The Restless Sex

"Any old kind."

She considered the matter, surprised.

"I couldn't interfere with your personal liberty," she concluded, " – whatever you choose to do."

"How would you feel about my frequenting some pretty studio model, for example?"

"I haven't the least idea."

"It wouldn't affect you one way or the other, then?"

"It ought not to – provided you are always nice to me."

"That," he exclaimed, "is a cold-blooded, fishy creed!"

"That's the creed of tolerance, Jim."

"All right. Live up to it, then. And I'll try to, too," he added drily. "Because, sometimes when you're off, God knows where, with Grismer, I feel lonely enough to drift with the first attractive girl I come across."

"Why don't you?" she asked, flushing slightly.

"The reason I haven't," he said, "is because I'm in love with you."

She was standing with head bent, but now she looked up quickly.

"You adorable infant," she laughed. "What a child you really are, after all! Come," she added mischievously, "let's kiss like good children and let the gods occupy themselves with our future. It's their business, not ours. I'm glad you think you're in love with me. But, Jim, I'm in love with life. And you're such an important part of life that, naturally, I include you!"

She bent forward and touched his lips with hers, daintily, deftly avoiding his arms, her eyes gay with malice.

"No," she laughed, "not that, if you please, dear friend! It rumples and raises the deuce with my hair and gown. But we are friends again, aren't we, Jim?"

"Yes," he said in a low voice, " – if you can give me no more than friendship."

"It's the most wonderful thing in the world!" she insisted.

"You've read that somewhere."

"You annoy me, Jim! It is my own conclusion. There's nothing finer for anybody – unless they want children. And I don't."

Neither did he. No young man does. But what she said struck him as unpleasantly modern.

He met Grismer here and there in the artistic channels of the city; often in Stephanie's studio, frequently in other studios, and occasionally amid gatherings at restaurants, theatres, art galleries.

At first he had been civil but cool, avoiding any tête-à-tête with his old school-fellow. But, little by little, he became aware of several things which slightly influenced his attitude toward Grismer.

One thing became plain; the man had no intimates. There was not a man Cleland met who seemed to care very much for Grismer; he seemed to have no frank and cordial friendships among men, no pals. Yet, he was considered clever and amusing where people gathered; he interested men without evoking their personal sympathy; he interested women intensely with his unusual good looks and the light, elusive quality of his intelligence.

Always amiably suave, graceful of movement, alert and considerate of feminine fancies, moods and caprices, he was welcomed everywhere by them in the circles which he sauntered into. But he was merely accepted by men.

So, in spite of his resentment at what Grismer had done, Cleland felt slightly sorry for this friendless man. For Grismer's was a solitary soul, and Cleland, who had suffered from loneliness enough to understand it, gradually became conscious of the intense loneliness of this man, even amid his popularity with women and their sympathetic and sentimental curiosity concerning him.

But no man seemed to care for closer intimacy with Grismer than a friendly acquaintanceship offered. There was something about him that did not seem to attract or invite men's careless comradeship or confidence.

"It's those floating golden specks in his eyes," said Belter, discussing him one day with Cleland. "He's altogether too auriferous and graceful to be entirely genuine, Cleland – too easy and too damned bland. Poor beggar; have you noticed how shabby and shiny he's getting? I guess he's down and out for fair financially."

Cleland had noticed it. The man's linen was visibly frayed. His clothes, too, betrayed his meagre circumstances, yet he wore them so well, and there was such a courtly indifference in the man, that the shabby effect seemed due to a sort of noble carelessness.

Cleland had never called on Grismer. He had no inclination to do so, no particular reason except that Grismer had invited him several times. Yet, an uneasy curiosity lurked within him concerning Grismer's abode and whether Stephanie, always serenely unconventional, ever went there.

He didn't care to think she did, yet, after all, the girl was this man's legal wife, and there was no moral law to prevent her going there and taking up her abode if she were so inclined.

Cleland never asked her if she went there, perhaps dreading her reply.

As far as that was concerned, he could not find any of his friends or acquaintances who had ever been in Grismer's lodgings. Nobody even seemed to know exactly where they were, except that Grismer lived somewhere in Bleecker Street and never entertained.

At times, when Stephanie was not to be found, and his unhappy inference placed her in Grismer's company, he felt an unworthy inclination to call on Grismer and find out whether the girl was there. But the impulse was a low one, and made him ashamed, and his envy and jealousy disgusted him with himself.

Besides, his state of mind was painfully confused and uncertain in regard to Stephanie. He was in love with her, evidently. But the utter lack of sentimental response on her part afforded his love for her no nourishment.

He traversed the entire scale of emotions. When he was not with her he often came to the exasperated conclusion that he could learn to forget her; when he was with her the idea seemed rather hopeless.

The unfortunate part of it seemed to be that, like his father's, his was a single-track heart. He'd never been in love, unless this was love. Anyway, Stephanie occupied the single track, and there seemed to be no switches, no sidings, nothing to clear that track.

He was exceedingly miserable at times.

However, his mind was equipped with a whole terminal full of tracks and every one was busy in the service of his profession.

For a month, now, he had been installed in his studio-apartment on the top floor. He picked up on Fourth and on Madison Avenues enough preciously rickety furniture to make him comfortable and drive friends to distraction when they ventured to trust themselves to chair or sofa.

But his writing table and corner-chair were solid and modern, and he had half a dozen things under construction – a novel, some short stories, some poems which he modestly mentioned as verses.

Except for the unexplored mazes in which first love had involved him he was happy – exceedingly happy. But, to a creative mind, happiness born of self-expression is a weird, uncanny, composite emotion, made up of ecstatic hope and dolorous despair and well peppered with dread and confidence, cowardice and courage, rage and tranquillity; and further seasoned with every devilish doubt and celestial satisfaction that the heart of a writer is heir to.

In the morning he was certain of himself. He was the captain of his destiny; he was the dictator of his inspiration, equipped with the technical mastery that his obedient thoughts dare not disobey.

By afternoon the demon Doubt had shaken his self-confidence, and Fear peered at him between every line of his manuscript, and it was a case of Childe Roland from that time on until the pencil fell from his unnerved fingers and he rose from his work satiated, half-stunned, not knowing whether he had done well or meanly. Vaguely he realized at such moments that, for such as he, a just appraisal of his own work would never be possible for him – that he himself would never know; and that what men said of it – if, indeed, they ever said anything about his work – would never wholly convince him, never entirely enlighten him as to its value or its worthlessness.

That is one of the penalties imposed upon the creative mind. It goes on producing because it must. Praise stimulates it, blame depresses; but it never knows the truth.

Toward the end of May, one afternoon, Stephanie came into his studio, seated herself calmly in his chair, and picked up his manuscript.

"It's no good," he said, throwing himself on an antique sofa which just endured the strain and no more.

She read for an hour, her grey eyes never leaving the written pages, her pretty brows bent inward with the strain of concentration.

He watched her, chin on hand, lying there on the sofa.

But the air was mild and languorous with the promise of the coming summer; sunshine fell across the wall; the boy dozed, presently, and after a while lay fast asleep.