very pleasant four years spent in their company.</p>
+
+<p>Out at Cambridge the term was just closing. The Old Gentleman's friends
+procured him tickets to several of the more important functions. From
+the gallery of Memorial Hall Vandover and his father saw some of the
+great dinners; they went up to New London for the boat-race; they gained
+admittance to the historic Yard on Class-day, and saw the strange
+football rush for flowers around the &quot;Tree.&quot; They heard the seniors sing
+&quot;Fair Harvard&quot; for the last time, and later saw them receive their
+diplomas at Sander's Theatre.</p>
+
+<p>The great ceremonies of the place, the picturesqueness of the elm-shaded
+Yard, the old red dormitories covered with ivy, the associations and
+traditions of the buildings, the venerable pump, Longfellow's room, the
+lecture hall where the minute-men had barracked, all of these things, in
+the end, appealed strongly to Vandover's imagination. Instead of passing
+the summer months in an ocean voyage and a continental journey, he at
+last became content to settle down to work under a tutor, &quot;boning up&quot;
+for the examinations. His father returned to San Francisco in July.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover matriculated the September of the same year; on the first of
+October he signed the college rolls and became a Harvard freshman. At
+that time he was eighteen years old.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Two" id="Chapter_Two" /><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13" /><i>Chapter Two</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>There was little of the stubborn or unyielding about Vandover, his
+personality was not strong, his nature pliable and he rearranged himself
+to suit his new environment at Harvard very rapidly. Before the end of
+the first semester he had become to all outward appearances a typical
+Harvardian. He wore corduroy vests and a gray felt hat, the brim turned
+down over his eyes. He smoked a pipe and bought himself a brindled
+bull-terrier. He cut his lectures as often as he dared, &quot;ragged&quot; signs
+and barber-poles, and was in continual evidence about Foster's and among
+Leavitt and Pierce's billiard-tables. When the great football games came
+off he worked himself into a frenzy of excitement over them and even
+tried to make several of his class teams, though without success.</p>
+
+<p>He chummed with Charlie Geary and with young Dolliver Haight, the two
+San Francisco boys. The three were continually together. They took the
+same courses, dined at the same table in Memorial Hall and would have
+shared the same room if it had been possible. Vandover and Charlie Geary
+were fortunate enough to get a room in Matthew's on the lower floor
+looking out upon the Yard; young Haight was obliged to put up with an
+outside room in a boarding house.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover had grown up with these fellows and during all his life was
+thrown in their company. Haight was a well-bred young boy of good
+family, very quiet; almost every morning he went to Chapel. He was
+always polite, even to his two friends. He invariably tried to be
+pleasant and agreeable and had a way of making people like him.
+Otherwise, his character was not strongly marked.</p>
+
+<p>Geary was quite different. He never could forget himself. He was
+incessantly talking about what he had done or was going to do. In the
+morning he would inform Vandover of how many hours he had slept and of
+the dreams he had dreamed. In the evening he would tell him everything
+he had done that day; the things he had said, how many lectures he had
+cut, what brilliant recitations he had made, and even what food he had
+eaten at Memorial. He was pushing, self-<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14" />confident, very shrewd and
+clever, devoured with an inordinate ambition and particularly pleased
+when he could get the better of anybody, even of Vandover or of young
+Haight. He delighted to assume the management of things. Vandover, he
+made his prot&eacute;g&eacute;, taking over the charge of such business as the two had
+in common. It was he who had found the room in Matthew's, getting it
+away from all other applicants, securing it at the eleventh hour. He put
+Vandover's name on the waiting list at Memorial, saw that he filled out
+his blanks at the proper time, helped him balance his accounts, guided
+him in the choice of his courses and in the making out of his
+study-card.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here, Charlie,&quot; Vandover would exclaim, throwing down the
+Announcement of Courses, &quot;I can't make this thing out. It's all in a
+tangle. See here, I've got to fill up my hours some way or other; <i>you</i>
+straighten this thing out for me. Find me some nice little course, two
+hours a week, say, that comes late in the morning, a good hour after
+breakfast; something easy, all lectures, no outside reading, nice
+instructor and all that.&quot; And Geary would glance over the complicated
+schedule, cleverly untangling it at once and would find two or three
+such courses as Vandover desired.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover's yielding disposition led him to submit to Geary's
+dictatorship and he thus early began to contract easy, irresponsible
+habits, becoming indolent, shirking his duty whenever he could, sure
+that Geary would think for the two and pull him out of any difficulty
+into which he might drift.</p>
+
+<p>Otherwise the three freshmen were very much alike. They were hardly more
+than boys and full of boyish spirits and activity. They began to see
+&quot;college life.&quot; Vandover was already smoking; pretty soon he began to
+drink. He affected beer, whisky he loathed, and such wine as was not too
+expensive was either too sweet or too sour. It became a custom for the
+three to go into town two or three nights in the week and have beer and
+Welsh rabbits at Billy Park's. On these occasions, however, young Haight
+drank only beer, he never touched wine or spirits.</p>
+
+<p>It was in Billy Park's the evening after the football game between the
+Yale and Harvard freshmen that Vandover was drunk for the first time. He
+was not so drunk but that he <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15" />knew he was, and the knowledge of the fact
+so terrified him that it kept him from getting very bad. The first
+sensation soon wore off, and by the time that Geary took charge of him
+and brought him back to Cambridge he was disposed to treat the affair
+less seriously. Nevertheless when he got to his room he looked at
+himself in the mirror a long time, saying to himself over and over
+again, &quot;I'm drunk&mdash;just regularly drunk. Good Heavens! what <i>would</i> the
+governor say to <i>this</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he was surprised to find that he felt so little ashamed.
+Geary and young Haight treated the matter as a huge joke and told him of
+certain funny things he had said and done and which he had entirely
+forgotten. It was impossible for him to take the matter seriously even
+if he had wished to, and within a few weeks he was drunk again. He found
+that he was not an exception; Geary was often drunk with him, fully a
+third of all the Harvard men he knew were intoxicated at different
+times. It was out of the question for Vandover to consider them as
+drunkards. Certainly, neither he nor any of the others drank because
+they liked the beer; after the fifth or sixth glass it was all they
+could do to force down another. Such being the case, Vandover often
+asked himself why he got drunk at all. This question he was never able
+to answer.</p>
+
+<p>It was the same with gambling. At first the idea of playing cards for
+money shocked him beyond all expression. But soon he found that a great
+many of the fellows, fellows like young Haight, beyond question steady,
+sensible and even worthy of emulation in other ways, &quot;went in for that
+sort of thing.&quot; Every now and then Vandover's &quot;crowd&quot; got together in
+his room in Matthew's, and played Van John &quot;for keeps,&quot; as they said,
+until far into the night. Vandover joined them. The stakes were small,
+he lost as often as he won, but the habit of the cards never grew upon
+him. It was like the beer, he &quot;went in for it&quot; because the others did,
+without knowing why. Geary, however, drew his line at gambling; he never
+talked against it or tried to influence Vandover, but he never could be
+induced to play &quot;for keeps&quot; himself.</p>
+
+<p>One very warm Sunday afternoon in the first days of April, when the last
+snows were melting, Vandover and Geary were in their room, sitting at
+opposite ends of their window-seat,<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16" /> Geary translating his Monday's
+&quot;Horace&quot; by the help of a Bonn's translation, Vandover making a pen and
+ink drawing for the next <i>Lampoon</i>. A couple of young women passed down
+the walk, going across the Yard toward the Square. They were cheaply and
+showily dressed. One of them wore a mannish shirtwaist, with a high
+collar and scarf. The other had taken off her gloves and was swinging a
+bright red cape in one of her bare hands. As the couple passed they
+stared calmly at the two young fellows in the window; Vandover lowered
+his eyes over his work, blushing, he could not tell why. Geary stared
+back at them, following them with his eyes until they had gone by.</p>
+
+<p>All at once he began laughing and pounding on the window.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, for goodness sake, quit!&quot; exclaimed Vandover in great alarm,
+twisting off the window-seat and shrinking back out of sight into the
+room. &quot;Quit, Charlie; you don't want to insult a girl that way.&quot; Geary
+looked at him over his shoulder in some surprise, and was about to
+answer when he turned to the window again and exclaimed, grinning and
+waving his hand:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, just come here, Skinny; get on to this, will you? Ah, come here and
+look, you old chump! Do you think they're nice girls? Just take a <i>look</i>
+at them.&quot; Vandover peered timidly around Geary's head and saw that the
+two girls were looking back and laughing, and that the one with the red
+cape was waving it at them.</p>
+
+<p>At supper that night they saw the girls in the gallery of Memorial. They
+pointed them out to young Haight, and Geary at length managed to attract
+their attention. After supper the three freshmen, together with two of
+their sophomore acquaintances, strolled slowly over toward the Yard,
+lighting their pipes and cigarettes. All at once, as they turned into
+the lower gate, they came full upon the same pair of girls. They were
+walking fast, talking and laughing very loudly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Track!&quot; called out one of the sophomores, and the group of young
+fellows parted to let them pass. The sophomore exclaimed in a tone of
+regret, &quot;Don't be in such a hurry, girls.&quot; Vandover became scarlet and
+turned his face away, but the girls looked back and laughed
+good-naturedly. &quot;Come on,&quot; said the sophomore. The group closed around
+the girls and brought them to a standstill; they were not in the least
+<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17" />embarrassed at this, but laughed more than ever. Neither of them was
+pretty, but there was a certain attraction about them that pleased
+Vandover immensely. He was very excited.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a very embarrassing pause. No one knew what to say. Geary
+alone regained his assurance at length, and began a lively interchange
+of chaff with one of them. The others could only stand about and smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; cried the other girl after a while, &quot;I ain't going to stand here
+in the snow all <i>night</i>. Let's take a walk; come along. I choose <i>you</i>.&quot;
+Before Vandover knew it she had taken his arm. The sophomore managed in
+some way to pair off with the other girl; Haight had already left the
+group; the two couples started off, while Geary and the other sophomore
+who were left out followed awkwardly in the rear for a little way and
+then disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was so excited that he could scarcely speak. This was a new
+experience. At first it attracted him, but the hopeless vulgarity of the
+girl at his side, her tawdry clothes, her sordid, petty talk, her slang,
+her miserable profanity, soon began to revolt him. He felt that he could
+not keep his self-respect while such a girl hung upon his arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say,&quot; said the girl at length, &quot;didn't I see you in town the other
+afternoon on Washington Street?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Maybe you did,&quot; answered Vandover, trying to be polite. &quot;I'm down there
+pretty often.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I guess yes,&quot; she answered. &quot;You Harvard sports make a regular
+promenade out o' Washington Street Saturday afternoons. I suppose I've
+seen you down there pretty often, but didn't notice. Do you stand or
+walk?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover's gorge rose with disgust. He stopped abruptly and pulled away
+from the girl. Not only did she disgust him, but he felt sorry for her;
+he felt ashamed and pitiful for a woman who had fallen so low. Still he
+tried to be polite to her; he did not know how to be rude with any kind
+of woman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll have to excuse me,&quot; he said, taking off his hat. &quot;I don't
+believe I can take a walk with you to-night. I&mdash;you see&mdash;I've got a good
+deal of work to do; I think I'll have to leave you.&quot; Then he bowed to
+her with his hat in his hand, hurrying away before she could answer him
+a word.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18" />He found Geary alone in their room, cribbing &quot;'Horace&quot; again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you bet,&quot; Geary said. &quot;I shook those chippies. I sized them up
+right away. I was clever enough for that. They were no good. I thought
+you would get enough of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I don't know,&quot; said Vandover after a while, as he settled to his
+drawing. &quot;She was pretty common, but anyhow I don't want to help bring
+down a poor girl like that any lower than she is already.&quot; This saying
+struck Vandover as being very good and noble, and he found occasion to
+repeat it to young Haight the next day.</p>
+
+<p>But within three days of this, at the time when Vandover would have
+fancied himself farthest from such a thing, he underwent a curious
+reaction. On a certain evening, moved by an unreasoned instinct, he
+sought out the girl who had just filled him with such deep pity and such
+violent disgust, and that night did not come back to the room in
+Matthew's. The thing was done almost before he knew it. He could not
+tell why he had acted as he did, and he certainly would not have
+believed himself capable of it.</p>
+
+<p>He passed the next few days in a veritable agony of repentance,
+overwhelmed by a sense of shame and dishonour that were almost feminine
+in their bitterness and intensity. He felt himself lost, unworthy, and
+as if he could never again look a pure woman in the eyes unless with an
+abominable hypocrisy. He was ashamed even before Geary and young Haight,
+and went so far as to send a long letter to his father acknowledging and
+deploring what he had done, asking for his forgiveness and reiterating
+his resolve to shun such a thing forever after.</p>
+
+<p>What had been bashfulness in the boy developed in the young man to a
+profound respect and an instinctive regard for women. This stood him in
+good stead throughout all his four years of Harvard life. In general, he
+kept himself pretty straight. There were plenty of fast girls and lost
+women about Cambridge, but Vandover found that he could not associate
+with them to any degree of satisfaction. He never knew how to take them,
+never could rid himself of the idea that they were to be treated as
+ladies. They, on their part, did not like him; he was too diffident, too
+courteous, too &quot;slow.&quot; They <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19" />preferred the rough self-assertion and easy
+confidence of Geary, who never took &quot;no&quot; as an answer and who could
+chaff with them on their own ground.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover did poor work at Harvard and only graduated, as Geary said, &quot;by
+a squeak.&quot; Besides his regular studies he took time to pass three
+afternoons a week in the studio of a Boston artist, where he studied
+anatomy and composition and drew figures from the nude. In the summer
+vacations he did not return home, but accompanied this artist on
+sketching tours along the coast of Maine. His style improved immensely
+the moment he abandoned flat studies and began to work directly from
+Nature. He drew figures well, showed a feeling for desolate landscapes,
+and even gave promise of a good eye for colour. But he allowed his
+fondness for art to interfere constantly with his college work. By the
+middle of his senior year he was so loaded with conditions that it was
+only Geary's unwearied coaching that pulled him through at all&mdash;as
+Vandover knew it would, for that matter.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover returned to San Francisco when he was twenty-two. It was
+astonishing; he had gone away a pimply, overgrown boy, raw and callow as
+a fledgling, constrained in society, diffident, awkward. Now he
+returned, a tall, well-formed Harvardian, as careful as a woman in the
+matter of dress, very refined in his manners. Besides, he was a
+delightful conversationalist. His father was rejoiced; every one
+declared he was a charming fellow.</p>
+
+<p>They were right. Vandover was at his best at this time; it was
+undeniable that he had great talent, but he was so modest about it that
+few knew how clever he really was.</p>
+
+<p>He went out to dinners and receptions and began to move a little in
+society. He became very popular: the men liked him because he was so
+unaffected, so straightforward, and the women because he was so
+respectful and so deferential.</p>
+
+<p>He had no vices. He had gone through the ordeal of college life and had
+come out without contracting any habit more serious than a vague
+distaste for responsibility, and an inclination to shirk disagreeable
+duties. Cards he never thought of. It was rare that he drank so much as
+a glass of beer.</p>
+
+<p>However, he had come back to a great disappointment.<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20" /> Business in San
+Francisco had entered upon a long period of decline, and values were
+decreasing; for ten years rents had been sagging lower and lower. At the
+same time the interest on loans and insurances had increased, and real
+estate was brought to a standstill; one spoke bitterly of a certain
+great monopoly that was ruining both the city and state. Vandover's
+father had suffered with the rest, and now told his son that he could
+not at this time afford to send him to Paris. He would have to wait for
+better times.</p>
+
+<p>At first this was a sharp grief to Vandover; for years he had looked
+forward to an artist's life in the Quarter. For a time he was
+inconsolable, then at length readjusted himself good-naturedly to suit
+the new order of things with as little compunction as before, when he
+had entered Harvard. He found that he could be contented in almost any
+environment, the weakness, the certain pliability of his character
+easily fitting itself into new grooves, reshaping itself to suit new
+circumstances. He prevailed upon his father to allow him to have a
+downtown studio. In a little while he was perfectly happy again.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover's love for his art was keen. On the whole he kept pretty
+steadily to his work, spending a good six hours at his easel every day,
+very absorbed over the picture in hand. He was working up into large
+canvases the sketches he had made along the Maine coast, great, empty
+expanses of sea, sky, and sand-dune, full of wind and sun. They were
+really admirable. He even sold one of them. The Old Gentleman was
+delighted, signed him a check for twenty dollars, and told him that in
+three years he could afford to send him abroad.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Vandover set himself to enjoy the new life. Little by
+little his &quot;set&quot; formed around him; Geary and young Haight, of course,
+and some half dozen young men of the city: young lawyers, medical
+students, and clerks in insurance offices. As Vandover thus began to see
+the different phases of that life which lay beyond the limits of the
+college, he perceived more and more clearly that he was an exception
+among men for his temperance, his purity, and his clean living.</p>
+
+<p>At their clubs and in their smoking-rooms he heard certain practices,
+which he had always believed to be degrading and abominable, discussed
+with shouts of laughter. Those matters <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21" />which until now he had regarded
+with an almost sacred veneration were subjects for immense jokes. A few
+years ago he would have been horrified at it all, but the fine quality
+of this first sensitiveness had been blunted since his experience at
+college. He tolerated these things in his friends now.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually Vandover allowed his ideas and tastes to be moulded by this
+new order of things. He assumed the manners of these young men of the
+city, very curious to see for himself the other lower side of their life
+that began after midnight in the private rooms of fast caf&eacute;s and that
+was continued in the heavy musk-laden air of certain parlours amid the
+rustle of heavy silks.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the fascination of this thing grew upon him until it mounted to a
+veritable passion. His strong artist's imagination began to be filled
+with a world of charming sensuous pictures.</p>
+
+<p>He commenced to chafe under his innate respect and deference for women,
+to resent and to despise it. As the desire of vice, the blind, reckless
+desire of the male, grew upon him, he set himself to destroy this
+barrier that had so long stood in his way. He knew that it was the
+wilful and deliberate corruption of part of that which was best in him;
+he was sorry for it, but persevered, nevertheless, ashamed of his
+old-time timidity, his ignorance, his boyish purity.</p>
+
+<p>For a second time the animal in him, the perverse evil brute, awoke and
+stirred. The idea of resistance hardly occurred to Vandover; it would be
+hard, it would be disagreeable to resist, and Vandover had not
+accustomed himself to the performance of hard, disagreeable duties. They
+were among the unpleasant things that he shirked. He told himself that
+later on, when he had grown older and steadier and had profited by
+experience and knowledge of the world, when he was stronger, in a word,
+he would curb the thing and restrain it. He saw no danger in such a
+course. It was what other men did with impunity.</p>
+
+<p>In company with Geary and young Haight he had come to frequent a certain
+one of the fast caf&eacute;s of the city. Here he met and became acquainted
+with a girl called Flossie. It was the opportunity for which he was
+waiting, and he seized it at once.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22" />This time there was no recoil of conscience, no shame, no remorse; he
+even felt a better estimation of himself, that self-respect that comes
+with wider experiences and with larger views of life. He told himself
+that all men should at one time see certain phases of the world; it
+rounded out one's life. After all, one had to be a man of the world.
+Those men only were perverted who allowed themselves to be corrupted by
+such vice.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that Vandover, by degrees, drifted into the life of a
+certain class of the young men of the city. Vice had no hold on him. The
+brute had grown larger in him, but he knew that he had the creature in
+hand. He was its master, and only on rare occasions did he permit
+himself to gratify its demands, feeding its abominable hunger from that
+part of him which he knew to be the purest, the cleanest, and the best.</p>
+
+<p>Three years passed in this fashion.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Three" id="Chapter_Three" /><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23" /><i>Chapter Three</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Vandover had decided at lunch that day that he would not go back to work
+at his studio in the afternoon, but would stay at home instead and read
+a very interesting story about two men who had bought a wrecked opium
+ship for fifty thousand dollars, and had afterward discovered that she
+contained only a few tins of the drug. He was curious to see how it
+turned out; the studio was a long way downtown, the day was a little
+cold, and he felt that he would enjoy a little relaxation. Anyhow, he
+meant to stay at home and put in the whole afternoon on a good novel.</p>
+
+<p>But even when he had made up his mind to do this he did not immediately
+get out his book and settle down to it. After lunch he loitered about
+the house while his meal digested, feeling very comfortable and
+contented. He strummed his banjo a little and played over upon the piano
+the three pieces he had picked up: two were polkas, and the third, the
+air of a topical song; he always played the three together and in the
+same sequence. Then he strolled up to his room, and brushed his hair for
+a while, trying to make it lie very flat and smooth. After this he went
+out to look at Mr. Corkle, the terrier, and let him run a bit in the
+garden; then he felt as though he must have a smoke, and so went back to
+his room and filled his pipe. When it was going well, he took down his
+book and threw himself into a deep leather chair, only to jump up again
+to put on his smoking-jacket. All at once he became convinced that he
+must have something to eat while he read, and so went to the kitchen and
+got himself some apples and a huge slice of fresh bread. Ever since
+Vandover was a little boy he had loved fresh bread and apples. Through
+the windows of the dining-room he saw Mr. Corkle digging up great holes
+in the geranium beds. He went out and abused him and finally let him
+come back into the house and took him upstairs with him.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last he settled down to his novel, in the very comfortable
+leather chair, before a little fire, for the last half of August is cold
+in San Francisco. The room was warm and snug, the fresh bread and apples
+were delicious, the good <a name="Page_24" id="Page_24" />tobacco in his pipe purred like a sleeping
+kitten, and his novel was interesting and well written. He felt calm and
+soothed and perfectly content, and took in the pleasure of the occasion
+with the lazy complacency of a drowsing cat.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was self-indulgent&mdash;he loved these sensuous pleasures, he loved
+to eat good things, he loved to be warm, he loved to sleep. He hated to
+be bored and worried&mdash;he liked to have a good time.</p>
+
+<p>At about half-past four o'clock he came to a good stopping-place in his
+book; the two men had got to quarrelling, and his interest flagged a
+little. He pushed Mr. Corkle off his lap and got up yawning and went to
+the window.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover's home was on California Street not far from Franklin. It was a
+large frame house of two stories; all the windows in the front were bay.
+The front door was directly in the middle between the windows of the
+parlour and those of the library, while over the vestibule was a sort of
+balcony that no one ever thought of using. The house was set in a large
+well-kept yard. The lawn was pretty; an enormous eucalyptus tree grew at
+one corner. Nearer to the house were magnolia and banana trees growing
+side by side with pines and firs. Humming-birds built in these, and one
+could hear their curious little warbling mingling with the hoarse chirp
+of the English sparrows which nested under the eaves. The back yard was
+separated from the lawn by a high fence of green lattice-work. The hens
+and chickens were kept here and two roosters, one of which crowed every
+time a cable-car passed the house. On the door cut through the
+lattice-fence was a sign, &quot;Look Out for the Dog.&quot; Close to the unused
+barn stood an immense windmill with enormous arms; when the wind blew in
+the afternoon the sails whirled about at a surprising speed, pumping up
+water from the artesian well sunk beneath. There was a small
+conservatory where the orchids were kept. Altogether, it was a charming
+place. However, adjoining it was a huge vacant lot with cows in it. It
+was full of dry weeds and heaps of ashes, while around it was an
+enormous fence painted with signs of cigars, patent bitters, and soap.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover stood at a front window and looked out on a rather dreary
+prospect. The inevitable afternoon trades had <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25" />been blowing hard since
+three, strong and brisk from the ocean, driving hard through the Golden
+Gate and filling the city with a taint of salt. Now the fog was coming
+in; Vandover could see great patches of it sweeping along between him
+and the opposite houses. All the eucalyptus trees were dripping, and
+occasionally there came the faint moan of the fog-horn out at the heads.
+He could see up the street for nearly two miles as it climbed over Nob
+Hill. It was almost deserted; a cable-car now and then crawled up and
+down its length, and at times a delivery wagon rattled across it; but
+that was about all. On the opposite sidewalk two boys and a girl were
+coasting downhill on their roller-skates and their brake-wagons. The
+cable in its slot kept up an incessant burr and clack. The whole view
+was rather forlorn, and Vandover turned his back on it, taking up his
+book again.</p>
+
+<p>About five o'clock his father came home from his office. &quot;Hello!&quot; said
+he, looking into the room; &quot;aren't you home a little early to-day? Ah, I
+thought you weren't going to bring that dog into the house any more. I
+wish you wouldn't, son; he gets hair and fleas about everywhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, governor,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;I'll take him out. Come
+along, Cork.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But aren't you home earlier than usual to-day?&quot; persisted his father as
+Vandover got up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Vandover, &quot;I guess I am, a little.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After supper the same evening when Vandover came downstairs, drawing on
+his gloves, his father looked over his paper, saying pleasantly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, where are you going to-night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm going to see my girl,&quot; said Vandover, smiling; then foreseeing the
+usual question, he added, &quot;I'll be home about eleven, I guess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Got your latch-key?&quot; asked the Old Gentleman, as he always did when
+Vandover went out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yep,&quot; called back Vandover as he opened the door. &quot;I'll not forget it
+again. Good-night, governor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover used to call on Turner Ravis about twice a week; people said
+they were engaged. This was not so.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover had met Miss Ravis some two years before. For a time the two
+had been sincerely in love with each other, <a name="Page_26" id="Page_26" />and though there was never
+any talk of marriage between them, they seemed to have some sort of
+tacit understanding. But by this time Vandover had somehow outgrown the
+idea of marrying Turner. He still kept up the fiction, persuaded that
+Turner must understand the way things had come to be. However, he was
+still very fond of her; she was a frank, sweet-tempered girl and very
+pretty, and it was delightful to have her care for him.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover could not shut his eyes to the fact that young Haight was very
+seriously in love with Turner. But he was sure that Turner preferred him
+to his chum. She was too sincere, too frank, too conscientious to
+practise any deception on him.</p>
+
+<p>There was quite a party at the Ravises' house that evening when Vandover
+arrived. Young Haight was there, of course, and Charlie Geary. Besides
+Turner herself there was Henrietta Vance, a stout, pretty girl, with pop
+eyes and a little nose, who laughed all the time and who was very
+popular. These were all part of Vandover's set; they called each other
+by their first names and went everywhere together. Almost every Saturday
+evening they got together at Turner's house and played whist, or euchre,
+or sometimes even poker. &quot;Just for love,&quot; as Turner said.</p>
+
+<p>When Vandover came in they were all talking at the same time, disputing
+about a little earthquake that had occurred the night before. Henrietta
+Vance declared that it had happened early in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Wasn't</i> it just about midnight, Van?&quot; cried Turner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;It didn't wake me up. I didn't even
+know there was one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I know I heard our clock strike two just about half an hour
+afterward,&quot; protested young Haight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, it was almost five o'clock when it came,&quot; cried Henrietta Vance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, you're <i>all</i> off,&quot; said Charlie Geary. &quot;I know just when she
+quaked to the fraction of a minute, because it stopped our hall clock at
+just a little after three.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They were silent. It was an argument which was hard to contradict. By
+and by, young Haight declared, &quot;There must have been two of them then,
+because&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27" />How about whist or euchre or whatever it is to be?&quot; said Charlie
+Geary, addressing Turner and interrupting in an annoying way that was
+peculiar to him. &quot;Can't we start in now that Van has come?&quot; They played
+euchre for a while, but Geary did not like the game, and by and by
+suggested poker.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well&mdash;if it's only just for love,&quot; said Turner, &quot;because, you know,
+mamma doesn't like it any other way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At ten o'clock Geary said, &quot;Let's quit after this hand round&mdash;what do
+you say?&quot; The rest were willing and so they all took account of their
+chips after the next deal. Geary was protesting against his poor luck.
+Honestly he hadn't held better than three tens more than twice during
+the evening. It was Henrietta Vance who took in everything; did one ever
+<i>see</i> anything to beat her luck? &quot;the funniest thing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They began to do tricks with the cards. Young Haight showed them a very
+good trick by which he could make the pack break every time at the ace
+of clubs. Vandover exclaimed: &quot;Lend me a silk hat and ninety dollars and
+I'll show you the queerest trick you ever saw,&quot; which sent Henrietta
+Vance off into shrieks of laughter. Then Geary took the cards out of
+young Haight's hands, asking them if they knew <i>this</i> trick.</p>
+
+<p>Turner said yes, she knew it, but the others did not, and Geary showed
+it to them. It was interminable. Henrietta Vance chose a card and put it
+back into the deck. Then the deck was shuffled and divided into three
+piles. After this Geary made a mental calculation, selected one of these
+piles, shuffled it, and gave it back to her, asking her if she saw her
+card in it; then more shuffling and dividing until their interest and
+patience were quite exhausted. When Geary finally produced a jack of
+hearts and demanded triumphantly if that was her card, Henrietta began
+to laugh and declared she had forgotten <i>what</i> card she chose. Geary
+said he would do the trick all over for her. At this, however, they all
+cried out, and he had to give it up, very irritated at Henrietta's
+stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>Vexed at the ill success of this first trick, he retired a little from
+their conversation, puzzling over the cards, thinking out new tricks.
+Every now and then he came back among them, going about from one to
+another, holding out the deck and exclaiming, &quot;Choose any card&mdash;choose
+any card.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After a while they all adjourned to the dining-room and<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28" /> Turner and
+Vandover went out into the kitchen, foraging among the drawers and
+shelves. They came back bringing with them a box of sardines, a tin of
+<i>pat&eacute;</i>, three quart bottles of blue-ribbon beer, and what Vandover
+called &quot;devilish-ham&quot; sandwiches.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now do we want <i>tamales</i> to go with these?&quot; said Turner, as she spread
+the lunch on the table. Henrietta Vance cried out joyfully at this, and
+young Haight volunteered to go out to get them. &quot;Get six,&quot; Turner cried
+out after him. &quot;Henrietta can always eat two. Hurry up, and we won't eat
+till you get back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While he was gone Turner got out some half-dozen glasses for their beer.
+&quot;Do you know,&quot; she said as she set the glasses on the table, &quot;the
+funniest thing happened this morning to mamma. It was at breakfast; she
+had just drunk a glass of water and was holding the glass in her hand
+like this&quot;&mdash;Turner took one of the thin beer glasses in her hand to show
+them how&mdash;&quot;and was talking to pa, when all at once the glass broke right
+straight around a ring, just below the brim, you know, and fell all&mdash;&quot;
+On a sudden Turner uttered a shrill exclamation; the others started up;
+the very glass she held in her hand at the moment cracked and broke in
+precisely the manner she was describing. A narrow ring snapped from the
+top, dropping on the floor, breaking into a hundred bits.</p>
+
+<p>Turner drew in a long breath, open-mouthed, her hand in the air still
+holding the body of the glass that remained in her fingers. They all
+began to exclaim over the wonder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, did you ever in all your <i>life</i>?&quot; shouted Miss Vance, breaking
+into a peal of laughter. Geary cried out, &quot;C&aelig;sar's ghost!&quot; and Vandover
+swore under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If that isn't the strangest thing I ever saw!&quot; cried Turner. &quot;<i>Isn't</i>
+that funny&mdash;why&mdash;oh! I'm going <i>to try it with another glass</i>!&quot; But the
+second glass remained intact. Geary recovered from his surprise and
+tried to explain how it could happen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was the heat from your fingers and the glass was cold, you know,&quot; he
+said again and again.</p>
+
+<p>But the strangeness of the thing still held them. Turner set down the
+glass with the others and dropped into a chair, letting her hands fall
+in her lap, looking into their faces, nodding her head and shutting her
+lips:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_29" id="Page_29" />Ah, <i>no</i>,&quot; she said after a while. &quot;That <i>is</i> funny. It kind of scares
+one.&quot; She was actually pale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, there's Dolly Haight!&quot; cried Henrietta Vance as the door bell rang.
+They all rushed to the door, running and scrambling, eager to tell the
+news. Young Haight stood bewildered on the door mat in the vestibule,
+his arms full of brown-paper packages, while they recounted the marvel.
+They all spoke at once, holding imaginary beer glasses toward him in
+their outstretched hands. Geary, however, refused to be carried away by
+their excitement, and one heard him from time to time repeating, between
+their ejaculations, &quot;It was the heat from her fingers, you know, and the
+glass was cold.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight was confused, incredulous; he could not at first make out
+what <i>had</i> happened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, just come and <i>look</i> at the broken <i>glass</i> on the <i>floor</i>,&quot;
+shouted Turner decisively, dragging him into the dining-room. They
+waited, breathless, to hear what he would say. He looked at the broken
+glass and then into their faces. Then he suddenly exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you're joking me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, honestly,&quot; protested Vandover, &quot;that was just the way it happened.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was some little time before they could get over their impression of
+queerness, but by and by Geary cried out that the <i>tamales</i> were getting
+cold. They settled down to their lunch, and the first thing young Haight
+did was to cut his lip on the edge of the broken glass. Turner had set
+it down with the others and he had inadvertently filled it for himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was a trifling cut. Turner fetched some court-plaster, and his lip
+was patched up. For all that, it bled quite a little. He was very
+embarrassed; he kept his handkerchief to his mouth and told them
+repeatedly to go on with their lunch and not to mind him.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they were eating and drinking they began to be very jolly,
+and Vandover was especially good-humoured and entertaining. He made
+Henrietta Vance shout with laughter by pretending that the olive in his
+<i>tamale</i> was a green hen's egg.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past ten young Haight rose from the table saying he thought
+it was about time to say good-night. &quot;Don't <a name="Page_30" id="Page_30" />be in a hurry,&quot; said
+Turner. &quot;It's early yet.&quot; After that, however, they broke up very
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Before he left Vandover saw Turner in the dining-room alone for a
+minute.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Will I see you at church to-morrow?&quot; he asked, as she held his overcoat
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, Van,&quot; she answered. &quot;You know Henrietta is going to stay
+all night with me, and I think she will want me to go home with her
+to-morrow morning and then stay to dinner with her. But I'm going to
+early communion to-morrow morning; why can't you meet me there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, I can,&quot; answered Vandover, settling his collar. &quot;I should like to
+very much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then,&quot; she replied, &quot;you can meet me in front of the church at
+half-past seven o'clock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hey, break away there!&quot; cried Geary from the front door. &quot;Come along,
+Van, if you are going with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Turner let Vandover kiss her before they joined the others. &quot;I'll see
+you at seven-thirty to-morrow morning,&quot; he said as he went away.</p>
+
+<p>The three young men went off down the street, arm in arm, smoking their
+cigars and cigarettes. As soon as they were alone, Charlie Geary began
+to tell the other two of everything he had been doing since he had last
+seen them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, sir,&quot; he said as he took an arm of each, &quot;well, sir, I had a fine
+sleep last night; went to bed at ten and never woke up till half-past
+eight this morning. Ah, you bet I needed it, though. I've been working
+like a slave this week. You know I take my law-examinations in about ten
+days. I'll pass all right. I'm right up to the handle in everything. I
+don't believe the judge could stick me anywhere in the subject of
+torts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, boys,&quot; said Vandover, pausing and looking at his watch, &quot;it isn't
+very late; let's go downtown and have some oysters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's a good idea,&quot; answered young Haight. &quot;How about you, Charlie?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary said he was willing. &quot;Ah,&quot; he added, &quot;you ought to have seen the
+beefsteak I had this evening at the Grillroom.&quot; And as they rode
+downtown he told them of the steak in <a name="Page_31" id="Page_31" />question. &quot;I had a little mug of
+ale with it, too, and a dish of salad. Ah, it went great.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They decided after some discussion that they would go to the Imperial.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Four" id="Chapter_Four" /><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32" /><i>Chapter Four</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>The Imperial was a resort not far from the corner of Sutter and Kearney
+streets, a few doors below a certain well-known drug store, in one
+window of which was a showcase full of live snakes.</p>
+
+<p>The front of the Imperial was painted white, and there was a cigar-stand
+in the vestibule of the main entrance. At the right of this main
+entrance was another smaller one, a ladies' entrance, on the frosted
+pane of which one read, &quot;Oyster Cafe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The main entrance opened directly into the barroom. It was a handsome
+room, paved with marble flags. To the left was the bar, whose counter
+was a single slab of polished redwood. Behind it was a huge, plate-glass
+mirror, balanced on one side by the cash-register and on the other by a
+statuette of the Diving Girl in tinted bisque. Between the two were
+pyramids of glasses and bottles, liqueur flasks in wicker cases, and a
+great bouquet of sweet-peas.</p>
+
+<p>The three bartenders, in clean linen coats and aprons, moved about here
+and there, opening bottles, mixing drinks, and occasionally turning to
+punch the indicator of the register.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of the room, facing the bar, hung a large copy of a
+French picture representing a <i>Sabbath</i>, witches, goats, and naked girls
+whirling through the air. Underneath it was the lunch counter, where
+clam-fritters, the specialty of the place, could be had four afternoons
+in the week.</p>
+
+<p>Elsewhere were nickel-in-the-slot machines, cigar-lighters, a vase of
+wax flowers under glass, and a racing chart setting forth the day's
+odds, weights, and entries. On the end wall over the pantry-slides was a
+second &quot;barroom&quot; picture, representing the ladies of a harem at their
+bath.</p>
+
+<p>But its &quot;private rooms&quot; were the chief attraction of the Imperial. These
+were reached by going in through the smaller door to the right of the
+main vestibule. Any one coming in through this entrance found himself in
+a long and narrow passage. On the right of this passage were eight
+private rooms, very small, and open at the top as the law required.<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33" />
+Half-way down its length the passage grew wider. Here the rooms were on
+both sides and were much larger than those in front.</p>
+
+<p>It was this part of the Imperial that was most frequented, and that had
+made its reputation. In the smaller rooms in front one had beer and
+Welsh rabbits; in the larger rooms, champagne and terrapin.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover, Haight, and Geary came in through the ladies' entrance of the
+Imperial at about eleven o'clock, going slowly down the passage, looking
+into each of the little rooms, searching for one that was empty. All at
+once Vandover, who was in the lead, cried out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, if here isn't that man Ellis, drinking whisky by himself. Bah! a
+man that will drink whisky all <i>alone</i>! Glad to see you just the same,
+Bandy; move along, will you&mdash;give a man some room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, hello, Bandy!&quot; cried Geary and young Haight, hitting him in the
+back, while Geary added: &quot;How long have you been down here? <i>I've</i> just
+come from making a call with the boys. Had a fine time; what are you
+drinking, whisky? <i>I'm</i> going to have something to eat. Didn't have much
+of a lunch to-day, but you ought to have seen the steak I had at the
+Grillroom&mdash;as thick as that, and tender! Oh, it went great! Here, hang
+my coat up there on that side, will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Bancroft Ellis was one of the young men of the city with whom the three
+fellows had become acquainted just after their return from college. For
+the most part, they met him at downtown restaurants, in the foyers and
+vestibules of the theatres, on Kearney Street of a Saturday afternoon,
+or, as now, in the little rooms of the Imperial, where he was a
+recognized habitu&eacute; and where he invariably called for whisky, finishing
+from three to five &quot;ponies&quot; at every sitting. On very rare occasions
+they saw him in society, at the houses where their &quot;set&quot; was received.
+At these functions Ellis could never be persuaded to remain in the
+parlours; he slipped up to the gentlemen's dressing-rooms at the
+earliest opportunity, and spent the evening silently smoking the cigars
+and cigarettes furnished by the host. When Vandover and his friends came
+up between dances, to brush their hair or to rearrange their neckties,
+they found him enveloped in a blue haze of smoke, <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34" />his feet on a chair,
+his shirt bosom broken, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. He would tell them
+that he was bored and thirsty and ask how much longer they were going to
+stay. He knew but few of their friends; his home was in a little town in
+the interior and he prided himself on being a &quot;Native Son of the Golden
+West.&quot; He was a clerk in an insurance office on California Street, and
+had never been out of the state.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest he was a good enough fellow and the three others liked him
+very much. He had a curious passion for facts and statistics, and his
+pockets were full of little books and cards to which he was constantly
+referring. He had one of those impossible pocket-diaries, the first half
+dozen pages loaded with information of every kind printed in blinding
+type, postal rates to every country in the world, statistics as to
+population and rates of death, weights and measures, the highest
+mountains in the world, the greatest depths of the ocean. He kept a
+little book in his left-hand vest pocket that gave the plan and seating
+capacity of every theatre in the city, while in the right-hand pocket
+was a tiny Webster's dictionary which was his especial pride. The
+calendar for the current year was pasted in the lining of his hat,
+together with the means to be employed in the resuscitation of a
+half-drowned person. He also carried about a &quot;Vest Pocket Edition of
+Popular Information,&quot; which had never been of the slightest use to him.</p>
+
+<p>The room in which they were now seated was very small and opened
+directly upon the passage. On either side of the table was a seat that
+would hold two, and on the wall opposite the door hung a mirror, its
+gilt frame enclosed in pink netting. The table itself was covered with a
+tolerably clean cloth, though it was of coarse linen and rather damp.</p>
+
+<p>There were the usual bottles of olives and pepper sauce, a plate of
+broken crackers, and a ribbed match-safe of china. The sugar bowl was of
+plated ware and on it were scratched numberless dates together with the
+first names of a great many girls, &quot;Nannie,&quot; &quot;Ida,&quot; &quot;Flossie.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Between the castor bottles was the bill of fare, held by a thin string
+between two immense leather covers which were stamped with wine
+merchants' advertisements. Geary reached for this before any of the
+others, saying at the same time, &quot;Well, what are you going to have?
+<i>I'm</i> going to have a Welsh <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35" />rabbit and a pint of ale.&quot; He looked from
+one to the other as if demanding whether or no they approved of his
+choice. He assumed the management of what was going on, advising the
+others what to have, telling Vandover not to order certain dishes that
+he liked because it took so long to cook them. He had young Haight ring
+for the waiter, and when he had come, Geary read off the entire order to
+him twice over, making sure that he had taken it correctly. &quot;That's what
+we want all right, all right&mdash;isn't it?&quot; he said, looking around at the
+rest.</p>
+
+<p>The waiter, whose eyes were red from lack of sleep, put down before them
+a plate of limp, soft shrimps.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, Toby!&quot; said Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good evening, gentlemen,&quot; answered Toby. &quot;Why, good evening, Mr.
+Vandover; haven't seen you 'round here for some time.&quot; He took their
+order, and as he was going away, Vandover called him back:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, Toby,&quot; said he, &quot;has Flossie been around to-night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Toby, &quot;she hasn't shown up yet. Her running-mate was in
+about nine, but she went out again right away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Vandover, smiling, &quot;if Flossie comes 'round show her in
+here, will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The others laughed, and joked him about this, and Vandover settled back
+in his seat, easing his position.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; he exclaimed, &quot;I like it in here. It's always pleasant and warm
+and quiet and the service is good and you get such good things to eat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now that the young fellows were by themselves, and could relax that
+restraint, that good breeding and delicacy which had been natural to
+them in the early part of the evening at the Ravises', their manners
+changed: they lounged clumsily upon their seats, their legs stretched
+out, their waistcoats unbuttoned, caring only to be at their ease. Their
+talk and manners became blunt, rude, unconstrained, the coarser
+masculine fibre reasserting itself. With the exception of young Haight
+they were all profane enough, and it was not very long before their
+conversation became obscene.</p>
+
+<p>Geary told them how he had spent the afternoon promenading Kearney and
+Market streets and just where he had <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36" />gone to get his cocktail and his
+cigar. &quot;Ah,&quot; he added, &quot;you ought to have seen Ida Wade and Bessie
+Laguna. Oh, Ida was rigged up to beat the band; honestly her <i>hat</i> was
+as broad across as that. You know there's no use talking, she's an
+awfully handsome girl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A discussion arose over the girl's virtue. Ellis, Geary, and young
+Haight maintained that Ida was only fast; Vandover, however, had his
+doubts.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For that matter,&quot; said Ellis after a while, &quot;I like Bessie Laguna a
+good deal better than I do Ida.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes,&quot; retorted young Haight, &quot;you like Bessie Laguna too much
+anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight had a theory that one should never care in any way for that
+kind of a girl nor become at all intimate with her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The matter of liking her or not liking her,&quot; he said, &quot;ought not to
+enter into the question at all. You are both of you out for a good time
+and that's all; you have a jolly flirtation with her for an hour or two,
+and you never see her again. That's the way it ought to be! This idea of
+getting intimate with that sort of a piece, and trying to get her to
+care for you, is all wrong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh,&quot; said Vandover deprecatingly, &quot;you take all the pleasure out of it;
+where does your good time come in if you don't at least pretend that you
+like the girl and try to make her like you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But don't you see,&quot; answered Haight, &quot;what a dreadful thing it would be
+if a girl like that came to care for you seriously? It isn't the same as
+if it were a girl of your own class.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, Dolly, you've got a bean,&quot; muttered Ellis, sipping his whisky.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the Imperial had been filling up; at about eleven the
+theatres were over, and now the barroom was full of men. They came in by
+twos and threes and sometimes even by noisy parties of a half dozen or
+more. The white swing doors of the main entrance flapped back and forth
+continually, letting out into the street puffs of tepid air tainted with
+the smell of alcohol. The men entered and ordered their drinks, and
+leaning their elbows upon the bar continued the conversation they had
+begun outside. Afterward they passed <a name="Page_37" id="Page_37" />over to the lunch counter and
+helped themselves to a plate of stewed tripe or potato salad, eating it
+in a secluded corner, leaning over so as not to stain their coats. There
+was a continual clinking of glasses and popping of corks, and at every
+instant the cash-register clucked and rang its bell.</p>
+
+<p>Between the barroom and the other part of the house was a door hung with
+blue plush curtains, looped back; the waiters constantly passed back and
+forth through this, carrying plates of oysters, smoking rarebits, tiny
+glasses of liqueurs, and goblets of cigars.</p>
+
+<p>All the private rooms opening from either passage were full; the men
+came in, walking slowly, looking for their friends; but more often, the
+women and girls passed up and down with a chatter of conversation, a
+rattle of stiff skirts and petticoats, and a heavy whiff of musk. There
+was a continual going and coming, a monotonous shuffle of feet and hum
+of talk. A heavy odorous warmth in which were mingled the smells of
+sweetened whisky, tobacco, the fumes of cooking, and the scent of
+perfume, exhaled into the air. A gay and noisy party developed in one of
+the large back rooms; at every moment one could hear gales of laughter,
+the rattle of chairs and glassware, mingled with the sounds of men's
+voices and the little screams and cries of women. Every time the waiter
+opened the door to deliver an order he let out a momentary torrent of
+noises.</p>
+
+<p>Girls, habitu&eacute;s of the place, continued to pass the door of the room
+where Vandover and his friends were seated. Each time a particularly
+handsome one went by, the four looked out after her, shutting their lips
+and eyes and nodding their heads.</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight had called for more drinks, ordering, however, mineral
+water for himself, and Vandover was just telling about posing the female
+models in a certain life-class to which he belonged, when he looked up
+and broke off, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, well, here we are at last! How are you, Flossie? Come right in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Flossie stood in the doorway smiling good-humouredly at them, without a
+trace of embarrassment or of confusion in her manner. She was an immense
+girl, quite six feet tall, broad and well-made, in proportion. She was
+very handsome, full-<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38" />throated, heavy-eyed, and slow in her movements.
+Her eyes and mouth, like everything about her, were large, but each time
+she spoke or smiled, she disclosed her teeth, which were as white, as
+well-set, and as regular as the rows of kernels on an ear of green corn.
+In her ears were small yellow diamonds, the only jewellery she wore.
+There was no perceptible cosmetic on her face, which had a clean and
+healthy look as though she had just given it a vigorous washing.</p>
+
+<p>She wore a black hat with a great flare to the brim on one side. It was
+trimmed very dashingly with black feathers, imitation jet, and a little
+puff of plush&mdash;robin's-egg blue. Her dress was of rough, black camel's
+hair, tailor-made, and but for the immense balloon sleeves, absolutely
+plain. It was cut in such a way that from neck to waist there was no
+break, the buttons being on the shoulder and under the arm. The skirt
+was full and stiff, and without the least trimming. Everything was
+black&mdash;hat, dress, gloves&mdash;and the effect was of a simplicity and
+severity so pronounced as to be very striking.</p>
+
+<p>However, around her waist she wore as a belt a thick rope of oxidized
+silver, while her shoes, or rather walking slippers, were of white
+canvas.</p>
+
+<p>She belonged to that class of women who are not to know one's last name
+or address, and whose hate and love are equally to be dreaded. There was
+upon her face the unmistakable traces of a ruined virtue and a vanished
+innocence. Her slightest action suggested her profession; as soon as she
+removed her veil and gloves it was as though she were partially
+undressed, and her uncovered face and hands seemed to be only portions
+of her nudity.</p>
+
+<p>The general conception of women of her class is a painted and broken
+wreck. Flossie radiated health; her eyes were clear, her nerves steady,
+her flesh hard and even as a child's. There hung about her an air of
+cleanliness, of freshness, of good nature, of fine, high spirits, while
+with every movement she exhaled a delicious perfume that was not only
+musk, but that seemed to come alike from her dress, her hair, her neck,
+her very flesh and body.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was no longer the same as he had been during his college days.
+He was familiar now with this odour of <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39" />abandoned women, this foul sweet
+savour of the great city's vice, that quickened his breath and that sent
+his heart knocking at his throat. It was the sensitive artist nature in
+him that responded instantly to anything sensuously attractive. Each
+kind and class of beautiful women could arouse in Vandover passions of
+equal force, though of far different kind. Turner Ravis influenced him
+upon his best side, calling out in him all that was cleanest, finest,
+and most delicate. Flossie appealed only to the animal and the beast in
+him, the evil, hideous brute that made instant answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What will you take, Flossie?&quot; asked Vandover, as she settled herself
+among them. &quot;We are all drinking beer except Ellis. He's filling up with
+whisky.&quot; But Flossie never drank. It was one of the peculiarities for
+which she was well known.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't want either,&quot; she answered, and turning to the waiter, she
+added, &quot;You can bring me some Apollinaris water, Toby.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Flossie betrayed herself as soon as she spoke, the effect of her
+appearance was spoiled. Her voice was hoarse, a low-pitched rasp, husky,
+throaty, and full of brutal, vulgar modulations.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Smoke, Flossie?&quot; said Geary, pushing his cigarette case across to her.
+Flossie took a cigarette, rolled it to make it loose, and smoked it
+while she told them how she had once tried to draw up the smoke through
+her nose as it came out between her lips.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And honestly, boys,&quot; she growled, &quot;it made me that sick that I just had
+to go to bed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is the crowd out back?&quot; asked Geary for the sake of saying
+something. Flossie embarrassed them all a little, and conversation with
+girls of her class was difficult.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's May and Nannie with some men from a banquet at the Palace
+Hotel,&quot; she answered.</p>
+
+<p>The talk dragged along little by little and Flossie began badgering
+young Haight. &quot;Say, you over there,&quot; she exclaimed, &quot;what's the matter
+with you? You don't say anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight blushed and answered very much embarrassed: &quot;Oh, I'm just
+listening.&quot; He was anxious to get away. He got up and reached for his
+hat and coat, saying with a <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40" />good-natured smile: &quot;Well, boys and girls,
+I think I shall have to leave you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't let me frighten you away,&quot; said Flossie, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, no,&quot; he answered, trying to hide his embarrassment, &quot;I have to go
+anyhow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While the others were saying good night to him and asking when they
+should see him again, Flossie leaned over to him, crying out, &quot;Good
+night!&quot; All at once, and before he knew what she was about, she kissed
+him full on the mouth. He started sharply at this, but was not angry,
+simply pulling away from her, blushing, very embarrassed, and more and
+more anxious to get away. Toby, the waiter, appeared at their door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That last was on me, you know,&quot; said young Haight, intercepting
+Vandover and settling for the round of drinks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello!&quot; exclaimed Toby, &quot;what's the matter with your lip?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cut it a little while ago on a broken glass,&quot; answered young Haight.
+&quot;Is it bleeding again?&quot; he added, putting two fingers on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is sure enough,&quot; said Geary. &quot;Here,&quot; he went on, wetting the corner
+of a napkin from the water bottle, &quot;hold that on it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The others began to laugh. &quot;Flossie did that,&quot; Vandover explained to
+Toby. Ellis was hastily looking through his pockets, fumbling about
+among his little books.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had something here,&quot; he kept muttering, &quot;if I can only <i>find</i> it,
+that told just what to do when you cut yourself with glass. There may be
+glass <i>in</i> it, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's all right, that's all right,&quot; exclaimed young Haight, now
+altogether disconcerted. &quot;It don't amount to anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I tell you what,&quot; observed Geary; &quot;get some court-plaster at the snake
+doctor's just above here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, that's all right,&quot; returned young Haight, moving off. &quot;Good
+night. I'll see you again pretty soon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He went away. Ellis, who was still searching through his little books,
+suddenly uttered an exclamation. He leaned out into the passage, crying:
+&quot;The half of a hot onion; tie it right on the cut.&quot; But Haight had
+already gone. &quot;You see,&quot; explained Ellis, &quot;that draws out any little
+particles of glass. Look <a name="Page_41" id="Page_41" />at this,&quot; he added, reading an item just below
+the one he had found. &quot;You can use cigar ashes for eczema.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Flossie nodded her head at him, smiling and saying: &quot;Well, the next time
+I have eczema I will remember that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Flossie left them a little after this, joining Nannie and May in the
+larger room that held the noisy party. The three fellows had another
+round of drinks.</p>
+
+<p>All the evening Ellis had been drinking whisky. Now he astonished the
+others by suddenly calling for beer. He persisted in drinking it out of
+the celery glass, which he emptied at a single pull. Then Vandover had
+claret-punches all round, protesting that his mouth felt dry as a
+dust-bin. Geary at length declared that he felt pretty far gone, adding
+that he was in the humour for having &quot;a high old time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, boys,&quot; he exclaimed, bringing his hand down on the table, &quot;what do
+you say that we all go to every joint in town, and wind up at the
+Turkish baths? We'll have a regular <i>time</i>. Let's see now how much money
+I have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thereat they all took account of their money. Vandover had fourteen
+dollars, but he owed for materials at his art dealer's, and so put away
+eight of it in an inside pocket. The others followed his example, each
+one reserving five dollars for immediate use.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That will be one dollar for the Hammam,&quot; said Geary, &quot;and four dollars
+apiece for drinks. You can get all we want on four dollars.&quot; They had a
+last claret-punch and, having settled with Toby, went out.</p>
+
+<p>Coming out into the cold night air from the warm interior of the
+Imperial affected Vandover and Geary in a few minutes. But apparently
+nothing could affect Ellis, neither whisky, claret-punch nor beer. He
+walked steadily between Vandover and Geary, linking an arm in each of
+theirs.</p>
+
+<p>These two became very drunk almost at once. At every minute Vandover
+would cry out, &quot;Yee-ee-<i>ow</i>! Thash way I feel, jush like that.&quot; Geary
+made a &quot;Josh&quot; that was a masterpiece, the success of the occasion. It
+consisted in exclaiming from time to time, &quot;Cherries are ripe!&quot; This was
+funny. It seemed to have some ludicrous, hidden double-meaning that was
+irresistible. It stuck to them all the evening; when a girl passed them
+on Kearney Street and Geary cried out at her <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42" />that &quot;Cherries were ripe!&quot;
+it threw them all into spasms of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>They went first to the Palace Garden near the Tivoli Theatre, where
+Geary and Vandover had beer and Ellis a whisky cocktail. The performance
+was just finishing, and they voted that they were not at all amused at a
+lean, overworked girl whom they saw performing a song and dance through
+a blue haze of tobacco smoke; so they all exclaimed, &quot;Cherries are
+ripe!&quot; and tramped out again to visit the Luxembourg. The beer began to
+go against Vandover's stomach by this time, but he forced it down his
+throat, shutting his eyes. Then they said they would go to the toughest
+place in town, &quot;Steve Casey's&quot;; this was on a side-street. The walls
+were covered with yellowed photographs of once-famous pugilists and
+old-time concert-hall singers. There was sand on the floor, and in the
+dancing room at the back, where nobody danced, a jaded young man was
+banging out polkas and quick-steps at a cheap piano.</p>
+
+<p>At the Crystal Palace, where they all had shandy-gaff, they met one of
+Ellis's friends, a young fellow of about twenty. He was stone deaf, and
+in consequence had become dumb; but for all that he was very eager to
+associate with the young men of the city and would not hear of being
+separated and set apart with the other deaf mutes. He was very pleased
+to meet them and joined them at once. They all knew him pretty well and
+called him the &quot;Dummy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the evening the patty was seen at nearly every bar and
+saloon in the neighbourhood of Market and Kearney streets. Geary and
+Vandover were very drunk indeed. Vandover was having a glorious time; he
+was not silent a minute, talking, laughing, and singing, and crying out
+continually, &quot;Cherries are ripe!&quot; When he could think of nothing else to
+say he would exclaim, &quot;Yee-ee-<i>ow</i>! Thash way I feel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For two hours they drank steadily. Vandover was in a dreadful condition;
+the Dummy got so drunk that he could talk, a peculiarity which at times
+had been known to occur to him. As will sometimes happen, Geary sobered
+up a little and at the &quot;Grotto&quot; bathed his head and face in the
+washroom. After this he became pretty steady, he stopped drinking, and
+<a name="Page_43" id="Page_43" />tried to assume the management of the party, ordering their drinks for
+them, and casting up the amount of the check.</p>
+
+<p>About two o'clock they returned toward the Luxembourg, staggering and
+swaying. The Luxembourg was a sort of German restaurant under a theatre
+where one could get some very good German dishes. There Vandover had
+beer and sauerkraut, but Ellis took more whisky. The Dummy continued to
+make peculiar sounds in his throat, half-noise, half-speech, and Geary
+gravely informed the waiter that cherries were ripe.</p>
+
+<p>All at once Ellis was drunk, collapsing in a moment. The skin around his
+eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves were contracted, and
+their range of vision seemed to stop at about a yard in front of his
+face. Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all
+from off the table with a single movement of his arm.</p>
+
+<p>They all jumped up, sober in a minute, knowing that a scene was at hand.
+The waiter rushed at Ellis, but Ellis knocked him down and tried to
+stamp on his face. Vandover and the Dummy tried to hold his arms and
+pull him off. He turned on the Dummy in a silent frenzy of rage and
+brought his knuckles down upon his head again and again. For the moment
+Ellis could neither hear, nor see, nor speak; he was blind, dumb,
+fighting drunk, and his fighting was not the fighting of Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get in here and help, will you?&quot; panted Vandover to Geary, as he
+struggled with Ellis. &quot;He can kill people when he's like this. Oh, damn
+the whisky anyhow! Look out&mdash;don't let him get that knife! Grab his
+other arm, there! now, kick his feet from under him! Oh, kick hard! Sit
+on his legs; there now. Ah! Hell! he's bitten me! Look out! here comes
+the bouncer!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The bouncer and three other waiters charged into them while they were
+struggling on the floor. Vandover was twice knocked down and the Dummy
+had his lip split. Ellis struggled to his feet again and, still silent,
+fought them all alike, a fine line of froth gathering at the corners of
+his lips.</p>
+
+<p>When they were finally ejected, and pulled themselves together in the
+street outside, Geary had disappeared. He had left them during the
+struggle with Ellis and had gone home.<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44" /> Ah, you bet he wasn't going to
+stay any longer with the crowd when they got like that. If Ellis was
+fool enough to get as drunk as that it was his own lookout. <i>He</i> wasn't
+going to stay and get thrown out of any saloon; ah, no, you bet he was
+too clever for that. He was sober enough now and would go home to bed
+and get a good sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The fight in the saloon had completely sobered the rest of them. Ellis
+was tractable enough again, and very sorry for having got them into such
+a row. Vandover was horribly sick at his stomach.</p>
+
+<p>The three locked arms and started slowly toward the Turkish baths. On
+their way they stopped at an all-night drug store and had some seltzer.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Vandover had about three hours' sleep that night. He was awakened by the
+attendant shaking his arm and crying:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Half-past six, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Huh!&quot; he exclaimed, starting up. &quot;What about half-past six? I don't
+want to get up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Told me to call you, sir, at half-past six; quarter to seven now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, all right, very well,&quot; answered Vandover. He turned away his face
+on the pillow, while a wretched feeling of nausea crept over him; every
+movement of his head made it ache to bursting. Behind his temples the
+blood throbbed and pumped like the knocking of hammers. His mouth would
+have been dry but for a thick slime that filled it and that tasted of
+oil. He felt weak, his hands trembled, his forehead was cold and seemed
+wet and sticky.</p>
+
+<p>He could recall hardly anything of the previous night. He remembered,
+however, of going to the Imperial and of seeing Flossie, and he <i>did</i>
+remember at last of leaving word to be called at half-past six.</p>
+
+<p>He got up without waking the other two fellows and took a plunge in the
+cold tank, dressed very slowly, and went out. The stores were all
+closed, the streets were almost deserted. He walked to the nearest
+uptown car-line and took an outside seat, feeling better and steadier
+for every moment of the sharp morning air.</p>
+
+<p>Van Ness Avenue was very still. It was about half-past seven.<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45" /> The
+curtains were down in all the houses; here and there a servant could be
+seen washing down the front steps. In the vestibules of some of the
+smaller houses were loaves of French bread and glass jars of cream,
+while near them lay the damp twisted roll of the morning's paper. There
+was everywhere a great chittering of sparrows, and the cable-cars, as
+yet empty, trundled down the cross streets, the conductors cleaning the
+windows and metal work. From far down at one end of the avenue came the
+bells of the Catholic Cathedral ringing for early mass; and a
+respectable-looking second girl hurried past him carrying her
+prayer-book. At the other end of the avenue was a blue vista of the bay,
+the great bulk of Mount Tamalpais rearing itself out of the water like a
+waking lion.</p>
+
+<p>In front of the little church Turner was waiting for him. She was
+dressed very prettily and the cold morning air had given her a fine
+colour.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't look more than half awake,&quot; she said, as Vandover came up.
+&quot;It was awfully good of you to come. Oh, Van, you look dreadfully. It is
+too bad to make you get up so early.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no,&quot; protested Vandover. &quot;I was only too glad to come. I didn't
+sleep well last night. I hope I haven't kept you waiting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've only just come,&quot; answered Turner. &quot;But I think it is time to go
+in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little organ was muttering softly to itself as they entered. It was
+very still otherwise. The morning sun struck through the stained windows
+and made pretty lights about the altar; besides themselves there were
+some half dozen other worshippers. The little organ ceased with a long
+droning sigh, and the minister in his white robes turned about, facing
+his auditors, and in the midst of a great silence opened the communion
+service with the words: &quot;Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of
+your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbours&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As Vandover rose with the rest the blood rushed to his head and a
+feeling of nausea and exhaustion, the dregs of his previous night's
+debauch, came over him again for a moment, so that he took hold of the
+back of the pew in front of him to steady himself.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Five" id="Chapter_Five" /><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46" /><i>Chapter Five</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>In the afternoons Vandover worked in his studio, which was on Sacramento
+Street, but in the mornings he was accustomed to study in the life-class
+at the School of Design.</p>
+
+<p>This was on California Street over the Market, an immense room
+partitioned by enormous wooden screens into alcoves, where the
+still-life classes worked, painting carrots, grapes, and dusty brown
+stone-jugs.</p>
+
+<p>All about were a multitude of casts, the fighting gladiator, the
+discobulus, the Venus of Milo, and hundreds of smaller pieces, masks,
+torsos, and the heads of the Parthenon horses. Flattened paint-tubes and
+broken bits of charcoal littered the floor and cluttered the chairs and
+shelves. A strong odour of turpentine and fixative was in the air,
+mingled with the stronger odours of linseed oil and sour, stale French
+bread.</p>
+
+<p>Every afternoon a portrait class of some thirty-odd assembled in one of
+the larger alcoves near the door. Several of the well-known street
+characters of the city had posed for this class, and at one time Father
+Elphick, the white-haired, bare-headed vegetarian, with his crooked
+stick and white clothes, had sat to it for his head.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was probably the most promising member of the school. His style
+was sketchy, conscientious, and full of strength and decision. He worked
+in large lines, broad surfaces and masses of light or shade. His colour
+was good, running to purples, reds, and admirable greens, full of
+bitumen and raw sienna.</p>
+
+<p>Though he had no idea of composition, he was clever enough to
+acknowledge it. His finished pictures were broad reaches of landscape,
+deserts, shores, and moors in which he placed solitary figures of men or
+animals in a way that was very effective&mdash;as, for instance, a great
+strip of shore and in the foreground the body of a drowned sailor; a
+lion drinking in the midst of an immense Sahara; or, one that he called
+&quot;The Remnant of an Army,&quot; a dying war horse wandering on an empty plain,
+the saddle turned under his belly, his mane and tail snarled with burrs.</p>
+
+<p>Some time before there had come to him the idea for a <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47" />great picture. It
+was to be his first masterpiece, his salon picture when he should get to
+Paris. A British cavalryman and his horse, both dying of thirst and
+wounds, were to be lost on a Soudanese desert, and in the middle
+distance on a ridge of sand a lion should be drawing in upon them,
+crouched on his belly, his tail stiff, his lower jaw hanging. The
+melodrama of the old English &quot;Home Book of Art&quot; still influenced
+Vandover. He was in love with this idea for a picture and had determined
+to call it &quot;The Last Enemy.&quot; The effects he wished to produce were
+isolation and intense heat; as to the soldier, he was as yet undecided
+whether to represent him facing death resignedly, calmly, or grasping
+the barrel of his useless rifle, determined to fight to the last.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover loved to paint and to draw. He was perfectly contented when his
+picture was &quot;coming right,&quot; and when he felt sure he was doing good
+work. He often did better than he thought he would, but never so well as
+he thought he <i>could</i>.</p>
+
+<p>However, it bored him to work very hard, and when he did not enjoy his
+work he stopped it at once. He would tell himself on these occasions
+that one had to be in the mood and that he should wait for the
+inspiration, although he knew very well how absurd such excuses were,
+how false and how pernicious.</p>
+
+<p>That certain little weakness of Vandover's character, his
+self-indulgence, <i>had</i> brought him to such a point that he thought he
+had to be amused. If his painting amused him, very good; if not, he
+found something else that would.</p>
+
+<p>On the following Monday as he worked in the life-class, Vandover was
+thinking, or, rather, trying not to think, of what he had done the
+Sunday morning previous when he had gone to communion with Turner Ravis.
+For a long time he evaded the thought because he knew that if he allowed
+it to come into his mind it would worry and harass him. But by and by
+the effort of dodging the enemy became itself too disagreeable, so he
+gave it up and allowed himself to look the matter squarely in the face.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, yes; it was an ugly thing he had done there, a really awful thing.
+He must have been still drunk when he had knelt in the chancel. Vandover
+shuddered as he thought of <a name="Page_48" id="Page_48" />this, and told himself that one could hardly
+commit a worse sacrilege, and that some time he would surely be called
+to account for it. But here he checked himself suddenly, not daring to
+go further. One would have no peace of mind left if one went on brooding
+over such things in this fashion. He realized the enormity of what he
+had done. He had tried to be sorry for it. It was perhaps the worst
+thing he had ever done, but now he had reached the lowest point. He
+would take care never to do such a thing again. After this he would be
+better.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not so. Unconsciously, Vandover had shut a door behind him;
+he would never again be exactly the same, and the keeping of his
+appointment with Turner Ravis that Sunday morning was, as it were, a
+long step onward in his progress of ruin and pollution.</p>
+
+<p>He shook himself as though relieving his shoulders of a weight. The
+model in the life-class had just been posed for the week, and the others
+had begun work. The model for that week was a woman, a fact that pleased
+Vandover, for he drew these nude women better than any one in the
+school, perhaps better than any one in the city. Portrait work and the
+power to catch subtle intellectual distinctions in a face were sometimes
+beyond him, but his feeling for the flesh, and for the movement and
+character of a pose, was admirable.</p>
+
+<p>He set himself to work. Holding his stick of charcoal toward the model
+at arm's-length, he measured off the heads, five in all, and laid off an
+equal number of spaces upon his paper. After this, by aid of his mirror,
+he studied the general character of the pose for nearly half an hour.
+Then, with a few strokes of his charcoal he laid off his larger
+construction lines with a freedom and a precision that were excellent.
+Upon these lines he made a second drawing a little more detailed, though
+as yet everything was blocked in, angularly and roughly. Then, putting a
+thin flat edge upon his charcoal, he started the careful and finished
+outline.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of an hour the first sketch of his drawing was complete. It
+was astonishingly good, vigorous and solid; better than all, it had that
+feeling for form that makes just the difference between the amateur and
+the genuine artist.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Vandover's interest began to flag. Four times <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49" />he had drawn
+and redrawn the articulation of the model's left shoulder. As she stood,
+turned sideways to him, one hand on her hip, the deltoid muscle was at
+once contracted and foreshortened. It was a difficult bit of anatomy to
+draw. Vandover was annoyed at his ill success&mdash;such close attention and
+continued effort wearied him a little&mdash;the room was overheated and
+close, and the gas stove, which was placed near the throne to warm the
+model, leaked and filled the room with a nasty brassy smell. Vandover
+remembered that the previous week he had been looking over some old
+bound copies of <i>l'Art</i> in the Mechanics Library and had found them of
+absorbing interest. There was a pleasant corner and a huge comfortable
+chair near where they were in the reading-room, and from the window one
+could occasionally look out upon the street. It was a quiet spot, and he
+would not be disturbed all the morning. The idea was so attractive that
+he put away his portfolio and drawing things and went out.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour he gave himself up to the enjoyment of <i>l'Art</i>, excusing his
+indolence by telling himself that it was all in his profession and was
+not time lost. A reproduction of a picture by G&eacute;rome gave him some
+suggestions for the &quot;Last Enemy,&quot; which he noted very carefully.</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by a rustle of starched skirts and a voice that said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, hello, Van!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked up quickly to see a young girl of about twenty dressed in a
+black close-fitting bolero jacket of imitation astrakhan with big
+leg-of-mutton sleeves, a striped silk skirt, and a very broad hat tilted
+to one side. Her hair was very blond, though coarse and dry from being
+bleached, and a little flat curl of it lay very low on her forehead. She
+was marvellously pretty. Vandover was delighted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, <i>Ida</i>!&quot; he exclaimed, holding her hand; &quot;<i>it's</i> awfully nice to
+see you here; won't you sit down?&quot; and he pushed his chair toward her.</p>
+
+<p>But Ida Wade said no, she had just come in after a new book, and of
+course it had to be out. But where had he kept himself so long? That was
+the way he threw off on her; ah, yes, he was going with Miss Ravis now
+and wouldn't look at any one else.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50" />Vandover protested against this, and Ida Wade went on to ask him why he
+couldn't come up to call on her that very night, adding:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We might go to the Tivoli or somewhere.&quot; All at once she interrupted
+herself, laughing, &quot;Oh, I heard all about you the other night.
+<i>'Cherries are ripe</i>!' You and the boys painted the town red, didn't
+you? Ah, Van, I'm right on to <i>you</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She would not tell him how she heard, but took herself off, laughing and
+reminding him to come up early.</p>
+
+<p>Ida Wade belonged to a certain type of young girl that was very common
+in the city. She was what men, among each other, called &quot;gay,&quot; though
+that was the worst that could be said of her. She was virtuous, but the
+very fact that it was necessary to say so was enough to cause the
+statement to be doubted. When she was younger and had been a pupil at
+the Girls' High School, she had known and had even been the companion of
+such girls as Turner Ravis and Henrietta Vance, but since that time
+girls of that class had ignored her. Now, almost all of her
+acquaintances were men, and to half of these she had never been
+introduced. They had managed to get acquainted with her on Kearney
+Street, at theatres, at the Mechanics' Fair, and at baseball games. She
+loved to have a &quot;gay&quot; time, which for her meant to drink California
+champagne, to smoke cigarettes, and to kick at the chandelier. She was
+still virtuous and meant to stay so; there was nothing vicious about
+her, and she was as far removed from Flossie's class as from that of
+Turner Ravis.</p>
+
+<p>She was very clever; half of her acquaintances, even the men, did not
+know how very &quot;gay&quot; she was. Only those&mdash;like Vandover&mdash;who knew her
+best, knew her for what she was, for Ida was morbidly careful of
+appearances, and as jealous of her reputation as only fast girls are.</p>
+
+<p>Bessie Laguna was her counterpart. Bessie was &quot;the girl she went with,&quot;
+just as Henrietta Vance was Turner's &quot;chum&quot; and Nannie was Flossie's
+&quot;running-mate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ida lived with her people on Golden Gate Avenue not far from Larkin
+Street. Her father had a three-fourths interest in a carpet-cleaning
+establishment on Howard Street, and her mother gave lessons in painting
+on china and on velvet. Ida had just been graduated from the normal
+school, and often <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51" />substituted at various kindergartens in the city. She
+hoped soon to get a permanent place.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover arrived at Ida's house that night at about eight o'clock in the
+midst of a drenching fog. The parlour and front room on the second floor
+were furnished with bay windows decorated with some meaningless sort of
+millwork. The front door stood at the right of the parlour windows. Two
+Corinthian pillars on either side of the vestibule supported a balcony;
+these pillars had iron capitals which were painted to imitate the wood
+of the house, which in its turn was painted to imitate stone. The house
+was but two stories high, and the roof was topped with an iron cresting.
+There was a microscopical front yard in which one saw a tiny gravel
+walk, two steps long, that led to a door under the front steps, where
+the gas-meter was kept. A few dusty and straggling calla-lilies grew
+about.</p>
+
+<p>Ida opened the door for Vandover almost as soon as he rang, and pulled
+him into the entry, exclaiming: &quot;Come in out of the wet, as the whale
+said to Jonah. <i>Isn't</i> it a nasty night?&quot; Vandover noticed as he came in
+that the house smelt of upholstery, cooking, and turpentine. He did not
+take off his overcoat, but went with her into the parlour.</p>
+
+<p>The parlour was a little room with tinted plaster walls shut off from
+the &quot;back-parlour&quot; by sliding doors. A ply carpet covered the floor, a
+cheap piano stood across one corner of the room, and a greenish sofa
+across another. The mantelpiece was of white marble with gray spots; on
+one side of it stood an Alaskan &quot;grass basket&quot; full of photographs, and
+on the other an inverted section of a sewer-pipe painted with daisies
+and full of gilded cat-tails tied with a blue ribbon. Near the piano
+straddled a huge easel of imitation brass up-holding the crayon picture
+of Ida's baby sister enlarged from a photograph. Across one corner of
+this picture was a yellow &quot;drape.&quot; There were a great many of these
+&quot;drapes&quot; all about the room, hanging over the corners of the chairs,
+upon an edge of the mantelpiece, and even twisted about the chandelier.
+In the exact middle of the mantelpiece itself was the clock, one of the
+chief ornaments of the room, almost the first thing one saw upon
+entering; it was a round-faced timepiece perversely set in one corner of
+an immense red plush palette; <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52" />the palette itself was tilted to one
+side, and was upheld by an easel of twisted brass wire. Out of the
+thumb-hole stuck half a dozen brushes wired together in a round bunch
+and covered with gilt paint. The clock never was wound. It went so fast
+that it was useless as a timepiece. Over it, however, hung a large and
+striking picture, a species of cheap photogravure, a lion lying in his
+cage, looking mildly at the spectator over his shoulder. In front of the
+picture were real iron bars, with real straw tucked in behind them.</p>
+
+<p>Ida sat down on the piano stool, twisting back and forth, leaning her
+elbows on the keys.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All the folks have gone out to a whist-party, and I'm left all alone in
+the house with Maggie,&quot; she said. Then she added: &quot;Bessie and Bandy
+Ellis said they would come down to-night, and I thought we could all go
+downtown to the Tivoli or somewhere, in the open-air boxes, you know,
+way up at the top.&quot; Hardly had she spoken the words when Bessie and
+Ellis arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Ida went upstairs to get on her hat at once, because it was so late, and
+Bessie went with her.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis and Vandover laughed as soon as they saw each other, and Ellis
+exclaimed mockingly, &quot;Ye-e-ow, thash jush way I feel.&quot; Vandover grinned:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's so,&quot; he answered. &quot;I <i>do</i> remember now of having made that
+remark several times. But <i>you</i>&mdash;oh, you were fearful. Do you remember
+the row in the Luxembourg? Look there where you bit me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ellis was incensed with Geary because he had forsaken their party.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's Charlie Geary, all over,&quot; answered Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>As they were speaking there came a sudden outburst of bells in various
+parts of the city and simultaneously they heard the hoarse croaking of a
+whistle down by the waterfront.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fire,&quot; said Vandover indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis was already fumbling in his pockets, keeping count of the strokes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's one,&quot; he exclaimed, pulling out and studying his list of
+alarm-boxes, &quot;and one-two-three, that's three and one-two-three-<i>four</i>,
+one thirty-four. Let's see now! That's Bush and Hyde streets, not very
+far off,&quot; and he returned his card <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53" />to the inside pocket of his coat as
+though he had accomplished a duty.</p>
+
+<p>He lit a cigar. &quot;I wonder now,&quot; he said, hesitating. &quot;I guess I better
+not smoke in here. I'll go outside and get a mouthful of smoke before
+the girls come down.&quot; He went out and Vandover sat down to the cheap
+piano and played his three inevitable pieces, the two polkas and the air
+of the topical song; but he was interrupted by Ellis, who opened the
+door, crying out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, come out here and see the <i>fire</i>, will you? Devil of a blaze!&quot;
+Vandover ran out and saw a great fan-shaped haze of red through the fog
+over the roofs of the houses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, say, girls,&quot; he shouted, jumping back to the foot of the stairs;
+&quot;Ida, Bessie, there's a fire. Just look out of your windows. Hark, there
+go the engines.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Bessie came tearing down the stairs and out on the front steps, where
+the two fellows were standing hatless.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where? Oh, show me where! O-o-oh, sure enough! That's a <i>big</i> fire.
+Just hear the engines. <i>Oh, let's go</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sure; come on, let's go!&quot; exclaimed Vandover. &quot;Tell Ida to hurry up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Ida,&quot; cried Bessie up the stairs, &quot;there's an awful big fire right
+near here, and we're going.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, wait!&quot; shouted Ida, her mouth full of pins. &quot;I had to change my
+waist. Oh, <i>do</i> wait for me. Where is it <i>at</i>? Please wait; I'm coming
+right down in just a minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hurry up, hurry up!&quot; cried Vandover. &quot;It will be all out by the time we
+get there. I'm coming up to help.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, no!&quot; she screamed. &quot;Don't; you rattle me. I'm all mixed up. Oh,
+<i>darn</i> it, I can't find my czarina!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But at last she came running down, breathless, shrugging herself into
+her bolero jacket. They all hurried into the street and turned in the
+direction of the blaze. Other people were walking rapidly in the same
+direction, and there was an opening and shutting of windows and front
+doors. A steamer thundered past, clanging and smoking, followed by a
+score of half-exhausted boys. It took them longer to reach the fire than
+they expected, and by the time they had come within two blocks of it
+they were quite out of breath. Here the excitement was lively; the
+sidewalks were full of people going in <a name="Page_54" id="Page_54" />the same direction; on all sides
+there were guesses as to where the fire was. On the front steps of many
+houses stood middle-aged gentlemen, still holding their evening papers
+and cigars, very amused and interested in watching the crowd go past.
+One heard them from time to time calling to their little sons, who were
+dancing on the sidewalks, forbidding them to go; in the open windows
+above could be seen the other members of the family, their faces faintly
+tinged with the glow, looking and pointing, or calling across the street
+to their friends in the opposite houses. Every one was in good humour;
+it was an event, a f&ecirc;te for the entire neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover and his party came at last to the first engines violently
+pumping and coughing, the huge gray horses standing near by, already
+unhitched and blanketed, indifferently feeding in their nosebags. Some
+of the crowd preferred to watch the engines rather than the fire, and
+there were even some who were coming away from it, exclaiming &quot;false
+alarm&quot; or &quot;all out now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The party had come up quite close; they could smell the burning wood and
+could see the roofs of the nearer houses beginning to stand out sharp
+and black against the red glow beyond. It was a barn behind a huge frame
+house that was afire, the dry hay burning like powder, and by the time
+they reached it the flames were already dwindling. The hose was lying
+like a python all about the streets, while upon the neighbouring roofs
+were groups of firemen with helmets and axes; some were shouting into
+the street below, and others were holding the spouting nozzles of the
+hose. &quot;Ah,&quot; exclaimed an old man, standing near to Ida and Vandover,
+&quot;ah, <i>I</i> was here when it first broke out; you ought to have seen the
+flames then! Look, there's a tree catching!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The crowd became denser; policemen pushed it back and stretched a rope
+across the street. There was a world of tumbling yellow smoke that made
+one's eyes smart, and a great crackling and snapping of flames. Terribly
+excited little boys were about everywhere whistling and calling for each
+other as the crowd separated them.</p>
+
+<p>They watched the fire for some time, standing on a pile of boards in
+front of a half-built house, but as it dwindled they wearied of it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55" />Want to go?&quot; asked Vandover at last.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Ida, &quot;we might as well. Oh, where's Bessie and Ellis?&quot;
+They were nowhere to be seen. Vandover whistled and Ida even called, but
+in vain. The little boys in the crowd mimicked Ida, crying back, &quot;Hey!
+Bessie! Oh, <i>Bes-see</i>, mommer wants you!&quot; The men who stood near laughed
+at this, but it annoyed Vandover much more than it did Ida.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, well, never mind,&quot; she said at length. &quot;Let them go. Now shall <i>we</i>
+go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was too late for the theatre, but to return home was out of the
+question. They started off aimlessly downtown.</p>
+
+<p>While he talked Vandover was perplexed. Ida was gayly dressed and was
+one of those girls who cannot open their mouths nor raise a finger in
+the street without attracting attention. Vandover was not at all certain
+that he cared to be seen on Kearney Street as Ida Wade's escort; one
+never knew who one was going to meet. Ida was not a bad girl, she was
+not notorious, but, confound it, it would look queer; and at the same
+time, while Ida was the kind of girl that one did not want to be seen
+with, she was not the kind of girl that could be told so. In an upper
+box at the Tivoli it would have been different&mdash;one could keep in the
+background; but to appear on Kearney Street with a girl who wore a hat
+like that and who would not put on her gloves&mdash;ah, no, it was out of the
+question.</p>
+
+<p>Ida was talking away endlessly about a kindergarten in which she had
+substituted the last week.</p>
+
+<p>She told him about the funny little nigger girl, and about the games and
+songs and how they played birds and hopped around and cried, &quot;Twit,
+twit,&quot; and the game of the butterflies visiting the flowers. She even
+sang part of a song about the waves.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&quot;Every little wave had its night-cap on;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Its white-cap, night-cap, white-cap on.&quot;</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's more <i>fun</i> than enough,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, Ida,&quot; interrupted Vandover at length, &quot;I'm pretty hungry. Can't we
+go somewhere and eat something? I'd like a Welsh rabbit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56" />All right,&quot; she answered. &quot;Where do you want to go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; replied Vandover, running over in his mind the places he might
+reach by unfrequented streets. &quot;There's Marchand's or Tortoni's or the
+Poodle Dog.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Suits <i>me</i>,&quot; she answered, &quot;any one you like. Say, Van,&quot; she added,
+&quot;weren't you boys at the Imperial the other night? What kind of a place
+is that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On the instant Vandover wondered what she could mean. Was it possible
+that Ida would go to a place like that with him?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Imperial?&quot; he answered. &quot;Oh, I don't know; the Imperial is a sort
+of a nice place. It has private rooms, like all of these places. The
+cooking is simply out of sight. I think there is a bar connected with
+it.&quot; Then he went on to talk indifferently about the kindergarten,
+though his pulse was beating fast, and his nerves were strung taut. By
+and by Ida said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I didn't know there was a bar at the Imperial. I thought it was just
+some kind of an oyster joint. Why, I heard of a very nice girl, a swell
+girl, going in there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; said Vandover, &quot;they do. I say, Ida,&quot; he went on, &quot;what's the
+matter with going down <i>there</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>Imperial</i>?&quot; exclaimed Ida. &quot;Well, I guess <i>not</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, it's all right, if I'm with you,&quot; retorted Vandover, &quot;but if you
+don't like it we can go anywhere else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I guess we <i>will</i> go anywhere else,&quot; returned Ida, and for the
+time the subject was dropped.</p>
+
+<p>They took a Sutter Street car and got off at Grant Avenue, having
+decided to go to Marchand's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the Imperial down there, isn't it?&quot; asked Ida as they reached
+the sidewalk. Vandover made a last attempt:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say, Ida, come on, let's go there. It's all right if I'm with you.
+Ah, come along; what's the odds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>No</i>&mdash;<i>no</i>&mdash;NO,&quot; she answered decisively. &quot;What kind of a girl do you
+think I am, anyway?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I tell you what,&quot; answered Vandover, &quot;just come down <i>by</i> the
+place, and if you don't like the looks of it you needn't go in. I want
+to get some cigarettes, anyhow. You can walk down with me till I do
+<i>that</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll walk down with you,&quot; replied Ida, &quot;but I shan't go in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They drew near to the Imperial. The street about was de<a name="Page_57" id="Page_57" />serted, even the
+usual hacks that had their stand there were gone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; explained Vandover as they passed slowly in front of the
+doors, &quot;this is all quiet enough. If you pulled down your veil no one
+would know the difference, and here's the ladies' entrance, you see,
+right at the side.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, come along, let's go in,&quot; exclaimed Ida suddenly, and before
+he knew it they had swung open the little door of the ladies' entrance
+with its frosted pane of glass and had stepped inside.</p>
+
+<p>It was between nine and ten o'clock, and the Imperial was quiet as yet;
+a few men were drinking in the barroom outside, and Toby, the red-eyed
+waiter, was talking in low tones to a girl under one of the electric
+lights.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover and Ida went into one of the larger rooms in the rear passage
+and shut the door. Ida pushed her bolero jacket from her shoulders,
+saying, &quot;This seems nice and quiet enough.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, of course,&quot; answered Vandover, as though dismissing the question
+for good. &quot;Now, what are we going to have? I say we have champagne and
+oysters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let's have Cliquot, then,&quot; exclaimed Ida, which was the only champagne
+she had ever heard of besides the California brands.</p>
+
+<p>She was very excited. This was the kind of &quot;gay&quot; time she delighted in,
+t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te champagne suppers with men late at night. She had never been
+in such a place as the Imperial before, and the daring and novelty of
+what she had done, the whiff of the great city's vice caught in this
+manner, sent a little tremor of pleasure and excitement over all her
+nerves.</p>
+
+<p>They did not hurry over their little supper, but ate and drank slowly,
+and had more oysters to go with the last half of their bottle. Ida's
+face was ablaze, her eyes flashing, her blond hair disordered and
+falling about her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover put his arm about her neck and drew her toward him, and as she
+sank down upon him, smiling and complaisant, her hair tumbling upon her
+shoulders and her head and throat bent back, he leaned his cheek against
+hers, speaking in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No&mdash;no,&quot; she murmured, smiling; &quot;never&mdash;ah, if I hadn't <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58" />come&mdash;no,
+Van&mdash;please&mdash;&quot; And then with a long breath she abandoned herself.</p>
+
+<p>About midnight he left her at the door of her house on Golden Gate
+Avenue. On their way home Ida had grown more serious than he had ever
+known her to be. Now she began to cry softly to herself. &quot;Oh, Van,&quot; she
+said, putting her head down upon his shoulder, &quot;oh, I am so <i>sorry</i>. You
+don't think any less of me, do you? Oh, Van, you must be true to me
+now!&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Six" id="Chapter_Six" /><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59" /><i>Chapter Six</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Everybody in San Francisco knew of the Ravises and always made it a
+point to speak of them as one of the best families of the city. They
+were not new and they were not particularly rich. They had lived in the
+same house on California Street for nearly twenty years and had always
+been comfortably well off. As things go in San Francisco, they were
+old-fashioned. They had family traditions and usages and time-worn
+customs. Their library had been in process of collection for the past
+half century and the pictures on the walls were oil paintings of steel
+engravings and genuine old-fashioned chromos, beyond price to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Their furniture and ornaments were of the preceding generation, solid,
+conservative. They were not chosen with reference to any one style, nor
+all bought at the same time. Each separate piece had an individuality of
+its own. The Ravises kept their old things, long after the fashion had
+gone out, preferring them to the smarter &quot;art&quot; objects on account of
+their associations.</p>
+
+<p>There were six in the family, Mr. and Mrs. Ravis, Turner, and her older
+brother, Stanley, Yale '88, a very serious young gentleman of
+twenty-seven, continually professing an interest in economics and
+finance. Besides these were the two children, Howard, nine years old,
+and his sister, aged fourteen, who had been christened Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>They were a home-loving race. Mr. Ravis, senior, belonged to the
+Bohemian Club, but was seldom seen there. Stanley was absorbed in his
+law business, and Turner went out but little. They much preferred each
+other's society to that of three fourths of their acquaintances, most of
+their friends being &quot;friends of the family,&quot; who came to dinner three or
+four times a year.</p>
+
+<p>It was a custom of theirs to spend the evenings in the big dining-room
+at the back of the house, after the table had been cleared away, Mr.
+Ravis and Stanley reading the papers, the one smoking his cigar, the
+other his pipe; Mrs. Ravis, with the magazines and Turner with the
+<i>Chautauquan</i>. Howard <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60" />and Virginia appropriated the table to themselves
+where they played with their soldiers and backgammon board.</p>
+
+<p>The family kept two servants, June the &quot;China boy,&quot; who had been with
+them since the beginning of things, and Delphine the cook, a more recent
+acquisition. June was, in a way, butler and second boy combined; he did
+all the downstairs work and the heavy sweeping, but it was another
+time-worn custom for Mrs. Ravis and Turner to spend part of every
+morning in putting the bedrooms to rights, dusting and making up the
+beds. Besides this, Turner exercised a sort of supervision over Howard
+and Virginia, who were too old for a nurse but too young to take care of
+themselves. She had them to bed at nine, mended some of their clothes,
+made them take their baths regularly, re&euml;stablished peace between them
+in their hourly quarrels, and, most arduous task of all, saw that Howard
+properly washed himself every morning, and on Wednesday and Saturday
+afternoons that he was suitably dressed in time for dancing school.</p>
+
+<p>It was Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Ravis was reading to her husband, who lay
+on the sofa in the back-parlour smoking a cigar. Stanley had gone out to
+make a call, while Howard and Virginia had forgathered in the bathroom
+to sail their boats and cigar boxes in the tub. Toward half-past three,
+as Turner was in her room writing letters, the door-bell rang. She
+stopped, with her pen in the air, wondering if it might be Vandover. It
+was June's afternoon out. In a few minutes the bell rang again, and
+Turner ran down to answer it herself, intercepting Delphine, who took
+June's place on these occasions, but who was hopelessly stupid.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ravis had peered out through the curtains of the parlour window to
+see who it was, and Turner met her and Mr. Ravis coming upstairs,
+abandoning the parlour to Turner's caller.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mamma and I are going upstairs to read,&quot; explained Mr. Ravis. &quot;It's
+some one of your young men. You can bring him right in the parlour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think it's Mr. Haight,&quot; said Turner's mother. &quot;Ask him to stay to
+tea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Turner doubtfully, as she paused at the foot of the stairs,
+&quot;I will, but you know we never have anything to <a name="Page_61" id="Page_61" />speak of for Sunday
+evening tea. June is out, and you know how clumsy and stupid Delphine is
+when she waits on the table.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It <i>was</i> young Haight. Turner was very glad to see him, for next to
+Vandover she liked him better than any of the others. She was never
+bored by being obliged to entertain him, and he always had something to
+say and some clever way of saying it.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past five, as they were talking about amateur photography,
+Mrs. Ravis came in and called them to tea.</p>
+
+<p>Tea with the Ravises was the old-fashioned tea of twenty years ago. One
+never saw any of the modern &quot;delicacies&quot; on their Sunday evening table,
+no enticing cold lunch, no spices, not even catsups or pepper sauces.
+The turkey or chicken they had had for dinner was served cold in slices;
+there was canned fruit, preserves, tea, crackers, bread and butter, a
+large dish of cold pork and beans, and a huge glass pitcher of
+ice-water.</p>
+
+<p>In the absence of June, Delphine the cook went through the agony of
+waiting on the table, very nervous and embarrassed in her clean calico
+gown and starched apron. Her hands were red and knotty, smelling of
+soap, and they touched the chinaware with an over-zealous and
+constraining tenderness as if the plates and dishes had been delicate
+glass butterflies. She stood off at a distance from the table making
+sudden and awkward dabs at it. When it came to passing the plates, she
+passed them on the wrong side and remembered herself at the wrong moment
+with a stammering apology. In her excess of politeness she kept up a
+constant murmur as she attended to their wants. Another fork? Yes, sir.
+She'd get it right away, sir. Did Mrs. Ravis want another cuppa tea? No?
+No more tea? Well, she'd pass the bread. Some bread, Master Howard? Nice
+French bread, he always liked that. Some more preserved pears, Miss
+Ravis? Yes, miss, she'd get them right away; they were just over here on
+the sideboard. Yes, here they were. No more? Now she'd go and put them
+back. And at last when she had set the nerves of all of them in a
+jangle, was dismissed to the kitchen and retired with a gasp of
+unspeakable relief.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat later in the evening young Haight was alone <a name="Page_62" id="Page_62" />with Turner, and
+their conversation had taken a very unusual and personal turn. All at
+once Turner exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I often wonder what good I am in the world to anybody. I don't <i>know</i> a
+thing, I can't <i>do</i> a thing. I couldn't cook the plainest kind of a meal
+to <i>save</i> me, and it took me all of two hours yesterday to do just a
+little buttonhole stitching. I'm not good for anything. I'm not a help
+to anybody.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight looked into the blue flame of the gas-log, almost the only
+modern innovation throughout the entire house, and was silent for a
+moment; then he leaned his elbows on his knees and, still looking at the
+flame, replied:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know about that. You have been a considerable help to <i>me</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To <i>you</i>!&quot; exclaimed Turner, surprised. &quot;A help to <i>you</i>? Why, how do
+you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; he answered, still without looking at her, &quot;one always has one's
+influence, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, lots of influence <i>I</i> have over anybody,&quot; retorted Turner,
+incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, you have,&quot; he insisted. &quot;You have plenty of influence over the
+people that care for you. You have plenty of influence over me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Turner, very much embarrassed, and not knowing how to answer, bent down
+to the side of the mantelpiece and turned up the flame of the gas-log a
+little. Young Haight continued, almost as embarrassed as she:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose I'm a bad lot, perhaps a little worse than most others, but I
+think&mdash;I hope&mdash;there's some good in me. I know all this sounds absurd
+and affected, but <i>really</i> I'm not posing; you won't mind if I speak
+just as I think, for this once. I promise,&quot; he went on with a half
+smile, &quot;not to do it again. You know my mother died when I was little
+and I have lived mostly with men. You have been to me what the society
+of women has been to other fellows. You see, you are the only girl I
+ever knew very well&mdash;the only one I ever wanted to know. I have cared
+for you the way other men have cared for the different women that come
+into their lives; as they have cared for their mothers, their
+sisters&mdash;and their wives. You have already influenced me as a mother or
+sister should have done; what if I should ever <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63" />ask you to be&mdash;to be the
+<i>other</i> to me, the one that's best of all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight turned toward her as he finished and looked at her for the
+first time. Turner was still very much embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I'm very glad if I've been a help to&mdash;to anybody&mdash;to you,&quot; she
+said, confusedly. &quot;But I never knew that you cared&mdash;that you thought
+about me&mdash;in that way. But you mustn't, you know, you mustn't care for
+me in that way. I ought to tell you right away that I never could care
+for you more than&mdash;I always have done; I mean care for you only as a
+very, very good friend. You don't know, Dolly,&quot; she went on eagerly,
+&quot;how it hurts me to tell you so, because I care so much for you in every
+other way that I wouldn't hurt your feelings for anything; but then you
+know at the same time it would hurt you a great deal more if I
+<i>shouldn't</i> tell you, but encourage you, and let you go on thinking that
+perhaps I liked you more than any one else, when I <i>didn't</i>. Now
+wouldn't that be wrong? You don't know how glad it makes me feel that I
+have been of some good to you, and that is just why I want to be sincere
+<i>now</i> and not make you think any less of me&mdash;think any worse of me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I know,&quot; answered young Haight. &quot;I know I shouldn't have said
+anything about it. I knew beforehand, or thought I knew, that you didn't
+care in that way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Maybe I have been wrong,&quot; she replied, &quot;in not seeing that you cared so
+much, and have given you a wrong impression. I thought you knew how it
+was all the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Knew how what was?&quot; he asked, looking up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why,&quot; she said, &quot;knew how Van and I were.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I knew that Van cared for you a great deal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but you know,&quot; she went on, hesitating and confused, &quot;you know we
+are engaged. We have been engaged for nearly two years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But <i>he</i> don't consider himself as engaged!&quot; The words were almost out
+of Haight's mouth, but he shut his teeth against them and kept
+silence&mdash;he hardly knew why.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Suppose Vandover were out of the question,&quot; he said, getting up and
+smiling in order not to seem as serious as he really was.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64" />Ah,&quot; she said, smiling back at him. &quot;I don't know; that's a hard
+question to answer. I've never <i>asked</i> myself <i>that</i> question.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I'm saving you the trouble, you see,&quot; he answered, still smiling.
+&quot;I am asking it <i>for</i> you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I don't want to answer such a question off-hand like that; how can
+I tell? It would only be <i>perhaps</i>, just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight answered quickly that &quot;just now&quot; he would be contented with
+that &quot;perhaps&quot;; but Turner did not hear this. She had spoken at the same
+time as he, exclaiming, &quot;But what is the good of talking of that?
+Because no matter what happened I feel as though I could not break my
+promise to Van, even if I should want to. Because I have talked like
+this, Dolly,&quot; she went on more seriously, &quot;you must not be deceived or
+get a wrong impression. You understand how things are, don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; he answered, still trying to carry it off with a laugh. &quot;I
+know, I know. But now I hope you won't let anything I have said bother
+you, and that things will go on just as if I hadn't spoken, just as if
+nothing had happened.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, of course,&quot; she said, laughing with him again. &quot;Of <i>course</i>, why
+shouldn't they?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They were both at their ease again by the time young Haight stood at the
+door with his hat in his hand ready to go.</p>
+
+<p>He raised his free hand over her head, and said, with burlesque,
+dramatic effect, trying to keep down a smile:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bless you both; go, go marry Vandover and be happy; I forgive you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah&mdash;don't be so <i>utterly</i> absurd,&quot; she cried, beginning to laugh.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Seven" id="Chapter_Seven" /><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65" /><i>Chapter Seven</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>On a certain evening about four months later Ellis and Vandover had a
+&quot;date&quot; with Ida Wade and Bessie Laguna at the Mechanics' Fair. Ellis,
+Bessie, and Ida were to meet Vandover there in the Art Gallery, as he
+had to make a call with his father, and could not get there until
+half-past nine. They were all to walk about the Fair until ten, after
+which the two men proposed to take the girls out to the Cliff House in
+separate coup&eacute;s. The whole thing had been arranged by Ellis and Bessie,
+and Vandover was irritated. Ellis ought to have had more sense; rushing
+the girls was all very well, but everybody went to the Mechanics' Fair,
+and he didn't like to have nice girls like Turner or Henrietta Vance see
+him with chippies like that. It was all very well for Ellis, who had no
+social position, but for <i>him</i>, Vandover, it would look too confounded
+queer. Of course he was in for it now, and would have to face the music.
+You can't tell a girl like that that you're ashamed to be seen with her,
+but very likely he would get himself into a regular box with it all.</p>
+
+<p>When he arrived at the Mechanics' Pavilion, it was about twenty minutes
+of ten, and as he pushed through the wicket he let himself into a huge
+amphitheatre full of colour and movement.</p>
+
+<p>There was a vast shuffling of thousands of feet and a subdued roar of
+conversation like the noise of a great mill; mingled with these were the
+purring of distant machinery, the splashing of a temporary fountain and
+the rhythmic clamour of a brass band, while in the piano exhibit the
+hired performer was playing a concert-grand with a great flourish.
+Nearer at hand one could catch ends of conversation and notes of
+laughter, the creaking of boots, and the rustle of moving dresses and
+stiff skirts. Here and there groups of school children elbowed their way
+through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement
+pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips with pewter whistles on
+the butts, while the air itself was full of the smell of fresh popcorn.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis and Bessie were in the Art Gallery upstairs. Mrs. Wade, Ida's
+mother, who gave lessons in hand painting, had <a name="Page_66" id="Page_66" />an exhibit there which
+they were interested to find; a bunch of yellow poppies painted on
+velvet and framed in gilt. They stood before it some little time
+hazarding their opinions and then moved on from one picture to another;
+Ellis bought a catalogue and made it a duty to find the title of every
+picture. Bessie professed to be very fond of painting; she had 'taken it
+up' at one time and had abandoned it, only because the oil or turpentine
+or something was unhealthy for her. &quot;Of course,&quot; she said, &quot;I'm no
+critic, I only know what I like. Now that one over there, I like <i>that</i>.
+I think those ideal heads like that are lovely, don't you, Bandy? Oh,
+there's Van!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello!&quot; said Vandover, coming up. &quot;Where's Ida?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, Van!&quot; answered Bessie. &quot;Ida wouldn't come. Isn't it too mean?
+She said she couldn't come because she had a cold, but she was just
+talking through her face, I know. She's just got kind of a streak on and
+you can't get anything out of her. You two haven't had a row, have you?
+Well, I didn't <i>think</i> you had. But she's worried about something or
+other. I don't believe she's been out of the house this week. But isn't
+it mean of her to throw cold water on the procession like this? She's
+been giving me a lecture, too, and says she's going to reform.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Vandover, greatly relieved, &quot;that's too bad. We could have
+had a lot of fun to-night. I'm awfully sorry. Well, what are you two
+going to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I guess we'll follow out our part of the programme,&quot; said Ellis.
+&quot;You are kind of left out, though.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;Maybe I'll go downtown, and see if I
+can find some of the boys.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Dolly Haight is around here somewheres,&quot; said Ellis. &quot;We saw him
+just now over by the chess machine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I guess I'll try and find him, then,&quot; responded Vandover. &quot;Well, I hope
+you two enjoy yourselves.&quot; As he was turning away Bessie Laguna came
+running back, and taking him a little to one side said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'd better go round and see Ida pretty soon if you can. She's all
+broke up about something, I'm sure. I think she'd like to see you pretty
+well. Honestly,&quot; she said, suddenly very grave, &quot;I never saw Ida so cut
+up in my life. She's been taking on over something in a dreadful way,
+and I think she'd like <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67" />to see you. She won't tell <i>me</i> anything. You go
+around and see her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; answered Vandover smiling, &quot;I'll go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he was going down the stairs on his way to find young Haight it
+occurred to him what Ida's trouble might be. He was all at once struck
+with a great fear, so that for an instant he turned cold and weak, and
+reached out his hand to steady himself against the railing of the
+stairs. Ah, what a calamity that would be! What a calamity! What a
+dreadful responsibility! What a crime! He could not keep the thought out
+of his mind. He tried to tell himself that Ida had practically given her
+consent by going into such a place; that he was not the only one, after
+all; that there was nothing certain as yet. He stood on the stairway,
+empty for that moment, biting the end of his thumb, saying to himself in
+a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a calamity, what a horrible calamity that would be! Ah, you
+scoundrel! You damned fool, not to have thought!&quot; A couple of girls, the
+counter girls at one of the candy booths, came down the stairs behind
+him with a great babble of talk. Vandover gave an irritated shrug of his
+shoulders as if freeing himself from the disagreeable subject and went
+on.</p>
+
+<p>He could not find young Haight down stairs and so went up into the
+gallery again. After a long time he came upon him sitting on an empty
+bench nursing his cane and watching the crowd go past.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, old man!&quot; he exclaimed. &quot;Ellis told me I would find you around
+somewhere. I was just going to give you up.&quot; He sat down beside his
+chum, and the two began to talk about the people as they passed. &quot;Ah,
+get on to the red hat!&quot; exclaimed Vandover on a sudden. &quot;That's the
+third time she's passed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has Ellis gone off with Bessie Laguna?&quot; asked young Haight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;They're going to have a time at the Cliff
+House.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's too bad,&quot; young Haight replied. &quot;Ellis has just thrown himself
+away with that girl. He might have known some very nice people when he
+first came here. Between that girl and his whisky he has managed to
+spoil every chance he might have had.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68" />There's Charlie Geary,&quot; Vandover exclaimed suddenly, whistling and
+beckoning. &quot;Hey, there, Charlie! where you going? Oh,&quot; he cried on a
+sudden as Geary came up, &quot;oh, get on to his new store clothes, will
+you?&quot; They both pretended to be overwhelmed by the elegance of Geary's
+new suit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O-oh!&quot; cried young Haight. &quot;The bloody, bloomin', bloated swell. Just
+let me <i>touch</i> them!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover shaded his eyes and turned away as though dazzled. &quot;This is
+<i>too</i> much,&quot; he gasped. &quot;Such magnificence, such purple and fine linen.&quot;
+Then suddenly he shouted, &quot;Oh, <i>oh! look</i> at the crease in those
+trousers. No; it's too much, I can't stand it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, shut up,&quot; said Geary, irritated, as they had intended he should be.
+&quot;Yes,&quot; he went on, &quot;I thought I'd blow myself. I've been working like a
+dog the whole month. I'm trying to get in Beale's office. Beale and
+Storey, you know. I got the promise of a berth last week, so I thought
+I'd blow myself for some rags. I've been over to San Rafael all day
+visiting my cousins; had a great time; went out to row. Oh, and had a
+great feed: lettuce sandwiches with mayonnaise. Simply out of sight. I
+came back on the four o'clock boat and held down the 'line' on Kearney
+Street for an hour or two.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes?&quot; young Haight said perfunctorily, adding after a moment, &quot;Isn't
+this a gay crowd, a typical San Francisco crowd and&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had a cocktail in the Imperial at about quarter of five,&quot; said Geary,
+&quot;and got a cigar at the Elite; then I went around to get my clothes. Oh,
+you ought to have heard the blowing up I gave my tailor! I let him have
+it right straight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary paused a moment, and Vandover said: &quot;Come on, let's walk around a
+little; don't you want to? We might run on to the red hat again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I told him,&quot; continued Geary without moving, &quot;that if he wanted to do
+any more work for me, he'd have to get in front of himself in a hurry,
+and that <i>I</i> wasn't full of bubbles, if <i>he</i> was. 'Why,' says he, 'why,
+Mr. Geary, I've never had a customer talk like this to me before since
+I've been in the business!' 'Well, Mr. Allen,' says I, 'it's time you
+<i>had</i>! Oh, sure, I gave it to him straight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vandover has gone daft over a girl in a red hat,&quot; said <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69" />young Haight,
+as they got up and began to walk. &quot;Have you noticed her up here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I went to the Grillroom after I left the tailor's,&quot; continued Geary,
+&quot;and had supper downtown. Ah, you ought to have seen the steak they gave
+me! Just about as thick as it was wide. I gave the slavey a four-bit
+tip. Oh, it's just as well, you know, to keep in with them, if you go
+there often. I lunch there four or five times a week.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They descended to the ground floor and promenaded the central aisle
+watching for pretty girls. In front of a candy-counter, where there was
+a soda fountain, they saw the red hat again. Vandover looked her
+squarely in the face and laughed a little. When he had passed he looked
+back; the girl caught his eye and turned away with a droll smile.
+Vandover paused, grinning, and raising his hat; &quot;I guess that's mine,&quot;
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not going, are you?&quot; exclaimed young Haight, as Vandover
+stopped. &quot;Oh, for goodness' sake, Van, do leave the girls alone for one
+hour in the day. Come on! Come on downtown with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;I'm going to chase it up. Good-bye. I may
+see you fellows later,&quot; and he turned back and went up to the girl.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look at that!&quot; said young Haight, exasperated. &quot;He knows he's liable to
+meet his acquaintances here, and yet there he goes, almost arm in arm
+with a girl like that. It's too bad; why <i>can't</i> a fellow keep straight
+when there are such a lot of <i>nice</i> girls?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary never liked to see anything done better than he could do it
+himself. Just now he was vexed because Vandover had got in ahead of him.
+He looked after the girl a moment and muttered scornfully:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cheap meat!&quot; adding, &quot;Ah, you bet <i>I</i> wouldn't do that. I flatter
+myself that I'm a little too clever to cut my own throat in that
+fashion. I look out after my interests better than that. Well, Dolly,&quot;
+he concluded, &quot;<i>I've</i> got a thirst on. Van and Ellis have gone off with
+their girls; let's you and I go somewhere and have something wet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right. What's the matter with the Luxembourg?&quot; answered young
+Haight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_70" id="Page_70" />Luxembourg goes, then,&quot; assented Geary, and they turned about and
+started for the door. As they were passing out some one came running up
+behind them and took an arm of each: it was Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello,&quot; cried Geary, delighted, &quot;your girl shook you, didn't she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a bit of it,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;Oh, but say, she is out of sight!
+Says her name is Grace Irving. No, she didn't shake me. I made a date
+with her for next Wednesday night. I didn't want to be seen around here
+with her, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of <i>course</i> she will keep that date!&quot; said Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, I think she will,&quot; protested Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, come along,&quot; interrupted young Haight. &quot;We'll all go down to the
+Luxembourg and have something cold and wet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, make it the Imperial instead,&quot; objected Vandover. &quot;We may find
+Flossie.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say,&quot; cried Geary, &quot;can't you <i>live</i> without trailing around after some
+kind of petticoats?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're right,&quot; admitted Vandover, &quot;I can't,&quot; but he persuaded them to
+go to the Imperial for all that.</p>
+
+<p>At the Imperial, Toby, the red-eyed waiter, came to take their order.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good evening, gentlemen,&quot; he said. &quot;Haven't seen you around here for
+some time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no,&quot; said Geary. &quot;I've been too busy. I've been working like a dog
+lately to get into a certain office. You bet I'll make it all right&mdash;all
+right. Bring me a stringy rabbit and a pint of dog's-head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You bet I've been working,&quot; he continued after they had settled down to
+their beer and rabbits, &quot;working like a dog. A man's got to rustle if
+he's going to make a success at law. <i>I'm</i> going to make it go, by
+George, or I'll know the reason why. I'll make my way in this town and
+my pile. There's money to be made here and <i>I</i> might just as well make
+it as the next man. Every man for himself, that's what <i>I</i> say; that's
+the way to get along. It may be selfish, but you've got to do it. By
+God! it's human nature. Isn't that right, hey? Isn't that right?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's right,&quot; admitted young Haight, trying to be <a name="Page_71" id="Page_71" />polite. After
+this the conversation lagged a little. Young Haight drank his
+Apollinaris lemonade through a straw, Geary sipped his ale, and Vandover
+fed himself Welsh rabbit and Spanish olives with the silent enjoyment of
+a glutton. By and by, when they had finished and had lighted their
+cigars and cigarettes, they began to talk about the last Cotillon, to
+which Vandover and Haight belonged.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, Van,&quot; said young Haight, tilting his head to one side and shutting
+one eye to avoid the smoke from his cigar, &quot;say, didn't I see you
+dancing with Mrs. Doane after supper?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Vandover laughing; &quot;all the men were trying to get a dance
+with her. She had an edge on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No?&quot; exclaimed Geary, incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's a fact,&quot; admitted young Haight. &quot;Van is right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She was opposite to me at table,&quot; said Vandover, &quot;and <i>I</i> saw her empty
+a whole bottle of champagne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, I didn't know they got drunk like that at the Cotillons,&quot; said
+Geary. &quot;I thought they were very swell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, of course, they don't as a rule,&quot; returned Vandover. &quot;Of course
+there are girls like&mdash;like Henrietta Vance who belong to the Cotillon
+and make it what it is, and what it ought to be. But there are other
+girls like Mrs. Doane and Lilly Stannard and the Trafford girls that
+like their champagne pretty well now, and don't you forget it! Oh, you
+know, I wouldn't call it getting drunk, though.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, why not?&quot; exclaimed young Haight impatiently. &quot;Why not call it
+'getting drunk?' Why not call things by their right name? You can see
+just how bad they are then; and I think it's shameful that such things
+can go on in an organization that is supposed to contain the very best
+people in the city. Now, I just want to tell you what I saw at one of
+these same Cotillons in the first part of the season. Lilly Stannard
+disappeared after supper and people said she was sick and was going
+home, but I knew exactly what was the matter, because I had seen her at
+the supper table. Well, I had gone outside on the steps to get a
+mouthful of smoke, and my little cousin, Hetty, who has just come out
+and who is only nineteen, was out there with me because it was so warm
+inside, and <i>she</i> had seen Lilly Stannard filling up with champagne at
+supper, and didn't know what to make of it. Well, we were just talking
+<a name="Page_72" id="Page_72" />about it, and I was trying to make her believe too that Lilly Stannard
+was sick, when here comes Lilly herself out to her carriage. Her maid
+was supporting her, just about half-carrying her. Lilly's face was so
+pale that the powder on it looked like ashes, her hair was all coming
+down, and she was hiccoughing. Now,&quot; continued young Haight, his eyes
+snapping, and his voice raised so as to make itself heard above the
+exclamations of his two friends, &quot;now, that's a <i>fact</i>; I give you my
+word of honour that it actually happened. It's not hearsay; I saw it
+myself. It's fine, isn't it?&quot; he went on, wrathfully. &quot;It sounds well,
+don't it, when it's told <i>just as it happened</i>? The girl was dead drunk.
+Oh, she may have made a mistake; it may have been the first time; but
+the fact remains that she always drinks a lot of champagne at the
+Cotillons, and other girls have been drunk there, too. Mrs. Doane, that
+Van tells about, was <i>drunk</i>; that's the word for it. She was dead drunk
+that night, and there was my little cousin, Hetty, who had never seen
+even a man the worse for his liquor, standing there and taking it all
+in. Of course, every one hushed the thing up or else said the poor girl
+was sick; but Hetty knew, and what effect do you suppose it had upon a
+little girl like that, who had always been told what nice,
+irreproachable people went to the Cotillons? Hetty will never be the
+same little girl now that she was before. Oh, it makes me damned tired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I don't see,&quot; said Geary, &quot;why the girls should make such a fuss
+about the men keeping straight. I daresay now that this Stannard girl
+would cut us all dead if she knew how drunk we were that night about
+four months ago&mdash;that night that you fellows got thrown out of the
+Luxembourg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I don't believe she would at all,&quot; said young Haight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She'd think better of you for it,&quot; put in Vandover. &quot;Look here,&quot; he
+went on, &quot;all this talk of women demanding the same moral standard for
+men as men do for women is fine on paper, but how does it work in real
+life? The women don't demand it at all. Take the average society girl in
+a big city like this. The girls that we meet at teas and receptions and
+functions&mdash;don't you suppose they know the life we men lead? Of course
+they do. They may not know it in detail, but they know in a general way
+that we get drunk a good deal and go to disreputable houses and that
+sort of thing, and do they <a name="Page_73" id="Page_73" />ever cut us for that? No, sir; not much.
+Why, I tell you, they even have a little more respect for us. They like
+a man to know things, to be experienced. A man that keeps himself
+straight and clean and never goes around with fast women, they think is
+ridiculous. Of course, a girl don't want to know the particulars of a
+man's vice; what they want is that a man should have the knowledge of
+good and evil, yes, and lots of evil. To a large extent I really believe
+it's the women's fault that the men are what they are. If they demanded
+a higher moral standard the men would come up to it; they encourage a
+man to go to the devil and then&mdash;and then when he's rotten with disease
+and ruins his wife and has children&mdash;what is it&mdash;<i>'spotted
+toads'</i>&mdash;<i>then</i> there's a great cry raised against the men, and women
+write books and all, when half the time the woman has only encouraged
+him to be what he is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, well now,&quot; retorted young Haight, &quot;you know that all the girls are
+not like that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Most of them that you meet in society are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But they are the best people, aren't they?&quot; demanded Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Vandover and young Haight in a breath, and young Haight
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; I believe that very few of what you would call the 'best people' go
+out in society&mdash;people like the Ravises, who have good principles, and
+keep up old-fashioned virtues and all that. You know,&quot; he added, &quot;they
+have family prayers down there every morning after breakfast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary began to smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, I don't care,&quot; retorted young Haight, &quot;I like that sort of
+thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So do I,&quot; said Vandover. &quot;Up home, now, the governor asks a blessing at
+each meal, and somehow I wouldn't like to see him leave it off. But you
+can't tell me,&quot; he went on, going back to the original subject of their
+discussion, &quot;you can't tell me that American society girls, city-bred,
+and living at the end of the nineteenth century, don't know about
+things. Why, man alive, how can they help but know? Look at those that
+have brothers&mdash;don't you suppose they know, and if they know, why don't
+they use their influence to stop it? I tell you if any one were to write
+up the lives that we <a name="Page_74" id="Page_74" />young men of the city lead after dark, people
+wouldn't believe it. At that party that Henrietta Vance gave last month
+there were about twenty fellows there and I knew every one, and I was
+looking around the supper-table and wondering how many of those young
+fellows had never been inside of a disreputable house, and there was
+only <i>one</i> beside Dolly Haight!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight exclaimed at this, laughing good-naturedly, twirling his
+thumbs, and casting down his eyes with mock-modesty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, that's the truth just the same,&quot; Vandover went on. &quot;We young men
+of the cities are a fine lot. I'm not doing the baby act. I'm not laying
+the blame on the girls altogether, but I say that in a measure the girls
+are responsible. They want a man to be a <i>man</i>, to be up to date, to be
+a man of the world and to go in for that sort of vice, but they don't
+know, they don't dream, how rotten and disgusting it is. Oh, I'm not
+preaching. I know I'm just as bad as the rest, and I'm going to have a
+good time while I can, but sometimes when you stop and think, and as
+Dolly says 'call things by their right names,' why you feel, don't you
+know&mdash;<i>queer</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't believe, Van,&quot; responded young Haight, &quot;that it's <i>quite</i> as
+bad as you say. But it's even wrong, I think, that a good girl should
+know anything about vice at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's nonsense,&quot; broke in Geary; &quot;you can't expect nowadays that a
+girl, an American girl, can live twenty years in a city and not know
+things. Do you think the average modern girl is going to be the
+absolutely pure and innocent girl of, say, fifty years ago? Not much;
+they are right on to things to-day. You can't tell them much. And it's
+all right, too; they know how to look out for themselves, then. It's
+part of their education; and I think if they haven't the knowledge of
+evil, and don't know what sort of life the average young man leads, that
+their mothers ought to tell them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I don't agree with you,&quot; retorted young Haight. &quot;There's
+something revolting in the idea that it's necessary a young girl should
+be instructed in that sort of nastiness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, not at all,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;Without it she might be ruined by
+the first man that came along. It's a protection to her virtue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_75" id="Page_75" />Oh, pshaw! I don't believe it at all,&quot; cried young Haight,
+impatiently. &quot;I believe that a girl is born with a natural intuitive
+purity that will lead her to protect her virtue just as instinctively as
+she would dodge a blow; if she wants to go wrong she will have to make
+an effort herself to overcome that instinct.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if she don't,&quot; cried Vandover eagerly, &quot;if she don't&mdash;if she don't
+protect her virtue, I say a man has a right to go as far with her as he
+can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If <i>he</i> don't, some one else will,&quot; said Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you can't get around it that way,&quot; answered young Haight, smiling.
