The Thread of Flame

Chapter 6

Beyond this point I had made no progress when we landed in New York. I still knew myself as Jasper Soames. Miss Blair still suspected that I was running away from justice. That I was running away from justice I suspected myself, since how could I do otherwise? All the way up the Bay I waited for that tap on my shoulder which I could almost have welcomed for the reason that it would relieve me of some of my embarrassments.

Those embarrassments had grown more entangling throughout the last days of the voyage. The very good-will of the people about me increased the complications in which I was finding myself involved. Every one asked a different set of questions, the answers I gave being not always compatible with each other. I didn't exactly lie; I only replied wildlytrying to guard my secret till I could walk off the boat and disappear from the ken of these kindly folk who did nothing but wish me well.

I accomplished this feat, I am bound to confess, with little credit; but credit was not my object. All I asked was the privilege of being alone, with leisure to take stock of my small assets and reckon up the possibilities before me. As it was incredible that a man such as I was could be lost on the threshold of his home I needed all the faculties that remained to me in order to think out the ways and means by which I could be found.

So alone I found myself, though not without resorting to ruses of which I was even then ashamed.

It was Miss Blair who scared me into them. Coming up to me on deck, during the last afternoon on board, she said, casually:

"Going to stay awhile in New York?"

It was a renewal of the everlasting catechism, so I said, curtly:

"I dare say."

"Oh, don't be huffy! Looking for a job?"

"Later, perhaps; not at once."

In her smile, as her eye caught mine, there was a visible significance. "You'll be a good kid, wont you? You'llyou'll keep on the level?"

I made a big effort on my own part, so as to see how she would take it. "If I'm not nabbed going up the Bay."

"Oh, you won't be. It can't be asas bad as all that. Even if it was" She left this sentiment for me to guess at while she went on. "Where do you expect to stay?"

I was about to name one of New York's expensive hotels when it occurred to me that she would burst out laughing at the announcement, she would take it as a joke. I realized then that it struck me also as a joke. It was incongruous not only with my appearance, but with my entire rle throughout the trip. I ended by replying that I hadn't made up my mind.

"Well, then, if you're looking for a place"

"I can't say that I'm that."

"Or if you should be, I've given Harry Drinkwater a very good address."

It was only a rooming-house, she explained to me, but for active people the more convenient for that, and with lots of good cafs in the neighborhood. She told me of one in particularAlfonso was the name of the restaurateurwhere one could get a very good dinner, with wine, for seventy-five cents, and an adequate breakfast for forty. Moreover, Miss Blair had long known the lady who kept the rooming-house in question, a friend of her mother's she happened to be, and any one whom she, Lydia Blair, sent with her recommendation would find the place O.K.

I was terrified. I didn't mean to go to this well-situated dwelling, "rather far west" in Thirty-fifth Street; I only had visions of being wafted there against my will. So much had happened in which my will had not been consulted that I was afraid of the kindliest of intentions. When at dinner that evening Miss Mulberry apologized across the table for her coldness toward me during the trip, ascribing it to a peculiarity of hers in never making gentlemen friends till sure they were gentlemen, and offering me her permanent address, I resolved that after that meal none of the whole group should catch another glimpse of me.

For this reason I escaped to my cabin directly after dinner, packed my humble belongings, and went to bed. When, toward eleven, Drinkwater came down, putting the question, as he stumbled in, "'Sleep, Jasper?" I replied with a faint snore. For the last two or three days he had been scattering Jaspers throughout his sentences, and I only didn't ask him to give up the practice because of knowing that with men of his class familiarity is a habit. Besides, it would be all over in a few days, so that I might as well take it patiently.

