The Thread of Flame

Chapter 9

We got back to New York in time for me to begin the parade of the hotels. Taking this task seriously, I selected the biggest and made myself conspicuous by keeping on my feet.

For three days nothing happened except within myself. This focusing of men and women into vast assemblies from four to seven every afternoon began to strike me as the counterpart of the gatherings I was watching each day between twelve and one on the pavements of Fifth Avenue. Though the activities were different, the same obscure set of motives seemed to lie behind both. In both there was the impulse to crowd densely together, as if promiscuity was a source of excitement. In both there was a vacuity that was not purposeless. In both there was a suggestion of the sleeping wild beast. While in the one case the accompaniment was the inchoate uproar of the streets, in the other it was an orchestra that jazzed with the monotonous incitement of Oriental tom-toms, nagging, teasing, tormenting the wild beast to get up and show his wildness. Across tea-rooms or between arcades one could see couples dancing in a languorous semi-paralysis of which the fascination lay in a hint of barbaric shamelessness. Barbaric shamelessness marked the huge shaven faces of most of the men and the kilts of most of the women. I mention these details only to point out that to me, after my mysterious absence, they indicated a socially new America.

It was the fourth afternoon when, drifting with the crowd through a corridor lined with tables at which small parties were having tea, I felt the long-expected tap on my shoulder.

In the interval too brief to reckon before turning round two possibilities were clear in my mind. The unknown crime from which I was running away might have found me outor some friend had come to my deliverance. Either event would be welcome, for even if it were arrest I should learn my name and history.

"Hello, old chap! Come and have some tea."

I was disappointed. It was only Boyd Averill. Behind him his wife and sister were seated at one of the little tables. It was the sort of invitation one couldn't refuse, especially as they saw I was strolling without purpose.

It was Mrs. Averill who talked, in the bored voix tranante of one who has everything the world can give, except what she wants most. I had seen before that she was a beautiful woman, but never so plainly as nowa woman all softness and dimpling curves, with the same suggestions of the honeyed and melting and fatigued in her glances that you got from the inflection of her sentences.

She explained that they had come from a song recital in the great hall up-stairs. It was given at this unusual time of the year by a well-known singer who was passing through New York on her way to Australia. With this interruption she continued the criticism she had been making when I sat down, and which dealt with certain phrases in a songGoethe's "Ueber allen Gipfeln."

"The Schubert setting?" I asked, after informing Miss Averill as to how I should have my tea.

"No, the Hugo Wolff."

I began to hum in an undertone: "'Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh; in allem Wipfeln hrest du kaum einen Hauch.' Is that the one?"

The ladies exchanged glances; Averill kept his eyes on my face.

"Yes, that's the one," Mrs. Averill said, as if nothing unusual had happened. "So you sing."

"No; II just know the song. I'veI've heard a good deal of music at one time and another."

"Abroad?"

"Yesabroadand here."

"Where especially here?"

"Oh, New YorkBostonChicagodifferent places." I did my best to be vague.

I noticed for the first time then a shade of wistfulness in Mildred Averill's brown eyes as she said:

"You seem to have moved about a good deal."

"Oh yes. I wantedI wanted to see what was happening."

"And you saw it?"

Averill asked me that, his gaze still fixed on me thoughtfully.

"Enough for the present."

There was a pause of some seconds during which I could hear the unuttered question of all three, "Why don't you tell us who you are?" It was a kindly question, with nothing but sympathy behind it. It was, in fact, a tacit offer of friendship, if I would only take it up. More plainly than they could have expressed themselves in words, it said: "We like you. We are ready to be your friends. Only give us the least little bit of encouragement. Link yourself up with something we know. Don't be such a mystery, because mystery breeds suspicion."

When I let it go by Mildred Averill began to talk somewhat at random. She didn't want that significant silence to be repeated. I had had my chance and I hadn't taken it. Very well, my reasons would be respected, but I couldn't keep people from wondering. That was what I knew she was saying, though her actual words referred to our expedition of a few days previously.

