One Sunday morning early in the month of May, Starwick and Eugene had crossed the bridge that led to the great stadium, and turned right along a path that followed the winding banks of the Charles River. Spring had come with the sudden, almost explosive loveliness that marks its coming in New England: along the banks of the river the birch trees leaned their slender, white and beautiful trunks, and their boughs were coming swiftly into the young and tender green of May.
That spring — which, for Eugene, would be the third and last of his years in Cambridge — Starwick had become more mannered in his dress and style than ever before. During the winter, much to Professor Hatcher’s concern — a concern which constantly became more troubled and which he was no longer able to conceal — the darling protégé on whom his bounty and his favour had been lavished, and to whom, he had fondly hoped, he would one day pass on the proud authorities of his own position when he himself should become too old to carry on “the work,” had begun to wear spats and carry a cane and be followed by a dog.
Now, with the coming of spring, Frank had discarded the spats, but as they walked along beside the Charles, he twirled his elegant light stick with an air of languid insouciance, interrupting his conversation with his friend now and then to speak sharply to the little dog that frisked and scampered along as if frantic with the joy of May, crying out to the little creature sharply, commandingly, and in a rather womanish tone from time to time:
“Heel, Tang! Heel, I say!”
And the dog, a shaggy little terrier — the gift of some wealthy and devoted friends of Frank’s on Beacon Hill — would pause abruptly in its frisking, turn its head, and look towards its owner with the attentive, puzzled, and wistfully inquiring look that dogs and little children have, as if to say: “What is it, master? Are you pleased with me or have I done something that was wrong?”
And in a moment, in response to Frank’s sharper and more peremptory command, the little dog, with a crestfallen and somewhat apologetic look, would scamper back from its wild gaieties along the green banks of the Charles, to trot meekly along the path behind the two young men, until its exuberant springtime spirits got the best of it again.
From time to time, they would pass other students, in pairs or groups, striding along the pleasant path; and when these young men saw Starwick twirling his stick and speaking to the little dog, they would grin broadly at each other and stare curiously at Starwick as they passed.
Once Starwick paused to call “Heel!” sharply to the little dog at the very moment it had lifted its leg against a tree, and the dog, still holding its leg up, had looked inquiringly around at Starwick with such a wistful look that some students who were passing had burst out in hearty laughter. But Starwick, although the colour of his ruddy face deepened a shade, had paid no more attention to these ruffians than if they had been scum in the gutter. Rather, he snapped his fingers sharply, and cried “Heel!” again, at which the little dog left its tree and came trotting meekly back to its obedient position.
Suddenly, while one of these episodes was being enacted, Eugene heard the bright wholesome tones of a familiar voice, and turning round with a startled movement, found himself looking straight into the broad and beaming countenance of Effie Horton and her husband Ed.
“WELL!” Effie was saying in her rich bright voice of Iowa. “Look who’s here! I THOUGHT those long legs looked familiar,” she went on in her tone of gay and lightsome, and yet wholesome, banter, “even from a distance! I told Pooly —” this, for an unknown reason, was the affectionate nickname by which Horton was known to his wife and all his friends from Iowa —“I told Pooly that there was only one pair of legs as long as that in Cambridge. ‘It MUST be Eugene,’ I said. — Yes sir!” she went on brightly, shaking her head with a little bantering movement, her broad and wholesome face shining with good nature all the time. “It IS Eugene — and MY! MY! MY! — I just wish you’d look at him,” she went on gaily, in her tones of full rich fellowship and banter in which, however, a trace of something ugly, envious, and mocking was evident —“all dressed up in his Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes out for a walk this fine morning just to give the pretty girls a treat! Yes, sir!” she cried again, shaking her head in wondering admiration, and with an air of beaming satisfaction, “I’ll BET you that’s JUST what he’s going to do.”
He flushed, unable to think of an apt reply to this good-natured banter, beneath whose hearty good-fellowship he felt the presence of something that was false, ugly, jeering and curiously tormented, and while he was blundering out a clumsy greeting, Horton, laughing with lazy good-nature at his confusion, slapped him on the back and said:
“How are yuh, kid? . . . Where the hell have you been keeping yourself, anyway?”
