"A FAR COUNTRY\n\nBy Winston Churchill\n\n\n\n\nBOOK 1.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nMy name is Hugh Paret. I was a corporation lawyer, but by no means a\ntypical one, the choice of my profession being merely incidental, and\ndue, as will be seen, to the accident of environment. The book I am\nabout to write might aptly be called The Autobiography of a Romanticist.\nIn that sense, if in no other, I have been a typical American, regarding\nmy country as the happy hunting-ground of enlightened self-interest, as\na function of my desires. Whether or not I have completely got rid of\nthis romantic virus I must leave to those the aim of whose existence\nis to eradicate it from our literature and our life. A somewhat Augean\ntask!\n\nI have been impelled therefore to make an attempt at setting forth, with\nwhat frankness and sincerity I may, with those powers of selection of\nwhich I am capable, the life I have lived in this modern America; the\npassions I have known, the evils I have done. I endeavour to write a\nbiography of the inner life; but in order to do this I shall have to\nrelate those causal experiences of the outer existence that take place\nin the world of space and time, in the four walls of the home, in the\nschool and university, in the noisy streets, in the realm of business\nand politics. I shall try to set down, impartially, the motives that\nhave impelled my actions, to reveal in some degree the amazing mixture\nof good and evil which has made me what I am to-day: to avoid the tricks\nof memory and resist the inherent desire to present myself other and\nbetter than I am. Your American romanticist is a sentimental spoiled\nchild who believes in miracles, whose needs are mostly baubles, whose\ndesires are dreams. Expediency is his motto. Innocent of a knowledge\nof the principles of the universe, he lives in a state of ceaseless\nactivity, admitting no limitations, impatient of all restrictions.\nWhat he wants, he wants very badly indeed. This wanting things was the\ncorner-stone of my character, and I believe that the science of the\nfuture will bear me out when I say that it might have been differently\nbuilt upon. Certain it is that the system of education in vogue in the\n70's and 80's never contemplated the search for natural corner-stones.\n\nAt all events, when I look back upon the boy I was, I see the beginnings\nof a real person who fades little by little as manhood arrives and\nadvances, until suddenly I am aware that a stranger has taken his\nplace....\n\nI lived in a city which is now some twelve hours distant from the\nAtlantic seaboard. A very different city, too, it was in youth, in my\ngrandfather's day and my father's, even in my own boyhood, from what it\nhas since become in this most material of ages.\n\nThere is a book of my photographs, preserved by my mother, which I\nhave been looking over lately. First is presented a plump child of two,\ngazing in smiling trustfulness upon a world of sunshine; later on a\nlean boy in plaided kilts, whose wavy, chestnut-brown hair has been\nmost carefully parted on the side by Norah, his nurse. The face is\nstill childish. Then appears a youth of fourteen or thereabout in long\ntrousers and the queerest of short jackets, standing beside a marble\ntable against a classic background; he is smiling still in undiminished\nhope and trust, despite increasing vexations and crossings, meaningless\nlessons which had to be learned, disciplines to rack an aspiring soul,\nand long, uncomfortable hours in the stiff pew of the First Presbyterian\nChurch. Associated with this torture is a peculiar Sunday smell and the\nfaint rustling of silk dresses. I can see the stern black figure of Dr.\nPound, who made interminable statements to the Lord.\n\n\"Oh, Lord,\" I can hear him say, \"thou knowest...\"\n\nThese pictures, though yellowed and faded, suggest vividly the being\nI once was, the feelings that possessed and animated me, love for my\nplaymates, vague impulses struggling for expression in a world forever\nthwarting them. I recall, too, innocent dreams of a future unidentified,\ndreams from which I emerged vibrating with an energy that was lost for\nlack of a definite objective: yet it was constantly being renewed. I\noften wonder what I might have become if it could have been harnessed,\ndirected! Speculations are vain. Calvinism, though it had begun to make\ncompromises, was still a force in those days, inimical to spontaneity\nand human instincts. And when I think of Calvinism I see, not Dr. Pound,\nwho preached it, but my father, who practised and embodied it. I loved\nhim, but he made of righteousness a stern and terrible thing implying\nnot joy, but punishment, the suppression rather than the expansion of\naspirations. His religion seemed woven all of austerity, contained\nno shining threads to catch my eye. Dreams, to him, were matters for\nsuspicion and distrust.\n\nI sometimes ask myself, as I gaze upon his portrait now, the duplicate\nof the one painted for the Bar Association, whether he ever could have\nfelt the secret, hot thrills I knew and did not identify with religion.\nHis religion was real to him, though he failed utterly to make it\ncomprehensible to me. The apparent calmness, evenness of his life awed\nme. A successful lawyer, a respected and trusted citizen, was he lacking\nsomewhat in virility, vitality? I cannot judge him, even to-day. I\nnever knew him. There were times in my youth when the curtain of his\nunfamiliar spirit was withdrawn a little: and once, after I had passed\nthe crisis of some childhood disease, I awoke to find him bending over\nmy bed with a tender expression that surprised and puzzled me.\n\nHe was well educated, and from his portrait a shrewd observer might\ndivine in him a genteel taste for literature. The fine features bear\nwitness to the influence of an American environment, yet suggest\nthe intellectual Englishman of Matthew Arnold's time. The face is\ndistinguished, ascetic, the chestnut hair lighter and thinner than my\nown; the side whiskers are not too obtrusive, the eyes blue-grey. There\nis a large black cravat crossed and held by a cameo pin, and the coat\nhas odd, narrow lapels. His habits of mind were English, although he\nharmonized well enough with the manners and traditions of a city whose\ninheritance was Scotch-Irish; and he invariably drank tea for breakfast.\nOne of my earliest recollections is of the silver breakfast service and\negg-cups which my great-grandfather brought with him from Sheffield to\nPhiladelphia shortly after the Revolution. His son, Dr. Hugh Moreton\nParet, after whom I was named, was the best known physician of the city\nin the decorous, Second Bank days.\n\nMy mother was Sarah Breck. Hers was my Scotch-Irish side. Old Benjamin\nBreck, her grandfather, undaunted by sea or wilderness, had come\nstraight from Belfast to the little log settlement by the great river\nthat mirrored then the mantle of primeval forest on the hills. So much\nfor chance. He kept a store with a side porch and square-paned windows,\nwhere hams and sides of bacon and sugar loaves in blue glazed paper hung\nbeside ploughs and calico prints, barrels of flour, of molasses and rum,\nall of which had been somehow marvellously transported over the passes\nof those forbidding mountains,--passes we blithely thread to-day in\ndining cars and compartment sleepers. Behind the store were moored the\nbarges that floated down on the swift current to the Ohio, carrying\ngoods to even remoter settlements in the western wilderness.\n\nBenjamin, in addition to his emigrant's leather box, brought with him\nsome of that pigment that was to dye the locality for generations a\ndeep blue. I refer, of course, to his Presbyterianism. And in order the\nbetter to ensure to his progeny the fastness of this dye, he married\nthe granddaughter of a famous divine, celebrated in the annals of New\nEngland,--no doubt with some injustice,--as a staunch advocate on the\ndoctrine of infant damnation. My cousin Robert Breck had old Benjamin's\nportrait, which has since gone to the Kinley's. Heaven knows who painted\nit, though no great art were needed to suggest on canvas the tough\nfabric of that sitter, who was more Irish than Scotch. The heavy\nstick he holds might, with a slight stretch of the imagination, be a\nblackthorn; his head looks capable of withstanding many blows; his hand\nof giving many. And, as I gazed the other day at this picture hanging in\nthe shabby suburban parlour, I could only contrast him with his anaemic\ndescendants who possessed the likeness. Between the children of poor\nMary Kinley,--Cousin Robert's daughter, and the hardy stock of the old\ncountry there is a gap indeed!\n\nBenjamin Breck made the foundation of a fortune. It was his son who\nbuilt on the Second Bank the wide, corniced mansion in which to house\ncomfortably his eight children. There, two tiers above the river, lived\nmy paternal grandfather, Dr. Paret, the Breck's physician and friend;\nthe Durretts and the Hambletons, iron-masters; the Hollisters, Sherwins,\nthe McAlerys and Ewanses,--Breck connections,--the Willetts and Ogilvys;\nin short, everyone of importance in the days between the 'thirties and\nthe Civil War. Theirs were generous houses surrounded by shade trees,\nwith glorious back yards--I have been told--where apricots and pears and\npeaches and even nectarines grew.\n\nThe business of Breck and Company, wholesale grocers, descended to my\nmother's first cousin, Robert Breck, who lived at Claremore. The very\nsound of that word once sufficed to give me a shiver of delight; but\nthe Claremore I knew has disappeared as completely as Atlantis, and\nthe place is now a suburb (hateful word!) cut up into building lots\nand connected with Boyne Street and the business section of the city\nby trolley lines. Then it was \"the country,\" and fairly saturated with\nromance. Cousin Robert, when he came into town to spend his days at the\nstore, brought with him some of this romance, I had almost said of this\naroma. He was no suburbanite, but rural to the backbone, professing a\nmost proper contempt for dwellers in towns.\n\nEvery summer day that dawned held Claremore as a possibility. And such\nwas my capacity for joy that my appetite would depart completely when I\nheard my mother say, questioningly and with proper wifely respect--\n\n\"If you're really going off on a business trip for a day or two, Mr.\nParet\" (she generally addressed my father thus formally), \"I think I'll\ngo to Robert's and take Hugh.\"\n\n\"Shall I tell Norah to pack, mother,\" I would exclaim, starting up.\n\n\"We'll see what your father thinks, my dear.\"\n\n\"Remain at the table until you are excused, Hugh,\" he would say.\n\nReleased at length, I would rush to Norah, who always rejoiced with\nme, and then to the wire fence which marked the boundary of the Peters\ndomain next door, eager, with the refreshing lack of consideration\ncharacteristic of youth, to announce to the Peterses--who were to remain\nat home the news of my good fortune. There would be Tom and Alfred and\nRussell and Julia and little Myra with her grass-stained knees, faring\nforth to seek the adventures of a new day in the shady western yard.\nMyra was too young not to look wistful at my news, but the others\npretended indifference, seeking to lessen my triumph. And it was Julia\nwho invariably retorted \"We can go out to Uncle Jake's farm whenever we\nwant to. Can't we, Tom?\"...\n\nNo journey ever taken since has equalled in ecstasy that leisurely trip\nof thirteen miles in the narrow-gauge railroad that wound through hot\nfields of nodding corn tassels and between delicious, acrid-smelling\nwoods to Claremore. No silent palace \"sleeping in the sun,\" no edifice\ndecreed by Kubla Khan could have worn more glamour than the house of\nCousin Robert Breck.\n\nIt stood half a mile from the drowsy village, deep in its own grounds\namidst lawns splashed with shadows, with gravel paths edged--in\nbarbarous fashion, if you please with shells. There were flower beds of\nequally barbarous design; and two iron deer, which, like the figures\non Keats's Grecian urn, were ever ready poised to flee,--and yet never\nfled. For Cousin Robert was rich, as riches went in those days: not only\nrich, but comfortable. Stretching behind the house were sweet meadows of\nhay and red clover basking in the heat, orchards where the cows cropped\nbeneath the trees, arbours where purple clusters of Concords hung\nbeneath warm leaves: there were woods beyond, into which, under the\nguidance of Willie Breck, I made adventurous excursions, and in the\nautumn gathered hickories and walnuts. The house was a rambling, wooden\nmansion painted grey, with red scroll-work on its porches and horsehair\nfurniture inside. Oh, the smell of its darkened interior on a midsummer\nday! Like the flavour of that choicest of tropical fruits, the\nmangosteen, it baffles analysis, and the nearest I can come to it is a\nmixture of matting and corn-bread, with another element too subtle to\ndefine.\n\nThe hospitality of that house! One would have thought we had arrived,\nmy mother and I, from the ends of the earth, such was the welcome we got\nfrom Cousin Jenny, Cousin Robert's wife, from Mary and Helen with the\nflaxen pig-tails, from Willie, whom I recall as permanently without\nshoes or stockings. Met and embraced by Cousin Jenny at the station and\ndriven to the house in the squeaky surrey, the moment we arrived she and\nmy mother would put on the dressing-sacks I associated with hot weather,\nand sit sewing all day long in rocking-chairs at the coolest end of the\npiazza. The women of that day scorned lying down, except at night, and\nas evening came on they donned starched dresses; I recall in particular\none my mother wore, with little vertical stripes of black and white, and\na full skirt. And how they talked, from the beginning of the visit until\nthe end! I have often since wondered where the topics came from.\n\nIt was not until nearly seven o'clock that the train arrived which\nbrought home my Cousin Robert. He was a big man; his features and even\nhis ample moustache gave a disconcerting impression of rugged integrity,\nand I remember him chiefly in an alpaca or seersucker coat. Though much\nless formal, more democratic--in a word--than my father, I stood in\nawe of him for a different reason, and this I know now was because\nhe possessed the penetration to discern the flaws in my youthful\ncharacter,--flaws that persisted in manhood. None so quick as Cousin\nRobert to detect deceptions which were hidden from my mother.\n\nHis hobby was carpentering, and he had a little shop beside the\nstable filled with shining tools which Willie and I, in spite of their\nattractions, were forbidden to touch. Willie, by dire experience, had\nlearned to keep the law; but on one occasion I stole in alone, and\npromptly cut my finger with a chisel. My mother and Cousin Jenny\naccepted the fiction that the injury had been done with a flint\narrowhead that Willie had given me, but when Cousin Robert came home and\nsaw my bound hand and heard the story, he gave me a certain look which\nsticks in my mind.\n\n\"Wonderful people, those Indians were!\" he observed. \"They could make\narrowheads as sharp as chisels.\"\n\nI was most uncomfortable....\n\nHe had a strong voice, and spoke with a rising inflection and a marked\naccent that still remains peculiar to our locality, although it was much\nmodified in my mother and not at all noticeable in my father; with an\nodd nasal alteration of the burr our Scotch-Irish ancestors had brought\nwith them across the seas. For instance, he always called my father\nMr. Par-r-ret. He had an admiration and respect for him that seemed\nto forbid the informality of \"Matthew.\" It was shared by others of my\nfather's friends and relations.\n\n\"Sarah,\" Cousin Robert would say to my mother, \"you're coddling that\nboy, you ought to lam him oftener. Hand him over to me for a couple of\nmonths--I'll put him through his paces.... So you're going to send him\nto college, are you? He's too good for old Benjamin's grocery business.\"\n\nHe was very fond of my mother, though he lectured her soundly for her\nweakness in indulging me. I can see him as he sat at the head of the\nsupper table, carving liberal helpings which Mary and Helen and Willie\ndevoured with country appetites, watching our plates.\n\n\"What's the matter, Hugh? You haven't eaten all your lamb.\"\n\n\"He doesn't like fat, Robert,\" my mother explained.\n\n\"I'd teach him to like it if he were my boy.\"\n\n\"Well, Robert, he isn't your boy,\" Cousin Jenny would remind him....\nHis bark was worse than his bite. Like many kind people he made use of\nbrusqueness to hide an inner tenderness, and on the train he was hail\nfellow well met with every Tom, Dick and Harry that commuted,--although\nthe word was not invented in those days,--and the conductor and brakeman\ntoo. But he had his standards, and held to them....\n\nMine was not a questioning childhood, and I was willing to accept the\nscheme of things as presented to me entire. In my tenderer years, when\nI had broken one of the commandments on my father's tablet (there were\nmore than ten), and had, on his home-coming, been sent to bed, my mother\nwould come softly upstairs after supper with a book in her hand; a book\nof selected Bible stories on which Dr. Pound had set the seal of his\napproval, with a glazed picture cover, representing Daniel in the lions'\nden and an angel standing beside him. On the somewhat specious plea that\nHoly Writ might have a chastening effect, she was permitted to minister\nto me in my shame. The amazing adventure of Shadrach, Meshach and\nAbednego particularly appealed to an imagination needing little\nstimulation. It never occurred to me to doubt that these gentlemen had\ntriumphed over caloric laws. But out of my window, at the back of the\nsecond storey, I often saw a sudden, crimson glow in the sky to the\nsouthward, as though that part of the city had caught fire. There were\nthe big steel-works, my mother told me, belonging to Mr. Durrett and\nMr. Hambleton, the father of Ralph Hambleton and the grandfather of\nHambleton Durrett, my schoolmates at Miss Caroline's. I invariably\nconnected the glow, not with Hambleton and Ralph, but with Shadrach,\nMeshach and Abednego! Later on, when my father took me to the\nsteel-works, and I beheld with awe a huge pot filled with molten metal\nthat ran out of it like water, I asked him--if I leaped into that\nstream, could God save me? He was shocked. Miracles, he told me, didn't\nhappen any more.\n\n\"When did they stop?\" I demanded.\n\n\"About two thousand years ago, my son,\" he replied gravely.\n\n\"Then,\" said I, \"no matter how much I believed in God, he wouldn't save\nme if I jumped into the big kettle for his sake?\"\n\nFor this I was properly rebuked and silenced.\n\nMy boyhood was filled with obsessing desires. If God, for example, had\ncast down, out of his abundant store, manna and quail in the desert,\nwhy couldn't he fling me a little pocket money? A paltry quarter of\na dollar, let us say, which to me represented wealth. To avoid the\nreproach of the Pharisees, I went into the closet of my bed-chamber to\npray, requesting that the quarter should be dropped on the north side of\nLyme Street, between Stamford and Tryon; in short, as conveniently near\nhome as possible. Then I issued forth, not feeling overconfident, but\nhoping. Tom Peters, leaning over the ornamental cast-iron fence which\nseparated his front yard from the street, presently spied me scanning\nthe sidewalk.\n\n\"What are you looking for, Hugh?\" he demanded with interest.\n\n\"Oh, something I dropped,\" I answered uneasily.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nNaturally, I refused to tell. It was a broiling, midsummer day; Julia\nand Russell, who had been warned to stay in the shade, but who were\nengaged in the experiment of throwing the yellow cat from the top of\nthe lattice fence to see if she would alight on her feet, were presently\nattracted, and joined in the search. The mystery which I threw around it\nadded to its interest, and I was not inconsiderably annoyed. Suppose one\nof them were to find the quarter which God had intended for me? Would\nthat be justice?\n\n\"It's nothing,\" I said, and pretended to abandon the quest--to be\nrenewed later. But this ruse failed; they continued obstinately to\nsearch; and after a few minutes Tom, with a shout, picked out of a hot\ncrevice between the bricks--a nickel!\n\n\"It's mine!\" I cried fiercely.\n\n\"Did you lose it?\" demanded Julia, the canny one, as Tom was about to\ngive it up.\n\nMy lying was generally reserved for my elders.\n\n\"N-no,\" I said hesitatingly, \"but it's mine all the same. It was--sent\nto me.\"\n\n\"Sent to you!\" they exclaimed, in a chorus of protest and derision. And\nhow, indeed, was I to make good my claim? The Peterses, when assembled,\nwere a clan, led by Julia and in matters of controversy, moved as one.\nHow was I to tell them that in answer to my prayers for twenty-five\ncents, God had deemed five all that was good for me?\n\n\"Some--somebody dropped it there for me.\"\n\n\"Who?\" demanded the chorus. \"Say, that's a good one!\"\n\nTears suddenly blinded me. Overcome by chagrin, I turned and flew into\nthe house and upstairs into my room, locking the door behind me. An\ninterval ensued, during which I nursed my sense of wrong, and it pleased\nme to think that the money would bring a curse on the Peters family. At\nlength there came a knock on the door, and a voice calling my name.\n\n\"Hugh! Hugh!\"\n\nIt was Tom.\n\n\"Hughie, won't you let me in? I want to give you the nickel.\"\n\n\"Keep it!\" I shouted back. \"You found it.\"\n\nAnother interval, and then more knocking.\n\n\"Open up,\" he said coaxingly. \"I--I want to talk to you.\"\n\nI relented, and let him in. He pressed the coin into my hand. I refused;\nhe pleaded.\n\n\"You found it,\" I said, \"it's yours.\"\n\n\"But--but you were looking for it.\"\n\n\"That makes no difference,\" I declared magnanimously.\n\nCuriosity overcame him.\n\n\"Say, Hughie, if you didn't drop it, who on earth did?\"\n\n\"Nobody on earth,\" I replied cryptically....\n\nNaturally, I declined to reveal the secret. Nor was this by any means\nthe only secret I held over the Peters family, who never quite knew what\nto make of me. They were not troubled with imaginations. Julia was a\nlittle older than Tom and had a sharp tongue, but over him I exercised\na distinct fascination, and I knew it. Literal himself, good-natured and\nwarm-hearted, the gift I had of tingeing life with romance (to put the\nthing optimistically), of creating kingdoms out of back yards--at which\nJulia and Russell sniffed--held his allegiance firm.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nI must have been about twelve years of age when I realized that I was\npossessed of the bard's inheritance. A momentous journey I made with\nmy parents to Boston about this time not only stimulated this gift, but\ngave me the advantage of which other travellers before me have likewise\navailed themselves--of being able to take certain poetic liberties with\na distant land that my friends at home had never seen. Often during the\nheat of summer noons when we were assembled under the big maple beside\nthe lattice fence in the Peters' yard, the spirit would move me to\nrelate the most amazing of adventures. Our train, for instance, had been\nheld up in the night by a band of robbers in black masks, and rescued by\na traveller who bore a striking resemblance to my Cousin Robert Breck.\nHe had shot two of the robbers. These fabrications, once started, flowed\nfrom me with ridiculous ease. I experienced an unwonted exhilaration,\nexaltation; I began to believe that they had actually occurred. In vain\nthe astute Julia asserted that there were no train robbers in the east.\nWhat had my father done? Well, he had been very brave, but he had had no\npistol. Had I been frightened? No, not at all; I, too, had wished for\na pistol. Why hadn't I spoken of this before? Well, so many things\nhad happened to me I couldn't tell them all at once. It was plain that\nJulia, though often fascinated against her will, deemed this sort of\nthing distinctly immoral.\n\nI was a boy divided in two. One part of me dwelt in a fanciful realm\nof his own weaving, and the other part was a commonplace and protesting\ninhabitant of a world of lessons, disappointments and discipline. My\ninstincts were not vicious. Ideas bubbled up within me continually\nfrom an apparently inexhaustible spring, and the very strength of the\nlongings they set in motion puzzled and troubled my parents: what I\nseem to see most distinctly now is a young mind engaged in a ceaseless\nstruggle for self-expression, for self-development, against the inertia\nof a tradition of which my father was the embodiment. He was an enigma\nto me then. He sincerely loved me, he cherished ambitions concerning me,\nyet thwarted every natural, budding growth, until I grew unconsciously\nto regard him as my enemy, although I had an affection for him and a\npride in him that flared up at times. Instead of confiding to him my\naspirations, vague though they were, I became more and more secretive as\nI grew older. I knew instinctively that he regarded these aspirations\nas evidences in my character of serious moral flaws. And I would sooner\nhave suffered many afternoons of his favourite punishment--solitary\nconfinement in my room--than reveal to him those occasional fits of\ncreative fancy which caused me to neglect my lessons in order to put\nthem on paper. Loving literature, in his way, he was characteristically\nincapable of recognizing the literary instinct, and the symptoms of its\nearly stages he mistook for inherent frivolity, for lack of respect\nfor the truth; in brief, for original sin. At the age of fourteen I had\nbegun secretly (alas, how many things I did secretly!) to write stories\nof a sort, stories that never were finished.\n\nHe regarded reading as duty, not pleasure. He laid out books for me,\nwhich I neglected. He was part and parcel of that American environment\nin which literary ambition was regarded as sheer madness. And no one\nwho has not experienced that environment can have any conception of the\npressure it exerted to stifle originality, to thrust the new generation\ninto its religious and commercial moulds. Shall we ever, I wonder,\ndevelop the enlightened education that will know how to take advantage\nof such initiative as was mine? that will be on the watch for it,\nsympathize with it and guide it to fruition?\n\nI was conscious of still another creative need, that of dramatizing\nmy ideas, of converting them into action. And this need was to lead me\nfarther than ever afield from the path of righteousness. The concrete\nrealization of ideas, as many geniuses will testify, is an expensive\nundertaking, requiring a little pocket money; and I have already touched\nupon that subject. My father did not believe in pocket money. A sea\nstory that my Cousin Donald Ewan gave me at Christmas inspired me to\ncompose one of a somewhat different nature; incidentally, I deemed it\na vast improvement on Cousin Donald's book. Now, if I only had a boat,\nwith the assistance of Ham Durrett and Tom Peters, Gene Hollister and\nPerry Blackwood and other friends, this story of mine might be\nstaged. There were, however, as usual, certain seemingly insuperable\ndifficulties: in the first place, it was winter time; in the second, no\nfacilities existed in the city for operations of a nautical character;\nand, lastly, my Christmas money amounted only to five dollars. It was my\nfather who pointed out these and other objections. For, after a careful\nperusal of the price lists I had sent for, I had been forced to appeal\nto him to supply additional funds with which to purchase a row-boat.\nIncidentally, he read me a lecture on extravagance, referred to my last\nmonth's report at the Academy, and finished by declaring that he would\nnot permit me to have a boat even in the highly improbable case of\nsomebody's presenting me with one. Let it not be imagined that my ardour\nor my determination were extinguished. Shortly after I had retired from\nhis presence it occurred to me that he had said nothing to forbid my\nmaking a boat, and the first thing I did after school that day was to\nprocure, for twenty-five cents, a second-hand book on boat construction.\nThe woodshed was chosen as a shipbuilding establishment. It was\nconvenient--and my father never went into the back yard in cold weather.\nInquiries of lumber-yards developing the disconcerting fact that four\ndollars and seventy-five cents was inadequate to buy the material\nitself, to say nothing of the cost of steaming and bending the ribs, I\nreluctantly abandoned the ideal of the graceful craft I had sketched,\nand compromised on a flat bottom. Observe how the ways of deception lead\nto transgression: I recalled the cast-off lumber pile of Jarvis,\nthe carpenter, a good-natured Englishman, coarse and fat: in our\nneighbourhood his reputation for obscenity was so well known to mothers\nthat I had been forbidden to go near him or his shop. Grits Jarvis, his\nson, who had inherited the talent, was also contraband. I can see\nnow the huge bulk of the elder Jarvis as he stood in the melting,\nsoot-powdered snow in front of his shop, and hear his comments on my\npertinacity.\n\n\"If you ever wants another man's missus when you grows up, my lad, Gawd\n'elp 'im!\"\n\n\"Why should I want another man's wife when I don't want one of my own?\"\nI demanded, indignant.\n\nHe laughed with his customary lack of moderation.\n\n\"You mind what old Jarvis says,\" he cried. \"What you wants, you gets.\"\n\nI did get his boards, by sheer insistence. No doubt they were not very\nvaluable, and without question he more than made up for them in my\nmother's bill. I also got something else of equal value to me at the\nmoment,--the assistance of Grits, the contraband; daily, after school,\nI smuggled him into the shed through the alley, acquiring likewise the\nservices of Tom Peters, which was more of a triumph than it would seem.\nTom always had to be \"worked up\" to participation in my ideas, but in\nthe end he almost invariably succumbed. The notion of building a boat in\nthe dead of winter, and so far from her native element, naturally struck\nhim at first as ridiculous. Where in Jehoshaphat was I going to sail it\nif I ever got it made? He much preferred to throw snowballs at innocent\nwagon drivers.\n\nAll that Tom saw, at first, was a dirty, coal-spattered shed with dim\nrecesses, for it was lighted on one side only, and its temperature was\nsomewhere below freezing. Surely he could not be blamed for a tempered\nenthusiasm! But for me, all the dirt and cold and discomfort were\nblotted out, and I beheld a gallant craft manned by sturdy seamen\nforging her way across blue water in the South Seas. Treasure Island,\nalas, was as yet unwritten; but among my father's books were two old\nvolumes in which I had hitherto taken no interest, with crude engravings\nof palms and coral reefs, of naked savages and tropical mountains\ncovered with jungle, the adventures, in brief, of one Captain Cook. I\nalso discovered a book by a later traveller. Spurred on by a mysterious\nmotive power, and to the great neglect of the pons asinorum and the\nstaple products of the Southern States, I gathered an amazing amount of\ninformation concerning a remote portion of the globe, of head-hunters\nand poisoned stakes, of typhoons, of queer war-craft that crept up on\nyou while you were dismantling galleons, when desperate hand-to-hand\nencounters ensued. Little by little as I wove all this into personal\nadventures soon to be realized, Tom forgot the snowballs and the\nmaddened grocery-men who chased him around the block; while Grits would\noccasionally stop sawing and cry out:--\"Ah, s'y!\" frequently adding that\nhe would be G--d--d.\n\nThe cold woodshed became a chantry on the New England coast, the alley\nthe wintry sea soon to embrace our ship, the saw-horses--which stood\nbetween a coal-bin on one side and unused stalls filled with rubbish\nand kindling on the other--the ways; the yard behind the lattice fence\nbecame a backwater, the flapping clothes the sails of ships that took\nrefuge there--on Mondays and Tuesdays. Even my father was symbolized\nwith unparalleled audacity as a watchful government which had, up to the\npresent, no inkling of our semi-piratical intentions! The cook and the\nhousemaid, though remonstrating against the presence of Grits, were\nfriendly confederates; likewise old Cephas, the darkey who, from my\nearliest memory, carried coal and wood and blacked the shoes, washed the\nwindows and scrubbed the steps.\n\nOne afternoon Tom went to work....\n\nThe history of the building of the good ship Petrel is similar to that\nof all created things, a story of trial and error and waste. At last,\none March day she stood ready for launching. She had even been caulked;\nfor Grits, from an unknown and unquestionably dubious source, had\nprocured a bucket of tar, which we heated over afire in the alley and\nsmeared into every crack. It was natural that the news of such a feat\nas we were accomplishing should have leaked out, that the \"yard\" should\nhave been visited from time to time by interested friends, some of whom\ncame to admire, some to scoff, and all to speculate. Among the scoffers,\nof course, was Ralph Hambleton, who stood with his hands in his pockets\nand cheerfully predicted all sorts of dire calamities. Ralph was always\na superior boy, tall and a trifle saturnine and cynical, with an\namazing self-confidence not wholly due to the wealth of his father, the\niron-master. He was older than I.\n\n\"She won't float five minutes, if you ever get her to the water,\" was\nhis comment, and in this he was supported on general principles by Julia\nand Russell Peters. Ralph would have none of the Petrel, or of the South\nSeas either; but he wanted,--so he said,--\"to be in at the death.\" The\nHambletons were one of the few families who at that time went to the sea\nfor the summer, and from a practical knowledge of craft in general Ralph\nwas not slow to point out the defects of ours. Tom and I defended her\npassionately.\n\nRalph was not a romanticist. He was a born leader, excelling at\norganized games, exercising over boys the sort of fascination that comes\nfrom doing everything better and more easily than others. It was only\nduring the progress of such enterprises as this affair of the Petrel\nthat I succeeded in winning their allegiance; bit by bit, as Tom's had\nbeen won, fanning their enthusiasm by impersonating at once Achilles\nand Homer, recruiting while relating the Odyssey of the expedition in\nglowing colours. Ralph always scoffed, and when I had no scheme on foot\nthey went back to him. Having surveyed the boat and predicted calamity,\nhe departed, leaving a circle of quaint and youthful figures around the\nPetrel in the shed: Gene Hollister, romantically inclined, yet somewhat\nhampered by a strict parental supervision; Ralph's cousin Ham Durrett,\nwho was even then a rather fat boy, good-natured but selfish; Don and\nHarry Ewan, my second cousins; Mac and Nancy Willett and Sam and Sophy\nMcAlery. Nancy was a tomboy, not to be denied, and Sophy her shadow. We\nheld a council, the all-important question of which was how to get the\nPetrel to the water, and what water to get her to. The river was not to\nbe thought of, and Blackstone Lake some six miles from town. Finally,\nLogan's mill-pond was decided on,--a muddy sheet on the outskirts of\nthe city. But how to get her to Logan's mill-pond? Cephas was at length\nconsulted. It turned out that he had a coloured friend who went by the\nimpressive name of Thomas Jefferson Taliaferro (pronounced Tolliver),\nwho was in the express business; and who, after surveying the boat\nwith some misgivings,--for she was ten feet long,--finally consented to\ntransport her to \"tide-water\" for the sum of two dollars. But it proved\nthat our combined resources only amounted to a dollar and seventy-five\ncents. Ham Durrett never contributed to anything. On this sum Thomas\nJefferson compromised.\n\nSaturday dawned clear, with a stiff March wind catching up the dust into\neddies and whirling it down the street. No sooner was my father safely\non his way to his office than Thomas Jefferson was reported to be in\nthe alley, where we assembled, surveying with some misgivings Thomas\nJefferson's steed, whose ability to haul the Petrel two miles seemed\nsomewhat doubtful. Other difficulties developed; the door in the back of\nthe shed proved to be too narrow for our ship's beam. But men embarked\non a desperate enterprise are not to be stopped by such trifles, and\nthe problem was solved by sawing out two adjoining boards. These were\nafterwards replaced with skill by the ship's carpenter, Able Seaman\nGrits Jarvis. Then the Petrel by heroic efforts was got into the wagon,\nthe seat of which had been removed, old Thomas Jefferson perched himself\nprecariously in the bow and protestingly gathered up his rope-patched\nreins.\n\n\"Folks'll 'low I'se plum crazy, drivin' dis yere boat,\" he declared,\nobserving with concern that some four feet of the stern projected over\nthe tail-board. \"Ef she topples, I'll git to heaven quicker'n a bullet.\"\n\nWhen one is shanghaied, however,--in the hands of buccaneers,--it is\ntoo late to withdraw. Six shoulders upheld the rear end of the Petrel,\nothers shoved, and Thomas Jefferson's rickety horse began to move\nforward in spite of himself. An expression of sheer terror might have\nbeen observed on the old negro's crinkled face, but his voice was\ndrowned, and we swept out of the alley. Scarcely had we travelled a\nblock before we began to be joined by all the boys along the line of\nmarch; marbles, tops, and even incipient baseball games were abandoned\nthat Saturday morning; people ran out of their houses, teamsters halted\ntheir carts. The breathless excitement, the exaltation I had felt on\nleaving the alley were now tinged with other feelings, unanticipated,\nbut not wholly lacking in delectable quality,--concern and awe at these\nunforeseen forces I had raised, at this ever growing and enthusiastic\nbody of volunteers springing up like dragon's teeth in our path. After\nall, was not I the hero of this triumphal procession? The thought was\nconsoling, exhilarating. And here was Nancy marching at my side, a\nlittle subdued, perhaps, but unquestionably admiring and realizing that\nit was I who had created all this. Nancy, who was the aptest of pupils,\nthe most loyal of followers, though I did not yet value her devotion at\nits real worth, because she was a girl. Her imagination kindled at my\ntouch. And on this eventful occasion she carried in her arms a parcel,\nthe contents of which were unknown to all but ourselves. At length we\nreached the muddy shores of Logan's pond, where two score eager hands\nvolunteered to assist the Petrel into her native element.\n\nAlas! that the reality never attains to the vision. I had beheld, in my\ndreams, the Petrel about to take the water, and Nancy Willett standing\nvery straight making a little speech and crashing a bottle of wine\nacross the bows. This was the content of the mysterious parcel; she\nhad stolen it from her father's cellar. But the number of uninvited\nspectators, which had not been foreseen, considerably modified the\nprogramme,--as the newspapers would have said. They pushed and crowded\naround the ship, and made frank and even brutal remarks as to her\nseaworthiness; even Nancy, inured though she was to the masculine sex,\nhad fled to the heights, and it looked at this supreme moment as though\nwe should have to fight for the Petrel. An attempt to muster her doughty\nbuccaneers failed; the gunner too had fled,--Gene Hollister; Ham Durrett\nand the Ewanses were nowhere to be seen, and a muster revealed only Tom,\nthe fidus Achates, and Grits Jarvis.\n\n\"Ah, s'y!\" he exclaimed in the teeth of the menacing hordes. \"Stand\nback, carn't yer? I'll bash yer face in, Johnny. Whose boat is this?\"\n\nShall it be whispered that I regretted his belligerency? Here, in truth,\nwas the drama staged,--my drama, had I only been able to realize it. The\ngood ship beached, the headhunters hemming us in on all sides, the scene\nprepared for one of those struggles against frightful odds which I had\nso graphically related as an essential part of our adventures.\n\n\"Let's roll the cuss in the fancy collar,\" proposed one of the\nhead-hunters,--meaning me.\n\n\"I'll stove yer slats if yer touch him,\" said Grits, and then resorted\nto appeal. \"I s'y, carn't yer stand back and let a chap 'ave a charnst?\"\n\nThe head-hunters only jeered. And what shall be said of the Captain\nin this moment of peril? Shall it be told that his heart was beating\nwildly?--bumping were a better word. He was trying to remember that\nhe was the Captain. Otherwise, he must admit with shame that he, too,\nshould have fled. So much for romance when the test comes. Will he\nremain to fall fighting for his ship? Like Horatius, he glanced up at\nthe hill, where, instead of the porch of the home where he would fain\nhave been, he beheld a wisp of a girl standing alone, her hat on the\nback of her head, her hair flying in the wind, gazing intently down at\nhim in his danger. The renegade crew was nowhere to be seen. There are\nthose who demand the presence of a woman in order to be heroes....\n\n\"Give us a chance, can't you?\" he cried, repeating Grits's appeal in\nnot quite such a stentorian tone as he would have liked, while his hand\ntrembled on the gunwale. Tom Peters, it must be acknowledged, was much\nmore of a buccaneer when it was a question of deeds, for he planted\nhimself in the way of the belligerent chief of the head-hunters (who\nspoke with a decided brogue).\n\n\"Get out of the way!\" said Tom, with a little squeak in his voice. Yet\nthere he was, and he deserves a tribute.\n\nAn unlooked-for diversion saved us from annihilation, in the shape of\none who had a talent for creating them. We were bewilderingly aware of a\ngirlish figure amongst us.\n\n\"You cowards!\" she cried. \"You cowards!\"\n\nLithe, and fairly quivering with passion, it was Nancy who showed us\nhow to face the head-hunters. They gave back. They would have been brave\nindeed if they had not retreated before such an intense little nucleus\nof energy and indignation!...\n\n\"Ah, give 'em a chanst,\" said their chief, after a moment.... He even\nhelped to push the boat towards the water. But he did not volunteer to\nbe one of those to man the Petrel on her maiden voyage. Nor did\nLogan's pond, that wild March day, greatly resemble the South Seas.\nNevertheless, my eye on Nancy, I stepped proudly aboard and seized\nan \"oar.\" Grits and Tom followed,--when suddenly the Petrel sank\nconsiderably below the water-line as her builders had estimated it. Ere\nwe fully realized this, the now friendly head-hunters had given us\na shove, and we were off! The Captain, who should have been waving\ngood-bye to his lady love from the poop, sat down abruptly,--the crew\nlikewise; not, however, before she had heeled to the scuppers, and\na half-bucket of iced water had run it. Head-hunters were mere daily\nepisodes in Grits's existence, but water... He muttered something in\ncockney that sounded like a prayer.... The wind was rapidly driving\nus toward the middle of the pond, and something cold and ticklish was\nseeping through the seats of our trousers. We sat like statues....\n\nThe bright scene etched itself in my memory--the bare brown slopes with\nwhich the pond was bordered, the Irish shanties, the clothes-lines with\nred flannel shirts snapping in the biting wind; Nancy motionless on the\nbank; the group behind her, silent now, impressed in spite of itself at\nthe sight of our intrepidity.\n\nThe Petrel was sailing stern first.... Would any of us, indeed, ever see\nhome again? I thought of my father's wrath turned to sorrow because he\nhad refused to gratify a son's natural wish and present him with a real\nrowboat.... Out of the corners of our eyes we watched the water creeping\naround the gunwale, and the very muddiness of it seemed to enhance its\ncoldness, to make the horrors of its depths more mysterious and hideous.\nThe voice of Grits startled us.\n\n\"O Gawd,\" he was saying, \"we're a-going to sink, and I carn't swim! The\nblarsted tar's give way back here.\"\n\n\"Is she leaking?\" I cried.\n\n\"She's a-filling up like a bath tub,\" he lamented.\n\nSlowly but perceptibly, in truth, the bow was rising, and above the\nwhistling of the wind I could hear his chattering as she settled....\nThen several things happened simultaneously: an agonized cry behind me,\ndistant shouts from the shore, a sudden upward lunge of the bow, and\nthe torture of being submerged, inch by inch, in the icy, yellow water.\nDespite the splashing behind me, I sat as though paralyzed until I was\nwaist deep and the boards turned under me, and then, with a spasmodic\ncontraction of my whole being I struck out--only to find my feet on the\nmuddy bottom. Such was the inglorious end of the good ship Petrel! For\nshe went down, with all hands, in little more than half a fathom of\nwater.... It was not until then I realized that we had been blown clear\nacross the pond!\n\nFigures were running along the shore. And as Tom and I emerged dragging\nGrits between us,--for he might have been drowned there abjectly in the\nshallows,--we were met by a stout and bare-armed Irishwoman whose scanty\nhair, I remember, was drawn into a tight knot behind her head; and who\nseized us, all three, as though we were a bunch of carrots.\n\n\"Come along wid ye!\" she cried.\n\nShivering, we followed her up the hill, the spectators of the tragedy,\nwho by this time had come around the pond, trailing after. Nancy was not\namong them. Inside the shanty into which we were thrust were two small\nchildren crawling about the floor, and the place was filled with steam\nfrom a wash-tub against the wall and a boiler on the stove. With a\nvigorous injunction to make themselves scarce, the Irishwoman slammed\nthe door in the faces of the curious and ordered us to remove our\nclothes. Grits was put to bed in a corner, while Tom and I, provided\nwith various garments, huddled over the stove. There fell to my lot the\nred flannel shirt which I had seen on the clothes-line. She gave us\nhot coffee, and was back at her wash-tub in no time at all, her entire\ncomment on a proceeding that seemed to Tom and me to have certain\nelements of gravity being, \"By's will be by's!\" The final ironical touch\nwas given the anti-climax when our rescuer turned out to be the mother\nof the chief of the head-hunters himself! He had lingered perforce with\nhis brothers and sister outside the cabin until dinner time, and when he\ncame in he was meek as Moses.\n\nThus the ready hospitality of the poor, which passed over the heads\nof Tom and me as we ate bread and onions and potatoes with a ravenous\nhunger. It must have been about two o'clock in the afternoon when we\nbade good-bye to our preserver and departed for home....\n\nAt first we went at a dog-trot, but presently slowed down to discuss the\nfuture looming portentously ahead of us. Since entire concealment was\nnow impossible, the question was,--how complete a confession would be\nnecessary? Our cases, indeed, were dissimilar, and Tom's incentive to\nhold back the facts was not nearly so great as mine. It sometimes seemed\nto me in those days unjust that the Peterses were able on the whole\nto keep out of criminal difficulties, in which I was more or less\ncontinuously involved: for it did not strike me that their sins were not\nthose of the imagination. The method of Tom's father was the slipper. He\nand Tom understood each other, while between my father and myself was a\ngreat gulf fixed. Not that Tom yearned for the slipper; but he regarded\nits occasional applications as being as inevitable as changes in the\nweather; lying did not come easily to him, and left to himself he much\npreferred to confess and have the matter over with. I have already\nsuggested that I had cultivated lying, that weapon of the weaker party,\nin some degree, at least, in self-defence.\n\nTom was loyal. Moreover, my conviction would probably deprive him\nfor six whole afternoons of my company, on which he was more or less\ndependent. But the defence of this case presented unusual difficulties,\nand we stopped several times to thrash them out. We had been absent from\ndinner, and doubtless by this time Julia had informed Tom's mother of\nthe expedition, and anyone could see that our clothing had been wet. So\nI lingered in no little anxiety behind the Peters stable while he made\nthe investigation. Our spirits rose considerably when he returned to\nreport that Julia had unexpectedly been a trump, having quieted his\nmother by the surmise that he was spending the day with his Aunt Fanny.\nSo far, so good. The problem now was to decide upon what to admit. For\nwe must both tell the same story.\n\nIt was agreed that we had fallen into Logan's Pond from a raft: my\nsuggestion. Well, said Tom, the Petrel hadn't proved much better than a\nraft, after all. I was in no mood to defend her.\n\nThis designation of the Petrel as a \"raft\" was my first legal quibble.\nThe question to be decided by the court was, What is a raft? just as\nthe supreme tribunal of the land has been required, in later years, to\ndecide, What is whiskey? The thing to be concealed if possible was the\nbuilding of the \"raft,\" although this information was already in the\npossession of a number of persons, whose fathers might at any moment\nsee fit to congratulate my own on being the parent of a genius. It was a\nrisk, however, that had to be run. And, secondly, since Grits Jarvis was\ncontraband, nothing was to be said about him.\n\nI have not said much about my mother, who might have been likened on\nsuch occasions to a grand jury compelled to indict, yet torn between\nloyalty to an oath and sympathy with the defendant. I went through the\nPeters yard, climbed the wire fence, my object being to discover first\nfrom Ella, the housemaid, or Hannah, the cook, how much was known in\nhigh quarters. It was Hannah who, as I opened the kitchen door, turned\nat the sound, and set down the saucepan she was scouring.\n\n\"Is it home ye are? Mercy to goodness!\" (this on beholding my shrunken\ncostume) \"Glory be to God you're not drownded! and your mother worritin'\nher heart out! So it's into the wather ye were?\"\n\nI admitted it.\n\n\"Hannah?\" I said softly.\n\n\"What then?\"\n\n\"Does mother know--about the boat?\"\n\n\"Now don't ye be wheedlin'.\"\n\nI managed to discover, however, that my mother did not know, and\nsurmised that the best reason why she had not been told had to do with\nHannah's criminal acquiescence concerning the operations in the shed. I\nran into the front hall and up the stairs, and my mother heard me coming\nand met me on the landing.\n\n\"Hugh, where have you been?\"\n\nAs I emerged from the semi-darkness of the stairway she caught sight of\nmy dwindled garments, of the trousers well above my ankles. Suddenly she\nhad me in her arms and was kissing me passionately. As she stood before\nme in her grey, belted skirt, the familiar red-and-white cameo at her\nthroat, her heavy hair parted in the middle, in her eyes was an odd,\nappealing look which I know now was a sign of mother love struggling\nwith a Presbyterian conscience. Though she inherited that conscience,\nI have often thought she might have succeeded in casting it off--or at\nleast some of it--had it not been for the fact that in spite of herself\nshe worshipped its incarnation in the shape of my father. Her voice\ntrembled a little as she drew me to the sofa beside the window.\n\n\"Tell me about what happened, my son,\" she said.\n\nIt was a terrible moment for me. For my affections were still\nquiveringly alive in those days, and I loved her. I had for an instant\nan instinctive impulse to tell her the whole story,--South Sea Islands\nand all! And I could have done it had I not beheld looming behind her\nanother figure which represented a stern and unsympathetic Authority,\nand somehow made her, suddenly, of small account. Not that she would\nhave understood the romance, but she would have comprehended me. I knew\nthat she was powerless to save me from the wrath to come. I wept. It was\nbecause I hated to lie to her,--yet I did so. Fear gripped me, and--like\nsome respectable criminals I have since known--I understood that any\nconfession I made would inexorably be used against me.... I wonder\nwhether she knew I was lying? At any rate, the case appeared to be a\ngrave one, and I was presently remanded to my room to be held over for\ntrial....\n\nVividly, as I write, I recall the misery of the hours I have spent,\nwhile awaiting sentence, in the little chamber with the honeysuckle\nwall-paper and steel engravings of happy but dumpy children romping in\nthe fields and groves. On this particular March afternoon the weather\nhad become morne, as the French say; and I looked down sadly into the\ngrey back yard which the wind of the morning had strewn with chips from\nthe Petrel. At last, when shadows were gathering in the corners of the\nroom, I heard footsteps. Ella appeared, prim and virtuous, yet a little\ncommiserating. My father wished to see me, downstairs. It was not the\nfirst time she had brought that summons, and always her manner was the\nsame!\n\nThe scene of my trials was always the sitting room, lined with grim\nbooks in their walnut cases. And my father sat, like a judge, behind the\nbig desk where he did his work when at home. Oh, the distance between us\nat such an hour! I entered as delicately as Agag, and the expression in\nhis eye seemed to convict me before I could open my mouth.\n\n\"Hugh,\" he said, \"your mother tells me that you have confessed to going,\nwithout permission, to Logan's Pond, where you embarked on a raft and\nfell into the water.\"\n\nThe slight emphasis he contrived to put on the word raft sent a colder\nshiver down my spine than the iced water had done. What did he know? or\nwas this mere suspicion? Too late, now, at any rate, to plead guilty.\n\n\"It was a sort of a raft, sir,\" I stammered.\n\n\"A sort of a raft,\" repeated my father. \"Where, may I ask, did you find\nit?\"\n\n\"I--I didn't exactly find it, sir.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said my father. (It was the moment to glance meaningly at the\njury.) The prisoner gulped. \"You didn't exactly find it, then. Will you\nkindly explain how you came by it?\"\n\n\"Well, sir, we--I--put it together.\"\n\n\"Have you any objection to stating, Hugh, in plain English, that you\nmade it?\"\n\n\"No, sir, I suppose you might say that I made it.\"\n\n\"Or that it was intended for a row-boat?\"\n\nHere was the time to appeal, to force a decision as to what constituted\na row-boat.\n\n\"Perhaps it might be called a row-boat, sir,\" I said abjectly.\n\n\"Or that, in direct opposition to my wishes and commands in forbidding\nyou to have a boat, to spend your money foolishly and wickedly on a\nwhim, you constructed one secretly in the woodshed, took out a part of\nthe back partition, thus destroying property that did, not belong\nto you, and had the boat carted this morning to Logan's Pond?\" I was\nsilent, utterly undone. Evidently he had specific information.... There\nare certain expressions that are, at times, more than mere figures of\nspeech, and now my father's wrath seemed literally towering. It added\nvisibly to his stature.\n\n\"Hugh,\" he said, in a voice that penetrated to the very corners of my\nsoul, \"I utterly fail to understand you. I cannot imagine how a son\nof mine, a son of your mother who is the very soul of truthfulness and\nhonour--can be a liar.\" (Oh, the terrible emphasis he put on that word!)\n\"Nor is it as if this were a new tendency--I have punished you for it\nbefore. Your mother and I have tried to do our duty by you, to instil\ninto you Christian teaching. But it seems wholly useless. I confess that\nI am at a less how to proceed. You seem to have no conscience whatever,\nno conception of what you owe to your parents and your God. You not only\npersistently disregard my wishes and commands, but you have, for many\nmonths, been leading a double life, facing me every day, while you were\nsecretly and continually disobeying me. I shudder to think where this\ndetermination of yours to have what you desire at any price will lead\nyou in the future. It is just such a desire that distinguishes wicked\nmen from good.\"\n\nI will not linger upon a scene the very remembrance of which is painful\nto this day.... I went from my father's presence in disgrace, in an\nagony of spirit that was overwhelming, to lock the door of my room and\ndrop face downward on the bed, to sob until my muscles twitched. For he\nhad, indeed, put into me an awful fear. The greatest horror of my\nboyish imagination was a wicked man. Was I, as he had declared, utterly\ndepraved and doomed in spite of myself to be one?\n\nThere came a knock at my door--Ella with my supper. I refused to open,\nand sent her away, to fall on my knees in the darkness and pray wildly\nto a God whose attributes and character were sufficiently confused in my\nmind. On the one hand was the stern, despotic Monarch of the Westminster\nCatechism, whom I addressed out of habit, the Father who condemned a\nportion of his children from the cradle. Was I one of those who he had\ndecreed before I was born must suffer the tortures of the flames of\nhell? Putting two and two together, what I had learned in Sunday school\nand gathered from parts of Dr. Pound's sermons, and the intimation of\nmy father that wickedness was within me, like an incurable disease,--was\nnot mine the logical conclusion? What, then, was the use of praying?...\nMy supplications ceased abruptly. And my ever ready imagination, stirred\nto its depths, beheld that awful scene of the last day: the darkness,\nsuch as sometimes creeps over the city in winter, when the jaundiced\nsmoke falls down and we read at noonday by gas-light. I beheld the\ntortured faces of the wicked gathered on the one side, and my mother\non the other amongst the blessed, gazing across the gulf at me with\nyearning and compassion. Strange that it did not strike me that the\nsight of the condemned whom they had loved in life would have marred if\nnot destroyed the happiness of the chosen, about to receive their crowns\nand harps! What a theology--that made the Creator and Preserver of all\nmankind thus illogical!\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nAlthough I was imaginative, I was not morbidly introspective, and by the\nend of the first day of my incarceration my interest in that solution\nhad waned. At times, however, I actually yearned for someone in whom I\ncould confide, who could suggest a solution. I repeat, I would not for\nworlds have asked my father or my mother or Dr. Pound, of whom I had a\nwholesome fear, or perhaps an unwholesome one. Except at morning Bible\nreading and at church my parents never mentioned the name of the Deity,\nsave to instruct me formally. Intended or no, the effect of my religious\ntraining was to make me ashamed of discussing spiritual matters,\nand naturally I failed to perceive that this was because it laid\nits emphasis on personal salvation.... I did not, however, become an\nunbeliever, for I was not of a nature to contemplate with equanimity a\ngodless universe....\n\nMy sufferings during these series of afternoon confinements did not come\nfrom remorse, but were the result of a vague sense of injury; and their\neffect was to generate within me a strange motive power, a desire to do\nsomething that would astound my father and eventually wring from him the\nconfession that he had misjudged me. To be sure, I should have to wait\nuntil early manhood, at least, for the accomplishment of such a coup.\nMight it not be that I was an embryonic literary genius? Many were the\nbooks I began in this ecstasy of self-vindication, only to abandon them\nwhen my confinement came to an end.\n\nIt was about this time, I think, that I experienced one of those shocks\nwhich have a permanent effect upon character. It was then the custom\nfor ladies to spend the day with one another, bringing their sewing; and\nsometimes, when I unexpectedly entered the sitting-room, the voices of\nmy mother's visitors would drop to a whisper. One afternoon I returned\nfrom school to pause at the head of the stairs. Cousin Bertha Ewan and\nMrs. McAlery were discussing with my mother an affair that I judged from\nthe awed tone in which they spoke might prove interesting.\n\n\"Poor Grace,\" Mrs. McAlery was saying, \"I imagine she's paid a heavy\npenalty. No man alive will be faithful under those circumstances.\"\n\nI stopped at the head of the stairs, with a delicious, guilty feeling.\n\n\"Have they ever heard of her?\" Cousin Bertha asked.\n\n\"It is thought they went to Spain,\" replied Mrs. McAlery, solemnly, yet\nnot without a certain zest. \"Mr. Jules Hollister will not have her name\nmentioned in his presence, you know. And Whitcomb chased them as far as\nNew York with a horse-pistol in his pocket. The report is that he got\nto the dock just as the ship sailed. And then, you know, he went to live\nsomewhere out West,--in Iowa, I believe.\"\n\n\"Did he ever get a divorce?\" Cousin Bertha inquired.\n\n\"He was too good a church member, my dear,\" my mother reminded her.\n\n\"Well, I'd have got one quick enough, church member or no church\nmember,\" declared Cousin Bertha, who had in her elements of daring.\n\n\"Not that I mean for a moment to excuse her,\" Mrs. McAlery put in, \"but\nEdward Whitcomb did have a frightful temper, and he was awfully strict\nwith her, and he was old enough, anyhow, to be her father. Grace\nHollister was the last woman in the world I should have suspected of\ndoing so hideous a thing. She was so sweet and simple.\"\n\n\"Jennings was very attractive,\" said my Cousin Bertha. \"I don't think I\never saw a handsomer man. Now, if he had looked at me--\"\n\nThe sentence was never finished, for at this crucial moment I dropped a\ngrammar....\n\nI had heard enough, however, to excite my curiosity to the highest\npitch. And that evening, when I came in at five o'clock to study, I\nasked my mother what had become of Gene Hollister's aunt.\n\n\"She went away, Hugh,\" replied my mother, looking greatly troubled.