The Firm of Gray and Vanrevel For the first time it was Crailey who sat waiting for Tom to come home.
In a chair drawn to his partner's desk in the dusty office, he half- reclined, arms on the desk, his chin on his clenched fists. To redeem the gloom he had lit a single candle, which painted him dimly against the complete darkness of his own shadow, like a very old portrait whose background time has solidified into shapeless browns; the portrait of a fair-haired gentleman, the cavalier, or the Marquis, one might have said at first glance; not describing it immediately as that of a poet, for there was no mark of art upon Crailey, not even in his hair, for they all wore it rather long then. Yet there was a mark upon him, never more vivid than as he sat waiting in the loneliness of that night for Tom Vanrevel; though what the mark was and what its significance might have been puzzling to define. Perhaps, after all, Fanchon Bareaud had described it best when she told Crailey one day, with a sudden hint of apprehensive tears, that he had a "look of fate."
Tom took his own time in coming; he had stayed at the club to go over his lists--so he had told Crailey--with the General and old Bareaud. His company was almost complete, and Crailey had been the first to volunteer, to the dumfounding of Trumble, who had proceeded to drink his health again and again. But the lists could not detain Tom two hours, Crailey knew, and it was two hours since the new volunteers had sung "The Star Spangled Banner" over the last of the punch, and had left the club to Tom and the two old men. Only once or twice in that time had Crailey shifted his position, or altered the direction of his set gaze at nothing. But at last he rose, went to the window and, leaning far out, looked down the street toward the little clubhouse. Its lights were extinguished and all was dark up and down the street. Abruptly Crailey went back to the desk and blew out the candle, after which he sat down again in the same position. Twenty minutes later he heard Tom's step on the stair, coming up very softly. Crailey waited in silence until his partner reached the landing, then relit the candle.
"Tom," he called. "Come in, please, I've been waiting for you."
There was a pause before Tom answered from the hall:
"I'm very tired, Crailey. I think I'll go up to bed."
"No," said Crailey, "come in."
The door was already open, but Tom turned toward it reluctantly. He stopped at the threshold and the two looked at each other.
"I thought you wouldn't come as long as you believed I was up," said Crailey, " so I blew out the light. I'm sorry I kept you outside so long."
"Crailey, I'm going away to-morrow," the other began. "I am to go over and see the Governor and offer him this company, and to-night I need sleep, so please-"No," interrupted Crailey quietly, "I want to know what you're going to do."
"To do about what?"
"About me."
"Oh!" Tom's eyes fell at once from his friend's face and rested upon the floor. Slowly he walked to the desk and stood in embarrassed contemplation of the littered books and papers, while the other waited.
"I think it's best for you to tell me," said Crailey.
"You think so?" Tom's embarrassment increased visibly, and there was mingled with it an odd appearance of apprehension, probably to relieve which he very deliberately took two long cheroots from his pocket, laid one on the desk for Crailey and lit the other himself, with extreme carefulness, at the candle. After this ceremonial he dragged a chair to the window, tilted back in it with his feet on the low sill, his back to the thin light and his friend, and said in a slow, gentle tone:
"Well, Crailey?"
"I suppose you mean that I ought to offer my explanation first," said the other, still standing. "Well, there isn't any." He did not speak dog- gedly or sullenly, as one in fault, but more with the air of a man curiously ready to throw all possible light upon a cloudy phenomenon.