The tone was almost deliberately coarse and robust in its hearty masculinity, but beneath it one felt the same false and spurious quality that had been evident in the woman’s tone.
—“And here is MISTER Starwick!” Effie now cried brightly. “— And I WISH you’d LOOK!” she went on, as if enraptured by the spectacle — “all dressed up with a walking-stick and a dog — and yes, SIR!” she exclaimed ecstatically, after an astonished examination of Frank’s sartorial splendour —“wearing a BEE-YEW-TEEFUL brown tweed suit that looks as if it just came out of the shop of a London tailor! . . . MY! MY! MY! . . . I tell YOU!” she went on admiringly —“I just wish the folks back home could see us now, Pooly —”
Horton laughed coarsely, with apparent good nature, but with an ugly jeering note in his voice.
“— I just wish they could see us now!” she said. “It’s not everyone can say they knew two London swells — and here they are — Mr. Starwick with his cane and his dog — and Eugene with his new suit — yes, SIR! — and talking to us just as if we were their equals.”
Eugene flushed, and then with a stiff and inept sarcasm, said:
“I’ll try not to let it make any difference between us, Effie.”
Horton laughed coarsely and heartily again, with false good nature, and then smote the boy amiably on the back, saying:
“Don’t let her kid you, son! Tell her to go to hell if she gets fresh with you!”
“— And how is Mr. Starwick these fine days!” cried Effie gaily, now directing the artillery of her banter at his unworthy person — “Where is that great play we’ve all been waiting for so eagerly for, lo! these many years! I tell YOU!” she exclaimed with rich conviction —“I’m going to be right there on the front row the night it opens up on Broadway! — I know that a play that has taken anyone so many years will be a masterpiece — every word pure gold — I don’t want to miss a WORD of it.”
“Quite!” said Starwick coldly, in his mannered and affected tone. His ruddy face had flushed crimson with embarrassment; turning, he called sharply and coldly to the little dog, in a high and rather womanish voice: “Heel, Tang! Heel, I say!”
He snapped his fingers and the little dog came trotting meekly toward him. Before Starwick’s cold and scornful impassivity, Effie’s broad and wholesome face did not alter a jot from its expression of radiant goodwill, but suddenly her eyes, which, set in her robust and friendly countenance, were the tortured mirror of her jealous, envious, possessive, and ravenously curious spirit, had grown hard and ugly, and the undernote of malice in her gay tones was more apparent than ever when she spoke again.
“Pooly,” she said, laughing, taking Horton affectionately by the arm and drawing close to him with the gesture of a bitterly jealous and possessive female, who, by the tortured necessity of her own spirit, must believe that “her man” is the paragon of the universe, and herself the envy of all other women, who lust to have him, but must gnash their teeth in vain —“Pooly,” she said lightly, and drawing close to him, “maybe that’s what’s wrong with us! . . . Maybe that’s what it takes to make you write a great play! . . . Yes, SIR!” she said gaily, “I believe that’s it! . . . I believe I’ll save up all my spending money until I have enough to buy you a bee-yew-teeful tailored suit just like the one that Mr. Starwick has on. . . . Yes, SIR!” She nodded her head emphatically in a convinced manner. “That’s just EXACTLY what I’m going to do! . . . I’m going to get Mr. Starwick to give me the address of his tailor — and have him make you a BEE-YEW-TEEFUL new suit of English clothes — and then, maybe, you’ll turn into a great genius like Mr. Starwick and Eugene!”
“The hell you will!” he said coarsely and heartily. “What’s wrong with the one I got on? I only had it three years — why, it’s as good as the day I bought it.” And he laughed with hearty, robust masculinity.
“Why, Poo-o-ly!” she said reproachfully. “It’s turning GREEN! And I do so want you to get dressed up and be a GENIUS like Mr. Starwick!”
“Nope!” he said in his tone of dominant finality. “I’ll wear this pair of pants till it falls off me. Then I’ll go into Filene’s bargain basement and buy another pair. Nope! You can’t make an ?sthete out of me! I can write just as well with a hole in the seat of my breeches as not.” And laughing coarsely, with robust and manly good nature, he smote Eugene on the back again, and rasped out heartily:
“Ain’t that right, kid?”
