Diane of the Green Van

Still he drank, but the fires of hell were rising now in his eyes. There was treachery in the bottle. . . . Diane, he chose to fancy, had refused him justice, salvation, respect to the memory of his mother! . . . So be it! . . . His to wrench from the mocking, gold-hungry world whatever he could and however he would. . . . Only his mother had understood. . . . And Diane had mocked her memory. Still there had been thrilling moments of tenderness for him in Diane's life. . . . But Diane was like that--a flash of fire and then bewildering sweetness. There was the spot Starrett's glass had struck; there the ancient carven chair in which Diane had mocked his mother; there was red--blood-red in the dying log--and gold. Blood and gold--they were indissolubly linked one with the other and the demon of the bottle had danced wild dances with each of them. A mad trio! After all, there was only one beside his mother who had ever understood him--Philip Poynter, his roommate at Yale. And Philip's lazy voice somehow floated from the fire to-night.

"Carl," he had said, "you've bigger individual problems to solve than any man I know. You could head a blood revolution in South America that would outrage the world; or devise a hellish philosophy of hedonism that by its very ingenuity would seduce a continent into barking after false gods. You've an inexplicable chemistry of ungovernable passions and wild whims and you may go through hell first but when the final test comes--you'll ring true. Mark that, old man, you'll ring true. I tell you I know! There's sanity and will and grit to balance the rest."

Well, Philip Poynter was a staunch optimist with oppressive ideals, a splendid, free-handed fellow with brains and will and infernal persistence.

Four o'clock and the log dying! The city outside was a dark, clinking world of milkmen and doubtful stragglers, Carl finished the whiskey in his glass and rose. His brain was very drunk--that he knew--for every life current in his body swept dizzily to his forehead, focusing there into whirling inferno, but his legs he could always trust. He stepped to the table and lurched heavily. Mocking, treacherous demon of the bottle! His legs had failed him. Fiercely he flung out his arm to regain his balance. It struck a candelabrum, a giant relic of ancient wood as tall as himself. It toppled and fell with its candled branches in the fire. Where the log broke a flame shot forth, lapping the dark wood with avid tongue. With a crackle the age-old wood began to burn.

Carl watched it with a slight smile. It pleased him to watch it burn. That would hurt Diane, for everything in this beautiful old Spanish room linked her subtly to her mother. Yes, it would hurt her cruelly. Beyond, at the other end of the table, stood a mate to the burning candlestick, doubtless a silent sentry at many a drinking bout of old when roistering knights gathered about the scarred slab of table-wood beneath his fingers. A pity though! Artistically the carven thing was splendid.