+&quot;It's a man's duty to protect a girl, even if he has to protect her
+against herself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When he got home that night Vandover thought over this remark of young
+Haight's and in its light reviewed what had occurred in the room at the
+Imperial. He felt aroused, nervous, miserably anxious. At length he
+tried to dismiss the subject from his mind; he woke up his drowsing
+grate fire, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying, &quot;Wake up
+there, you!&quot; When he was undressed, he sat down before it in his
+bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously, musing into the coals,
+scratching himself as was his custom. But for all that he fretted
+nervously and did not sleep well that night.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he took his bath. Vandover enjoyed his bath and usually
+spent two or three hours over it. When the water was very warm he got
+into it with his novel on a rack in front of him and a box of chocolates
+conveniently near. Here he stayed, for over an hour, eating and reading,
+and occasionally smoking a cigarette, until at length the enervating
+heat of the steam gradually overcame him and he dropped off to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular morning between nine and ten Geary called, and as was
+his custom came right up to Vandover's room. Mr. Corkle, lying on the
+wolfskin in the bay window, jumped up with a gruff bark, but,
+recognizing him, came up wiggling his short tail. Geary saw Vandover's
+clothes thrown about the floor and the closed door of the bathroom.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hey, Van!&quot; he called. &quot;It's Charlie Geary. Are you taking a bath?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76" />Hello! What? Who is it?&quot; came from behind the door. &quot;Oh, is that you,
+Charlie? Hello! how are you? Yes, I'm taking a bath. I must have been
+asleep. Wait a minute; I'll be out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I can't stop,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;I've an appointment downtown;
+overslept myself, and had to go without my breakfast; makes me feel all
+broke up. I'll get something at the Grillroom about eleven; a steak, I
+guess. But that isn't what I came to say. Ida Wade has killed herself!
+Isn't it fearful? I thought I'd drop in on my way downtown and speak to
+you about it. It's dreadful! It's all in the morning papers. She must
+have been out of her head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it&mdash;what has she done?&quot; came back Vandover's voice. &quot;Papers&mdash;I
+haven't seen&mdash;what has she done? Tell me&mdash;what has she done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, she committed suicide last night by taking laudanum,&quot; answered
+Geary, &quot;and nobody knows why. She didn't leave any message or letter or
+anything of the kind. It's a fearful thing to happen so suddenly, but it
+seems she has been very despondent and broke up about something or other
+for a week or two. They found her in her room last night about ten
+o'clock lying across her table with only her wrapper on. She was
+unconscious then, and between one and two she died. She was unconscious
+all the time. Well, I can't stop any longer, Van; I've an appointment
+downtown. I was just going past the house and I thought I would run up
+and speak to you about Ida. I'll see you again pretty soon and we'll
+talk this over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Corkle politely attended Geary to the head of the stairs, then went
+back to Vandover's room, and after blowing under the crack of the
+bathroom door to see if his master was still there returned to the
+wolfskin and sat down on his short tail and yawned. He was impatient to
+see Vandover and thought he stayed in his bath an unnecessarily long
+time. He went up to the door again and listened. It was very still
+inside; he could not hear the slightest sound, and he wondered again
+what could keep Vandover in there so long. He had too much self-respect
+to whine, so he went back to the wolfskin and curled up in the sun, but
+did not go to sleep.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77" />By and by, after a very long time, the bathroom door swung open, and
+Vandover came out. He had not dried himself and was naked and wet. He
+went directly to the table in the centre of the room and picked up the
+morning paper, looking for the article of which Geary had spoken. At
+first he could not find it, and then it suddenly jumped into prominence
+from out the gray blur of the print on an inside page beside an
+advertisement of a charity concert for the benefit of a home for
+incurable children. There was a picture of Ida taken from a photograph
+like one that she had given him, and which even then was thrust between
+the frame and glass of his mirror. He read the article through; it
+sketched her life and character and the circumstances of her death with
+the relentless terseness of the writer cramped for space. According to
+this view, the causes of her death were unknown. It had been remarked
+that she had of late been despondent and in ill health.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover threw the paper down and straightened up, naked and dripping,
+putting both hands to his head. In a low voice under his breath he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What have I done? What have I done now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Like the sudden unrolling of a great scroll he saw his responsibility
+for her death and for the ruin of that something in her which was more
+than life. What would become of her now? And what would become of him?
+For a single brief instant he tried to persuade himself that Ida had
+consented after all. But he knew that this was not so. She had
+consented, but he had forced her consent; he was none the less guilty.
+And then in that dreadful moment when he saw things in their true light,
+all the screens of conventionality and sophistry torn away, the words
+that young Haight had spoken came back to him. No matter if she had
+consented, it was his duty to have protected her, even against herself.</p>
+
+<p>He walked the floor with great strides, steaming with the warm water,
+striking his head with his hands and crying out, &quot;Oh, this is fearful,
+fearful! What have I done now? I have killed her; yes, and worse!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He could think of nothing worse that could have happened to him. What a
+weight of responsibility to carry&mdash;he who hated responsibility of any
+kind, who had always tried to <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78" />escape from anything that was even
+irksome, who loved his ease, his comfort, his peace of mind!</p>
+
+<p>At every moment now he saw the different consequences of what he had
+done. Now, it was that his life was ruined, and that all through its
+course this crime would hang like a millstone about his neck. There
+could be no more enjoyment of anything for him; all the little pleasures
+and little self-indulgences which till now had delighted him were
+spoiled and rendered impossible. The rest of his life would have to be
+one long penitence; any pleasure he might take would only make his crime
+seem more abominable.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it was a furious revolt against his mistake that had led him to
+such a fearful misunderstanding of Ida; a silent impotent rage against
+himself and against the brute in him that he had permitted to drag him
+to this thing.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it was a wave of an immense pity for the dead girl that overcame
+him, and he saw himself as another person, destroying what she most
+cherished for the sake of gratifying an unclean passion.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it was a terror for himself. What would they do to him? His part in
+the affair was sure to be found out. He tried to think what the
+punishment for such crime would be; but would he not be considered a
+murderer as well? Could he not hang for this? His imagination was never
+more active; his fear never more keen. At once a thousand plans of
+concealment or escape were tossed up in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>But worse than all was the thought of that punishment from which there
+was absolutely no escape, and of that strange other place where his
+crime would assume right proportions and receive right judgment, no
+matter how it was palliated or evaded here. Then for an instant it was
+as if a gulf without bottom had opened under him, and he had to fight
+himself back from its edge for sheer self-preservation. To look too long
+in that direction was simple insanity beyond any doubt.</p>
+
+<p>And all this time he threw himself to and fro in his room, his long
+white arms agitated and shaking, his wet and shining hair streaming far
+over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all
+straight and trickling with moisture. At times an immense unreasoning
+terror would come upon <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79" />him all of a sudden, horrible, crushing, so that
+he rolled upon the bed groaning and sobbing, digging his nails into his
+scalp, shutting his teeth against a desire to scream out, writhing in
+the throes of terrible mental agony.</p>
+
+<p>That day and the next were fearful. To Vandover everything in his world
+was changed. All that had happened before the morning of Geary's visit
+appeared to him to have occurred in another phase of his life, years and
+years ago. He lay awake all night long, listening to the creaking of the
+house and the drip of the water faucets. He turned from his food with
+repugnance, told his father that he was sick, and kept indoors as much
+as he could, reading all the papers to see if he had been found out. To
+his great surprise and relief, a theory gained ground that Ida was
+subject to spells of ill-health, to long fits of despondency, and that
+her suicide had occurred during one of these. If Ida's family knew
+anything of the truth, it was apparent that they were doing their best
+to cover up their disgrace. Vandover was too thoroughly terrified for
+his own safety to feel humiliated at this possible explanation of his
+security. There was as yet not even a guess that implicated him.</p>
+
+<p>He thought that he was bearing up under the strain well enough, but on
+the evening of the second day, as he was pretending to eat his supper,
+his father sent the servant out and turning to him, said kindly:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it, Van? Aren't you well nowadays?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not very, sir,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;My throat is troubling me again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You look deathly pale,&quot; returned his father. &quot;Your eyes are sunken and
+you don't eat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I know,&quot; said Vandover. &quot;I'm not feeling well at all. I think I'll
+go to bed early to-night. I don't know&quot;&mdash;he continued, after a pause,
+feeling a desire to escape from his father's observation&mdash;&quot;I don't know
+but what I'll go up now. Will you tell the cook to feed Mr. Corkle for
+me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His father looked at him as he pushed back from the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's the matter, Van?&quot; he said. &quot;Is there anything wrong?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I'll be all right in the morning,&quot; he replied nervously. &quot;I feel a
+little under the weather just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80" />Don't you think you had better tell me what the trouble is?&quot; said his
+father, kindly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There <i>isn't</i> any trouble, sir,&quot; insisted Vandover. &quot;I just feel a
+little under the weather.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But as he was starting to undress in his room a sudden impulse took
+possession of him, an overwhelming childish desire to tell his father
+all about it. It was beginning to be more than he was able to bear
+alone. He did not allow himself to stop and reason with this impulse,
+but slipped on his vest again and went downstairs. He found his father
+in the smoking-room, sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before
+the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>As Vandover came in the Old Gentleman rose and without a word, as if he
+had been expecting him, went to the door and shut and locked it. He came
+back and stood before the fireplace watching Vandover as he approached
+and took the chair he had just vacated. Vandover told him of the affair
+in two or three phrases, without choosing his words, repeating the same
+expressions over and over again, moved only with the desire to have it
+over and done with.</p>
+
+<p>It was like a burst of thunder. The worst his father had feared was not
+as bad as this. He had expected some rather serious boyish trouble, but
+this was the crime of a man. Still watching his son, he put out his
+hand, groping for the edge of the mantelpiece, and took hold of it with
+a firm grasp. For a moment he said nothing; then:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And&mdash;and you say you seduced her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without looking up, Vandover answered, &quot;Yes, sir,&quot; and then he added,
+&quot;It is horrible; when I think of it I sometimes feel as though I should
+go off my head. I&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the Old Gentleman interrupted him, putting out his hand:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't,&quot; he said quickly, &quot;don't say anything now&mdash;please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They were both silent for a long time, Vandover gazing stupidly at a
+little blue and red vase on the table, wondering how his father would
+take the news, what next he would say; the Old Gentleman drawing his
+breath short, occasionally clearing his throat, his eyes wandering
+vaguely about the <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81" />walls of the room, his fingers dancing upon the edge
+of the mantelpiece. Then at last he put his hand to his neck as though
+loosening his collar and said, looking away from Vandover:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Won't you&mdash;won't you please go out&mdash;go away for a little while&mdash;leave
+me alone for a little while.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Vandover closed the door, he shut the edge of a rug between it and
+the sill; as he reopened it to push the rug out of the way he saw his
+father sink into the chair and, resting his arm upon the table, bow his
+head upon it.</p>
+
+<p>He did not see his father again that night, and at breakfast next
+morning not a word was exchanged between them, but his father did not go
+downtown to his office that forenoon, as was his custom. Vandover went
+up to his room immediately after breakfast and sat down before the
+window that overlooked the little garden in the rear of the house.</p>
+
+<p>He was utterly miserable, his nerves were gone, and at times he would
+feel again a touch of that hysterical, unreasoning terror that had come
+upon him so suddenly the other morning.</p>
+
+<p>Now there was a new trouble: the blow he had given his father. He could
+see that the Old Gentleman was crushed under it, and that he had never
+imagined that his son could have been so base as this. Vandover wondered
+what he was going to do. It would seem as if he had destroyed all of his
+father's affection for him, and he trembled lest the Old Gentleman
+should cast him off, everything. Even if his father did not disown him,
+he did not see how they could ever be the same. They might go on living
+together in the same house, but as far apart from each other as
+strangers. This, however, did not seem natural; it was much more likely
+that his father would send him away, anywhere out of his sight,
+forwarding, perhaps through his lawyer or agents, enough money to keep
+him alive. The more Vandover thought of this, the more he became
+convinced that such would be his father's decision. The Old Gentleman
+had spent the night over it, time enough to make up his mind, and the
+fact that he had neither spoken to him nor looked at him that morning
+was only an indication of what Vandover was to expect. He fancied he
+knew his <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82" />father well enough to foresee how this decision would be
+carried out, not with any imprecations or bursts of rage, but calmly,
+sadly, inevitably.</p>
+
+<p>Toward noon his father came into the room, and Vandover turned to face
+him and to hear what he had to say as best he could. He knew he should
+not break down under it, for he felt as though his misery had reached
+its limit, and that nothing could touch or affect him much now.</p>
+
+<p>His father had a decanter of port in one hand and a glass in the other;
+he filled the glass and held it toward Vandover, saying gently:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think you had better take some of this: you've hardly eaten anything
+in three days. Do you feel pretty bad, Van?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover put the glass down and got upon his feet. All at once a great
+sob shook him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, governor!&quot; he cried.</p>
+
+<p>It was as if it had been a mother or a dear sister. The prodigal son put
+his arms about his father's neck for the first time since he had been a
+little boy, and clung to him and wept as though his heart were breaking.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Eight" id="Chapter_Eight" /><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83" /><i>Chapter Eight</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>&quot;We will begin all over again, Van,&quot; his father said later that same
+day. &quot;We will start in again and try to forget all this, not as much as
+we <i>can</i>, but as much as we <i>ought</i>, and live it down, and from now on
+we'll try to do the thing that is right and brave and good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just try me, sir!&quot; cried Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>That was it, begin all over again. He had never seen more clearly than
+now that other life which it was possible for him to live, a life that
+was above the level of self-indulgence and animal pleasures, a life that
+was not made up of the society of lost women or fast girls, but yet a
+life of keen enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever he had been deeply moved about anything, the power and desire
+of art had grown big within him, and he turned to it now, instinctively
+and ardently.</p>
+
+<p>It was all the better half of him that was aroused&mdash;the better half that
+he had kept in check ever since his college days, the better half that
+could respond to the influences of his father and of Turner Ravis, that
+other Vandover whom he felt was his real self, Vandover the true man,
+Vandover the artist, not Vandover the easy-going, the self-indulgent,
+not Vandover the lover of women.</p>
+
+<p>From this time forward he was resolved to give up the world that he had
+hitherto known, and devote himself with all his strength to his art. In
+the first glow of that resolution he thought that he had never been
+happier; he wondered how he could have been blind so long; what was all
+that life worth compared with the life of a great artist, compared even
+with a life of sturdy, virile effort and patient labour even though
+barren of achievement?</p>
+
+<p>And then something very curious happened: The little picture of Turner
+Ravis that hung over his mantelpiece caught his glance, looking out at
+him with her honest eyes and sweet smile. In an instant he seemed to
+love her as he had never imagined he could love any one. All that was
+best in him went out toward her in a wave of immense tenderness; the
+tears came to his eyes, he could not tell why. Ah, he was not good
+enough for her now, but he would love her so well that <a name="Page_84" id="Page_84" />he would grow
+better, and between her and his good father and his art, the better
+Vandover, the real Vandover, would grow so large and strong within him
+that there should be no room for the other Vandover, the Vandover of
+Flossie and of the Imperial, the Vandover of the brute.</p>
+
+<p>During the course of talk that day between himself and his father, it
+was decided that Vandover should go away for a little while. He was in a
+fair way to be sick from worry and nervous exhaustion, and a sea trip to
+San Diego and back seemed to be what he stood most in need of. Besides
+this, his father told him, it was inevitable that his share in Ida's
+death would soon be known; in any case it would be better for him to be
+away from the city.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You take whatever steamer sails next,&quot; said his father, &quot;and! go down
+to Coronado and stay there as long as you like, three weeks anyway; stay
+there until you get well, and when you get back, Van, we'll have a talk
+about Paris again. Perhaps you would like to get away this winter, maybe
+as soon as next month. You think it over while you are away, and when
+you want to go, why, we'll go over together, Van. What do you think?
+Would you like to have your old governor along for a little while?&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The <i>Santa Rosa</i> cast off the company's docks the next day about noon in
+the midst of a thick, cold mist that was half rain. The Old Gentleman
+came to see Vandover off.</p>
+
+<p>The steamer, which seemed gigantic, was roped and cabled to the piers,
+feeling the water occasionally with her screw to keep the hawsers taut.
+About the forward gangway a band of overworked stevedores were stowing
+in the last of the cargo, aided by a donkey engine, which every now and
+then broke out into a spasm of sputtering coughs. At the passenger
+gangway a great crowd was gathered, laughing and exchanging remarks with
+the other crowd that leaned over the railings of the decks.</p>
+
+<p>There was a smell of pitch and bilge in the air mingled with the reek of
+hot oil from the engines. About twelve o'clock an odour of cooking
+arose, and the steward went about the decks drumming upon a snoring gong
+for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later the great whistle roared interminably, <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85" />drowning out
+the chorus of &quot;good-byes&quot; that rose on all sides. Long before it had
+ceased, the huge bulk had stirred, almost imperceptibly at first, then,
+gathering headway, swung out into the stream and headed for the Golden
+Gate.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was in the stern upon the hurricane deck, shaking his hat
+toward his father, who had tied his handkerchief to his cane and was
+waving it at him as he stood upon an empty packing-case. As the throng
+of those who were left behind dwindled away, one by one, Vandover could
+see him standing there, almost the last of all, and long after the
+figure itself was lost in the blur of the background he still saw the
+tiny white dot of the handkerchief moving back and forth, as if spelling
+out a signal to him across the water.</p>
+
+<p>The fog drew a little higher as they passed down the bay. To the left
+was the city swarming upon its hills, a dull gray mass, cut in parallel
+furrows by the streets; straggling and uneven where it approached the
+sand-dunes in the direction of the Presidio. To the right the long slope
+of Tamalpais climbed up and was lost in the fog, while directly in front
+of them was the Golden Gate, a bleak prospect of fog-drenched headlands
+on either side of a narrow strip of yellow, frothy water. Beyond that,
+the open Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>A brisk cannonade was going on from the Presidio and from Black Point,
+and both forts were hidden behind a great curtain of tumbling white
+smoke that rolled up to mingle with the fog. Everybody was on that side
+of the deck watching and making guesses as to the reason of it. It was
+perhaps target practice. Ah, it was a good thing that the steamer was
+not in line with the target. Perhaps, though, that was the safest place
+to be. Some one told about a derelict that was anchored as a target off
+the heads, and shot at for fifteen hours without being touched once. Oh,
+they were great gunners at the Presidio! But just the same the sound of
+cannon was a fine thing to hear; it excited one. A noisy party of
+gentlemen already installed in the smoking-room came out on deck for a
+moment with their cards in their hands, and declared laughingly that the
+whole thing was only a salute in the <i>Santa Rosa's</i> honour.</p>
+
+<p>By the middle of the afternoon, Vandover began to see that for him the
+trip was going to be tedious. He knew no one on <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86" />board and had come away
+so hurriedly that he had neglected to get himself any interesting books.
+He spent an hour or two promenading the upper deck until the cold wind
+that was blowing drove him to the smoking-room, where he tried to
+interest himself in watching some of the whist games that were in
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>It surprised him that he could find occasion to be bored so soon after
+what had happened; but he no longer wished to occupy his mind by
+brooding over anything so disagreeable and wanted some sort of amusement
+to divert and entertain him. Vandover had so accustomed himself to that
+kind of self-indulgence that he could not go long without it. It had
+become a simple necessity for him to be amused, and just now he thought
+himself justified in seeking it in order to forget about Ida's death. He
+had dwelt upon this now for nearly four days, until it had come to be
+some sort of a formless horror that it was necessary to avoid. He could
+get little present enjoyment by looking forward to the new life that he
+was going to begin and in which his father, his art, and Turner Ravis
+were to be the chief influences. The thought of this prospect did give
+him pleasure, but he had for so long a time fed his mind upon the more
+tangible and concrete enjoyments of the hour and minute that it demanded
+them now continually.</p>
+
+<p>He sat for a long time upon the slippery leather cushions of the
+smoking-room trying desperately to become interested in the whist game,
+or gazing awestruck at the man at his elbow who was smoking black
+Perrique in a pipe, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out through his
+nose. After a while he returned to the deck.</p>
+
+<p>There it was cold and wet and a strong wind was blowing from the ocean.
+Four miles to the east an endless procession of brown, bare hills filed
+slowly past under the fog. The sky was a dreary brown and the leagues of
+shifting water a melancholy desert of gray. Besides these there was
+nothing but the bleached hills and the drifting fog; the wind blew
+continually, passing between the immense reaches of sea and sky with
+prolonged sighs of infinite sadness.</p>
+
+<p>Three seagulls followed the vessel, now in a long line, now abreast, and
+now in a triangle. They sailed slowly about, <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87" />dipping and rising in the
+vast hollows between the waves, turning their heads constantly from side
+to side.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover went to the stern and for a time found amusement in watching
+the indicator of the patent log, and listening for its bell. But his
+interest in this was soon exhausted, and he returned to the smoking-room
+again, reflecting that this was only the first afternoon and that there
+still remained two days that somehow had to be gone through with.</p>
+
+<p>About five o'clock, as he was on his way to get a glass of seltzer, he
+saw Grace Irving, the girl of the red hat whom he had met at the
+Mechanics' Fair, sitting on a camp-stool just inside of her stateroom
+eating a banana. The sight of her startled him out of all composure for
+the minute. His first impulse was to speak to her, but he reflected that
+he was done with all that now and that it was better for him to pass on
+as though he had not seen her, but as he came in front of her she looked
+up quickly and nodded to him very pleasantly in such a way that it was
+evident she had already known he was on board. It was impossible for
+Vandover to ignore her, and though he did not stop, he looked back at
+her and smiled as he took off his hat.</p>
+
+<p>He went down to supper in considerable agitation, marvelling at the
+coincidence that had brought them together again. He wondered, too, how
+she could be so pleasant to him now, for as a matter of course he had
+not kept the engagement he had made with her at the Fair. At the same
+time, he felt that she must think him a great fool not to have stopped
+and spoken to her; either he should have done that or else have ignored
+her little bow entirely. He was firmly resolved to have nothing to do
+with her, yet it chafed him to feel that she thought him diffident. It
+seemed now as though he owed it to himself to speak to her if only for a
+minute and make some sort of an excuse. By the time he had finished his
+supper, he had made up his mind to do this, and then to avoid her for
+the rest of the trip.</p>
+
+<p>As he was leaving the dining saloon he met her coming down the stairs
+alone, dressed very prettily in a checked travelling ulster with a gray
+velvet collar, and a little fore and aft cap to match. He stopped her
+and made his excuses; she did not say much in reply and seemed a little
+offended, so that<a name="Page_88" id="Page_88" /> Vandover could not refrain from adding that he was
+very glad to see her on board.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you don't seem as if you were, very,&quot; she said, putting out her
+chin at him prettily and passing on. It was an awkward and embarrassing
+little scene and Vandover was glad that it was over. But the thing had
+been done now, he had managed to show the girl that he did not wish to
+keep up the acquaintance begun at the Fair, and from now on she would
+keep out of his way.</p>
+
+<p>He took a few turns on the upper deck, smoking his pipe, walking about
+fast, while his dinner digested. The sun went down behind the black
+horizon in an immense blood-red nebula of mist, the sea turned from gray
+to dull green and then to a lifeless brown, and the <i>Santa Rosa's</i>
+lights began to glow at her quarters and at her masthead; in her stern
+the screw drummed and threshed monotonously, a puff of warm air reeking
+with the smell of hot oil came from the engine hatch, and in an instant
+Vandover saw again the curved roof of the immense iron-vaulted depot,
+the passengers on the platform staring curiously at the group around the
+invalid's chair, the repair gang in spotted blue overalls, and the huge
+white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.</p>
+
+<p>The wind freshened and he returned to the smoking-room to get warm. The
+same game of whist was going on, and the man with the Perrique tobacco
+had filled another pipe and continued to blow the smoke through his
+nose.</p>
+
+<p>After a while Vandover went back to the main deck and wandered aft,
+where he stood a long time looking over the stern, interested in
+watching the receding water. It was dark by this time, the wind had
+increased and had blown the fog to landward, and the ocean had changed
+to a deep blue, the blue of the sky at night; here and there a wave
+broke, leaving a line of white on the sea like the trail of a falling
+star across the heavens, while the white haze of the steamer's wake
+wandered vaguely across the intense blue like the milky way across the
+zenith.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was horribly bored. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to
+amuse him, unless, indeed, he should decide to renew his acquaintance
+with Grace Irving. But this was out of the question now, for he knew
+what it would lead to. Even <a name="Page_89" id="Page_89" />if he should yield to the temptation, he
+did not see how he could take any great pleasure in that sort of thing
+again, after what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the consequences of what he had done, the one which had come to
+afflict him the most poignantly was that his enjoyment of life was
+spoiled. At first he had thought that he never could take pleasure in
+anything again so long as he should live, that his good times were gone.
+But as his pliable character rearranged itself to suit the new
+environment, he began to see that there would come a time when he would
+grow accustomed to Ida's death and when his grief would lose its
+sharpness. He had even commenced to look forward to this time and to
+long for it as a sort of respite and relief. He believed at first that
+it would not be for a great many years; but even so soon after the
+suicide as this, he saw with a little thrill of comfort that it would be
+but a matter of months. At the same time Vandover was surprised and even
+troubled at the ease with which he was recovering from the first shock.
+He wondered at himself, because he knew he had been sincere in his talk
+with his father. Vandover was not given to self-analysis, but now for a
+minute he was wondering if this reaction were due to his youth, his good
+health and his good spirits, or whether there was something wrong with
+him. However, he dismissed these thoughts with a shrug of his shoulders
+as though freeing himself from some disagreeable burden. Ah, he was no
+worse than the average; one could get accustomed to almost anything; it
+was only in the books that people had their lives ruined; and to brood
+over such things was unnatural and morbid. Ah! what a dreadful thing to
+become morbid! He could not bring Ida back, or mitigate what he had
+done, or be any more sorry for it by making himself miserable. Well,
+then! Only he would let that sort of thing alone after this, the lesson
+had been too terrible; he would try and enjoy himself again, only it
+should be in other ways.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the evening, about nine o'clock, when nearly all the passengers
+were in bed, and Vandover was leaning over the side of the boat
+finishing his pipe before turning in himself, Grace Irving came out of
+her stateroom and sat down at a little distance from him, looking out
+over the water, <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90" />humming a little song. She and Vandover were the only
+people to be seen on the deserted promenade.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover saw her without moving, only closing his teeth tighter on his
+pipe. It was evident that Grace expected him to speak to her and had
+given him a chance for an admirable little t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te. For a moment
+Vandover's heart knocked at his throat; he drew his breath once or twice
+sharply through his nose. In an instant all the old evil instincts were
+back again, urging and clamouring never so strong, never so insistent.
+But Vandover set his face against them, honestly, recalling his
+resolution, telling himself that he was done with that life. As he had
+said, the lesson had been too terrible.</p>
+
+<p>He turned about resolutely, and walked slowly away from her. The girl
+looked after him a moment, surprised, and then called out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Mr. Vandover!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover paused a moment, looking back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where are you going?&quot; she went on. &quot;Didn't you see me here? Don't you
+want to come and talk to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Vandover, smiling good-humouredly, trying to be as polite
+as was possible. &quot;No, I don't.&quot; Then he took a sudden resolution, and
+added gravely, &quot;I don't want to have anything to do with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In his stateroom, as he sat on the edge of his berth winding his watch
+before going to bed, he thought over what he had said. &quot;That was a mean
+way to talk to a girl,&quot; he told himself, &quot;but,&quot; he added, &quot;it's the only
+thing to do. I simply couldn't start in again after all that's happened.
+Oh, yes, that was the right thing to do!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He felt a glow of self-respect for his firmness and his decision, a
+pride in the unexpected strength, the fine moral rigour that he had
+developed at the critical moment. He <i>could</i> turn sharp around when he
+wanted to, after all. Ah, yes, that was the only thing to do if one was
+to begin all over again and live down what had happened. He wished that
+the governor might know how well he had acted.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Nine" id="Chapter_Nine" /><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91" /><i>Chapter Nine</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Vandover stayed for two weeks at Coronado Beach and managed to pass the
+time very pleasantly. He was fortunate enough to find a party at the
+hotel whom he knew very well. In the morning they bathed or sailed on
+the bay, and in the afternoon rode out with a pack of greyhounds and
+coursed jack-rabbits on the lower end of the island. Vandover's good
+spirits began to come back to him, his appetite returned, his nerves
+steadied themselves, he slept eight hours every night. But for all that
+he did not think that things were the same with him. He said to himself
+that he was a changed man; that he was older, more serious.</p>
+
+<p>During this time he received several letters from his father which he
+answered very promptly. In the course of their correspondence it was
+arranged that they should both leave for Europe on the twenty-fifth of
+that month, and that consequently, Vandover should return to the city
+not later than the fifteenth. Vandover was having such a good time,
+however, that he stayed over the regular steamer in order to go upon a
+moonlight picnic down on the beach. The next afternoon he took passage
+for San Francisco on a second-class boat.</p>
+
+<p>This homeward passage turned out to be one long misery for Vandover. He
+had never been upon a second-class boat before and had never imagined
+that anything could be so horribly uncomfortable or disagreeable. The
+<i>Mazatlan</i> was overcrowded, improperly ballasted, and rolled
+continually. The table was bad, the accommodations inadequate, the
+passengers hopelessly uncongenial. Cold and foggy weather accompanied
+the boat continually. The same endless procession of bleached hills
+still filed past under the mist, going now in the opposite direction,
+and the same interminable game of whist was played in the smoking-room,
+only with greasier, second-class cards, amidst the acrid smoke of
+second-class tobacco. At supper, the first day out, a little Jew who sat
+next to Vandover, and who invariably wore a plush skull-cap with
+ear-laps, tried to sell him two flawed and yellow diamonds.</p>
+
+<p>The evening after leaving Port Hartford the <i>Mazatlan</i> ran <a name="Page_92" id="Page_92" />into dirty
+weather. It was not stormy&mdash;simply rough, disagreeable, the wind and sea
+directly ahead. Half an hour after supper Vandover began to be sick. For
+a long time he sat on the slippery leather cushions in the nasty
+smoking-room, sucking limes, drinking seltzer, and trying to be
+interested in the card games. He dozed a little and awoke, feeling
+wretched, covered with a cold sweat, racked by a pain in the back of his
+head, and tortured by an abominable nausea. He groped his way out upon
+the swaying, gusty deck, descended to his cabin, and went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Mazatlan</i> had booked more passengers than could be accommodated,
+the steward being obliged to make up beds on the floor of the dining
+saloon and even upon some of the tables. Vandover had not been able to
+get a stateroom, and so had put up with a bunk in the common cabin at
+the stern of the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>About two o'clock in the morning he woke up in this place frightfully
+sick at the stomach and wretched in body and mind. He had an upper bunk,
+and for a long time he lay on his back rolling about with the rolling of
+the steamer, vaguely staring straight above him at the roof of the
+cabin, hardly a hand's-breadth above his face. The roof was iron,
+painted with a white paint very thick and shiny, and was studded with
+innumerable bolt-heads and enormous nuts. By and by, for no particular
+reason, he rose on his elbow and, leaning over the side of his berth,
+looked about him.</p>
+
+<p>The light streaming from two strong-smelling ship's lanterns showed the
+cabin, long and narrow. There were two cramped passageways, on either
+side of which the tiers of bunks, mere open racks filled with bedding,
+rose to the roof, those occupied by women hung with spotted turkey-red
+calico.</p>
+
+<p>The cabin was two decks below the open air and every berth was occupied,
+the only ventilation being through the door. The air was foul with the
+stench of bilge, the reek of the untrimmed lamps, the exhalation of so
+many breaths, and the close, stale smell of warm bedding.</p>
+
+<p>A vague murmur rose in the air, the sound of deep breathing, the moving
+of restless bodies between the coarse sheets, the momentary noise of the
+scratching of blunt finger-tips, a subdued cough, the moan of a sleeping
+child. All the while <a name="Page_93" id="Page_93" />the shaft of the screw, seemingly close beneath
+the floor, pounded and rumbled without a moment's stop.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately underneath Vandover two men, saloonkeepers, awoke and lit
+their cigars and began a long discussion on the question of license. Two
+or three bunks distant, a woman, a Salvation Army lassie, one of a large
+party of Salvationists who were on board, began to cough violently,
+choking for breath. Across the aisle the little Jew of the plush
+skull-cap with ear-laps snored monotonously in alternate keys, one a
+guttural bass, the other a rasping treble. The <i>Mazatlan</i> was rolling
+worse than ever, now up and down, now from side to side, and now with
+long forward lurches that combined the other two motions. During one of
+these latter the little Jew was half awakened. He stopped snoring,
+leaving an abrupt silence in the air. Then Vandover could hear him
+threshing about uneasily; still half asleep he began to mutter and
+swear: &quot;Dat's it, r-roll; I woult if I were you; r-roll, dat's
+righd&mdash;dhere, soh&mdash;ah, geep it oop&mdash;r-roll, you damnt ole tub, yust
+<i>r-r-roll</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The continued pitching, the foul air, and the bitter smoke from the
+saloonkeepers' cigars became more than Vandover could stand. His stomach
+turned, at every instant he gagged and choked. He suddenly made up his
+mind that he could stand it no longer, and determined to go on deck,
+preferring to walk the night out rather than spend it in the cabin. He
+drew on his shoes without lacing them, and dressed himself hurriedly,
+omitting his collar and scarf; he put his hat on his tumbled hair, swung
+into his overcoat, and, wrapping his travelling-rug around him, started
+up toward the deck. On the stairs he was seized with such a nausea that
+he could hardly keep from vomiting where he stood, but he rushed out
+upon the lower deck, gaining the rail with a swimming head.</p>
+
+<p>He sank back upon an iron capstan with a groan, weak and trembling, his
+eyes full of tears, a bursting feeling in his head. He was utterly
+miserable.</p>
+
+<p>It was about half-past two in the morning, and a cold raw wind was
+whistling through the cordage and flinging the steamer's smoke down upon
+the decks and upon the water like a great veil of cr&ecirc;pe. A sickly
+half-light was spread out between the sea and the heavens. By its means
+he could barely <a name="Page_94" id="Page_94" />distinguish great, livid blotches of fog or cloud
+whirling across the black sky, and the unnumbered multitude of
+white-topped waves rushing past, plunging and rising like a vast herd of
+black horses galloping on with shaking white manes. Low in the northeast
+horizon lay a long pale blur of light against which the bow of the
+steamer, inky black, rose and fell and heaved and sank incessantly. To
+the landward side and very near at hand, so near that he could hear the
+surf at their feet, the long procession of hills continually defiled,
+vague and formless masses between the sea and sky. The wind, the noise
+of the waves rushing past, the roll of the breakers and the groaning of
+the cordage all blended together and filled the air with a prolonged
+minor note, lamentable beyond words. The atmosphere was cold and damp,
+the spray flying like icy bullets. The sombre light that hung over the
+sea reflected itself in long blurred streaks upon the wet decks and
+slippery iron rods. Here and there about the rigging a tremulous ball of
+orange haze showed where the ship's lanterns were swung. Directly under
+him in the stern the screw snarled incessantly in a vortex of boiling
+water that forever swirled away and was lost in the darkness. From time
+to time the indicator of the patent log, just beside him, rang its tiny
+bell.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover drew his rug about him and went up to the main deck, dragging
+his shoelaces after him. The wind was stronger here, but he bent his
+head against it and went on toward the smoking-room, for the idea had
+occurred to him that he could shut himself in there and pass the rest of
+the night upon the cushions; anything was better than returning to the
+cabin downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>The deck was jerked away from beneath his feet, and he was hurled
+forward, many times his own length, against a companionway, breaking his
+thumb as he fell. A second shock threw him down again as he rose;
+everything about him shook and danced like glassware upon a jarred
+table. Then the whole ship rose under his feet as no wave had ever
+lifted it, and fell again, not into yielding water, but upon something
+that drove through its sides as if they had been paper. A deafening,
+crashing noise split the mournful howl of the wind, and far underneath
+him Vandover heard a rapid series of <a name="Page_95" id="Page_95" />blows, a dreadful rumbling and
+pounding that thrilled and quivered through all the vessel's framework
+up to her very mast-tips. On all fours upon the deck, holding to a cleat
+with one hand, he braced himself, watching and listening, his senses all
+alive, his muscles tense. In the direction of the engine-room he heard
+the furious ringing of a bell. The screw stopped. The <i>Mazatlan</i>
+wallowed helplessly in the trough of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover's very first impulse was a wild desire of saving himself; he
+had not the least thought for any one else. Every soul on board might
+drown, so only he should be saved. It was the primitive animal instinct,
+the blind adherence to the first great law, an impulse that in this
+first moment of excitement could not be resisted. He ran forward and
+snatched a life-preserver from the pile that was stored beneath the
+bridge.</p>
+
+<p>As he was fastening it about him, the passengers began to pour out upon
+the deck, from their staterooms, from the companionways, and from the
+dining saloon. In an instant the deck was crowded. Men and women ran
+about in all directions, pushing and elbowing each other, calling
+shrilly over one another's heads. Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only
+in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again
+and again for a certain &quot;August.&quot; She wrung her hands in her excitement;
+at times the man shouted &quot;August!&quot; in a quavering bass voice. &quot;August,
+here we are over <i>here</i>!&quot; &quot;Oh, where <i>is</i> Gussie?&quot; wailed the woman.
+&quot;Here, here I am,&quot; another voice answered at length; &quot;here I am, I'm all
+right.&quot; &quot;Oh,&quot; exclaimed the woman with a sob of relief, &quot;here's Gussie;
+now let's all keep together whatever happens.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All about the decks just such scenes were going on; most of the women
+wore only their night-gowns or dressing-gowns, their hair tumbling down
+and blowing about their cheeks, their bare feet slipping and sliding on
+the heaving wet decks. The men were in shirt and drawers, standing in
+the centre of their family groups, silent, excited, very watchful;
+others of them ran about searching for life-preservers, shouting
+hoarsely, talking to themselves, speaking all their thoughts aloud.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no panic; there was excitement, confusion, <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96" />bewilderment,
+but no excess of fear, no unreasoning terror, deaf, blind, utterly
+reckless.</p>
+
+<p>All at once a man parted the crowd with shoulders and elbows, passing
+along the deck with great strides. It was the captain. The next instant
+Vandover saw him on the bridge, hatless, without his vest or his coat,
+just as he had sprung from his berth. From time to time he shouted his
+orders, leaning over the rail, gesturing with his arm. The crew ran
+about, carrying out his directions, jostling the men out of the way,
+knocking over women and children, speaking to no one, intent only upon
+their work.</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments the deck steward and one of the officers appeared amid
+the crowd of passengers. They were very calm, and at every instant
+shouted, &quot;There is no danger; every one go back to his berth; clear the
+deck, please; no danger, gentlemen; everybody be quiet; go back to your
+berths!&quot; The steward even came up to Vandover and pulled at the straps
+of his life-preserver, exclaiming, &quot;Take this off! There is no danger;
+you're only exciting the other passengers. Come on, take it off and go
+back to your berth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover obeyed him, slowly loosening the buckles, looking around him,
+bewildered, but still holding the preserver in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Best of all, however, was the example of a huge old fellow wearing the
+cap and clothes of a boatswain's mate of a United States battleship; he
+seemed to dominate the excited throng in a moment, going about from
+group to group, quieting them all, spreading a feeling of confidence and
+courage throughout the whole ship. He was an inspiration to Vandover,
+who began to be ashamed of having yielded to the first selfish instinct
+of preservation.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the boatswain's mate was offering his flask to the woman whom
+Vandover had heard calling for &quot;August,&quot; the <i>Mazatlan</i> lurched heavily
+once or twice, and then slowly listed to the port side, going over
+farther and farther every instant. Vandover heard a renewed rumbling and
+smashing noise far beneath him, and in some way knew that the cargo was
+shifting. Instead of righting herself, the ship began to heave over more
+and more. The whole sea on the port side seemed to rise up to meet the
+rail; under Vandover's feet the <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97" />incline of the deck grew steeper and
+steeper. All at once his excitement came back upon him with the
+sharpness of a blow, and he caught at the brass grating of a skylight
+exclaiming: &quot;By God! We're going <i>over</i>.&quot; The women screamed with
+terror; one heard the men shouting, &quot;Look out! hold on! catch hold
+there!&quot; An old man, wearing only a gray flannel shirt, lost his footing;
+he fell, and rolled over and over down the deck stupidly, inertly,
+without making the slightest effort to save himself, without uttering
+the least cry; he brought up suddenly against the rail, with a great
+jar, the shock of his soft, withered body against the hard wood sounding
+like the sodden impact of a bundle of damp clothes. There was a cry;
+they thought him killed&mdash;Vandover had seen his head gashed against a
+sharp angle of iron&mdash;but he jumped up with sudden agility, clambering up
+the slope of the deck with the strength and rapidity of an acrobat.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a great rush to the other side of the ship, a wild
+scrambling up the steep deck, over skylights and between masts and
+ventilators. People clung to anything, to cleats, to steamer chairs, to
+the brass railings, to the person who stood next to them. They no longer
+listened to the protestations of the brave boatswain's mate; that last
+long roll had terrified them. The sense of a great catastrophe began to
+spread and widen all about like the rising of some fearful invisible
+mist. &quot;<i>What</i> had happened? What was to become of them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While Vandover clung to the starboard rail, rolling his eyes wildly,
+trying to control himself again, a young man, a waiter in the dining
+saloon, rushed up to him from out of the crowd, holding out his hand.
+&quot;It's all up!&quot; he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover grasped his extended palm, shaking hands with him fervently,
+without knowing why. The two looked straight into each other's eyes,
+their hands gripped close; then the waiter turned away, and dropping on
+his knees began to pray silently to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover saw a great many others praying; there was even a large group
+gathered about the band of Salvationists trying to raise a hymn. Every
+now and then their voices could be heard, singing all out of tune, a
+medley of discords.</p>
+
+<p>At one time Vandover caught sight of the little Jew of the <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98" />plush cap
+with the ear-laps; he was grovelling upon the deck, huddling a small
+black satchel to his breast; without a moment's pause he screamed, &quot;God
+'a' mercy! God 'a' mercy!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sight revolted Vandover and in a great measure helped to calm him.
+In a few moments he had himself in hand again, cool and self-collected,
+resolved not to act like a fool before the others, but to help them if
+he could.</p>
+
+<p>Near to him a Salvation Army lassie was down upon her knees trying to
+cord up a huge bundle wrapped in sail-cloth. &quot;Here,&quot; exclaimed Vandover
+coming up to her, &quot;let me help. I'll tie this for you&mdash;you put <i>this</i>
+on.&quot; He took the wet, stiff ropes from between her fingers and held the
+life-preserver toward her; but she refused it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; she cried enthusiastically, &quot;I'm going to be saved anyhow; I ain't
+going to drown; Jesus is watching over me. Oh!&quot; she suddenly exclaimed
+with a burst of fervor, &quot;Jesus is going to save me. I <i>know</i> I'm going
+to be saved. I feel it, I feel it <i>here</i>,&quot; and she struck her palm on
+the breast of the man's red jersey she was wearing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I wish <i>I</i> could have such a confidence,&quot; answered Vandover,
+sincerely envying the plain little woman under the ugly blue bonnet.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed as if inspired, her face glowing. &quot;Only <i>believe</i>; that's
+all,&quot; she told him. &quot;It isn't too late for you now. Ah,&quot; she went on,
+smiling, &quot;ah, you don't know what it is in a time like this! What a
+comfort! What a support! Oh, <i>look, look</i>!&quot; she cried, breaking off and
+starting to her feet. &quot;That man is going to jump!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was the boatswain's mate, the hero who had filled all the passengers
+with his own coolness and courage, who had been Vandover's inspiration.
+Some strange reaction seemed to have seized upon him. Of a sudden he
+rushed to the rail, the starboard rail that was heaved so high out of
+the water, stood upon it for a moment, and then with a great shout
+jumped over the side. His folly was as infectious as his courage. Four
+more men followed him, three going over all at the same time, and a
+fourth a little later, hanging an instant upon the outside of the rail,
+then dropping down feet first, disappearing with a great splash that
+made itself heard in the great silence that had suddenly fallen upon the
+throng.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99" />Every one had seen what had happened; a thrill of fear and apprehension
+passed over them all like a cold breath. They were silent, struck dumb,
+feeling the presence of death close by.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a long flash of yellow upon the bridge made a momentary streak
+on the darkness, and there was the report of a gun. A minute later it
+was fired again, and alternating with it the <i>Mazatlan's</i> whistle began
+to roar, like a hoarse shout for help. Between these sounds could be
+heard the renewed clamour upon the decks, the shouting, the screaming,
+and the rush of many feet; the little children clung about the knees of
+their mothers, shrieking and wailing monotonously, &quot;Oh, ma<i>ma</i>&mdash;oh,
+ma<i>ma</i>!&quot; rolling their eyes fearfully behind them.</p>
+
+<p>But many of the children, even some of the older passengers, were
+absolutely silent, dazed, stupefied with terror and excitement, their
+eyes vague and distended, looking slowly about them, scarcely daring to
+move a limb.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the <i>Mazatlan</i> was settling forward, and already the spray was
+beginning to fly over the decks. Little by little the terror increased;
+people threw themselves down upon the deck, rising up again, their arms
+raised to heaven, praying aloud, screaming the same things over and over
+again. The Salvationists tried to raise another hymn, but the sound of
+their voices was drowned out by the tumult, the roaring of the whistle,
+the barking of the minute guns, the straining and snapping of the
+cordage, and the sound of waves drawing closer and closer. Prone upon
+the deck, his arms still clasped about his black satchel, the little Jew
+of the plush cap went into some kind of fit, his eyes rolled back, his
+teeth grinding upon each other. Vandover turned from him in disgust.
+Then he looked around and above him, drawing a long breath, saying aloud
+to himself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It looks as though it were the end&mdash;well!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All at once Vandover knew that the water had reached the boilers; there
+came a noise of hissing: deafening, stunning; white billows of steam
+poured up over the deck.</p>
+
+<p>It was no longer the <i>Mazatlan</i>, no longer a thing of wood and iron, but
+some strange huge living creature that was dying there under his feet,
+some enormous brute that was plunging and writhing in its last agony,
+its belly ripped open <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100" />by a hidden enemy that struck from beneath, its
+entrails torn out, its life-breath going from it in great gasps of
+steam. Suddenly its bellow collapsed; the great bulk was sinking lower;
+the enemy was in its very vitals. The great hoarse roar dwindled to a
+long death rattle, then to a guttural rasp; all at once it ceased; the
+brute was dead&mdash;the <i>Mazatlan</i> was a wreck.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the moment, he heard an order shouted twice from the bridge,
+where he could see the shadowy figures of the captain and officers
+moving about through the clouds of steam and smoke and mist. Immediately
+there followed the shrill piping of the boatswain's whistle; one of the
+officers, the first engineer, and some half dozen of the crew came
+dashing through the crowd, and there was a great shout of &quot;The boats!
+The boats!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The crowd broke up, rushing here and there about the ship, reforming
+again in smaller bands by the boats and life-rafts. Vandover followed
+the first engineer, running forward toward one of the boats in the bow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come on!&quot; he shouted to the little Salvationist lassie, pausing a
+moment to help her with her heavy canvas-covered bundle. &quot;Come on!
+they're going to lower the boats.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She started up to follow him and the boom of the foremast, which the
+accident had in some way loosened, swung across the deck at the same
+moment. Vandover was already out of its path but it struck the young
+woman squarely across the back. She dropped in a heap upon the deck,
+then her body slowly straightened out, stiff and rigid, her eyes rapidly
+opened and shut, and a great puff of white froth slowly started from her
+mouth. Vandover ran forward and lifted her up, but her back was broken;
+she was already dead. He rose to his feet exclaiming to himself, &quot;But
+she was so sure&mdash;she <i>knew</i> she was going to be saved,&quot; then suddenly
+fell silent again, gazing wonderingly at the body, disturbed, very
+thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>When Vandover finally reached the lifeboat, he found a great crowd
+gathered there; three people were already in the boat itself. The first
+engineer, who commanded that boat, and three of the crew stood by the
+falls preparing to cast off. Just below on the deck of the <i>Mazatlan</i>
+stood two sailors keeping the crowd in order, continually shouting,
+&quot;Women and <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101" />children first!&quot; As the women passed their children forward,
+the sailors lifted them into the boats, some shrieking, others silent
+and stupid as if stunned. Then the women were helped up; the men,
+Vandover among them, climbing in afterward. The davits were turned out
+and the boat was swung clear of the ship's side.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover looked out and below him and then made an involuntary movement
+to regain the ship's deck. Far below him, or so at least it seemed, were
+mountains of tumbling green water, huge, relentless, irresistible,
+rushing on by thousands, to shatter themselves with dreadful force
+against the ship's side. It seemed simple madness to attempt to launch
+the boat; even the sinking wreck would be safer than this chance.
+Vandover was terrified, again deserted by all his calmness and
+self-restraint.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors standing in the bow and the stern let out the ropes little
+by little, the vast black hulk of the ship began to loom up above them
+all, higher and higher, and to their eyes the lifeboat began to grow
+smaller and smaller, more and more frail, more and more pitiful.</p>
+
+<p>All at once it struck the water with a crash, in an instant it was
+tossed up again in the air, heaving on the crest of a wave, was carried
+in and dashed up against the ship, all the oars on that side snapping in
+an instant. It was a fearful moment; the little boat was unmanageable in
+an instant, leaping and plunging among the waves like a terrified horse,
+banged and battered between the heaving water and the hull of the
+steamer itself. Vandover believed that all was over; he partially rose
+from his seat preparing to jump before the boat should swamp.</p>
+
+<p>There was an interval of shouting and confusion, the first engineer and
+the crew leaning over the sides fending off the boat with the stumps of
+the oars and with long boathooks. Some oars were shipped to the other
+side to take the place of the broken ones, and a score of hands tugging
+at them, the boat was at length pulled away out of danger.</p>
+
+<p>The lifeboat had been built to hold thirty-five people; more than forty
+had crowded into it, and it needed all prudence and care to keep it
+afloat in the heavy seas that were running. The sailors and two of the
+passengers were at the oars, while <a name="Page_102" id="Page_102" />the first engineer took command,
+standing in the stern at the steering-oar. He was dressed in a suit of
+oilskins, a life-preserver strapped under his arms; he wore no hat, and
+at every gust his drenched hair and beard whipped across his face.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the boat was pulling away from the wreck, Vandover and the
+others saw the little Jew of the plush cap with the ear-laps standing
+upon the rail of the steamer, holding to a stanchion. He believed that
+he had been abandoned, and screamed after them, stretching out his
+hands. The engineer turned and saw him, but shook his head. &quot;Give way
+there!&quot; he commanded the men; &quot;there's no more room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Jew flung his satchel from him and jumped; for a moment he
+disappeared, then suddenly came up on the crest of a wave, quite close
+to them, gasping and beating his hands, the water running out of his
+mouth, and his plush cap, glossy with wet, all awry and twisted so that
+one ear-lap hung over his eye like a shade. In another moment he had
+grasped one of the oar-blades. Every one was watching and there was a
+cry, &quot;Draw him in!&quot; But the engineer refused.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's too late!&quot; he shouted, partly to the Jew and partly to the boat.
+&quot;One more and we are swamped. Let go there!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you can't let him drown,&quot; cried Vandover and the others who sat
+near. &quot;Oh, take him in anyhow; we must risk it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Risk hell!&quot; thundered the engineer. &quot;Look here, you!&quot; he cried to
+Vandover and the rest. &quot;I'm in command here and am responsible for the
+lives of all of you. It's a matter of his life or ours; one life or
+forty. One more and we are swamped. Let go there!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, yes,&quot; cried some. &quot;It's too late! there's no more room!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But others still protested. &quot;It's too horrible; don't let him drown;
+take him in.&quot; They threw him their life-preservers and the stumps of the
+broken oars. But the Jew saw nothing, heard nothing, clinging to the
+oar-blade, panting and stupid, his eyes wide and staring.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shake him off!&quot; commanded the engineer. The sailor at the oar jerked
+and twisted it, but the Jew still held on, silent and breathing hard.
+Vandover glanced at the fearfully overloaded boat and saw the necessity
+of it and held his peace, <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103" />watching the thing that was being done. The
+sailor still attempted to tear the oar from the Jew's grip, but the Jew
+held on, panting, almost exhausted; they could hear his breathing in the
+boat. &quot;Oh, don't!&quot; he gasped, rolling his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unship that oar and throw it overboard,&quot; shouted the engineer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Better not, sir,&quot; answered the sailor. &quot;Extra oars all broken.&quot; The Jew
+was hindering the progress of the boat and at every moment it threatened
+to turn broad on to the seas.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God damn you, let go there!&quot; shouted the engineer, himself wrenching
+and twisting at the oar. &quot;Let go or I'll shoot!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the Jew, deaf and stupid, drew himself along the oar, hand over
+hand, and in a moment had caught hold of the gunwale of the boat. It
+careened on the instant. There was a great cry. &quot;Push him off! We're
+swamping! Push him off!&quot; And one of the women cried to the mate, &quot;Don't
+let my little girls drown, sir! Push him away! Save my little girls! Let
+him drown!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was the animal in them all that had come to the surface in an
+instant, the primal instinct of the brute striving for its life and for
+the life of its young.</p>
+
+<p>The engineer, exasperated, caught up the stump of one of the broken oars
+and beat on the Jew's hands where they were gripped whitely upon the
+boat's rim, shouting, &quot;Let go! let go!&quot; But as soon as the Jew relaxed
+one hand he caught again with the other. He uttered no cry, but his face
+as it came and went over the gunwale of the boat was white and writhing.
+When he was at length beaten from the boat he caught again at the oar;
+it was drawn in, and the engineer clubbed his head and arms and hands
+till the water near by grew red. The little Jew clung to the end of the
+oar like a cat, writhing and grunting, his mouth open, and his eyes
+fixed and staring. When his hands were gone, he tried to embrace the oar
+with his arms. He slid off in the hollow of a wave, his body turned over
+twice, and then he sank, his head thrown back, his eyes still open and
+staring, and a silver chain of bubbles escaping from his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give way, men!&quot; said the engineer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, God!&quot; exclaimed Vandover, turning away and vomiting over the side.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104" />A little while later some one on the bow of the boat called to the
+engineer asking why it was they were not heading for the shore. The
+engineer did not answer, but Vandover in some way understood that it was
+too dangerous to attempt to run the breakers in such heavy weather, and
+that they must keep in the open, holding the boat head on to the seas
+until either the wind fell or they were picked up by some other vessel.</p>
+
+<p>It was still very dark, and seen under the night from the little boat,
+the ocean and the sky seemed immense and terrible; the great waves grew
+out of the obscurity ahead of them, rushing down upon the boat, big,
+swelling, silent, their crests occasionally hissing and breaking into
+irruptions of cold white froth. As one of them would draw near, the boat
+would rise upon it as though it would never stop, would hang a moment
+upon its summit and then topple into the black gulf that followed,
+sending the bitter icy spray high into the air. The wind blew steadily.
+Suddenly toward three o'clock it began to rain.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover, the engineer, all the five sailors, and two of the passengers
+were clothed. The rest of the passengers were little better than naked.
+Here and there a man had snatched a blanket from his berth, and one or
+two of them were wearing their trousers, but the rest were clothed for
+the most part only with their shirts and drawers. There were eighteen
+women and five little girls in the boat. The little girls were well
+looked after. Two were wrapped in Vandover's travelling-rug and a couple
+of men had put their coats around the third. But there were not wraps
+enough to go around among the women, by far the larger part of them were
+covered only by their night-dresses or their bed-gowns.</p>
+
+<p>It was abominably cold; the rain fell continually, and the wind blew in
+long gusts, piercing, cutting. Every plunge of the boat threw icy
+bullets of spray into the air, which the wind caught up and flung down
+broad upon the boat. Sometimes even a huge wave would break just upon
+their quarter, and then great torrents of bitter, freezing water would
+fall over them in a deluge, leaving a sediment of salt that cracked the
+skin. The women were huddled upon the bottom of the boat near the waist,
+where they had been placed for greater <a name="Page_105" id="Page_105" />safety. They were fouled with
+the muddy water that gathered there, their long hair dishevelled,
+dripping with sleet, clinging to their wet cheeks and throats, their
+bodies showing pink with cold, through their thin, soaked coverings,
+their limbs racked with long incessant shudderings, a wretched group,
+miserable beyond words. One of them close by Vandover's feet, he noticed
+particularly, had but a single garment to cover her. She was drenched
+through and through, her bare feet were blue with the cold, her head was
+thrown back, her eyes closed. She was silent except when an unusual gust
+of wind whipped the rain and spray across her body like the long, fine
+lash of a whip. Then with every breath she moaned, drawing in her breath
+between her teeth with a little whistling gasp, too weak, too exhausted,
+too nearly unconscious to attempt to shield herself in any way.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover could do nothing; he had almost stripped himself to help clothe
+the others. Nothing more could be done. The suffering had to go on, and
+he began to wonder how human beings could endure such stress and yet
+live.</p>
+
+<p>But Vandover himself suffered too keenly to take much thought for the
+sufferings of the others, while besides that anguish which he shared
+with the whole boat, the pain in his broken thumb gnawed incessantly
+like a rat. From time to time he stared listlessly about him, looking at
+the dark sky, the tumbling ocean, and the crowded groups in the
+plunging, rolling lifeboat.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing picturesque about it all, nothing heroic. It was
+unlike any pictures he had seen of lifeboat rescues, unlike anything he
+had ever imagined. It was all sordid, miserable, and the sight of the
+half-clad women, dirty, sodden, unkempt, stirred him rather to disgust
+than to pity.</p>
+
+<p>At last the dawn came and grew white over a world of tumbling green
+billows and scudding wrack. Some three miles distant, seen only when the
+boat topped a higher wave, the same procession of bleached hills moved
+gradually to the south under the fog, their feet covered by the white
+line of the surf. Not far behind in the wake of the boat the stern of
+the <i>Mazatlan</i> rose out of a ring of white foam, the waves breaking over
+her as if she had been there for ages, the screw <a name="Page_106" id="Page_106" />writhing its flanges
+into the air like some enormous starfish already fastened upon the hulk.</p>
+
+<p>One of the other boats could be seen now and then between them and the
+shore, a momentary dot of black on the vast blur of green and gray.</p>
+
+<p>There was no conversation; the men relieved each other at the oars or
+bailed out the water with their caps and hands, scarcely interchanging a
+word. The only utterance was an occasional moaning from among the women
+and children. There was nothing to eat; long since the two whisky flasks
+had been exhausted. The rain fell steadily into the sea with a prolonged
+rippling noise.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was leaning upon the gunwale of the boat, his head buried in
+his arms, when suddenly he raised himself and asked of the man who sat
+next to him:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What was the matter last night? What caused the accident?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The other shook his head, wearily, turning away again. However, the
+engineer answered:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We couldn't carry coal enough to keep up the right pressure of steam
+and drifted in upon a reef. I said once before that it would happen some
+time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>About an hour later Vandover dropped off to sleep, in spite of the cold,
+the wet, and the torment in his thumb. He dozed and woke, and dozed
+again all through the morning. About noon he was awakened by a more
+violent rolling of the boat, the sound of voices, and a stir among the
+other passengers.</p>
+
+<p>It was still raining; the boat was no longer cutting the waves with her
+nose, but was being rowed seaward flank on; a sailor stood in the bow
+holding a coil of rope. Close in and seen over the tops of the waves
+were the shaking and slatting sails of a pilot-boat, lying to. One of
+the sails bore an enormous number six.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover slept all that day and the night following, rolled in hot
+blankets. The next morning he awoke with a strange sense of unreality
+and of having dropped a day somewhere. As he lay in his stuffy little
+bunk between decks, and felt the rolling of the pilot-boat under him, he
+still fancied himself upon the <i>Mazatlan</i>; he felt the pain in his
+bandaged thumb and wondered how it came there. Then his fall on the deck
+<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107" />came back to him, the wreck of the steamer, the excitement on board,
+the reports of the rifle fired as a minute gun, the clouds of steam that
+smelt of a great laundry, and the drowning of the little Jew of the
+plush cap with the ear-laps. He shuddered and grew sick again for a
+minute, telling himself that he would never forget that scene.</p>
+
+<p>Such of the passengers as could get about breakfasted as best they could
+in the cabin with the boatkeeper and four of the pilots. Here they were
+informed as to what was to be done with them. The schooner would not go
+in for two weeks, and it was out of the question to keep the castaways
+on board for that length of time. However, at that moment the pilots
+were cruising in the neighbourhood on the lookout for two Cape Horners
+that were expected to be up at any moment. It was decided that when the
+first of these should be met with the party should be transferred.</p>
+
+<p>An hour after they had been picked up, the wind had begun to freshen. By
+noon of the second day it had come on to blow half a gale. One could
+hope only for the best as regarded the rest of the <i>Mazatlan's</i> boats
+and rafts. Not another sign of the wreck was seen by the schooner.</p>
+
+<p>The castaways filled the little schooner to overflowing, hindering her
+management, and getting in the way at every step. The pilot crew hustled
+them about without ceremony, and after dinner one had to intervene to
+prevent a fight between one of them and a sailor from the <i>Mazatlan</i>
+over the question of a broken pipe. The women of the <i>Mazatlan</i> kept in
+their berths continually, rolled in hot blankets, dosed with steaming
+whisky punches. In the afternoon, however, Vandover saw two of them in
+the lee of the house attempting to dry their hair; one of them was the
+woman he had particularly noticed in the lifeboat clad in a night-dress,
+and he wondered vaguely where the dress had come from she now was
+wearing.</p>
+
+<p>About three o'clock of the afternoon of the following day Vandover was
+sitting on the deck near the stern, fastening on his shoes with a length
+of tarred rope, the laces which he had left trailing having long before
+broken and pulled out. By that time the wind was blowing squally out of
+the northeast. The schooner was put under try sails, &quot;a three-reefed
+mitten with the thumb brailed up,&quot; as he heard the boatkeeper call it.
+This <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108" />latter was at the wheel for a moment, but in a little while he
+called up a young man dressed in a suit of oilskins and a pea jacket and
+gave him the charge. For a long time Vandover watched the boy turning
+the spokes back and forth, his eyes alternating between the binocle and
+the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening about half-past ten, the lookout in the crow's nest sang
+out: &quot;Smoke&mdash;oh!&quot; sounding upon his fish horn. The boatkeeper ran aft
+and lit a huge calcium flare, holding it so as to illuminate the big
+number on the mainsail. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile off their
+weather-bow, a couple of rockets left a long trail of yellow against the
+night. It was the Cape Horner, and presently Vandover made out her
+lights, two glowing spots moving upon the darkness, like the eyes of
+some nocturnal sea-monster. In a few minutes she showed a blue light on
+the bridge; she wanted a pilot.</p>
+
+<p>The schooner approached and was laid to, and the towering mass of the
+great deep-sea tramp began to be dimly seen through the darkness. There
+was little confusion in making the transfer of the castaways. Most of
+them seemed still benumbed with their recent terrible exposure. They
+docilely allowed themselves to be pushed into the pilot tender and again
+endured the experience of being lowered to the shifting waves below.
+Silently, like frightened sheep, they stood up in turn in the rocking
+tender and allowed the life preserver to be fitted about their shoulders
+to protect them from the bite of the rope's noose beneath their arms.
+There followed a sickening upward whirl between sea and sky, and then
+the comforting grasp of many welcoming hands from the deck above. By
+three o'clock in the morning the transfer had been made.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover boarded the Cape Horner in company with the pilot and the rest
+and reached San Francisco late on the next day, which happened to be a
+Sunday.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Ten" id="Chapter_Ten" /><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109" /><i>Chapter Ten</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>About ten o'clock Vandover went ashore in the ship's yawl and landed in
+the city on a literally perfect day in early November. It seemed many
+years since he had been there. The drizzly morning upon which the <i>Santa
+Rosa</i> had cast off was already too long ago to be remembered. The city
+itself as he walked up Market Street toward Kearney seemed to have taken
+on a strange appearance.</p>
+
+<p>It was Sunday, the downtown streets were deserted except for the
+cable-cars and an occasional newsboy. The stores were closed and in
+their vestibules one saw the peddlers who were never there on week-days,
+venders of canes and peddlers of glue with heavy weights attached to
+mended china plates.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover had had no breakfast and was conscious of feeling desperately
+hungry. He determined to breakfast downtown, as he would arrive home too
+late for one meal and too early for the other.</p>
+
+<p>Almost all of his money had been lost with the <i>Mazatlan</i>; he found he
+had but a dollar left. He would have preferred breakfasting at the
+Grillroom, but concluded he was too shabby in appearance, and he knew he
+would get more for his money at the Imperial.</p>
+
+<p>It was absolutely quiet in the Imperial at the hour when he arrived. The
+single bartender was reading a paper, and in the passage between the
+private rooms a Chinese with a clean napkin wound around his head was
+polishing the brass and woodwork. In the passage he met Toby, the
+red-eyed waiter, just going off night duty, without his usual apron or
+white coat, dressed very carefully, wearing a brown felt hat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, how do you do, Mr. Vandover?&quot; exclaimed Toby. &quot;Haven't seen you
+round here for some time.&quot; Vandover was about to answer when the other
+interrupted:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what's happened to <i>you</i>? Look as though you'd been drawn through
+hell backward and beaten with a cat!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In fact Vandover's appearance was extraordinary. His hat was torn and
+broken, and his clothes, stained with tar and dirt, shrunken and
+wrinkled by sea-water. His shoes were fastened with bits of tarred rope;
+he was wearing a red flannel <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110" />shirt with bone buttons which the
+boatkeeper on the pilot boat had given him, tied at the neck with a
+purple handkerchief of pongee silk; his hair was long, and a week's
+growth of beard was upon his lip and cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's a fact,&quot; he answered grimly. &quot;I do look queer. I was in a wreck
+down the coast,&quot; he added hastily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>Mazatlan!</i>&quot; exclaimed Toby. &quot;That's a fact; the papers have been
+full of it. That's so, you were one of the survivors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The survivors!&quot; echoed Vandover with wondering curiosity. &quot;Tell me&mdash;you
+know I haven't heard a word yet&mdash;were there many lives lost?&quot; He
+marvelled at the strangeness of the situation, that this bar waiter
+should know more of the wreck than he himself who had been upon it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You bet there were!&quot; answered Toby. &quot;Twenty-three altogether; one boat
+capsized; Kelly, 'Bug' Kelly, son of that fellow that runs the Crystal
+Grotto, <i>he</i> was drowned, and one of Hocheimer's&mdash;Hocheimer, the
+jeweller, you know&mdash;one of his travelling salesmen was drowned; a little
+Jew named Brann, a diamond expert; he jumped overboard and&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't!&quot; said Vandover with a sharp gesture. &quot;I saw him drown&mdash;it was
+sickening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were you in that boat?&quot; exclaimed Toby. &quot;Well, wait till I tell you;
+the authorities here are right after that first engineer with a sharp
+stick, and some of the passengers, too, for not taking him in. A woman
+in one of the other boats saw it all and gave the whole thing away. A
+thing like that is regular murder, you know.&quot; Vandover shut his teeth
+against answering, and after a little Toby went on, willing to talk.
+&quot;You know, we've got a new man for the day-work down here now&mdash;George
+isn't here any more. No, he's going to start a roadhouse out on the
+almshouse drive in a few months; swell place, you know. I'll have him
+send you cards for the opening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover ordered oysters, an omelette, and a pint of claret from the new
+waiter who did the day-work, and ate and drank the meal&mdash;the like of
+which he had not tasted since leaving Coronado&mdash;with delicious
+enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>He delayed over it long, taking a great pleasure in satisfying the
+demands of the animal in him. The wine made him heavy, warm, stupid; he
+felt calm, soothed, and perfectly <a name="Page_111" id="Page_111" />contented, and had to struggle
+against a desire to go to sleep where he was. The atmosphere of the
+Imperial was warm and there was a tepid languor in the air as of the
+traces of many past debauches, a stale odour of sweetened whisky and of
+musk. After the roughness and hardships of the last week he felt a
+pleasant sense of quiet, of relaxation, of enervation. He even began to
+wish that Flossie would come in. This, however, made him rouse himself;
+he shook himself, and started home, paying his carfare with his last
+nickel.</p>
+
+<p>He sat on the outside of the car, wondering if any one he knew would see
+him, half hoping that such a thing might happen, realizing the dramatic
+interest that would centre about him now in his present condition as a
+survivor of a wreck. The idea soon attracted him immensely and he began
+to look out for any possible acquaintance as the car began to climb over
+Nob Hill.</p>
+
+<p>At the crossing of Polk Street he saw Ida Wade's mother in deep
+mourning, standing near a grocery store holding a little pink parcel.</p>
+
+<p>It was like a blow between the eyes. Vandover caught his breath and
+started violently, feeling again for an instant the cold grip of the
+hysterical terror that had so nearly overcome him on the morning after
+Ida's death. It slowly relaxed, however, and by the time he had reached
+the house on California Street he was almost himself again.</p>
+
+<p>It was about church time when Vandover arrived at home once more. There
+was a Sunday quiet in the air. The bells were ringing, and here and
+there family groups on their way to church, the children walking in
+front, very sedate in their best clothes, carrying the prayer-books
+carefully, by special privilege.</p>
+
+<p>The butler was working in the garden, as he sometimes did of a Sunday
+morning, pottering about a certain bed of sweet-peas, and it was the
+housekeeper who answered his ring. She recognized him with a prolonged
+exclamation, raising her hands to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O-oh, and is it you, Mr. Vandover, sir? Ah, how we've been upset about
+you and all, and it's glad to see you back again your father will be!
+Oh, such times as we had when we heard about the wreck and knowing you
+were on it! Yes, sir, <a name="Page_112" id="Page_112" />your father's <i>pretty</i> well, though he was main
+poorly yesterday morning. But he's better now. You'll find him in the
+smoking-room now, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover pushed open the door of the smoking-room quietly. His father
+was sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before the fireplace.
+He was dead, and must have died some considerable time before, as he was
+already cold. He could have suffered no pain, hardly a muscle had moved,
+and his attitude was quite natural, the legs crossed, the right hand
+holding the morning's paper. However, as soon as Vandover touched the
+body it collapsed and slid down into a heap in the depth of the chair,
+the jaw dropping open, the head rolling sidewise upon his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover ran out into the hall, waving his arms, shouting for the
+servants. &quot;Oh, why didn't you tell me?&quot; he cried to the housekeeper &quot;Why
+did you let me find him so? When did he die?&quot; The housekeeper was
+distraught. She couldn't believe it. Only a little while ago he had
+called her to say there were no more matches in the little brass
+matchsafe. She began to utter long cries and lamentations like a hen in
+distress, raising her hands to heaven. All at once they heard some one
+rushing up the stairs. It was the butler, in his shirt-sleeves and his
+enormous apron of ticking, still carrying his trowel in his hand. He was
+bewildered, his eyes protruding, while all about him he spread the smell
+of fresh earth. At every instant he exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What? What? What's the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, my dear old governor&mdash;and all alone!&quot; cried Vandover through shut
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, oh, the good God!&quot; exclaimed the housekeeper, crossing herself and
+rolling her eyes. &quot;And him asking for matches in the little brass box
+only a minute since. Oh, the good, kind master!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Vandover rushed down the stairs and through the front hall,
+snatching his hat from the hatrack as he passed. He ran to call the
+family doctor, who lived some two blocks below on the same street. He
+caught him just as he was getting into the carry-all with his family,
+bound for church.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover and the physician rode back together in the carry-all, the two
+gray horses going up the steep hill at a trot. The <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113" />doctor was dressed
+for church; he wore red gloves with thick white seams, a spray of
+lilies-of-the-valley in his lapel.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid we can do nothing,&quot; he said warningly. &quot;It's your father's
+old enemy, I suppose. This was&mdash;it was sure to happen sooner or later.
+Any sudden shock, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover scarcely listened, holding the door of the carry-all open with
+one hand, ready to jump out, beating the other hand upon his knee.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go back and take the rest of them to church now,&quot; said the doctor to
+his coachman when the carry-all stopped in front of Vandover's house.</p>
+
+<p>The whole house was in the greatest agitation all the rest of the day.
+The curtains were drawn, the door bell rang incessantly, strange faces
+passed the windows, and the noise of strange footsteps continually
+mounted and descended the staircase. The hours for meals were all
+deranged, the table stood ready all day long, and one ate when there was
+a chance. The telephone was in constant use, and at every moment
+messenger boys came and went, people spoke in low tones, walking on
+tiptoe; the florist's wagon drove to the door again and again, and the
+house began to smell of tuberoses. Reporters came, waiting patiently for
+interviews, sitting on the leather chairs in the dining-room, or writing
+rapidly on a corner of the dining-table, the cloth pushed back. The
+undertaker's assistants went about in their shirt-sleeves, working very
+hard, and toward the middle of the afternoon the undertaker himself tied
+the cr&ecirc;pe to the bell handle.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little a subdued excitement spread throughout the vicinity.
+The neighbours appeared at their windows, looking down into the street,
+watching everything that went on. It was a veritable event, a matter of
+comment and interest for the whole block. Women found excuses to call on
+each other, talking over what had happened, as they sat near their
+parlour windows, shaking their heads at each other, peering out between
+the lace curtains. The people on the cable-cars and the pedestrians
+looked again and again at the cr&ecirc;pe on the bell handle, and the
+curtained windows, craning their necks backward when they had passed.
+The neighbours' children collected in little groups on the sidewalk near
+the house, looking and pointing, drawn close together, talking in low
+tones. At <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114" />last even a policeman appeared, walking deliberately, casting
+the shadow of his huge stomach upon the fence that was about the vacant
+lot. He frowned upon the children, ordering them away. But suddenly he
+discovered an acquaintance, the driver of an express-wagon that had just
+driven up with an enormous anchor of violets. He paused, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, hello, Connors!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, hello, Mister Brodhead!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then a long conversation was begun, the policeman standing on the
+curbstone, one foot resting upon the hub of a wheel, the expressman
+leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, twirling his whip between his
+hands. The expressman told some sort of story, pointing with his elbow
+toward the house, but the other was incredulous, gravely shaking his
+head, putting his chin in the air, and closing his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the house itself there was a hushed and subdued bustling that
+centred about a particular room. The undertaker's assistants and the
+barber called in low voices through the halls for basins of water and
+towels. There was a search for the Old Gentleman's best clothes and his
+clean linen; bureau drawers were opened and shut, closet doors softly
+closed. Relatives and friends called and departed or stayed to help. A
+vague murmur arose, a mingled sound of whispers and light foot-steps,
+the rustle of silks, and the noise of stifled weeping, and then at last
+silence, night, solitude, a single gas-jet burning, and Vandover was
+left alone.</p>
+
+<p>The suddenness of the thing had stunned and dizzied him, and he had gone
+through with all the various affairs of the day wondering at his
+calmness and fortitude. Toward eleven o'clock, however, after the
+suppressed excitement of the last hours, as he was going to bed, the
+sense of his grief and loss came upon him all of a sudden, with their
+real force for the first time, and he threw himself upon the bed face
+downward, weeping and groaning. During the rest of the night pictures of
+his father returned to him as he had seen him upon different occasions,
+particularly three such pictures came and went through his mind.</p>
+
+<p>In one the Old Gentleman stood in that very room, with the decanter in
+his hand, asking him kindly if he felt very bad; in another he was on
+the pier with his handkerchief tied to <a name="Page_115" id="Page_115" />his cane, waving it after
+Vandover as though spelling out a signal to him across the water. But in
+a third, he was in the smoking-room, fallen into the leather chair, his
+arm resting on the table and his head bowed upon it.</p>
+
+<p>After the funeral, which took place from the house, Vandover drove back
+alone in the hired carriage to his home. He would have paid the driver,
+but the other told him that the undertaker looked out for that. Vandover
+watched him a moment as he started his horses downhill, the brake as it
+scraped against the tire making a noise like the yelping of a dog. Then
+he turned and faced the house. It was near four o'clock in the
+afternoon, and everything about the house was very quiet. All the
+curtains were down except in one of the rooms upstairs. The butler had
+already opened these windows and was airing the room. Vandover could
+hear him moving about, sweeping up, rearranging the furniture, making up
+the bed again. In front of him, between the horse-block and the front
+door, one or two smilax leaves were still fallen, and a tuberose,
+already yellow. Behind him in the street he had already noticed the
+marks of the wheels of the hearse where it had backed up to the curb.</p>
+
+<p>The cr&ecirc;pe was still on the bell handle. Vandover did not know whether it
+had been forgotten, or whether it was proper to leave it there longer.
+At any rate he took it off and carried it into the house with him.</p>
+
+<p>His father's hat, a stiff brown derby hat, flat on the top, hung on the
+hatrack. This had always been a sign to Vandover that his father was at
+home. The sight was so familiar, so natural, that the same idea occurred
+to him now involuntarily, and for an instant it was as though he had
+dreamed of his father's death; he even wondered what was this terrible
+grief that had overwhelmed him, and thought that he must go and tell his
+father about it. He took the hat in his hands, turning it about
+tenderly, catching the faint odour of the Old Gentleman's hair oil that
+hung about it. It all brought back his father to him as no picture ever
+could; he could almost <i>see</i> the kind old face underneath the broad curl
+of the brim. His grief came over him again keener than ever and he put
+his arms clumsily about the old hat, weeping and whispering to himself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116" />Oh, my poor, dear old dad&mdash;I'm never going to see you again, never,
+never! Oh, my dear, kind old governor!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He took the hat up to his room with him, putting it carefully away. Then
+he sat down before the window that overlooked the little garden in the
+rear of the house, looking out with eyes that saw nothing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Eleven" id="Chapter_Eleven" /><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117" /><i>Chapter Eleven</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>The following days as they began to pass were miserable. Vandover had
+never known until now how much he loved his father, how large a place he
+had filled in his life. He felt horribly alone now, and a veritable
+feminine weakness overcame him, a crying need to be loved as his father
+had loved him, and also to love some one as he himself had loved his
+father. Worst of all, however, was his loneliness. He could think of no
+one who cared in the least for him; the very thought of Turner Ravis or
+young Haight wrought in him an expression of scorn. He was sure that he
+was nothing to them, though they were the ones whom he considered his
+best friends.</p>
+
+<p>Another cause of misery was the fact that his father's death in leaving
+him alone had also thrown him upon his own resources. Now he would have
+to shoulder responsibilities which hitherto his father had assumed, and
+decide questions which until now his father had answered.</p>
+
+<p>However, he felt that his father's death had sobered him as nothing
+else, not even Ida's suicide, had done. The time was come at length for
+him to take life seriously. He would settle down now to work at his art.
+He would go to Paris as his father had wished, and devote himself
+earnestly to painting. Yes, the time was come for him to steady himself,
+and give over the vicious life into which he had been drifting.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not long before Vandover had become accustomed to his
+father's death, and had again rearranged himself to suit the new
+environment which it had occasioned. He wondered at himself because of
+the quickness with which he had recovered from this grief, just as
+before he had marvelled at the ease with which he had forgotten Ida's
+death. Could it be true, then, that nothing affected him very deeply?
+Was his nature shallow?</p>
+
+<p>However, he was wrong in this respect; his nature was not shallow. It
+had merely become deteriorated.</p>
+
+<p>Two days after his father's death Vandover went into the Old Gentleman's
+room to get a certain high-backed chair which had been moved there from
+his own room during the <a name="Page_118" id="Page_118" />confusion of the funeral, and which, pending
+the arrival of the trestles, had been used to support the coffin.</p>
+
+<p>As he was carrying it back his eye fell upon a little heap of objects
+carefully set down upon the bureau. They were the contents of the Old
+Gentleman's pockets that the undertaker had removed when the body was
+dressed for burial.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover turned them over, sadly interested in them. There was the
+watch, some old business letters and envelopes covered with memoranda,
+his fountain-pen, a couple of cigars, a bank-book, a small amount of
+change, his pen-knife, and one or two tablets of chewing-gum.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover thrust the pen and the knife into his own pocket. The
+bank-book, letters, and change he laid away in his father's desk, but
+the cigars and the tablets of gum, together with the crumpled
+pocket-handkerchief that he found on another part of the dressing-case,
+he put into the Old Gentleman's hat, which he had hidden on the top
+shelf of his clothes closet. The watch he hung upon a little brass
+thermometer that always stood on his centre table. He even wound up the
+watch with the resolve never to let it run down so long as he should
+live.</p>
+
+<p>The keys, however, disturbed him, and he kept changing them from one
+hand to the other, looking at them very thoughtfully. They suggested to
+him the inquiry as to whether or no his father had made a will, and how
+much money he, Vandover, could now command. One of the keys was a long
+brass key. Vandover knew that this unlocked a little iron box that from
+time out of mind had been screwed upon the lower shelf of the clothes
+closet in his father's room. It was in this box that the Old Gentleman
+kept his ready money and a few important papers.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time Vandover stood undecided, changing the keys about from
+one hand to the other, hesitating before opening this iron box; he could
+not tell why. By and by, however, he went softly into his father's room,
+and into the clothes closet near the head of the bed. Holding the key
+toward the lock, he paused listening; it was impossible to rid his mind
+of the idea that he was doing something criminal. He shook himself,
+smiling at the fancy, assuring himself of the honesty of the thing, yet
+opening the box stealthily, <a name="Page_119" id="Page_119" />holding the key firmly in order that it
+might not spring back with a loud click, looking over his shoulder the
+while and breathing short through his nose.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing that he saw inside was a loaded revolver, the sudden
+view of which sent a little qualm through the pit of his stomach. He
+took it out gingerly, holding it at arm's length, throwing open the
+cylinder and spilling out the cartridges on the bed, very careful to let
+none of them fall on the floor lest they should explode.</p>
+
+<p>Next he drew out the familiar little canvas sack. In it were
+twenty-dollar gold-pieces, the coin that used to be &quot;Good for the
+Masses.&quot; Behind that was about thirty dollars in two rolls, and last of
+all in an old, oblong tin cracker-box a great bundle of papers. A list
+of these papers was pasted on one end of the box. They comprised deeds,
+titles, insurance policies, tax receipts, mortgages, and all the papers
+relating to the property. Besides these there was the will.</p>
+
+<p>He took out this box, laying it on the shelf beside him. He was closing
+the small iron safe again very quietly when all at once, before he could
+think of what he was doing, he ran his hand into the mouth of the canvas
+sack, furtively, slyly, snatched one of the heavy round coins, and
+thrust it into his vest pocket, looking all about him, listening
+intently, saying to himself with a nervous laugh, &quot;Well, isn't it mine
+anyway?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In spite of himself he could not help feeling a joy in the possession of
+this money as if of some treasure-trove dug up on an abandoned shore. He
+even began to plan vaguely how he should spend it.</p>
+
+<p>However, he could not bring himself to open any of the papers, but sent
+them instead to a lawyer, whom he knew his father had often consulted. A
+few days later he received a typewritten letter asking him to call at
+his earliest convenience.</p>
+
+<p>It was at his residence and not at his office that Vandover saw the
+lawyer, as the latter was not well at the time and kept to his bed.
+However, he was not so sick but that his doctor allowed him to transact
+at least some of his business. Vandover found him in his room, a huge
+apartment, one side entirely taken up by book-shelves filled with works
+of fiction. The walls were covered with rough stone-blue paper, forming
+<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120" />an admirable background to small plaster casts of Assyrian
+<i>bas-reliefs</i> and large photogravures of Renaissance portraits.
+Underneath an enormous baize-covered table in the centre of the room
+were green cloth bags filled apparently with books, padlocked tin
+chests, and green pasteboard deed-boxes. The lawyer was sitting up in
+bed, wearing his dressing-gown and occasionally drinking hot water from
+a glass. He was a thin, small man, middle-aged, with a very round head
+and a small pointed beard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How do you do, Mr. Vandover?&quot; he said, very pleasantly as Vandover
+passed by the servant holding open the door and came in.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How do you do, Mr. Field?&quot; answered Vandover, shaking his hand. &quot;Well,
+I'm sorry to see you like this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered the lawyer, &quot;I'm&mdash;I have trouble with my digestion
+sometimes, more annoying than dangerous, I suppose. Take a chair, won't
+you? You can find a place for your hat and coat right on the table
+there. Well,&quot; he added, settling back on the pillows and looking at
+Vandover pleasantly, &quot;I think you've grown thinner since the last time I
+saw you, haven't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover grimly, &quot;I guess I have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, yes, I suppose so, of course,&quot; responded the lawyer with a vague
+air of apology and sympathy. &quot;You have had a trying time of it lately,
+taking it by and large. I was <i>very</i> painfully shocked to hear of your
+father's death. I had met him at lunch hardly a week before; he was a
+far heartier man than I was. Eat? You should have seen&mdash;splendid
+appetite. He spoke at length of you, I remember; told me you expected to
+go abroad soon to study painting; in fact, I believe he was to go to
+Paris with you. It was very sad and very sudden. But you know we've all
+been expecting&mdash;been fearing&mdash;that for some time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They both were silent for a moment, the lawyer looking absently at the
+foot-board of the bed, nodding his head slowly from time to time,
+repeating, &quot;Yes, sir&mdash;yes, sir.&quot; Suddenly he exclaimed, &quot;Well&mdash;now,
+let's see.&quot; He cleared his throat, coming back to himself again, and
+continued in a very businesslike and systematic tone:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have looked over your father's papers, Mr. Vandover, as <a name="Page_121" id="Page_121" />you
+requested me to, and I have taken the liberty of sending for you to let
+you know exactly how you stand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the idea, sir,&quot; said Vandover, very attentive, drawing up his
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Field took a great package of oblong papers from the small table
+that stood at the head of his bed, and looked them over, adjusting his
+eyeglasses. &quot;Well, now, suppose we take up the real property first,&quot; he
+continued, drawing out three or four of these papers and unfolding them.
+&quot;All of your father's money was invested in what we call 'improved
+realty.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He talked for something over an hour, occasionally stopping to answer a
+question of Vandover's, or interrupting himself to ask him if he
+understood. At the end it amounted to this:</p>
+
+<p>The bulk of the estate was residence property in distant quarters of the
+city. Some twenty-six houses, very cheaply built, each, on an average,
+renting for twenty-eight dollars. When all of these were rented, the
+gross monthly income was seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars. At this
+time, however, six were vacant, bringing down the gross receipts per
+month to five hundred and sixty dollars. The expenses, which included
+water, commissions for collecting, repairs, taxes, interest on
+insurance, etc., when expressed in the terms of a monthly average,
+amounted to one hundred and eighty-six dollars.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, let's see,&quot; said Vandover, figuring on his cuff, &quot;one
+hundred and eighty-six from five hundred and sixty leaves me a net
+monthly income of three hundred and eighty-four&mdash;no, seventy-four. Three
+hundred and seventy-four dollars.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer shook his head while he drank another glass of hot water:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; he said, wiping his moustache in the hollow of his palm, &quot;you
+see, we haven't figured on the mortgages yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mortgages?&quot; echoed Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Mr. Field, &quot;when I spoke of expenses I was basing them
+upon the monthly statements of Adams &amp; Brunt, your father's agents. But
+they never looked after the mortgages. Your father acted directly with
+the banks in that matter. I find that there are mortgages that cover the
+entire <a name="Page_122" id="Page_122" />property, even the homestead. They are for 6-1/2 and 7 per cent.
+In some cases there are two mortgages on the same piece of property.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; answered the lawyer, &quot;the interest on these foots up to about
+two hundred and ninety dollars a month.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover made another hasty calculation on his cuff, and leaned back in
+his chair staring at the lawyer, saying:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, that leaves eighty-four dollars a month, net.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; assented Field. &quot;I made it that, too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, the governor used to allow <i>me</i> fifty a month,&quot; returned Vandover,
+&quot;just for pocket money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid you mustn't expect anything like that, now, Mr. Vandover,&quot;
+replied Field, smiling. &quot;You see, when your father was alive and
+pursuing his profession, he made a comfortable income besides that which
+he derived from his realty. His law business I consider to have been
+excellent when you take everything into consideration. He often made
+five hundred dollars a month at it. Such are the figures his papers
+show. He could make you a handsome allowance while he was alive, but all
+that is stopped now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, but didn't he&mdash;didn't he leave any money, any&mdash;any&mdash;any lump
+sum?&quot; inquired Vandover incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There was his bank account,&quot; answered the other. &quot;You see, he invested
+most of his savings in this same realty, and since he stopped building
+he seems to have lived right up to his income.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But eighty-four dollars!&quot; repeated Vandover; &quot;why, look at the house on
+California Street where we live. It costs that much to run it, the
+servants and all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here's your father's domestic-account book,&quot; answered Field, taking it
+up and turning the leaves. &quot;One hundred and seventy-five dollars a month
+were the average running expenses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><i>&quot;One hundred and seventy-five!&quot;</i> shouted Vandover, feeling suddenly as
+if the ground were opening under him. &quot;Why, great heavens! Mr. Field,
+where am I going to get&mdash;what am I going to <i>do</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Field smiled a little. &quot;Well,&quot; he said, &quot;you must make up your mind
+to live more modestly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123" />Modestly?&quot; exclaimed Vandover, scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll have to rent the house and take rooms.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover gave a gasp of relief.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hadn't thought of that,&quot; he answered, subsiding at once. &quot;How much
+would it bring&mdash;the house?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer hesitated as to this. &quot;That I could hardly tell you
+definitely,&quot; he answered, shaking his head. &quot;Adams &amp; Brunt could give
+you more exact figures. In fact, I would suggest that you put it into
+their hands. California near Franklin, isn't it? Yes; the neighbourhood
+isn't what it used to be, you know. Every one wants to live out on
+Pacific Heights now. Double house? Yes, well&mdash;with the furniture, I
+suppose&mdash;oh, I don't know&mdash;say, a hundred and fifty. But, you know, my
+estimate is only guesswork. Brunt is the man you want to see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; answered Vandover, solaced, &quot;that makes&mdash;two thirty-four; that's
+more like it. But,&quot; he added, hastily, &quot;you say the homestead is
+mortgaged as well; how about the interest on that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You needn't be bothered about that,&quot; answered Mr. Field. &quot;The interest
+on <i>that</i> mortgage is included in the two hundred and ninety that I
+spoke of, and the insurance interest on the homestead is included in
+Adams &amp; Brunt's statement. That was on the whole estate <i>with</i> the
+homestead, you understand? But there is another thing you must look out
+for. Most of the mortgages are for one year, and every time they are
+renewed there is an expense of between forty and fifty dollars.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I see,&quot; assented Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; resumed the lawyer, &quot;here is your father's bank account. He had
+in the First National to his credit between nine and ten thousand
+dollars; nine thousand seven hundred and ninety, to be exact. His
+professional account book shows that there is now due him in bills and
+notes eight hundred and thirty dollars; on the debit side he owes in all
+nine hundred; the difference, you see, is seventy. Nine thousand seven
+hundred and ninety less seventy leaves a balance of nine thousand seven
+hundred and twenty. All clear?&quot; he asked, interrupting himself. Vandover
+nodded and the other continued:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, your father left a will; here it is. I drew it for him a <a name="Page_124" id="Page_124" />year ago
+last September. He has given fifteen hundred dollars to some cousin in
+the southern part of the state, and six hundred to a few charities here
+in the city. The remainder, seven thousand five hundred and twenty, and
+all the rest of the estate is left to you with the wish that you pursue
+your art studies abroad. Brunt, of Adams &amp; Brunt, and myself are
+appointed executors. So now, that is just how you stand as far as I can
+see: seventy-five hundred dollars in ready money and, if we suppose you
+rent the California Street house, income property that nets you two
+hundred and thirty-four a month. The will will have to be probated some
+time next month and you will have to appear; however, I shall let you
+know about that in time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>During the next two weeks Vandover was plunged into the affairs of
+business for the first time in his life. It interested and amused him,
+and he felt a certain self-importance in handling large sums of money,
+and in figuring interest, rents, and percentages. Three days after his
+interview with Mr. Field the sale of his father's office effects took
+place, and the consequent five hundred dollars Vandover turned over into
+the hands of the lawyer, who was already looking for an investment for
+the eighty-nine hundred. This matter had given Vandover considerable
+anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't want anything fancy,&quot; he said to Field. &quot;No big per cents. and
+bigger risks. If I've got to live economically I want something that's
+secure. A good solid investment, don't you know, with a fair interest;
+that's what I'm looking for.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered the lawyer grimly; &quot;I've been looking for that myself
+ever since I was your age.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They both laughed, and the lawyer added: &quot;Has Brunt found a tenant for
+the California Street house yet? No? Well, perhaps you had better keep
+that five hundred for your running expenses until he does. It will
+probably take some time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;There were a couple of women up to look
+at the place yesterday, but they wanted to use it for a boarding-house.
+I won't hear to that. Brunt says they would ruin it, dead sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose you are looking around, yourself, for rooms?&quot; inquired Mr.
+Field. &quot;Have you found anything to suit you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Vandover, &quot;I have not. I don't like the idea <a name="Page_125" id="Page_125" />of living
+in one of the downtown hotels, and as far as I have looked, the uptown
+flats are rather steep. However, I haven't gone around very much as yet.
+I've been so busy. Oh, how about the paving of the street in front of
+those Bush Street houses of mine? Brunt says that the supervisors have
+passed a resolution of intention to that effect. Now shall I let the
+city contractor have the job or give it to Brunt's man?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Better let the city people do it,&quot; advised Field. &quot;They may charge
+more, but you needn't pay <i>them</i> for a long time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By the end of three weeks Vandover had sickened of the whole thing. The
+novelty was gone, and business affairs no longer amused him. Besides
+this, he was anxious to settle down in some comfortable rooms. It was
+now the middle of winter and he had determined that it was not the
+season for a European trip. He would wait until the summer before going
+to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little Vandover turned over the supervision and management of
+his affairs and his property to Adams &amp; Brunt, declaring that he could
+not afford to be bothered with them any longer. This course was much
+more expensive and by no means so satisfactory from a business point of
+view, but Vandover felt as though the loss in money was more than offset
+by his freedom from annoyance and responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>He was eager to get settled. The idea of taking rooms that should be all
+his own and that he could fit up to suit his taste attracted him
+immensely. Already he saw himself installed in charming bachelor's
+apartments, the walls covered with rough stone-blue paper forming an
+admirable background for small plaster casts of Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i>
+and photogravures of Velasquez portraits. There would be a pipe-rack
+over the mantelpiece, and a window-seat with a corduroy cushion such as
+he had had in his room in Matthew's.</p>
+
+<p>Very slowly his father's affairs were settled, and by degrees the estate
+began to adjust itself to the new grooves in which it was to run. By the
+middle of December everything was beginning to go smoothly, and the day
+before Christmas Mr. Field announced to Vandover that he had invested
+his eighty-nine hundred in registered U.S. 4 per cents. They had had
+several long talks concerning this sum of money, and in the end had
+concluded that it would be better to invest it in some <a name="Page_126" id="Page_126" />such fashion
+rather than to take up any of the mortgages that were on the houses.</p>
+
+<p>During the first weeks of the new year the house on California Street
+was rented for one hundred and twenty-five dollars to an English
+gentleman, the president of a fruit syndicate in the southern part of
+the state. There were but three in the family, and though the rent was
+below that which Vandover had desired, Brunt advised him to close the
+transaction at once, as they were desirable tenants and would probably
+stay in the house a long time.</p>
+
+<p>On the last evening which he was to spend in his home, Vandover cast up
+his accounts and made out a schedule as to his monthly income.</p>
+
+<table border='0'>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Rent from realty, net average</td>                                  <td class='tdrt'>$ 84.00</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Rent from homestead property on California Street</td>               <td class='tdrt'>125.00</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Interest on U.S. bonds, 4 per cent.</td>                              <td class='tdrt'>23.00</td></tr>
+      <tr><td></td> <td class='tdrt'>_______</td></tr>
+            <tr><td class='lti'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Total</td>                                                      <td class='tdrt'>$232.00</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>In small iron safe</td>                                             <td class='tdrt'>$170.00</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Received from sale of office effects</td>                           <td class='tdrt'>$500.00</td></tr>
+      <tr><td></td> <td class='tdrt'>_______</td></tr>
+      <tr><td></td> <td class='tdrt'>$670.00</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Expenses, outstanding bills, lawyer's fees, undertaker's</td></tr>
+          <tr><td class='lti'>&nbsp;&nbsp;bill, expenses for collecting, etc.</td>                            <td class='tdrt'>587.00</td></tr>
+      <tr><td></td> <td class='tdrt'>_______</td></tr>
+    <tr><td class='lti'>Balance, January 16th</td>                                          <td class='tdrt'>$83.00</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<p>Then with a shrug of the shoulders he dismissed the whole burdensome
+business from his mind. Brunt would manage his property, sending him
+regularly the monthly statement in order to keep him informed. The
+English gentleman of the fruit syndicate would add his hundred and
+twenty-five, and the 4 per cents., faithfully brooding over his
+eighty-nine hundred in the dark of the safety deposit drawer, would
+bring forth their little quota of twenty-three with absolute certainty.
+Two thirty-two a month. Yes, he was comfortably fixed and was free now
+to do exactly as he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>His first object now was to settle down for the winter in some pleasant
+rooms. He had decided that he would look for a suite of three&mdash;a
+bedroom, studio, and sitting-room. The bedroom he was not particular
+about, the studio he hoped would have plenty of light from the north,
+but the sitting-room <i>must</i> be sunny and overlook the street, else what
+would be the use of a window-seat? As to the neighbourhood, he <a name="Page_127" id="Page_127" />thought
+he would prefer Sutter Street anywhere between Leavenworth and Powell.</p>
+
+<p>In the downtown part this street was entirely given over to business
+houses; in the far, uptown quarter it was lined with residences; but
+between these two undesirable extremes was an intermediate district
+where the residences had given place to flats, and the business blocks
+to occasional stores. It was a neighbourhood affected by doctors,
+dentists, and reputable music-teachers; drug stores occupied many of the
+corners, here and there a fine residence still withstood the advance of
+business, there were a number of great apartment houses, and even one or
+two club buildings.</p>
+
+<p>It was a gay locality, not too noisy, not too quiet. The street was one
+of the great arteries of travel between the business and the residence
+portions of the city, and its cable-cars were frequented by ladies going
+to their shopping or downtown marketing or to and from the matin&eacute;es.
+Acquaintances of Vandover were almost sure to pass at every hour.</p>
+
+<p>He took rooms temporarily at the Palace and at once set about locating
+on Sutter Street. He had recourse again to Brunt, who furnished him with
+a long list of vacancies in that neighbourhood. Apartment-hunting was an
+agreeable pastime to Vandover, though in the end it began to bore him.
+Altogether, he visited some fifteen or twenty suites, in each case
+trying to fit himself into the rooms, imagining how the window-seat
+would look in such a window, how the pipe-rack would show over such a
+mantel, just where on such walls the Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i> could be
+placed to the best advantage, and if his easel could receive enough
+steady light from such windows. Then he considered the conveniences, the
+baths, the electric light, and the heat.</p>
+
+<p>After a two weeks' search, he had decided upon one of two suites; both
+of these were in the desired neighbourhood but differed widely in other
+respects.</p>
+
+<p>The first was reasonable enough in the matter of rent, and had even been
+occupied by an artist for some three or four years previous. However,
+the room that Vandover proposed to use as a sitting-room was small and
+had no double windows, thus making the window-seat an impossibility.
+There did not seem to be any suitable place for the Assyrian<a name="Page_128" id="Page_128" />
+<i>bas-reliefs</i>, and the mantelpiece was of old-fashioned white marble
+like the mantelpiece in Mrs. Wade's front parlour, a veritable horror.
+It revolted Vandover even to think of putting a pipe-rack over it. These
+defects were offset by the studio, a large and splendid room with
+hardwood floors and an enormous north light, the legendary studio, the
+dream of an artist, precisely such a studio as Vandover had hoped he
+would occupy in the Quarter.</p>
+
+<p>The other suite was in a great apartment house, a hotel in fact, but
+very expensive, with electric bulbs and bells, and with a tiled bathroom
+connecting with the bedroom. The room which he would be obliged to use
+as his studio was small, dark, the light coming from the west. But the
+sitting-room was perfect. It had the sun all day long through a huge bay
+window that seemed to have been made for a window-seat; there were
+admirable, well-lighted spaces on the walls for casts and pictures, and
+the mantelpiece was charming, extremely high, and made of oak; in a
+word, the exact sitting-room that Vandover had in mind. Already he saw
+himself settled there as comfortably and snugly as a kernel in a
+nutshell. It was true that upon investigation he found that the grate
+had been plastered up and the flue arranged for a stove. But for that
+matter there were open-grate stoves to be had that would permit the fire
+to be seen and that would look just as cheerful as a grate. He had even
+seen such a stove in the window of a hardware store downtown, a tiled
+stove with a brass fender and with curious flamboyant ornaments of
+cast-iron&mdash;a jewel of a stove.</p>
+
+<p>For two days Vandover hesitated between these two suites, undecided
+whether he should sacrifice his studio for his sitting-room, or his
+sitting-room for his studio. At length he came to the conclusion that as
+he was now to be an artist a good studio ought to be the first
+consideration, and that since he was to settle down to hard, serious
+work at last he owed it to himself to have a fitting place in which to
+paint; yes, decidedly he would take the suite with the studio. He went
+to the agent, told him of his decision, and put up a deposit to secure
+the rooms.</p>
+
+<p>The same day upon which he took this decided step he had occasion to
+pass by both places in question. As he approached <a name="Page_129" id="Page_129" />the apartment house
+in which the rejected suite was situated it occurred to him to tell the
+clerk in the office that he had decided against the rooms; he could take
+a last look at them at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>He was shown up to the rooms again, and walked about in the
+sitting-room, asking the same questions about the heat, the plumbing,
+and the baths. He even went to the window and looked out into the
+street. It <i>was</i> a first-rate berth just the same, and how jolly it
+would be to lounge in the window-seat of a morning, with a paper, a
+cigarette, and a cup of coffee, watching the people on their way
+downtown; the women going to their shopping and morning's marketing.
+Then all at once he remembered that at most he would only have these
+rooms for five months, and reflected that if his whole life was to be
+devoted to painting he might easily put up with an inconvenient studio
+for a few months. Once at Paris all would be different.</p>
+
+<p>At that the rooms took on a more charming aspect than ever; never had
+they appeared cheerier, sunnier, more comfortable; never had the oak
+mantel and the tiled stove with the flamboyant ornaments been more
+desirable; never had a window-seat seemed more luxurious, never a
+pipe-rack more delectable, while at the same time, the other rooms, the
+rooms of the big studio, presented themselves to his imagination more
+sombre, uncomfortable, and forbidding than ever. It was out of the
+question to think of living there; he was angry with himself for having
+hesitated so long. But suddenly he remembered the deposit he had already
+made; it was ten dollars; for a moment he paused, then dismissed the
+matter with an impatient shrug of the shoulders. &quot;So much the worse,&quot; he
+said. &quot;What's ten dollars?&quot; He made up his mind then and there and went
+downstairs, walking on his heels, to tell the clerk that after all he
+would engage the rooms from that date.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Twelve" id="Chapter_Twelve" /><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130" /><i>Chapter Twelve</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Vandover took formal possession of his rooms on Sutter Street during the
+first few days of February. For a week previous they had been in the
+greatest confusion: the studio filled with a great number of trunks,
+crates, packing cases, and furniture still in its sacking. In the
+bedroom was stored the furniture that had been moved out of the
+sitting-room, while the sitting-room itself was given over to the
+paperhangers and carpenters. Vandover himself appeared from time to
+time, inquiring anxiously as to the arrival of his &quot;stuff,&quot; or sitting
+on a packing-case, his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back, and a
+cigarette between his lips.</p>
+
+<p>He had passed a delightful week selecting the wall paper and the pattern
+for the frieze, buying rugs, screens, Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i>,
+photogravures of Renaissance portraits, and the famous tiled stove with
+its flamboyant ornaments. Just after renting his home he had had a talk
+with the English gentleman of the fruit syndicate and had spoken about
+certain ornaments and bits of furniture, valuable chiefly to himself,
+which he wished to keep. The president of the fruit syndicate had been
+very gracious in the matter, and as soon as Vandover had taken his rooms
+he had removed two great cases of such articles from the California
+Street house and had stored them in the studio.</p>
+
+<p>After the workmen were gone away Vandover began the labour of
+arrangement, aided by one of the paperhangers he had retained for that
+purpose. It was a work of three days, but at last everything was in its
+place, and one evening toward the middle of the month Vandover stood in
+the middle of the sitting-room in his shirt-sleeves, holding the
+tweezers and a length of picture-wire in his hand, and looked around him
+in his new home.</p>
+
+<p>The walls were hung with dull blue paper of a very rough texture set off
+by a narrow picture moulding of ivory white. A dark red carpet covered
+with rugs and skins lay on the floor. Upon the left-hand wall, reaching
+to the floor, hung a huge rug of sombre colours against which were fixed
+a fencing trophy, a pair of antlers, a little water colour sketch of a<a name="Page_131" id="Page_131" />
+Norwegian fjord, and Vandover's banjo; underneath it was a low but very
+broad divan covered with corduroy. To the right and left of this divan
+stood breast-high bookcases with olive green curtains, their tops
+serving as shelves for a multitude of small ornaments, casts of animals
+by Fremiet and Barye, Donatello's lovely <i>femme inconnue</i>, beer steins,
+a little bronze clock, a calendar, and a yellow satin slipper of
+Flossie's in which Vandover kept Turkish cigarettes. The writing-desk
+with the huge blue blotter in a silver frame, the paper-cutter, and the
+enormous brass inkstand filled the corner to the right of the divan,
+while drawn up to it was the huge leather chair, the chair in which the
+Old Gentleman had died. In the drawer of the desk Vandover kept his
+father's revolver; he never thought of loading it; of late he had only
+used it to drive tacks with, when he could not find the hammer. Opposite
+the divan, on the other side of the room, was the famous tiled stove
+with the flamboyant ornaments; back of this the mantel, and over the
+mantel a row of twelve grotesque heads in plaster, with a space between
+each for a pipe. To the left in the angle of the room stood the Japanese
+screen in black and gold, and close to this a tea-table of bamboo and a
+piano-lamp with a great shade of crinkly red paper that Turner Ravis had
+given to Vandover one Christmas. The bay window was filled by the
+window-seat, covered with corduroy like the divan and heaped with
+cushions, one of them of flaming yellow, the one spot of vivid colour
+amidst the dull browns and sombre blues of the room. A great sideboard
+with decanters and glasses and chafing-dishes faced the window from the
+end wall. The entrance to the studio opened to the left of it, which
+entrance Vandover had hung with curtains of dust-brown plush.</p>
+
+<p>The casts of the Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i> were against the wall upon
+either side of the window. There were three of them, two representing
+scenes from the life of the king, the third the wounded lioness which
+Vandover never wearied of admiring.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the wall over the mantel hung two very large photogravures, one of
+Rembrandt's &quot;Night Watch,&quot; the other a portrait of Velasquez
+representing a young man with a hunting spear. Above one of the
+bookcases was an admirable <a name="Page_132" id="Page_132" />reproduction of the &quot;Mona Lisa&quot;; above the
+other, a carbon print of a Vandyke, a Dutch lady in a silk gown and very
+high ruff.</p>
+
+<p>By the side of the &quot;Mona Lisa,&quot; however, was a cheap brass rack stuffed
+with photographs: actresses in tights, French quadrille dancers, high
+kickers, and chorus girls.</p>
+
+<p>In the studio, Vandover had tacked great squares and stripes of
+turkey-red cloth against the walls to serve as a background for his
+sketches. Some dozen or more portfolios and stretchers were leaned
+against the baseboard, and a few ornaments and pieces of furniture, such
+things as Vandover set but little store by, were carelessly arranged
+about the room. The throne and huge easel were disposed so as to receive
+as much light as was possible.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the studio was the bedroom, but here there was only the
+regulation furniture. Some scores of photographs of Vandover's friends
+were tacked upon the walls, or thrust between the wood and glass of the
+mirror.</p>
+
+<p>A new life now began for Vandover, a life of luxury and aimlessness
+which he found charming. He had no duties, no cares, no
+responsibilities. But there could be no doubt that he was in a manner
+changed; the old life of dissipation seemed to have lost its charm. For
+nearly twenty-six years nothing extraordinary had happened to break in
+upon the uneventful and ordinary course of his existence, and then,
+suddenly, three great catastrophes had befallen, like the springing of
+three successive mines beneath his feet: Ida's suicide, the wreck, and
+his father's death, all within a month. The whole fabric of his
+character had been shaken, jostled out of its old shape. His desire of
+vice was numbed, his evil habits all deranged; here, if ever, was the
+chance to begin anew, to commence all over again. It seemed an easy
+matter: he would merely have to remain inactive, impassive, and his
+character would of itself re-form upon the new conditions.</p>
+
+<p>But Vandover made another fatal mistake: the brute in him had only been
+stunned; the snake was only soothed. His better self was as sluggish as
+the brute, and his desire of art as numb as his desire of vice. It was
+not a continued state of inaction and idleness that could help him, but
+rather an active and energetic arousing and spurring up of those better
+<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133" />qualities in him still dormant and inert. The fabric of his nature was
+shaken and broken up, it was true, but if he left it to itself there was
+danger that it would re-form upon the old lines.</p>
+
+<p>And this was precisely what Vandover did. As rapidly as ever his pliable
+character adapted itself to the new environment; he had nothing to do;
+there was lacking both the desire and necessity to keep him at his
+easel; he neglected his painting utterly. He never thought of attending
+the life-class at the art school; long since he had given up his
+downtown studio. He was content to be idle, listless, apathetic, letting
+the days bring whatever they chose, making no effort toward any fixed
+routine, allowing his habits to be formed by the exigencies of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>He rose late and took his breakfast in his room; after breakfast he sat
+in his window-seat, reading his paper, smoking his pipe, drinking his
+coffee, and watching the women on their way downtown to their morning's
+shopping or marketing. Then, as the fancy moved him, he read a novel,
+wrote a few letters, or passed an hour in the studio dabbling with some
+sketches for the &quot;Last Enemy.&quot; Very often he put in the whole morning
+doing pen and inks of pretty, smartly dressed girls, after Gibson's
+manner, which he gave away afterward to his friends. In the afternoon he
+read or picked the banjo or, sitting down to the little piano he had
+rented, played over his three pieces, the two polkas and the air of the
+topical song. At three o'clock, especially of Wednesday and Saturday
+afternoons, he bestirred himself, dressed very carefully, and went
+downtown to promenade Kearney and Market streets, stopping occasionally
+at the Imperial, where he sometimes found Ellis and Geary and where he
+took cocktails in their company.</p>
+
+<p>He rarely went out in the evenings; his father's death had changed all
+that, at least for a while. He had not seen Turner Ravis nor Henrietta
+Vance for nearly two months.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover took his greatest pleasure while in his new quarters, delighted
+to be pottering about his sitting-room by the hour, setting it to
+rights, rearranging the smaller ornaments, adjusting the calendar,
+winding the clock and, above all, tending the famous tiled stove.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134" />In his idleness he grew to have small and petty ways. The entire day
+went in doing little things. He passed one whole afternoon delightfully,
+whittling out a new banjo bridge from the cover of a cigar-box, scraping
+it smooth afterward with a bit of glass. The winding of his clock was
+quite an occurrence in the course of the day, something to be looked
+forward to. The mixing of his tobacco was a positive event and
+undertaken with all gravity, while the task of keeping it moist and ripe
+in the blue china jar, with the sponge attachment, that always stood on
+the bamboo tea-table by the Japanese screen, was a wearing anxiety that
+was yet a pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>It became a fad with him to do without matches, using as a substitute
+&quot;lights,&quot; tapers of twisted paper to be ignited at the famous stove. He
+found amusement for two days in twisting and rolling these &quot;lights,&quot;
+cutting frills in the larger ends with a pair of scissors, and stacking
+them afterward in a Chinese flower jar he had bought for the purpose and
+stood on top of the bookcases. The lights were admirably made and looked
+very pretty. When he had done he counted them. He had made two hundred
+exactly. What a coincidence!</p>
+
+<p>But the stove, the famous tiled stove with flamboyant ornaments, was the
+chiefest joy of Vandover's new life. He was delighted with it; it was so
+artistic, so curious, it kept the fire so well, it looked so cheerful
+and inviting; a stove that was the life and soul of the whole room, a
+stove to draw up to and talk to; no, never was there such a stove! There
+was hardly a minute of the day he was not fussing with it, raking it
+down, turning the damper off and on, opening and shutting the door,
+filling it with coal, putting the blower on and then taking it off
+again, sweeping away the ashes with a little brass-handled broom, or
+studying the pictures upon the tiles: the &quot;Punishment of Caliban and His
+Associates,&quot; &quot;Romeo and Juliet,&quot; the &quot;Fall of Phaeton.&quot; He even
+pretended to the chambermaid that he alone understood how to manage the
+stove, forbidding her to touch it, assuring her that it had to be coaxed
+and humoured. Often late in the evening as he was going to bed he would
+find the fire in it drowsing; then he would hustle it sharply to arouse
+it, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying: &quot;Wake up there,
+you!&quot; And then when the fire was snapping he would sit before it in his
+bath<a name="Page_135" id="Page_135" />robe, absorbing its heat luxuriously and scratching himself, as was
+his custom, for over an hour.</p>
+
+<p>But very often in the evening he would have the boys, Ellis, Geary, and
+young Haight, up to a little improvised supper. They would bring home
+<i>tamales</i> with them, and Vandover would try to make Welsh rabbits, which
+did not always come out well and which they oftentimes drank instead of
+ate. Ellis, always very silent, would mix and drink cocktails
+continually. Vandover would pick his banjo, and together with young
+Haight would listen to Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you bet,&quot; this one would say, &quot;I'm going to make my pile in this
+town. I can do it. Beale sent me to court the other morning to get the
+judge's signature. He had a grouch on, and wanted to put me off. You
+ought to have heard me jolly him. I talked right up to him! Yes, sir;
+you bet! Didn't I have the gall? That's the way you want to do to get
+along&mdash;get right in and not be afraid. I got his signature, you bet. Ah,
+I'm right in it with Beale; he thinks I'm hot stuff.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now that there was nothing to worry him, and little to occupy his mind,
+Vandover gave himself over considerably to those animal pleasures which
+he enjoyed so much. He lay abed late in the morning, dozing between the
+warm sheets; he overfed himself at table, and drank too much wine; he
+ate between meals, having filled his sideboard with canned pat&eacute;s, potted
+birds, and devilled meats; while upon the bamboo table stood a tin box
+of chocolates out of which he ate whole handfuls at a time. He would
+take this box into the bathroom with him and eat while he lay in the hot
+water until he was overcome by the enervating warmth and by the steam
+and would then drop off to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>It was during these days that Vandover took up his banjo-playing
+seriously, if it could be said that he did anything seriously at this
+time. He took occasional lessons of a Mexican in a room above a
+wigmaker's store on Market Street, and learned to play by note. For a
+little time he really applied himself; after he had mastered the
+customary style of play he began to affect the more brilliant and fancy
+performances, playing two banjos at once, or putting nickels under the
+bridge and picking the strings with a calling-card to imitate a
+mandolin. He even made up some comical pieces that had a <a name="Page_136" id="Page_136" />great success
+among the boys. One of these he called the &quot;Pleasing Pan-Hellenic
+Production&quot;; another was the imitation of the &quot;Midway Plaisance Music,&quot;
+and a third had for title &quot;A Sailor Robbing a Ship,&quot; in which he managed
+to imitate the sounds of the lapping of the water, the creaking of the
+oarlocks, the tramp of the sailor's feet upon the deck, the pistol shot
+that destroyed him, and&mdash;by running up the frets on the bass-string&mdash;his
+dying groans, a finale that never failed to produce a tremendous effect.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Thirteen" id="Chapter_Thirteen" /><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137" /><i>Chapter Thirteen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Just before Lent, and about three months after the death of Vandover's
+father, Henrietta Vance gave a reception and dance at her house. The
+affair was one of a series that the girls of the Cotillon had been
+giving to the men of the same club. Vandover had gone to all but the
+last, which had occurred while he was at Coronado. He was sure of
+meeting Geary, young Haight, Turner Ravis, and all the people of his set
+at these functions, and had always managed to have a very jolly time. He
+had been very quiet since his father's death and had hardly gone out at
+all; in fact, since Ida Wade's death and his trip down the coast he had
+seen none of his acquaintances except the boys. But he determined now
+that he would go to this dance and in so doing return once more to the
+world that he knew. By this time he had become pretty well accustomed to
+his father's death and saw no reason why he should not have a good time.</p>
+
+<p>At first he thought he would ask Turner to go with him, but in the end
+made up his mind to go alone, instead; one always had a better time when
+one went alone. Young Haight would have liked to have asked Turner, but
+did not because he supposed, of course, that Vandover would take her. In
+the end Turner had Delphine act as her escort.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover arrived at Henrietta Vance's house at about half-past eight. A
+couple of workmen were stretching the last guy ropes of the awning that
+reached over the sidewalk; every window of the house was lighted. The
+front door was opened for the guest before he could ring, and he passed
+up the stairs, catching a glimpse of the parlours through the porti&egrave;res
+of the doors. As yet they were empty of guests, the floors were covered
+with canvas, and the walls decorated with fern leaves. In a window
+recess one of the caterer's men was setting out two punch bowls and a
+multitude of glass cups; three or four musicians were gathered about the
+piano, tuning up, and one heard the subdued note of a cornet; the air
+was heavy with the smell of pinks and of La France roses.</p>
+
+<p>At the turn of the stairs the Vances' second girl in a white lawn cap
+directed him to the gentlemen's dressing-room, <a name="Page_138" id="Page_138" />which was the room of
+Henrietta Vance's older brother. About a dozen men were here before him,
+some rolling up their overcoats into balls and stowing them with their
+canes in the corners of the room; others laughing and smoking together,
+and still others who were either brushing their hair before the mirrors
+or sitting on the bed in their stocking feet, breathing upon their
+patent leathers, warming them before putting them on. There were one or
+two who knew no one and who stood about unhappily, twisting the tissue
+paper from the buttons of their new gloves, and looking stupidly at the
+pictures on the walls of the room. Occasionally one of the gentlemen
+would step to the door and look out into the hall to see if the ladies
+whom they were escorting were yet come out of their dressing-room, ready
+to go down.</p>
+
+<p>On the centre table stood three boxes of cigars and a great many
+packages of cigarettes, while extra hairbrushes, whiskbrooms, and papers
+of pins had been placed about the bureau.</p>
+
+<p>As Vandover came in, he nodded pleasantly to such of the men as he knew,
+and, after hiding his hat and coat under the bed, shook himself into his
+clothes again and rearranged his dress tie.</p>
+
+<p>The house was filling up rapidly; one heard the deadened roll of wheels
+in the street outside, the banging of carriage doors, and an incessant
+rustle of stiff skirts ascending the stairs. From the ladies'
+dressing-room came an increasing soprano chatter, while downstairs the
+orchestra around the piano in the back parlour began to snarl and whine
+louder and louder. About the halls and stairs one caught brief glimpses
+of white and blue opera cloaks edged with swan's-down alternating with
+the gleam of a starched shirt bosom and the glint of a highly polished
+silk hat. Odours of sachet and violets came and went elusively or
+mingled with those of the roses and pinks. An air of gayety and
+excitement began to spread throughout the house.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello, old man!&quot; &quot;Hello, Van!&quot; Charlie Geary, young Haight, and Ellis
+came in together. &quot;Hello, boys!&quot; answered Vandover, hairbrush in hand,
+turning about from the mirror, where he had been trying to make his hair
+lie very flat and smooth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here,&quot; said Geary, showing him a dance-card already <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139" />full, &quot;I've
+got every dance promised. I looked out for that at the last one of these
+affairs; made all my arrangements and engagements then. Ah, you bet, I
+don't get left on any dance. That's the way you want to rustle. Ah,&quot; he
+went on, &quot;had a bully sleep last night. I knew I was going to be out
+late to-night, so I went to bed at nine; didn't wake up till seven. Had
+a fine cutlet for breakfast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was precisely at this moment that Geary got his first advancement in
+life. Mr. Beale, Jr., head clerk in the great firm of Beale &amp; Story,
+came up to him as he was drawing off his overcoat:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How is Fischer?&quot; asked Geary.</p>
+
+<p>Beale, Jr., pulled him over into a corner, talking in a low voice. &quot;He's
+even worse than yesterday,&quot; he answered. &quot;I think we shall have to give
+him a vacation, and that's what I want to speak to you about. If you
+can, Geary, I should like to have you take his place for a while, at
+least until we get through with this contract case. I don't know about
+Fischer. He's sick so often, I'm afraid we may have to let him go
+altogether.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the orchestra downstairs broke out into a clash of harmony and
+then swung off with the beat and cadence of a waltz. The dance was
+beginning; a great bustle and hurrying commenced about the
+dressing-rooms and at the head of the stairs; everybody went down. In
+the front parlour by the mantel Henrietta Vance and Turner stood on
+either side of Mrs. Vance, receiving, shaking hands, and laughing and
+talking with the different guests who came up singly, in couples, or in
+noisy groups.</p>
+
+<p>No one was dancing yet. The orchestra stopped with a flourish of the
+cornet, and at once a great crowding and pushing began amidst a vast hum
+of talk. The cards were being filled up, a swarm of men gathered about
+each of the more popular girls, passing her card from hand to hand while
+she smiled upon them all helplessly and good-naturedly. The dance-cards
+had run short and some of the men were obliged to use their visiting
+cards; with these in one hand and the stump of a pencil in the other,
+they ran about from group to group, pushing, elbowing, and calling over
+one another's heads like brokers in a stock exchange.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140" />Geary, however, walked about calmly, smiling contentedly, very
+good-humoured. From time to time he stopped such a one of the hurrying,
+excited men as he knew and showed him his card made out weeks before,
+saying, &quot;Ah, how's that? <i>I</i> am all fixed; made all my engagements at
+the last one of these affairs, even up to six extras. That's the way you
+want to rustle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight was very popular; everywhere the girls nodded and smiled at
+him, many even saving a place on their cards for him before he had
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis took advantage of the confusion to disappear. He went up into the
+deserted dressing-room, chose a cigar, unbuttoned his vest and sat down
+in one chair, putting his feet upon another. The hum of the dance came
+to him in a prolonged and soothing murmur and he enjoyed it in some
+strange way of his own, listening and smoking, stretched out at ease in
+the deserted dressing-room.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover went up to Turner Ravis smiling and holding out his hand. She
+seemed to be curiously embarrassed when she saw him, and did not smile
+back at him. He asked to see her card, but she drew her hand quickly
+from his, telling him that she was going home early and was not dancing
+at all, that in fact she had to &quot;receive&quot; instead of dance. It was
+evident to Vandover that he had done something to displease her, and he
+quickly concluded that it was because he had not asked her to go with
+him that evening.</p>
+
+<p>He turned from her to Henrietta Vance as though nothing unusual had
+happened, resolving to see her later in the evening and in the meanwhile
+invent some suitable excuse. Henrietta Vance did not even see his hand;
+she was a very jolly girl, ordinarily, and laughed all the time. Now she
+looked him squarely in the face without so much as a smile, at once
+angry and surprised; never had anything seemed so hateful and
+disagreeable. Vandover put his hand back into his pocket, trying to
+carry it all off with a laugh, saying in order to make her laugh with
+him as he used to do, &quot;Hello! how do you do this evening? It's a
+pleasant morning this afternoon.&quot; &quot;How do you do?&quot; she answered
+nervously, refusing to laugh. Then she turned from him abruptly to talk
+to young Haight's little cousin Hetty.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141" />Mrs. Vance was neither embarrassed nor nervous as the girls had been.
