The Seventh Noon

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It might have been Italy for the blue of the sky and the caressing
warmth of the sun. They threw open the big window and in flooded the
perfume of lilacs and the twitter of sparrows, which is the nearest to
a bird song one can expect in New York. But after all, this was n't
New York; nor Spain; nor even the inner woods; it was just Here. And
Here is where the eyes of a man and a woman meet with spring in their
blood.

Griefs of loss, bitter, poignant; sorrows of mistakes, bruising,
numbing; the ache of disappointments, ingratitudes, betrayals,--Nature
surging on to her fulfillment sweeps them away, like fences before a
flood, allowing no obstructions to Youth's kinship with Spring. So the
young may not mourn long; so, if they do, they become no longer young.

The man and the woman might have been two care-free children for all
they were able to resist the magic of this fair morning or the subtler
magic of their own emotions.

To the man it suggested more than to the woman because he gave more
thought to it, but the woman absorbed more the spirit of it because she
more fully surrendered herself.

Donaldson found himself with a good appetite. There was nothing
neurotic about him. He was fundamentally normal--fundamentally
wholesome--with no trace of mawkishness in his nature. As he sipped
the hot golden-brown coffee, he tried to get at just what it was that
he felt when he now looked at her. It came to him suddenly and he
spoke it aloud,

"I seem to have, this minute, a fresher vision of life than I have
known since I was twenty."

It was something different from anything he had experienced up to now.
It was saner, clearer.

"It is the morning," she hazarded. "I never saw the grass so green as
it is this morning; I never felt the sun so warm."

"It is like the peace of the inner woods,--only brighter," he declared.

"You said such peace never came to any one unless alone."

"Did I?"

She nodded.

"But it _is_ like that," he insisted. "Only more joyous. I think it
is the extra joy in it that makes us not want it alone. Queer, too, it
seems to be born altogether of this spot, of this moment. Understand
what I mean? It does n't seem to go back of the moment we entered this
room and--," he hesitated, "it does n't seem to go forward."

"It is as though coming in here we had stepped into a beautiful picture
and were living inside the frame for a little," she suggested.

"Exactly. The frame is the hedge; the picture is the sky, the sun, and
you."

She laughed, frankly pleased in a childish way, at his conceit.

"Then for me," she answered, "it must be the sun, the sky, and _you_."

"We are n't trying to compliment each other, are we?"

"No," she answered seriously. "I hope not."

She went on after a moment's reflection,

"I have been puzzling over the strange chance that brought you into my
life at so opportune a time."

"I came because you believed in me and because you needed me. You
believed in me because--," he paused, his blood seeming suddenly to run
faster, "because I needed you."

"You needed me?"

"Yes," he answered, "I needed you. I needed you long ago."

"But how--why?"

"To show me the joy there is in the sunlight wherever it strikes; to
take me with you into this picture."

Their eyes met.

"Have I done that?" she asked.

"Yes."

She shook her head.

"I 'm afraid not," she disclaimed, "because the joy has n't been in my
own heart."

"Nor was it in mine--then."

Her eyes turned back to his. The silver in them came to the top like
the moon reflection on dark waters through fading clouds. He was
leaning a little towards her.

"It seems to be something that we can't get alone," he explained.

"Perhaps it is," she pondered, "perhaps."

She started back a little, as one who, lost in a sunset, leans too far
over the balcony. Then she smiled. Donaldson's heart answered the
smile.

"Your coffee is cooling," she said. "May I pour you some fresh?"

He passed his cup automatically. But the act was enough to bring him
back. A moment gone the room had grown misty. Something had made his
throat ache. He felt taut with a great unexpressed yearning. He
became conscious of his breakfast again. He sipped his hot coffee.

"I suppose," he reflected, "you ought to know something about me."

"I am interested," she answered, "but I don't think it matters much."

Again he saw in her marvelous eyes that look of complete confidence
that had thrilled him first on that mad ride. Again he realized that
there is nothing finer in the world. For a moment the room swam before
him at the memory of his doom. But her calm gaze steadied him at once.
He must cling to the Now.

"I have n't much I can tell you," he resumed. "My parents died when I
was young. They were New England farm-folk and poor. After I was left
alone, I started in to get an education without a cent to my name. It
took me fifteen years. I graduated from college and then from the law
school. I came here to New York and opened an office. That is all."

