The Adventures of a Modest Man

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER XVII

  SHOWING HOW IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ANY MAN TO MAKE OF HIMSELF A CHUMP

  After a while I repeated: "They _did_ marry, didn't they?"

  "What do _you_ think?"

  "I'm perfectly certain they did."

  "Well, then, what more do you want?" he laughed.

  "Another of your reminiscences disguised as fiction," I said, tinklingmy spoon on the edge of my tumbler to attract the waiter.

  "Two more," I said, lighting a caporal cigarette, the penetrating aromaof which drifted lazily through forgotten years, drawing memory with itin its fragrant back-draught.

  "Do you remember Seabury's brother?" he asked.

  "Beaux Arts? Certainly. Architect, wasn't he?"

  "Yes, but he came into a lot of money and started for home to hit asiding."

  "Little chump," I said; "I remember him. There was a promising architectspoiled."

  "Oh, I don't know. He is doing a lot to his money."

  "Good?"

  "Of course. Otherwise I should have said that his money is doing a lotto him."

  "Cut out these fine shades and go back to galley-proof," I said,sullenly. "What about him, anyway?"

  Williams said, slowly: "A thing happened to that man which had no rightto happen anywhere except in a musical comedy. But," he shrugged hisshoulders, "everybody's lives are really full of equally grotesqueepisodes. The trouble is that the world is too serious to discover anyabsurdity in itself. We writers have to do that for it. For example,there was Seabury's brother. Trouble began the moment he saw her."

  "Saw who?" I interrupted.

  "Saw her! Shut up!"

  I did so. He continued:

  * * * * *

  They encountered one another under the electric lights in the woodenlabyrinth which forms the ferry terminal of the Sixth Avenue ElevatedRailroad, she hastening one way, he hurrying the opposite. There wasample room for them to pass each other; it may have been because she wasunusually pretty, it may have been his absent-mindedness, but he madeone of those mistakes which everybody makes once in a lifetime: heturned to the left, realised what he was doing, wheeled hastily to theright--as she, too, turned--only to meet her face to face, politelydodge, meet again, lose his head and begin a heart-breakingcontra-dance, until, vexed and bewildered, she stood perfectly still,and he, redder than she, took the opportunity to slink past her andescape.

  "Hey!" said a sarcastic voice, as, blinded with chagrin, he foundhimself attempting to force a locked wooden gate. "You want to go theother way, unless you're hunting for the third rail."

  "No, I don't," he said, wrathfully; "I want to go uptown."

  "That's what I said; you want to go the other way, even if you don'tknow where you want to go," yawned the gateman disdainfully.

  Seabury collected his scattered wits and gazed about him. Being a NewYorker, and acquainted with the terminal labyrinth, he very quicklydiscovered his error, and, gripping suit-case and golf-bag more firmly,he turned and retraced his steps at the natural speed of a good NewYorker, which is a sort of a meaningless lope.

  Jammed into the familiar ticket line, he peered ahead through the yellowglare of light and saw the charming girl with whom he had danced hisfoolish contra-dance just receiving her ticket from the boxed automaton.Also, to his satisfaction, he observed her disappear through theturnstile into the crush surging forward alongside of the cars, and,when he presently deposited his own ticket in the chopper's box, he hadno more expectation of ever again seeing her than he had of doingsomething again to annoy and embarrass her.

  But even in Manhattan Destiny works overtime, and Fate gets busy in amanner that no man knoweth; and so, personally though invisiblyconducted, Seabury lugged his suit-case and golf-bag aboard a train,threaded his way into a stuffy car and took the only empty seatremaining; and a few seconds later, glancing casually at his right-handneighbour, he blushed to find himself squeezed into a seat beside hisunusually attractive partner in the recent contra-dance.

  That she had already seen him, the calm indifference in her blue eyes,the poise of her flushed face, were evidence conclusive.

  He shrank back, giving her all the room he could, set his bag ofgolf-clubs between his knees, and looked innocent. First, as all NewYorkers do, he read the line of advertisements opposite with the usualpersonal sense of resentment; then he carelessly scanned the peopleacross the aisle. As usual, they resembled everybody he had neverparticularly noticed; he fished out the evening paper, remembered thathe had read it on the ferryboat, stuck it into his golf-bag, andcontemplated the battered ends of his golf-clubs.

