Chambers Robert William
The Adventures of a Modest Man

CHAPTER XVII
SHOWING HOW IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ANY MAN TO MAKE OF HIMSELF A CHUMP

After a while I repeated: "They did marry, didn't they?"

"What do you think?"

"I'm perfectly certain they did."

"Well, then, what more do you want?" he laughed.

"Another of your reminiscences disguised as fiction," I said, tinkling my spoon on the edge of my tumbler to attract the waiter.

"Two more," I said, lighting a caporal cigarette, the penetrating aroma of which drifted lazily through forgotten years, drawing memory with it in its fragrant back-draught.

"Do you remember Seabury's brother?" he asked.

"Beaux Arts? Certainly. Architect, wasn't he?"

"Yes, but he came into a lot of money and started for home to hit a siding."

"Little chump," I said; "I remember him. There was a promising architect spoiled."

"Oh, I don't know. He is doing a lot to his money."

"Good?"

"Of course. Otherwise I should have said that his money is doing a lot to him."

"Cut out these fine shades and go back to galley-proof," I said, sullenly. "What about him, anyway?"

Williams said, slowly: "A thing happened to that man which had no right to happen anywhere except in a musical comedy. But," he shrugged his shoulders, "everybody's lives are really full of equally grotesque episodes. The trouble is that the world is too serious to discover any absurdity in itself. We writers have to do that for it. For example, there was Seabury's brother. Trouble began the moment he saw her."

"Saw who?" I interrupted.

"Saw her! Shut up!"

I did so. He continued:

They encountered one another under the electric lights in the wooden labyrinth which forms the ferry terminal of the Sixth Avenue Elevated Railroad, she hastening one way, he hurrying the opposite. There was ample room for them to pass each other; it may have been because she was unusually pretty, it may have been his absent-mindedness, but he made one of those mistakes which everybody makes once in a lifetime: he turned to the left, realised what he was doing, wheeled hastily to the right – as she, too, turned – only to meet her face to face, politely dodge, meet again, lose his head and begin a heart-breaking contra-dance, until, vexed and bewildered, she stood perfectly still, and he, redder than she, took the opportunity to slink past her and escape.

"Hey!" said a sarcastic voice, as, blinded with chagrin, he found himself attempting to force a locked wooden gate. "You want to go the other way, unless you're hunting for the third rail."

"No, I don't," he said, wrathfully; "I want to go uptown."

"That's what I said; you want to go the other way, even if you don't know where you want to go," yawned the gateman disdainfully.

Seabury collected his scattered wits and gazed about him. Being a New Yorker, and acquainted with the terminal labyrinth, he very quickly discovered his error, and, gripping suit-case and golf-bag more firmly, he turned and retraced his steps at the natural speed of a good New Yorker, which is a sort of a meaningless lope.

Jammed into the familiar ticket line, he peered ahead through the yellow glare of light and saw the charming girl with whom he had danced his foolish contra-dance just receiving her ticket from the boxed automaton. Also, to his satisfaction, he observed her disappear through the turnstile into the crush surging forward alongside of the cars, and, when he presently deposited his own ticket in the chopper's box, he had no more expectation of ever again seeing her than he had of doing something again to annoy and embarrass her.

But even in Manhattan Destiny works overtime, and Fate gets busy in a manner that no man knoweth; and so, personally though invisibly conducted, Seabury lugged his suit-case and golf-bag aboard a train, threaded his way into a stuffy car and took the only empty seat remaining; and a few seconds later, glancing casually at his right-hand neighbour, he blushed to find himself squeezed into a seat beside his unusually attractive partner in the recent contra-dance.

That she had already seen him, the calm indifference in her blue eyes, the poise of her flushed face, were evidence conclusive.

