Part 10 (1/2)
Elice Gleason joined in the laugh sympathetically. The other's good spirits was irresistible.
”You seem to have been gathering valuable data,” she commented drily.
”I have indeed. I couldn't well help it. I was even forced into the conviction that it was intended I should so gather.” He smiled into his companion's eyes whimsically. ”They're deep, those Randalls. After all is said I fancy my a.s.sistance was acquired not so much from any desire to save as to point a valuable object lesson; scatter the contagion, as it were.” He paused meaningly and smiled again. ”Elice mine, we're in grave danger, you and I. That worthy pair have designs upon our future. They are in the position of a certain cla.s.s, famed in adage, who desire company. The dinner is only another ill.u.s.tration of the same point.”
Elice Gleason returned the smile, but quietly. She made no further comment, however, and the subject dropped.
In the hammock Armstrong swung back and forth in lazy well-being.
Overhead the mother wren, a mere brown shadow, flitted in return over their heads. There was an instant's clamor from hidden fledglings, and silence as the shadow pa.s.sed back once more into the suns.h.i.+ne. Watching through half-closed eyes, comfortably whimsical, Armstrong gazed into s.p.a.ce where the shadow had vanished.
”What a responsibility the care of a family must be,” he commented, ”particularly in this hot weather. That wren certainly has my sympathy--and respect.” He paused to give the swinging hammock a fresh impulse. ”I wonder though,” he drifted on, ”that is, if it is permissible to tangle up a variety of thoughts, if it's any harder than it is to attempt to pull an idea out of one's self by the roots and work it up into readable form with the thermometer above ninety in the shade--I wonder.”
Elice Gleason was observing him now, peculiarly, understandingly.
”How is the book coming, anyway, Steve?” she asked directly.
”Which book?” smilingly.
”_The_ book, of course.”
”They're all _the_ books--or were at one time.” A trace, the first, of irony crept into his voice. ”To be specific, however, masterpiece number one has just completed its eighteenth round trip East, and is taking a deserved rest. Masterpiece number two is _en route_ somewhere between here and New York, either coming or going, on its eleventh journey.
Number three has only five tallies to its credit--but hope springs eternal. Number four, the baby, still adolescent, has temporarily halted in its growth while I succor a needy benedict friend in distress. I believe that covers the family.”
The characterization was typically nonsensical; but, sympathetic, the listener read between the sentences and understood.
”Isn't the new one coming well?” she asked low. ”Tell me, Steve, honest.”
”Coming well, Elice! What a question to ask of probably America's foremost living writer!” The speaker was still smiling. ”What reprehensible misgiving, suspicion even!” Sudden silence, wherein bit by bit the smile faded. Silence continued until in its place came a new expression, one that changed the boy's face absolutely, made it a man's face--and not a young one at that.
”Coming well, Elice?” he repeated. ”Honest, as you say, I don't know.”
The hammock had become still, but the speaker did not notice, merely lying there looking up into the suns.h.i.+ne and the blue unseeingly.
”Sometimes I think it is, and then again--if one could only know about such things, know, not hope--of course every writer in his own soul fancies--and his friends, for that matter, are just about as useful--”
The speaker drew himself together with a shrug. For an instant his jaw locked decisively.
”I know I'm more or less irresponsible, as a rule, Elice,” he a.n.a.lyzed swiftly, ”and probably create the impression that I'm even more irresponsible than I am; but in this thing, at least, I'm serious. From the bottom of my soul I want to write well, want to. As I said before, sometimes I think I can--auto-intoxication maybe it is, I don't know--and I'm as happy as a child, or a G.o.d, or a bird, or any completely happy thing you can fancy. Then again, as it's been the past week, or the past month for that matter, I don't seem to be able to do anything new. On top of this everything I've already done fairly personifies and leers at me.
I get so that I fairly hate myself for the utter failure that I am, that at least I have been so far. I get to a.n.a.lyzing myself; I can't help it, and the result isn't pleasant. I've been doing so lately. I don't overestimate myself in the least, Elice girl. Practically, commercially, I'm a zero. I'm simply not built that way. If I'm ever of any use in the world, ever amount to anything whatever, it will be in an impractical, artistic way. Whether I'll ever win out so--oh, for light, for light!...
Frankly, the new novel is going badly, Elice, cursedly bad!”
”I'm sorry, Steve. You know--”
”Yes, I know.”
”I've believed always, and still believe--”
”Yes, I know that too.”
”You've got it in you to win; I know it, and you know it. You've done good work already, lots of it, and--”