"It's been vacant for some time. I moved this afternoon, just into a couple of rooms. My boy is there now trying to warm up the place; but even then it won't be particularly inviting. Besides, I'm out of town quite a bit and in the future am likely to be called away still more. It occurred to me that if I could find some married people whom I trusted, who would take a personal interest in it and make it a home, it would be pleasanter for me than being tucked away in a couple of rooms alone and the rest of the barn empty."

"Yes," repeated Randall, impersonally, "I think I appreciate your point of view. It's a little cheerless to be in a house alone."

"I wouldn't expect to interfere with them in any way," Roberts drifted on, "or live with them--nothing of the kind. As I said, I probably shouldn't even be there much; only at night. I'd expect to keep it up--coal and light and that sort of thing--just the same as I would have to do if I were alone. I'd naturally wish to help furnish it, too; the things that would inevitably fit in with it and wouldn't fit any place else. But the main thing would be to have somebody about to make my own corner livable, to sort of humanize the place. You catch my idea?"

"Yes, I think so." Harry Randall's hand was on his bald spot, caressing it absently. "Yes, I think so," he repeated.

"It's a big place, even larger than I remembered, when I went through it to-day," went on Roberts again. "It'll take considerable help to keep it up and some one will have to be about constantly to direct. I have the help in mind right now, competent too--I meet a lot of people in various ways and I've had the thing on my mind; but the supervision--it's simply out of the question with me at the present." He faced the other, looked at him straight. "Would you and Mrs. Randall care to accept the place as a home in return for taking the responsibility of up-keep from me?"

In the pause following Harry Randall's face went slowly red. Equally directly he met the other's look.

"Pardon me, Mr. Roberts," he said, "but Mrs. Randall and myself are not exactly objects of charity yet."

Darley Roberts' expression did not alter by so much as the twitching of a muscle.

"That was unjustified, Mr. Randall," he said evenly, "and you know it.

Let me explain a bit further. I happen to have a house, but no home. By the same chance you are able to produce the reverse. Just why should it be an offence upon my part to suggest bringing the two together--for the mutual benefit of us both?"

"Why? Because it's unequal, it's patronage; and though I work for twelve hundred dollars a year, I'm still American born."

"Granted--the latter remark. I'm also American born, in the remotest corner of the most G.o.d-forsaken county in--I won't name the State; I might hurt some one's feelings." Roberts' big fingers were twitching in a way they had when something he had decided to do met with opposition.

"Nevertheless I hope that fact doesn't make me wholly unreasonable. When it comes to patronage, we're all patronized: you do a kindness for a friend, without remuneration, and he accepts it; that's patronage. The University gives you a position as professor, out of a dozen applicants who could do equally well, and you accept gladly. That's favoritism, another word for patronage. A client comes to me and pays a fee for doing a certain labor, when my compet.i.tor across the street would perform it equally capably, and for perhaps a smaller fee. That's patronage. You patronize your tailor when you order a suit of clothes, the butcher when you buy a beefsteak. It's the basis of life, elemental. The very air you breathe is patronage. It costs you nothing, and you give nothing adequate in return. To characterize patronage as un-American, stultifying, is preposterous. Even if it were true in this case, you'd have to give another reason for offence. I refuse to consider it."

"Well, unbusinesslike then, if that is better."

"Unbusinesslike? Wait. In company with three other men I'm developing a silver mine down in Arizona. The mining claim belongs to a fifth man, belongs to him absolutely. He knows the metal is there as well as we do; but it's down under the ground, locked up tight in a million tons of rock. As it is now, so far as he's concerned, it might as well be on Mars. If left to himself alone he'd live and die and it would still be there. He hasn't the ability nor the means to make it of use. The other three men and myself have. We can develop it, and will; to our own purposes, share and share alike. According to your notion there's patronage somewhere; but exactly where? Point me the offence?"

Again Harry Randall caressed his bald crown. The argument was convincing, almost.

"The cases are not parallel," he combated weakly, "not even similar."

"And why not?" shortly. "I'm no longer a young man particularly. I've never had a place that I could call home in my life; never for a day that I can remember. I want one now, fancy I see the possibility of making one; a place where I can keep a friend now and then if I wish, where I could even order in a supper and entertain if I saw fit. I chance to have the ability to pay for the privilege, and am willing to pay. That's my affair. You chance to be able to make that home possible--and incidentally enjoy it yourself. It's like the silver mine,--mutual benefit, share and share alike. The cases seem to me parallel, quite parallel."

Opposite Harry Randall sat very still. In absent forgetfulness he polished the big gla.s.ses the second time and sprung them back carefully on his nose. But even yet he did not answer, merely sat there waiting; awaiting the moment to counter, to refute.

"Am I not right?" asked Roberts, bluntly. "Isn't the proposition logical?"

"Logical, yes. The logic is very good." Randall glanced up keenly. The moment for which he had been waiting had come, more quickly than he had expected. "So _good_ in fact that I see but one fault."

"And that?"

This time the keen eyes smiled, very candidly.

"The sole fault, so far as I can see, is that you don't believe in it yourself."

For the s.p.a.ce wherein one could count ten slowly the two men looked at each other; slowly, in turn, on Roberts' firm fighter's face there formed a smile, a peculiar, appreciative smile.

"Granted," he said. "I admit failure." The smile pa.s.sed like a dropped curtain. "Moreover be a.s.sured I shall not dissimulate again. As a friend, or whatever you wish, however, I advise you to think carefully before you refuse an offer made in good faith and to your own advantage."

Listening, Harry Randall straightened. His lips closed tightly for a second. "You mean, I presume," the words were painfully exact, "to remind me that you hold my note for four hundred dollars, and to imply--" he halted significantly.

For a moment the other man said nothing, the face of him told nothing.

Then deliberately, from an inner pocket, he drew out a leather wallet, from the wallet a strip of paper, and held it so the other could read.

Still without a word he tore it to bits.

"The devil take your note!" he observed, succinctly and without heat.

"Mr. Roberts, you--" Randall's face was crimson, "you--"

"Yes--I--"

"You didn't mean--that, then, really?"

Roberts said nothing.

"I'm grateful for the confidence, believe me. It's not misplaced, either. Accept my a.s.surance of that too."

"My name is Roberts, not Shylock. I told you before I am American born, of American parents."

"I beg your pardon," abjectly. The red had left Randall's face and in its place, as on a mirror, was forming another look, of comprehension--and more. "Yet you--advised; and if not that--" of a sudden he got to his feet. Something was coming he knew to a certainty--something unexpected, vital--and he felt better able so to meet it. "Just what did you mean?"

Roberts was studying him deliberately, with the peculiar a.n.a.lytical look Armstrong of old had known so well.

"You can't imagine yet," he queried, "not with the motive you fancied eliminated?"

"You wish to do me a kindness, a disinterested kindness. For what reason?"

"Cut out my motive, providing I have one, for the present. It's immaterial."

"That doesn't help--I can't conceive--" On a sudden came a flash of light that augmented to a blaze. "Can it concern Margery and me? Is that it?"

Roberts did not look up. "Yes," he said.

"You know, then," tensely. "How much?"

"Everything." Roberts inspected the wall-paper opposite as though interested. "If you'll permit me I'll help you to avoid an action for divorce." A pause. "One, moreover, I can't help but feel somewhat justified."

For long, very long, there was silence absolute. Then, adequate time having pa.s.sed, apparently Roberts lost interest in the wall pattern.

"Sit down, please," he suggested. "At last it seems we understand each other. Let's talk things over a bit."

CHAPTER III

FRIENDSHIP