A BIG YOUNG man stood there, leaning against the wall and staring down at the floor in a strange, intent way.
“What is it, please?” asked Amy sharply, looking up at him with eyes still half-blind to the real world.
The big young man took off his hat. That is, he put up his hand and sketched exactly the movement a man makes when he takes off a hat, but his hat was not there, and so his hand dropped uncertainly to his side again. His thick fair hair looked as if it had not been covered by a hat for days; it was dusty and tangled and—Amy’s eyes travelled slowly to his feet—the white tennis shoes he wore were split at the toes. He had a windbreaker jacket zipped up close to his throat and grey trousers ragged at the hems, and all over his clothes lay the white dust of midsummer. He was very pale, with white lips and sunken cheeks.
He leaned a little lower against the wall and said very quietly, almost in a whisper:
“I’m sorry if I disturbed you. Does Mr. Boone Vorst live here?”
“Yes, but he’s away.” Amy’s own voice sounded strange, low as his own, faint and quiet. She was staring at him as if she could not take her eyes from the unshaven face, the lock of hair over his forehead, the dusty thick eyelashes lying on his cheek as if he were asleep.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?” Now his voice was actually a whisper, but as if trying to convey his meaning by another messenger he slowly lifted his head and looked straight at her with grey eyes sunk deep in their sockets.
“I’m awfully sorry,” Amy began, also in a whisper—when the young man said distinctly:
“I’m very sorry. I’m afraid I’m going to faint,” and slipped to the floor.
Amy was terrified. She dropped on her knees and crouched beside him, looking wildly round for help.
He had fallen just inside the door. Desperately, with every scrap of her strength, she pulled and hauled him into the room, and shut it. Then she darted across and snatched up one of the cushions off the divan and put it under his head. He lay still, not seeming to breathe, and she sat back on her heels, staring at him and trying distractedly to remember what you did to bring someone out of a faint. Brandy! Brandy, of course!
She ran into the kitchen and hunted frantically through the little cupboard that was fitted up as a bar. Bourbon—rye—gin—tomato juice—vermouth—lime—no brandy! Whisky would have to do.
She carried the bottle back into the living-room, tearing at the foil cover with her teeth. Where was the corkscrew? She looked round dazedly, then smashed off the head of the bottle against the edge of the table, poured some whisky into the glass that had contained her ice-water, and knelt down beside him. She lifted his heavy head and forced the liquid between his lips.
Then she saw what she had so often described in her stories but never seen in life—a man choking under the reviving power of spirit. She was alarmed, but forced more between his lips until he moved, opening his eyes, and caught at her hand, dragging it down and shaking his head.
“That’s enough!” he gasped.
His head fell back, and he sighed deeply and shut his eyes again.
Amy knelt beside him, staring at the big, still figure sprawling on the floor, looking so strange in its dirty clothes against the clean white matting.
Suddenly his eyes opened and he stared at her, but with no lively natural interest in his look; it was the grave exhausted stare of a man who is very ill. She bent over him, murmuring:
“Do you feel better?”
“I shan’t faint again,” he answered hoarsely. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. Can I have some hot milk with whisky—if it isn’t too much trouble?”
“Yes, of course!”
She ran into the kitchen and heated the milk on the electric stove as quickly as she could for the shaking of her hands, and poured a lot of whisky into it. He watched her come across the room, still with that grave, exhausted stare, and said suddenly:
“Haven’t I seen you before?”
Amy nearly dropped the glass. She could not speak. She knelt beside him, trembling from head to foot, and set the glass on the floor.
“Haven’t I?”
“I don’t know … I don’t think so,” she muttered. “Here’s the milk. Hadn’t you better get on to the divan?” He raised himself on one elbow, shut his eyes and shook his head impatiently, then got up and walked unsteadily across to the divan and fell forward on it.
“I’m sorry to give you all this trouble,” he said a moment later.
“It’s all right, really. Can you drink this now?”
“Yes.” He held out his hand for the milk and she gave it him.
He leant back against the wall, sipping the drink and not lifting his eyes from the glass while she sat on the extreme edge of the divan, watching him.
“I’m sorry I fell over your doorstep like that,” he said presently in a stronger, more natural voice. “I guess I must have frightened you.”
“Well, you did, a bit.”