+She stared calmly at Vandover and said with a peculiar smile, &quot;I am
+surprised to see you here, Mr. Vandover.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>An hour later the dance was in full swing. Almost every number was a
+waltz or a two-step, the music being the topical songs and popular airs
+of the day set to dance music.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past ten o'clock, between two dances, the cornet sounded a
+trumpet call; the conversation ceased in a moment, and Henrietta Vance's
+brother, standing by the piano, called out, &quot;The next dance will be the
+<i>first extra</i>,&quot; adding immediately, &quot;a <i>waltz</i>.&quot; The dance recommenced;
+in the pauses of the music one heard the rhythmic movement of the feet
+shuffling regularly in one-two-three time.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the couples waltzed fast, whirling about the rooms, bearing
+around corners with a swirl and swing of silk skirts, the girls' faces
+flushed and perspiring, their eyes half-closed, their bare, white
+throats warm, moist, and alternately swelling and contracting with their
+quick breathing. On certain of these girls the dancing produced a
+peculiar effect. The continued motion, the whirl of the lights, the heat
+of the room, the heavy perfume of the flowers, the cadence of the music,
+even the physical fatigue, reacted in some strange way upon their
+oversensitive feminine nerves, the monotony of repeated sensation
+producing some sort of mildly hypnotic effect, a morbid hysterical
+pleasure the more exquisite because mixed with pain. These were the
+girls whom one heard declaring that they could dance all night, the
+girls who could dance until they dropped.</p>
+
+<p>Other of the couples danced with the greatest languor and gravity, their
+arms held out rigid and at right angles with their bodies.</p>
+
+<p>About the doors and hallways stood the unhappy gentlemen who knew no
+one, watching the others dance, feigning to be amused. Some of them,
+however, had ascended to the dressing-room and began to strike up an
+acquaintance with each other and with Ellis, smoking incessantly,
+discussing business, politics, and even religion.</p>
+
+<p>In the ladies' dressing-room two of the maids were holding a long
+conversation in low tones, their heads together; <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142" />evidently it was
+concerning something dreadful. They continually exclaimed &quot;Oh!&quot; and
+&quot;Ah!&quot; suddenly sitting back from each other, shaking their heads, and
+biting their nether lips. On the top floor in the hall the servants in
+their best clothes leaned over the balustrade, nudging each other,
+talking in hoarse whispers or pointing with thick fingers swollen with
+dish-water. All up and down the stairs were the couples who were sitting
+out the dance, some of them even upon the circular sofa in the hall over
+the first landing.</p>
+
+<p>The music stopped, leaving a babel of talk in the air, the couples fell
+apart for an instant, but a great clapping of hands broke out and the
+tired musicians heroically recommenced.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the short <i>encore</i> was done there was a rush for the lemonade
+and punch bowls. The guests thronged around them joking each other.
+&quot;Hello! are you here <i>again</i>?&quot; &quot;Oh, this is dreadful!&quot; &quot;This makes <i>six</i>
+times I've seen you here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A smell of coffee rose into the air from the basement. It was about
+half-past eleven; the next dance was the supper dance and the gentlemen
+hurried about anxiously searching the stairs, the parlours, and the
+conservatory for the girls who had promised them this dance weeks
+before. The musicians were playing a march, and the couples crowded down
+the narrow stairs in single file, the ladies drawing off their gloves.
+The tired musicians stretched themselves, rubbed their eyes, and began
+to talk aloud in the deserted parlours.</p>
+
+<p>Supper was served in the huge billiard-room in the basement and was
+eaten in a storm of gayety. The same parties and &quot;sets&quot; tried to get
+together at the same table; Henrietta Vance's party was particularly
+noisy: at her table there was an incessant clamour of screams and shouts
+of laughter. One ate oysters <i>&agrave; la poulette</i>, terrapin-salads, and
+croquettes; the wines were Sauternes and champagnes. With the nuts and
+dessert the caps came on, and in a few minutes were cracking and
+snapping all over the room.</p>
+
+<p>Six of the unfortunates who knew no one, but who had managed through a
+common affliction to become acquainted with each other, gathered at a
+separate table. Ellis was one of their number; he levied a twenty-five
+assessment, and tipped the waiter a dollar and a half. This one
+accordingly brought <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143" />them extra bottles of champagne in which they found
+consolation for all the <i>ennui</i> of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>After supper the dancing began again. The little stiffness and
+constraint of the earlier part of the evening was gone; by this time
+nearly everybody, except the unfortunates, knew everybody else. The good
+dinner and the champagne had put them all into an excellent humour, and
+they all commenced to be very jolly. They began a Virginia Reel still
+wearing the magician's caps and Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper.</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight was with Turner Ravis as much as possible during the
+evening, very happy and excited. Something had happened; it was
+impossible for him to say precisely what, for on the face of things
+Turner was the same as ever. Nothing in her speech or actions was
+different, but there was in her manner, in the very air that surrounded
+her, something elusive and subtle that set him all in a tremor. There
+was a change in his favour; he felt that she liked to have him with her
+and that she was trying to have him feel as much in some mysterious way
+of her own. He could see, however, that she was hardly conscious of
+doing this and that the change was more apparent to his eyes than it was
+to hers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Must you really go home now?&quot; he said, as Turner began to talk of
+leaving, soon after supper. They had been sitting out the dance under a
+palm at the angle of the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Turner; &quot;Howard has the measles and I promised to be
+home early. Delphine was to come for me and she ought to be here now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Delphine?&quot; exclaimed young Haight. &quot;Didn't you come with Van?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Turner quietly. Only by her manner, and by something in
+the way she said the word, Haight knew at once that she had broken
+definitely with Vandover. The talk he had had with her at her house came
+back to him on the instant. He hesitated a moment and then asked:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is something wrong? Has Van done anything&mdash;never mind, I don't
+mean that; it's no business of mine, I suppose. But I know you care for
+him. I'm sorry if&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But he was not sorry. Try as he would, his heart was leaping in him for
+joy. With Vandover out of the way, he knew that all would be different;
+Turner herself had said so.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144" />Oh, everything is wrong,&quot; said Turner, with tears in her eyes. &quot;I have
+been so disappointed in Van; oh, terribly disappointed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know; yes, I think I know what you mean,&quot; answered young Haight in a
+low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, please don't let's talk about it at all,&quot; cried Turner. But young
+Haight could not stop now.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Van really out of the question, then?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes,&quot; she exclaimed, not seeing what he was coming to. &quot;Oh, yes;
+how could I&mdash;how <i>could</i> I care for him after&mdash;after what has happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Very much embarrassed, young Haight went on: &quot;I know it's unfair to take
+advantage of you now, but do you remember what you said once? That if
+Vandover were out of the question, that <i>'perhaps'</i> you might&mdash;that it
+would be&mdash;that there might be a chance for me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Turner was silent for a long time, and then she said: &quot;Yes, I remember.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, how about that <i>now</i>?&quot; asked young Haight with a nervous laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; answered Turner, &quot;how do I know&mdash;so soon!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what do you <i>think</i>, Turner?&quot; he persisted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I haven't thought at all,&quot; she returned.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, think now!&quot; he went on. &quot;Tell me&mdash;how about that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About <i>what</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, you know what I mean,&quot; young Haight replied, feeling like a little
+boy, &quot;about what you said at your house that Sunday night. Please tell
+me; you don't know how much it means to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, there's Delphine at the door!&quot; suddenly exclaimed Turner. &quot;Now,
+really, I <i>must</i> go down. She doesn't know where to go; she's so
+stupid!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; he answered, &quot;not until you tell me!&quot; He caught her hand, refusing
+to let it go.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, how mean you are to corner me so!&quot; she cried laughing and
+embarrassed. &quot;Must I&mdash;well&mdash;I know I shouldn't. <i>O-oh</i>, I just <i>detest</i>
+you!&quot; Young Haight turned her hand palm upward and kissed the little
+circle of crumpled flesh that showed where her glove buttoned. Then she
+tore her hand away and ran downstairs, while he followed more slowly.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145" />On her way back to the dressing-room she met him again, crossing the
+hall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you want to see me home?&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do I <i>want</i> to?&quot; shouted young Haight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, but I forgot,&quot; she cried. &quot;You can't. I won't let you. You have
+your other dances engaged!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, damn the other dances!&quot; he exclaimed, but instead of being
+offended, Turner only smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Toward one o'clock there was a general movement to go. Henrietta Vance
+and Mrs. Vance were inquired for, and the blue and white opera cloaks
+reappeared, descending the stairs, disturbing the couples who were
+seated there. The banging of carriage doors and the rumble of wheels
+recommenced in the street. The musicians played a little longer. As the
+party thinned out, there was greater dance room and a consequent greater
+pleasure in dancing. These last dances at the end of the evening were
+enjoyed more than all the others. But the party was breaking up fast:
+Turner had already gone home; Mrs. Vance and Henrietta were back at
+their places in front of the mantel, surrounded by a group of gentlemen
+in capecoats and ladies in opera wraps. Every one was crying &quot;Good-bye&quot;
+or &quot;Good night!&quot; and assuring Mrs. Vance and Henrietta of the
+enjoyableness of the occasion. Suddenly the musicians played &quot;Home Sweet
+Home.&quot; Those still dancing uttered an exclamation of regret, but
+continued waltzing to this air the same as ever. Some began to dance
+again in their overcoats and opera wraps. Then at last the tired
+musicians stopped and reached for the cases of their instruments, and
+the remaining guests, seized with a sudden panic lest they should be the
+last to leave, fled to the dressing-rooms. These were in the greatest
+confusion, every one was in a hurry; in the gentlemen's dressing-room
+there was a great putting on of coats and mufflers and a searching for
+misplaced gloves, hats and canes. A base hum of talk rose in the air,
+bits and ends of conversation being tossed back and forth across the
+room. &quot;<i>You</i> haven't seen my hat, have you, Jimmy?&quot; &quot;Did you meet that
+girl I was telling you about?&quot; &quot;Hello, old man! have a good time
+to-night?&quot; &quot;Lost your hat? No, I haven't seen it.&quot; &quot;Yes, about half-past
+ten!&quot; &quot;Well, I told him that myself!&quot; &quot;Ah, you bet it's the man that
+rustles that gets there.&quot; &quot;Come <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146" />round about four, then.&quot; &quot;What's the
+matter with coming home in <i>our</i> carriage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At the doors of the dressing-rooms the ladies joined their escorts, and
+a great crowd formed in the halls, worming down the stairs and out upon
+the front steps. As the first groups reached the open air there was a
+great cry: &quot;Why, it's pouring rain!&quot; This was taken up and repeated and
+carried all the way back into the house. There were exclamations of
+dismay and annoyance: &quot;Why, it's raining right <i>down</i>!&quot; &quot;What <i>shall</i> we
+do!&quot; Tempers were lost, brothers and sisters quarrelling with each other
+over the question of umbrellas. &quot;Ah,&quot; said Geary, delighted, peeling the
+cover from his umbrella in the vestibule, &quot;I <i>thought</i> it was going to
+rain before I left and brought mine along with me. Ah, you bet I always
+look out for rain!&quot; On the horse-block stood the caller, chanting up the
+carriages at the top of his voice. The street was full of coup&eacute;s,
+carriages, and hacks, the raindrops showing in a golden blur as they
+fell across the streaming light of their lamps. The horses were smoking
+and restless, and the drivers in oilskins and rubber blankets were
+wrangling and shouting. At every instant there was a long roll of wheels
+interrupted by the banging of the doors. Near the caller stood a useless
+policeman, his shield pinned on the outside of his wet rubber coat, on
+which the carriage lamps were momentarily reflected in long vertical
+streaks.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time all the guests were gone except the one young lady whose
+maid and carriage had somehow not been sent. Henrietta Vance's brother
+took this one home in a hired hack. Mrs. Vance and Henrietta sat down to
+rest for a moment in the empty parlours. The canvas-covered floors were
+littered with leaves of smilax and La France roses, with bits of ribbon,
+ends of lace, and discarded Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper. The butler
+and the second girl were already turning down the gas in the other
+rooms.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Long before the party broke up Vandover had gone home, stunned and
+dazed, as yet hardly able to realize the meaning of what had happened.
+Some strange and dreadful change had taken place; things were different,
+people were different to him; not every one had been so outspoken as
+Turner,<a name="Page_147" id="Page_147" /> Henrietta Vance and her mother, but even amongst others who had
+talked to him politely and courteously enough, the change was no less
+apparent. It was in the air, a certain vague shrinking and turning of
+the shoulder, a general atmosphere of aversion and repulsion, an unseen
+frown, an unexpressed rebuff, intangible, illusive, but as unmistakable
+as his own existence. The world he had known knew him now no longer. It
+was ostracism at last.</p>
+
+<p>But why? Why? Sitting over his tiled flamboyant stove, brooding into the
+winking coals, Vandover asked himself the question in vain. He knew what
+latitude young men were allowed by society; he was sure nothing short of
+discovered crime could affect them. True enough he had at one time
+allowed himself to drift into considerable dissipation, but he was done
+with that now, he had reformed, he had turned over a new leaf. Even at
+his worst he had only lived the life of the other young men around him,
+the other young men who were received as much as ever, even though
+people, the girls themselves, practically knew of what they did, knew
+that they were often drunk, and that they frequented the society of
+abandoned women. What had he done to merit this casting off? What
+<i>could</i> he have done? He even went so far as to wonder if there was
+anything wrong about his father or his sudden death.</p>
+
+<p>A little after one o'clock he heard Geary's whistle in the street
+outside. &quot;Hello, old man!&quot; he cried as Vandover opened the window. &quot;I
+was just on my way home from the hoe-down; saw a light in your window
+and thought I'd call you up. Say, have you got anything wet up there?
+I'm extra dry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Vandover, &quot;come on up!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you hear what Beale said to me this evening?&quot; said Geary, as he
+mixed himself a cocktail at the sideboard. &quot;Oh, I tell you, I'm getting
+right in, down at that office. Beale wants me to take the place of one
+of the assistants in the firm, a fellow who's got the consumption,
+coughing up his lungs all the time. It's an important place, hundred a
+month; that's right. Yes, sir; you bet, I'm going to get in and rustle
+now and make myself so indispensable in that fellow's place that they
+can't get along without me. I'll crowd him right out; I know it may be
+selfish, but, damn it! that's what you have to <a name="Page_148" id="Page_148" />do to get along. It's
+human nature. I'll tell you right here to-night,&quot; he exclaimed with
+sudden energy, clenching his fist and slowly rapping the knuckles on the
+table to emphasize each word, &quot;that I'll be the head of that firm some
+day, or I'll know the reason why.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Geary finally became silent, the two looked into the fire for some
+time without speaking. At last Geary said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You came home early to-night, didn't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover, stirring uneasily. &quot;Yes, I did.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was another silence. Then Geary said abruptly: &quot;It's too bad. They
+are kind of stinky-pinky to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Vandover with a grin. &quot;<i>I</i> don't know what's the matter.
+Everybody seems nasty!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's that business with Ida Wade, you know,&quot; replied Geary. &quot;It got
+around somehow that she killed herself on your account. Everybody seems
+to be on to it. I heard it&mdash;oh, nearly a month ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh,&quot; said Vandover with a short laugh, &quot;that's it, is it? I was
+wondering.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that's it,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;You see they don't know for sure; no
+one <i>knows</i>, but all at once every one seemed to be talking about it,
+and they suspect an awful lot. I guess they are pretty near right,
+aren't they?&quot; He did not wait for an answer, but laughed clumsily and
+went on: &quot;You see, you always have to be awfully careful in those
+things, or you'll get into a box. Ah, you bet I don't let any girl <i>I</i>
+go with know <i>my</i> last name or <i>my</i> address if I can help it. I'm clever
+enough for that; you have to manage very carefully; ah, you bet! You
+ought to have looked out for that, old man!&quot; He paused a moment and then
+went on: &quot;Oh, I guess it will be all right, all right, in a little
+while. They will forget about it, you know. I wouldn't worry. I guess it
+will be all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover absently, &quot;I guess so&mdash;perhaps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A few days later Vandover was in the reading-room of the Mechanics
+Library, listlessly turning over the pages of a volume of <i>l'Art</i>. It
+was Saturday morning and the place was full of ladies who were downtown
+for their shopping and marketing, and who had come in either to change
+their books or to keep appointments with each other. On a sudden
+Vandover saw Turner just passing into the Biography alcove. He got up
+<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149" />and followed her. She was standing at the end of the dim book-lined
+tunnel, searching the upper shelves, her head and throat bent back, and
+her gloved finger on her lip. The faint odour of the perfume she always
+affected came to him mingled with the fragrance of the jonquils at her
+belt and the smell of leather and of books that exhaled from the shelves
+on either side. He did not offer to take her hand, but came up slowly,
+speaking in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>It was the last time that Vandover ever met Turner Ravis. They talked
+for upward of an hour, leaning against the opposite book-shelves,
+Vandover with his fists in his pockets, his head bent down, and the
+point of his shoe tracing the pattern in the linoleum carpet; Turner,
+her hands clasped in front of her, looking him squarely in the face,
+speaking calmly and frankly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, I hope you see just how it is, Van,&quot; she said at length. &quot;What has
+happened hasn't made me cease to care for you, because if I had really
+cared for you the way I thought I did, the way a girl ought to care for
+the man she wants to marry, I would have stood by you through
+everything, no matter what you did. I don't do so now, because I find I
+don't care for you as much as I thought I did. What has happened has
+only shown me that. I'm sorry, oh, so sorry to be disappointed in you,
+but it's because I only think of you as being once a very good friend of
+mine, not because I love you as you think I did. Once&mdash;a long time
+ago&mdash;when we first knew each other, then, perhaps&mdash;things were different
+then. But somehow we seem to have grown away from that. Since then we
+have both been mistaken; you thought I cared for you in that way, and I
+thought so, too, and I thought you cared for me; but it was only that we
+were keeping up appearances, pretending to ourselves just for the sake
+of old times. We don't love each other now; you know it. But I have
+never intentionally deceived you or tried to lead you on; when I told
+you I cared for you I really thought I did. I meant to be sincere; I
+always thought so until this happened, and then when I saw how easily I
+could let you go, it only proved to me that I did not care for you as I
+thought I did. It was wrong of me, I know, and I should have known my
+own mind before, but I didn't, I didn't. You talk about Dolly<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150" /> Haight;
+but it is not Dolly Haight at all who has changed my affection for you.
+I will be just as frank as I can with you, Van. I may learn really to
+love Dolly Haight; I don't know, I think perhaps I will, but it isn't
+that I care for him <i>just</i> because I don't care for you. Can't you see,
+it's just as if I had never met you. You know it's very hard for me to
+say this to you, Van, and I suppose it's all mixed up, but I can't help
+it. You don't know how sorry I am, because we have been such old
+friends&mdash;because I really did care for you as a friend; it's a proof of
+it, that there is no other man in the world I could talk to like this. I
+think, too, Van, that was the only way you cared for me, just as a good
+friend&mdash;except perhaps at first, when we first knew each other. You know
+yourself that is so. We really haven't loved each other at all for a
+long time, and now we have found it out before it was too late. And even
+if everything were different, Van, don't you know how it is with girls?
+They really love the man who loves them the most. Half the time they're
+just in love with being loved. That's the way most girls love nowadays,
+and you know yourself, Van, that Dolly Haight really loves me more than
+you do.&quot; She gathered up her books and went on after a pause,
+straightening up, ready to go: &quot;If I should let myself think of what you
+have done, I feel&mdash;as if&mdash;as if&mdash;why, dreadful&mdash;I&mdash;that I should hate
+you, loathe you; but I try not to do that. I have been thinking it all
+over since the other night. I shall always try to think of you at your
+best; I have tried to forget everything else, and in forgetting it I
+forgive you. I can honestly say that,&quot; she said, holding out her hand,
+&quot;I forgive you, and you must forgive me because once, by deceiving
+myself, I deceived you, and made you think that I cared for you in that
+way when I didn't.&quot; As their hands fell apart Turner faced him and
+added, with tears in her eyes: &quot;You know this must be good-bye for good.
+You don't know how it hurts me to tell you. I know it looks as if I were
+deserting you when you were alone in the world and had most need of some
+one to influence you for the good. But, Van, won't you be better now?
+Won't you break from it all and be your own self again? I have faith in
+you. I believe it's in you to become a great man and a good man. It
+isn't too late to begin all over again. Just be your better self; live
+up to the best that's in you; if <a name="Page_151" id="Page_151" />not for your own sake, then for the
+sake of that other girl that's coming into your life some time; that
+other girl who is good and sweet and pure, whom you will really, really
+love and who will really, really love you.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>All the rest of that month Vandover was wretched. So great was his shame
+and humiliation over this fresh disaster that he hardly dared to show
+himself out of doors. His grief was genuine and it was profound. Yet he
+took his punishment in the right spirit. He did not blame any one but
+himself; it was only a just retribution for the thing he had done. Only
+what made it hard to bear was the fact that the chastisement had fallen
+upon him long after he had repented of the crime, long after he had
+resolved to lead a new and upright life; but with shut teeth he
+determined still to carry out that resolve; he would devote all his
+future life to living down the past. It might be hard; it might be one
+long struggle through many, many years, but he would do it. Ah, yes, he
+would show them; they had cast him off, but he would go away to Paris
+now as he had always intended. As invariably happened when he was deeply
+moved, he turned to his art, blindly and instinctively. He would go to
+Paris now and study his paintings, five, ten years, and come back at
+last a great artist, when these same people who had cast him off would
+be proud to receive him. Turner was right in saying that he had in him
+the making of a great man. He <i>knew</i> that she was right; knew that if he
+only gave the better part of him, the other Vandover, the chance, that
+he would become a great artist. Well, he would do so, and then when he
+came back again, when all the world was at his feet, and there were long
+articles in the paper announcing his arrival, these people would throng
+around him; he would show them what a great and noble nature he really
+had; he would forgive them; he would ignore what they had done. He even
+dramatized a little scene between himself and Turner, then Mrs. Haight.
+They would both be pretty old then and he would take her children on his
+lap and look at her over their heads&mdash;he could almost see those heads,
+white, silky and very soft&mdash;and he would nod at her thoughtfully, and
+say, &quot;Well, I have taken your advice, do you remember?&quot; and she was to
+answer, &quot;Yes, I <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152" />remember.&quot; There were actually tears in his eyes as he
+saw the scene.</p>
+
+<p>At the very first he thought that he could not live without Turner; that
+he loved her too much to be able to give her up. But in a little while
+he saw that this was not so. She was right, too, in saying that he had
+long since outlived his first sincere affection for her. He had felt for
+a long time that he did not love her well enough to marry her; that he
+did not love her as young Haight did, and he acknowledged to himself
+that this affair at least had ended rightly. The two loved each other,
+he could see that; at last he even told himself that he would be glad to
+see Turner married to Dolly Haight, who was his best friend. But for all
+that, it came very hard at first to give up Turner altogether; never to
+see her or speak to her again.</p>
+
+<p>As the first impressions of the whole affair grew dull and blunt by the
+lapse of time, this humble penitential mood of Vandover's passed away
+and was succeeded by a feeling of gloomy revolt, a sullen rage at the
+world that had cast him off <i>only</i> because he had been found out. He
+thought it a matter of self-respect to resent the insult they had put
+upon him. But little by little he ceased to regret his exile; the new
+life was not so bad as he had at first anticipated, and his relations
+with the men whom he knew best, Ellis, Geary, and young Haight, were in
+nowise changed. He was no longer invited anywhere, and the girls he had
+known never saw him when he passed them on the street. It was
+humiliating enough at first, but he got used to it after a while, and by
+dint of thrusting the disagreeable subject from his thoughts, by
+refusing to let the disgrace sink deep in his mind, by forgetting the
+whole business as much as he could, he arrived after a time to be
+passably contented. His pliable character had again rearranged itself to
+suit the new environment.</p>
+
+<p>Along with this, however, came a sense of freedom. Now he no longer had
+anything to fear from society; it had shot its bolt, it had done its
+worst, there was no longer anything to restrain him, now he could do
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>He was in precisely this state of mind when he received the cards for
+the opening of the roadhouse, the &quot;resort&quot; out on <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153" />the Almshouse drive,
+about which Toby, the waiter at the Imperial, had spoken to him.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover attended it. It was a debauch of forty-eight hours, the longest
+and the worst he had ever indulged in. For a long time the brute had
+been numb and dormant; now at last when he woke he was raging, more
+insatiable, more irresistible than ever.</p>
+
+<p>The affair at the roadhouse was but the beginning. All at once Vandover
+rushed into a career of dissipation, consumed with the desire of vice,
+the perverse, blind, and reckless desire of the male. Drunkenness,
+sensuality, gambling, debauchery, he knew them all. He rubbed elbows
+with street walkers, with bookmakers, with saloonkeepers, with the
+exploiters of lost women. The bartenders of the city called him by his
+first name, the policemen, the night detail, were familiar with his
+face, the drivers of the nighthawks recognized his figure by the street
+lamps, paling in the light of many an early dawn. At one time and
+another he was associated with all the different types of people in the
+low &quot;sporting set,&quot; acquaintances of an evening, whose names grew faint
+to his recollection amidst the jingle of glasses and the popping of
+corks, whose faces faded from his memory in the haze of tobacco smoke
+and the fumes of whisky; young men of the city, rich without apparent
+means of livelihood, women and girls &quot;recently from the East&quot; with rooms
+over the fast restaurants; owners of trotting horses, actresses without
+engagements, billiard-markers, pool-sellers and the sons of the
+proprietors of halfway houses and &quot;resorts.&quot; With all these Vandover
+kept the pace at the Imperial, at the race-track, at the gambling tables
+in the saloons and bars along Kearney and Market streets, and in the
+disreputable houses amid the strong odours of musk and the rustle of
+heavy silk dresses. It lasted for a year; by the end of that time he had
+about forgotten his determination to go to Paris and had grown out of
+touch with his three old friends, Ellis, Geary, and Haight. He seldom
+saw them now; occasionally he met them in one of the little rooms of the
+Imperial over their beer and Welsh rabbits, but now he always went on to
+the larger rooms where one had champagne and terrapin. He felt that he
+no longer was one of them.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154" />That year the opera came to San Francisco, and Vandover hired a
+messenger boy to stand in line all night at the door of the music store
+where the tickets were to be sold. Vandover could still love music. In
+the wreckage of all that was good that had been going on in him his love
+for all art was yet intact. It was the strongest side of his nature and
+it would be the last to go.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Fourteen" id="Chapter_Fourteen" /><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155" /><i>Chapter Fourteen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>The house was crowded to the doors; there was no longer any standing
+room and many were even sitting on the steps of the aisles. In the boxes
+the gentlemen were standing up behind the chairs of large plain ladies
+in showy toilets and diamonds. The atmosphere was heavy with the smell
+of gas, of plush upholstery, of wilting bouquets and of sachet. A fine
+vapour as of the visible exhalation of many breaths pervaded the house,
+blurring the lowered lights and dimming the splendour of the great glass
+chandelier.</p>
+
+<p>It was warm to suffocation, a dry, irritating warmth that perspiration
+did not relieve, while the air itself was stale and close as though
+fouled by being breathed over and over again. In the topmost galleries,
+banked with tiers of watching faces, the heat must have been unbearable.</p>
+
+<p>The only movement perceptible throughout the audience was the little
+swaying of gay-coloured fans like the balancing of butterflies about to
+light. Occasionally there would be a vast rustling like the sound of
+wind in a forest, as the holders of librettos turned the leaves
+simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra thundered; the French horns snarling, the first violins
+wailing in unison, while all the bows went up and down together like
+parts of a well-regulated machine; the kettle-drums rolled sonorously at
+exact intervals, and now and then one heard the tinkling of the harp
+like the pattering of raindrops between peals of thunder. The leader
+swayed from side to side in his place, beating time with his baton, his
+hand, and his head.</p>
+
+<p>On the stage itself the act was drawing to a close. There had just been
+a duel. The baritone lay stretched upon the floor at left centre, his
+sword fallen at some paces from him. On the left of the scene, front,
+stood the tenor who had killed him, singing in his highest register,
+very red in the face, continually striking his hand upon his breast and
+pointing with his sword toward his fallen enemy. Next him on the extreme
+left was his friend the basso, in high leather boots, growling from time
+to time during a sustained chord, &quot;<i>Mon honneur et ma foi.</i>&quot; In the
+centre of the stage, the soprano, the star, the <a name="Page_156" id="Page_156" />prima donna chanted a
+fervid but ineffectual appeal to the tenor who cried, &quot;<i>Jamais,
+jamais!</i>&quot; striking his breast and pointing with his sword. The prima
+donna cried, &quot;<i>Ah, mon Dieu, ayez piti&eacute; de moi.</i>&quot; Her confidante, the
+mezzo-soprano, came to her support, repeating her words with an
+impersonal meaning, &quot;<i>Ayez piti&eacute; d'elle.</i>&quot; &quot;<i>Mon honneur et ma foi</i>,&quot;
+growled the basso. The contralto, dressed as a man, turned toward the
+audience on the extreme right, bringing out her notes with a wrench and
+a twist of her body and neck, and intoning, &quot;<i>Ah, malheureuse! Mon Dieu,
+ayez piti&eacute; d'elle.</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The leader of the chorus, costumed as the captain of the watch, leaned
+over the dead baritone and sang, &quot;<i>Il est mort, il est mort. Mon Dieu,
+ayez piti&eacute; de lui.</i>&quot; The soldiers of the watch were huddled together
+immediately back of him. They wore tin helmets, much too large, and
+green peplums, and repeated his words continually.</p>
+
+<p>The chorus itself was made up of citizens of the town; it was in a
+semicircle at the back of the stage&mdash;the men on one side, the women on
+the other. They made all their gestures together and chanted without
+ceasing: &quot;<i>O horreur, O myst&eacute;re! Il est mort. Mon Dieu, ayez piti&eacute; de
+nous!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>De Grace!</i>&quot; cried the prima donna.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Jamais, jamais!</i>&quot; echoed the tenor, striking his breast and pointing
+with his sword.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>O myst&eacute;re!</i>&quot; chanted the chorus, while the basso struck his hand upon
+his sword hilt, growling &quot;<i>Mon honneur et ma foi.</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra redoubled. The finale began; all the pieces of the
+orchestra, all the voices on the stage, commenced over again very loud.
+They all took a step forward, and the rhythm became more rapid, till it
+reached a climax where the prima donna's voice jumped to a C in alt,
+holding it long enough for the basso to thunder, &quot;<i>Mon honneur et ma
+foi</i>&quot; twice. Then they all struck the attitudes for the closing tableau
+and in one last burst of music sang all together, &quot;<i>Mon Dieu, ayez piti&eacute;
+de moi</i>&quot; and &quot;<i>de lui</i>&quot; and &quot;<i>d'elle</i>&quot; and &quot;<i>de nous</i>.&quot; Then the
+orchestra closed with a long roll of the kettle-drums, and the prima
+donna fainted into the arms of her confidante. The curtain fell.</p>
+
+<p>There was a roar of applause. The gallery whistled and stamped. Every
+one relaxed his or her position, drawing a <a name="Page_157" id="Page_157" />long breath, looking about.
+There was a general stir; the lights in the great glass chandelier
+clicked and blazed up, and a murmur of conversation arose. The
+footlights were lowered and the orchestra left their places and
+disappeared underneath the stage, leaving the audience with the
+conviction that they had gone out after beer. All over the house one
+heard the shrill voices of boys crying out, &quot;Op'ra books&mdash;books for the
+op'ra&mdash;words and music for the op'ra.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the boxes a great coming and going took place and an
+interchange of visits. The gentlemen out in the foyer stood about
+conversing in groups or walked up and down smoking cigarettes, often
+pausing in front of the big floral piece that was to be given to the
+prima donna at the end of the great scene in the fourth act.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little titter of an electric bell. The curtain was about to
+go up, and a great rush for seats began. The orchestra were coming back
+and tuning up. They sent up a prolonged medley of sounds, little minor
+chirps and cries from the violins, liquid runs and mellow gurgles from
+the oboes, flutes, and wood-wind instruments, and an occasional
+deep-toned purring from the bass viols. A bell rang faintly from behind
+the wings, the house lights sank, and the footlights blazed up. The
+leader tapped with his baton; a great silence fell upon the house, while
+here and there one heard an energetic &quot;Ssh! ssh!&quot; The fourth act was
+about to begin.</p>
+
+<p>When the curtain rose on the fourth act one saw the prima donna standing
+in a very dejected pose in the midst of a vast apartment that might have
+been a bedchamber, a council hall, or a hall of audience. She was alone.
+She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms
+were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to
+her girdle. She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and
+the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for
+the famous quartet in the &quot;great scene.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But for all this, the music had little by little taken possession of
+Vandover, and little by little he had forgotten his surroundings, the
+stifling air of the house, the blinding glitter of the stage and the
+discomfort of his limbs cramped into the narrow orchestra chair. All
+music was music to him; he loved <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158" />it with an unreasoned, uncritical
+love, enjoying even the barrel organs and hand pianos of the streets.
+For the present the slow beat and cadence of the melodies of the opera
+had cradled all his senses, carrying him away into a kind of exalted
+dream. The quartet began; for him it was wonderfully sweet, the
+long-sustained chords breathing over the subdued orchestral
+accompaniment, like some sweet south wind passing in long sighs over the
+pulse of a great ocean. It seemed to him infinitely beautiful,
+infinitely sad, subdued minor plaints recurring persistently again and
+again like sighs of parting, but could not be restrained, like voices of
+regret for the things that were never to be again. Or it was a pathos, a
+joy in all things good, a vast tenderness, so sweet, so divinely pure
+that it could not be framed in words, so great and so deep that it found
+its only expression in tears. There came over him a vague sense of those
+things which are too beautiful to be comprehended, of a nobility, a
+self-oblivion, an immortal eternal love and kindness, all goodness, all
+benignity, all pity for sin, all sorrow for grief, all joy for the true,
+the right, and the pure.</p>
+
+<p>To be better, to be true and right and pure, these were the only things
+that were worth while, these were the things that he seemed to feel in
+the music. It was as if for the moment he had become a little child
+again, not ashamed to be innocent, ignorant of vice, still believing in
+all his illusions, still near to the great white gates of life.</p>
+
+<p>The appeal had been made directly to what was best and strongest in
+Vandover, and the answer was quick and over-powering. All the good that
+still survived in him leaped to life again in an instant, clamouring for
+recognition, pleading for existence. The other Vandover, the better
+Vandover, wrestled with the brute in him once more, never before so
+strong, never so persistent. He had not yet destroyed all that was good
+in him; now it had turned in one more revolt, crying out against him,
+protesting for the last time against its own perversion and destruction.
+Vandover felt that he was at the great crisis of his life.</p>
+
+<p>After all was over he walked home through the silent streets, proceeding
+slowly, his hands in his pockets, his head bent down, his mind very
+busy. Once in his rooms he threw <a name="Page_159" id="Page_159" />off his things and, having stirred up
+the drowsing fire in the tiled stove, sat down before it in his
+shirt-sleeves, the bosom of his full dress shirt bulging from his vest
+and faintly creaking as from time to time he drew a long breath. He had
+been lured into a mood where he was himself at his very best, where the
+other Vandover, the better Vandover, drew apart with eyes turned
+askance, looking inward and downward into the depths of his own
+character, shuddering, terrified. Far down there in the darkest, lowest
+places he had seen the brute, squat, deformed, hideous; he had seen it
+crawling to and fro dimly, through a dark shadow he had heard it
+growling, chafing at the least restraint, restless to be free. For now
+at last it was huge, strong, insatiable, swollen and distorted out of
+all size, grown to be a monster, glutted yet still ravenous, some
+fearful bestial satyr, grovelling, perverse, horrible beyond words.</p>
+
+<p>And with the eyes of this better self he saw again, little by little,
+the course of his whole life, and witnessed again the eternal struggle
+between good and evil that had been going on within him since his very
+earliest years. He was sure that at the first the good had been the
+strongest. Little by little the brute had grown, and he,
+pleasure-loving, adapting himself to every change of environment,
+luxurious, self-indulgent, shrinking with the shrinking of a sensuous
+artist-nature from all that was irksome and disagreeable, had shut his
+ears to the voices that shouted warnings of the danger, and had allowed
+the brute to thrive and to grow, its abominable famine gorged from the
+store of that in him which he felt to be the purest, the cleanest, and
+the best, its bulk fattened upon the rot and the decay of all that was
+good, growing larger day by day, noisome, swollen, poddy, a filthy
+inordinate ghoul, gorged and bloated by feeding on the good things that
+were dead.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this he saw how one by one he had wrenched himself free from all
+those influences that had tended to foster and to cultivate all the
+better part of him.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, long ago it seemed now, he had allowed to be destroyed
+that first instinctive purity, that fragile, delicate innocence which
+dies young in almost every human being, and that one sees evaporating
+under the earliest taint of vice with <a name="Page_160" id="Page_160" />a smile partly of contempt,
+partly of pity, partly of genuine regret.</p>
+
+<p>Next it had been his father. The Old Gentleman had exerted a great
+influence over Vandover; he had never forgotten that scene the morning
+after he had told him of his measure of responsibility in Ida Wade's
+suicide, the recovery from the first shock of dazed bewilderment and
+then the forgiveness, the solicitude and the encouragement to begin over
+again, to live it down and to do that which was right and good and true.
+Not only had he stopped his ears to this voice, but also, something told
+him, he had done much to silence it forever. Despite the Old Gentleman's
+apparent fortitude the blow must have carried home. What must he not
+have suffered during those long weeks while Vandover was away, what
+lonely broodings in the empty house; and then the news of the wreck, the
+days of suspense!</p>
+
+<p>It all must have told; the Old Gentleman was not strong; Vandover could
+not but feel that he had hastened his death, and that in so doing he had
+destroyed another influence which would have cultivated and fostered his
+better self, would have made it strong against the attacks of the brute.</p>
+
+<p>The other person who had helped to bring out all that was best in
+Vandover had been Turner Ravis. There was no denying that when he had
+first known her he had loved her sincerely. Things were vastly different
+with him when Turner had been his companion; things that were unworthy,
+that were low, that were impure and vicious, did not seem worth while
+then; not only did they have no attraction for him, but he even shunned
+and avoided them. He knew he was a better man for loving her; invariably
+she made him wish to be better. But little by little as he frequented
+the society of such girls as Ida Wade, Grace Irving, and Flossie, his
+affection for Turner faded. As the habits of passionate and unhealthy
+excitement grew upon him he lost first the taste and then the very
+capacity for a calm, pure feeling. His affection for her he frittered
+away with fast girls and abandoned women, strangled it in the foul
+musk-laden air of disreputable houses, dragged and defiled it in the
+wine-lees of the Imperial. In the end he had quite destroyed it,
+wilfully, wantonly killed it. As Turner herself had said, she could only
+be in love with being <a name="Page_161" id="Page_161" />loved; her affection for him had dwindled as
+well; at last they had come to be indifferent to each other, she no
+longer inspired him to be better, and thus he had shaken off this good
+influence as well.</p>
+
+<p>Public opinion had been a great check upon him, the fear of scandal, the
+desire to stand well with the world he knew. Trivial though he felt it
+to be, the dread of what people would say had to a great extent held
+Vandover back. He had a position to maintain, a reputation to keep up in
+the parlours and at the dinner tables where he was received. It could
+not be denied that society had influenced Vandover for good. But this,
+too, like all the others, he had cast from him. Now he was ostracized,
+society cared no longer what he did, his position was gone, his
+reputation was destroyed. There was no one now to stand in his way.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover could not fall back on any religious influence. Religion had
+never affected him very deeply. It was true that he had been baptized,
+confirmed, and had gone to church with considerable regularity. If he
+had been asked if he was a Christian and believed in God he would have
+answered &quot;Certainly, certainly.&quot; Until the time of his father's death he
+had even said his prayers every night, the last thing before turning out
+the gas, sitting upon the edge of his bed in his night-gown, his head in
+both his hands. He added to the Lord's Prayer certain other petitions as
+to those who were in trouble, sorrow, poverty, or any other privations;
+he asked for blessings upon his father and upon himself, praying for the
+former's health and prosperity, and for himself, that he might become a
+great artist, that the &quot;Last Enemy&quot; might be admitted to the Salon when
+he had painted it, and that it might make him famous. But, as a rule,
+Vandover thought very little about religious matters and when he did,
+told himself that he was too intelligent to believe in a literal heaven,
+a literal hell, and a personal God personally interfering in human
+affairs like any Jove or Odin. But the moment he rejected a concrete
+religion Vandover was almost helpless. He was not mystic enough to find
+any meaning in signs or symbols, nor philosophic enough to grasp vague
+and immense abstractions. Infinities, Presences, Forces, could not help
+him withstand temptation, could not strengthen him against the brute. He
+<a name="Page_162" id="Page_162" />felt that somewhere, some time, there was punishment for evildoing,
+but, as happened in the case of Ida Wade's death, to dwell on such
+thoughts disturbed and terrified him. He did not dare to look long in
+that direction. Conscience, remorse, repentance, all these had been keen
+enough at first, but he had so persistently kicked against the pricks
+that little by little he had ceased to feel them at all.</p>
+
+<p>Then an immense and overwhelming terror seized upon him. Was there
+nothing, then&mdash;nothing left which he could lay hold of to save him? He
+knew that he could not deliver himself by his own exertions. Religion
+could not help him, he had killed his father, estranged the girl he
+might have loved, outraged the world, and at a single breath blighted
+the fine innate purity of his early years. It was as if he had entered
+into his life in the world as into some vast labyrinth, wandering on
+aimlessly, flinging from him one by one the threads, the clues, that
+might have led him again to a safe exit, going down deeper and deeper
+until, when near the centre, he had suddenly felt the presence of the
+brute, had heard its loathsome muttering growl, had at last seen it far
+down at the end of a passage, dimly and in a dark shadow; terrified, he
+had started back, looking wildly about for any avenue of escape,
+searching with frantic haste and eagerness for any one of those clues he
+had so carelessly cast from him, realizing that without such guidance he
+would inevitably tend down again to that fatal central place where the
+brute had its lair.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing, nothing. He clearly saw the fate toward which he was
+hurrying; it was not too late to save himself if he only could find
+help, but he could find <i>no</i> help. His terror increased almost to
+hysteria. It was one of those dreadful moments that men sometimes
+undergo that must be met alone, and that when past, remain in the memory
+for all time; a glimpse far down into the springs and wheels of life; a
+glimpse that does not come often lest the reason brought to the edge of
+the fearful gulf should grow dizzy at the sight, and reeling, topple
+headlong.</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly Vandover rose to his feet, the tears came to his eyes, and
+with a long breath he exclaimed: &quot;Thank God for it!&quot; He grew calmer in a
+moment, the crisis had passed, he had found a clue beneath his groping
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163" />He had remembered his art, turning to it instinctively as he always did
+when greatly moved. This was the one good thing that yet survived. It
+was the strongest side of him; it would be the last to go; he felt it
+there yet. It was the one thing that could save him.</p>
+
+<p>The thought had come to him so suddenly and with such marvellous
+clearness that in his present exalted state of mind it filled him with a
+vague sense of awe, it seemed like a manifestation, a writing on the
+wall. Might it not be some sort of miracle? He had heard of men
+reforming their lives, transformed almost in an instant, and had scoffed
+at the idea. But might it not be true, after all? What was this
+wonderful thing that had happened to him? Was this less strange than a
+miracle? Less divine?</p>
+
+<p>The following day Vandover rented a studio. It was the lofty room with
+hardwood floors and the immense north light in that suite which he had
+rejected when looking for rooms on the former occasion. He gave notice
+to the clerk in the apartment house where his quarters were situated
+that he intended to vacate after the first of the month. Charming as he
+had found these rooms, he gave up, with scarcely a regret, the idea of
+living in them any longer. In a month it would be summer and he would be
+on his way to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>But so great was his desire for work now, so eager was he to start the
+&quot;Last Enemy,&quot; so strong was the new energy that shook him, that Vandover
+could not wait until summer to begin work again. He grudged everything
+now that kept him away from his easel.</p>
+
+<p>He disappeared from the sight of his ordinary companions; he did not
+even seek the society of Geary or of young Haight. All the sketches he
+had made for the &quot;Last Enemy,&quot; together with his easel and his disused
+palette, his colour-box, tubes, brushes and all the other materials and
+tools for his work, he caused to be transferred to the new studio.
+Besides this he had the stretcher made, best twill canvas on a frame
+four feet long, two and a half feet high. This was for the large sketch
+of the picture. But the finished work he calculated would demand an
+eight by five stretcher.</p>
+
+<p>He did not think of decorating the room, of putting any ornaments about
+the wall. He was too serious, too much in <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164" />earnest now to think of that.
+The studio was not to be his lounging place, but his workshop. His art
+was work with him now, hard, serious work. It was above all <i>work</i> that
+he needed to set him right again, regular work, steady, earnest work,
+not the dilettante fancy of an amateur content with making pretty
+things.</p>
+
+<p>Never in his life had Vandover been so happy. He came and went
+continually between his rooms, his studio, and his art dealers, tramping
+grandly about the city, whistling to himself, strong, elated, filled
+with energy, vigour, ambition. At times his mind was full of
+thankfulness at this deliverance at the eleventh hour; at times it was
+busy with the details of the picture, its composition, its colour
+scheme. The main effects he wanted to produce were isolation and intense
+heat, the shadows on the sand would be blue, the horizon line high on
+the canvas, the sky would be light in tone, almost white near the earth.</p>
+
+<p>The morning when he first began to work was charming. His new studio was
+in the top floor of a five-story building, and on arriving there,
+breathless from his long climb up the stairs, Vandover threw open the
+window and gazed out and down upon the city spread out below him,
+enjoying the view a moment before settling to his work.</p>
+
+<p>A little later the trades would be blowing strong and brisk from the
+ocean, driving steadily through the Golden Gate, filling the city with a
+taint of salt; but at present the air was calm, touched with a certain
+nimbleness, a sparkling effervescence, invigourating, exhilarating.</p>
+
+<p>It was early in the forenoon, not yet past nine o'clock, and the mist
+that gathers over the city just before dawn was steaming off under the
+sun, very thin and delicate, turning all distant objects a flat tone of
+pale blue. Over the roofs of the houses he could catch a glimpse of the
+distant mountains, faint purple masses against the pale edge of the sky,
+rimming the horizon round with a fillet of delicate colour. But any
+larger view was barred by a huge frame house with a slated mansard roof,
+directly opposite him across the street, a residence house, one of the
+few in the neighbourhood. It had been newly painted white and showed
+brave and gay against the dark blue of the sky and the ruddy greens of
+the great <a name="Page_165" id="Page_165" />garden in which it stood. Vandover from his window could from
+time to time catch the smell of eucalyptus trees coming to him in long
+aromatic breaths mingled with the odour of wet grass and fresh paint.
+Somewhere he heard a hummingbird singing, a tiny tweedling thread of
+song, while farther off two roosters were crowing back and forth at each
+other with strained and raucous trumpet calls.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover turned back to his work. Under the huge north light was the
+easel, and clamped upon it the stretcher, blank, and untouched. The very
+sight of the heavy cream-white twill was an inspiration. Already
+Vandover saw a great picture upon it; a great wave of emotion suddenly
+welled up within him and he cried with enthusiasm:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By God! it is in moods like this that <i>chef d'oeuvres</i> are made.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Around the baseboard of the room were a row of <i>esquisses</i> for the
+picture, on small landscape-stretchers, mere blotches of colour laid on
+with the palette knife and large brushes, almost unintelligible to any
+one but Vandover. He selected two or three of these and fastened them to
+the easel above the big stretcher where he could have them continually
+in his eye. He lit his pipe, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and standing
+before the easel, began to sharpen a stick of charcoal with an old
+razor, drawing the blade toward him so as to keep the point of the stick
+from breaking. Then at last with a deep breath of satisfaction he began
+blocking in the first large construction lines of his picture.</p>
+
+<p>It was one o'clock before he knew it. He went downtown and had a hasty
+lunch, jealous of every moment that was not spent on his picture. The
+sight of it as he re-entered the room sent a thrill all over him; he was
+succeeding better than he could have expected, doing better than he
+thought he would. He felt sure that now he should do good work; every
+stage of the picture's progress was an inspiration for the next one. At
+this time the figures had only been &quot;placed,&quot; broadly sketched in large
+lines, &quot;blocked in&quot; as he called it. The next step was the second
+drawing, much more finished.</p>
+
+<p>He rapped the stretcher sharply with his knuckles; it responded
+sonorously like a drumhead, the vibration shaking the charcoal from the
+tracings, filling the air with a fine dust.<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166" /> The outlines grew faint,
+just perceptible enough to guide him in the second more detailed
+drawing.</p>
+
+<p>He brought his stick of charcoal to a very fine edge and set to work
+carefully. In a moment he stopped and, with his chamois cloth, dusted
+out what he had drawn. He had made a false start, he began but could not
+recall how the lines should run, his fingers were willing enough; in his
+imagination he saw just how the outlines should be, but somehow he could
+not make his hand interpret what was in his head. Some third medium
+through which the one used to act upon the other was sluggish, dull;
+worse than that, it seemed to be absent. <i>&quot;Well,&quot;</i> he muttered, &quot;can't I
+make this come out right?&quot; Then he tried more carefully. His imagination
+saw the picture clearer, his hand moved with more assurance, but the two
+seemed to act independently of each other. The forms he made on the
+canvas were no adequate reflection of those in his brain; some third
+delicate and subtle faculty that coordinated the other two and that
+called forth a sure and instant response to the dictates of his mind,
+was lacking. The lines on his canvas were those of a child just learning
+to draw; one saw for what they were intended, but they were crude, they
+had no life, no meaning. The very thing that would have made them
+intelligible, interpretive, that would have made them art, was absent. A
+third, a fourth, and a fifth time Vandover made the attempt. It was
+useless. He knew that it was not because his hand lacked cunning on
+account of long disuse; such a thing, in spite of popular belief, never
+happened to artists&mdash;a good artist might abandon his work for five
+years, ten years&mdash;and take it up again precisely where he had laid it
+down with no loss of technical skill. No, this thing seemed more subtle,
+so subtle that at first he could hardly grasp it. But suddenly a great
+fear came upon him, a momentary return of that wild hysterical terror
+from which he believed he had forever escaped.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it gone?&quot; he cried out. &quot;Is it gone from me? My art? Steady,&quot; he
+went on, passing his hand over his face with a reassuring smile;
+&quot;steady, old man, this won't do, again&mdash;and so soon! It won't do for you
+to get scared twice like that. This is just nervousness, you are
+overexcited. Pshaw! What's the matter with me? Let's get to work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167" />Still another time he dusted out what he had done and recommenced,
+concentrating all his attention with a tremendous effort of the will.
+Grotesque and meaningless shapes, the mocking caricatures of those he
+saw in his fancy, grew under his charcoal, while slowly, slowly, a
+queer, numb feeling came in his head, like a rising fog, and the touch
+of that unreasoning terror returned, this time stronger, more
+persistent, more tenacious than before.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover nerved himself against it, not daring to give in, fearing to
+allow himself to see what this really meant. He passed one hand over his
+cheek and along the side of his head, the fingers dancing. &quot;Hum!&quot; he
+muttered, looking vaguely about him, &quot;this is bad. I mustn't let this
+get the better of me now. I'll knock off for to-day, take a little rest,
+begin again to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In ten minutes he was back at his easel again. His charcoal wandered,
+tracing empty lines on his canvas, the strange numbness grew again in
+his head. All the objects in the range of his eyes seemed to move back
+and stand on the same plane. He became a little dizzy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's the <i>tobacco</i>,&quot; he exclaimed. &quot;That pipe always was too strong.&quot;
+He turned away to the open window, feeling an irresistible need of
+distraction, of amusement, and he remained there resting on his elbows,
+listening and looking, trying to be interested.</p>
+
+<p>It was toward the middle of the afternoon. The morning mist was long
+since evaporated and the first faint puffs of the inevitable trade wind
+were just stirring the leaves of the eucalyptus across the street. In
+the music-room of the white house the young lady of the family had
+opened the piano and was practising finger-exercises. The scales and
+arpeggios following one another without interruption, came to his ears
+in a pleasant monotone. A Chinese &quot;boy&quot; in a stiff blouse of white
+linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a
+bucket of water and the garden hose. Grocery and delivery wagons came
+and went, rattling over the cobbles and car-tracks, while occasionally a
+whistle blew very far off. At the corner of the street by a
+livery-stable a little boy in a flat-topped leather cap was calling
+incessantly for some unseen dog, whistling and slapping his knees. An ex
+<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168" />press-wagon stopped a few doors below the white house and the driver
+pulled down the back-board with a strident rattle of chains; the cable
+in its slot kept up an unceasing burr and clack while the cars
+themselves trundled up and down the street, starting and stopping with a
+jangling of bells, the jostled glass windows whirring in a prolonged
+vibrant note. All these sounds played lightly over the steady muffled
+roar that seemed to come from all quarters at once; it was that deep
+murmur, that great minor diapason that always disengages itself from
+vast bodies, from mountains, from oceans, from forests, from sleeping
+armies.</p>
+
+<p>The desire for movement, for diversion, for anything that would keep him
+from thinking was not to be resisted. Vandover caught up his hat and
+fled from the room, not daring to look again at the easel. Once outside,
+he began to walk, anywhere, straight before him, going on with great
+strides, his head in the air.</p>
+
+<p>He found Charlie Geary and took him to supper. Vandover talked
+continually on all sorts of subjects, speaking very rapidly. In the
+evening he insisted on Geary going to the theatre with him. He paid the
+closest attention to the play, letting it occupy his mind entirely. When
+the play was over and the two were about to say good night, Vandover
+began to urge Geary to sleep up at his rooms that night. He overrode his
+objections, interrupting him, taking hold of his arm, and starting off.
+But Geary, a little surprised at his manner, refused. There were certain
+law papers he had taken home with him from the office that afternoon and
+that it was necessary he should return in the morning. Ah, you bet, he
+would get it right in the neck if old Beale didn't have those
+depositions the first thing when the office was open. Ah, he was getting
+to be indispensable down there. He had had Fischer's place now for a
+year. Fischer had never come back, and he had the promise of being taken
+on as head clerk as soon as Beale Jr. went into the partnership with old
+Beale. &quot;I'll make my way in this town yet,&quot; he declared. &quot;I'll be in
+that partnership myself some day. You see; yes, sir; ah, you bet!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The idea of passing the night alone terrified Vandover. He started
+toward home, walking up Sutter Street, proceeding slowly, his hands in
+his pockets. All at once he stopped, <a name="Page_169" id="Page_169" />without knowing why; he roused
+himself and looked about him. There was a smell of eucalyptus in the
+air. Across the street was the huge white house, and he found that he
+had stopped just before the door of the building on the top floor of
+which his studio was situated. All day Vandover's mind had been in the
+greatest agitation, his ideas leaping and darting hither and thither
+like terrified birds in a cage. Just now he underwent a sudden reaction.
+It had all been a matter of fancy, nothing but nervousness; he had not
+drawn for some time, his hand lacked cunning from long disuse. The
+desire for work came upon him again overpoweringly. He wanted to see
+again if he could not draw just as truly and freely as in the old days.
+No, he could not wait till morning; he must put himself to the test
+again at once, at the very instant. It was a sudden feminine caprice,
+induced, no doubt, by the exalted, strained, and unnatural condition of
+his nerves, a caprice that could not be reasoned with, that could not be
+withstood. He had his keys with him, he opened the outside door and
+groped his way up the four long flights of stairs to his studio.</p>
+
+<p>The studio was full of a sombre half-light, like a fog, spreading
+downward from the great north light in the sloping roof. The window was
+still wide open, the stretcher showed a pale gray blur. Vandover was
+about to light the gas when he checked himself, his arm still raised
+above his head. Ah, no; he did not dare to look at the result of his
+day's work. It would be better to start in afresh from the beginning. He
+found the chamois skin on the tray of the easel and rubbed out all the
+drawing on the canvas. Then he lit the gas.</p>
+
+<p>As he turned to his work once more a little thrill of joy and of relief
+passed over him. This time his hand was sure, steady, his head was
+clear. It had been nervousness after all. As he picked up his charcoal
+he even exclaimed to himself, &quot;Just the same, that <i>was</i> a curious
+experience this afternoon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the curious experience repeated itself again that night as soon as
+he tried to work. Once more certain shapes and figures were born upon
+his canvas, but they were no longer the true children of his
+imagination, they were no longer his own; they were changelings,
+grotesque abortions. It was as if <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170" />the brute in him, like some malicious
+witch, had stolen away the true offspring of his mind, putting in their
+place these deformed dwarfs, its own hideous spawn.</p>
+
+<p>Through the numbness and giddiness that gradually came into his head
+like a poisonous murk he saw one thing clearly: It was gone&mdash;his art was
+gone, the one thing that could save him. That, too, like all the other
+good things of his life, he had destroyed. At some time during those
+years of debauchery it had died, that subtle, elusive something,
+delicate as a flower; he had ruined it. Little by little it had exhaled
+away, wilting in the air of unrestrained debauches, perishing in the
+warm musk-laden atmosphere of disreputable houses, defiled by the breath
+of abandoned women, trampled into the spilt wine-lees of the Imperial,
+dragged all fouled and polluted through the lowest mire of the great
+city's vice.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Vandover felt as though he was losing his hold upon his
+reason; the return of the hysteria shook him like a dry, light leaf. He
+suddenly had a sensation that the room was too small to hold him; he
+ran, almost reeled, to the open window, drawing his breath deep and
+fast, inhaling the cool night air, rolling his eyes wildly.</p>
+
+<p>It was night. He looked out into a vast blue-gray space sown with points
+of light, winking lamps, and steady slow-burning stars. Below him was
+the sleeping city. All the lesser staccato noises of the day had long
+since died to silence; there only remained that prolonged and sullen
+diapason, coming from all quarters at once. It was like the breathing of
+some infinitely great monster, alive and palpitating, the sistole and
+diastole of some gigantic heart. The whole existence of the great
+slumbering city passed upward there before him through the still night
+air in one long wave of sound.</p>
+
+<p>It was Life, the murmur of the great, mysterious force that spun the
+wheels of Nature and that sent it onward like some enormous engine,
+resistless, relentless; an engine that sped straight forward, driving
+before it the infinite herd of humanity, driving it on at breathless
+speed through all eternity, driving it no one knew whither, crushing out
+inexorably all those who lagged behind the herd and who fell from
+exhaustion, grinding them to dust beneath its myriad iron wheels, riding
+over them, still driving on the herd that yet remained, driving <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171" />it
+recklessly, blindly on and on toward some far-distant goal, some vague
+unknown end, some mysterious, fearful bourne forever hidden in thick
+darkness.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Fifteen" id="Chapter_Fifteen" /><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172" /><i>Chapter Fifteen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>About a week later Hiram Wade, Ida's father, brought suit against
+Vandover to recover twenty-five thousand dollars, claiming that his
+daughter had killed herself because she had been ruined by him and that
+he alone was responsible for her suicide.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover had passed this week in an agony of grief over the loss of his
+art, a grief that seemed even sharper than that which he had felt over
+the death of his father. For this last calamity was like the death of a
+child of his, some dear, sweet child, that might have been his companion
+throughout all his life. At times it seemed to him impossible that his
+art should fail him in this manner, and again and again he would put
+himself at his easel, only to experience afresh the return of the
+numbness in his brain, the impotency of his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>He had begun little by little to pick up the course of his life once
+more, and on a certain Wednesday morning was looking listlessly through
+the morning paper as he sat in his window-seat. The room was delightful,
+flooded with the morning sun, the Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i> just touched
+with a ruddy light, the Renaissance portraits looking down at him
+through a fine golden haze; a little fire, just enough to blunt the
+keenness of the early morning air, snapping in the famous tiled and
+flamboyant stove. All about the room was a pleasant fragrance of coffee
+and good tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover caught sight of the announcement of the suit with a sudden
+sharp intake of breath that was half gasp, half cry, starting up from
+the window-seat, reading it over again and again with staring eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was a very short paragraph, not more than a dozen lines, lost at the
+bottom of a column, among the cheap advertisements. It made no allusion
+to any former stage of the affair; from its tone Ida might have killed
+herself only the day before. It seemed hardly more than a notice that
+some enterprising reporter, burrowing in the records at the City Hall,
+had unearthed and brought to light with the idea that it might be of
+possible interest to a few readers of the paper. But there was his name
+staring back at him from out the gray <a name="Page_173" id="Page_173" />blur of the type, like some
+reflection of himself seen in a mirror. Insignificant as the paragraph
+was, it seemed to Vandover as though it was the only item in the whole
+paper. One might as well have trumpeted his crime through the streets.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But twenty-five thousand dollars!&quot; exclaimed Vandover, terrified.
+&quot;Where will <i>I</i> find twenty-five thousand dollars?&quot; And at once he fell
+to wondering as to whether or no in default of payment he could be sent
+to the penitentiary. The idea of winning the suit did not enter his mind
+an instant; he did not even dream of fighting it.</p>
+
+<p>For the moment it was like fire driving out fire. He forgot the loss of
+his art, his mind filled only with the sense of the last disaster. What
+could he do? Twenty-five thousand dollars! It would ruin him. A cry of
+exasperation, of rage at his own folly, escaped him. &quot;Ah, what a fool
+I've been!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For an hour he raged to and fro in the delightful sunlit room, pacing
+back and forth in its longest dimension between the bamboo tea-table and
+the low bookcase, a thousand different plans and projects coming and
+going in his head. As his wits steadied themselves he began to see that
+he must consult at once with some lawyer&mdash;Field, of course&mdash;perhaps
+something could be done; a clever lawyer might make out a case for him
+after all. But all at once he became convinced that Field would not
+undertake his defence; he knew he had no case; so what could Field do
+for him? He would have to tell him the truth, and he saw with absolute
+clearness that the lawyer would refuse to try to defend him. The thing
+could not honourably be done. But, then, what <i>should</i> he do? He must
+have legal advice from some quarter.</p>
+
+<p>He was still in this state of perplexity when Charlie Geary arrived,
+pounding on the door and opening it immediately afterward as was his
+custom.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello!&quot; said Vandover, surprised. &quot;Hello, Charlie! is that you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say,&quot; exclaimed Geary without returning his greeting, holding up his
+hand as if to interrupt him; &quot;say, have you seen your lawyer yet&mdash;seen
+<i>any</i> lawyer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; answered Vandover, shaking his head gravely; &quot;no, I've only this
+minute read about it in the paper.&quot; He was glad that Geary had come; at
+once he felt a desire to throw this <a name="Page_174" id="Page_174" />burden upon his chum's shoulders,
+to let him assume the management of the affair, just as in the old
+college days he had willingly, weakly, submitted to the dictatorship of
+the shrewder, stronger man who smoothed out his difficulties for him,
+and extricated him from all his scrapes. He knew Geary to be full of
+energy and resource, and he had confidence in his ability as a lawyer,
+even though he was so young in years and experience. Besides this, he
+was his friend, his college chum; for all Geary's disagreeable qualities
+he knew he would do the right thing by him now.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're the one man of all others I wanted to see,&quot; he exclaimed as he
+gripped his hand. &quot;By George! I'm glad you have come. Here, sit down and
+let's talk this over.&quot; Geary took the big leather chair behind the desk,
+and Vandover flung himself again upon the window-seat. It was as if the
+two were back in the room in Matthew's; hundreds of times in those days
+they had occupied precisely these positions, Geary bending over at the
+study table, intent, nervous, very keen, Vandover lounging idly upon the
+window-seat, resting easily on his elbow listening to the other man's
+advice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, what must I do, Charlie?&quot; Vandover began. &quot;See my lawyer, I
+suppose? But do you think a lawyer like Field would take my case? You
+know I haven't a leg to stand on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you haven't seen him?&quot; inquired Geary sharply. &quot;Haven't seen
+anybody about it?&quot; Vandover shook his head. &quot;Sure?&quot; insisted Geary
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, I have only just heard about it twenty minutes ago,&quot; protested
+Vandover. &quot;Why are you so particular about that?&quot; he added. Then Geary
+exploded his mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because,&quot; he said, with a smile of triumph that he could not restrain,
+&quot;because we are the counsel for the other side. I am on the case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover bounded from the window-seat speechless with astonishment,
+bitterly disappointed. &quot;<i>You?</i> he shouted. Geary slowly nodded his head,
+enjoying Vandover's bewilderment. Vandover dropped back upon the
+cushions again, staring at him wildly with growing suspicion and anger.
+He would not have thought it possible that Geary could so sacrifice
+their old friendship to his own personal interest. The two continued
+staring at each other across the table for a <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175" />moment. In the silence
+they heard the long rumble of a cable-car passing the house, and the
+persistent jangling of its bell as it approached the street crossing. A
+grocery wagon went up the side street, the horses' hoofs making a
+cadenced clapping sound upon the asphalt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; exclaimed Vandover scornfully, &quot;I suppose that's business, but I
+would call it damned unkind!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, look here, old man,&quot; returned Geary consolingly. &quot;Don't you take
+the monkey-wrench off the safety valve like that. What am I here for if
+it isn't to help you? Maybe you don't know that this is a mighty
+unprofessional thing to do. Ah, you bet, if old Beale knew this I would
+get it right in the neck. Don't you suppose I can help you more as
+Wade's lawyer than I could as yours? And now that's the very first thing
+I've got to tell you&mdash;to keep this dark, that I have seen you. I can't
+do anything for you if you don't promise that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's all right,&quot; returned Vandover, reassured. &quot;That's all right,
+you can&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's not considered the right thing to do,&quot; Geary continued, not
+heeding Vandover's answer, &quot;but I just do it because&quot;&mdash;he began to make
+awkward gestures with both his hands&mdash;&quot;because we're old friends, like
+that. That was the very first thing I thought of when Beale Jr. told me
+that we two had the case&mdash;that I could get you out of this hole better
+as Wade's lawyer than as your own. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to
+see that the first thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm sure it was awfully good of you, old man,&quot; said Vandover sincerely.
+&quot;I'm in a lot of trouble nowadays!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now don't you bother, Van,&quot; answered Geary consolingly. &quot;I guess
+we can pull you out of this all right.&quot; He drew up to the table, looking
+about from side to side. &quot;Got any writing paper concealed about the
+premises?&quot; he asked. Vandover pushed him over his writing pad, and
+Geary, taking the cap from his fountain pen, began asking a series of
+questions, taking down his answers in shorthand. After he had asked him
+as to his age, length of residence in the city, his property, and some
+few other technical matters, he leaned back in his chair and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, let's hear your side of the story, Van. I don't suppose you like
+to go over the thing again, but you see I ought <a name="Page_176" id="Page_176" />to know.&quot; Vandover told
+of the affair, Geary making notes as he went along. It was nearly noon
+before their interview was at an end. Then Geary gathered up the papers
+and reached for his hat and stick, saying:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, that's all we can do to-day. I think I'll be up to see you
+again day after to-morrow, in the afternoon. Beale Jr. and I have a date
+with Mr. Wade again to-morrow, I think, and I can talk to you more
+definitely after that. You know this is the devil of a thing to do,&quot; he
+suddenly exclaimed apprehensively, &quot;this playing back and forth between
+the two parties like this; regularly dishonourable, don't you know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you think it's dishonourable,&quot; said Vandover as he accompanied Geary
+to the door, &quot;if you think it's dishonourable, Charlie, why, don't do
+it! I don't want to ask you to do anything dishonourable for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's all right,&quot; replied Geary uneasily; &quot;I had just as soon do
+it for you, only listen to this: don't you say a word about the case to
+anybody, not to your lawyer, nor to anybody. If Field should write to
+you, you tell him you have counsel already. And, look here! you may have
+the reporters up here pretty soon, and don't you open your face to them;
+you mind that; don't you let them get a thing out of you. And there's
+another thing you must understand: I'm not your lawyer, of course; you
+see that. I could be disbarred if I was lawyer for both sides. It's like
+this, you see: I'm Wade's lawyer&mdash;at least the firm I am with are his
+lawyers&mdash;and of course I'm acting in Wade's interest. But you're an old
+chum of mine, and if I can I'm going to try and make it easier for you.
+You understand, don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I understand, Charlie,&quot; answered Vandover, &quot;and you are just a
+brick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover passed the rest of the day in his sitting-room, the suspense of
+the situation slowly screwing his nerves tenser and tenser. He walked
+for hours back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back, his head
+bent down, his forehead drawn into a frown of anxiety and exasperation,
+or he stood for a long time at the window looking out into the street
+with eyes that saw nothing. At supper that night he found that his
+appetite had left him; the very thought of food revolted him.<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177" /> He
+returned to his room between seven and eight o'clock, his body and mind
+completely fagged, feeling a crying need of some diversion, some escape
+from the thoughts that had been hounding him all day.</p>
+
+<p>He made up his mind to read a little before going to bed, and all at
+once remembered a book that he had once begun a long time ago but had
+never finished: the story of two men who had bought a wrecked opium ship
+for fifty thousand dollars and had afterward discovered that she
+contained only a few tins of the drug. He had never read on to find how
+that story turned out. Suddenly he found himself repeating, &quot;Twenty-five
+thousand dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars&mdash;where will <i>I</i> find
+twenty-five thousand dollars?&quot; He wondered if he would go to jail if he
+failed to pay. His interest in the book was gone in a moment, and he
+took up another of his favourite novels, the story of a boy at the time
+of Christ, a Jewish boy unjustly condemned to the galleys, liberated
+afterward, and devoting his life to the overthrow of his enemy, whom at
+last he overcame and humbled, fouling him in a chariot race, all but
+killing him.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down in the huge leather chair, and, drawing it up to the piano
+lamp and cocking his feet upon the table, began to read. In a few
+moments the same numbness stole into his head like a rising fog, a
+queer, tense feeling, growing at the back of his forehead and at the
+base of his skull, a dulness, a strange stupefying sensation as of some
+torpid, murky atmosphere. He looked about him quickly; all the objects
+in the range of his vision&mdash;the corner of the desk, the corduroy couch,
+the low bookcase with Flossie's yellow slipper and Barye's lioness upon
+it&mdash;seemed to move back and stand upon the same plane; the objects
+themselves appeared immovable enough, but the sensation of them in his
+brain somewhere behind his eyes began to move about in a slow, dizzy
+whirl. The old touch of unreasoning terror came back, together with a
+sudden terror of the spirit, a sickening sinking of the heart, a
+loathing of life, terrible beyond words.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover started up, striving to keep himself in hand, fighting against
+a wild desire to rush about from wall to wall, shrieking and waving his
+arms. Over and over again he exclaimed, &quot;Oh, <i>what</i> is the matter with
+me?&quot; The strangeness <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178" />of the thing was what unsettled and unnerved him.
+He had all the sensations of terror, but without any assignable reason,
+and this groundless fear became in the end the cause of a new fear: he
+was afraid of this fear that was afraid of nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Very gradually, however, the crisis passed away. He became a little
+calmer, and as he was mixing himself a glass of whisky and water at the
+sideboard he decided that he would go to bed. He was sure that he would
+be better for a good night's rest; evidently his nerves were out of
+order; it would not do for him to read late at night. He realized all at
+once that his mind and body alike were exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>He passed a miserable night, dozing and waking at alternate hours until
+three o'clock, when he found it impossible to get to sleep; hour after
+hour he lay flat on his back staring open-eyed into the darkness,
+listening to the ticking of the clock, the mysterious footsteps that
+creaked the floors overhead, and the persistent drip of a water faucet.
+Outside in the street he heard at long intervals the rattling of wheels
+as the early milk wagons came and went; a dog began to bark, three gruff
+notes repeated monotonously at exact intervals; all at once there was a
+long muffled roll and an abrupt clacking noise; it ceased, then broke
+out again sharply, paused once more, then recommenced, settling to a
+prolonged minor hum; the cable was starting up; it was almost morning,
+the window of his room began to show a brighter blur in the darkness,
+while very far off he could hear the steady puffing of a locomotive. As
+the first cable-car trundled by the house he dropped off to sleep for
+the last time, being waked again toward nine o'clock by the sound of
+some one shovelling coal outside under his window, the shovel clinking
+and rasping upon the stone sidewalk.</p>
+
+<p>He felt a little refreshed, but as he entered the dining-room for his
+late breakfast the smell of food repulsed him; his appetite was gone; it
+was impossible for him to eat. Toward eleven o'clock that same morning
+he was pottering idly about his sitting-room, winding his clock and
+shaking down the ashes in the tiled flamboyant stove; his mind was still
+busy going over for the hundredth time all the possibilities of Hiram
+Wade's suit, and he was just wondering whether something in the way of a
+compromise might not be arranged, <a name="Page_179" id="Page_179" />when with the suddenness of a blow
+between the eyes the numbness in his head returned, together with the
+same unreasoning fear, the same depression of spirits, the same fearful
+sinking of the heart. What! it was coming back again, this strange
+attack, coming back even when his attention was not concentrated, even
+when there was no unusual exertion of his brain!</p>
+
+<p>Then the torment began. This time the crisis did not pass off; from now
+on it persisted continually. Vandover began to feel strange. At first
+the room looked unfamiliar to him, then his own daily life no longer
+seemed recognizable, and, finally, all of a sudden, it was the whole
+world, all the existing order of things, that appeared to draw off like
+a refluent tide, leaving him alone, abandoned, cast upon some fearful,
+mysterious shore.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing seemed worth while; all the thousand little trivial things that
+made up the course of his life and in which he found diversion and
+amusement palled upon him. A fearful melancholia settled over him, a
+despair, an abhorrence of living that could not be uttered. This only
+was during the day. It was that night that Vandover went down into the
+pit.</p>
+
+<p>He went to bed early, his brain in a whirl, his frame worn out as if
+from long physical exertion. He was just dropping into a grateful sleep
+when his whole body twitched suddenly with a shock and a recoil of all
+his nerves; in an instant he was broad awake, panting and exhausted as
+if from a long run. Once more he settled himself upon the pillow, and
+once more the same leap, the same sharp spasm of his nerves caught him
+back to consciousness with the suddenness of a relaxed spring. At last
+sleep was out of the question; his drowsiness of the early part of the
+evening passed away, and he lay back, his hands clasped behind his head,
+staring up into the darkness, his thoughts galloping incessantly through
+his brain, suffering without pain as he had never imagined a human being
+could suffer though racked with torture from head to heel.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time a slow torsion and crisping of all his nerves,
+beginning at his ankles, spread to every corner of his body till he had
+to shut his fists and teeth against the blind impulse to leap from his
+bed screaming. His hands felt light <a name="Page_180" id="Page_180" />and, as he told himself, &quot;jumpy.&quot;
+All at once he felt a peculiar sensation in them: they seemed to swell,
+the fingers puffing to an enormous size, the palms bulging, the whole
+member from the wrist to the nails distended like a glove when one has
+blown into it to straighten it out. Then he had a feeling that his head
+was swelling in the same way. He had to rub his hands together, to pass
+them again and again over his face to rid himself of the fancy.</p>
+
+<p>But the strange numb feeling at the base of the skull did not keep him
+from thinking&mdash;he would have been glad if it had&mdash;and now at last when
+the terror overcame him it was no longer causeless; he knew now what he
+feared&mdash;he feared that he was going mad.</p>
+
+<p>It was the punishment that he had brought upon himself, some fearful
+nervous disease, the result of his long indulgence of vice, his vile
+submission to the brute that was to destroy his reason; some collapse of
+all his faculties, beginning first with that which was highest, most
+sensitive&mdash;his art&mdash;spreading onward and downward till he should have
+reached the last stages of idiocy. It was Nature inexorably exacting. It
+was the vast fearful engine riding him down beneath its myriad spinning
+wheels, remorselessly, irresistibly.</p>
+
+<p>The dreadful calamities that he had brought upon himself recoiled upon
+his head, crushing him to the dust with their weight of anguish and
+remorse: Ida Wade's suicide, his father's death, his social banishment,
+the loss of his art, Hiram Wade's lawsuit menacing him with beggary, and
+now this last, this approaching insanity. It was no longer fire driving
+out fire; the sense of all these disasters seemed to come back upon him
+at once, as keen, as bitter as when they had first befallen. He had told
+himself that he did not believe in a hell. Could there be a worse hell
+than this?</p>
+
+<p>But all at once, without knowing why, moved by an impulse, a blind,
+resistless instinct, Vandover started up in bed, raising his clasped
+hands above him, crying out, &quot;Oh, help me! Why don't you <i>help</i> me? You
+can if you only will!&quot; Who was it to whom he had cried with such
+unerring intuition? He gave no name to this mysterious &quot;You,&quot; this
+strange supernatural being, this mighty superhuman power. It was the cry
+of a soul in torment that does not stop to reason, the wild <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181" />last hope
+that feels its own helplessness, that responds to an intuition of a
+force outside of itself&mdash;the force that can save it in its time of
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>Trembling, his hands still clasped above him, Vandover waited for an
+answer, waited for the miracle. In the tortured exalted state of his
+nerves he seemed suddenly possessed of a sixth sense; he fancied that he
+would know, there in that room, in a few seconds, while yet his hands
+remained clasped above his head. It was his last hope: if this failed
+him there was nothing left. Still he waited; he felt that he should know
+when the miracle came, that he would suddenly be filled with a sense of
+peace, of quiet joy. Still he waited&mdash;there was nothing, nothing but the
+vast silence, the unbroken blackness of the night, a night that was to
+last forever. There was no answer, nothing but the deaf silence, the
+blind darkness. But in a moment he felt that the very silence, the very
+lack of answer, was answer in itself; there was nothing for him. Even
+that vast mysterious power to which he had cried could not help him now,
+<i>could</i> not help him, could not stay the inexorable law of nature, could
+not reverse that vast terrible engine with its myriad spinning wheels
+that was riding him down relentlessly, grinding him into the dust. And
+afterward? After the engine had done its work, when that strange other
+time should come, that other life, what then? No, not even then, nothing
+but outer darkness then and the gnashing of teeth, nothing but the deaf
+silence, nothing but the blind darkness, nothing but the unbroken
+blackness of an eternal night.</p>
+
+<p>It was the end of everything! With a muffled cry, &quot;Oh, I can't stand
+this!&quot; Vandover threw himself from his bed, groping his way out into the
+sitting-room. By this time he was only conscious of a suffering too
+great to be borne, everything else was blurred as in a thick mist. For
+nearly an hour he stumbled about in the darkened room, bruising himself
+against the furniture, dazed, numb, trying in vain to find the drawer of
+the desk where he kept his father's revolver. At last his hand closed
+upon it, gripping it so tightly that the hundreds of little nicks and
+scratches made by the contact of the tacks and nails which he had
+hammered with it nipped and bit into his palm like the teeth of tiny
+mice. A vague <a name="Page_182" id="Page_182" />feeling of shame overcame him at the last moment: he had
+no wish to be found sprawling upon the floor, dressed only in his
+night-gown. He lit the gas and put on his bathrobe, drawing the cords
+securely about his waist and neck.</p>
+
+<p>When he turned about to pick up the revolver again he found that his
+determination had weakened considerably, and he was obliged to reflect
+again upon the wreck of his life and soul before he was back once more
+to the proper pitch of resolution. It was five minutes to two, and he
+made up his mind to kill himself when the clock struck the hour. He
+spent the intervening moments in arranging the details of the matter. At
+first he thought he would do it standing, but he abandoned that idea,
+fearing to strike his head against the furniture as he fell. He was
+about to decide upon the huge leather chair, when the remembrance of his
+father's death made that impossible. He finally concluded to sit upon
+the edge of his bed, leaning a little backward so as not to fall upon
+the floor, and he dragged the bed out into the sitting-room, preferring
+somehow to die there. For a moment the idea of lying at length upon the
+bed occurred to him, but in an instant he recoiled from it, horrified at
+the thought of the death that struck from above; no, it would be best to
+sit upon the edge of the bed, falling backward with the shot. Then he
+wondered as to which it should be, his heart or his head; evidently the
+head was the better; there upon the right side in the little hollow of
+the temple, and the next moment he found himself curiously touching and
+pressing the spot with his fingers. All at once he heard the little
+clicking noise that the clock makes a minute or so before the hour. It
+was almost two; he sat down upon the edge of the bed, cocking the
+revolver, waiting for the clock to strike. An idea came to him, and he
+looked at the calendar that stood at the right of the clock upon the top
+of the low bookcase. It was the twelfth of April, Thursday; that, then,
+was to be the date of his death&mdash;Thursday, April twelfth, at two in the
+morning, so it would read upon his gravestone. For an instant the
+awfulness of the thing he was to do came upon him, and the next instant
+he found himself wondering if they still coursed jack-rabbits with
+greyhounds down at Coronado the way they used to do when he was there.
+All at once the clock struck two, and at <a name="Page_183" id="Page_183" />the very last instant a
+strange impulse to seat himself before the mirror came upon him. He drew
+up a chair before it, watching his reflection intently, but even as he
+raised the revolver he suddenly changed his purpose without knowing why,
+and all at once crammed the muzzle into his mouth. He drew the trigger.</p>
+
+<p>He heard no sound of a report; he felt no shock, but a great feebleness
+ran throughout his limbs, a relaxing and weakening of all his muscles;
+his eyes were open and he saw everything small and seemingly very far
+off as through the reversed end of an opera-glass. Suddenly he fainted.</p>
+
+<p>When Vandover came to himself again it was early morning. The room was
+full of daylight, but the gas was still burning. Little by little the
+fearful things of the night came back to him; he realized that he had
+shot himself, and he waited for the end, not daring to move, his eyes
+closed, his hand still gripping the scratched butt of the revolver in
+his lap. For a long time he lay back in the chair, motionless, his
+consciousness slowly returning like an incoming tide. At length he
+started to his feet with an expression of scorn and incredulity; he was
+as sound as ever, there was neither scratch nor scar upon him; he had
+not shot himself after all.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously, he looked at the revolver, throwing open the breech&mdash;the
+cylinder was empty; he had forgotten to load it. &quot;What a fool!&quot; he
+exclaimed, laughing scornfully, and still laughing he walked to the
+centre of the room under the chandelier and turned out the gas.</p>
+
+<p>But when he turned about, facing the day once more, facing that day and
+the next and the next throughout all the course of his life, the sense
+of his misery returned upon him in its full strength and he raised his
+clenched fist to his eyes, shutting out the light. Ah, no, he could not
+endure it&mdash;the horror of life overpassed the horror of death; he could
+not go on living. A new thought had come to him. Wretched as he was, he
+saw that in time his anguish of conscience, even his dread of losing his
+reason, would pass from him; he would become used to them; yes, even
+become used to the dread of insanity, and then he would return once more
+to vice, return once more into the power of the brute, the perverse and
+evil monster that was knitted to him now irrevocably, part for <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184" />part,
+fibre for fibre. He saw clearly that nothing could save him, he had had
+his answer that night, there was to be no miracle. Was it not right,
+then, that he should destroy himself? Was it not even his duty? The
+better part of him seemed to demand the act; should he not comply while
+there yet was any better part left? In a little while the brute was to
+take all.</p>
+
+<p>On the shelves above his washstand Vandover found the cartridges in a
+green pasteboard box, and loaded all the chambers of the revolver,
+carefully. He closed the breech; but as he was about to draw back the
+hammer all his courage, all his resolution, crumbled in an instant like
+a tower of sand. He did not dare to shoot himself&mdash;he was afraid. The
+night before he had been brave enough; how was it now that he could not
+call up the same courage, the same determination? When he thought over
+the wreck, the wretched failure of his life, the dreadful prospect of
+the future years, his anguish and his terror were as keen as ever. But
+now there was a shrinking of his every nerve from the thought of
+suicide, the instinctive animal fear of death, stronger than himself.
+His suffering had to go on, had to run its course, even death would not
+help him. Let it go on, it was only the better part of him that was
+suffering; in a little while this better part would be dead, leaving
+only the brute. It would die a natural death without any intervention
+from him. Was there any need of suicide? Suicide! Great God! his whole
+life had been one long suicide.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>That same morning Charlie Geary had eaten a very thick underdone steak
+for breakfast after enjoying a fine long sleep of eight hours. Toward
+eight o'clock he went downtown. He did not take a car; he preferred to
+walk; it helped his digestion and it gave him exercise. At night he
+walked home as well; that gave him an appetite; besides, with the ten
+cents that he saved in this way, he bought himself a nice cigar that he
+smoked in the evening to help digest his supper. He was very careful of
+his health. Ah, you bet, one had to look out for one's health.</p>
+
+<p>At the office that morning he had a long talk with Beale, Jr., as to
+Hiram Wade's suit. The great firm of Beale &amp; Storey, into whose office
+Geary had been received, made a <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185" />specialty of damage suits, and
+especially those suits that were brought against a certain great
+monopoly which it was claimed was ruining the city and the state; such a
+case involving nearly a quarter of a million of dollars was now
+occupying the attention of the heads of the firm and, indeed, of the
+whole office. Hiram Wade's suit was assigned to the assistants. Beale,
+Jr., was one of these, and Charlie Geary had managed to push himself
+into the position of his confidential clerk. But Beale, Jr., himself
+took little interest in the Wade suit; the suit against the great
+monopoly was coming to a head; it was a battle of giants; the whole
+office found itself embroiled, and little by little Beale, Jr., allowed
+himself to be drawn into the struggle. The management of the Wade case
+was given over to Geary's hands.</p>
+
+<p>When he had first heard of his assignment to the case Geary had been
+unwilling to act against his old chum, but it was the first legal affair
+of any great importance with which he had been connected, and he was
+soon devoured with an inordinate ambition to distinguish himself in the
+eyes of the firm, to get a &quot;lift,&quot; to take a long step forward toward
+the end of his desires, which was to become one of the firm itself. He
+knew he could make a brilliant success of the case. Geary was at this
+time nearly twenty-eight, keen, energetic, immensely clever; and the
+case against Vandover was strong. No one knew better than he himself how
+intimate Vandover had been with Ida Wade; Vandover had told him much of
+the details of their acquaintance. Besides this, a letter which Ida had
+written to Vandover the day before her suicide had been found, torn in
+three pieces, thrust between the leaves of one of the books that she
+used to study at the normal school. It directly implicated Vandover&mdash;it
+was evidence that could not be gainsaid. Geary had resolved to push the
+case against his old chum. Vandover ought to see that with Geary it was
+a matter of business; he, Geary, was only an instrument of the law; if
+Geary did not take the case some other lawyer would. At any rate,
+whether Van would see it in this light or not, Geary was determined to
+take the case; it was too good an opportunity to let slip; he was going
+to make his way in the law or he would know the reason why. Every man
+for himself, that was what he said. It might be damned selfish, but it
+was human <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186" />nature; if he had to sacrifice Van, so much the worse. It was
+evident that his old college chum was going to the dogs anyway, but come
+whatever would, <i>he</i>, Geary, was going to be a <i>success</i>. Ah, you bet,
+he would make his way and he would make his money.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since he had come into his little patrimony Geary had been making
+offers to Vandover for his block in the Mission. Geary would offer only
+eight thousand dollars, but Brunt steadily advised Vandover against
+listening to such a figure, assuring him that the property was valued at
+twelve thousand six hundred. Vandover had often wondered at Geary's
+persistence in the matter, and had often asked him what he could
+possibly want of the block. But Geary was very vague in his replies,
+generally telling Vandover that there was money in the investment if one
+could and would give the proper attention to pushing it. He told
+Vandover that he&mdash;Vandover&mdash;was no business man, which was the
+lamentable truth, and would much prefer to live upon the interest of his
+bonds rather than to be continually annoyed by defective plumbing,
+complaints, and repairs. The truth of the matter was that Geary knew
+that a certain immense boot and shoe concern was after the same piece of
+property. The houses themselves were nothing to the boot and shoe
+people; they wanted the land in order to build their manufactory upon
+it. A siding of the railroad ran down the alley just back of the
+property, a fact that hurt the lot for residence purposes, but that was
+indispensable for the boot and shoe people. Geary knew that the heads of
+the manufactory were determined to buy the lot, and he was sure that if
+properly handled by clever brokers they could be induced to offer at
+least one third more than its appraised valuation. It was a chance for a
+fine speculation, and it was torture to Geary to think that Vandover, or
+in fact any one besides himself, was going to profit by it.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon of the day upon which Hiram Wade had brought suit for
+twenty-five thousand dollars, while Geary was pottering about his swivel
+office chair with an oil can trying to find out where it creaked, a
+brilliant idea had suddenly occurred to him, a stroke of genius, a
+veritable inspiration. Why could he not make the Wade suit a machine
+with which to force Vandover into the sale of the property?</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187" />His first idea had been to push the case so vigorously that Vandover
+would surely lose it. But on second thought this course did not seem to
+promise any satisfactory results. Geary knew very well that though Hiram
+Wade had sued for twenty-five thousand dollars he could not recover more
+than five thousand, if as much as that. Geary did not know the exact
+state of Vandover's affairs, but he did not think that his chum would
+sell any property in order to make the payment of damages. It was much
+more likely that he would raise the five thousand, or whatever it might
+be, by placing a second mortgage on some of his property. This, however,
+was presuming that Wade would get judgment for about five thousand
+dollars. But suppose that Vandover thought that Wade could actually
+recover twenty-five thousand! Suppose that Geary himself should see
+Vandover and induce him to believe such a story, and to settle the
+affair out of court! Vandover was as ignorant of law as he was of
+business. Geary might frighten him into a sale. Yet this plan seemed
+very impracticable. In the first place, it would be unprofessional for
+Geary to have an interview with Vandover under such circumstances, the
+story was almost too monstrous even for Vandover's credibility, and
+besides, Geary would not pay, could not pay twenty-five thousand for the
+property. This last was a serious tangle. In order to get Vandover to
+sell, Geary would have to represent the damage suit as involving a
+larger sum of money than Geary was willing to give for the block, even a
+far larger sum than that which the boot and shoe manufacturers could be
+induced to pay for it. It seemed to be a deadlock. Geary began to see
+that the whole idea was out of the question. Yet the desire of it came
+back upon him again and again. He dwelt upon it constantly, smelling out
+the chance for a &quot;deal&quot; somewhere in the tangle with the instinct of the
+keen man of business. At last he seemed to have straightened it out. The
+idea of a compromise came into his mind. What if Vandover and Hiram Wade
+could be made to compromise upon eight thousand dollars! Geary would be
+willing to pay Vandover eight thousand for the block. That was his
+original offer. Wade, though he had sued for twenty-five thousand, could
+easily be made to see that eight thousand was as much as he could
+reasonably expect, and Geary knew the boot and <a name="Page_188" id="Page_188" />shoe manufacturers would
+pay fifteen thousand for the lot, perhaps more.</p>
+
+<p>But in order to carry out the delicate and complicated affair it was
+absolutely necessary to keep Vandover from seeing a lawyer. Geary knew
+that any lawyer would fight the proposition of a compromise at eight
+thousand dollars: five thousand was as much as Wade could possibly get
+in court, and if judgment for such amount was rendered, Vandover's
+counsel would advise him to raise the sum by mortgaging some property
+instead of selling the block.</p>
+
+<p>Yet as soon as Geary arrived at a solution of the problem, as soon as
+the &quot;deal&quot; began to seem feasible, he commenced to hesitate. It was not
+so much that the affair was crooked, that his r&ocirc;le in it was, to say the
+least, unprofessional, as it was the fact that Vandover was his old
+college chum and that, to put the matter into plain words, Geary was
+swindling his best friend out of a piece of property valued at twelve
+thousand six hundred dollars, and preventing him from reselling the same
+piece at a very advanced figure. Again and again he wished that it was
+some other than Vandover; he told himself that in such case he would put
+the screw on without the least compunction. All through one night Geary
+was on the rack torn between his friendship for his chum and his
+devouring, inordinate ambition to make his way and to make his pile. In
+the end Vandover was sacrificed&mdash;the opportunity was too good&mdash;Geary
+could not resist the chance for a &quot;deal.&quot; Ah, you bet, just think of it,
+after all, not only would Vandover believe that Geary was doing him a
+great service, but the office would be delighted with him for winning
+his first case, they would get a heavy fee from Wade, and he would
+nearly double his money invested in the block in the Mission. As soon as
+he had made up his mind to put the &quot;deal&quot; through, he had seen Vandover
+at his rooms early in the morning and had induced him to promise not to
+engage any other counsel and in general keep very quiet about the whole
+business.</p>
+
+<p>The day after, he and Beale, Jr., had an appointment with Hiram Wade,
+but toward noon Beale, Jr., disappeared, leaving word for Geary that he
+had gone to court with his father to hear the closing arguments in the
+great suit against the <a name="Page_189" id="Page_189" />monopoly, the last struggle in the tremendous
+legal battle that had embroiled the whole office; Geary was to use his
+own judgment in the Wade case. Geary laboured with Hiram Wade all that
+afternoon. The old fellow mistrusted him on account of his youth and his
+inexperience, was unwilling to arrive at any definite conclusion without
+the sanction of Geary's older associate, and for a long time would
+listen to nothing less than ten thousand dollars, crying out that his
+gray hairs had been dishonoured, and striking his palm upon his
+forehead. Nothing could move him. He, also, had his ambitions; it was
+his dream to own the carpet-cleaning establishment in which he now had
+but a three-fourths interest. Summer was coming, the time of year when
+people were going into the country, leaving their carpets to be cleaned
+in their absence. If he could obtain complete ownership of his business
+within the month he fancied that he saw an opportunity to make more
+money than he had done before at any previous season.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, I tell you, Mister Geary,&quot; he exclaimed indignantly, wagging his
+head, &quot;it would seem like selling my daughter's honour if we should
+compromise at any less figure. I am a father. I&mdash;I have my feelings,
+haven't I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, it isn't like that at all, Mr. Wade,&quot; answered Geary, making
+awkward gestures with both his hands. &quot;It isn't what we <i>ought</i> to get
+out of him. Could any sum of money, could millions compensate you for
+Miss Ida's death? I guess not. It's what we <i>can</i> get. If this thing
+comes into court we won't get but five thousand out of him; I'll tell
+you that right now. He could raise that by a mortgage, easy; but if we
+compromise we can squeeze him for eight thousand. You see, the fact that
+we can act directly with him instead of through counsel makes it easier
+for us. Of course, as I tell you, it isn't just the legal thing to do,
+but I'm willing to do it for you because I think you've been wronged and
+outraged.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Wade struck his hand to his head. &quot;I tell you, he's brought dishonour
+upon my gray hairs,&quot; he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly, of course, I understand how you feel,&quot; replied Geary, &quot;but now
+about this eight thousand? I tell you what I'll do.&quot; He had resolved to
+stake everything upon one last <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190" />hazard. &quot;See here, Mr. Wade, there's a
+difference, of course, between eight thousand dollars and ten thousand,
+but the use of money is worth something, isn't it? And money down, cold
+hard cash, is worth something, isn't it? Well, now, suppose you got that
+eight thousand dollars money down within three days?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Hiram Wade still demurred a little longer for the sake of his own
+self-respect and his dishonoured hairs, but in the end it was agreed
+that if the money was paid over to him in full before the end of the
+following week he would be content and would agree to the compromise.
+Eight thousand dollars would still be enough to buy out his partner's
+interest, and even then he would have a little left over with which to
+improve a certain steaming apparatus. If the amount was paid in full
+within a week he could get control of the cleaning-works in time to
+catch all of the summer trade.</p>
+
+<p>Geary had calculated that this last argument would have its weight; the
+great difficulty now was to get Vandover to sell at such a low figure
+and upon such short notice. He almost despaired of his success in this
+quarter; however, it all depended upon Vandover now.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the forenoon of the next day Geary pounded on the door of
+Vandover's sitting-room, pushing it open without waiting for an answer.
+Vandover was lying in his shirt-sleeves on the corduroy divan under the
+huge rug of sombre colours that hung against the wall, and he did not
+get up as Geary came in; in fact, he hardly stirred.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hello!&quot; cried Geary, closing the door with his heel. &quot;Didn't expect to
+find <i>you</i> up so early. <i>I've</i> been up since half-past six; had
+breakfast at seven, fine cutlet, and then got down to the office at
+twenty minutes of eight. How's that for rustling, hey?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes?&quot; said Vandover, dully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, say,&quot; exclaimed Geary, &quot;what's all the matter with <i>you</i>? You look
+all frazzled out, all pale around the wattles. Ah, you've been hitting
+up a pace again. You're a bird, Van, there's no use talking! All night
+racket this trip?&quot;.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose so,&quot; answered Vandover, never moving.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you <i>do</i> look gone-in this morning, sure,&quot; continued Geary, seating
+himself on the edge of the table and pushing <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191" />back his hat. &quot;Never saw
+you looking so bad; you ought to be more careful, Van; there'll be a
+smash some time. Ah, you bet a man ought to look out for his health. I
+walk downtown every morning, and three times a week I take a cold shower
+as soon as I get up. Ah, I tell you, that braces a fellow up; you ought
+to try it; it's better than a dozen cocktails. You keep on getting thin
+like you have for the past few days and I'll have to be calling you
+Skinny Seldom-fed again, like we used to. Now, tell the truth, what time
+did you get to bed last night? Did you go to bed at all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; replied Vandover with a long breath, looking vaguely at the
+pipe-rack on the opposite wall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought as much,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;Well, that's like you.&quot; He paused
+a moment, and then went on, nervously gesturing with both his hands
+simultaneously. &quot;Well, I've had a long talk with Wade. I tell you, Van,
+that old boy is as stubborn as a mule. You see, he knows he's got a
+case. I couldn't talk him out of that. I'll tell you how it is,&quot;
+continued Geary, preparing to spring another mine; &quot;he's found a letter
+Ida wrote you the day before she killed herself.&quot; He paused to watch the
+effect upon Vandover. Vandover waited for him to go on, but seeing that
+he did not and that he expected him to say something, nodded his head
+once and answered:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you know, that letter that she wrote to you telling you how it
+was, how she was fixed?&quot; repeated Geary, puzzled and irritated at
+Vandover's indifference.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, he's got it, anyhow,&quot; pursued Geary, &quot;and of course that tells
+against you. Well, I had a long talk with him yesterday afternoon and I
+got him to compromise. Of course, you know in suits like this one a
+party sues for a great deal more than he expects to get. At first you
+know he said twenty-five thousand; that figure was decided upon at the
+first interview he had with us. Of course, he could never get judgment
+for that much. But he hung out at ten thousand; said it would be selling
+his daughter if he took any less. Now I knew you couldn't raise that
+much on any property you have, especially in these hard times&mdash;&quot; Geary
+paused for the fraction of an instant; he had thrown out the last remark
+as a feeler, to see <a name="Page_192" id="Page_192" />what Vandover would say; but his chum said nothing,
+staring vaguely at the opposite wall, merely making a faint sign to show
+that he understood, closing his eyes and bending his head. &quot;And so,&quot;
+continued the other, &quot;I jewed him down, and what do you suppose? Well,
+sir, from twenty-five thousand I brought him right down to, say, eight
+thousand. I could see that he had some scheme that he wants to go into
+right away, and that he wants ready money, right on the nail, you know,
+to carry it through. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to see that. I
+waltzed him right over when I began to speak of ready money, cash down.
+As soon as he'd squeal I'd spring cold cash on him, money down, and he's
+hit gravel like an ostrich. Well,&quot; he went on deliberately after a
+pause, getting up from the table and standing before Vandover, his hands
+in his pockets, &quot;well, I think that's the best I can do for you, Van.
+It's a good deal better than I expected, but I've done the best I could
+for you, and I would advise you to see him on the proposition.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; said Vandover. &quot;Go ahead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary was perplexed. &quot;Well, you think that's a good thing, don't you?
+You think I've done my best for you? You see it as I do, don't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover withdrew his eyes from the other wall, glancing under heavy
+eyelids at Geary, and with a slight movement of his head and shoulders
+replied:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you got the money?&quot; asked Geary eagerly; then, irritated at his
+indiscretion, hastened to interrupt himself. &quot;You see, he hasn't put his
+proposition into writing yet, but it's like this: if you can pay him
+eight thousand dollars in cash before the end of next week he'll sign a
+document to the effect that he is satisfied.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've got no money,&quot; said Vandover quietly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was afraid you wouldn't have,&quot; said Geary, &quot;but you can raise it
+somewhere. You had better close with the old man as soon as you can,
+Van, while he's in the mood for it; you'll make a clear two thousand by
+it. You can see that as well as I can. Now, where can you&mdash;how is your
+property fixed? Let's see! Here's the statement you made to me the other
+day,&quot; continued Geary, drawing his shorthand notes from his port<a name="Page_193" id="Page_193" />folio.
+&quot;How about this piece on California Street, the one that you have
+rented, the homestead, you know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, there's that,&quot; answered Vandover, changing the position of his
+head upon his clasped hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that's pretty well papered up already,&quot; returned Geary, consulting
+his notes. &quot;You couldn't very well raise another mortgage on that.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'd forgotten,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;There's the block in the Mission.
+He can have <i>that</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary began to tremble with excitement. It looked as though he might be
+able to make the deal after all. But the next instant he grew
+suspicious. Vandover's indifference puzzled him. Might he not have some
+game of his own? The idea of playing off his cleverness against that of
+an opponent strung his nerves in an instant; the notion of an impending
+struggle was almost an inspiration, and his innate desire of getting the
+better of a competitor, even though it was his closest friend, aroused
+his wits and sharpened his faculties like a stimulant. He had no
+hesitancy in sacrificing his chum. It was business now; friendship
+ceased to be a factor in the affair. Ah, Van was going to be foxy; he'd
+show him that he could be foxy, too.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He can have it?&quot; echoed Geary. &quot;You don't mean to sign it over to him
+bodily?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I suppose it could be mortgaged,&quot; answered Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that's the idea,&quot; returned Geary. &quot;You want me to figure that out
+for you? I can just as well as not. Well, now, let's see,&quot; he went on,
+settling himself at the desk, and figuring upon a sheet of Vandover's
+stamped letter-paper. &quot;The banks will never give you more than two
+thirds of the appraised value; that's as much as we can expect; that
+would come to&mdash;well, let's see&mdash;that would come to six thousand on that
+piece; then you could mortgage something else to make up the
+difference.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wouldn't it be more than six thousand?&quot; asked Vandover with a little
+show of interest. &quot;I think that block has been appraised at something
+over twelve thousand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes,&quot; returned Geary, putting his chin in the air, &quot;that was your
+agent's valuation five years ago; but you know <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194" />property out there, in
+fact, property all over the city, what they call inside property, has
+been going right down for the last ten years. That's what I've always
+been telling you. You couldn't possibly get more than nine thousand for
+that block to-day. You see the railroad there hurts it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose so,&quot; replied Vandover. &quot;I've heard the governor say as much
+in his time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course,&quot; exclaimed Geary, delighted at this unexpected turn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then, he can have my bonds,&quot; said Vandover. &quot;I've got eighty-nine
+hundred in bonds; he can have those. Let him have anything he wants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, don't touch your bonds,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;Hang on to those. Bonds
+are always good&mdash;U.S. bonds. You don't want to sell those, Van. You see,
+the homestead is already mortgaged. And, besides, you know, too, that
+the banks are asking an awful big per cent. for mortgages on real
+estate; it's seven and a half nowadays. Don't sell your bonds. I'll tell
+you why: U.S. bonds are always good; they never depreciate, but it's
+different with realty, especially in this city just now. It's been
+depreciating ever since your father's time, and it's going to go right
+on depreciating. If you want to sell anything, sell your realty before
+it gets any lower. Now you don't want to sell your home, do you? You
+don't like that idea. You've lived there so long, and then what would
+you do with the furniture; besides, the rent of that,&quot; he glanced again
+at his notes, &quot;is bringing you in a good hundred and twenty-five a
+month. If you've got to sell at all, why not sell your Mission block?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; said Vandover, as if wearied by Geary's clamour, &quot;I'll sign
+it over to him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, that's not the idea at all,&quot; Geary insisted. &quot;He wants the ready
+money; he don't want depreciated real estate. You'll have to find a
+purchaser in the next week if you possibly can in such a short time, and
+make over the money to Wade. But if you can't sell in that time you will
+have to dig up ten thousand instead of eight. It's a hard position for
+you, Van; it's just a chance, you know, but I thought I would give you
+the benefit of that chance. If you want to give me a power of attorney
+I'll try and sell it for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I guess Brunt would do that,&quot; replied Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195" />Yes,&quot; retorted Geary, watchful as a lynx, &quot;but they would charge you a
+big commission. Of course <i>I</i> wouldn't think of asking you anything more
+than the actual costs. I am afraid that they would try to sell it at
+auction, too, if they knew you had to realize on it in so short a time,
+and it would go for a mere song then; you know how it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought,&quot; inquired Vandover, &quot;that you wanted that property.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; replied Geary, hesitating, &quot;I&mdash;I did want to buy it of you once;
+well, for that matter I do now. But you know how it is with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I might as well sell it to you as to any one else,&quot; returned Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, it's like this, Van,&quot; said Geary. &quot;I know that block is
+worth nine thousand dollars; I won't deceive you. But I can only give
+you eight thousand for it. That's all the money I've got. But I'm not
+going to take advantage of your position to jew you down. I want the
+block, I'll admit that, but I'm not going to have you sacrifice it for
+me, or for any one else. I think you can get nine thousand for it. I
+know you could if we had a little more time, and I'm not sure but what I
+could find a purchaser for you within the next week that would give you
+nine thousand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I don't care, Charlie; I'm sick of everything; eight thousand, nine
+thousand, anything you like; take it at your own figure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary began to tremble once more, and this time his excitement was so
+great that he hardly dared to trust himself to speak; his breath grew
+short, his hands in his pockets twitched nervously, and curled
+themselves into fists, his heart seemed to him to beat high in his
+throat; he hesitated long, pretending to deliberate as he steadied
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover remained silent, his hands still clasped back of his head,
+staring at the opposite wall with eyes that saw nothing. The little
+clock began to strike ten.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, Van,&quot; said Geary; &quot;I don't like to do this, and yet I
+would like to help you out of this muss. You see, if I should ever
+benefit by the property you would feel as though I had taken advantage
+of you at this time and worked a flim-flam on you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_196" id="Page_196" />Oh, I'll look out for that,&quot; returned Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, I don't feel quite right about it,&quot; answered Geary, wagging his
+head and shutting his eyes. &quot;Better see what we can do at a forced
+sale.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, don't you see you would be doing me a favour?&quot; said Vandover
+wearily. &quot;I <i>ask</i> you to buy the block. I don't care what your figure
+is!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Once more Geary hesitated, for the last time going over the whole deal
+in his mind from beginning to end, testing it, looking for weak points.
+It was almost perfect. Suppose the boot and shoe people did not buy the
+lot? He could resell it elsewhere, even below its appraised value and
+yet make money by the transaction; the lot was cheap at ten thousand; it
+might bring twelve; even as an ordinary, legitimate speculation it was
+to be desired at such a figure. Suppose the boot and shoe people backed
+out entirely, suppose even he could not find another purchaser for the
+property, why, then, he could hold on to it; the income from the rents
+was fully 10 per cent. of the price he would have paid for it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Van,&quot; he said at last, making a slow, awkward gesture with his
+left hand, all the fingers extended, &quot;well, I'll take you up&mdash;but I
+don't feel as though I should&mdash;&quot; He suddenly interrupted himself with a
+burst of sincerity, exclaiming: &quot;Sure, old man, if I had nine thousand
+I'd give it to you for the block, that's straight goods.&quot; He felt that
+he was conscientious in saying this. It was true he would have given
+nine thousand if he had had it. For that matter he might have given ten
+or twelve.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can't we settle the whole matter to-day?&quot; said Vandover. &quot;Right
+here&mdash;now. I'm sick of it, sick of everything. Let's get it done with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary nearly bounded from his seat. He had been wondering how he might
+accomplish this very thing. &quot;All right,&quot; he said briskly, &quot;no reason in
+waiting.&quot; He had seen to it that he should be prepared to close the sale
+the moment that Vandover was willing. Long ago, when he had first had
+the idea of buying the block, he had spent a day in the offices of the
+county recorder, the tax collector, and the assessor, assuring himself
+of the validity of the title, and only two days ago he had gone over the
+matter again in order to be sure that no <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197" />encumbrances had been added to
+the block in the meanwhile. He found nothing; the title was clear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Isn't this rather rushing the thing through?&quot; he asked. &quot;Maybe you
+might regret it afterward. Don't you want to take two or three days to
+think it over?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sure now?&quot; persisted Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I've <i>got</i> to sell before three days,&quot; answered Vandover.
+&quot;Otherwise he'll want ten thousand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's a fact,&quot; admitted the other. &quot;Well,&quot; he went on, &quot;if your mind's
+made up, why&mdash;we can go right ahead. As I say, there's no reason for
+waiting; better take up Wade while he's in the mood for it. You see, he
+hasn't signed any proposition as yet, and he might go back on us.&quot;
+Vandover drew a long breath and got up slowly, heavily, from the couch,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's the odds to me what I sell for? <i>I</i> don't get the money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what do you say if we go right down to a notary's office and put
+this thing right through,&quot; Geary suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come on, then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you got your abstract here, the abstract of the block?&quot; Vandover
+nodded. &quot;Better bring it along, then,&quot; said Geary.</p>
+
+<p>The office of the notary adjoined those of the firm of Beale &amp; Storey;
+in fact, he was in a sense an attach&eacute; of the great firm and transacted a
+great deal of legal business for them. Vandover and Geary fell upon him
+in an idle moment. A man had come to regulate the water filter, which
+took the place of an ice cooler in a corner of one of the anterooms, and
+while he was engaged at his work the notary stood at his back, abusing
+him and exclaiming at the ineffectiveness of the contrivance. The notary
+was a middle-aged man with a swollen, purple face; he had a toothpick
+behind each ear and wore an office coat of gray linen, ripped at the
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Then the transfer was made. It was all settled in less than half an
+hour, unceremoniously, almost hastily. For the sake of form Geary signed
+a check for eight thousand dollars which Vandover in his turn made over
+to Hiram Wade. The notary filled out a deed of grant, bargain, and sale,
+pasting on his certificate of acknowledgment as soon as Vandover and
+Geary <a name="Page_198" id="Page_198" />had signed. Geary took the abstract, thrusting it into his
+breast-pocket. As far as Vandover was concerned, the sale was complete,
+but he had neither his properly nor its equivalent in money.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; declared Geary at length, &quot;I guess that's all there is to be
+done. I'll get a release from old man Wade and send it to you to-morrow
+or next day. Now, let's go down to the Imperial and have a drink on it.&quot;
+They went out, but the notary returned to the anteroom, turning the
+spigot of the filter to right and left, frowning at it suspiciously,
+refusing to be satisfied.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Sixteen" id="Chapter_Sixteen" /><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199" /><i>Chapter Sixteen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>That particular room in the Lick House was well toward the rear of the
+building, on one of the upper floors, and from its window, one looked
+out upon a vast reach of roofs that rose little by little to meet the
+abrupt rise of Telegraph Hill. It was a sordid and grimy wilderness,
+topped with a gray maze of wires and pierced with thousands of chimney
+stacks. Many of the roofs were covered with tin long since blackened by
+rust and soot. Here and there could be seen clothes hung out to dry.
+Occasionally upon the flanking walls of some of the larger buildings was
+displayed an enormous painted sign, a violent contrast of intense black
+and staring white amidst the sooty brown and gray, advertising some
+tobacco, some newspaper, or some department store. Not far in the
+distance two tall smokestacks of blackened tin rose high in the air,
+above the roof of a steam laundry, one very large like the stack of a
+Cunarder, the other slender, graceful, with a funnel-shaped top. All day
+and all night these stacks were smoking; from the first, the larger one,
+rolled a heavy black smoke, very gloomy, waving with a slow and
+continued movement like the plume of some sullen warrior. But the other
+one, the tall and slender pipe, threw off a series of little white
+puffs, three at a time, that rose buoyant and joyous into the air like
+so many white doves, vanishing at last, melting away in the higher
+sunshine, only to be followed by another flight. They came three at a
+time, the pipe tossing them out with a sharp gay sound like a note of
+laughter interrupted by a cough.</p>
+
+<p>But the interior of the room presented the usual dreary aspect of the
+hotel bedroom&mdash;cheerless, lamentable.</p>
+
+<p>The walls were whitewashed and bare of pictures or ornaments, and the
+floor was covered with a dull red carpet. The furniture was a &quot;set,&quot; all
+the pieces having a family resemblance. On entering, one saw the bed
+standing against the right-hand wall, a huge double bed with the name of
+the hotel in the corners of its spread and pillowcases. In the exact
+middle of the room underneath the gas fixture was the centre-table, and
+upon it a pitcher of ice-water. The blank, white <a name="Page_200" id="Page_200" />monotony of one side
+of the room was jarred upon by the grate and mantelpiece, iron, painted
+black, while on the mantelpiece itself stood a little porcelain
+matchsafe with ribbed sides in the form of a truncated cone. Precisely
+opposite the chimney was the bureau, flanked on one side by the door of
+the closet, and on the other in the corner of the room by the stationary
+washstand with its new cake of soap and its three clean, glossy towels.
+On the wall to the left of the door was the electric bell and the
+directions for using it, and tacked upon the door itself a card as to
+the hours for meals, the rules of the hotel, and the extract of the code
+defining the liabilities of innkeepers, all printed in bright red.
