One day Martin became aware that he was lonely. He was healthy and
strong, and had nothing to do. The cessation from writing and
studying, the death of Brissenden, and the estrangement from Ruth
had made a big hole in his life; and his life refused to be pinned
down to good living in cafes and the smoking of Egyptian
cigarettes. It was true the South Seas were calling to him, but he
had a feeling that the game was not yet played out in the United
States. Two books were soon to be published, and he had more books
that might find publication. Money could be made out of them, and
he would wait and take a sackful of it into the South Seas. He
knew a valley and a bay in the Marquesas that he could buy for a
thousand Chili dollars. The valley ran from the horseshoe, land-
locked bay to the tops of the dizzy, cloud-capped peaks and
contained perhaps ten thousand acres. It was filled with tropical
fruits, wild chickens, and wild pigs, with an occasional herd of
wild cattle, while high up among the peaks were herds of wild goats
harried by packs of wild dogs. The whole place was wild. Not a
human lived in it. And he could buy it and the bay for a thousand
Chili dollars.

The bay, as he remembered it, was magnificent, with water deep
enough to accommodate the largest vessel afloat, and so safe that
the South Pacific Directory recommended it to the best careening
place for ships for hundreds of miles around. He would buy a
schooner - one of those yacht-like, coppered crafts that sailed
like witches - and go trading copra and pearling among the islands.
He would make the valley and the bay his headquarters. He would
build a patriarchal grass house like Tati's, and have it and the
valley and the schooner filled with dark-skinned servitors. He
would entertain there the factor of Taiohae, captains of wandering
traders, and all the best of the South Pacific riffraff. He would
keep open house and entertain like a prince. And he would forget
the books he had opened and the world that had proved an illusion.

To do all this he must wait in California to fill the sack with
money. Already it was beginning to flow in. If one of the books
made a strike, it might enable him to sell the whole heap of
manuscripts. Also he could collect the stories and the poems into
books, and make sure of the valley and the bay and the schooner.
He would never write again. Upon that he was resolved. But in the
meantime, awaiting the publication of the books, he must do
something more than live dazed and stupid in the sort of uncaring
trance into which he had fallen.

He noted, one Sunday morning, that the Bricklayers' Picnic took
place that day at Shell Mound Park, and to Shell Mound Park he
went. He had been to the working-class picnics too often in his
earlier life not to know what they were like, and as he entered the
park he experienced a recrudescence of all the old sensations.
After all, they were his kind, these working people. He had been
born among them, he had lived among them, and though he had strayed
for a time, it was well to come back among them.

"If it ain't Mart!" he heard some one say, and the next moment a
hearty hand was on his shoulder. "Where you ben all the time? Off
to sea? Come on an' have a drink."

It was the old crowd in which he found himself - the old crowd,
with here and there a gap, and here and there a new face. The
fellows were not bricklayers, but, as in the old days, they
attended all Sunday picnics for the dancing, and the fighting, and
the fun. Martin drank with them, and began to feel really human
once more. He was a fool to have ever left them, he thought; and
he was very certain that his sum of happiness would have been
greater had he remained with them and let alone the books and the
people who sat in the high places. Yet the beer seemed not so good
as of yore. It didn't taste as it used to taste. Brissenden had
spoiled him for steam beer, he concluded, and wondered if, after
all, the books had spoiled him for companionship with these friends
of his youth. He resolved that he would not be so spoiled, and he
went on to the dancing pavilion. Jimmy, the plumber, he met there,
in the company of a tall, blond girl who promptly forsook him for
Martin.

"Gee, it's like old times," Jimmy explained to the gang that gave
him the laugh as Martin and the blonde whirled away in a waltz.
"An' I don't give a rap. I'm too damned glad to see 'm back.
Watch 'm waltz, eh? It's like silk. Who'd blame any girl?"

But Martin restored the blonde to Jimmy, and the three of them,
with half a dozen friends, watched the revolving couples and
laughed and joked with one another. Everybody was glad to see
Martin back. No book of his been published; he carried no
fictitious value in their eyes. They liked him for himself. He
felt like a prince returned from excile, and his lonely heart
burgeoned in the geniality in which it bathed. He made a mad day
of it, and was at his best. Also, he had money in his pockets,
and, as in the old days when he returned from sea with a pay-day,
he made the money fly.