“Oh, POOLY!” cried Effie reproachfully —“And I do SO want you to be a genius — like Mr. Starwick!”
“Now, wait a minute! Wait a minute!” he rasped, lifting a commanding hand, as he joined with her in this ugly banter. “That’s different! Starwick’s an artist — I’m nothing but a writer. They don’t understand the way we artists work — do they, Starwick? Now an artist is sensitive to all these things,” he went on in a jocose explanatory tone to his wife. “He’s got to have the right ATMOSPHERE to work in. Everything’s got to be just right for us artists — doesn’t it, Starwick?”
“Quite!” said Starwick coldly.
“Now with me it’s different,” said Horton heavily. “I’m just one of those big crude guys who can write anywhere. I get up in the morning and write, whether I feel like it or not. But it’s different with us artists, isn’t it, Starwick? Why, with a real honest-to-God-dyed-inthe-wool ARTIST like Starwick, his whole life would be ruined for a MONTH if his pants didn’t fit or if his neck-tie was of the wrong shade. . . . Ain’t that right, Starwick?”
And he laughed heavily, apparently with robust fellowship, hearty good nature, but his eyes were ugly, evil, jeering, as he spoke.
“Quite!” said Starwick as before; and, his face deeply flushed, he called sharply to his dog, and then, turning inquiringly to Eugene, said quietly: “Are we ready?”
“Oh, I SEE, I SEE!” cried Effie, with an air of gay enlightenment. “That’s what everyone is all dressed up about! — You’re out for a walk, aren’t you? — all among the little birdies, and the beeses, and the flowers! MY! MY! How I wish I could go along! Pooly!” she said coaxingly, “why don’t you take ME for a walk sometime? I’d love to hear the little birdies sing! Come on, dear. Won’t you?” she said coaxingly.
“Nope!” he boomed out finally. “I walked you across the bridge and I walked to the corner this morning for a paper. That’s all the walking that I’m going to do today. If you want to hear the little birdies sing, I’ll buy you a canary.” And turning to Eugene, he smote him on the shoulder again, and laughing with coarse laziness, said:
“You know me, kid. . . . You know how I like exercise, don’t you?”
“Well, then, if we can’t go along to hear the little birdies sing to Mr. Starwick and Eugene, I suppose we’ll have to say good-bye,” said Effie regretfully. “We’ve got no right to keep them from the little birdies any longer — have we, dear? And think what a treat it will be for all the little birdies. . . . And you, Eugene!” she cried out gaily and reproachfully, but now with real warmth and friendship in her voice. “We haven’t seen you at our home in a-a-ages! What’s WRONG with you? . . . You come up soon or I’ll be mad at you.”
“Sure,” Horton came out in his broad Iowa accent, putting his hand gently on the boy’s shoulder. “Come up to see us, kid. We’ll cook some grub and chew the rag a while. You know, I’m not coming back next year —” for a moment Horton’s eyes were clear, grey, luminous, deeply hurt, and full of pride and tenderness. “We’re going to New Hampshire with Jim Madden. So come up, kid, as soon as you can: we ought to have one more session before I go.”
And the boy, suddenly touched and moved, felt a genuine affection, the real friendliness — an animal-like warmth and kindliness and affection that was the truest and most attractive element in Horton’s personality.
And nodding his head, suddenly feeling affection for them both again, he said:
“All right, Ed. I’ll see you soon. So long, Effie. Good-bye. Goodbye, Ed.”
“Good-bye, kid. So long, Starwick,” Horton said in a kindly tone. “We’ll be looking for you, Gene — So long!”
Then they parted, in this friendly manner, and Starwick and Eugene continued their walk along the river. Starwick walked quietly, saying nothing; from time to time he called sharply to the little dog, commanding him to come to “heel” again.
The two young men had not seen each other for two months, save at Professor Hatcher’s class, and then their relations had been formal, cold, and strained. Now Starwick, with a quick friendly and generous spontaneity, had broken through the stubborn and resentful pride of the other youth, had made the first advance toward reconciliation, and, as he was able to do with everyone when and where he pleased, had instantly conquered his friend’s resentful feelings and won him back with the infinite grace, charm, and persuasiveness of his own personality.