“I shan’t do it again.” He drained the glass and she took it from him and put it down on the floor.
“My brother lives here—I was expecting to see him,” he went on. “How long is he away for, do you know?”
She shook her head. She could not speak.
“Oh, well——” He was quiet for a moment, staring down at his broken shoes; then he said, “My name’s Robert Vorst.”
The room went dark to Amy, yet she managed to say faintly but naturally:
“Oh, then you must be Lou’s brother!”
“Yes, I’m Lou’s brother,” he said shortly. “Why? Do you know Lou?”
“Oh, yes. It was Lou who told me about this flat.”
“I see. I supposed you got it through Boone’s agent. I didn’t take in that you’re a family friend.”
He was looking at her with a touching little expression of polite interest, that did not in the least conceal his exhaustion and misery.
“Well——” Amy laughed nervously. “I’ve only known your sister for a little while, but I like her very much.”
He said nothing.
“I was lecturing in Vine Falls about a month ago and I met your sister at a reception Mrs. Boadman (I think it was) very kindly gave for me.”
“So you’re a lecturer. And you’re English, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes. Well, I’m a writer, really, not a lecturer. I live in London. My name——” she stopped. Her breath seemed suddenly to have gone away and she could not speak properly. “My name’s Amy Lee,” she concluded, not daring to look at his face.
“The Soldier of Misfortune,” he said at once. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Lee,” and his unshaven lips twisted in a bitter little smile.
Amy continued to stare at the empty glass standing on the floor.
“I expect that’s why you thought you’d seen me before,” she went on in a low tone, after a pause. “There were quite a lot of pictures of me in the American papers when The Soldier of Misfortune was filmed.
He shook his head. “No,” he replied, looking at her steadily. “I’ve never seen a picture of you. But I know your face. I knew it the minute you opened the door, only I didn’t get a chance to say so before I passed out.”
“Oh, well, that’s funny, isn’t it!” she said, still looking away from him and then she went on quickly.
“How do you feel now?”
“I’m all right. I’m not ill. That was just hunger that made me pass out.” He spoke without emphasis.
“Oh,” said Amy faintly. “Have you—come from far?”
“Central Park. I slept there last night.”
She said nothing, but got up and slowly walked across to a table and chose herself a cigarette, so that he should not see that her eyes were full of tears. She held the box out to him, without looking at him, but he shook his head.
“Wouldn’t you like some supper?” she managed to say at last.
“No, thanks. I must be getting along.”
“Where to?”
He moved his big shoulders indifferently.
“I’ll see when I get there.”
“I was hoping you’d stay and see Lou. She’s coming here to-morrow,” said Amy.
“Lou? Is she in town?” he asked quickly.
“She will be to-morrow morning. With your cousin—Helen, I think she said.”
“Helen Viner, yes. Well, I may as well see Lou. Maybe I could call in to-morrow—if you wouldn’t mind?”
“Oh, please do. But won’t you stay to supper now? I wish you would. You did say you were—hungry, and if you were sleeping in Central Park—and you said you didn’t know where you were going——” she stammered.
He did not answer, but looked at her steadily and gravely.
“And stay the night, too. I wish you would,” Amy ended, forgetting certain warnings from Mrs. Beeding and only wild with anxiety to keep him from going back to sleep in Central Park.
“Miss Lee, it’s very kind of you, but I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well … you’re all alone here, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but nobody in this house’ll mind you staying. I expect they won’t even know about it. This is a funny sort of place, people go in and out and don’t take any notice of each other at all. I don’t know any of them.”
“It’s mighty kind of you. You’re quite sure you don’t mind?”
He was still looking at her steadily as he spoke, trying to make out what kind of a girl she was. She seemed a funny little thing, sweet and sensible, almost like a child, but most girls were more than ready to meet a man half-way. He knew that now.
“I’m quite sure I don’t mind. I’d like you to stay, please,” answered Amy, returning his look as steadily and still completely forgetful of Mrs. Beeding.
Then he demanded suddenly:
“Did Lou tell you all about me?”
She shook her head.
He smiled and said bitterly:
“Do you mean to say that you went to a reception at Mrs. Boadman’s and nobody told you about me?”
