The Black Bag | Page 2

all your nights, Care that--"
But Kirkwood would not listen further. Courageously submissive to his
destiny, knowing in his heart that the Shade had come to stay, he yet
found spirit to shake himself with a dogged air, to lift his chin, set the
strong muscles of his jaw, and smile that homely wholesome smile
which was his peculiarly.
"Very well," he accepted the irremediable with grim humor; "what
must be, must. I don't pretend to be glad to see you, but--you're free to
stay as long as you find the climate agreeable. I warn you I shan't
whine. Lots of men, hundreds and hundreds of 'em, have slept tight o'
nights with you for bedfellow; if they could grin and bear you, I believe
I can."
Now Care mocked him with a sardonic laugh, and sought to tighten
upon his shoulders its bony grasp; but Kirkwood resolutely shrugged it
off and went in search of man's most faithful dumb friend, to wit, his
pipe; the which, when found and filled, he lighted with a spill twisted
from the envelope of a cable message which had been vicariously
responsible for his introduction to the Shade of Care.
"It's about time," he announced, watching the paper blacken and burn in

the grate fire, "that I was doing something to prove my title to a living."
And this was all his valedictory to a vanished competence. "Anyway,"
he added hastily, as if fearful lest Care, overhearing, might have read
into his tone a trace of vain repining, "anyway, I'm a sight better off
than those poor devils over there! I really have a great deal to be
thankful for, now that my attention's drawn to it."
For the ensuing few minutes he thought it all over, soberly but with a
stout heart; standing at a window of his bedroom in the Hotel Pless,
hands deep in trouser pockets, pipe fuming voluminously, his gaze
wandering out over a blurred infinitude of wet shining roofs and sooty
chimney-pots: all of London that a lowering drizzle would let him see,
and withal by no means a cheering prospect, nor yet one calculated to
offset the disheartening influence of the indomitable Shade of Care.
But the truth is that Kirkwood's brain comprehended little that his eyes
perceived; his thoughts were with his heart, and that was half a world
away and sick with pity for another and a fairer city, stricken in the
flower of her loveliness, writhing in Promethean agony upon her
storied hills.
There came a rapping at the door.
Kirkwood removed the pipe from between his teeth long enough to say
"Come in!" pleasantly.
The knob was turned, the door opened. Kirkwood, swinging on one
heel, beheld hesitant upon the threshold a diminutive figure in the
livery of the Pless pages.
"Mister Kirkwood?"
Kirkwood nodded.
"Gentleman to see you, sir."
Kirkwood nodded again, smiling. "Show him up, please," he said. But
before the words were fairly out of his mouth a footfall sounded in the
corridor, a hand was placed upon the shoulder of the page, gently but

with decision swinging him out of the way, and a man stepped into the
room.
"Mr. Brentwick!" Kirkwood almost shouted, jumping forward to seize
his visitor's hand.
"My dear boy!" replied the latter. "I'm delighted to see you. 'Got your
note not an hour ago, and came at once--you see!"
"It was mighty good of you. Sit down, please. Here are cigars.... Why, a
moment ago I was the most miserable and lonely mortal on the
footstool!"
"I can fancy." The elder man looked up, smiling at Kirkwood from the
depths of his arm-chair, as the latter stood above him, resting an elbow
on the mantel. "The management knows me," he offered explanation of
his unceremonious appearance; "so I took the liberty of following on
the heels of the bellhop, dear boy. And how are you? Why are you in
London, enjoying our abominable spring weather? And why the
anxious undertone I detected in your note?"
He continued to stare curiously into Kirkwood's face. At a glance, this
Mr. Brentwick was a man of tallish figure and rather slender; with a
countenance thin and flushed a sensitive pink, out of which his eyes
shone, keen, alert, humorous, and a trace wistful behind his glasses. His
years were indeterminate; with the aspect of fifty, the spirit and the
verve of thirty assorted oddly. But his hands were old, delicate, fine
and fragile; and the lips beneath the drooping white mustache at times
trembled, almost imperceptibly, with the generous sentiments that
come with mellow age. He held his back straight and his head with an
air--an air that was not a swagger but the sign-token of seasoned
experience in the world. The most carping could have found no flaw