  Station after station flashed yellow lamps along the line of carwindows; passengers went and passengers took their places; in one of thestreets below he caught a glimpse of a fire engine vomiting sparks andblack smoke; in another an ambulance with a squalid assemblage crowdedaround a policeman who was emerging from a drug store.

  He had pretty nearly succeeded in forgetting the girl and hismortification; he cast a calmly casual glance over his well-fittingtrousers and shoes. The edge of a shoe-lace lay exposed, and heleisurely remedied this untidy accident, leaning over and tying the lacesecurely with a double knot.

  Fourteenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-third, ran the stations. He gathered hisgolf-bag instinctively and sat alert, prepared to rise and leave the carwith dignity.

  "Twenty-eighth!" It was his station. Just as he rose the attractive girlbeside him sprang up, and at the same instant his right leg was jerkedfrom under him and he sat down in his seat with violence. Before hecomprehended what had happened, the girl, with a startled exclamation,fell back into her seat, and he felt a spasmodic wrench at his footagain.

  Astonished, he struggled to rise once more, but something held him--hisfoot seemed to be caught; and as he turned he encountered her bewilderedface and felt another desperate tug which brought him abruptly into hisseat again.

  "What on earth is the matter?" he asked.

  "'I--I don't know,' she stammered; 'my shoe seems tied toyours.'"]

  "I--I don't know," she stammered; "my shoe seems to be tied to yours."

  "Tied!" he cried, bending down in a panic, "wasn't that _my_ shoe-lace?"His golf-bag fell, he seized it and set it against the seat betweenthem. "Hold it a moment," he groaned. "I tied your shoe-lace to mine!"

  "_You_ tied it!" she repeated, furiously.

  "I saw a shoe-lace--I thought it was mine--I tied it fast--in ad-d-double knot----"

  "Untie it at once!" she said, crimson to the roots of her hair.

  "Great Heavens, madam! I didn't mean to do it! I'll fix it in amoment----"

  "Don't," she whispered, fiercely; "the people opposite are looking atus! Do you wish to hold us both up to ridicule?" He straightened up,thoroughly flurried.

  "But--this is my station--" he began.

  "It is mine, too. I'd rather sit here all night than have those peoplesee you untie your shoe from mine! How--how _could_ you----"

  "I've explained that I didn't mean to do it," he returned, dropping intothe breathless undertone in which she spoke. "Happening to glance down,I saw a shoe-lace end and thought my shoe was untied----"

  She looked at him scornfully.

  "And I tied it tight, that's all. I'm horribly mortified; this is thesecond time I've appeared to disadvantage----"

  "People in New York usually turn to the right; even horses----"

  "I doubt," he said, "that you can make me feel much worse than I feelnow, but it's a sort of a horrible relief to know what a fool you thinkme."

  She said nothing, sitting there, cooling her hot face in the breezefrom the forward door; he, numb with chagrin, stole an apprehensiveglance at the passengers opposite. Nobody appeared to have observedtheir plight, and he ventured to say so in a low voice.

  "Are you certain?" she asked, her own voice not quite steady.

  "Perfectly. Look! Nobody is eying our feet."

  Her own small feet were well tucked up under her gown; she
instinctivelydrew them further in; he felt a little tug; they both colouredfuriously.

  "This is simply unspeakable," she said, looking straight ahead of herthrough two bright tears of mortification.

  "Suppose," he whispered, "you edge your foot a trifle this way--I thinkI can cut the knot with my penknife--" He glanced about him stealthily."Shall I try?"

  "Not now. Wait until those people go."

  "But some of them may live in Harlem."

  "I--I can't help it. Do you suppose I'm going to let you lean overbefore all those people and try to untie our shoes?"

  "Do you mean to sit here until they're all gone?" he asked, appalled.

  "I do. Terrible as the situation is, we've got to conceal it."

  "Even if some of them go to the end of the line?"

  "I don't care!" She turned on him with a hint of that pretty fiercenessagain. "Do you know what you've done? You've affronted and mortified meand humiliated me beyond endurance. I have a guest to dine with me: Ishall not arrive before midnight!"

  "Do you suppose," he said miserably, "that anything you say can add tomy degradation? Can't you imagine how a man must feel who first of allmakes a four-footed fool of himself before the most attractive girlhe----"

  "Don't say that!" she cried, hotly.

