The Transgression of Andrew Vane: A Novel

  CHAPTER XVI.

  A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

  "He's gone for a couple of days," observed Vicot bluntly, as he openedthe door of Andrew's apartment to Radwalader, about noon of thefollowing day. "He left a note for you. It's on his desk."

  "I'll come in and read it," answered Radwalader, with his customary lackof manifest surprise. "It may require an answer."

  He pulled off his gloves in a leisurely manner, as he entered the little_salon_, and stood looking down at the note addressed to him.

  "Perhaps," he added, "you'll save me the trouble of opening this bygiving me a brief epitome of its contents."

  "He didn't honour me with his confidence," said Vicot. "And he left thenote sealed."

  Radwalader turned the envelope, flap up.

  "I see you've been careful to restore it to its original condition," heremarked. "You're skilful at this kind of thing, my friend--uncommonlyskilful. I fail to perceive the slightest evidence of your tampering."

  "Then why not give me the benefit of the doubt?" demanded the othersullenly.

  "Because, with the best will in the world, it's quite impossible to giveyou the benefit of something which doesn't exist. A sealed letter and acorked bottle, you see, are two things which habit has long since madeit impossible to resist."

  "Not a drop of liquor has touched my lips to-day!" exclaimed Vicot.

  "And it's past noon!" retorted Radwalader lightly. "Is this a miracle ofwhich you are informing me, or have you been taking it through a tube?"

  He took up the note, and seated himself deliberately in Andrew's chair.Vicot watched him alertly, gnawing his lip.

  "Am I to know what it's about?" he demanded presently.

  "There's no conceivable reason why you should," was the answer; "but, onthe other hand, there seems to be no conceivable reason why youshouldn't. Only pray don't stand upon ceremony, my good Jules. If youknow the contents, do be kind enough to say so, and spare me the effortof useless recapitulation."

  "I've practically told you already. I haven't touched it."

  "Curiously enough," said Radwalader, "I believe you."

  He threw the note upon the table, and Vicot, picking it up, scanned iteagerly.

  "'I've gone back,'" he read slowly, "'for another try.'"

  "Well?" inquired Radwalader pleasantly. "Are you any the wiser?"

  "What does it mean?" asked Vicot, looking down at him.

  "It means," said Radwalader, "that the game is up."

  "Damnation!"

  "My _good_ Jules!" protested Radwalader, "pardon the license of an oldfriend, who begs to suggest that your interruption is in most execrabletaste!"

  "What are you driving at?" exclaimed Vicot impatiently. "What does itmean, all this palaver? There's something back of it. You can't hoodwinkme, Radwalader."

  "Far be it from me to attempt the impossible, my astute Jules. Quitejustly, you demand what I'm driving at, and, quite frankly, I've toldyou. The game is up. Mr. Vane has outplayed us. He's managed to get outof this pretty little tangle in a fashion at once ingenious andunexpected. I confess myself beaten. He's gone back to the girl heintends to marry."

  Radwalader paused for an instant, as a thought struck him.

  "And he would have gone back long ago," he added, "if he had received acertain telegram which was sent to him three weeks ago. If thatparticular telegram was not intercepted _en route_, it should havereached him; if that particular telegram _was_ intercepted _en route_,it should have reached _me_. Well?"

  Vicot stared at him blankly, his hand groping in his pocket.

  "A telegram?" he repeated, and then drew out the blue missive which hadarrived, almost simultaneously with Mirabelle, three weeks before.

  "I forgot," he stammered.

  "You ass!" exclaimed Radwalader. "It's lucky enough for you that yourcarelessness didn't interfere with my plans. As it is, I don't see thatit makes much difference. Vane has been too sharp for us, all around.For once in my life, I've made a miscalculation. He's out of the net,right enough, and the best we can do is to abandon the chase and applyourselves to something more profitable. I'm glad to think that, howeverunsatisfactory, from a financial point of view, the venture may haveproved to me, at least you have not suffered--"

  "Enough of that!" broke in Vicot. "Get to the point!"

  "Why, the point is simply this. On the return of Mr. Vane, you willpresent, in due form, your resignation from his employ, and resume yourcareful surveillance of my window in the Rue de Villejust. When youshall observe it to be ornamented with a certain unpretentious blue jar,you will know that I am once more at home to you. I think I can promiseyou that the next case deserving of our joint attention will not be sobarren of result as this one, which we are now with reluctance forced torelinquish. You might go back to driving a cab, meanwhile."