He shrank back, giving her all the room he could, set his bag of golf-clubs between his knees, and looked innocent. First, as all New Yorkers do, he read the line of advertisements opposite with the usual personal sense of resentment; then he carelessly scanned the people across the aisle. As usual, they resembled everybody he had never particularly noticed; he fished out the evening paper, remembered that he had read it on the ferryboat, stuck it into his golf-bag, and contemplated the battered ends of his golf-clubs.

Station after station flashed yellow lamps along the line of car windows; passengers went and passengers took their places; in one of the streets below he caught a glimpse of a fire engine vomiting sparks and black smoke; in another an ambulance with a squalid assemblage crowded around a policeman who was emerging from a drug store.

He had pretty nearly succeeded in forgetting the girl and his mortification; he cast a calmly casual glance over his well-fitting trousers and shoes. The edge of a shoe-lace lay exposed, and he leisurely remedied this untidy accident, leaning over and tying the lace securely with a double knot.

Fourteenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-third, ran the stations. He gathered his golf-bag instinctively and sat alert, prepared to rise and leave the car with dignity.

"Twenty-eighth!" It was his station. Just as he rose the attractive girl beside him sprang up, and at the same instant his right leg was jerked from under him and he sat down in his seat with violence. Before he comprehended what had happened, the girl, with a startled exclamation, fell back into her seat, and he felt a spasmodic wrench at his foot again.

Astonished, he struggled to rise once more, but something held him – his foot seemed to be caught; and as he turned he encountered her bewildered face and felt another desperate tug which brought him abruptly into his seat again.

"What on earth is the matter?" he asked.

"I – I don't know," she stammered; "my shoe seems to be tied to yours."

"Tied!" he cried, bending down in a panic, "wasn't that my shoe-lace?" His golf-bag fell, he seized it and set it against the seat between them. "Hold it a moment," he groaned. "I tied your shoe-lace to mine!"

"You tied it!" she repeated, furiously.

"I saw a shoe-lace – I thought it was mine – I tied it fast – in a d-d-double knot – "

"Untie it at once!" she said, crimson to the roots of her hair.

"Great Heavens, madam! I didn't mean to do it! I'll fix it in a moment – "

"Don't," she whispered, fiercely; "the people opposite are looking at us! Do you wish to hold us both up to ridicule?" He straightened up, thoroughly flurried.

"But – this is my station – " he began.

"It is mine, too. I'd rather sit here all night than have those people see you untie your shoe from mine! How – how could you – "

"I've explained that I didn't mean to do it," he returned, dropping into the breathless undertone in which she spoke. "Happening to glance down, I saw a shoe-lace end and thought my shoe was untied – "

She looked at him scornfully.

"And I tied it tight, that's all. I'm horribly mortified; this is the second time I've appeared to disadvantage – "

"People in New York usually turn to the right; even horses – "

"I doubt," he said, "that you can make me feel much worse than I feel now, but it's a sort of a horrible relief to know what a fool you think me."

She said nothing, sitting there, cooling her hot face in the breeze from the forward door; he, numb with chagrin, stole an apprehensive glance at the passengers opposite. Nobody appeared to have observed their plight, and he ventured to say so in a low voice.

"Are you certain?" she asked, her own voice not quite steady.

"Perfectly. Look! Nobody is eying our feet."

Her own small feet were well tucked up under her gown; she instinctively drew them further in; he felt a little tug; they both coloured furiously.

"This is simply unspeakable," she said, looking straight ahead of her through two bright tears of mortification.

"Suppose," he whispered, "you edge your foot a trifle this way – I think I can cut the knot with my penknife – " He glanced about him stealthily. "Shall I try?"

"Not now. Wait until those people go."

"But some of them may live in Harlem."

"I – I can't help it. Do you suppose I'm going to let you lean over before all those people and try to untie our shoes?"

"Do you mean to sit here until they're all gone?" he asked, appalled.

"I do. Terrible as the situation is, we've got to conceal it."

[Pg 215][Pg 216]

"Even if some of them go to the end of the line?"