+Everything was clean, defiantly, aggressively clean, and there was a
+clean smell of new soap in the air.</p>
+
+<p>But the room was bare of any personality. Of the hundreds who had lived
+there, perhaps suffered and died there, not a trace, not a suggestion
+remained; their different characters had not left the least impress upon
+its air or appearance. Only a few hairpins were scattered on the bottom
+of one of the bureau drawers, and two forgotten medicine bottles still
+remained upon the top shelf of the closet.</p>
+
+<p>This had been the appearance of Vandover's new home when he had first
+come to it, after leaving his suite of rooms in the huge apartment house
+on Sutter Street. He had lived here now for something over a year.</p>
+
+<p>It had all commenced with the seizure of his furniture by the
+proprietors of the apartment house. Almost before he knew it he owed for
+six months' room and board; when the extras were added to this bill it
+swelled to nearly a thousand dollars. At first he would not believe it;
+it was not possible that so large a bill could accumulate without his
+knowledge. He declared there was a mistake, tossing back the bill to the
+clerk who had presented it, and shaking his head incredulously. This
+other became angry, offered to show the books of the house. The manager
+was called in and attempted to prove the clerk's statement by figures,
+dates, and extracts from the entries. Vandover was confused by their
+noise, and grew angry in his turn; vociferating that he did not propose
+to be cheated, the others retorted in a rage, the interview ended in a
+scene.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201" />But in the end they gained their point; they were right, and at length
+Vandover was brought around to see that he was in the wrong, but he had
+no ready money, and while he hesitated, unwilling to part with any of
+his bonds or to put an additional mortgage upon the homestead, the
+hotel, after two warnings, suddenly seized upon his furniture. What a
+misery!</p>
+
+<p>In a moment of time it was all taken from him, all the lovely
+bric-&agrave;-brac, all the heavy pieces, all the little articles of <i>vertu</i>
+which he had bought with such intense delight and amongst which he had
+lived with such happiness, such contentment, such never-failing
+pleasure. Everything went&mdash;the Renaissance portraits, the pipe-rack, the
+chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, the Assyrian <i>bas-reliefs</i>
+and, worst of all, the stove, the famous tiled stove, the delightful
+cheery iron stove with the beautified flamboyant ornaments. For the
+first few months after the seizure Vandover was furious with rage and
+disappointment, persuaded that he could never live anywhere but in just
+such a room; it was as if he had been uprooted and cast away upon some
+barren, uncongenial soil. His new room in the hotel filled him with
+horror, and for a long time he used it only as a place where he could
+sleep and wash. For a long time even his pliable character refused to
+fit itself to such surroundings, refused to be content between four
+enormous white walls, a stuccoed ceiling, and a dark red carpet. He
+passed most of his time elsewhere, reading the papers at the Mechanics
+Library in the morning, and in the afternoon sitting about the hotel
+office and parlours until it was time to take his usual little four
+o'clock stroll on Kearney and Market streets. He had long since become a
+familiar figure on this promenade. Even the women and girls of Flossie's
+type had ceased to be interested in this tall, thin young man with the
+tired, heavy eyes and blue-white face. One day, however, a curious
+incident did for a moment invest Vandover with a sudden dramatic
+interest. It was just after he had moved down to the Lick House, about a
+month after he had sold the block in the Mission. Vandover was standing
+at Lotta's fountain at the corner of Kearney and Market streets,
+interested in watching a policeman and two boys reharnessing a horse
+after its tumble. All at once he fell over flat into the <a name="Page_202" id="Page_202" />street,
+jostling one of the flower venders and nearly upsetting him. He struck
+the ground with a sodden shock, his arms doubled under him, his hat
+rolling away into the mud. Bewildered, he picked himself up; very few
+had seen him fall, but a little crowd gathered for all that. One asked
+if the man was drunk, and Vandover, terrified lest the policeman should
+call the patrol wagon, hurried off to a basement barber shop near by,
+where he brushed his clothes, still bewildered, confused, wondering how
+it had happened.</p>
+
+<p>The fearful nervous crisis which Vandover had undergone had passed off
+slowly. Little by little, bit by bit, he had got himself in hand again.
+However, the queer numbness in his head remained, and as soon as he
+concentrated his attention on any certain line of thought, as soon as he
+had read for any length of time, especially if late at night, the
+numbness increased. Somewhere back of his eyes a strange blurring mist
+would seem to rise; he would find it impossible to keep his mind fixed
+upon any subject; the words of a printed page would little by little
+lose their meaning. At first this had been a source of infinite terror
+to him. He fancied it to be the symptoms of some approaching mental
+collapse, but, as the weeks went by and nothing unusual occurred, he
+became used to it, and refused to let it worry him. If it made his head
+feel queer to read, the remedy was easy enough&mdash;he simply would not
+read; and though he had been a great reader, and at one time had been
+used to spend many delightful afternoons lost in the pages of a novel,
+he now gave it all up with an easy indifference.</p>
+
+<p>But, besides all this, the attack had left him with nerves all unstrung;
+even his little afternoon walk on Kearney and Market streets exhausted
+him; any trifling and sudden noise, the closing of a door, the striking
+of a clock, would cause him to start from his place with a gasp and a
+quick catch at the heart. Toward evening this little spasm of nerves
+would sometimes come upon him even when there was nothing to cause it,
+and now he could no longer drop off to sleep without first undergoing a
+whole series of these recoils and starts, that would sometimes bring him
+violently up to a sitting posture, his breath coming short and quick,
+his heart galloping, startled at he knew not what.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203" />At first he had intended to see a doctor, but he had put off carrying
+his intention into effect until he had grown accustomed to the whole
+matter; otherwise, he was well enough, his appetite was good, and when
+he finally did get to sleep he would not wake up for a good eight hours.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, however, about three months after the first crisis and just
+as Vandover was becoming well accustomed to the condition of body and
+mind in which it had left him, the second attack came on. It was
+fearful, much worse than on the first occasion, and this time there was
+no room for doubt. Vandover knew that for the moment he was actually
+insane.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis had been with Vandover most of that afternoon, the two had been
+playing cards in Vandover's room until nearly six o'clock. All the
+afternoon they had been drinking whisky while they played, and by
+supper-time neither of them had any appetite. Ellis refused to go down,
+declaring that if he should eat now it would make him sick. Vandover
+went down alone, but once in the dining-room he found that <i>he</i> could
+not eat either. However, he knew that it was not the whisky. For two
+days his appetite had been failing him. The smell of food revolted him,
+and he left the supper-table, going up to his bare and lamentable room
+with the feeling that he was about to undergo a long spell of sickness.
+In the deserted hall, between the elevator and the door of his room, the
+second crisis came upon him all at once. It was so sudden that it was as
+if some enemy had leaped upon his back, springing out of the shadow,
+gripping him from behind, holding him close. Once more the hysteria
+shook him like a dry leaf. The little nervous starts came so fast that
+they ran together, mingling to form one long thrill of terror, the
+blind, unreasoning terror of something unknown; the numbness weighed
+down upon his brain until consciousness dwindled to a mere point and
+mercifully dulled the torture of his crisping nerves. It seemed to him
+that his hands and head were rapidly swelling to enormous size.</p>
+
+<p>All this he had felt before; it was his old enemy, but now with this
+second attack began a new and even stranger sensation. In his distorted
+wits he fancied that he was in some manner changing, that he was
+becoming another man; worse than that, it seemed to him that he was no
+longer human, <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204" />that he was sinking, all in a moment, to the level of
+some dreadful beast.</p>
+
+<p>Later on in that same evening Ellis met young Haight coming out of one
+of the theatres, and told him a story that Haight did not believe. Ellis
+was very pale, and he seemed to young Haight to be trying to keep down
+some tremendous excitement.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If he was drunk,&quot; said Ellis, &quot;it was the strangest drunk I ever saw.
+He came back into the room on all fours&mdash;not on his hands and knees, you
+understand, but running along the floor upon the palms of his hands and
+his toes&mdash;and he pushed the door of the room open with his head,
+nuzzling at the crack like any dog. Oh, it was horrible. <i>I</i> don't know
+what's the matter with Van. You should have seen him; his head was
+hanging way down, and swinging from side to side as he came along; it
+shook all his hair over his eyes. He kept rattling his teeth together,
+and every now and then he would say, way down in his throat so it
+sounded like growls, 'Wolf&mdash;wolf&mdash;wolf.' I got hold of him and pulled
+him up to his feet. It was just as though he was asleep, and when I
+shook him he came to all at once and began to laugh. 'What's the matter,
+Van?' says I. 'What are you crawling on the floor that way for?' 'I'm
+damned if I know,' says he, rubbing his eyes. 'I guess I must have been
+out of my head. Too much whisky!' Then he says: 'Put me to bed, will
+you, Bandy? I feel all gone in.' Well, I put him to bed and went out to
+get some bromide of potassium; he said that made him sleep and kept his
+nerves steady. Coming back, I met a bell-boy just outside of Van's door,
+and told him to ask the hotel doctor to come up. You see, I had not
+opened the door of the room yet, and while I was talking to the bell-boy
+I could hear the sound of something four-footed going back and forth
+inside the room. When I got inside there was Van, perfectly naked, going
+back and forth along the wall, swinging his head very low, grumbling to
+himself. But he came to again as soon as I shook him, and seemed
+dreadfully ashamed, and went to bed all right. He got to sleep finally,
+and I left the doctor with him, to come out and get something for my own
+nerves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What did the doctor say was the matter?&quot; asked young Haight, in horror.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_205" id="Page_205" /><i>Lycanthropy-Pathesis</i>. I never heard the name before&mdash;some kind of
+nervous disease. I guess Van had been hitting up a pretty rapid gait,
+and then I suppose he's had a good deal to worry him, too.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Once more the attack passed off, leaving Vandover exhausted, his nerves
+all jangling, his health impaired. Every day he seemed to grow thinner,
+great brown hollows grew under his eyes, and the skin of his forehead
+looked blue and tightly drawn. By degrees a deep gloom overcame him
+permanently, nothing could interest him, nothing seemed worth while. Not
+only were his nerves out of tune, but they were jaded, deadened, slack;
+they were like harpstrings that had been played upon so long and so
+violently that now they could no longer vibrate unless swept with a very
+whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p>As he had foreseen, Vandover had returned again to vice, to the vice
+that was knitted into him now, fibre for fibre, to the ways of the brute
+that by degrees was taking entire possession of him. But he no longer
+found pleasure even in vice; once it had been his amusement, now it was
+his occupation. It was the only thing that seemed to ease the horrible
+nervousness that of late had begun to prey upon him constantly.</p>
+
+<p>But though nothing could amuse him, on the other hand nothing could
+worry him; in the end the very riot of his nerves ceased even to annoy
+him. He had arrived at a state of absolute indifference. He had so often
+rearranged his pliable nature to suit his changing environment that at
+last he found that he could be content in almost any circumstances. He
+had no pleasures, no cares, no ambitions, no regrets, no hopes. It was
+mere passive existence, an inert, plantlike vegetation, the moment's
+pause before the final decay, the last inevitable rot.</p>
+
+<p>One day after he had been living nearly a year at the Lick House, Adams
+&amp; Brunt, the real estate agents, sent him word that they had an offer
+for his property on California Street. It was the homestead. The English
+gentleman, the president of the fruit syndicate who had rented the house
+of Vandover, was now willing to buy it. His business was by this time on
+a firm and paying basis and he had decided to make his home in San
+Francisco. He offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the house,
+including the furniture.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206" />Brunt had several talks with Vandover and easily induced him to sell.
+&quot;You can figure it out for yourself, Mr. Vandover,&quot; he said, as he
+pointed out his own calculations to him; &quot;property has been going down
+in the city for the last ten years, and it will continue to do so until
+we can get a competing railroad through. Better sell when you can, and
+twenty-five thousand is a fair price. Of course, you will have to pay
+off the mortgage; you won't get but about fifteen thousand out of it,
+but at the same time you won't have to pay the interest on that mortgage
+to the banks; that will be so much saved a month; add that to what you
+could get for your fifteen thousand at, say, 6 per cent., and you would
+have a monthly income nearly equal to the present rent of the house, and
+much more certain, too. Suppose your tenant should go out, then where
+would you be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, all right,&quot; answered Vandover, nodding his head vaguely. &quot;Go
+ahead, <i>I</i> don't care.&quot; He parted from his old home with as much
+indifference as he had parted from his block in the Mission.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover signed the deed that made him homeless, and at about the same
+time the first payment was made. Ten thousand dollars was deposited in
+one of the banks to his credit, and a check sent to him for the amount.
+The very next day Vandover drew against it for five hundred dollars.</p>
+
+<p>At one time he had had an ambition to buy back his furniture from the
+huge apartment house in which he had formerly lived, and with it to make
+his cheerless bedroom in the Lick House seem more like a home. He felt
+it almost as a dishonour to have strangers using this furniture, sitting
+in the great leather chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, staring
+stupidly at his Renaissance portraits and copies of Assyrian
+<i>bas-reliefs</i>. Above all, it was torture to think that other hands than
+his own would tend the famous tiled and flamboyant stove, a stove that
+had its moods, its caprices, like any living person, a stove that had to
+be coaxed and humoured, a stove that he alone could understand. He had
+told himself that if ever again he should have money enough he would
+bring back this furniture to him. At first its absence had been a matter
+for the keenest regret and grief. He had been so used to pleasant
+surroundings that he languished in his new quar<a name="Page_207" id="Page_207" />ters as in a prison. His
+indulgent, luxurious character continually hungered after subdued,
+harmonious colours, pictures, ornaments, and soft rugs. His imagination
+was forever covering the white walls with rough stone-blue paper, and
+placing screens, divans, and window-seats in different parts of the cold
+bare room. One morning he had even gone so far as to pin about the walls
+little placards which he had painted with a twisted roll of the hotel
+letter-paper dipped into the inkstand. &quot;Pipe-rack Here.&quot; &quot;Mona Lisa
+Here.&quot; &quot;Stove Here.&quot; &quot;Window-seat Here.&quot; He had left them up there ever
+since, in spite of the chambermaid's protests and Ellis' clumsy satire.</p>
+
+<p>Now, however, he had plenty of money. He would have his furniture back
+within the week. He came back from the bank, the money in his pocket,
+and went up to the room directly, with some vague intention of writing
+to the proprietors of the apartment house at once. But as he shut the
+door behind him, leaning his back against it and looking about, he
+suddenly realized that his old-time desire was passed; he had become so
+used to these surroundings that it now no longer made any difference to
+him whether or not they were cheerless, lamentable, barren. It was like
+all his other little ambitions&mdash;he had lost the taste for them, nothing
+made much difference after all. His money had come too late.</p>
+
+<p>Why should he spend his five hundred dollars on something that could no
+longer amuse him? It would be much wiser to spend it all in having a
+good time somewhere&mdash;champagne dinners with Flossie, or betting on the
+races&mdash;he did not know exactly what. It was true that even these
+alternatives would not amuse him very much&mdash;he would fall back upon them
+as things of habit. For that matter everything was an <i>ennui</i>, and
+Vandover began to long for some new pleasure, some violent untried
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Since the sale of the block in the Mission he had seen but little of
+Geary; young Haight had not been his companion since the time when
+Turner Ravis had broken with him, but little by little he had begun to
+associate with Ellis and his friend the Dummy. Almost every evening the
+three were together, sometimes at the theatre, sometimes in the back
+rooms of the Imperial, sometimes even in the parlours of certain houses,
+amid the murmur of heavy silks and the rustle of <a name="Page_208" id="Page_208" />stiffly starched
+skirts. At times they would be drunk four nights of the week, and on
+these occasions it was tacitly understood between Ellis and Vandover
+that they should try to get the Dummy so full that he could talk.</p>
+
+<p>However, Ellis' vice was gambling; he and the Dummy often passed the
+whole night over their cards, and as Vandover came more and more under
+Ellis' influence&mdash;succumbing to it as weakly as he had succumbed to the
+influence of Charlie Geary&mdash;he began to join these parties. They played
+Van John at five dollars a corner. Vandover won as often as he lost, but
+the habit of cards grew upon him steadily.</p>
+
+<p>Toward eleven o'clock the evening of the day upon which he had drawn his
+five hundred, Vandover went around to the Imperial looking for his two
+friends. He found Ellis drinking whisky all alone in one of the little
+rooms, as was his custom; fifteen minutes later the Dummy and Flossie
+joined them. Flossie had grown stouter since Vandover had first known
+her, nearly ten years ago. She had a double chin, and puffy, discoloured
+pockets had come under her eyes. Now her hair was dyed, her cheeks and
+lips rouged, and her former air of health and good spirits gone. She
+never laughed. She had smoked so many cigarettes that now her voice
+hardly rose above a whisper. At one time she had been accustomed to
+boast that she never drank, and it had been one of her peculiarities for
+which she was well known. But on this occasion she joined Ellis in his
+whisky. She had long since departed from her old-time rule of
+temperance, and nowadays drank nothing else but whisky. She had even
+become well known for the quantity of whisky she could drink.</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour the four sat around the little table, talking about the
+new, enormous Sutro Baths that were building at that time. After a while
+Flossie left them, and the Dummy began to imitate the motions of some
+one dealing cards, looking at the same time inquiringly into their
+faces.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How about that, Bandy?&quot; asked Vandover. &quot;Shall we have a game
+to-night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man of few words merely nodded his head and drank off the rest of
+his whisky at a swallow. They all went up to Vandover's room. Vandover
+got out the cards, the celluloid chips, and a fresh box of cigars. The
+Dummy held up two <a name="Page_209" id="Page_209" />fingers of his left hand, shutting them together
+afterward with his right and making a hissing noise between his teeth.
+He raised his eyebrows at Vandover. Vandover understood, and, ringing
+for a bell-boy, ordered up three bottles of soda in siphon bottles.</p>
+
+<p>The game was <i>vingt et un</i>, or, as they called it, Van John. They cut
+for banker. Ellis turned the first ace, and Vandover bought the bank
+from him. For the first hour they were very jolly, laughing and talking
+back and forth at each other; the Dummy especially communicative,
+continually scribbling upon his writing-pad, holding it toward the
+others. But it was not necessary for them to put their replies in
+writing&mdash;he understood from watching the movement of their lips. The
+luck had not declared itself as yet; none of them had lost or won very
+much. The bell-boy brought up the siphons. The Dummy took off his coat,
+and the other two followed his example. They were all smoking, and an
+acrid blue haze filled the room, making a golden blur about each gas
+globe.</p>
+
+<p>But little by little the passion of the gambling seized upon them. The
+luck had begun to declare itself, alternating between Ellis and the
+Dummy. Vandover lost steadily; twice already his bank had been broken,
+and he had been forced to buy in. The play resolved itself into two
+parts, Vandover struggling to keep up with the game on one side, and on
+the other a great battle going on between Ellis and the Dummy. Long
+since they had ceased to laugh, and not a word was spoken; each one was
+absorbed in the game, intently watching the cards as they were turned.
+The four gas-jets of the chandelier flared steadily, filling the room
+with a crude raw light that was reflected with a blinding glare from the
+four staring white walls, the room grew hot, the layer of foul warm air
+just beneath the ceiling, slowly descending. The acrid tobacco smoke no
+longer rose, but hung in long, slow-waving threads just above their
+heads. They played on steadily; a great stillness grew in the room, a
+stillness broken only by the little rattle of chips and subdued rustle
+of the shuffled cards. Once Vandover stopped, just time enough to throw
+off his vest, his collar, and his scarf. For a moment the luck seemed
+about to settle on him. He was still banking, and <a name="Page_210" id="Page_210" />twice in succession
+he drew Van John, both times winning heavily from the Dummy, and a
+little later tied Ellis at twenty when the latter had staked on nearly a
+third of his chips. But in the next half-dozen hands Ellis got back the
+lead again, winning from both the others. From this time on it was
+settled. The luck suddenly declared openly for Ellis, the Dummy and
+Vandover merely fighting for second place. Ellis held his lead; at one
+o'clock he was nearly fifty dollars ahead of the game. The profound
+silence of the room seemed to widen about them. After midnight the
+noises in the hotel, the ringing of distant call bells, the rattle of
+dishes from the kitchens, the clash of closing elevator doors, gradually
+ceased; only at long intervals one heard the hurried step of a bell-boy
+in the hall outside and the clink of the ice in the water pitcher that
+he was carrying. Outside a great quiet seemed in a sense to rise from
+the sleeping city, the noises in the streets died away. The last
+electric car went down Kearney Street, getting under way with a long
+minor wail. Occasionally a belated coup&eacute;, a nighthawk, rattled over the
+cobbles, while close by, from over the roofs, the tall slender stack
+upon the steam laundry puffed incessantly, three puffs at a time, like
+some kind of halting clock. The room became more and more close, none of
+them would take the time to open the window, from ceiling to floor the
+air was fouled by their breathing, by the tobacco smoke and by the four
+flaring gas-jets. By this time a sombre excitement burnt in their eyes
+and quivered in their fingers. Never for an instant did their glances
+leave the cards. Ellis was drinking whisky again, mixed with soda, his
+hand continually groping for the glass with a mechanical gesture; the
+Dummy was so excited he could not keep his cigar alight, and contented
+himself with chewing the end with an hysterical motion of his jaws. The
+perspiration stood in beads on the back of Vandover's hands, running
+down in tiny rivulets between his fingers, his teeth were shut close
+together and he was breathing short through his nose, a fine trembling
+had seized upon his hands so that the chips in his palm rattled like
+castanets. In the stale and murky atmosphere of the overheated room in
+the midst of the vast silence of the sleeping city they played on
+steadily.</p>
+
+<p>Then they began to &quot;plunge,&quot; agreeing to play a no limit <a name="Page_211" id="Page_211" />game and
+raising the value of a red chip to ten dollars; at times they even
+played with the coins themselves when their chips were exhausted.
+Vandover had lost all his ready money, and now for a long time had been
+gambling with the five hundred dollars he had that day drawn from the
+bank. Ellis had practically put the Dummy out of the play, and now the
+game was between him and Vandover. Ellis was banking, and at length
+offered to sell the bank to either one of them. For the first time since
+the real gambling began they commenced to talk a little, but in short,
+brief sentences, answering by monosyllables and by signs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How much for the bank?&quot; inquired Ellis, holding up the deck and looking
+from one to the other. Instantly the Dummy wrote ten dollars, in
+figures, on his pad, and showed it to him. Vandover looked at what the
+Dummy had written, and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fifteen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty,&quot; scribbled the Dummy, as he watched Vandover's lips form the
+word.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty-five,&quot; returned Vandover. The Dummy hesitated a moment and then
+wrote &quot;thirty.&quot; Ellis shook his head saying, &quot;I'll keep the bank myself
+at that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Forty dollars!&quot; cried Vandover. The Dummy shook his head, leaning back
+in his chair. Ellis shoved the pack across the table to Vandover, and
+Vandover gave him a twenty-dollar bill and two red chips.</p>
+
+<p>On Vandover's very first deal around, the Dummy &quot;stood&quot; on the second
+card, for twelve chips; Ellis bet twenty-five on his first card, and, as
+he got the second, turned both of them face up. He had two jacks.
+&quot;Twenty-five on each of these,&quot; he said. &quot;I'll draw to each one.&quot;
+Vandover looked at his own card; it was a ten-spot. All at once he grew
+reckless, and seized with a sudden folly, resolved to attempt a great
+<i>coup</i>. &quot;Double up!&quot; he ordered. The Dummy set out twelve more chips,
+and Ellis another fifty, making his bet an even hundred. Vandover began
+to deal to Ellis. On the first jack Ellis drew eighteen and stood at
+that; the first card that fell to the second jack was an ace. &quot;Van
+John,&quot; he remarked quietly. The Dummy drew three cards and stood on
+nineteen. Vandover turned up his own card and began to deal for himself.
+He <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212" />already had a ten; now he drew a seven-spot and king in succession.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The bank pays,&quot; he exclaimed. He paid the Dummy twenty-four chips. He
+gave Ellis fifty for the eighteen he had drawn on his first jack, and
+one hundred for the Van John upon the second, since the latter
+combination called for double the amount wagered; besides this, the bank
+was lost to him. Including the forty that he had paid for the bank, he
+had lost in all two hundred and fourteen dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Never in his life had Vandover played so high a game, never before had
+he won or lost more than fifty dollars at a sitting. But he was content
+to have it thus. Here at last was the new pleasure for which he had
+longed, the fresh violent excitement that alone could rouse his jaded
+nerves, the one thing that could amuse him. However, the failure of his
+<i>coup</i> had left him without chips; he was out of the game. He decided
+that he would stop; more than half of his five hundred dollars was gone
+already. He drank off a glass of soda, the dregs of one of the siphon
+bottles, and got up yawning, shivering a little and stretching his arms
+high above. The other two played on steadily. The Dummy began to gain
+slowly upon Ellis, playing very cautiously, betting only upon face
+cards, aces, and ten-spots. Twice Ellis offered to sell him the bank,
+but he refused, fearful lest it should change his luck.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover sat behind the Dummy's chair, watching his game, but at length,
+worn out, he began to drop off to sleep, waking every now and then with
+a sudden leap and recoil of all his nerves. An hour later the persistent
+scratching of a match awoke him. Ellis and the Dummy were still playing,
+and the Dummy was once more relighting the stump of his cigar. Ellis
+continued to deal, winning at almost every play; a great pile of chips
+and money lay at his elbow. For a few minutes Vandover watched the
+Dummy's game, leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees. But
+it was evident that the Dummy had lost his nerve. Ellis' continued
+winnings had at length demoralized him. At one time he would bet heavily
+on worthless cards, and at another would throw back nines and tens for
+no apparent reason. Finally Ellis dealt him a queen, which he kept,
+betting ten chips. His next card was a seven-spot. He signed to Ellis
+that he would stand. Ellis <a name="Page_213" id="Page_213" />drew twenty in three cards. Vandover could
+not restrain an exclamation of impatience at the Dummy's stupidity. What
+a fool a man must be to stand on seventeen with only two in the game.
+All at once he tossed twenty dollars across the table to Ellis, saying,
+&quot;Give me that in chips. I'm coming in again.&quot; Once more he resumed his
+seat at the table, and Ellis dealt him a hand.</p>
+
+<p>But Vandover's interruption had for an instant taken Ellis' mind from
+the game. He stirred in his chair and looked about the room, puffing out
+his cheeks and blowing between his lips.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, this room is close enough to strangle you. Open the window behind
+you, Van, you're nearest to it.&quot; As Vandover raised the curtain he
+uttered a cry: &quot;Look here! will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was morning; the city was flooded by the light of the sun already an
+hour high. The sky was without a cloud. Over the roofs and amongst the
+gray maze of telegraph wires swarms of sparrows were chittering
+hoarsely, and as Vandover raised the window he could hear the newsboys
+far below in the streets chanting the morning's papers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come on, Van!&quot; exclaimed Ellis impatiently; &quot;we're waiting for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That night decided it. From that time on, Vandover's only pleasure was
+gambling. Night and day he sat over the cards, the passion growing upon
+him as he continued to lose, for his ill luck was extraordinary. It was
+a veritable mania, a wild blind frenzy that knew no limit. At first he
+had contented himself with a game in which twenty or thirty dollars was
+as much as he could win or lose at a sitting, but soon this palled upon
+him; he was obliged to raise the stakes continually in order to arouse
+in him the interest, the keen tense excitement, that his jaded nerves
+craved.</p>
+
+<p>The five hundred dollars that he had drawn from the ten thousand, the
+first payment on his old home, melted away within a week. Only a few
+years ago Vandover would have stopped to reflect upon the meaning of
+this, would have resisted the temptation that drew him constantly to the
+gambling-table, but the idea of resistance never so much as occurred to
+him. He did not invest his fifteen thousand, but drew upon it
+continually to satisfy his last new craze. It was <a name="Page_214" id="Page_214" />not with any hope of
+winning that he gambled&mdash;the desire of money was never strong in him&mdash;it
+was only the love of the excitement of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little the fifteen thousand in the bank dwindled. It did not
+all go in cards. Certain habits of extravagance grew upon Vandover, the
+natural outcome of his persistent gambling, the desire of winning easily
+being balanced by the impulses to spend quickly. He took a certain
+hysterical delight in flinging away money with both hands. Now it was
+the chartering of a yacht for a ten-days' cruise about the bay, or it
+was a bicycle bought one week and thrown away the next, a fresh suit of
+clothes each month, gloves worn but once, gold-pieces thrust into
+Flossie's pockets, suppers given to bouffe actresses&mdash;twenty-four-hour
+acquaintances&mdash;a racehorse bought for eight hundred dollars, resold for
+two hundred and fifty&mdash;rings and scarf-pins given away to the women and
+girls of the Imperial, and a whole world of follies that his poor
+distorted wits conceived from hour to hour. His judgment was gone, his
+mind unbalanced. All his life Vandover had been sinking slowly lower and
+lower; this, however, was the beginning of the last plunge. The process
+of degeneration, though inevitable, had been gradual as long as he
+indulged generally in all forms of evil; it was only now when a passion
+for one particular vice absorbed him that he commenced to rush headlong
+to his ruin.</p>
+
+<p>The fifteen thousand dollars&mdash;the price of his old home&mdash;he gambled or
+flung away in a little less than a year. He never invested it, but ate
+into it day after day, sometimes to pay his gambling debts, sometimes to
+indulge an absurd and extravagant whim, sometimes to pay his bill at the
+Lick House, and sometimes for no reason at all, moved simply by a
+reckless desire for spending.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of a certain Thanksgiving day, nine months after he had
+sold the house, Vandover came in through the ladies' entrance of the
+Imperial, going slowly down the passageway, looking into the little
+rooms on his right for Ellis or the Dummy. There had been a great
+intercollegiate football game that day, and Vandover, remembering that
+he had once found an interest in such things, had at first determined to
+see it. But toward eleven o'clock in the morning the rain had <a name="Page_215" id="Page_215" />begun to
+fall, and Ellis, who was to have gone with him, declared that he did not
+care enough about the game to go out to it in the rain. Vandover was
+disappointed; he fancied that he could have enjoyed the game&mdash;as much as
+he could enjoy anything of late&mdash;but he hated to go to places alone. In
+the end, however, he resolved to go whether Ellis went or not. It was a
+holiday. Vandover had Ellis and the Dummy to lunch with him at the
+hotel, where they arranged the menu of a famous Thanksgiving dinner for
+that evening: they would meet in one of the little rooms of the Imperial
+and go from there to the restaurant. As they were finishing their lunch
+Vandover said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I got a new kind of liqueur yesterday&mdash;has a colour like violets and
+smells like cologne. You fellows better come up to my room and try it.
+I've got to go up and change anyway, if I go out to that game.&quot; They all
+went up to Vandover's cheerless room, and Ellis began to argue with
+Vandover against the folly of going anywhere in the rain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>You</i> don't want to go to that game, Van. Just look how it's raining.
+I'll bet there won't be a thousand people there. They'll probably
+postpone the game anyway. Say, this <i>is</i> queer looking stuff. What do
+you call it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Cr&egrave;me violette.</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Dummy set down his emptied liqueur glass on the mantelshelf, and
+nodded approvingly at Vandover; then he scribbled, &quot;Out of sight,&quot; on
+his tablet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tastes like cough syrup and alcohol,&quot; growled Ellis, scowling and
+sipping. &quot;I think a pint of this would make the Dummy talk Dutch. Keep
+it up, Dummy,&quot; he continued, articulating distinctly so that the other
+could catch the movement of his lips. &quot;Drink some more&mdash;make you talk.&quot;
+Vandover was cutting the string around a pasteboard box that had just
+come from his tailor's; it was a new suit of clothes, rough cheviot,
+brown with small checks. He dressed slowly and tipped forward the
+swinging mirror of the bureau to see how the trousers set. Meanwhile
+Ellis and the Dummy had got out the cards and chips from the drawer of
+the centre-table and had begun a game.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Better change your mind, Van,&quot; said Ellis without raising his eyes from
+the cards.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_216" id="Page_216" />No, sir,&quot; answered Van. &quot;You don't know how it is&mdash;you never were a
+college man. Why, I wouldn't miss a football game for anything. Talk
+about your horse-racing, talk about your baseball&mdash;I tell you there's
+nothing in the world so exciting as a hot football game.&quot; He swung into
+his long high-coloured waterproof and stood behind Ellis, watching his
+game for a moment while he tied a couple of long silk streamers to his
+umbrella handle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's one of the college colours,&quot; he explained. &quot;Seems like old times
+back at Harvard.&quot; Ellis snorted with contempt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Such kids!&quot; he growled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I saw one of the coaches go down the street a little while ago,&quot;
+continued Vandover, still watching Ellis shuffle and deal. &quot;There were
+about twenty college men on top, and they had a big bulldog all
+harnessed out in their colours, and they were blowing fish-horns, and I
+tell you it made me wish I was one of them again.&quot; Ellis did not answer;
+it was probable he did not hear. Both he and the Dummy were settling
+down for a game that no doubt would last all the afternoon. Vandover
+made them free of his room, and they often gambled there when he was
+away. But it invariably made Ellis nervous to have any one stand behind
+his chair while he was playing; he began to move about uneasily. By and
+by he looked at his watch. &quot;Better get a move on,&quot; he said, &quot;you'll be
+late.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just a minute,&quot; answered Vandover, more and more interested in the
+game. &quot;Go on playing; don't bother about me. Oh, I saw Charlie Geary,
+too,&quot; he continued, &quot;on another coach; there was a party of them.
+Charlie was with Turner Ravis on the box seat. You remember Turner
+Ravis, don't you, Bandy? The girl I used to go with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There's a girl I never liked,&quot; observed Ellis. &quot;She always struck me as
+being one of these regular snobs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, snob is no name for it,&quot; assented Vandover. &quot;She thought she was
+too damned high-toned for me. As soon as I got into that mess about Ida
+Wade, she threw me over. No, she didn't want to be associated with me
+any longer. Well, she can go to the devil. Geary's welcome to her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought Dolly Haight was going to marry her,&quot; said Ellis. &quot;What was
+the matter <i>there</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know,&quot; returned Vandover; &quot;probably Dolly<a name="Page_217" id="Page_217" /> Haight didn't have
+enough money to suit her. Guess she wants a man that will make his pile
+in this town and make his way, too. Ah, you bet!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he was still behind Ellis' chair. Ellis had become so
+fidgety that he was losing steadily. Once more he turned to Vandover,
+speaking over his shoulder, &quot;Come on, come on, Van, go along to your
+football; you make me nervous standing there.&quot; Vandover pushed a
+ten-dollar gold-piece across the table to the Dummy, who was banking,
+and said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give me that in chips. I'm coming in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought you were going to the game?&quot; inquired Ellis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, the devil!&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;Too much rain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had played without interruption all that afternoon, and for once
+Vandover had all the luck. When they broke up about five o'clock with
+the understanding to meet again in the Imperial at seven, he had won
+nearly a hundred dollars.</p>
+
+<p>When Vandover went out to keep this appointment he found the
+streets&mdash;especially Kearney and Market streets&mdash;crowded. It was about
+half-past six. The football game was over and the college men had
+returned. They were everywhere, marching about in long files, chain-gang
+fashion, each file headed by a man beating upon a gong, or parading the
+sidewalks ten abreast, singing college songs or shouting their slogan.
+At every moment one heard the college yells answering each other from
+street corner to street corner, &quot;Rah, rah, rah&mdash;Rah, rah, rah!&quot; Vandover
+found the Imperial crowded with students. The barroom was packed to the
+doors, every one of the little rooms in the front hall was full, while
+Flossie and Nannie had a great party of the young fellows in one of the
+larger rooms in the rear. Among the crowd in the barroom, three members
+of the winning team&mdash;heroes, with bandages about their heads&mdash;were
+breaking training, smoking and drinking for the first time in many long
+weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover found Ellis and the Dummy leaning against the wall in the
+crowded front passage. They were both in bad humour, the Dummy sulking
+because Flossie had left him for one of the football men, the full-back,
+a young blond giant with two dislocated fingers; Ellis in a rage because
+he could get no cocktails at the bar, only straight drinks that
+night&mdash;too<a name="Page_218" id="Page_218" /> much of a crowd. These damn college sports thought they
+owned the town. &quot;Ah, let's get out of here, Van!&quot; he called over the
+heads of the throng as soon as Vandover came in sight.</p>
+
+<p>They went out into the street and started in the direction of the
+restaurant where they had decided to eat their Thanksgiving dinner.
+After leaving Vandover that afternoon Ellis had seen the head waiter of
+this restaurant and had explained to him the bill of fare that Vandover,
+the Dummy, and himself had arranged during their lunch at the Lick
+House. The streets had relapsed into a momentary quiet&mdash;it was between
+half-past six and seven&mdash;and most of the college men were gathered into
+the hotels and caf&eacute;s eating dinner. About an hour later they would
+reappear again for a moment on their way to the theatre, which they were
+to attend in a body.</p>
+
+<p>But Vandover suddenly discovered that he could not eat a mouthful, the
+smell of food revolted him, and little by little an irregular twitching
+had overcome his hands and forearms.</p>
+
+<p>He had received a great shock. That same evening, as he was leaving the
+hotel, the clerk at the office had handed him some letters that had
+accumulated in his box. Vandover could never think to ask for his mail
+in the morning as he went in to breakfast. Something was surely wrong
+with his head of late. Every day he found it harder and harder to
+remember things. There were three letters altogether: one was the
+tailor's bill mailed the same day that his last suit had been finished;
+a second was an advertisement announcing the near opening of the Sutro
+Baths that were building at that time; and the third a notice from the
+bank calling his attention to the fact that his account was overdrawn by
+some sixty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>At first Vandover did not see the meaning of this notice, and thrust it
+back in his pocket together with the tailor's bill; then slowly an idea
+struggled into his mind. Was it possible that he no longer had any money
+at the bank? Was his fifteen thousand gone? From time to time his
+bank-book had been balanced, and invariably during the first days of
+each month his checks had come back to him, used and crumpled, covered
+with strange signatures and stamped in blue ink; but after the first few
+months he had never paid the least attention to these; he never kept
+accounts, having a veritable feminine <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219" />horror of figures. But it was
+absurd to think that his money was gone. Pshaw! one could not spend
+fifteen thousand in nine months! It was preposterous! This notice was
+some technicality that he could not understand. He would look into it
+the next day. And so he dismissed the wearisome matter from his mind
+with a shrug of his shoulders as though ridding himself of some
+troublesome burden. However, the idea persisted. Somehow, between the
+lines of the printed form he smelt out a fresh disaster. He read it over
+again and again. All at once as he stood in the doorway of the hotel,
+turning up the collar of his waterproof and watching the little pools in
+the hollows of the asphalt pavement to see if it were still raining, the
+conviction came upon him. In a second he knew that he was ruined. The
+true meaning of the notice became apparent with the swiftness of a great
+flash of light. He had spent his fifteen thousand dollars!</p>
+
+<p>The blow was strong enough, sudden enough to penetrate even Vandover's
+clouded and distorted wits. His nerves were gone in a minute, a sudden
+stupefying numbness fell upon his brain, and the fear of something
+unknown, the immense unreasoning terror that had gripped him for the
+first time the morning after Ida Wade's suicide came back upon him,
+horrible, crushing, so that he had to shut his teeth against a wild
+hysterical desire to rush through the streets screaming and waving his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>By the time the three friends had reached the restaurant where they were
+to eat their Thanksgiving dinner, Vandover's appetite had given place to
+a loathing of the very smell of food, his nervousness was fast
+approaching hysteria, the little nerve clusters all over his body seemed
+to be crisping and writhing like balls of tiny serpents, at intervals he
+would twitch sharply as though startled at some sudden noise, his breath
+coming short, his heart beating quick.</p>
+
+<p>They had their dinner in one of the private rooms of the restaurant on
+the second floor. All through the meal Vandover struggled to keep
+himself in hand, fighting with all his strength against this
+reappearance of his old enemy, this sudden return of the dreadful
+crisis, determined not to make an exhibition of himself before the
+others. He pretended to eat, and forced himself to talk, joining in with
+Ellis, who was <a name="Page_220" id="Page_220" />badgering the Dummy about Flossie. The proper thing to
+do was to fill the Dummy's glass while his attention was otherwise
+absorbed, and in the end to get him so drunk that he could talk. Toward
+the end of the dinner Ellis was successful. All at once the Dummy got
+upon his feet, his eyes were glazed with drunkenness, he swayed about in
+an irregular circle, holding up, now by the table, now by the
+chair-back, and now by the wall behind him. He was very angry,
+exasperated beyond control by Ellis' raillery and abuse. He forgot
+himself and uttered a series of peculiar cries very faint and shrill,
+like the sounds of a voice heard through a telephone when some
+imperfection of transmission prevents one from distinguishing the words.
+His mouth was wide open and his tongue rolled about in an absurd way
+between his teeth. Now and then one could catch a word or two. Ellis
+went into spasms of laughter, holding his sides, gasping for breath.
+Vandover could not help being amused, and the two laughed at the Dummy's
+stammering rage until their breath was spent. Throughout the rest of the
+evening the Dummy recommenced from time to time, rising unsteadily to
+his feet, shaking his fists, pouring out a stream of little ineffectual
+birdlike twitterings, trying to give Ellis abuse for abuse, trying to
+talk long after it had ceased to amuse the other two. Ellis had been
+drinking for nearly six hours, without the liquor producing the
+slightest effect upon him; long since, the Dummy was hopelessly drunk;
+and now Vandover, who had been drinking upon an empty stomach, began to
+grow very noisy and boisterous. Little by little Ellis himself commenced
+to lose his self-control. By and by he and Vandover began to sing, each
+independent of the other, very hoarse and loud. The Dummy joined them,
+making a hideous and lamentable noise which so affected Ellis that he
+pretended to howl at it like a little dog overcome by mournful music.
+But suddenly Ellis had an idea, crying out thickly, between two
+hiccoughs:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hey, there, Van, do your dog-act for us! Go on! Bark for us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By this time Vandover was very nearly out of his head, his drunkenness
+finishing what his nervousness had begun. The attack was fast
+approaching culmination; strange and unnatural fancies began to come and
+go in his brain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221" />Go on, Van!&quot; urged Ellis, his eyes heavy with alcohol. &quot;Go on, do your
+dog-act!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All at once it was as though an angry dog were snarling and barking over
+a bone there under the table about their feet. Ellis roared with
+laughter, but suddenly he himself was drunk. All the afternoon he had
+kept himself in hand; now his intoxication came upon him in a moment.
+The skin around his eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves
+were contracted; they grew darker, taking on the colour of bitumen.
+Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all from
+off the table with a single movement of his arm. Then the alcohol
+overcame him all in an instant like a poisonous gas. He swayed forward
+in his chair and fell across the stripped table, his head rolling
+inertly between his outstretched arms. He did not move again.</p>
+
+<p>In a neighbouring room young Haight had been dining with some college
+fellows, fraternity men, all friends of his, upon whose coach he had
+ridden to and from the game. He had heard Vandover and Ellis in the room
+across the hall and had recognized their voices. Haight had never been a
+friend of Ellis, but no one, not even Turner, had grieved more over
+Vandover's ruin than had his old-time college chum.</p>
+
+<p>Young Haight heard the noise of the falling crockery as Ellis swept the
+table clear, and turned his head sharply, listening. There was a
+moment's silence after this, and Haight, fearing some accident had
+happened, stepped out into the hall and stood there a moment listening
+again; his head inclined toward the closed door. He heard no groaning,
+no exclamations of pain, not even any noise of conversation; only
+through the closed door came a steady sound of barking.</p>
+
+<p>Puzzled, he tried the door and, finding it locked, as he had expected,
+put one foot upon the knob and, catching hold of the top jamb, raised
+himself up and looked down through the open space that answered for a
+transom.</p>
+
+<p>The room was very warm, the air thick with the smell of cooked food, the
+fumes of whisky, and the acrid odour of cigar smoke. Ellis had rolled
+from his chair and lay upon the floor sprawling on his face in the wreck
+of the table. Near to him, likewise upon the floor, but sitting up, his
+back against the wall, was the Dummy. He was muttering incessantly to
+<a name="Page_222" id="Page_222" />himself, as if delighted at having found his tongue, his head swaying
+on his shoulders, and a strange murmur, soft, birdlike, meaningless,
+like sounds heard from a vast distance, coming from his wide-open mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was sitting bolt upright in his chair, his hands gripping the
+table, his eyes staring straight before him. He was barking incessantly.
+It was evident that now he could not stop himself; it was like
+hysterical laughter, a thing beyond his control. Twice young Haight
+called him by name, kicking the door as his leg hung against it. At last
+Vandover heard him. Then as he caught sight of his face over the door he
+raised his upper lip above his teeth and snarled at him, long and
+viciously.</p>
+
+<p>As Haight dropped down into the hall a waiter came running up; he, too,
+had heard the noise of the breaking dishes. As he thrust his key into
+the lock he paused a moment, listening and looking in a puzzled way at
+young Haight. &quot;They have a dog in here, then? They had no dog when they
+came. That's funny!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Open the door,&quot; said young Haight quietly. Once inside Haight went
+directly to Vandover, crying out: &quot;Come! come on, Van! come home with
+me.&quot; Vandover started suddenly, looking about him bewildered, drawing
+his hand across his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Home,&quot; he repeated vaguely; &quot;yes, that's the idea. Let's go home. I
+want to go to bed. Hello, Dolly! where did <i>you</i> come from? Say, Dolly,
+let me tell you&mdash;listen here&mdash;come down here close; you mustn't mind me;
+you know I'm a wolf mostly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They went down toward the Lick House. Vandover grew steadier after a few
+minutes in the open air. Young Haight locked arms with him; they went on
+together in silence. By this time the streets were crowded again, the
+theatres were over, and the college men were once more at large. Now
+they were all gathered together into one immense procession, headed by a
+brass band in a brewer's wagon, and they tramped aimlessly to and fro
+about Kearney and Market streets, making a hideous noise. At the head
+the band was playing a popular quick-step with a great banging of a bass
+drum. The college men in the front ranks were singing one <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223" />song, those
+in the rear another, while the middle of the column was given over to an
+abominable medley of fish-horns, policemen's rattles and great Chinese
+gongs. At stated intervals the throng would halt and give the college
+yell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dolly, you and I used to do that,&quot; said Vandover, looking after the
+procession. He had himself well in hand by this time. &quot;What was the
+matter with me back there at the restaurant, Dolly?&quot; he asked after a
+while.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, you'd been drinking a good deal, I guess,&quot; answered young Haight.
+&quot;You&mdash;you had some queer idea about yourself!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I know,&quot; answered Vandover quickly. &quot;Fancied I was some kind of a
+beast, didn't I&mdash;some kind of wolf? I have that notion sometimes and I
+can't get it out of my head. It's curious just the same.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They went up to Vandover's room. Vandover lit the gas, but he could
+hardly keep back an exclamation as the glare suddenly struck young
+Haight's face. What in heaven's name was the matter with his old-time
+chum? He seemed to be blighted, shattered, struck down by some terrible,
+overwhelming calamity. A dreadful anguish looked through his eyes. The
+sense of a hopeless misery had drawn and twisted his face. There could
+be no doubt that something had made shipwreck of his life. Vandover was
+looking at a ruined man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My God, Dolly!&quot; exclaimed Vandover, &quot;what's happened to you? You look
+like a death's-head, man! What's gone wrong? Aren't you well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Haight caught his friend's searching gaze, and for a moment they looked
+at each other without speaking. There was no mistaking the fearful grief
+that smouldered behind Haight's dull, listless eyes. For a moment
+Vandover thought of Turner Ravis. But even if she had turned him off,
+that alone would not account for his friend's fearful condition of mind
+and body.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it, Dolly?&quot; persisted Vandover. &quot;We used to be pretty good
+chums, not so long ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They sat down on the edge of the bed, and for a moment their positions
+seemed reversed: Haight the one to be protected and consoled, Vandover
+the shielding and self-reliant one.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224" />Young Haight passed his hand over his face before he answered, and
+Vandover noticed that his fingers trembled like an old man's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you remember that night, Van, when you and Charlie and I all went
+out to Turner's house, and we had <i>tamales</i> and beer, and a glass broke
+in that peculiar way, and I cut my lip?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover nodded, forcing his attention against the alcoholic fumes, to
+follow his friend's words.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We went down to the Imperial afterward,&quot; Haight continued, &quot;and ran
+into Ellis, and we had something more to eat. Do you remember that as we
+sat there, Toby, the waiter, brought Flossie in, and she sat there with
+us a while?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused, choosing his words. Vandover listened closely, trying to
+recall the incident.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She kissed me,&quot; said young Haight slowly, &quot;and the court-plaster came
+off. You know I never had anything to do with women, Van. I always tried
+to keep away from them. But that's where my life practically came to an
+end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You mean&mdash;&quot; began Vandover. &quot;You mean&mdash;that you&mdash;that Flossie&mdash;?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Haight nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good God! I can't believe it. It's not possible! I <i>know</i> Flossie!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Haight shook his head, smiling grimly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't help that, Van,&quot; said he. &quot;There's no denying facts, there's no
+other possible explanation! As soon as I knew, I went to the doctors
+here, and then I went to New York for treatment, but there's no hope. I
+didn't know, you see. I didn't believe it possible. Turner Ravis and I
+were engaged. I waited too long! There's only one escape for me now.&quot;
+His voice dropped, he stared for a moment at the floor. Then he
+straightened up, and said in a different tone, &quot;But, damn it, Van, let's
+not talk about it! I'm haunted with the thing day and night. I want to
+talk to you! I want to talk to you seriously. You know you are ruining
+yourself, old man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But Vandover interrupted him with a gesture, saying, &quot;Don't go on,
+Dolly; it isn't the least use. There <i>was</i> a time for that, but that was
+long ago. I used to care, I used to be sorry and all that, but I'm not
+now. Ruining myself? Why, I<a name="Page_225" id="Page_225" /> <i>have</i> ruined myself long ago. We're both
+ruined&mdash;only in your case it wasn't your fault. It's too late for me
+now, and I'm even not sorry that it <i>is</i> too late. Dolly, I don't <i>want</i>
+to pull up. You can't imagine a man fallen as low as that, can you? I
+couldn't imagine it myself a few years ago. I'm going right straight to
+the devil now, and you might as well stand aside and give me a free
+course, for I'm bound to get there sooner or later. I suppose you would
+think that a man who could see this as plainly as I do would be afraid,
+would have remorse and all that sort of thing. Well, I did at first.
+I'll never forget the night when I first saw it; came near shooting
+myself, but I got over it, and now I'm used to the idea. Dolly, <i>I can
+get used to almost anything</i>. Nothing makes much difference to me
+nowadays&mdash;only I like to play cards. Look here!&quot; he went on, laying out
+the notice from the bank upon the table, &quot;this came to-day. You see what
+it is! I sold the old house on California Street. Well, I've gambled
+away that money in less than a year. It seems that I'm a financial ruin
+now, but&quot;&mdash;and he began to laugh&mdash;&quot;I live through it somehow. The news
+didn't prevent me from getting drunk to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After young Haight was gone, Vandover went to bed, turning out the gas
+and drawing down the window half-way from the top. The wine had made him
+sleepy; he was dropping away into a very grateful doze when a sudden
+shock, a violent leap of every nerve in his body, brought him up to a
+sitting posture, gasping for breath, his heart fluttering, his hands
+beating at the empty air. He settled down again, turning upon his
+pillow, closing his eyes, very weary, longing for a good night's sleep.
+Dolly Haight's terrible story, his unjustified fate, and the hopeless
+tragedy of it, came back to him. Vandover would gladly have changed
+places with him. Young Haight had the affection and respect of even
+those that knew. He, Vandover, had thrown away his friends' love and
+their esteem with the rest of the things he had once valued. His
+thoughts, released from all control of his will, began to come and go
+through his head with incredible rapidity, confused ideas,
+half-remembered scenes, incidents of the past few days, bits and ends of
+conversation recalled for no especial reason, all galloping across his
+brain like a long herd of terrified <a name="Page_226" id="Page_226" />horses; an excitement grew upon
+him, a strange thrill of exhilaration. He was broad awake now, but
+suddenly his left leg, his left arm and wrist, all his left side jerked
+with the suddenness of a sprung trap; so violent was the shock that the
+entire bed shook and creaked with it. Then the inevitable reaction
+followed, the slow crisping and torsion of his nerves, twisting upon
+each other like a vast swarm of tiny serpents; it seemed to begin with
+his ankles, spreading slowly to every part of his body; it was a
+veritable torture, so poignant that Vandover groaned under it, shutting
+his eyes. He could not keep quiet a second&mdash;to lie in bed was an
+impossibility; he threw the bed-clothes from him and sprang up. He did
+not light the gas, but threw on his bathrobe and began to walk the
+floor. Even as he walked, his eyelids drooped lower and lower. The need
+of sleep overcame him like a narcotic, but as soon as he was about to
+lose himself he would be suddenly and violently awakened by the same
+shock, the same jangling recoil of his nerves. Then his hands and head
+seemed to swell; next, it was as though the whole room was too small for
+him. He threw open the window and, leaning upon his elbows, looked out.</p>
+
+<p>The clouds had begun to break, the rain was gradually ceasing, leaving
+in the air a damp, fresh smell, the smell of wet asphalt and the odour
+of dripping woodwork. It was warm; the atmosphere was dank, heavy,
+tepid. One or two stars were out, and a faint gray light showed him the
+vast reach of roofs below stretching away to meet the abrupt rise of
+Telegraph Hill. Not far off the slender, graceful smokestack puffed
+steadily, throwing off continually the little flock of white jets that
+rose into the air very brave and gay, but in the end dwindled
+irresolutely, discouraged, disheartened, fading sadly away, vanishing
+under the night, like illusions disappearing at the first touch of the
+outside world. As Vandover leaned from his window, looking out into the
+night with eyes that saw nothing, the college slogan rose again from the
+great crowd of students who still continued to hold the streets.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He turned back into the room, groping among the bottles on his washstand
+for his bromide of potassium. As he poured out the required dose into
+the teaspoon his hand twitched <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227" />again sharply, flirting the medicine
+over his bared neck and chest, exposed by the bathrobe which he had left
+open at the throat. It was cold, and he shivered a bit as he wiped it
+dry with the back of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>He knew very well that his nervous attack was coming on again. As he set
+down the bottle upon the washstand he muttered to himself, &quot;Now I'm
+going to have a night of it.&quot; He began to walk the floor again with
+great strides, fighting with all his pitiful, shattered mind against the
+increasing hysteria, trying to keep out of his brain the strange
+hallucination that assailed it from time to time, the hallucination of a
+thing four-footed, a thing that sulked and snarled. The hotel grew
+quiet; a watchman went down the hall turning out each alternate gas jet.
+Just outside of the door was a burner in a red globe, fixed at a stair
+landing to show the exit in case of fire. This burned all night and it
+streamed through the transom of Vandover's room, splotching the ceiling
+with a great square of red light. Vandover was in a torment, overcome
+now by that same fear with which he had at last become so familiar, the
+unreasoning terror of something unknown. He uttered an exclamation, a
+suppressed cry of despair, of misery, and then suddenly checked himself,
+astonished, seized with the fancy that his cry was not human, was not of
+himself, but of something four-footed, the snarl of some exasperated
+brute. He paused abruptly in his walk, listening, for what he did not
+know. The silence of the great city spread itself around him, like the
+still waters of some vast lagoon. Through the silence he heard the noise
+of the throng of college youths. They were returning, doubling upon
+their line of march. A long puff of tepid air breathing through the open
+window brought to his ears the distant joyous sound of their slogan:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They passed by along the adjacent street, their sounds growing faint.
+Vandover took up his restless pacing again. Little by little the
+hallucination gained upon him; little by little his mind slipped from
+his grasp. The wolf&mdash;the beast&mdash;whatever the creature was, seemed in his
+diseased fancy to grow stronger in him from moment to moment. But with
+all his strength he fought against it, fought against this strange
+mania, that overcame him at these periodical intervals&mdash;fought<a name="Page_228" id="Page_228" /> with his
+hands so tightly clenched that the knuckles grew white, that the nails
+bit into the palm. It seemed to him that in some way his personality
+divided itself into three. There was himself, the real Vandover of every
+day, the same familiar Vandover that looked back at him from his mirror;
+then there was the wolf, the beast, whatever the creature was that lived
+in his flesh, and that struggled with him now, striving to gain the
+ascendency, to absorb the real Vandover into its own hideous identity;
+and last of all, there was a third self, formless, very vague, elusive,
+that stood aside and watched the strife of the other two. But as he
+fought against his madness, concentrating all his attention with a
+tremendous effort of the will, the queer numbness that came upon his
+mind whenever he exerted it enwrapped his brain like a fog, and this
+third self grew vaguer than ever, dwindled and disappeared. Somehow it
+seemed to be associated with consciousness, for after this the sense of
+the reality of things grew dim and blurred to him. He ceased to know
+exactly what he was doing. His intellectual parts dropped away one by
+one, leaving only the instincts, the blind, unreasoning impulses of the
+animal.</p>
+
+<p>Still he continued his restless, lurching walk back and forth in his
+room, his head hanging low and swinging from side to side with the
+movement of his gait. He had become so nervous that the restraint
+imposed upon his freedom of movement by his bathrobe and his loose
+night-clothes chafed and irritated him. At length he had stripped off
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly and without the slightest warning Vandover's hands came slowly
+above his head and he dropped forward, landing upon his palms. All in an
+instant he had given way, yielding in a second to the strange
+hallucination of that four-footed thing that sulked and snarled. Now
+without a moment's stop he ran back and forth along the wall of the
+room, upon the palms of his hands and his toes, a ludicrous figure, like
+that of certain clowns one sees at the circus, contortionists walking
+about the sawdust, imitating some kind of enormous dog. Still he swung
+his head from side to side with the motion of his shuffling gait, his
+eyes dull and fixed. At long intervals he uttered a sound, half word,
+half cry, &quot;Wolf&mdash;wolf!&quot; but it was muffled, indistinct, raucous, coming
+more <a name="Page_229" id="Page_229" />from his throat than from his lips. It might easily have been the
+growl of an animal. A long time passed. Naked, four-footed, Vandover ran
+back and forth the length of the room.</p>
+
+<p>By an hour after midnight the sky was clear, all the stars were out, the
+moon a thin, low-swinging scimitar, set behind the black mass of the
+roofs of the city, leaving a pale bluish light that seemed to come from
+all quarters of the horizon. As the great stillness grew more and more
+complete, the persistent puffing of the slender tin stack, the three gay
+and joyous little noises, each sounding like a note of discreet laughter
+interrupted by a cough, became clear and distinct. Inside the room there
+was no sound except the persistent patter of something four-footed going
+up and down. At length even this sound ceased abruptly. Worn out,
+Vandover had just fallen, dropping forward upon his face with a long
+breath. He lay still, sleeping at last. The remnant of the great band of
+college men went down an adjacent street, raising their cadenced slogan
+for the last time. It came through the open window, softened as it were
+by the warm air, thick with damp, through which it travelled:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Naked, exhausted, Vandover slept profoundly, stretched at full length at
+the foot of the bare, white wall of the room beneath two of the little
+placards, scrawled with ink, that read, &quot;Stove Here&quot;; &quot;Mona Lisa Here.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Seventeen" id="Chapter_Seventeen" /><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230" /><i>Chapter Seventeen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>On A certain Saturday morning two years later Vandover awoke in his room
+at the Reno House, the room he had now occupied for fifteen months.</p>
+
+<p>One might almost say that he had been expelled from the Lick House. For
+a time he had tried to retain his room there with the idea of paying his
+bills by the money he should win at gambling. But his bad luck was now
+become a settled thing&mdash;almost invariably he lost. At last Ellis and the
+Dummy had refused to play with him, since he was never able to pay them
+when they won. They had had a great quarrel. Ellis broke with him
+sullenly, growling wrathfully under his heavy moustache, and the Dummy
+had written upon his pad&mdash;so hastily and angrily that the words could
+hardly be read&mdash;that he would not play with professional gamblers, men
+who supported themselves by their winnings. Damn it! one had to be a
+gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Next, Vandover had tried to borrow some money of Charlie Geary. Geary
+had told him that he could not afford as much as Vandover needed. Then
+Vandover became enraged. He had long since seen that Geary had
+practically swindled him out of his block in the Mission, and at that
+very moment the huge boot and shoe &quot;concern&quot; was completing the factory
+built upon the ground that Vandover had once owned. Geary had cleared
+seven thousand dollars on his &quot;deal.&quot; His refusal to loan his old-time
+friend fifty dollars upon this occasion had exasperated Vandover out of
+all bounds. There was a scene. Vandover told Geary what he thought of
+his &quot;deal&quot; in very plain words. They shouted &quot;swindler&quot; and &quot;gambler&quot;
+into each other's faces; the whole office was aroused; Vandover was
+ejected by force. On a stair landing half-way to the street he sat down
+and cried into his arms folded upon his knees. When he returned to his
+room he had a sudden return of his dreadful nervous malady and barked
+and whined under the bed.</p>
+
+<p>Then Vandover wrote a fifty-dollar check on the bank&mdash;the same bank that
+had just notified him that he was overdrawn&mdash;and passed it upon young
+Haight. How he came to <a name="Page_231" id="Page_231" />do the thing he could not tell; it might have
+been the influence of Geary's successful robbery, or it might have been
+that he had at last lost all principle, all sense of honour and
+integrity. At any rate, he could not bring himself to feel very sorry.
+He knew that young Haight would not prosecute him for the dishonesty; he
+traded upon Haight's magnanimity; he only felt glad that he had the
+fifty dollars. But by this time Vandover did not even wonder at his own
+baseness and degradation. A few years ago this would have been the case;
+now his character was so changed that the theft seemed somehow
+consistent. He had destroyed young Haight's friendship for him. He had
+cast from him his college chum, his best friend, but neither did this
+affect him. Nothing made much difference to him now.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Vandover was evicted from the Lick House three days after
+he had stolen young Haight's money. Instead of paying his bills with the
+amount, he gambled it away in a back room of a new caf&eacute; on Market Street
+with Toby, the red-eyed waiter from the Imperial, and a certain German
+&quot;professor,&quot; a billiard marker, who wore a waistcoat figured with little
+designs of the Eiffel Tower, and who was a third owner in a trotting
+mare named Tomato Ketchup.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was now left with only his bonds, his U.S. 4 per cents. These
+brought him in but sixty-nine dollars a quarter, or as he had had it
+arranged, twenty-three dollars a month. Just at this time, as if by a
+miracle, a veritable God from the Machine, Vandover's lawyer, Mr. Field,
+found him an opportunity to earn some money. For the first and only time
+in his life Vandover knew what it was to work for a living. The work
+that Field secured for him was the work of painting those little
+pictures on the lacquered surface of iron safes, those little oval
+landscapes between the lines of red and gold lettering&mdash;landscapes,
+rugged gorges, ocean steamships under all sail, mountain lakes with
+sailboats careening upon their surfaces, the boat indicated by two
+little triangular dabs of Chinese white, one for the sail itself and the
+other for its reflection in the water. Sometimes even he was called upon
+to paint other little pictures upon the sides of big express wagons&mdash;two
+horses, one white and the other bay, galloping very free in an open
+field, their manes and tails flying, or a bull<a name="Page_232" id="Page_232" />dog, very savage, sitting
+upon a green and black safe, or the head of a mastiff with a spiked
+collar about his neck.</p>
+
+<p>What with the pay for this sort of work and the interest of his bonds,
+Vandover managed to lead a haphazard sort of life, living about in cheap
+lodging-houses and cheap restaurants. But he was never more than a
+second-class workman, and he was so irregular that he could never be
+depended upon.</p>
+
+<p>The moment he began to paint again&mdash;even to paint such pitiful little
+pictures as these&mdash;the same familiar experience repeated itself, the
+unwillingness of his fingers, their failure to rightly interpret his
+ideas, the resulting crudity of his work, the sudden numbness in his
+brain, the queer, tense sensation behind his eyes. But Vandover had long
+since become accustomed to these symptoms and would not have minded them
+at this time had it not been that they were occasionally followed by a
+nervous twitching and jerking of his whole arm, so that sometimes he
+could not hold the brush steady a minute at a time.</p>
+
+<p>For two years he had drifted about the city, living now here and now
+there, a real hand-to-mouth existence, sinking a little lower each day.
+Now, no one knew him. He had completely passed out of the lives of
+Haight, Geary, and Ellis, just s before he had passed out of the life of
+Turner Ravis. At the end of the first year they had ceased even to think
+about him. For a long time they thought that he was dead, until one day
+Ellis declared that he had seen him far down on Kearney Street, near the
+Barbary Coast, looking at the pictures in the illustrated weeklies that
+were tacked upon the show-board on the sidewalk in front of a
+stationer's. Ellis had told the others that on this occasion Vandover
+seemed to be more sickly than ever; he described his appearance in
+detail, wagging his head at his own story, pursing his lips, putting his
+chin in the air. Vandover had worn an old paint-stained pair of blue
+trousers, fastened with a strap, so that his shirt showed below his
+vest; he had no collar, and he had allowed his beard to grow, a
+straggling thin beard, through which one could see the buttons of his
+shirt, a dirty beard full of the cracker crumbs from the free
+lunch-counters of cheap saloons; he had on a hat which he had worn when
+they had known him; but one should see that hat now!</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233" />It was all true: little by little Vandover had abandoned all interest
+in his personal appearance. Of course it was impossible for him to dress
+well at this time, but he had even lost regard for decency and
+cleanliness. He washed himself but rarely. He had even acquired the
+habit of sleeping with all his clothes on during the colder nights of
+the year.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing made any difference. Gradually his mind grew more and more
+clouded; he became stupid, sluggish. He went about the city from dawn to
+dark, his feet dragging, his head hanging low and swinging from side to
+side with the motion of his gait. He rarely spoke; his eyes took on a
+dull, glazed appearance, filmy, like the eyes of a dead fish. At certain
+intervals his mania came upon him, the strange hallucination of
+something four-footed, the persistent fancy that the brute in him had
+now grown so large, so insatiable, that it had taken everything, even to
+his very self, his own identity&mdash;that he had literally <i>become the
+brute</i>. The attack passed off and left him wondering, perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>The Reno House, where Vandover had lived for some fifteen months, was a
+sort of hotel on Sacramento Street below Kearney. The neighbourhood was
+low&mdash;just on the edge of the Barbary Coast, abounding in stores for
+second-hand clothing, saloons, pawnshops, gun-stores, bird-stores, and
+the shops of Chinese cobblers. Around the corner on Kearney Street was a
+concert hall, a dive, to which the admission was free. Near by was the
+old Plaza.</p>
+
+<p>Underneath the hotel on the ground floor were two saloons, a barber
+shop, and a broom manufactory. The lodgers themselves were for the most
+part &quot;transients,&quot; sailors lounging about shore between two voyages,
+Swedes and Danes, farmhands, grape-pickers, and cow-punchers from
+distant parts of the state, a few lost women, and Japanese cooks and
+second-boys remaining there while they advertised for positions.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover sank to the grade of these people at once with that fatal
+adaptability to environment which he had permitted himself to foster
+throughout his entire life, and which had led him to be contented in
+almost any circumstances. It was as if the brute in him were forever
+seeking a lower level, wallowing itself lower and lower into the filth
+and into the mire, <a name="Page_234" id="Page_234" />content to be foul, content to be prone, to be inert
+and supine.</p>
+
+<p>It was Saturday morning about a quarter of nine. The wet season had
+begun early that year. Though this was but the middle of September, the
+rain had fallen steadily since the previous Wednesday. Its steady
+murmur, prolonged and soothing like the purring of a great cat, filled
+Vandover's room with a pleasant sound. The air of the room was thick and
+foul, heavy with the odour of cooking, onions, and stale bedding. It was
+very warm; there was no ventilation. Vandover lay upon the bed half
+awake, dozing under the thick coarse blankets and soiled counterpane.
+With the exception of his shoes and coat he wore all his clothes. He was
+glad to be warm, to be stupefied by the heat of the bedding and the bad
+air of the room.</p>
+
+<p>In the next room a Portuguese fruit vender, very drunk, was fighting
+with the tin pitcher and pasteboard bowl on his wash-stand, trying to
+wet his head, swearing and making a hideous clatter. At length he tipped
+them over upon the floor and gave the pitcher a great kick. The noise
+roused Vandover; he sat up in bed, stretching, rubbing his hands over
+his face. About the same moment the clock in the office downstairs
+struck nine. Vandover let his feet drop to the floor and sat on the edge
+of the bed, looking vaguely about him. His face, ordinarily very pale,
+was oily from sleep and red upon one side from long contact with the
+pillow, the marks of the creases still showing upon his cheek. His long
+straight hair fell about his eyes and ears like a tangled mane. A thin
+straggling beard and moustache, of a brown much lighter than his hair,
+covered the lower part of his face. His nose was long and pinched, while
+brown and puffed pockets hung beneath his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He wore a white shirt very crumpled and dirty, a low standing collar and
+a black four-in-hand necktie, very greasy. His trousers were striped and
+of a slate blue colour&mdash;the &quot;blue pants&quot; of the ready-made clothing
+stores. Still sitting on the bed, Vandover continued his stupid gaze
+about the room.</p>
+
+<p>The room was small, and at some long-forgotten, almost prehistoric
+period had been covered with a yellowish paper, stamped with a huge
+pattern of flowers that looked like the <a name="Page_235" id="Page_235" />flora of a carboniferous
+strata, a pattern repeated to infinity wherever the eye turned.
+Newspapers were pasted upon the ceiling and a great square of very dirty
+matting covered the floor. There were a few pieces of furniture, very
+old-fashioned, made of pine, with a black walnut veneer, two chairs, a
+washstand and the bed. A great pile of old newspapers tied up with bale
+rope was kicked into one corner. Two gas brackets without globes
+stretched forth their long arms over the empty space where the bureau
+should have been. Under the single window was Vandover's trunk, and upon
+it his colour box and pots of paint. His hat hung upon a hook screwed to
+the door. The hat had once been black, but it had long since turned to a
+greenish hue, and sweat stains were showing about the band.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover dressed slowly. He straightened his hair a bit before the cheap
+mirror that hung over the washstand, putting on his hat immediately
+after to keep it in place. He washed his hands in the dirty water that
+had stood in his pasteboard bowl since the previous afternoon, but left
+his face as it was. He put on his coat, an old cutaway which had been
+his best years ago, but which was now absurdly small for him, the breast
+all spotted and streaked with old stains of soup and gravy. Last of all
+he drew on his shoes. They were new. Vandover had bought them two days
+before for a dollar and ninety cents. They were lined so as to make
+socks superfluous.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a bad week with Vandover. The paint-shop had given him no
+work to do for ten days, and he had been forced to get along in some way
+upon the interest of his bonds&mdash;that is to say, upon five dollars and
+seventy-five cents a week. Two dollars and seventy-five cents of this
+went for his room rent, one dollar and ninety for his shoes, and Tuesday
+afternoon he had bought a package of cigarettes for ten cents. By
+Saturday morning he had spent seventy-five cents for food.</p>
+
+<p>When the paint-shop gave him enough work it was Vandover's custom to buy
+a week's commutation ticket at a certain restaurant. He never ate at the
+hotel; it was too expensive. By the commutation system he could buy two
+dollars and twenty-five cents' worth of meals for two dollars, paying in
+tickets at each meal.</p>
+
+<p>But such a thing had been impossible this week. He had <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236" />been forced to
+fall back upon the free-lunch system. In two years Vandover had learned
+a great deal; even his dulled wits had been sharpened when it had come
+to a question of food. The brute in him might destroy all his finer
+qualities, but even the brute had to feed. When work failed him at the
+beginning of the week Vandover was not unprepared for the contingency;
+the thing had happened before and he knew how to meet it.</p>
+
+<p>On Monday he beat up and down the Barbary Coast, picking out fifteen or
+twenty saloons which supported a free-lunch counter in connection with
+the bar. He took his breakfast Monday morning at the first of these. He
+paid five cents for a glass of beer and ate his morning's meal at the
+lunch counter: stew, bread, and cheese. At noon he made his dinner at
+the second saloon on his route. Here he had another glass of beer, a
+great plate of soup, potato salad, and pretzels. Thus he managed to feed
+himself throughout the week.</p>
+
+<p>It was always his great desire to feed well at Sunday's dinner, to spend
+at least a quarter on that meal. It was something to be looked forward
+to throughout the entire week. But to get twenty-five cents ahead when
+he was out of work was bitter hard. That week he had started out with
+the determination to eat but two meals a day. He would thus save five
+cents daily and by Sunday morning would be thirty cents to the good. But
+each day his resolution broke down. At breakfast he would resolve to go
+without his lunch, at lunch he would make up his mind to go without
+supper, and at supper he would tell himself that now at least his
+determination was irrevocable&mdash;he would eat no breakfast the next
+morning. But on each and every occasion his hunger proved too strong,
+his feet carried him irresistibly to the saloon lunch counters, whether
+he would or no. At no time in his life had Vandover accustomed himself
+to self-denial; he could hardly begin now.</p>
+
+<p>At length Saturday morning had come, and while he was dressing he
+realized that he could not look forward to any unusual dinner the next
+day at noon. The disappointment had all the force of an unexpected
+disaster and he began keenly to regret his weakness of the past week.
+Suddenly Vandover resolved that he would go without food all that day;
+it would be a saving of fifteen cents, which, added to the five cents
+that <a name="Page_237" id="Page_237" />he would spend anyway for his dinner, would almost make a quarter.
+He knew where he could dine excellently well for twenty cents. However,
+he could not make up his mind to go without his Sunday morning's
+breakfast. That, he told himself, he must eat.</p>
+
+<p>Once dressed, Vandover went out. Fortunately, the rain had stopped. He
+went on down through the reeking, steaming streets to one of the big
+fruit markets not far from the water front. The Portuguese fruit vender
+who roomed next to him at the Reno House was employed at a stall here.
+Vandover knew him a little, and it was not hard for him to get a thin
+slice of cocoanut out from the inside rind of one of those that were
+lying cracked open among his other wares.</p>
+
+<p>All the morning Vandover chewed this slice of cocoanut, at the same time
+drinking a great deal of water; for hours he deadened the pang of hunger
+by this means. He passed the time for the most part sitting on the
+benches in the Plaza reading an old newspaper that he had found under a
+seat. The sun came out a little; Vandover found the warmth very
+grateful. He told himself that he could easily hold out until the next
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>He had forgotten about the time and was surprised when the whistles all
+over the town began to blow for noon. In an instant Vandover was hungry
+again. It was all one that he chewed the little pulp of cocoanut rind
+more vigorously than ever, swallowed great draughts of water at the
+public fountains; the little gnawing just between his chest and his
+stomach began to persist. He got up and began to walk. He left the Plaza
+behind him, crossed Kearney Street and went on down Clay Street till he
+reached the water front. For a time he found a certain diversion among
+the shipping and especially in watching a gang of caulkers knocking away
+at the seams of an immense coal steamer. He sat upon a great iron
+clamped pile, spitting into the yellow water below. The air was full of
+the smell of bilge and oakum and fish; the thousands of masts made a
+gray maze against the sky; occasionally an empty truck trundled over the
+hollow docks with a sound of distant cannon. A weakness, a little
+trembling that seemed to come from the pit of his stomach, began upon
+Vandover. He was very hungry. Evidently the slice of cocoanut was no
+<a name="Page_238" id="Page_238" />longer effective. He swallowed it and lit a cigarette, one of the
+half-dozen still left of the pack he had bought the Tuesday before.</p>
+
+<p>He smoked the cigarette slowly, inhaling as much of the smoke as he
+could. This quieted him for an hour, but he had the folly to smoke again
+at the end of that time, and at once&mdash;as he might have known&mdash;was hungry
+again. Until dark he struggled along, drinking water continually,
+chewing chips of wood, toothpicks, bits of straw, anything so that the
+action of his jaws might cheat the demands of his stomach. Toward
+half-past seven in the evening he returned to his room in the Reno
+House. If he could get to sleep that would be best of all. On the stairs
+of the hotel, while going up to his room, the strong smell of cooking
+onions came suddenly to his nostrils. It was delicious. Vandover
+breathed in the warm savour with long sighs, closing his eyes; a great
+feebleness overcame him. He asked himself how he could get through the
+next twelve hours.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later he went to bed, hiccoughing from the water he had been
+drinking all day. By this time he had torn the paper from one of his
+cigarettes and was chewing the tobacco. This was his last resort, an
+expedient which he fell back upon only in great extremity, as it
+invariably made him sick to his stomach. He slept a little, but in half
+an hour was broad awake again, gagging and retching dreadfully. There
+was nothing on his stomach to throw up, and now at length the hunger in
+him raged like a wolf. Vandover was in veritable torment.</p>
+
+<p>He could not keep his thoughts away from the money in his pocket, a
+nickel and two dimes. He could eat if he wanted to, could satisfy this
+incessant craving. At every moment the temptation grew stronger. Why
+should he wait until morning? He had the money; it was only a matter of
+a few minutes' walk to the nearest saloon. But he set his face against
+this desire; he had held out so long that it would be a pity to give in
+now; he was not so very hungry after all. No, no; he would not give in,
+he was strong enough; as long as he used his will he need not succumb.
+It was just a question of asserting his strength of mind, of calling up
+the better part of him. Even better than eating would be the
+satisfaction of knowing <a name="Page_239" id="Page_239" />that he had shown himself stronger than his
+lower animal appetite. No; he would not give in.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly a minute after he had arrived at this resolution Vandover found
+himself drawing on his coat and shoes making ready to go out&mdash;to go out
+and eat.</p>
+
+<p>The gas in the room was lit, his money, the nickel and the two dimes,
+was shut in one of his fists. He was dressing himself with one hand,
+dressing with feverish, precipitate haste. What had happened? He
+marvelled at himself, but did not check his preparations an instant. He
+could not stop, whether he would or no; there was something in him
+stronger than himself, something that urged him on his feet, that drove
+him out into the street, something that clamoured for food and that
+would not be gainsaid. It was the animal in him, the brute, that would
+be fed, the evil, hideous brute grown now so strong that Vandover could
+not longer resist it&mdash;the brute that had long since destroyed all his
+finer qualities but that still demanded to be fed, still demanded to
+live. All the little money that Vandover had saved during the day he
+spent that night among the coffee houses, the restaurants, and the
+saloons of the Barbary Coast, continuing to eat even after his hunger
+was satisfied. Toward daylight he returned to his room, and all dressed
+as he was flung himself face downward among the coarse blankets and
+greasy counterpane. For nearly eight hours he slept profoundly, with
+long snores, prone, inert, crammed and gorged with food.</p>
+
+<p>It was the middle of Sunday afternoon when he awoke. He roused himself
+and going over to the Plaza sat for a long while upon one of the
+benches. It was a very bright afternoon and Vandover sat motionless for
+a long time in the sun while his heavy meal digested, very happy,
+content merely to be warm, to be well fed, to be comfortable.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Chapter_Eighteen" id="Chapter_Eighteen" /><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240" /><i>Chapter Eighteen</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>That winter passed, then the summer; September and October came and
+went, and by the middle of November the rains set in. One very wet
+afternoon toward the end of the month Charlie Geary sat at his desk in
+his own private office. He was unoccupied for the moment, leaning back
+in his swivel chair, his feet on the table, smoking a cigar. Geary had
+broken from his old-time habit of smoking only so many cigars as he
+could pay for by saving carfare. He was doing so well now that he could
+afford to smoke whenever he chose. He was still with the great firm of
+Beale &amp; Storey, and while not in the partnership as yet, had worked up
+to the position of an assistant. He had cases of his own now, a great
+many of them, for the most part damage suits against that certain
+enormous corporation whom it was said was ruining the city and entire
+state. Geary posed as one of its bitterest enemies, pushing each suit
+brought against it with a tireless energy, with a zeal that was almost
+vindictive. He began to fit into his own niche, in the eyes of the
+public, and just in proportion as the corporation was hated, Geary was
+admired. Money came to him very fast. He was hardly thirty at this time,
+but could already be called a rich man.</p>
+
+<p>His &quot;deal&quot; with Vandover had given him a taste for real estate, and now
+and then, with the greatest caution, he made a few discreet investments.
+At present he had just completed a row of small cottages across the
+street from the boot and shoe factory. The cottages held two rooms and a
+large kitchen. Geary had calculated that the boot and shoe concern would
+employ nearly a thousand operatives, and he had built his row with the
+view of accommodating a few of them who had families and who desired to
+live near the factory. His agents were Adams &amp; Brunt.</p>
+
+<p>It was toward half-past five, there was nothing more that Geary could do
+that day, and for a moment he leaned back in his swivel chair, before
+going home, smiling a little, very well pleased with himself. He was
+still as clever and shrewd as ever, still devoured with an incarnate
+ambition, still delighted when he could get the better of any one. He
+was yet a young <a name="Page_241" id="Page_241" />man; with the start he had secured for himself, and
+with the exceptional faculties, the faculties of self-confidence and
+&quot;push&quot; that he knew himself to possess, there was no telling to what
+position he might attain. He knew that it was only a question of
+time&mdash;of a short time even&mdash;when he would be the practical head of the
+great firm. Everything he turned his hand to was a success. His row of
+houses in the Mission might be enlarged to a veritable settlement for
+every workman in the neighbourhood. His youth, his cleverness, and his
+ambition, supported by his money on the one hand, and on the other by
+the vast machinery of the great law firm, could raise him to a great
+place in the world of men. Gazing through the little blue haze of his
+cigar smoke, he began to have vague ideas, ideas of advancement, of
+political successes. Politics fascinated him&mdash;such a field of action
+seemed to be the domain for which he was precisely suited&mdash;not the
+politics of the city or of the state; not the nasty little squabbling of
+boodlers, lobbyists, and supervisors, but something large, something
+inspiring, something on a tremendous scale, something to which one could
+give up one's whole life and energy, something to which one could
+sacrifice everything&mdash;friendships, fortunes, scruples, principles, life
+itself, no matter what, anything to be a &quot;success,&quot; to &quot;arrive,&quot; to &quot;get
+there,&quot; to attain the desired object in spite of the whole world, to
+ride on at it, trampling down or smashing through everything that stood
+in the way, blind, deaf, fists and teeth shut tight. Not the little
+squabbling politics of the city or state, but national politics, the
+sway and government of a whole people, the House, the Senate, the
+cabinet and the next&mdash;why not?&mdash;the highest, the best of all, the
+Executive. Yes, Geary aspired even to the Presidency.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he allowed himself the indulgence of the delightful dream,
+then laughed a bit at his own absurdity. But even the entertainment of
+so vast an idea had made his mind, as it were, big; it was hard to come
+down to the level again. In spite of himself he went on reasoning in
+stupendous thoughts, in enormous ideas, figuring with immense
+abstractions. And then after all, why not? Other men had striven and
+attained; other men were even now striving, other men would &quot;arrive&quot;;
+why should not he? As well he as another. Every <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242" />man for himself&mdash;that
+was his maxim. It might be damned selfish, but it was human nature: the
+weakest to the wall, the strongest to the front. Why should not he be in
+the front? Why not in the very front rank? Why not be even before the
+front rank itself&mdash;the leader? Vast, vague ideas passed slowly across
+the vision of his mind, ideas that could hardly be formulated into
+thought, ideas of the infinite herd of humanity, driven on as if by some
+enormous, relentless engine, driven on toward some fearful distant
+bourne, driven on recklessly at headlong speed. All life was but a
+struggle to keep from under those myriad spinning wheels that dashed so
+close behind. Those were happiest who were farthest to the front. To lag
+behind was peril; to fall was to perish, to be ridden down, to be beaten
+to the dust, to be inexorably crushed and blotted out beneath that
+myriad of spinning iron wheels. Geary looked up quickly and saw Vandover
+standing in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>For the moment Geary did not recognize the gaunt, shambling figure with
+the long hair and dirty beard, the greenish hat, and the streaked and
+spotted coat, but when he did it was with a feeling of anger and
+exasperation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here!&quot; he cried, &quot;don't you think you'd better knock before you
+come in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover raised a hand slowly as if in deprecation, and answered slowly
+and with a feeble, tremulous voice, the voice of an old man: &quot;I did
+knock, Mister Geary; I didn't mean no offence.&quot; He sat down on the edge
+of the nearest chair, looking vaguely and stupidly about on the floor,
+moving his head instead of his eyes, repeating under his breath from
+time to time, &quot;No offence&mdash;no, sir&mdash;no offence!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shut that door!&quot; commanded Geary. Vandover obeyed. He wore no vest, and
+the old cutaway coat, fastened by the single remaining button, exposed
+his shirt to view, abominably filthy, bulging at the waist like a
+blouse. The &quot;blue pants,&quot; held up by a strap, were all foul with mud and
+grease and paint, and there hung about him a certain odour, that
+peculiar smell of poverty and of degradation, the smell of stale clothes
+and of unwashed bodies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; said Geary abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover put the tips of his fingers to his lips and rolled <a name="Page_243" id="Page_243" />his eyes
+about the room, avoiding Geary's glance; then he dropped them to the
+floor again, looking at the pattern in the carpet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; repeated Geary, irritated, &quot;you know I haven't got all the time
+in the world.&quot; All at once Vandover began to cry, very softly, snuffling
+with his nose, his chin twitching, the tears running through his thin,
+sparse beard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, get on to yourself!&quot; shouted Geary, now thoroughly disgusted. &quot;Quit
+that! Be a man, will you? Stop that! do you hear?&quot; Vandover obeyed,
+catching his breath and slowly wiping his eyes with the side of his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm no good!&quot; he said at length, wagging his head and blinking through
+his tears. &quot;I'm&mdash;I'm done for and I ain't got no money; yet, of course,
+you see I don't mean no offence. What I want, you see, is to be a man
+and not give in and not let the wolf get me, and then I'll go back to
+Paris. Everything goes round here, very slow, and seems far off; that's
+why I can't get along, and I'm that hungry that sometimes I twitch all
+over. I'm down. I ain't got another cent of money and I lost my job at
+the paint-shop. There's where I drew down twenty dollars a week painting
+landscapes on safes, you know, and then&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary interrupted him, crying out, &quot;You haven't a cent? Why, what have
+you done with your bonds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bonds?&quot; repeated Vandover, dazed and bewildered. &quot;I ain't never had any
+bonds. What bonds? Oh, yes,&quot; he exclaimed, suddenly remembering, &quot;yes, I
+know, my bonds, of course; yes, yes&mdash;well, I&mdash;those&mdash;those, I had to
+sell those bonds&mdash;had some debts, you see, my board and my tailor's
+bill. They got out some sort of paper after me. Yes, I had forgotten
+about my bonds. I lost every damned one of them playing cards&mdash;gambled
+'em all away. Ain't I no good? But I was winner once&mdash;just in two nights
+I won ten thousand dollars. Then I must have lost it again. You see, I
+get so hungry sometimes that I twitch all over&mdash;so, just like that. Lend
+me a dollar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments Geary was silent, watching Vandover curiously, as he
+sat in a heap on the edge of the chair, fumbling his greenish hat,
+looking about the floor. Presently he asked:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_244" id="Page_244" />When did you lose your job at the paint-shop?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Day before yesterday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you are out of work now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover. &quot;I'm broke; I haven't a cent. I'm blest if I
+know how I'm to get along. Lately I've been working for a paint-shop,
+painting landscapes on safes. I drew down fifty dollars a week there,
+but I've lost my job.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good Lord, Van!&quot; Geary suddenly exclaimed, nodding his head toward him
+reflectively, &quot;I'm sorry for you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The other laughed. &quot;Yes; I suppose I'm a pitiable looking object, but
+I'm used to it. I don't mind much now as long as I can have a place to
+sleep and enough to eat. If you can put me in the way of some work,
+Charlie, I'd be much obliged. You see, that's what I want&mdash;work. I don't
+want to run any bunco game. I'm an honest man&mdash;I'm too honest. I gave
+away all my money to help another poor duck; gave him thousands, he was
+good to me when I was on my uppers and I meant to repay him. I was
+grateful. I signed a paper that gave him everything I had. It was in
+Paris. There's where my bonds went to. He was a struggling artist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look here!&quot; said Geary, willing to be interested, &quot;you might as well be
+truthful with me. You can't lie to me. Have you gambled away all those
+bonds, or have you been victimized, or have you still got them? Come,
+now, spit it out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Charlie, I haven't a cent!&quot; answered Vandover, looking him squarely in
+the face. &quot;Would I be around here and trying to get work from you if I
+had? No; I gambled it all away. You know I had eighty-nine hundred in
+U.S. 4 per cents. Well, first I began to pawn things when my money got
+short&mdash;the Old Gentleman's watch that I said I never would part with,
+then my clothes. I couldn't keep away from the cards. Of course, you
+can't understand that; gambling was the only thing that could amuse me.
+Then I began to mortgage my bonds, very little at first. Oh, I went
+slow! Then I got to selling them. Well, somehow, they all went. For a
+time I got along by the work at the paint-shop. But they have let me out
+now; said I was so irregular. I owe for nearly a month at my
+lodging-place.&quot; His eyes sought the floor again, rolling about stupidly.
+&quot;Nearly a month, and that's what makes me jump and tremble so. You ought
+to see me sometimes&mdash;<i>b-r-r-r-h!</i>&mdash;and<a name="Page_245" id="Page_245" /> I get to barking! I'm a wolf
+mostly, you know, or some kind of an animal, some kind of a brute. But
+I'd be all right if everything didn't go round very slowly, and seem far
+off. But I'm a wolf. You look out for me; best take care I don't bite
+you! Wolf&mdash;wolf! Ah! It's up four flights at the end of the hall, very
+dark, eight thousand dollars in a green cloth sack, and lots of lights
+a-burning. See how long my finger nails are&mdash;regular claws; that's the
+wolf, the brute! Why can't I talk in my mouth instead of in my throat?
+That's the devil of it. When you paint on steel and iron your colours
+don't dry out true; all the yellows turn green. But it would 'a' been
+all straight if they hadn't fired me! I never talked to anybody&mdash;that
+was <i>my</i> business, wasn't it? And when all those eight thousand little
+lights begin to burn red, why, of course that makes you nervous! So I
+have to drink a great deal of water and chew butcher's paper. That fools
+him and he thinks he's eating. Just so as I can lay quiet in the Plaza
+when the sun is out. There's a hack-stand there, you know, and every
+time that horse tosses his head so's to get the oats in the bottom of
+the nose-bag he jingles the chains on the poles and, by God! that's
+funny; makes me laugh every time; sounds gay, and the chain sparkles
+mighty pretty! Oh, I don't complain. Give me a dollar and I'll bark for
+you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary leaned back in his chair listening to Vandover, struck with
+wonder, marvelling at that which his old chum had come to be. He was
+sorry for him, too, yet, nevertheless, he felt a certain indefinite
+satisfaction, a faint exultation over his misfortunes, glad that their
+positions were not reversed, pleased that he had been clever enough to
+keep free from those habits, those modes of life that ended in such
+fashion. He rapped sharply on the table. Vandover straightened up,
+raising his eyes:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You want some work?&quot; he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; that's what I'm after,&quot; answered Vandover, adding, &quot;I must have
+it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said Geary, hesitatingly, &quot;I can give you something to do, but
+it will be pretty dirty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover smiled a little, saying, &quot;I guess you can't give me any work
+that would be too dirty for me!&quot; With the words he suddenly began to cry
+again. &quot;I want to be honest, Mister<a name="Page_246" id="Page_246" /> Geary,&quot; he exclaimed, drawing the
+backs of his fingers across his lips; &quot;I want to be honest; I'm down and
+I don't mean no offence. Charlie, you and I were old chums once at
+Harvard. My God! to think I was a Harvard man once! Oh, I'm a goner now
+and I ain't got a friend. When I was in the paint-shop they paid me
+well. I've been in a paint-shop lately painting the little pictures on
+the safes, little landscapes, you know, and lakes with mountains around
+them. I pulled down my twenty dollars and findings!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, don't be a fool!&quot; cried Geary, ashamed even to see such an
+exhibition. &quot;If you can't be a man, you can get out. Now, see here, you
+came up here once and insulted me in my office, and called me a
+swindler. Ah, you bet you had the swelled head then and insulted me,
+attacked my honesty and charged me with shoving the queer. Now I never
+forget those things generally, but I am willing to let that pass this
+time. I could be nasty now and tell you to rustle for yourself. If you
+want half a dollar now to get something to eat, why, I'll give it to
+you. But I don't propose to support you. Ah, no; I guess not! If you
+want to work I'll give you a chance, but I shall expect you to do good
+work if I give you my good money for it. You may be drunk now or&mdash;<i>I</i>
+don't know what's the matter with you. But you come up here to-morrow at
+noon, and if you come up here sober or straight or&quot;&mdash;Geary began to make
+awkward gestures in the air with both hands&mdash;&quot;come up here to talk
+<i>business</i>, I may have something for you, but I can't stop any longer
+this evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover got upon his feet slowly, turning his greenish hat about by the
+brim, nodding his head. &quot;All right, all right,&quot; he answered. &quot;Thank you
+very much, Mister Geary. It's very good of you, I'm sure. I'll be around
+at noon sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Geary was left alone, he walked slowly to his window, and stood
+there a moment looking aimlessly down into the street, shaking his head
+repeatedly, astonished at the degradation of his old-time chum. While he
+stood there he saw Vandover come out upon the sidewalk from the door of
+the great office building. Geary watched him, very interested.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover paused a moment upon the sidewalk, turning up the collar of his
+old cutaway coat against the cold trade wind that was tearing through
+the streets; he thrust both his hands <a name="Page_247" id="Page_247" />deep into his trousers pockets,
+gripping his sides with his elbows and drawing his shoulders together,
+shrinking into a small compass in order to be warm. The wind blew the
+tails of his cutaway about him like flapping wings. He went up the
+street, walking fast, keeping to the outside of the sidewalk, his
+shoulders bent, his head inclined against the wind, his feet dragging
+after him as he walked. For a moment Geary lost sight of him amid a
+group of men who were hoisting a piano upon a dray. The street was
+rather crowded with office boys, clerks, and typewriters going home to
+supper, and Geary did not catch sight of him again immediately; then all
+at once he saw him hesitating on a corner of Kearney Street, waiting for
+an electric car to pass; he crossed the street, running, his hands still
+in his pockets, and went on hurriedly, dodging in and out of the throng,
+his high shoulders, long neck, and greenish hat coming into sight at
+intervals. For a moment he paused to glance into the show window of a
+tobacconist and pipe-seller's store. A Chinese woman passed him,
+pattering along lamely, her green jade ear-rings twinkling in the light
+of a street lamp, newly lighted. Vandover looked after her a moment,
+gazing stupidly, then suddenly took up his walk again, zigzagging amid
+the groups on the asphalt, striding along at a great pace, his head low
+and swinging from side to side as he walked. He was already far down the
+street; it was dusk; Geary could only catch glimpses of his head and
+shoulders at long intervals. He disappeared.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>About ten minutes before one the next day as Geary came back from lunch
+he was surprised to see Vandover peeping through the half-open door of
+his office. He had not thought that Vandover would come back.</p>
+
+<p>Of the many different stories that Vandover had told about the
+disappearance of his bonds, the one that was probably truest was the one
+that accounted for the thing by his passion for gambling. For a long
+time after his advent at the Reno House this passion had been dormant;
+he knew no one with whom he could play, and every cent of his income now
+went for food and lodging. But one day, about six months before his
+visit to Geary's office, Vandover saw that the proprietor of the Reno
+House had set up a great bagatelle board in a <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248" />corner of the
+reading-room. A group of men, sailors, ranchmen, and fruit venders were
+already playing. Vandover approached and watched the game, very
+interested in watching the uncertain course of the marble jog-jogging
+among the pins. The clear little note of the bell or the dry rattle as
+the marble settled quickly into one of the lucky pockets thrilled him
+from head to foot; his hands trembled, all at once his whole left side
+twitched sharply.</p>
+
+<p>From that day the fate of the rest of Vandover's little money was
+decided. In two weeks he had lost twenty dollars at bagatelle, obtaining
+the money by selling a portion of his bonds at a certain broker's on
+Montgomery Street. As soon as he had begun to gamble again the old
+habits of extravagance had come back upon him. From the moment he knew
+that he could get all the money he wanted by the mere signing of a
+paper, he ceased to be economical, scorning the former niggardliness
+that had led him to starve on one day that he might feast the next; now,
+he feasted every day. He still kept his room at the Reno House, but
+instead of taking his meals by any ticket system, he began to affect the
+restaurants of the Spanish quarter, gorging himself with the hot spiced
+meals three and four times a day. He quickly abandoned the bagatelle
+board for the card-table, gambling furiously with two of the ranchmen.
+Almost invariably Vandover lost, and the more he lost the more eager and
+reckless he became.</p>
+
+<p>In a little time he had sold every one of his bonds and had gambled away
+all but twenty dollars of the money received from the last one sold.
+This sum, this twenty dollars, Vandover decided to husband carefully. It
+was all that was left between him and starvation. He made up his mind
+that he must stop gambling and find something to do. He had long since
+abandoned his work at the paint-shop, but at this time he returned there
+and asked for his old occupation. They laughed in his face. Was that the
+way he thought they did business? Not much; another man had his job, a
+much better man and one who was regular, who could be depended on. That
+same evening Vandover broke his twenty dollars and became very drunk. A
+game of poker was started in a back room of one of the saloons on the
+Barbary Coast. One of the players was a rancher named Toedt, a
+fellow-boarder at the Reno<a name="Page_249" id="Page_249" /> House, but the two other players were
+strangers; and there in that narrow, dirty room, sawdust on the floor,
+festoons of fly-specked red and blue tissue paper adorning the single
+swinging lamp, figures cut from bill-posters of the Black Crook pasted
+on the walls, there in the still hours after midnight, long after the
+barroom outside had been closed for the night, the last penny of
+Vandover's estate was gambled away.</p>
+
+<p>The game ended in a quarrel, Vandover, very drunk, and exasperated at
+his ill luck, accusing his friend Toedt, the rancher, of cheating. Toedt
+kicked him in the stomach and made him abominably sick. Then they went
+away and left Vandover alone in the little dirty room, racked with
+nausea, very drunk, fallen forward upon the table and crying into his
+folded arms. After a little he went to sleep, but the nausea continued,
+nevertheless, and in a few moments he gagged and vomited. He never
+moved. He was too drunk to wake. His hands and his coat-sleeves, the
+table all about him, were foul beyond words, but he slept on in the
+midst of it all, inert, stupefied, a great swarm of flies buzzing about
+his head and face. It was the day after this that he had come to see
+Geary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah,&quot; said Geary, as he came up, &quot;it's you, is it? Well, I didn't expect
+to see you again. Sit down outside there in the hall and wait a few
+minutes. I'm not ready to go yet&mdash;or, wait; here, I tell you what to
+do.&quot; Geary wrote off a list of articles on a slip of paper and pushed it
+across the table toward Vandover, together with a little money. &quot;You get
+those at the nearest grocery and by the time you are back I'll be ready
+to go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That day Geary took Vandover out to the Mission. They went out in the
+cable-car, Geary sitting inside reading the morning's paper, Vandover
+standing on the front platform, carrying the things that Geary had told
+him to buy: a bar of soap, a scrubbing brush, some wiping cloths, a
+broom, and a pail.</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the end of the car-line they got off and crossed over to where
+Geary's property stood. Vandover looked about him. The ground on which
+his own block had once stood was now occupied by an immense red brick
+building with white stone trimmings; in front on either side of the main
+entrance were white stone medallions upon which were <a name="Page_250" id="Page_250" />chiselled the head
+of a workman wearing the square paper cap that the workman never wears,
+and a bent-up forearm, the biceps enormous, the fist gripping the short
+hammer that the workman never uses. An enormous round chimney sprouted
+from one corner; through the open windows came the vast purring of
+machinery. It was a boot and shoe factory, built by the great concern
+who had bought the piece of property from Geary for fifteen thousand
+dollars, the same property Geary had bought from Vandover for eight.</p>
+
+<p>Across the street from the factory was a long row of little cottages,
+very neat, each having a tiny garden in front where nasturtiums grew.
+There were fifteen of these cottages; three of them only were vacant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was <i>my</i> idea,&quot; observed Geary, as they approached the row,
+willing to explain even though he thought Vandover would not comprehend,
+&quot;and it pays like a nitrate bed. I was clever enough to see that
+cottages like these were just what's wanted by the workmen in the
+factory that have families. I made some money when I sold out my block
+to the boot and shoe people, and I invested it again in these cottages.
+They are cheap and serviceable and they meet the demand.&quot; Vandover
+nodded his head in assent, looking vaguely about him, now at the
+cottages, now at the great building across the street. Geary got the
+keys to one of the vacant cottages and the two went inside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now here's what I want you to do,&quot; began Geary, pointing about with his
+stick. &quot;You see, when some of these people go out they leave the rooms
+nasty, and that tells against the house when parties come to look at it.
+I want you to go all over it, top and bottom, end to end, and give it a
+good cleaning, sweep the floor, and wash the paint, you know. And now
+these windows, you see how dirty they are; wash those inside and out,
+but don't disturb the agents' signs; you understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now come out here into the kitchen. Look at these laundry tubs and that
+sink. See all that grease! Clean that all out, and underneath the sink
+here. See that rubbish! Take that out, too. Now in here&mdash;look at that
+bathtub and toilet. You see how nasty they have left them. You want to
+make 'em look like new!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<a name="Page_251" id="Page_251" />Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now come downstairs. You see I give 'em a little floored basement,
+here; kind of a storeroom and coalroom. Here's where most of the dirt
+and rubbish is. Just look at it! See all that pile over there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take it all out and pile it in the back yard. I'll have an ashman come
+and remove it. Whew! there is a dead hen under here; sling that out the
+first thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They went back through the house again, and Geary pointed out the tiny
+garden to Vandover. &quot;Straighten that up a bit, pick up those old
+newspapers and the tin cans. Make it look neat. Now you understand just
+what I want? You make a good job of it, and when you are through with
+this house, you begin on the next vacant one farther down the row. You
+can get the keys at the same place. You get to work right away. I should
+think you ought to finish this house this afternoon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; answered Vandover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm going to look around a little. I'll drop in again in about an hour
+and see how you're getting on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that Geary went away. It was Saturday afternoon, and as the law
+office closed at noon that day, Geary very often spent the time until
+evening looking about his property. He left Vandover and went slowly
+down the street, noting each particular house with immense satisfaction,
+even entering some of them, talking with the womenfolk, all the men
+being at the factory.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover took off his coat, his old and greasy cutaway, and began work.
+He drew a pail of water from the garden faucet in a neighbour's yard,
+and commenced washing the windows. First he washed the panes from the
+inside, very careful not to disturb Adams &amp; Brunt's signs, and then
+cleaned the outside, sitting upon the window ledge, his body half in and
+half out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Geary enjoyed himself immensely. The news of the landlord's visit had
+spread from cottage to cottage, awakening a mild excitement throughout
+the length of the row. The women showed themselves on the steps or on
+the sidewalks, very slatternly, without corsets, their hair coming down,
+<a name="Page_252" id="Page_252" />dressed in faded calico wrappers just as they had come from the laundry
+tubs or the cook-stove. They bethought them of their various grievances,
+a leak here, a broken door-bell there, a certain bad smell that was
+supposed to have some connection with a rash upon the children's faces.
+They waited for Geary's appearance by ones and twos, timid, very
+respectful, but querulous for all that, filling the air with their
+lamentations.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover had finished with the windows. Now he was cleaning out the sink
+and the laundry tubs. They smelt very badly and were all foul with a
+greasy mixture of old lard, soap, soot, and dust; a little mould was
+even beginning to form about the faucets of the tubs. The escape pipe of
+the sink was clogged, and he had to run his finger into it again and
+again to get it free. The kitchen was very dirty; old bottles of sweet
+oil, mouldy vinegar and flat beer cluttered the dusty shelves of the
+pantry.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Geary continued his rounds. He went about among the groups of
+his tenants, very pleased and contented, smiling affably upon them. He
+enlarged himself, giving himself the airs of an English lord in the
+midst of his tenantry, listening to their complaints with a
+good-humoured smile of toleration. A few men were about, some of whom
+were out of work for the moment; others who were sick. To these Geary
+was particularly condescending. He sat in their parlours, little,
+crowded rooms, smelling of stale upholstery and of the last meal, where
+knitted worsted tidies, very gaudy, covered the backs of the larger
+chairs and where one inevitably discovered the whatnot standing in one
+corner, its shelves filled with shell-boxes, broken thermometers and
+little alabaster jars, shaped like funeral urns, where one kept the
+matches. The wife brought the children in, very dirty, looking solemnly
+at Geary, their eyes enlarged in the direct unwinking gaze of cows.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Vandover had finished with the sinks and tubs and was down
+upon his hands and knees scrubbing the stains of grease upon the floor
+of the kitchen. It was very hard work, as his water was cold. He was
+still working about this spot when Geary returned. By this time Vandover
+was so tired that he trembled all over, his spine seemed to be <a name="Page_253" id="Page_253" />breaking
+in two, and every now and then he paused and passed his hand over the
+small of his back, closing his eyes and drawing a long breath.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, how are you getting on?&quot; asked Geary, as he came into the
+kitchen, drawing on his gloves, about ready to go home.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I'm getting along,&quot; replied Vandover, rising up to his knees.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You want to hurry up,&quot; answered Geary. &quot;You must be done with this
+house by this evening. You see, I want to advertise it in to-morrow's
+papers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right; I'll have it done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pretty dirty, wasn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, pretty dirty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You may have to work here a little later than usual this afternoon, but
+be sure you have everything cleaned up before you leave,&quot; Geary said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right,&quot; answered Vandover, bending to his work again.</p>
+
+<p>Just as Geary was leaving he had the admirable good fortune to meet on
+the steps of the cottage a little group who were house-hunting; two
+young women and a little boy. The mother of the little boy, so she
+explained to him, was married to one of the burnishers in the factory;
+the other woman was her sister.</p>
+
+<p>Geary showed them about the little house, very eager to secure them as
+tenants then and there. He began to sing its praises, its nearness to
+the factory, its excellent plumbing, its bathroom and its one stationary
+washstand; its little garden and its location on the sunny side of the
+street. &quot;I'm a good landlord,&quot; he said to them, as he ushered them into
+the kitchen. &quot;Any one in the row will tell you that. I make it a point
+to keep my houses in good repair and to keep them clean. You see, I have
+a man here now cleaning out.&quot; Vandover glanced up at the women an
+instant. The two of them and the little boy looked down at him on all
+fours upon the floor. Then he went on with his work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is the kitchen, you see,&quot; pursued Geary. &quot;Notice how large it is;
+you see, here are your laundry tubs, your iron sink, your boiler,
+everything you need. Of course, it's a little grimy now, but by the time
+the man gets through, it will be as clean <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254" />as your face. Now come
+downstairs here and I'll show the basement.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In a moment their voices sounded through the floor of the kitchen, an
+indistinct, continuous murmur. Then the party returned and passed by
+Vandover again and stood for a long time in the front room haggling. The
+cottage rented for fifteen dollars. The young woman was willing to take
+it at that, but with the understanding that Geary should pay the water
+rent. Geary refused, unwilling even to listen to such a thing. Every
+other tenant in the row paid for his own water. The young women went
+away shaking their heads sadly. Geary let them get half-way down the
+front steps and then called them back. He offered a compromise, the
+young women should pay for the water, but half of their first month's
+rent should be remitted. The burnisher's wife still hesitated, saying,
+&quot;You know yourself this house is awfully dirty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you see I'm having it cleaned!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It'll have to be cleaned pretty thoroughly. I can't stand <i>dirt.</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It <i>will</i> be cleaned thoroughly,&quot; persisted Geary. &quot;The man will work
+at it until it is. You can keep an eye on him and see that the work is
+done to suit you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; objected the burnisher's wife, &quot;I would want to move in right
+away. I don't want to wait all week for the man to get through.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But he is going to be through with this house to-night,&quot; exclaimed
+Geary delighted. &quot;Come now, I know you want this cottage and I would
+like to have such nice-looking people have it. I know you would make
+good tenants. I can find lots of other tenants for this house, only you
+know how it is, a nasty, slovenly woman about the house and a raft of
+dirty children. And you don't like dirt, I can see that. Better call it
+a bargain, and let it go at that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the end the burnisher's wife took the house. Geary even induced her
+to deposit five dollars with him in order to secure it.</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was down in the basement filling a barrel with the odds and
+ends of rubbish left by the previous tenants: broken bottles, old
+corsets, bones, rusty bedsprings. The dead hen he had taken out first of
+all, carrying it by one leg. It was a gruesome horror, partly eaten by
+rats, swollen, abnormally <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255" />heavy, one side flattened from lying so long
+upon the floor. He could hardly stand; each time he bent over it seemed
+as though his backbone was disjointing. After cleaning out the debris he
+began to sweep. The dust was fearful, choking, blinding, so thick that
+he could hardly see what he was about. By and by he dimly made out
+Geary's figure in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Those people have taken the house,&quot; he called out, &quot;and I promised them
+you would be through with it by this evening. So you want to stay with
+it now till you're finished. I guess there's not much more to do. Don't
+forget the little garden in front.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; I won't forget!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Geary went away, and for another hour Vandover kept at his work,
+stolidly, his mind empty of all thought, knowing only that he was very
+tired, that his back pained him. He finished with the basement, but as
+he was pottering about the little garden, picking up the discoloured
+newspapers with which it was littered, the burnisher's wife returned,
+together with her sister and the little boy; the little boy eating a
+slice of bread and butter. They re-entered the house; Vandover heard
+their voices, now in one room, now in another. They were looking over
+their future home again; evidently they lived close by.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the burnisher's wife came out upon the front steps, looking
+down into the little garden, calling for Vandover. She was not pretty;
+she had a nose like a man and her chin was broad.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, there,&quot; she called to Vandover, &quot;do you mean to say that you've
+finished inside here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Vandover, straightening up, nodding his head. &quot;Yes, I've
+finished.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, just come in here and look at this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover followed her into the little parlour. Her sister was there,
+very fat, smelling somehow of tallow candles and cooked cabbage; nearby
+stood the little boy still eating his bread and butter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look at that baseboard,&quot; exclaimed the burnisher's wife. &quot;You never
+touched that, I'll bet a hat.&quot; Vandover did not answer; he brought in
+the pail of water, and soaping his scrubbing brush, went down again on
+his hands and knees, <a name="Page_256" id="Page_256" />washing the paint on the baseboard where the
+burnisher's wife indicated. The two women stood by, looking on and
+directing his movements. The little boy watched everything, never
+speaking a word, slowly eating his bread and butter. Streaks of butter
+and bread clung to his cheeks, stretching from the corners of his mouth
+to his ears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't see how you come to overlook that,&quot; said the burnisher's wife
+to Vandover. &quot;That's the dirtiest baseboard I ever saw. Oh, my! I just
+can't naturally stand <i>dirt</i>! There, you didn't get that stain off.
+That's tobacco juice, I guess. Go back and wash that over again.&quot;
+Vandover obeyed, holding the brush in one hand, crawling back along the
+floor upon one palm and his two knees, a pool of soapy, dirty water very
+cold gathered about him, soaking in through the old &quot;blue pants&quot; and
+wetting him to the skin, but he slovened through it indifferently. &quot;Put
+a little more elbow grease to it,&quot; continued the burnisher's wife. &quot;You
+have to rub them spots pretty hard to get 'em out. Now scrub all along
+here near the floor. You see that streak there&mdash;that's all gormed up
+with something or other. Bugs get in there mighty quick. There, that'll
+do, I guess. Now, is everything else all clean? Mister Geary said it was
+to be done to my satisfaction, and that you were to stay here until
+everything was all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All at once her voice was interrupted by the prolonged roar of the
+factory's whistle, blowing as though it would never stop. It was
+half-past five. In an instant the faint purring of the machinery
+dwindled and ceased, leaving an abrupt silence in the air. A moment
+later the army of operatives began to pour out of the main entrance; men
+and girls and young boys, all in a great hurry, the men settling their
+coat collars as they ran down the steps. The usually quiet street was
+crowded in an instant.</p>
+
+<p>The burnisher's wife stood on the steps of the vacant house with her
+sister, watching the throng debouch into the street. All at once the
+sister exclaimed, &quot;There he is!&quot; and the other began to call, &quot;Oscar,
+Oscar!&quot; waving her hand to one of the workmen on the other side of the
+street. It was her husband, the burnisher, and he came across the
+street, crowding his lunch basket into the pocket of his coat. He was a
+thin little man with a timid air, his face white and fat and covered
+with <a name="Page_257" id="Page_257" />a sparse unshaven stubble of a pale straw colour. An odour as of a
+harness shop hung about him. Vandover gathered up his broom and pail and
+soap preparing to go home.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Oscar, I've taken the house!&quot; said his wife to the burnisher as
+he came up the steps. &quot;But I couldn't get him to say that he'd let me
+have it for fifteen, water <i>included</i>. The landlord himself, Mr. Geary,
+was here to-day and I made the dicker with him. He's had a man here all
+day cleaning up.&quot; She explained the bargain, the burnisher approving of
+everything, nodding his head continually. His wife showed him about the
+house, her sister and the little boy following in silence. &quot;He's a good
+landlord, I guess,&quot; continued the young woman; &quot;anybody in the row will
+tell you that, and he means to keep his houses in good repair. Now you
+see, here's the kitchen. You see how big it is. Here's our laundry tubs,
+our iron sink, our boiler, and everything we want. It's all as clean as
+a whistle; and get on to this big cubby under the sink where I can stow
+away things.&quot; She opened its door to show her husband, but all at once
+straightened up, exclaiming, &quot;Well, dear me <i>suz</i>&mdash;did you <i>ever</i> see
+anything like that?&quot; The cubby under the sink was abominably dirty.
+Vandover had altogether forgotten it.</p>
+
+<p>The little burnisher himself bent down and peered in.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that'll never do!&quot; he cried. &quot;Has that man gone home yet? He
+mustn't; he's got to clean this out first!&quot; He had a weak, faint voice,
+small and timid like his figure. He hurried out to the front door and
+called Vandover back just as he was going down the steps. The two went
+back into the kitchen and stood in front of the sink. &quot;Look under
+there!&quot; piped the burnisher. &quot;You can't leave that, that way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know,&quot; protested his wife, &quot;that this all was to be done to our
+satisfaction. Mr. Geary said so. That's the only way I came to take the
+house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's about six o'clock, though,&quot; observed her fat sister, who smelt of
+cooked cabbage. &quot;Perhaps he'd want to go home to his dinner.&quot; But at
+this both the others cried out in one voice, the burnisher exclaiming:
+&quot;I can't help <i>that</i>, this has got to be done first,&quot; while his wife
+protested that she couldn't naturally stand dirt, adding, &quot;This all was
+to be done to our satisfaction, and we ain't satisfied yet by a long
+shot.&quot;<a name="Page_258" id="Page_258" /> Delighted at this excitement, the little boy forgot to eat into
+his bread and butter, rolling his eyes wildly from one to the other,
+still silent.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, without replying, Vandover had gone down upon the floor
+again, poking about amid the filth under the sink. The four others, the
+burnisher, his wife, his sister-in-law and his little boy, stood about
+in a half-circle behind him, seeing to it that he did the work properly,
+giving orders as to how he should proceed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, be sure you get everything out that's under there,&quot; said the
+burnisher. &quot;Ouf! how it smells! They made a regular dump heap of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's that over in the corner there?&quot; cried the wife, bending down. &quot;I
+can't see, it's so dark under there&mdash;something gray; can't you see, in
+under there? You'll have to crawl way in to get at it&mdash;go way in!&quot;
+Vandover obeyed. The sink pipes were so close above him that he was
+obliged to crouch lower and lower; at length he lay flat upon his
+stomach. Prone in the filth under the sink, in the sour water, the
+grease, the refuse, he groped about with his hand searching for the
+something gray that the burnisher's wife had seen. He found it and drew
+it out. It was an old hambone covered with a greenish fuzz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, did you <i>ever</i>!&quot; cried the burnisher, holding up his hands. &quot;Here,
+don't drop that on my clean floor; put it in your pail. Now get out the
+rest of the dirt, and hurry up, it's late.&quot; Vandover crawled back, half
+the way under the sink again, this time bringing out a rusty pan half
+full of some kind of congealed gravy that exhaled a choking, acrid
+odour; next it was an old stocking, and then an ink bottle, a broken
+rat-trap, a battered teapot lacking a nozzle, a piece of rubber hose, an
+old comb choked with a great handful of hair, a torn overshoe,
+newspapers, and a great quantity of other debris that had accumulated
+there during the occupancy of the previous tenant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now go over the floor with a rag,&quot; ordered the little burnisher, when
+the last of these articles had been brought out. &quot;Wipe up all that nasty
+muck! Look there by your knee to your left! Scrub that big spot there
+with your brush&mdash;looks like grease. That's the style&mdash;scrub it hard!&quot;
+His wife joined <a name="Page_259" id="Page_259" />her directions to his. Then it was over here, and over
+there, now in that corner, now in this, and now with his brush and soap,
+and now with his dry rag, and hurry up all the time because it was
+growing late. But the little boy, carried away by the interest of the
+occasion, suddenly broke silence for the first time, crying out shrilly,
+his mouth full of bread and butter, &quot;Hey there! Get up, you old
+lazee-bones!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The others shouted with laughter. <i>There</i> was a smart little boy for
+you. Ah, he'd be a man before his mother. It was wonderful how that boy
+saw everything that went on. He took an <i>interest</i>, that was it. You
+ought to see, he watched everything, and sometimes he'd plump out with
+things that were astonishing for a boy of his years. Only four and a
+half, too, and they reminded each other of the first day he put on
+knickerbockers; stood in front of the house on the sidewalk all day long
+with his hands in his pockets. The interest was directed from Vandover,
+they turned their backs, grouping themselves about the little boy. The
+burnisher's sister-in-law felt called upon to tell about her little
+girl, a matter of family pride. <i>She</i> was going on twelve, and would you
+suppose that little thing was in next to the last grade in the grammar
+school? Her teacher had said that she was a real wonder; never had had
+such a bright pupil. Ah, but one should see how she studied over her
+books all the time. Next year they were to try to get her into the high
+school. Of course she was not ready for the high school yet, and it was
+against the rule to let children in that way, she was too young, but
+they had a pull, you understand. Oh, yes, for sure they had a pull.
+<i>They'd</i> work her in all right. The burnisher's wife was not listening.
+She wanted to draw the interest back to her own little boy. She bent
+down and straightened out his little jacket, saying, &quot;Does he like his
+bread 'n butter? Well, he could have all he wanted!&quot; But the little boy
+paid no attention to her. He had made a <i>bon-mot</i>, ambition stirred in
+him, he had tasted the delights of an appreciative audience. Bread and
+butter had fallen in his esteem. He wished to repeat his former success,
+and cried out shriller than ever:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hey, there! Get up, you old lazee-bones!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But his father corrected him&mdash;his mother ought not to encourage him to
+be rude. &quot;That's not right, Oscar,&quot; he <a name="Page_260" id="Page_260" />observed, shaking his head. &quot;You
+must be kind to the poor man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover was sitting back on his heels to rest his back, waiting till
+the others should finish.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, all through?&quot; inquired the burnisher in his thin voice. Vandover
+nodded. But his wife was not satisfied until she had herself carefully
+peered into the cubby, while her husband held a lighted match for her.
+&quot;Ah, that's something like,&quot; she said finally.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly seven. Vandover prepared to go home a second time. The
+little boy stood in front of him, looking down at him as he made his
+brush and rags and broom into a bundle; the boy slowly eating his bread
+and butter the while. In one corner of the room an excited whispered
+conference was going on between the burnisher, his wife, and his fat
+sister-in-law. From time to time one heard such expressions as
+&quot;Overtime, you know&mdash;not afraid of work&mdash;ah! think I'd better, looks as
+though he needed it.&quot; In a moment the two women went out, calling in
+vain for the little boy to follow, and the burnisher crossed the room
+toward Vandover. Vandover was on his knees tying up his bundle with a
+bit of bale rope.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm sorry,&quot; began the burnisher awkwardly. &quot;We didn't mean to keep you
+from your supper&mdash;here,&quot; he went on, holding out a quarter to Vandover,
+&quot;here, you take this, that's all right&mdash;you worked overtime for us,
+that's all right. Come along, Oscar; come along, m'son.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Vandover put the quarter in his vest pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you, sir,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>The burnisher hurried away, calling back, &quot;Come along, m'son; don't keep
+your mama waiting for supper.&quot; But the little boy remained very
+interested in watching Vandover, still on the floor, tying the last
+knots. As he finished, he glanced up. For an instant the two remained
+there motionless, looking into each other's eyes, Vandover on the floor,
+one hand twisted into the bale rope about his bundle, the little boy
+standing before him eating the last mouthful of his bread and butter.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vandover and the Brute, by Frank Norris
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Vandover and the Brute
+
+Author: Frank Norris
+
+Release Date: January 17, 2005  [eBook #14712]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE
+
+By
+
+Frank Norris
+
+1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter One
+
+
+It was always a matter of wonder to Vandover that he was able to recall
+so little of his past life. With the exception of the most recent events
+he could remember nothing connectedly. What he at first imagined to be
+the story of his life, on closer inspection turned out to be but a few
+disconnected incidents that his memory had preserved with the greatest
+capriciousness, absolutely independent of their importance. One of these
+incidents might be a great sorrow, a tragedy, a death in his family; and
+another, recalled with the same vividness, the same accuracy of detail,
+might be a matter of the least moment.
