Chapter FIVE: The Breath of Life

§ i

“Tired?” asked Mr. Stephens.

“Not a bit,” said Andrée. “Edna and I owe you a vote of thanks for putting a little life into one of those ghastly Sundays. I loathe Sundays.”

“You wouldn’t if you’d ever done any work,” said he.

She looked at him in surprise. He was sitting on the rail of the veranda where she had found him when she came out after her late and solitary breakfast. He looked well in his white flannels; he wore his great variety of clothes with a sort of innocent gusto, like so many fancy dress costumes, and though so obviously not to the manner born, he had no awkwardness; there was, on the contrary, an engaging and honest assurance about him, and a remarkable vitality. His features were sharp and by no means distinguished, but they were good. His blue eyes were frank and intelligent. He was wiry, well knit, not without vanity in his strength. The cheerful grin had vanished from his face with his last words, leaving it quite serious.

“I have done work,” she answered. “You don’t know what hard, tiresome work practising is.”

“It isn’t work,” he interrupted. “It’s preparation for work. You’ve never had to go on when you were tired. In fact, you’ve never had to do it at all. Your conscience has been your master, and I can tell you, it’s a darn sight easier master than hunger.”

This was extraordinary talk.

“Well, I suppose I’m lucky then,” said Andrée. “I’ve never had to earn money, and I don’t suppose I ever shall.”

“It’s not lucky to be useless,” he said.

“Useless!” she cried. “Do you think making music is useless?”

“Of course it is. Lots of people get on without music. Fine, high-minded people, too.”

Andrée smiled scornfully.

“I dare say!” she said. “But there are some people who wouldn’t think life was worth living without art.”

“No, there aren’t. Not one. If you gave any human being his choice between a decent happy life without a sign of art, or death, no one but a maniac would choose death.”

“_I_ should!”

“Then that’s because you don’t know anything about death, or life either.”

She shrugged her shoulders, and half turned away.

“You’d better not bother to talk to such a fool, then,” she said. “I’ll admit I can’t talk to people who despise music.”

“I don’t despise it. I’m very fond of it. I play a little myself. In fact, I think I’ve got quite a talent for it. If I could have studied, I’d have been a pretty good musician.”

“I don’t doubt it, judging by your performance yesterday morning,” said Andrée.

She was glad to see his face flush as she walked away. He needed taking down.

Still, she couldn’t help thinking of him. He was an interesting, if an impertinent man. Her mother had said nothing further about him, but he was obviously in the category of impossible persons. Perhaps they had encouraged him too much....

But the beastly part of it was, that he was always doing such interesting things, things you couldn’t help wanting to do yourself. He lived in a sort of world of his own, quite cheerful in his ostracism. Perhaps he didn’t even notice the scorn and disapproval of the respectable old ladies, or the contempt of the matrons. He walked about the corridors with his hat on, he sat on the porch whistling loudly, late at night, when his betters wanted to sleep. Complaints poured in upon the placid Mrs. Dewey. And still, in spite of all this, Andrée and Edna followed his activities with envious eyes. One day a lean, worn horse was brought round for him from some mysterious source, and he came out and packed on it a most peculiar burden in a watercloth cover. He was there a long time, inspecting the girths, readjusting his load, intensely serious. Then he glanced up and saw the girls in the doorway.

“I’m off for a little camping trip,” he said. “A couple of days--exploring the hills.”

He mounted nimbly and turned to wave at them, and trotted off, straight and soldierly, in khaki breeches and a white shirt, and a big sombrero on his neat head.

The next thing he did when he returned was to order a canoe from the city and carry it on his back a long way to a suitable little river. He was away in it for three days and came back with a fine basket of fish which he asked Mrs. Dewey to cook for the entire house.

And that evening after dinner he frankly approached Claudine.

“They tell me you know a lot about flowers,” he said. “I don’t know much, but I know enough to spot rare ones. I’ve brought back three or four specimens I think you’d like to have.”

“Thank you!” said Claudine. “You’re very kind!”

She hadn’t the heart to snub the friendly creature; besides, it was very nice of him to think of her.

“I’ll be very pleased to see them in the morning,” she said.

“Do you mind smoking?” he asked.

She was startled; did he intend to stay by her side?

“Not at all! And anyhow, I’m going in directly. I have letters to write.”

She left him sitting on the rail in his characteristic attitude, the attitude of a small boy, a rather humorous figure. And yet, in a way, a singularly manly and independent one, quite indifferent to the disapproval of the rocking old ladies, quite sufficient unto himself. Solitary, he was not lonely, not forlorn; he no more objected to being ignored than a cat might have objected. He somehow stood out against the background of mountains and starry sky with a startling individuality, like the epitome of valiant humanity defying nature. She thought of him with great indulgence, in spite of the fact that he had driven her indoors.

§ ii

Claudine came out the next morning, prepared for the excursion she made every fine morning while Andrée practised and Edna sat in the room with her, driven by her sister’s industry to the study of Italian. She had with her two volumes of philosophers and a note book and fountain pen, for the studying she did, copying out and commenting upon the passages that impressed her, getting what comfort and peace of mind she could from them.