And of that she spoke with an intonation that associated me with herself. She and I had taken two nice young people of the working-classes for an outing. Let me hasten to say that there was no condescension in what she said; condescension wasn't in her; there was only the implication that whatever the ground she stood on, I stood on that ground, too. She threw out a hint that as New York in these September days was barely waking from its summer lethargy, and there was little to fill time, we might all four do the same again.

In this she was reserved, nunlike, yetwhat shall I say? What is there to say when a woman betrays what very few people perceive and one isn't supposed to know to be there? There is a decoration on certain old Chinese porcelains which you can only see in special lights. A vase or a bowl may be of, let us say, a rich green monochrome. You may look at the thing a thousand times and nothing but the monochrome will be visible. Then one day the sun will strike it at a special angle, or the light may otherwise be what the artist did his work for, and beneath the green you will discern dragons or chrysanthemums in gold. Somewhat in that way the real Mildred Averill came out and withdrew, withdrew and came out, not so much according to changes in her as according to changes in the person observing her. When you saw her from one point of view she was diffident, demure, not colorless, but all of one color like a rare piece of monochrome. When you looked at her from another you saw the golden dragons and chrysanthemums. You might not have understood what they symbolized, but this much at least you would have knownthat the gold was the gold of fire, all the more dangerous, perhaps, because it was banked down.

That in this company, with its batteries of tacit inquiry turned on me all the while I took my tea, I was uneasy will go without saying, and so I took the earliest possible opportunity to get up and slip away. I did not slip away, however, before Mrs. Averill had asked me to lunch on the following Sunday, and I had been forced into accepting the invitation. I had been forced because she wouldn't take no for an answer. She wanted to talk about music; she wanted to sing to me; in reality, as I guessed then, and soon came to know, she was determined to wring from me, out of sheer curiosity, the facts I wouldn't confide of my own accord.

But having accepted the invitation, I saw that there were advantages in doing so. Once back in the current to which I belonged, I should have more chances of the recognition for which I was working. The social life of any country runs in streams like those we see pictured on isothermal charts. The same kind of people move in the same kind of medium from north to south, and from east to west. If you know one man there you will soon know another, till you have a chain of acquaintances, all socially similar, right across the continent. That I had such a chain I didn't doubt for an instant; my only difficulty was to get in touch with it. As soon as I did that each name would bring up a kindred name, till I found myself swimming in my native channel, wherever it was, like a fish in the Gulf Stream, whether off the coast of Norway or off that of Mexico.

So I came to the conclusion that I had done right in ceding to Mrs. Averill's insistence, though it occurred to me on second thoughts that I should need another suit of clothes. That I had was well enough for knockabout purposes, especially when carried off with some amount of bluff; but the poverty of its origin would become too evident if worn on all occasions. I had seen at the emporium that by spending more money and putting on only a slightly enhanced swagger I could make a much better appearance in the eyes of those who didn't examine me too closely. I decided that the gain would warrant the extravagance.

Within ten days of my landing, therefore, my nearly four hundred dollars had come down to nearly two, though I had the consolation of knowing that my chances of soon getting at my bank-account were better. At any minute now my promenades in the hotels might be rewarded, while conversation with the Averills would sooner or later bring up names with which I should have associations.

It was disconcerting then, on the following Sunday, to be received with some constraint. It was the more disconcerting in that the coldness came from Averill himself. He strolled into the hall while I was putting down my hat and stick, shaking hands with the peculiar listlessness of a man who disapproves of what is happening. As hitherto I had found him interested and cordial, I couldn't help being struck by the change.

"You see how we are," he observed, pointing to an open packing-case. "Not up to the point of having guests; but Mrs. Averill"

"Mrs. Averill was too kind to me to think of inconveniences to herself."

"Just come up to the library, will you, and I'll tell her you're here."

It was a way of getting rid of me till his wife could come and assume her own responsibilities.