\n\n\"Why?\" I persisted.\n\n\"It is something you are too young to understand.\"\n\nOf course I started an investigation, and the next day at school I\nasked the question of Gene Hollister himself, only to discover that he\nbelieved his aunt to be dead! And that night he asked his mother if his\nAunt Grace were really alive, after all? Whereupon complications and\nexplanations ensued between our parents, of which we saw only the\nsurface signs.... My father accused me of eavesdropping (which I\ndenied), and sentenced me to an afternoon of solitary confinement for\nrepeating something which I had heard in private. I have reason to\nbelieve that my mother was also reprimanded.\n\nIt must not be supposed that I permitted the matter to rest. In addition\nto Grits Jarvis, there was another contraband among my acquaintances,\nnamely, Alec Pound, the scrape-grace son of the Reverend Doctor Pound.\nAlec had an encyclopaedic mind, especially well stocked with the kind of\nknowledge I now desired; first and last he taught me much, which I would\nbetter have got in another way. To him I appealed and got the story, my\nworst suspicions being confirmed. Mrs. Whitcomb's house had been across\nthe alley from that of Mr. Jennings, but no one knew that anything\nwas \"going on,\" though there had been signals from the windows--the\nneighbours afterwards remembered....\n\nI listened shudderingly.\n\n\"But,\" I cried, \"they were both married!\"\n\n\"What difference does that make when you love a woman?\" Alec replied\ngrandly. \"I could tell you much worse things than that.\"\n\nThis he proceeded to do. Fascinated, I listened with a sickening\nsensation. It was a mild afternoon in spring, and we stood in the deep\nlimestone gutter in front of the parsonage, a little Gothic wooden house\nset in a gloomy yard.\n\n\"I thought,\" said I, \"that people couldn't love any more after they were\nmarried, except each other.\"\n\nAlec looked at me pityingly.\n\n\"You'll get over that notion,\" he assured me.\n\nThus another ingredient entered my character. Denied its food at\nhome, good food, my soul eagerly consumed and made part of itself the\nfermenting stuff that Alec Pound so willing distributed. And it was\nfermenting stuff. Let us see what it did to me. Working slowly but\nsurely, it changed for me the dawning mystery of sex into an evil\ninstead of a holy one. The knowledge of the tragedy of Grace Hollister\nstarted me to seeking restlessly, on bookshelves and elsewhere, for\na secret that forever eluded me, and forever led me on. The word\nfermenting aptly describes the process begun, suggesting as it does\nsomething closed up, away from air and sunlight, continually working in\nsecret, engendering forces that fascinated, yet inspired me with fear.\nUndoubtedly this secretiveness of our elders was due to the pernicious\ndualism of their orthodox Christianity, in which love was carnal and\ntherefore evil, and the flesh not the gracious soil of the spirit, but\nsomething to be deplored and condemned, exorcised and transformed by\nthe miracle of grace. Now love had become a terrible power (gripping me)\nwhose enchantment drove men and women from home and friends and kindred\nto the uttermost parts of the earth....\n\nIt was long before I got to sleep that night after my talk with Alec\nPound. I alternated between the horror and the romance of the story I\nhad heard, supplying for myself the details he had omitted: I beheld\nthe signals from the windows, the clandestine meetings, the sudden and\ndesperate flight. And to think that all this could have happened in our\ncity not five blocks from where I lay!\n\nMy consternation and horror were concentrated on the man,--and yet I\nrecall a curious bifurcation. Instead of experiencing that automatic\nrighteous indignation which my father and mother had felt, which had\nanimated old Mr. Jules Hollister when he had sternly forbidden his\ndaughter's name to be mentioned in his presence, which had made these\npeople outcasts, there welled up within me an intense sympathy and\npity. By an instinctive process somehow linked with other experiences,\nI seemed to be able to enter into the feelings of these two outcasts,\nto understand the fearful yet fascinating nature of the impulse that\nhad led them to elude the vigilance and probity of a world with which\nI myself was at odds. I pictured them in a remote land, shunned by\nmankind. Was there something within me that might eventually draw me\nto do likewise? The desire in me to which my father had referred, which\nwould brook no opposition, which twisted and squirmed until it found its\nway to its object? I recalled the words of Jarvis, the carpenter, that\nif I ever set my heart on another man's wife, God help him. God help me!\n\nA wicked man! I had never beheld the handsome and fascinating Mr.\nJennings, but I visualised him now; dark, like all villains, with a\nblack moustache and snapping black eyes. He carried a cane. I always\nassociated canes with villains. Whereupon I arose, groped for the\nmatches, lighted the gas, and gazing at myself in the mirror was a\nlittle reassured to find nothing sinister in my countenance....\n\nNext to my father's faith in a Moral Governor of the Universe was his\nbelief in the Tariff and the Republican Party. And this belief, among\nothers, he handed on to me. On the cinder playground of the Academy\nwe Republicans used to wage, during campaigns, pitched battles for the\nTariff. It did not take a great deal of courage to be a Republican\nin our city, and I was brought up to believe that Democrats\nwere irrational, inferior, and--with certain exceptions like the\nHollisters--dirty beings. There was only one degree lower, and that was\nto be a mugwump. It was no wonder that the Hollisters were Democrats,\nfor they had a queer streak in them; owing, no doubt, to the fact that\nold Mr. Jules Hollister's mother had been a Frenchwoman. He looked like\na Frenchman, by the way, and always wore a skullcap.\n\nI remember one autumn afternoon having a violent quarrel with\nGene Hollister that bade fair to end in blows, when he suddenly\ndemanded:--\"I'll bet you anything you don't know why you're a\nRepublican.\"\n\n\"It's because I'm for the Tariff,\" I replied triumphantly.\n\nBut his next question floored me. What, for example, was the Tariff? I\ntried to bluster it out, but with no success.\n\n\"Do you know?\" I cried finally, with sudden inspiration.\n\nIt turned out that he did not.\n\n\"Aren't we darned idiots,\" he asked, \"to get fighting over something we\ndon't know anything about?\"\n\nThat was Gene's French blood, of course. But his question rankled. And\nhow was I to know that he would have got as little satisfaction if he\nhad hurled it into the marching ranks of those imposing torch-light\nprocessions which sometimes passed our house at night, with drums\nbeating and fifes screaming and torches waving,--thousands of citizens\nwho were for the Tariff for the same reason as I: to wit, because they\nwere Republicans.\n\nYet my father lived and died in the firm belief that the United States\nof America was a democracy!\n\nResolved not to be caught a second time in such a humiliating position\nby a Democrat, I asked my father that night what the Tariff was. But I\nwas too young to understand it, he said. I was to take his word for it\nthat the country would go to the dogs if the Democrats got in and the\nTariff were taken away. Here, in a nutshell, though neither he nor\nI realized it, was the political instruction of the marching hordes.\nTheirs not to reason why. I was too young, they too ignorant. Such is\nthe method of Authority!\n\nThe steel-mills of Mr. Durrett and Mr. Hambleton, he continued, would\nbe forced to shut down, and thousands of workmen would starve. This was\njust a sample of what would happen. Prosperity would cease, he declared.\nThat word, Prosperity, made a deep impression on me, and I recall the\ncertain reverential emphasis he laid on it. And while my solicitude for\nthe workmen was not so great as his and Mr. Durrett's, I was concerned\nas to what would happen to us if those twin gods, the Tariff and\nProsperity, should take their departure from the land. Knowing my love\nfor the good things of the table, my father intimated, with a rare\nhumour I failed to appreciate, that we should have to live henceforth\nin spartan simplicity. After that, like the intelligent workman, I was\nfirmer than ever for the Tariff.\n\nSuch was the idealistic plane on which--and from a good man--I received\nmy first political instruction! And for a long time I connected the\ndominance of the Republican Party with the continuation of manna and\nquails, in other words, with nothing that had to do with the spiritual\nwelfare of any citizen, but with clothing and food and material\ncomforts. My education was progressing....\n\nThough my father revered Plato and Aristotle, he did not, apparently,\ntake very seriously the contention that that government alone is good\n\"which seeks to attain the permanent interests of the governed by\nevolving the character of its citizens.\" To put the matter brutally,\npolitics, despite the lofty sentiments on the transparencies in\ntorchlight processions, had only to do with the belly, not the soul.\n\nPolitics and government, one perceives, had nothing to do with religion,\nnor education with any of these. A secularized and disjointed world! Our\nleading citizens, learned in the classics though some of them might be,\npaid no heed to the dictum of the Greek idealist, who was more practical\nthan they would have supposed. \"The man who does not carry his city\nwithin his heart is a spiritual starveling.\"\n\nOne evening, a year or two after that tariff campaign, I was pretending\nto study my lessons under the student lamp in the sitting-room while my\nmother sewed and my father wrote at his desk, when there was a ring\nat the door-bell. I welcomed any interruption, even though the\nvisitor proved to be only the druggist's boy; and there was always\nthe possibility of a telegram announcing, for instance, the death of a\nrelative. Such had once been the case when my Uncle Avery Paret had died\nin New York, and I was taken out of school for a blissful four days for\nthe funeral.\n\nI went tiptoeing into the hall and peeped over the banisters while Ella\nopened the door. I heard a voice which I recognized as that of Perry\nBlackwood's father asking for Mr. Paret; and then to my astonishment, I\nsaw filing after him into the parlour some ten or twelve persons. With\nthe exception of Mr. Ogilvy, who belonged to one of our old families,\nand Mr. Watling, a lawyer who had married the youngest of Gene\nHollister's aunts, the visitors entered stealthily, after the manner of\nburglars; some of these were heavy-jowled, and all had an air of mystery\nthat raised my curiosity and excitement to the highest pitch. I caught\nhold of Ella as she came up the stairs, but she tore herself free, and\nannounced to my father that Mr. Josiah Blackwood and other gentlemen had\nasked to see him. My father seemed puzzled as he went downstairs.... A\nlong interval elapsed, during which I did not make even a pretence of\nlooking at my arithmetic. At times the low hum of voices rose to what\nwas almost an uproar, and on occasions I distinguished a marked Irish\nbrogue.\n\n\"I wonder what they want?\" said my mother, nervously.\n\nAt last we heard the front door shut behind them, and my father came\nupstairs, his usually serene face wearing a disturbed expression.\n\n\"Who in the world was it, Mr. Paret?\" asked my mother.\n\nMy father sat down in the arm-chair. He was clearly making an effort for\nself-control.\n\n\"Blackwood and Ogilvy and Watling and some city politicians,\" he\nexclaimed.\n\n\"Politicians!\" she repeated. \"What did they want? That is, if it's\nanything you can tell me,\" she added apologetically.\n\n\"They wished me to be the Republican candidate for the mayor of this\ncity.\"\n\nThis tremendous news took me off my feet. My father mayor!\n\n\"Of course you didn't consider it, Mr. Paret,\" my mother was saying.\n\n\"Consider it!\" he echoed reprovingly. \"I can't imagine what Ogilvy and\nWatling and Josiah Blackwood were thinking of! They are out of their\nheads. I as much as told them so.\"\n\nThis was more than I could bear, for I had already pictured myself\ntelling the news to envious schoolmates.\n\n\"Oh, father, why didn't you take it?\" I cried.\n\nBy this time, when he turned to me, he had regained his usual\nexpression.\n\n\"You don't know what you're talking about, Hugh,\" he said. \"Accept a\npolitical office! That sort of thing is left to politicians.\"\n\nThe tone in which he spoke warned me that a continuation of the\nconversation would be unwise, and my mother also understood that the\ndiscussion was closed. He went back to his desk, and began writing again\nas though nothing had happened.\n\nAs for me, I was left in a palpitating state of excitement which my\nfather's self-control or sang-froid only served to irritate and enhance,\nand my head was fairly spinning as, covertly, I watched his pen steadily\ncovering the paper.\n\nHow could he--how could any man of flesh and blood sit down calmly after\nhaving been offered the highest honour in the gift of his community! And\nhe had spurned it as if Mr. Blackwood and the others had gratuitously\ninsulted him! And how was it, if my father so revered the Republican\nParty that he would not suffer it to be mentioned slightingly in his\npresence, that he had refused contemptuously to be its mayor?...\n\nThe next day at school, however, I managed to let it be known that the\noffer had been made and declined. After all, this seemed to make my\nfather a bigger man than if he had accepted it. Naturally I was asked\nwhy he had declined it.\n\n\"He wouldn't take it,\" I replied scornfully. \"Office-holding should be\nleft to politicians.\"\n\nRalph Hambleton, with his precocious and cynical knowledge of the\nworld, minimized my triumph by declaring that he would rather be his\ngrandfather, Nathaniel Durrett, than the mayor of the biggest city in\nthe country. Politicians, he said, were bloodsuckers and thieves, and\nthe only reason for holding office was that it enabled one to steal the\ntaxpayers' money....\n\nAs I have intimated, my vision of a future literary career waxed and\nwaned, but a belief that I was going to be Somebody rarely deserted\nme. If not a literary lion, what was that Somebody to be? Such an\nenvironment as mine was woefully lacking in heroic figures to satisfy\nthe romantic soul. In view of the experience I have just related, it is\nnot surprising that the notion of becoming a statesman did not appeal\nto me; nor is it to be wondered at, despite the somewhat exaggerated\nrespect and awe in which Ralph's grandfather was held by my father and\nother influential persons, that I failed to be stirred by the elements\nof greatness in the grim personality of our first citizen, the\niron-master. For he possessed such elements. He lived alone in Ingrain\nStreet in an uncompromising mansion I always associated with the\nSabbath, not only because I used to be taken there on decorous Sunday\nvisits by my father, but because it was the very quintessence of\nPresbyterianism. The moment I entered its \"portals\"--as Mr. Hawthorne\nappropriately would have called them--my spirit was overwhelmed and\nsuffocated by its formality and orderliness. Within its stern walls\nNathaniel Durrett had made a model universe of his own, such as the\nDeity of the Westminster Confession had no doubt meant his greater one\nto be if man had not rebelled and foiled him.... It was a world from\nwhich I was determined to escape at any cost.\n\nMy father and I were always ushered into the gloomy library, with its\nhigh ceiling, with its long windows that reached almost to the rococo\ncornice, with its cold marble mantelpiece that reminded me of a\ntombstone, with its interminable book shelves filled with yellow\nbindings. On the centre table, in addition to a ponderous Bible, was one\nof those old-fashioned carafes of red glass tipped with blue surmounted\nby a tumbler of blue tipped with red. Behind this table Mr. Durrett sat\nreading a volume of sermons, a really handsome old man in his black tie\nand pleated shirt; tall and spare, straight as a ramrod, with a finely\nmoulded head and straight nose and sinewy hands the colour of mulberry\nstain. He called my father by his first name, an immense compliment,\nconsidering how few dared to do so.\n\n\"Well, Matthew,\" the old man would remark, after they had discussed Dr.\nPound's latest flight on the nature of the Trinity or the depravity of\nman, or horticulture, or the Republican Party, \"do you have any better\nnews of Hugh at school?\"\n\n\"I regret to say, Mr. Durrett,\" my father would reply, \"that he does not\nyet seem to be aroused to a sense of his opportunities.\"\n\nWhereupon Mr. Durrett would gimble me with a blue eye that lurked\nbeneath grizzled brows, quite as painful a proceeding as if he used an\niron tool. I almost pity myself when I think of what a forlorn stranger\nI was in their company. They two, indeed, were of one kind, and I of\nanother sort who could never understand them,--nor they me. To what\ndepths of despair they reduced me they never knew, and yet they were\ndoing it all for my good! They only managed to convince me that my\nlove of folly was ineradicable, and that I was on my way head first\nfor perdition. I always looked, during these excruciating and personal\nmoments, at the coloured glass bottle.\n\n\"It grieves me to hear it, Hugh,\" Mr. Durrett invariably declared.\n\"You'll never come to any good without study. Now when I was your\nage...\"\n\nI knew his history by heart, a common one in this country, although\nhe made an honourable name instead of a dishonourable one. And when I\ncontrast him with those of his successors whom I was to know later...!\nBut I shall not anticipate. American genius had not then evolved the\nfalse entry method of overcapitalization. A thrilling history, Mr.\nDurrett's, could I but have entered into it. I did not reflect then that\nthis stern old man must have throbbed once; nay, fire and energy still\nremained in his bowels, else he could not have continued to dominate a\ncity. Nor did it occur to me that the great steel-works that lighted the\nsouthern sky were the result of a passion, of dreams similar to those\npossessing me, but which I could not express. He had founded a family\nwhose position was virtually hereditary, gained riches which for those\ndays were great, compelled men to speak his name with a certain awe.\nBut of what use were such riches as his when his religion and morality\ncompelled him to banish from him all the joys in the power of riches to\nbring?\n\nNo, I didn't want to be an iron-master. But it may have been about\nthis time that I began to be impressed with the power of wealth, the\nadulation and reverence it commanded, the importance in which it clothed\nall who shared in it....\n\nThe private school I attended in the company of other boys with whom I\nwas brought up was called Densmore Academy, a large, square building\nof a then hideous modernity, built of smooth, orange-red bricks with\nthreads of black mortar between them. One reads of happy school days,\nyet I fail to recall any really happy hours spent there, even in the\nyard, which was covered with black cinders that cut you when you fell.\nI think of it as a penitentiary, and the memory of the barred lower\nwindows gives substance to this impression.\n\nI suppose I learned something during the seven years of my\nincarceration. All of value, had its teachers known anything of youthful\npsychology, of natural bent, could have been put into me in three. At\nleast four criminally wasted years, to say nothing of the benumbing\nand desiccating effect of that old system of education! Chalk and\nchalk-dust! The Mediterranean a tinted portion of the map, Italy a man's\nboot which I drew painfully, with many yawns; history no glorious epic\nrevealing as it unrolls the Meaning of Things, no revelation of that\nwondrous distillation of the Spirit of man, but an endless marching and\ncounter-marching up and down the map, weary columns of figures to\nbe learned by rote instantly to be forgotten again. \"On June the 7th\nGeneral So-and-so proceeded with his whole army--\" where? What does\nit matter? One little chapter of Carlyle, illuminated by a teacher\nof understanding, were worth a million such text-books. Alas, for the\nhatred of Virgil! \"Paret\" (a shiver), \"begin at the one hundred\nand thirtieth line and translate!\" I can hear myself droning out in\ndetestable English a meaningless portion of that endless journey of\nthe pious AEneas; can see Gene Hollister, with heart-rending glances of\ndespair, stumbling through Cornelius Nepos in an unventilated room with\nchalk-rubbed blackboards and heavy odours of ink and stale lunch. And\nI graduated from Densmore Academy, the best school in our city, in the\n80's, without having been taught even the rudiments of citizenship.\n\nKnowledge was presented to us as a corpse, which bit by bit we\npainfully dissected. We never glimpsed the living, growing thing, never\nexperienced the Spirit, the same spirit that was able magically to\nwaft me from a wintry Lyme Street to the South Seas, the energizing,\nelectrifying Spirit of true achievement, of life, of God himself. Little\nby little its flames were smothered until in manhood there seemed no\nspark of it left alive. Many years were to pass ere it was to revive\nagain, as by a miracle. I travelled. Awakening at dawn, I saw, framed\nin a port-hole, rose-red Seriphos set in a living blue that paled the\nsapphire; the seas Ulysses had sailed, and the company of the Argonauts.\nMy soul was steeped in unimagined colour, and in the memory of one\nrapturous instant is gathered what I was soon to see of Greece, is\nfocussed the meaning of history, poetry and art. I was to stand one\nevening in spring on the mound where heroes sleep and gaze upon the\nplain of Marathon between darkening mountains and the blue thread of the\nstrait peaceful now, flushed with pink and white blossoms of fruit\nand almond trees; to sit on the cliff-throne whence a Persian King had\nlooked down upon a Salamis fought and lost.... In that port-hole glimpse\na Themistocles was revealed, a Socrates, a Homer and a Phidias, an\nAEschylus, and a Pericles; yes, and a John brooding Revelations on his\nsea-girt rock as twilight falls over the waters....\n\nI saw the Roman Empire, that Scarlet Woman whose sands were dyed\ncrimson with blood to appease her harlotry, whose ships were laden with\ntreasures from the immutable East, grain from the valley of the Nile,\nspices from Arabia, precious purple stuffs from Tyre, tribute and spoil,\nslaves and jewels from conquered nations she absorbed; and yet whose\nvery emperors were the unconscious instruments of a Progress they wot\nnot of, preserved to the West by Marathon and Salamis. With Caesar's\nlegions its message went forth across Hispania to the cliffs of the\nwild western ocean, through Hercynian forests to tribes that dwelt where\ngreat rivers roll up their bars by misty, northern seas, and even to\nCeltic fastnesses beyond the Wall....\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nIn and out of my early memories like a dancing ray of sunlight flits\nthe spirit of Nancy. I was always fond of her, but in extreme youth I\naccepted her incense with masculine complacency and took her allegiance\nfor granted, never seeking to fathom the nature of the spell I exercised\nover her. Naturally other children teased me about her; but what was\nworse, with that charming lack of self-consciousness and consideration\nfor what in after life are called the finer feelings, they teased her\nabout me before me, my presence deterring them not at all. I can see\nthem hopping around her in the Peters yard crying out:--\"Nancy's in love\nwith Hugh! Nancy's in love with Hugh!\"\n\nA sufficiently thrilling pastime, this, for Nancy could take care of\nherself. I was a bungler beside her when it came to retaliation, and\nnot the least of her attractions for me was her capacity for anger: fury\nwould be a better term. She would fly at them--even as she flew at the\nhead-hunters when the Petrel was menaced; and she could run like a\ndeer. Woe to the unfortunate victim she overtook! Masculine strength,\nexercised apologetically, availed but little, and I have seen Russell\nPeters and Gene Hollister retire from such encounters humiliated and\nweeping. She never caught Ralph; his methods of torture were more\nintelligent and subtle than Gene's and Russell's, but she was his equal\nwhen it came to a question of tongues.\n\n\"I know what's the matter with you, Ralph Hambleton,\" she would\nsay. \"You're jealous.\" An accusation that invariably put him on the\ndefensive. \"You think all the girls are in love with you, don't you?\"\n\nThese scenes I found somewhat embarrassing. Not so Nancy. After\ndiscomfiting her tormenters, or wounding and scattering them, she would\nreturn to my side.... In spite of her frankly expressed preference\nfor me she had an elusiveness that made a continual appeal to my\nimagination. She was never obvious or commonplace, and long before I\nbegan to experience the discomforts and sufferings of youthful love\nI was fascinated by a nature eloquent with contradictions and\ninconsistencies. She was a tomboy, yet her own sex was enhanced rather\nthan overwhelmed by contact with the other: and no matter how many trees\nshe climbed she never seemed to lose her daintiness. It was innate.\n\nShe could, at times, be surprisingly demure. These impressions of her\ndaintiness and demureness are particularly vivid in a picture my memory\nhas retained of our walking together, unattended, to Susan Blackwood's\nbirthday party. She must have been about twelve years old. It was the\nfirst time I had escorted her or any other girl to a party; Mrs. Willett\nhad smiled over the proceeding, but Nancy and I took it most seriously,\nas symbolic of things to come. I can see Powell Street, where Nancy\nlived, at four o'clock on a mild and cloudy December afternoon, the\ndecorous, retiring houses, Nancy on one side of the pavement by the iron\nfences and I on the other by the tree boxes. I can't remember her dress,\nonly the exquisite sense of her slimness and daintiness comes back to\nme, of her dark hair in a long braid tied with a red ribbon, of her\nslender legs clad in black stockings of shining silk. We felt the\noccasion to be somehow too significant, too eloquent for words....\n\nIn silence we climbed the flight of stone steps that led up to the\nBlackwood mansion, when suddenly the door was opened, letting out sounds\nof music and revelry. Mr. Blackwood's coloured butler, Ned, beamed at us\nhospitably, inviting us to enter the brightness within. The shades were\ndrawn, the carpets were covered with festal canvas, the folding\ndoors between the square rooms were flung back, the prisms of the\nbig chandeliers flung their light over animated groups of matrons and\nchildren. Mrs. Watling, the mother of the Watling twins--too young to be\npresent was directing with vivacity the game of \"King William was King\nJames's son,\" and Mrs. McAlery was playing the piano.\n\n       \"Now choose you East, now choose you West,\n        Now choose the one you love the best!\"\n\nTom Peters, in a velvet suit and consequently very miserable, refused\nto embrace Ethel Hollister; while the scornful Julia lurked in a corner:\nnothing would induce her to enter such a foolish game. I experienced\na novel discomfiture when Ralph kissed Nancy.... Afterwards came the\nfeast, from which Ham Durrett, in a pink paper cap with streamers, was\nat length forcibly removed by his mother. Thus early did he betray his\nlove for the flesh pots....\n\nIt was not until I was sixteen that a player came and touched the keys\nof my soul, and it awoke, bewildered, at these first tender notes. The\nmusic quickened, tripping in ecstasy, to change by subtle phrases into\nthemes of exquisite suffering hitherto unexperienced. I knew that I\nloved Nancy.\n\nWith the advent of longer dresses that reached to her shoe tops a change\nhad come over her. The tomboy, the willing camp-follower who loved me\nand was unashamed, were gone forever, and a mysterious, transfigured\nbeing, neither girl nor woman, had magically been evolved. Could it be\npossible that she loved me still? My complacency had vanished; suddenly\nI had become the aggressor, if only I had known how to \"aggress\"; but\nin her presence I was seized by an accursed shyness that paralyzed my\ntongue, and the things I had planned to say were left unuttered. It was\nsomething--though I did not realize it--to be able to feel like that.\n\nThe time came when I could no longer keep this thing to myself. The need\nof an outlet, of a confidant, became imperative, and I sought out Tom\nPeters. It was in February; I remember because I had ventured--with\nincredible daring--to send Nancy an elaborate, rosy Valentine; written\non the back of it in a handwriting all too thinly disguised was the\nfollowing verse, the triumphant result of much hard thinking in school\nhours:--\n\n          Should you of this the sender guess\n          Without another sign,\n          Would you repent, and rest content\n          To be his Valentine\n\nI grew hot and cold by turns when I thought of its possible effects on\nmy chances.\n\nOne of those useless, slushy afternoons, I took Tom for a walk that led\nus, as dusk came on, past Nancy's house. Only by painful degrees did\nI succeed in overcoming my bashfulness; but Tom, when at last I had\nblurted out the secret, was most sympathetic, although the ailment from\nwhich I suffered was as yet outside of the realm of his experience.\nI have used the word \"ailment\" advisedly, since he evidently put my\ntrouble in the same category with diphtheria or scarlet fever, remarking\nthat it was \"darned hard luck.\" In vain I sought to explain that I did\nnot regard it as such in the least; there was suffering, I admitted, but\na degree of bliss none could comprehend who had not felt it. He refused\nto be envious, or at least to betray envy; yet he was curious, asking\nmany questions, and I had reason to think before we parted that his\nadmiration for me was increased. Was it possible that he, too, didn't\nlove Nancy? No, it was funny, but he didn't. He failed to see much in\ngirls: his tone remained commiserating, yet he began to take an interest\nin the progress of my suit.\n\nFor a time I had no progress to report. Out of consideration for those\nmembers of our weekly dancing class whose parents were Episcopalians the\nmeetings were discontinued during Lent, and to call would have demanded\na courage not in me; I should have become an object of ridicule among\nmy friends and I would have died rather than face Nancy's mother and the\nmembers of her household. I set about making ingenious plans with a view\nto encounters that might appear casual. Nancy's school was dismissed at\ntwo, so was mine. By walking fast I could reach Salisbury Street, near\nSt. Mary's Seminary for Young Ladies, in time to catch her, but even\nthen for many days I was doomed to disappointment. She was either in\ncompany with other girls, or else she had taken another route; this\nI surmised led past Sophy McAlery's house, and I enlisted Tom as a\nconfederate. He was to make straight for the McAlery's on Elm while I\nfollowed Powell, two short blocks away, and if Nancy went to Sophy's and\nleft there alone he was to announce the fact by a preconcerted signal.\nThrough long and persistent practice he had acquired a whistle shrill\nenough to wake the dead, accomplished by placing a finger of each hand\nbetween his teeth;--a gift that was the envy of his acquaintances, and\nthe subject of much discussion as to whether his teeth were peculiar.\nTom insisted that they were; it was an added distinction.\n\nOn this occasion he came up behind Nancy as she was leaving Sophy's gate\nand immediately sounded the alarm. She leaped in the air, dropped her\nschool-books and whirled on him.\n\n\"Tom Peters! How dare you frighten me so!\" she cried.\n\nTom regarded her in sudden dismay.\n\n\"I--I didn't mean to,\" he said. \"I didn't think you were so near.\"\n\n\"But you must have seen me.\"\n\n\"I wasn't paying much attention,\" he equivocated,--a remark not\ncalculated to appease her anger.\n\n\"Why were you doing it?\"\n\n\"I was just practising,\" said Tom.\n\n\"Practising!\" exclaimed Nancy, scornfully. \"I shouldn't think you needed\nto practise that any more.\"\n\n\"Oh, I've done it louder,\" he declared, \"Listen!\"\n\nShe seized his hands, snatching them away from his lips. At this\ncritical moment I appeared around the corner considerably out of breath,\nmy heart beating like a watchman's rattle. I tried to feign nonchalance.\n\n\"Hello, Tom,\" I said. \"Hello, Nancy. What's the matter?\"\n\n\"It's Tom--he frightened me out of my senses.\" Dropping his wrists, she\ngave me a most disconcerting look; there was in it the suspicion of a\nsmile. \"What are you doing here, Hugh?\"\n\n\"I heard Tom,\" I explained.\n\n\"I should think you might have. Where were you?\"\n\n\"Over in another street,\" I answered, with deliberate vagueness. Nancy\nhad suddenly become demure. I did not dare look at her, but I had a most\nuncomfortable notion that she suspected the plot. Meanwhile we had\nbegun to walk along, all three of us, Tom, obviously ill at ease and\ndiscomfited, lagging a little behind. Just before we reached the corner\nI managed to kick him. His departure was by no means graceful.\n\n\"I've got to go;\" he announced abruptly, and turned down the side\nstreet. We watched his sturdy figure as it receded.\n\n\"Well, of all queer boys!\" said Nancy, and we walked on again.\n\n\"He's my best friend,\" I replied warmly.\n\n\"He doesn't seem to care much for your company,\" said Nancy.\n\n\"Oh, they have dinner at half past two,\" I explained.\n\n\"Aren't you afraid of missing yours, Hugh?\" she asked wickedly.\n\n\"I've got time. I'd--I'd rather be with you.\" After making which\naudacious remark I was seized by a spasm of apprehension. But nothing\nhappened. Nancy remained demure. She didn't remind me that I had\nreflected upon Tom.\n\n\"That's nice of you, Hugh.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm not saying it because it's nice,\" I faltered. \"I'd rather be\nwith you than--with anybody.\"\n\nThis was indeed the acme of daring. I couldn't believe I had actually\nsaid it. But again I received no rebuke; instead came a remark that set\nme palpitating, that I treasured for many weeks to come.\n\n\"I got a very nice valentine,\" she informed me.\n\n\"What was it like?\" I asked thickly.\n\n\"Oh, beautiful! All pink lace and--and Cupids, and the picture of a\nyoung man and a young woman in a garden.\"\n\n\"Was that all?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, there was a verse, in the oddest handwriting. I wonder who sent\nit?\"\n\n\"Perhaps Ralph,\" I hazarded ecstatically.\n\n\"Ralph couldn't write poetry,\" she replied disdainfully. \"Besides, it\nwas very good poetry.\"\n\nI suggested other possible authors and admirers. She rejected them all.\nWe reached her gate, and I lingered. As she looked down at me from\nthe stone steps her eyes shone with a soft light that filled me with\nradiance, and into her voice had come a questioning, shy note that\nthrilled the more because it revealed a new Nancy of whom I had not\ndreamed.\n\n\"Perhaps I'll meet you again--coming from school,\" I said.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" she answered. \"You'll be late to dinner, Hugh, if you don't\ngo....\"\n\nI was late, and unable to eat much dinner, somewhat to my mother's\nalarm. Love had taken away my appetite.... After dinner, when I was\nwandering aimlessly about the yard, Tom appeared on the other side of\nthe fence.\n\n\"Don't ever ask me to do that again,\" he said gloomily.\n\nI did meet Nancy again coming from school, not every day, but nearly\nevery day. At first we pretended that there was no arrangement in this,\nand we both feigned surprise when we encountered one another. It\nwas Nancy who possessed the courage that I lacked. One afternoon she\nsaid:--\"I think I'd better walk with the girls to-morrow, Hugh.\"\n\nI protested, but she was firm. And after that it was an understood thing\nthat on certain days I should go directly home, feeling like an exile.\nSophy McAlery had begun to complain: and I gathered that Sophy was\nNancy's confidante. The other girls had begun to gossip. It was Nancy\nwho conceived the brilliant idea--the more delightful because she said\nnothing about it to me--of making use of Sophy. She would leave school\nwith Sophy, and I waited on the corner near the McAlery house. Poor\nSophy! She was always of those who piped while others danced. In those\ndays she had two straw-coloured pigtails, and her plain, faithful face\nis before me as I write. She never betrayed to me the excitement that\nfilled her at being the accomplice of our romance.\n\nGossip raged, of course. Far from being disturbed, we used it, so to\nspeak, as a handle for our love-making, which was carried on in an\ninferential rather than a direct fashion. Were they saying that we were\nlovers? Delightful! We laughed at one another in the sunshine.... At\nlast we achieved the great adventure of a clandestine meeting and went\nfor a walk in the afternoon, avoiding the houses of our friends. I've\nforgotten which of us had the boldness to propose it. The crocuses and\ntulips had broken the black mould, the flower beds in the front yards\nwere beginning to blaze with scarlet and yellow, the lawns had turned a\nliving green. What did we talk about? The substance has vanished, only\nthe flavour remains.\n\nOne awoke of a morning to the twittering of birds, to walk to school\namidst delicate, lace-like shadows of great trees acloud with old gold:\nthe buds lay curled like tiny feathers on the pavements. Suddenly the\nshade was dense, the sunlight white and glaring, the odour of lilacs\nheavy in the air, spring in all its fulness had come,--spring and Nancy.\nJust so subtly, yet with the same seeming suddenness had budded and come\nto leaf and flower a perfect understanding, which nevertheless\nremained undefined. This, I had no doubt, was my fault, and due to the\nincomprehensible shyness her presence continued to inspire. Although we\ndid not altogether abandon our secret trysts, we began to meet in more\nnatural ways; there were garden parties and picnics where we strayed\ntogether through the woods and fields, pausing to tear off, one by\none, the petals of a daisy, \"She loves me, she loves me not.\" I never\nventured to kiss her; I always thought afterwards I might have done so,\nshe had seemed so willing, her eyes had shone so expectantly as I sat\nbeside her on the grass; nor can I tell why I desired to kiss her save\nthat this was the traditional thing to do to the lady one loved. To be\nsure, the very touch of her hand was galvanic. Paradoxically, I saw the\nhuman side of her, the yielding gentleness that always amazed me, yet I\nnever overcame my awe of the divine; she was a being sacrosanct. Whether\nthis idealism were innate or the result of such romances as I had read\nI cannot say.... I got, indeed, an avowal of a sort. The weekly dancing\nclasses having begun again, on one occasion when she had waltzed twice\nwith Gene Hollister I protested.\n\n\"Don't be silly, Hugh,\" she whispered. \"Of course I like you better than\nanyone else--you ought to know that.\"\n\nWe never got to the word \"love,\" but we knew the feeling.\n\nOne cloud alone flung its shadow across these idyllic days. Before I\nwas fully aware of it I had drawn very near to the first great\njunction-point of my life, my graduation from Densmore Academy. We were\nto \"change cars,\" in the language of Principal Haime. Well enough for\nthe fortunate ones who were to continue the academic journey, which\nimplied a postponement of the serious business of life; but month after\nmonth of the last term had passed without a hint from my father that I\nwas to change cars. Again and again I almost succeeded in screwing up\nmy courage to the point of mentioning college to him,--never quite; his\nmanner, though kind and calm, somehow strengthened my suspicion that\nI had been judged and found wanting, and doomed to \"business\": galley\nslavery, I deemed it, humdrum, prosaic, degrading! When I thought of it\nat night I experienced almost a frenzy of self-pity. My father couldn't\nintend to do that, just because my monthly reports hadn't always been\nwhat he thought they ought to be! Gene Hollister's were no better, if as\ngood, and he was going to Princeton. Was I, Hugh Paret, to be denied\nthe distinction of being a college man, the delights of university\nexistence, cruelly separated and set apart from my friends whom I loved!\nheld up to the world and especially to Nancy Willett as good for nothing\nelse! The thought was unbearable. Characteristically, I hoped against\nhope.\n\nI have mentioned garden parties. One of our annual institutions was Mrs.\nWillett's children's party in May; for the Willett house had a garden\nthat covered almost a quarter of a block. Mrs. Willett loved children,\nthe greatest regret of her life being that providence had denied her a\nlarge family. As far back as my memory goes she had been something of\nan invalid; she had a sweet, sad face, and delicate hands so thin as to\nseem almost transparent; and she always sat in a chair under the great\ntree on the lawn, smiling at us as we soared to dizzy heights in the\nswing, or played croquet, or scurried through the paths, and in and out\nof the latticed summer-house with shrieks of laughter and terror. It all\nended with a feast at a long table made of sawhorses and boards covered\nwith a white cloth, and when the cake was cut there was wild excitement\nas to who would get the ring and who the thimble.\n\nWe were more decorous, or rather more awkward now, and the party began\nwith a formal period when the boys gathered in a group and pretended\nindifference to the girls. The girls were cleverer at it, and actually\nachieved the impression that they were indifferent. We kept an eye on\nthem, uneasily, while we talked. To be in Nancy's presence and not alone\nwith Nancy was agonizing, and I wondered at a sang-froid beyond my power\nto achieve, accused her of coldness, my sufferings being the greater\nbecause she seemed more beautiful, daintier, more irreproachable than\nI had ever seen her. Even at that early age she gave evidence of the\nsocial gift, and it was due to her efforts that we forgot our best\nclothes and our newly born self-consciousness. When I begged her to slip\naway with me among the currant bushes she whispered:--\"I can't, Hugh.\nI'm the hostess, you know.\"\n\nI had gone there in a flutter of anticipation, but nothing went right\nthat day. There was dancing in the big rooms that looked out on the\ngarden; the only girl with whom I cared to dance was Nancy, and she was\nbusy finding partners for the backward members of both sexes; though she\nwas my partner, to be sure, when it all wound up with a Virginia reel on\nthe lawn. Then, at supper, to cap the climax of untoward incidents, an\nanimated discussion was begun as to the relative merits of the various\ncolleges, the girls, too, taking sides. Mac Willett, Nancy's cousin, was\ngoing to Yale, Gene Hollister to Princeton, the Ewan boys to our State\nUniversity, while Perry Blackwood and Ralph Hambleton and Ham Durrett\nwere destined for Harvard; Tom Peters, also, though he was not to\ngraduate from the Academy for another year. I might have known that\nRalph would have suspected my misery. He sat triumphantly next to Nancy\nherself, while I had been told off to entertain the faithful Sophy.\nNoticing my silence, he demanded wickedly:--\"Where are you going, Hugh?\"\n\n\"Harvard, I think,\" I answered with as bold a front as I could muster.\n\"I haven't talked it over with my father yet.\" It was intolerable to\nadmit that I of them all was to be left behind.\n\nNancy looked at me in surprise. She was always downright.\n\n\"Oh, Hugh, doesn't your father mean to put you in business?\" she\nexclaimed.\n\nA hot flush spread over my face. Even to her I had not betrayed my\napprehensions on this painful subject. Perhaps it was because of this\nvery reason, knowing me as she did, that she had divined my fate. Could\nmy father have spoken of it to anyone?\n\n\"Not that I know of,\" I said angrily. I wondered if she knew how deeply\nshe had hurt me. The others laughed. The colour rose in Nancy's cheeks,\nand she gave me an appealing, almost tearful look, but my heart had\nhardened. As soon as supper was over I left the table to wander, nursing\nmy wrongs, in a far corner of the garden, gay shouts and laughter still\nechoing in my ears. I was negligible, even my pathetic subterfuge had\nbeen detected and cruelly ridiculed by these friends whom I had\nalways loved and sought out, and who now were so absorbed in their own\nprospects and happiness that they cared nothing for mine. And Nancy!\nI had been betrayed by Nancy!... Twilight was coming on. I remember\nglancing down miserably at the new blue suit I had put on so hopefully\nfor the first time that afternoon.\n\nSeparating the garden from the street was a high, smooth board fence\nwith a little gate in it, and I had my hand on the latch when I heard\nthe sound of hurrying steps on the gravel path and a familiar voice\ncalling my name.\n\n\"Hugh! Hugh!\"\n\nI turned. Nancy stood before me.\n\n\"Hugh, you're not going!\"\n\n\"Yes, I am.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"If you don't know, there's no use telling you.\"\n\n\"Just because I said your father intended to put you in business!\nOh, Hugh, why are you so foolish and so proud? Do you suppose that\nanyone--that I--think any the worse of you?\"\n\nYes, she had read me, she alone had entered into the source of that\nprevarication, the complex feelings from which it sprang. But at\nthat moment I could not forgive her for humiliating me. I hugged my\ngrievance.\n\n\"It was true, what I said,\" I declared hotly. \"My father has not spoken.\nIt is true that I'm going to college, because I'll make it true. I may\nnot go this year.\"\n\nShe stood staring in sheer surprise at sight of my sudden, quivering\npassion. I think the very intensity of it frightened her. And then,\nwithout more ado, I opened the gate and was gone....\n\nThat night, though I did not realize it, my journey into a Far Country\nwas begun.\n\nThe misery that followed this incident had one compensating factor.\nAlthough too late to electrify Densmore and Principal Haime with my\nscholarship, I was determined to go to college now, somehow, sometime.\nI would show my father, these companions of mine, and above all Nancy\nherself the stuff of which I was made, compel them sooner or later\nto admit that they had misjudged me. I had been possessed by similar\nresolutions before, though none so strong, and they had a way of sinking\nbelow the surface of my consciousness, only to rise again and again\nuntil by sheer pressure they achieved realization.\n\nYet I might have returned to Nancy if something had not occurred which\nI would have thought unbelievable: she began to show a marked preference\nfor Ralph Hambleton. At first I regarded this affair as the most obvious\nof retaliations. She, likewise, had pride. Gradually, however, a feeling\nof uneasiness crept over me: as pretence, her performance was altogether\ntoo realistic; she threw her whole soul into it, danced with Ralph as\noften as she had ever danced with me, took walks with him, deferred\nto his opinions until, in spite of myself, I became convinced that the\npreference was genuine. I was a curious mixture of self-confidence and\nself-depreciation, and never had his superiority seemed more patent than\nnow. His air of satisfaction was maddening.\n\nHow well I remember his triumph on that hot, June morning of our\ngraduation from Densmore, a triumph he had apparently achieved without\nlabour, and which he seemed to despise. A fitful breeze blew through the\nchapel at the top of the building; we, the graduates, sat in two rows\nnext to the platform, and behind us the wooden benches nicked by many\nknives--were filled with sisters and mothers and fathers, some anxious,\nsome proud and some sad. So brief a span, like that summer's day, and\nyouth was gone! Would the time come when we, too, should sit by the\nwaters of Babylon and sigh for it? The world was upside down.\n\nWe read the one hundred and third psalm. Then Principal Haime, in\nhis long \"Prince Albert\" and a ridiculously inadequate collar that\nemphasized his scrawny neck, reminded us of the sacred associations we\nhad formed, of the peculiar responsibilities that rested on us, who\nwere the privileged of the city. \"We had crossed to-day,\" he said,\n\"an invisible threshold. Some were to go on to higher institutions of\nlearning. Others...\" I gulped. Quoting the Scriptures, he complimented\nthose who had made the most of their opportunities. And it was then\nthat he called out, impressively, the name of Ralph Forrester Hambleton.\nSumma cum laude! Suddenly I was seized with passionate, vehement regrets\nat the sound of the applause. I might have been the prize scholar,\ninstead of Ralph, if I had only worked, if I had only realized what\nthis focussing day of graduation meant! I might have been a marked\nindividual, with people murmuring words of admiration, of speculation\nconcerning the brilliancy of my future!... When at last my name\nwas called and I rose to receive my diploma it seemed as though my\nincompetency had been proclaimed to the world...\n\nThat evening I stood in the narrow gallery of the flag-decked gymnasium\nand watched Nancy dancing with Ralph.\n\nI let her go without protest or reproach. A mysterious lesion seemed to\nhave taken place, I felt astonished and relieved, yet I was heavy with\nsadness. My emancipation had been bought at a price. Something hitherto\nspontaneous, warm and living was withering within me.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nIt was true to my father's character that he should have waited until\nthe day after graduation to discuss my future, if discussion be the\nproper word. The next evening at supper he informed me that he wished\nto talk to me in the sitting-room, whither I followed him with a sinking\nheart. He seated himself at his desk, and sat for a moment gazing at me\nwith a curious and benumbing expression, and then the blow fell.\n\n\"Hugh, I have spoken to your Cousin Robert Breck about you, and he has\nkindly consented to give you a trial.\"\n\n\"To give me a trial, sir!\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"To employ you at a small but reasonable salary.\"\n\nI could find no words to express my dismay. My dreams had come to this,\nthat I was to be made a clerk in a grocery store! The fact that it was a\nwholesale grocery store was little consolation.\n\n\"But father,\" I faltered, \"I don't want to go into business.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" The sharpness of the exclamation might have betrayed to me the\npain in which he was, but he recovered himself instantly. And I could\nsee nothing but an inexorable justice closing in on me mechanically;\na blind justice, in its inability to read my soul. \"The time to have\ndecided that,\" he declared, \"was some years ago, my son. I have given\nyou the best schooling a boy can have, and you have not shown the least\nappreciation of your advantages. I do not enjoy saying this, Hugh,\nbut in spite of all my efforts and of those of your mother, you have\nremained undeveloped and irresponsible. My hope, as you know, was to\nhave made you a professional man, a lawyer, and to take you into my\noffice. My father and grandfather were professional men before me. But\nyou are wholly lacking in ambition.\"\n\nAnd I had burned with it all my life!\n\n\"I have ambition,\" I cried, the tears forcing themselves to my eyes.\n\n\"Ambition--for what, my son?\"\n\nI hesitated. How could I tell him that my longings to do something,\nto be somebody in the world were never more keen than at that moment?\nMatthew Arnold had not then written his definition of God as the stream\nof tendency by which we fulfil the laws of our being; and my father,\nat any rate, would not have acquiesced in the definition. Dimly but\npassionately I felt then, as I had always felt, that I had a mission to\nperform, a service to do which ultimately would be revealed to me. But\nthe hopelessness of explaining this took on, now, the proportions of a\ntragedy. And I could only gaze at him.\n\n\"What kind of ambition, Hugh?\" he repeated sadly.\n\n\"I--I have sometimes thought I could write, sir, if I had a chance. I\nlike it better than anything else. I--I have tried it. And if I could\nonly go to college--\"\n\n\"Literature!\" There was in his voice a scandalized note.\n\n\"Why not, father?\" I asked weakly.\n\nAnd now it was he who, for the first time, seemed to be at a loss to\nexpress himself. He turned in his chair, and with a sweep of the hand\nindicated the long rows of musty-backed volumes. \"Here,\" he said, \"you\nhave had at your disposal as well-assorted a small library as the city\ncontains, and you have not availed yourself of it. Yet you talk to me\nof literature as a profession. I am afraid, Hugh, that this is merely\nanother indication of your desire to shun hard work, and I must tell\nyou frankly that I fail to see in you the least qualification for such\na career. You have not even inherited my taste for books. I venture\nto say, for instance, that you have never even read a paragraph of\nPlutarch, and yet when I was your age I was completely familiar with the\nLives. You will not read Scott or Dickens.\"\n\nThe impeachment was not to be denied, for the classics were hateful to\nme. Naturally I was afraid to make such a damning admission. My father\nhad succeeded in presenting my ambition as the height of absurdity and\npresumption, and with something of the despair of a shipwrecked mariner\nmy eyes rested on the green expanses of those book-backs, Bohn's\nStandard Library! Nor did it occur to him or to me that one might be\ngreat in literature without having read so much as a gritty page of\nthem....\n\nHe finished his argument by reminding me that worthless persons sought\nto enter the arts in the search for a fool's paradise, and in order\nto satisfy a reprehensible craving for notoriety. The implication was\nclear, that imaginative production could not be classed as hard work.\nAnd he assured me that literature was a profession in which no one could\nafford to be second class. A Longfellow, a Harriet Beecher Stowe, or\nnothing. This was a practical age and a practical country. We had indeed\nproduced Irvings and Hawthornes, but the future of American letters was,\nto say the least, problematical. We were a utilitarian people who would\nnever create a great literature, and he reminded me that the days of the\nromantic and the picturesque had passed. He gathered that I desired to\nbe a novelist. Well, novelists, with certain exceptions, were fantastic\nfellows who blew iridescent soap-bubbles and who had no morals. In the\nface of such a philosophy as his I was mute. The world appeared a dreary\nplace of musty offices and smoky steel-works, of coal dust, of labour\nwithout a spark of inspiration. And that other, the world of my dreams,\nsimply did not exist.\n\nIncidentally my father had condemned Cousin Robert's wholesale grocery\nbusiness as a refuge of the lesser of intellect that could not achieve\nthe professions,--an inference not calculated to stir my ambition and\nliking for it at the start.\n\nI began my business career on the following Monday morning. At\nbreakfast, held earlier than usual on my account, my mother's sympathy\nwas the more eloquent for being unspoken, while my father wore an air of\nunwonted cheerfulness; charging me, when I departed, to give his kindest\nremembrances to my Cousin Robert Breck. With a sense of martyrdom\nsomehow deepened by this attitude of my parents I boarded a horse-car\nand went down town. Early though it was, the narrow streets of the\nwholesale district reverberated with the rattle of trucks and echoed\nwith the shouts of drivers. The day promised to be scorching. At\nthe door of the warehouse of Breck and Company I was greeted by the\nineffable smell of groceries in which the suggestion of parched coffee\nprevailed. This is the sharpest remembrance of all, and even to-day\nthat odour affects me somewhat in the manner that the interior of a\nship affects a person prone to seasickness. My Cousin Robert, in his\nwell-worn alpaca coat, was already seated at his desk behind the clouded\nglass partition next the alley at the back of the store, and as I\nentered he gazed at me over his steel-rimmed spectacles with that same\ndisturbing look of clairvoyance I have already mentioned as one of his\ncharacteristics. The grey eyes were quizzical, and yet seemed to express\na little commiseration.\n\n\"Well, Hugh, you've decided to honour us, have you?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm much obliged for giving me the place, Cousin Robert,\" I replied.\n\nBut he had no use for that sort of politeness, and he saw through me, as\nalways.\n\n\"So you're not too tony for the grocery business, eh?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, sir.\"\n\n\"It was good enough for old Benjamin Breck,\" he said. \"Well, I'll give\nyou a fair trial, my boy, and no favouritism on account of relationship,\nany more than to Willie.\"\n\nHis strong voice resounded through the store, and presently my cousin\nWillie appeared in answer to his summons, the same Willie who used to\nlead me, on mischief bent, through the barns and woods and fields of\nClaremore. He was barefoot no longer, though freckled still, grown lanky\nand tall; he wore a coarse blue apron that fell below his knees, and a\npencil was stuck behind his ear.\n\n\"Get an apron for Hugh,\" said his father.\n\nWillie's grin grew wider.\n\n\"I'll fit him out,\" he said.\n\n\"Start him in the shipping department,\" directed Cousin Robert, and\nturned to his letters.\n\nI was forthwith provided with an apron, and introduced to the slim and\nanaemic but cheerful Johnny Hedges, the shipping clerk, hard at work in\nthe alley. Secretly I looked down on my fellow-clerks, as one destined\nfor a higher mission, made out of better stuff,--finer stuff. Despite\nmy attempt to hide this sense of superiority they were swift to discover\nit; and perhaps it is to my credit as well as theirs that they did not\nresent it. Curiously enough, they seemed to acknowledge it. Before the\nweek was out I had earned the nickname of Beau Brummel.\n\n\"Say, Beau,\" Johnny Hedges would ask, when I appeared of a morning,\n\"what happened in the great world last night?\"\n\nI had an affection for them, these fellow-clerks, and I often\nwondered at their contentment with the drab lives they led, at their\nself-congratulation for \"having a job\" at Breck and Company's.\n\n\"You don't mean to say you like this kind of work?\" I exclaimed one day\nto Johnny Hedges, as we sat on barrels of XXXX flour looking out at the\nhot sunlight in the alley.\n\n\"It ain't a question of liking it, Beau,\" he rebuked me. \"It's all very\nwell for you to talk, since your father's a millionaire\" (a fiction so\nfirmly embedded in their heads that no amount of denial affected it),\n\"but what do you think would happen to me if I was fired? I couldn't\ngo home and take it easy--you bet not. I just want to shake hands with\nmyself when I think that I've got a home, and a job like this. I know\na feller--a hard worker he was, too who walked the pavements for three\nmonths when the Colvers failed, and couldn't get nothing, and took to\ndrink, and the last I heard of him he was sleeping in police stations\nand walking the ties, and his wife's a waitress at a cheap hotel. Don't\nyou think it's easy to get a job.\"\n\nI was momentarily sobered by the earnestness with which he brought home\nto me the relentlessness of our civilization. It seemed incredible. I\nshould have learned a lesson in that store. Barring a few discordant\ndays when the orders came in too fast or when we were short handed\nbecause of sickness, it was a veritable hive of happiness; morning after\nmorning clerks and porters arrived, pale, yet smiling, and laboured with\ncheerfulness from eight o'clock until six, and departed as cheerfully\nfor modest homes in obscure neighbourhoods that seemed to me areas of\nexile. They were troubled with no visions of better things. When\nthe travelling men came in from the \"road\" there was great hilarity.\nImportant personages, these, looked up to by the city clerks; jolly,\nreckless, Elizabethan-like rovers, who had tasted of the wine of\nliberty--and of other wines with the ineradicable lust for the road in\ntheir blood. No more routine for Jimmy Bowles, who was king of them all.\nI shudder to think how much of my knowledge of life I owe to this Jimmy,\nwhose stories would have filled a quarto volume, but could on no account\nhave been published; for a self-respecting post-office would not have\nallowed them to pass through the mails. As it was, Jimmy gave them\ncirculation enough. I can still see his round face, with the nose just\nindicated, his wicked, twinkling little eyes, and I can hear his husky\nvoice fall to a whisper when \"the boss\" passed through the store. Jimmy,\nwhen visiting us, always had a group around him. His audacity with women\namazed me, for he never passed one of the \"lady clerks\" without some\nform of caress, which they resented but invariably laughed at. One day\nhe imparted to me his code of morality: he never made love to another\nman's wife, so he assured me, if he knew the man! The secret of life he\nhad discovered in laughter, and by laughter he sold quantities of Cousin\nRobert's groceries.\n\nMr. Bowles boasted of a catholic acquaintance in all the cities of his\ndistrict, but before venturing forth to conquer these he had learned his\nown city by heart. My Cousin Robert was not aware of the fact that Mr.\nBowles \"showed\" the town to certain customers. He even desired to show\nit to me, but an epicurean strain in my nature held me back. Johnny\nHedges went with him occasionally, and Henry Schneider, the bill clerk,\nand I listened eagerly to their experiences, afterwards confiding them\nto Tom....