  "I'm to leave Mr. Vane's employ," said Vicot, less in the tone ofinquiry than in that of reflection. "I'm to leave Mr. Vane's employ."

  "Quite so, my perspicacious Jules."

  "Well, then--I won't!" said Jules Vicot.

  He seated himself upon the edge of Andrew's desk and folded his arms.

  "Radwalader," he added, "many's the time I've listened to you. Now it'syour turn to listen to me."

  Radwalader, following the impulse of a momentary whim, folded his armsin turn.

  "_Mon cher confrere_," he said amusedly, "I shall listen with reverentattention to whatever you may have to say."

  "I know too well," continued the other, "that I can't appeal with anyhope of success to your sense of pity--because you haven't any. Wilfullyor otherwise, you have contrived to stifle the promptings of feelingwhich weaken--or is it strengthen?--other men. You're trained toperfection. But there must be one thing which even you are unable toforget--I mean the time when we were young and clean, when we smiled byday as we dreamed of what lay before us, instead of shuddering by night,as now, as we dream of what lies behind."

  Radwalader nodded. "I'm not addicted, myself, to the unpleasant habit ofshuddering," he said, "but I think I know what you mean by the otherpart of your preamble. 'When all the world was young, lad, and all thetrees were green: and every goose a swan, lad, and every lass a queen!'Isn't that it? Yes, I seem to remember something of the sort, and with anot unpleasurable emotion. Continue, my good Jules."

  "Sometimes," said Vicot, moistening his lips, "the thought of that timemust come back even to you. Sometimes even you, with all yourcallousness, must contrast what you might have been with what you are.Sometimes a face, among all those we meet, must recall to you the dayswhen better things were possible. But if you have never been thrust backthus upon your own youth, and grown sick at thought of it, I have!There's nothing more awful."

  "We've been over all this before," put in Radwalader, with a suggestionof weariness.

  "You said you'd hear me out! I'm not talking religion, or even morality.I'm trying to spare you the cant to which you once objected. I don'tcare about the future. I'm like you in having no more dread of hell thanlove of heaven. No, it's not the future which hits me. But the past--!The world--the world which, long since, I ran to meet so eagerly--hasmade me rotten, rotten, _rotten_ to the core!"

  "Severe," commented Radwalader, "but strictly accurate. Continue, myJules."

  "You can't make me angry, Radwalader. I'm changed a good bit in thesepast few weeks. I've been going easy on the drink for one thing, whichmay account for the fact that my head has cleared, and that I see anumber of things in a very different light."

  For an instant his eyes gleamed with a kind of eagerness.

  "I wish you were easier to talk to, Radwalader," he added, his voicesuddenly grown timorous with a hint of the old whimper. "With all yourcold-bloodedness, you're the only--"

  "When you've anything worth saying, I'm as easy to talk to as the nextman," said Radwalader. "It's only when you begin to lament through yournose about the past, and remorse; and 'I remember, I remember the housewhere I was born,' that I'm not the pink of
polite attention. I confessI can't stand that kind of thing; but, for this once, let it go. I'llhear you out."

  "Well," continued the other, "one thing I've found out is that there isless tragedy than comedy about an old man looking back shamefacedly uponthe past."

  "That's the first sensible thing you've said," observed Radwalader.

  "The tragic spectacle," added Vicot, "is that of the young man lookingforward hopefully upon the future. Now the old man and the young man Idescribe have been in close proximity for several weeks, and the old manhas learned that his own security isn't worth much, one way or another,when compared with the young man's security."

  "The old man gets ten in modesty." Radwalader carefully entered the markin an imaginary report-book.

  "The old man sees," pursued Vicot, "that a certain person whom he hasbeen fearing is really of infinitely minor importance, after all."

  "_Grand merci!_"

  "This person has been jumping out of dark corners and shouting'Boo!'--that's all. Even if he should tell all he knows about the oldman--but he won't, no matter what happens: that's another thing the oldman has learned--it wouldn't make any difference. Do you see? Itwouldn't make any difference at all!"

  He peered at Radwalader triumphantly, but the latter noted that underhis folded left arm Vicot's right thumb twitched ceaselessly against hissleeve. He hugged himself upon perceiving this, and nodded.

  "Shrewd old man!" he said. "Pity he didn't find all this out sooner."

