Chapter 39
"Come on, then, for Heaven's sake!" said Selwyn, laughing; and the two men, arm in arm, began a minute tour of the house.
"Isn't it a corker! Isn't it fine!" repeated Lansing every few minutes.
"I wouldn't exchange it for any mansion on Fifth Avenue!"
"You'd be a fool to," agreed Selwyn gravely.
"Certainly I would. Anyway, prices are going up like rockets in this section--not that I'd think of selling out at any price--but it's comfortable to know it. Why, a real-estate man told me--h.e.l.lo! What was that? Something fell somewhere!"
"A section of the bath-room ceiling, I think," said Selwyn; "we mustn't step too heavily on the floors at first, you know."
"Oh, I'm going to have the entire thing done over--room by room--when I can afford it. Meanwhile _j'y suis, j'y reste_.... Look there, Phil!
That's to be your room."
"Thanks, old fellow--not now."
"Why, yes! I expected you'd have your room here, Phil--"
"It's very good of you, Boots, but I can't do it."
Lansing faced him: "_Won't_ you?"
Selwyn, smiling, shook his head; and the other knew it was final.
"Well, the room will be there--furnished the way you and I like it. When you want it, make smoke signals or wig-wag."
"I will; thank you, Boots."
Lansing said unaffectedly, "How soon do you think you can afford a house like this?"
"I don't know; you see, I've only my income now--"
"Plus what you make at the office--"
"I've left Neergard."
"What!"
"This morning; for good."
"The deuce!" he murmured, looking at Selwyn; but the latter volunteered no further information, and Lansing, having given him the chance, cheerfully switched to the other track:
"Shall I see whether the Air Line has anything in _your_ line, Phil? No?
Well, what are you going to do?"
"I don't exactly know what I shall do.... If I had capital--enough--I think I'd start in making bulk and dense powders--all sorts; gun-cotton, nitro-powders--"
"You mean you'd like to go on with your own invention--Chaosite?"
"I'd like to keep on experimenting with it if I could afford to. Perhaps I will. But it's not yet a commercial possibility--if it ever is to be.
I wish I could control it; the ignition is simultaneous and absolutely complete, and there is not a trace of ash, not an unburned or partly burned particle. But it's not to be trusted, and I don't know what happens to it after a year's storage."
For a while they discussed the commercial possibilities of Chaosite, and how capital might be raised for a stock company; but Selwyn was not sanguine, and something of his mental depression returned as he sat there by the curtainless window, his head on his closed hand, looking out into the sunny street.
"Anyway," said Lansing, "you've nothing to worry over."
"No, nothing," a.s.sented Selwyn listlessly.
After a silence Lansing added: "But you do a lot of worrying all the same, Phil."
Selwyn
"Yes, you do! I don't believe you realise how much of the time you are out of spirits."
"Does it impress you that way?" asked Selwyn, mortified; "because I'm really all right."
"Of course you are, Phil; I know it, but you don't seem to realise it.
You're morbid, I'm afraid."
"You've been talking to my sister!"
"What of it? Besides, I knew there was something the matter--"
"You know what it is, too. And isn't it enough to subdue a man's spirits occasionally?"
"No," said Lansing--"if you mean your--mistake--two years ago. That isn't enough to spoil life for a man. I've wanted to tell you so for a long time."
And, as Selwyn said nothing: "For Heaven's sake make up your mind to enjoy your life! You are fitted to enjoy it. Get that absurd notion out of your head that you're done for--that you've no home life in prospect, no family life, no children--"
Selwyn turned sharply, but the other went on: "You can swear at me if you like, but you've no business to go through the world cuddling your own troubles closer and closer and squinting at everybody out of disenchanted eyes. It's selfish, for one thing; you're thinking altogether too much about yourself."
Selwyn, too annoyed to answer, glared at his friend.
"Oh, I know you don't like it, Phil, but what I'm saying may do you good. It's fine physic, to learn what others think about you; as for me, you can't mistake my friends.h.i.+p--or your sister's--or Miss Erroll's, or Mr. Gerard's. And one and all are of one opinion, that you have everything before you, including domestic happiness, which you care for more than anything. And there is no reason why you should not have it--no reason why you should not feel perfectly free to marry, and have a bunch of corking kids. It's not only your right, it's your business; and you're selfish if you don't!"
"Boots! I--I--"
"Go on!"
"I'm not going to swear; I'm only hurt, Boots--"
"Sure you are! Medicine's working, that's all. We strive to please, we kill to cure. Of course it hurts, man! But you know it will do you good; you know what I say is true. You've no right to club the natural and healthy inclinations out of yourself. The day for fanatics and dippy, dotty flagellants is past. Fox's martyrs are out of date. The man who grabs life in both fists and twists the essence out of it, counts. He is living as he ought to, he is doing the square thing by his country and his community--by every man, woman, and child in it! He's giving everybody, including himself, a square deal. But the man who has been upper-cut and floored, and who takes the count, and then goes and squats in a corner to brood over the fancy licks that Fate handed him--_he_ isn't dealing fairly and squarely by his principles or by a decent and generous world that stands to back him for the next round. Is he, Phil?"
"Do you mean to say, Boots, that you think a man who has made the ghastly mess of his life that I have, ought to feel free to marry?"
"Think it! Man, I know it. Certainly you ought to marry if you wish--but, above all, you ought to feel free to marry. That is the essential equipment of a man; he isn't a man if he feels that he isn't free to marry. He may not want to do it, he may not be in love. That's neither here nor there; the main thing is that he is as free as a man should be to take any good opportunity--and marriage is included in the list of good opportunities. If you become a slave to morbid notions, no wonder you are depressed. Slaves usually are. Do you want to slink through life? Then shake yourself, I tell you; learn to understand that you're free to do what any decent man may do. That will take the morbidness out of you. That will colour life for you. I don't say go hunting for some one to love; I do say, don't avoid her when you meet her."
"You preach a very gay sermon, Boots," he said, folding his arms. "I've heard something similar from my sister. As a matter of fact I think you are partly right, too; but if the inclination for the freedom you insist I take is wanting, then what? I don't wish to marry, Boots; I am not in love, therefore the prospect of home and kids is premature and vague, isn't it?"