"I don't care!" She turned on him with a hint of that pretty fierceness again. "Do you know what you've done? You've affronted and mortified me and humiliated me beyond endurance. I have a guest to dine with me: I shall not arrive before midnight!"

"Do you suppose," he said miserably, "that anything you say can add to my degradation? Can't you imagine how a man must feel who first of all makes a four-footed fool of himself before the most attractive girl he – "

"Don't say that!" she cried, hotly.

"Yes, I will! You are! And I dodged and tumbled about like a headless chicken and ran into the wrong gate. I wish I'd climbed out on the third rail! And then, when I hoped I'd never see you again, I found myself beside you, and – Good Heavens! I lost no time in beginning my capers again and doing the most abandoned deed a man ever accomplished on earth!"

She appeared to be absorbed in contemplation of a breakfast-food advertisement; her color was still high; at times she worried her under lip with her white teeth, but her breath rose and fell under the fluffy bosom of her gown with more regularity, and the two bright tears in her eyes had dried unshed. Wrath may have dried them.

"I wish it were possible," he said very humbly, "for you to see the humour – "

"Humour!" she repeated, menacingly.

"No – I didn't mean that, I meant the – the – "

"You did! You meant the humour of the situation. I will answer you. I do not see the humour of it!"

"You are quite right," he admitted, looking furtively at the edge of her gown which concealed his right foot. "It is, as you say, simply ghastly to be tied together by the feet. Don't you suppose I could – without awakening suspicion – cut the – the laces with a penknife?"

"I beg you will attempt nothing whatever until this car is empty."

"Certainly," he said. "I will do anything in the world I can to spare you."

She did not reply, and he sat there nervously balanced on the edge of his seat, watching the lights of Harlem flash into view below. He had been hungry; he was no longer. Appetite had been succeeded by a gnawing anxiety. Again and again warm waves of shame overwhelmed him, alternating with a sort of wild-eyed pity for the young girl who sat so rigidly beside him, face averted. Once a mad desire to laugh seized him; he wondered whether it might be a premonition of hysteria, and shuddered. It did not seem as though he could possibly endure it another second to be tied by the foot to this silently suffering and lovely companion.

"Do you think," he said, hoarsely, "at the next station that if we rose together – and kept step – "

She shook her head.

"A – a sort of lock-step," he explained, timidly.

"I would if I thought it possible," she replied under her breath; "but I dare not. Suppose you should miss step! You are likely to do anything if it's only sufficiently foolish."

"You could take my arm and pretend you are my lame sister," he ventured.

"Suppose the train started. Suppose, by any one of a thousand possible accidents, you should become panic-stricken. What sort of a spectacle would we furnish the passengers of this car? No! No! No! The worst of it is almost over. My guest is there – astounded at my absence. Before I am even half-way back to Twenty-eighth Street she will have become sufficiently affronted to leave the house. I might as well go on to the end of the road." She turned toward him hastily: "Where is the end of this road?"

"Somewhere in the Bronx, I believe," he said, vaguely.

"That is hours from Twenty-eighth Street, isn't it?"

"I believe so."

The train whirled on; stations were far between, now. He sat so silent, so utterly broken and downcast, that after a long while she turned to him with a hint of softness in her stern reserve.

"Of course," she said, "I do not suppose you deliberately intended to tie our feet together. I am not absurd. But the astonishment, the horror of finding what you had done exasperated me for a moment. I'm cool enough now; besides, it is perfectly plain that you are the sort of man one is – is accustomed to know."

"I hope not!" he said, devoutly.

"Oh, I mean – " She hesitated, and the glimmer of a smile touched her eyes, instantly extinguished, however.

"I understand," he said. "You mean that it's lucky your shoe-laces are tied to the shoe-lace of a man of your own sort. I hope to Heaven you may find a little comfort in that."

