CHAPTER V

1

The news of Poldy's arrest appeared in the papers. Having saved a copy until one Sunday morning when he had time, Levine went to see Lewis with it. Lewis read the notice without much interest; and watching him as he read, Levine thought how well and contented Lewis seemed. He rubbed the flesh between his eyebrows, where his forehead felt as if it was tied into a knot, he touched his cheeks that were taut with nights of sleeplessness. "Yes, we have changed places," he reflected bitterly.

Lewis put the paper aside with a soft chuckle. "But how could Poldy insult a woman?" he asked. "He wouldn't, I think, know what to say."

"It's newspaper parlance," Levine said. "Incidentally, what does he live on?"

"Why he had enough money with him to last a long while. Besides, there's a fortune waiting for him when he appears."

"I suppose some of it should be used in tracing him?"

Lewis shrugged his shoulders. "What difference does it make?" he asked brusquely. "He'll come back when he's ready. As for the money, he always felt rather guilty about it. Why ... I don't know. He was one of those people who take everything to heart."

"But you were worried about him in the beginning..." Levine said slowly. "When you left the hospital..."

Lewis fingered his chin and looked at a corner of the room. "Yes, at the beginning ... But you know," he added sharply, "I'm not responsible for him."

They were silent, aware that they were watching each other. Self-consciously Lewis shifted his posture, and Levine glanced about the room with a too deliberate interest in its details. He saw now that the most they could hope for would be short uneasy interludes of conversation, with long silences between. And he decided to leave as soon as he could.

"I suppose Lustbader pays you well?"

"I've left Lustbader's ... Found something better to do," Lewis added, in answer to Levine's look of surprise.

"That's very good, then."

Again there was silence, during which Lewis picked up the paper, and mechanically re-read the notice of Poldy's arrest.

"Where is Ruth?" Levine asked, when he had finished.

"She walks a great deal in back of the house ... that is, when I'm busy here." He made his voice deliberately casual. "You're not looking well..."

Levine nodded. "Bothered ... bothered," he repeated. "Nothing serious, but a few things bother me."

"I read that you resigned from the Konig case."

"Yes, I resigned..."

"And the other rumors..."

"True also," Levine said with a wry smile. While Lewis looked at him eagerly, he heard the words in his head as if they were part of a game. "Changed places ... changed places."

"Are you going to be permanently out of it?"

"I don't know," Levine answered slowly. "There's no way of knowing."

"I don't understand..."

Levine seemed lost in thought, sitting with his head resting on his hands and his fingers stretching the flesh over his eyes as if he would tear it. "No, there's no way of knowing," he burst out angrily, "there's no way of telling what to do. They say there are dreams to guide us, but that's all nonsense. Even then you must ask: What is the purpose of the dream, which part of it shall I believe?"

"If you know what you want to do," Lewis said decisively, "if you want to escape from anything, then you must do it. I left Lustbader's the same day that I made up my mind to do it."

"Ah ... if you _know_," Levine retorted. "But how can you be sure? They say that there are all sorts of things to guide us, yet nothing is reliable. If a dream comes to you that seems to express the innermost purpose of your soul, even then you must ask yourself in the morning, which part shall I pick out? Here lately I dream constantly that I am going through some elaborate ritual. I can't tell you the queer feeling it gives me, of its being a mysterious and profound ritual, which must be carefully followed in every detail. The purpose of it is never clear to me, but I know that I must watch every gesture I make, or the ritual will be broken and a terrible calamity will follow. There are many people involved, and some of them are in archaic dress, that seems to me to be Persian. And things are handed from one to another, though I cannot tell what they are. And always this fear ... this terrible fear that the ritual will be broken. Every morning at the moment when I wake up I think I know what it means. But then I ask myself, which part of it shall I believe? Is the end, the consummation of the ritual important, or my fear that it will be broken? It would seem simple to choose one or the other. Yet if you do, something says: 'You have only _chosen_.' No," Levine added, striking the table angrily with his fist. "Nobody can tell what it means. They think they know, but it isn't true. No one can discover the innermost wish of his being."

Lewis regarded him curiously. "I don't understand that..." he said slowly. "I know what my wish is, and I have obeyed it."

"What is it?"

There was a moment's hesitation before Lewis spoke. "I was not made," he said somewhat lamely, "to play the organ at Lustbader's."

"What were you made for?" Levine asked mildly.

"I'm working," Lewis began, lowering his voice mysteriously, "on a symphony, that will mean fame and money in the end..."

Levine drew in his breath with a low whistle. He was about to speak when the sound of Ruth's footsteps interrupted him. She was coming up the stairs, and her steps were slow and faltering, as if she moved with great difficulty. He looked inquiringly at Lewis.

"Yes," Lewis nodded, speaking in a lower voice, "two months ago. But it doesn't mean anything," he added smiling craftily. "One can do that to a woman merely to show one's power over her. It means nothing."

They waited in silence while Ruth made her slow progress up the stairs, pausing often to rest, and breathing heavily. Outside the door she seemed to hesitate a long time; but at last she entered, and, seeing Levine, greeted him with a look of silent recognition. She sat down as one who has intruded and wishes to be unobserved ... her head slightly forward and her eyes downcast in an attitude of listening. Only once did she look up, as though she were about to say something over which she had been pondering. But she did not speak, and her expression of listening and thinking did not change. At last, aware that her presence made them silent, she rose and went out of the room, moving always with a peculiar carefulness in her walk, as if her body must not touch anything. Lewis walked back and forth impatiently until she was gone.

"She pretends," he burst out bitterly, "she pretends. There's no need for her to be so careful. What is she afraid of? What does she think will happen to her?"

"You heard her on the stairs?" he continued after a moment, his nostrils trembling and showing white with anger. "And now, this ... this horrible cake-walk. I know! Of course I know. Well then, what does she expect me to do?"

"Perhaps it has something to do with your leaving Lustbader's," Levine said slowly. "You'll need money."

"No, that's not why she advertises herself that way. It's a game she's playing with me. In case I forget..." he broke off and regarded Levine craftily. "Besides, there'll be more money in the end than Lustbader could ever have paid me. I'll be provided for," he added, clapping his fist against his palm with confident briskness.

While he prepared to go, Levine looked at Lewis shrewdly. "If it's no good?" he asked softly.

"If it's no good..." Lewis repeated and paused. The muscles of his face quivered between a desire to retort, and the impulse to laugh. He finished by laughing needlessly long at the impossibility of Levine's suggestion. Hearing it, Ruth came into the room, and when Levine moved to the door she followed him with unexpected swiftness. "What do you think of it?" she asked in a low voice. "The thing he's working on. Is it any good?"

"It may be..."

"But we have very little to live on. What should we do?"

"I don't know." Levine's voice was impatient. "I don't know what to tell you. It seems necessary to him."

"No, it's not," Ruth said, her eyes flashing with sudden defiance. "I tell you it's not."

"How can you tell?"

"It's not necessary," she repeated stubbornly. "I know that it's not. It's stupid ... the whole business is stupid."

Levine stood uncertainly in the doorway, and Lewis came over and regarded them curiously. "Bannerman wants to know whether you care to take Poldy's pictures," Levine said, raising his voice casually. "Otherwise he'll throw them out. They're in his way."

"I don't want them," Lewis answered. He had not thought of Poldy for a long time. But it was about this time that he began to be haunted by Poldy's face. Often when he walked in the crowded streets he thought he saw it, and then something would compel him to follow until he could catch a better glimpse of the face, and assure himself that he was mistaken.