Once, on the dancing-floor, he saw Lizzie Connolly go by in the
arms of a young workingman; and, later, when he made the round of
the pavilion, he came upon her sitting by a refreshment table.
Surprise and greetings over, he led her away into the grounds,
where they could talk without shouting down the music. From the
instant he spoke to her, she was his. He knew it. She showed it
in the proud humility of her eyes, in every caressing movement of
her proudly carried body, and in the way she hung upon his speech.
She was not the young girl as he had known her. She was a woman,
now, and Martin noted that her wild, defiant beauty had improved,
losing none of its wildness, while the defiance and the fire seemed
more in control. "A beauty, a perfect beauty," he murmured
admiringly under his breath. And he knew she was his, that all he
had to do was to say "Come," and she would go with him over the
world wherever he led.

Even as the thought flashed through his brain he received a heavy
blow on the side of his head that nearly knocked him down. It was
a man's fist, directed by a man so angry and in such haste that the
fist had missed the jaw for which it was aimed. Martin turned as
he staggered, and saw the fist coming at him in a wild swing.
Quite as a matter of course he ducked, and the fist flew harmlessly
past, pivoting the man who had driven it. Martin hooked with his
left, landing on the pivoting man with the weight of his body
behind the blow. The man went to the ground sidewise, leaped to
his feet, and made a mad rush. Martin saw his passion-distorted
face and wondered what could be the cause of the fellow's anger.
But while he wondered, he shot in a straight left, the weight of
his body behind the blow. The man went over backward and fell in a
crumpled heap. Jimmy and others of the gang were running toward
them.

Martin was thrilling all over. This was the old days with a
vengeance, with their dancing, and their fighting, and their fun.
While he kept a wary eye on his antagonist, he glanced at Lizzie.
Usually the girls screamed when the fellows got to scrapping, but
she had not screamed. She was looking on with bated breath,
leaning slightly forward, so keen was her interest, one hand
pressed to her breast, her cheek flushed, and in her eyes a great
and amazed admiration.

The man had gained his feet and was struggling to escape the
restraining arms that were laid on him.

"She was waitin' for me to come back!" he was proclaiming to all
and sundry. "She was waitin' for me to come back, an' then that
fresh guy comes buttin' in. Let go o' me, I tell yeh. I'm goin'
to fix 'm."

"What's eatin' yer?" Jimmy was demanding, as he helped hold the
young fellow back. "That guy's Mart Eden. He's nifty with his
mits, lemme tell you that, an' he'll eat you alive if you monkey
with 'm."

"He can't steal her on me that way," the other interjected.

"He licked the Flyin' Dutchman, an' you know HIM," Jimmy went on
expostulating. "An' he did it in five rounds. You couldn't last a
minute against him. See?"

This information seemed to have a mollifying effect, and the irate
young man favored Martin with a measuring stare.

"He don't look it," he sneered; but the sneer was without passion.

"That's what the Flyin' Dutchman thought," Jimmy assured him.
"Come on, now, let's get outa this. There's lots of other girls.
Come on."

The young fellow allowed himself to be led away toward the
pavilion, and the gang followed after him.

"Who is he?" Martin asked Lizzie. "And what's it all about,
anyway?"

Already the zest of combat, which of old had been so keen and
lasting, had died down, and he discovered that he was self-
analytical, too much so to live, single heart and single hand, so
primitive an existence.

Lizzie tossed her head.

"Oh, he's nobody," she said. "He's just ben keepin' company with
me."

"I had to, you see," she explained after a pause. "I was gettin'
pretty lonesome. But I never forgot." Her voice sank lower, and
she looked straight before her. "I'd throw 'm down for you any
time."

Martin looking at her averted face, knowing that all he had to do
was to reach out his hand and pluck her, fell to pondering whether,
after all, there was any real worth in refined, grammatical
English, and, so, forgot to reply to her.

