Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/182

180 A Filipino man-servant would close up the house in the morning. Meantime Ken would stop there for one more night—alone. He was nervous. The road was dark, the little white house lost in shadow.

Nothing, nothing could make him forget the perfection of the past weeks. He had been so calm, so thoroughly at peace.

No one knew he had nightly slipped away from the theatre alone. He did not even trust the taxicab drivers in the vicinity of the theatre. He had hired a cab and had transferred to another before proceeding uptown, so that no one might discover his destination. Howard had lived with him. Howard had worked, composing, writing. The house contained no telephone. Not even Rutgers knew where his master had gone. A few weeks of perfect happiness had been enough. Howard was satisfied. He had sailed for Europe serenely, with no regret.

Ken, entering the house, was lonely. He had kept his word. Inside, in the little homey rooms, common furniture, a piano, shadows, silence, far off a hum of the sleeping city. Ken was lonely. On the kitchen table stood a bottle of liquor, cognac belonging to Howard, a bottle of bootleg gin. To quiet his nerves, he drank brandy, then straight gin. He went to bed and slept soundly. It was easy to forget—easy when liquor was near at hand. In comforting sleep, time fled toward a tomorrow.

The company quit New York with splitting headaches and spoiled stomachs. When, at five o'clock Sunday afternoon, the New England Limited left Grand Central Station, one principal and one chorus boy were missing. Ken Gracey, however, accounted for, was reported to be