Between Friends

Drene opened his eyes as Graylock entered all alone and stood still

beside the bed looking down at him. In the studio Cecile moved about

singing under her breath. They both heard her.

Drene nodded weakly. After a moment he made the effort to speak: "I am trying to get well--to start again--better--live more--nobly.

. . . Take your chance, too."

"If you wish, Drene."

"Yes. I was not--very--well. I had been ill--very--a long while

. . . And you are not to clean the automatic. . . . Only your

own-soul. . . . Ask help. . . . You'll get it. . . . . I did. . . .

And--all that is true--what we believed--as boys. . . . I know.

I've seen. And it's all true--all true--what we believed--as little

boys."

He looked up at Graylock, then closed his eyes with the shadow of a

smile in them.

"Good-bye--Jack," he whispered.

Graylock's mouth quivered, his lips moved in speech; and perhaps

Drene heard and understood, for he opened his eyes and looked once

more at his boyhood friend.

"Somewhere--somebody will straighten out--all this," he murmured,

closing his eyes again: "We can't; we can only try--to straighten

out--ourselves."

Graylock looked down at him in silence, then, tall and heavily

erect, he turned away.

Cecile met him from the studio.

"Good night," she said, offering her hand. . . . "And a happy

Christmas. . . . I hope you will not be lonely."

He took her hand, gravely, thanked her, and went his way forever.

For a few minutes she lingered in the doorway connecting Drene's

bedroom with the studio. She held a sprig of holly.

After a little while he opened his eyes and looked at her, and,

smiling, she came forward to the bedside.

"It was a terrible dream," he whispered--"all those years. But it

was a dream."

"You must dream no more."

"No. Come nearer."

She rested on the bed's edge beside him and laid one hand on his.

The other held the holly, but he did not notice it until she offered

it.

"Dear," she whispered, "it is Christmas night. And you did not even

know it."

Suddenly the tears he had not known for years burned in his eyes,

and he closed them, trembling, awed by the mercy of God that had

been vouchsafed to him at the eleventh hour, else he had slain his

soul.

After a while he felt her lips touching his brow. And now silent in

the spell of the dream that invaded her--the exquisite vision of

wifehood--she sat motionless with childlike eyes lost in thought.

Once more he turned his head and looked at her. Then her slender

neck bent, and he saw that her eyes were divinely blue-"Cecile!"--he faltered--"Madonna inviolate! . . . The

woman--between--friends--"