And yet I was sorry that it had to be so, for something had made me like him. During the days of the equinoctial bad weather it had fallen to me to steer him about the staggering ship, and one is naturally drawn to anything helpless. Then, too, of all the men to whom I ever lent a hand he was the most demonstrative. He had a boy's way of pawing you, of sprawling over you, of giving your hand little twitches, or affectionate squeezes to your arm. There was no liberty he wouldn't take; but when he took them they didn't seem to be liberties. If I betrayed a hint of annoyance he would pat me on any part of my person he happened to touch, with some such soothing words as:

"There, there, poor 'ittle Jasper! Let him come to his muvverums and have his 'ittle cry."

But I had to turn my back on him. There was no help for it. I understood, however, that people in his class were less sensitive to discourtesy than those in mine. They were used to it. True, he was blind; but then it was not to be expected that I should look after every blind man I happened to run against in traveling. Besides all this, I had made up my mind what I meant to do, and refused to discuss it further even with myself.

He was hoisting himself to the upper bunk when he made a second attempt to draw me.

"You'll have people to meet you to-morrow morning?"

"Oh, I suppose so," I grunted, sleepily. "Some of 'em will be there." A second or two having passed, I felt it necessary to add, "Same with you, I suppose?"

He replied from overhead. "Sure! Two or three of the guys 'll be jazzing round the dock. There'll beaJackandaJimandawell, a pile of 'em." He was snuggling down into his pillow as he wound up with a hearty, "Say, Jasper, I'll beI'll be all rightI'll be fine."

Deciding that I wouldn't call this bluff, I turned and went to sleep. Up with dawn, I slipped out of the cabin before the blind man had stirred. Early rising got its reward in a morning of silver tissue. Silver tissue was flung over the Bay, woven into the air, and formed all we could see of the sky. Taking my place as far toward the bow as I could get, I watched till two straight lines forming a right angle appeared against the mist, after which, magical, pearly, spiritual, white in whiteness, tower in cloud, the great city began to show itself through the haze, like something born of the Holy Ghost.

Having nothing to carry but my bag and suitcase, I was almost the first on shore. So, too, I must have been the first of the passengers ready to leave the dock. But two things detained me, just as I was going to take my departure.

The first was fear. It came without warninga fear of solitude, of the city, of the danger of arrest, of the first steps to be taken. I was like a sick man who hasn't realized how weak he is till getting out of bed. I had picked up my bags after the custom-house officer had passed them, to walk out of the pen under the letter S, when the thought of what I was facing suddenly appalled me. Dropping my load to the dusty floor, I sank on the nearest trunk.

I have read in some English book of reminiscences the confession of dread on the part of a man released after fifteen years' imprisonment on first going into the streets. The crowds, the horses, the drays, the motors, the clamor and gang, struck him as horrific. For joining the blatant, hideous procession already moving from the dock I was no more equipped than Minerva would have been on the day when she sprang, full-grown and fully armed, from her father's head.

Looking up the long lines of pens, I could see Miss Blair steering Drinkwater from the gangway toward the letter D. I noticed his movements as reluctant and terrified. The din I found appalling even with the faculty of sight must have been menacing to him in his darkness. He was still trying to take it with a laugh, but the merriment had become frozen.

Seizing my two bags again, I ran up the line.

"Oh, you dear old kid!" Miss Blair exclaimed, as I came within speaking distance, "I'm sure glad to see you. I was afraid you'd been"

Knowing her suspicion, I cut in on her fear. "No; it didn't happen. Igot off the boat all right. II've just been looking after my things and ran back to see if there was anything I could do"

"Bless you! There's everything you can do. Harry's been crying for you like a baby for its nurse."

"Where is he?"

The words were his. Confused by the hub-bub, he was clawing in the wrong direction, so that the grab with which he seized me was like that of a strayed child on clutching a friendly hand.

In the end I was in a taxicab, bound for the rooming-house "rather far west" in Thirty-fifth Street, with my charge by my side.

"Say, isn't this the grandest!"

The accent was so sincere that I laughed. We were out in the sunlight by this time, plowing our way through the squalor.

"What's grand about it?"

"Oh, well, Miss Blair finding me that house to go toand you going along with meand the doctor coming to see me to-morrow to talk about a job"

"What job?"

