The Fighting Chance

“How exactly do you mean?”

“Oh, about women.”

“I believe it, too. If he did take that Vyse girl into the Patroons, it was his limit with her—and, I believe his limit with any woman. He was absurdly decent that way; he was indeed. And now look at the reputation he has! Isn’t it funny? isn’t it, now?”

“What sort of an effect do you suppose all this business is going to have on Siward?”

“It’s had one effect already,” replied Fleetwood, as Plank came up, ready for the street. “Ferrall says he looks sick, and Belwether says he’s going to the devil; but that’s the sort of thing the major is likely to say. By the way, wasn’t there something between that pretty Landis girl and Siward? Somebody—some damned gossiping somebody—talked about it somewhere, recently.”

“I don’t believe that, either,” said Plank, in his heavy, measured, passionless voice, as they descended the steps of the white portico and looked around for a cab.

“As for me, I’ve got to hustle,” observed O’Hara, glancing at his watch. “I’m due to shine at a function about five. Are you coming up-town either of you fellows? I’ll give you a lift as far as Seventy-second Street, Plank.”

“Tell you what we’ll do,” said Fleetwood, impulsively, turning to Plank: “We’ll drive down town, you and I, and we’ll look up poor old Siward! Shall we? He’s probably all alone in that God-forsaken red brick family tomb! Shall we? How about it, Plank?”

O’Hara turned impatiently on his heel with a gesture of adieu, climbed into his electric hansom, and went buzzing away up the avenue.

“I’d like to, but I don’t think I know Mr. Siward well enough to do that,” said Plank diffidently. He hesitated, colouring up. “He might misunderstand my going with you—as a liberty—which perhaps I might not have ventured on had he been less—less unfortunate.”

Again Fleetwood warmed toward the ruddy, ponderous young man beside him. “See here,” he said, “you are going as a friend of mine—if you care to look at it that way.”

“Thank you,” said Plank; “I should be very glad to go in that way.”

The Siward house was old only in the comparative Manhattan meaning of the word; for in New York nothing is really very old, except the faces of the young men.

Decades ago it had been considered a big house, and it was still so spoken of—a solid, dingy, red brick structure, cubical in proportions, surmounted by heavy chimneys, the depth of its sunken windows hinting of the thickness of wall and foundation. Window-curtains of obsolete pattern, all alike, and all drawn, masked the blank panes. Three massive wistaria-vines, the gnarled stems as thick as tree-trunks, crawled upward to the roof, dividing the façade equally, and furnishing some relief to its flatness, otherwise unbroken except by the deep reveals of window and door. Two huge and unsymmetrical catalpa trees stood sentinels before it, dividing curb from asphalt; and from the centres of the shrivelled, brown grass-plots flanking the stoop under the basement windows two aged Rose-of-Sharon trees bristled naked to the height of the white marble capitals of the flaking pillars supporting the stained portico.

An old New York house, in the New York sense. Old in another sense, too, where in a rapid land Time outstrips itself, painting, with the antiquity of centuries, the stone and mortar which were new scarce ten years since.

“Nice old family mausoleum,” commented Fleetwood, descending from the hansom, followed by Plank. The latter instinctively mounted the stoop on tiptoe, treading gingerly as one who ventures into precincts unknown but long respected; and as Fleetwood pulled the old-fashioned bell, Plank stole a glance over the façade, where wisps of straw trailed from sparrows’ nests, undisturbed, wedged between plinth and pillar; where, behind the lace pane-screens, shadowy edges of heavy curtains framed the obscurity; where the paint had blistered and peeled from the iron railings, and the marble pillars of the portico glimmered, scarred by frosts of winters long forgotten.

“Cheerful monument,” repeated Fleetwood with a sarcastic nod. Then the door was opened by a very old man wearing the black “swallow-tail” clothes and choker of an old-time butler, spotless, quite immaculate, but cut after a fashion no young man remembers.

“Good evening,” said Fleetwood, entering, followed on tiptoe by Plank.

“Good evening, sir.”… A pause; and in the unsteady voice of age: “Mr. Fleetwood, sir.... Mr.—.” A bow, and the dim eyes peering up at Plank, who stood fumbling for his card-case.

Fleetwood dropped both cards on the salver unsteadily extended. The butler ushered them into a dim room on the right.

“How is Mr. Siward?” asked Fleetwood, pausing on the threshold and dropping his voice.

The old man hesitated, looking down, then still looking away from Fleetwood: “Bravely, sir, bravely, Mr. Fleetwood.”

“The Siwards were always that,” said the young man gently.

“Yes, sir.... Thank you. Mr. Stephen—Mr. Siward,” he corrected, quaintly, “is indisposed, sir. It was a—a great shock to us all, sir!” He bowed and turned away, holding his salver stiffly; and they heard him muttering under his breath, “Bravely, sir, bravely. A—a great shock, sir!… Thank you.”