“Well—Miss Cordell said—and Lou did just say that——” faltered Amy, wondering in much distress whether to tell him the truth. She wanted to! She could not bear the thought of lying to him; but then, she did not want to hurt him, either.
“So Miss Cordell was there too, was she? You seem to have had a regular Old Home Week. And I’m sure Lucy Cordell told you all about me, if Lou didn’t?”
“Oh, no, not everything,” replied Amy, picking at the fringe on one of the red cushions. “Only that your own mother didn’t know where you were. And—and she said she prayed for you every night of her life.”
He was silent.
“I only wanted you to know what kind of a person you’ve invited to spend the night here,” he said at last.
“That’s all right,” she said at once. “Please do stay.”
“All right then, Miss Lee. I guess I will, and thanks a lot.”
He leant back against the wall, and suddenly a feeling of deep relief came over him. To-night he need not face the hot sidewalks that he had tramped all the afternoon; he need not watch faces drifting past him, the curious, pitying or indifferent faces; he need not breathe the faint sickening smell of the withered grass on which he had slept last night. He could shut himself into a quiet room, and go to sleep. And to-morrow he could see Lou and Helen. The longing to see them both, and to feel through them the peace and tenderness of his home and the happiness gone for ever, was too strong for him to resist. He would not go back with them, because he was never going back, but see them he must.
Amy sat in silence, watching the ash gather on the end of her cigarette. He was going to stay! He was going to stay here all night, and she would be able to get supper for him. The ash fell to the floor, and Bob moved, and glanced down at his hands.
“Do you mind if I take a shower?”
“No, of course not,” she answered, and at that moment the telephone bell rang.
“Miss Lee,” began Myrtle’s rich voice, “Ah’m mighty sorry, Ah can’t get up to you this evenin’, mah sister’s tuk sick.”
“Oh, I am sorry, Myrtle. Is that the one that’s going to have a baby?”
“Yes, Miss Lee. Mah sister Louella. She’s mighty bad, Ah’m gwine to take her down to the hospital right now.”
“All right, Myrtle. Can you come in to-morrow?”
“Sure I can, Miss Lee. Ah’ll come in first thing, moment the baby’s bo’n.”
“All right, Myrtle. I hope your sister’ll be all right.”
“She’ll be all right, Miss Lee, she don’t have no trouble with her babies once they’se started. Ah surely am sorry to put you out so, Miss Lee. G’d-bye, Miss Lee.”
“Good-bye, Myrtle,” and Amy hung up the receiver.
“That was the coloured girl who comes in to do the cleaning. She can’t come to-night, her sister’s having a baby,” explained Amy. “So I’ll get the supper while you have your shower.”
“Won’t it be a trouble to you? Don’t you want to go on writing?” And he glanced at the papers scattered over the table.
“Oh, no. I’ve been writing all day. I’m tired now. I’d like to get the supper; it’ll be a change.”
“Right.” He spoke with a little restraint, as if the unusualness of the situation had suddenly struck him, and went through into the bathroom without saying anything more.
Amy quickly set the table and got the food out of the ice-box, pushing her frightened happiness away to the back of her mind. He’s hungry, he’s starving, I must make him eat as much as possible, and then he must get a good long sleep, she thought as she hurried between the living-room and the kitchenette. She was so bewildered and disturbed by his presence there that she could not realize that the dream, the legend, which had haunted her memory for twelve years, had walked into the room an hour ago. He was no longer My American; he was a young man in trouble, and every feeling of tenderness in her nature that had been denied expression for the past twelve years turned yearningly towards him.
He was so long over his shower that she took her scribbling block on to the kitchen table, among the lettuce leaves and discarded cellophane wrappers, and started writing again to fill up time. When he came out, he paused at the door of the living-room for a moment to look at the picture before him. It was exactly like a picture, with the wonderful lights of New York, sparkling and glowing through the open window in the clear hot twilight, as a background.
Amy was sitting in a magician’s circle of light with everything about her in shadow. Her intent, foreshortened little face, bent over the paper and crowned with its heavy knot of dark hair, her small moving hand, were strangely beautiful. But the strangest thing about this picture, to Bob, was the fact that he had seen it before. He knew the ring of radiance from the lamp set upon the table, the whiteness of the paper over which the pen hurried, the green of the wilted lettuce leaves and the sparkle of crumpled wrappings, the silver bubbles in the glass of water standing at the writer’s elbow. He knew just how she would look when she glanced up and smiled, gazing beyond the circle of light into the dusk—
“Hullo? Supper’s all ready.”