  "Well, soon or late," went on Vicot, "the knowledge is his now, and it'sbound to be useful--not to himself, mind you, but to the _young_ man! Doyou begin to see? If this person is going to hound this young man, andruin his life as he has ruined others, it will have to be by newtricks. The old man knows all the old ones--he would recognize them intheir earliest stages--he would be able to checkmate this--this person,before he had fairly made the first move!"

  "Is that all?" inquired Radwalader.

  "All? Yes--it's all until I hear what you have to say."

  "Oh, I'm expected to take part in the conversation, am I? I thought Iwas only to listen. Well, then, my good Jules, if you will allow me todispense with the thin disguise of the old man and the young man and thecertain person--as the phrases are becoming wearisome--suppose I were tosay to you that all this is entirely without interest, so far as I'mconcerned? We've fought over all this ground of my hold upon you; andyou know as well as I that you're at liberty to test its efficacywhenever your courage is equal to the ordeal. We've also wasted sometime upon your maunderings over your past probity, youthful innocence,and present degeneration. I'm sorry, but I can't get up the faintestgleam of enthusiasm on this subject. Indeed, it bores me intolerably,and I beg you'll spare me from it in the future. As regards Mr. AndrewVane, whom you see fit to think in danger of being 'ruined,' I'vealready stated that I've no further designs upon him. Altogether, mygood Jules, I consider that I've done no more than shamefully waste mytime by giving you my undivided attention for the past ten minutes."

  Vicot revolved these remarks in silence for a few moments, glancing upcovertly once or twice from under his heavy lids, as if in hope ofsurprising the other in an expression indicative of some idea atvariance with his words. But in each instance Radwalader met his eyeswith his quiet, non-committal smile.

  "It seems you were right," continued the latter presently, "in sayingyou have changed. If it pleases you to imagine that the alteration is inthe nature of a great moral awakening, by all means consider it so. Tomy way of thinking, it's more like one of the transient panics of aLouis XI., praying to the little images in his cap, and ready, the nextmoment, to resume his misdoing at the point where he left off. Only onething is made clear by what you've said, and that is that you're nolonger fit for the kind of work I've thus far found for you. From to-daywe part company."

  He rose slowly to his feet, and was about to move towards the door, whenhe was checked by a movement on the other's part. Following his oldhabit, Vicot had thrust his hands into his pockets.

  "That suits me," he answered. "But please to remember this. I've beencleaning and loading your weapons for you so long that I know their usesas well as yourself. I'm able to turn them effectively against you, andI'll do it if need be. I would be resigning the little hold I have uponsecurity, perhaps; but I'd not be doing it uselessly. Some men flingthemselves into the sea, simply to be rid of life: others save the lifeof another by quietly slipping off a log that won't keep two afloat.Both acts are suicide, but, somehow, there's a difference."

  "Ah, I begin to see," said Radwalader. "Sidney Carton all overagain--eh? I, in the leading role of guillotine, come down upon you andchop off your head, while Mr. Vane goes free. 'It is a far, far betterthing that I do than I have ever done,' and all that. It's a pity thatMr. Vane, by his own shrewdness, has already obviated the danger whichthreatened him, and that you no longer have the opportunity ofexercising your lofty purpose."

  "If I could believe that!" observed Vicot.

  "Believe what?"

  "Why, believe that the smallest part of what you've told me istrue--that the game's up--that you're beaten--that Mr. Vane is free. ButI can't. What have you often said to me?--that you never turn back,never give up. And yet, knowing you're defeated, I find you smiling,careless, ready to chuck the game and begin on something else. Does thatring true? You know whether it does or not. You know whether I've anyreason to trust you? No! And so I refuse to leave Mr. Vane's employ."

  "Might one inquire," asked Radwalader, "what you expect to gain?"

  "Nothing," replied Vicot, "which you would appreciate or evenunderstand. I expect to gain self-respect."

  "_Indeed!_ May I ask whose?"

  "If I cannot be anything myself," continued Vicot, disregarding thesneer, "I can at least be of use to this boy. I can show him my life,teach him how insignificant slips are the beginnings of moralavalanches, and how bitter are the dregs when one has had the wine."

  "You're an authority on _that_ point, at all events," commentedRadwalader dryly. "But what insensate delusion is this, my eloquent,disreputable Jules? What can you possibly be to him, or he to you? Howcan you even begin to speak to him upon this personal plane? At thefirst symptom of such insolent effrontery, he'd give you a week's wagesin lieu of notice, and show you the door. Faugh! Why, man, he's yourmaster, your employer, your--"

  "He's my son!" said Jules Vicot.