"No," peremptorily; "all--for the present at least. It's four o'clock of the afternoon, you know, and the neighbors have eyes like--Look at the sun shine!... You've scared away the wren too, and the brood is hungry.

Besides it's time to begin dinner. Cooks shouldn't be hindered ever." She turned toward the door decisively. "You may stay if you don't bother again," she smiled over her shoulder. "Meanwhile there's a new 'Life' and a July 'Century,'--you know where," and with a final smile she was gone.

CHAPTER V

CERTAINTY

Four months had drifted by; again the University was in full swing.

Of an evening in late October at this time, in the common living-room which joined the two private rooms in the suite occupied by himself and Darley Roberts, Stephen Armstrong was alone. It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and he had come in directly after dinner, ample time to have prepared his work for the next day; but as yet he had made no move in that direction. On the roll-top desk, with its convenient drop light, was an armful of reference books and two late scientific magazines. They were still untouched, however, bound tight by the strap with which they had been carried.

But one sign of his prolonged presence was visible in the room. That, a loose pile of ma.n.u.script alternately hastily scribbled and painfully exact, told of the varying moods under which it had been produced;--that and a tiny pile of cigarette stumps in the nearby ash-tray, some scarcely lit and others burned to a tiny stump, which had become the ma.n.u.scripts' invariable companion.

For more than an hour now, however, he had not been writing. The night was frosty and he had lit the gas in the imitation fireplace. The open flame had proved compellingly fascinating and, once stretched comfortably in the big Turkish rocker before it, duty had called less and less insistently and there he had remained. For half an hour thereafter he had scarcely stirred; then, without warning, he had risen. On the mantel above the grate was a collection of articles indigenous to a bachelor's den: a box half filled with cigars, a jar of tobacco, a collection of pipes, a cut-gla.s.s decanter shaded dull red in the electric light. It was toward the latter that he turned, not by chance but with definite purpose, and without hesitation poured a whiskey gla.s.s level full. There was no attendant siphon or water convenient and he drank the liquor raw and returned the gla.s.s to its place. It was not the quasi-aesthetic tippling of comradery but the deliberate drinking of one with a cause, real or fancied, therefor and for its effect; and as he drank he shivered involuntarily with the instinctive aversion to raw liquor of one to whom the action has not become habitual. Afterward he remained standing for a moment while his eyes wandered aimlessly around the familiar room. As he did so his glance fell upon the pile of text-books, mute reminder of a lecture yet unprepared, and for an instant he stood undecided. With a characteristic shrug of distaste and annoyance, of dismissal as well, he resumed his seat, his slippered feet spread wide to catch the heat.

Another half-hour pa.s.sed so, the room silent save for the deliberate ticking of a big wall clock and the purr of the gas in the grate; at last came an interruption: the metallic clicking of a latch key, the tramp of a man's feet in the vestibule, and Darley Roberts entered. A moment after entering the newcomer paused attentive, his glance taking in every detail of the all too familiar scene; deliberately, as usual, he hung up his top-coat and hat.

"Taking it comfortable-like, I see," he commented easily as he pulled up a second chair before the grate. "Knocked off for the evening, have you?"

"Knocked off?" Armstrong shrugged. "I hardly know. I haven't knocked on yet. I'm stuck in the mud, so to speak."

Roberts drew the customary black cigar from his waistcoat pocket and clipped the end methodically. As he did so, apparently by chance, his glance swept the mantel above the grate, and, returning, took in the testimony of the desk with its unopened text-books and pile of scattered ma.n.u.script. Equally without haste he lit a match and puffed until the weed was well aglow.

"Any a.s.sistance a friend can give?" he proffered directly. "We all get tangled at times, I guess. At least every one I know does."

Armstrong's gaze left the fire and fastened on his companion peculiarly.

"Do you yourself?" he asked bluntly.

"Often."

"That's news. I fancied you were immune. What, if I may ask, do you do at such times to effect your release?"

"Go to bed, ordinarily, and sleep while the mud is drying up. There's usually a big improvement by morning."

"And when there isn't--"

Roberts smiled, the tight-jawed smile of a fighter.

"It's a case of pull, then; a pull as though Satan himself were just behind and in hot pursuit. Things are bound to give if one pulls hard enough."

Armstrong's face returned to the grate. His slippered feet spread wider than before.

"I'm not much good at pulling," he commented.

Roberts sat a moment in silence.

"I repeat, if I can be of any a.s.sistance--" he commented. "No b.u.t.ting in, you understand."

"Yes, I understand, and thank you sincerely. I doubt if you can help any though--if any one can. It's the old complaint mostly."