\n\nThere were times when, driven by an overwhelming curiosity, I ventured\ninto certain strange streets, alone, shivering with cold and excitement,\ngripped by a fascination I did not comprehend, my eyes now averted, now\nirresistibly raised toward the white streaks of light that outlined the\nwindows of dark houses....\n\nOne winter evening as I was going home, I encountered at the mail-box\na young woman who shot at me a queer, twisted smile. I stood still, as\nthough stunned, looking after her, and when halfway across the slushy\nstreet she turned and smiled again. Prodigiously excited, I followed\nher, fearful that I might be seen by someone who knew me, nor was it\nuntil she reached an unfamiliar street that I ventured to overtake her.\nShe confounded me by facing me.\n\n\"Get out!\" she cried fiercely.\n\nI halted in my tracks, overwhelmed with shame. But she continued to\nregard me by the light of the street lamp.\n\n\"You didn't want to be seen with me on Second Street, did you? You're\none of those sneaking swells.\"\n\nThe shock of this sudden onslaught was tremendous. I stood frozen to the\nspot, trembling, convicted, for I knew that her accusation was just; I\nhad wounded her, and I had a desire to make amends.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I faltered. \"I didn't mean--to offend you. And you\nsmiled--\" I got no farther. She began to laugh, and so loudly that I\nglanced anxiously about. I would have fled, but something still held me,\nsomething that belied the harshness of her laugh.\n\n\"You're just a kid,\" she told me. \"Say, you get along home, and tell\nyour mamma I sent you.\"\n\nWhereupon I departed in a state of humiliation and self-reproach I had\nnever before known, wandering about aimlessly for a long time. When at\nlength I arrived at home, late for supper, my mother's solicitude only\nserved to deepen my pain. She went to the kitchen herself to see if my\nmince-pie were hot, and served me with her own hands. My father remained\nat his place at the head of the table while I tried to eat, smiling\nindulgently at her ministrations.\n\n\"Oh, a little hard work won't hurt him, Sarah,\" he said. \"When I was his\nage I often worked until eleven o'clock and never felt the worse for it.\nBusiness must be pretty good, eh, Hugh?\"\n\nI had never seen him in a more relaxing mood, a more approving one.\nMy mother sat down beside me.... Words seem useless to express the\ncomplicated nature of my suffering at that moment,--my remorse, my\nsense of deception, of hypocrisy,--yes, and my terror. I tried to talk\nnaturally, to answer my father's questions about affairs at the store,\nwhile all the time my eyes rested upon the objects of the room, familiar\nsince childhood. Here were warmth, love, and safety. Why could I not be\ncontent with them, thankful for them? What was it in me that drove me\nfrom these sheltering walls out into the dark places? I glanced at my\nfather. Had he ever known these wild, destroying desires? Oh, if I only\ncould have confided in him! The very idea of it was preposterous. Such\nplacidity as theirs would never understand the nature of my temptations,\nand I pictured to myself their horror and despair at my revelation. In\nimagination I beheld their figures receding while I drifted out to sea,\nalone. Would the tide--which was somehow within me--carry me out and\nout, in spite of all I could do?\n\n     \"Give me that man\n     That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him\n     In my heart's core....\"\n\nI did not shirk my tasks at the store, although I never got over the\nfeeling that a fine instrument was being employed where a coarser one\nwould have done equally well. There were moments when I was almost\novercome by surges of self-commiseration and of impotent anger: for\ninstance, I was once driven out of a shop by an incensed German grocer\nwhom I had asked to settle a long-standing account. Yet the days passed,\nthe daily grind absorbed my energies, and when I was not collecting, or\ntediously going over the stock in the dim recesses of the store, I was\nrunning errands in the wholesale district, treading the burning brick of\nthe pavements, dodging heavy trucks and drays and perspiring clerks who\nflew about with memorandum pads in their hands, or awaiting the pleasure\nof bank tellers. Save Harvey, the venerable porter, I was the last to\nleave the store in the evening, and I always came away with the taste on\nmy palate of Breck and Company's mail, it being my final duty to \"lick\"\nthe whole of it and deposit it in the box at the corner. The gum on the\nenvelopes tasted of winter-green.\n\nMy Cousin Robert was somewhat astonished at my application.\n\n\"We'll make a man of you yet, Hugh,\" he said to me once, when I had\nperformed a commission with unexpected despatch....\n\nBusiness was his all-in-all, and he had an undisguised contempt for\nhigher education. To send a boy to college was, in his opinion, to run\nno inconsiderable risk of ruining him. What did they amount to when they\ncame home, strutting like peacocks, full of fads and fancies, and much\ntoo good to associate with decent, hard-working citizens? Nevertheless\nwhen autumn came and my friends departed with eclat for the East, I was\ndesperate indeed! Even the contemplation of Robert Breck did not console\nme, and yet here, in truth, was a life which might have served me as a\nmodel. His store was his castle; and his reputation for integrity and\nsquare dealing as wide as the city. Often I used to watch him with a\ncertain envy as he stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets,\nand greeted fellow-merchant and banker with his genuine and dignified\ndirectness. This man was his own master. They all called him \"Robert,\"\nand they made it clear by their manner that they knew they were\naddressing one who fulfilled his obligations and asked no favours.\n\nCrusty old Nathaniel Durrett once declared that when you bought a bill\nof goods from Robert Breck you did not have to check up the invoice or\nemploy a chemist. Here was a character to mould upon. If my ambition\ncould but have been bounded by Breck and Company, I, too, might have\ncome to stand in that doorway content with a tribute that was greater\nthan Caesar's.\n\nI had been dreading the Christmas holidays, which were indeed to be no\nholidays for me. And when at length they arrived they brought with them\nfrom the East certain heroes fashionably clad, citizens now of a larger\nworld than mine. These former companions had become superior beings,\nthey could not help showing it, and their presence destroyed the Balance\nof Things. For alas, I had not wholly abjured the feminine sex after\nall! And from being a somewhat important factor in the lives of Ruth\nHollister and other young women I suddenly became of no account. New\ninterests, new rivalries and loyalties had arisen in which I had no\nshare; I must perforce busy myself with invoices of flour and coffee and\ncanned fruits while sleigh rides and coasting and skating expeditions\nto Blackstone Lake followed one another day after day,--for the irony of\ncircumstances had decreed a winter uncommonly cold. There were evening\nparties, too, where I felt like an alien, though my friends were guilty\nof no conscious neglect; and had I been able to accept the situation\nsimply, I should not have suffered.\n\nThe principal event of those holidays was a play given in the old\nHambleton house (which later became the Boyne Club), under the direction\nof the lively and talented Mrs. Watling. I was invited, indeed, to\nparticipate; but even if I had had the desire I could not have done\nso, since the rehearsals were carried on in the daytime. Nancy was the\nleading lady. I have neglected to mention that she too had been away\nalmost continuously since our misunderstanding, for the summer in the\nmountains,--a sojourn recommended for her mother's health; and in the\nautumn she had somewhat abruptly decided to go East to boarding-school\nat Farmington. During the brief months of her absence she had\nmarvellously acquired maturity and aplomb, a worldliness of manner and a\ncertain frivolity that seemed to put those who surrounded her on a lower\nplane. She was only seventeen, yet she seemed the woman of thirty whose\nrole she played. First there were murmurs, then sustained applause. I\nscarcely recognized her: she had taken wings and soared far above me,\nsuggesting a sphere of power and luxury hitherto unimagined and beyond\nthe scope of the world to which I belonged.\n\nHer triumph was genuine. When the play was over she was immediately\nsurrounded by enthusiastic admirers eager to congratulate her, to dance\nwith her. I too would have gone forward, but a sense of inadequacy, of\nunimportance, of an inability to cope with her, held me back, and from a\ncorner I watched her sweeping around the room, holding up her train, and\nleaning on the arm of Bob Lansing, a classmate whom Ralph had brought\nhome from Harvard. Then it was Ralph's turn: that affair seemed still\nto be going on. My feelings were a strange medley of despondency and\nstimulation....\n\nOur eyes met. Her partner now was Ham Durrett. Capriciously releasing\nhim, she stood before me,\n\n\"Hugh, you haven't asked me to dance, or even told me what you thought\nof the play.\"\n\n\"I thought it was splendid,\" I said lamely.\n\nBecause she refrained from replying I was farther than ever from\nunderstanding her. How was I to divine what she felt? or whether any\nlonger she felt at all? Here, in this costume of a woman of the world,\nwith the string of pearls at her neck to give her the final touch of\nbrilliancy, was a strange, new creature who baffled and silenced me....\nWe had not gone halfway across the room when she halted abruptly.\n\n\"I'm tired,\" she exclaimed. \"I don't feel like dancing just now,\" and\nled the way to the big, rose punch-bowl, one of the Durretts' most\ncherished possessions. Glancing up at me over the glass of lemonade I\nhad given her she went on: \"Why haven't you been to see me since I came\nhome? I've wanted to talk to you, to hear how you are getting along.\"\n\nWas she trying to make amends, or reminding me in this subtle way of\nthe cause of our quarrel? What I was aware of as I looked at her was\nan attitude, a vantage point apparently gained by contact with that\nmysterious outer world which thus vicariously had laid its spell on me;\nI was tremendously struck by the thought that to achieve this attitude\nmeant emancipation, invulnerability against the aches and pains which\notherwise our fellow-beings had the power to give us; mastery over\nlife,--the ability to choose calmly, as from a height, what were best\nfor one's self, untroubled by loves and hates. Untroubled by loves and\nhates! At that very moment, paradoxically, I loved her madly, but with a\nlove not of the old quality, a love that demanded a vantage point of its\nown. Even though she had made an advance--and some elusiveness in her\nmanner led me to doubt it I could not go to her now. I must go as a\nconqueror,--a conqueror in the lists she herself had chosen, where the\nprize is power.\n\n\"Oh, I'm getting along pretty well,\" I said. \"At any rate, they don't\ncomplain of me.\"\n\n\"Somehow,\" she ventured, \"somehow it's hard to think of you as a\nbusiness man.\"\n\nI took this for a reference to the boast I had made that I would go to\ncollege.\n\n\"Business isn't so bad as it might be,\" I assured her.\n\n\"I think a man ought to go away to college,\" she declared, in what\nseemed another tone. \"He makes friends, learns certain things,--it gives\nhim finish. We are very provincial here.\"\n\nProvincial! I did not stop to reflect how recently she must have\nacquired the word; it summed up precisely the self-estimate at which I\nhad arrived. The sting went deep. Before I could think of an effective\nreply Nancy was being carried off by the young man from the East, who\nwas clearly infatuated. He was not provincial. She smiled back at\nme brightly over his shoulder.... In that instant were fused in one\nresolution all the discordant elements within me of aspiration and\ndiscontent. It was not so much that I would show Nancy what I intended\nto do--I would show myself; and I felt a sudden elation, and accession\nof power that enabled me momentarily to despise the puppets with whom\nshe danced.... From this mood I was awakened with a start to feel a hand\non my shoulder, and I turned to confront her father, McAlery Willett;\na gregarious, easygoing, pleasure-loving gentleman who made only a\npretence of business, having inherited an ample fortune from his father,\nunique among his generation in our city in that he paid some attention\nto fashion in his dress; good living was already beginning to affect his\nfigure. His mellow voice had a way of breaking an octave.\n\n\"Don't worry, my boy,\" he said. \"You stick to business. These college\nfellows are cocks of the walk just now, but some day you'll be able to\nsnap your fingers at all of 'em.\"\n\nThe next day was dark, overcast, smoky, damp-the soft, unwholesome\ndampness that follows a spell of hard frost. I spent the morning and\nafternoon on the gloomy third floor of Breck and Company, making a list\nof the stock. I remember the place as though I had just stepped out\nof it, the freight elevator at the back, the dusty, iron columns,\nthe continuous piles of cases and bags and barrels with narrow aisles\nbetween them; the dirty windows, spotted and soot-streaked, that looked\ndown on Second Street. I was determined now to escape from all this, and\nI had my plan in mind.\n\nNo sooner had I swallowed my supper that evening than I set out at a\nswift pace for a modest residence district ten blocks away, coming to a\nlittle frame house set back in a yard,--one of those houses in which\nthe ringing of the front door-bell produces the greatest commotion;\nchildren's voices were excitedly raised and then hushed. After a brief\nsilence the door was opened by a pleasant-faced, brown-bearded man, who\nstood staring at me in surprise. His hair was rumpled, he wore an old\nhouse coat with a hole in the elbow, and with one finger he kept his\nplace in the book which he held in his hand.\n\n\"Hugh Paret!\" he exclaimed.\n\nHe ushered me into a little parlour lighted by two lamps, that bore\nevery evidence of having been recently vacated. Its features somehow\nbespoke a struggle for existence; as though its occupants had\nworried much and loved much. It was a room best described by the word\n\"home\"--home made more precious by a certain precariousness. Toys and\nschool-books strewed the floor, a sewing-bag and apron lay across the\nsofa, and in one corner was a roll-topped desk of varnished oak. The\nseats of the chairs were comfortably depressed.\n\nSo this was where Mr. Wood lived! Mr. Wood, instructor in Latin and\nGreek at Densmore Academy. It was now borne in on me for the first time\nthat he did live and have his ties like any other human being, instead\nof just appearing magically from nowhere on a platform in a chalky room\nat nine every morning, to vanish again in the afternoon. I had formerly\nstood in awe of his presence. But now I was suddenly possessed by an\nembarrassment, and (shall I say it?) by a commiseration bordering on\ncontempt for a man who would consent to live thus for the sake of being\na schoolteacher. How strange that civilization should set such a high\nvalue on education and treat its functionaries with such neglect!\n\nMr. Wood's surprise at seeing me was genuine. For I had never shown\na particular interest in him, nor in the knowledge which he strove to\nimpart.\n\n\"I thought you had forgotten me, Hugh,\" he said, and added whimsically:\n\"most boys do, when they graduate.\"\n\nI felt the reproach, which made it the more difficult for me to state my\nerrand.\n\n\"I knew you sometimes took pupils in the evening, Mr. Wood.\"\n\n\"Pupils,--yes,\" he replied, still eyeing me. Suddenly his eyes twinkled.\nHe had indeed no reason to suspect me of thirsting for learning. \"But I\nwas under the impression that you had gone into business, Hugh.\"\n\n\"The fact is, sir,\" I explained somewhat painfully, \"that I am not\nsatisfied with business. I feel--as if I ought to know more. And I came\nto see if you would give me lessons about three nights a week, because I\nwant to take the Harvard examinations next summer.\"\n\nThus I made it appear, and so persuaded myself, that my ambition had\nbeen prompted by a craving for knowledge. As soon as he could recover\nhimself he reminded me that he had on many occasions declared I had a\nbrain.\n\n\"Your father must be very happy over this decision of yours,\" he said.\n\nThat was the point, I told him. It was to be a surprise for my father; I\nwas to take the examinations first, and inform him afterwards.\n\nTo my intense relief, Mr. Wood found the scheme wholly laudable, and\nentered into it with zest. He produced examinations of preceding\nyears from a pigeonhole in his desk, and inside of half an hour the\narrangement was made, the price of the lessons settled. They were well\nwithin my salary, which recently had been raised....\n\nWhen I went down town, or collecting bills for Breck and Company, I took\na text-book along with me in the street-cars. Now at last I had behind\nmy studies a driving force. Algebra, Latin, Greek and history became\nworth while, means to an end. I astonished Mr. Wood; and sometimes he\nwould tilt back his chair, take off his spectacles and pull his beard.\n\n\"Why in the name of all the sages,\" he would demand, \"couldn't you have\ndone this well at school? You might have led your class, instead of\nRalph Hambleton.\"\n\nI grew very fond of Mr. Wood, and even of his thin little wife, who\noccasionally flitted into the room after we had finished. I fully\nintended to keep up with them in after life, but I never did. I forgot\nthem completely....\n\nMy parents were not wholly easy in their minds concerning me; they were\nbewildered by the new aspect I presented. For my lately acquired motive\nwas strong enough to compel me to restrict myself socially, and the\nevenings I spent at home were given to study, usually in my own room.\nOnce I was caught with a Latin grammar: I was just \"looking over it,\" I\nsaid. My mother sighed. I knew what was in her mind; she had always\nbeen secretly disappointed that I had not been sent to college. And\npresently, when my father went out to attend a trustee's meeting, the\nimpulse to confide in her almost overcame me; I loved her with that\naffection which goes out to those whom we feel understand us, but I was\nlearning to restrain my feelings. She looked at me wistfully.... I knew\nthat she would insist on telling my father, and thus possibly frustrate\nmy plans. That I was not discovered was due to a certain quixotic twist\nin my father's character. I was working now, and though not actually\nearning my own living, he no longer felt justified in prying into my\naffairs.\n\nWhen June arrived, however, my tutor began to show signs that his\nconscience was troubling him, and one night he delivered his ultimatum.\nThe joke had gone far enough, he implied. My intentions, indeed, he\nfound praiseworthy, but in his opinion it was high time that my father\nwere informed of them; he was determined to call at my father's office.\n\nThe next morning was blue with the presage of showers; blue, too,\nwith the presage of fate. An interminable morning. My tasks had become\nutterly distasteful. And in the afternoon, so when I sat down to make\nout invoices, I wrote automatically the names of the familiar customers,\nmy mind now exalted by hope, now depressed by anxiety. The result of\nan interview perhaps even now going on would determine whether or no I\nshould be immediately released from a slavery I detested. Would Mr.\nWood persuade my father? If not, I was prepared to take more desperate\nmeasures; remain in the grocery business I would not. In the evening,\nas I hurried homeward from the corner where the Boyne Street car had\ndropped me, I halted suddenly in front of the Peters house, absorbing\nthe scene where my childhood had been spent: each of these spreading\nmaples was an old friend, and in these yards I had played and dreamed.\nAn unaccountable sadness passed over me as I walked on toward our\ngate; I entered it, gained the doorway of the house and went upstairs,\nglancing into the sitting room. My mother sat by the window, sewing. She\nlooked up at me with an ineffable expression, in which I read a trace of\ntears.\n\n\"Hugh!\" she exclaimed.\n\nI felt very uncomfortable, and stood looking down at her.\n\n\"Why didn't you tell us, my son?\" In her voice was in truth reproach;\nyet mingled with that was another note, which I think was pride.\n\n\"What has father said?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, my dear, he will tell you himself. I--I don't know--he will talk to\nyou.\"\n\nSuddenly she seized my hands and drew me down to her, and then held\nme away, gazing into my face with a passionate questioning, her\nlips smiling, her eyes wet. What did she see? Was there a subtler\nrelationship between our natures than I guessed? Did she understand by\nsome instinctive power the riddle within me? divine through love the\nforce that was driving me on she knew not whither, nor I? At the sound\nof my father's step in the hall she released me. He came in as though\nnothing had happened.\n\n\"Well, Hugh, are you home?\" he said....\n\nNever had I been more impressed, more bewildered by his self-command\nthan at that time. Save for the fact that my mother talked less than\nusual, supper passed as though nothing had happened. Whether I had\nshaken him, disappointed him, or gained his reluctant approval I\ncould not tell. Gradually his outward calmness turned my suspense to\nirritation....\n\nBut when at length we were alone together, I gained a certain\nreassurance. His manner was not severe. He hesitated a little before\nbeginning.\n\n\"I must confess, Hugh; that I scarcely know what to say about this\nproceeding of yours. The thing that strikes me most forcibly is that you\nmight have confided in your mother and myself.\"\n\nHope flashed up within me, like an explosion.\n\n\"I--I wanted to surprise you, father. And then, you see, I thought it\nwould be wiser to find out first how well I was likely to do at the\nexaminations.\"\n\nMy father looked at me. Unfortunately he possessed neither a sense of\nhumour nor a sense of tragedy sufficient to meet such a situation. For\nthe first time in my life I beheld him at a disadvantage; for I had,\nsomehow, managed at length to force him out of position, and he was\npuzzled. I was quick to play my trump card.\n\n\"I have been thinking it over carefully,\" I told him, \"and I have made\nup my mind that I want to go into the law.\"\n\n\"The law!\" he exclaimed sharply.\n\n\"Why, yes, sir. I know that you were disappointed because I did not do\nsufficiently well at school to go to college and study for the bar.\"\n\nI felt indeed a momentary pang, but I remembered that I was fighting for\nmy freedom.\n\n\"You seemed satisfied where you were,\" he said in a puzzled voice, \"and\nyour Cousin Robert gives a good account of you.\"\n\n\"I've tried to do the work as well as I could, sir,\" I replied. \"But I\ndon't like the grocery business, or any other business. I have a feeling\nthat I'm not made for it.\"\n\n\"And you think, now, that you are made for the law?\" he asked, with the\nfaint hint of a smile.\n\n\"Yes, sir, I believe I could succeed at it. I'd like to try,\" I replied\nmodestly.\n\n\"You've given up the idiotic notion of wishing to be an author?\"\n\nI implied that he himself had convinced me of the futility of such a\nwish. I listened to his next words as in a dream.\n\n\"I must confess to you, Hugh, that there are times when I fail to\nunderstand you. I hope it is as you say, that you have arrived at a\nsettled conviction as to your future, and that this is not another of\nthose caprices to which you have been subject, nor a desire to shirk\nhonest work. Mr. Wood has made out a strong case for you, and I have\ntherefore determined to give you a trial. If you pass the examinations\nwith credit, you may go to college, but if at any time you fail to\nmake good progress, you come home, and go into business again. Is that\nthoroughly understood?\"\n\nI said it was, and thanked him effusively.... I had escaped,--the prison\ndoors had flown open. But it is written that every happiness has\nits sting; and my joy, intense though it was, had in it a core of\nremorse....\n\nI went downstairs to my mother, who was sitting in the hall by the open\ndoor.\n\n\"Father says I may go!\" I said.\n\nShe got up and took me in her arms.\n\n\"My dear, I am so glad, although we shall miss you dreadfully.... Hugh?\"\n\n\"Yes, mother.\"\n\n\"Oh, Hugh, I so want you to be a good man!\"\n\nHer cry was a little incoherent, but fraught with a meaning that came\nhome to me, in spite of myself....\n\nA while later I ran over to announce to the amazed Tom Peters that I\nwas actually going to Harvard with him. He stood in the half-lighted\nhallway, his hands in his pockets, blinking at me.\n\n\"Hugh, you're a wonder!\" he cried. \"How in Jehoshaphat did you work\nit?\"...\n\nI lay long awake that night thinking over the momentous change so soon\nto come into my life, wondering exultantly what Nancy Willett would say\nnow. I was not one, at any rate, to be despised or neglected.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nThe following September Tom Peters and I went East together. In the\nearly morning Boston broke on us like a Mecca as we rolled out of the\nold Albany station, joint lords of a \"herdic.\" How sharply the smell of\nthe salt-laden east wind and its penetrating coolness come back to me! I\nseek in vain for words to express the exhilarating effect of that briny\ncoolness on my imagination, and of the visions it summoned up of the\nnewer, larger life into which I had marvellously been transported. We\nalighted at the Parker House, full-fledged men of the world, and tried\nto act as though the breakfast of which we partook were merely an\nincident, not an Event; as though we were Seniors, and not freshmen,\nassuming an indifference to the beings by whom we were surrounded and\nwho were breakfasting, too,--although the nice-looking ones with fresh\nfaces and trim clothes were all undoubtedly Olympians. The better\nto proclaim our nonchalance, we seated ourselves on a lounge of the\nmarble-paved lobby and smoked cigarettes. This was liberty indeed! At\nlength we departed for Cambridge, in another herdic.\n\nBoston! Could it be possible? Everything was so different here as to\ngive the place the aspect of a dream: the Bulfinch State House, the\ndecorous shops, the still more decorous dwellings with the purple-paned\nwindows facing the Common; Back Bay, still boarded up, ivy-spread,\nsuggestive of a mysterious and delectable existence. We crossed the\nCharles River, blue-grey and still that morning; traversed a nondescript\ndistrict, and at last found ourselves gazing out of the windows at the\nmellowed, plum-coloured bricks of the University buildings.... All\nat once our exhilaration evaporated as the herdic rumbled into a\nside street and backed up before the door of a not-too-inviting,\nthree-storied house with a queer extension on top. Its steps and\nvestibule were, however, immaculate. The bell was answered by a plainly\noverworked servant girl, of whom we inquired for Mrs. Bolton, our\nlandlady. There followed a period of waiting in a parlour from which the\nlight had been almost wholly banished, with slippery horsehair furniture\nand a marble-topped table; and Mrs. Bolton, when she appeared, dressed\nin rusty black, harmonized perfectly with the funereal gloom. She was a\ntall, rawboned, severe lady with a peculiar red-mottled complexion that\nsomehow reminded one of the outcropping rocks of her native New England\nsoil.\n\n\"You want to see your rooms, I suppose,\" she remarked impassively when\nwe had introduced ourselves, and as we mounted the stairs behind her\nTom, in a whisper, nicknamed her \"Granite Face.\" Presently she left us.\n\n\"Hospitable soul!\" said Tom, who, with his hands in his pockets, was\ngazing at the bare walls of our sitting-room. \"We'll have to go into\nthe house-furnishing business, Hughie. I vote we don't linger here\nto-day--we'll get melancholia.\"\n\nOutside, however, the sun was shining brightly, and we departed\nimmediately to explore Cambridge and announce our important presences\nto the proper authorities.... We went into Boston to dine.... It was\nnot until nine o'clock in the evening that we returned and the bottom\nsuddenly dropped out of things. He who has tasted that first, acute\nhomesickness of college will know what I mean. It usually comes at the\nopening of one's trunk. The sight of the top tray gave me a pang I shall\nnever forget. I would not have believed that I loved my mother so much!\nThese articles had been packed by her hands; and in one corner, among\nthe underclothes on which she had neatly sewed my initials, lay the new\nBible she had bought. \"Hugh Moreton Paret, from his Mother. September,\n1881.\" I took it up (Tom was not looking) and tried to read a passage,\nbut my eyes were blurred. What was it within me that pressed and pressed\nuntil I thought I could bear the pain of it no longer? I pictured the\nsitting-room at home, and my father and mother there, thinking of me.\nYes, I must acknowledge it; in the bitterness of that moment I longed\nto be back once more in the railed-off space on the floor of Breck and\nCompany, writing invoices....\n\nPresently, as we went on silently with our unpacking, we became aware of\nsomeone in the doorway.\n\n\"Hello, you fellows!\" he cried. \"We're classmates, I guess.\"\n\nWe turned to behold an ungainly young man in an ill-fitting blue suit.\nHis face was pimply, his eyes a Teutonic blue, his yellow hair rumpled,\nhis naturally large mouth was made larger by a friendly grin.\n\n\"I'm Hermann Krebs,\" he announced simply. \"Who are you?\"\n\nWe replied, I regret to say, with a distinct coolness that did not seem\nto bother him in the least. He advanced into the room, holding out a\nlarge, red, and serviceable hand, evidently it had never dawned on him\nthat there was such a thing in the world as snobbery. But Tom and I\nhad been \"coached\" by Ralph Hambleton and Perry Blackwood, warned to be\ncareful of our friendships. There was a Reason! In any case Mr. Krebs\nwould not have appealed to us. In answer to a second question he was\ninformed what city we hailed from, and he proclaimed himself likewise a\nnative of our state.\n\n\"Why, I'm from Elkington!\" he exclaimed, as though the fact sealed\nour future relationships. He seated himself on Tom's trunk and added:\n\"Welcome to old Harvard!\"\n\nWe felt that he was scarcely qualified to speak for \"old Harvard,\" but\nwe did not say so.\n\n\"You look as if you'd been pall-bearers for somebody,\" was his next\nobservation.\n\nTo this there seemed no possible reply.\n\n\"You fellows are pretty well fixed here,\" he went on, undismayed, gazing\nabout a room which had seemed to us the abomination of desolation. \"Your\nfolks must be rich. I'm up under the skylight.\"\n\nEven this failed to touch us. His father--he told us with undiminished\ncandour--had been a German emigrant who had come over in '49, after the\ncause of liberty had been lost in the old country, and made eye-glasses\nand opera glasses. There hadn't been a fortune in it. He, Hermann,\nhad worked at various occupations in the summer time, from peddling to\nfarming, until he had saved enough to start him at Harvard. Tom, who had\nbeen bending over his bureau drawer, straightened up.\n\n\"What did you want to come here for?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Say, what did you?\" Mr. Krebs retorted genially. \"To get an education,\nof course.\"\n\n\"An education!\" echoed Tom.\n\n\"Isn't Harvard the oldest and best seat of learning in America?\" There\nwas an exaltation in Krebs's voice that arrested my attention, and made\nme look at him again. A troubled chord had been struck within me.\n\n\"Sure,\" said Tom.\n\n\"What did you come for?\" Mr. Krebs persisted.\n\n\"To sow my wild oats,\" said Tom. \"I expect to have something of a crop,\ntoo.\"\n\nFor some reason I could not fathom, it suddenly seemed to dawn on Mr.\nKrebs, as a result of this statement, that he wasn't wanted.\n\n\"Well, so long,\" he said, with a new dignity that curiously belied the\ninformality of his farewell.\n\nAn interval of silence followed his departure.\n\n\"Well, he's got a crust!\" said Tom, at last.\n\nMy own feeling about Mr. Krebs had become more complicated; but I took\nmy cue from Tom, who dealt with situations simply.\n\n\"He'll come in for a few knockouts,\" he declared. \"Here's to old\nHarvard, the greatest institution of learning in America! Oh, gee!\"\n\nOur visitor, at least, made us temporarily forget our homesickness, but\nit returned with redoubled intensity when we had put out the lights and\ngone to bed.\n\nBefore we had left home it had been mildly hinted to us by Ralph and\nPerry Blackwood that scholarly eminence was not absolutely necessary\nto one's welfare and happiness at Cambridge. The hint had been somewhat\nsuperfluous; but the question remained, what was necessary? With a view\nof getting some light on this delicate subject we paid a visit the next\nevening to our former friends and schoolmates, whose advice was conveyed\nwith a masterly circumlocution that impressed us both. There are some\nthings that may not be discussed directly, and the conduct of life at\na modern university--which is a reflection of life in the greater\nworld--is one of these. Perry Blackwood and Ham did most of the talking,\nwhile Ralph, characteristically, lay at full length on the window-seat,\ninterrupting with an occasional terse and cynical remark very much to\nthe point. As a sophomore, he in particular seemed lifted immeasurably\nabove us, for he was--as might have been expected already a marked\nman in his class. The rooms which he shared with his cousin made a\ntremendous impression on Tom and me, and seemed palatial in comparison\nto our quarters at Mrs. Bolton's, eloquent of the freedom and luxury\nof undergraduate existence; their note, perhaps, was struck by the\nprofusion of gay sofa pillows, then something of an innovation. The\nheavy, expensive furniture was of a pattern new to me; and on the mantel\nwere three or four photographs of ladies in the alluring costume of the\nmusical stage, in which Tom evinced a particular interest.\n\n\"Did grandfather send 'em?\" he inquired.\n\n\"They're Ham's,\" said Ralph, and he contrived somehow to get into those\ntwo words an epitome of his cousin's character. Ham was stouter, and his\nclothes were more striking, more obviously expensive than ever.... On\nour way homeward, after we had walked a block or two in silence, Tom\nexclaimed:--\"Don't make friends with the friendless!--eh, Hughie? We\nknew enough to begin all right, didn't we?\"...\n\nHave I made us out a pair of deliberate, calculating snobs? Well,\nafter all it must be remembered that our bringing up had not been of\nsufficient liberality to include the Krebses of this world. We did not,\nindeed, spend much time in choosing and weighing those whom we should\nknow and those whom we should avoid; and before the first term of that\nFreshman year was over Tom had become a favourite. He had the gift of\nmaking men feel that he delighted in their society, that he wished for\nnothing better than to sit for hours in their company, content to listen\nto the arguments that raged about him. Once in a while he would make a\ndroll observation that was greeted with fits of laughter. He was always\nreferred to as \"old Tom,\" or \"good old Tom\"; presently, when he began to\npick out chords on the banjo, it was discovered that he had a good tenor\nvoice, though he could not always be induced to sing.... Somewhat to the\njeopardy of the academic standard that my father expected me to sustain,\nour rooms became a rendezvous for many clubable souls whose maudlin,\nmidnight attempts at harmony often set the cocks crowing.\n\n       \"Free from care and despair,\n        What care we?\n       'Tis wine, 'tis wine\n        That makes the jollity.\"\n\nAs a matter of truth, on these occasions it was more often beer; beer\ntransported thither in Tom's new valise,--given him by his mother,--and\nstuffed with snow to keep the bottles cold. Sometimes Granite Face,\nadorned in a sky-blue wrapper, would suddenly appear in the doorway to\ndeclare that we were a disgrace to her respectable house: the university\nauthorities should be informed, etc., etc. Poor woman, we were\noutrageously inconsiderate of her.... One evening as we came through\nthe hall we caught a glimpse in the dimly lighted parlour of a young\nman holding a shy and pale little girl on his lap, Annie, Mrs. Bolton's\ndaughter: on the face of our landlady was an expression I had never seen\nthere, like a light. I should scarcely have known her. Tom and I paused\nat the foot of the stairs. He clutched my arm.\n\n\"Darned if it wasn't our friend Krebs!\" he whispered.\n\nWhile I was by no means so popular as Tom, I got along fairly well.\nI had escaped from provincialism, from the obscure purgatory of the\nwholesale grocery business; new vistas, exciting and stimulating, had\nbeen opened up; nor did I offend the sensibilities and prejudices of\nthe new friends I made, but gave a hearty consent to a code I found\ncongenial. I recognized in the social system of undergraduate life at\nHarvard a reflection of that of a greater world where I hoped some\nday to shine; yet my ambition did not prey upon me. Mere conformity,\nhowever, would not have taken me very far in a sphere from which I, in\ncommon with many others, desired not to be excluded.... One day, in an\nidle but inspired moment, I paraphrased a song from \"Pinafore,\" applying\nit to a college embroglio, and the brief and lively vogue it enjoyed was\nsufficient to indicate a future usefulness. I had \"found myself.\" This\nwas in the last part of the freshman year, and later on I became a sort\nof amateur, class poet-laureate. Many were the skits I composed, and Tom\nsang them....\n\nDuring that freshman year we often encountered Hermann Krebs, whistling\nmerrily, on the stairs.\n\n\"Got your themes done?\" he would inquire cheerfully.\n\nAnd Tom would always mutter, when he was out of earshot: \"He has got a\ncrust!\"\n\nWhen I thought about Krebs at all,--and this was seldom indeed,--his\nmanifest happiness puzzled me. Our cool politeness did not seem to\nbother him in the least; on the contrary, I got the impression that\nit amused him. He seemed to have made no friends. And after that first\nevening, memorable for its homesickness, he never ventured to repeat his\nvisit to us.\n\nOne windy November day I spied his somewhat ludicrous figure striding\nahead of me, his trousers above his ankles. I was bundled up in a new\nulster,--of which I was secretly quite proud,--but he wore no overcoat\nat all.\n\n\"Well, how are you getting along?\" I asked, as I overtook him.\n\nHe made clear, as he turned, his surprise that I should have addressed\nhim at all, but immediately recovered himself.\n\n\"Oh, fine,\" he responded. \"I've had better luck than I expected. I'm\ncorrespondent for two or three newspapers. I began by washing windows,\nand doing odd jobs for the professors' wives.\" He laughed. \"I guess that\ndoesn't strike you as good luck.\"\n\nHe showed no resentment at my patronage, but a self-sufficiency that\nmade my sympathy seem superfluous, giving the impression of an inner\nharmony and content that surprised me.\n\n\"I needn't ask how you're getting along,\" he said....\n\nAt the end of the freshman year we abandoned Mrs. Bolton's for more\ndesirable quarters.\n\nI shall not go deeply into my college career, recalling only such\nincidents as, seen in the retrospect, appear to have had significance. I\nhave mentioned my knack for song-writing; but it was not, I think, until\nmy junior year there was startlingly renewed in me my youthful desire to\nwrite, to create something worth while, that had so long been dormant.\n\nThe inspiration came from Alonzo Cheyne, instructor in English; a\nremarkable teacher, in spite of the finicky mannerisms which Tom\nimitated. And when, in reading aloud certain magnificent passages, he\nforgot his affectations, he managed to arouse cravings I thought to have\ndeserted me forever. Was it possible, after all, that I had been right\nand my father wrong? that I might yet be great in literature?\n\nA mere hint from Alonzo Cheyne was more highly prized by the grinds\nthan fulsome praise from another teacher. And to his credit it should\nbe recorded that the grinds were the only ones he treated with any\nseriousness; he took pains to answer their questions; but towards the\nrest of us, the Chosen, he showed a thinly veiled contempt. None so\nquick as he to detect a simulated interest, or a wily effort to make him\nridiculous; and few tried this a second time, for he had a rapier-like\ngift of repartee that transfixed the offender like a moth on a pin. He\nhad a way of eyeing me at times, his glasses in his hand, a queer smile\non his lips, as much as to imply that there was one at least among the\nlost who was made for better things. Not that my work was poor, but I\nknew that it might have been better. Out of his classes, however, beyond\nthe immediate, disturbing influence of his personality I would relapse\ninto indifference....\n\nReturning one evening to our quarters, which were now in the \"Yard,\"\nI found Tom seated with a blank sheet before him, thrusting his hand\nthrough his hair and biting the end of his penholder to a pulp. In his\nmuttering, which was mixed with the curious, stingless profanity of\nwhich he was master, I caught the name of Cheyne, and I knew that he\nwas facing the crisis of a fortnightly theme. The subject assigned was a\nnarrative of some personal experience, and it was to be handed in on the\nmorrow. My own theme was already, written.\n\n\"I've been holding down this chair for an hour, and I can't seem to\nthink of a thing.\" He rose to fling himself down on the lounge. \"I wish\nI was in Canada.\"\n\n\"Why Canada?\"\n\n\"Trout fishing with Uncle Jake at that club of his where he took me last\nsummer.\" Tom gazed dreamily at the ceiling. \"Whenever I have some darned\nfoolish theme like this to write I want to go fishing, and I want to go\nlike the devil. I'll get Uncle Jake to take you, too, next summer.\"\n\n\"I wish you would.\"\n\n\"Say, that's living all right, Hughie, up there among the tamaracks and\nbalsams!\" And he began, for something like the thirtieth time, to relate\nthe adventures of the trip.\n\nAs he talked, the idea presented itself to me with sudden fascination\nto use this incident as the subject of Tom's theme; to write it for him,\nfrom his point of view, imitating the droll style he would have had if\nhe had been able to write; for, when he was interested in any matter,\nhis oral narrative did not lack vividness. I began to ask him questions:\nwhat were the trees like, for instance? How did the French-Canadian\nguides talk? He had the gift of mimicry: aided by a partial knowledge of\nFrench I wrote down a few sentences as they sounded. The canoe had upset\nand he had come near drowning. I made him describe his sensations.\n\n\"I'll write your theme for you,\" I exclaimed, when he had finished.\n\n\"Gee, not about that!\"\n\n\"Why not? It's a personal experience.\"\n\nHis gratitude was pathetic.... By this time I was so full of the subject\nthat it fairly clamoured for expression, and as I wrote the hours flew.\nOnce in a while I paused to ask him a question as he sat with his chair\ntilted back and his feet on the table, reading a detective story. I\nsketched in the scene with bold strokes; the desolate bois brule on the\nmountain side, the polished crystal surface of the pool broken here\nand there with the circles left by rising fish; I pictured Armand,\nthe guide, his pipe between his teeth, holding the canoe against the\ncurrent; and I seemed to smell the sharp tang of the balsams, to hear\nthe roar of the rapids below. Then came the sudden hooking of the big\ntrout, habitant oaths from Armand, bouleversement, wetness, darkness,\nconfusion; a half-strangled feeling, a brief glimpse of green things and\nsunlight, and then strangulation, or what seemed like it; strangulation,\nthe sense of being picked up and hurled by a terrific force whither? a\nblinding whiteness, in which it was impossible to breathe, one sharp,\nalmost unbearable pain, then another, then oblivion.... Finally,\nawakening, to be confronted by a much worried Uncle Jake.\n\nBy this time the detective story had fallen to the floor, and Tom was\nhuddled up in his chair, asleep. He arose obediently and wrapped a wet\ntowel around his head, and began to write. Once he paused long enough to\nmutter:--\"Yes, that's about it,--that's the way I felt!\" and set to work\nagain, mechanically,--all the praise I got for what I deemed a literary\nachievement of the highest order! At three o'clock, a.m., he finished,\npulled off his clothes automatically and tumbled into bed. I had no\ndesire for sleep. My brain was racing madly, like an engine without a\ngovernor. I could write! I could write! I repeated the words over and\nover to myself. All the complexities of my present life were blotted\nout, and I beheld only the long, sweet vista of the career for which\nI was now convinced that nature had intended me. My immediate fortunes\nbecame unimportant, immaterial. No juice of the grape I had ever\ntasted made me half so drunk.... With the morning, of course, came the\nreaction, and I suffered the after sensations of an orgie, awaking to a\nworld of necessity, cold and grey and slushy, and necessity alone made\nme rise from my bed. My experience of the night before might have taught\nme that happiness lies in the trick of transforming necessity, but it\ndid not. The vision had faded,--temporarily, at least; and such was the\ndistraction of the succeeding days that the subject of the theme passed\nfrom my mind....\n\nOne morning Tom was later than usual in getting home. I was writing a\nletter when he came in, and did not notice him, yet I was vaguely aware\nof his standing over me. When at last I looked up I gathered from his\nexpression that something serious had happened, so mournful was his\nface, and yet so utterly ludicrous.\n\n\"Say, Hugh, I'm in the deuce of a mess,\" he announced.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" I inquired.\n\nHe sank down on the table with a groan.\n\n\"It's Alonzo,\" he said.\n\nThen I remembered the theme.\n\n\"What--what's he done?\" I demanded.\n\n\"He says I must become a writer. Think of it, me a writer! He says I'm a\nyoung Shakespeare, that I've been lazy and hid my light under a bushel!\nHe says he knows now what I can do, and if I don't keep up the quality,\nhe'll know the reason why, and write a personal letter to my father. Oh,\nhell!\"\n\nIn spite of his evident anguish, I was seized with a convulsive\nlaughter. Tom stood staring at me moodily.\n\n\"You think it's funny,--don't you? I guess it is, but what's going to\nbecome of me? That's what I want to know. I've been in trouble before,\nbut never in any like this. And who got me into it? You!\"\n\nHere was gratitude!\n\n\"You've got to go on writing 'em, now.\" His voice became desperately\npleading. \"Say, Hugh, old man, you can temper 'em down--temper 'em\ndown gradually. And by the end of the year, let's say, they'll be about\nnormal again.\"\n\nHe seemed actually shivering.\n\n\"The end of the year!\" I cried, the predicament striking me for the\nfirst time in its fulness. \"Say, you've got a crust!\"\n\n\"You'll do it, if I have to hold a gun over you,\" he announced grimly.\n\nMingled with my anxiety, which was real, was an exultation that\nwould not down. Nevertheless, the idea of developing Tom into a\nShakespeare,--Tom, who had not the slightest desire to be one I was\nappalling, besides having in it an element of useless self-sacrifice\nfrom which I recoiled. On the other hand, if Alonzo should discover that\nI had written his theme, there were penalties I did not care to dwell\nupon.... With such a cloud hanging over me I passed a restless night.\n\nAs luck would have it the very next evening in the level light under the\nelms of the Square I beheld sauntering towards me a dapper figure which\nI recognized as that of Mr. Cheyne himself. As I saluted him he gave me\nan amused and most disconcerting glance; and when I was congratulating\nmyself that he had passed me he stopped.\n\n\"Fine weather for March, Paret,\" he observed.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I agreed in a strange voice.\n\n\"By the way,\" he remarked, contemplating the bare branches above our\nheads, \"that was an excellent theme your roommate handed in. I had no\nidea that he possessed such--such genius. Did you, by any chance, happen\nto read it?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,--I read it.\"\n\n\"Weren't you surprised?\" inquired Mr. Cheyne.\n\n\"Well, yes, sir--that is--I mean to say he talks just like that,\nsometimes--that is, when it's anything he cares about.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\" said Mr. Cheyne. \"That's interesting, most interesting. In\nall my experience, I do not remember a case in which a gift has been\ndeveloped so rapidly. I don't want to give the impression--ah that there\nis no room for improvement, but the thing was very well done, for\nan undergraduate. I must confess I never should have suspected it in\nPeters, and it's most interesting what you say about his cleverness\nin conversation.\" He twirled the head of his stick, apparently lost in\nreflection. \"I may be wrong,\" he went on presently, \"I have an idea\nit is you--\" I must literally have jumped away from him. He paused a\nmoment, without apparently noticing my panic, \"that it is you who have\ninfluenced Peters.\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"I am wrong, then. Or is this merely commendable modesty on your part?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, sir.\"\n\n\"Then my hypothesis falls to the ground. I had greatly hoped,\" he added\nmeaningly, \"that you might be able to throw some light on this mystery.\"\n\nI was dumb.\n\n\"Paret,\" he asked, \"have you time to come over to my rooms for a few\nminutes this evening?\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir.\"\n\nHe gave me his number in Brattle Street....\n\nLike one running in a nightmare and making no progress I made my way\nhome, only to learn from Hallam,--who lived on the same floor,--that\nTom had inconsiderately gone to Boston for the evening, with four other\nweary spirits in search of relaxation! Avoiding our club table, I took\nwhat little nourishment I could at a modest restaurant, and restlessly\npaced the moonlit streets until eight o'clock, when I found myself\nin front of one of those low-gabled colonial houses which, on less\nsoul-shaking occasions, had exercised a great charm on my imagination.\nMy hand hung for an instant over the bell.... I must have rung it\nviolently, for there appeared almost immediately an old lady in a lace\ncap, who greeted me with gentle courtesy, and knocked at a little door\nwith glistening panels. The latch was lifted by Mr. Cheyne himself.\n\n\"Come in, Paret,\" he said, in a tone that was unexpectedly hospitable.\n\nI have rarely seen a more inviting room. A wood fire burned brightly\non the brass andirons, flinging its glare on the big, white beam that\ncrossed the ceiling, and reddening the square panes of the windows in\ntheir panelled recesses. Between these were rows of books,--attractive\nbooks in chased bindings, red and blue; books that appealed to be taken\ndown and read. There was a table covered with reviews and magazines in\nneat piles, and a lamp so shaded as to throw its light only on the white\nblotter of the pad. Two easy chairs, covered with flowered chintz, were\nranged before the fire, in one of which I sank, much bewildered, upon\nbeing urged to do so.\n\nI utterly failed to recognize \"Alonzo\" in this new atmosphere. And\nhe had, moreover, dropped the subtly sarcastic manner I was wont to\nassociate with him.\n\n\"Jolly old house, isn't it?\" he observed, as though I had casually\ndropped in on him for a chat; and he stood, with his hands behind him\nstretched to the blaze, looking down at me. \"It was built by a certain\nColonel Draper, who fought at Louisburg, and afterwards fled to England\nat the time of the Revolution. He couldn't stand the patriots, I'm not\nso sure that I blame him, either. Are you interested in colonial things,\nMr. Paret?\"\n\nI said I was. If the question had concerned Aztec relics my answer would\nundoubtedly have been the same. And I watched him, dazedly, while he\ntook down a silver porringer from the shallow mantel shelf.\n\n\"It's not a Revere,\" he said, in a slightly apologetic tone as though to\nforestall a comment, \"but it's rather good, I think. I picked it up at\na sale in Dorchester. But I have never been able to identify the coat of\narms.\"\n\nHe showed me a ladle, with the names of \"Patience and William Simpson\"\nengraved quaintly thereon, and took down other articles in which I\nmanaged to feign an interest. Finally he seated himself in the chair\nopposite, crossed his feet, putting the tips of his fingers together and\ngazing into the fire.\n\n\"So you thought you could fool me,\" he said, at length.\n\nI became aware of the ticking of a great clock in the corner. My mouth\nwas dry.\n\n\"I am going to forgive you,\" he went on, more gravely, \"for several\nreasons. I don't flatter, as you know. It's because you carried out the\nthing so perfectly that I am led to think you have a gift that may be\ncultivated, Paret. You wrote that theme in the way Peters would\nhave written it if he had not been--what shall I say?--scripturally\ninarticulate. And I trust it may do you some good if I say it was\nsomething of a literary achievement, if not a moral one.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" I faltered.\n\n\"Have you ever,\" he inquired, lapsing a little into his lecture-room\nmanner, \"seriously thought of literature as a career? Have you ever\nthought of any career seriously?\"\n\n\"I once wished to be a writer, sir,\" I replied tremulously, but\nrefrained from telling him of my father's opinion of the profession.\nAmbition--a purer ambition than I had known for years--leaped within me\nat his words. He, Alonzo Cheyne, had detected in me the Promethean fire!\n\nI sat there until ten o'clock talking to the real Mr. Cheyne, a human\nMr. Cheyne unknown in the lecture-room. Nor had I suspected one in\nwhom cynicism and distrust of undergraduates (of my sort) seemed so\ningrained, of such idealism. He did not pour it out in preaching;\ndelicately, unobtrusively and on the whole rather humorously he managed\nto present to me in a most disillusionizing light that conception of the\nuniversity held by me and my intimate associates. After I had left him\nI walked the quiet streets to behold as through dissolving mists another\nHarvard, and there trembled in my soul like the birth-struggle of a\nflame something of the vision later to be immortalized by St. Gaudens,\nthe spirit of Harvard responding to the spirit of the Republic--to the\ncall of Lincoln, who voiced it. The place of that bronze at the corner\nof Boston Common was as yet empty, but I have since stood before it to\ngaze in wonder at the light shining in darkness on mute, uplifted faces,\nblack faces! at Harvard's son leading them on that the light might live\nand prevail.\n\nI, too, longed for a Cause into which I might fling myself, in which\nI might lose myself... I halted on the sidewalk to find myself staring\nfrom the opposite side of the street at a familiar house, my old\nlandlady's, Mrs. Bolton's, and summoned up before me was the tired,\nsmiling face of Hermann Krebs. Was it because when he had once spoken so\ncrudely of the University I had seen the reflection of her spirit in his\neyes? A light still burned in the extension roof--Krebs's light; another\nshone dimly through the ground glass of the front door. Obeying a sudden\nimpulse, I crossed the street.\n\nMrs. Bolton, in the sky-blue wrapper, and looking more forbidding\nthan ever, answered the bell. Life had taught her to be indifferent to\nsurprises, and it was I who became abruptly embarrassed.\n\n\"Oh, it's you, Mr. Paret,\" she said, as though I had been a frequent\ncaller. I had never once darkened her threshold since I had left her\nhouse.\n\n\"Yes,\" I answered, and hesitated.... \"Is Mr. Krebs in?\"\n\n\"Well,\" she replied in a lifeless tone, which nevertheless had in it a\ntouch of bitterness, \"I guess there's no reason why you and your friends\nshould have known he was sick.\"\n\n\"Sick!\" I repeated. \"Is he very sick?\"\n\n\"I calculate he'll pull through,\" she said. \"Sunday the doctor gave him\nup. And no wonder! He hasn't had any proper food since he's be'n here!\"\nShe paused, eyeing me. \"If you'll excuse me, Mr. Paret, I was just going\nup to him when you rang.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" I replied awkwardly. \"Would you be so kind as to tell\nhim--when he's well enough--that I came to see him, and that I'm sorry?\"\n\nThere was another pause, and she stood with a hand defensively clutching\nthe knob.\n\n\"Yes, I'll tell him,\" she said.\n\nWith a sense of having been baffled, I turned away.\n\nWalking back toward the Yard my attention was attracted by a slowly\napproaching cab whose occupants were disturbing the quiet of the night\nwith song.\n\n\"Shollity--'tis wine, 'tis wine, that makesh--shollity.\"\n\nThe vehicle drew up in front of a new and commodious building,--I\nbelieve the first of those designed to house undergraduates who were\nwilling to pay for private bathrooms and other modern luxuries; out\nof one window of the cab protruded a pair of shoeless feet, out of the\nother a hatless head I recognized as belonging to Tom Peters; hence I\nsurmised that the feet were his also. The driver got down from the\nbox, and a lively argument was begun inside--for there were other\noccupants--as to how Mr. Peters was to be disembarked; and I gathered\nfrom his frequent references to the \"Shgyptian obelisk\" that the\nengineering problem presented struck him as similar to the unloading of\nCleopatra's Needle.\n\n\"Careful, careful!\" he cautioned, as certain expelling movements began\nfrom within, \"Easy, Ham, you jam-fool, keep the door shut, y'll break\nme.\"\n\n\"Now, Jerry, all heave sh'gether!\" exclaimed a voice from the blackness\nof the interior.\n\n\"Will ye wait a minute, Mr. Durrett, sir?\" implored the cabdriver.\n\"You'll be after ruining me cab entirely.\" (Loud roars and vigorous\nresistance from the obelisk, the cab rocking violently.) \"This\ngintleman\" (meaning me) \"will have him by the head, and I'll get hold of\nhis feet, sir.\" Which he did, after a severe kick in the stomach.\n\n\"Head'sh all right, Martin.\"\n\n\"To be sure it is, Mr. Peters. Now will ye rest aisy awhile, sir?\"\n\n\"I'm axphyxiated,\" cried another voice from the darkness, the mined\nvoice of Jerome Kyme, our classmate.\n\n\"Get the tackles under him!\" came forth in commanding tones from\nConybear.\n\nIn the meantime many windows had been raised and much gratuitous\nadvice was being given. The three occupants of the cab's seat who\nhad previously clamoured for Mr. Peters' removal, now inconsistently\nresisted it; suddenly he came out with a jerk, and we had him fairly\nupright on the pavement minus a collar and tie and the buttons of his\nevening waistcoat. Those who remained in the cab engaged in a riotous\ngame of hunt the slipper, while Tom peered into the dark interior,\nobserving gravely the progress of the sport. First flew out an overcoat\nand a much-battered hat, finally the pumps, all of which in due time\nwere adjusted to his person, and I started home with him, with much\nparting counsel from the other three.\n\n\"Whereinell were you, Hughie?\" he inquired. \"Hunted all over for you.\nHad a sousin' good time. Went to Babcock's--had champagne--then to see\nBabesh in--th'--Woods. Ham knows one of the Babesh had supper with four\nof 'em. Nice Babesh!\"\n\n\"For heaven's sake don't step on me again!\" I cried.\n\n\"Sh'poloshize, old man. But y'know I'm William Shakespheare. C'n do\nwhat I damplease.\" He halted in the middle of the street and recited\ndramatically:--\n\n    \"'Not marble, nor th' gilded monuments\n     Of prinches sh'll outlive m' powerful rhyme.'\"\n\n\"How's that, Alonzho, b'gosh?\"\n\n\"Where did you learn it?\" I demanded, momentarily forgetting his\ncondition.\n\n\"Fr'm Ralph,\" he replied, \"says I wrote it. Can't remember....\"\n\nAfter I had got him to bed,--a service I had learned to perform with\nmore or less proficiency,--I sat down to consider the events of the\nevening, to attempt to get a proportional view. The intensity of my\ndisgust was not hypocritical as I gazed through the open door into the\nbedroom and recalled the times when I, too, had been in that condition.\nTom Peters drunk, and sleeping it off, was deplorable, without doubt;\nbut Hugh Paret drunk was detestable, and had no excuse whatever. Nor\ndid I mean by this to set myself on a higher ethical plane, for I\nfelt nothing but despair and humility. In my state of clairvoyance\nI perceived that he was a better man, than I, and that his lapses\nproceeded from a love of liquor and the transcendent sense of\ngood-fellowship that liquor brings.