He waved his hand deprecatingly as though ashamed that it was so slight
and undramatic a tale. But she leaned towards him with sudden access
of interest.

"Fifteen years, and you did it all alone! You must have had to fight."

"In a way," he answered.

"Will you tell me more about it?" she asked eagerly.

"It's not very interesting," he laughed. "It was mostly a grind--just
a plain, unceasing grind. It was n't very exciting--just getting any
old job I could and then studying what time was left."

"And growing stronger every day--feeling your increasing power!"

"And my hunger, too, sometimes."

He tried to make light of it because he didn't wish her to become so
serious over it. He did n't like playing the part of hero.

"You did n't have enough to eat?" she asked in astonishment.

"You should have seen me watch Barstow's cake-box."

He told her the story, making it as humorous as he could. But when he
had finished, she wasn't laughing. For a moment his impulse was to lay
before her the whole story--the bitter climax, the ashen climax, which
lately he had thought so beautiful. She had said that nothing in the
past would matter--but this was of the future, too. Even if she ought
to know, he had no right to force upon her the burden of what was to
come. He found now that he had even cut himself off from the privilege
of being utterly honest with her. To tell her the whole truth might be
to destroy his usefulness to her. She might then scorn his help. He
must not allow that. Nothing could justify that.

"You are looking very serious," she commented.

Her own face had in the meanwhile grown brighter.

"It is all from within," he answered, "all from within. And--now
presto!--it is gone."

Truly the problem did seem to vanish as he allowed himself to become
conscious of the picture she made there in the sunshine. With her hair
down her back she could have worn short dresses and passed for sixteen.
The smooth white forehead, the exquisite velvet skin with the first
bloom still upon it, the fragile pink ears were all of unfolding
womanhood.

"Since my mother died," he said, "you are the first woman who has ever
made me serious."

"Have you been such a recluse then?"

"Not from principle. I have been a sort of office hermit by necessity."

"You should not have allowed an office to imprison you," she scolded.
"You should have gone out more."

"I have--lately."

"And has it not done you good?" she challenged, not realizing his
narrow application of the statement.

"A world of good."

"It brightens one up."

"Wonderfully."

"If we stay too much by ourselves we get selfish, don't we?"

"Intensely. And narrow-minded, and morbid, and petty and--," the words
came charged with bitterness, "and intensely foolish."

"I 'm glad you crawled out before you became all those things."

"You gave me a hand or I should n't."

"I gave you a hand?"

"Yea," he answered, soberly.

"Perhaps--perhaps this is another of the things that could n't have
happened to either of us alone."

"I think you are right," he answered.

He did not dare to look at her.

"Perhaps that is true of all the good things in the world," she
hazarded.

"Perhaps."

Once again the golden mist--once again the aching yearning.

The telephone jangled harshly. It was a warning from the world beyond
the hedge, the world they had forgotten.

The sound of it was to him like the savage clang of barbaric war-gongs.

With her permission he answered it himself. It was a message from his
man at the Waldorf.

"He's making an awful fuss, sir. He says as how he wants to go home.
I can hold him all right, only I thought I 'd let you know."

"Thanks, I 'll be right down."

"I 'd better go back to your brother," he said to her as he hung up the
receiver. "I want to have a talk with him before bringing him home."

Her eyes grew moist.

"How am I ever going to repay you for all you 've done?"

"You 've repaid me already," he answered briefly and left at once.

CHAPTER XVIII

_The Making of a Man_

Donaldson with hands in his pockets stood in front of Arsdale, who had
slumped down into a big leather chair, and admired his work. There was
much still to be done, but, comparing the man before him with the thing
he had brought in here some thirty hours before, the improvement was
most satisfactory. Arsdale, with trimmed hair and clean, shaven face,
in a new outfit from shoes to collar, and sane even if depressed, began
to look a good deal of a man.

"How do you feel now?" inquired Donaldson.

Arsdale hitched forward and resting his chin in his hands, elbows on
knees, stared at the floor.

"Like hell," he answered.

Donaldson frowned.

"You deserve to, but you oughtn't," he said.

"Oh, I deserve it all right. I deserve it--and more!"

"Yes, you do. But that does n't help any."

Arsdale groaned.