"I do," she said, with the uncertain violet light in her eyes again. "It's bad enough, goodness knows, but I – I am very sure you did not mean – "

"You are perfectly right; I mean well, as they say of all chumps. And the worst of it is," he added, wildly, "I never before knew that I was a chump! I never before saw any symptoms. Would you believe me, I never in all my life have been such an idiot as I was in those first few minutes that I crossed your path. How on earth to account for it; how to explain, to ask pardon, to – to ever forget it! As long as I live I shall wake at night with the dreadful chagrin burning my ears off. Isn't it the limit? And I – I shouldn't have felt so crushed if it had been anybody excepting you – "

"I do not understand," she said gravely.

"I do," he muttered.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE MASTER KNOT OF HUMAN FATE

The conversation dropped there: she gazed thoughtfully out upon the Teutonic magnificence of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street by gaslight; he, arms folded, relapsed into bitter contemplation of the breakfast-food. So immersed he became in the picture of an unctuous little boy stuffing himself to repletion under the admiring smirk of a benevolent parent that he forgot his manacles, and attempting to stretch his cramped leg, returned to his senses in a hurry.

"I think," she suggested, quietly, "that, if you care to stretch, I wouldn't mind it, either. Can you do it discreetly?"

"I'll try," he said in a whisper. "Shall I count three?"

She nodded.

"One, two, three," he counted, and they cautiously stretched their legs.

"I now know how the Siamese twins felt," he said, sullenly. "No wonder they died young."

She laughed – a curious, little laugh which was one of the most agreeable sounds he had ever heard.

"I take it for granted," he said, "that you will always cherish for me a wholesome and natural hatred."

"I shall never see you again," she replied, simply.

That silenced him for a while; he fished about in his intellect to find mitigating circumstances. There was none that he knew of.

"Suppose – under pleasanter auspices, we should some day meet?" he suggested.

"We never shall."

"How do you know?"

"It is scarcely worth while speculating upon such an improbability," she said, coldly.

"But – suppose – "

She turned toward him. "You desire to know what my attitude would be toward you?"

"Yes, I do."

"It would be one of absolutely amiable indifference – if you really wish to know," she said so sweetly that he was quite sure his entire body shrank at least an inch.

"By the way," she added, "the last passenger has left this car."

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. "Now's our time. Would you mind – "

"With the very greatest pleasure," she said, quickly; "please count one, two, three."

He counted; there came a discreet movement, and from under the hem of her gown there appeared a dainty shoe, accompanied by a larger masculine companion. He bent down, his fingers seemed to be all thumbs, and he grew redder and redder.

"Perhaps I can do it," she said, stripping off her gloves and bending over. A stray tendril of bright hair brushed his cheek as their heads almost came together.

"Goodness, what a dreadful knot!" she breathed, her smooth fingers busy. The perfume of her hair, her gloves, her gown thrilled him; he looked at her face, now flushed with effort; his eyes fell on her delicate hands, her distractingly pretty foot, in its small, polished shoe.

"Patience," she said, calmly; "this knot must give way – "

"If it doesn't – "

"Madness lies that way," she breathed. "Wait! Don't dare to move your foot!"

"We are approaching a station; shall I cut it?" he asked.

"No – wait! I think I have solved it. There!" she cried with a breathless laugh. "We are free!"

There was not an instant to lose, for the train had already stopped; they arose with one accord and hurried out into the silvery Harlem moonlight – which does not, perhaps, differ from normal moonlight, although it seemed to him to do astonishing tricks with her hair and figure there on the deserted platform, turning her into the loveliest and most unreal creature he had ever seen in all his life.

"There ought to be a train pretty soon," he said cheerfully.

She did not answer.

"Do you mind my speaking to you now that we are – "

"Untethered?" she said with a sudden little flurry of laughter. "Oh, no; why should I care what happens to me now, after taking a railroad journey tied to the shoe-strings of an absent-minded stranger?"