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nThe crisis through which I passed at Cambridge, inaugurated by the\nevents I have just related, I find very difficult to portray. It was a\nreligious crisis, of course, and my most pathetic memory concerning it\nis of the vain attempts to connect my yearnings and discontents with\nthe theology I had been taught; I began in secret to read my Bible, yet\nnothing I hit upon seemed to point a way out of my present predicament,\nto give any definite clew to the solution of my life. I was not mature\nenough to reflect that orthodoxy was a Sunday religion unrelated to a\nworld whose wheels were turned by the motives of self-interest; that it\nconsisted of ideals not deemed practical, since no attempt was made\nto put them into practice in the only logical manner,--by reorganizing\ncivilization to conform with them. The implication was that the\nChrist who had preached these ideals was not practical.... There were\nundoubtedly men in the faculty of the University who might have helped\nme had I known of them; who might have given me, even at that time,\na clew to the modern, logical explanation of the Bible as an immortal\nrecord of the thoughts and acts of men who had sought to do just what\nI was seeking to do,--connect the religious impulse to life and make\nit fruitful in life: an explanation, by the way, a thousand-fold more\nspiritual than the old. But I was hopelessly entangled in the meshes\nof the mystic, the miraculous and supernatural. If I had analyzed my\nyearnings, I might have realized that I wanted to renounce the life I\nhad been leading, not because it was sinful, but because it was aimless.\nI had not learned that the Greek word for sin is \"a missing of the\nmark.\" Just aimlessness! I had been stirred with the desire to perform\nsome service for which the world would be grateful: to write great\nliterature, perchance. But it had never been suggested to me that such\nswellings of the soul are religious, that religion is that kind of\nfeeling, of motive power that drives the writer and the scientist, the\nstatesman and the sculptor as well as the priest and the Prophet to\nserve mankind for the joy of serving: that religion is creative, or\nit is nothing: not mechanical, not a force imposed from without, but a\ndriving power within. The \"religion\" I had learned was salvation from\nsin by miracle: sin a deliberate rebellion, not a pathetic missing of\nthe mark of life; useful service of man, not the wandering of untutored\nsouls who had not been shown the way. I felt religious. I wanted to go\nto church, I wanted to maintain, when it was on me, that exaltation I\ndimly felt as communion with a higher power, with God, and which also\nwas identical with my desire to write, to create....\n\nI bought books, sets of Wordsworth and Keats, of Milton and Shelley\nand Shakespeare, and hid them away in my bureau drawers lest Tom and my\nfriends should see them. These too I read secretly, making excuses for\nnot joining in the usual amusements. Once I walked to Mrs. Bolton's and\ninquired rather shamefacedly for Hermann Krebs, only to be informed that\nhe had gone out.... There were lapses, of course, when I went off on\nthe old excursions,--for the most part the usual undergraduate follies,\nthough some were of a more serious nature; on these I do not care to\ndwell. Sex was still a mystery.... Always I awoke afterwards to bitter\nself-hatred and despair.... But my work in English improved, and I\nearned the commendation and friendship of Mr. Cheyne. With a wisdom\nfor which I was grateful he was careful not to give much sign of it\nin classes, but the fact that he was \"getting soft on me\" was evident\nenough to be regarded with suspicion. Indeed the state into which I had\nfallen became a matter of increasing concern to my companions, who tried\nevery means from ridicule to sympathy, to discover its cause and shake\nme out of it. The theory most accepted was that I was in love.\n\n\"Come on now, Hughie--tell me who she is. I won't give you away,\" Tom\nwould beg. Once or twice, indeed, I had imagined I was in love with the\nsisters of Boston classmates whose dances I attended; to these parties\nTom, not having overcome his diffidence in respect to what he called\n\"social life,\" never could be induced to go.\n\nIt was Ralph who detected the true cause of my discontent. Typical as no\nother man I can recall of the code to which we had dedicated ourselves,\nthe code that moulded the important part of the undergraduate world\nand defied authority, he regarded any defection from it in the light of\ntreason. An instructor, in a fit of impatience, had once referred to\nhim as the Mephistopheles of his class; he had fatal attractions, and a\nremarkable influence. His favourite pastime was the capricious exercise\nof his will on weaker characters, such as his cousin, Ham Durrett; if\nthey \"swore off,\" Ralph made it his business to get them drunk again,\nand having accomplished this would proceed himself to administer a new\noath and see that it was kept. Alcohol seemed to have no effect whatever\non him. Though he was in the class above me, I met him frequently at a\nclub to which I had the honour to belong, then a suite of rooms over a\nshop furnished with a pool and a billiard table, easy-chairs and a bar.\nIt has since achieved the dignity of a house of its own.\n\nWe were having, one evening, a \"religious\" argument, Cinibar, Laurens\nand myself and some others. I can't recall how it began; I think\nCinibar had attacked the institution of compulsory chapel, which nobody\ndefended; there was something inherently wrong, he maintained, with a\nreligion to which men had to be driven against their wills. Somewhat to\nmy surprise I found myself defending a Christianity out of which I had\nbeen able to extract but little comfort and solace. Neither Laurens\nnor Conybear, however, were for annihilating it: although they took\nthe other side of the discussion of a subject of which none of us knew\nanything, their attacks were but half-hearted; like me, they were still\nunder the spell exerted by a youthful training.\n\nWe were all of us aware of Ralph, who sat at some distance looking over\nthe pages of an English sporting weekly. Presently he flung it down.\n\n\"Haven't you found out yet that man created God, Hughie?\" he inquired.\n\"And even if there were a personal God, what reason have you to think\nthat man would be his especial concern, or any concern of his whatever?\nThe discovery of evolution has knocked your Christianity into a cocked\nhat.\"\n\nI don't remember how I answered him. In spite of the superficiality\nof his own arguments, which I was not learned enough to detect, I was\ningloriously routed. Darwin had kicked over the bucket, and that was all\nthere was to it.... After we had left the club both Conybear and Laurens\nadmitted they were somewhat disturbed, declaring that Ralph had gone too\nfar. I spent a miserable night, recalling the naturalistic assertions\nhe had made so glibly, asking myself again and again how it was that the\nreligion to which I so vainly clung had no greater effect on my actions\nand on my will, had not prevented me from lapses into degradation. And\nI hated myself for having argued upon a subject that was still sacred.\nI believed in Christ, which is to say that I believed that in some\ninscrutable manner he existed, continued to dominate the world and had\nsuffered on my account.\n\nTo whom should I go now for a confirmation of my wavering beliefs? One\nof the results--it will be remembered of religion as I was taught it\nwas a pernicious shyness, and even though I had found a mentor and\nconfessor, I might have hesitated to unburden myself. This would be\ndifferent from arguing with Ralph Hambleton. In my predicament, as I was\nwandering through the yard, I came across a notice of an evening talk\nto students in Holder Chapel, by a clergyman named Phillips Brooks. This\nwas before the time, let me say in passing, when his sermons at Harvard\nwere attended by crowds of undergraduates. Well, I stood staring at the\nnotice, debating whether I should go, trying to screw up my courage; for\nI recognized clearly that such a step, if it were to be of any value,\nmust mean a distinct departure from my present mode of life; and I\nrecall thinking with a certain revulsion that I should have to \"turn\ngood.\" My presence at the meeting would be known the next day to all my\nfriends, for the idea of attending a religious gathering when one was\nnot forced to do so by the authorities was unheard of in our set. I\nshould be classed with the despised \"pious ones\" who did such things\nregularly. I shrank from the ridicule. I had, however, heard of Mr.\nBrooks from Ned Symonds, who was by no means of the pious type, and\nwhose parents attended Mr. Brooks's church in Boston.... I left my\ndecision in abeyance. But when evening came I stole away from the club\ntable, on the plea of an engagement, and made my way rapidly toward\nHolder Chapel. I had almost reached it--when I caught a glimpse of\nSymonds and of some others approaching,--and I went on, to turn again.\nBy this time the meeting, which was in a room on the second floor, had\nalready begun. Palpitating, I climbed the steps; the door of the\nroom was slightly ajar; I looked in; I recall a distinct sensation of\nsurprise,--the atmosphere of that meeting was so different from what\nI had expected. Not a \"pious\" atmosphere at all! I saw a very tall\nand heavy gentleman, dressed in black, who sat, wholly at ease, on the\ntable! One hand was in his pocket, one foot swung clear of the ground;\nand he was not preaching, but talking in an easy, conversational tone to\nsome forty young men who sat intent on his words. I was too excited to\nlisten to what he was saying, I was making a vain attempt to classify\nhim. But I remember the thought, for it struck me with force,--that\nif Christianity were so thoroughly discredited by evolution, as Ralph\nHambleton and other agnostics would have one believe, why should this\nremarkably sane and able-looking person be standing up for it as though\nit were still an established and incontrovertible fact?\n\nHe had not, certainly, the air of a dupe or a sentimentalist, but\ninspired confidence by his very personality. Youthlike, I watched him\nnarrowly for flaws, for oratorical tricks, for all kinds of histrionic\nsymptoms. Again I was near the secret; again it escaped me. The argument\nfor Christianity lay not in assertions about it, but in being it. This\nman was Christianity.... I must have felt something of this, even though\nI failed to formulate it. And unconsciously I contrasted his strength,\nwhich reinforced the atmosphere of the room, with that of Ralph\nHambleton, who was, a greater influence over me than I have recorded,\nand had come to sway me more and more, as he had swayed others. The\nstrength of each was impressive, yet this Mr. Brooks seemed to me the\nbodily presentment of a set of values which I would have kept constantly\nbefore my eyes.... I felt him drawing me, overcoming my hesitation,\nbelittling my fear of ridicule. I began gently to open the door--when\nsomething happened,--one of those little things that may change the\ncourse of a life. The door made little noise, yet one of the men sitting\nin the back of the room chanced to look around, and I recognized Hermann\nKrebs. His face was still sunken from his recent illness. Into his eyes\nseemed to leap a sudden appeal, an appeal to which my soul responded yet\nI hurried down the stairs and into the street. Instantly I regretted my\nretreat, I would have gone back, but lacked the courage; and I strayed\nunhappily for hours, now haunted by that look of Krebs, now wondering\nwhat the remarkably sane-looking and informal clergyman whose presence\ndominated the little room had been talking about. I never learned, but\nI did live to read his biography, to discover what he might have talked\nabout,--for he if any man believed that life and religion are one, and\npreached consecration to life's task.\n\nOf little use to speculate whether the message, had I learned it then,\nwould have fortified and transformed me!\n\nIn spite of the fact that I was unable to relate to a satisfying\nconception of religion my new-born determination, I made up my mind, at\nleast, to renounce my tortuous ways. I had promised my father to be\na lawyer; I would keep my promise, I would give the law a fair trial;\nlater on, perhaps, I might demonstrate an ability to write. All very\npraiseworthy! The season was Lent, a fitting time for renunciations and\nresolves. Although I had more than once fallen from grace, I believed\nmyself at last to have settled down on my true course--when something\nhappened. The devil interfered subtly, as usual--now in the person of\nJerry Kyme. It should be said in justice to Jerry that he did not look\nthe part. He had sunny-red, curly hair, mischievous blue eyes with\nlong lashes, and he harboured no respect whatever for any individual or\ninstitution, sacred or profane; he possessed, however, a shrewd sense\nof his own value, as many innocent and unsuspecting souls discovered\nas early as our freshman year, and his method of putting down the\npresumptuous was both effective and unique. If he liked you, there could\nbe no mistake about it.\n\nOne evening when I was engaged in composing a theme for Mr. Cheyne on\nno less a subject than the interpretation of the work of William\nWordsworth, I found myself unexpectedly sprawling on the floor, in my\ndescent kicking the table so vigorously as to send the ink-well a foot\nor two toward the ceiling. This, be it known, was a typical proof of\nJerry's esteem. For he had entered noiselessly, jerking the back of\nmy chair, which chanced to be tilted, and stood with his hands in his\npockets, surveying the ruin he had wrought, watching the ink as it\ntrickled on the carpet. Then he picked up the book.\n\n\"Poetry, you darned old grind!\" he exclaimed disgustedly. \"Say, Parry, I\ndon't know what's got into you, but I want you to come home with me\nfor the Easter holidays. It'll do you good. We'll be on the Hudson, you\nknow, and we'll manage to make life bearable somehow.\"\n\nI forgot my irritation, in sheer surprise.\n\n\"Why, that's mighty good of you, Jerry--\" I began, struggling to my\nfeet.\n\n\"Oh, rot!\" he exclaimed. \"I shouldn't ask you if I didn't want you.\"\n\nThere was no denying the truth of this, and after he had gone I sat for\na long time with my pen in my mouth, reflecting as to whether or not\nI should go. For I had the instinct that here was another cross-roads,\nthat more depended on my decision than I cared to admit. But even then\nI knew what I should do. Ridiculous not to--I told myself. How could a\nweek or ten days with Jerry possibly affect my newborn, resolve?\n\nYet the prospect, now, of a visit to the Kymes' was by no means so\nglowing as it once would have been. For I had seen visions, I had\ndreamed dreams, beheld a delectable country of my very own. A\nyear ago--nay, even a month ago--how such an invitation would have\nglittered!... I returned at length to my theme, over which, before\nJerry's arrival, I had been working feverishly. But now the glamour had\ngone from it.\n\nPresently Tom came in.\n\n\"Anyone been here?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Jerry,\" I told him.\n\n\"What did he want?\"\n\n\"He wanted me to go home with him at Easter.\"\n\n\"You're going, of course.\"\n\n\"I don't know. I haven't decided.\"\n\n\"You'd be a fool not to,\" was Tom's comment. It voiced, succinctly, a\nprevailing opinion.\n\nIt was the conclusion I arrived at in my own mind. But just why I had\nbeen chosen for the honour, especially at such a time, was a riddle.\nJerry's invitations were charily given, and valued accordingly; and more\nthan once, at our table, I had felt a twinge of envy when Conybear or\nsomeone else had remarked, with the proper nonchalance, in answer to a\nquestion, that they were going to Weathersfield. Such was the name of\nthe Kyme place....\n\nI shall never forget the impression made on me by the decorous luxury\nof that big house, standing amidst its old trees, halfway up the gentle\nslope that rose steadily from the historic highway where poor Andre was\ncaptured. I can see now the heavy stone pillars of its portico vignetted\nin a flush of tenderest green, the tulips just beginning to flame forth\ntheir Easter colours in the well-kept beds, the stately, well-groomed\nevergreens, the vivid lawns, the clipped hedges. And like an\noverwhelming wave of emotion that swept all before it, the\nimpressiveness of wealth took possession of me. For here was a kind of\nwealth I had never known, that did not exist in the West, nor even in\nthe still Puritan environs of Boston where I had visited. It took itself\nfor granted, proclaimed itself complacently to have solved all problems.\nBy ignoring them, perhaps. But I was too young to guess this. It was\norder personified, gaining effect at every turn by a multitude of\ndetails too trivial to mention were it not for the fact that they\nentered deeply into my consciousness, until they came to represent,\ncollectively, the very flower of achievement. It was a wealth that\naccepted tribute calmly, as of inherent right. Law and tradition\ndefended its sanctity more effectively than troops. Literature descended\nfrom her high altar to lend it dignity; and the long, silent library\ndisplayed row upon row of the masters, appropriately clad in morocco or\ncalf,--Smollett, Macaulay, Gibbon, Richardson, Fielding, Scott, Dickens,\nIrving and Thackeray, as though each had striven for a tablet here. Art\nhad denied herself that her canvases might be hung on these walls; and\neven the Church, on that first Sunday of my visit, forgot the blood of\nher martyrs that she might adorn an appropriate niche in the setting.\nThe clergyman, at one of the dinner parties, gravely asked a blessing as\nupon an Institution that included and absorbed all other institutions in\nits being....\n\nThe note of that house was a tempered gaiety. Guests arrived from New\nYork, spent the night and departed again without disturbing the even\ntenor of its ways. Unobtrusive servants ministered to their wants,--and\nto mine....\n\nConybear was there, and two classmates from Boston, and we were treated\nwith the amiable tolerance accorded to college youths and intimates of\nthe son of the house. One night there was a dance in our honour. Nor\nhave I forgotten Jerry's sister, Nathalie, whom I had met at Class Days,\na slim and willowy, exotic young lady of the Botticelli type, with\na crown of burnished hair, yet more suggestive of a hothouse than of\nspring. She spoke English with a French accent. Capricious, impulsive,\nshe captured my interest because she put a high value on her favour;\nshe drove me over the hills, informing me at length that I was\nsympathique--different from the rest; in short, she emphasized and\nintensified what I may call the Weathersfield environment, stirred up in\nme new and vague aspirations that troubled yet excited me.\n\nThen there was Mrs. Kyme, a pretty, light-hearted lady, still young,\nwho seemed to have no intention of growing older, who romped and played\nsongs for us on the piano. The daughter of an old but now impecunious\nWestchester family, she had been born to adorn the position she held,\nshe was adapted by nature to wring from it the utmost of the joys it\noffered. From her, rather than from her husband, both of the children\nseemed to have inherited. I used to watch Mr. Grosvenor Kyme as he sat\nat the end of the dinner-table, dark, preoccupied, taciturn, symbolical\nof a wealth new to my experience, and which had about it a certain\nfabulous quality. It toiled not, neither did it spin, but grew as if by\nmagic, day and night, until the very conception of it was overpowering.\nWhat must it be to have had ancestors who had been clever enough to sit\nstill until a congested and discontented Europe had begun to pour its\nthousands and hundreds of thousands into the gateway of the western\nworld, until that gateway had become a metropolis? ancestors, of course,\npossessing what now suddenly appeared to me as the most desirable of\ngifts--since it reaped so dazzling a harvest-business foresight. From\ntime to time these ancestors had continued to buy desirable corners,\nwhich no amount of persuasion had availed to make them relinquish. Lease\nthem, yes; sell them, never! By virtue of such a system wealth was as\ninevitable as human necessity; and the thought of human necessity did\nnot greatly bother me. Mr. Kyme's problem of life was not one of making\nmoney, but of investing it. One became automatically a personage....\n\nIt was due to one of those singular coincidences--so interesting a\nsubject for speculation--that the man who revealed to me this golden\nromance of the Kyme family was none other than a resident of my own\ncity, Mr. Theodore Watling, now become one of our most important\nand influential citizens; a corporation lawyer, new and stimulating\nqualification, suggesting as it did, a deus ex machina of great affairs.\nThat he, of all men, should come to Weathersfield astonished me, since\nI was as yet to make the connection between that finished, decorous,\nsecluded existence and the source of its being. The evening before my\ndeparture he arrived in company with two other gentlemen, a Mr. Talbot\nand a Mr. Saxes, whose names were spoken with respect in a sphere of\nwhich I had hitherto taken but little cognizance-Wall Street. Conybear\ninformed me that they were \"magnates,\"... We were sitting in the\ndrawing-room at tea, when they entered with Mr. Watling, and no sooner\nhad he spoken to Mrs. Kyme than his quick eye singled me out of the\ngroup.\n\n\"Why, Hugh!\" he exclaimed, taking my hand. \"I had no idea I should meet\nyou here--I saw your father only last week, the day I left home.\" And he\nadded, turning to Mrs. Kyme, \"Hugh is the son of Mr. Matthew Paret, who\nhas been the leader of our bar for many years.\"\n\nThe recognition and the tribute to my father were so graciously given\nthat I warmed with gratitude and pride, while Mr. Kyme smiled a little,\nremarking that I was a friend of Jerry's. Theodore Watling, for being\nhere, had suddenly assumed in my eyes a considerable consequence, though\nthe note he struck in that house was a strange one. It was, however, his\nown note, and had a certain distinction, a ring of independence, of\nthe knowledge of self-worth. Dinner at Weathersfield we youngsters had\nusually found rather an oppressive ceremony, with its shaded lights\nand precise ritual over which Mr. Kyme presided like a high priest;\nconversation had been restrained. That night, as Johnnie Laurens\nafterwards expressed it, \"things loosened up,\" and Mr. Watling was\nresponsible for the loosening. Taking command of the Kyme dinner table\nappeared to me to be no mean achievement, but this is just what he did,\nwithout being vulgar or noisy or assertive. Suavitar in modo, forbiter\nin re. If, as I watched him there with a newborn pride and loyalty, I\nhad paused to reconstruct the idea that the mention of his name would\nformerly have evoked, I suppose I should have found him falling short\nof my notion of a gentleman; it had been my father's opinion; but Mr.\nWatling's marriage to Gene Hollister's aunt had given him a standing\nwith us at home. He possessed virility, vitality in a remarkable degree,\nyet some elusive quality that was neither tact nor delicacy--though\nrelated to these differentiated him from the commonplace, self-made man\nof ability. He was just off the type. To liken him to a clothing\nstore model of a well-built, broad-shouldered man with a firm neck, a\nhandsome, rather square face not lacking in colour and a conventional,\ndrooping moustache would be slanderous; yet he did suggest it.\nSuggesting it, he redeemed it: and the middle western burr in his voice\nwas rather attractive than otherwise. He had not so much the air of\nbelonging there, as of belonging anywhere--one of those anomalistic\nAmerican citizens of the world who go abroad and make intimates of\nprinces. Before the meal was over he had inspired me with loyalty\nand pride, enlisted the admiration of Jerry and Conybear and Johnnie\nLaurens; we followed him into the smoking-room, sitting down in a row on\na leather lounge behind our elders.\n\nHere, now that the gentlemen were alone, there was an inspiring\nlargeness in their talk that fired the imagination. The subject was\ninvestments, at first those of coal and iron in my own state, for Mr.\nWatling, it appeared, was counsel for the Boyne Iron Works.\n\n\"It will pay you to keep an eye on that company, Mr. Kyme,\" he said,\nknocking the ashes from his cigar. \"Now that old Mr. Durrett's gone--\"\n\n\"You don't mean to say Nathaniel Durrett's dead!\" said Mr. Kyme.\n\nThe lawyer nodded.\n\n\"The old regime passed with him. Adolf Scherer succeeds him, and you may\ntake my word for it, he's a coming man. Mr. Durrett, who was a judge of\nmen, recognized that. Scherer was an emigrant, he had ideas, and rose to\nbe a foreman. For the last few years Mr. Durrett threw everything on his\nshoulders....\"\n\nLittle by little the scope of the discussion was enlarged until it\nranged over a continent, touching lightly upon lines of railroad, built\nor projected, across the great west our pioneers had so lately succeeded\nin wresting from the savages, upon mines of copper and gold hidden away\namong the mountains, and millions of acres of forest and grazing\nlands which a complacent government would relinquish provided certain\ntechnicalities were met: touching lightly, too, very lightly,--upon\nsenators and congressmen at Washington. And for the first time I learned\nthat not the least of the functions of these representatives of the\npeople was to act as the medium between capital and investment, to\nfacilitate the handing over of the Republic's resources to those in\na position to develop them. The emphasis was laid on development,\nor rather on the resulting prosperity for the country: that was the\njustification, and it was taken for granted as supreme. Nor was it new\nto me; this cult of prosperity. I recalled the torch-light processions\nof the tariff enthusiasts of my childhood days, my father's championship\nof the Republican Party. He had not idealized politicians, either. For\nthe American, politics and ethics were strangers.\n\nThus I listened with increasing fascination to these gentlemen in\nevening clothes calmly treating the United States as a melon patch that\nexisted largely for the purpose of being divided up amongst a limited\nand favored number of persons. I had a feeling of being among the\ninitiated. Where, it may be asked, were my ideals? Let it not be\nsupposed that I believed myself to have lost them. If so, the impression\nI have given of myself has been wholly inadequate. No, they had been\ntransmuted, that is all, transmuted by the alchemy of Weathersfield,\nby the personality of Theodore Watling into brighter visions. My eyes\nrarely left his face; I hung on his talk, which was interspersed with\nnative humour, though he did not always join in the laughter, sometimes\ngazing at the fire, as though his keen mind were grappling with a\nproblem suggested. I noted the respect in which his opinions were\nheld, and my imagination was fired by an impression of the power to be\nachieved by successful men of his profession, by the evidence of their\nindispensability to capital itself.... At last when the gentlemen rose\nand were leaving the room, Mr. Watling lingered, with his hand on my\narm.\n\n\"Of course you're going through the Law School, Hugh,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I replied.\n\n\"Good!\" he exclaimed emphatically. \"The law, to-day, is more of a\ncareer than ever, especially for a young man with your antecedents and\nadvantages, and I know of no city in the United States where I would\nrather start practice, if I were a young man, than ours. In the next\ntwenty years we shall see a tremendous growth. Of course you'll be going\ninto your father's office. You couldn't do better. But I'll keep an eye\non you, and perhaps I'll be able to help you a little, too.\"\n\nI thanked him gratefully.\n\nA famous artist, who started out in youth to embrace a military career\nand who failed to pass an examination at West Point, is said to have\nremarked that if silicon had been a gas he would have been a soldier.\nI am afraid I may have given the impression that if I had not gone\nto Weathersfield and encountered Mr. Watling I might not have been a\nlawyer. This impression would be misleading. And while it is certain\nthat I have not exaggerated the intensity of the spiritual experience\nI went through at Cambridge, a somewhat belated consideration for the\ntruth compels me to register my belief that the mood would in any case\nhave been ephemeral. The poison generated by the struggle of my nature\nwith its environment had sunk too deep, and the very education that\nwas supposed to make a practical man of me had turned me into a\nsentimentalist. I became, as will be seen, anything but a practical man\nin the true sense, though the world in which I had been brought up and\ncontinued to live deemed me such. My father was greatly pleased when\nI wrote him that I was now more than ever convinced of the wisdom of\nchoosing the law as my profession, and was satisfied that I had come\nto my senses at last. He had still been prepared to see me \"go off at a\ntangent,\" as he expressed it. On the other hand, the powerful effect\nof the appeal made by Weathersfield and Mr. Watling must not be\nunderestimated. Here in one object lesson was emphasized a host of\nsuggestions each of which had made its impression. And when I returned\nto Cambridge Alonzo Cheyne knew that he had lost me....\n\nI pass over the rest of my college course, and the years I spent at the\nHarvard Law School, where were instilled into me without difficulty the\ndictums that the law was the most important of all professions, that\nthose who entered it were a priestly class set aside to guard from\nprofanation that Ark of the Covenant, the Constitution of the United\nStates. In short, I was taught law precisely as I had been taught\nreligion,--scriptural infallibility over again,--a static law and a\nstatic theology,--a set of concepts that were supposed to be equal to\nany problems civilization would have to meet until the millennium.\nWhat we are wont to call wisdom is often naively innocent of impending\nchange. It has no barometric properties.\n\nI shall content myself with relating one incident only of this period.\nIn the January of my last year I went with a party of young men and\ngirls to stay over Sunday at Beverly Farms, where Mrs. Fremantle--a\nyoung Boston matron had opened her cottage for the occasion. This\n\"cottage,\" a roomy, gabled structure, stood on a cliff, at the foot of\nwhich roared the wintry Atlantic, while we danced and popped corn before\nthe open fires. During the daylight hours we drove about the country in\nsleighs, or made ridiculous attempts to walk on snow-shoes.\n\nOn Sunday afternoon, left temporarily to my own devices, I wandered\nalong the cliff, crossing into the adjoining property. The wind had\nfallen; the waves, much subdued, broke rhythmically against the rocks;\nduring the night a new mantle of snow had been spread, and the\nclouds were still low and menacing. As I strolled I became aware of a\nmotionless figure ahead of me,--one that seemed oddly familiar; the set\nof the shabby overcoat on the stooping shoulders, the unconscious pose\ncontributed to a certain sharpness of individuality; in the act of\nchallenging my memory, I halted. The man was gazing at the seascape,\nand his very absorption gave me a sudden and unfamiliar thrill. The word\nabsorption precisely expresses my meaning, for he seemed indeed to have\nbecome a part of his surroundings,--an harmonious part. Presently\nhe swung about and looked at me as though he had expected to find me\nthere--and greeted me by name.\n\n\"Krebs!\" I exclaimed.\n\nHe smiled, and flung out his arm, indicating the scene. His eyes at that\nmoment seemed to reflect the sea,--they made the gaunt face suddenly\nbeautiful.\n\n\"This reminds me of a Japanese print,\" he said.\n\nThe words, or the tone in which he spoke, curiously transformed the\npicture. It was as if I now beheld it, anew, through his vision: the\ngrey water stretching eastward to melt into the grey sky, the massed,\nblack trees on the hillside, powdered with white, the snow in rounded,\nfantastic patches on the huge boulders at the foot of the cliff. Krebs\ndid not seem like a stranger, but like one whom I had known always,--one\nwho stood in a peculiar relationship between me and something greater I\ncould not define. The impression was fleeting, but real.... I remember\nwondering how he could have known anything about Japanese prints.\n\n\"I didn't think you were still in this part of the country,\" I remarked\nawkwardly.\n\n\"I'm a reporter on a Boston newspaper, and I've been sent up here to\ninterview old Mr. Dome, who lives in that house,\" and he pointed to a\nroof above the trees. \"There is a rumour, which I hope to verify, that\nhe has just given a hundred thousand dollars to the University.\"\n\n\"And--won't he see you?\"\n\n\"At present he's taking a nap,\" said Krebs. \"He comes here occasionally\nfor a rest.\"\n\n\"Do you like interviewing?\" I asked.\n\nHe smiled again.\n\n\"Well, I see a good many different kinds of people, and that's\ninteresting.\"\n\n\"But--being a reporter?\" I persisted.\n\nThis continued patronage was not a conscious expression of superiority\non my part, but he did not seem to resent it. He had aroused my\ncuriosity.\n\n\"I'm going into the law,\" he said.\n\nThe quiet confidence with which he spoke aroused, suddenly, a twinge\nof antagonism. He had every right to go into the law, of course,\nand yet!... my query would have made it evident to me, had I been\nintrospective in those days, that the germ of the ideal of the\nprofession, implanted by Mr. Watling, was expanding. Were not\ninfluential friends necessary for the proper kind of career? and where\nwere Krebs's? In spite of the history of Daniel Webster and a long\nline of American tradition, I felt an incongruity in my classmate's\naspiration. And as he stood there, gaunt and undoubtedly hungry, his\neyes kindling, I must vaguely have classed him with the revolutionaries\nof all the ages; must have felt in him, instinctively, a menace to the\nstability of that Order with which I had thrown my fortunes. And yet\nthere were comparatively poor men in the Law School itself who had not\nmade me feel this way! He had impressed me against my will, taken me by\nsurprise, commiseration had been mingled with other feelings that sprang\nout of the memory of the night I had called on him, when he had been\nsick. Now I resented something in him which Tom Peters had called\n\"crust.\"\n\n\"The law!\" I repeated. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"even when I was a boy, working at odd jobs, I used to\nthink if I could ever be a lawyer I should have reached the top notch of\nhuman dignity.\"\n\nOnce more his smile disarmed me.\n\n\"And now\" I asked curiously.\n\n\"You see, it was an ideal with me, I suppose. My father was responsible\nfor that. He had the German temperament of '48, and when he fled to this\ncountry, he expected to find Utopia.\" The smile emerged again, like\nthe sun shining through clouds, while fascination and antagonism again\nstruggled within me. \"And then came frightful troubles. For years he\ncould get only enough work to keep him and my mother alive, but he never\nlost his faith in America. 'It is man,' he would say, 'man has to grow\nup to it--to liberty.' Without the struggle, liberty would be worth\nnothing. And he used to tell me that we must all do our part, we who had\ncome here, and not expect everything to be done for us. He had made that\nmistake. If things were bad, why, put a shoulder to the wheel and help\nto make them better.\n\n\"That helped me,\" he continued, after a moment's pause. \"For I've seen\na good many things, especially since I've been working for a newspaper.\nI've seen, again and again, the power of the law turned against those\nwhom it was intended to protect, I've seen lawyers who care a great\ndeal more about winning cases than they do about justice, who prostitute\ntheir profession to profit making,--profit making for themselves and\nothers. And they are often the respectable lawyers, too, men of high\nstanding, whom you would not think would do such things. They are on the\nside of the powerful, and the best of them are all retained by rich\nmen and corporations. And what is the result? One of the worst evils, I\nthink, that can befall a country. The poor man goes less and less to the\ncourts. He is getting bitter, which is bad, which is dangerous. But men\nwon't see it.\"\n\nIt was on my tongue to refute this, to say that everybody had a chance.\nI could indeed recall many arguments that had been drilled into me;\nquotations, even, from court decisions. But something prevented me from\ndoing this,--something in his manner, which was neither argumentative\nnor combative.\n\n\"That's why I am going into the law,\" he added. \"And I intend to stay\nin it if I can keep alive. It's a great chance for me--for all of us.\nAren't you at the Law School?\"\n\nI nodded. Once more, as his earnest glance fell upon me, came that\nsuggestion of a subtle, inexplicable link between us; but before I could\nreply, steps were heard behind us, and an elderly servant, bareheaded,\nwas seen coming down the path.\n\n\"Are you the reporter?\" he demanded somewhat impatiently of Krebs. \"If\nyou want to see Mr. Dome, you'd better come right away. He's going out\nfor a drive.\"\n\nFor a while, after he had shaken my hand and departed, I stood in the\nsnow, looking after him....\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nOn the Wednesday of that same week the news of my father's sudden and\nserious illness came to me in a telegram, and by the time I arrived at\nhome it was too late to see him again alive. It was my first experience\nwith death, and what perplexed me continually during the following days\nwas an inability to feel the loss more deeply. When a child, I had been\neasily shaken by the spectacle of sorrow. Had I, during recent years, as\na result of a discovery that emotions arising from human relationships\nlead to discomfort and suffering, deliberately been forming a shell,\nuntil now I was incapable of natural feelings? Of late I had seemed\ncloser to my father, and his letters, though formal, had given evidence\nof his affection; in his repressed fashion he had made it clear that he\nlooked forward to the time when I was to practise with him. Why was it\nthen, as I gazed upon his fine features in death, that I experienced\nno intensity of sorrow? What was it in me that would not break down? He\nseemed worn and tired, yet I had never thought of him as weary, never\nattributed to him any yearning. And now he was released.\n\nI wondered what had been his private thoughts about himself, his\nprivate opinions about life; and when I reflect now upon my lack of\nreal knowledge at five and twenty, I am amazed at the futility of an\nexpensive education which had failed to impress upon me the simple,\nbasic fact that life was struggle; that either development or\nretrogression is the fate of all men, that characters are never\ncompletely made, but always in the making. I had merely a disconcerting\nglimpse of this truth, with no powers of formulation, as I sat beside my\nmother in the bedroom, where every article evoked some childhood scene.\nHere was the dent in the walnut foot-board of the bed made, one wintry\nday, by the impact of my box of blocks; the big arm-chair, covered\nwith I know not what stiff embroidery, which had served on countless\noccasions as a chariot driven to victory. I even remembered how every\nWednesday morning I had been banished from the room, which had been so\nlarge a part of my childhood universe, when Ella, the housemaid, had\nflung open all its windows and crowded its furniture into the hall.\n\nThe thought of my wanderings since then became poignant, almost\nterrifying. The room, with all its memories, was unchanged. How safe I\nhad been within its walls! Why could I not have been, content with what\nit represented? of tradition, of custom,--of religion? And what was it\nwithin me that had lured me away from these?\n\nI was miserable, indeed, but my misery was not of the kind I thought it\nought to be. At moments, when my mother relapsed into weeping, I glanced\nat her almost in wonder. Such sorrow as hers was incomprehensible. Once\nshe surprised and discomfited me by lifting her head and gazing fixedly\nat me through her tears.\n\nI recall certain impressions of the funeral. There, among the\npall-bearers, was my Cousin Robert Breck, tears in the furrows of his\ncheeks. Had he loved my father more than I? The sight of his grief moved\nme suddenly and strongly.... It seemed an age since I had worked in\nhis store, and yet here he was still, coming to town every morning and\nreturning every evening to Claremore, loving his friends, and mourning\nthem one by one. Was this, the spectacle presented by my Cousin Robert,\nthe reward of earthly existence? Were there no other prizes save those\nknown as greatness of character and depth of human affections? Cousin\nRobert looked worn and old. The other pall-bearers, men of weight, of\nlong standing in the community, were aged, too; Mr. Blackwood, and Mr.\nJules Hollister; and out of place, somehow, in this new church building.\nIt came to me abruptly that the old order was gone,--had slipped away\nduring my absence. The church I had known in boyhood had been torn down\nto make room for a business building on Boyne Street; the edifice in\nwhich I sat was expensive, gave forth no distinctive note; seemingly\ntransitory with its hybrid interior, its shiny oak and blue and red\norgan-pipes, betokening a compromised and weakened faith. Nondescript,\nlikewise, seemed the new minister, Mr. Randlett, as he prayed unctuously\nin front of the flowers massed on the platform. I vaguely resented his\nlaudatory references to my father.\n\nThe old church, with its severity, had actually stood for something. It\nwas the Westminster Catechism in wood and stone, and Dr. Pound had been\nthe human incarnation of that catechism, the fit representative of a\nwrathful God, a militant shepherd who had guarded with vigilance his\nrespectable flock, who had protested vehemently against the sins of the\nworld by which they were surrounded, against the \"dogs, and sorcerers,\nand whoremongers, and murderers and idolaters, and whosoever loveth\nand maketh a lie.\" How Dr. Pound would have put the emphasis of the\nEverlasting into those words!\n\nAgainst what was Mr. Randlett protesting?\n\nMy glance wandered to the pews which held the committees from various\norganizations, such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Bar Association,\nwhich had come to do honour to my father. And there, differentiated from\nthe others, I saw the spruce, alert figure of Theodore Watling. He, too,\nrepresented a new type and a new note,--this time a forceful note,\na secular note that had not belonged to the old church, and seemed\nlikewise anomalistic in the new....\n\nDuring the long, slow journey in the carriage to the cemetery my mother\ndid not raise her veil. It was not until she reached out and seized\nmy hand, convulsively, that I realized she was still a part of my\nexistence.\n\nIn the days that followed I became aware that my father's death had\nremoved a restrictive element, that I was free now to take without\ncriticism or opposition whatever course in life I might desire. It may\nbe that I had apprehended even then that his professional ideals would\nnot have coincided with my own. Mingled with this sense of emancipation\nwas a curious feeling of regret, of mourning for something I had never\nvalued, something fixed and dependable for which he had stood, a rock\nand a refuge of which I had never availed myself!... When his will was\nopened it was found that the property had been left to my mother during\nher lifetime. It was larger than I had thought, four hundred thousand\ndollars, shrewdly invested, for the most part, in city real estate. My\nfather had been very secretive as to money matters, and my mother had no\ninterest in them.\n\nThree or four days later I received in the mail a typewritten letter\nsigned by Theodore Watling, expressing sympathy for my bereavement, and\nasking me to drop in on him, down town, before I should leave the city.\nIn contrast to the somewhat dingy offices where my father had practised\nin the Blackwood Block, the quarters of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon on\nthe eighth floor of the new Durrett Building were modern to a degree,\nfinished in oak and floored with marble, with a railed-off space where\nyoung women with nimble fingers played ceaselessly on typewriters. One\nof them informed me that Mr. Watling was busy, but on reading my card\nadded that she would take it in. Meanwhile, in company with two others\nwho may have been clients, I waited. This, then, was what it meant to be\na lawyer of importance, to have, like a Chesterfield, an ante-room where\nclients cooled their heels and awaited one's pleasure...\n\nThe young woman returned, and led me through a corridor to a door on\nwhich was painted Mr. Wailing.\n\nI recall him tilted back in his chair in a debonnair manner beside his\npolished desk, the hint of a smile on his lips; and leaning close to him\nwas a yellow, owl-like person whose eyes, as they turned to me, gave the\nimpression of having stared for years into hard, artificial lights. Mr.\nWatling rose briskly.\n\n\"How are you, Hugh?\" he said, the warmth of his greeting tempered by\njust the note of condolence suitable to my black clothes. \"I'm glad\nyou came. I wanted to see you before you went back to Cambridge. I must\nintroduce you to Judge Bering, of our State Supreme Court. Judge, this\nis Mr. Paret's boy.\"\n\nThe judge looked me over with a certain slow impressiveness, and gave me\na soft and fleshy hand.\n\n\"Glad to know you, Mr. Paret. Your father was a great loss to our bar,\"\nhe declared.\n\nI detected in his tone and manner a slight reservation that could not be\ncalled precisely judicial dignity; it was as though, in these few words,\nhe had gone to the limit of self-commitment with a stranger--a striking\ncontrast to the confidential attitude towards Mr. Watling in which I had\nsurprised him.\n\n\"Judge,\" said Mr. Watling, sitting down again, \"do you recall that time\nwe all went up to Mr. Paret's house and tried to induce him to run for\nmayor? That was before you went on the lower bench.\"\n\nThe judge nodded gloomily, caressing his watch chain, and suddenly rose\nto go.\n\n\"That will be all right, then?\" Mr. Watling inquired cryptically, with\na smile. The other made a barely perceptible inclination of the head and\ndeparted. Mr. Watling looked at me. \"He's one of the best men we have on\nthe bench to-day,\" he added. There was a trace of apology in his tone.\n\nHe talked a while of my father, to whom, so he said, he had looked up\never since he had been admitted to the bar.\n\n\"It would be a pleasure to me, Hugh, as well as a matter of pride,\" he\nsaid cordially, but with dignity, \"to have Matthew Paret's son in my\noffice. I suppose you will be wishing to take your mother somewhere this\nsummer, but if you care to come here in the autumn, you will be welcome.\nYou will begin, of course, as other young men begin,--as I began. But\nI am a believer in blood, and I'll be glad to have you. Mr. Fowndes and\nMr. Ripon feel the same way.\" He escorted me to the door himself.\n\nEverywhere I went during that brief visit home I was struck by change,\nby the crumbling and decay of institutions that once had held me in\nthrall, by the superimposition of a new order that as yet had assumed\nno definite character. Some of the old landmarks had disappeared; there\nwere new and aggressive office buildings, new and aggressive residences,\nnew and aggressive citizens who lived in them, and of whom my mother\nspoke with gentle deprecation. Even Claremore, that paradise of my\nchildhood, had grown shrivelled and shabby, even tawdry, I thought, when\nwe went out there one Sunday afternoon; all that once represented\nthe magic word \"country\" had vanished. The old flat piano, made in\nPhiladelphia ages ago, the horsehair chairs and sofa had been replaced\nby a nondescript furniture of the sort displayed behind plate-glass\nwindows of the city's stores: rocking-chairs on stands, upholstered in\nclashing colours, their coiled springs only half hidden by tassels, and\n\"ornamental\" electric fixtures, instead of the polished coal-oil lamps.\nCousin Jenny had grown white, Willie was a staid bachelor, Helen an old\nmaid, while Mary had married a tall, anaemic young man with glasses,\nWalter Kinley, whom Cousin Robert had taken into the store. As I\ncontemplated the Brecks odd questions suggested themselves: did honesty\nand warm-heartedness necessarily accompany a lack of artistic taste?\nand was virtue its own reward, after all? They drew my mother into the\nhouse, took off her wraps, set her down in the most comfortable rocker,\nand insisted on making her a cup of tea.\n\nI was touched. I loved them still, and yet I was conscious of\nreservations concerning them. They, too, seemed a little on the\ndefensive with me, and once in a while Mary was caustic in her remarks.\n\n\"I guess nothing but New York will be good enough for Hugh now. He'll be\ntaking Cousin Sarah away from us.\"\n\n\"Not at all, my dear,\" said my mother, gently, \"he's going into Mr.\nWatling's office next autumn.\"\n\n\"Theodore Watling?\" demanded Cousin Robert, pausing in his carving.\n\n\"Yes, Robert. Mr. Watling has been good enough to say that he would like\nto have Hugh. Is there anything--?\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm out of date, Sarah,\" Cousin Robert replied, vigorously severing\nthe leg of the turkey. \"These modern lawyers are too smart for me.\nWatling's no worse than the others, I suppose,--only he's got more\nability.\"\n\n\"I've never heard anything against him,\" said my mother in a pained\nvoice. \"Only the other day McAlery Willett congratulated me that Hugh\nwas going to be with him.\"\n\n\"You mustn't mind Robert, Sarah,\" put in Cousin Jenny,--a remark\nreminiscent of other days.\n\n\"Dad has a notion that his generation is the only honest one,\" said\nHelen, laughingly, as she passed a plate.\n\nI had gained a sense of superiority, and I was quite indifferent to\nCousin Robert's opinion of Mr. Watling, of modern lawyers in general.\nMore than once a wave of self-congratulation surged through me that I\nhad possessed the foresight and initiative to get out of the wholesale\ngrocery business while there was yet time. I looked at Willie, still\nfreckled, still literal, still a plodder, at Walter Kinley, and I\nthought of the drabness of their lives; at Cousin Robert himself as he\nsat smoking his cigar in the bay-window on that dark February day, and\nsuddenly I pitied him. The suspicion struck me that he had not prospered\nof late, and this deepened to a conviction as he talked.\n\n\"The Republican Party is going to the dogs,\" he asserted.\n\n\"It used to be an honourable party, but now it is no better than the\nother. Politics are only conducted, now, for the purpose of making\nunscrupulous men rich, sir. For years I furnished this city with good\ngroceries, if I do say it myself. I took a pride in the fact that the\ninmates of the hospitals, yes, and the dependent poor in the city's\ninstitutions, should have honest food. You can get anything out of the\ncity if you are willing to pay the politicians for it. I lost my city\ncontracts. Why? Because I refused to deal with scoundrels. Weill and\nCompany and other unscrupulous upstarts are willing to do so, and poison\nthe poor and the sick with adulterated groceries! The first thing I knew\nwas that the city auditor was holding back my bills for supplies, and\npaying Weill's. That's what politics and business, yes, sir, and the\nlaw, have come to in these days. If a man wants to succeed, he must turn\ninto a rascal.\"\n\nI was not shocked, but I was silent, uncomfortable, wishing that it were\ntime to take the train back to the city. Cousin Robert's face was\nmore worn than I had thought, and I contrasted him inevitably with\nthe forceful person who used to stand, in his worn alpaca coat, on the\npavement in front of his store, greeting with clear-eyed content his\nfellow merchants of the city. Willie Breck, too, was silent, and Walter\nKinley took off his glasses and wiped them. In the meanwhile Helen had\nleft the group in which my mother sat, and, approaching us, laid her\nhands on her father's shoulders.\n\n\"Now, dad,\" she said, in affectionate remonstrance, \"you're excited\nabout politics again, and you know it isn't good for you. And besides,\nthey're not worth it.\"\n\n\"You're right, Helen,\" he replied. Under the pressure of her hands he\nmade a strong effort to control himself, and turned to address my mother\nacross the room.\n\n\"I'm getting to be a crotchety old man,\" he said. \"It's a good thing I\nhave a daughter to remind me of it.\"\n\n\"It is a good thing, Robert,\" said my mother.\n\nDuring the rest of our visit he seemed to have recovered something of\nhis former spirits and poise, taking refuge in the past. They talked\nof their own youth, of families whose houses had been landmarks on the\nSecond Bank.\n\n\"I'm worried about your Cousin Robert, Hugh,\" my mother confided to me,\nwhen we were at length seated in the train. \"I've heard rumours that\nthings are not so well at the store as they might be.\" We looked out\nat the winter landscape, so different from that one which had thrilled\nevery fibre of my being in the days when the railroad on which we\ntravelled had been a winding narrow gauge. The orchards--those that\nremained--were bare; stubble pricked the frozen ground where tassels\nhad once waved in the hot, summer wind. We flew by row after row of\nginger-bread, suburban houses built on \"villa plots,\" and I read in\nlarge letters on a hideous sign-board, \"Woodbine Park.\"\n\n\"Hugh, have you ever heard anything against--Mr. Watling?\"\n\n\"No, mother,\" I said. \"So far as I knew, he is very much looked up to by\nlawyers and business men. He is counsel, I believe, for Mr. Blackwood's\nstreet car line on Boyne Street. And I told you, I believe, that I met\nhim once at Mr. Kyme's.\"\n\n\"Poor Robert!\" she sighed. \"I suppose business trouble does make one\nbitter,--I've seen it so often. But I never imagined that it would\novertake Robert, and at his time of life! It is an old and respected\nfirm, and we have always had a pride in it.\"...\n\nThat night, when I was going to bed, it was evident that the subject was\nstill in her mind. She clung to my hand a moment.\n\n\"I, too, am afraid of the new, Hugh,\" she said, a little tremulously.\n\"We all grow so, as age comes on.\"\n\n\"But you are not old, mother,\" I protested.\n\n\"I have a feeling, since your father has gone, that I have lived my\nlife, my dear, though I'd like to stay long enough to see you happily\nmarried--to have grandchildren. I was not young when you were born.\" And\nshe added, after a little while, \"I know nothing about business affairs,\nand now--now that your father is no longer here, sometimes I'm afraid--\"\n\n\"Afraid of what, mother?\"\n\nShe tried to smile at me through her tears. We were in the old\nsitting-room, surrounded by the books.\n\n\"I know it's foolish, and it isn't that I don't trust you. I know that\nthe son of your father couldn't do anything that was not honourable. And\nyet I am afraid of what the world is becoming. The city is growing so\nfast, and so many new people are coming in. Things are not the same.\nRobert is right, there. And I have heard your father say the same thing.\nHugh, promise me that you will try to remember always what he was, and\nwhat he would wish you to be!\"\n\n\"I will, mother,\" I answered. \"But I think you would find that Cousin\nRobert exaggerates a little, makes things seem worse than they really\nare. Customs change, you know. And politics were never well--Sunday\nschools.\" I, too, smiled a little. \"Father knew that. And he would never\ntake an active part in them.\"\n\n\"He was too fine!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"And now,\" I continued, \"Cousin Robert has happened to come in contact\nwith them through business. That is what has made the difference in him.\nBefore, he always knew they were corrupt, but he rarely thought about\nthem.\"\n\n\"Hugh,\" she said suddenly, after a pause, \"you must remember one\nthing,--that you can afford to be independent. I thank God that your\nfather has provided for that!\"\n\nI was duly admitted, the next autumn, to the bar of my own state, and\nwas assigned to a desk in the offices of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon.\nLarry Weed was my immediate senior among the apprentices, and Larry was\na hero-worshipper. I can see him now. He suggested a bullfrog as he sat\nin the little room we shared in common, his arms akimbo over a law book,\nhis little legs doubled under him, his round, eyes fixed expectantly\non the doorway. And even if I had not been aware of my good fortune\nin being connected with such a firm as Theodore Watling's, Larry would\nshortly have brought it home to me. During those weeks when I was making\nmy first desperate attempts at briefing up the law I was sometimes\ninterrupted by his exclamations when certain figures went by in the\ncorridor.\n\n\"Say, Hugh, do you know who that was?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Miller Gorse.\"\n\n\"Who's he?\"\n\n\"Do you mean to say you never heard of Miller Gorse?\"\n\n\"I've been away a long time,\" I would answer apologetically. A person of\nsome importance among my contemporaries at Harvard, I had looked forward\nto a residence in my native city with the complacency of one who has\nseen something of the world,--only to find that I was the least in the\nnew kingdom. And it was a kingdom. Larry opened up to me something of\nthe significance and extent of it, something of the identity of the men\nwho controlled it.\n\n\"Miller Gorse,\" he said impressively, \"is the counsel for the railroad.\"\n\n\"What railroad? You mean the--\" I was adding, when he interrupted me\npityingly.\n\n\"After you've been here a while you'll find out there's only one\nrailroad in this state, so far as politics are concerned. The Ashuela\nand Northern, the Lake Shore and the others don't count.\"\n\nI refrained from asking any more questions at that time, but afterwards\nI always thought of the Railroad as spelled with a capital.\n\n\"Miller Gorse isn't forty yet,\" Larry told me on another occasion.\n\"That's doing pretty well for a man who comes near running this state.\"\n\nFor the sake of acquiring knowledge, I endured Mr. Weed's patronage. I\ninquired how Mr. Gorse ran the state.\n\n\"Oh, you'll find out soon enough,\" he assured me.\n\n\"But Mr. Barbour's president of the Railroad.\"\n\n\"Sure. Once in a while they take something up to him, but as a rule he\nleaves things to Gorse.\"\n\nWhereupon I resolved to have a good look at Mr. Gorse at the first\nopportunity. One day Mr. Watling sent out for some papers.\n\n\"He's in there now;\" said Larry. \"You take 'em.\"\n\n\"In there\" meant Mr. Watling's sanctum. And in there he was. I had only\na glance at the great man, for, with a kindly but preoccupied \"Thank\nyou, Hugh,\" Mr. Watling took the papers and dismissed me. Heaviness,\nblackness and impassivity,--these were the impressions of Mr. Gorse\nwhich I carried away from that first meeting. The very solidity of his\nflesh seemed to suggest the solidity of his position. Such, say the\npsychologists, is the effect of prestige.\n\nI remember well an old-fashioned picture puzzle in one of my boyhood\nbooks. The scene depicted was to all appearances a sylvan, peaceful one,\nwith two happy lovers seated on a log beside a brook; but presently, as\none gazed at the picture, the head of an animal stood forth among the\nbranches, and then the body; more animals began to appear, bit by bit; a\ntiger, a bear, a lion, a jackal, a fox, until at last, whenever I\nlooked at the page, I did not see the sylvan scene at all, but only the\npredatory beasts of the forest. So, one by one, the figures of the real\nrulers of the city superimposed themselves for me upon the simple and\ndemocratic design of Mayor, Council, Board of Aldermen, Police Force,\netc., that filled the eye of a naive and trusting electorate which\nfondly imagined that it had something to say in government. Miller Gorse\nwas one of these rulers behind the screen, and Adolf Scherer, of the\nBoyne Iron Works, another; there was Leonard Dickinson of the Corn\nNational Bank; Frederick Grierson, becoming wealthy in city real estate;\nJudah B. Tallant, who, though outlawed socially, was deferred to as the\nowner of the Morning Era; and even Ralph Hambleton, rapidly superseding\nthe elderly and conservative Mr. Lord, who had hitherto managed the\ngreat Hambleton estate. Ralph seemed to have become, in a somewhat\ngnostic manner, a full-fledged financier. Not having studied law, he had\nbeen home for four years when I became a legal fledgling, and during\nthe early days of my apprenticeship I was beholden to him for many\n\"eye openers\" concerning the conduct of great affairs. I remember him\nsauntering into my room one morning when Larry Weed had gone out on an\nerrand.\n\n\"Hello, Hughie,\" he said, with his air of having nothing to do.\n\"Grinding it out? Where's Watling?\"\n\n\"Isn't he in his office?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, what can we do for you?\" I asked.\n\nRalph grinned.\n\n\"Perhaps I'll tell you when you're a little older. You're too young.\"\nAnd he sank down into Larry Weed's chair, his long legs protruding on\nthe other side of the table. \"It's a matter of taxes. Some time ago I\nfound out that Dickinson and Tallant and others I could mention were\npaying a good deal less on their city property than we are. We don't\npropose to do it any more--that's all.\"\n\n\"How can Mr. Watling help you?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Well, I don't mind giving you a few tips about your profession, Hughie.\nI'm going to get Watling to fix it up with the City Hall gang. Old\nLord doesn't like it, I'll admit, and when I told him we had been\ncontributing to the city long enough, that I proposed swinging into line\nwith other property holders, he began to blubber about disgrace and what\nmy grandfather would say if he were alive. Well, he isn't alive. A good\ndeal of water has flowed under the bridges since his day. It's a mere\nmatter of business, of getting your respectable firm to retain a City\nHall attorney to fix it up with the assessor.\"\n\n\"How about the penitentiary?\" I ventured, not too seriously.