+
+A certain one of these wilful fillips of memory would always bring
+before him a particular scene during the migration of his family from
+Boston to their new home in San Francisco, at a time when Vandover was
+about eight years old.
+
+It was in the depot of one of the larger towns in western New York. The
+day had been hot and after the long ride on the crowded day coach the
+cool shadow under the curved roof of the immense iron vaulted depot
+seemed very pleasant. The porter, the brakeman and Vandover's father
+very carefully lifted his mother from the car. She was lying back on
+pillows in a long steamer chair. The three men let the chair slowly
+down, the brakeman went away, but the porter remained, taking off his
+cap and wiping his forehead with the back of his left hand, which in
+turn he wiped against the pink palm of his right. The other train, the
+train to which they were to change, had not yet arrived. It was rather
+still; at the far end of the depot a locomotive, sitting back on its
+motionless drivers like some huge sphinx crouching along the rails, was
+steaming quietly, drawing long breaths. The repair gang in greasy caps
+and spotted blue overalls were inspecting the train, pottering about the
+trucks, opening and closing the journal-boxes, striking clear notes on
+the wheels with long-handled hammers.
+
+Vandover stood close to his father, his thin legs wide apart, holding in
+both his hands the satchel he had been permitted to carry. He looked
+about him continually, rolling his big eyes vaguely, watching now the
+repair-gang, now a huge white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.
+
+Several passengers were walking up and down the platform, staring
+curiously at the invalid lying back in the steamer chair.
+
+The journey was too much for her. She was very weak and very pale, her
+eyelids were heavy, the skin of her forehead looked blue and tightly
+drawn, and tiny beads of perspiration gathered around the corners of her
+mouth. Vandover's father put his hand and arm along the back of the
+chair and his sick wife rested against him, leaning her head on his
+waistcoat over the pocket where he kept his cigars and pocket-comb. They
+were all silent.
+
+By and by she drew a long sigh, her face became the face of an imbecile,
+stupid, without expression, her eyes half-closed, her mouth half-open.
+Her head rolled forward as though she were nodding in her sleep, while a
+long drip of saliva trailed from her lower lip. Vandover's father bent
+over her quickly, crying out sharply, "Hallie!--what is it?" All at once
+the train for which they were waiting charged into the depot, filling
+the place with a hideous clangor and with the smell of steam and of hot
+oil.
+
+This scene of her death was the only thing that Vandover could remember
+of his mother.
+
+As he looked back over his life he could recall nothing after this for
+nearly five years. Even after that lapse of time the only scene he could
+picture with any degree of clearness was one of the greatest triviality
+in which he saw himself, a rank thirteen-year-old boy, sitting on a bit
+of carpet in the back yard of the San Francisco house playing with his
+guinea-pigs.
+
+In order to get at his life during his teens, Vandover would have been
+obliged to collect these scattered memory pictures as best he could,
+rearrange them in some more orderly sequence, piece out what he could
+imperfectly recall and fill in the many gaps by mere guesswork and
+conjecture.
+
+It was the summer of 1880 that they had come to San Francisco. Once
+settled there, Vandover's father began to build small residence houses
+and cheap flats which he rented at various prices, the cheapest at ten
+dollars, the more expensive at thirty-five and forty. He had closed out
+his business in the East, coming out to California on account of his
+wife's ill health. He had made his money in Boston and had intended to
+retire.
+
+But he soon found that he could not do this. At this time he was an old
+man, nearly sixty. He had given his entire life to his business to the
+exclusion of everything else, and now when his fortune had been made and
+when he could afford to enjoy it, discovered that he had lost the
+capacity for enjoying anything but the business itself. Nothing else
+could interest him. He was not what would be called in America a rich
+man, but he had made money enough to travel, to allow himself any
+reasonable relaxation, to cultivate a taste for art, music, literature
+or the drama, to indulge in any harmless fad, such as collecting
+etchings, china or bric-a-brac, or even to permit himself the luxury of
+horses. In the place of all these he found himself, at nearly sixty
+years of age, forced again into the sordid round of business as the only
+escape from the mortal _ennui_ and weariness of the spirit that preyed
+upon him during every leisure hour of the day.
+
+Early and late he went about the city, personally superintending the
+building of his little houses and cheap flats, sitting on saw-horses and
+piles of lumber, watching the carpenters at work. In the evening he came
+home to a late supper, completely fagged, bringing with him the smell of
+mortar and of pine shavings.
+
+On the first of each month when his agents turned over the rents to him
+he was in great spirits. He would bring home the little canvas sack of
+coin with him before banking it, and call his son's attention to the
+amount, never failing to stick a twenty-dollar gold-piece in each eye,
+monocle fashion, exclaiming, "Good for the masses," a meaningless jest
+that had been one of the family's household words for years.
+
+His plan of building was peculiar. His credit was good, and having
+chosen his lot he would find out from the banks how much they would loan
+him upon it in case he should become the owner. If this amount suited
+him, he would buy the lot, making one large payment outright and giving
+his note for the balance. The lot once his, the banks loaned him the
+desired amount. With this money and with money of his own he would make
+the final payment on the lot and would begin the building itself,
+paying his labour on the nail, but getting his material, lumber, brick
+and fittings on time. When the building was half-way up he would
+negotiate a second loan from the banks in order to complete it and in
+order to meet the notes he had given to his contractors for material.
+
+He believed this to be a shrewd business operation, since the rents as
+they returned to him were equal to the interest on a far larger sum than
+that which he had originally invested. He said little about the double
+mortgage on each piece of property "improved" after this fashion and
+which often represented a full two-thirds of its entire value. The
+interest on each loan was far more than covered by the rents; he chose
+his neighbourhoods with great discrimination; real estate was
+flourishing in the rapidly growing city, and the new houses, although
+built so cheaply that they were mere shells of lath and plaster, were
+nevertheless made gay and brave with varnish and cheap mill-work. They
+rented well at first, scarcely a one was ever vacant. People spoke of
+the Old Gentleman as one of the most successful realty owners in the
+city. So pleased did he become with the success of his new venture that
+in course of time all his money was reinvested after this fashion.
+
+At the time of his father's greatest prosperity Vandover himself began
+to draw toward his fifteenth year, entering upon that period of change
+when the first raw elements of character began to assert themselves and
+when, if ever, there was a crying need for the influence of his mother.
+Any feminine influence would have been well for him at this time: that
+of an older sister, even that of a hired governess. The housekeeper
+looked after him a little, mended his clothes, saw that he took his bath
+Saturday nights, and that he did not dig tunnels under the garden walks.
+But her influence was entirely negative and prohibitory and the two were
+constantly at war. Vandover grew in a haphazard way and after school
+hours ran about the streets almost at will.
+
+At fifteen he put on long trousers, and the fall of the same year
+entered the High School. He had grown too fast and at this time was tall
+and very lean; his limbs were straight, angular, out of all proportion,
+with huge articulations at the elbows and knees. His neck was long and
+thin and his head large, his face was sallow and covered with pimples,
+his ears were big, red and stuck out stiff from either side of his head.
+His hair he wore "pompadour."
+
+Within a month after his entry of the High School he had a nickname. The
+boys called him "Skinny-seldom-fed," to his infinite humiliation.
+
+Little by little the crude virility of the young man began to develop in
+him. It was a distressing, uncanny period. Had Vandover been a girl he
+would at this time have been subject to all sorts of abnormal vagaries,
+such as eating his slate pencil, nibbling bits of chalk, wishing he were
+dead, and drifting into states of unreasoned melancholy. As it was, his
+voice began to change, a little golden down appeared on his cheeks and
+upon the nape of his neck, while his first summer vacation was
+altogether spoiled by a long spell of mumps.
+
+His appetite was enormous. He ate heavy meat three times a day, but took
+little or no exercise. The pimples on his face became worse and worse.
+He grew peevish and nervous. He hated girls, and when in their society
+was a very bull-calf for bashfulness and awkward self-consciousness. At
+times the strangest and most morbid fancies took possession of him,
+chief of which was that every one was looking at him while he was
+walking in the street.
+
+Vandover was a good little boy. Every night he said his prayers, going
+down upon his huge knees at the side of his bed. To the Lord's Prayer he
+added various petitions of his own. He prayed that he might be a good
+boy and live a long time and go to Heaven when he died and see his
+mother; that the next Saturday might be sunny all day long, and that the
+end of the world might not come while he was alive.
+
+It was during Vandover's first year at the High School that his eyes
+were opened and that he acquired the knowledge of good and evil. Till
+very late he kept his innocence, the crude raw innocence of the boy,
+like that of a young animal, at once charming and absurd. But by and by
+he became very curious, stirred with a blind unreasoned instinct. In the
+Bible which he read Sunday afternoons, because his father gave him a
+quarter for doing so, he came across a great many things that filled him
+with vague and strange ideas; and one Sunday at church, when the
+minister was intoning the Litany, he remarked for the first time the
+words, "all women in the perils of child-birth."
+
+He puzzled over this for a long time, smelling out a mystery beneath the
+words, feeling the presence of something hidden, with the instinct of a
+young brute. He could get no satisfaction from his father and by and by
+began to be ashamed to ask him; why, he did not know. Although he could
+not help hearing the abominable talk of the High School boys, he at
+first refused to believe that part of it which he could understand. For
+all that he was ashamed of his innocence and ignorance and affected to
+appreciate their stories nevertheless.
+
+At length one day he heard the terse and brutal truth. In an instant he
+believed it, some lower, animal intuition in him reiterating and
+confirming the fact. But even then he hated to think that people were so
+low, so vile. One day, however, he was looking through the volumes of
+the old Encyclopaedia Britannica in his father's library, hoping that he
+might find a dollar bill which the Old Gentleman told him had been at
+one time misplaced between the leaves of some one of the great tomes.
+All at once he came upon the long article "Obstetrics," profusely
+illustrated with old-fashioned plates and steel engravings. He read it
+from beginning to end.
+
+It was the end of all his childish ideals, the destruction of all his
+first illusions. The whole of his rude little standard of morality was
+lowered immediately. Even his mother, whom he had always believed to be
+some kind of an angel, fell at once in his estimation. She could never
+be the same to him after this, never so sweet, so good and so pure as he
+had hitherto imagined her.
+
+It was very cruel, the whole thing was a grief to him, a blow, a great
+shock; he hated to think of it. Then little by little the first taint
+crept in, the innate vice stirred in him, the brute began to make itself
+felt, and a multitude of perverse and vicious ideas commenced to buzz
+about him like a swarm of nasty flies.
+
+A certain word, the blunt Anglo-Saxon name for a lost woman, that he
+heard on one occasion among the boys at school, opened to him a vista of
+incredible wickedness, but now after the first moment of revolt the
+thing began to seem less horrible. There was even a certain attraction
+about it. Vandover soon became filled with an overwhelming curiosity,
+the eager evil curiosity of the schoolboy, the perverse craving for the
+knowledge of vice. He listened with all his ears to everything that was
+said and went about through the great city with eyes open only to its
+foulness. He even looked up in the dictionary the meanings of the new
+words, finding in the cold, scientific definitions some strange sort of
+satisfaction.
+
+There was no feminine influence about Vandover at this critical time to
+help him see the world in the right light and to gauge things correctly,
+and he might have been totally corrupted while in his earliest teens had
+it not been for another side of his character that began to develop
+about the same time.
+
+This was his artistic side. He seemed to be a born artist. At first he
+only showed bent for all general art. He drew well, he made curious
+little modellings in clayey mud; he had a capital ear for music and
+managed in some unknown way of his own to pick out certain tunes on the
+piano. At one time he gave evidence of a genuine talent for the stage.
+For days he would pretend to be some dreadful sort of character, he did
+not know whom, talking to himself, stamping and shaking his fists; then
+he would dress himself in an old smoking-cap, a red table-cloth and one
+of his father's discarded Templar swords, and pose before the long
+mirrors ranting and scowling. At another time he would devote his
+attention to literature, making up endless stories with which he
+terrified himself, telling them to himself in a low voice for hours
+after he had got into bed. Sometimes he would write out these stories
+and read them to his father after supper, standing up between the
+folding doors of the library, acting out the whole narrative with
+furious gestures. Once he even wrote a little poem which seriously
+disturbed the Old Gentleman, filling him with formless ideas and vague
+hopes for the future.
+
+In a suitable environment Vandover might easily have become an author,
+actor or musician, since it was evident that he possessed the
+fundamental _afflatus_ that underlies all branches of art. As it was,
+the merest chance decided his career.
+
+In the same library where he had found the famous encyclopaedia article
+was "A Home Book of Art," one of those showily bound gift books one sees
+lying about conspicuously on parlour centre tables. It was an English
+publication calculated to meet popular and general demand. There were a
+great many full-page pictures of lonely women, called "Reveries" or
+"Idylls," ideal "Heads" of gipsy girls, of coquettes, and heads of
+little girls crowned with cherries and illustrative of such titles as
+"Spring," "Youth," "Innocence." Besides these were sentimental pictures,
+as, for instance, one entitled "It Might Have Been," a sad-eyed girl,
+with long hair, musing over a miniature portrait, and another especially
+impressive which represented a handsomely dressed woman flung upon a
+_Louis Quinze_ sofa, weeping, her hands clasped over her head. She was
+alone; it was twilight; on the floor was a heap of opened letters. The
+picture was called "Memories."
+
+Vandover thought this last a wonderful work of art and made a hideous
+copy of it with very soft pencils. He was so pleased with it that he
+copied another one of the pictures and then another. By and by he had
+copied almost all of them. His father gave him a dollar and Vandover
+began to add to his usual evening petition the prayer that he might
+become a great artist. Thus it was that his career was decided upon.
+
+He was allowed to have a drawing teacher. This was an elderly German, an
+immense old fellow, who wore a wig and breathed loudly through his nose.
+His voice was like a trumpet and he walked with a great striding gait
+like a colonel of cavalry. Besides drawing he taught ornamental writing
+and engrossing. With a dozen curved and flowing strokes of an ordinary
+writing pen he could draw upon a calling card a conventionalized
+outline-picture of some kind of dove or bird of paradise, all curves and
+curlicues, flying very gracefully and carrying in its beak a half-open
+scroll upon which could be inscribed such sentiments as "From a Friend"
+or "With Fond Regards," or even one's own name.
+
+His system of drawing was of his own invention. Over the picture to be
+copied he would paste a great sheet of paper, ruling off the same into
+spaces of about an inch square. He would cut out one of these squares
+and Vandover would copy the portion of the picture thus disclosed. When
+he had copied the whole picture in this fashion the teacher would go
+over it himself, retouching it here and there, labouring to obviate the
+checker-board effect which the process invariably produced.
+
+At other times Vandover copied into his sketch-book, with hard crayons,
+those lithographed studies on buff paper which are published by the firm
+in Berlin. He began with ladders, wheel-barrows and water barrels,
+working up in course of time to rustic buildings set in a bit of
+landscape; stone bridges and rural mills, overhung by some sort of
+linden tree, with ends of broken fences in a corner of the foreground to
+complete the composition. From these he went on to bunches of grapes,
+vases of fruit and at length to more "Ideal heads." The climax was
+reached with a life-sized Head, crowned with honeysuckles and entitled
+_"Flora."_ He was three weeks upon it. It was an achievement, a
+veritable _chef-d'oeuvre._ Vandover gave it to his father upon Christmas
+morning, having signed his name to it with a great ornamental flourish.
+The Old Gentleman was astounded, the housekeeper was called in and
+exclaimed over it, raising her hands to Heaven. Vandover's father gave
+him a five-dollar gold-piece, fresh from the mint, had the picture
+framed in gilt and hung it up in his smoking-room over the clock.
+
+Never for a moment did the Old Gentleman oppose Vandover's wish to
+become an artist and it was he himself who first spoke about Paris to
+the young man. Vandover was delighted; the Latin Quarter became his
+dream. Between the two it was arranged that he should go over as soon as
+he had finished his course at the High School. The Old Gentleman was to
+take him across, returning only when he was well established in some
+suitable studio.
+
+At length Vandover graduated, and within three weeks of that event was
+on his way to Europe with his father. He never got farther than Boston.
+
+At the last moment the Old Gentleman wavered. Vandover was still very
+young and would be entirely alone in Paris, ignorant of the language,
+exposed to every temptation. Besides this, his education would stop
+where it was. Somehow he could not make it seem right to him to cut the
+young man adrift in this fashion. On the other hand, the Old Gentleman
+had a great many old-time friends and business acquaintances in Boston
+who could be trusted with a nominal supervision of his son for four
+years. He had no college education himself, but in some vague way he
+felt convinced that Vandover would be a better artist for a four years'
+course at Harvard.
+
+Vandover took his father's decision hardly. He had never thought of
+being a college-man and nothing in that life appealed to him. He urged
+upon his father the loss of time that the course would entail, but his
+father met this objection by offering to pay for any artistic tuition
+that would not interfere with the regular college work.
+
+Little by little the idea of college life became more attractive to
+Vandover; at the worst, it was only postponing the Paris trip, not
+abandoning it. Besides this, two of his chums from the High School were
+expecting to enter Harvard that fall, and he could look forward to a
+very pleasant four years spent in their company.
+
+Out at Cambridge the term was just closing. The Old Gentleman's friends
+procured him tickets to several of the more important functions. From
+the gallery of Memorial Hall Vandover and his father saw some of the
+great dinners; they went up to New London for the boat-race; they gained
+admittance to the historic Yard on Class-day, and saw the strange
+football rush for flowers around the "Tree." They heard the seniors sing
+"Fair Harvard" for the last time, and later saw them receive their
+diplomas at Sander's Theatre.
+
+The great ceremonies of the place, the picturesqueness of the elm-shaded
+Yard, the old red dormitories covered with ivy, the associations and
+traditions of the buildings, the venerable pump, Longfellow's room, the
+lecture hall where the minute-men had barracked, all of these things, in
+the end, appealed strongly to Vandover's imagination. Instead of passing
+the summer months in an ocean voyage and a continental journey, he at
+last became content to settle down to work under a tutor, "boning up"
+for the examinations. His father returned to San Francisco in July.
+
+Vandover matriculated the September of the same year; on the first of
+October he signed the college rolls and became a Harvard freshman. At
+that time he was eighteen years old.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Two
+
+
+There was little of the stubborn or unyielding about Vandover, his
+personality was not strong, his nature pliable and he rearranged himself
+to suit his new environment at Harvard very rapidly. Before the end of
+the first semester he had become to all outward appearances a typical
+Harvardian. He wore corduroy vests and a gray felt hat, the brim turned
+down over his eyes. He smoked a pipe and bought himself a brindled
+bull-terrier. He cut his lectures as often as he dared, "ragged" signs
+and barber-poles, and was in continual evidence about Foster's and among
+Leavitt and Pierce's billiard-tables. When the great football games came
+off he worked himself into a frenzy of excitement over them and even
+tried to make several of his class teams, though without success.
+
+He chummed with Charlie Geary and with young Dolliver Haight, the two
+San Francisco boys. The three were continually together. They took the
+same courses, dined at the same table in Memorial Hall and would have
+shared the same room if it had been possible. Vandover and Charlie Geary
+were fortunate enough to get a room in Matthew's on the lower floor
+looking out upon the Yard; young Haight was obliged to put up with an
+outside room in a boarding house.
+
+Vandover had grown up with these fellows and during all his life was
+thrown in their company. Haight was a well-bred young boy of good
+family, very quiet; almost every morning he went to Chapel. He was
+always polite, even to his two friends. He invariably tried to be
+pleasant and agreeable and had a way of making people like him.
+Otherwise, his character was not strongly marked.
+
+Geary was quite different. He never could forget himself. He was
+incessantly talking about what he had done or was going to do. In the
+morning he would inform Vandover of how many hours he had slept and of
+the dreams he had dreamed. In the evening he would tell him everything
+he had done that day; the things he had said, how many lectures he had
+cut, what brilliant recitations he had made, and even what food he had
+eaten at Memorial. He was pushing, self-confident, very shrewd and
+clever, devoured with an inordinate ambition and particularly pleased
+when he could get the better of anybody, even of Vandover or of young
+Haight. He delighted to assume the management of things. Vandover, he
+made his protege, taking over the charge of such business as the two had
+in common. It was he who had found the room in Matthew's, getting it
+away from all other applicants, securing it at the eleventh hour. He put
+Vandover's name on the waiting list at Memorial, saw that he filled out
+his blanks at the proper time, helped him balance his accounts, guided
+him in the choice of his courses and in the making out of his
+study-card.
+
+"Look here, Charlie," Vandover would exclaim, throwing down the
+Announcement of Courses, "I can't make this thing out. It's all in a
+tangle. See here, I've got to fill up my hours some way or other; _you_
+straighten this thing out for me. Find me some nice little course, two
+hours a week, say, that comes late in the morning, a good hour after
+breakfast; something easy, all lectures, no outside reading, nice
+instructor and all that." And Geary would glance over the complicated
+schedule, cleverly untangling it at once and would find two or three
+such courses as Vandover desired.
+
+Vandover's yielding disposition led him to submit to Geary's
+dictatorship and he thus early began to contract easy, irresponsible
+habits, becoming indolent, shirking his duty whenever he could, sure
+that Geary would think for the two and pull him out of any difficulty
+into which he might drift.
+
+Otherwise the three freshmen were very much alike. They were hardly more
+than boys and full of boyish spirits and activity. They began to see
+"college life." Vandover was already smoking; pretty soon he began to
+drink. He affected beer, whisky he loathed, and such wine as was not too
+expensive was either too sweet or too sour. It became a custom for the
+three to go into town two or three nights in the week and have beer and
+Welsh rabbits at Billy Park's. On these occasions, however, young Haight
+drank only beer, he never touched wine or spirits.
+
+It was in Billy Park's the evening after the football game between the
+Yale and Harvard freshmen that Vandover was drunk for the first time. He
+was not so drunk but that he knew he was, and the knowledge of the fact
+so terrified him that it kept him from getting very bad. The first
+sensation soon wore off, and by the time that Geary took charge of him
+and brought him back to Cambridge he was disposed to treat the affair
+less seriously. Nevertheless when he got to his room he looked at
+himself in the mirror a long time, saying to himself over and over
+again, "I'm drunk--just regularly drunk. Good Heavens! what _would_ the
+governor say to _this_?"
+
+In the morning he was surprised to find that he felt so little ashamed.
+Geary and young Haight treated the matter as a huge joke and told him of
+certain funny things he had said and done and which he had entirely
+forgotten. It was impossible for him to take the matter seriously even
+if he had wished to, and within a few weeks he was drunk again. He found
+that he was not an exception; Geary was often drunk with him, fully a
+third of all the Harvard men he knew were intoxicated at different
+times. It was out of the question for Vandover to consider them as
+drunkards. Certainly, neither he nor any of the others drank because
+they liked the beer; after the fifth or sixth glass it was all they
+could do to force down another. Such being the case, Vandover often
+asked himself why he got drunk at all. This question he was never able
+to answer.
+
+It was the same with gambling. At first the idea of playing cards for
+money shocked him beyond all expression. But soon he found that a great
+many of the fellows, fellows like young Haight, beyond question steady,
+sensible and even worthy of emulation in other ways, "went in for that
+sort of thing." Every now and then Vandover's "crowd" got together in
+his room in Matthew's, and played Van John "for keeps," as they said,
+until far into the night. Vandover joined them. The stakes were small,
+he lost as often as he won, but the habit of the cards never grew upon
+him. It was like the beer, he "went in for it" because the others did,
+without knowing why. Geary, however, drew his line at gambling; he never
+talked against it or tried to influence Vandover, but he never could be
+induced to play "for keeps" himself.
+
+One very warm Sunday afternoon in the first days of April, when the last
+snows were melting, Vandover and Geary were in their room, sitting at
+opposite ends of their window-seat, Geary translating his Monday's
+"Horace" by the help of a Bonn's translation, Vandover making a pen and
+ink drawing for the next _Lampoon_. A couple of young women passed down
+the walk, going across the Yard toward the Square. They were cheaply and
+showily dressed. One of them wore a mannish shirtwaist, with a high
+collar and scarf. The other had taken off her gloves and was swinging a
+bright red cape in one of her bare hands. As the couple passed they
+stared calmly at the two young fellows in the window; Vandover lowered
+his eyes over his work, blushing, he could not tell why. Geary stared
+back at them, following them with his eyes until they had gone by.
+
+All at once he began laughing and pounding on the window.
+
+"Oh, for goodness sake, quit!" exclaimed Vandover in great alarm,
+twisting off the window-seat and shrinking back out of sight into the
+room. "Quit, Charlie; you don't want to insult a girl that way." Geary
+looked at him over his shoulder in some surprise, and was about to
+answer when he turned to the window again and exclaimed, grinning and
+waving his hand:
+
+"Oh, just come here, Skinny; get on to this, will you? Ah, come here and
+look, you old chump! Do you think they're nice girls? Just take a _look_
+at them." Vandover peered timidly around Geary's head and saw that the
+two girls were looking back and laughing, and that the one with the red
+cape was waving it at them.
+
+At supper that night they saw the girls in the gallery of Memorial. They
+pointed them out to young Haight, and Geary at length managed to attract
+their attention. After supper the three freshmen, together with two of
+their sophomore acquaintances, strolled slowly over toward the Yard,
+lighting their pipes and cigarettes. All at once, as they turned into
+the lower gate, they came full upon the same pair of girls. They were
+walking fast, talking and laughing very loudly.
+
+"Track!" called out one of the sophomores, and the group of young
+fellows parted to let them pass. The sophomore exclaimed in a tone of
+regret, "Don't be in such a hurry, girls." Vandover became scarlet and
+turned his face away, but the girls looked back and laughed
+good-naturedly. "Come on," said the sophomore. The group closed around
+the girls and brought them to a standstill; they were not in the least
+embarrassed at this, but laughed more than ever. Neither of them was
+pretty, but there was a certain attraction about them that pleased
+Vandover immensely. He was very excited.
+
+Then there was a very embarrassing pause. No one knew what to say. Geary
+alone regained his assurance at length, and began a lively interchange
+of chaff with one of them. The others could only stand about and smile.
+
+"Well," cried the other girl after a while, "I ain't going to stand here
+in the snow all _night_. Let's take a walk; come along. I choose _you_."
+Before Vandover knew it she had taken his arm. The sophomore managed in
+some way to pair off with the other girl; Haight had already left the
+group; the two couples started off, while Geary and the other sophomore
+who were left out followed awkwardly in the rear for a little way and
+then disappeared.
+
+Vandover was so excited that he could scarcely speak. This was a new
+experience. At first it attracted him, but the hopeless vulgarity of the
+girl at his side, her tawdry clothes, her sordid, petty talk, her slang,
+her miserable profanity, soon began to revolt him. He felt that he could
+not keep his self-respect while such a girl hung upon his arm.
+
+"Say," said the girl at length, "didn't I see you in town the other
+afternoon on Washington Street?"
+
+"Maybe you did," answered Vandover, trying to be polite. "I'm down there
+pretty often."
+
+"Well, I guess yes," she answered. "You Harvard sports make a regular
+promenade out o' Washington Street Saturday afternoons. I suppose I've
+seen you down there pretty often, but didn't notice. Do you stand or
+walk?"
+
+Vandover's gorge rose with disgust. He stopped abruptly and pulled away
+from the girl. Not only did she disgust him, but he felt sorry for her;
+he felt ashamed and pitiful for a woman who had fallen so low. Still he
+tried to be polite to her; he did not know how to be rude with any kind
+of woman.
+
+"You'll have to excuse me," he said, taking off his hat. "I don't
+believe I can take a walk with you to-night. I--you see--I've got a good
+deal of work to do; I think I'll have to leave you." Then he bowed to
+her with his hat in his hand, hurrying away before she could answer him
+a word.
+
+He found Geary alone in their room, cribbing "'Horace" again.
+
+"Ah, you bet," Geary said. "I shook those chippies. I sized them up
+right away. I was clever enough for that. They were no good. I thought
+you would get enough of it."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Vandover after a while, as he settled to his
+drawing. "She was pretty common, but anyhow I don't want to help bring
+down a poor girl like that any lower than she is already." This saying
+struck Vandover as being very good and noble, and he found occasion to
+repeat it to young Haight the next day.
+
+But within three days of this, at the time when Vandover would have
+fancied himself farthest from such a thing, he underwent a curious
+reaction. On a certain evening, moved by an unreasoned instinct, he
+sought out the girl who had just filled him with such deep pity and such
+violent disgust, and that night did not come back to the room in
+Matthew's. The thing was done almost before he knew it. He could not
+tell why he had acted as he did, and he certainly would not have
+believed himself capable of it.
+
+He passed the next few days in a veritable agony of repentance,
+overwhelmed by a sense of shame and dishonour that were almost feminine
+in their bitterness and intensity. He felt himself lost, unworthy, and
+as if he could never again look a pure woman in the eyes unless with an
+abominable hypocrisy. He was ashamed even before Geary and young Haight,
+and went so far as to send a long letter to his father acknowledging and
+deploring what he had done, asking for his forgiveness and reiterating
+his resolve to shun such a thing forever after.
+
+What had been bashfulness in the boy developed in the young man to a
+profound respect and an instinctive regard for women. This stood him in
+good stead throughout all his four years of Harvard life. In general, he
+kept himself pretty straight. There were plenty of fast girls and lost
+women about Cambridge, but Vandover found that he could not associate
+with them to any degree of satisfaction. He never knew how to take them,
+never could rid himself of the idea that they were to be treated as
+ladies. They, on their part, did not like him; he was too diffident, too
+courteous, too "slow." They preferred the rough self-assertion and easy
+confidence of Geary, who never took "no" as an answer and who could
+chaff with them on their own ground.
+
+Vandover did poor work at Harvard and only graduated, as Geary said, "by
+a squeak." Besides his regular studies he took time to pass three
+afternoons a week in the studio of a Boston artist, where he studied
+anatomy and composition and drew figures from the nude. In the summer
+vacations he did not return home, but accompanied this artist on
+sketching tours along the coast of Maine. His style improved immensely
+the moment he abandoned flat studies and began to work directly from
+Nature. He drew figures well, showed a feeling for desolate landscapes,
+and even gave promise of a good eye for colour. But he allowed his
+fondness for art to interfere constantly with his college work. By the
+middle of his senior year he was so loaded with conditions that it was
+only Geary's unwearied coaching that pulled him through at all--as
+Vandover knew it would, for that matter.
+
+Vandover returned to San Francisco when he was twenty-two. It was
+astonishing; he had gone away a pimply, overgrown boy, raw and callow as
+a fledgling, constrained in society, diffident, awkward. Now he
+returned, a tall, well-formed Harvardian, as careful as a woman in the
+matter of dress, very refined in his manners. Besides, he was a
+delightful conversationalist. His father was rejoiced; every one
+declared he was a charming fellow.
+
+They were right. Vandover was at his best at this time; it was
+undeniable that he had great talent, but he was so modest about it that
+few knew how clever he really was.
+
+He went out to dinners and receptions and began to move a little in
+society. He became very popular: the men liked him because he was so
+unaffected, so straightforward, and the women because he was so
+respectful and so deferential.
+
+He had no vices. He had gone through the ordeal of college life and had
+come out without contracting any habit more serious than a vague
+distaste for responsibility, and an inclination to shirk disagreeable
+duties. Cards he never thought of. It was rare that he drank so much as
+a glass of beer.
+
+However, he had come back to a great disappointment. Business in San
+Francisco had entered upon a long period of decline, and values were
+decreasing; for ten years rents had been sagging lower and lower. At the
+same time the interest on loans and insurances had increased, and real
+estate was brought to a standstill; one spoke bitterly of a certain
+great monopoly that was ruining both the city and state. Vandover's
+father had suffered with the rest, and now told his son that he could
+not at this time afford to send him to Paris. He would have to wait for
+better times.
+
+At first this was a sharp grief to Vandover; for years he had looked
+forward to an artist's life in the Quarter. For a time he was
+inconsolable, then at length readjusted himself good-naturedly to suit
+the new order of things with as little compunction as before, when he
+had entered Harvard. He found that he could be contented in almost any
+environment, the weakness, the certain pliability of his character
+easily fitting itself into new grooves, reshaping itself to suit new
+circumstances. He prevailed upon his father to allow him to have a
+downtown studio. In a little while he was perfectly happy again.
+
+Vandover's love for his art was keen. On the whole he kept pretty
+steadily to his work, spending a good six hours at his easel every day,
+very absorbed over the picture in hand. He was working up into large
+canvases the sketches he had made along the Maine coast, great, empty
+expanses of sea, sky, and sand-dune, full of wind and sun. They were
+really admirable. He even sold one of them. The Old Gentleman was
+delighted, signed him a check for twenty dollars, and told him that in
+three years he could afford to send him abroad.
+
+In the meanwhile Vandover set himself to enjoy the new life. Little by
+little his "set" formed around him; Geary and young Haight, of course,
+and some half dozen young men of the city: young lawyers, medical
+students, and clerks in insurance offices. As Vandover thus began to see
+the different phases of that life which lay beyond the limits of the
+college, he perceived more and more clearly that he was an exception
+among men for his temperance, his purity, and his clean living.
+
+At their clubs and in their smoking-rooms he heard certain practices,
+which he had always believed to be degrading and abominable, discussed
+with shouts of laughter. Those matters which until now he had regarded
+with an almost sacred veneration were subjects for immense jokes. A few
+years ago he would have been horrified at it all, but the fine quality
+of this first sensitiveness had been blunted since his experience at
+college. He tolerated these things in his friends now.
+
+Gradually Vandover allowed his ideas and tastes to be moulded by this
+new order of things. He assumed the manners of these young men of the
+city, very curious to see for himself the other lower side of their life
+that began after midnight in the private rooms of fast cafes and that
+was continued in the heavy musk-laden air of certain parlours amid the
+rustle of heavy silks.
+
+Slowly the fascination of this thing grew upon him until it mounted to a
+veritable passion. His strong artist's imagination began to be filled
+with a world of charming sensuous pictures.
+
+He commenced to chafe under his innate respect and deference for women,
+to resent and to despise it. As the desire of vice, the blind, reckless
+desire of the male, grew upon him, he set himself to destroy this
+barrier that had so long stood in his way. He knew that it was the
+wilful and deliberate corruption of part of that which was best in him;
+he was sorry for it, but persevered, nevertheless, ashamed of his
+old-time timidity, his ignorance, his boyish purity.
+
+For a second time the animal in him, the perverse evil brute, awoke and
+stirred. The idea of resistance hardly occurred to Vandover; it would be
+hard, it would be disagreeable to resist, and Vandover had not
+accustomed himself to the performance of hard, disagreeable duties. They
+were among the unpleasant things that he shirked. He told himself that
+later on, when he had grown older and steadier and had profited by
+experience and knowledge of the world, when he was stronger, in a word,
+he would curb the thing and restrain it. He saw no danger in such a
+course. It was what other men did with impunity.
+
+In company with Geary and young Haight he had come to frequent a certain
+one of the fast cafes of the city. Here he met and became acquainted
+with a girl called Flossie. It was the opportunity for which he was
+waiting, and he seized it at once.
+
+This time there was no recoil of conscience, no shame, no remorse; he
+even felt a better estimation of himself, that self-respect that comes
+with wider experiences and with larger views of life. He told himself
+that all men should at one time see certain phases of the world; it
+rounded out one's life. After all, one had to be a man of the world.
+Those men only were perverted who allowed themselves to be corrupted by
+such vice.
+
+Thus it was that Vandover, by degrees, drifted into the life of a
+certain class of the young men of the city. Vice had no hold on him. The
+brute had grown larger in him, but he knew that he had the creature in
+hand. He was its master, and only on rare occasions did he permit
+himself to gratify its demands, feeding its abominable hunger from that
+part of him which he knew to be the purest, the cleanest, and the best.
+
+Three years passed in this fashion.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Three
+
+
+Vandover had decided at lunch that day that he would not go back to work
+at his studio in the afternoon, but would stay at home instead and read
+a very interesting story about two men who had bought a wrecked opium
+ship for fifty thousand dollars, and had afterward discovered that she
+contained only a few tins of the drug. He was curious to see how it
+turned out; the studio was a long way downtown, the day was a little
+cold, and he felt that he would enjoy a little relaxation. Anyhow, he
+meant to stay at home and put in the whole afternoon on a good novel.
+
+But even when he had made up his mind to do this he did not immediately
+get out his book and settle down to it. After lunch he loitered about
+the house while his meal digested, feeling very comfortable and
+contented. He strummed his banjo a little and played over upon the piano
+the three pieces he had picked up: two were polkas, and the third, the
+air of a topical song; he always played the three together and in the
+same sequence. Then he strolled up to his room, and brushed his hair for
+a while, trying to make it lie very flat and smooth. After this he went
+out to look at Mr. Corkle, the terrier, and let him run a bit in the
+garden; then he felt as though he must have a smoke, and so went back to
+his room and filled his pipe. When it was going well, he took down his
+book and threw himself into a deep leather chair, only to jump up again
+to put on his smoking-jacket. All at once he became convinced that he
+must have something to eat while he read, and so went to the kitchen and
+got himself some apples and a huge slice of fresh bread. Ever since
+Vandover was a little boy he had loved fresh bread and apples. Through
+the windows of the dining-room he saw Mr. Corkle digging up great holes
+in the geranium beds. He went out and abused him and finally let him
+come back into the house and took him upstairs with him.
+
+Then at last he settled down to his novel, in the very comfortable
+leather chair, before a little fire, for the last half of August is cold
+in San Francisco. The room was warm and snug, the fresh bread and apples
+were delicious, the good tobacco in his pipe purred like a sleeping
+kitten, and his novel was interesting and well written. He felt calm and
+soothed and perfectly content, and took in the pleasure of the occasion
+with the lazy complacency of a drowsing cat.
+
+Vandover was self-indulgent--he loved these sensuous pleasures, he loved
+to eat good things, he loved to be warm, he loved to sleep. He hated to
+be bored and worried--he liked to have a good time.
+
+At about half-past four o'clock he came to a good stopping-place in his
+book; the two men had got to quarrelling, and his interest flagged a
+little. He pushed Mr. Corkle off his lap and got up yawning and went to
+the window.
+
+Vandover's home was on California Street not far from Franklin. It was a
+large frame house of two stories; all the windows in the front were bay.
+The front door was directly in the middle between the windows of the
+parlour and those of the library, while over the vestibule was a sort of
+balcony that no one ever thought of using. The house was set in a large
+well-kept yard. The lawn was pretty; an enormous eucalyptus tree grew at
+one corner. Nearer to the house were magnolia and banana trees growing
+side by side with pines and firs. Humming-birds built in these, and one
+could hear their curious little warbling mingling with the hoarse chirp
+of the English sparrows which nested under the eaves. The back yard was
+separated from the lawn by a high fence of green lattice-work. The hens
+and chickens were kept here and two roosters, one of which crowed every
+time a cable-car passed the house. On the door cut through the
+lattice-fence was a sign, "Look Out for the Dog." Close to the unused
+barn stood an immense windmill with enormous arms; when the wind blew in
+the afternoon the sails whirled about at a surprising speed, pumping up
+water from the artesian well sunk beneath. There was a small
+conservatory where the orchids were kept. Altogether, it was a charming
+place. However, adjoining it was a huge vacant lot with cows in it. It
+was full of dry weeds and heaps of ashes, while around it was an
+enormous fence painted with signs of cigars, patent bitters, and soap.
+
+Vandover stood at a front window and looked out on a rather dreary
+prospect. The inevitable afternoon trades had been blowing hard since
+three, strong and brisk from the ocean, driving hard through the Golden
+Gate and filling the city with a taint of salt. Now the fog was coming
+in; Vandover could see great patches of it sweeping along between him
+and the opposite houses. All the eucalyptus trees were dripping, and
+occasionally there came the faint moan of the fog-horn out at the heads.
+He could see up the street for nearly two miles as it climbed over Nob
+Hill. It was almost deserted; a cable-car now and then crawled up and
+down its length, and at times a delivery wagon rattled across it; but
+that was about all. On the opposite sidewalk two boys and a girl were
+coasting downhill on their roller-skates and their brake-wagons. The
+cable in its slot kept up an incessant burr and clack. The whole view
+was rather forlorn, and Vandover turned his back on it, taking up his
+book again.
+
+About five o'clock his father came home from his office. "Hello!" said
+he, looking into the room; "aren't you home a little early to-day? Ah, I
+thought you weren't going to bring that dog into the house any more. I
+wish you wouldn't, son; he gets hair and fleas about everywhere."
+
+"All right, governor," answered Vandover. "I'll take him out. Come
+along, Cork."
+
+"But aren't you home earlier than usual to-day?" persisted his father as
+Vandover got up.
+
+"Yes," said Vandover, "I guess I am, a little."
+
+After supper the same evening when Vandover came downstairs, drawing on
+his gloves, his father looked over his paper, saying pleasantly:
+
+"Well, where are you going to-night?"
+
+"I'm going to see my girl," said Vandover, smiling; then foreseeing the
+usual question, he added, "I'll be home about eleven, I guess."
+
+"Got your latch-key?" asked the Old Gentleman, as he always did when
+Vandover went out.
+
+"Yep," called back Vandover as he opened the door. "I'll not forget it
+again. Good-night, governor."
+
+Vandover used to call on Turner Ravis about twice a week; people said
+they were engaged. This was not so.
+
+Vandover had met Miss Ravis some two years before. For a time the two
+had been sincerely in love with each other, and though there was never
+any talk of marriage between them, they seemed to have some sort of
+tacit understanding. But by this time Vandover had somehow outgrown the
+idea of marrying Turner. He still kept up the fiction, persuaded that
+Turner must understand the way things had come to be. However, he was
+still very fond of her; she was a frank, sweet-tempered girl and very
+pretty, and it was delightful to have her care for him.
+
+Vandover could not shut his eyes to the fact that young Haight was very
+seriously in love with Turner. But he was sure that Turner preferred him
+to his chum. She was too sincere, too frank, too conscientious to
+practise any deception on him.
+
+There was quite a party at the Ravises' house that evening when Vandover
+arrived. Young Haight was there, of course, and Charlie Geary. Besides
+Turner herself there was Henrietta Vance, a stout, pretty girl, with pop
+eyes and a little nose, who laughed all the time and who was very
+popular. These were all part of Vandover's set; they called each other
+by their first names and went everywhere together. Almost every Saturday
+evening they got together at Turner's house and played whist, or euchre,
+or sometimes even poker. "Just for love," as Turner said.
+
+When Vandover came in they were all talking at the same time, disputing
+about a little earthquake that had occurred the night before. Henrietta
+Vance declared that it had happened early in the morning.
+
+"_Wasn't_ it just about midnight, Van?" cried Turner.
+
+"I don't know," answered Vandover. "It didn't wake me up. I didn't even
+know there was one."
+
+"Well, I know I heard our clock strike two just about half an hour
+afterward," protested young Haight.
+
+"Oh, it was almost five o'clock when it came," cried Henrietta Vance.
+
+"Well, now, you're _all_ off," said Charlie Geary. "I know just when she
+quaked to the fraction of a minute, because it stopped our hall clock at
+just a little after three."
+
+They were silent. It was an argument which was hard to contradict. By
+and by, young Haight declared, "There must have been two of them then,
+because--"
+
+"How about whist or euchre or whatever it is to be?" said Charlie
+Geary, addressing Turner and interrupting in an annoying way that was
+peculiar to him. "Can't we start in now that Van has come?" They played
+euchre for a while, but Geary did not like the game, and by and by
+suggested poker.
+
+"Well--if it's only just for love," said Turner, "because, you know,
+mamma doesn't like it any other way."
+
+At ten o'clock Geary said, "Let's quit after this hand round--what do
+you say?" The rest were willing and so they all took account of their
+chips after the next deal. Geary was protesting against his poor luck.
+Honestly he hadn't held better than three tens more than twice during
+the evening. It was Henrietta Vance who took in everything; did one ever
+_see_ anything to beat her luck? "the funniest thing!"
+
+They began to do tricks with the cards. Young Haight showed them a very
+good trick by which he could make the pack break every time at the ace
+of clubs. Vandover exclaimed: "Lend me a silk hat and ninety dollars and
+I'll show you the queerest trick you ever saw," which sent Henrietta
+Vance off into shrieks of laughter. Then Geary took the cards out of
+young Haight's hands, asking them if they knew _this_ trick.
+
+Turner said yes, she knew it, but the others did not, and Geary showed
+it to them. It was interminable. Henrietta Vance chose a card and put it
+back into the deck. Then the deck was shuffled and divided into three
+piles. After this Geary made a mental calculation, selected one of these
+piles, shuffled it, and gave it back to her, asking her if she saw her
+card in it; then more shuffling and dividing until their interest and
+patience were quite exhausted. When Geary finally produced a jack of
+hearts and demanded triumphantly if that was her card, Henrietta began
+to laugh and declared she had forgotten _what_ card she chose. Geary
+said he would do the trick all over for her. At this, however, they all
+cried out, and he had to give it up, very irritated at Henrietta's
+stupidity.
+
+Vexed at the ill success of this first trick, he retired a little from
+their conversation, puzzling over the cards, thinking out new tricks.
+Every now and then he came back among them, going about from one to
+another, holding out the deck and exclaiming, "Choose any card--choose
+any card."
+
+After a while they all adjourned to the dining-room and Turner and
+Vandover went out into the kitchen, foraging among the drawers and
+shelves. They came back bringing with them a box of sardines, a tin of
+_pate_, three quart bottles of blue-ribbon beer, and what Vandover
+called "devilish-ham" sandwiches.
+
+"Now do we want _tamales_ to go with these?" said Turner, as she spread
+the lunch on the table. Henrietta Vance cried out joyfully at this, and
+young Haight volunteered to go out to get them. "Get six," Turner cried
+out after him. "Henrietta can always eat two. Hurry up, and we won't eat
+till you get back."
+
+While he was gone Turner got out some half-dozen glasses for their beer.
+"Do you know," she said as she set the glasses on the table, "the
+funniest thing happened this morning to mamma. It was at breakfast; she
+had just drunk a glass of water and was holding the glass in her hand
+like this"--Turner took one of the thin beer glasses in her hand to show
+them how--"and was talking to pa, when all at once the glass broke right
+straight around a ring, just below the brim, you know, and fell all--"
+On a sudden Turner uttered a shrill exclamation; the others started up;
+the very glass she held in her hand at the moment cracked and broke in
+precisely the manner she was describing. A narrow ring snapped from the
+top, dropping on the floor, breaking into a hundred bits.
+
+Turner drew in a long breath, open-mouthed, her hand in the air still
+holding the body of the glass that remained in her fingers. They all
+began to exclaim over the wonder.
+
+"Well, did you ever in all your _life_?" shouted Miss Vance, breaking
+into a peal of laughter. Geary cried out, "Caesar's ghost!" and Vandover
+swore under his breath.
+
+"If that isn't the strangest thing I ever saw!" cried Turner. "_Isn't_
+that funny--why--oh! I'm going _to try it with another glass_!" But the
+second glass remained intact. Geary recovered from his surprise and
+tried to explain how it could happen.
+
+"It was the heat from your fingers and the glass was cold, you know," he
+said again and again.
+
+But the strangeness of the thing still held them. Turner set down the
+glass with the others and dropped into a chair, letting her hands fall
+in her lap, looking into their faces, nodding her head and shutting her
+lips:
+
+"Ah, _no_," she said after a while. "That _is_ funny. It kind of scares
+one." She was actually pale.
+
+"Oh, there's Dolly Haight!" cried Henrietta Vance as the door bell rang.
+They all rushed to the door, running and scrambling, eager to tell the
+news. Young Haight stood bewildered on the door mat in the vestibule,
+his arms full of brown-paper packages, while they recounted the marvel.
+They all spoke at once, holding imaginary beer glasses toward him in
+their outstretched hands. Geary, however, refused to be carried away by
+their excitement, and one heard him from time to time repeating, between
+their ejaculations, "It was the heat from her fingers, you know, and the
+glass was cold."
+
+Young Haight was confused, incredulous; he could not at first make out
+what _had_ happened.
+
+"Well, just come and _look_ at the broken _glass_ on the _floor_,"
+shouted Turner decisively, dragging him into the dining-room. They
+waited, breathless, to hear what he would say. He looked at the broken
+glass and then into their faces. Then he suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"Ah, you're joking me."
+
+"No, honestly," protested Vandover, "that was just the way it happened."
+
+It was some little time before they could get over their impression of
+queerness, but by and by Geary cried out that the _tamales_ were getting
+cold. They settled down to their lunch, and the first thing young Haight
+did was to cut his lip on the edge of the broken glass. Turner had set
+it down with the others and he had inadvertently filled it for himself.
+
+It was a trifling cut. Turner fetched some court-plaster, and his lip
+was patched up. For all that, it bled quite a little. He was very
+embarrassed; he kept his handkerchief to his mouth and told them
+repeatedly to go on with their lunch and not to mind him.
+
+As soon as they were eating and drinking they began to be very jolly,
+and Vandover was especially good-humoured and entertaining. He made
+Henrietta Vance shout with laughter by pretending that the olive in his
+_tamale_ was a green hen's egg.
+
+About half-past ten young Haight rose from the table saying he thought
+it was about time to say good-night. "Don't be in a hurry," said
+Turner. "It's early yet." After that, however, they broke up very
+quickly.
+
+Before he left Vandover saw Turner in the dining-room alone for a
+minute.
+
+"Will I see you at church to-morrow?" he asked, as she held his overcoat
+for him.
+
+"I don't know, Van," she answered. "You know Henrietta is going to stay
+all night with me, and I think she will want me to go home with her
+to-morrow morning and then stay to dinner with her. But I'm going to
+early communion to-morrow morning; why can't you meet me there?"
+
+"Why, I can," answered Vandover, settling his collar. "I should like to
+very much."
+
+"Well, then," she replied, "you can meet me in front of the church at
+half-past seven o'clock."
+
+"Hey, break away there!" cried Geary from the front door. "Come along,
+Van, if you are going with us."
+
+Turner let Vandover kiss her before they joined the others. "I'll see
+you at seven-thirty to-morrow morning," he said as he went away.
+
+The three young men went off down the street, arm in arm, smoking their
+cigars and cigarettes. As soon as they were alone, Charlie Geary began
+to tell the other two of everything he had been doing since he had last
+seen them.
+
+"Well, sir," he said as he took an arm of each, "well, sir, I had a fine
+sleep last night; went to bed at ten and never woke up till half-past
+eight this morning. Ah, you bet I needed it, though. I've been working
+like a slave this week. You know I take my law-examinations in about ten
+days. I'll pass all right. I'm right up to the handle in everything. I
+don't believe the judge could stick me anywhere in the subject of
+torts."
+
+"Say, boys," said Vandover, pausing and looking at his watch, "it isn't
+very late; let's go downtown and have some oysters."
+
+"That's a good idea," answered young Haight. "How about you, Charlie?"
+
+Geary said he was willing. "Ah," he added, "you ought to have seen the
+beefsteak I had this evening at the Grillroom." And as they rode
+downtown he told them of the steak in question. "I had a little mug of
+ale with it, too, and a dish of salad. Ah, it went great."
+
+They decided after some discussion that they would go to the Imperial.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Four
+
+
+The Imperial was a resort not far from the corner of Sutter and Kearney
+streets, a few doors below a certain well-known drug store, in one
+window of which was a showcase full of live snakes.
+
+The front of the Imperial was painted white, and there was a cigar-stand
+in the vestibule of the main entrance. At the right of this main
+entrance was another smaller one, a ladies' entrance, on the frosted
+pane of which one read, "Oyster Cafe."
+
+The main entrance opened directly into the barroom. It was a handsome
+room, paved with marble flags. To the left was the bar, whose counter
+was a single slab of polished redwood. Behind it was a huge, plate-glass
+mirror, balanced on one side by the cash-register and on the other by a
+statuette of the Diving Girl in tinted bisque. Between the two were
+pyramids of glasses and bottles, liqueur flasks in wicker cases, and a
+great bouquet of sweet-peas.
+
+The three bartenders, in clean linen coats and aprons, moved about here
+and there, opening bottles, mixing drinks, and occasionally turning to
+punch the indicator of the register.
+
+On the other side of the room, facing the bar, hung a large copy of a
+French picture representing a _Sabbath_, witches, goats, and naked girls
+whirling through the air. Underneath it was the lunch counter, where
+clam-fritters, the specialty of the place, could be had four afternoons
+in the week.
+
+Elsewhere were nickel-in-the-slot machines, cigar-lighters, a vase of
+wax flowers under glass, and a racing chart setting forth the day's
+odds, weights, and entries. On the end wall over the pantry-slides was a
+second "barroom" picture, representing the ladies of a harem at their
+bath.
+
+But its "private rooms" were the chief attraction of the Imperial. These
+were reached by going in through the smaller door to the right of the
+main vestibule. Any one coming in through this entrance found himself in
+a long and narrow passage. On the right of this passage were eight
+private rooms, very small, and open at the top as the law required.
+Half-way down its length the passage grew wider. Here the rooms were on
+both sides and were much larger than those in front.
+
+It was this part of the Imperial that was most frequented, and that had
+made its reputation. In the smaller rooms in front one had beer and
+Welsh rabbits; in the larger rooms, champagne and terrapin.
+
+Vandover, Haight, and Geary came in through the ladies' entrance of the
+Imperial at about eleven o'clock, going slowly down the passage, looking
+into each of the little rooms, searching for one that was empty. All at
+once Vandover, who was in the lead, cried out:
+
+"Well, if here isn't that man Ellis, drinking whisky by himself. Bah! a
+man that will drink whisky all _alone_! Glad to see you just the same,
+Bandy; move along, will you--give a man some room."
+
+"Hello, hello, Bandy!" cried Geary and young Haight, hitting him in the
+back, while Geary added: "How long have you been down here? _I've_ just
+come from making a call with the boys. Had a fine time; what are you
+drinking, whisky? _I'm_ going to have something to eat. Didn't have much
+of a lunch to-day, but you ought to have seen the steak I had at the
+Grillroom--as thick as that, and tender! Oh, it went great! Here, hang
+my coat up there on that side, will you?"
+
+Bancroft Ellis was one of the young men of the city with whom the three
+fellows had become acquainted just after their return from college. For
+the most part, they met him at downtown restaurants, in the foyers and
+vestibules of the theatres, on Kearney Street of a Saturday afternoon,
+or, as now, in the little rooms of the Imperial, where he was a
+recognized habitue and where he invariably called for whisky, finishing
+from three to five "ponies" at every sitting. On very rare occasions
+they saw him in society, at the houses where their "set" was received.
+At these functions Ellis could never be persuaded to remain in the
+parlours; he slipped up to the gentlemen's dressing-rooms at the
+earliest opportunity, and spent the evening silently smoking the cigars
+and cigarettes furnished by the host. When Vandover and his friends came
+up between dances, to brush their hair or to rearrange their neckties,
+they found him enveloped in a blue haze of smoke, his feet on a chair,
+his shirt bosom broken, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. He would tell them
+that he was bored and thirsty and ask how much longer they were going to
+stay. He knew but few of their friends; his home was in a little town in
+the interior and he prided himself on being a "Native Son of the Golden
+West." He was a clerk in an insurance office on California Street, and
+had never been out of the state.
+
+For the rest he was a good enough fellow and the three others liked him
+very much. He had a curious passion for facts and statistics, and his
+pockets were full of little books and cards to which he was constantly
+referring. He had one of those impossible pocket-diaries, the first half
+dozen pages loaded with information of every kind printed in blinding
+type, postal rates to every country in the world, statistics as to
+population and rates of death, weights and measures, the highest
+mountains in the world, the greatest depths of the ocean. He kept a
+little book in his left-hand vest pocket that gave the plan and seating
+capacity of every theatre in the city, while in the right-hand pocket
+was a tiny Webster's dictionary which was his especial pride. The
+calendar for the current year was pasted in the lining of his hat,
+together with the means to be employed in the resuscitation of a
+half-drowned person. He also carried about a "Vest Pocket Edition of
+Popular Information," which had never been of the slightest use to him.
+
+The room in which they were now seated was very small and opened
+directly upon the passage. On either side of the table was a seat that
+would hold two, and on the wall opposite the door hung a mirror, its
+gilt frame enclosed in pink netting. The table itself was covered with a
+tolerably clean cloth, though it was of coarse linen and rather damp.
+
+There were the usual bottles of olives and pepper sauce, a plate of
+broken crackers, and a ribbed match-safe of china. The sugar bowl was of
+plated ware and on it were scratched numberless dates together with the
+first names of a great many girls, "Nannie," "Ida," "Flossie."
+
+Between the castor bottles was the bill of fare, held by a thin string
+between two immense leather covers which were stamped with wine
+merchants' advertisements. Geary reached for this before any of the
+others, saying at the same time, "Well, what are you going to have?
+_I'm_ going to have a Welsh rabbit and a pint of ale." He looked from
+one to the other as if demanding whether or no they approved of his
+choice. He assumed the management of what was going on, advising the
+others what to have, telling Vandover not to order certain dishes that
+he liked because it took so long to cook them. He had young Haight ring
+for the waiter, and when he had come, Geary read off the entire order to
+him twice over, making sure that he had taken it correctly. "That's what
+we want all right, all right--isn't it?" he said, looking around at the
+rest.
+
+The waiter, whose eyes were red from lack of sleep, put down before them
+a plate of limp, soft shrimps.
+
+"Hello, Toby!" said Vandover.
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen," answered Toby. "Why, good evening, Mr.
+Vandover; haven't seen you 'round here for some time." He took their
+order, and as he was going away, Vandover called him back:
+
+"Say, Toby," said he, "has Flossie been around to-night?"
+
+"No," answered Toby, "she hasn't shown up yet. Her running-mate was in
+about nine, but she went out again right away."
+
+"Well," said Vandover, smiling, "if Flossie comes 'round show her in
+here, will you?"
+
+The others laughed, and joked him about this, and Vandover settled back
+in his seat, easing his position.
+
+"Ah," he exclaimed, "I like it in here. It's always pleasant and warm
+and quiet and the service is good and you get such good things to eat."
+
+Now that the young fellows were by themselves, and could relax that
+restraint, that good breeding and delicacy which had been natural to
+them in the early part of the evening at the Ravises', their manners
+changed: they lounged clumsily upon their seats, their legs stretched
+out, their waistcoats unbuttoned, caring only to be at their ease. Their
+talk and manners became blunt, rude, unconstrained, the coarser
+masculine fibre reasserting itself. With the exception of young Haight
+they were all profane enough, and it was not very long before their
+conversation became obscene.
+
+Geary told them how he had spent the afternoon promenading Kearney and
+Market streets and just where he had gone to get his cocktail and his
+cigar. "Ah," he added, "you ought to have seen Ida Wade and Bessie
+Laguna. Oh, Ida was rigged up to beat the band; honestly her _hat_ was
+as broad across as that. You know there's no use talking, she's an
+awfully handsome girl."
+
+A discussion arose over the girl's virtue. Ellis, Geary, and young
+Haight maintained that Ida was only fast; Vandover, however, had his
+doubts.
+
+"For that matter," said Ellis after a while, "I like Bessie Laguna a
+good deal better than I do Ida."
+
+"Ah, yes," retorted young Haight, "you like Bessie Laguna too much
+anyhow."
+
+Young Haight had a theory that one should never care in any way for that
+kind of a girl nor become at all intimate with her.
+
+"The matter of liking her or not liking her," he said, "ought not to
+enter into the question at all. You are both of you out for a good time
+and that's all; you have a jolly flirtation with her for an hour or two,
+and you never see her again. That's the way it ought to be! This idea of
+getting intimate with that sort of a piece, and trying to get her to
+care for you, is all wrong."
+
+"Oh," said Vandover deprecatingly, "you take all the pleasure out of it;
+where does your good time come in if you don't at least pretend that you
+like the girl and try to make her like you?"
+
+"But don't you see," answered Haight, "what a dreadful thing it would be
+if a girl like that came to care for you seriously? It isn't the same as
+if it were a girl of your own class."
+
+"Ah, Dolly, you've got a bean," muttered Ellis, sipping his whisky.
+
+Meanwhile, the Imperial had been filling up; at about eleven the
+theatres were over, and now the barroom was full of men. They came in by
+twos and threes and sometimes even by noisy parties of a half dozen or
+more. The white swing doors of the main entrance flapped back and forth
+continually, letting out into the street puffs of tepid air tainted with
+the smell of alcohol. The men entered and ordered their drinks, and
+leaning their elbows upon the bar continued the conversation they had
+begun outside. Afterward they passed over to the lunch counter and
+helped themselves to a plate of stewed tripe or potato salad, eating it
+in a secluded corner, leaning over so as not to stain their coats. There
+was a continual clinking of glasses and popping of corks, and at every
+instant the cash-register clucked and rang its bell.
+
+Between the barroom and the other part of the house was a door hung with
+blue plush curtains, looped back; the waiters constantly passed back and
+forth through this, carrying plates of oysters, smoking rarebits, tiny
+glasses of liqueurs, and goblets of cigars.
+
+All the private rooms opening from either passage were full; the men
+came in, walking slowly, looking for their friends; but more often, the
+women and girls passed up and down with a chatter of conversation, a
+rattle of stiff skirts and petticoats, and a heavy whiff of musk. There
+was a continual going and coming, a monotonous shuffle of feet and hum
+of talk. A heavy odorous warmth in which were mingled the smells of
+sweetened whisky, tobacco, the fumes of cooking, and the scent of
+perfume, exhaled into the air. A gay and noisy party developed in one of
+the large back rooms; at every moment one could hear gales of laughter,
+the rattle of chairs and glassware, mingled with the sounds of men's
+voices and the little screams and cries of women. Every time the waiter
+opened the door to deliver an order he let out a momentary torrent of
+noises.
+
+Girls, habitues of the place, continued to pass the door of the room
+where Vandover and his friends were seated. Each time a particularly
+handsome one went by, the four looked out after her, shutting their lips
+and eyes and nodding their heads.
+
+Young Haight had called for more drinks, ordering, however, mineral
+water for himself, and Vandover was just telling about posing the female
+models in a certain life-class to which he belonged, when he looked up
+and broke off, exclaiming:
+
+"Well, well, here we are at last! How are you, Flossie? Come right in."
+
+Flossie stood in the doorway smiling good-humouredly at them, without a
+trace of embarrassment or of confusion in her manner. She was an immense
+girl, quite six feet tall, broad and well-made, in proportion. She was
+very handsome, full-throated, heavy-eyed, and slow in her movements.
+Her eyes and mouth, like everything about her, were large, but each time
+she spoke or smiled, she disclosed her teeth, which were as white, as
+well-set, and as regular as the rows of kernels on an ear of green corn.
+In her ears were small yellow diamonds, the only jewellery she wore.
+There was no perceptible cosmetic on her face, which had a clean and
+healthy look as though she had just given it a vigorous washing.
+
+She wore a black hat with a great flare to the brim on one side. It was
+trimmed very dashingly with black feathers, imitation jet, and a little
+puff of plush--robin's-egg blue. Her dress was of rough, black camel's
+hair, tailor-made, and but for the immense balloon sleeves, absolutely
+plain. It was cut in such a way that from neck to waist there was no
+break, the buttons being on the shoulder and under the arm. The skirt
+was full and stiff, and without the least trimming. Everything was
+black--hat, dress, gloves--and the effect was of a simplicity and
+severity so pronounced as to be very striking.
+
+However, around her waist she wore as a belt a thick rope of oxidized
+silver, while her shoes, or rather walking slippers, were of white
+canvas.
+
+She belonged to that class of women who are not to know one's last name
+or address, and whose hate and love are equally to be dreaded. There was
+upon her face the unmistakable traces of a ruined virtue and a vanished
+innocence. Her slightest action suggested her profession; as soon as she
+removed her veil and gloves it was as though she were partially
+undressed, and her uncovered face and hands seemed to be only portions
+of her nudity.
+
+The general conception of women of her class is a painted and broken
+wreck. Flossie radiated health; her eyes were clear, her nerves steady,
+her flesh hard and even as a child's. There hung about her an air of
+cleanliness, of freshness, of good nature, of fine, high spirits, while
+with every movement she exhaled a delicious perfume that was not only
+musk, but that seemed to come alike from her dress, her hair, her neck,
+her very flesh and body.
+
+Vandover was no longer the same as he had been during his college days.
+He was familiar now with this odour of abandoned women, this foul sweet
+savour of the great city's vice, that quickened his breath and that sent
+his heart knocking at his throat. It was the sensitive artist nature in
+him that responded instantly to anything sensuously attractive. Each
+kind and class of beautiful women could arouse in Vandover passions of
+equal force, though of far different kind. Turner Ravis influenced him
+upon his best side, calling out in him all that was cleanest, finest,
+and most delicate. Flossie appealed only to the animal and the beast in
+him, the evil, hideous brute that made instant answer.
+
+"What will you take, Flossie?" asked Vandover, as she settled herself
+among them. "We are all drinking beer except Ellis. He's filling up with
+whisky." But Flossie never drank. It was one of the peculiarities for
+which she was well known.
+
+"I don't want either," she answered, and turning to the waiter, she
+added, "You can bring me some Apollinaris water, Toby."
+
+Flossie betrayed herself as soon as she spoke, the effect of her
+appearance was spoiled. Her voice was hoarse, a low-pitched rasp, husky,
+throaty, and full of brutal, vulgar modulations.
+
+"Smoke, Flossie?" said Geary, pushing his cigarette case across to her.
+Flossie took a cigarette, rolled it to make it loose, and smoked it
+while she told them how she had once tried to draw up the smoke through
+her nose as it came out between her lips.
+
+"And honestly, boys," she growled, "it made me that sick that I just had
+to go to bed."
+
+"Who is the crowd out back?" asked Geary for the sake of saying
+something. Flossie embarrassed them all a little, and conversation with
+girls of her class was difficult.
+
+"Oh, that's May and Nannie with some men from a banquet at the Palace
+Hotel," she answered.
+
+The talk dragged along little by little and Flossie began badgering
+young Haight. "Say, you over there," she exclaimed, "what's the matter
+with you? You don't say anything."
+
+Young Haight blushed and answered very much embarrassed: "Oh, I'm just
+listening." He was anxious to get away. He got up and reached for his
+hat and coat, saying with a good-natured smile: "Well, boys and girls,
+I think I shall have to leave you."
+
+"Don't let me frighten you away," said Flossie, laughing.
+
+"Oh, no," he answered, trying to hide his embarrassment, "I have to go
+anyhow."
+
+While the others were saying good night to him and asking when they
+should see him again, Flossie leaned over to him, crying out, "Good
+night!" All at once, and before he knew what she was about, she kissed
+him full on the mouth. He started sharply at this, but was not angry,
+simply pulling away from her, blushing, very embarrassed, and more and
+more anxious to get away. Toby, the waiter, appeared at their door.
+
+"That last was on me, you know," said young Haight, intercepting
+Vandover and settling for the round of drinks.
+
+"Hello!" exclaimed Toby, "what's the matter with your lip?"
+
+"I cut it a little while ago on a broken glass," answered young Haight.
+"Is it bleeding again?" he added, putting two fingers on his lips.
+
+"It is sure enough," said Geary. "Here," he went on, wetting the corner
+of a napkin from the water bottle, "hold that on it."
+
+The others began to laugh. "Flossie did that," Vandover explained to
+Toby. Ellis was hastily looking through his pockets, fumbling about
+among his little books.
+
+"I had something here," he kept muttering, "if I can only _find_ it,
+that told just what to do when you cut yourself with glass. There may be
+glass _in_ it, you know."
+
+"Oh, that's all right, that's all right," exclaimed young Haight, now
+altogether disconcerted. "It don't amount to anything."
+
+"I tell you what," observed Geary; "get some court-plaster at the snake
+doctor's just above here."
+
+"No, no, that's all right," returned young Haight, moving off. "Good
+night. I'll see you again pretty soon."
+
+He went away. Ellis, who was still searching through his little books,
+suddenly uttered an exclamation. He leaned out into the passage, crying:
+"The half of a hot onion; tie it right on the cut." But Haight had
+already gone. "You see," explained Ellis, "that draws out any little
+particles of glass. Look at this," he added, reading an item just below
+the one he had found. "You can use cigar ashes for eczema."
+
+Flossie nodded her head at him, smiling and saying: "Well, the next time
+I have eczema I will remember that."
+
+Flossie left them a little after this, joining Nannie and May in the
+larger room that held the noisy party. The three fellows had another
+round of drinks.
+
+All the evening Ellis had been drinking whisky. Now he astonished the
+others by suddenly calling for beer. He persisted in drinking it out of
+the celery glass, which he emptied at a single pull. Then Vandover had
+claret-punches all round, protesting that his mouth felt dry as a
+dust-bin. Geary at length declared that he felt pretty far gone, adding
+that he was in the humour for having "a high old time."
+
+"Say, boys," he exclaimed, bringing his hand down on the table, "what do
+you say that we all go to every joint in town, and wind up at the
+Turkish baths? We'll have a regular _time_. Let's see now how much money
+I have."
+
+Thereat they all took account of their money. Vandover had fourteen
+dollars, but he owed for materials at his art dealer's, and so put away
+eight of it in an inside pocket. The others followed his example, each
+one reserving five dollars for immediate use.
+
+"That will be one dollar for the Hammam," said Geary, "and four dollars
+apiece for drinks. You can get all we want on four dollars." They had a
+last claret-punch and, having settled with Toby, went out.
+
+Coming out into the cold night air from the warm interior of the
+Imperial affected Vandover and Geary in a few minutes. But apparently
+nothing could affect Ellis, neither whisky, claret-punch nor beer. He
+walked steadily between Vandover and Geary, linking an arm in each of
+theirs.
+
+These two became very drunk almost at once. At every minute Vandover
+would cry out, "Yee-ee-_ow_! Thash way I feel, jush like that." Geary
+made a "Josh" that was a masterpiece, the success of the occasion. It
+consisted in exclaiming from time to time, "Cherries are ripe!" This was
+funny. It seemed to have some ludicrous, hidden double-meaning that was
+irresistible. It stuck to them all the evening; when a girl passed them
+on Kearney Street and Geary cried out at her that "Cherries were ripe!"
+it threw them all into spasms of laughter.
+
+They went first to the Palace Garden near the Tivoli Theatre, where
+Geary and Vandover had beer and Ellis a whisky cocktail. The performance
+was just finishing, and they voted that they were not at all amused at a
+lean, overworked girl whom they saw performing a song and dance through
+a blue haze of tobacco smoke; so they all exclaimed, "Cherries are
+ripe!" and tramped out again to visit the Luxembourg. The beer began to
+go against Vandover's stomach by this time, but he forced it down his
+throat, shutting his eyes. Then they said they would go to the toughest
+place in town, "Steve Casey's"; this was on a side-street. The walls
+were covered with yellowed photographs of once-famous pugilists and
+old-time concert-hall singers. There was sand on the floor, and in the
+dancing room at the back, where nobody danced, a jaded young man was
+banging out polkas and quick-steps at a cheap piano.
+
+At the Crystal Palace, where they all had shandy-gaff, they met one of
+Ellis's friends, a young fellow of about twenty. He was stone deaf, and
+in consequence had become dumb; but for all that he was very eager to
+associate with the young men of the city and would not hear of being
+separated and set apart with the other deaf mutes. He was very pleased
+to meet them and joined them at once. They all knew him pretty well and
+called him the "Dummy."
+
+In the course of the evening the patty was seen at nearly every bar and
+saloon in the neighbourhood of Market and Kearney streets. Geary and
+Vandover were very drunk indeed. Vandover was having a glorious time; he
+was not silent a minute, talking, laughing, and singing, and crying out
+continually, "Cherries are ripe!" When he could think of nothing else to
+say he would exclaim, "Yee-ee-_ow_! Thash way I feel."
+
+For two hours they drank steadily. Vandover was in a dreadful condition;
+the Dummy got so drunk that he could talk, a peculiarity which at times
+had been known to occur to him. As will sometimes happen, Geary sobered
+up a little and at the "Grotto" bathed his head and face in the
+washroom. After this he became pretty steady, he stopped drinking, and
+tried to assume the management of the party, ordering their drinks for
+them, and casting up the amount of the check.
+
+About two o'clock they returned toward the Luxembourg, staggering and
+swaying. The Luxembourg was a sort of German restaurant under a theatre
+where one could get some very good German dishes. There Vandover had
+beer and sauerkraut, but Ellis took more whisky. The Dummy continued to
+make peculiar sounds in his throat, half-noise, half-speech, and Geary
+gravely informed the waiter that cherries were ripe.
+
+All at once Ellis was drunk, collapsing in a moment. The skin around his
+eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves were contracted, and
+their range of vision seemed to stop at about a yard in front of his
+face. Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all
+from off the table with a single movement of his arm.
+
+They all jumped up, sober in a minute, knowing that a scene was at hand.
+The waiter rushed at Ellis, but Ellis knocked him down and tried to
+stamp on his face. Vandover and the Dummy tried to hold his arms and
+pull him off. He turned on the Dummy in a silent frenzy of rage and
+brought his knuckles down upon his head again and again. For the moment
+Ellis could neither hear, nor see, nor speak; he was blind, dumb,
+fighting drunk, and his fighting was not the fighting of Vandover.
+
+"Get in here and help, will you?" panted Vandover to Geary, as he
+struggled with Ellis. "He can kill people when he's like this. Oh, damn
+the whisky anyhow! Look out--don't let him get that knife! Grab his
+other arm, there! now, kick his feet from under him! Oh, kick hard! Sit
+on his legs; there now. Ah! Hell! he's bitten me! Look out! here comes
+the bouncer!"
+
+The bouncer and three other waiters charged into them while they were
+struggling on the floor. Vandover was twice knocked down and the Dummy
+had his lip split. Ellis struggled to his feet again and, still silent,
+fought them all alike, a fine line of froth gathering at the corners of
+his lips.
+
+When they were finally ejected, and pulled themselves together in the
+street outside, Geary had disappeared. He had left them during the
+struggle with Ellis and had gone home. Ah, you bet he wasn't going to
+stay any longer with the crowd when they got like that. If Ellis was
+fool enough to get as drunk as that it was his own lookout. _He_ wasn't
+going to stay and get thrown out of any saloon; ah, no, you bet he was
+too clever for that. He was sober enough now and would go home to bed
+and get a good sleep.
+
+The fight in the saloon had completely sobered the rest of them. Ellis
+was tractable enough again, and very sorry for having got them into such
+a row. Vandover was horribly sick at his stomach.
+
+The three locked arms and started slowly toward the Turkish baths. On
+their way they stopped at an all-night drug store and had some seltzer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vandover had about three hours' sleep that night. He was awakened by the
+attendant shaking his arm and crying:
+
+"Half-past six, sir."
+
+"Huh!" he exclaimed, starting up. "What about half-past six? I don't
+want to get up."
+
+"Told me to call you, sir, at half-past six; quarter to seven now."
+
+"Oh, all right, very well," answered Vandover. He turned away his face
+on the pillow, while a wretched feeling of nausea crept over him; every
+movement of his head made it ache to bursting. Behind his temples the
+blood throbbed and pumped like the knocking of hammers. His mouth would
+have been dry but for a thick slime that filled it and that tasted of
+oil. He felt weak, his hands trembled, his forehead was cold and seemed
+wet and sticky.
+
+He could recall hardly anything of the previous night. He remembered,
+however, of going to the Imperial and of seeing Flossie, and he _did_
+remember at last of leaving word to be called at half-past six.
+
+He got up without waking the other two fellows and took a plunge in the
+cold tank, dressed very slowly, and went out. The stores were all
+closed, the streets were almost deserted. He walked to the nearest
+uptown car-line and took an outside seat, feeling better and steadier
+for every moment of the sharp morning air.
+
+Van Ness Avenue was very still. It was about half-past seven. The
+curtains were down in all the houses; here and there a servant could be
+seen washing down the front steps. In the vestibules of some of the
+smaller houses were loaves of French bread and glass jars of cream,
+while near them lay the damp twisted roll of the morning's paper. There
+was everywhere a great chittering of sparrows, and the cable-cars, as
+yet empty, trundled down the cross streets, the conductors cleaning the
+windows and metal work. From far down at one end of the avenue came the
+bells of the Catholic Cathedral ringing for early mass; and a
+respectable-looking second girl hurried past him carrying her
+prayer-book. At the other end of the avenue was a blue vista of the bay,
+the great bulk of Mount Tamalpais rearing itself out of the water like a
+waking lion.
+
+In front of the little church Turner was waiting for him. She was
+dressed very prettily and the cold morning air had given her a fine
+colour.
+
+"You don't look more than half awake," she said, as Vandover came up.
+"It was awfully good of you to come. Oh, Van, you look dreadfully. It is
+too bad to make you get up so early."
+
+"No, no," protested Vandover. "I was only too glad to come. I didn't
+sleep well last night. I hope I haven't kept you waiting."
+
+"I've only just come," answered Turner. "But I think it is time to go
+in."
+
+The little organ was muttering softly to itself as they entered. It was
+very still otherwise. The morning sun struck through the stained windows
+and made pretty lights about the altar; besides themselves there were
+some half dozen other worshippers. The little organ ceased with a long
+droning sigh, and the minister in his white robes turned about, facing
+his auditors, and in the midst of a great silence opened the communion
+service with the words: "Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of
+your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbours--"
+
+As Vandover rose with the rest the blood rushed to his head and a
+feeling of nausea and exhaustion, the dregs of his previous night's
+debauch, came over him again for a moment, so that he took hold of the
+back of the pew in front of him to steady himself.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Five
+
+
+In the afternoons Vandover worked in his studio, which was on Sacramento
+Street, but in the mornings he was accustomed to study in the life-class
+at the School of Design.
+
+This was on California Street over the Market, an immense room
+partitioned by enormous wooden screens into alcoves, where the
+still-life classes worked, painting carrots, grapes, and dusty brown
+stone-jugs.
+
+All about were a multitude of casts, the fighting gladiator, the
+discobulus, the Venus of Milo, and hundreds of smaller pieces, masks,
+torsos, and the heads of the Parthenon horses. Flattened paint-tubes and
+broken bits of charcoal littered the floor and cluttered the chairs and
+shelves. A strong odour of turpentine and fixative was in the air,
+mingled with the stronger odours of linseed oil and sour, stale French
+bread.
+
+Every afternoon a portrait class of some thirty-odd assembled in one of
+the larger alcoves near the door. Several of the well-known street
+characters of the city had posed for this class, and at one time Father
+Elphick, the white-haired, bare-headed vegetarian, with his crooked
+stick and white clothes, had sat to it for his head.
+
+Vandover was probably the most promising member of the school. His style
+was sketchy, conscientious, and full of strength and decision. He worked
+in large lines, broad surfaces and masses of light or shade. His colour
+was good, running to purples, reds, and admirable greens, full of
+bitumen and raw sienna.
+
+Though he had no idea of composition, he was clever enough to
+acknowledge it. His finished pictures were broad reaches of landscape,
+deserts, shores, and moors in which he placed solitary figures of men or
+animals in a way that was very effective--as, for instance, a great
+strip of shore and in the foreground the body of a drowned sailor; a
+lion drinking in the midst of an immense Sahara; or, one that he called
+"The Remnant of an Army," a dying war horse wandering on an empty plain,
+the saddle turned under his belly, his mane and tail snarled with burrs.
+
+Some time before there had come to him the idea for a great picture. It
+was to be his first masterpiece, his salon picture when he should get to
+Paris. A British cavalryman and his horse, both dying of thirst and
+wounds, were to be lost on a Soudanese desert, and in the middle
+distance on a ridge of sand a lion should be drawing in upon them,
+crouched on his belly, his tail stiff, his lower jaw hanging. The
+melodrama of the old English "Home Book of Art" still influenced
+Vandover. He was in love with this idea for a picture and had determined
+to call it "The Last Enemy." The effects he wished to produce were
+isolation and intense heat; as to the soldier, he was as yet undecided
+whether to represent him facing death resignedly, calmly, or grasping
+the barrel of his useless rifle, determined to fight to the last.
+
+Vandover loved to paint and to draw. He was perfectly contented when his
+picture was "coming right," and when he felt sure he was doing good
+work. He often did better than he thought he would, but never so well as
+he thought he _could_.
+
+However, it bored him to work very hard, and when he did not enjoy his
+work he stopped it at once. He would tell himself on these occasions
+that one had to be in the mood and that he should wait for the
+inspiration, although he knew very well how absurd such excuses were,
+how false and how pernicious.
+
+That certain little weakness of Vandover's character, his
+self-indulgence, _had_ brought him to such a point that he thought he
+had to be amused. If his painting amused him, very good; if not, he
+found something else that would.
+
+On the following Monday as he worked in the life-class, Vandover was
+thinking, or, rather, trying not to think, of what he had done the
+Sunday morning previous when he had gone to communion with Turner Ravis.
+For a long time he evaded the thought because he knew that if he allowed
+it to come into his mind it would worry and harass him. But by and by
+the effort of dodging the enemy became itself too disagreeable, so he
+gave it up and allowed himself to look the matter squarely in the face.
+
+Ah, yes; it was an ugly thing he had done there, a really awful thing.
+He must have been still drunk when he had knelt in the chancel. Vandover
+shuddered as he thought of this, and told himself that one could hardly
+commit a worse sacrilege, and that some time he would surely be called
+to account for it. But here he checked himself suddenly, not daring to
+go further. One would have no peace of mind left if one went on brooding
+over such things in this fashion. He realized the enormity of what he
+had done. He had tried to be sorry for it. It was perhaps the worst
+thing he had ever done, but now he had reached the lowest point. He
+would take care never to do such a thing again. After this he would be
+better.
+
+But this was not so. Unconsciously, Vandover had shut a door behind him;
+he would never again be exactly the same, and the keeping of his
+appointment with Turner Ravis that Sunday morning was, as it were, a
+long step onward in his progress of ruin and pollution.
+
+He shook himself as though relieving his shoulders of a weight. The
+model in the life-class had just been posed for the week, and the others
+had begun work. The model for that week was a woman, a fact that pleased
+Vandover, for he drew these nude women better than any one in the
+school, perhaps better than any one in the city. Portrait work and the
+power to catch subtle intellectual distinctions in a face were sometimes
+beyond him, but his feeling for the flesh, and for the movement and
+character of a pose, was admirable.
+
+He set himself to work. Holding his stick of charcoal toward the model
+at arm's-length, he measured off the heads, five in all, and laid off an
+equal number of spaces upon his paper. After this, by aid of his mirror,
+he studied the general character of the pose for nearly half an hour.
+Then, with a few strokes of his charcoal he laid off his larger
+construction lines with a freedom and a precision that were excellent.
+Upon these lines he made a second drawing a little more detailed, though
+as yet everything was blocked in, angularly and roughly. Then, putting a
+thin flat edge upon his charcoal, he started the careful and finished
+outline.
+
+By the end of an hour the first sketch of his drawing was complete. It
+was astonishingly good, vigorous and solid; better than all, it had that
+feeling for form that makes just the difference between the amateur and
+the genuine artist.
+
+By this time Vandover's interest began to flag. Four times he had drawn
+and redrawn the articulation of the model's left shoulder. As she stood,
+turned sideways to him, one hand on her hip, the deltoid muscle was at
+once contracted and foreshortened. It was a difficult bit of anatomy to
+draw. Vandover was annoyed at his ill success--such close attention and
+continued effort wearied him a little--the room was overheated and
+close, and the gas stove, which was placed near the throne to warm the
+model, leaked and filled the room with a nasty brassy smell. Vandover
+remembered that the previous week he had been looking over some old
+bound copies of _l'Art_ in the Mechanics Library and had found them of
+absorbing interest. There was a pleasant corner and a huge comfortable
+chair near where they were in the reading-room, and from the window one
+could occasionally look out upon the street. It was a quiet spot, and he
+would not be disturbed all the morning. The idea was so attractive that
+he put away his portfolio and drawing things and went out.
+
+For an hour he gave himself up to the enjoyment of _l'Art_, excusing his
+indolence by telling himself that it was all in his profession and was
+not time lost. A reproduction of a picture by Gerome gave him some
+suggestions for the "Last Enemy," which he noted very carefully.
+
+He was interrupted by a rustle of starched skirts and a voice that said:
+
+"Why, hello, Van!"
+
+He looked up quickly to see a young girl of about twenty dressed in a
+black close-fitting bolero jacket of imitation astrakhan with big
+leg-of-mutton sleeves, a striped silk skirt, and a very broad hat tilted
+to one side. Her hair was very blond, though coarse and dry from being
+bleached, and a little flat curl of it lay very low on her forehead. She
+was marvellously pretty. Vandover was delighted.
+
+"Why, _Ida_!" he exclaimed, holding her hand; "_it's_ awfully nice to
+see you here; won't you sit down?" and he pushed his chair toward her.
+
+But Ida Wade said no, she had just come in after a new book, and of
+course it had to be out. But where had he kept himself so long? That was
+the way he threw off on her; ah, yes, he was going with Miss Ravis now
+and wouldn't look at any one else.
+
+Vandover protested against this, and Ida Wade went on to ask him why he
+couldn't come up to call on her that very night, adding:
+
+"We might go to the Tivoli or somewhere." All at once she interrupted
+herself, laughing, "Oh, I heard all about you the other night.
+_'Cherries are ripe_!' You and the boys painted the town red, didn't
+you? Ah, Van, I'm right on to _you_!"
+
+She would not tell him how she heard, but took herself off, laughing and
+reminding him to come up early.
+
+Ida Wade belonged to a certain type of young girl that was very common
+in the city. She was what men, among each other, called "gay," though
+that was the worst that could be said of her. She was virtuous, but the
+very fact that it was necessary to say so was enough to cause the
+statement to be doubted. When she was younger and had been a pupil at
+the Girls' High School, she had known and had even been the companion of
+such girls as Turner Ravis and Henrietta Vance, but since that time
+girls of that class had ignored her. Now, almost all of her
+acquaintances were men, and to half of these she had never been
+introduced. They had managed to get acquainted with her on Kearney
+Street, at theatres, at the Mechanics' Fair, and at baseball games. She
+loved to have a "gay" time, which for her meant to drink California
+champagne, to smoke cigarettes, and to kick at the chandelier. She was
+still virtuous and meant to stay so; there was nothing vicious about
+her, and she was as far removed from Flossie's class as from that of
+Turner Ravis.
+
+She was very clever; half of her acquaintances, even the men, did not
+know how very "gay" she was. Only those--like Vandover--who knew her
+best, knew her for what she was, for Ida was morbidly careful of
+appearances, and as jealous of her reputation as only fast girls are.
+
+Bessie Laguna was her counterpart. Bessie was "the girl she went with,"
+just as Henrietta Vance was Turner's "chum" and Nannie was Flossie's
+"running-mate."
+
+Ida lived with her people on Golden Gate Avenue not far from Larkin
+Street. Her father had a three-fourths interest in a carpet-cleaning
+establishment on Howard Street, and her mother gave lessons in painting
+on china and on velvet. Ida had just been graduated from the normal
+school, and often substituted at various kindergartens in the city. She
+hoped soon to get a permanent place.
+
+Vandover arrived at Ida's house that night at about eight o'clock in the
+midst of a drenching fog. The parlour and front room on the second floor
+were furnished with bay windows decorated with some meaningless sort of
+millwork. The front door stood at the right of the parlour windows. Two
+Corinthian pillars on either side of the vestibule supported a balcony;
+these pillars had iron capitals which were painted to imitate the wood
+of the house, which in its turn was painted to imitate stone. The house
+was but two stories high, and the roof was topped with an iron cresting.
+There was a microscopical front yard in which one saw a tiny gravel
+walk, two steps long, that led to a door under the front steps, where
+the gas-meter was kept. A few dusty and straggling calla-lilies grew
+about.
+
+Ida opened the door for Vandover almost as soon as he rang, and pulled
+him into the entry, exclaiming: "Come in out of the wet, as the whale
+said to Jonah. _Isn't_ it a nasty night?" Vandover noticed as he came in
+that the house smelt of upholstery, cooking, and turpentine. He did not
+take off his overcoat, but went with her into the parlour.
+
+The parlour was a little room with tinted plaster walls shut off from
+the "back-parlour" by sliding doors. A ply carpet covered the floor, a
+cheap piano stood across one corner of the room, and a greenish sofa
+across another. The mantelpiece was of white marble with gray spots; on
+one side of it stood an Alaskan "grass basket" full of photographs, and
+on the other an inverted section of a sewer-pipe painted with daisies
+and full of gilded cat-tails tied with a blue ribbon. Near the piano
+straddled a huge easel of imitation brass up-holding the crayon picture
+of Ida's baby sister enlarged from a photograph. Across one corner of
+this picture was a yellow "drape." There were a great many of these
+"drapes" all about the room, hanging over the corners of the chairs,
+upon an edge of the mantelpiece, and even twisted about the chandelier.
+In the exact middle of the mantelpiece itself was the clock, one of the
+chief ornaments of the room, almost the first thing one saw upon
+entering; it was a round-faced timepiece perversely set in one corner of
+an immense red plush palette; the palette itself was tilted to one
+side, and was upheld by an easel of twisted brass wire. Out of the
+thumb-hole stuck half a dozen brushes wired together in a round bunch
+and covered with gilt paint. The clock never was wound. It went so fast
+that it was useless as a timepiece. Over it, however, hung a large and
+striking picture, a species of cheap photogravure, a lion lying in his
+cage, looking mildly at the spectator over his shoulder. In front of the
+picture were real iron bars, with real straw tucked in behind them.
+
+Ida sat down on the piano stool, twisting back and forth, leaning her
+elbows on the keys.
+
+"All the folks have gone out to a whist-party, and I'm left all alone in
+the house with Maggie," she said. Then she added: "Bessie and Bandy
+Ellis said they would come down to-night, and I thought we could all go
+downtown to the Tivoli or somewhere, in the open-air boxes, you know,
+way up at the top." Hardly had she spoken the words when Bessie and
+Ellis arrived.
+
+Ida went upstairs to get on her hat at once, because it was so late, and
+Bessie went with her.
+
+Ellis and Vandover laughed as soon as they saw each other, and Ellis
+exclaimed mockingly, "Ye-e-ow, thash jush way I feel." Vandover grinned:
+
+"That's so," he answered. "I _do_ remember now of having made that
+remark several times. But _you_--oh, you were fearful. Do you remember
+the row in the Luxembourg? Look there where you bit me."
+
+Ellis was incensed with Geary because he had forsaken their party.
+
+"Oh, that's Charlie Geary, all over," answered Vandover.
+
+As they were speaking there came a sudden outburst of bells in various
+parts of the city and simultaneously they heard the hoarse croaking of a
+whistle down by the waterfront.
+
+"Fire," said Vandover indifferently.
+
+Ellis was already fumbling in his pockets, keeping count of the strokes.
+
+"That's one," he exclaimed, pulling out and studying his list of
+alarm-boxes, "and one-two-three, that's three and one-two-three-_four_,
+one thirty-four. Let's see now! That's Bush and Hyde streets, not very
+far off," and he returned his card to the inside pocket of his coat as
+though he had accomplished a duty.
+
+He lit a cigar. "I wonder now," he said, hesitating. "I guess I better
+not smoke in here. I'll go outside and get a mouthful of smoke before
+the girls come down." He went out and Vandover sat down to the cheap
+piano and played his three inevitable pieces, the two polkas and the air
+of the topical song; but he was interrupted by Ellis, who opened the
+door, crying out:
+
+"Oh, come out here and see the _fire_, will you? Devil of a blaze!"
+Vandover ran out and saw a great fan-shaped haze of red through the fog
+over the roofs of the houses.
+
+"Oh, say, girls," he shouted, jumping back to the foot of the stairs;
+"Ida, Bessie, there's a fire. Just look out of your windows. Hark, there
+go the engines."
+
+Bessie came tearing down the stairs and out on the front steps, where
+the two fellows were standing hatless.
+
+"Where? Oh, show me where! O-o-oh, sure enough! That's a _big_ fire.
+Just hear the engines. _Oh, let's go_!"
+
+"Sure; come on, let's go!" exclaimed Vandover. "Tell Ida to hurry up."
+
+"Oh, Ida," cried Bessie up the stairs, "there's an awful big fire right
+near here, and we're going."
+
+"Oh, wait!" shouted Ida, her mouth full of pins. "I had to change my
+waist. Oh, _do_ wait for me. Where is it _at_? Please wait; I'm coming
+right down in just a minute."
+
+"Hurry up, hurry up!" cried Vandover. "It will be all out by the time we
+get there. I'm coming up to help."
+
+"No, no, no!" she screamed. "Don't; you rattle me. I'm all mixed up. Oh,
+_darn_ it, I can't find my czarina!"
+
+But at last she came running down, breathless, shrugging herself into
+her bolero jacket. They all hurried into the street and turned in the
+direction of the blaze. Other people were walking rapidly in the same
+direction, and there was an opening and shutting of windows and front
+doors. A steamer thundered past, clanging and smoking, followed by a
+score of half-exhausted boys. It took them longer to reach the fire than
+they expected, and by the time they had come within two blocks of it
+they were quite out of breath. Here the excitement was lively; the
+sidewalks were full of people going in the same direction; on all sides
+there were guesses as to where the fire was. On the front steps of many
+houses stood middle-aged gentlemen, still holding their evening papers
+and cigars, very amused and interested in watching the crowd go past.
+One heard them from time to time calling to their little sons, who were
+dancing on the sidewalks, forbidding them to go; in the open windows
+above could be seen the other members of the family, their faces faintly
+tinged with the glow, looking and pointing, or calling across the street
+to their friends in the opposite houses. Every one was in good humour;
+it was an event, a fete for the entire neighbourhood.
+
+Vandover and his party came at last to the first engines violently
+pumping and coughing, the huge gray horses standing near by, already
+unhitched and blanketed, indifferently feeding in their nosebags. Some
+of the crowd preferred to watch the engines rather than the fire, and
+there were even some who were coming away from it, exclaiming "false
+alarm" or "all out now."
+
+The party had come up quite close; they could smell the burning wood and
+could see the roofs of the nearer houses beginning to stand out sharp
+and black against the red glow beyond. It was a barn behind a huge frame
+house that was afire, the dry hay burning like powder, and by the time
+they reached it the flames were already dwindling. The hose was lying
+like a python all about the streets, while upon the neighbouring roofs
+were groups of firemen with helmets and axes; some were shouting into
+the street below, and others were holding the spouting nozzles of the
+hose. "Ah," exclaimed an old man, standing near to Ida and Vandover,
+"ah, _I_ was here when it first broke out; you ought to have seen the
+flames then! Look, there's a tree catching!"
+
+The crowd became denser; policemen pushed it back and stretched a rope
+across the street. There was a world of tumbling yellow smoke that made
+one's eyes smart, and a great crackling and snapping of flames. Terribly
+excited little boys were about everywhere whistling and calling for each
+other as the crowd separated them.
+
+They watched the fire for some time, standing on a pile of boards in
+front of a half-built house, but as it dwindled they wearied of it.
+
+"Want to go?" asked Vandover at last.
+
+"Yes," answered Ida, "we might as well. Oh, where's Bessie and Ellis?"
+They were nowhere to be seen. Vandover whistled and Ida even called, but
+in vain. The little boys in the crowd mimicked Ida, crying back, "Hey!
+Bessie! Oh, _Bes-see_, mommer wants you!" The men who stood near laughed
+at this, but it annoyed Vandover much more than it did Ida.
+
+"Ah, well, never mind," she said at length. "Let them go. Now shall _we_
+go?"
+
+It was too late for the theatre, but to return home was out of the
+question. They started off aimlessly downtown.
+
+While he talked Vandover was perplexed. Ida was gayly dressed and was
+one of those girls who cannot open their mouths nor raise a finger in
+the street without attracting attention. Vandover was not at all certain
+that he cared to be seen on Kearney Street as Ida Wade's escort; one
+never knew who one was going to meet. Ida was not a bad girl, she was
+not notorious, but, confound it, it would look queer; and at the same
+time, while Ida was the kind of girl that one did not want to be seen
+with, she was not the kind of girl that could be told so. In an upper
+box at the Tivoli it would have been different--one could keep in the
+background; but to appear on Kearney Street with a girl who wore a hat
+like that and who would not put on her gloves--ah, no, it was out of the
+question.
+
+Ida was talking away endlessly about a kindergarten in which she had
+substituted the last week.
+
+She told him about the funny little nigger girl, and about the games and
+songs and how they played birds and hopped around and cried, "Twit,
+twit," and the game of the butterflies visiting the flowers. She even
+sang part of a song about the waves.
+
+    "Every little wave had its night-cap on;
+    Its white-cap, night-cap, white-cap on."
+
+"It's more _fun_ than enough," she said.
+
+"Say, Ida," interrupted Vandover at length, "I'm pretty hungry. Can't we
+go somewhere and eat something? I'd like a Welsh rabbit."
+
+"All right," she answered. "Where do you want to go?"
+
+"Well," replied Vandover, running over in his mind the places he might
+reach by unfrequented streets. "There's Marchand's or Tortoni's or the
+Poodle Dog."
+
+"Suits _me_," she answered, "any one you like. Say, Van," she added,
+"weren't you boys at the Imperial the other night? What kind of a place
+is that?"
+
+On the instant Vandover wondered what she could mean. Was it possible
+that Ida would go to a place like that with him?
+
+"The Imperial?" he answered. "Oh, I don't know; the Imperial is a sort
+of a nice place. It has private rooms, like all of these places. The
+cooking is simply out of sight. I think there is a bar connected with
+it." Then he went on to talk indifferently about the kindergarten,
+though his pulse was beating fast, and his nerves were strung taut. By
+and by Ida said:
+
+"I didn't know there was a bar at the Imperial. I thought it was just
+some kind of an oyster joint. Why, I heard of a very nice girl, a swell
+girl, going in there."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Vandover, "they do. I say, Ida," he went on, "what's the
+matter with going down _there_?"
+
+"The _Imperial_?" exclaimed Ida. "Well, I guess _not_!"
+
+"Why, it's all right, if I'm with you," retorted Vandover, "but if you
+don't like it we can go anywhere else."
+
+"Well, I guess we _will_ go anywhere else," returned Ida, and for the
+time the subject was dropped.
+
+They took a Sutter Street car and got off at Grant Avenue, having
+decided to go to Marchand's.
+
+"That's the Imperial down there, isn't it?" asked Ida as they reached
+the sidewalk. Vandover made a last attempt:
+
+"I say, Ida, come on, let's go there. It's all right if I'm with you.
+Ah, come along; what's the odds?"
+
+"_No_--_no_--NO," she answered decisively. "What kind of a girl do you
+think I am, anyway?"
+
+"Well, I tell you what," answered Vandover, "just come down _by_ the
+place, and if you don't like the looks of it you needn't go in. I want
+to get some cigarettes, anyhow. You can walk down with me till I do
+_that_."
+
+"I'll walk down with you," replied Ida, "but I shan't go in."
+
+They drew near to the Imperial. The street about was deserted, even the
+usual hacks that had their stand there were gone.
+
+"You see," explained Vandover as they passed slowly in front of the
+doors, "this is all quiet enough. If you pulled down your veil no one
+would know the difference, and here's the ladies' entrance, you see,
+right at the side."
+
+"All right, come along, let's go in," exclaimed Ida suddenly, and before
+he knew it they had swung open the little door of the ladies' entrance
+with its frosted pane of glass and had stepped inside.
+
+It was between nine and ten o'clock, and the Imperial was quiet as yet;
+a few men were drinking in the barroom outside, and Toby, the red-eyed
+waiter, was talking in low tones to a girl under one of the electric
+lights.
+
+Vandover and Ida went into one of the larger rooms in the rear passage
+and shut the door. Ida pushed her bolero jacket from her shoulders,
+saying, "This seems nice and quiet enough."
+
+"Well, of course," answered Vandover, as though dismissing the question
+for good. "Now, what are we going to have? I say we have champagne and
+oysters."
+
+"Let's have Cliquot, then," exclaimed Ida, which was the only champagne
+she had ever heard of besides the California brands.
+
+She was very excited. This was the kind of "gay" time she delighted in,
+tete-a-tete champagne suppers with men late at night. She had never been
+in such a place as the Imperial before, and the daring and novelty of
+what she had done, the whiff of the great city's vice caught in this
+manner, sent a little tremor of pleasure and excitement over all her
+nerves.
+
+They did not hurry over their little supper, but ate and drank slowly,
+and had more oysters to go with the last half of their bottle. Ida's
+face was ablaze, her eyes flashing, her blond hair disordered and
+falling about her cheeks.
+
+Vandover put his arm about her neck and drew her toward him, and as she
+sank down upon him, smiling and complaisant, her hair tumbling upon her
+shoulders and her head and throat bent back, he leaned his cheek against
+hers, speaking in a low voice.
+
+"No--no," she murmured, smiling; "never--ah, if I hadn't come--no,
+Van--please--" And then with a long breath she abandoned herself.
+
+About midnight he left her at the door of her house on Golden Gate
+Avenue. On their way home Ida had grown more serious than he had ever
+known her to be. Now she began to cry softly to herself. "Oh, Van," she
+said, putting her head down upon his shoulder, "oh, I am so _sorry_. You
+don't think any less of me, do you? Oh, Van, you must be true to me
+now!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Six
+
+
+Everybody in San Francisco knew of the Ravises and always made it a
+point to speak of them as one of the best families of the city. They
+were not new and they were not particularly rich. They had lived in the
+same house on California Street for nearly twenty years and had always
+been comfortably well off. As things go in San Francisco, they were
+old-fashioned. They had family traditions and usages and time-worn
+customs. Their library had been in process of collection for the past
+half century and the pictures on the walls were oil paintings of steel
+engravings and genuine old-fashioned chromos, beyond price to-day.
+
+Their furniture and ornaments were of the preceding generation, solid,
+conservative. They were not chosen with reference to any one style, nor
+all bought at the same time. Each separate piece had an individuality of
+its own. The Ravises kept their old things, long after the fashion had
+gone out, preferring them to the smarter "art" objects on account of
+their associations.
+
+There were six in the family, Mr. and Mrs. Ravis, Turner, and her older
+brother, Stanley, Yale '88, a very serious young gentleman of
+twenty-seven, continually professing an interest in economics and
+finance. Besides these were the two children, Howard, nine years old,
+and his sister, aged fourteen, who had been christened Virginia.
+
+They were a home-loving race. Mr. Ravis, senior, belonged to the
+Bohemian Club, but was seldom seen there. Stanley was absorbed in his
+law business, and Turner went out but little. They much preferred each
+other's society to that of three fourths of their acquaintances, most of
+their friends being "friends of the family," who came to dinner three or
+four times a year.
+
+It was a custom of theirs to spend the evenings in the big dining-room
+at the back of the house, after the table had been cleared away, Mr.
+Ravis and Stanley reading the papers, the one smoking his cigar, the
+other his pipe; Mrs. Ravis, with the magazines and Turner with the
+_Chautauquan_. Howard and Virginia appropriated the table to themselves
+where they played with their soldiers and backgammon board.
+
+The family kept two servants, June the "China boy," who had been with
+them since the beginning of things, and Delphine the cook, a more recent
+acquisition. June was, in a way, butler and second boy combined; he did
+all the downstairs work and the heavy sweeping, but it was another
+time-worn custom for Mrs. Ravis and Turner to spend part of every
+morning in putting the bedrooms to rights, dusting and making up the
+beds. Besides this, Turner exercised a sort of supervision over Howard
+and Virginia, who were too old for a nurse but too young to take care of
+themselves. She had them to bed at nine, mended some of their clothes,
+made them take their baths regularly, reestablished peace between them
+in their hourly quarrels, and, most arduous task of all, saw that Howard
+properly washed himself every morning, and on Wednesday and Saturday
+afternoons that he was suitably dressed in time for dancing school.
+
+It was Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Ravis was reading to her husband, who lay
+on the sofa in the back-parlour smoking a cigar. Stanley had gone out to
+make a call, while Howard and Virginia had forgathered in the bathroom
+to sail their boats and cigar boxes in the tub. Toward half-past three,
+as Turner was in her room writing letters, the door-bell rang. She
+stopped, with her pen in the air, wondering if it might be Vandover. It
+was June's afternoon out. In a few minutes the bell rang again, and
+Turner ran down to answer it herself, intercepting Delphine, who took
+June's place on these occasions, but who was hopelessly stupid.
+
+Mrs. Ravis had peered out through the curtains of the parlour window to
+see who it was, and Turner met her and Mr. Ravis coming upstairs,
+abandoning the parlour to Turner's caller.
+
+"Mamma and I are going upstairs to read," explained Mr. Ravis. "It's
+some one of your young men. You can bring him right in the parlour."
+
+"I think it's Mr. Haight," said Turner's mother. "Ask him to stay to
+tea."
+
+"Well," said Turner doubtfully, as she paused at the foot of the stairs,
+"I will, but you know we never have anything to speak of for Sunday
+evening tea. June is out, and you know how clumsy and stupid Delphine is
+when she waits on the table."
+
+It _was_ young Haight. Turner was very glad to see him, for next to
+Vandover she liked him better than any of the others. She was never
+bored by being obliged to entertain him, and he always had something to
+say and some clever way of saying it.
+
+About half-past five, as they were talking about amateur photography,
+Mrs. Ravis came in and called them to tea.
+
+Tea with the Ravises was the old-fashioned tea of twenty years ago. One
+never saw any of the modern "delicacies" on their Sunday evening table,
+no enticing cold lunch, no spices, not even catsups or pepper sauces.
+The turkey or chicken they had had for dinner was served cold in slices;
+there was canned fruit, preserves, tea, crackers, bread and butter, a
+large dish of cold pork and beans, and a huge glass pitcher of
+ice-water.
+
+In the absence of June, Delphine the cook went through the agony of
+waiting on the table, very nervous and embarrassed in her clean calico
+gown and starched apron. Her hands were red and knotty, smelling of
+soap, and they touched the chinaware with an over-zealous and
+constraining tenderness as if the plates and dishes had been delicate
+glass butterflies. She stood off at a distance from the table making
+sudden and awkward dabs at it. When it came to passing the plates, she
+passed them on the wrong side and remembered herself at the wrong moment
+with a stammering apology. In her excess of politeness she kept up a
+constant murmur as she attended to their wants. Another fork? Yes, sir.
+She'd get it right away, sir. Did Mrs. Ravis want another cuppa tea? No?
+No more tea? Well, she'd pass the bread. Some bread, Master Howard? Nice
+French bread, he always liked that. Some more preserved pears, Miss
+Ravis? Yes, miss, she'd get them right away; they were just over here on
+the sideboard. Yes, here they were. No more? Now she'd go and put them
+back. And at last when she had set the nerves of all of them in a
+jangle, was dismissed to the kitchen and retired with a gasp of
+unspeakable relief.
+
+Somewhat later in the evening young Haight was alone with Turner, and
+their conversation had taken a very unusual and personal turn. All at
+once Turner exclaimed:
+
+"I often wonder what good I am in the world to anybody. I don't _know_ a
+thing, I can't _do_ a thing. I couldn't cook the plainest kind of a meal
+to _save_ me, and it took me all of two hours yesterday to do just a
+little buttonhole stitching. I'm not good for anything. I'm not a help
+to anybody."
+
+Young Haight looked into the blue flame of the gas-log, almost the only
+modern innovation throughout the entire house, and was silent for a
+moment; then he leaned his elbows on his knees and, still looking at the
+flame, replied:
+
+"I don't know about that. You have been a considerable help to _me_."
+
+"To _you_!" exclaimed Turner, surprised. "A help to _you_? Why, how do
+you mean?"
+
+"Well," he answered, still without looking at her, "one always has one's
+influence, you know."
+
+"Ah, lots of influence _I_ have over anybody," retorted Turner,
+incredulously.
+
+"Yes, you have," he insisted. "You have plenty of influence over the
+people that care for you. You have plenty of influence over me."
+
+Turner, very much embarrassed, and not knowing how to answer, bent down
+to the side of the mantelpiece and turned up the flame of the gas-log a
+little. Young Haight continued, almost as embarrassed as she:
+
+"I suppose I'm a bad lot, perhaps a little worse than most others, but I
+think--I hope--there's some good in me. I know all this sounds absurd
+and affected, but _really_ I'm not posing; you won't mind if I speak
+just as I think, for this once. I promise," he went on with a half
+smile, "not to do it again. You know my mother died when I was little
+and I have lived mostly with men. You have been to me what the society
+of women has been to other fellows. You see, you are the only girl I
+ever knew very well--the only one I ever wanted to know. I have cared
+for you the way other men have cared for the different women that come
+into their lives; as they have cared for their mothers, their
+sisters--and their wives. You have already influenced me as a mother or
+sister should have done; what if I should ever ask you to be--to be the
+_other_ to me, the one that's best of all?"
+
+Young Haight turned toward her as he finished and looked at her for the
+first time. Turner was still very much embarrassed.
+
+"Oh, I'm very glad if I've been a help to--to anybody--to you," she
+said, confusedly. "But I never knew that you cared--that you thought
+about me--in that way. But you mustn't, you know, you mustn't care for
+me in that way. I ought to tell you right away that I never could care
+for you more than--I always have done; I mean care for you only as a
+very, very good friend. You don't know, Dolly," she went on eagerly,
+"how it hurts me to tell you so, because I care so much for you in every
+other way that I wouldn't hurt your feelings for anything; but then you
+know at the same time it would hurt you a great deal more if I
+_shouldn't_ tell you, but encourage you, and let you go on thinking that
+perhaps I liked you more than any one else, when I _didn't_. Now
+wouldn't that be wrong? You don't know how glad it makes me feel that I
+have been of some good to you, and that is just why I want to be sincere
+_now_ and not make you think any less of me--think any worse of me."
+
+"Oh, I know," answered young Haight. "I know I shouldn't have said
+anything about it. I knew beforehand, or thought I knew, that you didn't
+care in that way."
+
+"Maybe I have been wrong," she replied, "in not seeing that you cared so
+much, and have given you a wrong impression. I thought you knew how it
+was all the time."
+
+"Knew how what was?" he asked, looking up.
+
+"Why," she said, "knew how Van and I were."
+
+"I knew that Van cared for you a great deal."
+
+"Yes, but you know," she went on, hesitating and confused, "you know we
+are engaged. We have been engaged for nearly two years."
+
+"But _he_ don't consider himself as engaged!" The words were almost out
+of Haight's mouth, but he shut his teeth against them and kept
+silence--he hardly knew why.
+
+"Suppose Vandover were out of the question," he said, getting up and
+smiling in order not to seem as serious as he really was.
+
+"Ah," she said, smiling back at him. "I don't know; that's a hard
+question to answer. I've never _asked_ myself _that_ question."
+
+"Well, I'm saving you the trouble, you see," he answered, still smiling.
+"I am asking it _for_ you."
+
+"But I don't want to answer such a question off-hand like that; how can
+I tell? It would only be _perhaps_, just now."
+
+Young Haight answered quickly that "just now" he would be contented with
+that "perhaps"; but Turner did not hear this. She had spoken at the same
+time as he, exclaiming, "But what is the good of talking of that?
+Because no matter what happened I feel as though I could not break my
+promise to Van, even if I should want to. Because I have talked like
+this, Dolly," she went on more seriously, "you must not be deceived or
+get a wrong impression. You understand how things are, don't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes," he answered, still trying to carry it off with a laugh. "I
+know, I know. But now I hope you won't let anything I have said bother
+you, and that things will go on just as if I hadn't spoken, just as if
+nothing had happened."
+
+"Why, of course," she said, laughing with him again. "Of _course_, why
+shouldn't they?"
+
+They were both at their ease again by the time young Haight stood at the
+door with his hat in his hand ready to go.
+
+He raised his free hand over her head, and said, with burlesque,
+dramatic effect, trying to keep down a smile:
+
+"Bless you both; go, go marry Vandover and be happy; I forgive you."
+
+"Ah--don't be so _utterly_ absurd," she cried, beginning to laugh.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Seven
+
+
+On a certain evening about four months later Ellis and Vandover had a
+"date" with Ida Wade and Bessie Laguna at the Mechanics' Fair. Ellis,
+Bessie, and Ida were to meet Vandover there in the Art Gallery, as he
+had to make a call with his father, and could not get there until
+half-past nine. They were all to walk about the Fair until ten, after
+which the two men proposed to take the girls out to the Cliff House in
+separate coupes. The whole thing had been arranged by Ellis and Bessie,
+and Vandover was irritated. Ellis ought to have had more sense; rushing
+the girls was all very well, but everybody went to the Mechanics' Fair,
+and he didn't like to have nice girls like Turner or Henrietta Vance see
+him with chippies like that. It was all very well for Ellis, who had no
+social position, but for _him_, Vandover, it would look too confounded
+queer. Of course he was in for it now, and would have to face the music.
+You can't tell a girl like that that you're ashamed to be seen with her,
+but very likely he would get himself into a regular box with it all.
+
+When he arrived at the Mechanics' Pavilion, it was about twenty minutes
+of ten, and as he pushed through the wicket he let himself into a huge
+amphitheatre full of colour and movement.
+
+There was a vast shuffling of thousands of feet and a subdued roar of
+conversation like the noise of a great mill; mingled with these were the
+purring of distant machinery, the splashing of a temporary fountain and
+the rhythmic clamour of a brass band, while in the piano exhibit the
+hired performer was playing a concert-grand with a great flourish.
+Nearer at hand one could catch ends of conversation and notes of
+laughter, the creaking of boots, and the rustle of moving dresses and
+stiff skirts. Here and there groups of school children elbowed their way
+through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement
+pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips with pewter whistles on
+the butts, while the air itself was full of the smell of fresh popcorn.
+
+Ellis and Bessie were in the Art Gallery upstairs. Mrs. Wade, Ida's
+mother, who gave lessons in hand painting, had an exhibit there which
+they were interested to find; a bunch of yellow poppies painted on
+velvet and framed in gilt. They stood before it some little time
+hazarding their opinions and then moved on from one picture to another;
+Ellis bought a catalogue and made it a duty to find the title of every
+picture. Bessie professed to be very fond of painting; she had 'taken it
+up' at one time and had abandoned it, only because the oil or turpentine
+or something was unhealthy for her. "Of course," she said, "I'm no
+critic, I only know what I like. Now that one over there, I like _that_.
+I think those ideal heads like that are lovely, don't you, Bandy? Oh,
+there's Van!"
+
+"Hello!" said Vandover, coming up. "Where's Ida?"
+
+"Hello, Van!" answered Bessie. "Ida wouldn't come. Isn't it too mean?
+She said she couldn't come because she had a cold, but she was just
+talking through her face, I know. She's just got kind of a streak on and
+you can't get anything out of her. You two haven't had a row, have you?
+Well, I didn't _think_ you had. But she's worried about something or
+other. I don't believe she's been out of the house this week. But isn't
+it mean of her to throw cold water on the procession like this? She's
+been giving me a lecture, too, and says she's going to reform."
+
+"Well," said Vandover, greatly relieved, "that's too bad. We could have
+had a lot of fun to-night. I'm awfully sorry. Well, what are you two
+going to do?"
+
+"Oh, I guess we'll follow out our part of the programme," said Ellis.
+"You are kind of left out, though."
+
+"I don't know," answered Vandover. "Maybe I'll go downtown, and see if I
+can find some of the boys."
+
+"Oh, Dolly Haight is around here somewheres," said Ellis. "We saw him
+just now over by the chess machine."
+
+"I guess I'll try and find him, then," responded Vandover. "Well, I hope
+you two enjoy yourselves." As he was turning away Bessie Laguna came
+running back, and taking him a little to one side said:
+
+"You'd better go round and see Ida pretty soon if you can. She's all
+broke up about something, I'm sure. I think she'd like to see you pretty
+well. Honestly," she said, suddenly very grave, "I never saw Ida so cut
+up in my life. She's been taking on over something in a dreadful way,
+and I think she'd like to see you. She won't tell _me_ anything. You go
+around and see her."
+
+"All right," answered Vandover smiling, "I'll go."
+
+As he was going down the stairs on his way to find young Haight it
+occurred to him what Ida's trouble might be. He was all at once struck
+with a great fear, so that for an instant he turned cold and weak, and
+reached out his hand to steady himself against the railing of the
+stairs. Ah, what a calamity that would be! What a calamity! What a
+dreadful responsibility! What a crime! He could not keep the thought out
+of his mind. He tried to tell himself that Ida had practically given her
+consent by going into such a place; that he was not the only one, after
+all; that there was nothing certain as yet. He stood on the stairway,
+empty for that moment, biting the end of his thumb, saying to himself in
+a low voice:
+
+"What a calamity, what a horrible calamity that would be! Ah, you
+scoundrel! You damned fool, not to have thought!" A couple of girls, the
+counter girls at one of the candy booths, came down the stairs behind
+him with a great babble of talk. Vandover gave an irritated shrug of his
+shoulders as if freeing himself from the disagreeable subject and went
+on.
+
+He could not find young Haight down stairs and so went up into the
+gallery again. After a long time he came upon him sitting on an empty
+bench nursing his cane and watching the crowd go past.
+
+"Hello, old man!" he exclaimed. "Ellis told me I would find you around
+somewhere. I was just going to give you up." He sat down beside his
+chum, and the two began to talk about the people as they passed. "Ah,
+get on to the red hat!" exclaimed Vandover on a sudden. "That's the
+third time she's passed."
+
+"Has Ellis gone off with Bessie Laguna?" asked young Haight.
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover. "They're going to have a time at the Cliff
+House."
+
+"That's too bad," young Haight replied. "Ellis has just thrown himself
+away with that girl. He might have known some very nice people when he
+first came here. Between that girl and his whisky he has managed to
+spoil every chance he might have had."
+
+"There's Charlie Geary," Vandover exclaimed suddenly, whistling and
+beckoning. "Hey, there, Charlie! where you going? Oh," he cried on a
+sudden as Geary came up, "oh, get on to his new store clothes, will
+you?" They both pretended to be overwhelmed by the elegance of Geary's
+new suit.
+
+"O-oh!" cried young Haight. "The bloody, bloomin', bloated swell. Just
+let me _touch_ them!"
+
+Vandover shaded his eyes and turned away as though dazzled. "This is
+_too_ much," he gasped. "Such magnificence, such purple and fine linen."
+Then suddenly he shouted, "Oh, _oh! look_ at the crease in those
+trousers. No; it's too much, I can't stand it."
+
+"Oh, shut up," said Geary, irritated, as they had intended he should be.
+"Yes," he went on, "I thought I'd blow myself. I've been working like a
+dog the whole month. I'm trying to get in Beale's office. Beale and
+Storey, you know. I got the promise of a berth last week, so I thought
+I'd blow myself for some rags. I've been over to San Rafael all day
+visiting my cousins; had a great time; went out to row. Oh, and had a
+great feed: lettuce sandwiches with mayonnaise. Simply out of sight. I
+came back on the four o'clock boat and held down the 'line' on Kearney
+Street for an hour or two."
+
+"Yes?" young Haight said perfunctorily, adding after a moment, "Isn't
+this a gay crowd, a typical San Francisco crowd and--"
+
+"I had a cocktail in the Imperial at about quarter of five," said Geary,
+"and got a cigar at the Elite; then I went around to get my clothes. Oh,
+you ought to have heard the blowing up I gave my tailor! I let him have
+it right straight."
