"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 gra.s.ses--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 d.a.m.n 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 abas.e.m.e.nt, 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 hoa.r.s.ely, "you see a man who is going to be a better man to you."
"To yourself, Ben,--be better to yourself! Are you going to be that?"
"That is the way,--by being a man to you and to the others."
"The others?"
"The unseen others. You must get Donaldson to tell you about the others."
She grasped his wrist with both her hands, looking up at him intently.
Where was the change? A photograph would not have shown all the change. Yet it was there. Nor was this a temporal reformation based upon cowardly remorse. It showed too calm, too big an impulse for that. It was so sincere, so deep, that it did not need words to express it.
"I believe you, Ben," she said, "I believe you with all my heart and soul."
In the words he realized the divine that is in all women, the eagerness that is Christ-like in its eternal hunger to seize upon the good in man. He stooped again and with religious reverence kissed the white s.p.a.ce above her eyes.
"We "ll not talk about it much, shall we?" he said. "I want you to believe only as I go on from day to day. I "ve some big plans that I thought up on the way home. Some day we "ll talk those over, but not now. Donaldson is downstairs."
He saw the color sweep her face. It suggested to him something that he had not yet suspected. It came to him like a new revelation of sunlight.
He smiled. It was the smile of the father which she had so long missed, the smile that always greeted her when his sad heart was fullest of hope and gladness. It was so he used to smile when at twilight he stood at her side, his long thin arm over her shoulder and talked of Ben with a new hope born of his own victory.
"I was going to tell you," he said tenderly, "I was going to tell you of what a big fine fellow this Donaldson is. But--perhaps you know."
She refused not to meet her brother"s eyes.
"Yes, Ben," she said, "I know that."
He took her hand, seating himself on the arm of her chair, the other arm resting affectionately across her shoulders. So the father had sometimes sat.
"Is there more?" he asked softly.
"So," she answered, starting a little, "not as you mean. But tell me about him--tell me all about him, Ben."
He felt her hand throb as he held it.
"It"s just this; that I owe everything in the world to him. I owe my life to him; I owe," his voice lowered, "I owe my soul to him. You ought to have heard him talk. But it was n"t talking, it wasn"t preaching. I don"t know what it was, unless--unless it was praying.
Yet it was n"t like that either. He got inside me and made me talk to myself. It was the first time words ever meant anything to me--that they ever got a hold on me. You "ve talked, little sister, Lord knows how often, and how deep from the heart, but somehow, dear, nothing of it sank in below the brain. I understood as in a sort of dream.
Sometimes I even remembered it for a little, but that was all.
"But he was different, Elaine! If I forgot every word he spoke, the meaning of it would still be left. I "d still feel his hand upon my shoulder, the hand that sank through my shoulder and got a grip on something inside me. I "d still feel his eyes burning into mine. I "d still see that street out the window and know what it meant. I "d even see the little old lady picking her way to the other side,--see the blind beggar on the corner and the Others. Oh, the Others, Elaine!"