"Please don't speak so – so heartlessly – "

"Heartlessly? What have hearts to do with this evening's lunacy?" she asked, coolly.

He had an idea, an instinctive premonition, but it was no explanation to offer her.

Far away up the track the starlike headlight of a train glittered: he called her attention to it, and she nodded. Neither spoke for a long while; the headlight grew larger and yellower; the vicious little train came whizzing in, slowed, halted with a jolt. He put her aboard and followed into a car absolutely empty save for themselves. When they had gravely seated themselves side by side she looked around at him and said without particular severity: "I can see no reason for our going back together; can you?"

"Yes," he answered with such inoffensive and guileless conviction that she was silent.

He went on presently: "Monstrous as my stupidity is, monumental ass as I must appear to you, I am, as a matter of fact, rather a decent fellow – the sort of man a girl need not flay alive to punish."

"I do not desire to punish you. I do not expect to know you – "

"Do you mean 'expect,' or 'desire'?"

"I mean both, if you insist." There was a sudden glimmer in her clear eyes that warned him; but he went on:

"I beg you to give me a chance to prove myself not such a clown as you think me."

"But I don't think about you at all!" she explained.

"Won't you give me a chance?"

"How?"

"Somebody you – we both know – I mean to say – "

"You mean, will I sit here and compare notes with you to find out whether we both know Tom, Dick, and Harry? No, I will not."

"I mean – so that – if you don't mind – somebody can vouch for me – "

"No," she said, decisively.

"I mean – I would be so grateful – and I admire you tremendously – "

"Please do not say that."

"No – I won't, of course; I don't admire anybody very much, and I didn't dream of being offensive – only – I – now that I've known you – "

"You don't know me," she observed, icily.

"No, of course, I don't know you at all; I'm only talking to you – "

"A nice comment upon us both," she observed; "could anything be more pitifully common?"

"But being tied together, how could we avoid talking about it?" he pleaded. "When you're tied up like that to a person, it's per – permitted to speak, you know – "

"We talked entirely too much," she said with decision. "Now we are not tied at all, and I do not see what decent excuse we can have for conversing about anything… Do you?"

"Yes, I do."

"What excuse?" she asked.

"Well, for one thing, a sense of humour. A nice spectacle we should be, you in one otherwise empty car, I in another, bored to death – "

"Do you think," she said, impatiently, "that I require anybody's society to save myself from ennui?"

"No – but I require – "

"That is impertinent!"

"I didn't mean to be; you must know that!" he said.

She looked out of the window.

"I wonder," he began in a cheerful and speculative tone, taking courage from her silence – "I wonder whether you know – "

"I will not discuss people I know with you," she said.

"Then let us discuss people I know," he rejoined, amiably.

"Please don't."

"Please let me – "

"No."

"Are you never going to forgive me?" he asked.

"I shall forget," she said, meaningly.

"Me?"

"Certainly."

"Please don't – "

"You are always lingering dangerously close to the border of impertinence," she said. "I do not wish to be rude or ungracious. I have been unpardonably annoyed, and – when I consider my present false situation – I am annoyed still more. Let me be unmistakably clear and concise; I do not feel any – anger – toward you; I have no feeling whatever toward you; and I do not ever expect to see you again. Let it rest so. I will drop you my best curtsey when you lift your hat to me at Twenty-ninth Street. Can a guilty man ask more?"

"Your punishment is severe," he said, flushing.

"My punishment? Who am I punishing, if you please?"

"Me."

"What folly! I entertain no human emotions toward you; I have no desire to punish you. How could I punish you – if I wished to?"

"By doing what you are doing."

"And what is that?" she asked rather softly.

"Denying me any hope of ever knowing you."

