Part 11 (1/2)

”No,” peremptorily; ”all--for the present at least. It's four o'clock of the afternoon, you know, and the neighbors have eyes like--Look at the sun s.h.i.+ne!... You've scared away the wren too, and the brood is hungry.

Besides it's time to begin dinner. Cooks shouldn't be hindered ever.” She turned toward the door decisively. ”You may stay if you don't bother again,” she smiled over her shoulder. ”Meanwhile there's a new 'Life' and a July 'Century,'--you know where,” and with a final smile she was gone.

CHAPTER V

CERTAINTY

Four months had drifted by; again the University was in full swing.

Of an evening in late October at this time, in the common living-room which joined the two private rooms in the suite occupied by himself and Darley Roberts, Stephen Armstrong was alone. It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and he had come in directly after dinner, ample time to have prepared his work for the next day; but as yet he had made no move in that direction. On the roll-top desk, with its convenient drop light, was an armful of reference books and two late scientific magazines. They were still untouched, however, bound tight by the strap with which they had been carried.

But one sign of his prolonged presence was visible in the room. That, a loose pile of ma.n.u.script alternately hastily scribbled and painfully exact, told of the varying moods under which it had been produced;--that and a tiny pile of cigarette stumps in the nearby ash-tray, some scarcely lit and others burned to a tiny stump, which had become the ma.n.u.scripts' invariable companion.

For more than an hour now, however, he had not been writing. The night was frosty and he had lit the gas in the imitation fireplace. The open flame had proved compellingly fascinating and, once stretched comfortably in the big Turkish rocker before it, duty had called less and less insistently and there he had remained. For half an hour thereafter he had scarcely stirred; then, without warning, he had risen. On the mantel above the grate was a collection of articles indigenous to a bachelor's den: a box half filled with cigars, a jar of tobacco, a collection of pipes, a cut-gla.s.s decanter shaded dull red in the electric light. It was toward the latter that he turned, not by chance but with definite purpose, and without hesitation poured a whiskey gla.s.s level full. There was no attendant siphon or water convenient and he drank the liquor raw and returned the gla.s.s to its place. It was not the quasi-aesthetic tippling of comradery but the deliberate drinking of one with a cause, real or fancied, therefor and for its effect; and as he drank he s.h.i.+vered involuntarily with the instinctive aversion to raw liquor of one to whom the action has not become habitual. Afterward he remained standing for a moment while his eyes wandered aimlessly around the familiar room. As he did so his glance fell upon the pile of text-books, mute reminder of a lecture yet unprepared, and for an instant he stood undecided. With a characteristic shrug of distaste and annoyance, of dismissal as well, he resumed his seat, his slippered feet spread wide to catch the heat.

Another half-hour pa.s.sed so, the room silent save for the deliberate ticking of a big wall clock and the purr of the gas in the grate; at last came an interruption: the metallic clicking of a latch key, the tramp of a man's feet in the vestibule, and Darley Roberts entered. A moment after entering the newcomer paused attentive, his glance taking in every detail of the all too familiar scene; deliberately, as usual, he hung up his top-coat and hat.

”Taking it comfortable-like, I see,” he commented easily as he pulled up a second chair before the grate. ”Knocked off for the evening, have you?”

”Knocked off?” Armstrong shrugged. ”I hardly know. I haven't knocked on yet. I'm stuck in the mud, so to speak.”

Roberts drew the customary black cigar from his waistcoat pocket and clipped the end methodically. As he did so, apparently by chance, his glance swept the mantel above the grate, and, returning, took in the testimony of the desk with its unopened text-books and pile of scattered ma.n.u.script. Equally without haste he lit a match and puffed until the weed was well aglow.

”Any a.s.sistance a friend can give?” he proffered directly. ”We all get tangled at times, I guess. At least every one I know does.”

Armstrong's gaze left the fire and fastened on his companion peculiarly.

”Do you yourself?” he asked bluntly.

”Often.”

”That's news. I fancied you were immune. What, if I may ask, do you do at such times to effect your release?”

”Go to bed, ordinarily, and sleep while the mud is drying up. There's usually a big improvement by morning.”

”And when there isn't--”

Roberts smiled, the tight-jawed smile of a fighter.

”It's a case of pull, then; a pull as though Satan himself were just behind and in hot pursuit. Things are bound to give if one pulls hard enough.”

Armstrong's face returned to the grate. His slippered feet spread wider than before.

”I'm not much good at pulling,” he commented.

Roberts sat a moment in silence.

”I repeat, if I can be of any a.s.sistance--” he commented. ”No b.u.t.ting in, you understand.”

”Yes, I understand, and thank you sincerely. I doubt if you can help any though--if any one can. It's the old complaint mostly.”