Clews took the card down, holding it under the light of the lamp on the centre-table. His fingers trembled a little as he read it.
“The last dinner I went to was in our Senior year, just before I graduated and went West,” he said, after a moment. “I was toastmaster at that dinner. It was a spring night like this. I remember a little crowd of us sat under a tree in the college yard and talked until daylight My stars, but the world looked good then! We promised each other half in fun that the one who got to be forty-five years old and wasn’t successful should jump into the river. And then we went up — all six of us — went up to my room for a cold bath, and I built a fire and heated the poker and burned my name into the mantelpiece, and the rest were rubbing themselves with towels.”
“It’s only six. The dinner’s at eight. You’ll have plenty of time, father,” suggested Edith.
Clews did not hear; he was still holding the card under the light. Crane and Drowson and Riggs and Lapham and poor Wright, who had died the next year, had been there. He wondered whether it was because he was oversensitive that he had thrown away those old friendships. He remembered the meeting of the afternoon, and concluded it would have been embarrassing for them if they had recognized him; they would have known at once that there were very few mutual interests now, and would discern the same distinctions and differences which had that afternoon seemed to push him back into the shadow of the portico.
He tossed the card aside. His wife could see upon his face, which now was in the full light of the lamps, the unmistakable sign that the accumulation of years of disappointment was no longer to be contained in silence. Expressions of bitterness and passion she had never before seen now played about his mouth, All her sympathy went out to him; the weakness was only human, and she knew what regret it would mean to him when he had marred the unbroken record of his patience. She could not bear to see the one outburst of a vessel proved so strong. She turned away.
“I’ve been a miserable fizzle!” he cried. “Unknown and forgotten because I deserve it. I’ve got to die like a rat in an everlasting obscurity!”
Edith looked straight at him as he dropped into a chair, her eyes wide with astonishment and reproach. “That is not true!” said she, softly, and with sudden understanding.
“Perhaps it’s a bad dream!” he shouted, jumping once more to his feet. “It’s been my fault. No wonder I’m forgotten! Everybody flocks around a victory, but who cares where the man is who’s failed to do big things? Once he marched in the front line promising a great deal, and now he’s got to watch the procession from the sidewalk!” He folded his arms and stared straight ahead into the gloomy shadows of the corner. “It would be better,” he began again, “if a man can’t make himself felt and has got to walk around unknown — like a ghost of what was in him once — to keep his promise and —”
“Don’t!” cried Edith, awed by his unwonted state of mind.
He looked up at her quickly, and seeing the trembling of her upper lip, drew a long breath and squared his shoulders. “Well, perhaps we all have our compensations,” he said. “Isn’t dinner ready?” He was looking out the window into the smoky dusk of the city.
“Ours is ready,” answered his daughter, firmly. “You are going to your class dinner, aren’t you?”
“Oh, I think I won’t go this time,” he replied, carelessly, drawing a newspaper from his pocket. “Perhaps next year —”
“Oh, yes,” begged his wife, stepping out of the shadow. “For me!”
Clews smiled indulgently, and looked at his watch.
“Come,” said Edith, seeing the momentary advantage. “You’ve just time to dress.”
“I’ll get your evening clothes. They’re put away,” added his wife.
“They won’t know what to think of the light. It’s been a long while since I had them on,” Clews said, yielding. “It’s been some years since they were out of camphor.”