So long a time had passed since I had seen the interior of an American house of this order that I took notes as I made my way up-stairs. Out of the unsuspected resources of my being came the capacity to do it. Most people on entering a house see nothing but its size. A background more or less elaborately furnished may be in their minds, but they have not the knowledge to enable them to seize details. The careful arrangement of taste is all one to them with some nondescript, haphazard jumble.

In this dwelling, in one of the streets off Fifth Avenue, on the eastern side of Central Park, I found the typical home of the average wealthy American. Money had been spent on it, but with a kind of helplessness. Helplessness had designed the house, as it had planned, or hadn't planned, the street outside.

A square hall contained a few monumental pieces of furniture because they were monumental. A dining-room behind it was full of high-backed Italian chairs because they were high-backed and Italian. The stairs were built as they were because the architect had not been able to avoid a dark spot in the middle of the house and the stairs filled it. On the floor above a glacial drawing-room in white and gold, with the furniture still in bags, ran the width of the back of the house, while across the front was the library into which I was shown, spacious, cheerful, with plenty of books, magazines, and easy-chairs. In the way of pictures there were but twomodern portraits of a man and a woman, whom I had no difficulty in setting down as the father and mother of Averill. Of the mother I knew nothing except that she had been a school-teacher; of the father Miss Blair had given me the detailed history as told in Men Who Have Made New Jersey.

Hubbard Averill was the son of a shoemaker in Elizabeth. On leaving school at fifteen he had the choice of going into a grocery store as clerk or as office-boy into a bank. He chose the bank. Ten years later he was teller. Five years after that he was cashier. Five years after that he had the same position in a bank of importance in Jersey City. Five years after that he was recognized as one of the able young financiers in the neighborhood of New York. Before he was fifty his name was honored by those who count in Wall Street. It was the history of most of the successful American bankers I had ever heard of.

There was no packing-case in the library, but a number of objects recently unpacked stood round about on tables, waiting to be disposed of. There was a little Irish glass, with much old porcelain and pottery, both Chinese and European. I had not the time to appraise the things with the eye before Miss Averill slipped in.

She wore a hat, and, dressed in what I suppose was tan-colored linens, she seemed just to have come in from the street.

"My sister will be down in a minute. She's generally late on Sunday. I've been good and have been to church."

We sat down together on a window-seat, with some self-consciousness on both sides. I noticed again that, though her hair was brown, her eyebrows and long curving lashes were black, striking the same discreet yet obscurely dangerous note as the rest of her personality. In the topaz of her eyes there were little specks of gold like those in her chain of amber beads.

After a little introductory talk she began telling me of the help Miss Blair was giving Drinkwater. She had begun to teach him what she called "big stenography." Shorthand and the touch system were included in it, as well as the knack of transcribing from the dictaphone. Boyd had bought a machine on purpose for them to practise with, looking forward to the day when Harry should resume his old job connected with laboratory work.

"And what's to become of Miss Blair?"

My companion lowered her fine lashes, speaking with the seeming shyness that was her charm.

"I'm thinking of asking her to come and live with me. You see, if I take a house of my own I shall need some one; and she suits me. She understands the kind of people I like to work among"

"Oh, then you're not going to keep on living here."

"I've lived with my brother and sister ever since my father died; but one comes to a time when one needs a home of one's own. Don't you think so?"

"Oh, of course!"

"A manlike you, for instancecan be so free; but a woman has to live within exact limitations. The only way she can get any liberty at all is within her own home. Not that my brother and sister aren't angelic to me. They are, of course; but you know what I mean." The glance that stole under her lashes was half daring and half apologetic. "It must be wonderful to do as one likesto experiment with different sorts of lifeand get to know things at first hand."

So that was her summing up concerning me. I was one of those moderns with so keen a thirst for life that I was testing it at all its springs. She didn't know my ultimate intention, but she could sympathize with my methods and admire my courage and thoroughness. Almost in so many words she said if she had not been timid and hedged in by conventions it was what she would have liked herself.

