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_ "You who were ever alert to befriend a man
You who were ever the first to defend a man,
You who had always the money to lend a man
Down on his luck and hard up for a V,
Sure you'll be playing a harp in beatitude
(And a quare sight you will be in that attitude)
Some day, where gratitude seems but a platitude,
You'll find your latitude."
From my desk I could see Peter standing in the doorway of
the news editor's room. I shut my eyes for a moment.
Then I opened them again, quickly. No, it was not a
dream. He was there, a slender, graceful, hateful
figure, with the inevitable cigarette in his unsteady
fingers--the expensive-looking, gold-tipped cigarette of
the old days. Peter was Peter. Ten years had made
little difference. There were queer little hollow places
in his cheeks, and under the jaw-bone, and at the base of
the head, and a flabby, parchment-like appearance about
the skin. That was all that made him different from the
Peter of the old days.
The thing had adjusted itself, as Norah had said it
would. The situation that had filled me with loathing
and terror the night of Peter's return had been
transformed into quite a matter-of-fact and commonplace
affair under Norah's deft management. And now I was back
in harness again, and Peter was turning out brilliant
political stuff at spasmodic intervals. He was not
capable of any sustained effort. He never would be
again; that was plain. He was growing restless and
dissatisfied. He spoke of New York as though it were
Valhalla. He said that he hadn't seen a pretty girl
since he left Forty-second street. He laughed at
Milwaukee's quaint German atmosphere. He sneered at our
journalistic methods, and called the newspapers "country
sheets," and was forever talking of the World, and the
Herald, and the Sun, until the men at the Press Club
fought shy of him. Norah had found quiet and comfortable
quarters for Peter in a boarding-house near the lake, and
just a square or two distant from my own boarding-house.
He hated it cordially, as only the luxury-loving can hate
a boarding-house, and threatened to leave daily.
"Let's go back to the big town, Dawn, old girl," he
would say. "We're buried alive in this overgrown Dutch
village. I came here in the first place on your account.
Now it's up to you to get me out of it. Think of what New
York means! Think of what I've been! And I can write as
well as ever."
But I always shook my head. "We would not last a
month in New York, Peter. New York has hurried on and
left us behind. We're just two pieces of discard. We'll
have to be content where we are."
"Content! In this silly hole! You must be mad!"
Then, with one of his unaccountable changes of tone and
topic, "Dawn, let me have some money. I'm strapped. If
I had the time I'd get out some magazine stuff. Anything
to get a little extra coin. Tell me, how does that
little sport you call Blackie happen to have so much
ready cash? I've never yet struck him for a loan that he
hasn't obliged me. I think he's sweet on you, perhaps,
and thinks he's doing you a sort of second-hand favor."
At times such as these all the old spirit that I had
thought dead within me would rise up in revolt against
this creature who was taking, from me my pride, my sense
of honor, my friends. I never saw Von Gerhard now.
Peter had refused outright to go to him for treatment,
saying that he wasn't going to be poisoned by any cursed
doctor, particularly not by one who had wanted to run away
with his wife before his very eyes.
Sometimes I wondered how long this could go on. I
thought of the old days with the Nirlangers; of Alma
Pflugel's rose-encircled cottage; of Bennie; of the
Knapfs; of the good-natured, uncouth aborigines, and
their many kindnesses. I saw these dear people rarely
now. Frau Nirlanger's resignation to her unhappiness
only made me rebel more keenly against my own.
If only Peter could become well and strong again, I
told myself, bitterly. If it were not for those blue
shadows under his eyes, and the shrunken muscles, and the
withered skin, I could leave him to live his life as he
saw fit. But he was as dependent as a child, and as
capricious. What was the end to be? I asked myself.
Where was it all leading me?
And then, in a fearful and wonderful manner, my
question was answered.
There came to my desk one day an envelope bearing the
letter-head of the publishing house to which I had sent
my story. I balanced it for a moment in my fingers,
woman-fashion, wondering, hoping, surmising.
"Of course they can't want it," I told myself, in
preparation for any disappointment that was in store for
me. "They're sending it back. This is the letter that
will tell me so."
And then I opened it. The words jumped out at me
from the typewritten page. I crushed the paper in my
hands, and rushed into Blackie's little office as I had
been used to doing in the old days. He was at his desk,
pipe in mouth. I shook his shoulder and flourished the
letter wildly, and did a crazy little dance about his
chair.
"They want it! They like it! Not only that, they
want another, as soon as I can get it out. Think of it!"
Blackie removed his pipe from between his teeth and
wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "I'm
thinkin'," he said. "Anything t' oblige you. When
you're through shovin' that paper into my face would you
mind explainin' who wants what?"
