"Well," I admitted, "all that seems plain sailing."
"Quite so; but it"s at this point the thing grows complicated."
He rose, and walking to the fireplace, turned his back on me and spread his palms to the blaze. "Well," he asked, after a moment, gazing into the mirror before him, "why don"t you shoot?"
I thrust my hands into my trouser-pockets and leaned back staring-- I daresay sulkily enough--at the two revolvers within grasp. "I"ve got my code," I muttered.
"The code of--these mirrors. You won"t do the thing because it"s not the thing to do; because these fellows"--he waved a hand and the ghosts waved back at him--"don"t do such things, and you haven"t the nerve to sin off your own bat. Come"--he strolled back to his seat and leaned towards me across the table--"it"s not much to boast of, but at this eleventh hour we must s.n.a.t.c.h what poor credit we can. You are, I suppose, a more decent fellow for not having fired: and I--By the way, you did feel the temptation?"
I nodded. "You may put your money on that. I never see you without wanting to kill you. What"s more, I"m going to do it."
"And I," he said, "knew the temptation and risked it. No: let"s be honest about it. There was no risk: because, my good Sir, I know you to a hair."
"There was," I growled.
"Pardon me, there was none. I came here having a word to say to you, and these mirrors have taught me how to say it. Take a look at them-- the world we are leaving--that"s it: and a cursed second-hand, second-cla.s.s one at that."
He paced slowly round on it, slewing his body in the chair.
"I say a second-cla.s.s one," he resumed, "because, my dear Reggie, when all"s said and done, we are second-cla.s.s, the pair of us, and pretty bad second-cla.s.s. I met you first at Harrow. Our fathers had money: they wished us to be gentlemen without well understanding what it meant: and with unlimited pocket-money and his wits about him any boy can make himself a power in a big school. That is what we did: towards the end we even set the fashion for a certain set; and a rank bad fashion it was. But, in truth, we had no business there: on every point of breeding we were outsiders. I suspect it was a glimmering consciousness of this that made us hate each other from the first. We understood one another too well. Oh, there"s no mistake about it! Whatever we"ve missed in life, you and I have hated."
He paused, eyeing me queerly. I kept my hands in my pockets. "Go on,"
I said.
"From Harrow we went to College--the same business over again.
We drifted, of course, into the same set; for already we had become necessary to each other. We set the pace of that set--were its apparent leaders. But in truth we were alone--you and I--as utterly alone as two shipwrecked men on a raft. The others were shadows to us: we followed their code because we had to be gentlemen, but we did not understand it in the least. For, after all, the roots of that code lay in the breeding and tradition of honour, with which we had no concern. To each other you and I were intelligible and real; but as concerned that code and the men who followed it by right of birth and nature, we were looking-gla.s.s men imitating--imitating--imitating."
"We set the pace," said I. "You"ve allowed that."
"To be sure we did. We even modified the code a bit--to its hurt; though as conscious outsiders we could dare very little. For instance, the talk of our a.s.sociates about women--and no doubt their thoughts, too--grew sensibly baser. The sanct.i.ty of gambling debts, on the other hand, we did nothing to impair: because we had money. I recall your virtuous indignation at the amount of paper floated by poor W---- towards the end of the great baccarat term. Poor devil! He paid up--or his father did--and took his name off the books. He"s in Ceylon now, I believe. At length you have earned a partial right to sympathise: or.
would have if only you had paid up."
"Take care, Gervase."
"My good Sir, don"t miss my point. Wasn"t I just as indignant with W--?
If I"d been warned off Newmarket Heath, if I"d been shown the door of the h.e.l.l we"re sitting in, shouldn"t I feel just as you are feeling?
Try to understand!"
"You forget Elaine, I think."
"No: I do not forget Elaine. We left College: I to add money to money in my father"s office; you to display your accomplishments in spending what your father had earned. That was the extent of the difference.
To both of us, money and the indulgence it buys meant everything in life. All I can boast of is the longer sight. The office-hours were a nuisance, I admit: but I was clever enough to keep my hold on the old set; and then, after office-hours, I met you constantly, and studied and hated you--studied you because I hated you. Elaine came between us.
You fell in love with her. That I, too, should fall in love with her was no coincidence, but the severest of logic. Given such a woman and two such men, no other course of fate is conceivable. She made it necessary for me to put hate into practice. If she had not offered herself, why, then it would have been somebody else: that"s all.
Good Lord!" he rapped the table, and his voice rose for the first time above its level tone of exposition, "you don"t suppose all my study-- all my years of education--were to be wasted!"
He checked himself, eyed me again, and resumed in his old voice--
"You wanted money by this time. I was a solicitor--your old college friend--and you came to me. I knew you would come, as surely as I knew you would not fire that pistol just now. For years I had trained myself to look into your mind and antic.i.p.ate its working. Don"t I tell you that from the first you were the only real creature this world held for me? You were my only book, and I had to learn you: at first without fixed purpose, then deliberately. And when the time came I put into practice what I knew: just that and no more. My dear Reggie, you never had a chance."
"Elaine?" I muttered again.
"Elaine was the girl for you--or for me: just that again and no more."
"By George!" said I, letting out a laugh. "If I thought that!"
"What?"
"Why, that after ruining me, you have missed being happy!"
He sighed impatiently, and his eyes, though he kept them fastened on mine, seemed to be tiring. "I thought," he said, "I could time your intelligence over any fence. But to-night there"s something wrong.
Either I"m out of practice or your brain has been going to the deuce.
What, man! You"re shying at every bank! Is it drink, hey? Or hunger?"
"It might be a little of both," I answered. "But stay a moment and let me get things straight. I stood between you and Elaine--no, give me time--between you and your aims, whatever they were. Very well.
You trod over me; or, rather, you pulled me up by the roots and pitched me into outer darkness to rot. And now it seems that, after all, you are not content. In the devil"s name, why?"
"Why? Oh, cannot you see? . . . Take a look at these mirrors again-- our world, I tell you. See--you and I--you and I--always you and I!
Man, I pitched you into darkness as you say, and then I woke and knew the truth--that you were necessary to me."
"Hey?"
"_I can"t do without you!_" It broke from him in a cry. "So help me G.o.d, Reggie, it is the truth!"
I stared in his face for half a minute maybe, and broke out laughing.
"Jeshurun waxed fat and--turned sentimental! A nice copy-book job you make of it, too!"
"_Oh, send my brother back to me-- I cannot play alone!_"
"Perhaps you"d like me to buy a broom and hire the crossing in Lennox Gardens? Then you"d be able to contemplate me all day long, and nourish your fine fat soul with delicate eating. Pah! You make me sick."
"It"s the truth," said he quietly.
"It may be. To me it looks a sight more like _foie gras_. Can"t do without me, can"t you? Well, I can jolly well do without you, and I"m going to."
"I warn you," he said: "I have done you an injury or two in my time, but by George if I stand up and let you shoot me--well, I hate you badly enough, but I won"t let you do it without fair warning."
"I"ll risk it anyway," said I.
"Very well." He stood up, and folded his arms. "Shoot, then, and be hanged!"
I put out my hand to the revolver, hesitated, and withdrew it.
"That"s not the way," I said. "I"ve got my code, as I told you before."
"Does the code forbid suicide?" he asked.
"That"s a different thing."
"Not at all. The man who commits suicide kills an unarmed man."