"There is n't any help. I 've made a beastly mess out of my life, out
of myself."

"I wish I could disagree, but I can't," answered Donaldson.

He walked up and down a moment before the fellow studying him. He was
worried and perplexed. The task before him was an unpleasant one. He
had to overcome a natural repugnance to interference in the life of
another. Under ordinary circumstances he would have watched Arsdale go
to his doom with a feeling of nothing but indifference. In his own
passion for individual liberty he neither demanded nor accepted
sympathy for personal misfortunes or mistakes, and in turn was loath to
trespass either upon the rights or duties of another, but his own life,
through the medium of the boy's sister, was so inextricably entangled
with this other that now he recognized the inevitability of such
interference. On his success or failure to arouse Arsdale largely
depended the happiness of the girl.

"No," he reflected aloud, "the question is n't how much punishment you
deserve, for the pain you suffer personally does n't, unfortunately,
remedy matters in the slightest. It wouldn't do you any good for me to
kick you about the room or I 'd do it. It would n't do you any good
for me to turn you over to the police or I 'd do that. You 're hard to
get hold of because there's so little left of you."

Arsdale made no reply. He remained motionless.

"But," continued Donaldson with emphasis, "that does n't make it any
the less necessary. You 've got to pull what is left together--you 've
got to play the man with what remains. You can't get all the
punishment you deserve and so you 've got to deserve less. This, not
for your own sake, but for the sake of the girl,--for the sake of the
girl you struck."

"Don't!"

Arsdale quailed. He glanced up at Donaldson with a look that made the
latter see again Barstow's dog Sandy as he had tottered in his death
throes. But the mere fact that the man quivered back from this
shameful thing was encouraging. It was upon this alone that Donaldson
based his hope, upon this single drop of uncorrupted Arsdale blood
which still nourished some tiny spot in the burned out brain.

"You must make such reparation as you can," continued Donaldson. "Your
life is n't long enough to do it fully, but you can accomplish
something towards it if you start at once."

Arsdale shook his head.

"It's all a beastly mess. It 's too late!"

Donaldson's lips tightened.

"Well," he asked, "if you are n't going to do what you can, what do you
propose?"

Thickly Arsdale answered,

"I know a way; I 'm going to pull out for the sake of Elaine!"

Donaldson started as at the cut of a whip-lash. Then he straightened
to meet face to face this new development. Somehow this contingency
had never occurred to him. Now for the moment it disarmed him, for it
brought him down, like a wounded bird, to the level of Arsdale himself.
As voiced by the latter the act expressed the climax of simpering
cowardice. Donaldson, in the first shock of finding himself included
in the same indictment with the very man for whom he had had so little
mercy, felt the same powerlessness that had paralyzed this other. He
was shorn of his strength. He blinked as stupidly at Arsdale as
Arsdale had blinked at him.

But even as he stood with loose lips before the infirm features of the
younger man, he realized that Arsdale's talk had been the chatter of a
child. He had used the phrase idly and, although it was possible he
might in just as idle a mood commit the act itself, Donaldson was
convinced that it was not yet a fixed idea. With this came the
inspiration which gave him a fresh grip upon himself, that revealed his
great opportunity; he would make Arsdale see all that he himself had
learned in these few days. So in reality he would be giving the best
of his life to another.

It was like oxygen to one struggling for breath through congested
lungs. He went to the window and in great deep-chested inhalations
stood for a moment drinking in not only the fresh air but with it the
spirit of the eager, turbulent world which was bathed in it, the world
that he now saw so clearly. The sun flashing from the neighboring
windows glinted its glad message of life; the rumbling of the passing
traffic roared it to him in a thundering message, like that of
shattered sea waves; the deep cello-like undernote of the city itself
sang it to him. And the message of all the voices was just, "It is
good to live! It is good to be!"

He turned back, seeing a new man in the chair before him. Here was a
brother--a brother in a truer sense than a better man could have been.
Coming from different directions, along different roads, through
different temptations, they had reached at last the crumbling edge of
the same dark chasm. They faced the same eternal problem. That made
them brothers. But Donaldson had already seen, already learned; that
made him the stronger brother.

His face was alight, his body alert, as he came to Arsdale's side. The
latter looked up at him in surprise, feeling his presence before he
saw. Donaldson's first words stirred him,

"You can't pull out," he said, "because you 're out already. You must
pull in. Don't you see,--you must pull back!"