"You put it all over him," she said tentatively, with a laugh.

"He's a husky young fellow, though," he admitted generously. "If
they hadn't taken him away, he might have given me my hands full."

"Who was that lady friend I seen you with that night?" she asked
abruptly.

"Oh, just a lady friend," was his answer.

"It was a long time ago," she murmured contemplatively. "It seems
like a thousand years."

But Martin went no further into the matter. He led the
conversation off into other channels. They had lunch in the
restaurant, where he ordered wine and expensive delicacies and
afterward he danced with her and with no one but her, till she was
tired. He was a good dancer, and she whirled around and around
with him in a heaven of delight, her head against his shoulder,
wishing that it could last forever. Later in the afternoon they
strayed off among the trees, where, in the good old fashion, she
sat down while he sprawled on his back, his head in her lap. He
lay and dozed, while she fondled his hair, looked down on his
closed eyes, and loved him without reserve. Looking up suddenly,
he read the tender advertisement in her face. Her eyes fluttered
down, then they opened and looked into his with soft defiance.

"I've kept straight all these years," she said, her voice so low
that it was almost a whisper.

In his heart Martin knew that it was the miraculous truth. And at
his heart pleaded a great temptation. It was in his power to make
her happy. Denied happiness himself, why should he deny happiness
to her? He could marry her and take her down with him to dwell in
the grass-walled castle in the Marquesas. The desire to do it was
strong, but stronger still was the imperative command of his nature
not to do it. In spite of himself he was still faithful to Love.
The old days of license and easy living were gone. He could not
bring them back, nor could he go back to them. He was changed -
how changed he had not realized until now.

"I am not a marrying man, Lizzie," he said lightly.

The hand caressing his hair paused perceptibly, then went on with
the same gentle stroke. He noticed her face harden, but it was
with the hardness of resolution, for still the soft color was in
her cheeks and she was all glowing and melting.

"I did not mean that - " she began, then faltered. "Or anyway I
don't care."

"I don't care," she repeated. "I'm proud to be your friend. I'd
do anything for you. I'm made that way, I guess."

Martin sat up. He took her hand in his. He did it deliberately,
with warmth but without passion; and such warmth chilled her.

"Don't let's talk about it," she said.

"You are a great and noble woman," he said. "And it is I who
should be proud to know you. And I am, I am. You are a ray of
light to me in a very dark world, and I've got to be straight with
you, just as straight as you have been."

"I don't care whether you're straight with me or not. You could do
anything with me. You could throw me in the dirt an' walk on me.
An' you're the only man in the world that can," she added with a
defiant flash. "I ain't taken care of myself ever since I was a
kid for nothin'."

"And it's just because of that that I'm not going to," he said
gently. "You are so big and generous that you challenge me to
equal generousness. I'm not marrying, and I'm not - well, loving
without marrying, though I've done my share of that in the past.
I'm sorry I came here to-day and met you. But it can't be helped
now, and I never expected it would turn out this way."

"But look here, Lizzie. I can't begin to tell you how much I like
you. I do more than like you. I admire and respect you. You are
magnificent, and you are magnificently good. But what's the use of
words? Yet there's something I'd like to do. You've had a hard
life; let me make it easy for you." (A joyous light welled into
her eyes, then faded out again.) "I'm pretty sure of getting hold
of some money soon - lots of it."

In that moment he abandoned the idea of the valley and the bay, the
grass-walled castle and the trim, white schooner. After all, what
did it matter? He could go away, as he had done so often, before
the mast, on any ship bound anywhere.

"I'd like to turn it over to you. There must be something you want
- to go to school or business college. You might like to study and
be a stenographer. I could fix it for you. Or maybe your father
and mother are living - I could set them up in a grocery store or
something. Anything you want, just name it, and I can fix it for
you."

She made no reply, but sat, gazing straight before her, dry-eyed
and motionless, but with an ache in the throat which Martin divined
so strongly that it made his own throat ache. He regretted that he
had spoken. It seemed so tawdry what he had offered her - mere
money - compared with what she offered him. He offered her an
extraneous thing with which he could part without a pang, while she
offered him herself, along with disgrace and shame, and sin, and
all her hopes of heaven.