+
+Geary paused a moment, and Vandover said: "Come on, let's walk around a
+little; don't you want to? We might run on to the red hat again."
+
+"I told him," continued Geary without moving, "that if he wanted to do
+any more work for me, he'd have to get in front of himself in a hurry,
+and that _I_ wasn't full of bubbles, if _he_ was. 'Why,' says he, 'why,
+Mr. Geary, I've never had a customer talk like this to me before since
+I've been in the business!' 'Well, Mr. Allen,' says I, 'it's time you
+_had_! Oh, sure, I gave it to him straight."
+
+"Vandover has gone daft over a girl in a red hat," said young Haight,
+as they got up and began to walk. "Have you noticed her up here?"
+
+"I went to the Grillroom after I left the tailor's," continued Geary,
+"and had supper downtown. Ah, you ought to have seen the steak they gave
+me! Just about as thick as it was wide. I gave the slavey a four-bit
+tip. Oh, it's just as well, you know, to keep in with them, if you go
+there often. I lunch there four or five times a week."
+
+They descended to the ground floor and promenaded the central aisle
+watching for pretty girls. In front of a candy-counter, where there was
+a soda fountain, they saw the red hat again. Vandover looked her
+squarely in the face and laughed a little. When he had passed he looked
+back; the girl caught his eye and turned away with a droll smile.
+Vandover paused, grinning, and raising his hat; "I guess that's mine,"
+he said.
+
+"You are not going, are you?" exclaimed young Haight, as Vandover
+stopped. "Oh, for goodness' sake, Van, do leave the girls alone for one
+hour in the day. Come on! Come on downtown with us."
+
+"No, no," answered Vandover. "I'm going to chase it up. Good-bye. I may
+see you fellows later," and he turned back and went up to the girl.
+
+"Look at that!" said young Haight, exasperated. "He knows he's liable to
+meet his acquaintances here, and yet there he goes, almost arm in arm
+with a girl like that. It's too bad; why _can't_ a fellow keep straight
+when there are such a lot of _nice_ girls?"
+
+Geary never liked to see anything done better than he could do it
+himself. Just now he was vexed because Vandover had got in ahead of him.
+He looked after the girl a moment and muttered scornfully:
+
+"Cheap meat!" adding, "Ah, you bet _I_ wouldn't do that. I flatter
+myself that I'm a little too clever to cut my own throat in that
+fashion. I look out after my interests better than that. Well, Dolly,"
+he concluded, "_I've_ got a thirst on. Van and Ellis have gone off with
+their girls; let's you and I go somewhere and have something wet."
+
+"All right. What's the matter with the Luxembourg?" answered young
+Haight.
+
+"Luxembourg goes, then," assented Geary, and they turned about and
+started for the door. As they were passing out some one came running up
+behind them and took an arm of each: it was Vandover.
+
+"Hello," cried Geary, delighted, "your girl shook you, didn't she?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," answered Vandover. "Oh, but say, she is out of sight!
+Says her name is Grace Irving. No, she didn't shake me. I made a date
+with her for next Wednesday night. I didn't want to be seen around here
+with her, you know."
+
+"Of _course_ she will keep that date!" said Geary.
+
+"Well, now, I think she will," protested Vandover.
+
+"Well, come along," interrupted young Haight. "We'll all go down to the
+Luxembourg and have something cold and wet."
+
+"Ah, make it the Imperial instead," objected Vandover. "We may find
+Flossie."
+
+"Say," cried Geary, "can't you _live_ without trailing around after some
+kind of petticoats?"
+
+"You're right," admitted Vandover, "I can't," but he persuaded them to
+go to the Imperial for all that.
+
+At the Imperial, Toby, the red-eyed waiter, came to take their order.
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen," he said. "Haven't seen you around here for
+some time."
+
+"No, no," said Geary. "I've been too busy. I've been working like a dog
+lately to get into a certain office. You bet I'll make it all right--all
+right. Bring me a stringy rabbit and a pint of dog's-head."
+
+"You bet I've been working," he continued after they had settled down to
+their beer and rabbits, "working like a dog. A man's got to rustle if
+he's going to make a success at law. _I'm_ going to make it go, by
+George, or I'll know the reason why. I'll make my way in this town and
+my pile. There's money to be made here and _I_ might just as well make
+it as the next man. Every man for himself, that's what _I_ say; that's
+the way to get along. It may be selfish, but you've got to do it. By
+God! it's human nature. Isn't that right, hey? Isn't that right?"
+
+"Oh, that's right," admitted young Haight, trying to be polite. After
+this the conversation lagged a little. Young Haight drank his
+Apollinaris lemonade through a straw, Geary sipped his ale, and Vandover
+fed himself Welsh rabbit and Spanish olives with the silent enjoyment of
+a glutton. By and by, when they had finished and had lighted their
+cigars and cigarettes, they began to talk about the last Cotillon, to
+which Vandover and Haight belonged.
+
+"Say, Van," said young Haight, tilting his head to one side and shutting
+one eye to avoid the smoke from his cigar, "say, didn't I see you
+dancing with Mrs. Doane after supper?"
+
+"Yes," said Vandover laughing; "all the men were trying to get a dance
+with her. She had an edge on."
+
+"No?" exclaimed Geary, incredulously.
+
+"That's a fact," admitted young Haight. "Van is right."
+
+"She was opposite to me at table," said Vandover, "and _I_ saw her empty
+a whole bottle of champagne."
+
+"Why, I didn't know they got drunk like that at the Cotillons," said
+Geary. "I thought they were very swell."
+
+"Well, of course, they don't as a rule," returned Vandover. "Of course
+there are girls like--like Henrietta Vance who belong to the Cotillon
+and make it what it is, and what it ought to be. But there are other
+girls like Mrs. Doane and Lilly Stannard and the Trafford girls that
+like their champagne pretty well now, and don't you forget it! Oh, you
+know, I wouldn't call it getting drunk, though."
+
+"Well, why not?" exclaimed young Haight impatiently. "Why not call it
+'getting drunk?' Why not call things by their right name? You can see
+just how bad they are then; and I think it's shameful that such things
+can go on in an organization that is supposed to contain the very best
+people in the city. Now, I just want to tell you what I saw at one of
+these same Cotillons in the first part of the season. Lilly Stannard
+disappeared after supper and people said she was sick and was going
+home, but I knew exactly what was the matter, because I had seen her at
+the supper table. Well, I had gone outside on the steps to get a
+mouthful of smoke, and my little cousin, Hetty, who has just come out
+and who is only nineteen, was out there with me because it was so warm
+inside, and _she_ had seen Lilly Stannard filling up with champagne at
+supper, and didn't know what to make of it. Well, we were just talking
+about it, and I was trying to make her believe too that Lilly Stannard
+was sick, when here comes Lilly herself out to her carriage. Her maid
+was supporting her, just about half-carrying her. Lilly's face was so
+pale that the powder on it looked like ashes, her hair was all coming
+down, and she was hiccoughing. Now," continued young Haight, his eyes
+snapping, and his voice raised so as to make itself heard above the
+exclamations of his two friends, "now, that's a _fact_; I give you my
+word of honour that it actually happened. It's not hearsay; I saw it
+myself. It's fine, isn't it?" he went on, wrathfully. "It sounds well,
+don't it, when it's told _just as it happened_? The girl was dead drunk.
+Oh, she may have made a mistake; it may have been the first time; but
+the fact remains that she always drinks a lot of champagne at the
+Cotillons, and other girls have been drunk there, too. Mrs. Doane, that
+Van tells about, was _drunk_; that's the word for it. She was dead drunk
+that night, and there was my little cousin, Hetty, who had never seen
+even a man the worse for his liquor, standing there and taking it all
+in. Of course, every one hushed the thing up or else said the poor girl
+was sick; but Hetty knew, and what effect do you suppose it had upon a
+little girl like that, who had always been told what nice,
+irreproachable people went to the Cotillons? Hetty will never be the
+same little girl now that she was before. Oh, it makes me damned tired."
+
+"Well, I don't see," said Geary, "why the girls should make such a fuss
+about the men keeping straight. I daresay now that this Stannard girl
+would cut us all dead if she knew how drunk we were that night about
+four months ago--that night that you fellows got thrown out of the
+Luxembourg."
+
+"No, I don't believe she would at all," said young Haight.
+
+"She'd think better of you for it," put in Vandover. "Look here," he
+went on, "all this talk of women demanding the same moral standard for
+men as men do for women is fine on paper, but how does it work in real
+life? The women don't demand it at all. Take the average society girl in
+a big city like this. The girls that we meet at teas and receptions and
+functions--don't you suppose they know the life we men lead? Of course
+they do. They may not know it in detail, but they know in a general way
+that we get drunk a good deal and go to disreputable houses and that
+sort of thing, and do they ever cut us for that? No, sir; not much.
+Why, I tell you, they even have a little more respect for us. They like
+a man to know things, to be experienced. A man that keeps himself
+straight and clean and never goes around with fast women, they think is
+ridiculous. Of course, a girl don't want to know the particulars of a
+man's vice; what they want is that a man should have the knowledge of
+good and evil, yes, and lots of evil. To a large extent I really believe
+it's the women's fault that the men are what they are. If they demanded
+a higher moral standard the men would come up to it; they encourage a
+man to go to the devil and then--and then when he's rotten with disease
+and ruins his wife and has children--what is it--_'spotted
+toads'_--_then_ there's a great cry raised against the men, and women
+write books and all, when half the time the woman has only encouraged
+him to be what he is."
+
+"Oh, well now," retorted young Haight, "you know that all the girls are
+not like that."
+
+"Most of them that you meet in society are."
+
+"But they are the best people, aren't they?" demanded Geary.
+
+"No," answered Vandover and young Haight in a breath, and young Haight
+continued:
+
+"No; I believe that very few of what you would call the 'best people' go
+out in society--people like the Ravises, who have good principles, and
+keep up old-fashioned virtues and all that. You know," he added, "they
+have family prayers down there every morning after breakfast."
+
+Geary began to smile.
+
+"Well, now, I don't care," retorted young Haight, "I like that sort of
+thing."
+
+"So do I," said Vandover. "Up home, now, the governor asks a blessing at
+each meal, and somehow I wouldn't like to see him leave it off. But you
+can't tell me," he went on, going back to the original subject of their
+discussion, "you can't tell me that American society girls, city-bred,
+and living at the end of the nineteenth century, don't know about
+things. Why, man alive, how can they help but know? Look at those that
+have brothers--don't you suppose they know, and if they know, why don't
+they use their influence to stop it? I tell you if any one were to write
+up the lives that we young men of the city lead after dark, people
+wouldn't believe it. At that party that Henrietta Vance gave last month
+there were about twenty fellows there and I knew every one, and I was
+looking around the supper-table and wondering how many of those young
+fellows had never been inside of a disreputable house, and there was
+only _one_ beside Dolly Haight!"
+
+Young Haight exclaimed at this, laughing good-naturedly, twirling his
+thumbs, and casting down his eyes with mock-modesty.
+
+"Well, that's the truth just the same," Vandover went on. "We young men
+of the cities are a fine lot. I'm not doing the baby act. I'm not laying
+the blame on the girls altogether, but I say that in a measure the girls
+are responsible. They want a man to be a _man_, to be up to date, to be
+a man of the world and to go in for that sort of vice, but they don't
+know, they don't dream, how rotten and disgusting it is. Oh, I'm not
+preaching. I know I'm just as bad as the rest, and I'm going to have a
+good time while I can, but sometimes when you stop and think, and as
+Dolly says 'call things by their right names,' why you feel, don't you
+know--_queer_."
+
+"I don't believe, Van," responded young Haight, "that it's _quite_ as
+bad as you say. But it's even wrong, I think, that a good girl should
+know anything about vice at all."
+
+"Oh, that's nonsense," broke in Geary; "you can't expect nowadays that a
+girl, an American girl, can live twenty years in a city and not know
+things. Do you think the average modern girl is going to be the
+absolutely pure and innocent girl of, say, fifty years ago? Not much;
+they are right on to things to-day. You can't tell them much. And it's
+all right, too; they know how to look out for themselves, then. It's
+part of their education; and I think if they haven't the knowledge of
+evil, and don't know what sort of life the average young man leads, that
+their mothers ought to tell them."
+
+"Well, I don't agree with you," retorted young Haight. "There's
+something revolting in the idea that it's necessary a young girl should
+be instructed in that sort of nastiness."
+
+"Why, not at all," answered Geary. "Without it she might be ruined by
+the first man that came along. It's a protection to her virtue."
+
+"Oh, pshaw! I don't believe it at all," cried young Haight,
+impatiently. "I believe that a girl is born with a natural intuitive
+purity that will lead her to protect her virtue just as instinctively as
+she would dodge a blow; if she wants to go wrong she will have to make
+an effort herself to overcome that instinct."
+
+"And if she don't," cried Vandover eagerly, "if she don't--if she don't
+protect her virtue, I say a man has a right to go as far with her as he
+can."
+
+"If _he_ don't, some one else will," said Geary.
+
+"Ah, you can't get around it that way," answered young Haight, smiling.
+"It's a man's duty to protect a girl, even if he has to protect her
+against herself."
+
+When he got home that night Vandover thought over this remark of young
+Haight's and in its light reviewed what had occurred in the room at the
+Imperial. He felt aroused, nervous, miserably anxious. At length he
+tried to dismiss the subject from his mind; he woke up his drowsing
+grate fire, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying, "Wake up
+there, you!" When he was undressed, he sat down before it in his
+bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously, musing into the coals,
+scratching himself as was his custom. But for all that he fretted
+nervously and did not sleep well that night.
+
+Next morning he took his bath. Vandover enjoyed his bath and usually
+spent two or three hours over it. When the water was very warm he got
+into it with his novel on a rack in front of him and a box of chocolates
+conveniently near. Here he stayed, for over an hour, eating and reading,
+and occasionally smoking a cigarette, until at length the enervating
+heat of the steam gradually overcame him and he dropped off to sleep.
+
+On this particular morning between nine and ten Geary called, and as was
+his custom came right up to Vandover's room. Mr. Corkle, lying on the
+wolfskin in the bay window, jumped up with a gruff bark, but,
+recognizing him, came up wiggling his short tail. Geary saw Vandover's
+clothes thrown about the floor and the closed door of the bathroom.
+
+"Hey, Van!" he called. "It's Charlie Geary. Are you taking a bath?"
+
+"Hello! What? Who is it?" came from behind the door. "Oh, is that you,
+Charlie? Hello! how are you? Yes, I'm taking a bath. I must have been
+asleep. Wait a minute; I'll be out."
+
+"No, I can't stop," answered Geary. "I've an appointment downtown;
+overslept myself, and had to go without my breakfast; makes me feel all
+broke up. I'll get something at the Grillroom about eleven; a steak, I
+guess. But that isn't what I came to say. Ida Wade has killed herself!
+Isn't it fearful? I thought I'd drop in on my way downtown and speak to
+you about it. It's dreadful! It's all in the morning papers. She must
+have been out of her head."
+
+"What is it--what has she done?" came back Vandover's voice. "Papers--I
+haven't seen--what has she done? Tell me--what has she done?"
+
+"Why, she committed suicide last night by taking laudanum," answered
+Geary, "and nobody knows why. She didn't leave any message or letter or
+anything of the kind. It's a fearful thing to happen so suddenly, but it
+seems she has been very despondent and broke up about something or other
+for a week or two. They found her in her room last night about ten
+o'clock lying across her table with only her wrapper on. She was
+unconscious then, and between one and two she died. She was unconscious
+all the time. Well, I can't stop any longer, Van; I've an appointment
+downtown. I was just going past the house and I thought I would run up
+and speak to you about Ida. I'll see you again pretty soon and we'll
+talk this over."
+
+Mr. Corkle politely attended Geary to the head of the stairs, then went
+back to Vandover's room, and after blowing under the crack of the
+bathroom door to see if his master was still there returned to the
+wolfskin and sat down on his short tail and yawned. He was impatient to
+see Vandover and thought he stayed in his bath an unnecessarily long
+time. He went up to the door again and listened. It was very still
+inside; he could not hear the slightest sound, and he wondered again
+what could keep Vandover in there so long. He had too much self-respect
+to whine, so he went back to the wolfskin and curled up in the sun, but
+did not go to sleep.
+
+By and by, after a very long time, the bathroom door swung open, and
+Vandover came out. He had not dried himself and was naked and wet. He
+went directly to the table in the centre of the room and picked up the
+morning paper, looking for the article of which Geary had spoken. At
+first he could not find it, and then it suddenly jumped into prominence
+from out the gray blur of the print on an inside page beside an
+advertisement of a charity concert for the benefit of a home for
+incurable children. There was a picture of Ida taken from a photograph
+like one that she had given him, and which even then was thrust between
+the frame and glass of his mirror. He read the article through; it
+sketched her life and character and the circumstances of her death with
+the relentless terseness of the writer cramped for space. According to
+this view, the causes of her death were unknown. It had been remarked
+that she had of late been despondent and in ill health.
+
+Vandover threw the paper down and straightened up, naked and dripping,
+putting both hands to his head. In a low voice under his breath he said:
+
+"What have I done? What have I done now?"
+
+Like the sudden unrolling of a great scroll he saw his responsibility
+for her death and for the ruin of that something in her which was more
+than life. What would become of her now? And what would become of him?
+For a single brief instant he tried to persuade himself that Ida had
+consented after all. But he knew that this was not so. She had
+consented, but he had forced her consent; he was none the less guilty.
+And then in that dreadful moment when he saw things in their true light,
+all the screens of conventionality and sophistry torn away, the words
+that young Haight had spoken came back to him. No matter if she had
+consented, it was his duty to have protected her, even against herself.
+
+He walked the floor with great strides, steaming with the warm water,
+striking his head with his hands and crying out, "Oh, this is fearful,
+fearful! What have I done now? I have killed her; yes, and worse!"
+
+He could think of nothing worse that could have happened to him. What a
+weight of responsibility to carry--he who hated responsibility of any
+kind, who had always tried to escape from anything that was even
+irksome, who loved his ease, his comfort, his peace of mind!
+
+At every moment now he saw the different consequences of what he had
+done. Now, it was that his life was ruined, and that all through its
+course this crime would hang like a millstone about his neck. There
+could be no more enjoyment of anything for him; all the little pleasures
+and little self-indulgences which till now had delighted him were
+spoiled and rendered impossible. The rest of his life would have to be
+one long penitence; any pleasure he might take would only make his crime
+seem more abominable.
+
+Now, it was a furious revolt against his mistake that had led him to
+such a fearful misunderstanding of Ida; a silent impotent rage against
+himself and against the brute in him that he had permitted to drag him
+to this thing.
+
+Now, it was a wave of an immense pity for the dead girl that overcame
+him, and he saw himself as another person, destroying what she most
+cherished for the sake of gratifying an unclean passion.
+
+Now, it was a terror for himself. What would they do to him? His part in
+the affair was sure to be found out. He tried to think what the
+punishment for such crime would be; but would he not be considered a
+murderer as well? Could he not hang for this? His imagination was never
+more active; his fear never more keen. At once a thousand plans of
+concealment or escape were tossed up in his mind.
+
+But worse than all was the thought of that punishment from which there
+was absolutely no escape, and of that strange other place where his
+crime would assume right proportions and receive right judgment, no
+matter how it was palliated or evaded here. Then for an instant it was
+as if a gulf without bottom had opened under him, and he had to fight
+himself back from its edge for sheer self-preservation. To look too long
+in that direction was simple insanity beyond any doubt.
+
+And all this time he threw himself to and fro in his room, his long
+white arms agitated and shaking, his wet and shining hair streaming far
+over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all
+straight and trickling with moisture. At times an immense unreasoning
+terror would come upon him all of a sudden, horrible, crushing, so that
+he rolled upon the bed groaning and sobbing, digging his nails into his
+scalp, shutting his teeth against a desire to scream out, writhing in
+the throes of terrible mental agony.
+
+That day and the next were fearful. To Vandover everything in his world
+was changed. All that had happened before the morning of Geary's visit
+appeared to him to have occurred in another phase of his life, years and
+years ago. He lay awake all night long, listening to the creaking of the
+house and the drip of the water faucets. He turned from his food with
+repugnance, told his father that he was sick, and kept indoors as much
+as he could, reading all the papers to see if he had been found out. To
+his great surprise and relief, a theory gained ground that Ida was
+subject to spells of ill-health, to long fits of despondency, and that
+her suicide had occurred during one of these. If Ida's family knew
+anything of the truth, it was apparent that they were doing their best
+to cover up their disgrace. Vandover was too thoroughly terrified for
+his own safety to feel humiliated at this possible explanation of his
+security. There was as yet not even a guess that implicated him.
+
+He thought that he was bearing up under the strain well enough, but on
+the evening of the second day, as he was pretending to eat his supper,
+his father sent the servant out and turning to him, said kindly:
+
+"What is it, Van? Aren't you well nowadays?"
+
+"Not very, sir," answered Vandover. "My throat is troubling me again."
+
+"You look deathly pale," returned his father. "Your eyes are sunken and
+you don't eat."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Vandover. "I'm not feeling well at all. I think I'll
+go to bed early to-night. I don't know"--he continued, after a pause,
+feeling a desire to escape from his father's observation--"I don't know
+but what I'll go up now. Will you tell the cook to feed Mr. Corkle for
+me?"
+
+His father looked at him as he pushed back from the table.
+
+"What's the matter, Van?" he said. "Is there anything wrong?"
+
+"Oh, I'll be all right in the morning," he replied nervously. "I feel a
+little under the weather just now."
+
+"Don't you think you had better tell me what the trouble is?" said his
+father, kindly.
+
+"There _isn't_ any trouble, sir," insisted Vandover. "I just feel a
+little under the weather."
+
+But as he was starting to undress in his room a sudden impulse took
+possession of him, an overwhelming childish desire to tell his father
+all about it. It was beginning to be more than he was able to bear
+alone. He did not allow himself to stop and reason with this impulse,
+but slipped on his vest again and went downstairs. He found his father
+in the smoking-room, sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before
+the fireplace.
+
+As Vandover came in the Old Gentleman rose and without a word, as if he
+had been expecting him, went to the door and shut and locked it. He came
+back and stood before the fireplace watching Vandover as he approached
+and took the chair he had just vacated. Vandover told him of the affair
+in two or three phrases, without choosing his words, repeating the same
+expressions over and over again, moved only with the desire to have it
+over and done with.
+
+It was like a burst of thunder. The worst his father had feared was not
+as bad as this. He had expected some rather serious boyish trouble, but
+this was the crime of a man. Still watching his son, he put out his
+hand, groping for the edge of the mantelpiece, and took hold of it with
+a firm grasp. For a moment he said nothing; then:
+
+"And--and you say you seduced her."
+
+Without looking up, Vandover answered, "Yes, sir," and then he added,
+"It is horrible; when I think of it I sometimes feel as though I should
+go off my head. I--"
+
+But the Old Gentleman interrupted him, putting out his hand:
+
+"Don't," he said quickly, "don't say anything now--please."
+
+They were both silent for a long time, Vandover gazing stupidly at a
+little blue and red vase on the table, wondering how his father would
+take the news, what next he would say; the Old Gentleman drawing his
+breath short, occasionally clearing his throat, his eyes wandering
+vaguely about the walls of the room, his fingers dancing upon the edge
+of the mantelpiece. Then at last he put his hand to his neck as though
+loosening his collar and said, looking away from Vandover:
+
+"Won't you--won't you please go out--go away for a little while--leave
+me alone for a little while."
+
+When Vandover closed the door, he shut the edge of a rug between it and
+the sill; as he reopened it to push the rug out of the way he saw his
+father sink into the chair and, resting his arm upon the table, bow his
+head upon it.
+
+He did not see his father again that night, and at breakfast next
+morning not a word was exchanged between them, but his father did not go
+downtown to his office that forenoon, as was his custom. Vandover went
+up to his room immediately after breakfast and sat down before the
+window that overlooked the little garden in the rear of the house.
+
+He was utterly miserable, his nerves were gone, and at times he would
+feel again a touch of that hysterical, unreasoning terror that had come
+upon him so suddenly the other morning.
+
+Now there was a new trouble: the blow he had given his father. He could
+see that the Old Gentleman was crushed under it, and that he had never
+imagined that his son could have been so base as this. Vandover wondered
+what he was going to do. It would seem as if he had destroyed all of his
+father's affection for him, and he trembled lest the Old Gentleman
+should cast him off, everything. Even if his father did not disown him,
+he did not see how they could ever be the same. They might go on living
+together in the same house, but as far apart from each other as
+strangers. This, however, did not seem natural; it was much more likely
+that his father would send him away, anywhere out of his sight,
+forwarding, perhaps through his lawyer or agents, enough money to keep
+him alive. The more Vandover thought of this, the more he became
+convinced that such would be his father's decision. The Old Gentleman
+had spent the night over it, time enough to make up his mind, and the
+fact that he had neither spoken to him nor looked at him that morning
+was only an indication of what Vandover was to expect. He fancied he
+knew his father well enough to foresee how this decision would be
+carried out, not with any imprecations or bursts of rage, but calmly,
+sadly, inevitably.
+
+Toward noon his father came into the room, and Vandover turned to face
+him and to hear what he had to say as best he could. He knew he should
+not break down under it, for he felt as though his misery had reached
+its limit, and that nothing could touch or affect him much now.
+
+His father had a decanter of port in one hand and a glass in the other;
+he filled the glass and held it toward Vandover, saying gently:
+
+"I think you had better take some of this: you've hardly eaten anything
+in three days. Do you feel pretty bad, Van?"
+
+Vandover put the glass down and got upon his feet. All at once a great
+sob shook him.
+
+"Oh, governor!" he cried.
+
+It was as if it had been a mother or a dear sister. The prodigal son put
+his arms about his father's neck for the first time since he had been a
+little boy, and clung to him and wept as though his heart were breaking.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eight
+
+
+"We will begin all over again, Van," his father said later that same
+day. "We will start in again and try to forget all this, not as much as
+we _can_, but as much as we _ought_, and live it down, and from now on
+we'll try to do the thing that is right and brave and good."
+
+"Just try me, sir!" cried Vandover.
+
+That was it, begin all over again. He had never seen more clearly than
+now that other life which it was possible for him to live, a life that
+was above the level of self-indulgence and animal pleasures, a life that
+was not made up of the society of lost women or fast girls, but yet a
+life of keen enjoyment.
+
+Whenever he had been deeply moved about anything, the power and desire
+of art had grown big within him, and he turned to it now, instinctively
+and ardently.
+
+It was all the better half of him that was aroused--the better half that
+he had kept in check ever since his college days, the better half that
+could respond to the influences of his father and of Turner Ravis, that
+other Vandover whom he felt was his real self, Vandover the true man,
+Vandover the artist, not Vandover the easy-going, the self-indulgent,
+not Vandover the lover of women.
+
+From this time forward he was resolved to give up the world that he had
+hitherto known, and devote himself with all his strength to his art. In
+the first glow of that resolution he thought that he had never been
+happier; he wondered how he could have been blind so long; what was all
+that life worth compared with the life of a great artist, compared even
+with a life of sturdy, virile effort and patient labour even though
+barren of achievement?
+
+And then something very curious happened: The little picture of Turner
+Ravis that hung over his mantelpiece caught his glance, looking out at
+him with her honest eyes and sweet smile. In an instant he seemed to
+love her as he had never imagined he could love any one. All that was
+best in him went out toward her in a wave of immense tenderness; the
+tears came to his eyes, he could not tell why. Ah, he was not good
+enough for her now, but he would love her so well that he would grow
+better, and between her and his good father and his art, the better
+Vandover, the real Vandover, would grow so large and strong within him
+that there should be no room for the other Vandover, the Vandover of
+Flossie and of the Imperial, the Vandover of the brute.
+
+During the course of talk that day between himself and his father, it
+was decided that Vandover should go away for a little while. He was in a
+fair way to be sick from worry and nervous exhaustion, and a sea trip to
+San Diego and back seemed to be what he stood most in need of. Besides
+this, his father told him, it was inevitable that his share in Ida's
+death would soon be known; in any case it would be better for him to be
+away from the city.
+
+"You take whatever steamer sails next," said his father, "and! go down
+to Coronado and stay there as long as you like, three weeks anyway; stay
+there until you get well, and when you get back, Van, we'll have a talk
+about Paris again. Perhaps you would like to get away this winter, maybe
+as soon as next month. You think it over while you are away, and when
+you want to go, why, we'll go over together, Van. What do you think?
+Would you like to have your old governor along for a little while?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The _Santa Rosa_ cast off the company's docks the next day about noon in
+the midst of a thick, cold mist that was half rain. The Old Gentleman
+came to see Vandover off.
+
+The steamer, which seemed gigantic, was roped and cabled to the piers,
+feeling the water occasionally with her screw to keep the hawsers taut.
+About the forward gangway a band of overworked stevedores were stowing
+in the last of the cargo, aided by a donkey engine, which every now and
+then broke out into a spasm of sputtering coughs. At the passenger
+gangway a great crowd was gathered, laughing and exchanging remarks with
+the other crowd that leaned over the railings of the decks.
+
+There was a smell of pitch and bilge in the air mingled with the reek of
+hot oil from the engines. About twelve o'clock an odour of cooking
+arose, and the steward went about the decks drumming upon a snoring gong
+for dinner.
+
+Half an hour later the great whistle roared interminably, drowning out
+the chorus of "good-byes" that rose on all sides. Long before it had
+ceased, the huge bulk had stirred, almost imperceptibly at first, then,
+gathering headway, swung out into the stream and headed for the Golden
+Gate.
+
+Vandover was in the stern upon the hurricane deck, shaking his hat
+toward his father, who had tied his handkerchief to his cane and was
+waving it at him as he stood upon an empty packing-case. As the throng
+of those who were left behind dwindled away, one by one, Vandover could
+see him standing there, almost the last of all, and long after the
+figure itself was lost in the blur of the background he still saw the
+tiny white dot of the handkerchief moving back and forth, as if spelling
+out a signal to him across the water.
+
+The fog drew a little higher as they passed down the bay. To the left
+was the city swarming upon its hills, a dull gray mass, cut in parallel
+furrows by the streets; straggling and uneven where it approached the
+sand-dunes in the direction of the Presidio. To the right the long slope
+of Tamalpais climbed up and was lost in the fog, while directly in front
+of them was the Golden Gate, a bleak prospect of fog-drenched headlands
+on either side of a narrow strip of yellow, frothy water. Beyond that,
+the open Pacific.
+
+A brisk cannonade was going on from the Presidio and from Black Point,
+and both forts were hidden behind a great curtain of tumbling white
+smoke that rolled up to mingle with the fog. Everybody was on that side
+of the deck watching and making guesses as to the reason of it. It was
+perhaps target practice. Ah, it was a good thing that the steamer was
+not in line with the target. Perhaps, though, that was the safest place
+to be. Some one told about a derelict that was anchored as a target off
+the heads, and shot at for fifteen hours without being touched once. Oh,
+they were great gunners at the Presidio! But just the same the sound of
+cannon was a fine thing to hear; it excited one. A noisy party of
+gentlemen already installed in the smoking-room came out on deck for a
+moment with their cards in their hands, and declared laughingly that the
+whole thing was only a salute in the _Santa Rosa's_ honour.
+
+By the middle of the afternoon, Vandover began to see that for him the
+trip was going to be tedious. He knew no one on board and had come away
+so hurriedly that he had neglected to get himself any interesting books.
+He spent an hour or two promenading the upper deck until the cold wind
+that was blowing drove him to the smoking-room, where he tried to
+interest himself in watching some of the whist games that were in
+progress.
+
+It surprised him that he could find occasion to be bored so soon after
+what had happened; but he no longer wished to occupy his mind by
+brooding over anything so disagreeable and wanted some sort of amusement
+to divert and entertain him. Vandover had so accustomed himself to that
+kind of self-indulgence that he could not go long without it. It had
+become a simple necessity for him to be amused, and just now he thought
+himself justified in seeking it in order to forget about Ida's death. He
+had dwelt upon this now for nearly four days, until it had come to be
+some sort of a formless horror that it was necessary to avoid. He could
+get little present enjoyment by looking forward to the new life that he
+was going to begin and in which his father, his art, and Turner Ravis
+were to be the chief influences. The thought of this prospect did give
+him pleasure, but he had for so long a time fed his mind upon the more
+tangible and concrete enjoyments of the hour and minute that it demanded
+them now continually.
+
+He sat for a long time upon the slippery leather cushions of the
+smoking-room trying desperately to become interested in the whist game,
+or gazing awestruck at the man at his elbow who was smoking black
+Perrique in a pipe, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out through his
+nose. After a while he returned to the deck.
+
+There it was cold and wet and a strong wind was blowing from the ocean.
+Four miles to the east an endless procession of brown, bare hills filed
+slowly past under the fog. The sky was a dreary brown and the leagues of
+shifting water a melancholy desert of gray. Besides these there was
+nothing but the bleached hills and the drifting fog; the wind blew
+continually, passing between the immense reaches of sea and sky with
+prolonged sighs of infinite sadness.
+
+Three seagulls followed the vessel, now in a long line, now abreast, and
+now in a triangle. They sailed slowly about, dipping and rising in the
+vast hollows between the waves, turning their heads constantly from side
+to side.
+
+Vandover went to the stern and for a time found amusement in watching
+the indicator of the patent log, and listening for its bell. But his
+interest in this was soon exhausted, and he returned to the smoking-room
+again, reflecting that this was only the first afternoon and that there
+still remained two days that somehow had to be gone through with.
+
+About five o'clock, as he was on his way to get a glass of seltzer, he
+saw Grace Irving, the girl of the red hat whom he had met at the
+Mechanics' Fair, sitting on a camp-stool just inside of her stateroom
+eating a banana. The sight of her startled him out of all composure for
+the minute. His first impulse was to speak to her, but he reflected that
+he was done with all that now and that it was better for him to pass on
+as though he had not seen her, but as he came in front of her she looked
+up quickly and nodded to him very pleasantly in such a way that it was
+evident she had already known he was on board. It was impossible for
+Vandover to ignore her, and though he did not stop, he looked back at
+her and smiled as he took off his hat.
+
+He went down to supper in considerable agitation, marvelling at the
+coincidence that had brought them together again. He wondered, too, how
+she could be so pleasant to him now, for as a matter of course he had
+not kept the engagement he had made with her at the Fair. At the same
+time, he felt that she must think him a great fool not to have stopped
+and spoken to her; either he should have done that or else have ignored
+her little bow entirely. He was firmly resolved to have nothing to do
+with her, yet it chafed him to feel that she thought him diffident. It
+seemed now as though he owed it to himself to speak to her if only for a
+minute and make some sort of an excuse. By the time he had finished his
+supper, he had made up his mind to do this, and then to avoid her for
+the rest of the trip.
+
+As he was leaving the dining saloon he met her coming down the stairs
+alone, dressed very prettily in a checked travelling ulster with a gray
+velvet collar, and a little fore and aft cap to match. He stopped her
+and made his excuses; she did not say much in reply and seemed a little
+offended, so that Vandover could not refrain from adding that he was
+very glad to see her on board.
+
+"Ah, you don't seem as if you were, very," she said, putting out her
+chin at him prettily and passing on. It was an awkward and embarrassing
+little scene and Vandover was glad that it was over. But the thing had
+been done now, he had managed to show the girl that he did not wish to
+keep up the acquaintance begun at the Fair, and from now on she would
+keep out of his way.
+
+He took a few turns on the upper deck, smoking his pipe, walking about
+fast, while his dinner digested. The sun went down behind the black
+horizon in an immense blood-red nebula of mist, the sea turned from gray
+to dull green and then to a lifeless brown, and the _Santa Rosa's_
+lights began to glow at her quarters and at her masthead; in her stern
+the screw drummed and threshed monotonously, a puff of warm air reeking
+with the smell of hot oil came from the engine hatch, and in an instant
+Vandover saw again the curved roof of the immense iron-vaulted depot,
+the passengers on the platform staring curiously at the group around the
+invalid's chair, the repair gang in spotted blue overalls, and the huge
+white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.
+
+The wind freshened and he returned to the smoking-room to get warm. The
+same game of whist was going on, and the man with the Perrique tobacco
+had filled another pipe and continued to blow the smoke through his
+nose.
+
+After a while Vandover went back to the main deck and wandered aft,
+where he stood a long time looking over the stern, interested in
+watching the receding water. It was dark by this time, the wind had
+increased and had blown the fog to landward, and the ocean had changed
+to a deep blue, the blue of the sky at night; here and there a wave
+broke, leaving a line of white on the sea like the trail of a falling
+star across the heavens, while the white haze of the steamer's wake
+wandered vaguely across the intense blue like the milky way across the
+zenith.
+
+Vandover was horribly bored. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to
+amuse him, unless, indeed, he should decide to renew his acquaintance
+with Grace Irving. But this was out of the question now, for he knew
+what it would lead to. Even if he should yield to the temptation, he
+did not see how he could take any great pleasure in that sort of thing
+again, after what had happened.
+
+Of all the consequences of what he had done, the one which had come to
+afflict him the most poignantly was that his enjoyment of life was
+spoiled. At first he had thought that he never could take pleasure in
+anything again so long as he should live, that his good times were gone.
+But as his pliable character rearranged itself to suit the new
+environment, he began to see that there would come a time when he would
+grow accustomed to Ida's death and when his grief would lose its
+sharpness. He had even commenced to look forward to this time and to
+long for it as a sort of respite and relief. He believed at first that
+it would not be for a great many years; but even so soon after the
+suicide as this, he saw with a little thrill of comfort that it would be
+but a matter of months. At the same time Vandover was surprised and even
+troubled at the ease with which he was recovering from the first shock.
+He wondered at himself, because he knew he had been sincere in his talk
+with his father. Vandover was not given to self-analysis, but now for a
+minute he was wondering if this reaction were due to his youth, his good
+health and his good spirits, or whether there was something wrong with
+him. However, he dismissed these thoughts with a shrug of his shoulders
+as though freeing himself from some disagreeable burden. Ah, he was no
+worse than the average; one could get accustomed to almost anything; it
+was only in the books that people had their lives ruined; and to brood
+over such things was unnatural and morbid. Ah! what a dreadful thing to
+become morbid! He could not bring Ida back, or mitigate what he had
+done, or be any more sorry for it by making himself miserable. Well,
+then! Only he would let that sort of thing alone after this, the lesson
+had been too terrible; he would try and enjoy himself again, only it
+should be in other ways.
+
+Later in the evening, about nine o'clock, when nearly all the passengers
+were in bed, and Vandover was leaning over the side of the boat
+finishing his pipe before turning in himself, Grace Irving came out of
+her stateroom and sat down at a little distance from him, looking out
+over the water, humming a little song. She and Vandover were the only
+people to be seen on the deserted promenade.
+
+Vandover saw her without moving, only closing his teeth tighter on his
+pipe. It was evident that Grace expected him to speak to her and had
+given him a chance for an admirable little tete-a-tete. For a moment
+Vandover's heart knocked at his throat; he drew his breath once or twice
+sharply through his nose. In an instant all the old evil instincts were
+back again, urging and clamouring never so strong, never so insistent.
+But Vandover set his face against them, honestly, recalling his
+resolution, telling himself that he was done with that life. As he had
+said, the lesson had been too terrible.
+
+He turned about resolutely, and walked slowly away from her. The girl
+looked after him a moment, surprised, and then called out:
+
+"Oh, Mr. Vandover!"
+
+Vandover paused a moment, looking back.
+
+"Where are you going?" she went on. "Didn't you see me here? Don't you
+want to come and talk to me?"
+
+"No," answered Vandover, smiling good-humouredly, trying to be as polite
+as was possible. "No, I don't." Then he took a sudden resolution, and
+added gravely, "I don't want to have anything to do with you."
+
+In his stateroom, as he sat on the edge of his berth winding his watch
+before going to bed, he thought over what he had said. "That was a mean
+way to talk to a girl," he told himself, "but," he added, "it's the only
+thing to do. I simply couldn't start in again after all that's happened.
+Oh, yes, that was the right thing to do!"
+
+He felt a glow of self-respect for his firmness and his decision, a
+pride in the unexpected strength, the fine moral rigour that he had
+developed at the critical moment. He _could_ turn sharp around when he
+wanted to, after all. Ah, yes, that was the only thing to do if one was
+to begin all over again and live down what had happened. He wished that
+the governor might know how well he had acted.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Nine
+
+
+Vandover stayed for two weeks at Coronado Beach and managed to pass the
+time very pleasantly. He was fortunate enough to find a party at the
+hotel whom he knew very well. In the morning they bathed or sailed on
+the bay, and in the afternoon rode out with a pack of greyhounds and
+coursed jack-rabbits on the lower end of the island. Vandover's good
+spirits began to come back to him, his appetite returned, his nerves
+steadied themselves, he slept eight hours every night. But for all that
+he did not think that things were the same with him. He said to himself
+that he was a changed man; that he was older, more serious.
+
+During this time he received several letters from his father which he
+answered very promptly. In the course of their correspondence it was
+arranged that they should both leave for Europe on the twenty-fifth of
+that month, and that consequently, Vandover should return to the city
+not later than the fifteenth. Vandover was having such a good time,
+however, that he stayed over the regular steamer in order to go upon a
+moonlight picnic down on the beach. The next afternoon he took passage
+for San Francisco on a second-class boat.
+
+This homeward passage turned out to be one long misery for Vandover. He
+had never been upon a second-class boat before and had never imagined
+that anything could be so horribly uncomfortable or disagreeable. The
+_Mazatlan_ was overcrowded, improperly ballasted, and rolled
+continually. The table was bad, the accommodations inadequate, the
+passengers hopelessly uncongenial. Cold and foggy weather accompanied
+the boat continually. The same endless procession of bleached hills
+still filed past under the mist, going now in the opposite direction,
+and the same interminable game of whist was played in the smoking-room,
+only with greasier, second-class cards, amidst the acrid smoke of
+second-class tobacco. At supper, the first day out, a little Jew who sat
+next to Vandover, and who invariably wore a plush skull-cap with
+ear-laps, tried to sell him two flawed and yellow diamonds.
+
+The evening after leaving Port Hartford the _Mazatlan_ ran into dirty
+weather. It was not stormy--simply rough, disagreeable, the wind and sea
+directly ahead. Half an hour after supper Vandover began to be sick. For
+a long time he sat on the slippery leather cushions in the nasty
+smoking-room, sucking limes, drinking seltzer, and trying to be
+interested in the card games. He dozed a little and awoke, feeling
+wretched, covered with a cold sweat, racked by a pain in the back of his
+head, and tortured by an abominable nausea. He groped his way out upon
+the swaying, gusty deck, descended to his cabin, and went to bed.
+
+The _Mazatlan_ had booked more passengers than could be accommodated,
+the steward being obliged to make up beds on the floor of the dining
+saloon and even upon some of the tables. Vandover had not been able to
+get a stateroom, and so had put up with a bunk in the common cabin at
+the stern of the vessel.
+
+About two o'clock in the morning he woke up in this place frightfully
+sick at the stomach and wretched in body and mind. He had an upper bunk,
+and for a long time he lay on his back rolling about with the rolling of
+the steamer, vaguely staring straight above him at the roof of the
+cabin, hardly a hand's-breadth above his face. The roof was iron,
+painted with a white paint very thick and shiny, and was studded with
+innumerable bolt-heads and enormous nuts. By and by, for no particular
+reason, he rose on his elbow and, leaning over the side of his berth,
+looked about him.
+
+The light streaming from two strong-smelling ship's lanterns showed the
+cabin, long and narrow. There were two cramped passageways, on either
+side of which the tiers of bunks, mere open racks filled with bedding,
+rose to the roof, those occupied by women hung with spotted turkey-red
+calico.
+
+The cabin was two decks below the open air and every berth was occupied,
+the only ventilation being through the door. The air was foul with the
+stench of bilge, the reek of the untrimmed lamps, the exhalation of so
+many breaths, and the close, stale smell of warm bedding.
+
+A vague murmur rose in the air, the sound of deep breathing, the moving
+of restless bodies between the coarse sheets, the momentary noise of the
+scratching of blunt finger-tips, a subdued cough, the moan of a sleeping
+child. All the while the shaft of the screw, seemingly close beneath
+the floor, pounded and rumbled without a moment's stop.
+
+Immediately underneath Vandover two men, saloonkeepers, awoke and lit
+their cigars and began a long discussion on the question of license. Two
+or three bunks distant, a woman, a Salvation Army lassie, one of a large
+party of Salvationists who were on board, began to cough violently,
+choking for breath. Across the aisle the little Jew of the plush
+skull-cap with ear-laps snored monotonously in alternate keys, one a
+guttural bass, the other a rasping treble. The _Mazatlan_ was rolling
+worse than ever, now up and down, now from side to side, and now with
+long forward lurches that combined the other two motions. During one of
+these latter the little Jew was half awakened. He stopped snoring,
+leaving an abrupt silence in the air. Then Vandover could hear him
+threshing about uneasily; still half asleep he began to mutter and
+swear: "Dat's it, r-roll; I woult if I were you; r-roll, dat's
+righd--dhere, soh--ah, geep it oop--r-roll, you damnt ole tub, yust
+_r-r-roll_."
+
+The continued pitching, the foul air, and the bitter smoke from the
+saloonkeepers' cigars became more than Vandover could stand. His stomach
+turned, at every instant he gagged and choked. He suddenly made up his
+mind that he could stand it no longer, and determined to go on deck,
+preferring to walk the night out rather than spend it in the cabin. He
+drew on his shoes without lacing them, and dressed himself hurriedly,
+omitting his collar and scarf; he put his hat on his tumbled hair, swung
+into his overcoat, and, wrapping his travelling-rug around him, started
+up toward the deck. On the stairs he was seized with such a nausea that
+he could hardly keep from vomiting where he stood, but he rushed out
+upon the lower deck, gaining the rail with a swimming head.
+
+He sank back upon an iron capstan with a groan, weak and trembling, his
+eyes full of tears, a bursting feeling in his head. He was utterly
+miserable.
+
+It was about half-past two in the morning, and a cold raw wind was
+whistling through the cordage and flinging the steamer's smoke down upon
+the decks and upon the water like a great veil of crepe. A sickly
+half-light was spread out between the sea and the heavens. By its means
+he could barely distinguish great, livid blotches of fog or cloud
+whirling across the black sky, and the unnumbered multitude of
+white-topped waves rushing past, plunging and rising like a vast herd of
+black horses galloping on with shaking white manes. Low in the northeast
+horizon lay a long pale blur of light against which the bow of the
+steamer, inky black, rose and fell and heaved and sank incessantly. To
+the landward side and very near at hand, so near that he could hear the
+surf at their feet, the long procession of hills continually defiled,
+vague and formless masses between the sea and sky. The wind, the noise
+of the waves rushing past, the roll of the breakers and the groaning of
+the cordage all blended together and filled the air with a prolonged
+minor note, lamentable beyond words. The atmosphere was cold and damp,
+the spray flying like icy bullets. The sombre light that hung over the
+sea reflected itself in long blurred streaks upon the wet decks and
+slippery iron rods. Here and there about the rigging a tremulous ball of
+orange haze showed where the ship's lanterns were swung. Directly under
+him in the stern the screw snarled incessantly in a vortex of boiling
+water that forever swirled away and was lost in the darkness. From time
+to time the indicator of the patent log, just beside him, rang its tiny
+bell.
+
+Vandover drew his rug about him and went up to the main deck, dragging
+his shoelaces after him. The wind was stronger here, but he bent his
+head against it and went on toward the smoking-room, for the idea had
+occurred to him that he could shut himself in there and pass the rest of
+the night upon the cushions; anything was better than returning to the
+cabin downstairs.
+
+The deck was jerked away from beneath his feet, and he was hurled
+forward, many times his own length, against a companionway, breaking his
+thumb as he fell. A second shock threw him down again as he rose;
+everything about him shook and danced like glassware upon a jarred
+table. Then the whole ship rose under his feet as no wave had ever
+lifted it, and fell again, not into yielding water, but upon something
+that drove through its sides as if they had been paper. A deafening,
+crashing noise split the mournful howl of the wind, and far underneath
+him Vandover heard a rapid series of blows, a dreadful rumbling and
+pounding that thrilled and quivered through all the vessel's framework
+up to her very mast-tips. On all fours upon the deck, holding to a cleat
+with one hand, he braced himself, watching and listening, his senses all
+alive, his muscles tense. In the direction of the engine-room he heard
+the furious ringing of a bell. The screw stopped. The _Mazatlan_
+wallowed helplessly in the trough of the sea.
+
+Vandover's very first impulse was a wild desire of saving himself; he
+had not the least thought for any one else. Every soul on board might
+drown, so only he should be saved. It was the primitive animal instinct,
+the blind adherence to the first great law, an impulse that in this
+first moment of excitement could not be resisted. He ran forward and
+snatched a life-preserver from the pile that was stored beneath the
+bridge.
+
+As he was fastening it about him, the passengers began to pour out upon
+the deck, from their staterooms, from the companionways, and from the
+dining saloon. In an instant the deck was crowded. Men and women ran
+about in all directions, pushing and elbowing each other, calling
+shrilly over one another's heads. Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only
+in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again
+and again for a certain "August." She wrung her hands in her excitement;
+at times the man shouted "August!" in a quavering bass voice. "August,
+here we are over _here_!" "Oh, where _is_ Gussie?" wailed the woman.
+"Here, here I am," another voice answered at length; "here I am, I'm all
+right." "Oh," exclaimed the woman with a sob of relief, "here's Gussie;
+now let's all keep together whatever happens."
+
+All about the decks just such scenes were going on; most of the women
+wore only their night-gowns or dressing-gowns, their hair tumbling down
+and blowing about their cheeks, their bare feet slipping and sliding on
+the heaving wet decks. The men were in shirt and drawers, standing in
+the centre of their family groups, silent, excited, very watchful;
+others of them ran about searching for life-preservers, shouting
+hoarsely, talking to themselves, speaking all their thoughts aloud.
+
+But there was no panic; there was excitement, confusion, bewilderment,
+but no excess of fear, no unreasoning terror, deaf, blind, utterly
+reckless.
+
+All at once a man parted the crowd with shoulders and elbows, passing
+along the deck with great strides. It was the captain. The next instant
+Vandover saw him on the bridge, hatless, without his vest or his coat,
+just as he had sprung from his berth. From time to time he shouted his
+orders, leaning over the rail, gesturing with his arm. The crew ran
+about, carrying out his directions, jostling the men out of the way,
+knocking over women and children, speaking to no one, intent only upon
+their work.
+
+In a few moments the deck steward and one of the officers appeared amid
+the crowd of passengers. They were very calm, and at every instant
+shouted, "There is no danger; every one go back to his berth; clear the
+deck, please; no danger, gentlemen; everybody be quiet; go back to your
+berths!" The steward even came up to Vandover and pulled at the straps
+of his life-preserver, exclaiming, "Take this off! There is no danger;
+you're only exciting the other passengers. Come on, take it off and go
+back to your berth."
+
+Vandover obeyed him, slowly loosening the buckles, looking around him,
+bewildered, but still holding the preserver in his hands.
+
+Best of all, however, was the example of a huge old fellow wearing the
+cap and clothes of a boatswain's mate of a United States battleship; he
+seemed to dominate the excited throng in a moment, going about from
+group to group, quieting them all, spreading a feeling of confidence and
+courage throughout the whole ship. He was an inspiration to Vandover,
+who began to be ashamed of having yielded to the first selfish instinct
+of preservation.
+
+Just as the boatswain's mate was offering his flask to the woman whom
+Vandover had heard calling for "August," the _Mazatlan_ lurched heavily
+once or twice, and then slowly listed to the port side, going over
+farther and farther every instant. Vandover heard a renewed rumbling and
+smashing noise far beneath him, and in some way knew that the cargo was
+shifting. Instead of righting herself, the ship began to heave over more
+and more. The whole sea on the port side seemed to rise up to meet the
+rail; under Vandover's feet the incline of the deck grew steeper and
+steeper. All at once his excitement came back upon him with the
+sharpness of a blow, and he caught at the brass grating of a skylight
+exclaiming: "By God! We're going _over_." The women screamed with
+terror; one heard the men shouting, "Look out! hold on! catch hold
+there!" An old man, wearing only a gray flannel shirt, lost his footing;
+he fell, and rolled over and over down the deck stupidly, inertly,
+without making the slightest effort to save himself, without uttering
+the least cry; he brought up suddenly against the rail, with a great
+jar, the shock of his soft, withered body against the hard wood sounding
+like the sodden impact of a bundle of damp clothes. There was a cry;
+they thought him killed--Vandover had seen his head gashed against a
+sharp angle of iron--but he jumped up with sudden agility, clambering up
+the slope of the deck with the strength and rapidity of an acrobat.
+
+There had been a great rush to the other side of the ship, a wild
+scrambling up the steep deck, over skylights and between masts and
+ventilators. People clung to anything, to cleats, to steamer chairs, to
+the brass railings, to the person who stood next to them. They no longer
+listened to the protestations of the brave boatswain's mate; that last
+long roll had terrified them. The sense of a great catastrophe began to
+spread and widen all about like the rising of some fearful invisible
+mist. "_What_ had happened? What was to become of them?"
+
+While Vandover clung to the starboard rail, rolling his eyes wildly,
+trying to control himself again, a young man, a waiter in the dining
+saloon, rushed up to him from out of the crowd, holding out his hand.
+"It's all up!" he shouted.
+
+Vandover grasped his extended palm, shaking hands with him fervently,
+without knowing why. The two looked straight into each other's eyes,
+their hands gripped close; then the waiter turned away, and dropping on
+his knees began to pray silently to himself.
+
+Vandover saw a great many others praying; there was even a large group
+gathered about the band of Salvationists trying to raise a hymn. Every
+now and then their voices could be heard, singing all out of tune, a
+medley of discords.
+
+At one time Vandover caught sight of the little Jew of the plush cap
+with the ear-laps; he was grovelling upon the deck, huddling a small
+black satchel to his breast; without a moment's pause he screamed, "God
+'a' mercy! God 'a' mercy!"
+
+The sight revolted Vandover and in a great measure helped to calm him.
+In a few moments he had himself in hand again, cool and self-collected,
+resolved not to act like a fool before the others, but to help them if
+he could.
+
+Near to him a Salvation Army lassie was down upon her knees trying to
+cord up a huge bundle wrapped in sail-cloth. "Here," exclaimed Vandover
+coming up to her, "let me help. I'll tie this for you--you put _this_
+on." He took the wet, stiff ropes from between her fingers and held the
+life-preserver toward her; but she refused it.
+
+"No," she cried enthusiastically, "I'm going to be saved anyhow; I ain't
+going to drown; Jesus is watching over me. Oh!" she suddenly exclaimed
+with a burst of fervor, "Jesus is going to save me. I _know_ I'm going
+to be saved. I feel it, I feel it _here_," and she struck her palm on
+the breast of the man's red jersey she was wearing.
+
+"Well, I wish _I_ could have such a confidence," answered Vandover,
+sincerely envying the plain little woman under the ugly blue bonnet.
+
+She seemed as if inspired, her face glowing. "Only _believe_; that's
+all," she told him. "It isn't too late for you now. Ah," she went on,
+smiling, "ah, you don't know what it is in a time like this! What a
+comfort! What a support! Oh, _look, look_!" she cried, breaking off and
+starting to her feet. "That man is going to jump!"
+
+It was the boatswain's mate, the hero who had filled all the passengers
+with his own coolness and courage, who had been Vandover's inspiration.
+Some strange reaction seemed to have seized upon him. Of a sudden he
+rushed to the rail, the starboard rail that was heaved so high out of
+the water, stood upon it for a moment, and then with a great shout
+jumped over the side. His folly was as infectious as his courage. Four
+more men followed him, three going over all at the same time, and a
+fourth a little later, hanging an instant upon the outside of the rail,
+then dropping down feet first, disappearing with a great splash that
+made itself heard in the great silence that had suddenly fallen upon the
+throng.
+
+Every one had seen what had happened; a thrill of fear and apprehension
+passed over them all like a cold breath. They were silent, struck dumb,
+feeling the presence of death close by.
+
+Suddenly a long flash of yellow upon the bridge made a momentary streak
+on the darkness, and there was the report of a gun. A minute later it
+was fired again, and alternating with it the _Mazatlan's_ whistle began
+to roar, like a hoarse shout for help. Between these sounds could be
+heard the renewed clamour upon the decks, the shouting, the screaming,
+and the rush of many feet; the little children clung about the knees of
+their mothers, shrieking and wailing monotonously, "Oh, ma_ma_--oh,
+ma_ma_!" rolling their eyes fearfully behind them.
+
+But many of the children, even some of the older passengers, were
+absolutely silent, dazed, stupefied with terror and excitement, their
+eyes vague and distended, looking slowly about them, scarcely daring to
+move a limb.
+
+Meanwhile the _Mazatlan_ was settling forward, and already the spray was
+beginning to fly over the decks. Little by little the terror increased;
+people threw themselves down upon the deck, rising up again, their arms
+raised to heaven, praying aloud, screaming the same things over and over
+again. The Salvationists tried to raise another hymn, but the sound of
+their voices was drowned out by the tumult, the roaring of the whistle,
+the barking of the minute guns, the straining and snapping of the
+cordage, and the sound of waves drawing closer and closer. Prone upon
+the deck, his arms still clasped about his black satchel, the little Jew
+of the plush cap went into some kind of fit, his eyes rolled back, his
+teeth grinding upon each other. Vandover turned from him in disgust.
+Then he looked around and above him, drawing a long breath, saying aloud
+to himself:
+
+"It looks as though it were the end--well!"
+
+All at once Vandover knew that the water had reached the boilers; there
+came a noise of hissing: deafening, stunning; white billows of steam
+poured up over the deck.
+
+It was no longer the _Mazatlan_, no longer a thing of wood and iron, but
+some strange huge living creature that was dying there under his feet,
+some enormous brute that was plunging and writhing in its last agony,
+its belly ripped open by a hidden enemy that struck from beneath, its
+entrails torn out, its life-breath going from it in great gasps of
+steam. Suddenly its bellow collapsed; the great bulk was sinking lower;
+the enemy was in its very vitals. The great hoarse roar dwindled to a
+long death rattle, then to a guttural rasp; all at once it ceased; the
+brute was dead--the _Mazatlan_ was a wreck.
+
+Almost at the moment, he heard an order shouted twice from the bridge,
+where he could see the shadowy figures of the captain and officers
+moving about through the clouds of steam and smoke and mist. Immediately
+there followed the shrill piping of the boatswain's whistle; one of the
+officers, the first engineer, and some half dozen of the crew came
+dashing through the crowd, and there was a great shout of "The boats!
+The boats!"
+
+The crowd broke up, rushing here and there about the ship, reforming
+again in smaller bands by the boats and life-rafts. Vandover followed
+the first engineer, running forward toward one of the boats in the bow.
+
+"Come on!" he shouted to the little Salvationist lassie, pausing a
+moment to help her with her heavy canvas-covered bundle. "Come on!
+they're going to lower the boats."
+
+She started up to follow him and the boom of the foremast, which the
+accident had in some way loosened, swung across the deck at the same
+moment. Vandover was already out of its path but it struck the young
+woman squarely across the back. She dropped in a heap upon the deck,
+then her body slowly straightened out, stiff and rigid, her eyes rapidly
+opened and shut, and a great puff of white froth slowly started from her
+mouth. Vandover ran forward and lifted her up, but her back was broken;
+she was already dead. He rose to his feet exclaiming to himself, "But
+she was so sure--she _knew_ she was going to be saved," then suddenly
+fell silent again, gazing wonderingly at the body, disturbed, very
+thoughtful.
+
+When Vandover finally reached the lifeboat, he found a great crowd
+gathered there; three people were already in the boat itself. The first
+engineer, who commanded that boat, and three of the crew stood by the
+falls preparing to cast off. Just below on the deck of the _Mazatlan_
+stood two sailors keeping the crowd in order, continually shouting,
+"Women and children first!" As the women passed their children forward,
+the sailors lifted them into the boats, some shrieking, others silent
+and stupid as if stunned. Then the women were helped up; the men,
+Vandover among them, climbing in afterward. The davits were turned out
+and the boat was swung clear of the ship's side.
+
+Vandover looked out and below him and then made an involuntary movement
+to regain the ship's deck. Far below him, or so at least it seemed, were
+mountains of tumbling green water, huge, relentless, irresistible,
+rushing on by thousands, to shatter themselves with dreadful force
+against the ship's side. It seemed simple madness to attempt to launch
+the boat; even the sinking wreck would be safer than this chance.
+Vandover was terrified, again deserted by all his calmness and
+self-restraint.
+
+The sailors standing in the bow and the stern let out the ropes little
+by little, the vast black hulk of the ship began to loom up above them
+all, higher and higher, and to their eyes the lifeboat began to grow
+smaller and smaller, more and more frail, more and more pitiful.
+
+All at once it struck the water with a crash, in an instant it was
+tossed up again in the air, heaving on the crest of a wave, was carried
+in and dashed up against the ship, all the oars on that side snapping in
+an instant. It was a fearful moment; the little boat was unmanageable in
+an instant, leaping and plunging among the waves like a terrified horse,
+banged and battered between the heaving water and the hull of the
+steamer itself. Vandover believed that all was over; he partially rose
+from his seat preparing to jump before the boat should swamp.
+
+There was an interval of shouting and confusion, the first engineer and
+the crew leaning over the sides fending off the boat with the stumps of
+the oars and with long boathooks. Some oars were shipped to the other
+side to take the place of the broken ones, and a score of hands tugging
+at them, the boat was at length pulled away out of danger.
+
+The lifeboat had been built to hold thirty-five people; more than forty
+had crowded into it, and it needed all prudence and care to keep it
+afloat in the heavy seas that were running. The sailors and two of the
+passengers were at the oars, while the first engineer took command,
+standing in the stern at the steering-oar. He was dressed in a suit of
+oilskins, a life-preserver strapped under his arms; he wore no hat, and
+at every gust his drenched hair and beard whipped across his face.
+
+Just as the boat was pulling away from the wreck, Vandover and the
+others saw the little Jew of the plush cap with the ear-laps standing
+upon the rail of the steamer, holding to a stanchion. He believed that
+he had been abandoned, and screamed after them, stretching out his
+hands. The engineer turned and saw him, but shook his head. "Give way
+there!" he commanded the men; "there's no more room."
+
+The Jew flung his satchel from him and jumped; for a moment he
+disappeared, then suddenly came up on the crest of a wave, quite close
+to them, gasping and beating his hands, the water running out of his
+mouth, and his plush cap, glossy with wet, all awry and twisted so that
+one ear-lap hung over his eye like a shade. In another moment he had
+grasped one of the oar-blades. Every one was watching and there was a
+cry, "Draw him in!" But the engineer refused.
+
+"It's too late!" he shouted, partly to the Jew and partly to the boat.
+"One more and we are swamped. Let go there!"
+
+"But you can't let him drown," cried Vandover and the others who sat
+near. "Oh, take him in anyhow; we must risk it."
+
+"Risk hell!" thundered the engineer. "Look here, you!" he cried to
+Vandover and the rest. "I'm in command here and am responsible for the
+lives of all of you. It's a matter of his life or ours; one life or
+forty. One more and we are swamped. Let go there!"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried some. "It's too late! there's no more room!"
+
+But others still protested. "It's too horrible; don't let him drown;
+take him in." They threw him their life-preservers and the stumps of the
+broken oars. But the Jew saw nothing, heard nothing, clinging to the
+oar-blade, panting and stupid, his eyes wide and staring.
+
+"Shake him off!" commanded the engineer. The sailor at the oar jerked
+and twisted it, but the Jew still held on, silent and breathing hard.
+Vandover glanced at the fearfully overloaded boat and saw the necessity
+of it and held his peace, watching the thing that was being done. The
+sailor still attempted to tear the oar from the Jew's grip, but the Jew
+held on, panting, almost exhausted; they could hear his breathing in the
+boat. "Oh, don't!" he gasped, rolling his eyes.
+
+"Unship that oar and throw it overboard," shouted the engineer.
+
+"Better not, sir," answered the sailor. "Extra oars all broken." The Jew
+was hindering the progress of the boat and at every moment it threatened
+to turn broad on to the seas.
+
+"God damn you, let go there!" shouted the engineer, himself wrenching
+and twisting at the oar. "Let go or I'll shoot!"
+
+But the Jew, deaf and stupid, drew himself along the oar, hand over
+hand, and in a moment had caught hold of the gunwale of the boat. It
+careened on the instant. There was a great cry. "Push him off! We're
+swamping! Push him off!" And one of the women cried to the mate, "Don't
+let my little girls drown, sir! Push him away! Save my little girls! Let
+him drown!"
+
+It was the animal in them all that had come to the surface in an
+instant, the primal instinct of the brute striving for its life and for
+the life of its young.
+
+The engineer, exasperated, caught up the stump of one of the broken oars
+and beat on the Jew's hands where they were gripped whitely upon the
+boat's rim, shouting, "Let go! let go!" But as soon as the Jew relaxed
+one hand he caught again with the other. He uttered no cry, but his face
+as it came and went over the gunwale of the boat was white and writhing.
+When he was at length beaten from the boat he caught again at the oar;
+it was drawn in, and the engineer clubbed his head and arms and hands
+till the water near by grew red. The little Jew clung to the end of the
+oar like a cat, writhing and grunting, his mouth open, and his eyes
+fixed and staring. When his hands were gone, he tried to embrace the oar
+with his arms. He slid off in the hollow of a wave, his body turned over
+twice, and then he sank, his head thrown back, his eyes still open and
+staring, and a silver chain of bubbles escaping from his mouth.
+
+"Give way, men!" said the engineer.
+
+"Oh, God!" exclaimed Vandover, turning away and vomiting over the side.
+
+A little while later some one on the bow of the boat called to the
+engineer asking why it was they were not heading for the shore. The
+engineer did not answer, but Vandover in some way understood that it was
+too dangerous to attempt to run the breakers in such heavy weather, and
+that they must keep in the open, holding the boat head on to the seas
+until either the wind fell or they were picked up by some other vessel.
+
+It was still very dark, and seen under the night from the little boat,
+the ocean and the sky seemed immense and terrible; the great waves grew
+out of the obscurity ahead of them, rushing down upon the boat, big,
+swelling, silent, their crests occasionally hissing and breaking into
+irruptions of cold white froth. As one of them would draw near, the boat
+would rise upon it as though it would never stop, would hang a moment
+upon its summit and then topple into the black gulf that followed,
+sending the bitter icy spray high into the air. The wind blew steadily.
+Suddenly toward three o'clock it began to rain.
+
+Vandover, the engineer, all the five sailors, and two of the passengers
+were clothed. The rest of the passengers were little better than naked.
+Here and there a man had snatched a blanket from his berth, and one or
+two of them were wearing their trousers, but the rest were clothed for
+the most part only with their shirts and drawers. There were eighteen
+women and five little girls in the boat. The little girls were well
+looked after. Two were wrapped in Vandover's travelling-rug and a couple
+of men had put their coats around the third. But there were not wraps
+enough to go around among the women, by far the larger part of them were
+covered only by their night-dresses or their bed-gowns.
+
+It was abominably cold; the rain fell continually, and the wind blew in
+long gusts, piercing, cutting. Every plunge of the boat threw icy
+bullets of spray into the air, which the wind caught up and flung down
+broad upon the boat. Sometimes even a huge wave would break just upon
+their quarter, and then great torrents of bitter, freezing water would
+fall over them in a deluge, leaving a sediment of salt that cracked the
+skin. The women were huddled upon the bottom of the boat near the waist,
+where they had been placed for greater safety. They were fouled with
+the muddy water that gathered there, their long hair dishevelled,
+dripping with sleet, clinging to their wet cheeks and throats, their
+bodies showing pink with cold, through their thin, soaked coverings,
+their limbs racked with long incessant shudderings, a wretched group,
+miserable beyond words. One of them close by Vandover's feet, he noticed
+particularly, had but a single garment to cover her. She was drenched
+through and through, her bare feet were blue with the cold, her head was
+thrown back, her eyes closed. She was silent except when an unusual gust
+of wind whipped the rain and spray across her body like the long, fine
+lash of a whip. Then with every breath she moaned, drawing in her breath
+between her teeth with a little whistling gasp, too weak, too exhausted,
+too nearly unconscious to attempt to shield herself in any way.
+
+Vandover could do nothing; he had almost stripped himself to help clothe
+the others. Nothing more could be done. The suffering had to go on, and
+he began to wonder how human beings could endure such stress and yet
+live.
+
+But Vandover himself suffered too keenly to take much thought for the
+sufferings of the others, while besides that anguish which he shared
+with the whole boat, the pain in his broken thumb gnawed incessantly
+like a rat. From time to time he stared listlessly about him, looking at
+the dark sky, the tumbling ocean, and the crowded groups in the
+plunging, rolling lifeboat.
+
+There was nothing picturesque about it all, nothing heroic. It was
+unlike any pictures he had seen of lifeboat rescues, unlike anything he
+had ever imagined. It was all sordid, miserable, and the sight of the
+half-clad women, dirty, sodden, unkempt, stirred him rather to disgust
+than to pity.
+
+At last the dawn came and grew white over a world of tumbling green
+billows and scudding wrack. Some three miles distant, seen only when the
+boat topped a higher wave, the same procession of bleached hills moved
+gradually to the south under the fog, their feet covered by the white
+line of the surf. Not far behind in the wake of the boat the stern of
+the _Mazatlan_ rose out of a ring of white foam, the waves breaking over
+her as if she had been there for ages, the screw writhing its flanges
+into the air like some enormous starfish already fastened upon the hulk.
+
+One of the other boats could be seen now and then between them and the
+shore, a momentary dot of black on the vast blur of green and gray.
+
+There was no conversation; the men relieved each other at the oars or
+bailed out the water with their caps and hands, scarcely interchanging a
+word. The only utterance was an occasional moaning from among the women
+and children. There was nothing to eat; long since the two whisky flasks
+had been exhausted. The rain fell steadily into the sea with a prolonged
+rippling noise.
+
+Vandover was leaning upon the gunwale of the boat, his head buried in
+his arms, when suddenly he raised himself and asked of the man who sat
+next to him:
+
+"What was the matter last night? What caused the accident?"
+
+The other shook his head, wearily, turning away again. However, the
+engineer answered:
+
+"We couldn't carry coal enough to keep up the right pressure of steam
+and drifted in upon a reef. I said once before that it would happen some
+time."
+
+About an hour later Vandover dropped off to sleep, in spite of the cold,
+the wet, and the torment in his thumb. He dozed and woke, and dozed
+again all through the morning. About noon he was awakened by a more
+violent rolling of the boat, the sound of voices, and a stir among the
+other passengers.
+
+It was still raining; the boat was no longer cutting the waves with her
+nose, but was being rowed seaward flank on; a sailor stood in the bow
+holding a coil of rope. Close in and seen over the tops of the waves
+were the shaking and slatting sails of a pilot-boat, lying to. One of
+the sails bore an enormous number six.
+
+Vandover slept all that day and the night following, rolled in hot
+blankets. The next morning he awoke with a strange sense of unreality
+and of having dropped a day somewhere. As he lay in his stuffy little
+bunk between decks, and felt the rolling of the pilot-boat under him, he
+still fancied himself upon the _Mazatlan_; he felt the pain in his
+bandaged thumb and wondered how it came there. Then his fall on the deck
+came back to him, the wreck of the steamer, the excitement on board,
+the reports of the rifle fired as a minute gun, the clouds of steam that
+smelt of a great laundry, and the drowning of the little Jew of the
+plush cap with the ear-laps. He shuddered and grew sick again for a
+minute, telling himself that he would never forget that scene.
+
+Such of the passengers as could get about breakfasted as best they could
+in the cabin with the boatkeeper and four of the pilots. Here they were
+informed as to what was to be done with them. The schooner would not go
+in for two weeks, and it was out of the question to keep the castaways
+on board for that length of time. However, at that moment the pilots
+were cruising in the neighbourhood on the lookout for two Cape Horners
+that were expected to be up at any moment. It was decided that when the
+first of these should be met with the party should be transferred.
+
+An hour after they had been picked up, the wind had begun to freshen. By
+noon of the second day it had come on to blow half a gale. One could
+hope only for the best as regarded the rest of the _Mazatlan's_ boats
+and rafts. Not another sign of the wreck was seen by the schooner.
+
+The castaways filled the little schooner to overflowing, hindering her
+management, and getting in the way at every step. The pilot crew hustled
+them about without ceremony, and after dinner one had to intervene to
+prevent a fight between one of them and a sailor from the _Mazatlan_
+over the question of a broken pipe. The women of the _Mazatlan_ kept in
+their berths continually, rolled in hot blankets, dosed with steaming
+whisky punches. In the afternoon, however, Vandover saw two of them in
+the lee of the house attempting to dry their hair; one of them was the
+woman he had particularly noticed in the lifeboat clad in a night-dress,
+and he wondered vaguely where the dress had come from she now was
+wearing.
+
+About three o'clock of the afternoon of the following day Vandover was
+sitting on the deck near the stern, fastening on his shoes with a length
+of tarred rope, the laces which he had left trailing having long before
+broken and pulled out. By that time the wind was blowing squally out of
+the northeast. The schooner was put under try sails, "a three-reefed
+mitten with the thumb brailed up," as he heard the boatkeeper call it.
+This latter was at the wheel for a moment, but in a little while he
+called up a young man dressed in a suit of oilskins and a pea jacket and
+gave him the charge. For a long time Vandover watched the boy turning
+the spokes back and forth, his eyes alternating between the binocle and
+the horizon.
+
+In the evening about half-past ten, the lookout in the crow's nest sang
+out: "Smoke--oh!" sounding upon his fish horn. The boatkeeper ran aft
+and lit a huge calcium flare, holding it so as to illuminate the big
+number on the mainsail. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile off their
+weather-bow, a couple of rockets left a long trail of yellow against the
+night. It was the Cape Horner, and presently Vandover made out her
+lights, two glowing spots moving upon the darkness, like the eyes of
+some nocturnal sea-monster. In a few minutes she showed a blue light on
+the bridge; she wanted a pilot.
+
+The schooner approached and was laid to, and the towering mass of the
+great deep-sea tramp began to be dimly seen through the darkness. There
+was little confusion in making the transfer of the castaways. Most of
+them seemed still benumbed with their recent terrible exposure. They
+docilely allowed themselves to be pushed into the pilot tender and again
+endured the experience of being lowered to the shifting waves below.
+Silently, like frightened sheep, they stood up in turn in the rocking
+tender and allowed the life preserver to be fitted about their shoulders
+to protect them from the bite of the rope's noose beneath their arms.
+There followed a sickening upward whirl between sea and sky, and then
+the comforting grasp of many welcoming hands from the deck above. By
+three o'clock in the morning the transfer had been made.
+
+Vandover boarded the Cape Horner in company with the pilot and the rest
+and reached San Francisco late on the next day, which happened to be a
+Sunday.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Ten
+
+
+About ten o'clock Vandover went ashore in the ship's yawl and landed in
+the city on a literally perfect day in early November. It seemed many
+years since he had been there. The drizzly morning upon which the _Santa
+Rosa_ had cast off was already too long ago to be remembered. The city
+itself as he walked up Market Street toward Kearney seemed to have taken
+on a strange appearance.
+
+It was Sunday, the downtown streets were deserted except for the
+cable-cars and an occasional newsboy. The stores were closed and in
+their vestibules one saw the peddlers who were never there on week-days,
+venders of canes and peddlers of glue with heavy weights attached to
+mended china plates.
+
+Vandover had had no breakfast and was conscious of feeling desperately
+hungry. He determined to breakfast downtown, as he would arrive home too
+late for one meal and too early for the other.
+
+Almost all of his money had been lost with the _Mazatlan_; he found he
+had but a dollar left. He would have preferred breakfasting at the
+Grillroom, but concluded he was too shabby in appearance, and he knew he
+would get more for his money at the Imperial.
+
+It was absolutely quiet in the Imperial at the hour when he arrived. The
+single bartender was reading a paper, and in the passage between the
+private rooms a Chinese with a clean napkin wound around his head was
+polishing the brass and woodwork. In the passage he met Toby, the
+red-eyed waiter, just going off night duty, without his usual apron or
+white coat, dressed very carefully, wearing a brown felt hat.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Vandover?" exclaimed Toby. "Haven't seen you
+round here for some time." Vandover was about to answer when the other
+interrupted:
+
+"Well, what's happened to _you_? Look as though you'd been drawn through
+hell backward and beaten with a cat!"
+
+In fact Vandover's appearance was extraordinary. His hat was torn and
+broken, and his clothes, stained with tar and dirt, shrunken and
+wrinkled by sea-water. His shoes were fastened with bits of tarred rope;
+he was wearing a red flannel shirt with bone buttons which the
+boatkeeper on the pilot boat had given him, tied at the neck with a
+purple handkerchief of pongee silk; his hair was long, and a week's
+growth of beard was upon his lip and cheeks.
+
+"That's a fact," he answered grimly. "I do look queer. I was in a wreck
+down the coast," he added hastily.
+
+"The _Mazatlan!_" exclaimed Toby. "That's a fact; the papers have been
+full of it. That's so, you were one of the survivors."
+
+"The survivors!" echoed Vandover with wondering curiosity. "Tell me--you
+know I haven't heard a word yet--were there many lives lost?" He
+marvelled at the strangeness of the situation, that this bar waiter
+should know more of the wreck than he himself who had been upon it.
+
+"You bet there were!" answered Toby. "Twenty-three altogether; one boat
+capsized; Kelly, 'Bug' Kelly, son of that fellow that runs the Crystal
+Grotto, _he_ was drowned, and one of Hocheimer's--Hocheimer, the
+jeweller, you know--one of his travelling salesmen was drowned; a little
+Jew named Brann, a diamond expert; he jumped overboard and--"
+
+"Don't!" said Vandover with a sharp gesture. "I saw him drown--it was
+sickening."
+
+"Were you in that boat?" exclaimed Toby. "Well, wait till I tell you;
+the authorities here are right after that first engineer with a sharp
+stick, and some of the passengers, too, for not taking him in. A woman
+in one of the other boats saw it all and gave the whole thing away. A
+thing like that is regular murder, you know." Vandover shut his teeth
+against answering, and after a little Toby went on, willing to talk.
+"You know, we've got a new man for the day-work down here now--George
+isn't here any more. No, he's going to start a roadhouse out on the
+almshouse drive in a few months; swell place, you know. I'll have him
+send you cards for the opening."
+
+Vandover ordered oysters, an omelette, and a pint of claret from the new
+waiter who did the day-work, and ate and drank the meal--the like of
+which he had not tasted since leaving Coronado--with delicious
+enjoyment.
+
+He delayed over it long, taking a great pleasure in satisfying the
+demands of the animal in him. The wine made him heavy, warm, stupid; he
+felt calm, soothed, and perfectly contented, and had to struggle
+against a desire to go to sleep where he was. The atmosphere of the
+Imperial was warm and there was a tepid languor in the air as of the
+traces of many past debauches, a stale odour of sweetened whisky and of
+musk. After the roughness and hardships of the last week he felt a
+pleasant sense of quiet, of relaxation, of enervation. He even began to
+wish that Flossie would come in. This, however, made him rouse himself;
+he shook himself, and started home, paying his carfare with his last
+nickel.
+
+He sat on the outside of the car, wondering if any one he knew would see
+him, half hoping that such a thing might happen, realizing the dramatic
+interest that would centre about him now in his present condition as a
+survivor of a wreck. The idea soon attracted him immensely and he began
+to look out for any possible acquaintance as the car began to climb over
+Nob Hill.
+
+At the crossing of Polk Street he saw Ida Wade's mother in deep
+mourning, standing near a grocery store holding a little pink parcel.
+
+It was like a blow between the eyes. Vandover caught his breath and
+started violently, feeling again for an instant the cold grip of the
+hysterical terror that had so nearly overcome him on the morning after
+Ida's death. It slowly relaxed, however, and by the time he had reached
+the house on California Street he was almost himself again.
+
+It was about church time when Vandover arrived at home once more. There
+was a Sunday quiet in the air. The bells were ringing, and here and
+there family groups on their way to church, the children walking in
+front, very sedate in their best clothes, carrying the prayer-books
+carefully, by special privilege.
+
+The butler was working in the garden, as he sometimes did of a Sunday
+morning, pottering about a certain bed of sweet-peas, and it was the
+housekeeper who answered his ring. She recognized him with a prolonged
+exclamation, raising her hands to heaven.
+
+"O-oh, and is it you, Mr. Vandover, sir? Ah, how we've been upset about
+you and all, and it's glad to see you back again your father will be!
+Oh, such times as we had when we heard about the wreck and knowing you
+were on it! Yes, sir, your father's _pretty_ well, though he was main
+poorly yesterday morning. But he's better now. You'll find him in the
+smoking-room now, sir."
+
+Vandover pushed open the door of the smoking-room quietly. His father
+was sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before the fireplace.
+He was dead, and must have died some considerable time before, as he was
+already cold. He could have suffered no pain, hardly a muscle had moved,
+and his attitude was quite natural, the legs crossed, the right hand
+holding the morning's paper. However, as soon as Vandover touched the
+body it collapsed and slid down into a heap in the depth of the chair,
+the jaw dropping open, the head rolling sidewise upon his shoulder.
+
+Vandover ran out into the hall, waving his arms, shouting for the
+servants. "Oh, why didn't you tell me?" he cried to the housekeeper "Why
+did you let me find him so? When did he die?" The housekeeper was
+distraught. She couldn't believe it. Only a little while ago he had
+called her to say there were no more matches in the little brass
+matchsafe. She began to utter long cries and lamentations like a hen in
+distress, raising her hands to heaven. All at once they heard some one
+rushing up the stairs. It was the butler, in his shirt-sleeves and his
+enormous apron of ticking, still carrying his trowel in his hand. He was
+bewildered, his eyes protruding, while all about him he spread the smell
+of fresh earth. At every instant he exclaimed:
+
+"What? What? What's the matter?"
+
+"Oh, my dear old governor--and all alone!" cried Vandover through shut
+teeth.
+
+"Oh, oh, the good God!" exclaimed the housekeeper, crossing herself and
+rolling her eyes. "And him asking for matches in the little brass box
+only a minute since. Oh, the good, kind master!"
+
+Suddenly Vandover rushed down the stairs and through the front hall,
+snatching his hat from the hatrack as he passed. He ran to call the
+family doctor, who lived some two blocks below on the same street. He
+caught him just as he was getting into the carry-all with his family,
+bound for church.
+
+Vandover and the physician rode back together in the carry-all, the two
+gray horses going up the steep hill at a trot. The doctor was dressed
+for church; he wore red gloves with thick white seams, a spray of
+lilies-of-the-valley in his lapel.
+
+"I'm afraid we can do nothing," he said warningly. "It's your father's
+old enemy, I suppose. This was--it was sure to happen sooner or later.
+Any sudden shock, you know."
+
+Vandover scarcely listened, holding the door of the carry-all open with
+one hand, ready to jump out, beating the other hand upon his knee.
+
+"Go back and take the rest of them to church now," said the doctor to
+his coachman when the carry-all stopped in front of Vandover's house.
+
+The whole house was in the greatest agitation all the rest of the day.
+The curtains were drawn, the door bell rang incessantly, strange faces
+passed the windows, and the noise of strange footsteps continually
+mounted and descended the staircase. The hours for meals were all
+deranged, the table stood ready all day long, and one ate when there was
+a chance. The telephone was in constant use, and at every moment
+messenger boys came and went, people spoke in low tones, walking on
+tiptoe; the florist's wagon drove to the door again and again, and the
+house began to smell of tuberoses. Reporters came, waiting patiently for
+interviews, sitting on the leather chairs in the dining-room, or writing
+rapidly on a corner of the dining-table, the cloth pushed back. The
+undertaker's assistants went about in their shirt-sleeves, working very
+hard, and toward the middle of the afternoon the undertaker himself tied
+the crepe to the bell handle.
+
+Little by little a subdued excitement spread throughout the vicinity.
+The neighbours appeared at their windows, looking down into the street,
+watching everything that went on. It was a veritable event, a matter of
+comment and interest for the whole block. Women found excuses to call on
+each other, talking over what had happened, as they sat near their
+parlour windows, shaking their heads at each other, peering out between
+the lace curtains. The people on the cable-cars and the pedestrians
+looked again and again at the crepe on the bell handle, and the
+curtained windows, craning their necks backward when they had passed.
+The neighbours' children collected in little groups on the sidewalk near
+the house, looking and pointing, drawn close together, talking in low
+tones. At last even a policeman appeared, walking deliberately, casting
+the shadow of his huge stomach upon the fence that was about the vacant
+lot. He frowned upon the children, ordering them away. But suddenly he
+discovered an acquaintance, the driver of an express-wagon that had just
+driven up with an enormous anchor of violets. He paused, exclaiming:
+
+"Why, hello, Connors!"
+
+"Why, hello, Mister Brodhead!"
+
+Then a long conversation was begun, the policeman standing on the
+curbstone, one foot resting upon the hub of a wheel, the expressman
+leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, twirling his whip between his
+hands. The expressman told some sort of story, pointing with his elbow
+toward the house, but the other was incredulous, gravely shaking his
+head, putting his chin in the air, and closing his eyes.
+
+Inside the house itself there was a hushed and subdued bustling that
+centred about a particular room. The undertaker's assistants and the
+barber called in low voices through the halls for basins of water and
+towels. There was a search for the Old Gentleman's best clothes and his
+clean linen; bureau drawers were opened and shut, closet doors softly
+closed. Relatives and friends called and departed or stayed to help. A
+vague murmur arose, a mingled sound of whispers and light foot-steps,
+the rustle of silks, and the noise of stifled weeping, and then at last
+silence, night, solitude, a single gas-jet burning, and Vandover was
+left alone.
+
+The suddenness of the thing had stunned and dizzied him, and he had gone
+through with all the various affairs of the day wondering at his
+calmness and fortitude. Toward eleven o'clock, however, after the
+suppressed excitement of the last hours, as he was going to bed, the
+sense of his grief and loss came upon him all of a sudden, with their
+real force for the first time, and he threw himself upon the bed face
+downward, weeping and groaning. During the rest of the night pictures of
+his father returned to him as he had seen him upon different occasions,
+particularly three such pictures came and went through his mind.
+
+In one the Old Gentleman stood in that very room, with the decanter in
+his hand, asking him kindly if he felt very bad; in another he was on
+the pier with his handkerchief tied to his cane, waving it after
+Vandover as though spelling out a signal to him across the water. But in
+a third, he was in the smoking-room, fallen into the leather chair, his
+arm resting on the table and his head bowed upon it.
+
+After the funeral, which took place from the house, Vandover drove back
+alone in the hired carriage to his home. He would have paid the driver,
+but the other told him that the undertaker looked out for that. Vandover
+watched him a moment as he started his horses downhill, the brake as it
+scraped against the tire making a noise like the yelping of a dog. Then
+he turned and faced the house. It was near four o'clock in the
+afternoon, and everything about the house was very quiet. All the
+curtains were down except in one of the rooms upstairs. The butler had
+already opened these windows and was airing the room. Vandover could
+hear him moving about, sweeping up, rearranging the furniture, making up
+the bed again. In front of him, between the horse-block and the front
+door, one or two smilax leaves were still fallen, and a tuberose,
+already yellow. Behind him in the street he had already noticed the
+marks of the wheels of the hearse where it had backed up to the curb.
+
+The crepe was still on the bell handle. Vandover did not know whether it
+had been forgotten, or whether it was proper to leave it there longer.
+At any rate he took it off and carried it into the house with him.
+
+His father's hat, a stiff brown derby hat, flat on the top, hung on the
+hatrack. This had always been a sign to Vandover that his father was at
+home. The sight was so familiar, so natural, that the same idea occurred
+to him now involuntarily, and for an instant it was as though he had
+dreamed of his father's death; he even wondered what was this terrible
+grief that had overwhelmed him, and thought that he must go and tell his
+father about it. He took the hat in his hands, turning it about
+tenderly, catching the faint odour of the Old Gentleman's hair oil that
+hung about it. It all brought back his father to him as no picture ever
+could; he could almost _see_ the kind old face underneath the broad curl
+of the brim. His grief came over him again keener than ever and he put
+his arms clumsily about the old hat, weeping and whispering to himself:
+
+"Oh, my poor, dear old dad--I'm never going to see you again, never,
+never! Oh, my dear, kind old governor!"
+
+He took the hat up to his room with him, putting it carefully away. Then
+he sat down before the window that overlooked the little garden in the
+rear of the house, looking out with eyes that saw nothing.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eleven
+
+
+The following days as they began to pass were miserable. Vandover had
+never known until now how much he loved his father, how large a place he
+had filled in his life. He felt horribly alone now, and a veritable
+feminine weakness overcame him, a crying need to be loved as his father
+had loved him, and also to love some one as he himself had loved his
+father. Worst of all, however, was his loneliness. He could think of no
+one who cared in the least for him; the very thought of Turner Ravis or
+young Haight wrought in him an expression of scorn. He was sure that he
+was nothing to them, though they were the ones whom he considered his
+best friends.
+
+Another cause of misery was the fact that his father's death in leaving
+him alone had also thrown him upon his own resources. Now he would have
+to shoulder responsibilities which hitherto his father had assumed, and
+decide questions which until now his father had answered.
+
+However, he felt that his father's death had sobered him as nothing
+else, not even Ida's suicide, had done. The time was come at length for
+him to take life seriously. He would settle down now to work at his art.
+He would go to Paris as his father had wished, and devote himself
+earnestly to painting. Yes, the time was come for him to steady himself,
+and give over the vicious life into which he had been drifting.
+
+But it was not long before Vandover had become accustomed to his
+father's death, and had again rearranged himself to suit the new
+environment which it had occasioned. He wondered at himself because of
+the quickness with which he had recovered from this grief, just as
+before he had marvelled at the ease with which he had forgotten Ida's
+death. Could it be true, then, that nothing affected him very deeply?
+Was his nature shallow?
+
+However, he was wrong in this respect; his nature was not shallow. It
+had merely become deteriorated.
+
+Two days after his father's death Vandover went into the Old Gentleman's
+room to get a certain high-backed chair which had been moved there from
+his own room during the confusion of the funeral, and which, pending
+the arrival of the trestles, had been used to support the coffin.
+
+As he was carrying it back his eye fell upon a little heap of objects
+carefully set down upon the bureau. They were the contents of the Old
+Gentleman's pockets that the undertaker had removed when the body was
+dressed for burial.
+
+Vandover turned them over, sadly interested in them. There was the
+watch, some old business letters and envelopes covered with memoranda,
+his fountain-pen, a couple of cigars, a bank-book, a small amount of
+change, his pen-knife, and one or two tablets of chewing-gum.
+
+Vandover thrust the pen and the knife into his own pocket. The
+bank-book, letters, and change he laid away in his father's desk, but
+the cigars and the tablets of gum, together with the crumpled
+pocket-handkerchief that he found on another part of the dressing-case,
+he put into the Old Gentleman's hat, which he had hidden on the top
+shelf of his clothes closet. The watch he hung upon a little brass
+thermometer that always stood on his centre table. He even wound up the
+watch with the resolve never to let it run down so long as he should
+live.
+
+The keys, however, disturbed him, and he kept changing them from one
+hand to the other, looking at them very thoughtfully. They suggested to
+him the inquiry as to whether or no his father had made a will, and how
+much money he, Vandover, could now command. One of the keys was a long
+brass key. Vandover knew that this unlocked a little iron box that from
+time out of mind had been screwed upon the lower shelf of the clothes
+closet in his father's room. It was in this box that the Old Gentleman
+kept his ready money and a few important papers.
+
+For a long time Vandover stood undecided, changing the keys about from
+one hand to the other, hesitating before opening this iron box; he could
+not tell why. By and by, however, he went softly into his father's room,
+and into the clothes closet near the head of the bed. Holding the key
+toward the lock, he paused listening; it was impossible to rid his mind
+of the idea that he was doing something criminal. He shook himself,
+smiling at the fancy, assuring himself of the honesty of the thing, yet
+opening the box stealthily, holding the key firmly in order that it
+might not spring back with a loud click, looking over his shoulder the
+while and breathing short through his nose.
+
+The first thing that he saw inside was a loaded revolver, the sudden
+view of which sent a little qualm through the pit of his stomach. He
+took it out gingerly, holding it at arm's length, throwing open the
+cylinder and spilling out the cartridges on the bed, very careful to let
+none of them fall on the floor lest they should explode.
+
+Next he drew out the familiar little canvas sack. In it were
+twenty-dollar gold-pieces, the coin that used to be "Good for the
+Masses." Behind that was about thirty dollars in two rolls, and last of
+all in an old, oblong tin cracker-box a great bundle of papers. A list
+of these papers was pasted on one end of the box. They comprised deeds,
+titles, insurance policies, tax receipts, mortgages, and all the papers
+relating to the property. Besides these there was the will.
+
+He took out this box, laying it on the shelf beside him. He was closing
+the small iron safe again very quietly when all at once, before he could
+think of what he was doing, he ran his hand into the mouth of the canvas
+sack, furtively, slyly, snatched one of the heavy round coins, and
+thrust it into his vest pocket, looking all about him, listening
+intently, saying to himself with a nervous laugh, "Well, isn't it mine
+anyway?"
+
+In spite of himself he could not help feeling a joy in the possession of
+this money as if of some treasure-trove dug up on an abandoned shore. He
+even began to plan vaguely how he should spend it.
+
+However, he could not bring himself to open any of the papers, but sent
+them instead to a lawyer, whom he knew his father had often consulted. A
+few days later he received a typewritten letter asking him to call at
+his earliest convenience.
+
+It was at his residence and not at his office that Vandover saw the
+lawyer, as the latter was not well at the time and kept to his bed.
+However, he was not so sick but that his doctor allowed him to transact
+at least some of his business. Vandover found him in his room, a huge
+apartment, one side entirely taken up by book-shelves filled with works
+of fiction. The walls were covered with rough stone-blue paper, forming
+an admirable background to small plaster casts of Assyrian
+_bas-reliefs_ and large photogravures of Renaissance portraits.
+Underneath an enormous baize-covered table in the centre of the room
+were green cloth bags filled apparently with books, padlocked tin
+chests, and green pasteboard deed-boxes. The lawyer was sitting up in
+bed, wearing his dressing-gown and occasionally drinking hot water from
+a glass. He was a thin, small man, middle-aged, with a very round head
+and a small pointed beard.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Vandover?" he said, very pleasantly as Vandover
+passed by the servant holding open the door and came in.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Field?" answered Vandover, shaking his hand. "Well,
+I'm sorry to see you like this."
+
+"Yes," answered the lawyer, "I'm--I have trouble with my digestion
+sometimes, more annoying than dangerous, I suppose. Take a chair, won't
+you? You can find a place for your hat and coat right on the table
+there. Well," he added, settling back on the pillows and looking at
+Vandover pleasantly, "I think you've grown thinner since the last time I
+saw you, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover grimly, "I guess I have."
+
+"Yes, yes, I suppose so, of course," responded the lawyer with a vague
+air of apology and sympathy. "You have had a trying time of it lately,
+taking it by and large. I was _very_ painfully shocked to hear of your
+father's death. I had met him at lunch hardly a week before; he was a
+far heartier man than I was. Eat? You should have seen--splendid
+appetite. He spoke at length of you, I remember; told me you expected to
+go abroad soon to study painting; in fact, I believe he was to go to
+Paris with you. It was very sad and very sudden. But you know we've all
+been expecting--been fearing--that for some time."
+
+They both were silent for a moment, the lawyer looking absently at the
+foot-board of the bed, nodding his head slowly from time to time,
+repeating, "Yes, sir--yes, sir." Suddenly he exclaimed, "Well--now,
+let's see." He cleared his throat, coming back to himself again, and
+continued in a very businesslike and systematic tone:
+
+"I have looked over your father's papers, Mr. Vandover, as you
+requested me to, and I have taken the liberty of sending for you to let
+you know exactly how you stand."
+
+"That's the idea, sir," said Vandover, very attentive, drawing up his
+chair.
+
+Mr. Field took a great package of oblong papers from the small table
+that stood at the head of his bed, and looked them over, adjusting his
+eyeglasses. "Well, now, suppose we take up the real property first," he
+continued, drawing out three or four of these papers and unfolding them.
+"All of your father's money was invested in what we call 'improved
+realty.'"
+
+He talked for something over an hour, occasionally stopping to answer a
+question of Vandover's, or interrupting himself to ask him if he
+understood. At the end it amounted to this:
+
+The bulk of the estate was residence property in distant quarters of the
+city. Some twenty-six houses, very cheaply built, each, on an average,
+renting for twenty-eight dollars. When all of these were rented, the
+gross monthly income was seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars. At this
+time, however, six were vacant, bringing down the gross receipts per
+month to five hundred and sixty dollars. The expenses, which included
+water, commissions for collecting, repairs, taxes, interest on
+insurance, etc., when expressed in the terms of a monthly average,
+amounted to one hundred and eighty-six dollars.
+
+"Well, now, let's see," said Vandover, figuring on his cuff, "one
+hundred and eighty-six from five hundred and sixty leaves me a net
+monthly income of three hundred and eighty-four--no, seventy-four. Three
+hundred and seventy-four dollars."
+
+The lawyer shook his head while he drank another glass of hot water:
+
+"You see," he said, wiping his moustache in the hollow of his palm, "you
+see, we haven't figured on the mortgages yet."
+
+"Mortgages?" echoed Vandover.
+
+"Yes," answered Mr. Field, "when I spoke of expenses I was basing them
+upon the monthly statements of Adams & Brunt, your father's agents. But
+they never looked after the mortgages. Your father acted directly with
+the banks in that matter. I find that there are mortgages that cover the
+entire property, even the homestead. They are for 6-1/2 and 7 per cent.
+In some cases there are two mortgages on the same piece of property."
+
+"Well," said Vandover.
+
+"Well," answered the lawyer, "the interest on these foots up to about
+two hundred and ninety dollars a month."
+
+Vandover made another hasty calculation on his cuff, and leaned back in
+his chair staring at the lawyer, saying:
+
+"Why, that leaves eighty-four dollars a month, net."
+
+"Yes," assented Field. "I made it that, too."
+
+"Why, the governor used to allow _me_ fifty a month," returned Vandover,
+"just for pocket money."
+
+"I'm afraid you mustn't expect anything like that, now, Mr. Vandover,"
+replied Field, smiling. "You see, when your father was alive and
+pursuing his profession, he made a comfortable income besides that which
+he derived from his realty. His law business I consider to have been
+excellent when you take everything into consideration. He often made
+five hundred dollars a month at it. Such are the figures his papers
+show. He could make you a handsome allowance while he was alive, but all
+that is stopped now!"
+
+"Well, but didn't he--didn't he leave any money, any--any--any lump
+sum?" inquired Vandover incredulously.
+
+"There was his bank account," answered the other. "You see, he invested
+most of his savings in this same realty, and since he stopped building
+he seems to have lived right up to his income."
+
+"But eighty-four dollars!" repeated Vandover; "why, look at the house on
+California Street where we live. It costs that much to run it, the
+servants and all."
+
+"Here's your father's domestic-account book," answered Field, taking it
+up and turning the leaves. "One hundred and seventy-five dollars a month
+were the average running expenses."
+
+_"One hundred and seventy-five!"_ shouted Vandover, feeling suddenly as
+if the ground were opening under him. "Why, great heavens! Mr. Field,
+where am I going to get--what am I going to _do_?"
+
+Mr. Field smiled a little. "Well," he said, "you must make up your mind
+to live more modestly."
+
+"Modestly?" exclaimed Vandover, scornfully.
+
+"You'll have to rent the house and take rooms."
+
+Vandover gave a gasp of relief.
+
+"I hadn't thought of that," he answered, subsiding at once. "How much
+would it bring--the house?"
+
+The lawyer hesitated as to this. "That I could hardly tell you
+definitely," he answered, shaking his head. "Adams & Brunt could give
+you more exact figures. In fact, I would suggest that you put it into
+their hands. California near Franklin, isn't it? Yes; the neighbourhood
+isn't what it used to be, you know. Every one wants to live out on
+Pacific Heights now. Double house? Yes, well--with the furniture, I
+suppose--oh, I don't know--say, a hundred and fifty. But, you know, my
+estimate is only guesswork. Brunt is the man you want to see."
+
+"Well," answered Vandover, solaced, "that makes--two thirty-four; that's
+more like it. But," he added, hastily, "you say the homestead is
+mortgaged as well; how about the interest on that?"
+
+"You needn't be bothered about that," answered Mr. Field. "The interest
+on _that_ mortgage is included in the two hundred and ninety that I
+spoke of, and the insurance interest on the homestead is included in
+Adams & Brunt's statement. That was on the whole estate _with_ the
+homestead, you understand? But there is another thing you must look out
+for. Most of the mortgages are for one year, and every time they are
+renewed there is an expense of between forty and fifty dollars."
+
+"Yes, I see," assented Vandover.
+
+"Now," resumed the lawyer, "here is your father's bank account. He had
+in the First National to his credit between nine and ten thousand
+dollars; nine thousand seven hundred and ninety, to be exact. His
+professional account book shows that there is now due him in bills and
+notes eight hundred and thirty dollars; on the debit side he owes in all
+nine hundred; the difference, you see, is seventy. Nine thousand seven
+hundred and ninety less seventy leaves a balance of nine thousand seven
+hundred and twenty. All clear?" he asked, interrupting himself. Vandover
+nodded and the other continued:
+
+"Now, your father left a will; here it is. I drew it for him a year ago
+last September. He has given fifteen hundred dollars to some cousin in
+the southern part of the state, and six hundred to a few charities here
+in the city. The remainder, seven thousand five hundred and twenty, and
+all the rest of the estate is left to you with the wish that you pursue
+your art studies abroad. Brunt, of Adams & Brunt, and myself are
+appointed executors. So now, that is just how you stand as far as I can
+see: seventy-five hundred dollars in ready money and, if we suppose you
+rent the California Street house, income property that nets you two
+hundred and thirty-four a month. The will will have to be probated some
+time next month and you will have to appear; however, I shall let you
+know about that in time."
+
+During the next two weeks Vandover was plunged into the affairs of
+business for the first time in his life. It interested and amused him,
+and he felt a certain self-importance in handling large sums of money,
+and in figuring interest, rents, and percentages. Three days after his
+interview with Mr. Field the sale of his father's office effects took
+place, and the consequent five hundred dollars Vandover turned over into
+the hands of the lawyer, who was already looking for an investment for
+the eighty-nine hundred. This matter had given Vandover considerable
+anxiety.
+
+"I don't want anything fancy," he said to Field. "No big per cents. and
+bigger risks. If I've got to live economically I want something that's
+secure. A good solid investment, don't you know, with a fair interest;
+that's what I'm looking for."
+
+"Yes," answered the lawyer grimly; "I've been looking for that myself
+ever since I was your age."
+
+They both laughed, and the lawyer added: "Has Brunt found a tenant for
+the California Street house yet? No? Well, perhaps you had better keep
+that five hundred for your running expenses until he does. It will
+probably take some time."
+
+"All right," answered Vandover. "There were a couple of women up to look
+at the place yesterday, but they wanted to use it for a boarding-house.
+I won't hear to that. Brunt says they would ruin it, dead sure."
+
+"I suppose you are looking around, yourself, for rooms?" inquired Mr.
+Field. "Have you found anything to suit you?"
+
+"No," answered Vandover, "I have not. I don't like the idea of living
+in one of the downtown hotels, and as far as I have looked, the uptown
+flats are rather steep. However, I haven't gone around very much as yet.
+I've been so busy. Oh, how about the paving of the street in front of
+those Bush Street houses of mine? Brunt says that the supervisors have
+passed a resolution of intention to that effect. Now shall I let the
+city contractor have the job or give it to Brunt's man?"
+
+"Better let the city people do it," advised Field. "They may charge
+more, but you needn't pay _them_ for a long time."
+
+By the end of three weeks Vandover had sickened of the whole thing. The
+novelty was gone, and business affairs no longer amused him. Besides
+this, he was anxious to settle down in some comfortable rooms. It was
+now the middle of winter and he had determined that it was not the
+season for a European trip. He would wait until the summer before going
+to Paris.
+
+Little by little Vandover turned over the supervision and management of
+his affairs and his property to Adams & Brunt, declaring that he could
+not afford to be bothered with them any longer. This course was much
+more expensive and by no means so satisfactory from a business point of
+view, but Vandover felt as though the loss in money was more than offset
+by his freedom from annoyance and responsibility.
+
+He was eager to get settled. The idea of taking rooms that should be all
+his own and that he could fit up to suit his taste attracted him
+immensely. Already he saw himself installed in charming bachelor's
+apartments, the walls covered with rough stone-blue paper forming an
+admirable background for small plaster casts of Assyrian _bas-reliefs_
+and photogravures of Velasquez portraits. There would be a pipe-rack
+over the mantelpiece, and a window-seat with a corduroy cushion such as
+he had had in his room in Matthew's.
+
+Very slowly his father's affairs were settled, and by degrees the estate
+began to adjust itself to the new grooves in which it was to run. By the
+middle of December everything was beginning to go smoothly, and the day
+before Christmas Mr. Field announced to Vandover that he had invested
+his eighty-nine hundred in registered U.S. 4 per cents. They had had
+several long talks concerning this sum of money, and in the end had
+concluded that it would be better to invest it in some such fashion
+rather than to take up any of the mortgages that were on the houses.
+
+During the first weeks of the new year the house on California Street
+was rented for one hundred and twenty-five dollars to an English
+gentleman, the president of a fruit syndicate in the southern part of
+the state. There were but three in the family, and though the rent was
+below that which Vandover had desired, Brunt advised him to close the
+transaction at once, as they were desirable tenants and would probably
+stay in the house a long time.
+
+On the last evening which he was to spend in his home, Vandover cast up
+his accounts and made out a schedule as to his monthly income.
+
+    Rent from realty, net average                                  $ 84.00
+    Rent from homestead property on California Street               125.00
+    Interest on U.S. bonds, 4 per cent.                              23.00
+                                                                   _______
+        Total                                                      $232.00
+    In small iron safe                                             $170.00
+    Received from sale of office effects                           $500.00
+                                                                   _______
+                                                                   $670.00
+    Expenses, outstanding bills, lawyer's fees, undertaker's
+      bill, expenses for collecting, etc                            587.00
+                                                                   _______
+    Balance, January 16th                                           $83.00
+
+Then with a shrug of the shoulders he dismissed the whole burdensome
+business from his mind. Brunt would manage his property, sending him
+regularly the monthly statement in order to keep him informed. The
+English gentleman of the fruit syndicate would add his hundred and
+twenty-five, and the 4 per cents., faithfully brooding over his
+eighty-nine hundred in the dark of the safety deposit drawer, would
+bring forth their little quota of twenty-three with absolute certainty.
+Two thirty-two a month. Yes, he was comfortably fixed and was free now
+to do exactly as he pleased.
+
+His first object now was to settle down for the winter in some pleasant
+rooms. He had decided that he would look for a suite of three--a
+bedroom, studio, and sitting-room. The bedroom he was not particular
+about, the studio he hoped would have plenty of light from the north,
+but the sitting-room _must_ be sunny and overlook the street, else what
+would be the use of a window-seat? As to the neighbourhood, he thought
+he would prefer Sutter Street anywhere between Leavenworth and Powell.
+
+In the downtown part this street was entirely given over to business
+houses; in the far, uptown quarter it was lined with residences; but
+between these two undesirable extremes was an intermediate district
+where the residences had given place to flats, and the business blocks
+to occasional stores. It was a neighbourhood affected by doctors,
+dentists, and reputable music-teachers; drug stores occupied many of the
+corners, here and there a fine residence still withstood the advance of
+business, there were a number of great apartment houses, and even one or
+two club buildings.
+
+It was a gay locality, not too noisy, not too quiet. The street was one
+of the great arteries of travel between the business and the residence
+portions of the city, and its cable-cars were frequented by ladies going
+to their shopping or downtown marketing or to and from the matinees.
+Acquaintances of Vandover were almost sure to pass at every hour.
+
+He took rooms temporarily at the Palace and at once set about locating
+on Sutter Street. He had recourse again to Brunt, who furnished him with
+a long list of vacancies in that neighbourhood. Apartment-hunting was an
+agreeable pastime to Vandover, though in the end it began to bore him.
+Altogether, he visited some fifteen or twenty suites, in each case
+trying to fit himself into the rooms, imagining how the window-seat
+would look in such a window, how the pipe-rack would show over such a
+mantel, just where on such walls the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ could be
+placed to the best advantage, and if his easel could receive enough
+steady light from such windows. Then he considered the conveniences, the
+baths, the electric light, and the heat.
+
+After a two weeks' search, he had decided upon one of two suites; both
+of these were in the desired neighbourhood but differed widely in other
+respects.
+
+The first was reasonable enough in the matter of rent, and had even been
+occupied by an artist for some three or four years previous. However,
+the room that Vandover proposed to use as a sitting-room was small and
+had no double windows, thus making the window-seat an impossibility.
+There did not seem to be any suitable place for the Assyrian
+_bas-reliefs_, and the mantelpiece was of old-fashioned white marble
+like the mantelpiece in Mrs. Wade's front parlour, a veritable horror.
+It revolted Vandover even to think of putting a pipe-rack over it. These
+defects were offset by the studio, a large and splendid room with
+hardwood floors and an enormous north light, the legendary studio, the
+dream of an artist, precisely such a studio as Vandover had hoped he
+would occupy in the Quarter.
+
+The other suite was in a great apartment house, a hotel in fact, but
+very expensive, with electric bulbs and bells, and with a tiled bathroom
+connecting with the bedroom. The room which he would be obliged to use
+as his studio was small, dark, the light coming from the west. But the
+sitting-room was perfect. It had the sun all day long through a huge bay
+window that seemed to have been made for a window-seat; there were
+admirable, well-lighted spaces on the walls for casts and pictures, and
+the mantelpiece was charming, extremely high, and made of oak; in a
+word, the exact sitting-room that Vandover had in mind. Already he saw
+himself settled there as comfortably and snugly as a kernel in a
+nutshell. It was true that upon investigation he found that the grate
+had been plastered up and the flue arranged for a stove. But for that
+matter there were open-grate stoves to be had that would permit the fire
+to be seen and that would look just as cheerful as a grate. He had even
+seen such a stove in the window of a hardware store downtown, a tiled
+stove with a brass fender and with curious flamboyant ornaments of
+cast-iron--a jewel of a stove.
+
+For two days Vandover hesitated between these two suites, undecided
+whether he should sacrifice his studio for his sitting-room, or his
+sitting-room for his studio. At length he came to the conclusion that as
+he was now to be an artist a good studio ought to be the first
+consideration, and that since he was to settle down to hard, serious
+work at last he owed it to himself to have a fitting place in which to
+paint; yes, decidedly he would take the suite with the studio. He went
+to the agent, told him of his decision, and put up a deposit to secure
+the rooms.
+
+The same day upon which he took this decided step he had occasion to
+pass by both places in question. As he approached the apartment house
+in which the rejected suite was situated it occurred to him to tell the
+clerk in the office that he had decided against the rooms; he could take
+a last look at them at the same time.
+
+He was shown up to the rooms again, and walked about in the
+sitting-room, asking the same questions about the heat, the plumbing,
+and the baths. He even went to the window and looked out into the
+street. It _was_ a first-rate berth just the same, and how jolly it
+would be to lounge in the window-seat of a morning, with a paper, a
+cigarette, and a cup of coffee, watching the people on their way
+downtown; the women going to their shopping and morning's marketing.
+Then all at once he remembered that at most he would only have these
+rooms for five months, and reflected that if his whole life was to be
+devoted to painting he might easily put up with an inconvenient studio
+for a few months. Once at Paris all would be different.
+
+At that the rooms took on a more charming aspect than ever; never had
+they appeared cheerier, sunnier, more comfortable; never had the oak
+mantel and the tiled stove with the flamboyant ornaments been more
+desirable; never had a window-seat seemed more luxurious, never a
+pipe-rack more delectable, while at the same time, the other rooms, the
+rooms of the big studio, presented themselves to his imagination more
+sombre, uncomfortable, and forbidding than ever. It was out of the
+question to think of living there; he was angry with himself for having
+hesitated so long. But suddenly he remembered the deposit he had already
+made; it was ten dollars; for a moment he paused, then dismissed the
+matter with an impatient shrug of the shoulders. "So much the worse," he
+said. "What's ten dollars?" He made up his mind then and there and went
+downstairs, walking on his heels, to tell the clerk that after all he
+would engage the rooms from that date.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Twelve
+
+
+Vandover took formal possession of his rooms on Sutter Street during the
+first few days of February. For a week previous they had been in the
+greatest confusion: the studio filled with a great number of trunks,
+crates, packing cases, and furniture still in its sacking. In the
+bedroom was stored the furniture that had been moved out of the
+sitting-room, while the sitting-room itself was given over to the
+paperhangers and carpenters. Vandover himself appeared from time to
+time, inquiring anxiously as to the arrival of his "stuff," or sitting
+on a packing-case, his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back, and a
+cigarette between his lips.
+
+He had passed a delightful week selecting the wall paper and the pattern
+for the frieze, buying rugs, screens, Assyrian _bas-reliefs_,
+photogravures of Renaissance portraits, and the famous tiled stove with
+its flamboyant ornaments. Just after renting his home he had had a talk
+with the English gentleman of the fruit syndicate and had spoken about
+certain ornaments and bits of furniture, valuable chiefly to himself,
+which he wished to keep. The president of the fruit syndicate had been
+very gracious in the matter, and as soon as Vandover had taken his rooms
+he had removed two great cases of such articles from the California
+Street house and had stored them in the studio.
+
+After the workmen were gone away Vandover began the labour of
+arrangement, aided by one of the paperhangers he had retained for that
+purpose. It was a work of three days, but at last everything was in its
+place, and one evening toward the middle of the month Vandover stood in
+the middle of the sitting-room in his shirt-sleeves, holding the
+tweezers and a length of picture-wire in his hand, and looked around him
+in his new home.
+
+The walls were hung with dull blue paper of a very rough texture set off
+by a narrow picture moulding of ivory white. A dark red carpet covered
+with rugs and skins lay on the floor. Upon the left-hand wall, reaching
+to the floor, hung a huge rug of sombre colours against which were fixed
+a fencing trophy, a pair of antlers, a little water colour sketch of a
+Norwegian fjord, and Vandover's banjo; underneath it was a low but very
+broad divan covered with corduroy. To the right and left of this divan
+stood breast-high bookcases with olive green curtains, their tops
+serving as shelves for a multitude of small ornaments, casts of animals
+by Fremiet and Barye, Donatello's lovely _femme inconnue_, beer steins,
+a little bronze clock, a calendar, and a yellow satin slipper of
+Flossie's in which Vandover kept Turkish cigarettes. The writing-desk
+with the huge blue blotter in a silver frame, the paper-cutter, and the
+enormous brass inkstand filled the corner to the right of the divan,
+while drawn up to it was the huge leather chair, the chair in which the
+Old Gentleman had died. In the drawer of the desk Vandover kept his
+father's revolver; he never thought of loading it; of late he had only
+used it to drive tacks with, when he could not find the hammer. Opposite
+the divan, on the other side of the room, was the famous tiled stove
+with the flamboyant ornaments; back of this the mantel, and over the
+mantel a row of twelve grotesque heads in plaster, with a space between
+each for a pipe. To the left in the angle of the room stood the Japanese
+screen in black and gold, and close to this a tea-table of bamboo and a
+piano-lamp with a great shade of crinkly red paper that Turner Ravis had
+given to Vandover one Christmas. The bay window was filled by the
+window-seat, covered with corduroy like the divan and heaped with
+cushions, one of them of flaming yellow, the one spot of vivid colour
+amidst the dull browns and sombre blues of the room. A great sideboard
+with decanters and glasses and chafing-dishes faced the window from the
+end wall. The entrance to the studio opened to the left of it, which
+entrance Vandover had hung with curtains of dust-brown plush.
+
+The casts of the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ were against the wall upon
+either side of the window. There were three of them, two representing
+scenes from the life of the king, the third the wounded lioness which
+Vandover never wearied of admiring.
+
+Upon the wall over the mantel hung two very large photogravures, one of
+Rembrandt's "Night Watch," the other a portrait of Velasquez
+representing a young man with a hunting spear. Above one of the
+bookcases was an admirable reproduction of the "Mona Lisa"; above the
+other, a carbon print of a Vandyke, a Dutch lady in a silk gown and very
+high ruff.
+
+By the side of the "Mona Lisa," however, was a cheap brass rack stuffed
+with photographs: actresses in tights, French quadrille dancers, high
+kickers, and chorus girls.
+
+In the studio, Vandover had tacked great squares and stripes of
+turkey-red cloth against the walls to serve as a background for his
+sketches. Some dozen or more portfolios and stretchers were leaned
+against the baseboard, and a few ornaments and pieces of furniture, such
+things as Vandover set but little store by, were carelessly arranged
+about the room. The throne and huge easel were disposed so as to receive
+as much light as was possible.
+
+Beyond the studio was the bedroom, but here there was only the
+regulation furniture. Some scores of photographs of Vandover's friends
+were tacked upon the walls, or thrust between the wood and glass of the
+mirror.
+
+A new life now began for Vandover, a life of luxury and aimlessness
+which he found charming. He had no duties, no cares, no
+responsibilities. But there could be no doubt that he was in a manner
+changed; the old life of dissipation seemed to have lost its charm. For
+nearly twenty-six years nothing extraordinary had happened to break in
+upon the uneventful and ordinary course of his existence, and then,
+suddenly, three great catastrophes had befallen, like the springing of
+three successive mines beneath his feet: Ida's suicide, the wreck, and
+his father's death, all within a month. The whole fabric of his
+character had been shaken, jostled out of its old shape. His desire of
+vice was numbed, his evil habits all deranged; here, if ever, was the
+chance to begin anew, to commence all over again. It seemed an easy
+matter: he would merely have to remain inactive, impassive, and his
+character would of itself re-form upon the new conditions.
+
+But Vandover made another fatal mistake: the brute in him had only been
+stunned; the snake was only soothed. His better self was as sluggish as
+the brute, and his desire of art as numb as his desire of vice. It was
+not a continued state of inaction and idleness that could help him, but
+rather an active and energetic arousing and spurring up of those better
+qualities in him still dormant and inert. The fabric of his nature was
+shaken and broken up, it was true, but if he left it to itself there was
+danger that it would re-form upon the old lines.
+
+And this was precisely what Vandover did. As rapidly as ever his pliable
+character adapted itself to the new environment; he had nothing to do;
+there was lacking both the desire and necessity to keep him at his
+easel; he neglected his painting utterly. He never thought of attending
+the life-class at the art school; long since he had given up his
+downtown studio. He was content to be idle, listless, apathetic, letting
+the days bring whatever they chose, making no effort toward any fixed
+routine, allowing his habits to be formed by the exigencies of the hour.
