“No, no,” insisted Roberts. “I’m glad I’m in a position to help you.” Once more, he looked swiftly around him and continued in a lower voice. “I think it’s wonderful to be able to help people. Don’t you?”
“It’s about the only thing there is in the world,” he said in a still lower tone. “Isn’t it?”
He wrote his address on the card and handed it to Martin.
“I want you to come to my residence this evening. There, we’ll work out your economic destiny.” He smiled faintly.
Martin accepted the card, smiling also, wondering if he really looked this subjective and, if not, why Roberts’ obvious attitude.
“Very well,” he said, facing with curiosity a phenomenon before its occurrence. “What hour?”
Martin stood up and nodded slightly. It seemed to him that the employees were watching him evasively as he left.
The great city arose with Martin and marched to its hysteria of noon. Then, slowly falling till evening, burst into flame, quieted and slept. Gigantic presses told of her neurosis. In this immutable turning flashed black lines of the growth of the disease. Its people, wooden-eyed, marionette, accepted with grimness; their minds numb and evasive. They held their buildings higher in the air—pointed them like caricatures of things that had gone, of things still to come. But their thoughts were buried. Hidden under music and dust and smothered in light, the precious balance died....
The moon, free of clouds, shone through the blinds and into the living-room of Roberts’ apartment. A crystal vase, without flowers, directed the dim light into a corner. Small ebon figures held out their arms. Roberts was wearing a dark Russian blouse. To Martin, he appeared more fabulous and crystalline than in his office. His flush was constant—so determinate that Martin guessed it artificial, noticing however, that the native, restless color had moved into his eyes. There it remained, fluctuating and searching until it seemed disturbingly like the luminant phosphorus of uncertain, yet violent leaves and shadows Martin had avoided in the tropics. Roberts had been ambiguous throughout the evening and Martin felt that he knew him no better. But he watched the adviser closely—watched each apparent banality for a _double entendre_ and speculated upon the inevitable. He countered each triviality; and made no attempt to acquiesce in a secretive understanding.