Like a man who reenters a closed and darkened house and lies down;
lying there, remains conscious of sunlight outside, of bird-calls,
and the breeze in the trees, so had Drene entered into the obscurity
of himself.
Through the chambers of his brain the twilit corridors where cringed
his bruised and disfigured soul, there nothing stirring except the
automatic pulses which never cease.
Sometimes, when the sky itself crashes earthward and the world lies
in ruins from horizon to horizon, life goes on.
The things that men live through--and live!
But no doubt Death was too busy elsewhere to attend to Drene.
He had become very lean by the time it was all over. Gray glinted
on his temples; gray softened his sandy mustache: youth was finished
as far as he was concerned.
An odd idea persisted in his mind that it had been winter for many
years. And the world thawed out very slowly for him.
But broken trees leaf out, and hewed roots sprout; and what he had
so long mistaken for wintry ashes now gleamed warmly like the orange
and gold of early autumn. After a while he began to go about more or
less--little excursions from the dim privacy of mind and soul--and
he found the sun not very gray; and a south wind blowing in the
world once more.
Quair and Guilder were in the studio that day on business; Drene
continued to modify his composition in accordance with Guilder's
suggestions; Quair, always curious concerning Drene, was becoming
slyly impudent.
"And listen to me, Guilder. What the devil's a woman between
friends?" argued Quair, with a malicious side glance at Drene. "You
take my best girl away from me--"
"But I don't," remarked his partner dryly.
"For the sake of argument, you do. What happens? Do I raise hell?
No. I merely thank you. Why? Because I don't want her if you can get
her away. That," he added, with satisfaction, "is philosophy. Isn't
it, Drene?"
Guilder intervened pleasantly: "I don't think Drene is particularly interested in philosophy. I'm
sure I'm not. Shut up, please."
Drene, gravely annoyed, continued to pinch bits of modeling wax out
of a round tin box, and to stick them all over the sketch he was
modifying.
Now and then he gave a twirl to the top of his working table, which
revolved with a rusty squeak.
"If you two unusually intelligent gentlemen ask me what good a woman
the world--" began Quair.
"But we don't," interrupted Guilder, in the temperate voice peculiar
to his negative character.