to imagine what it could be.
It was all very disturbing. I helped him get up. Then, as he seemed fairly well able to dress himself, I went out and walked for a while on the Bund. When I returned I found him stretched out on my sofa, smoking.
“Come on in,” he said in a strong, sober voice. What an extraordinary fund of vitality the man has to draw on! “I want to talk to you.”
As I sank into a chair beside him, I felt once more that he was the stronger of us, I the weaker, even after all we had been through.
He knocked the ash off his cigar. It missed the ash-tray and fell, part of it, on the leg of my trousers. “I beg your pardon, old man,” he said, and carefully brushed it off. Then he settled back against the wall and stared up through his smoke at the pattern on the ceiling.
“My hand is n’t quite steady yet,” he added calmly.
Then he went on: “I should n’t have told this to you, Eckhart. It is n’t the sort of thing a man can tell. But, as it happens, you know why I did it. I’ve been stewed to the brim for two days. I’m through with that now, though. Until a certain job is done, I touch nothing stronger than wine. Here’s my hand on it.”
I had to clear my throat. I managed to say huskily: “I can’t take your hand on that, Crocker.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Very well,” he said. “If you prefer it that way. It goes, however. I drink no more now. That is one thing I really have you to thank for, Eckhart. Until you spoke out, back there on the ship, I did n’t realize how much I was drinking. What you told me this morning has clinched the business. I’m through. And you will find that I am a man of my word.”
“I am glad of that,” said I, “because I believe that, with the drink out of your system, your philosophy of life will change. I hope it will.”
He shook his head at this.
“No, Eckhart. Now, see here. You have today seen deep into a man’s heart. What you saw was not drink, merely; it was fact.”
His manner of saying this gave me an uncomfortable feeling that he was speaking the truth. Indeed, my increasing conviction as to the great reserve power of the man was distressing me.
“As I told you this morning,” he went on, “there is absolutely nothing you can do in the matter. Except killing me, of course – you could do that. But you won’t.”
“No,” said I sadly; “I won’t.”
“And I’m going to ask you to take the only course that an honorable man can take in the private quarrel of another – stand aside and try to forget what I have told you. You have my drunken confidences; forget them.”
“See here!” I broke out. “Were you faithful to your wife before she turned against you?” His eyes hardened. “What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“Precisely what I say.”
“You’re talking nonsense, Eckhart – ”
“I am not talking non – ”
“Yes, you are!”
He had swung around, and was sitting up, looking me squarely in the eye, as he shouted me down. My heart sank. Mere squabbling would get us nowhere. I did not know what to do. I do not now know what to do.
He went on:
“Yes; I was, to all intents and purposes, faithful to her. I did as well as a normal, healthy man can be expected to do. Let us not be childish about this. You and I know that man is physiologically different from woman. We know that what there is of purity and sacredness in marriage and in life will be lost forever once we lower our ideal of woman’s virtue.”
“No,” said I; “as a scientific man – ”
I could not go on with my protest; for thoughts of a few wild moments in my own relatively quiet life had come floating to the surface of memory. Who was I, to oppose the double standard of morality that has ruled the world so long!
He was still looking at me in that intent way. There was deep sadness behind the hard surface of his eyes.
“I came here to thank you for all your kindness, Eckhart,” he said then. “As for what you have heard, remember it is mine, not yours. That is all. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll help you get your truck down to the train.”
I did as he said. I am on my way to Peking to pursue my research. He is plunging off to scour the ports of Japan, all the way to Nagasaki, for the man and the woman who have assailed his honor and (what I am tempted to think even more to the point) outraged his pride as the head of his own house. Then he will go on, if necessary, to Shanghai, – that port of all the world, – to Hongkong, Manila, and Singapore, perhaps up the coast to Tientsin and Peking. And he has made me believe that he will do as he has sworn. It is very strange – very sad.
At the station I made my last weak protest.
“Crocker,” I blurted out, “for God’s sake, try to win her back. Perhaps you drove her away. Perhaps you were harsher, less understanding, than you knew. Perhaps you should beg her forgiveness, not she yours.”
He shook his head. “That may be so,” he said. “All that you say may be so. But I could n’t take her back. Don’t you see?”
“No,” I replied stoutly, “I don’t see.”
He raised both his hands in a despairing gesture.
“She is – she – ” His voice suddenly failed him. “She’s a woman – and she’s soiled!” His eyes filled; a tear rolled down his cheek. He made a queer, convulsive face; then threw up his hands and turned away.
That was all. I boarded my train.
The young German did not return the fifteen dollars. This China Coast is a hive of swindlers – so says Sir Robert. Henceforth I intend hardening my heart against every man. And against every woman, above all. For they, says Sir Robert, are the subtler and the worse.
Peking, April 5th, Midday
THAT Crocker affair haunts me with the power of a bad dream.
I do not like this at all.
I was too sympathetic with that man. I opened the gates of my mind to his ugly story; now I can not thrust it out and close those gates. My first impulse, to hold him at arm’s length, was sound. I should have done that. But at least, and at no small cost, I have again learned my little lesson; from now on I purpose dwelling apart from the tangle of contemporary life. It has no bearing on my work, on my thoughts. None whatever. It merely confuses me.
Yet, through momentary weakness, I have permitted my precious line of pure thought to be clouded with the vision of a strong man’s face with tears on it. I see it at night. And, worse, I can not stop myself from hunting for the woman he is going to kill. The mere sight of a youngish couple sets my pulse to racing. I watch – on trains, in station crowds, on the street – for a beautiful woman with a sad face. That she will be beautiful I am certain; for Crocker would have had nothing less in that house of which he felt himself so strongly and dominantly the master. And I think she will be sad.
I study the throats of the beautiful young women I see.