"Don't let's talk about it," she said with a catch in her voice
that she changed to a cough. She stood up. "Come on, let's go
home. I'm all tired out."

The day was done, and the merrymakers had nearly all departed. But
as Martin and Lizzie emerged from the trees they found the gang
waiting for them. Martin knew immediately the meaning of it.
Trouble was brewing. The gang was his body-guard. They passed out
through the gates of the park with, straggling in the rear, a
second gang, the friends that Lizzie's young man had collected to
avenge the loss of his lady. Several constables and special police
officers, anticipating trouble, trailed along to prevent it, and
herded the two gangs separately aboard the train for San Francisco.
Martin told Jimmy that he would get off at Sixteenth Street Station
and catch the electric car into Oakland. Lizzie was very quiet and
without interest in what was impending. The train pulled in to
Sixteenth Street Station, and the waiting electric car could be
seen, the conductor of which was impatiently clanging the gong.

"There she is," Jimmy counselled. "Make a run for it, an' we'll
hold 'em back. Now you go! Hit her up!"

The hostile gang was temporarily disconcerted by the manoeuvre,
then it dashed from the train in pursuit. The staid and sober
Oakland folk who sat upon the car scarcely noted the young fellow
and the girl who ran for it and found a seat in front on the
outside. They did not connect the couple with Jimmy, who sprang on
the steps, crying to the motorman:-

"Slam on the juice, old man, and beat it outa here!"

The next moment Jimmy whirled about, and the passengers saw him
land his fist on the face of a running man who was trying to board
the car. But fists were landing on faces the whole length of the
car. Thus, Jimmy and his gang, strung out on the long, lower
steps, met the attacking gang. The car started with a great
clanging of its gong, and, as Jimmy's gang drove off the last
assailants, they, too, jumped off to finish the job. The car
dashed on, leaving the flurry of combat far behind, and its
dumfounded passengers never dreamed that the quiet young man and
the pretty working-girl sitting in the corner on the outside seat
had been the cause of the row.

Martin had enjoyed the fight, with a recrudescence of the old
fighting thrills. But they quickly died away, and he was oppressed
by a great sadness. He felt very old - centuries older than those
careless, care-free young companions of his others days. He had
travelled far, too far to go back. Their mode of life, which had
once been his, was now distasteful to him. He was disappointed in
it all. He had developed into an alien. As the steam beer had
tasted raw, so their companionship seemed raw to him. He was too
far removed. Too many thousands of opened books yawned between
them and him. He had exiled himself. He had travelled in the vast
realm of intellect until he could no longer return home. On the
other hand, he was human, and his gregarious need for companionship
remained unsatisfied. He had found no new home. As the gang could
not understand him, as his own family could not understand him, as
the bourgeoisie could not understand him, so this girl beside him,
whom he honored high, could not understand him nor the honor he
paid her. His sadness was not untouched with bitterness as he
thought it over.

"Make it up with him," he advised Lizzie, at parting, as they stood
in front of the workingman's shack in which she lived, near Sixth
and Market. He referred to the young fellow whose place he had
usurped that day.

"I can't - now," she said.

"Oh, go on," he said jovially. "All you have to do is whistle and
he'll come running."

"I didn't mean that," she said simply.

And he knew what she had meant.

She leaned toward him as he was about to say good night. But she
leaned not imperatively, not seductively, but wistfully and humbly.
He was touched to the heart. His large tolerance rose up in him.
He put his arms around her, and kissed her, and knew that upon his
own lips rested as true a kiss as man ever received.

"My God!" she sobbed. "I could die for you. I could die for you."

She tore herself from him suddenly and ran up the steps. He felt a
quick moisture in his eyes.

"Martin Eden," he communed. "You're not a brute, and you're a damn
poor Nietzscheman. You'd marry her if you could and fill her
quivering heart full with happiness. But you can't, you can't.
And it's a damn shame."

"'A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers,'" he muttered,
remembering his Henly. "'Life is, I think, a blunder and a shame.'
It is - a blunder and a shame."