Chapter XXV

Even now, after twenty years.••.That Sunday morn ing when his landlady called him to the telephone, an important message, she reiterated. He went down to the front hall, muzzy with a first-class katzenjammer. The canary in a cage in the dining-room began to trill, and it almost split his head. The school teacher from the second floor was going out to church and looked insulted; he hadn't put on his collar. (He couldn't even forget her.) The connection was bad. At first he couldn't make out anything except that it was Heinie Weissmuller speaking. The hospital--can you come right away? He asked, what hospital? Are you in the hospital? What's the matter? Not me, Heinie said, and the telephone buzzed and blurred again. Central, don't cut me off, damn it. Come to my hotel. Tip's had an.accident-l can't tell you over the 'phone. Can you come right away? • . • When he stooped to lace his boots the room rocked. He hadn't got in till three 318 N EVE R ASK THE END the night before. . ••Their last Saturday night, Tip Kearney and Heinie and himself. For over a month Tip had been, as he said, sober and sorry for it, work ing around the clock to put through a combine of two companies. He had put it through. Tip 'was made.

Now) Tip said, we'll .paint the town red. Give the girls another drink, 'fore we Jignaway • • • Only he wasn't drunk. Didn't seem to have any effect on him. They made the round of Twenty-Second Street. What a lot of different kinds of drinks there 'used to be; if you nam.ed them over, they brought back a thousand other things, times and places. and people, that had gone with them, reflected in a bar-mirror, between glit tering pyramids of glasses: rock-and-rye, Tom Collins, martini, Manhattan, highball, whisky sour, silver fizz, Clover Club •.. Heinie was mixing his. At Freiberg's they picked up a couple of girls. One was a chestnut blonde, with natural red lips and red-brown eyes, in a tight black dress and red-heeled slippers. She or dered a pousse-cafe, and sat with her elbows on the table, turning the glass in her fingers like a tiny rain bow. Heinie kept drinking to Tip's luck, till he got maudlin and began to cry. With Tip so cool and Heinie slopping over like a stein of warm beer) Russ wished he was somewhere else. . The girl was a pippin, and she was making her play for Tip. They always did. It made Russ feel queer, that once, maybe just because Tip was ten years older than himself and they always did ••..The .other girl was plump and sentiN EVE R ASK THE END 319 mental; she edged up to Heinie and said, come along with me, I'll fix you up with a bromide, some coffee. Tip said, leave it lay, sister; he's sunk; you don't want him on your hands. The plump girl told him to mind his own business. Tip said, Heinie's my business; will this square it? He laid a bill on the table. The plump girl bounced up in her chair; but the red-lipped one said: Kill it, kid. He's right. This party is a frost.

Then she looked at Tip over the rainbow: How about me? Tip said, Baby, you're worth a million dollars. And I'm broke. She raised her eyebrows, and Tip leaned over and kissed her, and said:. There, you see. . . . Whatever he meant, she did see. Russ wasn't sure he understood; he thought he did, now ••.Well, she said, another day, another dollar; and she began to pullan her long gloves. Tip folded a bill small and tucked it in at her wrist.. Save it for me tonight anyhow. She nodded. Tip put the girls in a cab, and at the last minute she palmed a card into his hand. . . . Standing there in front of the cafe, Tip tore it up. Now you've got it, he said, what are you going to do with it? I never thought of that. I'll end up as a prominent citizen in a silk hat. Look at Johnp. Rockefeller! My God, tonight I felt as if I was having a swell funeral ...• Russ knew better than he could have explained what Tip meant.. Tearing the card was like spilling a libation before you tasted the wine yourself. An offering to the gods. Just as Good win deprecated his success. Half a dozen superstitions, 320 N EVE R ASK THE END but all to the same effect; you had to pay something.

She was the prettiest girl they had ever picked up. Foolish to try to cash in on success. What would it get you-another drink, another girl-nothing more than you'd had already. No good except to put under your pillow and dream on. Tip had talked like that, driving home••..But it's something, Russ thought, when you've had your last drink, your last girl, anyhow. Something to dream on. . • • They dropped Heinie first) and then Tip let Russ out at his own door. • • ~ And the next thing the telephone call woke him. • • • Heinie was waiting. He looked sick; and he had been holding his head under the tap to sober up. Russ had to make an effort to ask about Tip. Heinie said, just like that: His wife shot him. Russ didn't know Tip had a wife. And they'd been batting around together four or five years. Sure he had, Heinie said, and stumbled into a chair and hic cuped. In Cleveland. She went back to her folks when Tip came to Chicago. He went after her a couple of times, and then he got fed up. Tip's always been a high~oller; I guess he couldn't settle to matrimony.