He came slowly across to her, and stood looking down at the page covered with round untidy writing.
“Don’t you ever use a typewriter?”
“No, I hate them. Shall we have supper now?”
“If you’re ready.”
He set a chair for her at the table and they sat down, facing one another across the bowl piled with fresh leaves and yellow fruit, and the sophisticated squat shapes of the alcohol bottles. He poured out two drinks, then leant back and sipped his own in silence while Amy put the food on to the plates.
He was soothed by the shower and the rest, but he was still deathly tired; too tired to talk; certainly too tired to notice how unlike the usual meaningful silence of a man and a girl in an unusual situation was the unembarrassed quietness in which they were eating. They might have been two old friends seeing each other through a bad time. And although he had lifted his glass—how many times!—in a toast to how many pretty girls in the past, to-night it never even entered his head to raise it to her in silence, with a smile. Yet dimly he felt grateful to her for not talking, for moving so quietly and being so pretty, like a bright-eyed little bird.
She’s nice to be with. Kind of restful, he thought, slowly and dazedly eating his food.
The clock softly struck ten as Amy got up.
“Do sit on the divan. I’m only going to make coffee,” she told him.
The strong coffee roused him a little, and when they had been sitting on the divan drinking it in silence for a while, he said:
“I came here to borrow twenty dollars from Boone. That was all I could think about. I just thought: I’ll get twenty dollars from Boone, and eat, and get some shoes, and then maybe something’ll turn up. Now he isn’t here, I don’t know—I can’t think ahead. I suppose it’s because I’m so tired.”
“Please, may I lend it to you?”
“No, thanks, Miss Lee, I guess not.”
“But why not?”
“Because you’re a girl.”
“I can’t see that that matters.”
“Well, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. All I know is, I’ve done a lot of darn queer things in the last few months but I haven’t taken to sponging on women—yet.”
“I think that’s silly. A … a friend is a friend, whether they’re woman a or a man.”
“So you’re my friend, are you?”
“Well, please, I’d like to be,” said Amy, turning red but speaking composedly. “I like Lou so much, and you’re her brother. I should like to help you, if I could.”
“That’s fine of you,” he answered, while his sad young eyes rested steadily upon her earnest face. “But I don’t think anyone can do anything, now. Nothing seems to matter. I’ll see the girls to-morrow, because—well, there doesn’t seem any reason why I shouldn’t see them. But I don’t know what I’ll do after that.”
There was a lengthy silence, during which he leant back against the wall with his arms behind his head, staring past Amy at the sparkling lights and scarlet neon signs above the avenue. But she had a strong feeling that he wanted to talk, and presently she said timidly:
“Why didn’t you come to see your brother before?”
“I only got into New York yesterday morning. I hitchhiked from Harrisburg. I had a job there, but I walked out.”
“Why?” she ventured to ask, still timidly.
“Well——” He suddenly took his arms from behind his head, and folded them as he turned to look at her. “Miss Lee, please tell. Just how much do you know about me?”
For the first time in years Amy resisted the instinct to lie, for she longed that there should be nothing between him and herself but the truth.
“I only know what Lou told me,” she answered at once. “She said that you—you killed a little girl in a car smash and injured a little boy, and then you went crazy because the trial wasn’t a fair one. She said you let a gangster fix the jury, so that you got off, and then you went away with the gangster afterwards.”
“I was yellow,” he said in a hard voice. “I couldn’t go on living in Vine Falls, knowing I’d got off through a crook lawyer and a fixed jury. So I went off with Dan Carr. Yes, that’s right.”
“Is that the gangster?”
He glanced at her quickly. “That’s a big thrill for you, isn’t it? For weeks I lived with gangsters. Now you feel you’re more my friend than ever, don’t you?” And he gave her a miserable smile.
“It doesn’t make any difference at all to the way I feel,” she answered quietly. “But I can’t help wondering what the gangsters are like. Anybody would.”
“Oh——” he said impatiently. He got up and helped himself to a cigarette, then sat down beside her again. “They aren’t so different as all that from ordinary people. There’s only one big difference.”