\n\n\"I shan't go to the penitentiary, neither will Watling. What I do is to\npay a lawyer's fee. There isn't anything criminal in that, is there?\"\n\nFor some time after Ralph had departed I sat reflecting upon this new\nknowledge, and there came into my mind the bitterness of Cousin Robert\nBreck against this City Hall gang, and his remarks about lawyers. I\nrecalled the tone in which he had referred to Mr. Watling. But Ralph's\nphilosophy easily triumphed. Why not be practical, and become master\nof a situation which one had not made, and could not alter, instead\nof being overwhelmed by it? Needless to say, I did not mention the\nconversation to Mr. Watling, nor did he dwindle in my estimation. These\nnecessary transactions did not interfere in any way with his personal\nrelationships, and his days were filled with kindnesses. And was not\nMr. Ripon, the junior partner, one of the evangelical lights of the\ncommunity, conducting advanced Bible classes every week in the Church\nof the Redemption?... The unfolding of mysteries kept me alert. And I\nunderstood that, if I was to succeed, certain esoteric knowledge must\nbe acquired, as it were, unofficially. I kept my eyes and ears open, and\napplied myself, with all industry, to the routine tasks with which every\nyoung man in a large legal firm is familiar. I recall distinctly my\npride when, the Board of Aldermen having passed an ordinance lowering\nthe water rates, I was intrusted with the responsibility of going before\nthe court in behalf of Mr. Ogilvy's water company, obtaining a temporary\nrestricting order preventing the ordinance from going at once into\neffect. Here was an affair in point. Were it not for lawyers of the\ncalibre of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon, hard-earned private property\nwould soon be confiscated by the rapacious horde. Once in a while I was\nmade aware that Mr. Watling had his eye on me.\n\n\"Well, Hugh,\" he would say, \"how are you getting along? That's right,\nstick to it, and after a while we'll hand the drudgery over to somebody\nelse.\"\n\nHe possessed the supreme quality of a leader of men in that he took\npains to inform himself concerning the work of the least of his\nsubordinates; and he had the gift of putting fire into a young man by\na word or a touch of the hand on the shoulder. It was not difficult for\nme, therefore, to comprehend Larry Weed's hero-worship, the loyalty of\nother members of the firm or of those occupants of the office whom I\nhave not mentioned. My first impression of him, which I had got at Jerry\nKyme's, deepened as time went on, and I readily shared the belief of\nthose around me that his legal talents easily surpassed those of any of\nhis contemporaries. I can recall, at this time, several noted cases in\nthe city when I sat in court listening to his arguments with thrills\nof pride. He made us all feel--no matter how humble may have been our\ncontributions to the preparation--that we had a share in his triumphs.\nWe remembered his manner with judges and juries, and strove to emulate\nit. He spoke as if there could be no question as to his being right\nas to the law and the facts, and yet, in some subtle way that bated\nanalysis, managed not to antagonize the court. Victory was in the air in\nthat office. I do not mean to say there were not defeats; but frequently\nthese defeats, by resourcefulness, by a never-say-die spirit, by a\nconsummate knowledge, not only of the law, but of other things at which\nI have hinted, were turned into ultimate victories. We fought cases from\none court to another, until our opponents were worn out or the decision\nwas reversed. We won, and that spirit of winning got into the blood.\nWhat was most impressed on me in those early years, I think, was the\ndiscovery that there was always a path--if one were clever enough to\nfind it--from one terrace to the next higher. Staying power was the most\nprized of all the virtues. One could always, by adroitness, compel a\nlegal opponent to fight the matter out all over again on new ground, or\nat least on ground partially new. If the Court of Appeals should fail\none, there was the Supreme Court; there was the opportunity, also, to\nshift from the state to the federal courts; and likewise the much-prized\ndevice known as a change of venue, when a judge was supposed to be\n\"prejudiced.\"\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nAs my apprenticeship advanced I grew more and more to the inhabitants of\nour city into two kinds, the who were served, and the inefficient, who\nwere separate efficient, neglected; but the mental process of which the\nclassification was the result was not so deliberate as may be supposed.\nSometimes, when an important client would get into trouble, the affair\ntook me into the police court, where I saw the riff-raff of the city\npenned up, waiting to have justice doled out to them: weary women who\nhad spent the night in cells, indifferent now as to the front they\npresented to the world, the finery rued that they had tended so\ncarefully to catch the eyes of men on the darkened streets; brazen young\ngirls, who blazed forth defiance to all order; derelict men, sodden and\nhopeless, with scrubby beards; shifty looking burglars and pickpockets.\nAll these I beheld, at first with twinges of pity, later to mass them\nwith the ugly and inevitable with whom society had to deal somehow.\nLawyers, after all, must be practical men. I came to know the justices\nof these police courts, as well as other judges. And underlying my\nacquaintance with all of them was the knowledge--though not on the\nthreshold of my consciousness--that they depended for their living,\nevery man of them, those who were appointed and those who were elected,\nupon a political organization which derived its sustenance from the\nelement whence came our clients. Thus by degrees the sense of belonging\nto a special priesthood had grown on me.\n\nI recall an experience with that same Mr. Nathan. Weill, the wholesale\ngrocer of whose commerce with the City Hall my Cousin Robert Breck had\nso bitterly complained. Late one afternoon Mr. Weill's carriage ran\nover a child on its way up-town through one of the poorer districts. The\nparents, naturally, were frantic, and the coachman was arrested. This\nwas late in the afternoon, and I was alone in the office when the\ntelephone rang. Hurrying to the police station, I found Mr. Weill in\na state of excitement and abject fear, for an ugly crowd had gathered\noutside.\n\n\"Could not Mr. Watling or Mr. Fowndes come?\" demanded the grocer.\n\nWith an inner contempt for the layman's state of mind on such occasions\nI assured him of my competency to handle the case. He was impressed, I\nthink, by the sergeant's deference, who knew what it meant to have such\nan office as ours interfere with the affair. I called up the prosecuting\nattorney, who sent to Monahan's saloon, close by, and procured a release\nfor the coachman on his own recognizance, one of many signed in blank\nand left there by the justice for privileged cases. The coachman was\nhustled out by a back door, and the crowd dispersed.\n\nThe next morning, while a score or more of delinquents sat in the\nanxious seats, Justice Garry recognized me and gave me precedence. And\nMr. Weill, with a sigh of relief, paid his fine.\n\n\"Mr. Paret, is it?\" he asked, as we stood together for a moment on\nthe sidewalk outside the court. \"You have managed this well. I will\nremember.\"\n\nHe was sued, of course. When he came to the office he insisted on\ndiscussing the case with Mr. Watling, who sent for me.\n\n\"That is a bright young man,\" Mr. Weill declared, shaking my hand. \"He\nwill get on.\"\n\n\"Some day,\" said Mr. Watling, \"he may save you a lot of money, Weill.\"\n\n\"When my friend Mr. Watling is United States Senator,--eh?\"\n\nMr. Watling laughed. \"Before that, I hope. I advise you to compromise\nthis suit, Weill,\" he added. \"How would a thousand dollars strike you?\nI've had Paret look up the case, and he tells me the little girl has had\nto have an operation.\"\n\n\"A thousand dollars!\" cried the grocer. \"What right have these people to\nlet their children play on the streets? It's an outrage.\"\n\n\"Where else have the children to play?\" Mr. Watling touched his arm.\n\"Weill,\" he said gently, \"suppose it had been your little girl?\" The\ngrocer pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his bald forehead. But he\nrallied a little.\n\n\"You fight these damage cases for the street railroads all through the\ncourts.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Mr. Watling agreed, \"but there a principle is involved. If the\nrailroads once got into the way of paying damages for every careless\nemployee, they would soon be bankrupt through blackmail. But here you\nhave a child whose father is a poor janitor and can't afford sickness.\nAnd your coachman, I imagine, will be more particular in the future.\"\n\nIn the end Mr. Weill made out a cheque and departed in a good humour,\nconvinced that he was well out of the matter. Here was one of many\ninstances I could cite of Mr. Watling's tenderness of heart. I felt,\nmoreover, as if he had done me a personal favour, since it was I who had\nrecommended the compromise. For I had been to the hospital and had seen\nthe child on the cot,--a dark little thing, lying still in her pain,\nwith the bewildered look of a wounded animal....\n\nNot long after this incident of Mr. Weill's damage suit I obtained a\nmore or less definite promotion by the departure of Larry Weed. He had\nsuddenly developed a weakness of the lungs. Mr. Watling got him a place\nin Denver, and paid his expenses west.\n\nThe first six or seven years I spent in the office of Wading, Fowndes\nand Ripon were of importance to my future career, but there is little\nto relate of them. I was absorbed not only in learning law, but in\nacquiring that esoteric knowledge at which I have hinted--not to be\nhad from my seniors and which I was convinced was indispensable to\na successful and lucrative practice. My former comparison of the\norganization of our city to a picture puzzle wherein the dominating\nfigures become visible only after long study is rather inadequate. A\nbetter analogy would be the human anatomy: we lawyers, of course, were\nthe brains; the financial and industrial interests the body, helpless\nwithout us; the City Hall politicians, the stomach that must continually\nbe fed. All three, law, politics and business, were interdependent,\nunited by a nervous system too complex to be developed here. In these\nyears, though I worked hard and often late, I still found time for\nconvivialities, for social gaieties, yet little by little without\nrealizing the fact, I was losing zest for the companionship of my former\nintimates. My mind was becoming polarized by the contemplation of\none object, success, and to it human ties were unconsciously being\nsacrificed.\n\nTom Peters began to feel this, even at a time when I believed\nmyself still to be genuinely fond of him. Considering our respective\ntemperaments in youth, it is curious that he should have been the first\nto fall in love and marry. One day he astonished me by announcing his\nengagement to Susan Blackwood.\n\n\"That ends the liquor, Hughie,\" he told me, beamingly. \"I promised her\nI'd eliminate it.\"\n\nHe did eliminate it, save for mild relapses on festive occasions. A more\nseemingly incongruous marriage could scarcely be imagined, and yet it\nwas a success from the start. From a slim, silent, self-willed girl\nSusan had grown up into a tall, rather rawboned and energetic young\nwoman. She was what we called in those days \"intellectual,\" and had\ngone in for kindergartens, and after her marriage she turned out to be\nexcessively domestic; practising her theories, with entire success, upon\na family that showed a tendency to increase at an alarming rate.\nTom, needless to say, did not become intellectual. He settled\ndown--prematurely, I thought--into what is known as a family man,\ncuriously content with the income he derived from the commission\nbusiness and with life in general; and he developed a somewhat critical\nview of the tendencies of the civilization by which he was surrounded.\nSusan held it also, but she said less about it. In the comfortable but\nunpretentious house they rented on Cedar Street we had many discussions,\nafter the babies had been put to bed and the door of the living-room\nclosed, in order that our voices might not reach the nursery. Perry\nBlackwood, now Tom's brother-in-law, was often there. He, too, had\nlapsed into what I thought was an odd conservatism. Old Josiah, his\nfather, being dead, he occupied himself mainly with looking after\ncertain family interests, among which was the Boyne Street car line.\nAmong \"business men\" he was already getting the reputation of being a\nlittle difficult to deal with. I was often the subject of their banter,\nand presently I began to suspect that they regarded my career and\nbeliefs with some concern. This gave me no uneasiness, though at limes\nI lost my temper. I realized their affection for me; but privately\nI regarded them as lacking in ambition, in force, in the fighting\nqualities necessary for achievement in this modern age. Perhaps,\nunconsciously, I pitied them a little.\n\n\"How is Judah B. to-day, Hughie?\" Tom would inquire. \"I hear you've put\nhim up for the Boyne Club, now that Mr. Watling has got him out of that\nlibel suit.\"\n\n\"Carter Ives is dead,\" Perry would add, sarcastically, \"let bygones be\nbygones.\"\n\nIt was well known that Mr. Tallant, in the early days of his newspaper,\nhad blackmailed Mr. Ives out of some hundred thousand dollars. And\nthat this, more than any other act, stood in the way, with certain\nrecalcitrant gentlemen, of his highest ambition, membership in the\nBoyne.\n\n\"The trouble with you fellows is that you refuse to deal with conditions\nas you find them,\" I retorted. \"We didn't make them, and we can't change\nthem. Tallant's a factor in the business life of this city, and he has\nto be counted with.\"\n\nTom would shake his head exasperatingly.\n\n\"Why don't you get after Ralph?\" I demanded. \"He doesn't antagonize\nTallant, either.\"\n\n\"Ralph's hopeless,\" said Tom. \"He was born a pirate, you weren't,\nHughie. We think there's a chance for his salvation, don't we, Perry?\"\n\nI refused to accept the remark as flattering.\n\nAnother object of their assaults was Frederick Grierson, who by this\ntime had emerged from obscurity as a small dealer in real estate into a\nmanipulator of blocks and corners.\n\n\"I suppose you think it's a lawyer's business to demand an ethical\nbill of health of every client,\" I said. \"I won't stand up for all of\nTallant's career, of course, but Mr. Wading has a clear right to take\nhis cases. As for Grierson, it seems to me that's a matter of giving a\ndog a bad name. Just because his people weren't known here, and because\nhe has worked up from small beginnings. To get down to hard-pan, you\nfellows don't believe in democracy,--in giving every man a chance to\nshow what's in him.\"\n\n\"Democracy is good!\" exclaimed Perry. \"If the kind of thing we're coming\nto is democracy, God save the state!\"...\n\nOn the other hand I found myself drawing closer to Ralph Hambleton,\nsometimes present at these debates, as the only one of my boyhood\nfriends who seemed to be able to \"deal with conditions as he found\nthem.\" Indeed, he gave one the impression that, if he had had the making\nof them, he would not have changed them.\n\n\"What the deuce do you expect?\" I once heard him inquire with\ngood-natured contempt. \"Business isn't charity, it's war.\n\n\"There are certain things,\" maintained Perry, stoutly, \"that gentlemen\nwon't do.\"\n\n\"Gentlemen!\" exclaimed Ralph, stretching his slim six feet two: We were\nsitting in the Boyne Club. \"It's ungentlemanly to kill, or burn a town\nor sink a ship, but we keep armies and navies for the purpose. For a\nman with a good mind, Perry, you show a surprising inability to think\nthings, out to a logical conclusion. What the deuce is competition, when\nyou come down to it? Christianity? Not by a long shot! If our nations\nare slaughtering men and starving populations in other countries,--are\ncarried on, in fact, for the sake of business, if our churches are\nfilled with business men and our sky pilots pray for the government, you\ncan't expect heathen individuals like me to do business on a Christian\nbasis,--if there is such a thing. You can make rules for croquet, but\nnot for a game that is based on the natural law of the survival of the\nfittest. The darned fools in the legislatures try it occasionally, but\nwe all know it's a sop to the 'common people.' Ask Hughie here if there\never was a law put on the statute books that his friend Watling couldn't\nget 'round'? Why, you've got competition even among the churches. Yours,\nwhere I believe you teach in the Sunday school, would go bankrupt if it\nproclaimed real Christianity. And you'll go bankrupt if you practise\nit, Perry, my boy. Some early, wide-awake, competitive, red-blooded bird\nwill relieve you of the Boyne Street car line.\"\n\nIt was one of this same new and \"fittest\" species who had already\nrelieved poor Mr. McAlery Willett of his fortune. Mr. Willett was a\ntrusting soul who had never known how to take care of himself or his\nmoney, people said, and now that he had lost it they blamed him. Some\nhad been saved enough for him and Nancy to live on in the old house,\nwith careful economy. It was Nancy who managed the economy, who\naccomplished remarkable things with a sum they would have deemed poverty\nin former days. Her mother had died while I was at Cambridge. Reverses\ndid not subdue Mr. Willett's spirits, and the fascination modern\n\"business\" had for him seemed to grow in proportion to the misfortunes\nit had caused him. He moved into a tiny office in the Durrett Building,\nwhere he appeared every morning about half-past ten to occupy himself\nwith heaven knows what short cuts to wealth, with prospectuses of\ncompanies in Mexico or Central America or some other distant place:\nonce, I remember, it was a tea, company in which he tried to interest\nhis friends, to raise in the South a product he maintained would surpass\nOrange Pekoe. In the afternoon between three and four he would turn up\nat the Boyne Club, as well groomed, as spruce as ever, generally with a\nflower in his buttonhole. He never forgot that he was a gentleman,\nand he had a gentleman's notions of the fitness of things, and it was\nagainst his principles to use, a gentleman's club for the furtherance of\nhis various enterprises.\n\n\"Drop into my office some day, Dickinson,\" he would say. \"I think I've\ngot something there that might interest you!\"\n\nHe reminded me, when I met him, that he had always predicted I would get\nalong in life....\n\nThe portrait of Nancy at this period is not so easily drawn. The decline\nof the family fortunes seemed to have had as little effect upon her as\nupon her father, although their characters differed sharply. Something\nof that spontaneity, of that love of life and joy in it she had\npossessed in youth she must have inherited from McAlery Willett,\nbut these qualities had disappeared in her long before the coming of\nfinancial reverses. She was nearing thirty, and in spite of her beauty\nand the rarer distinction that can best be described as breeding, she\nhad never married. Men admired her, but from a distance; she kept them\nat arm's length, they said: strangers who visited the city invariably\npicked her out of an assembly and asked who she was; one man from New\nYork who came to visit Ralph and who had been madly in love with her,\nshe had amazed many people by refusing, spurning all he might have\ngiven her. This incident seemed a refutation of the charge that she was\ncalculating. As might have been foretold, she had the social gift in\na remarkable degree, and in spite of the limitations of her purse the\nknack of dressing better than other women, though at that time the\norganization of our social life still remained comparatively simple, the\ncustom of luxurious and expensive entertainment not having yet set in.\n\nThe more I reflect upon those days, the more surprising does it seem\nthat I was not in love with her. It may be that I was, unconsciously,\nfor she troubled my thoughts occasionally, and she represented all the\nqualities I admired in her sex. The situation that had existed at the\ntime of our first and only quarrel had been reversed, I was on the\nhighroad to the worldly success I had then resolved upon, Nancy was\npoor, and for that reason, perhaps, prouder than ever. If she was\ninaccessible to others, she had the air of being peculiarly inaccessible\nto me--the more so because some of the superficial relics of our\nintimacy remained, or rather had been restored. Her very manner of\ncamaraderie seemed paradoxically to increase the distance between us. It\npiqued me. Had she given me the least encouragement, I am sure I should\nhave responded; and I remember that I used occasionally to speculate as\nto whether she still cared for me, and took this method of hiding her\nreal feelings. Yet, on the whole, I felt a certain complacency about it\nall; I knew that suffering was disagreeable, I had learned how to avoid\nit, and I may have had, deep within me, a feeling that I might marry her\nafter all. Meanwhile my life was full, and gave promise of becoming even\nfuller, more absorbing and exciting in the immediate future.\n\nOne of the most fascinating figures, to me, of that Order being woven,\nlike a cloth of gold, out of our hitherto drab civilization,--an Order\ninto which I was ready and eager to be initiated,--was that of Adolf\nScherer, the giant German immigrant at the head of the Boyne Iron\nWorks. His life would easily lend itself to riotous romance. In the old\ncountry, in a valley below the castle perched on the rack above, he had\nbegun life by tending his father's geese. What a contrast to \"Steeltown\"\nwith its smells and sickening summer heat, to the shanty where Mrs.\nScherer took boarders and bent over the wash-tub! She, too, was an\nimmigrant, but lived to hear her native Wagner from her own box at\nCovent Garden; and he to explain, on the deck of an imperial yacht,\nto the man who might have been his sovereign certain processes in the\nmanufacture of steel hitherto untried on that side of the Atlantic. In\ncomparison with Adolf Scherer, citizen of a once despised democracy, the\nminor prince in whose dominions he had once tended geese was of small\naccount indeed!\n\nThe Adolf Scherer of that day--though it is not so long ago as time\nflies--was even more solid and impressive than the man he afterwards\nbecame, when he reached the dizzier heights from which he delivered\nto an eager press opinions on politics and war, eugenics and woman's\nsuffrage and other subjects that are the despair of specialists. Had he\nstuck to steel, he would have remained invulnerable. But even then\nhe was beginning to abandon the field of production for that of\nexploitation: figuratively speaking, he had taken to soap, which with\nthe aid of water may be blown into beautiful, iridescent bubbles to\ncharm the eye. Much good soap, apparently, has gone that way, never to\nbe recovered. Everybody who was anybody began to blow bubbles about that\ntime, and the bigger the bubble the greater its attraction for investors\nof hard-earned savings. Outside of this love for financial iridescence,\nlet it be called, Mr. Scherer seemed to care little then for glitter\nof any sort. Shortly after his elevation to the presidency of the Boyne\nIron Works he had been elected a member of the Boyne Club,--an honour of\nwhich, some thought, he should have been more sensible; but generally,\nwhen in town, he preferred to lunch at a little German restaurant\nannexed to a saloon, where I used often to find him literally towering\nabove the cloth,--for he was a giant with short legs,--his napkin\ntucked into his shirt front, engaged in lively conversation with the\nministering Heinrich. The chef at the club, Mr. Scherer insisted, could\nproduce nothing equal to Heinrich's sauer-kraut and sausage. My earliest\nrelationship with Mr. Scherer was that of an errand boy, of bringing\nto him for his approval papers which might not be intrusted to a common\nmessenger. His gruffness and brevity disturbed me more than I cared to\nconfess. I was pretty sure that he eyed me with the disposition of the\nself-made to believe that college educations and good tailors were\nthe heaviest handicaps with which a young man could be burdened: and I\nsuspected him of an inimical attitude toward the older families of the\ncity. Certain men possessed his confidence; and he had built, as it\nwere, a stockade about them, sternly keeping the rest of the world\noutside. In Theodore Watling he had a childlike faith.\n\nThus I studied him, with a deliberation which it is the purpose of these\nchapters to confess, though he little knew that he was being made the\nsubject of analysis. Nor did I ever venture to talk with him, but held\nstrictly to my role of errand boy,--even after the conviction came over\nme that he was no longer indifferent to my presence. The day arrived,\nafter some years, when he suddenly thrust toward me a big, hairy hand\nthat held the document he was examining.\n\n\"Who drew this, Mr. Paret!\" he demanded.\n\nMr. Ripon, I told him.\n\nThe Boyne Works were buying up coal-mines, and this was a contract\nlooking to the purchase of one in Putman County, provided, after a\ncertain period of working, the yield and quality should come up to\nspecifications. Mr. Scherer requested me to read one of the sections,\nwhich puzzled him. And in explaining it an idea flashed over me.\n\n\"Do you mind my making a suggestion, Mr. Scherer?\" I ventured.\n\n\"What is it?\" he asked brusquely.\n\nI showed him how, by the alteration of a few words, the difficulty to\nwhich he had referred could not only be eliminated, but that certain\npossible penalties might be evaded, while the apparent meaning of the\nsection remained unchanged. In other words, it gave the Boyne Iron Works\nan advantage that was not contemplated. He seized the paper, stared\nat what I had written in pencil on the margin, and then stared at me.\nAbruptly, he began to laugh.\n\n\"Ask Mr. Wading what he thinks of it?\"\n\n\"I intended to, provided it had your approval, sir,\" I replied.\n\n\"You have my approval, Mr. Paret,\" he declared, rather cryptically, and\nwith the slight German hardening of the v's into which he relapsed at\ntimes. \"Bring it to the Works this afternoon.\"\n\nMr. Wading agreed to the alteration. He looked at me amusedly.\n\n\"Yes, I think that's an improvement, Hugh,\" he said. I had a feeling\nthat I had gained ground, and from this time on I thought I detected a\nchange in his attitude toward me; there could be no doubt about the new\nattitude of Mr. Scherer, who would often greet me now with a smile and\na joke, and sometimes went so far as to ask my opinions.... Then, about\nsix months later, came the famous Ribblevale case that aroused the moral\nindignation of so many persons, among whom was Perry Blackwood.\n\n\"You know as well as I do, Hugh, how this thing is being manipulated,\"\nhe declared at Tom's one Sunday evening; \"there was nothing the matter\nwith the Ribblevale Steel Company--it was as right as rain before\nLeonard Dickinson and Grierson and Scherer and that crowd you train with\nbegan to talk it down at the Club. Oh, they're very compassionate. I've\nheard 'em. Dickinson, privately, doesn't think much of Ribblevale paper,\nand Pugh\" (the president of the Ribblevale) \"seems worried and looks\nbadly. It's all very clever, but I'd hate to tell you in plain words\nwhat I'd call it.\"\n\n\"Go ahead,\" I challenged him audaciously. \"You haven't any proof that\nthe Ribblevale wasn't in trouble.\"\n\n\"I heard Mr. Pugh tell my father the other day it was a d--d outrage. He\ncouldn't catch up with these rumours, and some of his stockholders were\nliquidating.\"\n\n\"You, don't suppose Pugh would want to admit his situation, do you?\" I\nasked.\n\n\"Pugh's a straight man,\" retorted Perry. \"That's more than I can say\nfor any of the other gang, saving your presence. The unpleasant truth is\nthat Scherer and the Boyne people want the Ribblevale, and you ought to\nknow it if you don't.\" He looked at me very hard through the glasses he\nhad lately taken to wearing. Tom, who was lounging by the fire, shifted\nhis position uneasily. I smiled, and took another cigar.\n\n\"I believe Ralph is right, Perry, when he calls you a sentimentalist.\nFor you there's a tragedy behind every ordinary business transaction.\nThe Ribblevale people are having a hard time to keep their heads above\nwater, and immediately you smell conspiracy. Dickinson and Scherer have\nbeen talking it down. How about it, Tom?\"\n\nBut Tom, in these debates, was inclined to be noncommittal, although it\nwas clear they troubled him.\n\n\"Oh, don't ask me, Hughie,\" he said.\n\n\"I suppose I ought to cultivate the scientific point of view, and look\nwith impartial interest at this industrial cannibalism,\" returned Perry,\nsarcastically. \"Eat or be eaten that's what enlightened self-interest\nhas come to. After all, Ralph would say, it is nature, the insect world\nover again, the victim duped and crippled before he is devoured, and the\nlawyer--how shall I put it?--facilitating the processes of swallowing\nand digesting....\"\n\nThere was no use arguing with Perry when he was in this vein....\n\nSince I am not writing a technical treatise, I need not go into the\ndetails of the Ribblevale suit. Since it to say that the affair, after\na while, came apparently to a deadlock, owing to the impossibility of\ngetting certain definite information from the Ribblevale books, which\nhad been taken out of the state. The treasurer, for reasons of his own,\nremained out of the state also; the ordinary course of summoning him\nbefore a magistrate in another state had naturally been resorted to, but\nthe desired evidence was not forthcoming.\n\n\"The trouble is,\" Mr. Wading explained to Mr. Scherer, \"that there is no\nlaw in the various states with a sufficient penalty attached that will\ncompel the witness to divulge facts he wishes to conceal.\"\n\nIt was the middle of a February afternoon, and they were seated in deep,\nleather chairs in one corner of the reading room of the Boyne Club. They\nhad the place to themselves. Fowndes was there also, one leg twisted\naround the other in familiar fashion, a bored look on his long and\nsallow face. Mr. Wading had telephoned to the office for me to bring\nthem some papers bearing on the case.\n\n\"Sit down, Hugh,\" he said kindly.\n\n\"Now we have present a genuine legal mind,\" said Mr. Scherer, in the\nplayful manner he had adopted of late, while I grinned appreciatively\nand took a chair. Mr. Watling presently suggested kidnapping the\nRibblevale treasurer until he should promise to produce the books as the\nonly way out of what seemed an impasse. But Mr. Scherer brought down a\nhuge fist on his knee.\n\n\"I tell you it is no joke, Watling, we've got to win that suit,\" he\nasserted.\n\n\"That's all very well,\" replied Mr. Watling. \"But we're a respectable\nfirm, you know. We haven't had to resort to safe-blowing, as yet.\"\n\nMr. Scherer shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say it were a matter\nof indifference to him what methods were resorted to. Mr. Watling's eyes\nmet mine; his glance was amused, yet I thought I read in it a query\nas to the advisability, in my presence, of going too deeply into the\nquestion of ways and means. I may have been wrong. At any rate, its\nsudden effect was to embolden me to give voice to an idea that had begun\nto simmer in my mind, that excited me, and yet I had feared to utter it.\nThis look of my chief's, and the lighter tone the conversation had taken\ndecided me.\n\n\"Why wouldn't it be possible to draw up a bill to fit the situation?\" I\ninquired.\n\nMr. Wading started.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" he asked quickly.\n\nAll three looked at me. I felt the blood come into my face, but it was\ntoo late to draw back.\n\n\"Well--the legislature is in session. And since, as Mr. Watling says,\nthere is no sufficient penalty in other states to compel the witness to\nproduce the information desired, why not draw up a bill and--and have\nit passed--\" I paused for breath--\"imposing a sufficient penalty on home\ncorporations in the event of such evasions. The Ribblevale Steel Company\nis a home corporation.\"\n\nI had shot my bolt.... There followed what was for me an anxious\nsilence, while the three of them continued to stare at me. Mr. Watling\nput the tips of his fingers together, and I became aware that he was not\noffended, that he was thinking rapidly.\n\n\"By George, why not, Fowndes?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Well,\" said Fowndes, \"there's an element of risk in such a proceeding I\nneed not dwell upon.\"\n\n\"Risk!\" cried the senior partner vigorously. \"There's risk in\neverything. They'll howl, of course. But they howl anyway, and nobody\never listens to them. They'll say it's special legislation, and the\nPilot will print sensational editorials for a few days. But what of\nit? All of that has happened before. I tell you, if we can't see those\nbooks, we'll lose the suit. That's in black and white. And, as a matter\nof justice, we're entitled to know what we want to know.\"\n\n\"There might be two opinions as to that,\" observed Fowndes, with his\nsardonic smile.\n\nMr. Watling paid no attention to this remark. He was already deep in\nthought. It was characteristic of his mind to leap forward, seize a\nsuggestion that often appeared chimerical to a man like Fowndes and turn\nit into an accomplished Fact. \"I believe you've hit it, Hugh,\" he said.\n\"We needn't bother about the powers of the courts in other states. We'll\nput into this bill an appeal to our court for an order on the clerk\nto compel the witness to come before the court and testify, and we'll\nprovide for a special commissioner to take depositions in the state\nwhere the witness is. If the officers of a home corporation who are\noutside of the state refuse to testify, the penalty will be that the\nration goes into the hands of a receiver.\"\n\nFowndes whistled.\n\n\"That's going some!\" he said.\n\n\"Well, we've got to go some. How about it, Scherer?\"\n\nEven Mr. Scherer's brown eyes were snapping.\n\n\"We have got to win that suit, Watling.\"\n\nWe were all excited, even Fowndes, I think, though he remained\nexpressionless. Ours was the tense excitement of primitive man in chase:\nthe quarry which had threatened to elude us was again in view, and not\nunlikely to fall into our hands. Add to this feeling, on my part,\nthe thrill that it was I who had put them on the scent. I had all the\nsensations of an aspiring young brave who for the first time is admitted\nto the councils of the tribe!\n\n\"It ought to be a popular bill, too,\" Mr. Schemer was saying, with a\nsmile of ironic appreciation at the thought of demagogues advocating it.\n\"We should have one of Lawler's friends introduce it.\"\n\n\"Oh, we shall have it properly introduced,\" replied Mr. Wading.\n\n\"It may come back at us,\" suggested Fowndes pessimistically. \"The Boyne\nIron Works is a home corporation too, if I am not mistaken.\"\n\n\"The Boyne Iron Works has the firm of Wading, Fowndes and Ripon behind\nit,\" asserted Mr. Scherer, with what struck me as a magnificent faith.\n\n\"You mustn't forget Paret,\" Mr. Watling reminded him, with a wink at me.\n\nWe had risen. Mr. Scherer laid a hand on my arm.\n\n\"No, no, I do not forget him. He will not permit me to forget him.\"\n\nA remark, I thought, that betrayed some insight into my character... Mr.\nWatling called for pen and paper and made then and there a draft of the\nproposed bill, for no time was to be lost. It was dark when we left\nthe Club, and I recall the elation I felt and strove to conceal as I\naccompanied my chief back to the office. The stenographers and clerks\nwere gone; alone in the library we got down the statutes and set to\nwork to perfect the bill from the rough draft, on which Mr. Fowndes had\nwritten his suggestions. I felt that a complete yet subtle change had\ncome over my relationship with Mr. Watling.\n\nIn the midst of our labours he asked me to call up the attorney for the\nRailroad. Mr. Gorse was still at his office.\n\n\"Hello! Is that you, Miller?\" Mr. Watling said. \"This is Wading. When\ncan I see you for a few minutes this evening? Yes, I am leaving for\nWashington at nine thirty. Eight o'clock. All right, I'll be there.\"\n\nIt was almost eight before he got the draft finished to his\nsatisfaction, and I had picked it out on the typewriter. As I handed it\nto him, my chief held it a moment, gazing at me with an odd smile.\n\n\"You seem to have acquired a good deal of useful knowledge, here and\nthere, Hugh,\" he observed.\n\n\"I've tried to keep my eyes open, Mr. Watling,\" I said.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"there are a great many things a young man practising\nlaw in these days has to learn for himself. And if I hadn't given you\ncredit for some cleverness, I shouldn't have wanted you here. There's\nonly one way to look at--at these matters we have been discussing, my\nboy, that's the common-sense way, and if a man doesn't get that point of\nview by himself, nobody can teach it to him. I needn't enlarge upon it.\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" I said.\n\nHe smiled again, but immediately became serious.\n\n\"If Mr. Gorse should approve of this bill, I'm going to send you down to\nthe capital--to-night. Can you go?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"I want you to look out for the bill in the legislature. Of course there\nwon't be much to do, except to stand by, but you will get a better idea\nof what goes on down there.\"\n\nI thanked him, and told him I would do my best.\n\n\"I'm sure of that,\" he replied. \"Now it's time to go to see Gorse.\"\n\nThe legal department of the Railroad occupied an entire floor of the\nCorn Bank building. I had often been there on various errands, having on\noccasions delivered sealed envelopes to Mr. Gorse himself, approaching\nhim in the ordinary way through a series of offices. But now, following\nMr. Watling through the dimly lighted corridor, we came to a door\non which no name was painted, and which was presently opened by a\nstenographer. There was in the proceeding a touch of mystery that\nrevived keenly my boyish love for romance; brought back the days when I\nhad been, in turn, Captain Kidd and Ali Baba.\n\nI have never realized more strongly than in that moment the\npsychological force of prestige. Little by little, for five years, an\nestimate of the extent of Miller Gorse's power had been coming home to\nme, and his features stood in my mind for his particular kind of power.\nHe was a tremendous worker, and often remained in his office until ten\nand eleven at night. He dismissed the stenographer by the wave of a hand\nwhich seemed to thrust her bodily out of the room.\n\n\"Hello, Miller,\" said Mr. Watling.\n\n\"Hello, Theodore,\" replied Mr. Gorse.\n\n\"This is Paret, of my office.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Mr. Gorse, and nodded toward me. I was impressed by the\nfelicity with which a cartoonist of the Pilot had once caricatured him\nby the use of curved lines. The circle of the heavy eyebrows ended at\nthe wide nostrils; the mouth was a crescent, but bowed downwards; the\nheavy shoulders were rounded. Indeed, the only straight line to be\ndiscerned about him was that of his hair, black as bitumen, banged\nacross his forehead; even his polished porphyry eyes were constructed on\nsome curvilinear principle, and never seemed to focus. It might be said\nof Mr. Gorse that he had an overwhelming impersonality. One could never\nbe quite sure that one's words reached the mark.\n\nIn spite of the intimacy which I knew existed between them, in my\npresence at least Mr. Gorse's manner was little different with Mr.\nWatling than it was with other men. Mr. Wading did not seem to mind.\nHe pulled up a chair close to the desk and began, without any\npreliminaries, to explain his errand.\n\n\"It's about the Ribblevale affair,\" he said. \"You know we have a suit.\"\n\nGorse nodded.\n\n\"We've got to get at the books, Miller,--that's all there is to it. I\ntold you so the other day. Well, we've found out a way, I think.\"\n\nHe thrust his hand in his pocket, while the railroad attorney remained\nimpassive, and drew out the draft of the bill. Mr. Gorse read it, then\nread it over again, and laid it down in front of him.\n\n\"Well,\" he said.\n\n\"I want to put that through both houses and have the governor's\nsignature to it by the end of the week.\"\n\n\"It seems a little raw, at first sight, Theodore,\" said Mr. Gorse, with\nthe suspicion of a smile.\n\nMy chief laughed a little.\n\n\"It's not half so raw as some things I might mention, that went through\nlike greased lightning,\" he replied. \"What can they do? I believe it\nwill hold water. Tallant's, and most of the other newspapers in the\nstate, won't print a line about it, and only Socialists and Populists\nread the Pilot. They're disgruntled anyway. The point is, there's no\nother way out for us. Just think a moment, bearing in mind what I've\ntold you about the case, and you'll see it.\"\n\nMr. Gorse took up the paper again, and read the draft over.\n\n\"You know as well as I do, Miller, how dangerous it is to leave this\nRibblevale business at loose ends. The Carlisle steel people and the\nLake Shore road are after the Ribblevale Company, and we can't afford\nto run any risk of their getting it. It's logically a part of the Boyne\ninterests, as Scherer says, and Dickinson is ready with the money for\nthe reorganization. If the Carlisle people and the Lake Shore get it,\nthe product will be shipped out by the L and G, and the Railroad will\nlose. What would Barbour say?\"\n\nMr. Barbour, as I have perhaps mentioned, was the president of the\nRailroad, and had his residence in the other great city of the state. He\nwas then, I knew, in the West.\n\n\"We've got to act now,\" insisted Mr. Watling. \"That's open and shut.\nIf you have any other plan, I wish you'd trot it out. If not, I want\na letter to Paul Varney and the governor. I'm going to send Paret down\nwith them on the night train.\"\n\nIt was clear to me then, in the discussion following, that Mr. Watling's\ngift of persuasion, though great, was not the determining factor in\nMr. Gorse's decision. He, too, possessed boldness, though he preferred\ncaution. Nor did the friendship between the two enter into the\ntransaction. I was impressed more strongly than ever with the fact\nthat a lawsuit was seldom a mere private affair between two persons or\ncorporations, but involved a chain of relationships and nine times\nout of ten that chain led up to the Railroad, which nearly always was\nvitally interested in these legal contests. Half an hour of masterly\npresentation of the situation was necessary before Mr. Gorse became\nconvinced that the introduction of the bill was the only way out for all\nconcerned.\n\n\"Well, I guess you're right, Theodore,\" he said at length. Whereupon\nhe seized his pen and wrote off two notes with great rapidity. These he\nshowed to Mr. Watling, who nodded and returned them. They were folded\nand sealed, and handed to me. One was addressed to Colonel Paul Varney,\nand the other to the Hon. W. W. Trulease, governor of the state.\n\n\"You can trust this young man?\" demanded Mr. Gorse.\n\n\"I think so,\" replied Mr. Watling, smiling at me. \"The bill was his own\nidea.\"\n\nThe railroad attorney wheeled about in his chair and looked at me;\nlooked around me, would better express it, with his indefinite,\nencompassing yet inclusive glance. I had riveted his attention. And from\nhenceforth, I knew, I should enter into his calculations. He had made\nfor me a compartment in his mind.\n\n\"His own idea!\" he repeated.\n\n\"I merely suggested it,\" I was putting in, when he cut me short.\n\n\"Aren't you the son of Matthew Paret?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said.\n\nHe gave me a queer glance, the significance of which I left\nuntranslated. My excitement was too great to analyze what he meant by\nthis mention of my father....\n\nWhen we reached the sidewalk my chief gave me a few parting\ninstructions.\n\n\"I need scarcely say, Hugh,\" he added, \"that your presence in the\ncapital should not be advertised as connected with this--legislation.\nThey will probably attribute it to us in the end, but if you're\nreasonably careful, they'll never be able to prove it. And there's no\nuse in putting our cards on the table at the beginning.\"\n\n\"No indeed, sir!\" I agreed.\n\nHe took my hand and pressed it.\n\n\"Good luck,\" he said. \"I know you'll get along all right.\"\n\n\n\n\nBOOK 2.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nThis was not my first visit to the state capital. Indeed, some of that\nrecondite knowledge, in which I took a pride, had been gained on the\noccasions of my previous visits. Rising and dressing early, I beheld\nout of the car window the broad, shallow river glinting in the morning\nsunlight, the dome of the state house against the blue of the sky.\nEven at that early hour groups of the gentlemen who made our laws were\nscattered about the lobby of the Potts House, standing or seated within\neasy reach of the gaily coloured cuspidors that protected the marble\nfloor: heavy-jawed workers from the cities mingled with moon-faced but\nastute countrymen who manipulated votes amongst farms and villages; fat\nor cadaverous, Irish, German or American, all bore in common a certain\nindefinable stamp. Having eaten my breakfast in a large dining-room\nthat resounded with the clatter of dishes, I directed my steps to\nthe apartment occupied from year to year by Colonel Paul Barney,\ngeneralissimo of the Railroad on the legislative battlefield,--a\nposition that demanded a certain uniqueness of genius.\n\n\"How do you do, sir,\" he said, in a guarded but courteous tone as he\nopened the door. I entered to confront a group of three or four figures,\nsilent and rather hostile, seated in a haze of tobacco smoke around a\nmarble-topped table. On it reposed a Bible, attached to a chain.\n\n\"You probably don't remember me, Colonel,\" I said. \"My name is Pared,\nand I'm associated with the firm of Watling, Fowndes, and Ripon.\"\n\nHis air of marginality,--heightened by a grey moustache and goatee a la\nNapoleon Third,--vanished instantly; he became hospitable, ingratiating.\n\n\"Why--why certainly, you were down heah with Mr. Fowndes two years ago.\"\nThe Colonel spoke with a slight Southern accent. \"To be sure, sir. I've\nhad the honour of meeting your father. Mr. Norris, of North Haven, meet\nMr. Paret--one of our rising lawyers...\" I shook hands with them all\nand sat down. Opening his long coat, Colonel Varney revealed two rows of\ncigars, suggesting cartridges in a belt. These he proceeded to hand\nout as he talked. \"I'm glad to see you here, Mr. Paret. You must stay\nawhile, and become acquainted with the men who--ahem--are shaping the\ndestinies of a great state. It would give me pleasure to escort you\nabout.\"\n\nI thanked him. I had learned enough to realize how important are\nthe amenities in politics and business. The Colonel did most of the\nconversing; he could not have filled with efficiency and ease the\nimportant post that was his had it not been for the endless fund of\nhumorous anecdotes at his disposal. One by one the visitors left, each\nassuring me of his personal regard: the Colonel closed the door, softly,\nturning the key in the lock; there was a sly look in his black eyes as\nhe took a chair in proximity to mine.\n\n\"Well, Mr. Paret,\" he asked softly, \"what's up?\"\n\nWithout further ado I handed him Mr. Gorse's letter, and another Mr.\nWatling had given me for him, which contained a copy of the bill. He\nread these, laid them on the table, glancing at me again, stroking his\ngoatee the while. He chuckled.\n\n\"By gum!\" he exclaimed. \"I take off my hat to Theodore Watling, always\ndid.\" He became contemplative. \"It can be done, Mr. Paret, but it's\ngoing to take some careful driving, sir, some reaching out and flicking\n'em when they r'ar and buck. Paul Varney's never been stumped yet.\nJust as soon as this is introduced we'll have Gates and Armstrong down\nhere--they're the Ribblevale attorneys, aren't they? I thought so,--and\nthe best legal talent they can hire. And they'll round up all the\ndisgruntled fellows, you know,--that ain't friendly to the Railroad.\nWe've got to do it quick, Mr. Paret. Gorse gave you a letter to the\nGovernor, didn't he?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, come along. I'll pass the word around among the boys, just to let\n'em know what to expect.\" His eyes glittered again. \"I've been\nfollowing this Ribblevale business,\" he added, \"and I understand Leonard\nDickinson's all ready to reorganize that company, when the time comes.\nHe ought to let me in for a little, on the ground floor.\"\n\nI did not venture to make any promises for Mr. Dickinson.\n\n\"I reckon it's just as well if you were to meet me at the Governor's\noffice,\" the Colonel added reflectively, and the hint was not lost on\nme. \"It's better not to let 'em find out any sooner than they have to\nwhere this thing comes from,--you understand.\" He looked at his watch.\n\"How would nine o'clock do? I'll be there, with Trulease, when you\ncome,--by accident, you understand. Of course he'll be reasonable, but\nwhen they get to be governors they have little notions, you know, and\nyou've got to indulge 'em, flatter 'em a little. It doesn't hurt, for\nwhen they get their backs up it only makes more trouble.\"\n\nHe put on a soft, black felt hat, and departed noiselessly...\n\nAt nine o'clock I arrived at the State House and was ushered into a\ngreat square room overlooking the park. The Governor was seated at a\ndesk under an elaborate chandelier, and sure enough, Colonel Varney was\nthere beside him; making barely perceptible signals.\n\n\"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Paret,\" said Mr.\nTrulease. \"Your name is a familiar one in your city, sir. And I gather\nfrom your card that you are associated with my good friend, Theodore\nWatling.\"\n\nI acknowledged it. I was not a little impressed by the perfect blend of\ncordiality, democratic simplicity and impressiveness Mr. Trulease had\nachieved. For he had managed, in the course of a long political career,\nto combine in exact proportions these elements which, in the public\nmind, should up the personality of a chief executive. Momentarily\nhe overcame the feeling of superiority with which I had entered his\npresence; neutralized the sense I had of being associated now with the\nhigher powers which had put him where he was. For I knew all about his\n\"record.\"\n\n\"You're acquainted with Colonel Varney?\" he inquired.\n\n\"Yes, Governor, I've met the Colonel,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, I suppose your firm is getting its share of business these days,\"\nMr. Trulease observed. I acknowledged it was, and after discussing for a\nfew moments the remarkable growth of my native city the Governor tapped\non his desk and inquired what he could do for me. I produced the letter\nfrom the attorney for the Railroad. The Governor read it gravely.\n\n\"Ah,\" he said, \"from Mr. Gorse.\" A copy of the proposed bill was\nenclosed, and the Governor read that also, hemmed and hawed a little,\nturned and handed it to Colonel Varney, who was sitting with a detached\nair, smoking contemplatively, a vacant expression on his face. \"What do\nyou think of this, Colonel?\"\n\nWhereupon the Colonel tore himself away from his reflections.\n\n\"What's that, Governor?\"\n\n\"Mr. Gorse has called my attention to what seems to him a flaw in our\nstatutes, an inability to obtain testimony from corporations whose books\nare elsewhere, and who may thus evade, he says, to a certain extent, the\nsovereign will of our state.\"\n\nThe Colonel took the paper with an admirable air of surprise, adjusted\nhis glasses, and became absorbed in reading, clearing his throat once or\ntwice and emitting an exclamation.\n\n\"Well, if you ask me, Governor,\" he said, at length, \"all I can say is\nthat I am astonished somebody didn't think of this simple remedy before\nnow. Many times, sir, have I seen justice defeated because we had no\nsuch legislation as this.\"\n\nHe handed it back. The Governor studied it once more, and coughed.\n\n\"Does the penalty,\" he inquired, \"seem to you a little severe?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" replied the Colonel, emphatically. \"Perhaps it is because I\nam anxious, as a citizen, to see an evil abated. I have had an intimate\nknowledge of legislation, sir, for more than twenty years in this\nstate, and in all that time I do not remember to have seen a bill more\nconcisely drawn, or better calculated to accomplish the ends of justice.\nIndeed, I often wondered why this very penalty was not imposed. Foreign\nmagistrates are notoriously indifferent as to affairs in another state\nthan their own. Rather than go into the hands of a receiver I venture to\nsay that hereafter, if this bill is made a law, the necessary testimony\nwill be forthcoming.\"\n\nThe Governor read the bill through again.\n\n\"If it is introduced, Colonel,\" he said, \"the legislature and the people\nof the state ought to have it made clear to them that its aim is\nto remedy an injustice. A misunderstanding on this point would be\nunfortunate.\"\n\n\"Most unfortunate, Governor.\"\n\n\"And of course,\" added the Governor, now addressing me, \"it would be\nimproper for me to indicate what course I shall pursue in regard to it\nif it should come to me for my signature. Yet I may go so far as to say\nthat the defect it seeks to remedy seems to me a real one. Come in and\nsee me, Mr. Paret, when you are in town, and give my cordial regards to\nMr. Watling.\"\n\nSo gravely had the farce been carried on that I almost laughed, despite\nthe fact that the matter in question was a serious one for me. The\nGovernor held out his hand, and I accepted my dismissal.\n\nI had not gone fifty steps in the corridor before I heard the Colonel's\nvoice in my ear.\n\n\"We had to give him a little rope to go through with his act,\" he\nwhispered confidentially. \"But he'll sign it all right. And now, if\nyou'll excuse me, Mr. Paret, I'll lay a few mines. See you at the hotel,\nsir.\"\n\nThus he indicated, delicately, that it would be better for me to keep\nout of sight. On my way to the Potts House the bizarre elements in\nthe situation struck me again with considerable force. It seemed so\nridiculous, so puerile to have to go through with this political farce\nin order that a natural economic evolution might be achieved. Without\ndoubt the development of certain industries had reached a stage\nwhere the units in competition had become too small, when a greater\nconcentration of capital was necessary. Curiously enough, in this mental\nargument of justification, I left out all consideration of the size of\nthe probable profits to Mr. Scherer and his friends. Profits and brains\nwent together. And, since the Almighty did not limit the latter, why\nshould man attempt to limit the former? We were playing for high but\njustifiable stakes; and I resented the comedy which an hypocritical\ninsistence on the forms of democracy compelled us to go through. It\nseemed unworthy of men who controlled the destinies of state and nation.\nThe point of view, however, was consoling. As the day wore on I sat\nin the Colonel's room, admiring the skill with which he conducted the\ncampaign: a green country lawyer had been got to introduce the bill, it\nhad been expedited to the Committee on the Judiciary, which would have\nan executive session immediately after dinner. I had ventured to inquire\nabout the hearings.\n\n\"There won't be any hearings, sir,\" the Colonel assured me. \"We own that\ncommittee from top to bottom.\"\n\nIndeed, by four o'clock in the afternoon the message came that the\ncommittee had agreed to recommend the bill.\n\nShortly after that the first flurry occurred. There came a knock at the\ndoor, followed by the entrance of a stocky Irish American of about forty\nyears of age, whose black hair was plastered over his forehead. His\nsea-blue eyes had a stormy look.\n\n\"Hello, Jim,\" said the Colonel. \"I was just wondering where you were.\"\n\n\"Sure, you must have been!\" replied the gentleman sarcastically.\n\nBut the Colonel's geniality was unruffled.\n\n\"Mr. Maker,\" he said, \"you ought to know Mr. Paret. Mr. Maker is the\nrepresentative from Ward Five of your city, and we can always count on\nhim to do the right thing, even if he is a Democrat. How about it, Jim?\"\n\nMr. Maker relighted the stump of his cigar.\n\n\"Take a fresh one, Jim,\" said the Colonel, opening a bureau drawer.\n\nMr. Maker took two.\n\n\"Say, Colonel,\" he demanded, \"what's this bill that went into the\njudiciary this morning?\"\n\n\"What bill?\" asked the Colonel, blandly.\n\n\"So you think I ain't on?\" Mr. Maker inquired.\n\nThe Colonel laughed.\n\n\"Where have you been, Jim?\"\n\n\"I've been up to the city, seem' my wife--that's where I've been.\"\n\nThe Colonel smiled, as at a harmless fiction.\n\n\"Well, if you weren't here, I don't see what right you've got to\ncomplain. I never leave my good Democratic friends on the outside, do\nI?\"\n\n\"That's all right,\" replied Mr. Maker, doggedly, \"I'm on, I'm here now,\nand that bill in the Judiciary doesn't pass without me. I guess I can\nstop it, too. How about a thousand apiece for five of us boys?\"\n\n\"You're pretty good at a joke, Jim,\" remarked the Colonel, stroking his\ngoatee.\n\n\"Maybe you're looking for a little publicity in this here game,\"\nretorted Mr. Maker, darkly. \"Say, Colonel, ain't we always treated the\nRailroad on the level?\"\n\n\"Jim,\" asked the Colonel, gently, \"didn't I always take care of you?\"\n\nHe had laid his hand on the shoulder of Mr. Maker, who appeared slightly\nmollified, and glanced at a massive silver watch.\n\n\"Well, I'll be dropping in about eight o'clock,\" was his significant\nreply, as he took his leave.\n\n\"I guess we'll have to grease the wheels a little,\" the Colonel remarked\nto me, and gazed at the ceiling....\n\nThe telegram apropos of the Ward Five leader was by no means the only\ncipher message I sent back during my stay. I had not needed to be told\nthat the matter in hand would cost money, but Mr. Watling's parting\ninstruction to me had been to take the Colonel's advice as to specific\nsums, and obtain confirmation from Fowndes. Nor was it any surprise to\nme to find Democrats on intimate terms with such a stout Republican\nas the Colonel. Some statesman is said to have declared that he knew\nneither Easterners nor Westerners, Northerners nor Southerners, but\nonly Americans; so Colonel Varney recognized neither Democrats nor\nRepublicans; in our legislature party divisions were sunk in a greater\nloyalty to the Railroad.\n\nAt the Colonel's suggestion I had laid in a liberal supply of cigars\nand whiskey. The scene in his room that evening suggested a session of\na sublimated grand lodge of some secret order, such were the mysterious\ncomings and goings, knocks and suspenses. One after another the\n\"important\" men duly appeared and were introduced, the Colonel supplying\nthe light touch.\n\n\"Why, cuss me if it isn't Billy! Mr. Paret, I want you to shake hands\nwith Mr. Donovan, the floor leader of the 'opposition,' sir. Mr. Donovan\nhas had the habit of coming up here for a friendly chat ever since he\nfirst came down to the legislature. How long is it, Billy?\"\n\n\"I guess it's nigh on to fifteen years, Colonel.\"\n\n\"Fifteen years!\" echoed the Colonel, \"and he's so good a Democrat it\nhasn't changed his politics a particle.\"\n\nMr. Donovan grinned in appreciation of this thrust, helped himself\nliberally from the bottle on the mantel, and took a seat on the bed. We\nhad a \"friendly chat.\"\n\nThus I made the acquaintance also of the Hon. Joseph Mecklin, Speaker\nof the House, who unbent in the most flattering way on learning my\nidentity.\n\n\"Mr. Paret's here on that little matter, representing Watling, Fowndes\nand Ripon,\" the Colonel explained. And it appeared that Mr. Mecklin\nknew all about the \"little matter,\" and that the mention of the firm\nof Watling, Fowndes and Ripon had a magical effect in these parts. The\nPresident of the Senate, the Hon. Lafe Giddings, went so far as to say\nthat he hoped before long to see Mr. Watling in Washington. By no means\nthe least among our callers was the Hon. Fitch Truesdale, editor of the\nSt. Helen's Messenger, whose editorials were of the trite effectiveness\nthat is taken widely for wisdom, and were assiduously copied every week\nby other state papers and labeled \"Mr. Truesdale's Common Sense.\" At\ncountless firesides in our state he was known as the spokesman of the\nplain man, who was blissfully ignorant of the fact that Mr. Truesdale\nwas owned body and carcass by Mr. Cyrus Ridden, the principal\nmanufacturer of St. Helen's and a director in several subsidiary lines\nof the Railroad. In the legislature, the Hon. Fitch's function was that\nof the moderate counsellor and bellwether for new members, hence nothing\ncould have been more fitting than the choice of that gentleman for the\nhonour of moving, on the morrow, that Bill No. 709 ought to pass.\n\nMr. Truesdale reluctantly consented to accept a small \"loan\" that would\nhelp to pay the mortgage on his new press....\n\nWhen the last of the gathering had departed, about one o'clock in the\nmorning, I had added considerably to my experience, gained a pretty\naccurate idea of who was who in the legislature and politics of the\nstate, and established relationships--as the Colonel reminded me--likely\nto prove valuable in the future. It seemed only gracious to congratulate\nhim on his management of the affair,--so far. He appeared pleased, and\nsqueezed my hand.\n\n\"Well, sir, it did require a little delicacy of touch. And if I do\nsay it myself, it hasn't been botched,\" he admitted. \"There ain't an\noutsider, as far as I can learn, who has caught on to the nigger in\nthe wood-pile. That's the great thing, to keep 'em ignorant as long as\npossible. You understand. They yell bloody murder when they do find out,\nbut generally it's too late, if a bill's been handled right.