There was the sun, letting down great glowing masses
of heat; there was life, active and snarling, moving
about them like a fly swarm—the dark pants
of smoke from the engine, a crisp “all aboard!”
and a bell ringing. Confusedly Maury saw eyes
in the milk train staring curiously up at him, heard
Gloria and Anthony in quick controversy as to whether
he should go to the city with her, then another clamor
and she was gone and the three men, pale as ghosts,
were standing alone upon the platform while a grimy
coal-heaver went down the road on top of a motor truck,
carolling hoarsely at the summer morning.
THE BROKEN LUTE
It is seven-thirty of an August evening. The
windows in the living room of the gray house are wide
open, patiently exchanging the tainted inner atmosphere
of liquor and smoke for the fresh drowsiness of the
late hot dusk. There are dying flower scents
upon the air, so thin, so fragile, as to hint already
of a summer laid away in time. But August is still
proclaimed relentlessly by a thousand crickets around
the side-porch, and by one who has broken into the
house and concealed himself confidently behind a bookcase,
from time to time shrieking of his cleverness and
his indomitable will.
The room itself is in messy disorder. On the
table is a dish of fruit, which is real but appears
artificial. Around it are grouped an ominous
assortment of decanters, glasses, and heaped ash-trays,
the latter still raising wavy smoke-ladders into the
stale air, the effect on the whole needing but a skull
to resemble that venerable chromo, once a fixture in
every “den,” which presents the appendages
to the life of pleasure with delightful and awe-inspiring
sentiment.
After a while the sprightly solo of the supercricket
is interrupted rather than joined by a new sound—the
melancholy wail of an erratically fingered flute.
It is obvious that the musician is practising rather
than performing, for from time to time the gnarled
strain breaks off and, after an interval of indistinct
mutterings, recommences.
Just prior to the seventh false start a third sound
contributes to the subdued discord. It is a taxi
outside. A minute’s silence, then the taxi
again, its boisterous retreat almost obliterating the
scrape of footsteps on the cinder walk. The door-bell
shrieks alarmingly through the house.
From the kitchen enters a small, fatigued Japanese,
hastily buttoning a servant’s coat of white
duck. He opens the front screen-door and admits
a handsome young man of thirty, clad in the sort of
well-intentioned clothes peculiar to those who serve
mankind. To his whole personality clings a well-intentioned
air: his glance about the room is compounded
of curiosity and a determined optimism; when he looks
at Tana the entire burden of uplifting the godless
Oriental is in his eyes. His name is FREDERICK
E. PARAMORE. He was at Harvard with ANTHONY,
where because of the initials of their surnames
they were constantly placed next to each other in
classes. A fragmentary acquaintance developed—but
since that time they have never met.