"Oh, some job. There'll be one. You'll see. I've got the darnedest good luck a guy was ever born withall except my name."

"What about the fellows you said would be jazzing around the dock to meet you?"

I was sorry for that bit of cruelty before it had got into words. It was one of the rare occasions on which I ever saw his honest pug-face fall.

"Say, you didn't believe that, did you?"

"You said it."

"Oh, well, I say lots of things. Have to."

We jolted on till a block in the traffic enabled him to continue without the difficulty of speaking against noise. "Look here! I'm going to tell you something. It'sit's a secret."

"Then for Heaven's sake keep it."

"I want you to know it. I don't want to be your friend under false pretenses."

It seemed to me an opportunity to clarify the situation. We were on land. We were in New York. It was hardly fair to these good people to let them think that our association could continue on the same terms as at sea. Somewhere in the back of my strained mind was the fact that I had formerly classed myself as a snob and had been proud of the appellation. That is, I had been fastidious as to whom I should know and whom I should not know. I had been an adept in the art of cutting those who had been forced or had forced themselves upon me, and had regarded this skill as an accomplishment. Finding myself on board ship, and in a peculiar situation, I had carried myself as a gentleman should, even toward Mr. Finnegan and Miss Mulberry.

That part had been relatively easy. It was more difficult to dispose of the kindly interest of the Averills. He had made more than one approach which I parried tactfully. Mrs. Averill had contented herself with disquieting looks from her almond eyes, though one day she had stopped me on deck with the condescending inquiries as to my health that one puts to a friend's butler. Miss Averill had been more directsensible, solicitous, and rich in a shy sympathy. One day, on entering the saloon, I found her examining some rugs which a Persian passenger was displaying in the interests of trade. Being called by her into council, I helped her to choose between a Herati and a Sarouk, the very names of which she had never heard. My connoisseurship impressed her. After that she spoke to me frequently, and once recommended the employment bureau of her Settlement, in case I were looking for work.

All this I had struggled with, sometimes irritated, sometimes grimly amused, but always ill at ease. Now it was over. I should never see the Averills again, and Drinkwater must be given to understand that he, too, was an incident.

"My dear fellow, there are no pretenses. We simply met on board ship, and because of youryour accident I'm seeing you to your door. That's all. It doesn't constitute friendship."

"You bet it does," was his unexpected rejoinder. "I'm not that kind at all. When a fellow's white with me, he's white. I'm not going to be ashamed of him. If you ever want any one to hold the sponge for you, Jasper"

I repeated stupidly, "Hold the sponge?"

"Go bail for youdo anything. I couldn't go bail for you on my own, of course; but I could hustle round and get some one to do it. Lydia Blair knows a lot of peopleand there's the doctor. Say, Jasper, I'm your friend, and I'm going to stand by the contract."

The taxi lumbered on again, while I was debating with myself as to what to say next, or whether or not to say anything. One thing was clear, that no matter what fate awaited me I couldn't have Drinkwater holding the sponge for me, nor could I appear in court, or anywhere else, with a man of his class as my backer.

We were lurching into Broadway when he grasped me suddenly by the arm, to say:

"Look here, Jasper! To show what I think of you I'm going to make you listen to that secret. II wasn't expecting any one to meet me. There's no one to meet me. Do you get that?"

I said that I got it, but found nothing peculiar in the situation.

"Oh, but there is, though. I've gotI've got no friendsnot so much as a father or a mother. I never did have. I wasI was left in a basket on a door-step-twenty-three years agoand brought up in an orphans' home in Texas. There, you've got it straight! I've passed you up the one and only dope on Harry Drinkwater, and any guy that's afraid he can't be my friend without wearing a dress-suit to breakfast"

It was so delicate a method of telling me that I was as good as he was that it seemed best to let the subject of our future relations drop. They would settle themselves when I had carried out the plan that had already begun to dawn in me.