\"\n\nI found myself speculating as to who the \"outsiders\" might be. No\nRibblevale attorneys were on the spot as yet,--of that I was satisfied.\nIn the absence of these, who were the opposition? It seemed to me as\nthough I had interviewed that day every man in the legislature.\n\nI was very tired. But when I got into bed, it was impossible to sleep.\nMy eyes smarted from the tobacco smoke; and the events of the day,\nin disorderly manner, kept running through my head. The tide of\nmy exhilaration had ebbed, and I found myself struggling against a\nrevulsion caused, apparently, by the contemplation of Colonel Varney and\nhis associates; the instruments, in brief, by which our triumph over our\nopponents was to be effected. And that same idea which, when launched\namidst the surroundings of the Boyne Club, had seemed so brilliant, now\ntook on an aspect of tawdriness. Another thought intruded itself,--that\nof Mr. Pugh, the president of the Ribblevale Company. My father had\nknown him, and some years before I had traveled halfway across the state\nin his company; his kindliness had impressed me. He had spent a large\npart of his business life, I knew, in building up the Ribblevale, and\nnow it was to be wrested from him; he was to be set aside, perhaps\nforced to start all over again when old age was coming on! In vain I\naccused myself of sentimentality, and summoned all my arguments to prove\nthat in commerce efficiency must be the only test. The image of Mr. Pugh\nwould not down.\n\nI got up and turned on the light, and took refuge in a novel I had in\nmy bag. Presently I grew calmer. I had chosen. I had succeeded. And now\nthat I had my finger at last on the nerve of power, it was no time to\nweaken.\n\nIt was half-past six when I awoke and went to the window, relieved to\nfind that the sun had scattered my morbid fancies with the darkness;\nand I speculated, as I dressed, whether the thing called conscience\nwere not, after all, a matter of nerves. I went downstairs through the\ntobacco-stale atmosphere of the lobby into the fresh air and sparkly\nsunlight of the mild February morning, and leaving the business district\nI reached the residence portion of the little town. The front steps of\nsome of the comfortable houses were being swept by industrious servant\ngirls, and out of the chimneys twisted, fantastically, rich blue smoke;\nthe bare branches of the trees were silver-grey against the sky; gaining\nat last an old-fashioned, wooden bridge, I stood for awhile gazing at\nthe river, over the shallows of which the spendthrift hand of nature had\nflung a shower of diamonds. And I reflected that the world was for the\nstrong, for him who dared reach out his hand and take what it\noffered. It was not money we coveted, we Americans, but power, the\nself-expression conferred by power. A single experience such as I had\nhad the night before would since to convince any sane man that democracy\nwas a failure, that the world-old principle of aristocracy would assert\nitself, that the attempt of our ancestors to curtail political power had\nmerely resulted in the growth of another and greater economic power that\nbade fair to be limitless. As I walked slowly back into town I felt a\nreluctance to return to the noisy hotel, and finding myself in front of\na little restaurant on a side street, I entered it. There was but one\nother customer in the place, and he was seated on the far side of the\ncounter, with a newspaper in front of him; and while I was ordering my\nbreakfast I was vaguely aware that the newspaper had dropped, and that\nhe was looking at me. In the slight interval that elapsed before my\nbrain could register his identity I experienced a distinct shock of\nresentment; a sense of the reintrusion of an antagonistic value at a\nmoment when it was most unwelcome....\n\nThe man had risen and was coming around the counter. He was Hermann\nKrebs.\n\n\"Paret!\" I heard him say.\n\n\"You here?\" I exclaimed.\n\nHe did not seem to notice the lack of cordiality in my tone. He appeared\nso genuinely glad to see me again that I instantly became rather ashamed\nof my ill nature.\n\n\"Yes, I'm here--in the legislature,\" he informed me.\n\n\"A Solon!\"\n\n\"Exactly.\" He smiled. \"And you?\" he inquired.\n\n\"Oh, I'm only a spectator. Down here for a day or two.\"\n\nHe was still lanky, his clothes gave no evidence of an increased\nprosperity, but his complexion was good, his skin had cleared. I was\nmore than ever baked by a resolute good humour, a simplicity that was\nnot innocence, a whimsical touch seemingly indicative of a state of mind\nthat refused to take too seriously certain things on which I set store.\nWhat right had he to be contented with life?\n\n\"Well, I too am only a spectator here,\" he laughed. \"I'm neither fish,\nflesh nor fowl, nor good red herring.\"\n\n\"You were going into the law, weren't you?\" I asked. \"I remember you\nsaid something about it that day we met at Beverly Farms.\"\n\n\"Yes, I managed it, after all. Then I went back home to Elkington to try\nto make a living.\"\n\n\"But somehow I have never thought of you as being likely to develop\npolitical aspirations, Krebs,\" I said.\n\n\"I should say not! he exclaimed.\n\n\"Yet here you are, launched upon a political career! How did it happen?\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm not worrying about the career,\" he assured me. \"I got here by\naccident, and I'm afraid it won't happen again in a hurry. You see, the\nhands in those big mills we have in Elkington sprang a surprise on the\nmachine, and the first thing I knew I was nominated for the legislature.\nA committee came to my boarding-house and told me, and there was the\ndeuce to pay, right off. The Railroad politicians turned in and worked\nfor the Democratic candidate, of course, and the Hutchinses, who own the\nmills, tried through emissaries to intimidate their operatives.\"\n\n\"And then?\" I asked.\n\n\"Well,--I'm here,\" he said.\n\n\"Wouldn't you be accomplishing more,\" I inquired, \"if you hadn't\nantagonized the Hutchinses?\"\n\n\"It depends upon what you mean by accomplishment,\" he answered, so\nmildly that I felt more rued than ever.\n\n\"Well, from what you say, I suppose you're going in for reform, that\nthese workmen up at Elkington are not satisfied with their conditions\nand imagine you can help to better them. Now, provided the conditions\nare not as good as they might be, how are you going to improve them if\nyou find yourself isolated here, as you say?\"\n\n\"In other words, I should cooperate with Colonel Varney and other\ndisinterested philanthropists,\" he supplied, and I realized that I was\nlosing my temper.\n\n\"Well, what can you do?\" I inquired defiantly.\n\n\"I can find out what's going on,\" he said. \"I have already learned\nsomething, by the way.\"\n\n\"And then?\" I asked, wondering whether the implication were personal.\n\n\"Then I can help--disseminate the knowledge. I may be wrong, but I\nhave an idea that when the people of this country learn how their\nlegislatures are conducted they will want to change things.\"\n\n\"That's right!\" echoed the waiter, who had come up with my\ngriddle-cakes. \"And you're the man to tell 'em, Mr. Krebs.\"\n\n\"It will need several thousand of us to do that, I'm afraid,\" said\nKrebs, returning his smile.\n\nMy distaste for the situation became more acute, but I felt that I was\nthrown on the defensive. I could not retreat, now.\n\n\"I think you are wrong,\" I declared, when the waiter had departed to\nattend to another customer. \"The people the great majority of them, at\nleast are indifferent, they don't want to be bothered with politics.\nThere will always be labour agitation, of course,--the more wages those\nfellows get, the more they want. We pay the highest wages in the world\nto-day, and the standard of living is higher in this country than\nanywhere else. They'd ruin our prosperity, if we'd let 'em.\"\n\n\"How about the thousands of families who don't earn enough to live\ndecently even in times of prosperity?\" inquired Krebs.\n\n\"It's hard, I'll admit, but the inefficient and the shiftless are bound\nto suffer, no matter what form of government you adopt.\"\n\n\"You talk about standards of living,--I could show you some examples of\nstandards to make your heart sick,\" he said. \"What you don't realize,\nperhaps, is that low standards help to increase the inefficient of whom\nyou complain.\"\n\nHe smiled rather sadly. \"The prosperity you are advocating,\" he added,\nafter a moment, \"is a mere fiction, it is gorging the few at the expense\nof the many. And what is being done in this country is to store up an\nexplosive gas that some day will blow your superstructure to atoms if\nyou don't wake up in time.\"\n\n\"Isn't that a rather one-sided view, too?\" I suggested.\n\n\"I've no doubt it may appear so, but take the proceedings in this\nlegislature. I've no doubt you know something about them, and that you\nwould maintain they are justified on account of the indifference of the\npublic, and of other reasons, but I can cite an instance that is simply\nlegalized thieving.\" For the first time a note of indignation crept into\nKrebs's voice. \"Last night I discovered by a mere accident, in talking\nto a man who came in on a late train, that a bill introduced yesterday,\nwhich is being rushed through the Judiciary Committee of the House--an\napparently innocent little bill--will enable, if it becomes a law, the\nBoyne Iron Works, of your city, to take possession of the Ribblevale\nSteel Company, lock, stock, and barrel. And I am told it was conceived\nby a lawyer who claims to be a respectable member of his profession, and\nwho has extraordinary ability, Theodore Watling.\"\n\nKrebs put his hand in his pocket and drew out a paper. \"Here's a copy\nof it,--House Bill 709.\" His expression suddenly changed. \"Perhaps Mr.\nWatling is a friend of yours.\"\n\n\"I'm with his firm,\" I replied....\n\nKrebs's fingers closed over the paper, crumpling it.\n\n\"Oh, then, you know about this,\" he said. He was putting the paper back\ninto his pocket when I took it from him. But my adroitness, so carefully\nschooled, seemed momentarily to have deserted me. What should I say? It\nwas necessary to decide quickly.\n\n\"Don't you take rather a--prejudiced view of this, Krebs?\" I said. \"Upon\nmy word, I can't see why you should accept a rumour running around the\nlobbies that Mr. Watling drafted this bill for a particular purpose.\"\n\nHe was silent. But his eyes did not leave my face.\n\n\"Why should any sensible man, a member of the legislature, take stock in\nthat kind of gossip?\" I insisted. \"Why not judge this bill by its face,\nwithout heeding a cock and bull story as to how it may have originated?\nIt is a good bill, or a bad bill? Let's see what it says.\"\n\nI read it.\n\n\"So far as I can see, it is legislation which we ought to have had long\nago, and tends to compel a publicity in corporation affairs that is much\nneeded, to put a stop to practices which every decent citizen deplores.\"\n\nHe drew the paper out of my hand.\n\n\"You needn't go on, Paret,\" he told me. \"It's no use.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm sorry we don't agree,\" I said, and got up. I left him\ntwisting the paper in his fingers.\n\nBeside the clerk's desk in the Potts House, relating one of his\nanecdotes, I spied Colonel Varney, and managed presently to draw him\nupstairs to his room. \"What's the matter?\" he asked.\n\n\"Do you know a man named Krebs in the House?\" I said.\n\n\"From Elkington? Why, that's the man the Hutchinses let slip\nthrough,--the Hutchinses, who own the mills over there. The agitators\nput up a job on them.\" The Colonel was no longer the genial and social\npurveyor of anecdotes. He had become tense, alert, suspicious. \"What's\nhe up to?\"\n\n\"He's found out about this bill,\" I replied.\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"I don't know. But someone told him that it originated in our office,\nand that we were going to use it in our suit against the Ribblevale.\"\n\nI related the circumstances of my running across Krebs, speaking of\nhaving known him at Harvard. Colonel Varney uttered an oath, and strode\nacross to the window, where he stood looking down into the street from\nbetween the lace curtains.\n\n\"We'll have to attend to him, right off,\" he said.\n\nI was surprised to find myself resenting the imputation, and deeply.\n\"I'm afraid he's one of those who can't be 'attended to,'\" I answered.\n\n\"You mean that he's in the employ of the Ribblevale people?\" the Colonel\ninquired.\n\n\"I don't mean anything of the kind,\" I retorted, with more heat,\nperhaps, than I realized. The Colonel looked at me queerly.\n\n\"That's all right, Mr. Paret. Of course I don't want to question your\njudgment, sir. And you say he's a friend of yours.\"\n\n\"I said I knew him at college.\"\n\n\"But you will pardon me,\" the Colonel went on, \"when I tell you that\nI've had some experience with that breed, and I have yet to see one of\n'em you couldn't come to terms with in some way--in some way,\" he added,\nsignificantly. I did not pause to reflect that the Colonel's attitude,\nfrom his point of view (yes, and from mine,--had I not adopted it?)\nwas the logical one. In that philosophy every man had his price, or\nhis weakness. Yet, such is the inconsistency of human nature, I was now\nunable to contemplate this attitude with calmness.\n\n\"Mr. Krebs is a lawyer. Has he accepted a pass from the Railroad?\" I\ndemanded, knowing the custom of that corporation of conferring this\ndelicate favour on the promising young talent in my profession.\n\n\"I reckon he's never had the chance,\" said Mr. Varney.\n\n\"Well, has he taken a pass as a member of the legislature?\"\n\n\"No,--I remember looking that up when he first came down. Sent that\nback, if I recall the matter correctly.\" Colonel Varney went to a desk\nin the corner of the room, unlocked it, drew forth a black book, and\nrunning his fingers through the pages stopped at the letter K. \"Yes,\nsent back his legislative pass, but I've known 'em to do that when they\nwere holding out for something more. There must be somebody who can get\nclose to him.\"\n\nThe Colonel ruminated awhile. Then he strode to the door and called out\nto the group of men who were always lounging in the hall.\n\n\"Tell Alf Young I want to see him, Fred.\"\n\nI waited, by no means free from uneasiness and anxiety, from a certain\nlack of self-respect that was unfamiliar. Mr. Young, the Colonel\nexplained, was a legal light in Galesburg, near Elkington,--the Railroad\nlawyer there. And when at last Mr. Young appeared he proved to be an\noily gentleman of about forty, inclining to stoutness, with one of those\n\"blue,\" shaven faces.\n\n\"Want me, Colonel?\" he inquired blithely, when the door had closed\nbehind him; and added obsequiously, when introduced to me, \"Glad to meet\nyou, Mr. Paret. My regards to Mr. Watling, when you go back.\n\n\"Alf,\" demanded the Colonel, \"what do you know of this fellow Krebs?\"\n\nMr. Young laughed. Krebs was \"nutty,\" he declared--that was all there\nwas to it.\n\n\"Won't he--listen to reason?\"\n\n\"It's been tried, Colonel. Say, he wouldn't know a hundred-dollar bill\nif you showed him one.\"\n\n\"What does he want?\"\n\n\"Oh, something,--that's sure, they all want something.\" Mr. Young\nshrugged his shoulder expressively, and by a skillful manipulation\nof his lips shifted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other\nwithout raising his hands. \"But it ain't money. I guess he's got a\nnotion that later on the labour unions'll send him to the United States\nSenate some day. He's no slouch, either, when it comes to law. I can\ntell you that.\"\n\n\"No--no flaw in his--record?\" Colonel Varney's agate eyes sought those\nof Mr. Young, meaningly.\n\n\"That's been tried, too,\" declared the Galesburg attorney. \"Say, you can\nbelieve it or not, but we've never dug anything up so far. He's been too\nslick for us, I guess.\"\n\n\"Well,\" exclaimed the Colonel, at length, \"let him squeal and be d--d!\nHe can't do any more than make a noise. Only I hoped we'd be able to\ngrease this thing along and slide it through the Senate this afternoon,\nbefore they got wind of it.\"\n\n\"He'll squeal, all right, until you smother him,\" Mr. Young observed.\n\n\"We'll smother him some day!\" replied the Colonel, savagely.\n\nMr. Young laughed.\n\nBut as I made my way toward the State House I was conscious of a feeling\nof relief. I had no sooner gained a front seat in the gallery of the\nHouse of Representatives when the members rose, the Senate marched\ngravely in, the Speaker stopped jesting with the Chaplain, and over the\nChaplain's face came suddenly an agonized expression. Folding his hands\nacross his stomach he began to call on God with terrific fervour, in an\nintense and resounding voice. I was struck suddenly by the irony of it\nall. Why have a legislature when Colonel Paul Varney was so efficient!\nThe legislature was a mere sop to democratic prejudice, to pray over\nit heightened the travesty. Suppose there were a God after all? not\nnecessarily the magnified monarch to whom these pseudo-democrats prayed,\nbut an Intelligent Force that makes for righteousness. How did He, or\nIt, like to be trifled with in this way? And, if He existed, would not\nHis disgust be immeasurable as He contemplated that unctuous figure in\nthe \"Prince Albert\" coat, who pretended to represent Him?\n\nAs the routine business began I searched for Krebs, to find him\npresently at a desk beside a window in the rear of the hall making notes\non a paper; there was, confessedly, little satisfaction in the thought\nthat the man whose gaunt features I contemplated was merely one of those\nimpractical idealists who beat themselves to pieces against the forces\nthat sway the world and must forever sway it. I should be compelled to\nadmit that he represented something unique in that assembly if he had\nthe courage to get up and oppose House Bill 709. I watched him narrowly;\nthe suggestion intruded itself--perhaps he had been \"seen,\" as the\nColonel expressed it. I repudiated it. I grew impatient, feverish; the\nmonotonous reading of the clerk was interrupted now and then by the\nsharp tones of the Speaker assigning his various measures to this or\nthat committee, \"unless objection is offered,\" while the members moved\nabout and murmured among themselves; Krebs had stopped making notes; he\nwas looking out of the window. At last, without any change of emphasis\nin his droning voice, the clerk announced the recommendation of the\nCommittee on Judiciary that House Bill 709 ought to pass.\n\nDown in front a man had risen from his seat--the felicitous Mr.\nTruesdale. Glancing around at his fellow-members he then began to\nexplain in the impressive but conversational tone of one whose counsels\nare in the habit of being listened to, that this was merely a little\nmeasure to remedy a flaw in the statutes. Mr. Truesdale believed in\ncorporations when corporations were good, and this bill was calculated\nto make them good, to put an end to jugglery and concealment. Our great\nstate, he said, should be in the forefront of such wise legislation,\nwhich made for justice and a proper publicity; but the bill in question\nwas of greater interest to lawyers than to laymen, a committee composed\nlargely of lawyers had recommended it unanimously, and he was sure that\nno opposition would develop in the House. In order not to take up their\ntime he asked: therefore, that it be immediately put on its second and\nthird reading and allowed to pass.\n\nHe sat down, and I looked at Krebs. Could he, could any man, any lawyer,\nhave the presumption to question such an obviously desirable measure,\nto arraign the united judgment of the committee's legal talent? Such\nwas the note Mr. Truesdale so admirably struck. As though fascinated,\nI continued to gaze at Krebs. I hated him, I desired to see him\nhumiliated, and yet amazingly I found myself wishing with almost equal\nvehemence that he would be true to himself. He was rising,--slowly,\ntimidly, I thought, his hand clutching his desk lid, his voice sounding\nwholly inadequate as he addressed the Speaker. The Speaker hesitated,\nhis tone palpably supercilious.\n\n\"The gentleman from--from Elkington, Mr. Krebs.\"\n\nThere was a craning of necks, a staring, a tittering. I burned with\nvicarious shame as Krebs stood there awkwardly, his hand still holding\nthe desk. There were cries of \"louder\" when he began; some picked up\ntheir newspapers, while others started conversations. The Speaker rapped\nwith his gavel, and I failed to hear the opening words. Krebs paused,\nand began again. His speech did not, at first, flow easily.\n\n\"Mr. Speaker, I rise to protest against this bill, which in my opinion\nis not so innocent as the gentleman from St. Helen's would have the\nHouse believe. It is on a par, indeed, with other legislation that in\npast years has been engineered through this legislature under the guise\nof beneficent law. No, not on a par. It is the most arrogant, the most\nmonstrous example of special legislation of them all. And while I do not\nexpect to be able to delay its passage much longer than the time I shall\nbe on my feet--\"\n\n\"Then why not sit down?\" came a voice, just audible.\n\nAs he turned swiftly toward the offender his profile had an eagle-like\neffect that startled me, seemingly realizing a new quality in the man.\nIt was as though he had needed just the stimulus of that interruption to\nelectrify and transform him. His awkwardness disappeared; and if he\nwas a little bombastic, a little \"young,\" he spoke with the fire of\nconviction.\n\n\"Because,\" he cried, \"because I should lose my self-respect for life if\nI sat here and permitted the political organization of a railroad, the\nmembers of which are here under the guise of servants of the people, to\ncow me into silence. And if it be treason to mention the name of that\nRailroad in connection with its political tyranny, then make the most of\nit.\" He let go of the desk, and tapped the copy of the bill. \"What are\nthe facts? The Boyne Iron Works, under the presidency of Adolf Scherer,\nhas been engaged in litigation with the Ribblevale Steel Company for\nsome years: and this bill is intended to put into the hands of the\nattorneys for Mr. Scherer certain information that will enable him to\nget possession of the property. Gentlemen, that is what 'legal practice'\nhas descended to in the hands of respectable lawyers. This device\noriginated with the resourceful Mr. Theodore Watling, and if it had\nnot had the approval of Mr. Miller Gorse, it would never have got any\nfarther than the judiciary committee. It was confided to the skillful\ncare of Colonel Paul Varney to be steered through this legislature,\nas hundreds of other measures have been steered through,--without\nunnecessary noise. It may be asked why the Railroad should bother itself\nby lending its political organization to private corporations? I will\ntell you. Because corporations like the Boyne corporation are a part of\na network of interests, these corporations aid the Railroad to maintain\nits monopoly, and in return receive rebates.\"\n\nKrebs had raised his voice as the murmurs became louder. At this point\na sharp-faced lawyer from Belfast got to his feet and objected that the\ngentleman from Elkington was wasting the time of the House, indulging\nin hearsay. His remarks were not germane, etc. The Speaker rapped\nagain, with a fine show of impartiality, and cautioned the member from\nElkington.\n\n\"Very well,\" replied Krebs. \"I have said what I wanted to say on that\nscore, and I know it to be the truth. And if this House does not find it\ngermane, the day is coming when its constituents will.\"\n\nWhereupon he entered into a discussion of the bill, dissecting it with\nmore calmness, with an ability that must have commanded, even from\nsome hostile minds, an unwilling respect. The penalty, he said, was\noutrageous, hitherto unheard of in law,--putting a corporation in the\nhands of a receiver, at the mercy of those who coveted it, because\none of its officers refused, or was unable, to testify. He might be in\nChina, in Timbuctoo when the summons was delivered at his last or usual\nplace of abode. Here was an enormity, an exercise of tyrannical power\nexceeding all bounds, a travesty on popular government.... He ended by\npointing out the significance of the fact that the committee had given\nno hearings; by declaring that if the bill became a law, it would\ninevitably react upon the heads of those who were responsible for it.\n\nHe sat down, and there was a flutter of applause from the scattered\naudience in the gallery.\n\n\"By God, that's the only man in the whole place!\"\n\nI was aware, for the first time, of a neighbour at my side,--a solid,\nred-faced man, evidently a farmer. His trousers were tucked into his\nboots, and his gnarled and powerful hands, ingrained with dirt, clutched\nthe arms of the seat as he leaned forward.\n\n\"Didn't he just naturally lambaste 'em?\" he cried excitedly. \"They'll\ndown him, I guess,--but say, he's right. A man would lose his\nself-respect if he didn't let out his mind at them hoss thieves,\nwouldn't he? What's that fellow's name?\"\n\nI told him.\n\n\"Krebs,\" he repeated. \"I want to remember that. Durned if I don't shake\nhands with him.\"\n\nHis excitement astonished me. Would the public feel like that, if they\nonly knew?... The Speaker's gavel had come down like a pistol shot.\n\nOne \"war-hoss\"--as my neighbour called them--after another proceeded to\ncrush the member from Elkington. It was, indeed, very skillfully done,\nand yet it was a process from which I did not derive, somehow, much\npleasure. Colonel Varney's army had been magnificently trained to meet\njust this kind of situation: some employed ridicule, others declared, in\nimpassioned tones, that the good name of their state had been wantonly\nassailed, and pointed fervently to portraits on the walls of patriots\nof the past,--sentiments that drew applause from the fickle gallery. One\ngentleman observed that the obsession of a \"railroad machine\" was a sure\nsymptom of a certain kind of insanity, of which the first speaker had\ngiven many other evidences. The farmer at my side remained staunch.\n\n\"They can't fool me,\" he said angrily, \"I know 'em. Do you see that\nfellow gettin' up to talk now? Well, I could tell you a few things about\nhim, all right. He comes from Glasgow, and his name's Letchworth. He's\ndone more harm in his life than all the criminals he's kept out of\nprison,--belongs to one of the old families down there, too.\"\n\nI had, indeed, remarked Letchworth's face, which seemed to me peculiarly\nevil, its lividity enhanced by a shock of grey hair. His method was\nwithering sarcasm, and he was clearly unable to control his animus....\n\nNo champion appeared to support Krebs, who sat pale and tense while this\ndenunciation of him was going on. Finally he got the floor. His voice\ntrembled a little, whether with passion, excitement, or nervousness it\nwas impossible to say. But he contented himself with a brief defiance.\nIf the bill passed, he declared, the men who voted for it, the men who\nwere behind it, would ultimately be driven from political life by an\nindignant public. He had a higher opinion of the voters of the state\nthan those who accused him of slandering it, than those who sat silent\nand had not lifted their voices against this crime.\n\nWhen the bill was put to a vote he demanded a roll call. Ten members\nbesides himself were recorded against House Bill No. 709!\n\nIn spite of this overwhelming triumph my feelings were not wholly\nthose of satisfaction when I returned to the hotel and listened to the\nexultations and denunciations of such politicians as Letchworth, Young,\nand Colonel Varney. Perhaps an image suggesting Hermann Krebs as some\nsplendid animal at bay, dragged down by the hounds, is too strong:\nhe had been ingloriously crushed, and defeat, even for the sake of\nconviction, was not an inspiring spectacle.... As the chase swept\non over his prostrate figure I rapidly regained poise and a sense of\nproportion; a \"master of life\" could not permit himself to be tossed\nabout by sentimentality; and gradually I grew ashamed of my bad quarter\nof an hour in the gallery of the House, and of the effect of it--which\nlingered awhile--as of a weakness suddenly revealed, which must at all\ncosts be overcome. I began to see something dramatic and sensational in\nKrebs's performance....\n\nThe Ribblevale Steel Company was the real quarry, after all. And such\nhad been the expedition, the skill and secrecy, with which our affair\nwas conducted, that before the Ribblevale lawyers could arrive, alarmed\nand breathless, the bill had passed the House, and their only real\nchance of halting it had been lost. For the Railroad controlled the\nHouse, not by owning the individuals composing it, but through the\nleaders who dominated it,--men like Letchworth and Truesdale. These,\nand Colonel Varney, had seen to it that men who had any parliamentary\nability had been attended to; all save Krebs, who had proved a surprise.\nThere were indeed certain members who, although they had railroad passes\nin their pockets (which were regarded as just perquisites,--the\nRailroad being so rich!), would have opposed the bill if they had\nfelt sufficiently sure of themselves to cope with such veterans as\nLetchworth. Many of these had allowed themselves to be won over or cowed\nby the oratory which had crushed Krebs.\n\nNor did the Ribblevale people--be it recorded--scruple to fight fire\nwith fire. Their existence, of course, was at stake, and there was no\npublic to appeal to. A part of the legal army that rushed to the aid of\nour adversaries spent the afternoon and most of the night organizing\nall those who could be induced by one means or another to reverse their\nsentiments, and in searching for the few who had grievances against\nthe existing power. The following morning a motion was introduced to\nreconsider; and in the debate that followed, Krebs, still defiant, took\nan active part. But the resolution required a two-thirds vote, and was\nlost.\n\nWhen the battle was shifted to the Senate it was as good as lost. The\nJudiciary Committee of the august body did indeed condescend to give\nhearings, at which the Ribblevale lawyers exhausted their energy and\ningenuity without result with only two dissenting votes the bill\nwas calmly passed. In vain was the Governor besieged, entreated,\nthreatened,--it was said; Mr. Trulease had informed protesters--so\nColonel Varney gleefully reported--that he had \"become fully convinced\nof the inherent justice of the measure.\" On Saturday morning he signed\nit, and it became a law....\n\nColonel Varney, as he accompanied me to the train, did not conceal his\njubilation.\n\n\"Perhaps I ought not to say it, Mr. Paret, but it couldn't have been\ndone neater. That's the art in these little affairs, to get 'em runnin'\nfast, to get momentum on 'em before the other party wakes up, and then\nhe can't stop 'em.\" As he shook hands in farewell he added, with more\ngravity: \"We'll see each other often, sir, I guess. My very best regards\nto Mr. Watling.\"\n\nNeedless to say, I had not confided to him the part I had played in\noriginating House Bill No. 709, now a law of the state. But as the train\nrolled on through the sunny winter landscape a sense of well-being,\nof importance and power began to steal through me. I was victoriously\nbearing home my first scalp,--one which was by no means to be\ndespised.... It was not until we reached Rossiter, about five o'clock,\nthat I was able to get the evening newspapers. Such was the perfection\nof the organization of which I might now call myself an integral part\nthat the \"best\" publications contained only the barest mention,--and\nthat in the legislative news,--of the signing of the bill. I read\nwith complacency and even with amusement the flaring headlines I had\nanticipated in Mr. Lawler's 'Pilot.'\n\n\"The Governor Signs It!\"\n\n\"Special legislation, forced through by the Railroad Lobby, which will\ndrive honest corporations from this state.\"\n\n\"Ribblevale Steel Company the Victim.\"\n\nIt was common talk in the capital, the article went on to say, that\nTheodore Watling himself had drawn up the measure.... Perusing the\neditorial page my eye fell on the name, Krebs. One member of the\nlegislature above all deserved the gratitude of the people of the\nstate,--the member from Elkington. \"An unknown man, elected in spite of\nthe opposition of the machine, he had dared to raise his voice against\nthis iniquity,\" etc., etc.\n\nWe had won. That was the essential thing. And my legal experience\nhad taught me that victory counts; defeat is soon forgotten. Even the\ndiscontented, half-baked and heterogeneous element from which the Pilot\ngot its circulation had short memories.\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\nThe next morning, which was Sunday, I went to Mr. Watling's house in,\nFillmore Street--a new residence at that time, being admired as the\ndernier cri in architecture. It had a mediaeval look, queer dormers in\na steep roof of red tiles, leaded windows buried deep in walls of rough\nstone. Emerging from the recessed vestibule on a level with the street\nwere the Watling twins, aglow with health, dressed in identical costumes\nof blue. They had made their bow to society that winter.\n\n\"Why, here's Hugh!\" said Frances. \"Doesn't he look pleased with\nhimself?\"\n\n\"He's come to take us to church,\" said Janet.\n\n\"Oh, he's much too important,\" said Frances. \"He's made a killing of\nsome sort,--haven't you, Hugh?\"...\n\nI rang the bell and stood watching them as they departed, reflecting\nthat I was thirty-two years of age and unmarried. Mr. Watling,\nsurrounded with newspapers and seated before his library fire, glanced\nup at me with a welcoming smile: how had I borne the legislative baptism\nof fire? Such, I knew, was its implication.\n\n\"Everything went through according to schedule, eh? Well, I congratulate\nyou, Hugh,\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, I didn't have much to do with it,\" I answered, smiling back at him.\n\"I kept out of sight.\"\n\n\"That's an art in itself.\"\n\n\"I had an opportunity, at close range, to study the methods of our\nlawmakers.\"\n\n\"They're not particularly edifying,\" Mr. Watling replied. \"But they\nseem, unfortunately, to be necessary.\"\n\nSuch had been my own thought.\n\n\"Who is this man Krebs?\" he inquired suddenly. \"And why didn't Varney\nget hold of him and make him listen to reason?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid it wouldn't have been any use,\" I replied. \"He was in my\nclass at Harvard. I knew him--slightly. He worked his way through, and\nhad a pretty hard time of it. I imagine it affected his ideas.\"\n\n\"What is he, a Socialist?\"\n\n\"Something of the sort.\" In Theodore Watling's vigorous, sanity-exhaling\npresence Krebs's act appeared fantastic, ridiculous. \"He has queer\nnotions about a new kind of democracy which he says is coming. I think\nhe is the kind of man who would be willing to die for it.\"\n\n\"What, in these days!\" Mr. Watling looked at me incredulously. \"If\nthat's so, we must keep an eye on him, a sincere fanatic is a good deal\nmore dangerous than a reformer who wants something. There are such men,\"\nhe added, \"but they are rare. How was the Governor, Trulease?\" he asked\nsuddenly. \"Tractable?\"\n\n\"Behaved like a lamb, although he insisted upon going through with his\nlittle humbug,\" I said.\n\nMr. Watling laughed. \"They always do,\" he observed, \"and waste a lot of\nvaluable time. You'll find some light cigars in the corner, Hugh.\"\n\nI sat down beside him and we spent the morning going over the details\nof the Ribblevale suit, Mr. Watling delegating to me certain matters\nconnected with it of a kind with which I had not hitherto been\nentrusted; and he spoke again, before I left, of his intention of\ntaking me into the firm as soon as the affair could be arranged. Walking\nhomeward, with my mind intent upon things to come, I met my mother at\nthe corner of Lyme Street coming from church. Her face lighted up at\nsight of me.\n\n\"Have you been working to-day, Hugh?\" she asked.\n\nI explained that I had spent the morning with Mr. Watling.\n\n\"I'll tell you a secret, mother. I'm going to be taken into the firm.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear, I'm so glad!\" she exclaimed. \"I often think, if only your\nfather were alive, how happy he would be, and how proud of you. I wish\nhe could know. Perhaps he does know.\"\n\nTheodore Watling had once said to me that the man who can best keep\nhis own counsel is the best counsel for other men to keep. I did not go\nabout boasting of the part I had played in originating the now famous\nBill No. 709, the passage of which had brought about the capitulation of\nthe Ribblevale Steel Company to our clients. But Ralph Hambleton knew of\nit, of course.\n\n\"That was a pretty good thing you pulled off, Hughie,\" he said. \"I\ndidn't think you had it in you.\"\n\nIt was rank patronage, of course, yet I was secretly pleased. As the\nyears went on I was thrown more and more with him, though in boyhood\nthere had been between us no bond of sympathy. About this time he was\nbeginning to increase very considerably the Hambleton fortune, and a\nlittle later I became counsel for the Crescent Gas and Electric Company,\nin which he had shrewdly gained a controlling interest. Even toward the\ncolossal game of modern finance his attitude was characteristically\nthat of the dilettante, of the amateur; he played it, as it were,\ncontemptuously, even as he had played poker at Harvard, with a cynical\naudacity that had a peculiarly disturbing effect upon his companions. He\nbluffed, he raised the limit in spite of protests, and when he lost one\nalways had the feeling that he would ultimately get his money back twice\nover. At the conferences in the Boyne Club, which he often attended, his\nmanner toward Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Scherer and even toward Miller Gorse\nwas frequently one of thinly veiled amusement at their seriousness.\nI often wondered that they did not resent it. But he was a privileged\nperson.\n\nHis cousin, Ham Durrett, whose inheritance was even greater than Ralph's\nhad been, had also become a privileged person whose comings and goings\nand more reputable doings were often recorded in the newspapers. Ham\nhad attained to what Gene Hollister aptly but inadvertently called\n\"notoriety\": as Ralph wittily remarked, Ham gave to polo and women that\nwhich might have gone into high finance. He spent much of his time in\nthe East; his conduct there and at home would once have created a black\nscandal in our community, but we were gradually leaving our Calvinism\nbehind us and growing more tolerant: we were ready to Forgive much to\nwealth especially if it was inherited. Hostesses lamented the fact that\nHam was \"wild,\" but they asked him to dinners and dances to meet their\ndaughters.\n\nIf some moralist better educated and more far-seeing than Perry\nBlackwood (for Perry had become a moralist) had told these hostesses\nthat Hambleton Durrett was a victim of our new civilization, they would\nhave raised their eyebrows. They deplored while they coveted. If Ham had\nbeen told he was a victim of any sort, he would have laughed.\n\nHe enjoyed life; he was genial and jovial, both lavish and\nparsimonious,--this latter characteristic being the curious survival of\nthe trait of the ancestors to which he owed his millions. He was growing\neven heavier, and decidedly red in the face.\n\nPerry used to take Ralph to task for not saving Ham from his iniquities,\nand Ralph would reply that Ham was going to the devil anyway, and not\neven the devil himself could stop him.\n\n\"You can stop him, and you know it,\" Perry retorted indignantly.\n\n\"What do you want me to do with him?\" asked Ralph. \"Convert him to the\nsaintly life I lead?\"\n\nThis was a poser.\n\n\"That's a fact,\" sand Perry, \"you're no better than he is.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean by 'better,'\" retorted Ralph, grinning. \"I'm\nwiser, that's all.\" (We had been talking about the ethics of business\nwhen Perry had switched off to Ham.) \"I believe, at least, in restraint\nof trade. Ham doesn't believe in restraint of any kind.\"\n\nWhen, therefore, the news suddenly began to be circulated in the Boyne\nClub that Ham was showing a tendency to straighten up, surprise and\nincredulity were genuine. He was drinking less,--much less; and it was\nsaid that he had severed certain ties that need not again be definitely\nmentioned. The theory of religious regeneration not being tenable, it\nwas naturally supposed that he had fallen in love; the identity of\nthe unknown lady becoming a fruitful subject of speculation among\nthe feminine portion of society. The announcement of the marriage of\nHambleton Durrett would be news of the first magnitude, to be\nabsorbed eagerly by the many who had not the honour of his\nacquaintance,--comparable only to that of a devastating flood or a\nmurder mystery or a change in the tariff.\n\nBeing absorbed in affairs that seemed more important, the subject did\nnot interest me greatly. But one cold Sunday afternoon, as I made my\nway, in answer to her invitation, to see Nancy Willett, I found myself\nwondering idly whether she might not be by way of making a shrewd guess\nas to the object of Hambleton's affections. It was well known that he\nhad entertained a hopeless infatuation for her; and some were inclined\nto attribute his later lapses to her lack of response. He still called\non her, and her lectures, which she delivered like a great aunt with\na recondite knowledge of the world, he took meekly. But even she had\nseemed powerless to alter his habits....\n\nPowell Street, that happy hunting-ground of my youth, had changed its\ncharacter, become contracted and unfamiliar, sooty. The McAlerys and\nother older families who had not decayed with the neighbourhood were\nrapidly deserting it, moving out to the new residence district known\nas \"the Heights.\" I came to the Willett House. That, too, had an air of\nshabbiness,--of well-tended shabbiness, to be sure; the stone steps had\nbeen scrupulously scrubbed, but one of them was cracked clear across,\nand the silver on the polished name-plate was wearing off; even the act\nof pulling the knob of a door-bell was becoming obsolete, so used had\nwe grown to pushing porcelain buttons in bright, new vestibules. As I\nwaited for my summons to be answered it struck me as remarkable that\nneither Nancy nor her father had been contaminated by the shabbiness\nthat surrounded them.\n\nShe had managed rather marvellously to redeem one room from the\nold-fashioned severity of the rest of the house, the library behind\nthe big \"parlour.\" It was Nancy's room, eloquent of her daintiness and\ntaste, of her essential modernity and luxuriousness; and that evening,\nas I was ushered into it, this quality of luxuriousness, of being\nable to shut out the disagreeable aspects of life that surrounded\nand threatened her, particularly impressed me. She had not lacked\nopportunities to escape. I wondered uneasily as I waited why she had\nnot embraced them. I strayed about the room. A coal fire burned in the\ngrate, the red-shaded lamps gave a subdued but cheerful light; some\nimpulse led me to cross over to the windows and draw aside the heavy\nhangings. Dusk was gathering over that garden, bleak and frozen now,\nwhere we had romped together as children. How queer the place seemed!\nHow shrivelled! Once it had had the wide range of a park. There, still\nweathering the elements, was the old-fashioned latticed summer-house,\nbut the fruit-trees that I recalled as clouds of pink and white were\ngone.... A touch of poignancy was in these memories. I dropped the\ncurtain, and turned to confront Nancy, who had entered noiselessly.\n\n\"Well, Hugh, were you dreaming?\" she said.\n\n\"Not exactly,\" I replied, embarrassed. \"I was looking at the garden.\"\n\n\"The soot has ruined it. My life seems to be one continual struggle\nagainst the soot,--the blacks, as the English call them. It's a more\nexpressive term. They are like an army, you know, overwhelming in their\nrelentless invasion. Well, do sit down. It is nice of you to come.\nYou'll have some tea, won't you?\"\n\nThe maid had brought in the tray. Afternoon tea was still rather a new\ncustom with us, more of a ceremony than a meal; and as Nancy handed\nme my cup and the thinnest of slices of bread and butter I found the\nintimacy of the situation a little disquieting. Her manner was indeed\nintimate, and yet it had the odd and disturbing effect of making her\nseem more remote. As she chatted I answered her perfunctorily, while all\nthe time I was asking myself why I had ceased to desire her, whether\nthe old longing for her might not return--was not even now returning? I\nmight indeed go far afield to find a wife so suited to me as Nancy. She\nhad beauty, distinction, and position. She was a woman of whom any man\nmight be proud....\n\n\"I haven't congratulated you yet, Hugh,\" she said suddenly, \"now that\nyou are a partner of Mr. Watling's. I hear on all sides that you are on\nthe high road to a great success.\"\n\n\"Of course I'm glad to be in the firm,\" I admitted.\n\nIt was a new tack for Nancy, rather a disquieting one, this discussion\nof my affairs, which she had so long avoided or ignored. \"You are\ngetting what you have always wanted, aren't you?\"\n\nI wondered in some trepidation whether by that word \"always\" she was\nmaking a deliberate reference to the past.\n\n\"Always?\" I repeated, rather fatuously.\n\n\"Nearly always, ever since you have been a man.\"\n\nI was incapable of taking advantage of the opening, if it were one. She\nwas baffling.\n\n\"A man likes to succeed in his profession, of course,\" I said.\n\n\"And you made up your mind to succeed more deliberately than most men. I\nneedn't ask you if you are satisfied, Hugh. Success seems to agree with\nyou,--although I imagine you will never be satisfied.\"\n\n\"Why do you say that?\" I demanded.\n\n\"I haven't known you all your life for nothing. I think I know you much\nbetter than you know yourself.\"\n\n\"You haven't acted as if you did,\" I exclaimed.\n\nShe smiled.\n\n\"Have you been interested in what I thought about you?\" she asked.\n\n\"That isn't quite fair, Nancy,\" I protested. \"You haven't given me much\nevidence that you did think about me.\"\n\n\"Have I received much encouragement to do so?\" she inquired.\n\n\"But you haven't seemed to invite--you've kept me at arm's length.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't fence!\" she cried, rather sharply.\n\nI had become agitated, but her next words gave me a shock that was\nmomentarily paralyzing.\n\n\"I asked you to come here to-day, Hugh, because I wished you to know\nthat I have made up my mind to marry Hambleton Durrett.\"\n\n\"Hambleton Durrett!\" I echoed stupidly. \"Hambleton Durrett!\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Have you--have you accepted him?\"\n\n\"No. But I mean to do so.\"\n\n\"You--you love him?\"\n\n\"I don't see what right you have to ask.\"\n\n\"But you just said that you invited me here to talk frankly.\"\n\n\"No, I don't love him.\"\n\n\"Then why, in heaven's name, are you going to marry him?\"\n\nShe lay back in her chair, regarding me, her lips slightly parted. All\nat once the full flavour of her, the superfine quality was revealed\nafter years of blindness.--Nor can I describe the sudden rebellion, the\nrevulsion that I experienced. Hambleton Durrett! It was an outrage,\na sacrilege! I got up, and put my hand on the mantel. Nancy remained\nmotionless, inert, her head lying back against the chair. Could it be\nthat she were enjoying my discomfiture? There is no need to confess that\nI knew next to nothing of women; had I been less excited, I might have\nmade the discovery that I still regarded them sentimentally. Certain\nromantic axioms concerning them, garnered from Victorian literature,\npassed current in my mind for wisdom; and one of these declared that\nthey were prone to remain true to an early love. Did Nancy still care\nfor me? The query, coming as it did on top of my emotion, brought with\nit a strange and overwhelming perplexity. Did I really care for her? The\nmany years during which I had practised the habit of caution began\nto exert an inhibiting pressure. Here was a situation, an opportunity\nsuddenly thrust upon me which might never return, and which I was\nutterly unprepared to meet. Would I be happy with Nancy, after all? Her\nexpression was still enigmatic.\n\n\"Why shouldn't I marry him?\" she demanded.\n\n\"Because he's not good enough for you.\"\n\n\"Good!\" she exclaimed, and laughed. \"He loves me. He wants me without\nreservation or calculation.\" There was a sting in this. \"And is he any\nworse,\" she asked slowly, \"than many others who might be mentioned?\"\n\n\"No,\" I agreed. I did not intend to be led into the thankless and\ndisagreeable position of condemning Hambleton Durrett. \"But why have you\nwaited all these years if you did not mean to marry a man of ability, a\nman who has made something of himself?\"\n\n\"A man like you, Hugh?\" she said gently.\n\nI flushed.\n\n\"That isn't quite fair, Nancy.\"\n\n\"What are you working for?\" she suddenly inquired, straightening up.\n\n\"What any man works for, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Ah, there you have hit it,--what any man works for in our world.\nPower,--personal power. You want to be somebody,--isn't that it? Not the\nnoblest ambition, you'll have to admit,--not the kind of thing we used\nto dream about, when we did dream. Well, when we find we can't realize\nour dreams, we take the next best thing. And I fail to see why you\nshould blame me for taking it when you yourself have taken it. Hambleton\nDurrett can give it to me. He'll accept me on my own terms, he won't\ninterfere with me, I shan't be disillusionized,--and I shall have a\nposition which I could not hope to have if I remained unmarried, a very\nmarked position as Hambleton Durrett's wife. I am thirty, you know.\"\n\nHer frankness appalled me.\n\n\"The trouble with you, Hugh, is that you still deceive yourself. You\nthrow a glamour over things. You want to keep your cake and eat it too.\n\n\"I don't see why you say that. And marriage especially--\"\n\nShe took me up.\n\n\"Marriage! What other career is open to a woman? Unless she is married,\nand married well, according to the money standard you men have set up,\nshe is nobody. We can't all be Florence Nightingales, and I am unable\nto imagine myself a Julia Ward Howe or a Harriet Beecher Stowe. What is\nleft? Nothing but marriage. I'm hard and cynical, you will say, but I\nhave thought, and I'm not afraid, as I have told you, to look things in\nthe face. There are very few women, I think, who would not take the real\nthing if they had the chance before it were too late, who wouldn't be\nwilling to do their own cooking in order to get it.\"\n\nShe fell silent suddenly. I began to pace the room.\n\n\"For God's sake, don't do this, Nancy!\" I begged.\n\nBut she continued to stare into the fire, as though she had not heard\nme.\n\n\"If you had made up your mind to do it, why did you tell me?\" I asked.\n\n\"Sentiment, I suppose. I am paying a tribute to what I once was, to what\nyou once were,\" she said. \"A--a sort of good-bye to sentiment.\"\n\n\"Nancy!\" I said hoarsely.\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"No, Hugh. Surely you can't misjudge me so!\" she answered reproachfully.\n\"Do you think I should have sent for you if I had meant--that!\"\n\n\"No, no, I didn't think so. But why not? You--you cared once, and you\ntell me plainly you don't love him. It was all a terrible mistake. We\nwere meant for each other.\"\n\n\"I did love you then,\" she said. \"You never knew how much. And there is\nnothing I wouldn't give to bring it all back again. But I can't. It's\ngone. You're gone, and I'm gone. I mean what we were. Oh, why did you\nchange?\"\n\n\"It was you who changed,\" I declared, bewildered.\n\n\"Couldn't you see--can't you see now what you did? But perhaps you\ncouldn't help it. Perhaps it was just you, after all.\"\n\n\"What I did?\"\n\n\"Why couldn't you have held fast to your faith? If you had, you would\nhave known what it was I adored in you. Oh, I don't mind telling you\nnow, it was just that faith, Hugh, that faith you had in life, that\nfaith you had in me. You weren't cynical and calculating, like Ralph\nHambleton, you had imagination. I--I dreamed, too. And do you remember\nthe time when you made the boat, and we went to Logan's Pond, and you\nsank in her?\"\n\n\"And you stayed,\" I went on, \"when all the others ran away? You ran down\nthe hill like a whirlwind.\"\n\nShe laughed.\n\n\"And then you came here one day, to a party, and said you were going to\nHarvard, and quarrelled with me.\"\n\n\"Why did you doubt met\" I asked agitatedly. \"Why didn't you let me see\nthat you still cared?\"\n\n\"Because that wasn't you, Hugh, that wasn't your real self. Do you\nsuppose it mattered to me whether you went to Harvard with the others?\nOh, I was foolish too, I know. I shouldn't have said what I did. But\nwhat is the use of regrets?\" she exclaimed. \"We've both run after the\npractical gods, and the others have hidden their faces from us. It may\nbe that we are not to blame, either of us, that the practical gods are\ntoo strong. We've learned to love and worship them, and now we can't do\nwithout them.\"\n\n\"We can try, Nancy,\" I pleaded.\n\n\"No,\" she answered in a low voice, \"that's the difference between you\nand me. I know myself better than you know yourself, and I know you\nbetter.\" She smiled again. \"Unless we could have it all back again, I\nshouldn't want any of it. You do not love me--\"\n\nI started once more to protest.\n\n\"No, no, don't say it!\" she cried.\n\n\"You may think you do, just this moment, but it's only because--you've\nbeen moved. And what you believe you want isn't me, it's what I was. But\nI'm not that any more,--I'm simply recalling that, don't you see? And\neven then you wouldn't wish me, now, as I was. That sounds involved,\nbut you must understand. You want a woman who will be wrapped up in your\ncareer, Hugh, and yet who will not share it,--who will devote herself\nbody and soul to what you have become. A woman whom you can shape. And\nyou won't really love her, but only just so much of her as may become\nthe incarnation of you. Well, I'm not that kind of woman. I might have\nbeen, had you been different. I'm not at all sure. Certainly I'm not\nthat kind now, even though I know in my heart that the sort of career\nyou have made for yourself, and that I intend to make for myself is all\ndross. But now I can't do without it.\"\n\n\"And yet you are going to marry Hambleton Durrett!\" I said.\n\nShe understood me, although I regretted my words at once.\n\n\"Yes, I am going to marry him.\" There was a shade of bitterness, of\ndefiance in her voice. \"Surely you are not offering me the--the other\nthing, now. Oh, Hugh!\"\n\n\"I am willing to abandon it all, Nancy.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, \"you're not, and I'm not. What you can't see and won't\nsee is that it has become part of you. Oh, you are successful, you will\nbe more and more successful. And you think I should be somebody, as your\nwife, Hugh, more perhaps, eventually, than I shall be as Hambleton's.\nBut I should be nobody, too. I couldn't stand it now, my dear. You must\nrealize that as soon as you have time to think it over. We shall be\nfriends.\"\n\nThe sudden gentleness in her voice pierced me through and through. She\nheld out her hand. Something in her grasp spoke of a resolution which\ncould not be shaken.\n\n\"And besides,\" she added sadly, \"I don't love you any more, Hugh. I'm\nmourning for something that's gone. I wanted to have just this one talk\nwith you. But we shan't mention it again,--we'll close the book.\"...\n\nAt that I fled out of the house, and at first the thought of her as\nanother man's wife, as Hambleton Durrett's wife, was seemingly not to\nbe borne. It was incredible! \"We'll close the book.\" I found myself\nrepeating the phrase; and it seemed then as though something within me\nI had believed dead--something that formerly had been all of me--had\nrevived again to throb with pain.\n\nIt is not surprising that the acuteness of my suffering was of short\nduration, though I remember certain sharp twinges when the announcement\nof the engagement burst on the city. There was much controversy over the\nquestion as to whether or not Ham Durrett's reform would be permanent;\nbut most people were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt; it\nwas time he settled down and took the position in the community that was\nto be expected of one of his name; and as for Nancy, it was generally\nagreed that she had done well for herself. She was not made for\npoverty--and who so well as she was fitted for the social leadership of\nour community?\n\nThey were married in Trinity Church in the month of May, and I was one\nof Ham's attendants. Ralph was \"best man.\" For the last time the old\nWillett mansion in Powell Street wore the gala air of former days;\ncarpets were spread over the sidewalk, and red and white awnings; rooms\nwere filled with flowers and flung open to hundreds of guests. I\nfound the wedding something of an ordeal. I do not like to dwell upon\nit--especially upon that moment when I came to congratulate Nancy as she\nstood beside Ham at the end of the long parlour. She seemed to have no\nregrets. I don't know what I expected of her--certainly not tears and\ntragedy. She seemed taller than ever, and very beautiful in her veil and\nwhite satin gown and the diamonds Ham had given her; very much mistress\nof herself, quite a contrast to Ham, who made no secret of his elation.\nShe smiled when I wished her happiness.\n\n\"We'll be home in the autumn, Hugh, and expect to see a great deal of\nyou,\" she said.\n\nAs I paused in a corner of the room my eye fell upon Nancy's father.\nMcAlery Willett's elation seemed even greater than Ham's. With a\ngardenia in his frock-coat and a glass of champagne in his hand he went\nfrom group to group; and his familiar laughter, which once had seemed\nso full of merriment and fun, gave me to-day a somewhat scandalized\nfeeling. I heard Ralph's voice, and turned to discover him standing\nbeside me, his long legs thrust slightly apart, his hands in his\npockets, overlooking the scene with typical, semi-contemptuous\namusement.\n\n\"This lets old McAlery out, anyway,\" he said.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" I demanded.\n\n\"One or two little notes of his will be cancelled, sooner or\nlater--that's all.\"\n\nFor a moment I was unable to speak.\n\n\"And do you think that she--that Nancy found out--?\" I stammered.\n\n\"Well, I'd be willing to take that end of the bet,\" he replied. \"Why\nthe deuce should she marry Ham? You ought to know her well enough to\nunderstand how she'd feel if she discovered some of McAlery's financial\ncoups? Of course it's not a thing I talk about, you understand. Are you\ngoing to the Club?\"\n\n\"No, I'm going home,\" I said. I was aware of his somewhat compassionate\nsmile as I left him....\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\nOne November day nearly two years after my admission as junior member of\nthe firm of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon seven gentlemen met at luncheon\nin the Boyne Club; Mr. Barbour, President of the Railroad, Mr. Scherer,\nof the Boyne Iron Works and other corporations, Mr. Leonard Dickinson,\nof the Corn National Bank, Mr. Halsey, a prominent banker from the other\ngreat city of the state, Mr. Grunewald, Chairman of the Republican State\nCommittee, and Mr. Frederick Grierson, who had become a very important\nman in our community. At four o'clock they emerged from the club:\ncitizens in Boyne Street who saw them chatting amicably on the steps\nlittle suspected that in the last three hours these gentlemen had chosen\nand practically elected the man who was to succeed Mr. Wade as United\nStates Senator in Washington. Those were the days in which great affairs\nwere simply and efficiently handled. No democratic nonsense about\nleaving the choice to an electorate that did not know what it wanted.\n\nThe man chosen to fill this high position was Theodore Watling. He said\nhe would think about the matter.\n\nIn the nation at large, through the defection of certain Northern states\nneither so conservative nor fortunate as ours, the Democratic party was\nin power, which naturally implies financial depression. There was no\nquestion about our ability to send a Republican Senator; the choice in\nthe Boyne Club was final; but before the legislature should ratify it,\na year or so hence, it were just as well that the people of the state\nshould be convinced that they desired Mr. Watling more than any other\nman; and surely enough, in a little while such a conviction sprang\nup spontaneously. In offices and restaurants and hotels, men began to\nsuggest to each other what a fine thing it would be if Theodore Watling\nmight be persuaded to accept the toga; at the banks, when customers\ncalled to renew their notes and tight money was discussed and Democrats\nexcoriated, it was generally agreed that the obvious thing to do was\nto get a safe man in the Senate. From the very first, Watling sentiment\nstirred like spring sap after a hard winter.\n\nThe country newspapers, watered by providential rains, began to put\nforth tender little editorial shoots, which Mr. Judah B. Tallant\npresently collected and presented in a charming bouquet in the Morning\nEra. \"The Voice of the State Press;\" thus was the column headed; and the\nremarks of the Hon. Fitch Truesdale, of the St. Helen's Messenger, were\ngiven a special prominence. Mr. Truesdale was the first, in his section,\nto be inspired by the happy thought that the one man preeminently fitted\nto represent the state in the present crisis, when her great industries\nhad been crippled by Democratic folly, was Mr. Theodore Watling. The\nRossiter Banner, the Elkington Star, the Belfast Recorder, and I know\nnot how many others simultaneously began to sing Mr. Watling's praises.