She came to his door now, and he looked up faintly frowning.
“Mr. Edward Lacy.”
“All right,” he answered listlessly. Old man Lacy—he knew him slightly. A melancholy figure—a brilliant start back in the eighties, and now one of the city’s failures. He couldn’t imagine what Lacy wanted unless he were soliciting.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Mather.”
A little, solemn, gray-haired man stood on the threshold. Mather rose and greeted him politely.
“Are you busy, Mr. Mather?”
“Well, not so very.” He stressed the qualifying word slightly.
Mr. Lacy sat down, obviously ill at ease. He kept his hat in his hands, and clung to it tightly as he began to speak.
“Mr. Mather, if you’ve got five minutes to spare, I’m going to tell you something that—that I find at present it’s necessary for me to tell you.”
Mather nodded. His instinct warned him that there was a favor to be asked, but he was tired, and with a sort of lassitude he let his chin sink into his hand, welcoming any distraction from his more immediate cares.
“You see,” went on Mr. Lacy—Mather noticed that the hands which fingered at the hat were trembling—“back in eighty-four your father and I were very good friends. You’ve heard him speak of me no doubt.”
Mather nodded.
“I was asked to be one of the pallbearers. Once we were—very close. It’s because of that that I come to you now. Never before in my life have I ever had to come to anyone as I’ve come to you now, Mr. Mather—come to a stranger. But as you grow older your friends die or move away or some misunderstanding separates you. And your children die unless you’re fortunate enough to go first—and pretty soon you get to be alone, so that you don’t have any friends at all. You’re isolated.” He smiled faintly. His hands were trembling violently now.
“Once upon a time almost forty years ago your father came to me and asked me for a thousand dollars. I was a few years older than he was, and though I knew him only slightly, I had a high opinion of him. That was a lot of money in those days, and he had no security—he had nothing but a plan in his head—but I liked the way he had of looking out of his eyes—you’ll pardon me if I say you look not unlike him—so I gave it to him without security.”
Mr. Lacy paused.
“Without security,” he repeated. “I could afford it then. I didn’t lose by it. He paid it back with interest at six percent before the year was up.”
Mather was looking down at his blotter, tapping out a series of triangles with his pencil. He knew what was coming now, and his muscles physically tightened as he mustered his forces for the refusal he would have to make.
“I’m now an old man, Mr. Mather,” the cracked voice went on. “I’ve made a failure—I am a failure—only we needn’t go into that now. I have a daughter, an unmarried daughter who lives with me. She does stenographic work and has been very kind to me. We live together, you know, on Selby Avenue—we have an apartment, quite a nice apartment.”
The old man sighed quaveringly. He was trying—and at the same time was afraid—to get to his request. It was insurance, it seemed. He had a ten-thousand-dollar policy, he had borrowed on it up to the limit, and he stood to lose the whole amount unless he could raise four hundred and fifty dollars. He and his daughter had about seventy-five dollars between them. They had no friends—he had explained that—and they had found it impossible to raise the money. …
Mather could stand the miserable story no longer. He could not spare the money, but he could at least relieve the old man of the blistered agony of asking for it.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Lacy,” he interrupted as gently as possible, “but I can’t lend you that money.”
“No?” The old man looked at him with faded, blinking eyes that were beyond all shock, almost, it seemed, beyond any human emotion except ceaseless care. The only change in his expression was that his mouth dropped slowly ajar.
Mather fixed his eyes determinately upon his blotter.
“We’re going to have a baby in a few months, and I’ve been saving for that. It wouldn’t be fair to my wife to take anything from her—or the child—right now.”
His voice sank to a sort of mumble. He found himself saying platitudinously that business was bad—saying it with revolting facility.
Mr. Lacy made no argument. He rose without visible signs of disappointment. Only his hands were still trembling and they worried Mather. The old man was apologetic—he was sorry to have bothered him at a time like this. Perhaps something would turn up. He had thought that if Mr. Mather did happen to have a good deal extra—why, he might be the person to go to because he was the son of an old friend.
As he left the office he had trouble opening the outer door. Miss Clancy helped him. He went shabbily and unhappily down the corridor with his faded eyes blinking and his mouth still faintly ajar.
Jim Mather stood by his desk, and put his hand over his face and shivered suddenly as if he were cold. But the five-o’clock air outside was hot as a tropic noon.
IV
The twilight was hotter still an hour later as he stood at the corner waiting for his car. The trolley-ride to his house was twenty-five minutes, and he bought a pink-jacketed newspaper to appetize his listless mind. Life had seemed less happy, less glamourous of late. Perhaps he had learned more of the world’s ways—perhaps its glamour was evaporating little
