The San Francisco call., 1905-03-26


not joined in the sneering chorus.
He pushed back his chair. dismissed
the tootman. and alone passed to the
nan and ascended the stair. At the
turn OF the balustrade a shaded lamp
crowsed like a monster gIow-worm
IN MS own room a low fire burned
winking redly from the coroneted bed
posts, and lighted candle stood on
me dressing table. He looked around
me familiar apartment a moment un-
certainly, then crossed to a carved
cablnet above a writing desk and took
tnerefrom bottle of claret The
cabinet had belonged TO his father,
dead many years before Gordon
thought OF him as he stood with the
bottle in his hand, staring fxedly at
the duh. carved ebony OF the swing
ing door.
His fatherl Mad Jack Gordon"
the world had called him when he ran
away with the Marchioness of Car
marthen TO break her heart! Hand
some he had been still when he mar
ried for her money the heiress of
eight, Gordon's mother. stinging
memory recalled the only glimpse he
had ever had Of that father-a tall
man in uniform on an Aberdeen street,
looking critically at a child with,
lame leg
Gordon WINGED painfully He felt
with q sharper agony the sensitive
pang Of the cripple, the shame Of mis-
shapenness that all his life had clung
like an old-man-of-the sea- It had
not only stung his childhood: II had
stolen from him the romance of his
youth-the one gleam that six years
ago had died.
Six years. For a moment time fell
away like rotten shale from about a
crystal The room, the wine cabinet,
faded into a dim background, and on
this, as if on theater curtain, dis
solving pictures painted themselves
fiame-like.
He was back in his Harrow days now.
at home for his last vacation.
George" his mother had remarked
one day, looking UP from a letter she
vas reading, I've some news for you.
Take out your handkerchief, for you
Will need it"
Nonsense! What Is it?"
Mary Chaworth is married"
rs that alp" he had replied coldly;
but an expression, peculiar, impossible
10 describe, had passed over his face.
He had never afterward seen her or
spoken her name.
Mary" he murmured. and his hand
set down the bottle on the table. Love
such love as his verses told of-he
had come to consider purely subjective,
2 mirage. a simulacrum TO which ac-
tual lie possessed no counterpart. Yet
at that moment he was feeling the
wrath OF an old thrill, his nostrils
smelling a perfume like a dead pansy's
ghost.
He withdrew his hand from the bot
tie and his fingers clenched. How it
hurt him-the sudden stab. For men,
Dry had played him a trick; it had
dragged q voice out Of the past. 1t
vas her Voice-her words that she had
Uttered in a careless sentence meant
or other ears, one that through those
ears had Iumbled and re-echoed in
ONE under sea-cavern of his mind
Do you think I could ever care for
hat lame boy?"
He smiled grimIy She had been
right. Nature had set him apart, made
him louD-garou, a solitary hobgoblin.
He had been unclubbable, sauvag ge,
even at Cambridge. And yet he had
had real friendships there; one espe-
cially.
Gordon's free hand fumbled for his
fob and his fingers closed on little
cornelian heart 1t had been a keep
sake from his college classmate. Mat
thews, drowned in the muddy waters
Of the Cam.
He released the bottle hurriedly,
STROBE 10 the window and flung it open.
A gust Of rain struck his face and
spluttered in the candle, and the cur
tain tapped like the wing of some un-
calmly bird Out in the dark, beneath
a clump of larches, glimmered whitley
the monument he had erected TO
.'Boatswain," his Newfoundland. The
animal had gone mad.
Some curse hangs over me and
minei'' he muttered. Il never could
keep alive even a dog that liked or
that liked meI'
A combined rattle and crash be-
hind him made him turn. The
wind had blown shut the door Of
the cabinet with a smart bang,
round, had toppled from it's shelf,
fallen and rolled to his very feet.
He started back, his nerves for the
instant shaken. It was q skull. mot
tied like a polished tortoise shell,
mounted in dull silver as a drinking
cup. He had unearthed the relic years
before with a heap Of stone collins
amid the rubbish of the abbey's ruined
priory-grim reminder of some old
friar-and its mounting had been his
own fancy. He had forgotten its very
existence.
Now. as It lay supine, yet intrusive.
the symbol at one time of lastingness
and decay. it filed him with a painful
fascination.
Picking # up. he set it upright on
the desk, seized the bottle, knocked
of its top against the marble mantel
and poured the fantastic goblet full.
Death and lifei" he unused. "One
feeds the other, each In turn Lifel
yet II should not be too long; I have
no conception OF any existence which
duration would not render tiresome.
How else fell the angels? They were
immortal, heavenly and happy. 1t is
the lastingness OF life that is terrible;
I see no horror in a dreamIess Sleep"
He put out his hand to the goblet,
but withdrew 1t.
''No-waiti" he said, and seating
himself at the desk. he seized a pen.
The lines he wrote, rapidly and with
scarcely an alteration, were 70 live for
many long year-index fingers point
ing back TO that dark mood that con-
sumed him then:
Start not-nor deem my spirit fed;
In me behold the only skull,
From which. unlike a living head.
whatever flows is never dull.
I lived. I loved, ouaned like thee:
died; let earth my bones resign
Fill up-thou canst not injure me;