Before any one came to disturb us there seeped through her conversation, too, the reason of Averill's coldness. They had discussed me a good deal, and while he had nothing to accuse me of, he considered that the burden of the proof of my innocence lay with me. I might be all rightand then I might not be. So long as there was any question as to my probity I was a person to watch with readiness to help, but not one to ask to luncheon. He would not have invited me to tea a few days before, and had allowed me to pass and repass before ceding to his wife's persistence. He had consequently been the more annoyed when she carried her curiosity to the point of bringing me there that day.

Miss Averill did not, of course, say these things; she would have been amazed to know that I inferred them. I shouldn't have inferred them had I not seen her brother and partially read his mind.

But my hostess came trailing inthe verb is the only one I can find to express her gracefully lymphatic movementsand I was obliged to submit to a welcome which was overemphasized for the benefit of the husband who entered behind her.

"We're really not equipped for having any one come to us," she apologized. "We're scarcely unpacked. We're going to move from this house anyhow when we can find another. It's so poky. If we're to entertain again" She turned to her sister: "Mildred dear, couldn't some one have cleared these things away?" Waving her hand toward the array of potteries and porcelains, she continued to me: "One buys such a lot during two or three years abroad, doesn't one? I'm sure Mrs. Soames must feel the way I do, that she doesn't know where to put the things when she's got them home."

I knew the reason for the reference which others were as quick to catch as I, and, in the idiom of the moment, tried to "side-step" it by saying:

"That's a good thingthat Rouen saladier. You don't often pick up one of that shape nowadays."

"I saw it in an old shop at Dreux," Mrs. Averill informed me, in her melting tone. "I got this pair of Ming vases there, too. At least, they said they were Ming; but I don't suppose they are. One is so taken in. But I liked them, whatever they are, and so"

She lifted one up and brought it to mea dead-white jar, decorated with green foliage, violet-blue flowers, and tiny specks of red fruit.

Something in me leaped. I took the vase in my hand as if it had been a child of my flesh and blood. I was far from thinking of my hearers as I said:

"It's not Ming; but it's very good K'ang-hsi.'"

I had thrown another little bomb into their camp, but it surprised them no more than it did me. A trance medium who hears himself speaking in a hitherto unknown tongue could not have been more amazed at his own utterance. I went on talking, not to give them information, but to listen for what I should say next.

They had all three drawn near me. "How can you tell?" Miss Averill asked, partly in awe at my knowledge, and partly to give me the chance to display it.

"Oh, very much as you can tell the difference between a hat you wear this year and one you wore five years ago. The styles are quite different. Ming corresponds roughly to the Tudor period in English history, and K'ang-hsi to the earlier Stuartswith much the same distinction as we get between the output of those two epochs. Ming is older, bolder, stronger, rougher, with a kind of primitive force in it; K'ang-hsi is the product of a more refined civilization. It has less of the instinctive and more deliberate selection. It is more finishedmore self-conscious." I picked up the Rouen salad-dish and a Svres cup and saucer, putting them side by side. "It's something like the difference between thesestrength and color and dash in the one, and in the other a more elaborately perfected art. You couldn't be in any doubt, once you'd been in the habit of seeing them."

Mrs. Averill's question was as natural and spontaneous as laughter.

"Where have you seen them so much, Mr. Soames?"

"Oh, a little everywhere," I managed to reply, just as we were summoned to luncheon.

At table we talked of the pleasures of making "finds" in old European cities. I had evidently done a lot of it, for I could deal with it in general quite fluently. When they pinned me down with a question as to details I was obliged to hedge. I could talk of The Hague and Florence and Strasbourg and Madrid as backgrounds, but I could never picture myself to myself as walking in their streets.

That, however, was not evident to my companions, and as Mrs. Averill's interests lay along the line of ceramic art I was able to bring out much in the way of connoisseurship which did not betray me. With Averill himself I scored a point; with Mildred Averill I scored many. With Mrs. Averill, beneath a seeming ennui that grew more languorous, I quickened curiosity to the fever-point.

"What a lot of things you must have, Mr. Soames."

My refuge being always in the negative, I said, casually: "Oh no! One doesn't have to own things just because one admires them."

