Butterfly Man. Lew Levenson

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СКАЧАТЬ Southern California. Next winter in Miami. Next spring in Paris. You must always hold Texas close and dear to you. But Texas, great as she is, is but a fragment. The world, Ken—that is your apple pie. Cut it—as you will."

      Ken—seventeen—thrilled to these inspired words. The older man—old because of his graying Van Dyck, with his slanting watery-blue eyes, his oddly precise manner of clipping his words, his neatly tailored clothes, his ivory-headed stick, his faintly perfumed breath—placed that square-tipped-fingered hand again upon Ken's sleeve.

      "My boy," he said, "you make me very happy."

      If Ken was making Mr. Lowell happy, Mr. Lowell was leading Ken to Kingdom Come. At this moment when Dawson County was ending and roadside signs about the boll weevil advertised the coming of Kent County, Ken shook his head abruptly as if to make sure that he was fully awake. He then turned to Mr. Lowell.

      "Mr. Lowell," he said, "I don't know how you made father let me go with you."

      "It was easy," Mr. Lowell said. "I told him you were a handsome young brute and that you deserved better than a Selma upbringing. Your father is a sensible man. If he weren't, you'd be working in his office and you'd be ​settling down in Selma and marrying—or some such ridiculous thing."

      Ken listened and still did not understand. He knew that Mr. Lowell owned the Lowell Block on the Camino, that he held a mortgage on the Gracey home and that he seldom resided in the sturdy white-washed Lowell mansion opposite Selma Park. He knew that Mr. Lowell was a mysterious man, a man much feared by those who owed him money—and his father owed him back interest on a mortgage.

      To have been noticed by Mr. Lowell was something. That day when Mr. Lowell made a beautiful speech to the graduating class of 1922, then dropped over to visit Ken's father, would always be memorable to Ken.

      "I want you to let me take your son with me to the Coast," Mr. Lowell had said. "I plan to train him to be a business associate, as I have already trained so many other boys."

      Ken could not believe his ears. Yes … he wanted to leave Selma. He had been happy in Selma High. Mr. Coleman had praised him as an exemplary youth. He had been a basket-ball star. Yet he really wanted to quit Selma. What more could he do in the little Texas town? Why should he not become an associate of Mr. Lowell? Why should he not go to California?

      Yet he was troubled by a persistent desire to know why Mr. Lowell had chosen him and not Lee Graham or Bill Parrott.

      "How did you come to pick me out, Mr. Lowell?" he asked.

      "You are a fine young animal—you are a gifted young man," Mr. Lowell replied.

      ​The words rattled against Ken's ears emptily.

      "But why me? There's others."

      "Ken, I want you to enjoy this trip. Tonight, in El Paso, we shall talk."

      "This is Henry Fraser, Ken," Mr. Lowell said. Henry Fraser, seated astride a gilt chair in the El Paso Hotel suite, puffed on a long Mexican cigarette and regarded Ken with dull eyes.

      "Pleased to meetcha," he replied. "It's been awfully boring," he turned to Mr. Lowell. "I told Fran I didn't want to go to a dude ranch alone."

      Henry Fraser seemed like a sissy, Ken concluded. His clothes were too well tailored, his waist too wasp-like, his affected speech and tiny moustache ridiculous.

      "Fran has been too commanding," he continued. "Too damned imperial, if you get what I mean. I always preferred you, La—"

      "I want to show you the view from the bedroom window," said Mr. Lowell suddenly. "Ken will excuse us."

      "I didn't know. I really didn't know," said Henry Fraser, with curious emphasis. "I don't care for views. Though your taste is improving. I'll tell Fran not to worry about me."

      "Is Fran your wife?" Ken interrupted.

      "Quite," said Henry Fraser. And that ended the conversation.

      Ken thought Mr. Lowell's suite was lavish. He had stopped at the Jefferson in St. Louis on the basket-ball team's northern jaunt last winter; but the Jefferson was a dog-house compared to this. These elegant rooms, the heavy carpets, the green and gold wainscoting, the respectful ​humility of the manager before Mr. Lowell—and the dinner … wine … a liqueur—then, this odd conversation, in which he took little part: he felt elated by this peep into the gilded future.

      "Henry," said Mr. Lowell politely, "Kenneth is to be my protégé. I am a lonely old man. I have no son of my own. I plan to teach Kenneth life as I see it."

      "Estimable, La, estimable," said Henry Fraser. "You are a true philanthropist."

      "If I must say so, Henry," Mr. Lowell spoke with unusual acerbity for Mr. Lowell, "you are rotting, positively rotting."

      Henry Fraser wore a neat polkadotted tie and a handkerchief to match. He carefully blew his nose and made an unintelligible remark.

      "We're leaving in the morning. I had planned to devote an hour or two to Ken's curriculum at Flintridge Academy. That is, if he chooses to go to Flintridge Academy."

      "I'm sure I shan't delay you," said Henry Fraser. Ken thought he understood that Henry Fraser wanted to be entertained in some fashion by Mr. Lowell. But he proceeded to say good-night and departed.

      After Henry Fraser was gone, Ken asked Mr. Lowell who he was.

      "An ungrateful youth, of a vile and insupportable temperament—but an old friend," Mr. Lowell quickly added.

      They sat, the young man and the old man on the Louis Quinze chaise-longue, and the broad-shouldered hazel-eyed Ken seemed frail beside the bulk of old Lowell. The tall Texas youth sat in abashed deference, waiting for his protector to speak.

      "Life—that is, your life—has been simple, Ken," Mr. ​Lowell began. "Too simple. I know Selma. I know you have learned to depend upon Selma people, Selma stores, Selma homes for your life.

      "I am appealing now to your mind. I want you to think of me not as you think of your father, that is, not as a god nor as a man, but as a being far closer to you than either. You and I … we shall seek the same thing together. You shall give me youth—I shall give you wisdom.

      "First you must forget Selma. When we reach California, I shall enshrine you in my most beautiful of homes. You shall possess everything there that is mine. You shall do as you please, live as you please—but become what I please." His inflection changed with these last words. Ken fancied his dull blue eyes became sharper.

      "What do you mean?" Ken asked.

      "Not now—I shan't tell you now. First I want you to live. Tell me, dear boy, what do you want most to be?" Ken flushed as the old man stared, awaiting an answer.

      "I don't know yet."

      "I shall wait. We shall relax, stop talking, go for a walk perhaps. Or what you will."

      "Mr. Lowell," said Ken, "I'm tired. I was up this morning at five. May I go to bed?"

      "Of course—of course. I forgot. Forgive me." Mr. Lowell sighed. "Perhaps I should turn in too. We have a long drive before us tomorrow." He rose and offered a hand.

      "My СКАЧАТЬ