Diane of the Green Van | Page 4

To Starrett, hot of temper and impulse, his graceful mockery was
maddening. Cursing under his breath, he seized a glass and flung it
furiously at his host, who laughed and moved aside with the litheness

of a panther. The glass crashed into fragments upon the wall of the
marble fireplace. Payson and Wherry hurriedly pushed back their chairs.
Then, suddenly conscious of a rustle in the doorway, they all turned.
Wide dark eyes flashing with contempt, Diane Westfall stood
motionless upon the threshold. The aesthete in Carl thrilled irresistibly
to her vivid beauty, intensified to-night by the angry flame in her
cheeks and the curling scarlet of her lips. There were no semi-tones in
Diane's dark beauty, Carl reflected. It was a thing of sable and scarlet,
and the gold-brown satin of her gypsy skin was warm with the tints of
an autumn forest. Carelessly at his ease, Carl noted how the bold eyes
of the painted Spanish grandee above the mantel, the mild eyes of the
saint in the Tintoretto panel across the room and the flashing eyes of
Diane seemed oddly to converge to a common center which was
Starrett, white and ill at ease. And of these the eyes of Diane were
loveliest.
With the swift grace which to Carl's eyes always bore in it something
of the primitive, Diane swept away, and the staring tableau dissolved
into a trio of discomfited men of whom Carl seemed But an indifferent
onlooker.
"Well," fumed Starrett irritably, "why in thunder don't you say
something?"
"Permit me," drawled Carl impudently, with a lazy flicker of his lashes,
"to apologize for my cousin's untimely intrusion. I really fancied she
was safe at the farm. Unfortunately, the house belongs to her. Besides,
your crystal gymnastics, Starrett, were as unscheduled as her arrival. As
it is, you've nobly demonstrated an unalterable scientific fact. The
collision of marble and glass is unvaryingly eventful."
Bellowing indignantly, Starrett charged into the hallway, followed by
Payson. Presently the outer door slammed violently behind them.
Wherry lingered.
Carl glanced curiously at his flushed and boyish face.

"Well?" he queried lightly.
Wherry colored.
"Carl," he stammered, "you've been talking a lot about parasites
to-night and I'd like you to know that--money hasn't made a jot of
difference to me." He met Carl's laughing glance with dogged
directness and for a second something flamed boyishly in his face from
which Carl, frowning, turned away.
"Why don't you break away from this sort of thing, Dick?" he
demanded irritably. "Starrett and myself and all the rest of it. You're
sapping the splendid fires of your youth and inherent decency in unholy
furnaces. Yes, I know Starrett drags you about with him and you daren't
offend him because he's your chief, but you're clever and you can get
another job. In ten years, as you're going now, you'll be an alcoholic
ash-heap of jaded passions. What's more, you have infernal luck at
cards and you haven't money enough to keep on losing so heavily. Half
of the poker sermons Starrett's been growling about were preached for
you."
Now there were mad, irreverent moments when Carl Granberry
delivered his poker sermons with the eloquent mannerisms of the pulpit,
save, as Payson held, they were infinitely more logical and eloquent,
but to-night, husking his logic of these externals, he fell flatly to
preaching an unadorned philosophy of continence acutely at variance
with his own habits.
Wherry stared wonderingly at the tall, lithe figure by the fire.
"Carl," he said at last, "tell me, are you honestly in earnest when you
rag the fellows so about work and decency and all that sort of thing?"
Carl yawned and lighted a cigar.
"I believe," said he, "in the eternal efficacy of good. I believe in the
telepathic potency of moral force. I believe in physical conservation for
the eugenic good of the race and mental dominance over matter. But

I'm infernally lazy myself, and it's easy to preach. It's even easier to
create a counter-philosophy of condonance and individualism, and I'm
alternately an ethical egoist, a Fabian socialist and a cynic. Moreover,
I'm a creature of whims and inconsistencies and there are black nights
in my temperament when John Barleycorn lightens the gloom; and
there are other nights when he treacherously deepens it--but I'm
peculiarly balanced and subject to irresistible fits of moral atrophy. All
of which has nothing at all to do with the soundness of my impersonal
philosophy. Wherefore," with a flash of his easy impudence, "when I
preach, I mean it--for the other fellow."
Wherry glanced at the handsome face of his erratic friend with frank
allegiance in his eyes.
Carl flung his cigar into the fire, poured himself some whiskey and
pushed the decanter across the table.
"Have a drink," he said whimsically.
Dick obeyed.