"But you say yourself that you've picked them up"

As she had nearly caught me here I was obliged to wriggle out. "Oh, to give awayand that kind of thing."

Averill's eyes were resting on me thoughtfully. "Sell?"

"No; I've never sold anything like that."

"But what's the use," Mrs. Averill asked, "of caring about things when you can't have them? I should hate it."

"Only that there's nothing you can't have."

"Do you hear that, Boyd?" I caught the impulse of the purring, velvety thing to vary the monotony of life by scratching. "Mr. Soames says there's nothing I can't have. Much he knows, doesn't he?"

"There's nothing you can't havewithin reason, dear."

"Ah, but I don't want things within reason. I want them out of reason. I want to be like Mr. Soamesfreefree"

"You can't be free and be a married woman."

"You can when you have a vocation, can't you, Mr. Soames? I suppose Mr. Soames is a married manand look at him." She hurried beyond this point, to add: "And look at Sydna, whom we heard the other afternoon! She's a married woman and her husband lives in London. He lets her sing. He lets her travel. He leads his life and lets her ... Mr. Soames, what do you think?"

I said, tactfully, "I shall be able to judge better when you've sung to me."

Miss Averill, taking up the thread of the conversation here, we got through the rest of the luncheon without treading in difficult places, and presently I was alone with Averill, who was passing the cigars.

The constraint which had partially lifted during the conversation at luncheon fell again with the departure of the ladies. I had mystified them more than ever; and mystery does not make for easy give and take in hospitality. To Averill himself his hospitality was sacred. To entertain at his own board a man with no credentials but those which an adventurer might present was the source of a discomfort that amounted to unhappiness. He couldn't conceal it; he didn't care to conceal it. While fulfilling all that courtesy required of a host, he was willing to let me see it. I saw it, and could say nothing, since he might easily be right; and an adventurer I might be.

As, with his back to the open doorway into the hall, he sat down with his own cigar, I felt that he was saying to himself, "I wish to God you were not in this house!" I myself was responding silently by wishing the same thing.

It was the obvious minute at which to tell him everything. I saw that as plainly as you do. Had I made a clean breast of it I should have become one of the most interesting cases of his experience. Such instances of shell-shock were just beginning to be talked about. The term was finding its way into the newspapers and garnishing common speech. Though I knew of no connection between my misfortunes and the Great War, I could have made shift to furnish an illustration of this new phase among its tragedies.

During a pause in our stilted speech I screwed myself up to the point. "There's something" But his attention was distracted for the moment, and when it came back to me I couldn't begin again. No! I could fight the thing through on my own; but that would be my utmost. A confession of breakdown was impossible.

Then, all at once, I got a glimpse of what was in the back of his mind, though something else happened simultaneously, of which I must tell you first. Into the open space between the portieres behind him there glided a little figure clad in amber-colored linen, the monochrome with the sun-spots beneath it. She didn't speak, for the reason that Averill spoke first.

"You're" He struck a match nervously to relight his cigar"you're aa married man?"

Once more negation had to be my refuge. If I admitted that I was he might ask me whom I had married, and when, and where. I spoke with an emphasis that sprang not from eagerness of denial, but from anxiety that the topic shouldn't be discussed.

"No."

The question and answer followed so swiftly on Mildred Averill's arrival on the threshold that she caught them both. Little sparks of gold shone in the brown pools of her eyes, and her smile took on a new shade of vitality.

"Boyd, Lulu wants you to bring your cigars up-stairs. The coffee is there, and she'd like to talk to Mr. Soames about the old Chinese things before she begins to sing."

He jumped to his feet. He was not less constrained, but some of his uneasiness had passed. I could read what was in his mind. If the worst came to the worst I was at least a single man; and the worst might not come to the worst. There might be ways of getting rid of me before his sister...

He led the way up-stairs. I followed with Miss Averill, saying I have forgotten what. I have forgotten it because, as we crossed the low-ceiled hall with its monumental bits of furniture, two gleaming eyes stood over me like sentinels in the air.