\n\n\"Not since the troublous times of the Civil War,\" declared the Morning\nEra, \"had the demand for any man been so unanimous.\" As a proof of it,\nthere were the country newspapers, \"which reflected the sober opinion of\nthe firesides of the common people.\"\n\nThere are certain industrious gentlemen to whom little credit is given,\nand who, unlike the average citizen who reserves his enthusiasm for\nelection time, are patriotic enough to labour for their country's good\nall the year round. When in town, it was their habit to pay a friendly\ncall on the Counsel for the Railroad, Mr. Miller Gorse, in the Corn\nBank Building. He was never too busy to converse with them; or, it\nmight better be said, to listen to them converse. Let some legally\nand politically ambitious young man observe Mr. Gorse's method. Did he\ninquire what the party worker thought of Mr. Watling for the Senate? Not\nat all! But before the party worker left he was telling Mr. Gorse that\npublic sentiment demanded Mr. Watling. After leaving Mr. Gorse they\nwended their way to the Durrett Building and handed their cards over\nthe rail of the offices of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon. Mr. Watling shook\nhands with scores of them, and they departed, well satisfied with the\nflavour of his cigars and intoxicated by his personality. He had a\nmarvellous way of cutting short an interview without giving offence.\nSome of them he turned over to Mr. Paret, whom he particularly desired\nthey should know. Thus Mr. Paret acquired many valuable additions to his\nacquaintance, cultivated a memory for names and faces that was to stand\nhim in good stead; and kept, besides, an indexed note-book into which he\nput various bits of interesting information concerning each. Though\nnot immediately lucrative, it was all, no doubt, part of a lawyer's\neducation.\n\nDuring the summer and the following winter Colonel Paul Varney came\noften to town and spent much of his time in Mr. Paret's office smoking\nMr. Watling's cigars and discussing the coming campaign, in which he\ntook a whole-souled interest.\n\n\"Say, Hugh, this is goin' slick!\" he would exclaim, his eyes glittering\nlike round buttons of jet. \"I never saw a campaign where they fell in\nthe way they're doing now. If it was anybody else but Theodore Watling,\nit would scare me. You ought to have been in Jim Broadhurst's campaign,\"\nhe added, referring to the junior senator, \"they wouldn't wood up at\nall, they was just listless. But Gorse and Barbour and the rest wanted\nhim, and we had to put him over. I reckon he is useful down there in\nWashington, but say, do you know what he always reminded me of? One\nof those mud-turtles I used to play with as a boy up in Columbia\nCounty,--shuts up tight soon as he sees you coming. Now Theodore Watling\nain't like that, any way of speaking. We can get up some enthusiasm\nfor a man of his sort. He's liberal and big. He's made his pile, and he\ndon't begrudge some of it to the fellows who do the work. Mark my words,\nwhen you see a man who wants a big office cheap, look out for him.\"\n\nThis, and much more wisdom I imbibed while assenting to my chief's\ngreatness. For Mr. Varney was right,--one could feel enthusiasm for\nTheodore Watling; and my growing intimacy with him, the sense that I\nwas having a part in his career, a share in his success, became for the\nmoment the passion of my life. As the campaign progressed I gave more\nand more time to it, and made frequent trips of a confidential nature\nto the different counties of the state. The whole of my being was\nenergized. The national fever had thoroughly pervaded my blood--the\nnational fever to win. Prosperity--writ large--demanded it, and Theodore\nWatling personified, incarnated the cause. I had neither the time nor\nthe desire to philosophize on this national fever, which animated all\nmy associates: animated, I might say, the nation, which was beginning to\nget into a fever about games. If I remember rightly, it was about\nthis time that golf was introduced, tennis had become a commonplace,\nprofessional baseball was in full swing; Ham Durrett had even organized\na local polo team.... The man who failed to win something tangible\nin sport or law or business or politics was counted out. Such was the\nspirit of America, in the closing years of the nineteenth century.\n\nAnd yet, when one has said this, one has failed to express the national\nGeist in all its subtlety. In brief, the great American sport was not so\nmuch to win the game as to beat it; the evasion of rules challenged\nour ingenuity; and having won, we set about devising methods whereby it\nwould be less and less possible for us winners to lose in the future. No\nbetter illustration of this tendency could be given than the development\nwhich had recently taken place in the field of our city politics,\nhitherto the battle-ground of Irish politicians who had fought one\nanother for supremacy. Individualism had been rampant, competition\nthe custom; you bought an alderman, or a boss who owned four or five\naldermen, and then you never could be sure you were to get what you\nwanted, or that the aldermen and the bosses would \"stay bought.\" But\nnow a genius had appeared, an American genius who had arisen swiftly\nand almost silently, who appealed to the imagination, and whose name was\noften mentioned in a whisper,--the Hon. Judd Jason, sometimes known as\nthe Spider, who organized the City Hall and capitalized it; an ultimate\nand logical effect--if one had considered it--of the Manchester school\nof economics. Enlightened self-interest, stripped of sentiment, ends\non Judd Jasons. He ran the city even as Mr. Sherrill ran his department\nstore; you paid your price. It was very convenient. Being a genius, Mr.\nJason did not wholly break with tradition, but retained those elements\nof the old muddled system that had their value, chartering steamboats\nfor outings on the river, giving colossal picnics in Lowry Park. The\npoor and the wanderer and the criminal (of the male sex at least) were\ncared for. But he was not loved, as the rough-and-tumble Irishmen had\nbeen loved; he did not make himself common; he was surrounded by an aura\nof mystery which I confess had not failed of effect on me. Once, and\nonly once during my legal apprenticeship, he had been pointed out to\nme on the street, where he rarely ventured. His appearance was not\nimpressive....\n\nMr. Jason could not, of course, prevent Mr. Watling's election, even\ndid he so desire, but he did command the allegiance of several city\ncandidates--both democratic and republican--for the state legislature,\nwho had as yet failed to announce their preferences for United States\nSenator. It was important that Mr. Watling's vote should be large, as\nindicative of a public reaction and repudiation of Democratic national\nfolly. This matter among others was the subject of discussion one\nJuly morning when the Republican State Chairman was in the city; Mr.\nGrunewald expressed anxiety over Mr. Jason's continued silence. It was\nexpedient that somebody should \"see\" the boss.\n\n\"Why not Paret?\" suggested Leonard Dickinson. Mr. Watling was not\npresent at this conference. \"Paret seems to be running Watling's\ncampaign, anyway.\"\n\nIt was settled that I should be the emissary. With lively sensations of\ncuriosity and excitement, tempered by a certain anxiety as to my\nability to match wits with the Spider, I made my way to his \"lair\"\nover Monahan's saloon, situated in a district that was anything but\nrespectable. The saloon, on the ground floor, had two apartments; the\nbar-room proper where Mike Monahan, chamberlain of the establishment,\nwas wont to stand, red faced and smiling, to greet the courtiers, big\nand little, the party workers, the district leaders, the hangers-on\nready to be hired, the city officials, the police judges,--yes, and\nthe dignified members of state courts whose elections depended on Mr.\nJason's favour: even Judge Bering, whose acquaintance I had made the day\nI had come, as a law student, to Mr. Watling's office, unbent from time\nto time sufficiently to call there for a small glass of rye and water,\nand to relate, with his owl-like gravity, an anecdote to the \"boys.\" The\nsaloon represented Democracy, so dear to the American public. Here\nall were welcome, even the light-fingered gentlemen who enjoyed the\nprivilege of police protection; and who sometimes, through fortuitous\ncircumstances, were hauled before the very magistrates with whom\nthey had rubbed elbows on the polished rail. Behind the bar-room, and\nseparated from it by swinging doors only the elite ventured to thrust\napart, was an audience chamber whither Mr. Jason occasionally descended.\nAnecdote and political reminiscence gave place here to matters of high\npolicy.\n\nI had several times come to the saloon in the days of my apprenticeship\nin search of some judge or official, and once I had run down here\nthe city auditor himself. Mike Monahan, whose affair it was to\nknow everyone, recognized me. It was part of his business, also, to\nunderstand that I was now a member of the firm of Watling, Fowndes and\nRipon.\n\n\"Good morning to you, Mr. Paret,\" he said suavely. We held a colloquy\nin undertones over the bar, eyed by the two or three customers who were\npresent. Mr. Monahan disappeared, but presently returned to whisper:\n\"Sure, he'll see you,\" to lead the way through the swinging doors and up\na dark stairway. I came suddenly on a room in the greatest disorder, its\ntables and chairs piled high with newspapers and letters, its windows\nstreaked with soot. From an open door on its farther side issued a\nvoice.\n\n\"Is that you, Mr. Paret? Come in here.\"\n\nIt was little less than a command.\n\n\"Heard of you, Mr. Paret. Glad to know you. Sit down, won't you?\"\n\nThe inner room was almost dark. I made out a bed in the corner, and\npropped up in the bed a man; but for the moment I was most aware of a\npair of eyes that flared up when the man spoke, and died down again\nwhen he became silent. They reminded me of those insects which in my\nchildhood days we called \"lightning bugs.\" Mr. Jason gave me a hand\nlike a woman's. I expressed my pleasure at meeting him, and took a chair\nbeside the bed.\n\n\"I believe you're a partner of Theodore Watling's now aren't you? Smart\nman, Watling.\"\n\n\"He'll make a good senator,\" I replied, accepting the opening.\n\n\"You think he'll get elected--do you?\" Mr. Jason inquired.\n\nI laughed.\n\n\"Well, there isn't much doubt about that, I imagine.\"\n\n\"Don't know--don't know. Seen some dead-sure things go wrong in my\ntime.\"\n\n\"What's going to defeat him?\" I asked pleasantly.\n\n\"I don't say anything,\" Mr. Jason replied. \"But I've known funny things\nto happen--never does to be dead sure.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, we're as sure as it's humanly possible to be,\" I declared.\nThe eyes continued to fascinate me, they had a peculiar, disquieting\neffect. Now they died down, and it was as if the man's very presence had\ngone out, as though I had been left alone; and I found it exceedingly\ndifficult, under the circumstances, to continue to address him. Suddenly\nhe flared up again.\n\n\"Watling send you over here?\" he demanded.\n\n\"No. As a matter of fact, he's out of town. Some of Mr. Watling's\nfriends, Mr. Grunewald and Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Gorse and others,\nsuggested that I see you, Mr. Jason.\"\n\nThere came a grunt from the bed.\n\n\"Mr. Watling has always valued your friendship and support,\" I said.\n\n\"What makes him think he ain't going to get it?\"\n\n\"He hasn't a doubt of it,\" I went on diplomatically. \"But we felt--and\nI felt personally, that we ought to be in touch with you, to work along\nwith you, to keep informed how things are going in the city.\"\n\n\"What things?\"\n\n\"Well--there are one or two representatives, friends of yours, who\nhaven't come out for Mr. Watling. We aren't worrying, we know you'll do\nthe right thing, but we feel that it would have a good deal of influence\nin some other parts of the state if they declared themselves. And then\nyou know as well as I do that this isn't a year when any of us\ncan afford to recognize too closely party lines; the Democratic\nadministration has brought on a panic, the business men in that party\nare down on it, and it ought to be rebuked. And we feel, too, that some\nof the city's Democrats ought to be loyal to Mr. Watling,--not that we\nexpect them to vote for him in caucus, but when it comes to the joint\nballot--\"\n\n\"Who?\" demanded Mr. Jason.\n\n\"Senator Dowse and Jim Maher, for instance,\" I suggested.\n\n\"Jim voted for Bill 709 all right--didn't he?\" said Mr. Jason abruptly.\n\n\"That's just it,\" I put in boldly. \"We'd like to induce him to come in\nwith us this time. But we feel that--the inducement would better come\nthrough you.\"\n\nI thought Mr. Jason smiled. By this time I had grown accustomed to\nthe darkness, the face and figure of the man in the bed had become\ndiscernible. Power, I remember thinking, chooses odd houses for itself.\nHere was no overbearing, full-blooded ward ruffian brimming with\nvitality, but a thin, sallow little man in a cotton night-shirt, with\niron-grey hair and a wiry moustache; he might have been an overworked\nclerk behind a dry-goods counter; and yet somehow, now that I had talked\nto him, I realized that he never could have been. Those extraordinary\neyes of his, when they were functioning, marked his individuality as\nunique. It were almost too dramatic to say that he required darkness to\nmake his effect, but so it seemed. I should never forget him. He had in\ntruth been well named the Spider.\n\n\"Of course we haven't tried to get in touch with them. We are leaving\nthem to you,\" I added.\n\n\"Paret,\" he said suddenly, \"I don't care a damn about Grunewald--never\ndid. I'd turn him down for ten cents. But you can tell Theodore Watling\nfor me, and Dickinson, that I guess the 'inducement' can be fixed.\"\n\nI felt a certain relief that the interview had come to an end, that the\nmoment had arrived for amenities. To my surprise, Mr. Jason anticipated\nme.\n\n\"I've been interested in you, Mr. Paret,\" he observed. \"Know who you\nare, of course, knew you were in Watling's office. Then some of the boys\nspoke about you when you were down at the legislature on that Ribblevale\nmatter. Guess you had more to do with that bill than came out in the\nnewspapers--eh?\"\n\nI was taken off my guard.\n\n\"Oh, that's talk,\" I said.\n\n\"All right, it's talk, then? But I guess you and I will have some more\ntalk after a while,--after Theodore Watling gets to be United States\nSenator. Give him my regards, and--and come in when I can do anything\nfor you, Mr. Paret.\"\n\nThanking him, I groped my way downstairs and let myself out by a side\ndoor Monahan had shown me into an alleyway, thus avoiding the saloon.\nAs I walked slowly back to the office, seeking the shade of the awnings,\nthe figure in the darkened room took on a sinister aspect that troubled\nme....\n\nThe autumn arrived, the campaign was on with a whoop, and I had my first\ntaste of \"stump\" politics. The acrid smell of red fire brings it back\nto me. It was a medley of railroad travel, of committees provided with\nbadges--and cigars, of open carriages slowly drawn between lines of\nbewildered citizens, of Lincoln clubs and other clubs marching in\nserried ranks, uniformed and helmeted, stalwarts carrying torches and\nbanners. And then there were the draughty opera-houses with the sylvan\nscenery pushed back and plush chairs and sofas pushed forward; with\nan ominous table, a pitcher of water on it and a glass, near the\nfootlights. The houses were packed with more bewildered citizens. What a\nwonderful study of mob-psychology it would have offered! Men who had not\nthought of the grand old Republican party for two years, and who had not\ncared much about it when they had entered the dooms, after an hour or so\nwent mad with fervour. The Hon. Joseph Mecklin, ex-Speaker of the\nHouse, with whom I traveled on occasions, had a speech referring to the\nmartyred President, ending with an appeal to the revolutionary fathers\nwho followed Washington with bleeding feet. The Hon. Joseph possessed\nthat most valuable of political gifts, presence; and when with quivering\nvoice he finished his peroration, citizens wept with him. What it all\nhad to do with the tariff was not quite clear. Yet nobody seemed to miss\nthe connection.\n\nWe were all of us most concerned, of course, about the working-man\nand his dinner pail,--whom the Democrats had wantonly thrown out of\nemployment for the sake of a doctrinaire theory. They had put him in\ncompetition with the serf of Europe. Such was the subject-matter of my\nown modest addresses in this, my maiden campaign. I had the sense to\nsee myself in perspective; to recognize that not for me, a dignified and\nsubstantial lawyer of affairs, were the rhetorical flights of the Hon.\nJoseph Mecklin. I spoke with a certain restraint. Not too dryly, I hope.\nBut I sought to curb my sentiments, my indignation, at the manner in\nwhich the working-man had been treated; to appeal to the common sense\nrather than to the passions of my audiences. Here were the statistics!\n(drawn, by the way, from the Republican Campaign book). Unscrupulous\ndemagogues--Democratic, of course--had sought to twist and evade them.\nLet this terrible record of lack of employment and misery be compared\nwith the prosperity under Republican rule.\n\n\"One of the most effective speakers in this campaign for the restoration\nof Prosperity,\" said the Rossiter Banner, \"is Mr. Hugh Paret, of\nthe firm of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon. Mr. Paret's speech at the\nOpera-House last evening made a most favourable impression. Mr. Paret\ndeals with facts. And his thoughtful analysis of the situation into\nwhich the Democratic party has brought this country should convince any\nsane-minded voter that the time has come for a change.\"\n\nI began to keep a scrap-book, though I locked it up in the drawer of\nmy desk. In it are to be found many clippings of a similarly gratifying\ntenor....\n\nMecklin and I were well contrasted. In this way, incidentally, I made\nmany valuable acquaintances among the \"solid\" men of the state, the\nlocal capitalists and manufacturers, with whom my manner of dealing with\npublic questions was in particular favour. These were practical men;\nthey rather patronized the Hon. Joseph, thus estimating, to a nicety, a\nmans value; or solidity, or specific gravity, it might better be said,\nsince our universe was one of checks and balances. The Hon. Joseph and\nhis like, skyrocketing through the air, were somehow necessary in the\nscheme of things, but not to be taken too seriously. Me they did take\nseriously, these provincial lords, inviting me to their houses and\nopening their hearts. Thus, when we came to Elkington, Mr. Mecklin\nreposed in the Commercial House, on the noisy main street. Fortunately\nfor him, the clanging of trolley cars never interfered with his\nslumbers. I slept in a wide chamber in the mansion of Mr. Ezra Hutchins.\nThere were many Hutchinses in Elkington,--brothers and cousins and\nuncles and great-uncles,--and all were connected with the woollen\nmills. But there is always one supreme Hutchins, and Ezra was he: tall,\nself-contained, elderly, but well preserved through frugal living,\nessentially American and typical of his class, when he entered the lobby\nof the Commercial House that afternoon the babel of political discussion\nwas suddenly hushed; politicians, traveling salesmen and the members of\nthe local committee made a lane for him; to him, the Hon. Joseph and I\nwere introduced. Mr. Hutchins knew what he wanted. He was cordial to\nMr. Mecklin, but he took me. We entered a most respectable surrey with\ntassels, driven by a raw-boned coachman in a black overcoat, drawn by\ntwo sleek horses.\n\n\"How is this thing going, Paret?\" he asked.\n\nI gave him Mr. Grunewald's estimated majority.\n\n\"What do you think?\" he demanded, a shrewd, humorous look in his blue\neyes.\n\n\"Well, I think we'll carry the state. I haven't had Grunewald's\nexperience in estimating.\"\n\nEzra Hutchins smiled appreciatively.\n\n\"What does Watling think?\"\n\n\"He doesn't seem to be worrying much.\"\n\n\"Ever been in Elkington before?\"\n\nI said I hadn't.\n\n\"Well, a drive will do you good.\"\n\nIt was about four o'clock on a mild October afternoon. The little town,\nof fifteen thousand inhabitants or so, had a wonderful setting in the\nwidening valley of the Scopanong, whose swiftly running waters furnished\nthe power for the mills. We drove to these through a gateway over which\nthe words \"No Admittance\" were conspicuously painted, past long brick\nbuildings that bordered the canals; and in the windows I caught sight\nof drab figures of men and women bending over the machines. Half of the\nbuildings, as Mr. Hutchins pointed out, were closed,--mute witnesses\nof tariff-tinkering madness. Even more eloquent of democratic folly was\nthat part of the town through which we presently passed, streets lined\nwith rows of dreary houses where the workers lived. Children were\nplaying on the sidewalks, but theirs seemed a listless play; listless,\ntoo, were the men and women who sat on the steps,--listless, and\nsomewhat sullen, as they watched us passing. Ezra Hutchins seemed to\nread my thought.\n\n\"Since the unions got in here I've had nothing but trouble,\" he said.\n\"I've tried to do my duty by my people, God knows. But they won't see\nwhich side their bread's buttered on. They oppose me at every step, they\nvote against their own interests. Some years ago they put up a job on\nus, and sent a scatter-brained radical to the legislature.\"\n\n\"Krebs.\"\n\n\"Do you know him?\"\n\n\"Slightly. He was in my class at Harvard.... Is he still here?\" I asked,\nafter a pause.\n\n\"Oh, yes. But he hasn't gone to the legislature this time, we've seen to\nthat. His father was a respectable old German who had a little shop and\nmade eye-glasses. The son is an example of too much education. He's a\nnotoriety seeker. Oh, he's clever, in a way. He's given us a good deal\nof trouble, too, in the courts with damage cases.\"...\n\nWe came to a brighter, more spacious, well-to-do portion of the town,\nwhere the residences faced the river. In a little while the waters\nwidened into a lake, which was surrounded by a park, a gift to the\ncity of the Hutchins family. Facing it, on one side, was the Hutchins\nLibrary; on the other, across a wide street, where the maples\nwere turning, were the Hutchinses' residences of various dates of\nconstruction, from that of the younger George, who had lately married a\nwife, and built in bright yellow brick, to the old-fashioned mansion of\nEzra himself. This, he told me, had been good enough for his father, and\nwas good enough for him. The picture of it comes back to me, now, with\nsingular attractiveness. It was of brick, and I suppose a modification\nof the Georgian; the kind of house one still sees in out-of-the way\ncorners of London, with a sort of Dickensy flavour; high and square and\nuncompromising, with small-paned windows, with a flat roof surrounded\nby a low balustrade, and many substantial chimneys. The third storey was\nlower than the others, separated from them by a distinct line. On one\nside was a wide porch. Yellow and red leaves, the day's fall, scattered\nthe well-kept lawn. Standing in the doorway of the house was a girl in\nwhite, and as we descended from the surrey she came down the walk to\nmeet us. She was young, about twenty. Her hair was the colour of the\nrusset maple leaves.\n\n\"This is Mr. Paret, Maude.\" Mr. Hutchins looked at his watch as does a\nman accustomed to live by it. \"If you'll excuse me, Mr. Paret, I have\nsomething important to attend to. Perhaps Mr. Paret would like to look\nabout the grounds?\" He addressed his daughter.\n\nI said I should be delighted, though I had no idea what grounds were\nmeant. As I followed Maude around the house she explained that all the\nHutchins connection had a common back yard, as she expressed it. In\nreality, there were about two blocks of the property, extending behind\nall the houses. There were great trees with swings, groves, orchards\nwhere the late apples glistened between the leaves, an old-fashioned\nflower garden loath to relinquish its blooming. In the distance the\nshadowed western ridge hung like a curtain of deep blue velvet against\nthe sunset.\n\n\"What a wonderful spot!\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"Yes, it is nice,\" she agreed, \"we were all brought up here--I mean my\ncousins and myself. There are dozens of us. And dozens left,\" she added,\nas the shouts and laughter of children broke the stillness.\n\nA boy came running around the corner of the path. He struck out at\nMaude. With a remarkably swift movement she retaliated.\n\n\"Ouch!\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"You got him that time,\" I laughed, and, being detected, she suddenly\nblushed. It was this act that drew my attention to her, that defined\nher as an individual. Before that I had regarded her merely as a shy and\nprovincial girl. Now she was brimming with an unsuspected vitality. A\ncertain interest was aroused, although her shyness towards me was not\naltered. I found it rather a flattering shyness.\n\n\"It's Hugh,\" she explained, \"he's always trying to be funny. Speak to\nMr. Paret, Hugh.\"\n\n\"Why, that's my name, too,\" I said.\n\n\"Is it?\"\n\n\"She knocked my hat off a little while ago,\" said Hugh. \"I was only\ngetting square.\"\n\n\"Well, you didn't get square, did you?\" I asked.\n\n\"Are you going to speak in the tows hall to-night?\" the boy demanded. I\nadmitted it. He went off, pausing once to stare back at me.... Maude and\nI walked on.\n\n\"It must be exciting to speak before a large audience,\" she said. \"If I\nwere a man, I think I should like to be in politics.\"\n\n\"I cannot imagine you in politics,\" I answered.\n\nShe laughed.\n\n\"I said, if I were a man.\"\n\n\"Are you going to the meeting?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. Father promised to take me. He has a box.\"\n\nI thought it would be pleasant to have her there.\n\n\"I'm afraid you'll find what I have to say rather dry,\" I said.\n\n\"A woman can't expect to understand everything,\" she answered quickly.\n\nThis remark struck me favourably. I glanced at her sideways. She was not\na beauty, but she was distinctly well-formed and strong. Her face was\noval, her features not quite regular,--giving them a certain charm; her\ncolour was fresh, her eyes blue, the lighter blue one sees on Chinese\nware: not a poetic comparison, but so I thought of them. She was\napparently not sophisticated, as were most of the young women at home\nwhom I knew intimately (as were the Watling twins, for example, with one\nof whom, Frances, I had had, by the way, rather a lively flirtation the\nspring before); she seemed refreshingly original, impressionable and\nplastic....\n\nWe walked slowly back to the house, and in the hallway I met Mrs.\nHutchins, a bustling, housewifely lady, inclined to stoutness, whose\ncreased and kindly face bore witness to long acquiescence in the\ndiscipline of matrimony, to the contentment that results from an\nessentially circumscribed and comfortable life. She was, I learned\nlater, the second Mrs. Hutchins, and Maude their only child. The\nchildren of the first marriage, all girls, had married and scattered.\n\nSupper was a decorous but heterogeneous meal of the old-fashioned sort\nthat gives one the choice between tea and cocoa. It was something of\nan occasion, I suspected. The minister was there, the Reverend Mr.\nDoddridge, who would have made, in appearance at least, a perfect\nPuritan divine in a steeple hat and a tippet. Only--he was no longer\nthe leader of the community; and even in his grace he had the air of\ndeferring to the man who provided the bounties of which we were about\nto partake rather than to the Almighty. Young George was there, Mr.\nHutchins's nephew, who was daily becoming more and more of a factor in\nthe management of the mills, and had built the house of yellow brick\nthat stood out so incongruously among the older Hutchinses' mansions,\nand marked a transition. I thought him rather a yellow-brick gentleman\nhimself for his assumption of cosmopolitan manners. His wife was a\npretty, discontented little woman who plainly deplored her environment,\nlonged for larger fields of conquest: George, she said, must remain\nwhere he was, for the present at least,--Uncle Ezra depended on him; but\nElkington was a prosy place, and Mrs. George gave the impression that\nshe did not belong here. They went to the city on occasions; both\ncities. And when she told me we had a common acquaintance in Mrs.\nHambleton Durrett--whom she thought so lovely!--I knew that she had\ntaken Nancy as an ideal: Nancy, the social leader of what was to Mrs.\nGeorge a metropolis.\n\nPresently the talk became general among the men, the subject being the\ncampaign, and I the authority, bombarded with questions I strove to\nanswer judicially. What was the situation in this county and in that?\nthe national situation? George indulged in rather a vigorous arraignment\nof the demagogues, national and state, who were hurting business in\norder to obtain political power. The Reverend Mr. Doddridge assented,\ndeploring the poverty that the local people had brought on themselves\nby heeding the advice of agitators; and Mrs. Hutchins, who spent much of\nher time in charity work, agreed with the minister when he declared\nthat the trouble was largely due to a decline in Christian belief. Ezra\nHutchins, too, nodded at this.\n\n\"Take that man Krebs, for example,\" the minister went on, stimulated by\nthis encouragement, \"he's an atheist, pure and simple.\" A sympathetic\nshudder went around the table at the word. George alone smiled. \"Old\nKrebs was a free-thinker; I used to get my glasses of him. He was at\nleast a conscientious man, a good workman, which is more than can be\nsaid for the son. Young Krebs has talent, and if only he had devoted\nhimself to the honest practice of law, instead of stirring up\ndissatisfaction among these people, he would be a successful man\nto-day.\"\n\nMr. Hutchins explained that I was at college with Krebs.\n\n\"These people must like him,\" I said, \"or they wouldn't have sent him to\nthe legislature.\"\n\n\"Well, a good many of them do like him,\" the minister admitted.\n\"You see, he actually lives among them. They believe his socialistic\ndoctrines because he's a friend of theirs.\"\n\n\"He won't represent this town again, that's sure,\" exclaimed George.\n\"You didn't see in the papers that he was nominated,--did you, Paret?\"\n\n\"But if the mill people wanted him, George, how could it be prevented?\"\nhis wife demanded.\n\nGeorge winked at me.\n\n\"There are more ways of skinning a cat than one,\" he said cryptically.\n\n\"Well, it's time to go to the meeting, I guess,\" remarked Ezra, rising.\nOnce more he looked at his watch.\n\nWe were packed into several family carriages and started off. In front\nof the hall the inevitable red fire was burning, its quivering light\nreflected on the faces of the crowd that blocked the street. They stood\nsilent, strangely apathetic as we pushed through them to the curb, and\nthe red fire went out suddenly as we descended. My temporary sense of\ndepression, however, deserted me as we entered the hall, which was well\nlighted and filled with people, who clapped when the Hon. Joseph and\nI, accompanied by Mr. Doddridge and the Hon. Henry Clay Mellish from\nPottstown, with the local chairman, walked out on the stage. A glance\nover the audience sufficed to ascertain that that portion of the\npopulation whose dinner pails we longed to fill was evidently not\npresent in large numbers. But the farmers had driven in from the\nhills, while the merchants and storekeepers of Elkington had turned out\nloyally.\n\nThe chairman, in introducing me, proclaimed me as a coming man, and\ndeclared that I had already achieved, in the campaign, considerable\nnotoriety. As I spoke, I was pleasantly aware of Maude Hutchins leaning\nforward a little across the rail of the right-hand stage box--for the\ntown hall was half opera-house; her attitude was one of semi-absorbed\nadmiration; and the thought that I had made an impression on her\nstimulated me. I spoke with more aplomb. Somewhat to my surprise, I\nfound myself making occasional, unexpected witticisms that drew laughter\nand applause. Suddenly, from the back of the hall, a voice called\nout:--\"How about House Bill 709?\"\n\nThere was a silence, then a stirring and craning of necks. It was my\nfirst experience of heckling, and for the moment I was taken aback. I\nthought of Krebs. He had, indeed, been in my mind since I had risen to\nmy feet, and I had scanned the faces before me in search of his. But it\nwas not his voice.\n\n\"Well, what about Bill 709?\" I demanded.\n\n\"You ought to know something about it, I guess,\" the voice responded.\n\n\"Put him out!\" came from various portions of the hall.\n\nInwardly, I was shaken. Not--in orthodox language from any \"conviction\nof sin.\" Yet it was my first intimation that my part in the legislation\nreferred to was known to any save a select few. I blamed Krebs, and a\nhot anger arose within me against him. After all, what could they prove?\n\n\"No, don't put him out,\" I said. \"Let him come up here to the platform.\nI'll yield to him. And I'm entirely willing to discuss with him and\ndefend any measures passed in the legislature of this state by a\nRepublican majority. Perhaps,\" I added, \"the gentleman has a copy of the\nlaw in his pocket, that I may know what he is talking about, and answer\nhim intelligently.\"\n\nAt this there was wild applause. I had the audience with me. The\noffender remained silent and presently I finished my speech. After that\nMr. Mecklin made them cheer and weep, and Mr. Mellish made them laugh.\nThe meeting had been highly successful.\n\n\"You polished him off, all right,\" said George Hutchins, as he took my\nhand.\n\n\"Who was he?\"\n\n\"Oh, one of the local sore-heads. Krebs put him up to it, of course.\"\n\n\"Was Krebs here?\" I asked.\n\n\"Sitting in the corner of the balcony. That meeting must have made him\nfeel sick.\" George bent forward and whispered in my ear: \"I thought Bill\n709 was Watling's idea.\"\n\n\"Oh, I happened to be in the Potts House about that time,\" I explained.\n\nGeorge, of whom it may be gathered that he was not wholly\nunsophisticated, grinned at me appreciatively.\n\n\"Say, Paret,\" he replied, putting his hand through my arm, \"there's\na little legal business in prospect down here that will require some\nhandling, and I wish you'd come down after the campaign and talk it\nover, with us. I've just about made up my mind that you're he man to\ntackle it.\"\n\n\"All right, I'll come,\" I said.\n\n\"And stay with me,\" said George....\n\nWe went to his yellow-brick house for refreshments, salad and ice-cream\nand (in the face of the Hutchins traditions) champagne. Others had been\ninvited in, some twenty persons.... Once in a while, when I looked up,\nI met Maude's eyes across the room. I walked home with her, slowly, the\nlength of the Hutchinses' block. Floating over the lake was a waning\nOctober moon that cast through the thinning maples a lace-work of\nshadows at our feet; I had the feeling of well-being that comes to\nheroes, and the presence of Maude Hutchins was an incense, a vestal\nincense far from unpleasing. Yet she had reservations which appealed to\nme. Hers was not a gushing provincialism, like that of Mrs. George.\n\n\"I liked your speech so much, Mr. Paret,\" she told me. \"It seemed so\nsensible and--controlled, compared to the others. I have never thought a\ngreat deal about these things, of course, and I never understood before\nwhy taking away the tariff caused so much misery. You made that quite\nplain.\n\n\"If so, I'm glad,\" I said.\n\nShe was silent a moment.\n\n\"The working people here have had a hard time during the last year,\"\nshe went on. \"Some of the mills had to be shut down, you know. It has\ntroubled me. Indeed, it has troubled all of us. And what has made it\nmore difficult, more painful is that many of them seem actually to\ndislike us. They think it's father's fault, and that he could run all\nthe mills if he wanted to. I've been around a little with mother and\nsometimes the women wouldn't accept any help from us; they said they'd\nrather starve than take charity, that they had the right to work. But\nfather couldn't run the mills at a loss--could he?\"\n\n\"Certainly not,\" I replied.\n\n\"And then there's Mr. Krebs, of whom we were speaking at supper, and who\nputs all kinds of queer notions into their heads. Father says he's an\nanarchist. I heard father say at supper that he was at Harvard with you.\nDid you like him?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I answered hesitatingly, \"I didn't know him very well.\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" she put in. \"I suppose you couldn't have.\"\n\n\"He's got these notions,\" I explained, \"that are mischievous and\ncrazy--but I don't dislike him.\"\n\n\"I'm glad to hear you say that!\" she answered quietly. \"I like him,\ntoo--he seems so kind, so understanding.\"\n\n\"Do you know him?\"\n\n\"Well,--\" she hesitated--\"I feel as though I do. I've only met him once,\nand that was by accident. It was the day the big strike began, last\nspring, and I had been shopping, and started for the mills to get father\nto walk home with me, as I used to do. I saw the crowds blocking the\nstreets around the canal. At first I paid no attention to them, but\nafter a while I began to be a little uneasy, there were places where I\nhad to squeeze through, and I couldn't help seeing that something was\nwrong, and that the people were angry. Men and women were talking\nin loud voices. One woman stared at me, and called my name, and said\nsomething that frightened me terribly. I went into a doorway--and then\nI saw Mr. Krebs. I didn't know who he was. He just said, 'You'd better\ncome with me, Miss Hutchins,' and I went with him. I thought afterwards\nthat it was a very courageous thing for him to do, because he was so\npopular with the mill people, and they had such a feeling against us.\nYet they didn't seem to resent it, and made way for us, and Mr. Krebs\nspoke to many of them as we passed. After we got to State Street, I\nasked him his name, and when he told me I was speechless. He took off\nhis hat and went away. He had such a nice face--not at all ugly when you\nlook at it twice--and kind eyes, that I just couldn't believe him to be\nas bad as father and George think he is. Of course he is mistaken,\" she\nadded hastily, \"but I am sure he is sincere, and honestly thinks he can\nhelp those people by telling them what he does.\"\n\nThe question shot at me during the meeting rankled still; I wanted to\nbelieve that Krebs had inspired it, and her championship of him gave\nme a twinge of jealousy,--the slightest twinge, to be sure, yet a\nperceptible one. At the same time, the unaccountable liking I had\nfor the man stirred to life. The act she described had been so\ncharacteristic.\n\n\"He's one of the born rebels against society,\" I said glibly. \"Yet I do\nthink he's sincere.\"\n\nMaude was grave. \"I should be sorry to think he wasn't,\" she replied.\nAfter I had bidden her good night at the foot of the stairs, and gone to\nmy room, I reflected how absurd it was to be jealous of Krebs. What\nwas Maude Hutchins to me? And even if she had been something to me, she\nnever could be anything to Krebs. All the forces of our civilization\nstood between the two; nor was she of a nature to take plunges of that\nsort. The next day, as I lay back in my seat in the parlour-car and\ngazed at the autumn landscape, I indulged in a luxurious contemplation\nof the picture she had made as she stood on the lawn under the trees\nin the early morning light, when my carriage had driven away; and I had\nturned, to perceive that her eyes had followed me. I was not in love\nwith her, of course. I did not wish to return at once to Elkington, but\nI dwelt with a pleasant anticipation upon my visit, when the campaign\nshould be over, with George.\n\n\n\n\nXIII.\n\n\"The good old days of the Watling campaign,\" as Colonel Paul Varney is\nwont to call them, are gone forever. And the Colonel himself, who\nstuck to his gods, has been through the burning, fiery furnace of\nInvestigation, and has come out unscathed and unrepentant. The flames of\ninvestigation, as a matter of fact, passed over his head in their vain\nattempt to reach the \"man higher up,\" whose feet they licked; but him\nthey did not devour, either. A veteran in retirement, the Colonel is\nliving under his vine and fig tree on the lake at Rossiter; the vine\nbears Catawba grapes, of which he is passionately fond; the fig tree,\nthe Bartlett pears he gives to his friends. He has saved something\nfrom the spoils of war, but other veterans I could mention are not so\nfortunate. The old warriors have retired, and many are dead; the\ngood old methods are becoming obsolete. We never bothered about those\nmischievous things called primaries. Our county committees, our state\ncommittees chose the candidates for the conventions, which turned around\nand chose the committees. Both the committees and the conventions--under\nadvice--chose the candidates. Why, pray, should the people complain,\nwhen they had everything done for them? The benevolent parties, both\nDemocratic and Republican, even undertook the expense of printing the\nballots! And generous ballots they were (twenty inches long and five\nwide!), distributed before election, in order that the voters might have\nthe opportunity of studying and preparing them: in order that Democrats\nof delicate feelings might take the pains to scratch out all the\nDemocratic candidates, and write in the names of the Republican\ncandidates. Patriotism could go no farther than this....\n\nI spent the week before election in the city, where I had the\nopportunity of observing what may be called the charitable side of\npolitics. For a whole month, or more, the burden of existence had been\nlifted from the shoulders of the homeless. No church or organization,\nlooked out for these frowsy, blear-eyed and ragged wanderers who had\nfailed to find a place in the scale of efficiency. For a whole month, I\nsay, Mr. Judd Jason and his lieutenants made them their especial care;\nsupported them in lodging-houses, induced the night clerks to give them\nattention; took the greatest pains to ensure them the birth-right which,\nas American citizens, was theirs,--that of voting. They were not only\ngiven homes for a period, but they were registered; and in the abundance\nof good feeling that reigned during this time of cheer, even the\nforeigners were registered! On election day they were driven, like\nvisiting notables, in carryalls and carriages to the polls! Some of\nthem, as though in compensation for ills endured between elections,\nvoted not once, but many times; exercising judicial functions for which\nthey should be given credit. For instance, they were convinced that\nthe Hon. W. W. Trulease had made a good governor; and they were Watling\nenthusiasts,--intent on sending men to the legislature who would vote\nfor him for senator; yet there were cases in which, for the minor\noffices, the democrat was the better man!\n\nIt was a memorable day. In spite of Mr. Lawler's Pilot, which was as\na voice crying in the wilderness, citizens who had wives and homes and\nresponsibilities, business men and clerks went to the voting booths\nand recorded their choice for Trulease, Watling and Prosperity: and\nworking-men followed suit. Victory was in the air. Even the policemen\nwore happy smiles, and in some instances the election officers\nthemselves in absent-minded exuberance thrust bunches of ballots into\nthe boxes!\n\nIn response to an insistent demand from his fellow-citizens Mr. Watling,\nthe Saturday evening before, had made a speech in the Auditorium, decked\nwith bunting and filled with people. For once the Morning Era did\nnot exaggerate when it declared that the ovation had lasted fully ten\nminutes. \"A remarkable proof\" it went on to say, \"of the esteem and\nconfidence in which our fellow-citizen is held by those who know him\nbest, his neighbours in the city where he has given so many instances\nof his public spirit, where he has achieved such distinction in the\npractice of the law. He holds the sound American conviction that the\noffice should seek the man. His address is printed in another column,\nand we believe it will appeal to the intelligence and sober judgment of\nthe state. It is replete with modesty and wisdom.\"\n\nMr. Watling was introduced by Mr. Bering of the State Supreme Court (a\ncandidate for re-election), who spoke with deliberation, with owl-like\nimpressiveness. He didn't believe in judges meddling in politics, but\nthis was an unusual occasion. (Loud applause.) Most unusual. He had\ncome here as a man, as an American, to pay his tribute to another man, a\nlong-time friend, whom he thought to stand somewhat aside and above\nmere party strife, to represent values not merely political.... So\naccommodating and flexible is the human mind, so \"practical\" may it\nbecome through dealing with men and affairs, that in listening to Judge\nBering I was able to ignore the little anomalies such a situation might\nhave suggested to the theorist, to the mere student of the institutions\nof democracy. The friendly glasses of rye and water Mr. Bering had\ntaken in Monahan's saloon, the cases he had \"arranged\" for the firm of\nWatling, Fowndes and Ripon were forgotten. Forgotten, too, when Theodore\nWatling stood up and men began, to throw their hats in the air,--were\nthe cavilling charges of Mr. Lawler's Pilot that, far from the office\nseeking the man, our candidate had spent over a hundred thousand dollars\nof his own money, to say nothing of the contributions of Mr. Scherer,\nMr. Dickinson and the Railroad! If I had been troubled with any weak,\nethical doubts, Mr. Watling would have dispelled them; he had red blood\nin his veins, a creed in which he believed, a rare power of expressing\nhimself in plain, everyday language that was often colloquial, but\nnever--as the saying goes--\"cheap.\" The dinner-pail predicament was\nreal to him. He would present a policy of our opponents charmingly, even\npersuasively, and then add, after a moment's pause: \"There is only one\nobjection to this, my friends--that it doesn't work.\" It was all in the\nway he said it, of course. The audience would go wild with approval,\nand shouts of \"that's right\" could be heard here and there. Then he\nproceeded to show why it didn't work. He had the faculty of bringing\nhis lessons home, the imagination to put himself into the daily life of\nthose who listened to him,--the life of the storekeeper, the clerk, of\nthe labourer and of the house-wife. The effect of this can scarcely\nbe overestimated. For the American hugs the delusion that there are no\nclass distinctions, even though his whole existence may be an effort\nto rise out of once class into another. \"Your wife,\" he told them once,\n\"needs a dress. Let us admit that the material for the dress is a little\ncheaper than it was four years ago, but when she comes to look into the\nfamily stocking--\" (Laughter.) \"I needn't go on. If we could have things\ncheaper, and more money to buy them with, we should all be happy, and\nthe Republican party could retire from business.\"\n\nHe did not once refer to the United States Senatorship.\n\nIt was appropriate, perhaps, that many of us dined on the evening of\nelection day at the Boyne Club. There was early evidence of a Republican\nland-slide. And when, at ten o'clock, it was announced that Mr. Trulease\nwas re-elected by a majority which exceeded Mr. Grunewald's most hopeful\nestimate, that the legislature was \"safe,\" that Theodore Watling would\nbe the next United States Senator, a scene of jubilation ensued within\nthose hallowed walls which was unprecedented. Chairs were pushed back,\nrugs taken up, Gene Hollister played the piano and a Virginia reel\nstarted; in a burst of enthusiasm Leonard Dickinson ordered champagne\nfor every member present. The country was returning to its senses.\nTheodore Watling had preferred, on this eventful night, to remain\nquietly at home. But presently carriages were ordered, and a\n\"delegation\" of enthusiastic friends departed to congratulate him;\nDickinson, of course, Grierson, Fowndes, Ogilvy, and Grunewald. We found\nJudah B. Tallant there,--in spite of the fact that it was a busy night\nfor the Era; and Adolf Scherer himself, in expansive mood, was filling\nthe largest of the library chairs. Mr. Watling was the least excited\nof them all; remarkably calm, I thought, for a man on the verge of\nrealizing his life's high ambition. He had some old brandy, and a box\nof cigars he had been saving for an occasion. He managed to convey to\neveryone his appreciation of the value of their cooperation....\n\nIt was midnight before Mr. Scherer arose to take his departure. He\nseized Mr. Watling's hand, warmly, in both of his own.\n\n\"I have never,\" he said, with a relapse into the German f's, \"I\nhave never had a happier moment in my life, my friend, than when I\ncongratulate you on your success.\" His voice shook with emotion. \"Alas,\nwe shall not see so much of you now.\"\n\n\"He'll be on guard, Scherer,\" said Leonard Dickinson, putting his arm\naround my chief.\n\n\"Good night, Senator,\" said Tallant, and all echoed the word, which\nstruck me as peculiarly appropriate. Much as I had admired Mr. Watling\nbefore, it seemed indeed as if he had undergone some subtle change in\nthe last few hours, gained in dignity and greatness by the action of the\npeople that day. When it came my turn to bid him good night, he retained\nmy hand in his.\n\n\"Don't go yet, Hugh,\" he said.\n\n\"But you must be tired,\" I objected.\n\n\"This sort of thing doesn't make a man tired,\" he laughed, leading me\nback to the library, where he began to poke the fire into a blaze. \"Sit\ndown awhile. You must be tired, I think,--you've worked hard in this\ncampaign, a good deal harder than I have. I haven't said much about it,\nbut I appreciate it, my boy.\" Mr. Watling had the gift of expressing his\nfeelings naturally, without sentimentality. I would have given much for\nthat gift.\n\n\"Oh, I liked it,\" I replied awkwardly.\n\nI read a gentle amusement in his eyes, and also the expression of\nsomething else, difficult to define. He had seated himself, and was\nabsently thrusting at the logs with the poker.\n\n\"You've never regretted going into law?\" he asked suddenly, to my\nsurprise.\n\n\"Why, no, sir,\" I said.\n\n\"I'm glad to hear that. I feel, to a considerable extent, responsible\nfor your choice of a profession.\"\n\n\"My father intended me to be a lawyer,\" I told him. \"But it's true that\nyou gave me my--my first enthusiasm.\"\n\nHe looked up at me at the word.\n\n\"I admired your father. He seemed to me to be everything that a lawyer\nshould be. And years ago, when I came to this city a raw country boy\nfrom upstate, he represented and embodied for me all the fine traditions\nof the profession. But the practice of law isn't what it was in his day,\nHugh.\"\n\n\"No,\" I agreed, \"that could scarcely be expected.\"\n\n\"Yes, I believe you realize that,\" he said. \"I've watched you, I've\ntaken a personal pride in you, and I have an idea that eventually\nyou will succeed me here--neither Fowndes nor Ripon have the peculiar\nability you have shown. You and I are alike in a great many respects,\nand I am inclined to think we are rather rare, as men go. We are able to\nkeep one object vividly in view, so vividly as to be able to work for\nit day and night. I could mention dozens who had and have more natural\ntalent for the law than I, more talent for politics than I. The same\nthing may be said about you. I don't regard either of us as natural\nlawyers, such as your father was. He couldn't help being a lawyer.\"\n\nHere was new evidence of his perspicacity.\n\n\"But surely,\" I ventured, \"you don't feel any regrets concerning your\ncareer, Mr. Watling?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"that's just the point. But no two of us are made wholly\nalike. I hadn't practised law very long before I began to realize that\nconditions were changing, that the new forces at work in our industrial\nlife made the older legal ideals impracticable. It was a case of\nchoosing between efficiency and inefficiency, and I chose efficiency.\nWell, that was my own affair, but when it comes to influencing others--\"\nHe paused. \"I want you to see this as I do, not for the sake of\njustifying myself, but because I honestly believe there is more to it\nthan expediency,--a good deal more. There's a weak way of looking at\nit, and a strong way. And if I feel sure you understand it, I shall be\nsatisfied.\n\n\"Because things are going to change in this country, Hugh. They are\nchanging, but they are going to change more. A man has got to make up\nhis mind what he believes in, and be ready to fight for it. We'll have\nto fight for it, sooner perhaps than we realize. We are a nation divided\nagainst ourselves; democracy--Jacksonian democracy, at all events, is\na flat failure, and we may as well acknowledge it. We have a political\nsystem we have outgrown, and which, therefore, we have had to nullify.\nThere are certain needs, certain tendencies of development in nations\nas well as in individuals,--needs stronger than the state, stronger\nthan the law or constitution. In order to make our resources effective,\ncombinations of capital are more and more necessary, and no more to be\ndenied than a chemical process, given the proper ingredients, can be\nthwarted. The men who control capital must have a free hand, or the\nstructure will be destroyed. This compels us to do many things which we\nwould rather not do, which we might accomplish openly and unopposed if\nconditions were frankly recognized, and met by wise statesmanship which\nsought to bring about harmony by the reshaping of laws and policies. Do\nyou follow me?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I answered. \"But I have never heard the situation stated\nso clearly. Do you think the day will come when statesmanship will\nrecognize this need?\"\n\n\"Ah,\" he said, \"I'm afraid not--in my time, at least. But we shall have\nto develop that kind of statesmen or go on the rocks. Public opinion\nin the old democratic sense is a myth; it must be made by strong\nindividuals who recognize and represent evolutionary needs, otherwise\nit's at the mercy of demagogues who play fast and loose with the\nprejudice and ignorance of the mob. The people don't value the vote,\nthey know nothing about the real problems. So far as I can see, they\nare as easily swayed to-day as the crowd that listened to Mark Antony's\noration about Caesar. You've seen how we have to handle them, in this\nelection and--in other matters. It isn't a pleasant practice, something\nwe'd indulge in out of choice, but the alternative is unthinkable. We'd\nhave chaos in no time. We've just got to keep hold, you understand--we\ncan't leave it to the irresponsible.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. In this mood he was more impressive than I had ever known\nhim, and his confidence flattered and thrilled me.\n\n\"In the meantime, we're criminals,\" he continued. \"From now on we'll\nhave to stand more and more denunciation from the visionaries, the\ndissatisfied, the trouble makers. We may as well make up our minds to\nit. But we've got something on our side worth fighting for, and the man\nwho is able to make that clear will be great.\"\n\n\"But you--you are going to the Senate,\" I reminded him.\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n\"The time has not yet come,\" he said. \"Confusion and misunderstanding\nmust increase before they can diminish. But I have hopes of you, Hugh,\nor I shouldn't have spoken. I shan't be here now--of course I'll keep in\ntouch with you. I wanted to be sure that you had the right view of this\nthing.\"\n\n\"I see it now,\" I said. \"I had thought of it, but never--never as\na whole--not in the large sense in which you have expressed it.\" To\nattempt to acknowledge or deprecate the compliment he had paid me was\nimpossible; I felt that he must have read my gratitude and appreciation\nin my manner.\n\n\"I mustn't keep you up until morning.\" He glanced at the clock, and went\nwith me through the hall into the open air. A meteor darted through\nthe November night. \"We're like that,\" he observed, staring after it, a\n\"flash across the darkness, and we're gone.\"\n\n\"Only--there are many who haven't the satisfaction of a flash,\" I was\nmoved to reply.\n\nHe laughed and put his hand on my shoulder as he bade me good night.\n\n\"Hugh, you ought to get married. I'll have to find a nice girl for you,\"\nhe said. With an elation not unmingled with awe I made my way homeward.\n\nTheodore Watling had given me a creed.\n\nA week or so after the election I received a letter from George Hutchins\nasking me to come to Elkington. I shall not enter into the details of\nthe legal matter involved. Many times that winter I was a guest at the\nyellow-brick house, and I have to confess, as spring came on, that\nI made several trips to Elkington which business necessity did not\nabsolutely demand.\n\nI considered Maude Hutchins, and found the consideration rather a\ndelightful process. As became an eligible and successful young man, I\nwas careful not to betray too much interest; and I occupied myself at\nfirst with a review of what I deemed her shortcomings. Not that I was\nthinking of marriage--but I had imagined the future Mrs. Paret as tall;\nMaude was up to my chin: again, the hair of the fortunate lady was to\nbe dark, and Maude's was golden red: my ideal had esprit, lightness\nof touch, the faculty of seizing just the aspect of a subject that\ndelighted me, and a knowledge of the world; Maude was simple, direct,\nand in a word provincial. Her provinciality, however, was negative\nrather than positive, she had no disagreeable mannerisms, her voice was\nnot nasal; her plasticity appealed to me. I suppose I was lost without\nknowing it when I began to think of moulding her.\n\nAll of this went on at frequent intervals during the winter, and while\nI was organizing the Elkington Power and Traction Company for George I\nfound time to dine and sup at Maude's house, and to take walks with\nher. I thought I detected an incense deliciously sweet; by no means\noverpowering, like the lily's, but more like the shy fragrance of the\nwood flower. I recall her kind welcomes, the faint deepening of colour\nin her cheeks when she greeted me, and while I suspected that she looked\nup to me she had a surprising and tantalizing self-command.\n\nThere came moments when I grew slightly alarmed, as, for instance, one\nSunday in the early spring when I was dining at the Ezra Hutchins's\nhouse and surprised Mrs. Hutchins's glance on me, suspecting her of\nseeking to divine what manner of man I was. I became self-conscious; I\ndared not look at Maude, who sat across the table; thereafter I began to\nfeel that the Hutchins connection regarded me as a suitor. I had\ngrown intimate with George and his wife, who did not refrain from sly\nallusions; and George himself once remarked, with characteristic tact,\nthat I was most conscientious in my attention to the traction affair; I\nhave reason to believe they were even less delicate with Maude. This was\nthe logical time to withdraw--but I dallied. The experience was becoming\nmore engrossing,--if I may so describe it,--and spring was approaching.\nThe stars in their courses were conspiring. I was by no means as yet\na self-acknowledged wooer, and we discussed love in its lighter phases\nthrough the medium of literature. Heaven forgive me for calling it so!\nAbout that period, it will be remembered, a mushroom growth of volumes\nof a certain kind sprang into existence; little books with \"artistic\"\nbindings and wide margins, sweetened essays, some of them written in\nbeautiful English by dilettante authors for drawing-room consumption;\nand collections of short stories, no doubt chiefly bought by\nphilanderers like myself, who were thus enabled to skate on thin ice\nover deep water. It was a most delightful relationship that these helped\nto support, and I fondly believed I could reach shore again whenever I\nchose.\n\nThere came a Sunday in early May, one of those days when the feminine\nassumes a large importance. I had been to the Hutchinses' church; and\nMaude, as she sat and prayed decorously in the pew beside me, suddenly\nincreased in attractiveness and desirability. Her voice was very sweet,\nand I felt a delicious and languorous thrill which I identified not only\nwith love, but also with a reviving spirituality. How often the two seem\nto go hand in hand!\n\nShe wore a dress of a filmy material, mauve, with a design in gold\nthread running through it. Of late, it seemed, she had had more new\ndresses: and their modes seemed more cosmopolitan; at least to the\nmasculine eye. How delicately her hair grew, in little, shining wisps,\naround her white neck! I could have reached out my hand and touched\nher. And it was this desire,--although by no means overwhelming,--that\nstartled me. Did I really want her? The consideration of this vital\nquestion occupied the whole time of the sermon; made me distrait at\ndinner,--a large family gathering. Later I found myself alone with heron\na bench in the Hutchinses' garden where we had walked the day of my\narrival, during the campaign.\n\nThe gardens were very different, now. The trees had burst forth again\ninto leaf, the spiraea bushes seemed weighted down with snow, and with a\nnote like that of the quivering bass string of a 'cello the bees hummed\namong the fruit blossoms. And there beside me in her filmy dress\nwas Maude, a part of it all--the meaning of all that set my being\nclamouring. She was like some ripened, delicious flower ready to be\npicked.... One of those pernicious, make-believe volumes had fallen on\nthe bench between us, for I could not read any more; I could not think;\nI touched her hand, and when she drew it gently away I glanced at her.