"Oh, you're so stupid! So slow! Can't you see that
I've written a real live book, and had it accepted, and
that I am going to write another if I have to run away
from a whole regiment of husbands to do it properly?
Blackie, can't you see what it means! Oh, Blackie, I
know I'm maudlin in my joy, but forgive me. It's been so
long since I've had the taste of it."
"Well, take a good chew while you got th'chance an'
don't count too high on this first book
business. I knew a guy who wrote a book once, an' he
planned to take a trip to Europe on it, and build a house
when he got home, and maybe a yacht or so, if he wasn't
too rushed. Sa-a-ay, girl, w'en he got through gettin'
those royalties for that book they'd dwindled down to
fresh wall paper for the dinin'-room, and a new gas stove
for his wife, an' not enough left over to take a trolley
trip to Oshkosh on. Don't count too high."
"I'm not counting at all, Blackie, and you can't
discourage me."
"Don't want to. But I'd hate to see you come down
with a thud." Suddenly he sat up and a grin overspread
his thin face. "Tell you what we'll do, girlie. We'll
celebrate. Maybe it'll be the last time. Let's pretend
this is six months ago, and everything's serene. You get
your bonnet. I'll get the machine. It's too hot to
work, anyway. We'll take a spin out to somewhere that's
cool, and we'll order cold things to eat, and cold things
to drink, and you can talk about yourself till you're
tired. You'll have to take it out on somebody, an' it
might as well be me."
Five minutes later, with my hat in my hand, I turned
to find Peter at my elbow.
"Want to talk to you," he said, frowning.
"Sorry, Peter, but I can't stop. Won't it do later?"
"No. Got an assignment? I'll go with you."
"N-not exactly, Peter. The truth is, Blackie has
taken pity on me and has promised to take me out for a
spin, just to cool off. It has been so insufferably
hot."
Peter turned away. "Count me in on that," he said,
over his shoulder.
"But I can't, Peter," I cried. "It isn't my party.
And anyway--"
Peter turned around, and there was an ugly glow in
his eyes and an ugly look on his face, and a little red
ridge that I had not noticed before seemed to burn itself
across his forehead. "And anyway, you don't want me, eh?
Well, I'm going. I'm not going to have my wife chasing
all over the country with strange men. Remember, you're
not the giddy grass widdy you used to be. You can take
me, or stay at home, understand?"
His voice was high-pitched and quavering. Something
in his manner struck a vague terror to my heart. "Why,
Peter, if you care that much I shall be glad to have you
go. So will Blackie, I am sure. Come, we'll go down
now. He'll be waiting for us."
Blackie's keen, clever mind grasped the situation as
soon as he saw us together. His dark face was illumined
by one of his rare smiles. "Coming with us, Orme? Do
you good. Pile into the tonneau, you two, and hang on to
your hair. I'm going to smash the law."
Peter sauntered up to the steering-wheel. "Let me
drive," he said. "I'm not bad at it."
"Nix with the artless amateur," returned Blackie.
"This ain't no demonstration car. I drive my own little
wagon when I go riding, and I intend to until I take my
last ride, feet first."
Peter muttered something surly and climbed into the
front seat next to Blackie, leaving me to occupy the
tonneau in solitary state.
Peter began to ask questions--dozens of them, which
Blackie answered, patiently and fully. I could not hear
all that they said, but I saw that Peter was urging
Blackie to greater speed, and that Blackie was explaining
that he must first leave the crowded streets behind.
Suddenly Peter made a gesture in the direction of the
wheel, and said something in a high, sharp voice.
Blackie's answer was quick and decidedly in the negative.
The next instant Peter Orme rose in his place and leaning
forward and upward, grasped the wheel that was
in Blackie's hands. The car swerved sickeningly. I
noticed, dully, that Blackie did not go white as
novelists say men do in moments of horror. A dull red
flush crept to the very base of his neck. With a twist
of his frail body he tried to throw off Peter's hands.
I remember leaning over the back of the seat and trying
to pull Peter back as I realized that it was a madman
with whom we were dealing. Nothing seemed real. It was
ridiculously like the things one sees in the moving
picture theaters. I felt no fear.
"Sit down, Orme!" Blackie yelled. "You'll ditch us!
Dawn! God!--"
We shot down a little hill. Two wheels were lifted
from the ground. The machine was poised in the air for
a second before it crashed into the ditch and turned over
completely, throwing me clear, but burying Blackie and
Peter under its weight of steel and wood and whirring
wheels.
I remember rising from the ground, and sinking back
again and rising once more to run forward to where the
car lay in the ditch, and tugging at that great frame of
steel with crazy, futile fingers. Then I ran screaming
down the road toward a man who was tranquilly working in
a field nearby. _
Read next: CHAPTER XX - BLACKIE'S VACATION COMES
Read previous: CHAPTER XVIII - PETER ORME
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