“What?”
He glanced at her in surprise. “Why, they kill. They don’t care if they kill. That’s the big difference, isn’t it? You needn’t be afraid” (she was watching him with her eyes widened and her lips parted) “I didn’t kill. I didn’t see much of that sort of thing while I was running around with Dan, either. Dan’s a particular kind of guy; he has his killing done for him. He doesn’t like things all mussed up; he likes things tidy.” He spoke almost indulgently, as if making excuses for someone he knew well whose peculiarities he had learned to accept.
“You don’t hate him, then?”
“Why should I? He can’t help being what he is. Nobody can.”
“Well, you said you walked out of a job in Harrisburg. I thought you might have had a row with him.”
“That job wasn’t with Dan. It was playing the piano for two bucks a night in a dive. I left Dan weeks ago. I haven’t seen him since.”
“Why did you leave him, if you don’t hate him?”
He did not answer for a minute, but sat staring at the cigarette he held, moving his lips once or twice as if he were trying to find his way to the expression of a difficult thought. At last he said:
“Have you ever seen anyone dead?”
Amy started.
“I saw my mother, when I was a little girl.”
“Oh, I don’t mean dead like that, lying tidily in a coffin with everybody upset and people praying. I meant just dead. Alive one minute, and then dead on the floor. Smashed up, and nobody taking much notice.”
She shook her head.
“I have.” He bent forward and knocked the ash off his cigarette. “I saw a man killed. That was what made me leave Dan.” He was quiet for a little while, then he said as if to himself:
“All that marvellous machinery, smashed up. That was what finished me.”
“Did Dan kill him?”
“No. (I told you Dan never kills.) He and I were in a joint one night run by a pal of Dan’s, and a man got bumped off for squealing. He was sitting at a table with a girl, laughing, and a man walked in and shot him through the face.”
Amy leaned a little closer. She did not shudder.
“They pulled him out of the way behind a curtain in a corner and put a tablecloth over him. He wasn’t dead. We had to sit there as if nothing had happened. We sat there for half an hour, while he was dying. I heard him. It was the first time I’d ever heard a man die. I wanted to do what I could for him. You see, my job is—my job was going to be saving life. That’s a doctor’s work, isn’t it? So I guess that made me want to help, even more than just a natural instinct. But Dan wouldn’t let me.”
“Wouldn’t let you?”
“He covered me with his gun until the man was dead. He said he deserved to die for squealing, and he’d die anyway, whether I helped or not. So we sat there staring at each other for half an hour, until the man was dead.
“I’m glad you didn’t try to help. You might have got killed yourself.”
“Oh, Dan wouldn’t have killed me. He was laughing. I think he enjoyed the whole thing. He used to like watching the way I reacted to the things they took for granted. He’s a queer guy.”
“I think he sounds horrible,” she exclaimed violently.
“Well, he had a raw deal as a kid. He was clever, but there wasn’t anyone to do anything for him. He wanted power more than anything in the world and the only way he could get it was by turning gangster. He quite understood how I felt about that man dying. The next day I said I was going, and he never even tried to stop me.”
“Wasn’t he afraid you’d tell the police about him and the gang?”
“Of course not. Why should he be? He and I were kids together; I couldn’t squeal on Dan.”
“But you won’t go back to them again, will you?” said Amy, comforted by the detached way in which he spoke of his life with the gangsters but longing to hear him say in so many words that he would never return to it.
He shook his head.
“I told you, seeing that man shot finished me. I talked with Dan for hours (he talked, rather, and I listened. He loves talking). I made him see I wasn’t their sort and never could be. He was sorry. He wanted to make a super-crook out of me, I guess. He says crooks only fail because they’re stupid and uneducated. He’s got a great respect for education and culture. It’s queer.”
“I think he sounds a beast,” repeated Amy stubbornly.
“We’re all beasts,” he said gently, leaning back and looking at her. “But don’t worry. I’m never going back.”
“Oh, I am so glad,” she said, curling her feet under her, with a long sigh.
“Are you?”
His grave, lingering gaze travelled slowly, with a pleasure that he had not known for months, over the fineness of her white skin and dark hair, her tiny ear, the brilliance of her long-shaped eyes. And she was so clean! like a freshly-washed and powdered child.
