Every Man for Himself Part 29

"Did ye?" "By-an'-by" softly asked.

The maid came on tiptoe from behind the stove, and made an arrangement of "By-an'-by" Brown's long legs convenient for straddling; and having then settled herself on his knees, she tipped up his face and fetched her own so close that he could not dodge her eyes, but must look in, whatever came of it; and then-to the reviving delight of "By-an'-by"

Brown-she tapped his nose with a long little forefinger, emphasizing every word with a stouter tap, saying:

"Yes-I-did!"

"Uh-huh!" he chuckled.

"An'," said she, "I don't _want_ no father."

"Ye don't?" he cried, incredulous.

"Because," she declared, "I'm 'lowin' t' take care o' _you_-an' _marry_ you."

"Ye is?" he gasped.

"Ye bet ye, b'y," said "By-an'-by's" baby-"by-an'-by!"

Then they hugged each other hard.

VIII-THEY WHO LOSE AT LOVE

And old Khalil Khayyat, simulating courage, went out, that the reconciliation of Yusef Khouri with the amazing marriage might surely be accomplished. And returning in dread and bewildered haste, he came again to the pastry-shop of Nageeb Fiani, where young Salim Awad, the light of his eyes, still lay limp over the round table in the little back room, grieving that Haleema, Khouri's daughter, of the tresses of night, the star-eyed, his well-beloved, had of a sudden wed Jimmie Brady, the jolly truckman. The smoke hung dead and foul in the room; the coffee was turned cold in the cups, stagnant and greasy; the coal on the narghile was grown gray as death: the magic of great despair had in a twinkling worked the change of cheer to age and shabbiness and frigid gloom. But the laughter and soft voices in the outer room were all unchanged, still light, lifted indifferently above the rattle of dice and the aimless strumming of a canoun; and beyond was the familiar evening hum and clatter of New York's Was.h.i.+ngton Street, children's cries and the patter of feet, drifting in at the open door; and from far off, as before, came the low, receding roar of the Elevated train rounding the curve to South Ferry.

Khayyat smiled in compa.s.sion: being old, used to the healing of years, he smiled; and he laid a timid hand on the head of young Salim Awad.

"Salim, poet, the child of a poet," he whispered, "grieve no more!"

"My heart is a gray coal, O Khalil!" sighed Salim Awad, who had lost at love. "For a moment it glowed in the breath of love. It is turned cold and gray; it lies forsaken in a vast night."

"For a moment," mused Khalil Khayyat, sighing, but yet smiling, "it glowed in the breath of love. Ah, Salim," said he, "there is yet the memory of that ecstasy!"

"My heart is a brown leaf: it flutters down the wind of despair; it is caught in the tempest of great woe."

"It has known the sunlight and the tender breeze."

Salim looked up; his face was wet and white; his black hair, fallen in disarray over his forehead, was damp with the sweat of grief; his eyes, soulful, glowing in deep shadows, he turned to some place high and distant. "My heart," he cried, pa.s.sionately, clasping his hands, "is a thing that for a moment lived, but is forever dead! It is in a grave of night and heaviness, O Khalil, my friend!"

"It is like a seed sown," said Khalil Khayyat.

"To fail of harvest!"

"Nay; to bloom in compa.s.sionate deeds. The flower of sorrow is the joy of the world. In the broken heart is the hope of the hopeless; in the agony of poets is their sure help. Hear me, O Salim Awad!" the old man continued, rising, lifting his lean brown hand, his voice clear, vibrant, possessing the quality of prophecy. "The broken heart is a seed sown by the hand of the Beneficent and Wise. Into the soil of life He casts it that there may be a garden in the world. With a free, glad hand He sows, that the perfume and color of high compa.s.sion may glorify the harvest of ambitious strife; and progress is the fruit of strife and love the flower of compa.s.sion. Yea, O Salim, poet, the child of a poet, taught of a poet, which am I, the broken heart is a seed sown gladly, to flower in this beauty. Blessed," Khalil Khayyat concluded, smiling, "oh, blessed be the Breaker of Hearts!"

"Blessed," asked Salim Awad, wondering, "be the Breaker of Hearts?"

"Yea, O Salim," answered Khalil Khayyat, speaking out of age and ancient pain; "even blessed be the Breaker of Hearts!"

