Part 1 (2/2)
”Well, how long will you give me?” he asked in a strained voice.
”Six months,” said Greyerson, miserably avoiding his eye.
”Three,” Hartt corrected jerkily.
”Perhaps....” The proprietor of the last word stroked his chin with a contemplative air.
”Thanks,” said Whitaker, without irony. He stood for an instant with his head bowed in thought. ”What a d.a.m.ned outrage,” he observed thoughtfully. And suddenly he turned and flung out of the room.
Greyerson jumped to follow him, but paused as he heard the crash of the street door. He turned back with a twitching, apologetic smile.
”Poor devil!” he said, sitting down at his desk and fis.h.i.+ng a box of cigars from one of the drawers.
”Takes it hard,” commented Hartt.
”You would, too, at his age; he's barely twenty-five.”
”Must feel more or less like a fellow whose wife has run off with his best friend.”
”No comparison,” said Bushnell bluntly. ”Go out, get yourself arrested for a brutal murder you didn't commit, get tried and sentenced to death within six months, the precise date being left to the discretion of the executioner--_then_ you'll know how he feels.”
”If you ask me”--Greyerson handed round the box--”he feels pretty shaky and abused, and he wants a drink badly--the same as me.”
He unlocked a cellaret.
”Married?” Hartt inquired.
”No. That's the only mitigating circ.u.mstance,” said Greyerson, distributing gla.s.ses. ”He's quite alone in the world, as far as I know--no near relatives, at least.”
”Well off?”
”Tolerably. Comes of good people. Believe his family had a lot of money at one time. Don't know how much of it there was left for Whitaker. He's junior partner in a young law firm down-town--senior a friend or cla.s.smate of his, I understand: Drummond & Whitaker. Moves with the right sort of people. Young Stark--Peter Stark--is his closest friend.... Well.... Say when.”
II
THE LAST STRAW
Greyerson was right in his surmise as to Hugh Whitaker's emotions. His soul still numb with shock, his mind was altogether preoccupied with petulant resentment of the unfairness of it all; on the surface of the stunning knowledge that he might count on no more than six months of life, floated this thin film of sensation of personal grievance. He had done nothing to deserve this. The sheer brutality of it....
He felt very shaky indeed.
He stood for a long time--how long he never knew--bareheaded on a corner, just as he had left Greyerson's office: scowling at nothing, considering the enormity of the wrong that had been put upon him. Later, realizing that people were staring, he clapped on his hat to satisfy them and strode aimlessly down Sixth Avenue. It was five o'clock in the afternoon of a day late in April--a raw, chilly, dark, unseasonable brute of a day. He found himself walking fast, instinctively, to keep his blood in warm circulation, and this struck him as so inconsistent that presently he stopped short and snarled at himself:
”You blithering fool, what difference does it make whether you're warm or cold? Don't you understand you're going to die within half a year?”
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