Once he took a turn up and down the deck, and when he came back, he stood for a long time leaning over the rail and gazing into the water.

As he turned to sit down she heard him mutter to himself:

"... That no life lives forever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea."

Guinevere repeated the words softly to herself, and wondered what they meant. She was still thinking about them when a dim red light in the distance told her they were approaching the Cove. She slipped off the heavy overcoat and began to put on her gloves.

"h.e.l.lo! we are getting in, are we?" asked Hinton, shaking himself into an upright position. "Is that Cove City where the big red light bores into the water like a corkscrew?"

They moved to the bow of the boat and watched as it changed its course and made for the opposite sh.o.r.e.

"Did you mean," said Guinevere, absently, "that you wanted it all to end like that? For us to just go out into nothing, like the river gets lost in the ocean?"

Hinton glanced at her in surprise, and discovered that there was an unusually thoughtful face under the sweeping brim of the red hat. The fact that she was pretty was less evident to him than the fact that she was wistful. His mood was sensitive to minor chords.

"I guess you _are_ eighteen," he said, and he smiled, and Guinevere smiled back, and the chubby gentleman, coming suddenly out upon them, went in again and slammed the door.

The lights on the landing twinkled brighter and brighter, and presently figures could be seen moving here and there. The steamer, grumbling with every chug of the wheel, was brought around, and the roustabouts crowded along the rail, ready to make her fast.

Guinevere and Hinton stood on the upper deck under his umbrella and waited.

Directly below them on the dock a small, fantastic figure made frantic efforts to attract their attention. He stood uncovered, regardless of the rain, madly waving his hat.

"Is that anybody you know?" asked Hinton.

Guinevere, who was watching the lights on the water, started guiltily.

"Where?" she asked.

"Down to the right--that comical little codger in the checked suit."

Guinevere looked, then turned upon Hinton eyes that were big with indignation. "Why, of course," she said; "that's Mr. Opp."

XI

As Willard Hinton stood on the porch of Your Hotel and waited for his host for the night to call for him, he was in that state of black dejection that comes to a young man when Ambition has proposed to Fortune, and been emphatically rejected. For six years he had worked persistently and ceaselessly toward a given goal, doing clerical work by day and creative work by night, going from shorthand into longhand, and from numerical figures into figures of speech. For the way that Hinton's soul was traveling was the Inky Way, and at its end lay Authorship.

Hinton had taken himself and his work seriously, and served an apprenticeship of hard study and conscientious preparation. So zealous was he, in fact, that he had arrived at the second stage of his great enterprise with a teeming brain, a practised hand, and a pair of affected eyes over which the oculists shook their heads and offered little encouragement.

For four months he had implicitly obeyed orders, attending only to his regular work, eating and sleeping with exemplary regularity, and spending all of his spare time in the open air. But the ravages made in the long nights dedicated to the Muses were not to be so easily repaired, and his eyes, instead of improving, were growing rapidly worse. The question of holding his position had slipped from a matter of months into weeks.

As he stood on the porch, he could hear the bustle of entertainment going on within the limited quarters of Your Hotel. Jimmy Fallows was in his element. As bartender, head waiter, and jovial landlord he was playing a triple bill to a crowded house. Occasionally he opened the door and urged Hinton to come inside.

"Mr. Opp'll be here 'fore long," he would say. "He's expecting you, but he had to stop by to take his girl home. You better step in and get a julep."

But Hinton, wrapped in the gloom of his own thoughts, preferred to remain where he was. Already he seemed to belong to the dark, to be a thing apart from his fellow-men. He shrank from companionship and sympathy as he shrank from the light. He longed to crawl away like a sick animal into some lonely corner and die. Whichever way he turned, the great specter of darkness loomed before him. At first he had fought, then he had philosophically stood still, now he was retreating. Again and again he told himself that he would meet it like a man, and again and again he shrank back, ready to seek escape anywhere, anyhow.

"O G.o.d, if I weren't so d.a.m.nably young!" he cried to himself, beating his clenched hand against his brow. "More than half my life yet to live, and in the dark!"

The rattle of wheels and the stopping of a light in front of the hotel made him pull himself together.

The small gentleman in the checked suit whom he had seen on the wharf strode in without seeing him. He paused before he opened the door and smoothed his scanty locks and rearranged his pink necktie. Then he drew in his chin, threw out his chest, and with a carefully prepared smile of welcome entered.

