THE LATEST DECISION.

There was a black-edged card on the bulletin board. That means a vacancy in the club membership until some one of the waiting-list steps into the dead man’s shoes.

The card bore the inscription:

JOHN FURMAN DELAFIELD. December 30, 1898.

Jack Delafield had been no chum of mine, but I never thought the Governors did right by him, and I was glad to remember my partisanship in the days when his mere name was sufficient to provoke instant debate among the Thespians. I liked him then for some of the enemies he made, and perhaps my enthusiasm was always more for the cause than the man. However, I was sorry—very sorry, to see his name on that card, and I said as much to the group of men among whom I took my accustomed seat in the club corner.

“Well, I’m sorry he’s gone, but I never knew him at all,” remarked Chandler.

“I never met him either,” said Paddock.

Hepburn had never heard of him, neither had Joline, and Grafton knew him not.

I looked at the speakers. Was it possible I was as old as they seemed to intimate?

“Delafield hasn’t been regular at the club for many a long day,” I said—clinging to a straw. “I doubt if he’s been inside the door for five years—so it isn’t very strange you haven’t met. But you all know of him. He was the Delafield of the Hawkins-Delafield affair.”

The blank look on the faces of my companions surprised and, I admit, shocked me. It was ridiculous, but Osborne’s laugh grated, and I welcomed Chandler’s interrupting question, even though it pronounced sentence on my senility.

“Yes—I’ll tell you the story,” I answered, “but after retailing to members of this club something that was absolutely discussed to death here, and labelling it a ‘story,’ I shall never address you again except as ‘my sons.’”

“Father, may I have a cigar?” asked Chandler, as he rang the bell.

I signed the check.

“Jack Delafield was a man of good family,” I began, “but to vary the conventional opening and adhere to the truth, I may as well say his parents were honest though not poor. He was a fellow of many talents, so many, in fact, that he became known as a ‘versatile genius.’ He never attained a more notable title. Not that he hid his talents under a napkin. He sealed their fate in a bottle—in many bottles. I’m afraid we didn’t do much to help him here. Everyone thought he’d come out all right in the long run, and when he lost his money and settled down seriously to the law, his friends supposed his wild oats had all been sown. But somebody left him more money, and back he went to literature and painting, and music. The old set welcomed him with open arms, but didn’t help him to write, or paint or practise. Then Miss—well, I won’t say what girl—put him on probation, and he wrote two really notable stories before the probation was declared unsatisfactory. After that he never seemed to care much about anything except art, and he took that out in dreaming of the things he didn’t do. Yet no one seemed to blame him much, perhaps everybody liked him too well, and nobody loved him enough. Anyway he went from bad to worse, until ‘poor fellow’ used to be coupled with his name, and Delafield in various states of intoxication became a familiar sight in these rooms.

“He must have been a handsome fellow before drink coarsened and aged him, for he was still good looking, though prematurely old, when I first met him, shortly after my election to the club. About that time Galloway gave his bachelor dinner in the private dining-room upstairs. I attended as one of the ushers, and there were perhaps a dozen other guests—among them Delafield. The dinner was as most such dinners are, a toast for every sentiment, and sentiments galore, so when we adjourned to the grill-room for coffee, Jack tipped his chair against the wall over there and fell asleep. We sat about the centre-table smoking, and testing some remarkable port sent to grace the occasion.

“I don’t recall what led up to the conversation, but I do remember that the general subject was women, and that Hawkins coupled the name of—well, a decent girl, with a remark so coarse that most of us stopped talking, though two or three laughed. It was a speech such as I suppose you’ve all heard made at some time or another, and which always seems to receive the tribute of a laugh before being buried in the silence of self-respecting men.

“It was in the hush following this remark that Delafield’s chair fell sideways to the floor with a crash, making us start to our feet and setting the glasses tinkling. The roar of mirth that burst out at this mishap ceased instantly, as we saw Delafield’s ghastly face, down which the blood was running from a deep gash in his forehead.

“Someone hurried forward, offering help, but Delafield pushed him aside, staggered to his feet, closed the door and leaned his back against it—his arms spread out as though to bar an exit.

“We stood around the table in silence, watching him. Two or three minutes must have passed before he spoke.

“‘Is—Mi—Miss Smith en—gaged?’

“The question was asked slowly in a low tone, as though the man was struggling to control voice and speech.

“We looked at one another and at the swaying figure before the door, but no one answered.

“‘Is—Miss Smith’s—father here?’

“No answer.

“‘Is Miss Smith’s brother here?’

“It was difficult to see all the faces in the smoky half-light of the lamps, but those about me showed a pallor of apprehension.

“Was Miss Smith’s uncle there—or her guardian—or her cousin? Was anybody present who had a claim to represent her? No?

“The broadening trickle of blood on Delafield’s face dripped down the white shirt front, but no one stirred or spoke.

“‘Then I wa—want to say’—here he lurched forward from the door and stood rocking slightly at the end of the table. ‘I want to say that I—I’m drunk an’—and I know it. But I’m—I’m a gentleman. An’—and yonder’s nothing but a cur—a low-lived cur—drunk or sober. You—you’ve heard him—now see him!’

“Something flashed before his eyes, and then a wine-glass struck Hawkins square on the forehead, scattering in fragments over the table.

“And Hawkins stood there, his face dripping with the wine, and his clothes showing great stains of it—stood there without moving as Delafield leaned over the table and laughed—

“‘If—if you only had as much re—red blood in you—you—you——’

“And then he fell fainting across the table, crashing among the bottles.

“The Governing Board expelled Delafield, but the club sentiment was so strongly in his favour that they afterward rescinded the expulsion, and suspended him for three years. But that never satisfied his friends.”

“I should think not, indeed,” exclaimed Joline, “it was outrageous! I’ve always claimed you can’t be sure a man’s a thorough gentleman until you’ve seen him drunk. And that proves it.”

“Oh, the many times I’ve heard your theory debated in this place! The walls fairly ached with listening to the discussions.”

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t know the chap,” interrupted Chandler. “Let’s drink to his memory!”

He struck the bell as he spoke. As the waiter filled the orders, I noticed one of the older members on the stairs bending close to the bulletin board and peering through his glasses at the notice of John Delafield’s death.

Chandler touched me on the shoulder.

“To the memory of a gentleman—Jack Delafield!” he cried. We rose to the toast.

The old man on the stairs turned quickly and saw the lifted glasses. His face was a study.

“Hush!” I whispered, “that’s Hawkins.”