She put up her dark green sunshade and started off across the lawn, very trim and elegant in starched white; she looked remarkably young, her calm and serious face hadn’t a line, a wrinkle, her coppery hair was as bright and heavy as it had ever been, she was straight, her outlines neat and clear. She had never been supple; there had always been a sort of woodenness about her small body, but it had a charm all its own; it gave her a peculiarly “ladylike” air of being not quite human.

She left the grounds and entered upon the highway, inches deep in clean white dust, and she heard no footsteps behind her, no sound until an anxious voice said over her shoulder:

“I’ve brought those little plants and things for you to look at. I was afraid I wouldn’t be there when you got back. I’m leaving at noon for two or three days and they’d be withered by the time I got back.”

It was the nice little beast, coatless, in riding breeches and puttees. He proffered a small tin case, and she took it from him with a smile.

“Can’t I carry your books and things to wherever you’re going?” he asked.

She hesitated a moment, and then said, “Yes, thank you!” and they went on, side by side, Mr. Stephens gallantly holding the parasol very high over her head.

He glanced down at the books.

“Marcus Aurelius and Nietzsche!” he said. “That’s a queer combination!”

“Do you know them?” she asked, in surprise.

“Oh, yes! I’ve read about everything you could think of. I used to read things like this a lot. But not any more. They’re not real enough.”

“Some people have found them very real nourishment for the mind,” she said lightly. She couldn’t take this person seriously.

“I haven’t any use for mind without body,” he answered. “That’s what I like about Christianity. It’s so solid and material--”

“But it’s just the spirituality that is so admirable in it!” she protested.

“Not for me, it isn’t. What appeals to me about it is the human, natural, unspiritual part. Tells you to _do_ this and that, instead of thinking this and that. It’s what you do, not what you feel, that counts there. I’ve never thought Christ cared whether people believed in Him or not. My idea is that He sort of had an idea that He’d help people by a few practical ideas on how to make the world a decent place to live in. If you behave in this way, He says, you can all be more or less happy. You see,” he went on, “I’m a Socialist.”

“Oh, mercy!” said Claudine, rather shocked.

“Yes, I’m a Socialist. And the way I see it, to be a good Socialist, you’ve got to be either an atheist or a Christian. If you’re an atheist, and you think this world is all there’s going to be, then you feel so d---- doggone sorry for the people who aren’t getting anything out of it, that you’d do all you possibly could to help them. I used to be an atheist. I was working in a factory when I was about eighteen, and when I’d see those kids starting in--boys, children really--and knew they’d never get even a fair living out of a whole life’s work, I guess I was a kind of Anarchist too. I thought the best thing they could do was to grab what they could, to try to wipe out the--hogs that kept all the good things away from them. But then, one day, I thought I’d read the New Testament, along with a lot of other stuff I had in hand. And, Gosh!... it was like a--a lamp being lighted in a dark room. Right away I felt that it was _right_. That He’d got hold of the right idea of how to run the world. I’d always hated the idea that we were a lot of fighting animals, all struggling to get food. Evolution didn’t suit me altogether. It was too darned unfair to the beginners, you know, the cave men and those fellows who just opened the way for us. Well, I thought after I’d read about Christ, this living’s just a job, and here’s the way to do it. And after it’s done, we’ll get a rest. We need it. Why, hang it all! Even a baby a year old has had a hard life, trying to get adjusted.... I don’t believe in all this stuff about a whole lot of future lives, and keeping on developing. No, sir! This life is enough; it’s hard enough, and we learn enough. I guess we deserve peace after this, and I guess we’ll get it. Is this where you always stay?”

“Yes,” said Claudine. “But I wish you’d sit down and talk a little. I like to hear you.”

“I talk too much,” he said, seriously. “Somehow I’m always so full of stuff I want to say that I kind of spill over. And--d’ye know--somehow it seems--valuable--the stuff I want to say. Not particularly because it’s me, but because it’s--human nature.”

“It’s really very interesting,” said Claudine, blandly.

He laughed.

“Do you know,” he went on, “ten years ago the idea of anyone like you--a lady--saying she liked to hear me, even agreeing to listen to me--would have seemed like a pipe dream. I used to think that if I ever got a chance to talk to your sort, I’d give ’em a piece of my mind. But when I got to know more about ’em, why, I saw nothing could be done that way. No, sir; you can’t make people understand by talking. They’ve got to see--and feel. If _you_ ever saw or felt what life was really like, you wouldn’t be satisfied to--”

He stopped abruptly.

“I didn’t mean to talk that way to you,” he said. “It’s rude. And you’re so kind and nice.”

“But I want you to! I want to hear what you think! I shouldn’t be satisfied to what?”

“Well ... to take everything and give nothing.”

“But do you imagine that I give nothing? I have three children.”

“That’s nothing. I’ll be frank, if you really want.... What I mean is, you _don’t count_. You don’t try to help. You just try to make life bearable for yourself. Don’t you see? Even with your children. You don’t teach them to serve. You just tell them to live decently.”