She wouldn't divorce him either; fact is, she wouldn't sleep with him but it made her wild to think: of him running with other women. She came on from Cleve land about a property transfer. Tip wasn't expecting her. The doorman let her into Tip's fiat; I'll bet he took her for a floozy "and she caught on. 1 guess she had only to look around anyhow. She was there all eveN EVE R ASK THE END 321 ning, waiting and working herself up .•. It was Tip's revolver; she found it. And he swears he shot him self by accident, so that hell-cat will come clear. She's been throwing hysterics ever since, and begging the doc tor to save him. . . . Doctor Sheean, he's a friend of Tip's, he called me. To fix up a story. Tip said to keep you out of it.... They wouldn't let him see Tip that day; but he went to the hospital again next day. Tip said: Hello, old scout, who left the door open? The words sounded like Tip, but his voice was thin and when he moved his head on the pillow his face showed that the effort hurt. He said: I didn't know it was loaded .•.. When the nurse sent Russ away, Tip whispered: So long. Give my love to the girls .••.

The worst was, Tip lasted three months. And his wife nursed him! Russ had gone to Pittsburgh, but Heinie wrote to him. Heinie used awful language. And he sent a clipping a year or so later, when Tip's widow married again.... It was Tip's successful merger promoted Russ; Pittsburgh was an important rIse. And maybe what happened to Tip led to Russ get ting married. He couldn't go out as they used to. .. .• You took a respectable girl to a dance and took her home again and said thank you...• Nonie and Har riet brought him out of himself. Tip would have liked them. Russ meant to be straight with Harriet. He was, until they had come to the breakingpoint any how, after he had been away in St. Louis for weeks) 322 N EVE R ASK THE END and when he returned Harriet was off on a concert tour. Even then, he had no intention of sidestepping when he began going to see Nonie •.. And it seemed as if the one woman he had wronged was Nonie. The one he had never had • .. • There, as Brownie said, was a thought to hold • • • His last drink, his last girl••••He hadn't had a drink: for three years..... The sun sifted through onto Marta's face and gilded her ash-brown hair and the tips of her lashes. Ii he had known ten years ago .•.

He was forty-seven•••• He said: "The wives of the men here in our Paris officehave a study club. For international affairs. The League of Nations and that sort of thing-keeping up with their husbands." "Mph. A penny in the slot produces.the opinion for the day," said Marta. (COh, Mr. Girard, what did you think: of Lord Cecil's speech on the Polish cor ridor?" Russ chuckled. "Will you come over next summer?" "Sure-if you invite me ~ext summer. What is this fatal charm you have for women?" "Write and tell me about New York; I'll be lost when I get back. They'll have gone so far ahead of me." "Who?" asked Marta, in amazement. "They've got the inter national mind, too. You'll be covered with glory. For eign prestige. All you need to do is walk in and move the administration buUding." "You'll never let me hear the last of that." ('No, but honestly," she insisted, N EVE R ASK T Ii E END 323 "Americans have become awfully solemn and goofy.

Worried about world leadership. They have the man date for Yap. Your trouble will be that they'll offeryou a big job, too big to refuse. You'!l put off retiring till next year and next year." "No, 1 won't," said Russ. "1 haven't five years to live. At the outside." He must have got his own death, he thought, about the same time as Tip, or a little before. Deferred payment. He hoped when it fell due it would be a quick finish. The alternative was the one thing he couldn't quite face. Shouldn't have told Brownie, but it might not seem so lonely if someone else knew. She said nothing for awhile. A passionate resistance welled up in her. "The doctors are often mistaken. Besides,none of us is certain even of tomorrow." She wanted him to have his farm. For herself, she thought, it would be almost a relief to have a limit set. Five years would be enough. He ought to have that. "1 know you've got to put through this job in Rome,"

she said. "But afterward, won't you take care of your self-please!" No small favor to ask, that someone should go on living to please you. The humor of it struck them. The Chateau Madrid was the wrong place for din ner. There were too many ermine and chinchilla cloaks, and strings of pearls, too much light, and the orchestra was too loud. The dancers were stiff and bored, except one couple; Marta watched them. "1 324 N EVE R ASK THE END suppose that's what we want. To be always young, and light-footed, and in love. But one takes being young so seriously." Russ said: "I'd do the same things over again if I had the chance, but I'd like to do them dif ferently." ... At forty, Marta thought, we regret only that we are forty, and repent only the lack of grace in past actions. If we wish for our lost innocence, it is that we might lose it again. We should like to have loved once only and been faithful; as we should like to love many times. To experience everything, even fidelity ... She said: "I wouldn't have missed it any how, though part of it has been awful. To be born in ,America was great luck; I don't even wish I'd been rich. We've lived on an upward curve."

They left early. When they shut their own door, it made a quietness in which the hours did not run so fast. By themselves, they were not sad nor even serious. "If you stay in Rome a couple of weeks," Marta said, "Caroline will be home before you; and her house won't be ready, and she'll move in with Ernest. You'l] find the whole family in the apartment." "There isn't room for the three children," Russ argued, taken in for the moment. "You said there was an extra room upstairs," Marta reminded him. "Ernest and Caroline, of course, will occupyyours." "You believe they'd really-" Russ glowered at Marta. "You have the most devilish imagination." "Nobody could imagine Ernest," she pointed out.