The buzz within increased, and it was some minutes before the door opened again and Jimmy Fallows was heard saying:

"He's round here some place. Mr. Hinton! Oh, here you are! Let me make you acquainted with Mr. Opp; he's going to take you out to his house for the night."

No sooner had Hinton's hand been released from Mr. Opp's cordial grasp than he felt that gentleman's arm thrust through his, and was aware of being rapidly conducted down the steps and out to the vehicle.

"On no possible account," Mr. Opp was saying, with Hinton's grip in one hand and two umbrellas in the other, "would I have allowed myself to be late, except that it was what you might consider absolutely necessary.

Now, you get right in; just take all that robe. No, the grip can go right here between my feet. We trust that you will not regard the weather in any ways synonymous with the state of our feelings of welcome."

Mr. Hinton remarked rather shortly that the weather never mattered to him one way or another.

"That's precisely like myself," Mr. Opp went on. "I come of very st.u.r.dy, enduring stock. For a man of my size I doubt if you'd find a finer const.i.tution in the country. You wouldn't particularly think it to look at me, now would you?"

Hinton looked at the small, stooping figure, and at the peaked, sallow face, and said rather sarcastically that he would not.

"Strong as an ox," declared Mr. Opp.

Just here the horse stumbled, and they were jerked violently forward.

Mr. Opp apologized. "Just at present we are having a little difficulty with our country roads. We have taken the matter up in 'The Opp Eagle'

last week. All these things take time to regulate, but we are getting there. This oil boom is going to revolutionize things. It's my firm and abiding conviction that we are on the eve of a great change. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this town grew to be one of the princ.i.p.alest cities on the Ohio River."

"To be a worthy eyrie for your 'Eagle'?" suggested Hinton.

"'The Opp Eagle,'" corrected Mr. Opp. "I don't know as you know that I am the sole proprietor, as well as being the editor in addition."

"No," said Hinton, "I did not know. How does it happen that a man with such responsibilities can take time to dabble in oil-wells?"

"You don't know me," said Mr. Opp, with a paternal smile at his own ability. "Promoting and organizing comes as natural to me as breathing the atmosphere. I am engineering this scheme with one hand, the Town Improvement League with another, and 'The Opp Eagle' with another. Then, in a minor kind of way, I am a active Odd Fellow, first cornetist in the Unique Orchestra, and a director in the bank. And beside," Mr. Opp concluded with some coyness, "there is the natural personal social diversions that most young men indulge in."

By this time they had reached the gray old house on the river-bank, and Mr. Opp hitched the horse and held the lantern, while Hinton stepped from one stony island to another in the sea of mud.

"Just enter right into the dining-room," said Mr. Opp, throwing open the door. "Unfortunately we are having a temporary difficulty with the parlor heating apparatus. If you'll just pa.s.s right on up-stairs, I'll show you the guest-chamber. Be careful of your head, please!"

With pomp and dignity Mr. Hinton was conducted to his apartment, and urged to make known any possible want that might occur to him.

"I'll be obliged to leave you for a spell," said Mr. Opp, "in order to attend to the proper putting up of the horse. If you'll just consider everything you see as yours, and make yourself entirely at home, I'll come up for you in about twenty minutes."

Left alone, Hinton went to the bureau to pin a paper around the lamp, and as he did so he encountered a smiling face in the mirror. The face was undoubtedly his, but the smile seemed almost to belong to a stranger, so long had it been since he had seen it.

He made a hasty toilet, and sat down with his back to the light to await his summons to dinner. The large room, poorly and scantily furnished, gave unmistakable evidence of having been arranged especially for his coming. There was no covering on the floor, there were no pictures on the wall; but the wall-paper was of a sufficiently decorative character to warrant the absence of other adornment. It may be said to have been a botanical paper, for roses and lilies and sunflowers and daisies grew in riotous profusion. The man who hung the paper evidently was of a scientific turn, for in matching the strips he had gained some results in cross-grafting that approached the miraculous.

After sufficient time had elapsed to have stabled half a dozen horses, Hinton, whose appet.i.te was becoming ravenous, went into the hall and started down the steps. When half-way down he heard a crash of china, and saw his host, in his shirt-sleeves, staggering under a large tray overcrowded with dishes.