“Even that is something--in a world like this,” she said, with a little smile.

He shook his head.

“Not to me! Better to forget your own life--even your own decency--a little....”

“But--since you have so clear an idea of the scheme of things--what would you like people like me--myself for instance--to do?”

“I guess it’s too late for you to _do_ much,” he said, gravely. “All you could do would be to learn to understand.”

“Perhaps I do.”

“You couldn’t. No one understands--really--by intuition. You’ve got to know, through experience--either inside or outside yourself. And I guess you--”

“Do go on! I’m not easily offended.”

“Well, I guess you’ve felt, instead of experiencing. It’s altogether different.”

“I wonder what experience you would countenance?” she asked. “Do you consider that the mother of three children, a woman who has lost both her parents, who has lived nearly forty years, is still without experience?”

He made an extraordinary answer.

“Your soul’s all right,” he said. “It’s your heart that’s undeveloped.”

“Heavens!” she thought. “Is the queer little creature trying to make love to me?”

But he went on.

“The great thing in the world is compassion.”

Then he stopped short and pulled out of a breeches’ pocket a gold cigarette case.

“Isn’t it a beauty?” he asked. “I paid what lots of people I know could live on for months and months for this.”

“But--” she began, bewildered.

“I suppose you’re wondering what a fellow with views like mine is doing with a toy like that. Well, in the first place, it isn’t a dead loss. After I’ve used it a few years more, I’ll sell it or pawn it for quite a lot. It’s solid gold, you know; one of the best I could buy. _Isn’t_ it a beauty?”

“Yes, it is!” she agreed, terribly touched by his naïve pride. “It is--a beauty!”

What an extraordinary conversation this was, she and this freckled young man, sitting facing each other on great sun-warmed rocks in the little glade which she had for weeks looked upon as her especial domain! She had certainly never met anything at all like him before, no one so absurd and so honest and so touching.

“But I was going to tell you why I had this thing,” he continued. “It’s because I think everyone’s got a right to a few pet follies. Now, some people think a Socialist can’t consistently have a balance in the bank. Well, my idea is this.... I’ve been able to grab for myself my share in the good things in the world. And that’s what I want to see every other fellow do. Not grab, if you could get it any other way, but generally you can’t. I want everyone to get a share. And a chance. I’ve got mine, and I’m going to help other people to get theirs.”

“But how did you get yours?” she asked, with an irresistible curiosity. She knew that he wouldn’t resent any sort of question.

“Fought for it. Fought for it like a devil. You see, I’d made a little invention--an improvement for a certain type of printing press. I’ll explain it all some other time. Well, of course, the fellows on top wanted to take it.... I won’t go into that either just now. But, anyway, I knew. I knew the profit it would make, and I made up my mind that a good part of that profit was coming my way. So I grabbed my share. It’s what everyone ought to have; a decent share in the profit of his work. It was a good kind of grabbing.... And now I’m able to do what I’d like to see every other fellow in the world able to do--work hard, at some kind of useful, manual work until he’s thirty, and then play for three or four years, before he settles down to work his brain. Brains aren’t much good until they’ve had those two things--manual work and play.”

“What is your brain going to do?”

“Write. I’ve got it in me.... But I’ve got off the track. I was showing you that cigarette case because I wanted to ask you if you could imagine what it was like to be an outcast, to have money enough to buy things like that, and to see how they’re begrudged to you. Every time I used to go in to buy things I’d earned enough money to buy, I was made to feel that. My money was good enough, but I wasn’t. If you could have seen the swell English tailor I bought my clothes from! He hated me for being able to get them. Because I’m ‘common.’ Well, as a matter of fact, I’m really very uncommon--darned uncommon.... The point I’m making is, that all the fine, good things in the world are put aside for a few people. Everybody knows it. All the shop people know it. They don’t want outsiders to get any of their choice things. They’re like watch-dogs--fool watch-dogs, starving to death while they watch other people’s meat.... When I was younger and doing more reading and thinking, I used to think the best way to bring about the changes I hoped to see was for the people on top to be awakened. They’ve got the money, the leisure, the power, the education, I thought.... But I learned pretty soon it would never come that way. They haven’t got either brains or compassion enough. They’ve used all their privileges to corrupt, not to enlighten. And not through wickedness or diplomacy, mind you, but from stupidity.”

He pulled out his watch.

“Oh!” he said. “I’ve got to go! Are you all right?”

“Perfectly, thank you!” she answered, smiling. “Only a little confused by all you’ve been telling me.”

It was not his words, however, that remained in her memory after he had gone. They meant little to her. It was the curious vitality and force of the man, his candour, his innocence, his baffling air of certainty. She thought of his activities, his ideas, his tireless flow of talk, and the woods, usually so full of interest and charm for her, were suddenly blank. The mystery and wonder she had seen in the smallest plant were suddenly nothing at all in comparison to the wonder of a human being.

She became uneasily doubtful of her philosophic attitude toward her fellows, her great desire to escape them.

“He’s ...” she thought, with half a smile. “He’s a breath of life in all this stagnation.... A breath of life!”