Salim Awad turned again to the place that was high and distant-beyond the gaudy, dirty ceiling of the little back room-where, it may be, the form of Haleema, the star-eyed, of the slender, yielding shape of the tamarisk, floated in a radiant cloud, compa.s.sionate and glorious.

"What is my love?" he whispered. "Is it a consuming fire? Nay," he answered, his voice rising, warm, tremulous; "rather is it a little blaze, kindled brightly in the night, that it may comfort my beloved.

What is my love, O Haleema, daughter of Khouri, the star-eyed? Is it an arrow, shot from my bow, that it may tear the heart of my beloved? Nay; rather is it a s.h.i.+eld against the arrows of sorrow-my s.h.i.+eld, the strength of my right arm: a refuge from the cruel shafts of life. What are my arms? Are they bars of iron to imprison my beloved? Nay," cried Salim Awad, striking his breast; "they are but a resting-place. A resting-place," he repeated, throwing wide his arms, "to which she will not come! Oh, Haleema!" he moaned, flinging himself upon the little round table, "Haleema! Jewel of all riches! Star of the night! Flower of the world! Haleema ... Haleema...."

"Poet!" Khalil Khayyat gasped, clutching the little round table, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng. "The child of a poet, taught of a poet, which am I!"

They were singing in the street-a riot of Irish lads, tenement-born; tramping noisily past the door of Nageeb Fiani's pastry-shop to Battery Park. And Khalil Khayyat sat musing deeply, his ears closed to the alien song, while distance mellowed the voices, changed them to a vagrant harmony, made them one with the mutter of Was.h.i.+ngton Street; for there had come to him a great thought-a vision, high, glowing, such as only poets may know-concerning love and the infinite pain; and he sought to fas.h.i.+on the thought: which must be done with tender care in the cla.s.sic language, lest it suffer in beauty or effect being uttered in haste or in the common speech of the people. Thus he sat: low in his chair, his head hanging loose, his eyes jumping, his brown, wrinkled face fearfully working, until every hair of his unshaven beard stood restlessly on end.

And Salim Awad, looking up, perceived these throes: and thereby knew that some prophetic word was immediately to be spoken.

"They who lose at love," Khayyat muttered, "must.... They who lose at love...."

"Khalil!"

The Language Beautiful was for once perverse. The words would not come to Khalil Khayyat. He gasped, tapped the table with impatient fingers-and bent again to the task.

"They who lose at love...."

"Khalil!" Salim Awad's voice was plaintive. "What must they do, O Khalil," he implored, "who lose at love? Tell me, Khalil! _What must they do?_"

"They who lose at love.... They who lose at love must.... They who lose at love must ... seek...."

"Speak, O Khalil, concerning those wretched ones! And they must seek?"

Khayyat laughed softly. He sat back in the chair-proudly squared his shoulders. "And now I know!" he cried, in triumph. He cleared his throat. "They who lose at love," he declaimed, "must seek...." He paused abruptly. There had been a warning in the young lover's eyes: after all, in exceptional cases, poetry might not wisely be practised.

"Come, Khalil!" Salim Awad purred. "They who lose at love? What is left for them to do?"

"Nay," answered Khalil Khayyat, looking away, much embarra.s.sed, "I will not tell you."

Salim caught the old man's wrist. "What is the quest?" he cried, hoa.r.s.ely, bending close.

"I may not tell."

Salim's fingers tightened; his teeth came together with a snap; his face flushed-a quick flood of red, hot blood.

"What is the quest?" he demanded.

"I dare not tell."

"The quest?"

"I _will_ not tell!"

Nor would Khalil Khayyat tell Salim Awad what must be sought by such as lose at love; but he called to Nageeb Fiani, the greatest player in all the world, to bring the violin, that Salim might hear the music of love and be comforted. And in the little back room of the pastry-shop near the Battery, while the trucks rattled over the cobblestones and the songs of the Irish troubled the soft spring night, Nageeb Fiani played the Song of Love to Lali, which the blind prince had made, long, long ago, before he died of love; and in the sigh and wail and pa.s.sionate complaint of that dead woe the despair of Salim Awad found voice and spent itself; and he looked up, and gazing deep into the dull old eyes of Khalil Khayyat, new light in his own, he smiled.