"Publishers who fail to appreciate, I gather."

"Partly."

"And what more, may I ask?"

Armstrong stretched back listlessly, his eyes half closed.

"Everything, it seems, to me to-night, every cursed thing!" Restless in spite of his seeming inertia he straightened nervously. His fingers, slender almost as those of a woman, opened and closed intermittently.

"First of all, the ma.n.u.script of my new book came back this morning, the one I've been working on for the last year. The expressman delivered it just after you left. That started the day wrong. Then came a succession of little things. Breakfast, with coffee stone-cold, and soggy rolls; I couldn't swallow a mouthful. Afterward I cut myself shaving, and I was late for lecture, and there was no styptic in the house, and I got down to my cla.s.s with a collar looking as though I'd had my throat cut. The lecture room was chilly, beastly chilly, and about half the men had colds. Every twentieth word I'd say some one would sneeze and interrupt.

On top of this one chap on the front row had neglected to complete his toilet and sat there for half an hour manicuring his nails, every blessed one of the ten; I counted them, while I was trying to explain proximal principles. At noon we had some more of that abominable soup with carrots in it. Carrots! I detest the name and the whole family; and we've had them every day now for a week. After lunch another big thing. I'd applied for position as lecturer in the summer school, applied early. The president met me to-day and remarked casually, very casually, that the man for the place had already been selected. He was very sorry of course, but--Back at the department I found that Elrod, one of my a.s.sistants, was sick, and of necessity I had to take his place in the laboratory. Inside half an hour some b.u.mpkin dropped an eight-ounce bottle of sulphuretted hydrogen. It spattered everywhere--and the smell! I feel like holding my nose yet. Later the water got stopped up, and for love or money no plumber--" The speaker paused, his shoulders lifted eloquently. "But what's the use of itemizing. It's been the same all day long, one petty rasp after another. To cap the climax Elice is out of town. She's got an English cla.s.s in a high-school in a d.i.n.ky little burg out about twenty miles and goes out there every Thursday. I forgot this was the day until I pulled the knocker. That's all, I guess, except that I'm here."

Roberts smiled, the deliberate smile of tolerant understanding.

"One of those days, wasn't it," he commented sympathetically.

"Yes," shortly, "and it seems lately as though that was the only kind I had--seems as though it was not one but an endless succession.... It's all so petty, so confoundedly petty and irritating, and the outlook for the future seems so similar." Of a sudden the speaker arose, selected a bit of rice paper from the mantel, and began rolling a cigarette swiftly.

The labor complete he paused, the little white cylinder between his fingers. A moment he stood so, irresolute or intentionally deliberate; without apology or comment he poured a second gla.s.s of liquor even full from the red decanter and drank it in silence. "On the square, Darley,"

he blazed, "I expected a lot from that last book, banked on it; and it's gone flat, like the others." He resumed his seat and the cigarette flamed. "I worked hard on it, did my level best. I don't believe I can ever do any better--and now it's failed miserably. It knocks my pins clean out from under me."

For a time the room was quiet. Roberts did not smile this time, or offer sympathy. The occasion for that had gone by. He merely waited in the fulness of knowledge, until the first hot flood of resentment had cooled, until the inevitable reaction that followed was on. Deliberate, direct to the point, he struck.

"You're satisfied I'm your friend, are you?" he asked abruptly.

The other looked his surprise.

"Emphatically, yes. One of the few I have--it seems to-night."

"And I couldn't possibly have any selfish motive in--in tearing you loose from your moorings?"

"None whatever that I can imagine. Why?"

"You won't take offence either if I advise plainly?"

"No, I'm not a fool--yet. What is it, Darley,--your advice?"

Again Roberts paused, deliberately now, unemotionally.

"My advice then is to chuck it, for to-day and to-morrow and all time: the University, this whole artistic rainbow, chuck it as though it were hot, red hot, and get down to earth. Is that brutally plain enough?"

Unconsciously Armstrong had sat up, expectant. A moment he remained so, taking in the thought, all its implications, its suddenly suggested possibilities; as the full revolutionary significance of the idea came home of a sudden he dropped back in his place. With an effort he smiled.

"To answer your question: yes, I think that is brutally frank enough," he said. A moment longer he remained quiet, thinking, the idea expanding.

"Chuck it," he repeated half to himself. "It sounds sensible certainly, to-night particularly." New thoughts came, thoughts like the sifting of dead ashes. "Chuck it," feverishly, "and admit incompetency, cowardice, failure absolute!" For the third time he was on his feet. "No, never.