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The Man Who Wins, a novel by Robert Herrick |
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Chapter 3 |
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_ Chapter III Roper second's set dined at Tony Lamb's in Camberton. For the most part they belonged to the same club, the A. O., and were congenial souls--young men, rich, from the great cities, who were taking the Camberton degree as a brevet in the social profession. In winter they could be found at the New York and the Boston hotels; in summer at the Bar Harbor hotels. A few men of different stamp were left over from a previous college generation of A. O.'s, such as Jarvis Thornton, who had begun when a boy out of school to dine with his old schoolfellows at Tony Lamb's, and had kept it up from inertia and the loose liking of college fellowship, long after his way had parted from that of the present A. O.'s. Thornton had entered Camberton with all the distinction that a well-connected Massachusetts family, easy circumstances, and distinct scholarship would give. His course had been a gentle current of prosperity. He took first a high degree in the college, then a good degree in medicine. Now he was engaged in pushing forward some biological work on which he had already published a monograph and which had brought him membership in some learned societies. One day at the beginning of the long vacation, Roper Ellwell and he found themselves alone at dinner. Young Ellwell was bored with the prospect of his own companionship for a lonely drive to the country. "I say, Thornton," he threw out at random, "come down to our place over night. The cart will be round in a few minutes." Thornton, flaccid from hot days in the laboratory, welcomed any proffered excuse for a loaf. So they jogged away in the soft evening, from the cropped green hedges and the red brick buildings of Camberton into the country turnpike, smoking and keeping a peaceful silence. After athletics and carts had been talked out there was not much to start fresh conversation with. Camberton slipped away, with its endless problems, its ambitious prods. Jarvis Thornton entered another atmosphere when the cart crunched the gravel of the drive at the Four Corners. The Ellwells were on the veranda. "Who are the Ellwells?" Thornton asked himself as he found a chair next the white dress of the daughter. "And why did I get myself into a family party for a day and two nights without knowing what to expect?" He discovered an order of things he had never seen before in the rounds of his proper visiting list--the broker world. Ellwell had the possibilities of a gentleman, and in comparison with the three or four companions that he had with him this Sunday, his manners were distinguished. He was a Camberton man, he would have Jarvis Thornton understand, a classmate of Thornton's father, and if their paths had separated, Ellwell, nevertheless, had a position equal to the Thorntons. As for the others, they were clerks, who in one way or another had managed to get their seats--men with no great permanent stake in the community, the modern substitute for the condottiere class. The Four Corners gave them a place to eat and drink and play a long game of poker, which amusements satisfied their cravings for diversion. Jarvis Thornton was a mere young prig that had walked inadvertently their way; young Roper Ellwell joined the Sunday game, while Thornton was left with the women to pass the day. The Sunday went off quietly with a long drive in the afternoon. At dinner Thornton sat beside the elder daughter. There were stretches of silence, for the general talk and the table interested him more than his companion. The other men discussed business or scandal; old Ellwell told stories that were broad and fatuous, to which young Ellwell responded with heavy laughter. Ruby joked with an old-young man named Bradley, a broker, who had been winning in the day's game. As they came near the end of the long dinner Mrs. Ellwell excused herself. Thornton scrutinized his companion. The fumes of the place seemed to circulate about her unnoticed. "Does she understand it?" Thornton asked himself. "Is this abstraction a mere bluff because I am a stranger? Or is she only bored?" When she noticed that Thornton was not eating or drinking she questioned him mutely with her eyes. "Shall we leave?" He nodded. She rose and opened the long window--passed out, as if accustomed to avoid the puddles of life. She led the way to the farther end of the veranda, where only an occasional high voice could be heard. When she had settled herself on a lounge, she sighed inconsequently. "But perhaps you didn't want to come? You can go back. We always walk about a good deal you know, and nobody will notice. You will want your coffee and cigar; and Colonel Sparks tells amusing wicked little stories. I will stay here, though." "And I think I will," the young man added, simply. "It's really hot." She opened her eyelids, which usually hung a little down as if heavy. "It tired you too, did it? Somehow I never felt so weary from it as I do to-night." "Is it always just so?" he asked, bluntly. "Why, of course; why not? There are different people. But dinner is always the chief affair of the day in our house; you see the men are free then and their cares are over. My father is very particular about dinner, but it is tiresome sometimes." Talk dropped. This line was dangerous. "Tell me," she said again in curious inquiry; "you are not one of Roper's set?" "No, he is some years my junior." "But that does not make any difference. You never belonged to Roper's set. Isn't it very dull being a grind? Roper says you are a dig and fearfully clever." "One must play for something." He waived aside the compliment. "But how do you do it? Tell me just what you do every day." Thornton was willing to take her seriously. He sketched his humdrum labors, the prizes in his way of life. "And it isn't so stupid," he ended with a laugh, "to play the game that way when once you have begun it." He added carelessly, as if to himself, "the body will give you only a few sensations, such a very few, and so humiliatingly inadequate." "So we live for the body," the girl said, sharply, diving into his meaning. "How do I know?" Thornton replied, irritated at his foolish remark. "No you meant it; you meant it, and I suppose it is so. But one feels the body so constantly. Neuralgia racks me, and fatigue. Some days one would do anything to satisfy the cravings of that same body you seem to think we shouldn't pamper." "If you give in you must do more another time," he added a little solemnly. "How you must despise us!" Her eyes flashed suddenly. "You live coolly, tranquilly on for something at the end, never, never forgetting to have balance." "Nonsense, I am blue at times, and life is tame." "And we stumble about with our senses, making a muddle of our earth." "Here is the carriage already!" It was a relief to find an excuse to break away. "You will not come again, I fancy?" she asked, simply. An hour ago he would have answered yes, meaning in his heart never. Now the unsolved woman opposite prompted him to say: "If you want to see me again, if I may?" "Come down some, some week-day, when it is so quiet. We can have more talk, and I promise you it will do you good to mix with the herd occasionally." She laughed lightly. "The blood has run out," Thornton mused, as the cart rolled on through the gentle night. "This fellow here is a flabby lump. She has neuralgia and long stretches of apathy, and other ills. Her children stand to lose, if she ever has any. She has kept the frame of the splendid old stock, but in its house the nerves and tissues are morbid and she is waiting," he paused, and then the words came, "waiting for dissolution and endless rest." "Have another cigar?" His companion interrupted his musing. "The old man keeps a good lot. Whew, how he plays! I left the little game; the family couldn't stand two in that. The old man will be savage this week. He can't play against that Bradley. Bradley is a regular sucker. I tipped the pater a pointer on that long ago, and got well cursed for my pains. When the old man gets on a tear there's no stopping him; no let up until he bucks his head against something hard. Well," he lashed the horse into a gentle gallop, "he can't kick at my batch of bills. When he gets on a high horse, I know how to fix him." He laughed. Jarvis Thornton turned a curious eye on his companion. Just this kind of intimacy in families he had never experienced--an armed neutrality of viciousness. He was anxious to get on, to reach his Camberton rooms, where the Sunday forlornness was peace after this swinish atmosphere. Once back in his arm-chair, in the familiar confusion of books and papers and letters lying about, he wondered again what curious freak had led him to accept Roper Ellwell's invitation. The Four Corners faded from his imagination into a murky blur, with one central point of white light made by a thin summer dress, a girlish figure, a face that had come into the world tired--devitalized. The next morning he plunged again into a stress of work with his old swing and intensity, as if single-handed at one spurt he was to make his way to the close of his labors. He ate his hurried meals at a little restaurant near the laboratory, and came back to his rooms late at night, unexhausted, nervously eager to begin again. _ |
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