N EVE R ASK THE END 325 "If he did not exist, it would be unnecessary to invent him.. Voltaire said so.. Ernest used to visit Voltaire at Ferney, in droves, with letters of introduction. He will visit you on your farm." Russ growled that on his farm, at least, he would have the people he chose. . . • Quite likely he will marry Harriet again, Marta thought. No, his obstinacy would prevent; besides, there was no need. Human relations are subtle and profound and irrevocable. Russ had never felt unmarried from Harriet. Perhaps be causehe had supported her, assumed a definite obligation which could be clearly met. He had promised to love Nonie, and what could one do about that when it was over? We must have rules even though they never fit the individual case, have no reference to it. They provide a way out. "1 don't think it's ever been done," she commented on his declaration. "Sounds worth trying." ... And I'll take care of your widows, Joe, as many as I shall find. ... Russ caught the look in her eye. "Now what?"

he demanded. "1 wasn't saying· anything," she an swered. "No, you weren't saying it," he retorted. They understood one another well enough. Their re lation had no name because it had no conditions. What ever was between them was like those legends of rings exchanged or a coin broken, to be sent as a summons only in some unforeseen circumstance of finality. . . . She told herself she was romantic, inventing justifica tions. No harm, anyhow. Not with Russ. That was 326 N EVE R ASK THE" END what he wished he could add to the past-wear his rue with a difference. They would not hurt each other. Time permitted itself to be ignored until noon the next day, Sunday. Then it began to run through their fingers. His train left at five. When they had packed, they felt dispossessed, so they took hours for lunch, in a restaurant' arbor. A bright, hot day; wouldn't be worse in Italy, she asked? She was think ing, it couldn't be good for him. Hot enough, he ex pected. She ought to see Italy in spring. . . . ((I wouldn't set foot in it," she declared. "With those blackshirts infesting it-I couldn't breathe." She flared up when Russ offered the conventional defence. Sur prised at her own indignation, she heard herself ex panding her objections. She did genuinely hate regi mentation and suppression; she hated it too much to be coherent. "We've had ours," she exclaimed, "we oughtn't to go back on ourselves." Americans, she meant. They had been free. It wasn't a joke; their freedom had been bought with a great price, and was worth it. She was grateful to all those valiant minds who had wrought and endured for her. Now those who had profited by it were going to destroy it, so no one else should ever have it. They didn't know what they were doing-but they ought to know! "The Italians are ashamed because they broke in the war; they're trying to carry it off with bluff and bullying.

That pop-eyedham actor••..Every Babbitt in America fancies himself in the same part. . • • And our bankers N EVE R ASK THE END 327 selling us out for the commission. Ten per cent. on thirty pieces of silver. It's too cheap; the bill comes in later." She stopped. Of all inappropriate occasions . for such an outburst. ... A Fourth of July firecracker. She saw that Russ did not even disagree with her; he regarded only concrete facts. He said mildly that it was easier to do business in Italy than formerly, when one had to hand out petty bribes at every turn. tcy ou haven't a copy of your Roman report in your pocket?" Marta enquired. "!'llbet I could spot the item-what do you call it now?" Russ grinned, "Preliminary expense." "And how much?" "Twenty-five thousand dollars." "The higher the fewer," Marta said. "Oh, what of it-I hope you get the job." They've always done it, she thought; the Fuggers backing Philip of Spain and Samuel Bernard ruining himself for a nod from that pompous dullard Louis XIV. "I should start out sav ing the world!" She couldn't save it before five o'clock.

• • •She knew why she was angry. i At the Gare de Lyons they had half an hour to spare, and waited in a dreary cafe across the street. The traffic, converging to an endless stream that flowed upward along the ramp, filled her with despair. It would not stop. They had to take another cab and join the procession. She would keep the cab to go back to her hotel. With his hand on the door, Russ kissed her goodbye. They did not say the word. There were 328 N EVE R ASK THE END two words they had not said. The cab jerked into the line again j a dismal concrete platform raced. by; she could not see Russ. The traffic kept going on in her head. Around the curve of the ramp. Though they were out of it, further and further away, traversing a network of mean streets. There was an open space, a grey building with a garden. She called to the chauffeur suddenly. Yes, the Cluny Musee. She got out and paid the fare.

Sitting on the steps of the side entrance, with her chin on her hands, she discovered why she had stopped here. In the long grass of the garden, fragments of medieval sculpture reposed tranquilly. Their granite features were blunted, all but effaced. It gave them a ghostly aspect) an infinite calm. It is the material substance that is ghostly, she thought. It wears thin, dissolves with time. Something more powerful and enduring wears it out •••The soul, having.stooped to embrace mortality, is caught in the net of time. It strives to break through by the keen devices of the intellect, by the intensity of passion, the persuasion of tenderness, even the violence of anger; and falls back on silence at the last. But at parting it cries out, wait, one moment more and I could have told you • . . oh, wait! What we desire is communication. . . · Perhaps, some other where, we achieve it, by a persistence to which even granite must yield.