“Yes. I was so afraid you’d go back.”
“Well, you needn’t be.” And suddenly he put his hand over her own and held it tight, and they stayed like that for a moment, quite still.
Amy knelt like a Japanese girl, her eyelashes lowered, staring at the big hand with unkempt nails that covered her own. The whole side of the divan sagged under his weight, though hers hardly moved it, and all his manhood, the strangeness of his presence there, seemed concentrated in that heavy clasp on her hand. It was the first time that a young man had ever touched her, and yet she was not trembling. Her hand crept out slowly until her fingers lay on his wrist, and then she made a little stroking movement as though trying to comfort him but still she did not look up, and when he began to pull her gently towards him, at the same time making room for her, she turned her head away; and when, trembling at last, she lay down against his side and he drew her close so that her head rested on his shoulder, she had not once looked at him.
“You don’t mind?” he asked in a low voice.
She shook her head. He could see her heart-beats shaking the dark red silk of her jacket.
“Are you comfortable like that?”
Again she nodded. The room was very quiet. Outside, the lights flashed and quivered through the weary summer night and there was no slackening of the noise in the streets, but the room only seemed to sink deeper into its enchanted hush because of the city’s sleeplessness.
After a little while he went on softly, as if he were beginning to feel drowsy:
“When Dan and I were kids (you don’t mind if I talk, do you? I haven’t talked in weeks, not to anybody) he lived back of our place, and there was an old rail fence round their cabin, with a hole in it. I used to go through there when I wanted to go shooting with him. I was always crazy to get on the other side of that fence. Dan’s folks were bootleggers; I was only a kid, and that thrilled me. I’ve often thought about that hole in the fence since everything went smash. I’m on Dan’s side of the fence now, and I can’t get back.”
“But you haven’t done anything. You did go away with Dan, but you didn’t kill anyone.”
“I only killed one kid and put out another’s eye,” he retorted bitterly.
“You didn’t mean to. And anyone can see how sorry you are!”
“It wasn’t killing the little girl that put me on the wrong side of the fence. It was letting my father hire a crook lawyer to defend me, and letting Dan fix the two people on the jury who didn’t know me and might be difficult. I’m not a balanced enough type to be a doctor. That’s why I can’t ever go back to my home town, or study to be a doctor again.”
“You could if you tried. If you went back now——”
“It would be hell.”
“But you won’t feel better until you have gone back!” she cried, suddenly lifting her head and looking up at him. “Nothing can ever make you feel better except going back to Vine Falls and being with all the people who know you, and working to be a doctor again. That’s the only thing to do.”
“I know it!” he answered violently. “I’ve known it ever since that night when I went off with Dan. But if I did go back——”
He paused, and a long silence followed.
“Nothing could ever be the same,” he said at last.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a different person. I used to have everything worked out so neat and tidy. Now I’m not sure about anything. I’m not even sure about what’s right and what’s wrong. I’ve been on the wrong side of the fence, and I can’t be comfortable on the right side any more——”
Then she interrupted him, sighing and moving a little closer to him because she was beginning to feel sleepy:
“But a doctor has to know about everything, doesn’t he?”
After the words had sounded through the hush in the room, there was a very long silence. He sat quite still, holding her against his breast and staring across her dark head at the restless quivering lights, and the simplicity and truth of what she had said sank deeper and deeper into his soul, until the words reached the beautiful truths that he himself felt lingering there in the darkness, the truths that he could live by. He continued to stare at the harsh lights with eyes that found it more and more difficult to keep awake, and suddenly the sweetness of hope broke over him, and he caught Amy close and put his face against the black softness of her hair.
The movement awoke her from a light sleep, and she opened her eyes to see above her the face that had come to her in the dream in London. It was smiling at her, as it had smiled then, but now the eyes were wet.
“It’s you,” she murmured, putting up her fingers and gently touching his cheek. “How lovely. I was dreaming.”
“Go to sleep again, darling. I will, too.”
And the last thing she saw, before she lay down beside him and fell into sleep as deep and peaceful as his own, was his arm stretched over her head to put out the light. The long cool wind from the sea, blowing the torn paper along the deserted streets in the blue light of early morning, did not awaken them.