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Page 8
"Then," said Whitaker, "I'll go out and buy something. I'd rather eat
in the studio. What'll I get?"
Kenny capriciously banned oysters.
"If you want a rarebit," he added, "we have some cheese."
He was still searching excitedly for the cheese when Whitaker returned.
"Reynolds," he flung out vindictively, "is positively the most
unreliable dealer I know. He's erratic and irresponsible. A man may
work himself to death and wait in the grave for his money. Do you
wonder poor Blakelock met his doom through the cupidity of laggard
dealers? Here am I on the verge of God knows what from overwork--"
Whitaker spared him disillusion. Painting with Kenny was an
occupation, never work. When it slipped tiresomely into the class of
work and palled, he threw it aside for something more diverting.
"The cheese in all probability," suggested Whitaker mildly, "wouldn't
be under the piano. Or would it? And don't bother anyway. I took the
liberty of buying an emergency wedge while I was out."
Kenny wiped his forehead in amazed relief and piously thanked God he
hadn't wasted his appetite on middle-aged cakes.
"If you hadn't come when you did," he said, "I'd likely had to eat 'em,
thanks to Reynolds. Now I'll send 'em up to H. B." He peered
disgustedly into the bag and removed an irrelevant ace of spades. Its
hibernation there seemed for an instant to annoy him as well it might.
There had been a furore in whist about it barely a week before. Then
he used it irresponsibly for an I.O.U. and impaled it upon a strange
looking spike that seemed to pinion a heterogeneous admission of petty
debt.
Together they made the rarebit. Whitaker waited with foreboding for
the storm to break. But for some reason, though he was constrained and
impatient and feverishly active, Kenny avoided the subject of Brian.
He lost poise and patience all at once, pushed aside his plate and
challenged Whitaker with a look.
"Why did you want to eat in the studio?"
"I came to talk."
"Whitaker," blustered Kenny, "where's Brian?"
"Working."
"On your paper?"
"No. Brian's left New York. He's driving somebody's car. And I found
the job for him through my paper. When he has money enough he plans to
tramp off into God's green world of spring to get himself in trim.
Says he's stale and tired and thinking wrong. In the fall he's going
abroad for me and that, Kenny, is about all I can tell you."
"You mean," flared Kenny, rising with a ragged napkin in his hand, "you
mean, John, it's all you will tell me!"
"Sit down," said Whitaker, toasting a cracker over the alcohol flame.
"I prefer a sensible talk without fireworks."
Surprised and nettled, Kenny obeyed in spite of himself.
"Now," went on Whitaker quietly, "I came here to-night because I'm
Brian's friend and yours." He ignored the incredulous arch of Kenny's
eyebrows. "Where Brian is, where he will be, I don't propose to tell
you, now or at any other time. His wheres and his whens are the boy's
own business. His whys I think you know. He won't be back."
"He will!" thundered Kenny and thumped upon the table with his fist.
Whitaker patiently reassembled his supper.
"I think not," he said.
"You're not here to think," blazed Kenny. "You're here to tell me what
you know."
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