"You don't understand what I mean."

"A great deal better than you yourself do. And in the light of that
understanding I tell you that you can't do it,--that it is n't the way."

"I 'm no good to any one," Arsdale complained dully. "I don't see why
it would n't be better for everyone if I just quit."

The word quit was a biting gnome to Donaldson.

"I know," he answered. "But it is n't right--all because you don't
know and you can't know what you 're quitting. You can't just look
around you and see. You wouldn't just be quitting the girl who perhaps
does n't need you, though you can't even tell that; you would n't be
quitting just your friends who can get along without you--though even
that is n't sure; you 'd be quitting the others, the unseen others, the
unknown others, who are waiting for you, perhaps a year from now,
perhaps twenty years from now, but in their need waiting for you. They
are waiting for you, understand, and for no one else. Just you, no
matter how weak you are, or how poor you are, or how worthless you are,
because it is you and no one else who will fit into their lives to help
complete them."

"I 'd bring nothing but trouble. I 've been no good to any one."

"You can't help being good to some one. Queer it sounds, but I believe
that's true. A man never lived, so mean that he didn't do good to some
one."

"You believe that?" demanded Arsdale.

"Yes. I know that. I know that, Arsdale!" he answered, his lips
tremulous, a deep-seated light in his eyes. "I know that you can't
possibly be so useless, so cowardly, so utterly bad, but what you 're
still more useless, still more of a coward, still worse when you quit!
Maybe we can't see how--maybe at the time we can't realize it, but it's
so. Some one will get at the good in us if we just fight along, no
matter how we may cover it up."

Arsdale straightened in his chair. His shaking fingers clutched the
chair arms. But the next second his face clouded.

"Tell me what good I 've done," he demanded aggressively.

Donaldson smiled. He could n't very well tell the man the details of
these last few days and what they meant to him, but they proved his
claim. Arsdale had been, if nothing else, a connecting link. It was
he, even this self-indulgent weakling, who had brought Donaldson to his
own, who had led Donaldson, through a series of self-revealing
incidents, to where he could stand quivering with the truth of life,
and give of his strength back to this man to pay the debt. Yes, he
knew what Arsdale had accomplished, and before he was through the
latter should feel its effect.

"Man," answered Donaldson almost solemnly, "you have done your
good--even you, in spite of yourself."

"But not to Elaine where I should have done most!"

Donaldson's hand rested a moment on Arsdale's shoulder.

"Yes," he said, "I like to think you have been of some service even to
her."

Arsdale rose to his feet.

"If I could think that--if I could look her in the eyes again!"

"Look her in the eyes! Keep those eyes before you! Never get where
those eyes can't follow you! And as you look take my word for it that
even there by a strange chance you 've done your good."

The man in Arsdale was at the top. For a second he faced Donaldson as
one man should face another. Then he tottered and fell back in his
chair, covering his face with his hands.

"It's too late," he groaned, "God, it's too late!"

Donaldson seized him by the shoulder and dragged him to his feet--not
in anger, not in contempt, but in his naked eagerness to make the man
see. Half supporting him, he drew him to the window. He threw it wide
open.

"Too late!" he cried, waving his hand at the brisk scene upon the
street. "Too late! It is n't too late so long as there's a living
world out there, so long as there's a man or a woman out there! It
isn't too late because there's work for you to do, work for others that
you 've shirked. What is it? I don't know, but it's there. Dig
around until you find it. Maybe to-day it was only to give a nickel to
the blind beggar at the corner, maybe it was only to help an old lady
across the street, maybe it was to do some kindness to your sister. I
don't know what it was, but I know it was something, and went undone
because of you."

Arsdale, leaning against the window-sill, strained towards Donaldson.

"That's a queer idea," he whispered hoarsely.

"And another thing," continued Donaldson, "tangled up with those duties
are all the joys of the world. You 've been looking for them somewhere
else--I 've been looking for them somewhere else--but it is n't any
use. They are right there with your duties--in the keeping of other
people, the unseen others. And they couldn't be bought, not with all
the gold in the world. They must be given if you get them at all."

Arsdale was listening eagerly. It was as much the spirit back of the
words as the words themselves that made him feel the stirring of a new
power which was a new hope.