Fleetwood turned to Plank, who stood silent, staring through the fading light at the faded household gods of the house of Siward. The dim light touched the prisms of a crystal chandelier dulled by age, and edged the carved foliations of the marble mantel, above which loomed a tarnished mirror reflecting darkness. Fleetwood rose, drew a window-shade higher, and nodded toward several pictures; and Plank moved slowly from one to another, peering up at the dead Siwards in their crackled varnish.

“This is the real thing,” observed Fleetwood cynically, “all this Fourth Avenue antique business; dingy, cumbersome, depressing. Good God! I see myself standing it.... Look at that old grinny-bags in a pig-tail over there! To the cellar for his, if this were my house.... We’ve got some, too, in several rooms, and I never go into ‘em. They’re like a scene in a bum play, or like one of those Washington Square rat-holes, where artists eat Welsh-rabbits with dirty fingers. Ugh!”

“I like it,” said Plank, under his breath.

Fleetwood stared, then shrugged, and returned to the window to watch a brand-new French motor-car drawn up before a modern mansion across the avenue.

The butler returned presently, saying that Mr. Siward was at home and would receive them in the library above, as he was not yet able to pass up and down stairs.

“I didn’t know he was as ill as that,” muttered Fleetwood, as he and Plank followed the old man up the creaking stairway. But Gumble, the butler, said nothing in reply.

Siward was sitting in an arm-chair by the window, one leg extended, his left foot, stiffly cased in bandages, resting on a footstool.

“Why, Stephen!” exclaimed Fleetwood, hastening forward, “I didn’t know you were laid up like this!”

Siward offered his hand inquiringly; then his eyes turned toward Plank, who stood behind Fleetwood; and, slowly disengaging his hand from Fleetwood’s sympathetic grip, he offered it to Plank.

“It is very kind of you,” he said. “Gumble, Mr. Fleetwood prefers rye, for some inscrutable reason. Mr. Plank?” His smile was a question.

“If you don’t mind,” said Plank, “I should like to have some tea—that is, if—”

“Tea, Gumble, for two. We’ll tipple in company, Mr. Plank,” he added. “And the cigars are at your elbow, Billy,” with another smile at Fleetwood.

“Now,” said the latter, after he had lighted his cigar, “what is the matter, Stephen?”

Siward glanced at his stiffly extended foot. “Nothing much.” He reddened faintly, “I slipped. It’s only a twisted ankle.”

For a moment or two the answer satisfied Fleetwood, then a sudden, curious flash of suspicion came into his eyes; he glanced sharply at Siward, who lowered his eyes, while the red tint in his hollow cheeks deepened.

Neither spoke for a while. Plank sipped the tea which Wands, the second man, brought. Siward brooded over his cup, head bent. Fleetwood made more noise than necessary with his ice.

“I miss you like hell!” said Fleetwood musingly, measuring out the old rye from the quaint decanter. “Why did you drop the Saddle Club, Stephen?”

“I’m not riding; I have no use for it,” replied Siward.

“You’ve cut out the Proscenium Club, too, and the Owl’s Head, and the Trophy. It’s a shame, Stephen.”

“I’m tired of clubs.”

“Don’t talk that way.”

“Very well, I won’t,” said Siward, smiling. “Tell me what is happening—out there,” he made a gesture toward the window; “all the gossip the newspapers miss. I’ve talked Dr. Grisby to death; I’ve talked Gumble to death; I’ve read myself stupid. What’s going on, Billy?”

So Fleetwood sketched for him a gay cartoon of events, caricaturing various episodes in the social kaleidoscope which might interest him. He gossiped cynically, but without malice, about people they both knew, about engagements, marriages, and divorces, plans and ambitions; about those absent from the metropolis and the newcomers to be welcomed. He commented briefly on the opera, reviewed the newer plays at the theatres, touched on the now dormant gaiety which had made the season at nearby country clubs conspicuous; then drifted into the hunting field, gossiping pleasantly in the vernacular about horses and packs and drag-hunts and stables, and what people thought of the new English hounds of the trial pack, and how the new M. F. H., Maitland Gray, had managed to break so many bones at Southbury.

Politics were touched upon, and they spoke of the possibility of Ferrall going to the Assembly, the sport of boss-baiting having become fashionable among amateurs, and providing a new amusement for the idle rich.

So city, State, and national issues were run through lightly, business conditions noticed, the stock market speculated upon; and presently conversation died out, with a yawn from Fleetwood as he looked into his empty glass at the last bit of ice.

“Don’t do that, Billy,” smiled Siward. “You haven’t discoursed upon art, literature, and science yet, and you can’t go until you’ve adjusted the affairs of the nation for the next twenty-four hours.”