+
+He rose late and took his breakfast in his room; after breakfast he sat
+in his window-seat, reading his paper, smoking his pipe, drinking his
+coffee, and watching the women on their way downtown to their morning's
+shopping or marketing. Then, as the fancy moved him, he read a novel,
+wrote a few letters, or passed an hour in the studio dabbling with some
+sketches for the "Last Enemy." Very often he put in the whole morning
+doing pen and inks of pretty, smartly dressed girls, after Gibson's
+manner, which he gave away afterward to his friends. In the afternoon he
+read or picked the banjo or, sitting down to the little piano he had
+rented, played over his three pieces, the two polkas and the air of the
+topical song. At three o'clock, especially of Wednesday and Saturday
+afternoons, he bestirred himself, dressed very carefully, and went
+downtown to promenade Kearney and Market streets, stopping occasionally
+at the Imperial, where he sometimes found Ellis and Geary and where he
+took cocktails in their company.
+
+He rarely went out in the evenings; his father's death had changed all
+that, at least for a while. He had not seen Turner Ravis nor Henrietta
+Vance for nearly two months.
+
+Vandover took his greatest pleasure while in his new quarters, delighted
+to be pottering about his sitting-room by the hour, setting it to
+rights, rearranging the smaller ornaments, adjusting the calendar,
+winding the clock and, above all, tending the famous tiled stove.
+
+In his idleness he grew to have small and petty ways. The entire day
+went in doing little things. He passed one whole afternoon delightfully,
+whittling out a new banjo bridge from the cover of a cigar-box, scraping
+it smooth afterward with a bit of glass. The winding of his clock was
+quite an occurrence in the course of the day, something to be looked
+forward to. The mixing of his tobacco was a positive event and
+undertaken with all gravity, while the task of keeping it moist and ripe
+in the blue china jar, with the sponge attachment, that always stood on
+the bamboo tea-table by the Japanese screen, was a wearing anxiety that
+was yet a pleasure.
+
+It became a fad with him to do without matches, using as a substitute
+"lights," tapers of twisted paper to be ignited at the famous stove. He
+found amusement for two days in twisting and rolling these "lights,"
+cutting frills in the larger ends with a pair of scissors, and stacking
+them afterward in a Chinese flower jar he had bought for the purpose and
+stood on top of the bookcases. The lights were admirably made and looked
+very pretty. When he had done he counted them. He had made two hundred
+exactly. What a coincidence!
+
+But the stove, the famous tiled stove with flamboyant ornaments, was the
+chiefest joy of Vandover's new life. He was delighted with it; it was so
+artistic, so curious, it kept the fire so well, it looked so cheerful
+and inviting; a stove that was the life and soul of the whole room, a
+stove to draw up to and talk to; no, never was there such a stove! There
+was hardly a minute of the day he was not fussing with it, raking it
+down, turning the damper off and on, opening and shutting the door,
+filling it with coal, putting the blower on and then taking it off
+again, sweeping away the ashes with a little brass-handled broom, or
+studying the pictures upon the tiles: the "Punishment of Caliban and His
+Associates," "Romeo and Juliet," the "Fall of Phaeton." He even
+pretended to the chambermaid that he alone understood how to manage the
+stove, forbidding her to touch it, assuring her that it had to be coaxed
+and humoured. Often late in the evening as he was going to bed he would
+find the fire in it drowsing; then he would hustle it sharply to arouse
+it, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying: "Wake up there,
+you!" And then when the fire was snapping he would sit before it in his
+bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously and scratching himself, as was
+his custom, for over an hour.
+
+But very often in the evening he would have the boys, Ellis, Geary, and
+young Haight, up to a little improvised supper. They would bring home
+_tamales_ with them, and Vandover would try to make Welsh rabbits, which
+did not always come out well and which they oftentimes drank instead of
+ate. Ellis, always very silent, would mix and drink cocktails
+continually. Vandover would pick his banjo, and together with young
+Haight would listen to Geary.
+
+"Ah, you bet," this one would say, "I'm going to make my pile in this
+town. I can do it. Beale sent me to court the other morning to get the
+judge's signature. He had a grouch on, and wanted to put me off. You
+ought to have heard me jolly him. I talked right up to him! Yes, sir;
+you bet! Didn't I have the gall? That's the way you want to do to get
+along--get right in and not be afraid. I got his signature, you bet. Ah,
+I'm right in it with Beale; he thinks I'm hot stuff."
+
+Now that there was nothing to worry him, and little to occupy his mind,
+Vandover gave himself over considerably to those animal pleasures which
+he enjoyed so much. He lay abed late in the morning, dozing between the
+warm sheets; he overfed himself at table, and drank too much wine; he
+ate between meals, having filled his sideboard with canned pates, potted
+birds, and devilled meats; while upon the bamboo table stood a tin box
+of chocolates out of which he ate whole handfuls at a time. He would
+take this box into the bathroom with him and eat while he lay in the hot
+water until he was overcome by the enervating warmth and by the steam
+and would then drop off to sleep.
+
+It was during these days that Vandover took up his banjo-playing
+seriously, if it could be said that he did anything seriously at this
+time. He took occasional lessons of a Mexican in a room above a
+wigmaker's store on Market Street, and learned to play by note. For a
+little time he really applied himself; after he had mastered the
+customary style of play he began to affect the more brilliant and fancy
+performances, playing two banjos at once, or putting nickels under the
+bridge and picking the strings with a calling-card to imitate a
+mandolin. He even made up some comical pieces that had a great success
+among the boys. One of these he called the "Pleasing Pan-Hellenic
+Production"; another was the imitation of the "Midway Plaisance Music,"
+and a third had for title "A Sailor Robbing a Ship," in which he managed
+to imitate the sounds of the lapping of the water, the creaking of the
+oarlocks, the tramp of the sailor's feet upon the deck, the pistol shot
+that destroyed him, and--by running up the frets on the bass-string--his
+dying groans, a finale that never failed to produce a tremendous effect.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Thirteen
+
+
+Just before Lent, and about three months after the death of Vandover's
+father, Henrietta Vance gave a reception and dance at her house. The
+affair was one of a series that the girls of the Cotillon had been
+giving to the men of the same club. Vandover had gone to all but the
+last, which had occurred while he was at Coronado. He was sure of
+meeting Geary, young Haight, Turner Ravis, and all the people of his set
+at these functions, and had always managed to have a very jolly time. He
+had been very quiet since his father's death and had hardly gone out at
+all; in fact, since Ida Wade's death and his trip down the coast he had
+seen none of his acquaintances except the boys. But he determined now
+that he would go to this dance and in so doing return once more to the
+world that he knew. By this time he had become pretty well accustomed to
+his father's death and saw no reason why he should not have a good time.
+
+At first he thought he would ask Turner to go with him, but in the end
+made up his mind to go alone, instead; one always had a better time when
+one went alone. Young Haight would have liked to have asked Turner, but
+did not because he supposed, of course, that Vandover would take her. In
+the end Turner had Delphine act as her escort.
+
+Vandover arrived at Henrietta Vance's house at about half-past eight. A
+couple of workmen were stretching the last guy ropes of the awning that
+reached over the sidewalk; every window of the house was lighted. The
+front door was opened for the guest before he could ring, and he passed
+up the stairs, catching a glimpse of the parlours through the portieres
+of the doors. As yet they were empty of guests, the floors were covered
+with canvas, and the walls decorated with fern leaves. In a window
+recess one of the caterer's men was setting out two punch bowls and a
+multitude of glass cups; three or four musicians were gathered about the
+piano, tuning up, and one heard the subdued note of a cornet; the air
+was heavy with the smell of pinks and of La France roses.
+
+At the turn of the stairs the Vances' second girl in a white lawn cap
+directed him to the gentlemen's dressing-room, which was the room of
+Henrietta Vance's older brother. About a dozen men were here before him,
+some rolling up their overcoats into balls and stowing them with their
+canes in the corners of the room; others laughing and smoking together,
+and still others who were either brushing their hair before the mirrors
+or sitting on the bed in their stocking feet, breathing upon their
+patent leathers, warming them before putting them on. There were one or
+two who knew no one and who stood about unhappily, twisting the tissue
+paper from the buttons of their new gloves, and looking stupidly at the
+pictures on the walls of the room. Occasionally one of the gentlemen
+would step to the door and look out into the hall to see if the ladies
+whom they were escorting were yet come out of their dressing-room, ready
+to go down.
+
+On the centre table stood three boxes of cigars and a great many
+packages of cigarettes, while extra hairbrushes, whiskbrooms, and papers
+of pins had been placed about the bureau.
+
+As Vandover came in, he nodded pleasantly to such of the men as he knew,
+and, after hiding his hat and coat under the bed, shook himself into his
+clothes again and rearranged his dress tie.
+
+The house was filling up rapidly; one heard the deadened roll of wheels
+in the street outside, the banging of carriage doors, and an incessant
+rustle of stiff skirts ascending the stairs. From the ladies'
+dressing-room came an increasing soprano chatter, while downstairs the
+orchestra around the piano in the back parlour began to snarl and whine
+louder and louder. About the halls and stairs one caught brief glimpses
+of white and blue opera cloaks edged with swan's-down alternating with
+the gleam of a starched shirt bosom and the glint of a highly polished
+silk hat. Odours of sachet and violets came and went elusively or
+mingled with those of the roses and pinks. An air of gayety and
+excitement began to spread throughout the house.
+
+"Hello, old man!" "Hello, Van!" Charlie Geary, young Haight, and Ellis
+came in together. "Hello, boys!" answered Vandover, hairbrush in hand,
+turning about from the mirror, where he had been trying to make his hair
+lie very flat and smooth.
+
+"Look here," said Geary, showing him a dance-card already full, "I've
+got every dance promised. I looked out for that at the last one of these
+affairs; made all my arrangements and engagements then. Ah, you bet, I
+don't get left on any dance. That's the way you want to rustle. Ah," he
+went on, "had a bully sleep last night. I knew I was going to be out
+late to-night, so I went to bed at nine; didn't wake up till seven. Had
+a fine cutlet for breakfast."
+
+It was precisely at this moment that Geary got his first advancement in
+life. Mr. Beale, Jr., head clerk in the great firm of Beale & Story,
+came up to him as he was drawing off his overcoat:
+
+"How is Fischer?" asked Geary.
+
+Beale, Jr., pulled him over into a corner, talking in a low voice. "He's
+even worse than yesterday," he answered. "I think we shall have to give
+him a vacation, and that's what I want to speak to you about. If you
+can, Geary, I should like to have you take his place for a while, at
+least until we get through with this contract case. I don't know about
+Fischer. He's sick so often, I'm afraid we may have to let him go
+altogether."
+
+Suddenly the orchestra downstairs broke out into a clash of harmony and
+then swung off with the beat and cadence of a waltz. The dance was
+beginning; a great bustle and hurrying commenced about the
+dressing-rooms and at the head of the stairs; everybody went down. In
+the front parlour by the mantel Henrietta Vance and Turner stood on
+either side of Mrs. Vance, receiving, shaking hands, and laughing and
+talking with the different guests who came up singly, in couples, or in
+noisy groups.
+
+No one was dancing yet. The orchestra stopped with a flourish of the
+cornet, and at once a great crowding and pushing began amidst a vast hum
+of talk. The cards were being filled up, a swarm of men gathered about
+each of the more popular girls, passing her card from hand to hand while
+she smiled upon them all helplessly and good-naturedly. The dance-cards
+had run short and some of the men were obliged to use their visiting
+cards; with these in one hand and the stump of a pencil in the other,
+they ran about from group to group, pushing, elbowing, and calling over
+one another's heads like brokers in a stock exchange.
+
+Geary, however, walked about calmly, smiling contentedly, very
+good-humoured. From time to time he stopped such a one of the hurrying,
+excited men as he knew and showed him his card made out weeks before,
+saying, "Ah, how's that? _I_ am all fixed; made all my engagements at
+the last one of these affairs, even up to six extras. That's the way you
+want to rustle."
+
+Young Haight was very popular; everywhere the girls nodded and smiled at
+him, many even saving a place on their cards for him before he had
+asked.
+
+Ellis took advantage of the confusion to disappear. He went up into the
+deserted dressing-room, chose a cigar, unbuttoned his vest and sat down
+in one chair, putting his feet upon another. The hum of the dance came
+to him in a prolonged and soothing murmur and he enjoyed it in some
+strange way of his own, listening and smoking, stretched out at ease in
+the deserted dressing-room.
+
+Vandover went up to Turner Ravis smiling and holding out his hand. She
+seemed to be curiously embarrassed when she saw him, and did not smile
+back at him. He asked to see her card, but she drew her hand quickly
+from his, telling him that she was going home early and was not dancing
+at all, that in fact she had to "receive" instead of dance. It was
+evident to Vandover that he had done something to displease her, and he
+quickly concluded that it was because he had not asked her to go with
+him that evening.
+
+He turned from her to Henrietta Vance as though nothing unusual had
+happened, resolving to see her later in the evening and in the meanwhile
+invent some suitable excuse. Henrietta Vance did not even see his hand;
+she was a very jolly girl, ordinarily, and laughed all the time. Now she
+looked him squarely in the face without so much as a smile, at once
+angry and surprised; never had anything seemed so hateful and
+disagreeable. Vandover put his hand back into his pocket, trying to
+carry it all off with a laugh, saying in order to make her laugh with
+him as he used to do, "Hello! how do you do this evening? It's a
+pleasant morning this afternoon." "How do you do?" she answered
+nervously, refusing to laugh. Then she turned from him abruptly to talk
+to young Haight's little cousin Hetty.
+
+Mrs. Vance was neither embarrassed nor nervous as the girls had been.
+She stared calmly at Vandover and said with a peculiar smile, "I am
+surprised to see you here, Mr. Vandover."
+
+An hour later the dance was in full swing. Almost every number was a
+waltz or a two-step, the music being the topical songs and popular airs
+of the day set to dance music.
+
+About half-past ten o'clock, between two dances, the cornet sounded a
+trumpet call; the conversation ceased in a moment, and Henrietta Vance's
+brother, standing by the piano, called out, "The next dance will be the
+_first extra_," adding immediately, "a _waltz_." The dance recommenced;
+in the pauses of the music one heard the rhythmic movement of the feet
+shuffling regularly in one-two-three time.
+
+Some of the couples waltzed fast, whirling about the rooms, bearing
+around corners with a swirl and swing of silk skirts, the girls' faces
+flushed and perspiring, their eyes half-closed, their bare, white
+throats warm, moist, and alternately swelling and contracting with their
+quick breathing. On certain of these girls the dancing produced a
+peculiar effect. The continued motion, the whirl of the lights, the heat
+of the room, the heavy perfume of the flowers, the cadence of the music,
+even the physical fatigue, reacted in some strange way upon their
+oversensitive feminine nerves, the monotony of repeated sensation
+producing some sort of mildly hypnotic effect, a morbid hysterical
+pleasure the more exquisite because mixed with pain. These were the
+girls whom one heard declaring that they could dance all night, the
+girls who could dance until they dropped.
+
+Other of the couples danced with the greatest languor and gravity, their
+arms held out rigid and at right angles with their bodies.
+
+About the doors and hallways stood the unhappy gentlemen who knew no
+one, watching the others dance, feigning to be amused. Some of them,
+however, had ascended to the dressing-room and began to strike up an
+acquaintance with each other and with Ellis, smoking incessantly,
+discussing business, politics, and even religion.
+
+In the ladies' dressing-room two of the maids were holding a long
+conversation in low tones, their heads together; evidently it was
+concerning something dreadful. They continually exclaimed "Oh!" and
+"Ah!" suddenly sitting back from each other, shaking their heads, and
+biting their nether lips. On the top floor in the hall the servants in
+their best clothes leaned over the balustrade, nudging each other,
+talking in hoarse whispers or pointing with thick fingers swollen with
+dish-water. All up and down the stairs were the couples who were sitting
+out the dance, some of them even upon the circular sofa in the hall over
+the first landing.
+
+The music stopped, leaving a babel of talk in the air, the couples fell
+apart for an instant, but a great clapping of hands broke out and the
+tired musicians heroically recommenced.
+
+As soon as the short _encore_ was done there was a rush for the lemonade
+and punch bowls. The guests thronged around them joking each other.
+"Hello! are you here _again_?" "Oh, this is dreadful!" "This makes _six_
+times I've seen you here."
+
+A smell of coffee rose into the air from the basement. It was about
+half-past eleven; the next dance was the supper dance and the gentlemen
+hurried about anxiously searching the stairs, the parlours, and the
+conservatory for the girls who had promised them this dance weeks
+before. The musicians were playing a march, and the couples crowded down
+the narrow stairs in single file, the ladies drawing off their gloves.
+The tired musicians stretched themselves, rubbed their eyes, and began
+to talk aloud in the deserted parlours.
+
+Supper was served in the huge billiard-room in the basement and was
+eaten in a storm of gayety. The same parties and "sets" tried to get
+together at the same table; Henrietta Vance's party was particularly
+noisy: at her table there was an incessant clamour of screams and shouts
+of laughter. One ate oysters _a la poulette_, terrapin-salads, and
+croquettes; the wines were Sauternes and champagnes. With the nuts and
+dessert the caps came on, and in a few minutes were cracking and
+snapping all over the room.
+
+Six of the unfortunates who knew no one, but who had managed through a
+common affliction to become acquainted with each other, gathered at a
+separate table. Ellis was one of their number; he levied a twenty-five
+assessment, and tipped the waiter a dollar and a half. This one
+accordingly brought them extra bottles of champagne in which they found
+consolation for all the _ennui_ of the evening.
+
+After supper the dancing began again. The little stiffness and
+constraint of the earlier part of the evening was gone; by this time
+nearly everybody, except the unfortunates, knew everybody else. The good
+dinner and the champagne had put them all into an excellent humour, and
+they all commenced to be very jolly. They began a Virginia Reel still
+wearing the magician's caps and Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper.
+
+Young Haight was with Turner Ravis as much as possible during the
+evening, very happy and excited. Something had happened; it was
+impossible for him to say precisely what, for on the face of things
+Turner was the same as ever. Nothing in her speech or actions was
+different, but there was in her manner, in the very air that surrounded
+her, something elusive and subtle that set him all in a tremor. There
+was a change in his favour; he felt that she liked to have him with her
+and that she was trying to have him feel as much in some mysterious way
+of her own. He could see, however, that she was hardly conscious of
+doing this and that the change was more apparent to his eyes than it was
+to hers.
+
+"Must you really go home now?" he said, as Turner began to talk of
+leaving, soon after supper. They had been sitting out the dance under a
+palm at the angle of the stairs.
+
+"Yes," answered Turner; "Howard has the measles and I promised to be
+home early. Delphine was to come for me and she ought to be here now."
+
+"Delphine?" exclaimed young Haight. "Didn't you come with Van?"
+
+"No," answered Turner quietly. Only by her manner, and by something in
+the way she said the word, Haight knew at once that she had broken
+definitely with Vandover. The talk he had had with her at her house came
+back to him on the instant. He hesitated a moment and then asked:
+
+"There is something wrong? Has Van done anything--never mind, I don't
+mean that; it's no business of mine, I suppose. But I know you care for
+him. I'm sorry if--"
+
+But he was not sorry. Try as he would, his heart was leaping in him for
+joy. With Vandover out of the way, he knew that all would be different;
+Turner herself had said so.
+
+"Oh, everything is wrong," said Turner, with tears in her eyes. "I have
+been so disappointed in Van; oh, terribly disappointed."
+
+"I know; yes, I think I know what you mean," answered young Haight in a
+low voice.
+
+"Oh, please don't let's talk about it at all," cried Turner. But young
+Haight could not stop now.
+
+"Is Van really out of the question, then?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, not seeing what he was coming to. "Oh, yes;
+how could I--how _could_ I care for him after--after what has happened?"
+
+Very much embarrassed, young Haight went on: "I know it's unfair to take
+advantage of you now, but do you remember what you said once? That if
+Vandover were out of the question, that _'perhaps'_ you might--that it
+would be--that there might be a chance for me?"
+
+Turner was silent for a long time, and then she said: "Yes, I remember."
+
+"Well, how about that _now_?" asked young Haight with a nervous laugh.
+
+"Ah," answered Turner, "how do I know--so soon!"
+
+"But what do you _think_, Turner?" he persisted.
+
+"But I haven't thought at all," she returned.
+
+"Well, think now!" he went on. "Tell me--how about that?"
+
+"About _what_?"
+
+"Ah, you know what I mean," young Haight replied, feeling like a little
+boy, "about what you said at your house that Sunday night. Please tell
+me; you don't know how much it means to me."
+
+"Oh, there's Delphine at the door!" suddenly exclaimed Turner. "Now,
+really, I _must_ go down. She doesn't know where to go; she's so
+stupid!"
+
+"No," he answered, "not until you tell me!" He caught her hand, refusing
+to let it go.
+
+"Ah, how mean you are to corner me so!" she cried laughing and
+embarrassed. "Must I--well--I know I shouldn't. _O-oh_, I just _detest_
+you!" Young Haight turned her hand palm upward and kissed the little
+circle of crumpled flesh that showed where her glove buttoned. Then she
+tore her hand away and ran downstairs, while he followed more slowly.
+
+On her way back to the dressing-room she met him again, crossing the
+hall.
+
+"Don't you want to see me home?" she said.
+
+"Do I _want_ to?" shouted young Haight.
+
+"Oh, but I forgot," she cried. "You can't. I won't let you. You have
+your other dances engaged!"
+
+"Oh, damn the other dances!" he exclaimed, but instead of being
+offended, Turner only smiled.
+
+Toward one o'clock there was a general movement to go. Henrietta Vance
+and Mrs. Vance were inquired for, and the blue and white opera cloaks
+reappeared, descending the stairs, disturbing the couples who were
+seated there. The banging of carriage doors and the rumble of wheels
+recommenced in the street. The musicians played a little longer. As the
+party thinned out, there was greater dance room and a consequent greater
+pleasure in dancing. These last dances at the end of the evening were
+enjoyed more than all the others. But the party was breaking up fast:
+Turner had already gone home; Mrs. Vance and Henrietta were back at
+their places in front of the mantel, surrounded by a group of gentlemen
+in capecoats and ladies in opera wraps. Every one was crying "Good-bye"
+or "Good night!" and assuring Mrs. Vance and Henrietta of the
+enjoyableness of the occasion. Suddenly the musicians played "Home Sweet
+Home." Those still dancing uttered an exclamation of regret, but
+continued waltzing to this air the same as ever. Some began to dance
+again in their overcoats and opera wraps. Then at last the tired
+musicians stopped and reached for the cases of their instruments, and
+the remaining guests, seized with a sudden panic lest they should be the
+last to leave, fled to the dressing-rooms. These were in the greatest
+confusion, every one was in a hurry; in the gentlemen's dressing-room
+there was a great putting on of coats and mufflers and a searching for
+misplaced gloves, hats and canes. A base hum of talk rose in the air,
+bits and ends of conversation being tossed back and forth across the
+room. "_You_ haven't seen my hat, have you, Jimmy?" "Did you meet that
+girl I was telling you about?" "Hello, old man! have a good time
+to-night?" "Lost your hat? No, I haven't seen it." "Yes, about half-past
+ten!" "Well, I told him that myself!" "Ah, you bet it's the man that
+rustles that gets there." "Come round about four, then." "What's the
+matter with coming home in _our_ carriage?"
+
+At the doors of the dressing-rooms the ladies joined their escorts, and
+a great crowd formed in the halls, worming down the stairs and out upon
+the front steps. As the first groups reached the open air there was a
+great cry: "Why, it's pouring rain!" This was taken up and repeated and
+carried all the way back into the house. There were exclamations of
+dismay and annoyance: "Why, it's raining right _down_!" "What _shall_ we
+do!" Tempers were lost, brothers and sisters quarrelling with each other
+over the question of umbrellas. "Ah," said Geary, delighted, peeling the
+cover from his umbrella in the vestibule, "I _thought_ it was going to
+rain before I left and brought mine along with me. Ah, you bet I always
+look out for rain!" On the horse-block stood the caller, chanting up the
+carriages at the top of his voice. The street was full of coupes,
+carriages, and hacks, the raindrops showing in a golden blur as they
+fell across the streaming light of their lamps. The horses were smoking
+and restless, and the drivers in oilskins and rubber blankets were
+wrangling and shouting. At every instant there was a long roll of wheels
+interrupted by the banging of the doors. Near the caller stood a useless
+policeman, his shield pinned on the outside of his wet rubber coat, on
+which the carriage lamps were momentarily reflected in long vertical
+streaks.
+
+In a short time all the guests were gone except the one young lady whose
+maid and carriage had somehow not been sent. Henrietta Vance's brother
+took this one home in a hired hack. Mrs. Vance and Henrietta sat down to
+rest for a moment in the empty parlours. The canvas-covered floors were
+littered with leaves of smilax and La France roses, with bits of ribbon,
+ends of lace, and discarded Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper. The butler
+and the second girl were already turning down the gas in the other
+rooms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long before the party broke up Vandover had gone home, stunned and
+dazed, as yet hardly able to realize the meaning of what had happened.
+Some strange and dreadful change had taken place; things were different,
+people were different to him; not every one had been so outspoken as
+Turner, Henrietta Vance and her mother, but even amongst others who had
+talked to him politely and courteously enough, the change was no less
+apparent. It was in the air, a certain vague shrinking and turning of
+the shoulder, a general atmosphere of aversion and repulsion, an unseen
+frown, an unexpressed rebuff, intangible, illusive, but as unmistakable
+as his own existence. The world he had known knew him now no longer. It
+was ostracism at last.
+
+But why? Why? Sitting over his tiled flamboyant stove, brooding into the
+winking coals, Vandover asked himself the question in vain. He knew what
+latitude young men were allowed by society; he was sure nothing short of
+discovered crime could affect them. True enough he had at one time
+allowed himself to drift into considerable dissipation, but he was done
+with that now, he had reformed, he had turned over a new leaf. Even at
+his worst he had only lived the life of the other young men around him,
+the other young men who were received as much as ever, even though
+people, the girls themselves, practically knew of what they did, knew
+that they were often drunk, and that they frequented the society of
+abandoned women. What had he done to merit this casting off? What
+_could_ he have done? He even went so far as to wonder if there was
+anything wrong about his father or his sudden death.
+
+A little after one o'clock he heard Geary's whistle in the street
+outside. "Hello, old man!" he cried as Vandover opened the window. "I
+was just on my way home from the hoe-down; saw a light in your window
+and thought I'd call you up. Say, have you got anything wet up there?
+I'm extra dry."
+
+"Yes," said Vandover, "come on up!"
+
+"Did you hear what Beale said to me this evening?" said Geary, as he
+mixed himself a cocktail at the sideboard. "Oh, I tell you, I'm getting
+right in, down at that office. Beale wants me to take the place of one
+of the assistants in the firm, a fellow who's got the consumption,
+coughing up his lungs all the time. It's an important place, hundred a
+month; that's right. Yes, sir; you bet, I'm going to get in and rustle
+now and make myself so indispensable in that fellow's place that they
+can't get along without me. I'll crowd him right out; I know it may be
+selfish, but, damn it! that's what you have to do to get along. It's
+human nature. I'll tell you right here to-night," he exclaimed with
+sudden energy, clenching his fist and slowly rapping the knuckles on the
+table to emphasize each word, "that I'll be the head of that firm some
+day, or I'll know the reason why."
+
+When Geary finally became silent, the two looked into the fire for some
+time without speaking. At last Geary said:
+
+"You came home early to-night, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover, stirring uneasily. "Yes, I did."
+
+There was another silence. Then Geary said abruptly: "It's too bad. They
+are kind of stinky-pinky to you."
+
+"Yes," said Vandover with a grin. "_I_ don't know what's the matter.
+Everybody seems nasty!"
+
+"It's that business with Ida Wade, you know," replied Geary. "It got
+around somehow that she killed herself on your account. Everybody seems
+to be on to it. I heard it--oh, nearly a month ago."
+
+"Oh," said Vandover with a short laugh, "that's it, is it? I was
+wondering."
+
+"Yes, that's it," answered Geary. "You see they don't know for sure; no
+one _knows_, but all at once every one seemed to be talking about it,
+and they suspect an awful lot. I guess they are pretty near right,
+aren't they?" He did not wait for an answer, but laughed clumsily and
+went on: "You see, you always have to be awfully careful in those
+things, or you'll get into a box. Ah, you bet I don't let any girl _I_
+go with know _my_ last name or _my_ address if I can help it. I'm clever
+enough for that; you have to manage very carefully; ah, you bet! You
+ought to have looked out for that, old man!" He paused a moment and then
+went on: "Oh, I guess it will be all right, all right, in a little
+while. They will forget about it, you know. I wouldn't worry. I guess it
+will be all right."
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover absently, "I guess so--perhaps."
+
+A few days later Vandover was in the reading-room of the Mechanics
+Library, listlessly turning over the pages of a volume of _l'Art_. It
+was Saturday morning and the place was full of ladies who were downtown
+for their shopping and marketing, and who had come in either to change
+their books or to keep appointments with each other. On a sudden
+Vandover saw Turner just passing into the Biography alcove. He got up
+and followed her. She was standing at the end of the dim book-lined
+tunnel, searching the upper shelves, her head and throat bent back, and
+her gloved finger on her lip. The faint odour of the perfume she always
+affected came to him mingled with the fragrance of the jonquils at her
+belt and the smell of leather and of books that exhaled from the shelves
+on either side. He did not offer to take her hand, but came up slowly,
+speaking in a low voice.
+
+It was the last time that Vandover ever met Turner Ravis. They talked
+for upward of an hour, leaning against the opposite book-shelves,
+Vandover with his fists in his pockets, his head bent down, and the
+point of his shoe tracing the pattern in the linoleum carpet; Turner,
+her hands clasped in front of her, looking him squarely in the face,
+speaking calmly and frankly.
+
+"Now, I hope you see just how it is, Van," she said at length. "What has
+happened hasn't made me cease to care for you, because if I had really
+cared for you the way I thought I did, the way a girl ought to care for
+the man she wants to marry, I would have stood by you through
+everything, no matter what you did. I don't do so now, because I find I
+don't care for you as much as I thought I did. What has happened has
+only shown me that. I'm sorry, oh, so sorry to be disappointed in you,
+but it's because I only think of you as being once a very good friend of
+mine, not because I love you as you think I did. Once--a long time
+ago--when we first knew each other, then, perhaps--things were different
+then. But somehow we seem to have grown away from that. Since then we
+have both been mistaken; you thought I cared for you in that way, and I
+thought so, too, and I thought you cared for me; but it was only that we
+were keeping up appearances, pretending to ourselves just for the sake
+of old times. We don't love each other now; you know it. But I have
+never intentionally deceived you or tried to lead you on; when I told
+you I cared for you I really thought I did. I meant to be sincere; I
+always thought so until this happened, and then when I saw how easily I
+could let you go, it only proved to me that I did not care for you as I
+thought I did. It was wrong of me, I know, and I should have known my
+own mind before, but I didn't, I didn't. You talk about Dolly Haight;
+but it is not Dolly Haight at all who has changed my affection for you.
+I will be just as frank as I can with you, Van. I may learn really to
+love Dolly Haight; I don't know, I think perhaps I will, but it isn't
+that I care for him _just_ because I don't care for you. Can't you see,
+it's just as if I had never met you. You know it's very hard for me to
+say this to you, Van, and I suppose it's all mixed up, but I can't help
+it. You don't know how sorry I am, because we have been such old
+friends--because I really did care for you as a friend; it's a proof of
+it, that there is no other man in the world I could talk to like this. I
+think, too, Van, that was the only way you cared for me, just as a good
+friend--except perhaps at first, when we first knew each other. You know
+yourself that is so. We really haven't loved each other at all for a
+long time, and now we have found it out before it was too late. And even
+if everything were different, Van, don't you know how it is with girls?
+They really love the man who loves them the most. Half the time they're
+just in love with being loved. That's the way most girls love nowadays,
+and you know yourself, Van, that Dolly Haight really loves me more than
+you do." She gathered up her books and went on after a pause,
+straightening up, ready to go: "If I should let myself think of what you
+have done, I feel--as if--as if--why, dreadful--I--that I should hate
+you, loathe you; but I try not to do that. I have been thinking it all
+over since the other night. I shall always try to think of you at your
+best; I have tried to forget everything else, and in forgetting it I
+forgive you. I can honestly say that," she said, holding out her hand,
+"I forgive you, and you must forgive me because once, by deceiving
+myself, I deceived you, and made you think that I cared for you in that
+way when I didn't." As their hands fell apart Turner faced him and
+added, with tears in her eyes: "You know this must be good-bye for good.
+You don't know how it hurts me to tell you. I know it looks as if I were
+deserting you when you were alone in the world and had most need of some
+one to influence you for the good. But, Van, won't you be better now?
+Won't you break from it all and be your own self again? I have faith in
+you. I believe it's in you to become a great man and a good man. It
+isn't too late to begin all over again. Just be your better self; live
+up to the best that's in you; if not for your own sake, then for the
+sake of that other girl that's coming into your life some time; that
+other girl who is good and sweet and pure, whom you will really, really
+love and who will really, really love you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All the rest of that month Vandover was wretched. So great was his shame
+and humiliation over this fresh disaster that he hardly dared to show
+himself out of doors. His grief was genuine and it was profound. Yet he
+took his punishment in the right spirit. He did not blame any one but
+himself; it was only a just retribution for the thing he had done. Only
+what made it hard to bear was the fact that the chastisement had fallen
+upon him long after he had repented of the crime, long after he had
+resolved to lead a new and upright life; but with shut teeth he
+determined still to carry out that resolve; he would devote all his
+future life to living down the past. It might be hard; it might be one
+long struggle through many, many years, but he would do it. Ah, yes, he
+would show them; they had cast him off, but he would go away to Paris
+now as he had always intended. As invariably happened when he was deeply
+moved, he turned to his art, blindly and instinctively. He would go to
+Paris now and study his paintings, five, ten years, and come back at
+last a great artist, when these same people who had cast him off would
+be proud to receive him. Turner was right in saying that he had in him
+the making of a great man. He _knew_ that she was right; knew that if he
+only gave the better part of him, the other Vandover, the chance, that
+he would become a great artist. Well, he would do so, and then when he
+came back again, when all the world was at his feet, and there were long
+articles in the paper announcing his arrival, these people would throng
+around him; he would show them what a great and noble nature he really
+had; he would forgive them; he would ignore what they had done. He even
+dramatized a little scene between himself and Turner, then Mrs. Haight.
+They would both be pretty old then and he would take her children on his
+lap and look at her over their heads--he could almost see those heads,
+white, silky and very soft--and he would nod at her thoughtfully, and
+say, "Well, I have taken your advice, do you remember?" and she was to
+answer, "Yes, I remember." There were actually tears in his eyes as he
+saw the scene.
+
+At the very first he thought that he could not live without Turner; that
+he loved her too much to be able to give her up. But in a little while
+he saw that this was not so. She was right, too, in saying that he had
+long since outlived his first sincere affection for her. He had felt for
+a long time that he did not love her well enough to marry her; that he
+did not love her as young Haight did, and he acknowledged to himself
+that this affair at least had ended rightly. The two loved each other,
+he could see that; at last he even told himself that he would be glad to
+see Turner married to Dolly Haight, who was his best friend. But for all
+that, it came very hard at first to give up Turner altogether; never to
+see her or speak to her again.
+
+As the first impressions of the whole affair grew dull and blunt by the
+lapse of time, this humble penitential mood of Vandover's passed away
+and was succeeded by a feeling of gloomy revolt, a sullen rage at the
+world that had cast him off _only_ because he had been found out. He
+thought it a matter of self-respect to resent the insult they had put
+upon him. But little by little he ceased to regret his exile; the new
+life was not so bad as he had at first anticipated, and his relations
+with the men whom he knew best, Ellis, Geary, and young Haight, were in
+nowise changed. He was no longer invited anywhere, and the girls he had
+known never saw him when he passed them on the street. It was
+humiliating enough at first, but he got used to it after a while, and by
+dint of thrusting the disagreeable subject from his thoughts, by
+refusing to let the disgrace sink deep in his mind, by forgetting the
+whole business as much as he could, he arrived after a time to be
+passably contented. His pliable character had again rearranged itself to
+suit the new environment.
+
+Along with this, however, came a sense of freedom. Now he no longer had
+anything to fear from society; it had shot its bolt, it had done its
+worst, there was no longer anything to restrain him, now he could do
+anything.
+
+He was in precisely this state of mind when he received the cards for
+the opening of the roadhouse, the "resort" out on the Almshouse drive,
+about which Toby, the waiter at the Imperial, had spoken to him.
+
+Vandover attended it. It was a debauch of forty-eight hours, the longest
+and the worst he had ever indulged in. For a long time the brute had
+been numb and dormant; now at last when he woke he was raging, more
+insatiable, more irresistible than ever.
+
+The affair at the roadhouse was but the beginning. All at once Vandover
+rushed into a career of dissipation, consumed with the desire of vice,
+the perverse, blind, and reckless desire of the male. Drunkenness,
+sensuality, gambling, debauchery, he knew them all. He rubbed elbows
+with street walkers, with bookmakers, with saloonkeepers, with the
+exploiters of lost women. The bartenders of the city called him by his
+first name, the policemen, the night detail, were familiar with his
+face, the drivers of the nighthawks recognized his figure by the street
+lamps, paling in the light of many an early dawn. At one time and
+another he was associated with all the different types of people in the
+low "sporting set," acquaintances of an evening, whose names grew faint
+to his recollection amidst the jingle of glasses and the popping of
+corks, whose faces faded from his memory in the haze of tobacco smoke
+and the fumes of whisky; young men of the city, rich without apparent
+means of livelihood, women and girls "recently from the East" with rooms
+over the fast restaurants; owners of trotting horses, actresses without
+engagements, billiard-markers, pool-sellers and the sons of the
+proprietors of halfway houses and "resorts." With all these Vandover
+kept the pace at the Imperial, at the race-track, at the gambling tables
+in the saloons and bars along Kearney and Market streets, and in the
+disreputable houses amid the strong odours of musk and the rustle of
+heavy silk dresses. It lasted for a year; by the end of that time he had
+about forgotten his determination to go to Paris and had grown out of
+touch with his three old friends, Ellis, Geary, and Haight. He seldom
+saw them now; occasionally he met them in one of the little rooms of the
+Imperial over their beer and Welsh rabbits, but now he always went on to
+the larger rooms where one had champagne and terrapin. He felt that he
+no longer was one of them.
+
+That year the opera came to San Francisco, and Vandover hired a
+messenger boy to stand in line all night at the door of the music store
+where the tickets were to be sold. Vandover could still love music. In
+the wreckage of all that was good that had been going on in him his love
+for all art was yet intact. It was the strongest side of his nature and
+it would be the last to go.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Fourteen
+
+
+The house was crowded to the doors; there was no longer any standing
+room and many were even sitting on the steps of the aisles. In the boxes
+the gentlemen were standing up behind the chairs of large plain ladies
+in showy toilets and diamonds. The atmosphere was heavy with the smell
+of gas, of plush upholstery, of wilting bouquets and of sachet. A fine
+vapour as of the visible exhalation of many breaths pervaded the house,
+blurring the lowered lights and dimming the splendour of the great glass
+chandelier.
+
+It was warm to suffocation, a dry, irritating warmth that perspiration
+did not relieve, while the air itself was stale and close as though
+fouled by being breathed over and over again. In the topmost galleries,
+banked with tiers of watching faces, the heat must have been unbearable.
+
+The only movement perceptible throughout the audience was the little
+swaying of gay-coloured fans like the balancing of butterflies about to
+light. Occasionally there would be a vast rustling like the sound of
+wind in a forest, as the holders of librettos turned the leaves
+simultaneously.
+
+The orchestra thundered; the French horns snarling, the first violins
+wailing in unison, while all the bows went up and down together like
+parts of a well-regulated machine; the kettle-drums rolled sonorously at
+exact intervals, and now and then one heard the tinkling of the harp
+like the pattering of raindrops between peals of thunder. The leader
+swayed from side to side in his place, beating time with his baton, his
+hand, and his head.
+
+On the stage itself the act was drawing to a close. There had just been
+a duel. The baritone lay stretched upon the floor at left centre, his
+sword fallen at some paces from him. On the left of the scene, front,
+stood the tenor who had killed him, singing in his highest register,
+very red in the face, continually striking his hand upon his breast and
+pointing with his sword toward his fallen enemy. Next him on the extreme
+left was his friend the basso, in high leather boots, growling from time
+to time during a sustained chord, "_Mon honneur et ma foi._" In the
+centre of the stage, the soprano, the star, the prima donna chanted a
+fervid but ineffectual appeal to the tenor who cried, "_Jamais,
+jamais!_" striking his breast and pointing with his sword. The prima
+donna cried, "_Ah, mon Dieu, ayez pitie de moi._" Her confidante, the
+mezzo-soprano, came to her support, repeating her words with an
+impersonal meaning, "_Ayez pitie d'elle._" "_Mon honneur et ma foi_,"
+growled the basso. The contralto, dressed as a man, turned toward the
+audience on the extreme right, bringing out her notes with a wrench and
+a twist of her body and neck, and intoning, "_Ah, malheureuse! Mon Dieu,
+ayez pitie d'elle._"
+
+The leader of the chorus, costumed as the captain of the watch, leaned
+over the dead baritone and sang, "_Il est mort, il est mort. Mon Dieu,
+ayez pitie de lui._" The soldiers of the watch were huddled together
+immediately back of him. They wore tin helmets, much too large, and
+green peplums, and repeated his words continually.
+
+The chorus itself was made up of citizens of the town; it was in a
+semicircle at the back of the stage--the men on one side, the women on
+the other. They made all their gestures together and chanted without
+ceasing: "_O horreur, O mystere! Il est mort. Mon Dieu, ayez pitie de
+nous!_"
+
+"_De Grace!_" cried the prima donna.
+
+"_Jamais, jamais!_" echoed the tenor, striking his breast and pointing
+with his sword.
+
+"_O mystere!_" chanted the chorus, while the basso struck his hand upon
+his sword hilt, growling "_Mon honneur et ma foi._"
+
+The orchestra redoubled. The finale began; all the pieces of the
+orchestra, all the voices on the stage, commenced over again very loud.
+They all took a step forward, and the rhythm became more rapid, till it
+reached a climax where the prima donna's voice jumped to a C in alt,
+holding it long enough for the basso to thunder, "_Mon honneur et ma
+foi_" twice. Then they all struck the attitudes for the closing tableau
+and in one last burst of music sang all together, "_Mon Dieu, ayez pitie
+de moi_" and "_de lui_" and "_d'elle_" and "_de nous_." Then the
+orchestra closed with a long roll of the kettle-drums, and the prima
+donna fainted into the arms of her confidante. The curtain fell.
+
+There was a roar of applause. The gallery whistled and stamped. Every
+one relaxed his or her position, drawing a long breath, looking about.
+There was a general stir; the lights in the great glass chandelier
+clicked and blazed up, and a murmur of conversation arose. The
+footlights were lowered and the orchestra left their places and
+disappeared underneath the stage, leaving the audience with the
+conviction that they had gone out after beer. All over the house one
+heard the shrill voices of boys crying out, "Op'ra books--books for the
+op'ra--words and music for the op'ra."
+
+Throughout the boxes a great coming and going took place and an
+interchange of visits. The gentlemen out in the foyer stood about
+conversing in groups or walked up and down smoking cigarettes, often
+pausing in front of the big floral piece that was to be given to the
+prima donna at the end of the great scene in the fourth act.
+
+There was a little titter of an electric bell. The curtain was about to
+go up, and a great rush for seats began. The orchestra were coming back
+and tuning up. They sent up a prolonged medley of sounds, little minor
+chirps and cries from the violins, liquid runs and mellow gurgles from
+the oboes, flutes, and wood-wind instruments, and an occasional
+deep-toned purring from the bass viols. A bell rang faintly from behind
+the wings, the house lights sank, and the footlights blazed up. The
+leader tapped with his baton; a great silence fell upon the house, while
+here and there one heard an energetic "Ssh! ssh!" The fourth act was
+about to begin.
+
+When the curtain rose on the fourth act one saw the prima donna standing
+in a very dejected pose in the midst of a vast apartment that might have
+been a bedchamber, a council hall, or a hall of audience. She was alone.
+She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms
+were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to
+her girdle. She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and
+the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for
+the famous quartet in the "great scene."
+
+But for all this, the music had little by little taken possession of
+Vandover, and little by little he had forgotten his surroundings, the
+stifling air of the house, the blinding glitter of the stage and the
+discomfort of his limbs cramped into the narrow orchestra chair. All
+music was music to him; he loved it with an unreasoned, uncritical
+love, enjoying even the barrel organs and hand pianos of the streets.
+For the present the slow beat and cadence of the melodies of the opera
+had cradled all his senses, carrying him away into a kind of exalted
+dream. The quartet began; for him it was wonderfully sweet, the
+long-sustained chords breathing over the subdued orchestral
+accompaniment, like some sweet south wind passing in long sighs over the
+pulse of a great ocean. It seemed to him infinitely beautiful,
+infinitely sad, subdued minor plaints recurring persistently again and
+again like sighs of parting, but could not be restrained, like voices of
+regret for the things that were never to be again. Or it was a pathos, a
+joy in all things good, a vast tenderness, so sweet, so divinely pure
+that it could not be framed in words, so great and so deep that it found
+its only expression in tears. There came over him a vague sense of those
+things which are too beautiful to be comprehended, of a nobility, a
+self-oblivion, an immortal eternal love and kindness, all goodness, all
+benignity, all pity for sin, all sorrow for grief, all joy for the true,
+the right, and the pure.
+
+To be better, to be true and right and pure, these were the only things
+that were worth while, these were the things that he seemed to feel in
+the music. It was as if for the moment he had become a little child
+again, not ashamed to be innocent, ignorant of vice, still believing in
+all his illusions, still near to the great white gates of life.
+
+The appeal had been made directly to what was best and strongest in
+Vandover, and the answer was quick and over-powering. All the good that
+still survived in him leaped to life again in an instant, clamouring for
+recognition, pleading for existence. The other Vandover, the better
+Vandover, wrestled with the brute in him once more, never before so
+strong, never so persistent. He had not yet destroyed all that was good
+in him; now it had turned in one more revolt, crying out against him,
+protesting for the last time against its own perversion and destruction.
+Vandover felt that he was at the great crisis of his life.
+
+After all was over he walked home through the silent streets, proceeding
+slowly, his hands in his pockets, his head bent down, his mind very
+busy. Once in his rooms he threw off his things and, having stirred up
+the drowsing fire in the tiled stove, sat down before it in his
+shirt-sleeves, the bosom of his full dress shirt bulging from his vest
+and faintly creaking as from time to time he drew a long breath. He had
+been lured into a mood where he was himself at his very best, where the
+other Vandover, the better Vandover, drew apart with eyes turned
+askance, looking inward and downward into the depths of his own
+character, shuddering, terrified. Far down there in the darkest, lowest
+places he had seen the brute, squat, deformed, hideous; he had seen it
+crawling to and fro dimly, through a dark shadow he had heard it
+growling, chafing at the least restraint, restless to be free. For now
+at last it was huge, strong, insatiable, swollen and distorted out of
+all size, grown to be a monster, glutted yet still ravenous, some
+fearful bestial satyr, grovelling, perverse, horrible beyond words.
+
+And with the eyes of this better self he saw again, little by little,
+the course of his whole life, and witnessed again the eternal struggle
+between good and evil that had been going on within him since his very
+earliest years. He was sure that at the first the good had been the
+strongest. Little by little the brute had grown, and he,
+pleasure-loving, adapting himself to every change of environment,
+luxurious, self-indulgent, shrinking with the shrinking of a sensuous
+artist-nature from all that was irksome and disagreeable, had shut his
+ears to the voices that shouted warnings of the danger, and had allowed
+the brute to thrive and to grow, its abominable famine gorged from the
+store of that in him which he felt to be the purest, the cleanest, and
+the best, its bulk fattened upon the rot and the decay of all that was
+good, growing larger day by day, noisome, swollen, poddy, a filthy
+inordinate ghoul, gorged and bloated by feeding on the good things that
+were dead.
+
+Besides this he saw how one by one he had wrenched himself free from all
+those influences that had tended to foster and to cultivate all the
+better part of him.
+
+First of all, long ago it seemed now, he had allowed to be destroyed
+that first instinctive purity, that fragile, delicate innocence which
+dies young in almost every human being, and that one sees evaporating
+under the earliest taint of vice with a smile partly of contempt,
+partly of pity, partly of genuine regret.
+
+Next it had been his father. The Old Gentleman had exerted a great
+influence over Vandover; he had never forgotten that scene the morning
+after he had told him of his measure of responsibility in Ida Wade's
+suicide, the recovery from the first shock of dazed bewilderment and
+then the forgiveness, the solicitude and the encouragement to begin over
+again, to live it down and to do that which was right and good and true.
+Not only had he stopped his ears to this voice, but also, something told
+him, he had done much to silence it forever. Despite the Old Gentleman's
+apparent fortitude the blow must have carried home. What must he not
+have suffered during those long weeks while Vandover was away, what
+lonely broodings in the empty house; and then the news of the wreck, the
+days of suspense!
+
+It all must have told; the Old Gentleman was not strong; Vandover could
+not but feel that he had hastened his death, and that in so doing he had
+destroyed another influence which would have cultivated and fostered his
+better self, would have made it strong against the attacks of the brute.
+
+The other person who had helped to bring out all that was best in
+Vandover had been Turner Ravis. There was no denying that when he had
+first known her he had loved her sincerely. Things were vastly different
+with him when Turner had been his companion; things that were unworthy,
+that were low, that were impure and vicious, did not seem worth while
+then; not only did they have no attraction for him, but he even shunned
+and avoided them. He knew he was a better man for loving her; invariably
+she made him wish to be better. But little by little as he frequented
+the society of such girls as Ida Wade, Grace Irving, and Flossie, his
+affection for Turner faded. As the habits of passionate and unhealthy
+excitement grew upon him he lost first the taste and then the very
+capacity for a calm, pure feeling. His affection for her he frittered
+away with fast girls and abandoned women, strangled it in the foul
+musk-laden air of disreputable houses, dragged and defiled it in the
+wine-lees of the Imperial. In the end he had quite destroyed it,
+wilfully, wantonly killed it. As Turner herself had said, she could only
+be in love with being loved; her affection for him had dwindled as
+well; at last they had come to be indifferent to each other, she no
+longer inspired him to be better, and thus he had shaken off this good
+influence as well.
+
+Public opinion had been a great check upon him, the fear of scandal, the
+desire to stand well with the world he knew. Trivial though he felt it
+to be, the dread of what people would say had to a great extent held
+Vandover back. He had a position to maintain, a reputation to keep up in
+the parlours and at the dinner tables where he was received. It could
+not be denied that society had influenced Vandover for good. But this,
+too, like all the others, he had cast from him. Now he was ostracized,
+society cared no longer what he did, his position was gone, his
+reputation was destroyed. There was no one now to stand in his way.
+
+Vandover could not fall back on any religious influence. Religion had
+never affected him very deeply. It was true that he had been baptized,
+confirmed, and had gone to church with considerable regularity. If he
+had been asked if he was a Christian and believed in God he would have
+answered "Certainly, certainly." Until the time of his father's death he
+had even said his prayers every night, the last thing before turning out
+the gas, sitting upon the edge of his bed in his night-gown, his head in
+both his hands. He added to the Lord's Prayer certain other petitions as
+to those who were in trouble, sorrow, poverty, or any other privations;
+he asked for blessings upon his father and upon himself, praying for the
+former's health and prosperity, and for himself, that he might become a
+great artist, that the "Last Enemy" might be admitted to the Salon when
+he had painted it, and that it might make him famous. But, as a rule,
+Vandover thought very little about religious matters and when he did,
+told himself that he was too intelligent to believe in a literal heaven,
+a literal hell, and a personal God personally interfering in human
+affairs like any Jove or Odin. But the moment he rejected a concrete
+religion Vandover was almost helpless. He was not mystic enough to find
+any meaning in signs or symbols, nor philosophic enough to grasp vague
+and immense abstractions. Infinities, Presences, Forces, could not help
+him withstand temptation, could not strengthen him against the brute. He
+felt that somewhere, some time, there was punishment for evildoing,
+but, as happened in the case of Ida Wade's death, to dwell on such
+thoughts disturbed and terrified him. He did not dare to look long in
+that direction. Conscience, remorse, repentance, all these had been keen
+enough at first, but he had so persistently kicked against the pricks
+that little by little he had ceased to feel them at all.
+
+Then an immense and overwhelming terror seized upon him. Was there
+nothing, then--nothing left which he could lay hold of to save him? He
+knew that he could not deliver himself by his own exertions. Religion
+could not help him, he had killed his father, estranged the girl he
+might have loved, outraged the world, and at a single breath blighted
+the fine innate purity of his early years. It was as if he had entered
+into his life in the world as into some vast labyrinth, wandering on
+aimlessly, flinging from him one by one the threads, the clues, that
+might have led him again to a safe exit, going down deeper and deeper
+until, when near the centre, he had suddenly felt the presence of the
+brute, had heard its loathsome muttering growl, had at last seen it far
+down at the end of a passage, dimly and in a dark shadow; terrified, he
+had started back, looking wildly about for any avenue of escape,
+searching with frantic haste and eagerness for any one of those clues he
+had so carelessly cast from him, realizing that without such guidance he
+would inevitably tend down again to that fatal central place where the
+brute had its lair.
+
+There was nothing, nothing. He clearly saw the fate toward which he was
+hurrying; it was not too late to save himself if he only could find
+help, but he could find _no_ help. His terror increased almost to
+hysteria. It was one of those dreadful moments that men sometimes
+undergo that must be met alone, and that when past, remain in the memory
+for all time; a glimpse far down into the springs and wheels of life; a
+glimpse that does not come often lest the reason brought to the edge of
+the fearful gulf should grow dizzy at the sight, and reeling, topple
+headlong.
+
+But suddenly Vandover rose to his feet, the tears came to his eyes, and
+with a long breath he exclaimed: "Thank God for it!" He grew calmer in a
+moment, the crisis had passed, he had found a clue beneath his groping
+fingers.
+
+He had remembered his art, turning to it instinctively as he always did
+when greatly moved. This was the one good thing that yet survived. It
+was the strongest side of him; it would be the last to go; he felt it
+there yet. It was the one thing that could save him.
+
+The thought had come to him so suddenly and with such marvellous
+clearness that in his present exalted state of mind it filled him with a
+vague sense of awe, it seemed like a manifestation, a writing on the
+wall. Might it not be some sort of miracle? He had heard of men
+reforming their lives, transformed almost in an instant, and had scoffed
+at the idea. But might it not be true, after all? What was this
+wonderful thing that had happened to him? Was this less strange than a
+miracle? Less divine?
+
+The following day Vandover rented a studio. It was the lofty room with
+hardwood floors and the immense north light in that suite which he had
+rejected when looking for rooms on the former occasion. He gave notice
+to the clerk in the apartment house where his quarters were situated
+that he intended to vacate after the first of the month. Charming as he
+had found these rooms, he gave up, with scarcely a regret, the idea of
+living in them any longer. In a month it would be summer and he would be
+on his way to Paris.
+
+But so great was his desire for work now, so eager was he to start the
+"Last Enemy," so strong was the new energy that shook him, that Vandover
+could not wait until summer to begin work again. He grudged everything
+now that kept him away from his easel.
+
+He disappeared from the sight of his ordinary companions; he did not
+even seek the society of Geary or of young Haight. All the sketches he
+had made for the "Last Enemy," together with his easel and his disused
+palette, his colour-box, tubes, brushes and all the other materials and
+tools for his work, he caused to be transferred to the new studio.
+Besides this he had the stretcher made, best twill canvas on a frame
+four feet long, two and a half feet high. This was for the large sketch
+of the picture. But the finished work he calculated would demand an
+eight by five stretcher.
+
+He did not think of decorating the room, of putting any ornaments about
+the wall. He was too serious, too much in earnest now to think of that.
+The studio was not to be his lounging place, but his workshop. His art
+was work with him now, hard, serious work. It was above all _work_ that
+he needed to set him right again, regular work, steady, earnest work,
+not the dilettante fancy of an amateur content with making pretty
+things.
+
+Never in his life had Vandover been so happy. He came and went
+continually between his rooms, his studio, and his art dealers, tramping
+grandly about the city, whistling to himself, strong, elated, filled
+with energy, vigour, ambition. At times his mind was full of
+thankfulness at this deliverance at the eleventh hour; at times it was
+busy with the details of the picture, its composition, its colour
+scheme. The main effects he wanted to produce were isolation and intense
+heat, the shadows on the sand would be blue, the horizon line high on
+the canvas, the sky would be light in tone, almost white near the earth.
+
+The morning when he first began to work was charming. His new studio was
+in the top floor of a five-story building, and on arriving there,
+breathless from his long climb up the stairs, Vandover threw open the
+window and gazed out and down upon the city spread out below him,
+enjoying the view a moment before settling to his work.
+
+A little later the trades would be blowing strong and brisk from the
+ocean, driving steadily through the Golden Gate, filling the city with a
+taint of salt; but at present the air was calm, touched with a certain
+nimbleness, a sparkling effervescence, invigourating, exhilarating.
+
+It was early in the forenoon, not yet past nine o'clock, and the mist
+that gathers over the city just before dawn was steaming off under the
+sun, very thin and delicate, turning all distant objects a flat tone of
+pale blue. Over the roofs of the houses he could catch a glimpse of the
+distant mountains, faint purple masses against the pale edge of the sky,
+rimming the horizon round with a fillet of delicate colour. But any
+larger view was barred by a huge frame house with a slated mansard roof,
+directly opposite him across the street, a residence house, one of the
+few in the neighbourhood. It had been newly painted white and showed
+brave and gay against the dark blue of the sky and the ruddy greens of
+the great garden in which it stood. Vandover from his window could from
+time to time catch the smell of eucalyptus trees coming to him in long
+aromatic breaths mingled with the odour of wet grass and fresh paint.
+Somewhere he heard a hummingbird singing, a tiny tweedling thread of
+song, while farther off two roosters were crowing back and forth at each
+other with strained and raucous trumpet calls.
+
+Vandover turned back to his work. Under the huge north light was the
+easel, and clamped upon it the stretcher, blank, and untouched. The very
+sight of the heavy cream-white twill was an inspiration. Already
+Vandover saw a great picture upon it; a great wave of emotion suddenly
+welled up within him and he cried with enthusiasm:
+
+"By God! it is in moods like this that _chef d'oeuvres_ are made."
+
+Around the baseboard of the room were a row of _esquisses_ for the
+picture, on small landscape-stretchers, mere blotches of colour laid on
+with the palette knife and large brushes, almost unintelligible to any
+one but Vandover. He selected two or three of these and fastened them to
+the easel above the big stretcher where he could have them continually
+in his eye. He lit his pipe, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and standing
+before the easel, began to sharpen a stick of charcoal with an old
+razor, drawing the blade toward him so as to keep the point of the stick
+from breaking. Then at last with a deep breath of satisfaction he began
+blocking in the first large construction lines of his picture.
+
+It was one o'clock before he knew it. He went downtown and had a hasty
+lunch, jealous of every moment that was not spent on his picture. The
+sight of it as he re-entered the room sent a thrill all over him; he was
+succeeding better than he could have expected, doing better than he
+thought he would. He felt sure that now he should do good work; every
+stage of the picture's progress was an inspiration for the next one. At
+this time the figures had only been "placed," broadly sketched in large
+lines, "blocked in" as he called it. The next step was the second
+drawing, much more finished.
+
+He rapped the stretcher sharply with his knuckles; it responded
+sonorously like a drumhead, the vibration shaking the charcoal from the
+tracings, filling the air with a fine dust. The outlines grew faint,
+just perceptible enough to guide him in the second more detailed
+drawing.
+
+He brought his stick of charcoal to a very fine edge and set to work
+carefully. In a moment he stopped and, with his chamois cloth, dusted
+out what he had drawn. He had made a false start, he began but could not
+recall how the lines should run, his fingers were willing enough; in his
+imagination he saw just how the outlines should be, but somehow he could
+not make his hand interpret what was in his head. Some third medium
+through which the one used to act upon the other was sluggish, dull;
+worse than that, it seemed to be absent. _"Well,"_ he muttered, "can't I
+make this come out right?" Then he tried more carefully. His imagination
+saw the picture clearer, his hand moved with more assurance, but the two
+seemed to act independently of each other. The forms he made on the
+canvas were no adequate reflection of those in his brain; some third
+delicate and subtle faculty that coordinated the other two and that
+called forth a sure and instant response to the dictates of his mind,
+was lacking. The lines on his canvas were those of a child just learning
+to draw; one saw for what they were intended, but they were crude, they
+had no life, no meaning. The very thing that would have made them
+intelligible, interpretive, that would have made them art, was absent. A
+third, a fourth, and a fifth time Vandover made the attempt. It was
+useless. He knew that it was not because his hand lacked cunning on
+account of long disuse; such a thing, in spite of popular belief, never
+happened to artists--a good artist might abandon his work for five
+years, ten years--and take it up again precisely where he had laid it
+down with no loss of technical skill. No, this thing seemed more subtle,
+so subtle that at first he could hardly grasp it. But suddenly a great
+fear came upon him, a momentary return of that wild hysterical terror
+from which he believed he had forever escaped.
+
+"Is it gone?" he cried out. "Is it gone from me? My art? Steady," he
+went on, passing his hand over his face with a reassuring smile;
+"steady, old man, this won't do, again--and so soon! It won't do for you
+to get scared twice like that. This is just nervousness, you are
+overexcited. Pshaw! What's the matter with me? Let's get to work."
+
+Still another time he dusted out what he had done and recommenced,
+concentrating all his attention with a tremendous effort of the will.
+Grotesque and meaningless shapes, the mocking caricatures of those he
+saw in his fancy, grew under his charcoal, while slowly, slowly, a
+queer, numb feeling came in his head, like a rising fog, and the touch
+of that unreasoning terror returned, this time stronger, more
+persistent, more tenacious than before.
+
+Vandover nerved himself against it, not daring to give in, fearing to
+allow himself to see what this really meant. He passed one hand over his
+cheek and along the side of his head, the fingers dancing. "Hum!" he
+muttered, looking vaguely about him, "this is bad. I mustn't let this
+get the better of me now. I'll knock off for to-day, take a little rest,
+begin again to-morrow."
+
+In ten minutes he was back at his easel again. His charcoal wandered,
+tracing empty lines on his canvas, the strange numbness grew again in
+his head. All the objects in the range of his eyes seemed to move back
+and stand on the same plane. He became a little dizzy.
+
+"It's the _tobacco_," he exclaimed. "That pipe always was too strong."
+He turned away to the open window, feeling an irresistible need of
+distraction, of amusement, and he remained there resting on his elbows,
+listening and looking, trying to be interested.
+
+It was toward the middle of the afternoon. The morning mist was long
+since evaporated and the first faint puffs of the inevitable trade wind
+were just stirring the leaves of the eucalyptus across the street. In
+the music-room of the white house the young lady of the family had
+opened the piano and was practising finger-exercises. The scales and
+arpeggios following one another without interruption, came to his ears
+in a pleasant monotone. A Chinese "boy" in a stiff blouse of white
+linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a
+bucket of water and the garden hose. Grocery and delivery wagons came
+and went, rattling over the cobbles and car-tracks, while occasionally a
+whistle blew very far off. At the corner of the street by a
+livery-stable a little boy in a flat-topped leather cap was calling
+incessantly for some unseen dog, whistling and slapping his knees. An ex
+press-wagon stopped a few doors below the white house and the driver
+pulled down the back-board with a strident rattle of chains; the cable
+in its slot kept up an unceasing burr and clack while the cars
+themselves trundled up and down the street, starting and stopping with a
+jangling of bells, the jostled glass windows whirring in a prolonged
+vibrant note. All these sounds played lightly over the steady muffled
+roar that seemed to come from all quarters at once; it was that deep
+murmur, that great minor diapason that always disengages itself from
+vast bodies, from mountains, from oceans, from forests, from sleeping
+armies.
+
+The desire for movement, for diversion, for anything that would keep him
+from thinking was not to be resisted. Vandover caught up his hat and
+fled from the room, not daring to look again at the easel. Once outside,
+he began to walk, anywhere, straight before him, going on with great
+strides, his head in the air.
+
+He found Charlie Geary and took him to supper. Vandover talked
+continually on all sorts of subjects, speaking very rapidly. In the
+evening he insisted on Geary going to the theatre with him. He paid the
+closest attention to the play, letting it occupy his mind entirely. When
+the play was over and the two were about to say good night, Vandover
+began to urge Geary to sleep up at his rooms that night. He overrode his
+objections, interrupting him, taking hold of his arm, and starting off.
+But Geary, a little surprised at his manner, refused. There were certain
+law papers he had taken home with him from the office that afternoon and
+that it was necessary he should return in the morning. Ah, you bet, he
+would get it right in the neck if old Beale didn't have those
+depositions the first thing when the office was open. Ah, he was getting
+to be indispensable down there. He had had Fischer's place now for a
+year. Fischer had never come back, and he had the promise of being taken
+on as head clerk as soon as Beale Jr. went into the partnership with old
+Beale. "I'll make my way in this town yet," he declared. "I'll be in
+that partnership myself some day. You see; yes, sir; ah, you bet!"
+
+The idea of passing the night alone terrified Vandover. He started
+toward home, walking up Sutter Street, proceeding slowly, his hands in
+his pockets. All at once he stopped, without knowing why; he roused
+himself and looked about him. There was a smell of eucalyptus in the
+air. Across the street was the huge white house, and he found that he
+had stopped just before the door of the building on the top floor of
+which his studio was situated. All day Vandover's mind had been in the
+greatest agitation, his ideas leaping and darting hither and thither
+like terrified birds in a cage. Just now he underwent a sudden reaction.
+It had all been a matter of fancy, nothing but nervousness; he had not
+drawn for some time, his hand lacked cunning from long disuse. The
+desire for work came upon him again overpoweringly. He wanted to see
+again if he could not draw just as truly and freely as in the old days.
+No, he could not wait till morning; he must put himself to the test
+again at once, at the very instant. It was a sudden feminine caprice,
+induced, no doubt, by the exalted, strained, and unnatural condition of
+his nerves, a caprice that could not be reasoned with, that could not be
+withstood. He had his keys with him, he opened the outside door and
+groped his way up the four long flights of stairs to his studio.
+
+The studio was full of a sombre half-light, like a fog, spreading
+downward from the great north light in the sloping roof. The window was
+still wide open, the stretcher showed a pale gray blur. Vandover was
+about to light the gas when he checked himself, his arm still raised
+above his head. Ah, no; he did not dare to look at the result of his
+day's work. It would be better to start in afresh from the beginning. He
+found the chamois skin on the tray of the easel and rubbed out all the
+drawing on the canvas. Then he lit the gas.
+
+As he turned to his work once more a little thrill of joy and of relief
+passed over him. This time his hand was sure, steady, his head was
+clear. It had been nervousness after all. As he picked up his charcoal
+he even exclaimed to himself, "Just the same, that _was_ a curious
+experience this afternoon."
+
+But the curious experience repeated itself again that night as soon as
+he tried to work. Once more certain shapes and figures were born upon
+his canvas, but they were no longer the true children of his
+imagination, they were no longer his own; they were changelings,
+grotesque abortions. It was as if the brute in him, like some malicious
+witch, had stolen away the true offspring of his mind, putting in their
+place these deformed dwarfs, its own hideous spawn.
+
+Through the numbness and giddiness that gradually came into his head
+like a poisonous murk he saw one thing clearly: It was gone--his art was
+gone, the one thing that could save him. That, too, like all the other
+good things of his life, he had destroyed. At some time during those
+years of debauchery it had died, that subtle, elusive something,
+delicate as a flower; he had ruined it. Little by little it had exhaled
+away, wilting in the air of unrestrained debauches, perishing in the
+warm musk-laden atmosphere of disreputable houses, defiled by the breath
+of abandoned women, trampled into the spilt wine-lees of the Imperial,
+dragged all fouled and polluted through the lowest mire of the great
+city's vice.
+
+For a moment Vandover felt as though he was losing his hold upon his
+reason; the return of the hysteria shook him like a dry, light leaf. He
+suddenly had a sensation that the room was too small to hold him; he
+ran, almost reeled, to the open window, drawing his breath deep and
+fast, inhaling the cool night air, rolling his eyes wildly.
+
+It was night. He looked out into a vast blue-gray space sown with points
+of light, winking lamps, and steady slow-burning stars. Below him was
+the sleeping city. All the lesser staccato noises of the day had long
+since died to silence; there only remained that prolonged and sullen
+diapason, coming from all quarters at once. It was like the breathing of
+some infinitely great monster, alive and palpitating, the sistole and
+diastole of some gigantic heart. The whole existence of the great
+slumbering city passed upward there before him through the still night
+air in one long wave of sound.
+
+It was Life, the murmur of the great, mysterious force that spun the
+wheels of Nature and that sent it onward like some enormous engine,
+resistless, relentless; an engine that sped straight forward, driving
+before it the infinite herd of humanity, driving it on at breathless
+speed through all eternity, driving it no one knew whither, crushing out
+inexorably all those who lagged behind the herd and who fell from
+exhaustion, grinding them to dust beneath its myriad iron wheels, riding
+over them, still driving on the herd that yet remained, driving it
+recklessly, blindly on and on toward some far-distant goal, some vague
+unknown end, some mysterious, fearful bourne forever hidden in thick
+darkness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Fifteen
+
+
+About a week later Hiram Wade, Ida's father, brought suit against
+Vandover to recover twenty-five thousand dollars, claiming that his
+daughter had killed herself because she had been ruined by him and that
+he alone was responsible for her suicide.
+
+Vandover had passed this week in an agony of grief over the loss of his
+art, a grief that seemed even sharper than that which he had felt over
+the death of his father. For this last calamity was like the death of a
+child of his, some dear, sweet child, that might have been his companion
+throughout all his life. At times it seemed to him impossible that his
+art should fail him in this manner, and again and again he would put
+himself at his easel, only to experience afresh the return of the
+numbness in his brain, the impotency of his fingers.
+
+He had begun little by little to pick up the course of his life once
+more, and on a certain Wednesday morning was looking listlessly through
+the morning paper as he sat in his window-seat. The room was delightful,
+flooded with the morning sun, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ just touched
+with a ruddy light, the Renaissance portraits looking down at him
+through a fine golden haze; a little fire, just enough to blunt the
+keenness of the early morning air, snapping in the famous tiled and
+flamboyant stove. All about the room was a pleasant fragrance of coffee
+and good tobacco.
+
+Vandover caught sight of the announcement of the suit with a sudden
+sharp intake of breath that was half gasp, half cry, starting up from
+the window-seat, reading it over again and again with staring eyes.
+
+It was a very short paragraph, not more than a dozen lines, lost at the
+bottom of a column, among the cheap advertisements. It made no allusion
+to any former stage of the affair; from its tone Ida might have killed
+herself only the day before. It seemed hardly more than a notice that
+some enterprising reporter, burrowing in the records at the City Hall,
+had unearthed and brought to light with the idea that it might be of
+possible interest to a few readers of the paper. But there was his name
+staring back at him from out the gray blur of the type, like some
+reflection of himself seen in a mirror. Insignificant as the paragraph
+was, it seemed to Vandover as though it was the only item in the whole
+paper. One might as well have trumpeted his crime through the streets.
+
+"But twenty-five thousand dollars!" exclaimed Vandover, terrified.
+"Where will _I_ find twenty-five thousand dollars?" And at once he fell
+to wondering as to whether or no in default of payment he could be sent
+to the penitentiary. The idea of winning the suit did not enter his mind
+an instant; he did not even dream of fighting it.
+
+For the moment it was like fire driving out fire. He forgot the loss of
+his art, his mind filled only with the sense of the last disaster. What
+could he do? Twenty-five thousand dollars! It would ruin him. A cry of
+exasperation, of rage at his own folly, escaped him. "Ah, what a fool
+I've been!"
+
+For an hour he raged to and fro in the delightful sunlit room, pacing
+back and forth in its longest dimension between the bamboo tea-table and
+the low bookcase, a thousand different plans and projects coming and
+going in his head. As his wits steadied themselves he began to see that
+he must consult at once with some lawyer--Field, of course--perhaps
+something could be done; a clever lawyer might make out a case for him
+after all. But all at once he became convinced that Field would not
+undertake his defence; he knew he had no case; so what could Field do
+for him? He would have to tell him the truth, and he saw with absolute
+clearness that the lawyer would refuse to try to defend him. The thing
+could not honourably be done. But, then, what _should_ he do? He must
+have legal advice from some quarter.
+
+He was still in this state of perplexity when Charlie Geary arrived,
+pounding on the door and opening it immediately afterward as was his
+custom.
+
+"Hello!" said Vandover, surprised. "Hello, Charlie! is that you?"
+
+"Say," exclaimed Geary without returning his greeting, holding up his
+hand as if to interrupt him; "say, have you seen your lawyer yet--seen
+_any_ lawyer?"
+
+"No," answered Vandover, shaking his head gravely; "no, I've only this
+minute read about it in the paper." He was glad that Geary had come; at
+once he felt a desire to throw this burden upon his chum's shoulders,
+to let him assume the management of the affair, just as in the old
+college days he had willingly, weakly, submitted to the dictatorship of
+the shrewder, stronger man who smoothed out his difficulties for him,
+and extricated him from all his scrapes. He knew Geary to be full of
+energy and resource, and he had confidence in his ability as a lawyer,
+even though he was so young in years and experience. Besides this, he
+was his friend, his college chum; for all Geary's disagreeable qualities
+he knew he would do the right thing by him now.
+
+"You're the one man of all others I wanted to see," he exclaimed as he
+gripped his hand. "By George! I'm glad you have come. Here, sit down and
+let's talk this over." Geary took the big leather chair behind the desk,
+and Vandover flung himself again upon the window-seat. It was as if the
+two were back in the room in Matthew's; hundreds of times in those days
+they had occupied precisely these positions, Geary bending over at the
+study table, intent, nervous, very keen, Vandover lounging idly upon the
+window-seat, resting easily on his elbow listening to the other man's
+advice.
+
+"Now, what must I do, Charlie?" Vandover began. "See my lawyer, I
+suppose? But do you think a lawyer like Field would take my case? You
+know I haven't a leg to stand on."
+
+"But you haven't seen him?" inquired Geary sharply. "Haven't seen
+anybody about it?" Vandover shook his head. "Sure?" insisted Geary
+anxiously.
+
+"Why, I have only just heard about it twenty minutes ago," protested
+Vandover. "Why are you so particular about that?" he added. Then Geary
+exploded his mine.
+
+"Because," he said, with a smile of triumph that he could not restrain,
+"because we are the counsel for the other side. I am on the case."
+
+Vandover bounded from the window-seat speechless with astonishment,
+bitterly disappointed. "_You?_ he shouted. Geary slowly nodded his head,
+enjoying Vandover's bewilderment. Vandover dropped back upon the
+cushions again, staring at him wildly with growing suspicion and anger.
+He would not have thought it possible that Geary could so sacrifice
+their old friendship to his own personal interest. The two continued
+staring at each other across the table for a moment. In the silence
+they heard the long rumble of a cable-car passing the house, and the
+persistent jangling of its bell as it approached the street crossing. A
+grocery wagon went up the side street, the horses' hoofs making a
+cadenced clapping sound upon the asphalt.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Vandover scornfully, "I suppose that's business, but I
+would call it damned unkind!"
+
+"Now, look here, old man," returned Geary consolingly. "Don't you take
+the monkey-wrench off the safety valve like that. What am I here for if
+it isn't to help you? Maybe you don't know that this is a mighty
+unprofessional thing to do. Ah, you bet, if old Beale knew this I would
+get it right in the neck. Don't you suppose I can help you more as
+Wade's lawyer than I could as yours? And now that's the very first thing
+I've got to tell you--to keep this dark, that I have seen you. I can't
+do anything for you if you don't promise that."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," returned Vandover, reassured. "That's all right,
+you can--"
+
+"It's not considered the right thing to do," Geary continued, not
+heeding Vandover's answer, "but I just do it because"--he began to make
+awkward gestures with both his hands--"because we're old friends, like
+that. That was the very first thing I thought of when Beale Jr. told me
+that we two had the case--that I could get you out of this hole better
+as Wade's lawyer than as your own. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to
+see that the first thing."
+
+"I'm sure it was awfully good of you, old man," said Vandover sincerely.
+"I'm in a lot of trouble nowadays!"
+
+"Well, now don't you bother, Van," answered Geary consolingly. "I guess
+we can pull you out of this all right." He drew up to the table, looking
+about from side to side. "Got any writing paper concealed about the
+premises?" he asked. Vandover pushed him over his writing pad, and
+Geary, taking the cap from his fountain pen, began asking a series of
+questions, taking down his answers in shorthand. After he had asked him
+as to his age, length of residence in the city, his property, and some
+few other technical matters, he leaned back in his chair and said:
+
+"Now, let's hear your side of the story, Van. I don't suppose you like
+to go over the thing again, but you see I ought to know." Vandover told
+of the affair, Geary making notes as he went along. It was nearly noon
+before their interview was at an end. Then Geary gathered up the papers
+and reached for his hat and stick, saying:
+
+"Well, now, that's all we can do to-day. I think I'll be up to see you
+again day after to-morrow, in the afternoon. Beale Jr. and I have a date
+with Mr. Wade again to-morrow, I think, and I can talk to you more
+definitely after that. You know this is the devil of a thing to do," he
+suddenly exclaimed apprehensively, "this playing back and forth between
+the two parties like this; regularly dishonourable, don't you know?"
+
+"If you think it's dishonourable," said Vandover as he accompanied Geary
+to the door, "if you think it's dishonourable, Charlie, why, don't do
+it! I don't want to ask you to do anything dishonourable for me."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," replied Geary uneasily; "I had just as soon do
+it for you, only listen to this: don't you say a word about the case to
+anybody, not to your lawyer, nor to anybody. If Field should write to
+you, you tell him you have counsel already. And, look here! you may have
+the reporters up here pretty soon, and don't you open your face to them;
+you mind that; don't you let them get a thing out of you. And there's
+another thing you must understand: I'm not your lawyer, of course; you
+see that. I could be disbarred if I was lawyer for both sides. It's like
+this, you see: I'm Wade's lawyer--at least the firm I am with are his
+lawyers--and of course I'm acting in Wade's interest. But you're an old
+chum of mine, and if I can I'm going to try and make it easier for you.
+You understand, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, I understand, Charlie," answered Vandover, "and you are just a
+brick."
+
+Vandover passed the rest of the day in his sitting-room, the suspense of
+the situation slowly screwing his nerves tenser and tenser. He walked
+for hours back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back, his head
+bent down, his forehead drawn into a frown of anxiety and exasperation,
+or he stood for a long time at the window looking out into the street
+with eyes that saw nothing. At supper that night he found that his
+appetite had left him; the very thought of food revolted him. He
+returned to his room between seven and eight o'clock, his body and mind
+completely fagged, feeling a crying need of some diversion, some escape
+from the thoughts that had been hounding him all day.
+
+He made up his mind to read a little before going to bed, and all at
+once remembered a book that he had once begun a long time ago but had
+never finished: the story of two men who had bought a wrecked opium ship
+for fifty thousand dollars and had afterward discovered that she
+contained only a few tins of the drug. He had never read on to find how
+that story turned out. Suddenly he found himself repeating, "Twenty-five
+thousand dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars--where will _I_ find
+twenty-five thousand dollars?" He wondered if he would go to jail if he
+failed to pay. His interest in the book was gone in a moment, and he
+took up another of his favourite novels, the story of a boy at the time
+of Christ, a Jewish boy unjustly condemned to the galleys, liberated
+afterward, and devoting his life to the overthrow of his enemy, whom at
+last he overcame and humbled, fouling him in a chariot race, all but
+killing him.
+
+He sat down in the huge leather chair, and, drawing it up to the piano
+lamp and cocking his feet upon the table, began to read. In a few
+moments the same numbness stole into his head like a rising fog, a
+queer, tense feeling, growing at the back of his forehead and at the
+base of his skull, a dulness, a strange stupefying sensation as of some
+torpid, murky atmosphere. He looked about him quickly; all the objects
+in the range of his vision--the corner of the desk, the corduroy couch,
+the low bookcase with Flossie's yellow slipper and Barye's lioness upon
+it--seemed to move back and stand upon the same plane; the objects
+themselves appeared immovable enough, but the sensation of them in his
+brain somewhere behind his eyes began to move about in a slow, dizzy
+whirl. The old touch of unreasoning terror came back, together with a
+sudden terror of the spirit, a sickening sinking of the heart, a
+loathing of life, terrible beyond words.
+
+Vandover started up, striving to keep himself in hand, fighting against
+a wild desire to rush about from wall to wall, shrieking and waving his
+arms. Over and over again he exclaimed, "Oh, _what_ is the matter with
+me?" The strangeness of the thing was what unsettled and unnerved him.
+He had all the sensations of terror, but without any assignable reason,
+and this groundless fear became in the end the cause of a new fear: he
+was afraid of this fear that was afraid of nothing.
+
+Very gradually, however, the crisis passed away. He became a little
+calmer, and as he was mixing himself a glass of whisky and water at the
+sideboard he decided that he would go to bed. He was sure that he would
+be better for a good night's rest; evidently his nerves were out of
+order; it would not do for him to read late at night. He realized all at
+once that his mind and body alike were exhausted.
+
+He passed a miserable night, dozing and waking at alternate hours until
+three o'clock, when he found it impossible to get to sleep; hour after
+hour he lay flat on his back staring open-eyed into the darkness,
+listening to the ticking of the clock, the mysterious footsteps that
+creaked the floors overhead, and the persistent drip of a water faucet.
+Outside in the street he heard at long intervals the rattling of wheels
+as the early milk wagons came and went; a dog began to bark, three gruff
+notes repeated monotonously at exact intervals; all at once there was a
+long muffled roll and an abrupt clacking noise; it ceased, then broke
+out again sharply, paused once more, then recommenced, settling to a
+prolonged minor hum; the cable was starting up; it was almost morning,
+the window of his room began to show a brighter blur in the darkness,
+while very far off he could hear the steady puffing of a locomotive. As
+the first cable-car trundled by the house he dropped off to sleep for
+the last time, being waked again toward nine o'clock by the sound of
+some one shovelling coal outside under his window, the shovel clinking
+and rasping upon the stone sidewalk.
+
+He felt a little refreshed, but as he entered the dining-room for his
+late breakfast the smell of food repulsed him; his appetite was gone; it
+was impossible for him to eat. Toward eleven o'clock that same morning
+he was pottering idly about his sitting-room, winding his clock and
+shaking down the ashes in the tiled flamboyant stove; his mind was still
+busy going over for the hundredth time all the possibilities of Hiram
+Wade's suit, and he was just wondering whether something in the way of a
+compromise might not be arranged, when with the suddenness of a blow
+between the eyes the numbness in his head returned, together with the
+same unreasoning fear, the same depression of spirits, the same fearful
+sinking of the heart. What! it was coming back again, this strange
+attack, coming back even when his attention was not concentrated, even
+when there was no unusual exertion of his brain!
+
+Then the torment began. This time the crisis did not pass off; from now
+on it persisted continually. Vandover began to feel strange. At first
+the room looked unfamiliar to him, then his own daily life no longer
+seemed recognizable, and, finally, all of a sudden, it was the whole
+world, all the existing order of things, that appeared to draw off like
+a refluent tide, leaving him alone, abandoned, cast upon some fearful,
+mysterious shore.
+
+Nothing seemed worth while; all the thousand little trivial things that
+made up the course of his life and in which he found diversion and
+amusement palled upon him. A fearful melancholia settled over him, a
+despair, an abhorrence of living that could not be uttered. This only
+was during the day. It was that night that Vandover went down into the
+pit.
+
+He went to bed early, his brain in a whirl, his frame worn out as if
+from long physical exertion. He was just dropping into a grateful sleep
+when his whole body twitched suddenly with a shock and a recoil of all
+his nerves; in an instant he was broad awake, panting and exhausted as
+if from a long run. Once more he settled himself upon the pillow, and
+once more the same leap, the same sharp spasm of his nerves caught him
+back to consciousness with the suddenness of a relaxed spring. At last
+sleep was out of the question; his drowsiness of the early part of the
+evening passed away, and he lay back, his hands clasped behind his head,
+staring up into the darkness, his thoughts galloping incessantly through
+his brain, suffering without pain as he had never imagined a human being
+could suffer though racked with torture from head to heel.
+
+From time to time a slow torsion and crisping of all his nerves,
+beginning at his ankles, spread to every corner of his body till he had
+to shut his fists and teeth against the blind impulse to leap from his
+bed screaming. His hands felt light and, as he told himself, "jumpy."
+All at once he felt a peculiar sensation in them: they seemed to swell,
+the fingers puffing to an enormous size, the palms bulging, the whole
+member from the wrist to the nails distended like a glove when one has
+blown into it to straighten it out. Then he had a feeling that his head
+was swelling in the same way. He had to rub his hands together, to pass
+them again and again over his face to rid himself of the fancy.
+
+But the strange numb feeling at the base of the skull did not keep him
+from thinking--he would have been glad if it had--and now at last when
+the terror overcame him it was no longer causeless; he knew now what he
+feared--he feared that he was going mad.
+
+It was the punishment that he had brought upon himself, some fearful
+nervous disease, the result of his long indulgence of vice, his vile
+submission to the brute that was to destroy his reason; some collapse of
+all his faculties, beginning first with that which was highest, most
+sensitive--his art--spreading onward and downward till he should have
+reached the last stages of idiocy. It was Nature inexorably exacting. It
+was the vast fearful engine riding him down beneath its myriad spinning
+wheels, remorselessly, irresistibly.
+
+The dreadful calamities that he had brought upon himself recoiled upon
+his head, crushing him to the dust with their weight of anguish and
+remorse: Ida Wade's suicide, his father's death, his social banishment,
+the loss of his art, Hiram Wade's lawsuit menacing him with beggary, and
+now this last, this approaching insanity. It was no longer fire driving
+out fire; the sense of all these disasters seemed to come back upon him
+at once, as keen, as bitter as when they had first befallen. He had told
+himself that he did not believe in a hell. Could there be a worse hell
+than this?
+
+But all at once, without knowing why, moved by an impulse, a blind,
+resistless instinct, Vandover started up in bed, raising his clasped
+hands above him, crying out, "Oh, help me! Why don't you _help_ me? You
+can if you only will!" Who was it to whom he had cried with such
+unerring intuition? He gave no name to this mysterious "You," this
+strange supernatural being, this mighty superhuman power. It was the cry
+of a soul in torment that does not stop to reason, the wild last hope
+that feels its own helplessness, that responds to an intuition of a
+force outside of itself--the force that can save it in its time of
+peril.
+
+Trembling, his hands still clasped above him, Vandover waited for an
+answer, waited for the miracle. In the tortured exalted state of his
+nerves he seemed suddenly possessed of a sixth sense; he fancied that he
+would know, there in that room, in a few seconds, while yet his hands
+remained clasped above his head. It was his last hope: if this failed
+him there was nothing left. Still he waited; he felt that he should know
+when the miracle came, that he would suddenly be filled with a sense of
+peace, of quiet joy. Still he waited--there was nothing, nothing but the
+vast silence, the unbroken blackness of the night, a night that was to
+last forever. There was no answer, nothing but the deaf silence, the
+blind darkness. But in a moment he felt that the very silence, the very
+lack of answer, was answer in itself; there was nothing for him. Even
+that vast mysterious power to which he had cried could not help him now,
+_could_ not help him, could not stay the inexorable law of nature, could
+not reverse that vast terrible engine with its myriad spinning wheels
+that was riding him down relentlessly, grinding him into the dust. And
+afterward? After the engine had done its work, when that strange other
+time should come, that other life, what then? No, not even then, nothing
+but outer darkness then and the gnashing of teeth, nothing but the deaf
+silence, nothing but the blind darkness, nothing but the unbroken
+blackness of an eternal night.
+
+It was the end of everything! With a muffled cry, "Oh, I can't stand
+this!" Vandover threw himself from his bed, groping his way out into the
+sitting-room. By this time he was only conscious of a suffering too
+great to be borne, everything else was blurred as in a thick mist. For
+nearly an hour he stumbled about in the darkened room, bruising himself
+against the furniture, dazed, numb, trying in vain to find the drawer of
+the desk where he kept his father's revolver. At last his hand closed
+upon it, gripping it so tightly that the hundreds of little nicks and
+scratches made by the contact of the tacks and nails which he had
+hammered with it nipped and bit into his palm like the teeth of tiny
+mice. A vague feeling of shame overcame him at the last moment: he had
+no wish to be found sprawling upon the floor, dressed only in his
+night-gown. He lit the gas and put on his bathrobe, drawing the cords
+securely about his waist and neck.
+
+When he turned about to pick up the revolver again he found that his
+determination had weakened considerably, and he was obliged to reflect
+again upon the wreck of his life and soul before he was back once more
+to the proper pitch of resolution. It was five minutes to two, and he
+made up his mind to kill himself when the clock struck the hour. He
+spent the intervening moments in arranging the details of the matter. At
+first he thought he would do it standing, but he abandoned that idea,
+fearing to strike his head against the furniture as he fell. He was
+about to decide upon the huge leather chair, when the remembrance of his
+father's death made that impossible. He finally concluded to sit upon
+the edge of his bed, leaning a little backward so as not to fall upon
+the floor, and he dragged the bed out into the sitting-room, preferring
+somehow to die there. For a moment the idea of lying at length upon the
+bed occurred to him, but in an instant he recoiled from it, horrified at
+the thought of the death that struck from above; no, it would be best to
+sit upon the edge of the bed, falling backward with the shot. Then he
+wondered as to which it should be, his heart or his head; evidently the
+head was the better; there upon the right side in the little hollow of
+the temple, and the next moment he found himself curiously touching and
+pressing the spot with his fingers. All at once he heard the little
+clicking noise that the clock makes a minute or so before the hour. It
+was almost two; he sat down upon the edge of the bed, cocking the
+revolver, waiting for the clock to strike. An idea came to him, and he
+looked at the calendar that stood at the right of the clock upon the top
+of the low bookcase. It was the twelfth of April, Thursday; that, then,
+was to be the date of his death--Thursday, April twelfth, at two in the
+morning, so it would read upon his gravestone. For an instant the
+awfulness of the thing he was to do came upon him, and the next instant
+he found himself wondering if they still coursed jack-rabbits with
+greyhounds down at Coronado the way they used to do when he was there.
+All at once the clock struck two, and at the very last instant a
+strange impulse to seat himself before the mirror came upon him. He drew
+up a chair before it, watching his reflection intently, but even as he
+raised the revolver he suddenly changed his purpose without knowing why,
+and all at once crammed the muzzle into his mouth. He drew the trigger.
+
+He heard no sound of a report; he felt no shock, but a great feebleness
+ran throughout his limbs, a relaxing and weakening of all his muscles;
+his eyes were open and he saw everything small and seemingly very far
+off as through the reversed end of an opera-glass. Suddenly he fainted.
+
+When Vandover came to himself again it was early morning. The room was
+full of daylight, but the gas was still burning. Little by little the
+fearful things of the night came back to him; he realized that he had
+shot himself, and he waited for the end, not daring to move, his eyes
+closed, his hand still gripping the scratched butt of the revolver in
+his lap. For a long time he lay back in the chair, motionless, his
+consciousness slowly returning like an incoming tide. At length he
+started to his feet with an expression of scorn and incredulity; he was
+as sound as ever, there was neither scratch nor scar upon him; he had
+not shot himself after all.
+
+Curiously, he looked at the revolver, throwing open the breech--the
+cylinder was empty; he had forgotten to load it. "What a fool!" he
+exclaimed, laughing scornfully, and still laughing he walked to the
+centre of the room under the chandelier and turned out the gas.
+
+But when he turned about, facing the day once more, facing that day and
+the next and the next throughout all the course of his life, the sense
+of his misery returned upon him in its full strength and he raised his
+clenched fist to his eyes, shutting out the light. Ah, no, he could not
+endure it--the horror of life overpassed the horror of death; he could
+not go on living. A new thought had come to him. Wretched as he was, he
+saw that in time his anguish of conscience, even his dread of losing his
+reason, would pass from him; he would become used to them; yes, even
+become used to the dread of insanity, and then he would return once more
+to vice, return once more into the power of the brute, the perverse and
+evil monster that was knitted to him now irrevocably, part for part,
+fibre for fibre. He saw clearly that nothing could save him, he had had
+his answer that night, there was to be no miracle. Was it not right,
+then, that he should destroy himself? Was it not even his duty? The
+better part of him seemed to demand the act; should he not comply while
+there yet was any better part left? In a little while the brute was to
+take all.
+
+On the shelves above his washstand Vandover found the cartridges in a
+green pasteboard box, and loaded all the chambers of the revolver,
+carefully. He closed the breech; but as he was about to draw back the
+hammer all his courage, all his resolution, crumbled in an instant like
+a tower of sand. He did not dare to shoot himself--he was afraid. The
+night before he had been brave enough; how was it now that he could not
+call up the same courage, the same determination? When he thought over
+the wreck, the wretched failure of his life, the dreadful prospect of
+the future years, his anguish and his terror were as keen as ever. But
+now there was a shrinking of his every nerve from the thought of
+suicide, the instinctive animal fear of death, stronger than himself.
+His suffering had to go on, had to run its course, even death would not
+help him. Let it go on, it was only the better part of him that was
+suffering; in a little while this better part would be dead, leaving
+only the brute. It would die a natural death without any intervention
+from him. Was there any need of suicide? Suicide! Great God! his whole
+life had been one long suicide.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That same morning Charlie Geary had eaten a very thick underdone steak
+for breakfast after enjoying a fine long sleep of eight hours. Toward
+eight o'clock he went downtown. He did not take a car; he preferred to
+walk; it helped his digestion and it gave him exercise. At night he
+walked home as well; that gave him an appetite; besides, with the ten
+cents that he saved in this way, he bought himself a nice cigar that he
+smoked in the evening to help digest his supper. He was very careful of
+his health. Ah, you bet, one had to look out for one's health.
+
+At the office that morning he had a long talk with Beale, Jr., as to
+Hiram Wade's suit. The great firm of Beale & Storey, into whose office
+Geary had been received, made a specialty of damage suits, and
+especially those suits that were brought against a certain great
+monopoly which it was claimed was ruining the city and the state; such a
+case involving nearly a quarter of a million of dollars was now
+occupying the attention of the heads of the firm and, indeed, of the
+whole office. Hiram Wade's suit was assigned to the assistants. Beale,
+Jr., was one of these, and Charlie Geary had managed to push himself
+into the position of his confidential clerk. But Beale, Jr., himself
+took little interest in the Wade suit; the suit against the great
+monopoly was coming to a head; it was a battle of giants; the whole
+office found itself embroiled, and little by little Beale, Jr., allowed
+himself to be drawn into the struggle. The management of the Wade case
+was given over to Geary's hands.
+
+When he had first heard of his assignment to the case Geary had been
+unwilling to act against his old chum, but it was the first legal affair
+of any great importance with which he had been connected, and he was
+soon devoured with an inordinate ambition to distinguish himself in the
+eyes of the firm, to get a "lift," to take a long step forward toward
+the end of his desires, which was to become one of the firm itself. He
+knew he could make a brilliant success of the case. Geary was at this
+time nearly twenty-eight, keen, energetic, immensely clever; and the
+case against Vandover was strong. No one knew better than he himself how
+intimate Vandover had been with Ida Wade; Vandover had told him much of
+the details of their acquaintance. Besides this, a letter which Ida had
+written to Vandover the day before her suicide had been found, torn in
+three pieces, thrust between the leaves of one of the books that she
+used to study at the normal school. It directly implicated Vandover--it
+was evidence that could not be gainsaid. Geary had resolved to push the
+case against his old chum. Vandover ought to see that with Geary it was
+a matter of business; he, Geary, was only an instrument of the law; if
+Geary did not take the case some other lawyer would. At any rate,
+whether Van would see it in this light or not, Geary was determined to
+take the case; it was too good an opportunity to let slip; he was going
+to make his way in the law or he would know the reason why. Every man
+for himself, that was what he said. It might be damned selfish, but it
+was human nature; if he had to sacrifice Van, so much the worse. It was
+evident that his old college chum was going to the dogs anyway, but come
+whatever would, _he_, Geary, was going to be a _success_. Ah, you bet,
+he would make his way and he would make his money.
+
+Ever since he had come into his little patrimony Geary had been making
+offers to Vandover for his block in the Mission. Geary would offer only
+eight thousand dollars, but Brunt steadily advised Vandover against
+listening to such a figure, assuring him that the property was valued at
+twelve thousand six hundred. Vandover had often wondered at Geary's
+persistence in the matter, and had often asked him what he could
+possibly want of the block. But Geary was very vague in his replies,
+generally telling Vandover that there was money in the investment if one
+could and would give the proper attention to pushing it. He told
+Vandover that he--Vandover--was no business man, which was the
+lamentable truth, and would much prefer to live upon the interest of his
+bonds rather than to be continually annoyed by defective plumbing,
+complaints, and repairs. The truth of the matter was that Geary knew
+that a certain immense boot and shoe concern was after the same piece of
+property. The houses themselves were nothing to the boot and shoe
+people; they wanted the land in order to build their manufactory upon
+it. A siding of the railroad ran down the alley just back of the
+property, a fact that hurt the lot for residence purposes, but that was
+indispensable for the boot and shoe people. Geary knew that the heads of
+the manufactory were determined to buy the lot, and he was sure that if
+properly handled by clever brokers they could be induced to offer at
+least one third more than its appraised valuation. It was a chance for a
+fine speculation, and it was torture to Geary to think that Vandover, or
+in fact any one besides himself, was going to profit by it.
+
+The afternoon of the day upon which Hiram Wade had brought suit for
+twenty-five thousand dollars, while Geary was pottering about his swivel
+office chair with an oil can trying to find out where it creaked, a
+brilliant idea had suddenly occurred to him, a stroke of genius, a
+veritable inspiration. Why could he not make the Wade suit a machine
+with which to force Vandover into the sale of the property?
+
+His first idea had been to push the case so vigorously that Vandover
+would surely lose it. But on second thought this course did not seem to
+promise any satisfactory results. Geary knew very well that though Hiram
+Wade had sued for twenty-five thousand dollars he could not recover more
+than five thousand, if as much as that. Geary did not know the exact
+state of Vandover's affairs, but he did not think that his chum would
+sell any property in order to make the payment of damages. It was much
+more likely that he would raise the five thousand, or whatever it might
+be, by placing a second mortgage on some of his property. This, however,
+was presuming that Wade would get judgment for about five thousand
+dollars. But suppose that Vandover thought that Wade could actually
+recover twenty-five thousand! Suppose that Geary himself should see
+Vandover and induce him to believe such a story, and to settle the
+affair out of court! Vandover was as ignorant of law as he was of
+business. Geary might frighten him into a sale. Yet this plan seemed
+very impracticable. In the first place, it would be unprofessional for
+Geary to have an interview with Vandover under such circumstances, the
+story was almost too monstrous even for Vandover's credibility, and
+besides, Geary would not pay, could not pay twenty-five thousand for the
+property. This last was a serious tangle. In order to get Vandover to
+sell, Geary would have to represent the damage suit as involving a
+larger sum of money than Geary was willing to give for the block, even a
+far larger sum than that which the boot and shoe manufacturers could be
+induced to pay for it. It seemed to be a deadlock. Geary began to see
+that the whole idea was out of the question. Yet the desire of it came
+back upon him again and again. He dwelt upon it constantly, smelling out
+the chance for a "deal" somewhere in the tangle with the instinct of the
+keen man of business. At last he seemed to have straightened it out. The
+idea of a compromise came into his mind. What if Vandover and Hiram Wade
+could be made to compromise upon eight thousand dollars! Geary would be
+willing to pay Vandover eight thousand for the block. That was his
+original offer. Wade, though he had sued for twenty-five thousand, could
+easily be made to see that eight thousand was as much as he could
+reasonably expect, and Geary knew the boot and shoe manufacturers would
+pay fifteen thousand for the lot, perhaps more.
+
+But in order to carry out the delicate and complicated affair it was
+absolutely necessary to keep Vandover from seeing a lawyer. Geary knew
+that any lawyer would fight the proposition of a compromise at eight
+thousand dollars: five thousand was as much as Wade could possibly get
+in court, and if judgment for such amount was rendered, Vandover's
+counsel would advise him to raise the sum by mortgaging some property
+instead of selling the block.
+
+Yet as soon as Geary arrived at a solution of the problem, as soon as
+the "deal" began to seem feasible, he commenced to hesitate. It was not
+so much that the affair was crooked, that his role in it was, to say the
+least, unprofessional, as it was the fact that Vandover was his old
+college chum and that, to put the matter into plain words, Geary was
+swindling his best friend out of a piece of property valued at twelve
+thousand six hundred dollars, and preventing him from reselling the same
+piece at a very advanced figure. Again and again he wished that it was
+some other than Vandover; he told himself that in such case he would put
+the screw on without the least compunction. All through one night Geary
+was on the rack torn between his friendship for his chum and his
+devouring, inordinate ambition to make his way and to make his pile. In
+the end Vandover was sacrificed--the opportunity was too good--Geary
+could not resist the chance for a "deal." Ah, you bet, just think of it,
+after all, not only would Vandover believe that Geary was doing him a
+great service, but the office would be delighted with him for winning
+his first case, they would get a heavy fee from Wade, and he would
+nearly double his money invested in the block in the Mission. As soon as
+he had made up his mind to put the "deal" through, he had seen Vandover
+at his rooms early in the morning and had induced him to promise not to
+engage any other counsel and in general keep very quiet about the whole
+business.
+
+The day after, he and Beale, Jr., had an appointment with Hiram Wade,
+but toward noon Beale, Jr., disappeared, leaving word for Geary that he
+had gone to court with his father to hear the closing arguments in the
+great suit against the monopoly, the last struggle in the tremendous
+legal battle that had embroiled the whole office; Geary was to use his
+own judgment in the Wade case. Geary laboured with Hiram Wade all that
+afternoon. The old fellow mistrusted him on account of his youth and his
+inexperience, was unwilling to arrive at any definite conclusion without
+the sanction of Geary's older associate, and for a long time would
+listen to nothing less than ten thousand dollars, crying out that his
+gray hairs had been dishonoured, and striking his palm upon his
+forehead. Nothing could move him. He, also, had his ambitions; it was
+his dream to own the carpet-cleaning establishment in which he now had
+but a three-fourths interest. Summer was coming, the time of year when
+people were going into the country, leaving their carpets to be cleaned
+in their absence. If he could obtain complete ownership of his business
+within the month he fancied that he saw an opportunity to make more
+money than he had done before at any previous season.
+
+"Why, I tell you, Mister Geary," he exclaimed indignantly, wagging his
+head, "it would seem like selling my daughter's honour if we should
+compromise at any less figure. I am a father. I--I have my feelings,
+haven't I?"
+
+"Well, now, it isn't like that at all, Mr. Wade," answered Geary, making
+awkward gestures with both his hands. "It isn't what we _ought_ to get
+out of him. Could any sum of money, could millions compensate you for
+Miss Ida's death? I guess not. It's what we _can_ get. If this thing
+comes into court we won't get but five thousand out of him; I'll tell
+you that right now. He could raise that by a mortgage, easy; but if we
+compromise we can squeeze him for eight thousand. You see, the fact that
+we can act directly with him instead of through counsel makes it easier
+for us. Of course, as I tell you, it isn't just the legal thing to do,
+but I'm willing to do it for you because I think you've been wronged and
+outraged."
+
+Wade struck his hand to his head. "I tell you, he's brought dishonour
+upon my gray hairs," he exclaimed.
+
+"Exactly, of course, I understand how you feel," replied Geary, "but now
+about this eight thousand? I tell you what I'll do." He had resolved to
+stake everything upon one last hazard. "See here, Mr. Wade, there's a
+difference, of course, between eight thousand dollars and ten thousand,
+but the use of money is worth something, isn't it? And money down, cold
+hard cash, is worth something, isn't it? Well, now, suppose you got that
+eight thousand dollars money down within three days?"
+
+Hiram Wade still demurred a little longer for the sake of his own
+self-respect and his dishonoured hairs, but in the end it was agreed
+that if the money was paid over to him in full before the end of the
+following week he would be content and would agree to the compromise.
+Eight thousand dollars would still be enough to buy out his partner's
+interest, and even then he would have a little left over with which to
+improve a certain steaming apparatus. If the amount was paid in full
+within a week he could get control of the cleaning-works in time to
+catch all of the summer trade.
+
+Geary had calculated that this last argument would have its weight; the
+great difficulty now was to get Vandover to sell at such a low figure
+and upon such short notice. He almost despaired of his success in this
+quarter; however, it all depended upon Vandover now.
+
+Early in the forenoon of the next day Geary pounded on the door of
+Vandover's sitting-room, pushing it open without waiting for an answer.
+Vandover was lying in his shirt-sleeves on the corduroy divan under the
+huge rug of sombre colours that hung against the wall, and he did not
+get up as Geary came in; in fact, he hardly stirred.
+
+"Hello!" cried Geary, closing the door with his heel. "Didn't expect to
+find _you_ up so early. _I've_ been up since half-past six; had
+breakfast at seven, fine cutlet, and then got down to the office at
+twenty minutes of eight. How's that for rustling, hey?"
+
+"Yes?" said Vandover, dully.
+
+"But, say," exclaimed Geary, "what's all the matter with _you_? You look
+all frazzled out, all pale around the wattles. Ah, you've been hitting
+up a pace again. You're a bird, Van, there's no use talking! All night
+racket this trip?".
+
+"I suppose so," answered Vandover, never moving.
+
+"But you _do_ look gone-in this morning, sure," continued Geary, seating
+himself on the edge of the table and pushing back his hat. "Never saw
+you looking so bad; you ought to be more careful, Van; there'll be a
+smash some time. Ah, you bet a man ought to look out for his health. I
+walk downtown every morning, and three times a week I take a cold shower
+as soon as I get up. Ah, I tell you, that braces a fellow up; you ought
+to try it; it's better than a dozen cocktails. You keep on getting thin
+like you have for the past few days and I'll have to be calling you
+Skinny Seldom-fed again, like we used to. Now, tell the truth, what time
+did you get to bed last night? Did you go to bed at all?"
+
+"No," replied Vandover with a long breath, looking vaguely at the
+pipe-rack on the opposite wall.
+
+"I thought as much," answered Geary. "Well, that's like you." He paused
+a moment, and then went on, nervously gesturing with both his hands
+simultaneously. "Well, I've had a long talk with Wade. I tell you, Van,
+that old boy is as stubborn as a mule. You see, he knows he's got a
+case. I couldn't talk him out of that. I'll tell you how it is,"
+continued Geary, preparing to spring another mine; "he's found a letter
+Ida wrote you the day before she killed herself." He paused to watch the
+effect upon Vandover. Vandover waited for him to go on, but seeing that
+he did not and that he expected him to say something, nodded his head
+once and answered:
+
+"I see."
+
+"Don't you know, that letter that she wrote to you telling you how it
+was, how she was fixed?" repeated Geary, puzzled and irritated at
+Vandover's indifference.
+
+"I know."
+
+"Well, he's got it, anyhow," pursued Geary, "and of course that tells
+against you. Well, I had a long talk with him yesterday afternoon and I
+got him to compromise. Of course, you know in suits like this one a
+party sues for a great deal more than he expects to get. At first you
+know he said twenty-five thousand; that figure was decided upon at the
+first interview he had with us. Of course, he could never get judgment
+for that much. But he hung out at ten thousand; said it would be selling
+his daughter if he took any less. Now I knew you couldn't raise that
+much on any property you have, especially in these hard times--" Geary
+paused for the fraction of an instant; he had thrown out the last remark
+as a feeler, to see what Vandover would say; but his chum said nothing,
+staring vaguely at the opposite wall, merely making a faint sign to show
+that he understood, closing his eyes and bending his head. "And so,"
+continued the other, "I jewed him down, and what do you suppose? Well,
+sir, from twenty-five thousand I brought him right down to, say, eight
+thousand. I could see that he had some scheme that he wants to go into
+right away, and that he wants ready money, right on the nail, you know,
+to carry it through. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to see that. I
+waltzed him right over when I began to speak of ready money, cash down.
+As soon as he'd squeal I'd spring cold cash on him, money down, and he's
+hit gravel like an ostrich. Well," he went on deliberately after a
+pause, getting up from the table and standing before Vandover, his hands
+in his pockets, "well, I think that's the best I can do for you, Van.
+It's a good deal better than I expected, but I've done the best I could
+for you, and I would advise you to see him on the proposition."
+
+"All right," said Vandover. "Go ahead."
+
+Geary was perplexed. "Well, you think that's a good thing, don't you?
+You think I've done my best for you? You see it as I do, don't you?"
+
+Vandover withdrew his eyes from the other wall, glancing under heavy
+eyelids at Geary, and with a slight movement of his head and shoulders
+replied:
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Have you got the money?" asked Geary eagerly; then, irritated at his
+indiscretion, hastened to interrupt himself. "You see, he hasn't put his
+proposition into writing yet, but it's like this: if you can pay him
+eight thousand dollars in cash before the end of next week he'll sign a
+document to the effect that he is satisfied."
+
+"I've got no money," said Vandover quietly.
+
+"I was afraid you wouldn't have," said Geary, "but you can raise it
+somewhere. You had better close with the old man as soon as you can,
+Van, while he's in the mood for it; you'll make a clear two thousand by
+it. You can see that as well as I can. Now, where can you--how is your
+property fixed? Let's see! Here's the statement you made to me the other
+day," continued Geary, drawing his shorthand notes from his portfolio.
+"How about this piece on California Street, the one that you have
+rented, the homestead, you know?"
+
+"Yes, there's that," answered Vandover, changing the position of his
+head upon his clasped hands.
+
+"But that's pretty well papered up already," returned Geary, consulting
+his notes. "You couldn't very well raise another mortgage on that.'"
+
+"I'd forgotten," answered Vandover. "There's the block in the Mission.
+He can have _that_."
+
+Geary began to tremble with excitement. It looked as though he might be
+able to make the deal after all. But the next instant he grew
+suspicious. Vandover's indifference puzzled him. Might he not have some
+game of his own? The idea of playing off his cleverness against that of
+an opponent strung his nerves in an instant; the notion of an impending
+struggle was almost an inspiration, and his innate desire of getting the
+better of a competitor, even though it was his closest friend, aroused
+his wits and sharpened his faculties like a stimulant. He had no
+hesitancy in sacrificing his chum. It was business now; friendship
+ceased to be a factor in the affair. Ah, Van was going to be foxy; he'd
+show him that he could be foxy, too.
+
+"He can have it?" echoed Geary. "You don't mean to sign it over to him
+bodily?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose it could be mortgaged," answered Vandover.
+
+"Yes, that's the idea," returned Geary. "You want me to figure that out
+for you? I can just as well as not. Well, now, let's see," he went on,
+settling himself at the desk, and figuring upon a sheet of Vandover's
+stamped letter-paper. "The banks will never give you more than two
+thirds of the appraised value; that's as much as we can expect; that
+would come to--well, let's see--that would come to six thousand on that
+piece; then you could mortgage something else to make up the
+difference."
+
+"Wouldn't it be more than six thousand?" asked Vandover with a little
+show of interest. "I think that block has been appraised at something
+over twelve thousand."
+
+"Ah, yes," returned Geary, putting his chin in the air, "that was your
+agent's valuation five years ago; but you know property out there, in
+fact, property all over the city, what they call inside property, has
+been going right down for the last ten years. That's what I've always
+been telling you. You couldn't possibly get more than nine thousand for
+that block to-day. You see the railroad there hurts it."
+
+"I suppose so," replied Vandover. "I've heard the governor say as much
+in his time."
+
+"Of course," exclaimed Geary, delighted at this unexpected turn.
+
+"Well, then, he can have my bonds," said Vandover. "I've got eighty-nine
+hundred in bonds; he can have those. Let him have anything he wants."
+
+"Oh, don't touch your bonds," answered Geary. "Hang on to those. Bonds
+are always good--U.S. bonds. You don't want to sell those, Van. You see,
+the homestead is already mortgaged. And, besides, you know, too, that
+the banks are asking an awful big per cent. for mortgages on real
+estate; it's seven and a half nowadays. Don't sell your bonds. I'll tell
+you why: U.S. bonds are always good; they never depreciate, but it's
+different with realty, especially in this city just now. It's been
+depreciating ever since your father's time, and it's going to go right
+on depreciating. If you want to sell anything, sell your realty before
+it gets any lower. Now you don't want to sell your home, do you? You
+don't like that idea. You've lived there so long, and then what would
+you do with the furniture; besides, the rent of that," he glanced again
+at his notes, "is bringing you in a good hundred and twenty-five a
+month. If you've got to sell at all, why not sell your Mission block?"
+
+"All right," said Vandover, as if wearied by Geary's clamour, "I'll sign
+it over to him."
+
+"No, that's not the idea at all," Geary insisted. "He wants the ready
+money; he don't want depreciated real estate. You'll have to find a
+purchaser in the next week if you possibly can in such a short time, and
+make over the money to Wade. But if you can't sell in that time you will
+have to dig up ten thousand instead of eight. It's a hard position for
+you, Van; it's just a chance, you know, but I thought I would give you
+the benefit of that chance. If you want to give me a power of attorney
+I'll try and sell it for you."
+
+"I guess Brunt would do that," replied Vandover.
+
+"Yes," retorted Geary, watchful as a lynx, "but they would charge you a
+big commission. Of course _I_ wouldn't think of asking you anything more
+than the actual costs. I am afraid that they would try to sell it at
+auction, too, if they knew you had to realize on it in so short a time,
+and it would go for a mere song then; you know how it is."
+
+"I thought," inquired Vandover, "that you wanted that property."
+
+"Yes," replied Geary, hesitating, "I--I did want to buy it of you once;
+well, for that matter I do now. But you know how it is with me."
+
+"I might as well sell it to you as to any one else," returned Vandover.
+
+"Well, now, it's like this, Van," said Geary. "I know that block is
+worth nine thousand dollars; I won't deceive you. But I can only give
+you eight thousand for it. That's all the money I've got. But I'm not
+going to take advantage of your position to jew you down. I want the
+block, I'll admit that, but I'm not going to have you sacrifice it for
+me, or for any one else. I think you can get nine thousand for it. I
+know you could if we had a little more time, and I'm not sure but what I
+could find a purchaser for you within the next week that would give you
+nine thousand."
+
+"Oh, I don't care, Charlie; I'm sick of everything; eight thousand, nine
+thousand, anything you like; take it at your own figure."
+
+Geary began to tremble once more, and this time his excitement was so
+great that he hardly dared to trust himself to speak; his breath grew
+short, his hands in his pockets twitched nervously, and curled
+themselves into fists, his heart seemed to him to beat high in his
+throat; he hesitated long, pretending to deliberate as he steadied
+himself.
+
+Vandover remained silent, his hands still clasped back of his head,
+staring at the opposite wall with eyes that saw nothing. The little
+clock began to strike ten.
+
+"I don't know, Van," said Geary; "I don't like to do this, and yet I
+would like to help you out of this muss. You see, if I should ever
+benefit by the property you would feel as though I had taken advantage
+of you at this time and worked a flim-flam on you!"
+
+"Oh, I'll look out for that," returned Vandover.
+
+"No, no, I don't feel quite right about it," answered Geary, wagging his
+head and shutting his eyes. "Better see what we can do at a forced
+sale."
+
+"Why, don't you see you would be doing me a favour?" said Vandover
+wearily. "I _ask_ you to buy the block. I don't care what your figure
+is!"
+
+Once more Geary hesitated, for the last time going over the whole deal
+in his mind from beginning to end, testing it, looking for weak points.
+It was almost perfect. Suppose the boot and shoe people did not buy the
+lot? He could resell it elsewhere, even below its appraised value and
+yet make money by the transaction; the lot was cheap at ten thousand; it
+might bring twelve; even as an ordinary, legitimate speculation it was
+to be desired at such a figure. Suppose the boot and shoe people backed
+out entirely, suppose even he could not find another purchaser for the
+property, why, then, he could hold on to it; the income from the rents
+was fully 10 per cent. of the price he would have paid for it.
+
+"Well, Van," he said at last, making a slow, awkward gesture with his
+left hand, all the fingers extended, "well, I'll take you up--but I
+don't feel as though I should--" He suddenly interrupted himself with a
+burst of sincerity, exclaiming: "Sure, old man, if I had nine thousand
+I'd give it to you for the block, that's straight goods." He felt that
+he was conscientious in saying this. It was true he would have given
+nine thousand if he had had it. For that matter he might have given ten
+or twelve.
+
+"Can't we settle the whole matter to-day?" said Vandover. "Right
+here--now. I'm sick of it, sick of everything. Let's get it done with."
+
+Geary nearly bounded from his seat. He had been wondering how he might
+accomplish this very thing. "All right," he said briskly, "no reason in
+waiting." He had seen to it that he should be prepared to close the sale
+the moment that Vandover was willing. Long ago, when he had first had
+the idea of buying the block, he had spent a day in the offices of the
+county recorder, the tax collector, and the assessor, assuring himself
+of the validity of the title, and only two days ago he had gone over the
+matter again in order to be sure that no encumbrances had been added to
+the block in the meanwhile. He found nothing; the title was clear.
+
+"Isn't this rather rushing the thing through?" he asked. "Maybe you
+might regret it afterward. Don't you want to take two or three days to
+think it over?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Sure now?" persisted Geary.
+
+"But I've _got_ to sell before three days," answered Vandover.
+"Otherwise he'll want ten thousand."
+
+"That's a fact," admitted the other. "Well," he went on, "if your mind's
+made up, why--we can go right ahead. As I say, there's no reason for
+waiting; better take up Wade while he's in the mood for it. You see, he
+hasn't signed any proposition as yet, and he might go back on us."
+Vandover drew a long breath and got up slowly, heavily, from the couch,
+saying:
+
+"What's the odds to me what I sell for? _I_ don't get the money."
+
+"Well, what do you say if we go right down to a notary's office and put
+this thing right through," Geary suggested.
+
+"Come on, then."
+
+"Have you got your abstract here, the abstract of the block?" Vandover
+nodded. "Better bring it along, then," said Geary.
+
+The office of the notary adjoined those of the firm of Beale & Storey;
+in fact, he was in a sense an attache of the great firm and transacted a
+great deal of legal business for them. Vandover and Geary fell upon him
+in an idle moment. A man had come to regulate the water filter, which
+took the place of an ice cooler in a corner of one of the anterooms, and
+while he was engaged at his work the notary stood at his back, abusing
+him and exclaiming at the ineffectiveness of the contrivance. The notary
+was a middle-aged man with a swollen, purple face; he had a toothpick
+behind each ear and wore an office coat of gray linen, ripped at the
+shoulders.
+
+Then the transfer was made. It was all settled in less than half an
+hour, unceremoniously, almost hastily. For the sake of form Geary signed
+a check for eight thousand dollars which Vandover in his turn made over
+to Hiram Wade. The notary filled out a deed of grant, bargain, and sale,
+pasting on his certificate of acknowledgment as soon as Vandover and
+Geary had signed. Geary took the abstract, thrusting it into his
+breast-pocket. As far as Vandover was concerned, the sale was complete,
+but he had neither his properly nor its equivalent in money.
+
+"Well," declared Geary at length, "I guess that's all there is to be
+done. I'll get a release from old man Wade and send it to you to-morrow
+or next day. Now, let's go down to the Imperial and have a drink on it."