"You!" he exclaimed. "You make a man feel that you know! But the
hellish smoke-hunger--you don't know anything of that."

"It's a part of the same hellish selfishness which eats the vitals out
of everything. Get out of yourself, get into the lives of others, and
the smoke-hunger will quit you. You could n't go down where you 've
been and made a beast of yourself if you cared more about others than
yourself. The power that drove you down there would n't mean anything
if a stronger power held you back. The point is, Arsdale, the point
is, that all by himself a man is n't worth much. He does n't count.
Either he dries up or he rots."

"That's true! That's true!" answered Arsdale. "And I 've rotted. If
only I had found you a year ago!"

"A year ago is dead and buried. Let it alone. Think of the live
things; think of the Now! There 's a big, strong world all around you,
pulsating with life; there 's sunshine in the morning and stars at
night--and they are alive; there are flowers, and birds, and
grasses--all alive; there are live men and women, live questions, and
there is your sister. The world would be alive--would be worth while
if you had only her. She 's a world in herself."

"You are right. Man, how you know!"

"Can't you see it yourself? Can't you feel the thrill of it all?"

"Yes," answered Arsdale, his eyes as alive as Donaldson's, "I see. I
feel. And if I had your strength--"

"You have the strength! You have everything you need in just your
beating heart and the days ahead of you. Buck up to it!--Go and meet
life half-way. Throw yourself at life! The trouble with you and me is
that we stand still, all curled up in ourselves as in a chrysalis. You
must give yourself room, you must break free from your own selfish
conceit, you must reach a point where you don't give a damn about
yourself! Do you hear--where all the worrying you do is about others?
Then don't worry."

Arsdale was breathing through his nostrils, his lips closed.

"It's going to be a hard fight," he said. "It 's going to be a hard
fight, but you make me feel as though I could do it."

"A hard fight," cried Donaldson. "Why, man, I 'd strip myself down to
you--I 'd go back to where you stand to-day for the fighting chance you
have."

"You'd--what?"

Donaldson caught his breath. For a moment he was silent, staring at
the eager life upon the street. Then he turned again to Arsdale.

"I 'd like to swap places with you--that's all," he said.

CHAPTER XIX

_A Miracle_

Elaine, her pale face tense, heard the steps of Arsdale coming up the
stairs to meet her. Donaldson had telephoned at nine that if she had
not yet retired he was going to bring her brother home. She dreaded
the ordeal for herself and for him. She dreaded lest the aversion she
felt for him with the horror of that night still upon her might
overcome her sense of duty; she dreaded the renewed protestations, the
self abasement, the sight of the maudlin shame of the man. She had
gone through the hysterical scenes so many times that it was growing
difficult, especially in her present condition of weakness, to arouse
the necessary spirit to undergo it. Not only this, but she found
herself inevitably pitting him against the strong self-reliant
character of Donaldson. It had been easier for her to condone when she
had seen Arsdale only as the loved son of the big-hearted elder, but
now that this other unyielding personality had come into her life it
was difficult to avoid comparison. Arsdale when standing beside a man
was only pitiable.

He faltered at the door and then crossed the room with a poise that
reminded her of the father who to the end had never shown evidence of
any physical weakness in his bearing. In fact in look and carriage,
even in the spotless freshness of his dress which was a characteristic
of the elder, he appeared like his father. She could hardly believe.
She sat as silent as though this were some illusion.

There was color in the ordinarily yellow cheeks, there was life in the
usually dull eyes, though the spasmodic twitching testified to nerves
still unsteady. When he held out his trembling hand, she took it as
though in a trance. She saw that it was difficult for him to speak.
It was impossible for her. The suggested metamorphosis was too
striking.

He broke the strained, glad silence.

"Elaine, can you forget?"

She uttered his name but could go no further.

"I can't apologize," he stammered, "it's too ghastly. But if we could
start fresh from to-day, if you could wait a little before judging, and
watch. Perhaps then--"

She drew him quickly towards her.

"Can I believe what I see?" she asked.

"I--I don't know what you see," he answered unsteadily.

"I see your father. I see the man who was the only father I myself
knew."

He bent over her. He kissed her forehead.

"Dear Elaine," he said hoarsely, "you see a man who is going to be a
better man to you."

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