Yet, during the first part of their walk along the river their conversation, while friendly, had almost been studiously detached and casual, and was the conversation of people still under the constraint of embarrassment and diffidence, who are waiting for the moment to speak things in which their lives and feelings are more intimately concerned.
At length they came to a bending in the river where there was a bank of green turf on which in the past they had often sat and smoked and talked while that small and lonely river flowed before them. Seated here again, and provided with cigarettes, a silence came between them, as if each was waiting for the other one to speak.
Presently when Eugene looked towards his companion, Starwick’s pleasant face with the cleft chin was turned towards the river in a set stare, and even as the other young man looked at him, his ruddy countenance was contorted by the animal-like grimace swift and instant, which the other boy had often seen before, and which had in it, somehow, a bestial and inarticulate quality, a kind of unspeakable animal anguish that could find no release.
In a moment, lowering his head, and staring away into the grassy turf, Starwick said quietly:
“Why have you not been in to see me these last two months?”
The other young man flushed, began to speak in a blundering and embarrassed tone and then, angered by his own confusion, burst out hotly:
“Look here, Frank — why have you got to be so damned mysterious and secretive in everything you do?”
“Am I?” said Starwick quietly.
“Yes, you are! You’ve been that way ever since I met you.”
“In what way?” Starwick asked.
“Do you remember the first time I met you?” the other one demanded.
“Perfectly,” Starwick said. “It was during your first year in Cambridge, a few days after you arrived. We met for dinner at the ‘Cock Horse Tavern’.”
“Yes,” the other said excitedly. “Exactly. You had written me a note inviting me to dinner, and asking me to meet you there. Do you remember what was in that note?”
“No. What was it?”
“Well, you said: ‘Dear Sir — I should be pleased if you will meet me for dinner at seven-thirty, Wednesday evening, at the “Cock Horse Tavern” on Brattle Street.’ And the note was signed, ‘Francis Starwick.’”
“Well?” Starwick demanded quietly. “And what was wrong with that?”
“Nothing!” the other young man cried, his face flushing to a darker hue and the excitement of his manner growing. “Nothing, Frank! Only, if you were going to invite a stranger — someone you had never met before — to dinner — why the hell couldn’t you have told him who you are and the purpose of the meeting?”
“I should think the purpose of the meeting was self-evident,” said Starwick calmly. “The purpose was to have dinner together. Does that demand a whole volume of explanation? No,” he said coldly, “I confess I see nothing extraordinary about that at all.”
“Of course there wasn’t!” the other youth exclaimed with vehement excitement. “Of course there was nothing extraordinary about it! Why, then, did you attempt, Frank, to make something extraordinary out of it?”
“It seems to me that you’re the one who’s doing that!” Starwick answered.
“Yes, but, damn it, man,” the other cried angrily “— don’t you see the point? You’re that way with everything you do! You try to surround the simplest act with this great air of mystery and secrecy,” he said bitterly. “Inviting me to dinner was all right — it was fine!” he shouted. “I was a green kid of twenty who knew no one here, and I was scared to death. It was wonderful to get an invitation from someone asking me to dinner. But when you sent the invitation, why couldn’t you have added just a word or two by way of explanation? Why couldn’t you have stated one or two simple facts that would have made the reason for your invitation clear?”
“For example?” Starwick said.
“Why, Frank, simply that you were Professor Hatcher’s assistant in the course, and that this thing of inviting people out to dinner was just a way you and Professor Hatcher had of getting acquainted with the new people,” the other youth said angrily. “After all, you can’t get an invitation to dinner from someone you don’t know without wondering what it’s all about.”
“And yet you came,” said Starwick.
“Yes, of course I came! I think I would have come if I had never heard of you before — I was so bewildered and rattled by this new life, and so overwhelmed by living in a big city for the first time in my life that I would have accepted any kind of invitation — jumped at the chance of meeting anyone! However, I already knew who you were when your invitation came. I had heard that a man named Starwick was Hatcher’s assistant. I figured therefore that the invitation had something to do with your connection with Professor Hatcher and the course — that you were inviting me to make me feel more at home up here, to establish a friendly relation, to give me what information you coul............