+They went out, but the notary returned to the anteroom, turning the
+spigot of the filter to right and left, frowning at it suspiciously,
+refusing to be satisfied.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Sixteen
+
+
+That particular room in the Lick House was well toward the rear of the
+building, on one of the upper floors, and from its window, one looked
+out upon a vast reach of roofs that rose little by little to meet the
+abrupt rise of Telegraph Hill. It was a sordid and grimy wilderness,
+topped with a gray maze of wires and pierced with thousands of chimney
+stacks. Many of the roofs were covered with tin long since blackened by
+rust and soot. Here and there could be seen clothes hung out to dry.
+Occasionally upon the flanking walls of some of the larger buildings was
+displayed an enormous painted sign, a violent contrast of intense black
+and staring white amidst the sooty brown and gray, advertising some
+tobacco, some newspaper, or some department store. Not far in the
+distance two tall smokestacks of blackened tin rose high in the air,
+above the roof of a steam laundry, one very large like the stack of a
+Cunarder, the other slender, graceful, with a funnel-shaped top. All day
+and all night these stacks were smoking; from the first, the larger one,
+rolled a heavy black smoke, very gloomy, waving with a slow and
+continued movement like the plume of some sullen warrior. But the other
+one, the tall and slender pipe, threw off a series of little white
+puffs, three at a time, that rose buoyant and joyous into the air like
+so many white doves, vanishing at last, melting away in the higher
+sunshine, only to be followed by another flight. They came three at a
+time, the pipe tossing them out with a sharp gay sound like a note of
+laughter interrupted by a cough.
+
+But the interior of the room presented the usual dreary aspect of the
+hotel bedroom--cheerless, lamentable.
+
+The walls were whitewashed and bare of pictures or ornaments, and the
+floor was covered with a dull red carpet. The furniture was a "set," all
+the pieces having a family resemblance. On entering, one saw the bed
+standing against the right-hand wall, a huge double bed with the name of
+the hotel in the corners of its spread and pillowcases. In the exact
+middle of the room underneath the gas fixture was the centre-table, and
+upon it a pitcher of ice-water. The blank, white monotony of one side
+of the room was jarred upon by the grate and mantelpiece, iron, painted
+black, while on the mantelpiece itself stood a little porcelain
+matchsafe with ribbed sides in the form of a truncated cone. Precisely
+opposite the chimney was the bureau, flanked on one side by the door of
+the closet, and on the other in the corner of the room by the stationary
+washstand with its new cake of soap and its three clean, glossy towels.
+On the wall to the left of the door was the electric bell and the
+directions for using it, and tacked upon the door itself a card as to
+the hours for meals, the rules of the hotel, and the extract of the code
+defining the liabilities of innkeepers, all printed in bright red.
+Everything was clean, defiantly, aggressively clean, and there was a
+clean smell of new soap in the air.
+
+But the room was bare of any personality. Of the hundreds who had lived
+there, perhaps suffered and died there, not a trace, not a suggestion
+remained; their different characters had not left the least impress upon
+its air or appearance. Only a few hairpins were scattered on the bottom
+of one of the bureau drawers, and two forgotten medicine bottles still
+remained upon the top shelf of the closet.
+
+This had been the appearance of Vandover's new home when he had first
+come to it, after leaving his suite of rooms in the huge apartment house
+on Sutter Street. He had lived here now for something over a year.
+
+It had all commenced with the seizure of his furniture by the
+proprietors of the apartment house. Almost before he knew it he owed for
+six months' room and board; when the extras were added to this bill it
+swelled to nearly a thousand dollars. At first he would not believe it;
+it was not possible that so large a bill could accumulate without his
+knowledge. He declared there was a mistake, tossing back the bill to the
+clerk who had presented it, and shaking his head incredulously. This
+other became angry, offered to show the books of the house. The manager
+was called in and attempted to prove the clerk's statement by figures,
+dates, and extracts from the entries. Vandover was confused by their
+noise, and grew angry in his turn; vociferating that he did not propose
+to be cheated, the others retorted in a rage, the interview ended in a
+scene.
+
+But in the end they gained their point; they were right, and at length
+Vandover was brought around to see that he was in the wrong, but he had
+no ready money, and while he hesitated, unwilling to part with any of
+his bonds or to put an additional mortgage upon the homestead, the
+hotel, after two warnings, suddenly seized upon his furniture. What a
+misery!
+
+In a moment of time it was all taken from him, all the lovely
+bric-a-brac, all the heavy pieces, all the little articles of _vertu_
+which he had bought with such intense delight and amongst which he had
+lived with such happiness, such contentment, such never-failing
+pleasure. Everything went--the Renaissance portraits, the pipe-rack, the
+chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_
+and, worst of all, the stove, the famous tiled stove, the delightful
+cheery iron stove with the beautified flamboyant ornaments. For the
+first few months after the seizure Vandover was furious with rage and
+disappointment, persuaded that he could never live anywhere but in just
+such a room; it was as if he had been uprooted and cast away upon some
+barren, uncongenial soil. His new room in the hotel filled him with
+horror, and for a long time he used it only as a place where he could
+sleep and wash. For a long time even his pliable character refused to
+fit itself to such surroundings, refused to be content between four
+enormous white walls, a stuccoed ceiling, and a dark red carpet. He
+passed most of his time elsewhere, reading the papers at the Mechanics
+Library in the morning, and in the afternoon sitting about the hotel
+office and parlours until it was time to take his usual little four
+o'clock stroll on Kearney and Market streets. He had long since become a
+familiar figure on this promenade. Even the women and girls of Flossie's
+type had ceased to be interested in this tall, thin young man with the
+tired, heavy eyes and blue-white face. One day, however, a curious
+incident did for a moment invest Vandover with a sudden dramatic
+interest. It was just after he had moved down to the Lick House, about a
+month after he had sold the block in the Mission. Vandover was standing
+at Lotta's fountain at the corner of Kearney and Market streets,
+interested in watching a policeman and two boys reharnessing a horse
+after its tumble. All at once he fell over flat into the street,
+jostling one of the flower venders and nearly upsetting him. He struck
+the ground with a sodden shock, his arms doubled under him, his hat
+rolling away into the mud. Bewildered, he picked himself up; very few
+had seen him fall, but a little crowd gathered for all that. One asked
+if the man was drunk, and Vandover, terrified lest the policeman should
+call the patrol wagon, hurried off to a basement barber shop near by,
+where he brushed his clothes, still bewildered, confused, wondering how
+it had happened.
+
+The fearful nervous crisis which Vandover had undergone had passed off
+slowly. Little by little, bit by bit, he had got himself in hand again.
+However, the queer numbness in his head remained, and as soon as he
+concentrated his attention on any certain line of thought, as soon as he
+had read for any length of time, especially if late at night, the
+numbness increased. Somewhere back of his eyes a strange blurring mist
+would seem to rise; he would find it impossible to keep his mind fixed
+upon any subject; the words of a printed page would little by little
+lose their meaning. At first this had been a source of infinite terror
+to him. He fancied it to be the symptoms of some approaching mental
+collapse, but, as the weeks went by and nothing unusual occurred, he
+became used to it, and refused to let it worry him. If it made his head
+feel queer to read, the remedy was easy enough--he simply would not
+read; and though he had been a great reader, and at one time had been
+used to spend many delightful afternoons lost in the pages of a novel,
+he now gave it all up with an easy indifference.
+
+But, besides all this, the attack had left him with nerves all unstrung;
+even his little afternoon walk on Kearney and Market streets exhausted
+him; any trifling and sudden noise, the closing of a door, the striking
+of a clock, would cause him to start from his place with a gasp and a
+quick catch at the heart. Toward evening this little spasm of nerves
+would sometimes come upon him even when there was nothing to cause it,
+and now he could no longer drop off to sleep without first undergoing a
+whole series of these recoils and starts, that would sometimes bring him
+violently up to a sitting posture, his breath coming short and quick,
+his heart galloping, startled at he knew not what.
+
+At first he had intended to see a doctor, but he had put off carrying
+his intention into effect until he had grown accustomed to the whole
+matter; otherwise, he was well enough, his appetite was good, and when
+he finally did get to sleep he would not wake up for a good eight hours.
+
+One evening, however, about three months after the first crisis and just
+as Vandover was becoming well accustomed to the condition of body and
+mind in which it had left him, the second attack came on. It was
+fearful, much worse than on the first occasion, and this time there was
+no room for doubt. Vandover knew that for the moment he was actually
+insane.
+
+Ellis had been with Vandover most of that afternoon, the two had been
+playing cards in Vandover's room until nearly six o'clock. All the
+afternoon they had been drinking whisky while they played, and by
+supper-time neither of them had any appetite. Ellis refused to go down,
+declaring that if he should eat now it would make him sick. Vandover
+went down alone, but once in the dining-room he found that _he_ could
+not eat either. However, he knew that it was not the whisky. For two
+days his appetite had been failing him. The smell of food revolted him,
+and he left the supper-table, going up to his bare and lamentable room
+with the feeling that he was about to undergo a long spell of sickness.
+In the deserted hall, between the elevator and the door of his room, the
+second crisis came upon him all at once. It was so sudden that it was as
+if some enemy had leaped upon his back, springing out of the shadow,
+gripping him from behind, holding him close. Once more the hysteria
+shook him like a dry leaf. The little nervous starts came so fast that
+they ran together, mingling to form one long thrill of terror, the
+blind, unreasoning terror of something unknown; the numbness weighed
+down upon his brain until consciousness dwindled to a mere point and
+mercifully dulled the torture of his crisping nerves. It seemed to him
+that his hands and head were rapidly swelling to enormous size.
+
+All this he had felt before; it was his old enemy, but now with this
+second attack began a new and even stranger sensation. In his distorted
+wits he fancied that he was in some manner changing, that he was
+becoming another man; worse than that, it seemed to him that he was no
+longer human, that he was sinking, all in a moment, to the level of
+some dreadful beast.
+
+Later on in that same evening Ellis met young Haight coming out of one
+of the theatres, and told him a story that Haight did not believe. Ellis
+was very pale, and he seemed to young Haight to be trying to keep down
+some tremendous excitement.
+
+"If he was drunk," said Ellis, "it was the strangest drunk I ever saw.
+He came back into the room on all fours--not on his hands and knees, you
+understand, but running along the floor upon the palms of his hands and
+his toes--and he pushed the door of the room open with his head,
+nuzzling at the crack like any dog. Oh, it was horrible. _I_ don't know
+what's the matter with Van. You should have seen him; his head was
+hanging way down, and swinging from side to side as he came along; it
+shook all his hair over his eyes. He kept rattling his teeth together,
+and every now and then he would say, way down in his throat so it
+sounded like growls, 'Wolf--wolf--wolf.' I got hold of him and pulled
+him up to his feet. It was just as though he was asleep, and when I
+shook him he came to all at once and began to laugh. 'What's the matter,
+Van?' says I. 'What are you crawling on the floor that way for?' 'I'm
+damned if I know,' says he, rubbing his eyes. 'I guess I must have been
+out of my head. Too much whisky!' Then he says: 'Put me to bed, will
+you, Bandy? I feel all gone in.' Well, I put him to bed and went out to
+get some bromide of potassium; he said that made him sleep and kept his
+nerves steady. Coming back, I met a bell-boy just outside of Van's door,
+and told him to ask the hotel doctor to come up. You see, I had not
+opened the door of the room yet, and while I was talking to the bell-boy
+I could hear the sound of something four-footed going back and forth
+inside the room. When I got inside there was Van, perfectly naked, going
+back and forth along the wall, swinging his head very low, grumbling to
+himself. But he came to again as soon as I shook him, and seemed
+dreadfully ashamed, and went to bed all right. He got to sleep finally,
+and I left the doctor with him, to come out and get something for my own
+nerves."
+
+"What did the doctor say was the matter?" asked young Haight, in horror.
+
+"_Lycanthropy-Pathesis_. I never heard the name before--some kind of
+nervous disease. I guess Van had been hitting up a pretty rapid gait,
+and then I suppose he's had a good deal to worry him, too."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once more the attack passed off, leaving Vandover exhausted, his nerves
+all jangling, his health impaired. Every day he seemed to grow thinner,
+great brown hollows grew under his eyes, and the skin of his forehead
+looked blue and tightly drawn. By degrees a deep gloom overcame him
+permanently, nothing could interest him, nothing seemed worth while. Not
+only were his nerves out of tune, but they were jaded, deadened, slack;
+they were like harpstrings that had been played upon so long and so
+violently that now they could no longer vibrate unless swept with a very
+whirlwind.
+
+As he had foreseen, Vandover had returned again to vice, to the vice
+that was knitted into him now, fibre for fibre, to the ways of the brute
+that by degrees was taking entire possession of him. But he no longer
+found pleasure even in vice; once it had been his amusement, now it was
+his occupation. It was the only thing that seemed to ease the horrible
+nervousness that of late had begun to prey upon him constantly.
+
+But though nothing could amuse him, on the other hand nothing could
+worry him; in the end the very riot of his nerves ceased even to annoy
+him. He had arrived at a state of absolute indifference. He had so often
+rearranged his pliable nature to suit his changing environment that at
+last he found that he could be content in almost any circumstances. He
+had no pleasures, no cares, no ambitions, no regrets, no hopes. It was
+mere passive existence, an inert, plantlike vegetation, the moment's
+pause before the final decay, the last inevitable rot.
+
+One day after he had been living nearly a year at the Lick House, Adams
+& Brunt, the real estate agents, sent him word that they had an offer
+for his property on California Street. It was the homestead. The English
+gentleman, the president of the fruit syndicate who had rented the house
+of Vandover, was now willing to buy it. His business was by this time on
+a firm and paying basis and he had decided to make his home in San
+Francisco. He offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the house,
+including the furniture.
+
+Brunt had several talks with Vandover and easily induced him to sell.
+"You can figure it out for yourself, Mr. Vandover," he said, as he
+pointed out his own calculations to him; "property has been going down
+in the city for the last ten years, and it will continue to do so until
+we can get a competing railroad through. Better sell when you can, and
+twenty-five thousand is a fair price. Of course, you will have to pay
+off the mortgage; you won't get but about fifteen thousand out of it,
+but at the same time you won't have to pay the interest on that mortgage
+to the banks; that will be so much saved a month; add that to what you
+could get for your fifteen thousand at, say, 6 per cent., and you would
+have a monthly income nearly equal to the present rent of the house, and
+much more certain, too. Suppose your tenant should go out, then where
+would you be?"
+
+"All right, all right," answered Vandover, nodding his head vaguely. "Go
+ahead, _I_ don't care." He parted from his old home with as much
+indifference as he had parted from his block in the Mission.
+
+Vandover signed the deed that made him homeless, and at about the same
+time the first payment was made. Ten thousand dollars was deposited in
+one of the banks to his credit, and a check sent to him for the amount.
+The very next day Vandover drew against it for five hundred dollars.
+
+At one time he had had an ambition to buy back his furniture from the
+huge apartment house in which he had formerly lived, and with it to make
+his cheerless bedroom in the Lick House seem more like a home. He felt
+it almost as a dishonour to have strangers using this furniture, sitting
+in the great leather chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, staring
+stupidly at his Renaissance portraits and copies of Assyrian
+_bas-reliefs_. Above all, it was torture to think that other hands than
+his own would tend the famous tiled and flamboyant stove, a stove that
+had its moods, its caprices, like any living person, a stove that had to
+be coaxed and humoured, a stove that he alone could understand. He had
+told himself that if ever again he should have money enough he would
+bring back this furniture to him. At first its absence had been a matter
+for the keenest regret and grief. He had been so used to pleasant
+surroundings that he languished in his new quarters as in a prison. His
+indulgent, luxurious character continually hungered after subdued,
+harmonious colours, pictures, ornaments, and soft rugs. His imagination
+was forever covering the white walls with rough stone-blue paper, and
+placing screens, divans, and window-seats in different parts of the cold
+bare room. One morning he had even gone so far as to pin about the walls
+little placards which he had painted with a twisted roll of the hotel
+letter-paper dipped into the inkstand. "Pipe-rack Here." "Mona Lisa
+Here." "Stove Here." "Window-seat Here." He had left them up there ever
+since, in spite of the chambermaid's protests and Ellis' clumsy satire.
+
+Now, however, he had plenty of money. He would have his furniture back
+within the week. He came back from the bank, the money in his pocket,
+and went up to the room directly, with some vague intention of writing
+to the proprietors of the apartment house at once. But as he shut the
+door behind him, leaning his back against it and looking about, he
+suddenly realized that his old-time desire was passed; he had become so
+used to these surroundings that it now no longer made any difference to
+him whether or not they were cheerless, lamentable, barren. It was like
+all his other little ambitions--he had lost the taste for them, nothing
+made much difference after all. His money had come too late.
+
+Why should he spend his five hundred dollars on something that could no
+longer amuse him? It would be much wiser to spend it all in having a
+good time somewhere--champagne dinners with Flossie, or betting on the
+races--he did not know exactly what. It was true that even these
+alternatives would not amuse him very much--he would fall back upon them
+as things of habit. For that matter everything was an _ennui_, and
+Vandover began to long for some new pleasure, some violent untried
+excitement.
+
+Since the sale of the block in the Mission he had seen but little of
+Geary; young Haight had not been his companion since the time when
+Turner Ravis had broken with him, but little by little he had begun to
+associate with Ellis and his friend the Dummy. Almost every evening the
+three were together, sometimes at the theatre, sometimes in the back
+rooms of the Imperial, sometimes even in the parlours of certain houses,
+amid the murmur of heavy silks and the rustle of stiffly starched
+skirts. At times they would be drunk four nights of the week, and on
+these occasions it was tacitly understood between Ellis and Vandover
+that they should try to get the Dummy so full that he could talk.
+
+However, Ellis' vice was gambling; he and the Dummy often passed the
+whole night over their cards, and as Vandover came more and more under
+Ellis' influence--succumbing to it as weakly as he had succumbed to the
+influence of Charlie Geary--he began to join these parties. They played
+Van John at five dollars a corner. Vandover won as often as he lost, but
+the habit of cards grew upon him steadily.
+
+Toward eleven o'clock the evening of the day upon which he had drawn his
+five hundred, Vandover went around to the Imperial looking for his two
+friends. He found Ellis drinking whisky all alone in one of the little
+rooms, as was his custom; fifteen minutes later the Dummy and Flossie
+joined them. Flossie had grown stouter since Vandover had first known
+her, nearly ten years ago. She had a double chin, and puffy, discoloured
+pockets had come under her eyes. Now her hair was dyed, her cheeks and
+lips rouged, and her former air of health and good spirits gone. She
+never laughed. She had smoked so many cigarettes that now her voice
+hardly rose above a whisper. At one time she had been accustomed to
+boast that she never drank, and it had been one of her peculiarities for
+which she was well known. But on this occasion she joined Ellis in his
+whisky. She had long since departed from her old-time rule of
+temperance, and nowadays drank nothing else but whisky. She had even
+become well known for the quantity of whisky she could drink.
+
+For half an hour the four sat around the little table, talking about the
+new, enormous Sutro Baths that were building at that time. After a while
+Flossie left them, and the Dummy began to imitate the motions of some
+one dealing cards, looking at the same time inquiringly into their
+faces.
+
+"How about that, Bandy?" asked Vandover. "Shall we have a game
+to-night?"
+
+The man of few words merely nodded his head and drank off the rest of
+his whisky at a swallow. They all went up to Vandover's room. Vandover
+got out the cards, the celluloid chips, and a fresh box of cigars. The
+Dummy held up two fingers of his left hand, shutting them together
+afterward with his right and making a hissing noise between his teeth.
+He raised his eyebrows at Vandover. Vandover understood, and, ringing
+for a bell-boy, ordered up three bottles of soda in siphon bottles.
+
+The game was _vingt et un_, or, as they called it, Van John. They cut
+for banker. Ellis turned the first ace, and Vandover bought the bank
+from him. For the first hour they were very jolly, laughing and talking
+back and forth at each other; the Dummy especially communicative,
+continually scribbling upon his writing-pad, holding it toward the
+others. But it was not necessary for them to put their replies in
+writing--he understood from watching the movement of their lips. The
+luck had not declared itself as yet; none of them had lost or won very
+much. The bell-boy brought up the siphons. The Dummy took off his coat,
+and the other two followed his example. They were all smoking, and an
+acrid blue haze filled the room, making a golden blur about each gas
+globe.
+
+But little by little the passion of the gambling seized upon them. The
+luck had begun to declare itself, alternating between Ellis and the
+Dummy. Vandover lost steadily; twice already his bank had been broken,
+and he had been forced to buy in. The play resolved itself into two
+parts, Vandover struggling to keep up with the game on one side, and on
+the other a great battle going on between Ellis and the Dummy. Long
+since they had ceased to laugh, and not a word was spoken; each one was
+absorbed in the game, intently watching the cards as they were turned.
+The four gas-jets of the chandelier flared steadily, filling the room
+with a crude raw light that was reflected with a blinding glare from the
+four staring white walls, the room grew hot, the layer of foul warm air
+just beneath the ceiling, slowly descending. The acrid tobacco smoke no
+longer rose, but hung in long, slow-waving threads just above their
+heads. They played on steadily; a great stillness grew in the room, a
+stillness broken only by the little rattle of chips and subdued rustle
+of the shuffled cards. Once Vandover stopped, just time enough to throw
+off his vest, his collar, and his scarf. For a moment the luck seemed
+about to settle on him. He was still banking, and twice in succession
+he drew Van John, both times winning heavily from the Dummy, and a
+little later tied Ellis at twenty when the latter had staked on nearly a
+third of his chips. But in the next half-dozen hands Ellis got back the
+lead again, winning from both the others. From this time on it was
+settled. The luck suddenly declared openly for Ellis, the Dummy and
+Vandover merely fighting for second place. Ellis held his lead; at one
+o'clock he was nearly fifty dollars ahead of the game. The profound
+silence of the room seemed to widen about them. After midnight the
+noises in the hotel, the ringing of distant call bells, the rattle of
+dishes from the kitchens, the clash of closing elevator doors, gradually
+ceased; only at long intervals one heard the hurried step of a bell-boy
+in the hall outside and the clink of the ice in the water pitcher that
+he was carrying. Outside a great quiet seemed in a sense to rise from
+the sleeping city, the noises in the streets died away. The last
+electric car went down Kearney Street, getting under way with a long
+minor wail. Occasionally a belated coupe, a nighthawk, rattled over the
+cobbles, while close by, from over the roofs, the tall slender stack
+upon the steam laundry puffed incessantly, three puffs at a time, like
+some kind of halting clock. The room became more and more close, none of
+them would take the time to open the window, from ceiling to floor the
+air was fouled by their breathing, by the tobacco smoke and by the four
+flaring gas-jets. By this time a sombre excitement burnt in their eyes
+and quivered in their fingers. Never for an instant did their glances
+leave the cards. Ellis was drinking whisky again, mixed with soda, his
+hand continually groping for the glass with a mechanical gesture; the
+Dummy was so excited he could not keep his cigar alight, and contented
+himself with chewing the end with an hysterical motion of his jaws. The
+perspiration stood in beads on the back of Vandover's hands, running
+down in tiny rivulets between his fingers, his teeth were shut close
+together and he was breathing short through his nose, a fine trembling
+had seized upon his hands so that the chips in his palm rattled like
+castanets. In the stale and murky atmosphere of the overheated room in
+the midst of the vast silence of the sleeping city they played on
+steadily.
+
+Then they began to "plunge," agreeing to play a no limit game and
+raising the value of a red chip to ten dollars; at times they even
+played with the coins themselves when their chips were exhausted.
+Vandover had lost all his ready money, and now for a long time had been
+gambling with the five hundred dollars he had that day drawn from the
+bank. Ellis had practically put the Dummy out of the play, and now the
+game was between him and Vandover. Ellis was banking, and at length
+offered to sell the bank to either one of them. For the first time since
+the real gambling began they commenced to talk a little, but in short,
+brief sentences, answering by monosyllables and by signs.
+
+"How much for the bank?" inquired Ellis, holding up the deck and looking
+from one to the other. Instantly the Dummy wrote ten dollars, in
+figures, on his pad, and showed it to him. Vandover looked at what the
+Dummy had written, and said:
+
+"Fifteen."
+
+"Twenty," scribbled the Dummy, as he watched Vandover's lips form the
+word.
+
+"Twenty-five," returned Vandover. The Dummy hesitated a moment and then
+wrote "thirty." Ellis shook his head saying, "I'll keep the bank myself
+at that."
+
+"Forty dollars!" cried Vandover. The Dummy shook his head, leaning back
+in his chair. Ellis shoved the pack across the table to Vandover, and
+Vandover gave him a twenty-dollar bill and two red chips.
+
+On Vandover's very first deal around, the Dummy "stood" on the second
+card, for twelve chips; Ellis bet twenty-five on his first card, and, as
+he got the second, turned both of them face up. He had two jacks.
+"Twenty-five on each of these," he said. "I'll draw to each one."
+Vandover looked at his own card; it was a ten-spot. All at once he grew
+reckless, and seized with a sudden folly, resolved to attempt a great
+_coup_. "Double up!" he ordered. The Dummy set out twelve more chips,
+and Ellis another fifty, making his bet an even hundred. Vandover began
+to deal to Ellis. On the first jack Ellis drew eighteen and stood at
+that; the first card that fell to the second jack was an ace. "Van
+John," he remarked quietly. The Dummy drew three cards and stood on
+nineteen. Vandover turned up his own card and began to deal for himself.
+He already had a ten; now he drew a seven-spot and king in succession.
+
+"The bank pays," he exclaimed. He paid the Dummy twenty-four chips. He
+gave Ellis fifty for the eighteen he had drawn on his first jack, and
+one hundred for the Van John upon the second, since the latter
+combination called for double the amount wagered; besides this, the bank
+was lost to him. Including the forty that he had paid for the bank, he
+had lost in all two hundred and fourteen dollars.
+
+Never in his life had Vandover played so high a game, never before had
+he won or lost more than fifty dollars at a sitting. But he was content
+to have it thus. Here at last was the new pleasure for which he had
+longed, the fresh violent excitement that alone could rouse his jaded
+nerves, the one thing that could amuse him. However, the failure of his
+_coup_ had left him without chips; he was out of the game. He decided
+that he would stop; more than half of his five hundred dollars was gone
+already. He drank off a glass of soda, the dregs of one of the siphon
+bottles, and got up yawning, shivering a little and stretching his arms
+high above. The other two played on steadily. The Dummy began to gain
+slowly upon Ellis, playing very cautiously, betting only upon face
+cards, aces, and ten-spots. Twice Ellis offered to sell him the bank,
+but he refused, fearful lest it should change his luck.
+
+Vandover sat behind the Dummy's chair, watching his game, but at length,
+worn out, he began to drop off to sleep, waking every now and then with
+a sudden leap and recoil of all his nerves. An hour later the persistent
+scratching of a match awoke him. Ellis and the Dummy were still playing,
+and the Dummy was once more relighting the stump of his cigar. Ellis
+continued to deal, winning at almost every play; a great pile of chips
+and money lay at his elbow. For a few minutes Vandover watched the
+Dummy's game, leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees. But
+it was evident that the Dummy had lost his nerve. Ellis' continued
+winnings had at length demoralized him. At one time he would bet heavily
+on worthless cards, and at another would throw back nines and tens for
+no apparent reason. Finally Ellis dealt him a queen, which he kept,
+betting ten chips. His next card was a seven-spot. He signed to Ellis
+that he would stand. Ellis drew twenty in three cards. Vandover could
+not restrain an exclamation of impatience at the Dummy's stupidity. What
+a fool a man must be to stand on seventeen with only two in the game.
+All at once he tossed twenty dollars across the table to Ellis, saying,
+"Give me that in chips. I'm coming in again." Once more he resumed his
+seat at the table, and Ellis dealt him a hand.
+
+But Vandover's interruption had for an instant taken Ellis' mind from
+the game. He stirred in his chair and looked about the room, puffing out
+his cheeks and blowing between his lips.
+
+"Say, this room is close enough to strangle you. Open the window behind
+you, Van, you're nearest to it." As Vandover raised the curtain he
+uttered a cry: "Look here! will you?"
+
+It was morning; the city was flooded by the light of the sun already an
+hour high. The sky was without a cloud. Over the roofs and amongst the
+gray maze of telegraph wires swarms of sparrows were chittering
+hoarsely, and as Vandover raised the window he could hear the newsboys
+far below in the streets chanting the morning's papers.
+
+"Come on, Van!" exclaimed Ellis impatiently; "we're waiting for you."
+
+That night decided it. From that time on, Vandover's only pleasure was
+gambling. Night and day he sat over the cards, the passion growing upon
+him as he continued to lose, for his ill luck was extraordinary. It was
+a veritable mania, a wild blind frenzy that knew no limit. At first he
+had contented himself with a game in which twenty or thirty dollars was
+as much as he could win or lose at a sitting, but soon this palled upon
+him; he was obliged to raise the stakes continually in order to arouse
+in him the interest, the keen tense excitement, that his jaded nerves
+craved.
+
+The five hundred dollars that he had drawn from the ten thousand, the
+first payment on his old home, melted away within a week. Only a few
+years ago Vandover would have stopped to reflect upon the meaning of
+this, would have resisted the temptation that drew him constantly to the
+gambling-table, but the idea of resistance never so much as occurred to
+him. He did not invest his fifteen thousand, but drew upon it
+continually to satisfy his last new craze. It was not with any hope of
+winning that he gambled--the desire of money was never strong in him--it
+was only the love of the excitement of the moment.
+
+Little by little the fifteen thousand in the bank dwindled. It did not
+all go in cards. Certain habits of extravagance grew upon Vandover, the
+natural outcome of his persistent gambling, the desire of winning easily
+being balanced by the impulses to spend quickly. He took a certain
+hysterical delight in flinging away money with both hands. Now it was
+the chartering of a yacht for a ten-days' cruise about the bay, or it
+was a bicycle bought one week and thrown away the next, a fresh suit of
+clothes each month, gloves worn but once, gold-pieces thrust into
+Flossie's pockets, suppers given to bouffe actresses--twenty-four-hour
+acquaintances--a racehorse bought for eight hundred dollars, resold for
+two hundred and fifty--rings and scarf-pins given away to the women and
+girls of the Imperial, and a whole world of follies that his poor
+distorted wits conceived from hour to hour. His judgment was gone, his
+mind unbalanced. All his life Vandover had been sinking slowly lower and
+lower; this, however, was the beginning of the last plunge. The process
+of degeneration, though inevitable, had been gradual as long as he
+indulged generally in all forms of evil; it was only now when a passion
+for one particular vice absorbed him that he commenced to rush headlong
+to his ruin.
+
+The fifteen thousand dollars--the price of his old home--he gambled or
+flung away in a little less than a year. He never invested it, but ate
+into it day after day, sometimes to pay his gambling debts, sometimes to
+indulge an absurd and extravagant whim, sometimes to pay his bill at the
+Lick House, and sometimes for no reason at all, moved simply by a
+reckless desire for spending.
+
+On the evening of a certain Thanksgiving day, nine months after he had
+sold the house, Vandover came in through the ladies' entrance of the
+Imperial, going slowly down the passageway, looking into the little
+rooms on his right for Ellis or the Dummy. There had been a great
+intercollegiate football game that day, and Vandover, remembering that
+he had once found an interest in such things, had at first determined to
+see it. But toward eleven o'clock in the morning the rain had begun to
+fall, and Ellis, who was to have gone with him, declared that he did not
+care enough about the game to go out to it in the rain. Vandover was
+disappointed; he fancied that he could have enjoyed the game--as much as
+he could enjoy anything of late--but he hated to go to places alone. In
+the end, however, he resolved to go whether Ellis went or not. It was a
+holiday. Vandover had Ellis and the Dummy to lunch with him at the
+hotel, where they arranged the menu of a famous Thanksgiving dinner for
+that evening: they would meet in one of the little rooms of the Imperial
+and go from there to the restaurant. As they were finishing their lunch
+Vandover said:
+
+"I got a new kind of liqueur yesterday--has a colour like violets and
+smells like cologne. You fellows better come up to my room and try it.
+I've got to go up and change anyway, if I go out to that game." They all
+went up to Vandover's cheerless room, and Ellis began to argue with
+Vandover against the folly of going anywhere in the rain.
+
+"_You_ don't want to go to that game, Van. Just look how it's raining.
+I'll bet there won't be a thousand people there. They'll probably
+postpone the game anyway. Say, this _is_ queer looking stuff. What do
+you call it?"
+
+"_Creme violette._"
+
+The Dummy set down his emptied liqueur glass on the mantelshelf, and
+nodded approvingly at Vandover; then he scribbled, "Out of sight," on
+his tablet.
+
+"Tastes like cough syrup and alcohol," growled Ellis, scowling and
+sipping. "I think a pint of this would make the Dummy talk Dutch. Keep
+it up, Dummy," he continued, articulating distinctly so that the other
+could catch the movement of his lips. "Drink some more--make you talk."
+Vandover was cutting the string around a pasteboard box that had just
+come from his tailor's; it was a new suit of clothes, rough cheviot,
+brown with small checks. He dressed slowly and tipped forward the
+swinging mirror of the bureau to see how the trousers set. Meanwhile
+Ellis and the Dummy had got out the cards and chips from the drawer of
+the centre-table and had begun a game.
+
+"Better change your mind, Van," said Ellis without raising his eyes from
+the cards.
+
+"No, sir," answered Van. "You don't know how it is--you never were a
+college man. Why, I wouldn't miss a football game for anything. Talk
+about your horse-racing, talk about your baseball--I tell you there's
+nothing in the world so exciting as a hot football game." He swung into
+his long high-coloured waterproof and stood behind Ellis, watching his
+game for a moment while he tied a couple of long silk streamers to his
+umbrella handle.
+
+"It's one of the college colours," he explained. "Seems like old times
+back at Harvard." Ellis snorted with contempt.
+
+"Such kids!" he growled.
+
+"I saw one of the coaches go down the street a little while ago,"
+continued Vandover, still watching Ellis shuffle and deal. "There were
+about twenty college men on top, and they had a big bulldog all
+harnessed out in their colours, and they were blowing fish-horns, and I
+tell you it made me wish I was one of them again." Ellis did not answer;
+it was probable he did not hear. Both he and the Dummy were settling
+down for a game that no doubt would last all the afternoon. Vandover
+made them free of his room, and they often gambled there when he was
+away. But it invariably made Ellis nervous to have any one stand behind
+his chair while he was playing; he began to move about uneasily. By and
+by he looked at his watch. "Better get a move on," he said, "you'll be
+late."
+
+"Just a minute," answered Vandover, more and more interested in the
+game. "Go on playing; don't bother about me. Oh, I saw Charlie Geary,
+too," he continued, "on another coach; there was a party of them.
+Charlie was with Turner Ravis on the box seat. You remember Turner
+Ravis, don't you, Bandy? The girl I used to go with."
+
+"There's a girl I never liked," observed Ellis. "She always struck me as
+being one of these regular snobs."
+
+"Ah, snob is no name for it," assented Vandover. "She thought she was
+too damned high-toned for me. As soon as I got into that mess about Ida
+Wade, she threw me over. No, she didn't want to be associated with me
+any longer. Well, she can go to the devil. Geary's welcome to her."
+
+"I thought Dolly Haight was going to marry her," said Ellis. "What was
+the matter _there_?"
+
+"I don't know," returned Vandover; "probably Dolly Haight didn't have
+enough money to suit her. Guess she wants a man that will make his pile
+in this town and make his way, too. Ah, you bet!"
+
+Half an hour later he was still behind Ellis' chair. Ellis had become so
+fidgety that he was losing steadily. Once more he turned to Vandover,
+speaking over his shoulder, "Come on, come on, Van, go along to your
+football; you make me nervous standing there." Vandover pushed a
+ten-dollar gold-piece across the table to the Dummy, who was banking,
+and said:
+
+"Give me that in chips. I'm coming in."
+
+"I thought you were going to the game?" inquired Ellis.
+
+"Ah, the devil!" answered Vandover. "Too much rain."
+
+They had played without interruption all that afternoon, and for once
+Vandover had all the luck. When they broke up about five o'clock with
+the understanding to meet again in the Imperial at seven, he had won
+nearly a hundred dollars.
+
+When Vandover went out to keep this appointment he found the
+streets--especially Kearney and Market streets--crowded. It was about
+half-past six. The football game was over and the college men had
+returned. They were everywhere, marching about in long files, chain-gang
+fashion, each file headed by a man beating upon a gong, or parading the
+sidewalks ten abreast, singing college songs or shouting their slogan.
+At every moment one heard the college yells answering each other from
+street corner to street corner, "Rah, rah, rah--Rah, rah, rah!" Vandover
+found the Imperial crowded with students. The barroom was packed to the
+doors, every one of the little rooms in the front hall was full, while
+Flossie and Nannie had a great party of the young fellows in one of the
+larger rooms in the rear. Among the crowd in the barroom, three members
+of the winning team--heroes, with bandages about their heads--were
+breaking training, smoking and drinking for the first time in many long
+weeks.
+
+Vandover found Ellis and the Dummy leaning against the wall in the
+crowded front passage. They were both in bad humour, the Dummy sulking
+because Flossie had left him for one of the football men, the full-back,
+a young blond giant with two dislocated fingers; Ellis in a rage because
+he could get no cocktails at the bar, only straight drinks that
+night--too much of a crowd. These damn college sports thought they
+owned the town. "Ah, let's get out of here, Van!" he called over the
+heads of the throng as soon as Vandover came in sight.
+
+They went out into the street and started in the direction of the
+restaurant where they had decided to eat their Thanksgiving dinner.
+After leaving Vandover that afternoon Ellis had seen the head waiter of
+this restaurant and had explained to him the bill of fare that Vandover,
+the Dummy, and himself had arranged during their lunch at the Lick
+House. The streets had relapsed into a momentary quiet--it was between
+half-past six and seven--and most of the college men were gathered into
+the hotels and cafes eating dinner. About an hour later they would
+reappear again for a moment on their way to the theatre, which they were
+to attend in a body.
+
+But Vandover suddenly discovered that he could not eat a mouthful, the
+smell of food revolted him, and little by little an irregular twitching
+had overcome his hands and forearms.
+
+He had received a great shock. That same evening, as he was leaving the
+hotel, the clerk at the office had handed him some letters that had
+accumulated in his box. Vandover could never think to ask for his mail
+in the morning as he went in to breakfast. Something was surely wrong
+with his head of late. Every day he found it harder and harder to
+remember things. There were three letters altogether: one was the
+tailor's bill mailed the same day that his last suit had been finished;
+a second was an advertisement announcing the near opening of the Sutro
+Baths that were building at that time; and the third a notice from the
+bank calling his attention to the fact that his account was overdrawn by
+some sixty dollars.
+
+At first Vandover did not see the meaning of this notice, and thrust it
+back in his pocket together with the tailor's bill; then slowly an idea
+struggled into his mind. Was it possible that he no longer had any money
+at the bank? Was his fifteen thousand gone? From time to time his
+bank-book had been balanced, and invariably during the first days of
+each month his checks had come back to him, used and crumpled, covered
+with strange signatures and stamped in blue ink; but after the first few
+months he had never paid the least attention to these; he never kept
+accounts, having a veritable feminine horror of figures. But it was
+absurd to think that his money was gone. Pshaw! one could not spend
+fifteen thousand in nine months! It was preposterous! This notice was
+some technicality that he could not understand. He would look into it
+the next day. And so he dismissed the wearisome matter from his mind
+with a shrug of his shoulders as though ridding himself of some
+troublesome burden. However, the idea persisted. Somehow, between the
+lines of the printed form he smelt out a fresh disaster. He read it over
+again and again. All at once as he stood in the doorway of the hotel,
+turning up the collar of his waterproof and watching the little pools in
+the hollows of the asphalt pavement to see if it were still raining, the
+conviction came upon him. In a second he knew that he was ruined. The
+true meaning of the notice became apparent with the swiftness of a great
+flash of light. He had spent his fifteen thousand dollars!
+
+The blow was strong enough, sudden enough to penetrate even Vandover's
+clouded and distorted wits. His nerves were gone in a minute, a sudden
+stupefying numbness fell upon his brain, and the fear of something
+unknown, the immense unreasoning terror that had gripped him for the
+first time the morning after Ida Wade's suicide came back upon him,
+horrible, crushing, so that he had to shut his teeth against a wild
+hysterical desire to rush through the streets screaming and waving his
+arms.
+
+By the time the three friends had reached the restaurant where they were
+to eat their Thanksgiving dinner, Vandover's appetite had given place to
+a loathing of the very smell of food, his nervousness was fast
+approaching hysteria, the little nerve clusters all over his body seemed
+to be crisping and writhing like balls of tiny serpents, at intervals he
+would twitch sharply as though startled at some sudden noise, his breath
+coming short, his heart beating quick.
+
+They had their dinner in one of the private rooms of the restaurant on
+the second floor. All through the meal Vandover struggled to keep
+himself in hand, fighting with all his strength against this
+reappearance of his old enemy, this sudden return of the dreadful
+crisis, determined not to make an exhibition of himself before the
+others. He pretended to eat, and forced himself to talk, joining in with
+Ellis, who was badgering the Dummy about Flossie. The proper thing to
+do was to fill the Dummy's glass while his attention was otherwise
+absorbed, and in the end to get him so drunk that he could talk. Toward
+the end of the dinner Ellis was successful. All at once the Dummy got
+upon his feet, his eyes were glazed with drunkenness, he swayed about in
+an irregular circle, holding up, now by the table, now by the
+chair-back, and now by the wall behind him. He was very angry,
+exasperated beyond control by Ellis' raillery and abuse. He forgot
+himself and uttered a series of peculiar cries very faint and shrill,
+like the sounds of a voice heard through a telephone when some
+imperfection of transmission prevents one from distinguishing the words.
+His mouth was wide open and his tongue rolled about in an absurd way
+between his teeth. Now and then one could catch a word or two. Ellis
+went into spasms of laughter, holding his sides, gasping for breath.
+Vandover could not help being amused, and the two laughed at the Dummy's
+stammering rage until their breath was spent. Throughout the rest of the
+evening the Dummy recommenced from time to time, rising unsteadily to
+his feet, shaking his fists, pouring out a stream of little ineffectual
+birdlike twitterings, trying to give Ellis abuse for abuse, trying to
+talk long after it had ceased to amuse the other two. Ellis had been
+drinking for nearly six hours, without the liquor producing the
+slightest effect upon him; long since, the Dummy was hopelessly drunk;
+and now Vandover, who had been drinking upon an empty stomach, began to
+grow very noisy and boisterous. Little by little Ellis himself commenced
+to lose his self-control. By and by he and Vandover began to sing, each
+independent of the other, very hoarse and loud. The Dummy joined them,
+making a hideous and lamentable noise which so affected Ellis that he
+pretended to howl at it like a little dog overcome by mournful music.
+But suddenly Ellis had an idea, crying out thickly, between two
+hiccoughs:
+
+"Hey, there, Van, do your dog-act for us! Go on! Bark for us!"
+
+By this time Vandover was very nearly out of his head, his drunkenness
+finishing what his nervousness had begun. The attack was fast
+approaching culmination; strange and unnatural fancies began to come and
+go in his brain.
+
+"Go on, Van!" urged Ellis, his eyes heavy with alcohol. "Go on, do your
+dog-act!"
+
+All at once it was as though an angry dog were snarling and barking over
+a bone there under the table about their feet. Ellis roared with
+laughter, but suddenly he himself was drunk. All the afternoon he had
+kept himself in hand; now his intoxication came upon him in a moment.
+The skin around his eyes was purple and swollen, the pupils themselves
+were contracted; they grew darker, taking on the colour of bitumen.
+Suddenly he swept glasses, plates, castor, knives, forks, and all from
+off the table with a single movement of his arm. Then the alcohol
+overcame him all in an instant like a poisonous gas. He swayed forward
+in his chair and fell across the stripped table, his head rolling
+inertly between his outstretched arms. He did not move again.
+
+In a neighbouring room young Haight had been dining with some college
+fellows, fraternity men, all friends of his, upon whose coach he had
+ridden to and from the game. He had heard Vandover and Ellis in the room
+across the hall and had recognized their voices. Haight had never been a
+friend of Ellis, but no one, not even Turner, had grieved more over
+Vandover's ruin than had his old-time college chum.
+
+Young Haight heard the noise of the falling crockery as Ellis swept the
+table clear, and turned his head sharply, listening. There was a
+moment's silence after this, and Haight, fearing some accident had
+happened, stepped out into the hall and stood there a moment listening
+again; his head inclined toward the closed door. He heard no groaning,
+no exclamations of pain, not even any noise of conversation; only
+through the closed door came a steady sound of barking.
+
+Puzzled, he tried the door and, finding it locked, as he had expected,
+put one foot upon the knob and, catching hold of the top jamb, raised
+himself up and looked down through the open space that answered for a
+transom.
+
+The room was very warm, the air thick with the smell of cooked food, the
+fumes of whisky, and the acrid odour of cigar smoke. Ellis had rolled
+from his chair and lay upon the floor sprawling on his face in the wreck
+of the table. Near to him, likewise upon the floor, but sitting up, his
+back against the wall, was the Dummy. He was muttering incessantly to
+himself, as if delighted at having found his tongue, his head swaying
+on his shoulders, and a strange murmur, soft, birdlike, meaningless,
+like sounds heard from a vast distance, coming from his wide-open mouth.
+
+Vandover was sitting bolt upright in his chair, his hands gripping the
+table, his eyes staring straight before him. He was barking incessantly.
+It was evident that now he could not stop himself; it was like
+hysterical laughter, a thing beyond his control. Twice young Haight
+called him by name, kicking the door as his leg hung against it. At last
+Vandover heard him. Then as he caught sight of his face over the door he
+raised his upper lip above his teeth and snarled at him, long and
+viciously.
+
+As Haight dropped down into the hall a waiter came running up; he, too,
+had heard the noise of the breaking dishes. As he thrust his key into
+the lock he paused a moment, listening and looking in a puzzled way at
+young Haight. "They have a dog in here, then? They had no dog when they
+came. That's funny!"
+
+"Open the door," said young Haight quietly. Once inside Haight went
+directly to Vandover, crying out: "Come! come on, Van! come home with
+me." Vandover started suddenly, looking about him bewildered, drawing
+his hand across his face.
+
+"Home," he repeated vaguely; "yes, that's the idea. Let's go home. I
+want to go to bed. Hello, Dolly! where did _you_ come from? Say, Dolly,
+let me tell you--listen here--come down here close; you mustn't mind me;
+you know I'm a wolf mostly!"
+
+They went down toward the Lick House. Vandover grew steadier after a few
+minutes in the open air. Young Haight locked arms with him; they went on
+together in silence. By this time the streets were crowded again, the
+theatres were over, and the college men were once more at large. Now
+they were all gathered together into one immense procession, headed by a
+brass band in a brewer's wagon, and they tramped aimlessly to and fro
+about Kearney and Market streets, making a hideous noise. At the head
+the band was playing a popular quick-step with a great banging of a bass
+drum. The college men in the front ranks were singing one song, those
+in the rear another, while the middle of the column was given over to an
+abominable medley of fish-horns, policemen's rattles and great Chinese
+gongs. At stated intervals the throng would halt and give the college
+yell.
+
+"Dolly, you and I used to do that," said Vandover, looking after the
+procession. He had himself well in hand by this time. "What was the
+matter with me back there at the restaurant, Dolly?" he asked after a
+while.
+
+"Oh, you'd been drinking a good deal, I guess," answered young Haight.
+"You--you had some queer idea about yourself!"
+
+"Yes, I know," answered Vandover quickly. "Fancied I was some kind of a
+beast, didn't I--some kind of wolf? I have that notion sometimes and I
+can't get it out of my head. It's curious just the same."
+
+They went up to Vandover's room. Vandover lit the gas, but he could
+hardly keep back an exclamation as the glare suddenly struck young
+Haight's face. What in heaven's name was the matter with his old-time
+chum? He seemed to be blighted, shattered, struck down by some terrible,
+overwhelming calamity. A dreadful anguish looked through his eyes. The
+sense of a hopeless misery had drawn and twisted his face. There could
+be no doubt that something had made shipwreck of his life. Vandover was
+looking at a ruined man.
+
+"My God, Dolly!" exclaimed Vandover, "what's happened to you? You look
+like a death's-head, man! What's gone wrong? Aren't you well?"
+
+Haight caught his friend's searching gaze, and for a moment they looked
+at each other without speaking. There was no mistaking the fearful grief
+that smouldered behind Haight's dull, listless eyes. For a moment
+Vandover thought of Turner Ravis. But even if she had turned him off,
+that alone would not account for his friend's fearful condition of mind
+and body.
+
+"What is it, Dolly?" persisted Vandover. "We used to be pretty good
+chums, not so long ago."
+
+They sat down on the edge of the bed, and for a moment their positions
+seemed reversed: Haight the one to be protected and consoled, Vandover
+the shielding and self-reliant one.
+
+Young Haight passed his hand over his face before he answered, and
+Vandover noticed that his fingers trembled like an old man's.
+
+"Do you remember that night, Van, when you and Charlie and I all went
+out to Turner's house, and we had _tamales_ and beer, and a glass broke
+in that peculiar way, and I cut my lip?"
+
+Vandover nodded, forcing his attention against the alcoholic fumes, to
+follow his friend's words.
+
+"We went down to the Imperial afterward," Haight continued, "and ran
+into Ellis, and we had something more to eat. Do you remember that as we
+sat there, Toby, the waiter, brought Flossie in, and she sat there with
+us a while?"
+
+He paused, choosing his words. Vandover listened closely, trying to
+recall the incident.
+
+"She kissed me," said young Haight slowly, "and the court-plaster came
+off. You know I never had anything to do with women, Van. I always tried
+to keep away from them. But that's where my life practically came to an
+end."
+
+"You mean--" began Vandover. "You mean--that you--that Flossie--?"
+
+Haight nodded.
+
+"Good God! I can't believe it. It's not possible! I _know_ Flossie!"
+
+Haight shook his head, smiling grimly.
+
+"I can't help that, Van," said he. "There's no denying facts, there's no
+other possible explanation! As soon as I knew, I went to the doctors
+here, and then I went to New York for treatment, but there's no hope. I
+didn't know, you see. I didn't believe it possible. Turner Ravis and I
+were engaged. I waited too long! There's only one escape for me now."
+His voice dropped, he stared for a moment at the floor. Then he
+straightened up, and said in a different tone, "But, damn it, Van, let's
+not talk about it! I'm haunted with the thing day and night. I want to
+talk to you! I want to talk to you seriously. You know you are ruining
+yourself, old man!"
+
+But Vandover interrupted him with a gesture, saying, "Don't go on,
+Dolly; it isn't the least use. There _was_ a time for that, but that was
+long ago. I used to care, I used to be sorry and all that, but I'm not
+now. Ruining myself? Why, I _have_ ruined myself long ago. We're both
+ruined--only in your case it wasn't your fault. It's too late for me
+now, and I'm even not sorry that it _is_ too late. Dolly, I don't _want_
+to pull up. You can't imagine a man fallen as low as that, can you? I
+couldn't imagine it myself a few years ago. I'm going right straight to
+the devil now, and you might as well stand aside and give me a free
+course, for I'm bound to get there sooner or later. I suppose you would
+think that a man who could see this as plainly as I do would be afraid,
+would have remorse and all that sort of thing. Well, I did at first.
+I'll never forget the night when I first saw it; came near shooting
+myself, but I got over it, and now I'm used to the idea. Dolly, _I can
+get used to almost anything_. Nothing makes much difference to me
+nowadays--only I like to play cards. Look here!" he went on, laying out
+the notice from the bank upon the table, "this came to-day. You see what
+it is! I sold the old house on California Street. Well, I've gambled
+away that money in less than a year. It seems that I'm a financial ruin
+now, but"--and he began to laugh--"I live through it somehow. The news
+didn't prevent me from getting drunk to-night."
+
+After young Haight was gone, Vandover went to bed, turning out the gas
+and drawing down the window half-way from the top. The wine had made him
+sleepy; he was dropping away into a very grateful doze when a sudden
+shock, a violent leap of every nerve in his body, brought him up to a
+sitting posture, gasping for breath, his heart fluttering, his hands
+beating at the empty air. He settled down again, turning upon his
+pillow, closing his eyes, very weary, longing for a good night's sleep.
+Dolly Haight's terrible story, his unjustified fate, and the hopeless
+tragedy of it, came back to him. Vandover would gladly have changed
+places with him. Young Haight had the affection and respect of even
+those that knew. He, Vandover, had thrown away his friends' love and
+their esteem with the rest of the things he had once valued. His
+thoughts, released from all control of his will, began to come and go
+through his head with incredible rapidity, confused ideas,
+half-remembered scenes, incidents of the past few days, bits and ends of
+conversation recalled for no especial reason, all galloping across his
+brain like a long herd of terrified horses; an excitement grew upon
+him, a strange thrill of exhilaration. He was broad awake now, but
+suddenly his left leg, his left arm and wrist, all his left side jerked
+with the suddenness of a sprung trap; so violent was the shock that the
+entire bed shook and creaked with it. Then the inevitable reaction
+followed, the slow crisping and torsion of his nerves, twisting upon
+each other like a vast swarm of tiny serpents; it seemed to begin with
+his ankles, spreading slowly to every part of his body; it was a
+veritable torture, so poignant that Vandover groaned under it, shutting
+his eyes. He could not keep quiet a second--to lie in bed was an
+impossibility; he threw the bed-clothes from him and sprang up. He did
+not light the gas, but threw on his bathrobe and began to walk the
+floor. Even as he walked, his eyelids drooped lower and lower. The need
+of sleep overcame him like a narcotic, but as soon as he was about to
+lose himself he would be suddenly and violently awakened by the same
+shock, the same jangling recoil of his nerves. Then his hands and head
+seemed to swell; next, it was as though the whole room was too small for
+him. He threw open the window and, leaning upon his elbows, looked out.
+
+The clouds had begun to break, the rain was gradually ceasing, leaving
+in the air a damp, fresh smell, the smell of wet asphalt and the odour
+of dripping woodwork. It was warm; the atmosphere was dank, heavy,
+tepid. One or two stars were out, and a faint gray light showed him the
+vast reach of roofs below stretching away to meet the abrupt rise of
+Telegraph Hill. Not far off the slender, graceful smokestack puffed
+steadily, throwing off continually the little flock of white jets that
+rose into the air very brave and gay, but in the end dwindled
+irresolutely, discouraged, disheartened, fading sadly away, vanishing
+under the night, like illusions disappearing at the first touch of the
+outside world. As Vandover leaned from his window, looking out into the
+night with eyes that saw nothing, the college slogan rose again from the
+great crowd of students who still continued to hold the streets.
+
+"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
+
+He turned back into the room, groping among the bottles on his washstand
+for his bromide of potassium. As he poured out the required dose into
+the teaspoon his hand twitched again sharply, flirting the medicine
+over his bared neck and chest, exposed by the bathrobe which he had left
+open at the throat. It was cold, and he shivered a bit as he wiped it
+dry with the back of his hand.
+
+He knew very well that his nervous attack was coming on again. As he set
+down the bottle upon the washstand he muttered to himself, "Now I'm
+going to have a night of it." He began to walk the floor again with
+great strides, fighting with all his pitiful, shattered mind against the
+increasing hysteria, trying to keep out of his brain the strange
+hallucination that assailed it from time to time, the hallucination of a
+thing four-footed, a thing that sulked and snarled. The hotel grew
+quiet; a watchman went down the hall turning out each alternate gas jet.
+Just outside of the door was a burner in a red globe, fixed at a stair
+landing to show the exit in case of fire. This burned all night and it
+streamed through the transom of Vandover's room, splotching the ceiling
+with a great square of red light. Vandover was in a torment, overcome
+now by that same fear with which he had at last become so familiar, the
+unreasoning terror of something unknown. He uttered an exclamation, a
+suppressed cry of despair, of misery, and then suddenly checked himself,
+astonished, seized with the fancy that his cry was not human, was not of
+himself, but of something four-footed, the snarl of some exasperated
+brute. He paused abruptly in his walk, listening, for what he did not
+know. The silence of the great city spread itself around him, like the
+still waters of some vast lagoon. Through the silence he heard the noise
+of the throng of college youths. They were returning, doubling upon
+their line of march. A long puff of tepid air breathing through the open
+window brought to his ears the distant joyous sound of their slogan:
+
+"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
+
+They passed by along the adjacent street, their sounds growing faint.
+Vandover took up his restless pacing again. Little by little the
+hallucination gained upon him; little by little his mind slipped from
+his grasp. The wolf--the beast--whatever the creature was, seemed in his
+diseased fancy to grow stronger in him from moment to moment. But with
+all his strength he fought against it, fought against this strange
+mania, that overcame him at these periodical intervals--fought with his
+hands so tightly clenched that the knuckles grew white, that the nails
+bit into the palm. It seemed to him that in some way his personality
+divided itself into three. There was himself, the real Vandover of every
+day, the same familiar Vandover that looked back at him from his mirror;
+then there was the wolf, the beast, whatever the creature was that lived
+in his flesh, and that struggled with him now, striving to gain the
+ascendency, to absorb the real Vandover into its own hideous identity;
+and last of all, there was a third self, formless, very vague, elusive,
+that stood aside and watched the strife of the other two. But as he
+fought against his madness, concentrating all his attention with a
+tremendous effort of the will, the queer numbness that came upon his
+mind whenever he exerted it enwrapped his brain like a fog, and this
+third self grew vaguer than ever, dwindled and disappeared. Somehow it
+seemed to be associated with consciousness, for after this the sense of
+the reality of things grew dim and blurred to him. He ceased to know
+exactly what he was doing. His intellectual parts dropped away one by
+one, leaving only the instincts, the blind, unreasoning impulses of the
+animal.
+
+Still he continued his restless, lurching walk back and forth in his
+room, his head hanging low and swinging from side to side with the
+movement of his gait. He had become so nervous that the restraint
+imposed upon his freedom of movement by his bathrobe and his loose
+night-clothes chafed and irritated him. At length he had stripped off
+everything.
+
+Suddenly and without the slightest warning Vandover's hands came slowly
+above his head and he dropped forward, landing upon his palms. All in an
+instant he had given way, yielding in a second to the strange
+hallucination of that four-footed thing that sulked and snarled. Now
+without a moment's stop he ran back and forth along the wall of the
+room, upon the palms of his hands and his toes, a ludicrous figure, like
+that of certain clowns one sees at the circus, contortionists walking
+about the sawdust, imitating some kind of enormous dog. Still he swung
+his head from side to side with the motion of his shuffling gait, his
+eyes dull and fixed. At long intervals he uttered a sound, half word,
+half cry, "Wolf--wolf!" but it was muffled, indistinct, raucous, coming
+more from his throat than from his lips. It might easily have been the
+growl of an animal. A long time passed. Naked, four-footed, Vandover ran
+back and forth the length of the room.
+
+By an hour after midnight the sky was clear, all the stars were out, the
+moon a thin, low-swinging scimitar, set behind the black mass of the
+roofs of the city, leaving a pale bluish light that seemed to come from
+all quarters of the horizon. As the great stillness grew more and more
+complete, the persistent puffing of the slender tin stack, the three gay
+and joyous little noises, each sounding like a note of discreet laughter
+interrupted by a cough, became clear and distinct. Inside the room there
+was no sound except the persistent patter of something four-footed going
+up and down. At length even this sound ceased abruptly. Worn out,
+Vandover had just fallen, dropping forward upon his face with a long
+breath. He lay still, sleeping at last. The remnant of the great band of
+college men went down an adjacent street, raising their cadenced slogan
+for the last time. It came through the open window, softened as it were
+by the warm air, thick with damp, through which it travelled:
+
+"Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah!"
+
+Naked, exhausted, Vandover slept profoundly, stretched at full length at
+the foot of the bare, white wall of the room beneath two of the little
+placards, scrawled with ink, that read, "Stove Here"; "Mona Lisa Here."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Seventeen
+
+
+On A certain Saturday morning two years later Vandover awoke in his room
+at the Reno House, the room he had now occupied for fifteen months.
+
+One might almost say that he had been expelled from the Lick House. For
+a time he had tried to retain his room there with the idea of paying his
+bills by the money he should win at gambling. But his bad luck was now
+become a settled thing--almost invariably he lost. At last Ellis and the
+Dummy had refused to play with him, since he was never able to pay them
+when they won. They had had a great quarrel. Ellis broke with him
+sullenly, growling wrathfully under his heavy moustache, and the Dummy
+had written upon his pad--so hastily and angrily that the words could
+hardly be read--that he would not play with professional gamblers, men
+who supported themselves by their winnings. Damn it! one had to be a
+gentleman.
+
+Next, Vandover had tried to borrow some money of Charlie Geary. Geary
+had told him that he could not afford as much as Vandover needed. Then
+Vandover became enraged. He had long since seen that Geary had
+practically swindled him out of his block in the Mission, and at that
+very moment the huge boot and shoe "concern" was completing the factory
+built upon the ground that Vandover had once owned. Geary had cleared
+seven thousand dollars on his "deal." His refusal to loan his old-time
+friend fifty dollars upon this occasion had exasperated Vandover out of
+all bounds. There was a scene. Vandover told Geary what he thought of
+his "deal" in very plain words. They shouted "swindler" and "gambler"
+into each other's faces; the whole office was aroused; Vandover was
+ejected by force. On a stair landing half-way to the street he sat down
+and cried into his arms folded upon his knees. When he returned to his
+room he had a sudden return of his dreadful nervous malady and barked
+and whined under the bed.
+
+Then Vandover wrote a fifty-dollar check on the bank--the same bank that
+had just notified him that he was overdrawn--and passed it upon young
+Haight. How he came to do the thing he could not tell; it might have
+been the influence of Geary's successful robbery, or it might have been
+that he had at last lost all principle, all sense of honour and
+integrity. At any rate, he could not bring himself to feel very sorry.
+He knew that young Haight would not prosecute him for the dishonesty; he
+traded upon Haight's magnanimity; he only felt glad that he had the
+fifty dollars. But by this time Vandover did not even wonder at his own
+baseness and degradation. A few years ago this would have been the case;
+now his character was so changed that the theft seemed somehow
+consistent. He had destroyed young Haight's friendship for him. He had
+cast from him his college chum, his best friend, but neither did this
+affect him. Nothing made much difference to him now.
+
+Nevertheless, Vandover was evicted from the Lick House three days after
+he had stolen young Haight's money. Instead of paying his bills with the
+amount, he gambled it away in a back room of a new cafe on Market Street
+with Toby, the red-eyed waiter from the Imperial, and a certain German
+"professor," a billiard marker, who wore a waistcoat figured with little
+designs of the Eiffel Tower, and who was a third owner in a trotting
+mare named Tomato Ketchup.
+
+Vandover was now left with only his bonds, his U.S. 4 per cents. These
+brought him in but sixty-nine dollars a quarter, or as he had had it
+arranged, twenty-three dollars a month. Just at this time, as if by a
+miracle, a veritable God from the Machine, Vandover's lawyer, Mr. Field,
+found him an opportunity to earn some money. For the first and only time
+in his life Vandover knew what it was to work for a living. The work
+that Field secured for him was the work of painting those little
+pictures on the lacquered surface of iron safes, those little oval
+landscapes between the lines of red and gold lettering--landscapes,
+rugged gorges, ocean steamships under all sail, mountain lakes with
+sailboats careening upon their surfaces, the boat indicated by two
+little triangular dabs of Chinese white, one for the sail itself and the
+other for its reflection in the water. Sometimes even he was called upon
+to paint other little pictures upon the sides of big express wagons--two
+horses, one white and the other bay, galloping very free in an open
+field, their manes and tails flying, or a bulldog, very savage, sitting
+upon a green and black safe, or the head of a mastiff with a spiked
+collar about his neck.
+
+What with the pay for this sort of work and the interest of his bonds,
+Vandover managed to lead a haphazard sort of life, living about in cheap
+lodging-houses and cheap restaurants. But he was never more than a
+second-class workman, and he was so irregular that he could never be
+depended upon.
+
+The moment he began to paint again--even to paint such pitiful little
+pictures as these--the same familiar experience repeated itself, the
+unwillingness of his fingers, their failure to rightly interpret his
+ideas, the resulting crudity of his work, the sudden numbness in his
+brain, the queer, tense sensation behind his eyes. But Vandover had long
+since become accustomed to these symptoms and would not have minded them
+at this time had it not been that they were occasionally followed by a
+nervous twitching and jerking of his whole arm, so that sometimes he
+could not hold the brush steady a minute at a time.
+
+For two years he had drifted about the city, living now here and now
+there, a real hand-to-mouth existence, sinking a little lower each day.
+Now, no one knew him. He had completely passed out of the lives of
+Haight, Geary, and Ellis, just as before he had passed out of the life of
+Turner Ravis. At the end of the first year they had ceased even to think
+about him. For a long time they thought that he was dead, until one day
+Ellis declared that he had seen him far down on Kearney Street, near the
+Barbary Coast, looking at the pictures in the illustrated weeklies that
+were tacked upon the show-board on the sidewalk in front of a
+stationer's. Ellis had told the others that on this occasion Vandover
+seemed to be more sickly than ever; he described his appearance in
+detail, wagging his head at his own story, pursing his lips, putting his
+chin in the air. Vandover had worn an old paint-stained pair of blue
+trousers, fastened with a strap, so that his shirt showed below his
+vest; he had no collar, and he had allowed his beard to grow, a
+straggling thin beard, through which one could see the buttons of his
+shirt, a dirty beard full of the cracker crumbs from the free
+lunch-counters of cheap saloons; he had on a hat which he had worn when
+they had known him; but one should see that hat now!
+
+It was all true: little by little Vandover had abandoned all interest
+in his personal appearance. Of course it was impossible for him to dress
+well at this time, but he had even lost regard for decency and
+cleanliness. He washed himself but rarely. He had even acquired the
+habit of sleeping with all his clothes on during the colder nights of
+the year.
+
+Nothing made any difference. Gradually his mind grew more and more
+clouded; he became stupid, sluggish. He went about the city from dawn to
+dark, his feet dragging, his head hanging low and swinging from side to
+side with the motion of his gait. He rarely spoke; his eyes took on a
+dull, glazed appearance, filmy, like the eyes of a dead fish. At certain
+intervals his mania came upon him, the strange hallucination of
+something four-footed, the persistent fancy that the brute in him had
+now grown so large, so insatiable, that it had taken everything, even to
+his very self, his own identity--that he had literally _become the
+brute_. The attack passed off and left him wondering, perplexed.
+
+The Reno House, where Vandover had lived for some fifteen months, was a
+sort of hotel on Sacramento Street below Kearney. The neighbourhood was
+low--just on the edge of the Barbary Coast, abounding in stores for
+second-hand clothing, saloons, pawnshops, gun-stores, bird-stores, and
+the shops of Chinese cobblers. Around the corner on Kearney Street was a
+concert hall, a dive, to which the admission was free. Near by was the
+old Plaza.
+
+Underneath the hotel on the ground floor were two saloons, a barber
+shop, and a broom manufactory. The lodgers themselves were for the most
+part "transients," sailors lounging about shore between two voyages,
+Swedes and Danes, farmhands, grape-pickers, and cow-punchers from
+distant parts of the state, a few lost women, and Japanese cooks and
+second-boys remaining there while they advertised for positions.
+
+Vandover sank to the grade of these people at once with that fatal
+adaptability to environment which he had permitted himself to foster
+throughout his entire life, and which had led him to be contented in
+almost any circumstances. It was as if the brute in him were forever
+seeking a lower level, wallowing itself lower and lower into the filth
+and into the mire, content to be foul, content to be prone, to be inert
+and supine.
+
+It was Saturday morning about a quarter of nine. The wet season had
+begun early that year. Though this was but the middle of September, the
+rain had fallen steadily since the previous Wednesday. Its steady
+murmur, prolonged and soothing like the purring of a great cat, filled
+Vandover's room with a pleasant sound. The air of the room was thick and
+foul, heavy with the odour of cooking, onions, and stale bedding. It was
+very warm; there was no ventilation. Vandover lay upon the bed half
+awake, dozing under the thick coarse blankets and soiled counterpane.
+With the exception of his shoes and coat he wore all his clothes. He was
+glad to be warm, to be stupefied by the heat of the bedding and the bad
+air of the room.
+
+In the next room a Portuguese fruit vender, very drunk, was fighting
+with the tin pitcher and pasteboard bowl on his wash-stand, trying to
+wet his head, swearing and making a hideous clatter. At length he tipped
+them over upon the floor and gave the pitcher a great kick. The noise
+roused Vandover; he sat up in bed, stretching, rubbing his hands over
+his face. About the same moment the clock in the office downstairs
+struck nine. Vandover let his feet drop to the floor and sat on the edge
+of the bed, looking vaguely about him. His face, ordinarily very pale,
+was oily from sleep and red upon one side from long contact with the
+pillow, the marks of the creases still showing upon his cheek. His long
+straight hair fell about his eyes and ears like a tangled mane. A thin
+straggling beard and moustache, of a brown much lighter than his hair,
+covered the lower part of his face. His nose was long and pinched, while
+brown and puffed pockets hung beneath his eyes.
+
+He wore a white shirt very crumpled and dirty, a low standing collar and
+a black four-in-hand necktie, very greasy. His trousers were striped and
+of a slate blue colour--the "blue pants" of the ready-made clothing
+stores. Still sitting on the bed, Vandover continued his stupid gaze
+about the room.
+
+The room was small, and at some long-forgotten, almost prehistoric
+period had been covered with a yellowish paper, stamped with a huge
+pattern of flowers that looked like the flora of a carboniferous
+strata, a pattern repeated to infinity wherever the eye turned.
+Newspapers were pasted upon the ceiling and a great square of very dirty
+matting covered the floor. There were a few pieces of furniture, very
+old-fashioned, made of pine, with a black walnut veneer, two chairs, a
+washstand and the bed. A great pile of old newspapers tied up with bale
+rope was kicked into one corner. Two gas brackets without globes
+stretched forth their long arms over the empty space where the bureau
+should have been. Under the single window was Vandover's trunk, and upon
+it his colour box and pots of paint. His hat hung upon a hook screwed to
+the door. The hat had once been black, but it had long since turned to a
+greenish hue, and sweat stains were showing about the band.
+
+Vandover dressed slowly. He straightened his hair a bit before the cheap
+mirror that hung over the washstand, putting on his hat immediately
+after to keep it in place. He washed his hands in the dirty water that
+had stood in his pasteboard bowl since the previous afternoon, but left
+his face as it was. He put on his coat, an old cutaway which had been
+his best years ago, but which was now absurdly small for him, the breast
+all spotted and streaked with old stains of soup and gravy. Last of all
+he drew on his shoes. They were new. Vandover had bought them two days
+before for a dollar and ninety cents. They were lined so as to make
+socks superfluous.
+
+It had been a bad week with Vandover. The paint-shop had given him no
+work to do for ten days, and he had been forced to get along in some way
+upon the interest of his bonds--that is to say, upon five dollars and
+seventy-five cents a week. Two dollars and seventy-five cents of this
+went for his room rent, one dollar and ninety for his shoes, and Tuesday
+afternoon he had bought a package of cigarettes for ten cents. By
+Saturday morning he had spent seventy-five cents for food.
+
+When the paint-shop gave him enough work it was Vandover's custom to buy
+a week's commutation ticket at a certain restaurant. He never ate at the
+hotel; it was too expensive. By the commutation system he could buy two
+dollars and twenty-five cents' worth of meals for two dollars, paying in
+tickets at each meal.
+
+But such a thing had been impossible this week. He had been forced to
+fall back upon the free-lunch system. In two years Vandover had learned
+a great deal; even his dulled wits had been sharpened when it had come
+to a question of food. The brute in him might destroy all his finer
+qualities, but even the brute had to feed. When work failed him at the
+beginning of the week Vandover was not unprepared for the contingency;
+the thing had happened before and he knew how to meet it.
+
+On Monday he beat up and down the Barbary Coast, picking out fifteen or
+twenty saloons which supported a free-lunch counter in connection with
+the bar. He took his breakfast Monday morning at the first of these. He
+paid five cents for a glass of beer and ate his morning's meal at the
+lunch counter: stew, bread, and cheese. At noon he made his dinner at
+the second saloon on his route. Here he had another glass of beer, a
+great plate of soup, potato salad, and pretzels. Thus he managed to feed
+himself throughout the week.
+
+It was always his great desire to feed well at Sunday's dinner, to spend
+at least a quarter on that meal. It was something to be looked forward
+to throughout the entire week. But to get twenty-five cents ahead when
+he was out of work was bitter hard. That week he had started out with
+the determination to eat but two meals a day. He would thus save five
+cents daily and by Sunday morning would be thirty cents to the good. But
+each day his resolution broke down. At breakfast he would resolve to go
+without his lunch, at lunch he would make up his mind to go without
+supper, and at supper he would tell himself that now at least his
+determination was irrevocable--he would eat no breakfast the next
+morning. But on each and every occasion his hunger proved too strong,
+his feet carried him irresistibly to the saloon lunch counters, whether
+he would or no. At no time in his life had Vandover accustomed himself
+to self-denial; he could hardly begin now.
+
+At length Saturday morning had come, and while he was dressing he
+realized that he could not look forward to any unusual dinner the next
+day at noon. The disappointment had all the force of an unexpected
+disaster and he began keenly to regret his weakness of the past week.
+Suddenly Vandover resolved that he would go without food all that day;
+it would be a saving of fifteen cents, which, added to the five cents
+that he would spend anyway for his dinner, would almost make a quarter.
+He knew where he could dine excellently well for twenty cents. However,
+he could not make up his mind to go without his Sunday morning's
+breakfast. That, he told himself, he must eat.
+
+Once dressed, Vandover went out. Fortunately, the rain had stopped. He
+went on down through the reeking, steaming streets to one of the big
+fruit markets not far from the water front. The Portuguese fruit vender
+who roomed next to him at the Reno House was employed at a stall here.
+Vandover knew him a little, and it was not hard for him to get a thin
+slice of cocoanut out from the inside rind of one of those that were
+lying cracked open among his other wares.
+
+All the morning Vandover chewed this slice of cocoanut, at the same time
+drinking a great deal of water; for hours he deadened the pang of hunger
+by this means. He passed the time for the most part sitting on the
+benches in the Plaza reading an old newspaper that he had found under a
+seat. The sun came out a little; Vandover found the warmth very
+grateful. He told himself that he could easily hold out until the next
+morning.
+
+He had forgotten about the time and was surprised when the whistles all
+over the town began to blow for noon. In an instant Vandover was hungry
+again. It was all one that he chewed the little pulp of cocoanut rind
+more vigorously than ever, swallowed great draughts of water at the
+public fountains; the little gnawing just between his chest and his
+stomach began to persist. He got up and began to walk. He left the Plaza
+behind him, crossed Kearney Street and went on down Clay Street till he
+reached the water front. For a time he found a certain diversion among
+the shipping and especially in watching a gang of caulkers knocking away
+at the seams of an immense coal steamer. He sat upon a great iron
+clamped pile, spitting into the yellow water below. The air was full of
+the smell of bilge and oakum and fish; the thousands of masts made a
+gray maze against the sky; occasionally an empty truck trundled over the
+hollow docks with a sound of distant cannon. A weakness, a little
+trembling that seemed to come from the pit of his stomach, began upon
+Vandover. He was very hungry. Evidently the slice of cocoanut was no
+longer effective. He swallowed it and lit a cigarette, one of the
+half-dozen still left of the pack he had bought the Tuesday before.
+
+He smoked the cigarette slowly, inhaling as much of the smoke as he
+could. This quieted him for an hour, but he had the folly to smoke again
+at the end of that time, and at once--as he might have known--was hungry
+again. Until dark he struggled along, drinking water continually,
+chewing chips of wood, toothpicks, bits of straw, anything so that the
+action of his jaws might cheat the demands of his stomach. Toward
+half-past seven in the evening he returned to his room in the Reno
+House. If he could get to sleep that would be best of all. On the stairs
+of the hotel, while going up to his room, the strong smell of cooking
+onions came suddenly to his nostrils. It was delicious. Vandover
+breathed in the warm savour with long sighs, closing his eyes; a great
+feebleness overcame him. He asked himself how he could get through the
+next twelve hours.
+
+An hour later he went to bed, hiccoughing from the water he had been
+drinking all day. By this time he had torn the paper from one of his
+cigarettes and was chewing the tobacco. This was his last resort, an
+expedient which he fell back upon only in great extremity, as it
+invariably made him sick to his stomach. He slept a little, but in half
+an hour was broad awake again, gagging and retching dreadfully. There
+was nothing on his stomach to throw up, and now at length the hunger in
+him raged like a wolf. Vandover was in veritable torment.
+
+He could not keep his thoughts away from the money in his pocket, a
+nickel and two dimes. He could eat if he wanted to, could satisfy this
+incessant craving. At every moment the temptation grew stronger. Why
+should he wait until morning? He had the money; it was only a matter of
+a few minutes' walk to the nearest saloon. But he set his face against
+this desire; he had held out so long that it would be a pity to give in
+now; he was not so very hungry after all. No, no; he would not give in,
+he was strong enough; as long as he used his will he need not succumb.
+It was just a question of asserting his strength of mind, of calling up
+the better part of him. Even better than eating would be the
+satisfaction of knowing that he had shown himself stronger than his
+lower animal appetite. No; he would not give in.
+
+Hardly a minute after he had arrived at this resolution Vandover found
+himself drawing on his coat and shoes making ready to go out--to go out
+and eat.
+
+The gas in the room was lit, his money, the nickel and the two dimes,
+was shut in one of his fists. He was dressing himself with one hand,
+dressing with feverish, precipitate haste. What had happened? He
+marvelled at himself, but did not check his preparations an instant. He
+could not stop, whether he would or no; there was something in him
+stronger than himself, something that urged him on his feet, that drove
+him out into the street, something that clamoured for food and that
+would not be gainsaid. It was the animal in him, the brute, that would
+be fed, the evil, hideous brute grown now so strong that Vandover could
+not longer resist it--the brute that had long since destroyed all his
+finer qualities but that still demanded to be fed, still demanded to
+live. All the little money that Vandover had saved during the day he
+spent that night among the coffee houses, the restaurants, and the
+saloons of the Barbary Coast, continuing to eat even after his hunger
+was satisfied. Toward daylight he returned to his room, and all dressed
+as he was flung himself face downward among the coarse blankets and
+greasy counterpane. For nearly eight hours he slept profoundly, with
+long snores, prone, inert, crammed and gorged with food.
+
+It was the middle of Sunday afternoon when he awoke. He roused himself
+and going over to the Plaza sat for a long while upon one of the
+benches. It was a very bright afternoon and Vandover sat motionless for
+a long time in the sun while his heavy meal digested, very happy,
+content merely to be warm, to be well fed, to be comfortable.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter Eighteen
+
+
+That winter passed, then the summer; September and October came and
+went, and by the middle of November the rains set in. One very wet
+afternoon toward the end of the month Charlie Geary sat at his desk in
+his own private office. He was unoccupied for the moment, leaning back
+in his swivel chair, his feet on the table, smoking a cigar. Geary had
+broken from his old-time habit of smoking only so many cigars as he
+could pay for by saving carfare. He was doing so well now that he could
+afford to smoke whenever he chose. He was still with the great firm of
+Beale & Storey, and while not in the partnership as yet, had worked up
+to the position of an assistant. He had cases of his own now, a great
+many of them, for the most part damage suits against that certain
+enormous corporation whom it was said was ruining the city and entire
+state. Geary posed as one of its bitterest enemies, pushing each suit
+brought against it with a tireless energy, with a zeal that was almost
+vindictive. He began to fit into his own niche, in the eyes of the
+public, and just in proportion as the corporation was hated, Geary was
+admired. Money came to him very fast. He was hardly thirty at this time,
+but could already be called a rich man.
+
+His "deal" with Vandover had given him a taste for real estate, and now
+and then, with the greatest caution, he made a few discreet investments.
+At present he had just completed a row of small cottages across the
+street from the boot and shoe factory. The cottages held two rooms and a
+large kitchen. Geary had calculated that the boot and shoe concern would
+employ nearly a thousand operatives, and he had built his row with the
+view of accommodating a few of them who had families and who desired to
+live near the factory. His agents were Adams & Brunt.
+
+It was toward half-past five, there was nothing more that Geary could do
+that day, and for a moment he leaned back in his swivel chair, before
+going home, smiling a little, very well pleased with himself. He was
+still as clever and shrewd as ever, still devoured with an incarnate
+ambition, still delighted when he could get the better of any one. He
+was yet a young man; with the start he had secured for himself, and
+with the exceptional faculties, the faculties of self-confidence and
+"push" that he knew himself to possess, there was no telling to what
+position he might attain. He knew that it was only a question of
+time--of a short time even--when he would be the practical head of the
+great firm. Everything he turned his hand to was a success. His row of
+houses in the Mission might be enlarged to a veritable settlement for
+every workman in the neighbourhood. His youth, his cleverness, and his
+ambition, supported by his money on the one hand, and on the other by
+the vast machinery of the great law firm, could raise him to a great
+place in the world of men. Gazing through the little blue haze of his
+cigar smoke, he began to have vague ideas, ideas of advancement, of
+political successes. Politics fascinated him--such a field of action
+seemed to be the domain for which he was precisely suited--not the
+politics of the city or of the state; not the nasty little squabbling of
+boodlers, lobbyists, and supervisors, but something large, something
+inspiring, something on a tremendous scale, something to which one could
+give up one's whole life and energy, something to which one could
+sacrifice everything--friendships, fortunes, scruples, principles, life
+itself, no matter what, anything to be a "success," to "arrive," to "get
+there," to attain the desired object in spite of the whole world, to
+ride on at it, trampling down or smashing through everything that stood
+in the way, blind, deaf, fists and teeth shut tight. Not the little
+squabbling politics of the city or state, but national politics, the
+sway and government of a whole people, the House, the Senate, the
+cabinet and the next--why not?--the highest, the best of all, the
+Executive. Yes, Geary aspired even to the Presidency.
+
+For a moment he allowed himself the indulgence of the delightful dream,
+then laughed a bit at his own absurdity. But even the entertainment of
+so vast an idea had made his mind, as it were, big; it was hard to come
+down to the level again. In spite of himself he went on reasoning in
+stupendous thoughts, in enormous ideas, figuring with immense
+abstractions. And then after all, why not? Other men had striven and
+attained; other men were even now striving, other men would "arrive";
+why should not he? As well he as another. Every man for himself--that
+was his maxim. It might be damned selfish, but it was human nature: the
+weakest to the wall, the strongest to the front. Why should not he be in
+the front? Why not in the very front rank? Why not be even before the
+front rank itself--the leader? Vast, vague ideas passed slowly across
+the vision of his mind, ideas that could hardly be formulated into
+thought, ideas of the infinite herd of humanity, driven on as if by some
+enormous, relentless engine, driven on toward some fearful distant
+bourne, driven on recklessly at headlong speed. All life was but a
+struggle to keep from under those myriad spinning wheels that dashed so
+close behind. Those were happiest who were farthest to the front. To lag
+behind was peril; to fall was to perish, to be ridden down, to be beaten
+to the dust, to be inexorably crushed and blotted out beneath that
+myriad of spinning iron wheels. Geary looked up quickly and saw Vandover
+standing in the doorway.
+
+For the moment Geary did not recognize the gaunt, shambling figure with
+the long hair and dirty beard, the greenish hat, and the streaked and
+spotted coat, but when he did it was with a feeling of anger and
+exasperation.
+
+"Look here!" he cried, "don't you think you'd better knock before you
+come in?"
+
+Vandover raised a hand slowly as if in deprecation, and answered slowly
+and with a feeble, tremulous voice, the voice of an old man: "I did
+knock, Mister Geary; I didn't mean no offence." He sat down on the edge
+of the nearest chair, looking vaguely and stupidly about on the floor,
+moving his head instead of his eyes, repeating under his breath from
+time to time, "No offence--no, sir--no offence!"
+
+"Shut that door!" commanded Geary. Vandover obeyed. He wore no vest, and
+the old cutaway coat, fastened by the single remaining button, exposed
+his shirt to view, abominably filthy, bulging at the waist like a
+blouse. The "blue pants," held up by a strap, were all foul with mud and
+grease and paint, and there hung about him a certain odour, that
+peculiar smell of poverty and of degradation, the smell of stale clothes
+and of unwashed bodies.
+
+"Well?" said Geary abruptly.
+
+Vandover put the tips of his fingers to his lips and rolled his eyes
+about the room, avoiding Geary's glance; then he dropped them to the
+floor again, looking at the pattern in the carpet.
+
+"Well," repeated Geary, irritated, "you know I haven't got all the time
+in the world." All at once Vandover began to cry, very softly, snuffling
+with his nose, his chin twitching, the tears running through his thin,
+sparse beard.
+
+"Ah, get on to yourself!" shouted Geary, now thoroughly disgusted. "Quit
+that! Be a man, will you? Stop that! do you hear?" Vandover obeyed,
+catching his breath and slowly wiping his eyes with the side of his
+hand.
+
+"I'm no good!" he said at length, wagging his head and blinking through
+his tears. "I'm--I'm done for and I ain't got no money; yet, of course,
+you see I don't mean no offence. What I want, you see, is to be a man
+and not give in and not let the wolf get me, and then I'll go back to
+Paris. Everything goes round here, very slow, and seems far off; that's
+why I can't get along, and I'm that hungry that sometimes I twitch all
+over. I'm down. I ain't got another cent of money and I lost my job at
+the paint-shop. There's where I drew down twenty dollars a week painting
+landscapes on safes, you know, and then--"
+
+Geary interrupted him, crying out, "You haven't a cent? Why, what have
+you done with your bonds?"
+
+"Bonds?" repeated Vandover, dazed and bewildered. "I ain't never had any
+bonds. What bonds? Oh, yes," he exclaimed, suddenly remembering, "yes, I
+know, my bonds, of course; yes, yes--well, I--those--those, I had to
+sell those bonds--had some debts, you see, my board and my tailor's
+bill. They got out some sort of paper after me. Yes, I had forgotten
+about my bonds. I lost every damned one of them playing cards--gambled
+'em all away. Ain't I no good? But I was winner once--just in two nights
+I won ten thousand dollars. Then I must have lost it again. You see, I
+get so hungry sometimes that I twitch all over--so, just like that. Lend
+me a dollar."
+
+For a few moments Geary was silent, watching Vandover curiously, as he
+sat in a heap on the edge of the chair, fumbling his greenish hat,
+looking about the floor. Presently he asked:
+
+"When did you lose your job at the paint-shop?"
+
+"Day before yesterday."
+
+"And you are out of work now?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover. "I'm broke; I haven't a cent. I'm blest if I
+know how I'm to get along. Lately I've been working for a paint-shop,
+painting landscapes on safes. I drew down fifty dollars a week there,
+but I've lost my job."
+
+"Good Lord, Van!" Geary suddenly exclaimed, nodding his head toward him
+reflectively, "I'm sorry for you!"
+
+The other laughed. "Yes; I suppose I'm a pitiable looking object, but
+I'm used to it. I don't mind much now as long as I can have a place to
+sleep and enough to eat. If you can put me in the way of some work,
+Charlie, I'd be much obliged. You see, that's what I want--work. I don't
+want to run any bunco game. I'm an honest man--I'm too honest. I gave
+away all my money to help another poor duck; gave him thousands, he was
+good to me when I was on my uppers and I meant to repay him. I was
+grateful. I signed a paper that gave him everything I had. It was in
+Paris. There's where my bonds went to. He was a struggling artist."
+
+"Look here!" said Geary, willing to be interested, "you might as well be
+truthful with me. You can't lie to me. Have you gambled away all those
+bonds, or have you been victimized, or have you still got them? Come,
+now, spit it out."
+
+"Charlie, I haven't a cent!" answered Vandover, looking him squarely in
+the face. "Would I be around here and trying to get work from you if I
+had? No; I gambled it all away. You know I had eighty-nine hundred in
+U.S. 4 per cents. Well, first I began to pawn things when my money got
+short--the Old Gentleman's watch that I said I never would part with,
+then my clothes. I couldn't keep away from the cards. Of course, you
+can't understand that; gambling was the only thing that could amuse me.
+Then I began to mortgage my bonds, very little at first. Oh, I went
+slow! Then I got to selling them. Well, somehow, they all went. For a
+time I got along by the work at the paint-shop. But they have let me out
+now; said I was so irregular. I owe for nearly a month at my
+lodging-place." His eyes sought the floor again, rolling about stupidly.
+"Nearly a month, and that's what makes me jump and tremble so. You ought
+to see me sometimes--_b-r-r-r-h!_--and I get to barking! I'm a wolf
+mostly, you know, or some kind of an animal, some kind of a brute. But
+I'd be all right if everything didn't go round very slowly, and seem far
+off. But I'm a wolf. You look out for me; best take care I don't bite
+you! Wolf--wolf! Ah! It's up four flights at the end of the hall, very
+dark, eight thousand dollars in a green cloth sack, and lots of lights
+a-burning. See how long my finger nails are--regular claws; that's the
+wolf, the brute! Why can't I talk in my mouth instead of in my throat?
+That's the devil of it. When you paint on steel and iron your colours
+don't dry out true; all the yellows turn green. But it would 'a' been
+all straight if they hadn't fired me! I never talked to anybody--that
+was _my_ business, wasn't it? And when all those eight thousand little
+lights begin to burn red, why, of course that makes you nervous! So I
+have to drink a great deal of water and chew butcher's paper. That fools
+him and he thinks he's eating. Just so as I can lay quiet in the Plaza
+when the sun is out. There's a hack-stand there, you know, and every
+time that horse tosses his head so's to get the oats in the bottom of
+the nose-bag he jingles the chains on the poles and, by God! that's
+funny; makes me laugh every time; sounds gay, and the chain sparkles
+mighty pretty! Oh, I don't complain. Give me a dollar and I'll bark for
+you!"
+
+Geary leaned back in his chair listening to Vandover, struck with
+wonder, marvelling at that which his old chum had come to be. He was
+sorry for him, too, yet, nevertheless, he felt a certain indefinite
+satisfaction, a faint exultation over his misfortunes, glad that their
+positions were not reversed, pleased that he had been clever enough to
+keep free from those habits, those modes of life that ended in such
+fashion. He rapped sharply on the table. Vandover straightened up,
+raising his eyes:
+
+"You want some work?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes; that's what I'm after," answered Vandover, adding, "I must have
+it!"
+
+"Well," said Geary, hesitatingly, "I can give you something to do, but
+it will be pretty dirty."
+
+Vandover smiled a little, saying, "I guess you can't give me any work
+that would be too dirty for me!" With the words he suddenly began to cry
+again. "I want to be honest, Mister Geary," he exclaimed, drawing the
+backs of his fingers across his lips; "I want to be honest; I'm down and
+I don't mean no offence. Charlie, you and I were old chums once at
+Harvard. My God! to think I was a Harvard man once! Oh, I'm a goner now
+and I ain't got a friend. When I was in the paint-shop they paid me
+well. I've been in a paint-shop lately painting the little pictures on
+the safes, little landscapes, you know, and lakes with mountains around
+them. I pulled down my twenty dollars and findings!"
+
+"Oh, don't be a fool!" cried Geary, ashamed even to see such an
+exhibition. "If you can't be a man, you can get out. Now, see here, you
+came up here once and insulted me in my office, and called me a
+swindler. Ah, you bet you had the swelled head then and insulted me,
+attacked my honesty and charged me with shoving the queer. Now I never
+forget those things generally, but I am willing to let that pass this
+time. I could be nasty now and tell you to rustle for yourself. If you
+want half a dollar now to get something to eat, why, I'll give it to
+you. But I don't propose to support you. Ah, no; I guess not! If you
+want to work I'll give you a chance, but I shall expect you to do good
+work if I give you my good money for it. You may be drunk now or--_I_
+don't know what's the matter with you. But you come up here to-morrow at
+noon, and if you come up here sober or straight or"--Geary began to make
+awkward gestures in the air with both hands--"come up here to talk
+_business_, I may have something for you, but I can't stop any longer
+this evening."
+
+Vandover got upon his feet slowly, turning his greenish hat about by the
+brim, nodding his head. "All right, all right," he answered. "Thank you
+very much, Mister Geary. It's very good of you, I'm sure. I'll be around
+at noon sure."
+
+When Geary was left alone, he walked slowly to his window, and stood
+there a moment looking aimlessly down into the street, shaking his head
+repeatedly, astonished at the degradation of his old-time chum. While he
+stood there he saw Vandover come out upon the sidewalk from the door of
+the great office building. Geary watched him, very interested.
+
+Vandover paused a moment upon the sidewalk, turning up the collar of his
+old cutaway coat against the cold trade wind that was tearing through
+the streets; he thrust both his hands deep into his trousers pockets,
+gripping his sides with his elbows and drawing his shoulders together,
+shrinking into a small compass in order to be warm. The wind blew the
+tails of his cutaway about him like flapping wings. He went up the
+street, walking fast, keeping to the outside of the sidewalk, his
+shoulders bent, his head inclined against the wind, his feet dragging
+after him as he walked. For a moment Geary lost sight of him amid a
+group of men who were hoisting a piano upon a dray. The street was
+rather crowded with office boys, clerks, and typewriters going home to
+supper, and Geary did not catch sight of him again immediately; then all
+at once he saw him hesitating on a corner of Kearney Street, waiting for
+an electric car to pass; he crossed the street, running, his hands still
+in his pockets, and went on hurriedly, dodging in and out of the throng,
+his high shoulders, long neck, and greenish hat coming into sight at
+intervals. For a moment he paused to glance into the show window of a
+tobacconist and pipe-seller's store. A Chinese woman passed him,
+pattering along lamely, her green jade ear-rings twinkling in the light
+of a street lamp, newly lighted. Vandover looked after her a moment,
+gazing stupidly, then suddenly took up his walk again, zigzagging amid
+the groups on the asphalt, striding along at a great pace, his head low
+and swinging from side to side as he walked. He was already far down the
+street; it was dusk; Geary could only catch glimpses of his head and
+shoulders at long intervals. He disappeared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About ten minutes before one the next day as Geary came back from lunch
+he was surprised to see Vandover peeping through the half-open door of
+his office. He had not thought that Vandover would come back.
+
+Of the many different stories that Vandover had told about the
+disappearance of his bonds, the one that was probably truest was the one
+that accounted for the thing by his passion for gambling. For a long
+time after his advent at the Reno House this passion had been dormant;
+he knew no one with whom he could play, and every cent of his income now
+went for food and lodging. But one day, about six months before his
+visit to Geary's office, Vandover saw that the proprietor of the Reno
+House had set up a great bagatelle board in a corner of the
+reading-room. A group of men, sailors, ranchmen, and fruit venders were
+already playing. Vandover approached and watched the game, very
+interested in watching the uncertain course of the marble jog-jogging
+among the pins. The clear little note of the bell or the dry rattle as
+the marble settled quickly into one of the lucky pockets thrilled him
+from head to foot; his hands trembled, all at once his whole left side
+twitched sharply.
+
+From that day the fate of the rest of Vandover's little money was
+decided. In two weeks he had lost twenty dollars at bagatelle, obtaining
+the money by selling a portion of his bonds at a certain broker's on
+Montgomery Street. As soon as he had begun to gamble again the old
+habits of extravagance had come back upon him. From the moment he knew
+that he could get all the money he wanted by the mere signing of a
+paper, he ceased to be economical, scorning the former niggardliness
+that had led him to starve on one day that he might feast the next; now,
+he feasted every day. He still kept his room at the Reno House, but
+instead of taking his meals by any ticket system, he began to affect the
+restaurants of the Spanish quarter, gorging himself with the hot spiced
+meals three and four times a day. He quickly abandoned the bagatelle
+board for the card-table, gambling furiously with two of the ranchmen.
+Almost invariably Vandover lost, and the more he lost the more eager and
+reckless he became.
+
+In a little time he had sold every one of his bonds and had gambled away
+all but twenty dollars of the money received from the last one sold.
+This sum, this twenty dollars, Vandover decided to husband carefully. It
+was all that was left between him and starvation. He made up his mind
+that he must stop gambling and find something to do. He had long since
+abandoned his work at the paint-shop, but at this time he returned there
+and asked for his old occupation. They laughed in his face. Was that the
+way he thought they did business? Not much; another man had his job, a
+much better man and one who was regular, who could be depended on. That
+same evening Vandover broke his twenty dollars and became very drunk. A
+game of poker was started in a back room of one of the saloons on the
+Barbary Coast. One of the players was a rancher named Toedt, a
+fellow-boarder at the Reno House, but the two other players were
+strangers; and there in that narrow, dirty room, sawdust on the floor,
+festoons of fly-specked red and blue tissue paper adorning the single
+swinging lamp, figures cut from bill-posters of the Black Crook pasted
+on the walls, there in the still hours after midnight, long after the
+barroom outside had been closed for the night, the last penny of
+Vandover's estate was gambled away.
+
+The game ended in a quarrel, Vandover, very drunk, and exasperated at
+his ill luck, accusing his friend Toedt, the rancher, of cheating. Toedt
+kicked him in the stomach and made him abominably sick. Then they went
+away and left Vandover alone in the little dirty room, racked with
+nausea, very drunk, fallen forward upon the table and crying into his
+folded arms. After a little he went to sleep, but the nausea continued,
+nevertheless, and in a few moments he gagged and vomited. He never
+moved. He was too drunk to wake. His hands and his coat-sleeves, the
+table all about him, were foul beyond words, but he slept on in the
+midst of it all, inert, stupefied, a great swarm of flies buzzing about
+his head and face. It was the day after this that he had come to see
+Geary.
+
+"Ah," said Geary, as he came up, "it's you, is it? Well, I didn't expect
+to see you again. Sit down outside there in the hall and wait a few
+minutes. I'm not ready to go yet--or, wait; here, I tell you what to
+do." Geary wrote off a list of articles on a slip of paper and pushed it
+across the table toward Vandover, together with a little money. "You get
+those at the nearest grocery and by the time you are back I'll be ready
+to go."
+
+That day Geary took Vandover out to the Mission. They went out in the
+cable-car, Geary sitting inside reading the morning's paper, Vandover
+standing on the front platform, carrying the things that Geary had told
+him to buy: a bar of soap, a scrubbing brush, some wiping cloths, a
+broom, and a pail.
+
+Almost at the end of the car-line they got off and crossed over to where
+Geary's property stood. Vandover looked about him. The ground on which
+his own block had once stood was now occupied by an immense red brick
+building with white stone trimmings; in front on either side of the main
+entrance were white stone medallions upon which were chiselled the head
+of a workman wearing the square paper cap that the workman never wears,
+and a bent-up forearm, the biceps enormous, the fist gripping the short
+hammer that the workman never uses. An enormous round chimney sprouted
+from one corner; through the open windows came the vast purring of
+machinery. It was a boot and shoe factory, built by the great concern
+who had bought the piece of property from Geary for fifteen thousand
+dollars, the same property Geary had bought from Vandover for eight.
+
+Across the street from the factory was a long row of little cottages,
+very neat, each having a tiny garden in front where nasturtiums grew.
+There were fifteen of these cottages; three of them only were vacant.
+
+"That was _my_ idea," observed Geary, as they approached the row,
+willing to explain even though he thought Vandover would not comprehend,
+"and it pays like a nitrate bed. I was clever enough to see that
+cottages like these were just what's wanted by the workmen in the
+factory that have families. I made some money when I sold out my block
+to the boot and shoe people, and I invested it again in these cottages.
+They are cheap and serviceable and they meet the demand." Vandover
+nodded his head in assent, looking vaguely about him, now at the
+cottages, now at the great building across the street. Geary got the
+keys to one of the vacant cottages and the two went inside.
+
+"Now here's what I want you to do," began Geary, pointing about with his
+stick. "You see, when some of these people go out they leave the rooms
+nasty, and that tells against the house when parties come to look at it.
+I want you to go all over it, top and bottom, end to end, and give it a
+good cleaning, sweep the floor, and wash the paint, you know. And now
+these windows, you see how dirty they are; wash those inside and out,
+but don't disturb the agents' signs; you understand?"
+
+"Yes, I understand."
+
+"Now come out here into the kitchen. Look at these laundry tubs and that
+sink. See all that grease! Clean that all out, and underneath the sink
+here. See that rubbish! Take that out, too. Now in here--look at that
+bathtub and toilet. You see how nasty they have left them. You want to
+make 'em look like new!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Now come downstairs. You see I give 'em a little floored basement,
+here; kind of a storeroom and coalroom. Here's where most of the dirt
+and rubbish is. Just look at it! See all that pile over there?"
+
+"I see."
+
+"Take it all out and pile it in the back yard. I'll have an ashman come
+and remove it. Whew! there is a dead hen under here; sling that out the
+first thing."
+
+They went back through the house again, and Geary pointed out the tiny
+garden to Vandover. "Straighten that up a bit, pick up those old
+newspapers and the tin cans. Make it look neat. Now you understand just
+what I want? You make a good job of it, and when you are through with
+this house, you begin on the next vacant one farther down the row. You
+can get the keys at the same place. You get to work right away. I should
+think you ought to finish this house this afternoon."
+
+"All right," answered Vandover.
+
+"I'm going to look around a little. I'll drop in again in about an hour
+and see how you're getting on."
+
+With that Geary went away. It was Saturday afternoon, and as the law
+office closed at noon that day, Geary very often spent the time until
+evening looking about his property. He left Vandover and went slowly
+down the street, noting each particular house with immense satisfaction,
+even entering some of them, talking with the womenfolk, all the men
+being at the factory.
+
+Vandover took off his coat, his old and greasy cutaway, and began work.
+He drew a pail of water from the garden faucet in a neighbour's yard,
+and commenced washing the windows. First he washed the panes from the
+inside, very careful not to disturb Adams & Brunt's signs, and then
+cleaned the outside, sitting upon the window ledge, his body half in and
+half out of the house.
+
+Geary enjoyed himself immensely. The news of the landlord's visit had
+spread from cottage to cottage, awakening a mild excitement throughout
+the length of the row. The women showed themselves on the steps or on
+the sidewalks, very slatternly, without corsets, their hair coming down,
+dressed in faded calico wrappers just as they had come from the laundry
+tubs or the cook-stove. They bethought them of their various grievances,
+a leak here, a broken door-bell there, a certain bad smell that was
+supposed to have some connection with a rash upon the children's faces.
+They waited for Geary's appearance by ones and twos, timid, very
+respectful, but querulous for all that, filling the air with their
+lamentations.
+
+Vandover had finished with the windows. Now he was cleaning out the sink
+and the laundry tubs. They smelt very badly and were all foul with a
+greasy mixture of old lard, soap, soot, and dust; a little mould was
+even beginning to form about the faucets of the tubs. The escape pipe of
+the sink was clogged, and he had to run his finger into it again and
+again to get it free. The kitchen was very dirty; old bottles of sweet
+oil, mouldy vinegar and flat beer cluttered the dusty shelves of the
+pantry.
+
+Meanwhile Geary continued his rounds. He went about among the groups of
+his tenants, very pleased and contented, smiling affably upon them. He
+enlarged himself, giving himself the airs of an English lord in the
+midst of his tenantry, listening to their complaints with a
+good-humoured smile of toleration. A few men were about, some of whom
+were out of work for the moment; others who were sick. To these Geary
+was particularly condescending. He sat in their parlours, little,
+crowded rooms, smelling of stale upholstery and of the last meal, where
+knitted worsted tidies, very gaudy, covered the backs of the larger
+chairs and where one inevitably discovered the whatnot standing in one
+corner, its shelves filled with shell-boxes, broken thermometers and
+little alabaster jars, shaped like funeral urns, where one kept the
+matches. The wife brought the children in, very dirty, looking solemnly
+at Geary, their eyes enlarged in the direct unwinking gaze of cows.
+
+By this time Vandover had finished with the sinks and tubs and was down
+upon his hands and knees scrubbing the stains of grease upon the floor
+of the kitchen. It was very hard work, as his water was cold. He was
+still working about this spot when Geary returned. By this time Vandover
+was so tired that he trembled all over, his spine seemed to be breaking
+in two, and every now and then he paused and passed his hand over the
+small of his back, closing his eyes and drawing a long breath.
+
+"Well, how are you getting on?" asked Geary, as he came into the
+kitchen, drawing on his gloves, about ready to go home.
+
+"Oh, I'm getting along," replied Vandover, rising up to his knees.
+
+"You want to hurry up," answered Geary. "You must be done with this
+house by this evening. You see, I want to advertise it in to-morrow's
+papers."
+
+"All right; I'll have it done."
+
+"Pretty dirty, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, pretty dirty."
+
+"You may have to work here a little later than usual this afternoon, but
+be sure you have everything cleaned up before you leave," Geary said.
+
+"All right," answered Vandover, bending to his work again.
+
+Just as Geary was leaving he had the admirable good fortune to meet on
+the steps of the cottage a little group who were house-hunting; two
+young women and a little boy. The mother of the little boy, so she
+explained to him, was married to one of the burnishers in the factory;
+the other woman was her sister.
+
+Geary showed them about the little house, very eager to secure them as
+tenants then and there. He began to sing its praises, its nearness to
+the factory, its excellent plumbing, its bathroom and its one stationary
+washstand; its little garden and its location on the sunny side of the
+street. "I'm a good landlord," he said to them, as he ushered them into
+the kitchen. "Any one in the row will tell you that. I make it a point
+to keep my houses in good repair and to keep them clean. You see, I have
+a man here now cleaning out." Vandover glanced up at the women an
+instant. The two of them and the little boy looked down at him on all
+fours upon the floor. Then he went on with his work.
+
+"This is the kitchen, you see," pursued Geary. "Notice how large it is;
+you see, here are your laundry tubs, your iron sink, your boiler,
+everything you need. Of course, it's a little grimy now, but by the time
+the man gets through, it will be as clean as your face. Now come
+downstairs here and I'll show the basement."
+
+In a moment their voices sounded through the floor of the kitchen, an
+indistinct, continuous murmur. Then the party returned and passed by
+Vandover again and stood for a long time in the front room haggling. The
+cottage rented for fifteen dollars. The young woman was willing to take
+it at that, but with the understanding that Geary should pay the water
+rent. Geary refused, unwilling even to listen to such a thing. Every
+other tenant in the row paid for his own water. The young women went
+away shaking their heads sadly. Geary let them get half-way down the
+front steps and then called them back. He offered a compromise, the
+young women should pay for the water, but half of their first month's
+rent should be remitted. The burnisher's wife still hesitated, saying,
+"You know yourself this house is awfully dirty."
+
+"Well, you see I'm having it cleaned!"
+
+"It'll have to be cleaned pretty thoroughly. I can't stand _dirt._"
+
+"It _will_ be cleaned thoroughly," persisted Geary. "The man will work
+at it until it is. You can keep an eye on him and see that the work is
+done to suit you."
+
+"You see," objected the burnisher's wife, "I would want to move in right
+away. I don't want to wait all week for the man to get through."
+
+"But he is going to be through with this house to-night," exclaimed
+Geary delighted. "Come now, I know you want this cottage and I would
+like to have such nice-looking people have it. I know you would make
+good tenants. I can find lots of other tenants for this house, only you
+know how it is, a nasty, slovenly woman about the house and a raft of
+dirty children. And you don't like dirt, I can see that. Better call it
+a bargain, and let it go at that."
+
+In the end the burnisher's wife took the house. Geary even induced her
+to deposit five dollars with him in order to secure it.
+
+Vandover was down in the basement filling a barrel with the odds and
+ends of rubbish left by the previous tenants: broken bottles, old
+corsets, bones, rusty bedsprings. The dead hen he had taken out first of
+all, carrying it by one leg. It was a gruesome horror, partly eaten by
+rats, swollen, abnormally heavy, one side flattened from lying so long
+upon the floor. He could hardly stand; each time he bent over it seemed
+as though his backbone was disjointing. After cleaning out the debris he
+began to sweep. The dust was fearful, choking, blinding, so thick that
+he could hardly see what he was about. By and by he dimly made out
+Geary's figure in the doorway.
+
+"Those people have taken the house," he called out, "and I promised them
+you would be through with it by this evening. So you want to stay with
+it now till you're finished. I guess there's not much more to do. Don't
+forget the little garden in front."
+
+"No; I won't forget!"
+
+Geary went away, and for another hour Vandover kept at his work,
+stolidly, his mind empty of all thought, knowing only that he was very
+tired, that his back pained him. He finished with the basement, but as
+he was pottering about the little garden, picking up the discoloured
+newspapers with which it was littered, the burnisher's wife returned,
+together with her sister and the little boy; the little boy eating a
+slice of bread and butter. They re-entered the house; Vandover heard
+their voices, now in one room, now in another. They were looking over
+their future home again; evidently they lived close by.
+
+Suddenly the burnisher's wife came out upon the front steps, looking
+down into the little garden, calling for Vandover. She was not pretty;
+she had a nose like a man and her chin was broad.
+
+"Say, there," she called to Vandover, "do you mean to say that you've
+finished inside here?"
+
+"Yes," answered Vandover, straightening up, nodding his head. "Yes, I've
+finished."
+
+"Well, just come in here and look at this."
+
+Vandover followed her into the little parlour. Her sister was there,
+very fat, smelling somehow of tallow candles and cooked cabbage; nearby
+stood the little boy still eating his bread and butter.
+
+"Look at that baseboard," exclaimed the burnisher's wife. "You never
+touched that, I'll bet a hat." Vandover did not answer; he brought in
+the pail of water, and soaping his scrubbing brush, went down again on
+his hands and knees, washing the paint on the baseboard where the
+burnisher's wife indicated. The two women stood by, looking on and
+directing his movements. The little boy watched everything, never
+speaking a word, slowly eating his bread and butter. Streaks of butter
+and bread clung to his cheeks, stretching from the corners of his mouth
+to his ears.
+
+"I don't see how you come to overlook that," said the burnisher's wife
+to Vandover. "That's the dirtiest baseboard I ever saw. Oh, my! I just
+can't naturally stand _dirt_! There, you didn't get that stain off.
+That's tobacco juice, I guess. Go back and wash that over again."
+Vandover obeyed, holding the brush in one hand, crawling back along the
+floor upon one palm and his two knees, a pool of soapy, dirty water very
+cold gathered about him, soaking in through the old "blue pants" and
+wetting him to the skin, but he slovened through it indifferently. "Put
+a little more elbow grease to it," continued the burnisher's wife. "You
+have to rub them spots pretty hard to get 'em out. Now scrub all along
+here near the floor. You see that streak there--that's all gormed up
+with something or other. Bugs get in there mighty quick. There, that'll
+do, I guess. Now, is everything else all clean? Mister Geary said it was
+to be done to my satisfaction, and that you were to stay here until
+everything was all right."
+
+All at once her voice was interrupted by the prolonged roar of the
+factory's whistle, blowing as though it would never stop. It was
+half-past five. In an instant the faint purring of the machinery
+dwindled and ceased, leaving an abrupt silence in the air. A moment
+later the army of operatives began to pour out of the main entrance; men
+and girls and young boys, all in a great hurry, the men settling their
+coat collars as they ran down the steps. The usually quiet street was
+crowded in an instant.
+
+The burnisher's wife stood on the steps of the vacant house with her
+sister, watching the throng debouch into the street. All at once the
+sister exclaimed, "There he is!" and the other began to call, "Oscar,
+Oscar!" waving her hand to one of the workmen on the other side of the
+street. It was her husband, the burnisher, and he came across the
+street, crowding his lunch basket into the pocket of his coat. He was a
+thin little man with a timid air, his face white and fat and covered
+with a sparse unshaven stubble of a pale straw colour. An odour as of a
+harness shop hung about him. Vandover gathered up his broom and pail and
+soap preparing to go home.
+
+"Well, Oscar, I've taken the house!" said his wife to the burnisher as
+he came up the steps. "But I couldn't get him to say that he'd let me
+have it for fifteen, water _included_. The landlord himself, Mr. Geary,
+was here to-day and I made the dicker with him. He's had a man here all
+day cleaning up." She explained the bargain, the burnisher approving of
+everything, nodding his head continually. His wife showed him about the
+house, her sister and the little boy following in silence. "He's a good
+landlord, I guess," continued the young woman; "anybody in the row will
+tell you that, and he means to keep his houses in good repair. Now you
+see, here's the kitchen. You see how big it is. Here's our laundry tubs,
+our iron sink, our boiler, and everything we want. It's all as clean as
+a whistle; and get on to this big cubby under the sink where I can stow
+away things." She opened its door to show her husband, but all at once
+straightened up, exclaiming, "Well, dear me _suz_--did you _ever_ see
+anything like that?" The cubby under the sink was abominably dirty.
+Vandover had altogether forgotten it.
+
+The little burnisher himself bent down and peered in.
+
+"Oh, that'll never do!" he cried. "Has that man gone home yet? He
+mustn't; he's got to clean this out first!" He had a weak, faint voice,
+small and timid like his figure. He hurried out to the front door and
+called Vandover back just as he was going down the steps. The two went
+back into the kitchen and stood in front of the sink. "Look under
+there!" piped the burnisher. "You can't leave that, that way."
+
+"You know," protested his wife, "that this all was to be done to our
+satisfaction. Mr. Geary said so. That's the only way I came to take the
+house."
+
+"It's about six o'clock, though," observed her fat sister, who smelt of
+cooked cabbage. "Perhaps he'd want to go home to his dinner." But at
+this both the others cried out in one voice, the burnisher exclaiming:
+"I can't help _that_, this has got to be done first," while his wife
+protested that she couldn't naturally stand dirt, adding, "This all was
+to be done to our satisfaction, and we ain't satisfied yet by a long
+shot." Delighted at this excitement, the little boy forgot to eat into
+his bread and butter, rolling his eyes wildly from one to the other,
+still silent.
+
+Meanwhile, without replying, Vandover had gone down upon the floor
+again, poking about amid the filth under the sink. The four others, the
+burnisher, his wife, his sister-in-law and his little boy, stood about
+in a half-circle behind him, seeing to it that he did the work properly,
+giving orders as to how he should proceed.
+
+"Now, be sure you get everything out that's under there," said the
+burnisher. "Ouf! how it smells! They made a regular dump heap of it."
+
+"What's that over in the corner there?" cried the wife, bending down. "I
+can't see, it's so dark under there--something gray; can't you see, in
+under there? You'll have to crawl way in to get at it--go way in!"
+Vandover obeyed. The sink pipes were so close above him that he was
+obliged to crouch lower and lower; at length he lay flat upon his
+stomach. Prone in the filth under the sink, in the sour water, the
+grease, the refuse, he groped about with his hand searching for the
+something gray that the burnisher's wife had seen. He found it and drew
+it out. It was an old hambone covered with a greenish fuzz.
+
+"Oh, did you _ever_!" cried the burnisher, holding up his hands. "Here,
+don't drop that on my clean floor; put it in your pail. Now get out the
+rest of the dirt, and hurry up, it's late." Vandover crawled back, half
+the way under the sink again, this time bringing out a rusty pan half
+full of some kind of congealed gravy that exhaled a choking, acrid
+odour; next it was an old stocking, and then an ink bottle, a broken
+rat-trap, a battered teapot lacking a nozzle, a piece of rubber hose, an
+old comb choked with a great handful of hair, a torn overshoe,
+newspapers, and a great quantity of other debris that had accumulated
+there during the occupancy of the previous tenant.
+
+"Now go over the floor with a rag," ordered the little burnisher, when
+the last of these articles had been brought out. "Wipe up all that nasty
+muck! Look there by your knee to your left! Scrub that big spot there
+with your brush--looks like grease. That's the style--scrub it hard!"
+His wife joined her directions to his. Then it was over here, and over
+there, now in that corner, now in this, and now with his brush and soap,
+and now with his dry rag, and hurry up all the time because it was
+growing late. But the little boy, carried away by the interest of the
+occasion, suddenly broke silence for the first time, crying out shrilly,
+his mouth full of bread and butter, "Hey there! Get up, you old
+lazee-bones!"
+
+The others shouted with laughter. _There_ was a smart little boy for
+you. Ah, he'd be a man before his mother. It was wonderful how that boy
+saw everything that went on. He took an _interest_, that was it. You
+ought to see, he watched everything, and sometimes he'd plump out with
+things that were astonishing for a boy of his years. Only four and a
+half, too, and they reminded each other of the first day he put on
+knickerbockers; stood in front of the house on the sidewalk all day long
+with his hands in his pockets. The interest was directed from Vandover,
+they turned their backs, grouping themselves about the little boy. The
+burnisher's sister-in-law felt called upon to tell about her little
+girl, a matter of family pride. _She_ was going on twelve, and would you
+suppose that little thing was in next to the last grade in the grammar
+school? Her teacher had said that she was a real wonder; never had had
+such a bright pupil. Ah, but one should see how she studied over her
+books all the time. Next year they were to try to get her into the high
+school. Of course she was not ready for the high school yet, and it was
+against the rule to let children in that way, she was too young, but
+they had a pull, you understand. Oh, yes, for sure they had a pull.
+_They'd_ work her in all right. The burnisher's wife was not listening.
+She wanted to draw the interest back to her own little boy. She bent
+down and straightened out his little jacket, saying, "Does he like his
+bread 'n butter? Well, he could have all he wanted!" But the little boy
+paid no attention to her. He had made a _bon-mot_, ambition stirred in
+him, he had tasted the delights of an appreciative audience. Bread and
+butter had fallen in his esteem. He wished to repeat his former success,
+and cried out shriller than ever:
+
+"Hey, there! Get up, you old lazee-bones!"
+
+But his father corrected him--his mother ought not to encourage him to
+be rude. "That's not right, Oscar," he observed, shaking his head. "You
+must be kind to the poor man."
+
+Vandover was sitting back on his heels to rest his back, waiting till
+the others should finish.
+
+"Well, all through?" inquired the burnisher in his thin voice. Vandover
+nodded. But his wife was not satisfied until she had herself carefully
+peered into the cubby, while her husband held a lighted match for her.
+"Ah, that's something like," she said finally.
+
+It was nearly seven. Vandover prepared to go home a second time. The
+little boy stood in front of him, looking down at him as he made his
+brush and rags and broom into a bundle; the boy slowly eating his bread
+and butter the while. In one corner of the room an excited whispered
+conference was going on between the burnisher, his wife, and his fat
+sister-in-law. From time to time one heard such expressions as
+"Overtime, you know--not afraid of work--ah! think I'd better, looks as
+though he needed it." In a moment the two women went out, calling in
+vain for the little boy to follow, and the burnisher crossed the room
+toward Vandover. Vandover was on his knees tying up his bundle with a
+bit of bale rope.
+
+"I'm sorry," began the burnisher awkwardly. "We didn't mean to keep you
+from your supper--here," he went on, holding out a quarter to Vandover,
+"here, you take this, that's all right--you worked overtime for us,
+that's all right. Come along, Oscar; come along, m'son."
+
+Vandover put the quarter in his vest pocket.
+
+"Thank you, sir," he said.
+
+The burnisher hurried away, calling back, "Come along, m'son; don't keep
+your mama waiting for supper." But the little boy remained very
+interested in watching Vandover, still on the floor, tying the last
+knots. As he finished, he glanced up. For an instant the two remained
+there motionless, looking into each other's eyes, Vandover on the floor,
+one hand twisted into the bale rope about his bundle, the little boy
+standing before him eating the last mouthful of his bread and butter.
+
+
+
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