K. was moved. It was like Max to make such an offer, like him to make it
as if he were asking a favor and not conferring one. But the offer left
him untempted. He had weighed himself in the balance, and found himself
wanting. No tablet on the college wall could change that. And when, late
that night, Wilson found him on the balcony and added appeal to argument,
the situation remained unchanged. He realized its hopelessness when K.
lapsed into whimsical humor.
"I'm not absolutely useless where I am, you know, Max," he said. "I've
raised three tomato plants and a family of kittens this summer, helped to
plan a trousseau, assisted in selecting wall-paper for the room just
inside,--did you notice it?--and developed a boy pitcher with a ball that
twists around the bat like a Colles fracture around a splint!"
"If you're going to be humorous--"
"My dear fellow," said K. quietly, "if I had no sense of humor, I should go
upstairs to-night, turn on the gas, and make a stertorous entrance into
eternity. By the way, that's something I forgot!"
"Eternity?" "No. Among my other activities, I wired the parlor for
electric light. The bride-to-be expects some electroliers as wedding
gifts, and--"
Wilson rose and flung his cigarette into the grass.
"I wish to God I understood you!" he said irritably.
K. rose with him, and all the suppressed feeling of the interview was
crowded into his last few words.
"I'm not as ungrateful as you think, Max," he said. "I--you've helped a
lot. Don't worry about me. I'm as well off as I deserve to be, and
better. Good-night."
"Good-night."
Wilson's unexpected magnanimity put K. in a curious position--left him, as
it were, with a divided allegiance. Sidney's frank infatuation for the
young surgeon was growing. He was quick to see it. And where before he
might have felt justified in going to the length of warning her, now his
hands were tied.
Max was interested in her. K. could see that, too. More than once he had
taken Sidney back to the hospital in his car. Le Moyne, handicapped at
every turn, found himself facing two alternatives, one but little better
than the other. The affair might run a legitimate course, ending in
marriage--a year of happiness for her, and then what marriage with Max, as
he knew him, would inevitably mean: wanderings away, remorseful returns to
her, infidelities, misery. Or, it might be less serious but almost equally
unhappy for her. Max might throw caution to the winds, pursue her for a
time,--K. had seen him do this,--and then, growing tired, change to some
new attraction. In either case, he could only wait and watch, eating his
heart out during the long evenings when Anna read her "Daily Thoughts"
upstairs and he sat alone with his pipe on the balcony.