“‘Well. Thanks-once more. You’ve been—er—uncommonly—really there’s no word to…Uncommonly! I don’t know why, I am sure. I am afraid I don’t feel as grateful as I would if the whole thing hadn’t been so brutally sprung on me. Because at bottom…you, yourself…’ He stuttered.
“‘Possibly,’ I struck in. He frowned.
“‘All the same, one is responsible.’ He watched me like a hawk.
“‘And that’s true, too,’ I said.
“‘Well. I’ve gone with it to the end, and I don’t intend to let any man cast it in my teeth without—without—resenting it.’ He clenched his fist.
“‘There’s yourself,’ I said with a smile—mirthless enough, God knows—but he looked at me menacingly. ‘That’s my business,’ he said. An air of indomitable resolution came and went upon his face like a vain and passing shadow. Next moment he looked a dear good boy in trouble, as before. He flung away the cigarette. ‘Good-bye,’ he said, with the sudden haste of a man who had lingered too long in view of a pressing bit of work waiting for him; and then for a second or so he made not the slightest movement. The downpour fell with the heavy uninterrupted rush of a sweeping flood, with a sound of unchecked overwhelming fury that called to one’s mind the images of collapsing bridges, of uprooted trees, of undermined mountains. No man could breast the colossal and headlong stream that seemed to break and swirl against the dim stillness in which we were precariously sheltered as if on an island. The perforated pipe gurgled, choked, spat, and splashed in odious ridicule of a swimmer fighting for his life. ‘It is raining,’ I remonstrated, ‘and I…’ ‘Rain or shine,’ he began, brusquely, checked himself, and walked to the window. ‘Perfect deluge,’ he muttered after a while: he leaned his forehead on the glass. ‘It’s dark, too.’
“‘Yes, it is very dark,’ I said.
“He pivoted on his heels, crossed the room, and had actually opened the door leading into the corridor before I leaped up from my chair. ‘Wait, I cried, ‘I want you to…’ ‘I can’t dine with you again to-night,’ he flung at me, with one leg out of the room already. ‘I haven’t the slightest intention to ask you,’ I shouted. At this he drew back his foot, but remained mistrustfully in the very doorway. I lost no time in entreating him earnestly not to be absurd; to come in and shut the door.”
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Chapter Seventeen
“HE came in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it; it was falling just then with a devastating violence which quieted down gradually while we talked. His manner was very sober and set; his bearing was that of a naturally taciturn man possessed by an idea. My talk was of the material aspect of his position; it had the sole aim of saving him from the degradation, ruin, and despair that out there close so swiftly upon a friendless, homeless man; I pleaded with him to accept my help; I argued reasonably: and every time I looked up at that absorbed smooth face, so grave and youthful, I had a disturbing sense of being no help but rather an obstacle to some mysterious, inexplicable, impalpable striving of his wounded spirit.
“‘I suppose you intend to eat and drink and to sleep under shelter in the usual way,’ I remember saying with irritation. ‘You say you won’t touch the money that is due to you.’…He came as near as his sort can to making a gesture of horror. (There were three weeks and five days’ pay owing him as mate of the Patna.) ‘Well, that’s too little to matter anyhow; but what will you do to-morrow? Where will you turn? You must live…’ ‘That isn’t the thing,’ was the comment that escaped him under his breath. I ignored it, and went on combating what I assumed to be the scruples of an exaggerated delicacy. ‘On every conceivable ground.’ I concluded. ‘you must let me help you.’ ‘You can’t,’ he said very simply and gently, and holding fast to some deep idea which I could detect shimmering like a pool of water in the dark, but which I despaired of ever approaching near enough to fathom. I surveyed his well-proportioned bulk. ‘At any rate,’ I said, ‘I am able to help what I can see of you. I don’t pretend to do more.’ He shook his head sceptically without looking at me. I got very warm. ‘But I can,’ I insisted. ‘I can do even more. I am doing more. I am trusting you…’ ‘The money…’ he began. ‘Upon my word you deserve being told to go to the devil,’ I cried, forcing the note of indignation. He was startled, smiled, and I pressed my attack home. ‘It isn’t a question of money at all. You are too superficial,’ I said (and at the same time I was thinking to myself: Well, here goes! And perhaps he is after all). ‘Look at the letter I want you to take. I am writing to a man of whom I’ve never asked a favour, and I am writing about you in terms that one only ventures to use when speaking of an intimate friend. I make myself unreservedly responsible for you. That’s what I am doing. And really if you will only reflect a little what that means…’