The Benson signal., 1918-03-09
CHAPTER XXIII.-Continued.

There was something peculiarly hOr-
rifying to him in the exhibition Ran
dOlph was making of himself. He'd
never in his life taken a drink ex-
cept convivially, and then he took as
little as would pass muster. Going off
alone and deliberately fuddling one
self, as means of escaping unpleas-
ant realities, struck him as an act of
the baSest cowardice. But for that
picture of Rose he'd have gone long
ago and left Randolph to his bemused
reflections. Only Rose had
asked him to drop in on the doctor for
a visit. Did she mean she wanted him
to try to help?
He tried, though not very success
fully, to conceal his violent disrelish of
the task, when he said: "Look here,
jim! What is the matter with you?
Are you sober enough to tell me?"
Randolph put down his glass. 81
have told you," he said. "I'm Eleaaor's
kept man. Well kept, oh, yes Beau
tifully kept. I'm nothing but a pos
eession of hers! A trophy Of sorts, an
ornament. I'm something she's made.
have a big practice. I'm the most
fashionable doctor in Chicago. They
come here, the women, in shoals.
That's Eleanor's doing. I'm faker,
= fraud. pose for them. I play up.
give them what they want. And
that's her doing. They go silly about
me; fancy they're in love with me.
II haven't done lick Of honest work
in the last year. I can't work. She
won't let me work. She-smOthers me.
Wherever turn, there she is, smooth
ing things out, trying to make it easy,
trying to anticipate my wants. I've
only one want. That's to be let alone.
She can't do that. She's Unsuitable.
There's always something more she's
trying to get, and I'm always trying to
keep something away from her, and
falling"
"And why? Do you want to know
why Aldrich? That's the cream of the
thing. Because we're in love with
each other. She wants me to live on
her love. To have nothing else to live
on.
ado you want to know what my no.
ton of heaven is? 1t would be to go
off alone, with one suit of clothes in
handbag, oh, and fifty or hundred
dollars in my pocket wouldn't mind
that; don't want to be tramp-to
some mining town, or slum, where
could start q general practice; where
the things I'd get would be accident
cases, confinement cases: real things,
all alike to. I'd like to start again and
be poor; get this stink Of easy money
out Of my nostrils. I'd like to see if
could make good on my own.
II came back from New York, after
that look at Rose meaning to do it:
meaning to talk it out with Eleanor
and tell her why, and then go. Well, /
talked. Talks cheap. But didn't go.
I'll never go. I'll go on getting softer
and more of a fake; more dependent.
And Eleanor will go on eating me up
until the last thing in me that's me
myself is gone. And then, some day,
she'll look at me and see that I'm moth
ing"
Then, with suddenly thickened speech
Gan afrectation, perhaps), he looked up
at Rodney and demanded:
"What are you looking so s-solemn
about? Can't you take joke? Come
along and have another drink"
"No," Rodney said, "Tm going. And
you'd better get to bed"
Rodney walked home that night like
a man dazed. The vividness of one
blazing idea blinded him. The thing
that Randolph had seen and lacked the
courage to do; the thing Rodney de-
spised him for a coward for having
failed to do-that thing Rose had done.
Without knowing it, yielding to
blind, unscrutinized instinct, he'd want
ed Rose to live on his love. He'd tried
to smooth things out for her, anticipate
her wants. He'd wanted her soft, help
less, dependent. She'd seen, even then,
something he'd been blind to-some-
thing he'd blinded himself to: that
love, by itself, was not enough. That
it could poison, as well as feed.
But she had won, among the rest of
her spoils of victory, the thing she had
originally set out to get. His friend
ship and respect. Friendship, he re-
membered her saying, was a thing you
had to earn. When you'd earned 1t, 1t
couldn't be withheld from you. Well,
It was right she should be told that;
made to understand it to the full. He
couldn't ask her to come back to him.
But she must know that her respect
was as necessary now to him as she'd
once said his was to her. He must see
her and tell her that.
He stopped abruptly in his walk. His
bones, as the Psalmist said, turned to
water. How should he confront that
gaze of hers, which knew so much and
understood so deeply-he with the
memory of his two last ignominious en-
counters with her behind him?
CHAPTER XIV.