"You are unfair," she said, biting her lip. "I do not deny you that 'hope,' as you choose to call it. Consider a moment. Had you merely seen me on the train you could not have either hoped or even desired ever to know me. Suppose for a moment – " she flushed, but her voice was cool and composed "suppose you were attracted to me – thought me agreeable to look at? You surely would never have dreamed of speaking to me and asking such a thing. Why, then, should you take unfair advantage of an accident and ask it now? You have no right to – nor have I to accord you what you say you desire."

She spoke very sweetly, meeting his eyes without hesitation.

"May I reply to you?" he asked soberly.

"Yes – if you wish."

"You will not take it as an affront?"

"Not – not if – " She looked at him. "No," she said.

"Then this is my reply: Wherever I might have seen you I should instantly have desired to know you. That desire would have caused you no inquietude; I should have remained near you without offense, perfectly certain in my own mind that somehow and somewhere I must manage to know you; and to that end – always without offense, and without your knowledge – I should have left the train when you did, satisfied myself where you lived, and then I should have scoured the city, and moved heaven and earth to find the proper person who might properly ask your permission to receive me. That is what I should have done if I had remained thirty seconds in the same car with you… Are you offended?"

"No," she said.

They journeyed on for some time, saying nothing; she, young face bent, sensitive lips adroop, perhaps considering what he said; he, cradling his golf-sticks, trying to keep his eyes off her and succeeding very badly.

"I wonder what your name is?" she said, looking up at him.

"James Seabury," he replied so quickly that it was almost pathetic.

She mused, frowning a little: "Where have I heard your name?" she asked with an absent-minded glance at him.

"Oh – er – around, I suppose," he suggested, vaguely.

"But I have heard it. Are you famous?"

"Oh, no," he said quickly. "I'm an architect, or ought to be. Fact is, I'm so confoundedly busy golfing and sailing and fishing and shooting and hunting that I have very little time for business."

"What a confession!" she exclaimed, laughing outright; and the beauty that transfigured her took his breath away. But her laughter was brief, her eyes grew more serious than ever: "So you are not in business?"

"No."

"I am employed," she said calmly, looking at him.

"Are you?" he said, astonished.

"So, you see," she added gaily, "I should have very little time to see anybody – "

"You mean me?"

"Yes, you, for example."

"You don't work all the while, do you?" he asked.

"Usually."

"All the time?"

"I dine – at intervals."

"That's the very thing!" he said with enthusiasm.

She looked at him gravely.

"Don't you see," he went on, "as soon as you'll let me know you my sister will call, and then you'll call, and then my sister will invite – "

She was suddenly laughing again – a curious laugh, quite free and unguarded.

"Of course, you'll tell your sister how we met," she suggested; "she'll be so anxious to know me when she hears all about it."

"Do you suppose," he said coolly, "that I don't know one of my own sort whenever or however I happen to meet her?"

"Men cannot always tell; I grant you women seldom fail in placing one another at first glance; but men rarely possess that instinct… Besides, I tell you I am employed."

"What of it? Even if you wore the exceedingly ornamental uniform of a parlor-maid it could not worry me."

"Do you think your sister would hasten to call on a saleswoman at Blumenshine's?" she asked carelessly.

"Nobody wants her to," he retorted, amused.

"Or on a parlor-maid – for example?"

"Let her see you first; you can't shock her after that… Are you?" he inquired gently – so gently, so pleasantly, that she gave him a swift look that set his heart galloping.

"Do you really desire to know me?" she asked. But before he could answer she sprang up, saying: "Good gracious! This is Twenty-eighth Street! It seems impossible!"

He could not believe it, either, but he fled after her, suit-case and golf-bag swinging; the gates slammed, they descended the stairs and emerged on Twenty-eighth Street. "I live on Twenty-ninth Street," she said; "shall we say good-bye here?"

"I should think not!" he replied with a scornful decision that amazed her, but, curiously enough, did not offend her. They walked up Twenty-eighth Street to Fifth Avenue, crossed, turned north under the white flare of electricity, then entered Twenty-ninth Street slowly, side by side, saying nothing.