  "Yes, I will! You are! And I dodged and tumbled about like a headlesschicken and ran into the wrong gate. I wish I'd climbed out on the thirdrail! And then, when I hoped I'd never see you again, I found myselfbeside you, and--Good Heavens! I lost no time in beginning my capersagain and doing the most abandoned deed a man ever accomplished onearth!"

  She appeared to be absorbed in contemplation of a breakfast-foodadvertisement; her color was still high; at times she worried her underlip with her white teeth, but her breath rose and fell under the fluffybosom of her gown with more regularity, and the two bright tears in hereyes had dried unshed. Wrath may have dried them.

  "I wish it were possible," he said very humbly, "for you to see thehumour----"

  "Humour!" she repeated, menacingly.

  "No--I didn't mean that, I meant the--the----"

  "You did! You meant the humour of the situation. I will answer you. I do_not_ see the humour of it!"

  "You are quite right," he admitted, looking furtively at the edge of hergown which concealed his right foot. "It is, as you say, simply ghastlyto be tied together by the feet. Don't you suppose I could--withoutawakening suspicion--cut the--the laces with a penknife?"

  "I beg you will attempt nothing whatever until this car is empty."

  "Certainly," he said. "I will do anything in the world I can to spareyou."

  She did not reply, and he sat there nervously balanced on the edge ofhis seat, watching the lights of Harlem flash into view below. He hadbeen hungry; he was no longer. Appetite had been succeeded by a gnawinganxiety. Again and again warm waves of shame overwhelmed him,alternating with a sort of wild-eyed pity for the young girl who sat sorigidly beside him, face averted. Once a mad desire to laugh seized him;he wondered whether it might be a premonition of hysteria, andshuddered. It did not seem as though he could possibly endure itanother second to be tied by the foot to this silently suffering andlovely companion.

  "Do you think," he said, hoarsely, "at the next station that if we rosetogether--and kept step----"

  She shook her head.

  "A--a sort of lock-step," he explained, timidly.

  "I would if I thought it possible," she replied under her breath; "but Idare not. Suppose you should miss step! You are likely to do anything ifit's only sufficiently foolish."

  "You could take my arm and pretend you are my lame sister," he ventured.

  "Suppose the train started. Suppose, by any one of a thousand possibleaccidents, you should become panic-stricken. What sort of a spectaclewould we furnish the passengers of this car? No! No! No! The worst of itis almost over. My guest is there--astounded at my absence. Before I ameven half-way back to Twenty-eighth Street she will have becomesufficiently affronted to leave the house. I might as well go on to theend of the road." She turned toward him hastily: "Where is the end ofthis road?"

  "Somewhere in the Bronx, I believe," he said, vaguely.

  "That is hours from Twenty-eighth Street, isn't it?"

  "I believe so."

  The train whirled on; stations were far between, now. He sat so silent,so utterly broken and downcast, that after a long while she turned tohim with a hint of softness in her stern reserve.

  "Of course," she said, "I do not suppose you deliberately intended totie our feet together. I am not absurd. But the astonishment, the horrorof finding what you had done exasperated me for a moment. I'm coolenough now; besides, it is perfectly plain that you are the sort of manone is--is accustomed to know."

  "I hope not!" he said, devoutly.

  "Oh, I mean--" She hesitated, and the glimmer of a smile touched hereyes, instantly extinguished, however.

  "I understand," he said. "You mean that it's lucky your shoe-laces aretied to the shoe-lace of a man of your own sort. I hope to Heaven youmay find a little comfort in that."

  "I do," she said, with the uncertain violet light in her eyes again."It's bad enough, goodness knows, but I--I am very sure you did notmean----"

  "You are perfectly right; I mean well, as they say of all chumps. Andthe worst of it is," he added, wildly, "I never before knew that I wasa chump! I never before saw any symptoms. Would you believe me, I neverin all my life have been such an idiot as I was in those first fewminutes that I crossed your path. How on earth to account for it; how toexplain, to ask pardon, to--to ever forget it! As long as I live I shallwake at night with the dreadful chagrin burning my ears off. Isn't itthe limit? And I--I shouldn't have felt so crushed if it had beenanybody excepting you----"

  "I do not understand," she said gravely.

  "I do," he muttered.