\nReason made a valiant but hopeless effort to assert itself. Was I sure\nthat I wanted her--for life? No use! I wanted her now, no matter\nwhat price that future might demand. An awkward silence fell between\nus--awkward to me, at least--and I, her guide and mentor, became banal,\napologetic, confused. I made some idiotic remark about being together in\nthe Garden of Eden.\n\n\"I remember Mr. Doddridge saying in Bible class that it was supposed\nto be on the Euphrates,\" she replied. \"But it's been destroyed by the\nflood.\"\n\n\"Let's make another--one of our own,\" I suggested.\n\n\"Why, how silly you are this afternoon.\"\n\n\"What's to prevent us--Maude?\" I demanded, with a dry throat.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" she laughed. In proportion as I lost poise she seemed to\ngain it.\n\n\"It's not nonsense,\" I faltered. \"If we were married.\"\n\nAt last the fateful words were pronounced--irrevocably. And, instead of\nqualms, I felt nothing but relief, joy that I had been swept along by\nthe flood of feeling. She did not look at me, but gazed straight ahead\nof her.\n\n\"If I love you, Maude?\" I stammered, after a moment.\n\n\"But I don't love you,\" she replied, steadily.\n\nNever in my life had I been so utterly taken aback.\n\n\"Do you mean,\" I managed to say, \"that after all these months you don't\nlike me a little?\"\n\n\"'Liking' isn't loving.\" She looked me full in the face. \"I like you\nvery much.\"\n\n\"But--\" there I stopped, paralyzed by what appeared to me the\nquintessence of feminine inconsistency and caprice. Yet, as I stared at\nher, she certainly did not appear capricious. It is not too much to\nsay that I was fairly astounded at this evidence of self-command and\ndecision, of the strength of mind to refuse me. Was it possible that she\nhad felt nothing and I all? I got to my feet.\n\n\"I hate to hurt your feelings,\" I heard her say. \"I'm very sorry.\"...\nShe looked up at me. Afterwards, when reflecting on the scene, I seemed\nto remember that there were tears in her eyes. I was not in a\ncondition to appreciate her splendid sincerity. I was overwhelmed and\ninarticulate. I left her there, on the bench, and went back to George's,\nannouncing my intention of taking the five o'clock train....\n\nMaude Hutchins had become, at a stroke, the most desirable of women.\nI have often wondered how I should have felt on that five-hour journey\nback to the city if she had fallen into my arms! I should have persuaded\nmyself, no doubt, that I had not done a foolish thing in yielding to an\nimpulse and proposing to an inexperienced and provincial young woman,\nyet there would have been regrets in the background. Too deeply\nchagrined to see any humour in the situation, I settled down in a\nPullman seat and went over and over again the event of that afternoon\nuntil the train reached the city.\n\nAs the days wore on, and I attended to my cases, I thought of Maude\na great deal, and in those moments when the pressure of business was\nrelaxed, she obsessed me. She must love me,--only she did not realize\nit. That was the secret! Her value had risen amazingly, become supreme;\nthe very act of refusing me had emphasized her qualifications as a wife,\nand I now desired her with all the intensity of a nature which had\nbeen permitted always to achieve its objects. The inevitable process of\nidealization began. In dusty offices I recalled her freshness as she had\nsat beside me in the garden,--the freshness of a flower; with Berkeleyan\nsubjectivism I clothed the flower with colour, bestowed it with\nfragrance. I conferred on Maude all the gifts and graces that woman had\npossessed since the creation. And I recalled, with mingled bitterness\nand tenderness, the turn of her head, the down on her neck, the\nhalf-revealed curve of her arm.... In spite of the growing sordidness of\nLyme Street, my mother and I still lived in the old house, for which\nshe very naturally had a sentiment. In vain I had urged her from time to\ntime to move out into a brighter and fresher neighbourhood. It would be\ntime enough, she said, when I was married.\n\n\"If you wait for that, mother,\" I answered, \"we shall spend the rest of\nour lives here.\"\n\n\"I shall spend the rest of my life here,\" she would declare. \"But\nyou--you have your life before you, my dear. You would be so much more\ncontented if--if you could find some nice girl. I think you live--too\nfeverishly.\"\n\nI do not know whether or not she suspected me of being in love, nor\nindeed how much she read of me in other ways. I did not confide in her,\nnor did it strike me that she might have yearned for confidences; though\nsometimes, when I dined at home, I surprised her gentle face--framed\nnow with white hair--lifted wistfully toward me across the table.\nOur relationship, indeed, was a pathetic projection of that which had\nexisted in my childhood; we had never been confidants then. The world\nin which I lived and fought, of great transactions and merciless\nconsequences frightened her; her own world was more limited than ever.\nShe heard disquieting things, I am sure, from Cousin Robert Breck, who\nhad become more and more querulous since the time-honoured firm of Breck\nand Company had been forced to close its doors and the home at Claremore\nhad been sold. My mother often spent the day in the scrolled suburban\ncottage with the coloured glass front door where he lived with the\nKinleys and Helen....\n\nIf my mother suspected that I was anticipating marriage, and said\nnothing, Nancy Durrett suspected and spoke out.\n\nLife is such a curious succession of contradictions and surprises that\nI record here without comment the fact that I was seeing much more\nof Nancy since her marriage than I had in the years preceding it. A\ncomradeship existed between us. I often dined at her house and had\nfallen into the habit of stopping there frequently on my way home in the\nevening. Ham did not seem to mind. What was clear, at any rate, was that\nNancy, before marriage, had exacted some sort of an understanding by\nwhich her \"freedom\" was not to be interfered with. She was the first\namong us of the \"modern wives.\"\n\nHam, whose heartstrings and purse-strings were oddly intertwined, had\nstipulated that they were to occupy the old Durrett mansion; but when\nNancy had made it \"livable,\" as she expressed it, he is said to have\nremarked that he might as well have built a new house and been done with\nit. Not even old Nathaniel himself would have recognized his home when\nNancy finished what she termed furnishing: out went the horsehair, the\nhideous chandeliers, the stuffy books, the Recamier statuary, and an\narmy of upholsterers, wood-workers, etc., from Boston and New York\ninvaded the place. The old mahogany doors were spared, but matched now\nby Chippendale and Sheraton; the new, polished floors were covered with\nOriental rugs, the dreary Durrett pictures replaced by good canvases and\ntapestries. Nancy had what amounted to a genius for interior effects,\nand she was the first to introduce among us the luxury that was to grow\nmore and more prevalent as our wealth increased by leaps and bounds.\nOnly Nancy's luxury, though lavish, was never vulgar, and her house\nwhen completed had rather marvellously the fine distinction of some old\nLondon mansion filled with the best that generations could contribute.\nIt left Mrs. Frederick Grierson--whose residence on the Heights had\nhitherto been our \"grandest\"--breathless with despair.\n\nWith characteristic audacity Nancy had chosen old Nathaniel's sanctum\nfor her particular salon, into which Ham himself did not dare to venture\nwithout invitation. It was hung in Pompeiian red and had a little\nwrought-iron balcony projecting over the yard, now transformed by an\nexpert into a garden. When I had first entered this room after the\nmetamorphosis had taken place I inquired after the tombstone mantel.\n\n\"Oh, I've pulled it up by the roots,\" she said.\n\n\"Aren't you afraid of ghosts?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Do I look it?\" she asked. And I confessed that she didn't. Indeed,\nall ghosts were laid, nor was there about her the slightest evidence of\nmourning or regret. One was forced to acknowledge her perfection in the\npart she had chosen as the arbitress of social honours. The candidates\nwere rapidly increasing; almost every month, it seemed, someone turned\nup with a fortune and the aspirations that go with it, and it was Mrs.\nDurrett who decided the delicate question of fitness. With these,\nand with the world at large, her manner might best be described as\ndifficult; and I was often amused at the way in which she contrived\nto keep them at arm's length and make them uncomfortable. With her\nintimates--of whom there were few--she was frank.\n\n\"I suppose you enjoy it,\" I said to her once.\n\n\"Of course I enjoy it, or I shouldn't do it,\" she retorted. \"It isn't\nthe real thing, as I told you once. But none of us gets the real thing.\nIt's power.... Just as you enjoy what you're doing--sorting out the\nunfit. It's a game, it keeps us from brooding over things we can't help.\nAnd after all, when we have good appetites and are fairly happy, why\nshould we complain?\"\n\n\"I'm not complaining,\" I said, taking up a cigarette, \"since I still\nenjoy your favour.\"\n\nShe regarded me curiously.\n\n\"And when you get married, Hugh?\"\n\n\"Sufficient unto the day,\" I replied.\n\n\"How shall I get along, I wonder, with that simple and unsophisticated\nlady when she appears?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"you wouldn't marry me.\"\n\nShe shook her head at me, and smiled....\n\n\"No,\" she corrected me, \"you like me better as Hams' wife than you would\nhave as your own.\"\n\nI merely laughed at this remark.... It would indeed have been difficult\nto analyze the new relationship that had sprung up between us, to say\nwhat elements composed it. The roots of it went back to the beginning\nof our lives; and there was much of sentiment in it, no doubt. She\nunderstood me as no one else in the world understood me, and she was\nfond of me in spite of it.\n\nHence, when I became infatuated with Maude Hutchins, after that Sunday\nwhen she so unexpectedly had refused me, I might have known that Nancy's\nsuspicions would be aroused. She startled me by accusing me, out of a\nclear sky, of being in love. I denied it a little too emphatically.\n\n\"Why shouldn't you tell me, Hugh, if it's so?\" she asked. \"I didn't\nhesitate to tell you.\"\n\nIt was just before her departure for the East to spend the summer. We\nwere on the balcony, shaded by the big maple that grew at the end of the\ngarden.\n\n\"But there's nothing to tell,\" I insisted.\n\nShe lay back in her chair, regarding me.\n\n\"Did you think that I'd be jealous?\"\n\n\"There's nothing to be jealous about.\"\n\n\"I've always expected you to get married, Hugh. I've even predicted the\ntype.\"\n\nShe had, in truth, with an accuracy almost uncanny.\n\n\"The only thing I'm afraid of is that she won't like me. She lives in\nthat place you've been going to so much, lately,--doesn't she?\"\n\nOf course she had put two and two together, my visits to Elkington and\nmy manner, which I had flattered myself had not been distrait. On the\nchance that she knew more, from some source, I changed my tactics.\n\n\"I suppose you mean Maude Hutchins,\" I said.\n\nNancy laughed.\n\n\"So that's her name!\"\n\n\"It's the name of a girl in Elkington. I've been doing legal work for\nthe Hutchinses, and I imagine some idiot has been gossiping. She's just\na young girl--much too young for me.\"\n\n\"Men are queer creatures,\" she declared. \"Did you think I should be\njealous?\"\n\nIt was exactly what I had thought, but I denied it.\n\n\"Why should you be--even if there were anything to be jealous about?\nYou didn't consult me when you got married. You merely announced an\nirrevocable decision.\"\n\nNancy leaned forward and laid her hand on my arm.\n\n\"My dear,\" she said, \"strange as it may seem, I want you to be happy. I\ndon't want you to make a mistake, Hugh, too great a mistake.\"\n\nI was surprised and moved. Once more I had a momentary glimpse of the\nreal Nancy....\n\nOur conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Ralph Hambleton....\n\n\n\n\nXIV.\n\nHowever, thoughts of Maude continued to possess me. She still appeared\nthe most desirable of beings, and a fortnight after my repulse, without\nany excuse at all, I telegraphed the George Hutchinses that I was coming\nto pay them a visit. Mrs. George, wearing a knowing smile, met me at the\nstation in a light buck-board.\n\n\"I've asked Maude to dinner,\" she said....\n\nThus with masculine directness I returned to the charge, and Maude's\ncontinued resistance but increased my ardour; could not see why she\ncontinued to resist me.\n\n\"Because I don't love you,\" she said.\n\nThis was incredible. I suggested that she didn't know what love was, and\nshe admitted it was possible: she liked me very, very much. I told her,\nsagely, that this was the best foundation for matrimony. That might be,\nbut she had had other ideas. For one thing, she felt that she did not\nknow me.... In short, she was charming and maddening in her defensive\nruses, in her advances and retreats, for I pressed her hard during\nthe four weeks which followed, and in them made four visits. Flinging\ncaution to the winds, I did not even pretend to George that I was coming\nto see him on business. I had the Hutchins family on my side, for they\nhad the sense to see that the match would be an advantageous one; I even\nsummoned up enough courage to talk to Ezra Hutchins on the subject.\n\n\"I'll not attempt to influence Maude, Mr. Paret--I've always said I\nwouldn't interfere with her choice. But as you are a young man of sound\nhabits, sir, successful in your profession, I should raise no objection.\nI suppose we can't keep her always.\"\n\nTo conceal his emotion, he pulled out the watch he lived by. \"Why, it's\nchurch time!\" he said.... I attended church regularly at Elkington....\n\nOn a Sunday night in June, following a day during which victory seemed\nmore distant than ever, with startling unexpectedness Maude capitulated.\nShe sat beside me on the bench, obscured, yet the warm night quivered\nwith her presence. I felt her tremble.... I remember the first exquisite\ntouch of her soft cheek. How strange it was that in conquest the tumult\nof my being should be stilled, that my passion should be transmuted into\nawe that thrilled yet disquieted! What had I done? It was as though I\nhad suddenly entered an unimagined sanctuary filled with holy flame....\n\nPresently, when we began to talk, I found myself seeking more familiar\nlevels. I asked her why she had so long resisted me, accusing her of\nhaving loved me all the time.\n\n\"Yes, I think I did, Hugh. Only--I didn't know it.\"\n\n\"You must have felt something, that afternoon when I first proposed to\nyou!\"\n\n\"You didn't really want me, Hugh. Not then.\"\n\nSurprised, and a little uncomfortable at this evidence of intuition, I\nstarted to protest. It seemed to me then as though I had always wanted\nher.\n\n\"No, no,\" she exclaimed, \"you didn't. You were carried away by your\nfeelings--you hadn't made up your mind. Indeed, I can't see why you want\nme now.\"\n\n\"You believe I do,\" I said, and drew her toward me.\n\n\"Yes, I--I believe it, now. But I can't see why. There must be so many\nattractive girls in the city, who know so much more than I do.\"\n\nI sought fervidly to reassure her on this point.... At length when we\nwent into the house she drew away from me at arm's length and gave me\none long searching look, as though seeking to read my soul.\n\n\"Hugh, you will always love me--to the very end, won't you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I whispered, \"always.\"\n\nIn the library, one on each side of the table, under the lamp, Ezra\nHutchins and his wife sat reading. Mrs. Hutchins looked up, and I saw\nthat she had divined.\n\n\"Mother, I am engaged to Hugh,\" Maude said, and bent over and kissed\nher. Ezra and I stood gazing at them. Then he turned to me and pressed\nmy hand.\n\n\"Well, I never saw the man who was good enough for her, Hugh. But God\nbless you, my son. I hope you will prize her as we prize her.\"\n\nMrs. Hutchins embraced me. And through her tears she, too, looked long\ninto my face. When she had released me Ezra had his watch in his hand.\n\n\"If you're going on the ten o'clock train, Hugh--\"\n\n\"Father!\" Maude protested, laughing, \"I must say I don't call that very\npolite.\"...\n\nIn the train I slept but fitfully, awakening again and again to recall\nthe extraordinary fact that I was now engaged to be married, to go\nover the incidents of the evening. Indifferent to the backings and\nthe bumpings of the car, the voices in the stations, the clanging of\nlocomotive bells and all the incomprehensible startings and stoppings,\nexalted yet troubled I beheld Maude luminous with the love I had\namazingly awakened, a love somewhere beyond my comprehension. For her\nindeed marriage was made in heaven. But for me? Could I rise now to the\nideal that had once been mine, thrust henceforth evil out of my life?\nLove forever, live always in this sanctuary she had made for me? Would\nthe time come when I should feel a sense of bondage?...\n\nThe wedding was set for the end of September. I continued to go every\nweek to Elkington, and in August, Maude and I spent a fortnight at the\nsea. There could be no doubt as to my mother's happiness, as to her\napproval of Maude; they loved each other from the beginning. I can\npicture them now, sitting together with their sewing on the porch of the\ncottage at Mattapoisett. Out on the bay little white-caps danced in the\nsunlight, sail-boats tacked hither and thither, the strong cape breeze,\nladen with invigorating salt, stirred Maude's hair, and occasionally\nplayed havoc with my papers.\n\n\"She is just the wife for you, Hugh,\" my mother confided to me. \"If I\nhad chosen her myself I could not have done better,\" she added, with a\nsmile.\n\nI was inclined to believe it, but Maude would have none of this\nillusion.\n\n\"He just stumbled across me,\" she insisted....\n\nWe went on long sails together, towards Wood's Hole and the open sea,\nthe sprays washing over us. Her cheeks grew tanned.... Sometimes, when\nI praised her and spoke confidently of our future, she wore a troubled\nexpression.\n\n\"What are you thinking about?\" I asked her once.\n\n\"You mustn't put me on a pedestal,\" she said gently. \"I want you to see\nme as I am--I don't want you to wake up some day and be disappointed.\nI'll have to learn a lot of things, and you'll have to teach me. I can't\nget used to the fact that you, who are so practical and successful in\nbusiness, should be such a dreamer where I am concerned.\"\n\nI laughed, and told her, comfortably, that she was talking nonsense.\n\n\"What did you think of me, when you first knew me?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Well,\" she answered, with the courage that characterized her, \"I\nthought you were rather calculating, that you put too high a price on\nsuccess. Of course you attracted me. I own it.\"\n\n\"You hid your opinions rather well,\" I retorted, somewhat discomfited.\n\nShe flushed.\n\n\"Have you changed them?\" I demanded.\n\n\"I think you have that side, and I think it a weak side, Hugh. It's hard\nto tell you this, but it's better to say so now, since you ask me. I do\nthink you set too high a value on success.'\n\n\"Well, now that I know what success really is, perhaps I shall reform,\"\nI told her.\n\n\"I don't like to think that you fool yourself,\" she replied, with a\nperspicacity I should have found extraordinary.\n\nThroughout my life there have been days and incidents, some trivial,\nsome important, that linger in my memory because they are saturated with\n\"atmosphere.\" I recall, for instance, a gala occasion in youth when my\nmother gave one of her luncheon parties; on my return from school, the\nhouse and its surroundings wore a mysterious, exciting and unfamiliar\nlook, somehow changed by the simple fact that guests sat decorously\nchatting in a dining-room shining with my mother's best linen and\ntreasured family silver and china. The atmosphere of my wedding-day is\nno less vivid. The house of Ezra Hutchins was scarcely recognizable:\nits doors and windows were opened wide, and all the morning people were\nbeing escorted upstairs to an all-significant room that contained a\ncollection like a jeweller's exhibit,--a bewildering display. There was\na massive punch-bowl from which dangled the card of Mr. and Mrs. Adolf\nScherer, a really wonderful tea set of old English silver given by\nSenator and Mrs. Watling, and Nancy Willett, with her certainty of\ngood taste, had sent an old English tankard of the time of the second\nCharles. The secret was in that room. And it magically transformed for\nme (as I stood, momentarily alone, in the doorway where I had first\nbeheld Maude) the accustomed scene, and charged with undivined\nsignificance the blue shadows under the heavy foliage of the maples. The\nSeptember sunlight was heavy, tinged with gold....\n\nSo fragmentary and confused are the events of that day that a cubist\nliterature were necessary to convey the impressions left upon me. I had\nsomething of the feeling of a recruit who for the first time is taking\npart in a brilliant and complicated manoeuvre. Tom and Susan Peters\nflit across the view, and Gene Hollister and Perry Blackwood and the\nEwanses,--all of whom had come up in a special car; Ralph Hambleton\nwas \"best man,\" looking preternaturally tall in his frock-coat: and\nhis manner, throughout the whole proceeding, was one of good-natured\ntolerance toward a folly none but he might escape.\n\n\"If you must do it, Hughie, I suppose you must,\" he had said to me.\n\"I'll see you through, of course. But don't blame me afterwards.\"\n\nMaude was a little afraid of him....\n\nI dressed at George's; then, like one of those bewildering shifts of\na cinematograph, comes the scene in church, the glimpse of my mother's\nwistful face in the front pew; and I found myself in front of the\naustere Mr. Doddridge standing beside Maude--or rather beside a woman\nI tried hard to believe was Maude--so veiled and generally encased was\nshe. I was thinking of this all the time I was mechanically answering\nMr. Doddridge, and even when the wedding march burst forth and I led her\nout of the church. It was as though they had done their best to disguise\nher, to put our union on the other-worldly plane that was deemed to\nbe its only justification, to neutralize her sex at the very moment it\nshould have been most enhanced. Well, they succeeded. If I had not been\nas conventional as the rest, I should have preferred to have run away\nwith her in the lavender dress she wore when I first proposed to her. It\nwas only when we had got into the carriage and started for the house and\nshe turned to me her face from which the veil had been thrown back that\nI realized what a sublime meaning it all had for her. Her eyes were\nwet. Once more I was acutely conscious of my inability to feel deeply at\nsupreme moments. For months I had looked forward with anticipation and\nimpatience to my wedding-day.\n\nI kissed her gently. But I felt as though she had gone to heaven, and\nthat the face I beheld enshrouded were merely her effigy. Commonplace\nwords were inappropriate, yet it was to these I resorted.\n\n\"Well--it wasn't so bad after all! Was it?\"\n\nShe smiled at me.\n\n\"You don't want to take it back?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"I think it was a beautiful wedding, Hugh. I'm so glad we had a good\nday.\"...\n\nShe seemed shy, at once very near and very remote. I held her hand\nawkwardly until the carriage stopped.\n\nA little later we were standing in a corner of the parlour, the\natmosphere of which was heavy with the scent of flowers, submitting to\nthe onslaught of relatives. Then came the wedding breakfast: croquettes,\nchampagne, chicken salad, ice-cream, the wedding-cake, speeches and more\nkisses.... I remember Tom Peters holding on to both my hands.\n\n\"Good-bye, and God bless you, old boy,\" he was saying. Susan, in view of\nthe occasion, had allowed him a little more champagne than usual--enough\nto betray his feelings, and I knew that these had not changed since our\ncollege days. I resolved to see more of him. I had neglected him and\nundervalued his loyalty.... He had followed me to my room in George's\nhouse where I was dressing for the journey, and he gave it as his\ndeliberate judgment that in Maude I had \"struck gold.\"\n\n\"She's just the girl for you, Hughie,\" he declared. \"Susan thinks so,\ntoo.\"\n\nLater in the afternoon, as we sat in the state-room of the car that\nwas bearing us eastward, Maude began to cry. I sat looking at her\nhelplessly, unable to enter into her emotion, resenting it a little. Yet\nI tried awkwardly to comfort her.\n\n\"I can't bear to leave them,\" she said.\n\n\"But you will see them often, when we come back,\" I reassured her. It\nwas scarcely the moment for reminding her of what she was getting in\nreturn. This peculiar family affection she evinced was beyond me; I\nhad never experienced it in any poignant degree since I had gone as a\nfreshman to Harvard, and yet I was struck by the fact that her emotions\nwere so rightly placed. It was natural to love one's family. I began to\nfeel, vaguely, as I watched her, that the new relationship into which\nI had entered was to be much more complicated than I had imagined.\nTwilight was coming on, the train was winding through the mountain\npasses, crossing and re-crossing a swift little stream whose banks were\nmassed with alder; here and there, on the steep hillsides, blazed\nthe goldenrod.... Presently I turned, to surprise in her eyes a wide,\nquestioning look,--the look of a child. Even in this irrevocable hour\nshe sought to grasp what manner of being was this to whom she had\nconfided her life, and with whom she was faring forth into the unknown.\nThe experience was utterly unlike my anticipation. Yet I responded. The\nkiss I gave her had no passion in it.\n\n\"I'll take good care of you, Maude,\" I said.\n\nSuddenly, in the fading light, she flung her arms around me, pressing me\ntightly, desperately.\n\n\"Oh, I know you will, Hugh, dear. And you'll forgive me, won't you, for\nbeing so horrid to-day, of all days? I do love you!\"\n\nNeither of us had ever been abroad. And although it was before the days\nof swimming-pools and gymnasiums and a la carte cafes on ocean liners,\nthe Atlantic was imposing enough. Maude had a more lasting capacity for\npleasure than I, a keener enjoyment of new experiences, and as she lay\nbeside me in the steamer-chair where I had carefully tucked her she\nwould exclaim:\n\n\"I simply can't believe it, Hugh! It seems so unreal. I'm sure I shall\nwake up and find myself back in Elkington.\"\n\n\"Don't speak so loud, my dear,\" I cautioned her. There were some very\nformal-looking New Yorkers next us.\n\n\"No, I won't,\" she whispered. \"But I'm so happy I feel as though I\nshould like to tell everyone.\"\n\n\"There's no need,\" I answered smiling.\n\n\"Oh, Hugh, I don't want to disgrace you!\" she exclaimed, in real alarm.\n\"Otherwise, so far as I am concerned, I shouldn't care who knew.\"\n\nPeople smiled at her. Women came up and took her hands. And on the\nfourth day the formidable New Yorkers unexpectedly thawed.\n\nI had once thought of Maude as plastic. Then I had discovered she had\na mind and will of her own. Once more she seemed plastic; her love had\nmade her so. Was it not what I had desired? I had only to express a\nwish, and it became her law. Nay, she appealed to me many times a day to\nknow whether she had made any mistakes, and I began to drill her in my\nsilly traditions,--gently, very gently.\n\n\"Well, I shouldn't be quite so familiar with people, quite so ready to\nmake acquaintances, Maude. You have no idea who they may be. Some of\nthem, of course, like the Sardells, I know by reputation.\"\n\nThe Sardells were the New Yorkers who sat next us.\n\n\"I'll try, Hugh, to be more reserved, more like the wife of an important\nman.\" She smiled.\n\n\"It isn't that you're not reserved,\" I replied, ignoring the latter half\nof her remark. \"Nor that I want you to change,\" I said. \"I only want to\nteach you what little of the world I know myself.\"\n\n\"And I want to learn, Hugh. You don't know how I want to learn!\"\n\nThe sight of mist-ridden Liverpool is not a cheering one for the\nAmerican who first puts foot on the mother country's soil, a Liverpool\nof yellow-browns and dingy blacks, of tilted funnels pouring out smoke\ninto an atmosphere already charged with it. The long wharves and shed\nroofs glistened with moisture.\n\n\"Just think, Hugh, it's actually England!\" she cried, as we stood on the\nwet deck. But I felt as though I'd been there before.\n\n\"No wonder they're addicted to cold baths,\" I replied. \"They must feel\nperfectly at home in them, especially if they put a little lampblack in\nthe water.\"\n\nMaude laughed.\n\n\"You grumpy old thing!\" she exclaimed.\n\nNothing could dampen her ardour, not the sight of the rain-soaked stone\nhouses when we got ashore, nor even the frigid luncheon we ate in the\nlugubrious hotel. For her it was all quaint and new. Finally we found\nourselves established in a compartment upholstered in light grey, with\ntassels and arm-supporters, on the window of which was pasted a poster\nwith the word reserved in large, red letters. The guard inquired\nrespectfully, as the porter put our new luggage in the racks, whether we\nhad everything we wanted. The toy locomotive blew its toy whistle, and\nwe were off for the north; past dingy, yellow tenements of the smoking\nfactory towns, and stretches of orderly, hedge-spaced rain-swept\ncountry. The quaint cottages we glimpsed, the sight of distant, stately\nmansions on green slopes caused Maude to cry out with rapture:--\"Oh,\nHugh, there's a manor-house!\"\n\nMore vivid than were the experiences themselves of that journey are the\nmemories of them. We went to windswept, Sabbath-keeping Edinburgh, to\nhigh Stirling and dark Holyrood, and to Abbotsford. It was through\nSir Walter's eyes we beheld Melrose bathed in autumn light, by his aid\nrepeopled it with forgotten monks eating their fast-day kale.\n\nAnd as we sat reading and dreaming in the still, sunny corners I forgot,\nthat struggle for power in which I had been so furiously engaged since\nleaving Cambridge. Legislatures, politicians and capitalists receded\ninto a dim background; and the gift I had possessed, in youth, of living\nin a realm of fancy showed astonishing signs of revival.\n\n\"Why, Hugh,\" Maude exclaimed, \"you ought to have been a writer!\"\n\n\"You've only just begun to fathom my talents,\" I replied laughingly.\n\"Did you think you'd married just a dry old lawyer?\"\n\n\"I believe you capable of anything,\" she said....\n\nI grew more and more to depend on her for little things.\n\nShe was a born housewife. It was pleasant to have her do all the\npacking, while I read or sauntered in the queer streets about the inns.\nAnd she took complete charge of my wardrobe.\n\nShe had a talent for drawing, and as we went southward through England\nshe made sketches of the various houses that took our fancy--suggestions\nfor future home-building; we spent hours in the evenings in the inn\nsitting-rooms incorporating new features into our residence, continually\nmodifying our plans. Now it was a Tudor house that carried us away,\nnow a Jacobean, and again an early Georgian with enfolding wings and a\nwrought-iron grill. A stage of bewilderment succeeded.\n\nMaude, I knew, loved the cottages best. She said they were more\n\"homelike.\" But she yielded to my liking for grandeur.\n\n\"My, I should feel lost in a palace like that!\" she cried, as we gazed\nat the Marquis of So-and-So's country-seat.\n\n\"Well, of course we should have to modify it,\" I admitted.\n\"Perhaps--perhaps our family will be larger.\"\n\nShe put her hand on my lips, and blushed a fiery red....\n\nWe examined, with other tourists, at a shilling apiece historic mansions\nwith endless drawing-rooms, halls, libraries, galleries filled with\nfamily portraits; elaborate, formal bedrooms where famous sovereigns\nhad slept, all roped off and carpeted with canvas strips to protect\nthe floors. Through mullioned windows we caught glimpses of gardens and\ngeometrical parterres, lakes, fountains, statuary, fantastic topiary\nand distant stretches of park. Maude sighed with admiration, but did not\ncovet. She had me. But I was often uncomfortable, resenting the vulgar,\ngaping tourists with whom we were herded and the easy familiarity of\nthe guides. These did not trouble Maude, who often annoyed me by asking\nnaive questions herself. I would nudge her.\n\nOne afternoon when, with other compatriots, we were being hurried\nthrough a famous castle, the guide unwittingly ushered us into a\ndrawing-room where the owner and several guests were seated about a\ntea-table. I shall never forget the stares they gave us before we had\ntime precipitately to retreat, nor the feeling of disgust and rebellion\nthat came over me. This was heightened by the remark of a heavy,\nsix-foot Ohioan with an infantile face and a genial manner.\n\n\"I notice that they didn't invite us to sit down and have a bite,\" he\nsaid. \"I call that kind of inhospitable.\"\n\n\"It was 'is lordship himself!\" exclaimed the guide, scandalized.\n\n\"You don't say!\" drawled our fellow-countryman. \"I guess I owe you\nanother shilling, my friend.\"\n\nThe guide, utterly bewildered, accepted it. The transatlantic point of\nview towards the nobility was beyond him.\n\n\"His lordship could make a nice little income if he set up as a side\nshow,\" added the Ohioan.\n\nMaude giggled, but I was furious. And no sooner were we outside the\ngates than I declared I should never again enter a private residence by\nthe back door.\n\n\"Why, Hugh, how queer you are sometimes,\" she said.\n\n\"I maybe queer, but I have a sense of fitness,\" I retorted.\n\nShe asserted herself.\n\n\"I can't see what difference it makes. They didn't know us. And if they\nadmit people for money--\"\n\n\"I can't help it. And as for the man from Ohio--\"\n\n\"But he was so funny!\" she interrupted. \"And he was really very nice.\"\n\nI was silent. Her point of view, eminently sensible as it was,\nexasperated me. We were leaning over the parapet of a little-stone\nbridge. Her face was turned away from me, but presently I realized that\nshe was crying. Men and women, villagers, passing across the bridge,\nlooked at us curiously. I was miserable, and somewhat appalled;\nresentful, yet striving to be gentle and conciliatory. I assured her\nthat she was talking nonsense, that I loved her. But I did not really\nlove her at that moment; nor did she relent as easily as usual. It was\nnot until we were together in our sitting-room, a few hours later, that\nshe gave in. I felt a tremendous sense of relief.\n\n\"Hugh, I'll try to be what you want. You know I am trying. But don't\nkill what is natural in me.\"\n\nI was touched by the appeal, and repentant...\n\nIt is impossible to say when the little worries, annoyances and\ndisagreements began, when I first felt a restlessness creeping over me.\nI tried to hide these moods from her, but always she divined them. And\nyet I was sure that I loved Maude; in a surprisingly short period I had\nbecome accustomed to her, dependent on her ministrations and the normal,\ncosy intimacy of our companionship. I did not like to think that the\nkeen edge of the enjoyment of possession was wearing a little, while\nat the same time I philosophized that the divine fire, when legalized,\nsettles down to a comfortable glow. The desire to go home that grew upon\nme I attributed to the irritation aroused by the spectacle of a fixed\nsocial order commanding such unquestioned deference from the many who\nwere content to remain resignedly outside of it. Before the setting\nin of the Liberal movement and the \"American invasion\" England was a\ncountry in which (from my point of view) one must be \"somebody\" in order\nto be happy. I was \"somebody\" at home; or at least rapidly becoming\nso....\n\nLondon was shrouded, parliament had risen, and the great houses\nwere closed. Day after day we issued forth from a musty and highly\nrespectable hotel near Piccadilly to a gloomy Tower, a soggy Hampton\nCourt or a mournful British Museum. Our native longing for luxury--or\nrather my native longing--impelled me to abandon Smith's Hotel for a\nhuge hostelry where our suite overlooked the Thames, where we ran across\na man I had known slightly at Harvard, and other Americans with whom\nwe made excursions and dined and went to the theatre. Maude liked these\npersons; I did not find them especially congenial. My life-long habit\nof unwillingness to accept what life sent in its ordinary course was\nasserting itself; but Maude took her friends as she found them, and I\nwas secretly annoyed by her lack of discrimination. In addition to this,\nthe sense of having been pulled up by the roots grew upon me.\n\n\"Suppose,\" Maude surprised me by suggesting one morning as we sat\nat breakfast watching the river craft flit like phantoms through the\nyellow-green fog--\"suppose we don't go to France, after all, Hugh?\"\n\n\"Not go to France!\" I exclaimed. \"Are you tired of the trip?\"\n\n\"Oh, Hugh!\" Her voice caught. \"I could go on, always, if you were\ncontent.\"\n\n\"And--what makes you think that I'm not content?\"\n\nHer smile had in it just a touch of wistfulness.\n\n\"I understand you, Hugh, better than you think. You want to get back\nto your work, and--and I should be happier. I'm not so silly and so\nignorant as to think that I can satisfy you always. And I'd like to get\nsettled at home,--I really should.\"\n\nThere surged up within me a feeling of relief. I seized her hand as it\nlay on the table.\n\n\"We'll come abroad another time, and go to France,\" I said. \"Maude,\nyou're splendid!\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"Oh, no, I'm not.\"\n\n\"You do satisfy me,\" I insisted. \"It isn't that at all. But I think,\nperhaps, it would be wiser to go back. It's rather a crucial time\nwith me, now that Mr. Watling's in Washington. I've just arrived at a\nposition where I shall be able to make a good deal of money, and later\non--\"\n\n\"It isn't the money, Hugh,\" she cried, with a vehemence which struck\nme as a little odd. \"I sometimes think we'd be a great deal happier\nwithout--without all you are going to make.\"\n\nI laughed.\n\n\"Well, I haven't made it yet.\"\n\nShe possessed the frugality of the Hutchinses. And some times my\nlavishness had frightened her, as when we had taken the suite of rooms\nwe now occupied.\n\n\"Are you sure you can afford them, Hugh?\" she had asked when we first\nsurveyed them.\n\nI began married life, and carried it on without giving her any\nconception of the state of my finances. She had an allowance from the\nfirst.\n\nAs the steamer slipped westward my spirits rose, to reach a climax of\nexhilaration when I saw the towers of New York rise gleaming like huge\nstalagmites in the early winter sun. Maude likened them more happily--to\ngigantic ivory chessmen. Well, New York was America's chessboard, and\nthe Great Players had already begun to make moves that astonished the\nworld. As we sat at breakfast in a Fifth Avenue hotel I ran my eye\neagerly over the stock-market reports and the financial news, and\nrallied Maude for a lack of spirits.\n\n\"Aren't you glad to be home?\" I asked her, as we sat in a hansom.\n\n\"Of course I am, Hugh!\" she protested. \"But--I can't look upon New York\nas home, somehow. It frightens me.\"\n\nI laughed indulgently.\n\n\"You'll get used to it,\" I said. \"We'll be coming here a great deal, off\nand on.\"\n\nShe was silent. But later, when we took a hansom and entered the streams\nof traffic, she responded to the stimulus of the place: the movement,\nthe colour, the sight of the well-appointed carriages, of the well-fed,\nwell-groomed people who sat in them, the enticement of the shops in\nwhich we made our purchases had their effect, and she became cheerful\nagain....\n\nIn the evening we took the \"Limited\" for home.\n\nWe lived for a month with my mother, and then moved into our own house.\nIt was one which I had rented from Howard Ogilvy, and it stood on the\ncorner of Baker and Clinton streets, near that fashionable neighbourhood\ncalled \"the Heights.\" Ogilvy, who was some ten years older than I, and\nwho belonged to one of our old families, had embarked on a career then\nbecoming common, but which at first was regarded as somewhat\nmeteoric: gradually abandoning the practice of law, and perceiving the\npossibilities of the city of his birth, he had \"gambled\" in real estate\nand other enterprises, such as our local water company, until he had\nquadrupled his inheritance. He had built a mansion on Grant Avenue, the\nwide thoroughfare bisecting the Heights. The house he had vacated was\nnot large, but essentially distinctive; with the oddity characteristic\nof the revolt against the banal architecture of the 80's. The curves\nof the tiled roof enfolded the upper windows; the walls were thick, the\nnote one of mystery. I remember Maude's naive delight when we inspected\nit.\n\n\"You'd never guess what the inside was like, would you, Hugh?\" she\ncried.\n\nFrom the panelled box of an entrance hall one went up a few steps to a\ndrawing-room which had a bowed recess like an oriel, and window-seats.\nThe dining-room was an odd shape, and was wainscoted in oak; it had a\ntiled fireplace and (according to Maude) the \"sweetest\" china closet\nbuilt into the wall. There was a \"den\" for me, and an octagonal\nreception-room on the corner. Upstairs, the bedrooms were quite as\nunusual, the plumbing of the new pattern, heavy and imposing. Maude\nexpressed the air of seclusion when she exclaimed that she could almost\nimagine herself in one of the mediaeval towns we had seen abroad.\n\n\"It's a dream, Hugh,\" she sighed. \"But--do you think we can afford\nit?\"...\n\n\"This house,\" I announced, smiling, \"is only a stepping-stone to the\npalace I intend to build you some day.\"\n\n\"I don't want a palace!\" she cried. \"I'd rather live here, like this,\nalways.\"\n\nA certain vehemence in her manner troubled me. I was charmed by this\ndisposition for domesticity, and yet I shrank from the contemplation of\nits permanency. I felt vaguely, at the time, the possibility of a future\nconflict of temperaments. Maude was docile, now. But would she remain\ndocile? and was it in her nature to take ultimately the position that\nwas desirable for my wife? Well, she must be moulded, before it were too\nlate. Her ultra-domestic tendencies must be halted. As yet blissfully\nunaware of the inability of the masculine mind to fathom the subtleties\nof feminine relationships, I was particularly desirous that Maude and\nNancy Durrett should be intimates. The very day after our arrival, and\nwhile we were still at my mother's, Nancy called on Maude, and took her\nout for a drive. Maude told me of it when I came home from the office.\n\n\"Dear old Nancy!\" I said. \"I know you liked her.\"\n\n\"Of course, Hugh. I should like her for your sake, anyway. She's--she's\none of your oldest and best friends.\"\n\n\"But I want you to like her for her own sake.\"\n\n\"I think I shall,\" said Maude. She was so scrupulously truthful! \"I was\na little afraid of her, at first.\"\n\n\"Afraid of Nancy!\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"Well, you know, she's much older than I. I think she is sweet. But she\nknows so much about the world--so much that she doesn't say. I can't\ndescribe it.\"\n\nI smiled.\n\n\"It's only her manner. You'll get used to that, when you know what she\nreally is.\"\n\n\"Oh, I hope so,\" answered Maude. \"I'm very anxious to like her--I do\nlike her. But it takes me such a lot of time to get to know people.\"\n\nNancy asked us to dinner.\n\n\"I want to help Maude all I can,--if she'll let me,\" Nancy said.\n\n\"Why shouldn't she let you?\" I asked.\n\n\"She may not like me,\" Nancy replied.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" I exclaimed.\n\nNancy smiled.\n\n\"It won't be my fault, at any rate, if she doesn't,\" she said. \"I wanted\nher to meet at first just the right people your old friends and a few\nothers. It is hard for a woman--especially a young woman--coming among\nstrangers.\" She glanced down the table to where Maude sat talking to\nHam. \"She has an air about her,--a great deal of self-possession.\"\n\nI, too, had noticed this, with pride and relief. For I knew Maude had\nbeen nervous.\n\n\"You are luckier than you deserve to be,\" Nancy reminded me. \"But I hope\nyou realize that she has a mind of her own, that she will form her own\nopinions of people, independently of you.\"\n\nI must have betrayed the fact that I was a little startled, for the\nremark came as a confirmation of what I had dimly felt.\n\n\"Of course she has,\" I agreed, somewhat lamely. \"Every woman has, who is\nworth her salt.\"\n\nNancy's smile bespoke a knowledge that seemed to transcend my own.\n\n\"You do like her?\" I demanded.\n\n\"I like her very much indeed,\" said Nancy, a little gravely.\n\"She's simple, she's real, she has that which so few of us possess\nnowadays--character. But--I've got to be prepared for the possibility\nthat she may not get along with me.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" I demanded.\n\n\"There you are again, with your old unwillingness to analyze a situation\nand face it. For heaven's sake, now that you have married her, study\nher. Don't take her for granted. Can't you see that she doesn't care for\nthe things that amuse me, that make my life?\"\n\n\"Of course, if you insist on making yourself out a hardened,\nsophisticated woman--\" I protested. But she shook her head.\n\n\"Her roots are deeper,--she is in touch, though she may not realize it,\nwith the fundamentals. She is one of those women who are race-makers.\"\n\nThough somewhat perturbed, I was struck by the phrase. And I lost sight\nof Nancy's generosity. She looked me full in the face.\n\n\"I wonder whether you can rise to her,\" she said. \"If I were you, I\nshould try. You will be happier--far happier than if you attempt to use\nher for your own ends, as a contributor to your comfort and an auxiliary\nto your career. I was afraid--I confess it--that you had married an\naspiring, simpering and empty-headed provincial like that Mrs. George\nHutchins' whom I met once, and who would sell her soul to be at my\ntable. Well, you escaped that, and you may thank God for it. You've got\na chance, think it over.\n\n\"A chance!\" I repeated, though I gathered something of her meaning.\n\n\"Think it over, said Nancy again. And she smiled.\n\n\"But--do you want me to bury myself in domesticity?\" I demanded, without\ngrasping the significance of my words.\n\n\"You'll find her reasonable, I think. You've got a chance now, Hugh.\nDon't spoil it.\"\n\nShe turned to Leonard Dickinson, who sat on her other side....\n\nWhen we got home I tried to conceal my anxiety as to Maude's impressions\nof the evening. I lit a cigarette, and remarked that the dinner had been\na success.\n\n\"Do you know what I've been wondering all evening?\" Maude asked. \"Why\nyou didn't marry Nancy instead of me.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I replied, \"it just didn't come off. And Nancy was telling me at\ndinner how fortunate I was to have married you.\"\n\nMaude passed this.\n\n\"I can't see why she accepted Hambleton Durrett. It seems horrible that\nsuch a woman as she is could have married--just for money.\n\n\"Nancy has an odd streak in her,\" I said. \"But then we all have odd\nstreaks. She's the best friend in the world, when she is your friend.\"\n\n\"I'm sure of it,\" Maude agreed, with a little note of penitence.\n\n\"You enjoyed it,\" I ventured cautiously.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" she agreed. \"And everyone was so nice to me--for your sake of\ncourse.\"\n\n\"Don't be ridiculous!\" I said. \"I shan't tell you what Nancy and the\nothers said about you.\"\n\nMaude had the gift of silence.\n\n\"What a beautiful house!\" she sighed presently. \"I know you'll think me\nsilly, but so much luxury as that frightens me a little. In England,\nin those places we saw, it seemed natural enough, but in America--! And\nthey all your friends--seem to take it as a matter of course.\"\n\n\"There's no reason why we shouldn't have beautiful things and well\nserved dinners, too, if we have the money to pay for them.\"\n\n\"I suppose not,\" she agreed, absently.\n\n\n\n\nXV.\n\nThat winter many other entertainments were given in our honour. But the\nconviction grew upon me that Maude had no real liking for the social\nside of life, that she acquiesced in it only on my account. Thus, at the\nvery outset of our married career, an irritant developed: signs of it,\nindeed, were apparent from the first, when we were preparing the house\nwe had rented for occupancy. Hurrying away from my office at odd\ntimes to furniture and department stores to help decide such momentous\nquestions as curtains, carpets, chairs and tables I would often spy the\ntall, uncompromising figure of Susan Peters standing beside Maude's,\nwhile an obliging clerk spread out, anxiously, rugs or wall-papers for\ntheir inspection.\n\n\"Why don't you get Nancy to help you, too!\" I ventured to ask her once.\n\n\"Ours is such a little house--compared to Nancy's, Hugh.\"\n\nMy attitude towards Susan had hitherto remained undefined. She was Tom's\nwife and Tom's affair. In spite of her marked disapproval of the modern\ntrend in business and social life,--a prejudice she had communicated to\nTom, as a bachelor I had not disliked her; and it was certain that these\nviews had not mitigated Tom's loyalty and affection for me. Susan had\nbeen my friend, as had her brother Perry, and Lucia, Perry's wife:\nthey made no secret of the fact that they deplored in me what they were\npleased to call plutocratic obsessions, nor had their disapproval always\nbeen confined to badinage. Nancy, too, they looked upon as a renegade.\nI was able to bear their reproaches with the superior good nature that\nsprings from success, to point out why the American tradition to which\nthey so fatuously clung was a things of the past. The habit of taking\ndinner with them at least once a week had continued, and their arguments\nrather amused me. If they chose to dwell in a backwater out of touch\nwith the current of great affairs, this was a matter to be deplored,\nbut I did not feel strongly enough to resent it. So long as I remained\na bachelor the relationship had not troubled me, but now that I was\nmarried I began to consider with some alarm its power to affect my\nwelfare.\n\nIt had remained for Nancy to inform me that I had married a woman with a\nmind of her own. I had flattered myself that I should be able to control\nMaude, to govern her predilections, and now at the very beginning of\nour married life she was showing a disquieting tendency to choose for\nherself. To be sure, she had found my intimacy with the Peterses and\nBlackwoods already formed; but it was an intimacy from which I was\ngrowing away. I should not have quarrelled with her if she had not\ndiscriminated: Nancy made overtures, and Maude drew back;\nSusan presented herself, and with annoying perversity and in an\nextraordinarily brief time Maude had become her intimate. It seemed\nto me that she was always at Susan's, lunching or playing with the\nchildren, who grew devoted to her; or with Susan, choosing carpets and\nclothes; while more and more frequently we dined with the Peterses and\nthe Blackwoods, or they with us. With Perry's wife Maude was scarcely\nless intimate than with Susan. This was the more surprising to me since\nLucia Blackwood was a dyed-in-the-wool \"intellectual,\" a graduate of\nRadcliffe, the daughter of a Harvard professor. Perry had fallen in\nlove with her during her visit to Susan. Lucia was, perhaps, the most\ninfluential of the group; she scorned the world, she held strong views\non the higher education of women; she had long discarded orthodoxy\nfor what may be called a Cambridge stoicism of simple living and high\nthinking; while Maude was a strict Presbyterian, and not in the least\ngiven to theories. When, some months after our homecoming, I ventured\nto warn her gently of the dangers of confining one's self to a\ncoterie--especially one of such narrow views--her answer was rather\nbewildering.\n\n\"But isn't Tom your best friend?\" she asked.\n\nI admitted that he was.\n\n\"And you always went there such a lot before we were married.\"\n\nThis, too, was undeniable. \"At the same time,\" I replied, \"I have other\nfriends. I'm fond of the Blackwoods and the Peterses, I'm not advocating\nseeing less of them, but their point of view, if taken without any\nantidote, is rather narrowing. We ought to see all kinds,\" I suggested,\nwith a fine restraint.\n\n\"You mean--more worldly people,\" she said with her disconcerting\ndirectness.\n\n\"Not necessarily worldly,\" I struggled on. \"People who know more of the\nworld--yes, who understand it better.\"\n\nMaude sighed.\n\n\"I do try, Hugh,--I return their calls,--I do try to be nice to them.\nBut somehow I don't seem to get along with them easily--I'm not myself,\nthey make me shy. It's because I'm provincial.\"\n\n\"Nonsense!\" I protested, \"you're not a bit provincial.\" And it was true;\nher dignity and self-possession redeemed her.\n\nNancy was not once mentioned. But I think she was in both our minds....\n\nSince my marriage, too, I had begun to resent a little the attitude of\nTom and Susan and the Blackwoods of humorous yet affectionate tolerance\ntoward my professional activities and financial creed, though Maude\nshowed no disposition to take this seriously. I did suspect, however,\nthat they were more and more determined to rescue Maude from what they\nwould have termed a frivolous career; and on one of these occasions--so\nexasperating in married life when a slight cause for pique tempts\nhusband or wife to try to ask myself whether this affair were only\na squall, something to be looked for once in a while on the seas of\nmatrimony, and weathered: or whether Maude had not, after all, been\nright when she declared that I had made a mistake, and that we were\nnot fitted for one another? In this gloomy view endless years of\nincompatibility stretched ahead; and for the first time I began\nto rehearse with a certain cold detachment the chain of apparently\naccidental events which had led up to my marriage: to consider the\ngradual blindness that had come over my faculties; and finally to wonder\nwhether judgment ever entered into sexual selection. Would Maude have\nrelapsed into this senseless fit if she had realized how fortunate she\nwas? For I was prepared to give her what thousands of women longed for,\nposition and influence. My resentment rose again against Perry and Tom,\nand I began to attribute their lack of appreciation of my achievements\nto jealousy. They had not my ability; this was the long and short of\nit.... I pondered also, regretfully, on my bachelor days. And for the\nfirst time, I, who had worked so hard to achieve freedom, felt\nthe pressure of the yoke I had fitted over my own shoulders. I had\nvoluntarily, though unwittingly, returned to slavery. This was what\nhad happened. And what was to be done about it? I would not consider\ndivorce.\n\nWell, I should have to make the best of it. Whether this conclusion\nbrought on a mood of reaction, I am unable to say. I was still\nannoyed by what seemed to the masculine mind a senseless and dramatic\nperformance on Maude's part, an incomprehensible case of \"nerves.\"\nNevertheless, there stole into my mind many recollections of Maude's\naffection, many passages between us; and my eye chanced to fall on\nthe ink-well she had bought me out of the allowance I gave her. An\nunanticipated pity welled up within me for her loneliness, her despair\nin that room upstairs. I got up--and hesitated. A counteracting,\ninhibiting wave passed through me. I hardened. I began to walk up and\ndown, a prey to conflicting impulses. Something whispered, \"go to\nher\"; another voice added, \"for your own peace of mind, at any rate.\" I\nrejected the intrusion of this motive as unworthy, turned out the light\nand groped my way upstairs. The big clock in the hall struck twelve.\n\nI listened outside the door of the bedroom, but all was silent within. I\nknocked.\n\n\"Maude!\" I said, in a low voice.\n\nThere was no response.\n\n\"Maude--let me in! I didn't mean to be unkind--I'm sorry.\"\n\nAfter an interval I heard her say: \"I'd rather stay here,--to-night.\"\n\nBut at length, after more entreaty and self-abasement on my part,\nshe opened the door. The room was dark. We sat down together on the\nwindow-seat, and all at once she relaxed and her head fell on my\nshoulder, and she began weeping again. I held her, the alternating moods\nstill running through me.\n\n\"Hugh,\" she said at length, \"how could you be so cruel? when you know I\nlove you and would do anything for you.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean to be cruel, Maude,\" I answered.\n\n\"I know you didn't. But at times you seem so--indifferent, and you can't\nunderstand how it hurts. I haven't anybody but you, now, and it's in\nyour power to make me happy or--or miserable.\"\n\nLater on I tried to explain my point of view, to justify myself.\n\n\"All I mean,\" I concluded at length, \"is that my position is a little\ndifferent from Perry's and Tom's. They can afford to isolate themselves,\nbut I'm thrown professionally with the men who are building up this\ncity. Some of them, like Ralph Hambleton and Mr. Ogilvy, I've known all\nmy life. Life isn't so simple for us, Maude--we can't ignore the social\nside.\"\n\n\"I understand,\" she said contentedly. \"You are more of a man\nof affairs--much more than Tom or Perry, and you have greater\nresponsibilities and wider interests. I'm really very proud of you.\nOnly--don't you think you are a little too sensitive about yourself,\nwhen you are teased?\"\n\nI let this pass....\n\nI give a paragraph from a possible biography of Hugh Paret which, as\nthen seemed not improbable, might in the future have been written by\nsome aspiring young worshipper of success.\n\n\"On his return from a brief but delightful honeymoon in England Mr.\nParet took up again, with characteristic vigour, the practice of\nthe law. He was entering upon the prime years of manhood; golden\nopportunities confronted him as, indeed, they confronted other men--but\nParet had the foresight to take advantage of them. And his training\nunder Theodore Watling was now to produce results.... The reputations\nhad already been made of some of that remarkable group of financial\ngeniuses who were chiefly instrumental in bringing about the industrial\nevolution begun after the Civil War: at the same time, as is well\nknown, a political leadership developed that gave proof of a deplorable\nblindness to the logical necessity of combinations in business. The\nlawyer with initiative and brains became an indispensable factor,\" etc.,\netc.\n\nThe biography might have gone on to relate my association with and\nimportant services to Adolf Scherer in connection with his constructive\ndream. Shortly after my return from abroad, in answer to his summons, I\nfound him at Heinrich's, his napkin tucked into his shirt front, and a\ndish of his favourite sausages before him.\n\n\"So, the honeymoon is over!\" he said, and pressed my hand. \"You are\nright to come back to business, and after awhile you can have another\nhoneymoon, eh? I have had many since I married. And how long do you\nthink was my first? A day! I was a foreman then, and the wedding was at\nsix o'clock in the morning. We went into the country, the wife and I.\"\n\nHe laid down his knife and fork, possessed by the memory. \"I have grown\nrich since, and we've been to Europe and back to Germany, and travelled\non the best ships and stayed at the best hotels, but I never enjoyed\na holiday more than that day. It wasn't long afterwards I went to Mr.\nDurrett and told him how he could save much money. He was always ready\nto listen, Mr. Durrett, when an employee had anything to say. He was a\nbig man,--an iron-master. Ah, he would be astonished if only he could\nwake up now!\"\n\n\"He would not only have to be an iron-master,\" I agreed, \"but a\nfinancier and a railroad man to boot.\"\n\n\"A jack of all trades,\" laughed Mr. Scherer. \"That's what we are--men\nin my position. Well, it was comparatively simple then, when we had no\nSherman law and crazy statutes, such as some of the states are passing,\nto bother us. What has got into the politicians, that they are indulging\nin such foolishness?\" he exclaimed, more warmly. \"We try to build up a\ntrade for this country, and they're doing their best to tie our hands\nand tear it down. When I was in Washington the other day I was talking\nwith one of those Western senators whose state has passed those laws.\nHe said to me, 'Mr. Scherer, I've been making a study of the Boyne Iron\nWorks. You are clever men, but you are building up monopolies which we\npropose to stop.' 'By what means?'\" I asked. \"'Rebates, for one,'\nsaid he, 'you get preferential rates from your railroad which give you\nadvantages over your competitors.' Foolishness!\" Mr. Scherer exclaimed.\n\"I tell him the railroad is a private concern, built up by private\nenterprise, and it has a right to make special rates for large shippers.\nNo,--railroads are public carriers with no right to make special rates.\nI ask him what else he objects to, and he says patented processes. As if\nwe don't have a right to our own patents! We buy them. I buy them, when\nother steel companies won't touch 'em. What is that but enterprise, and\nbusiness foresight, and taking risks? And then he begins to talk about\nthe tariff taking money out of the pockets of American consumers and\nmaking men like me rich. I have come to Washington to get the tariff\nraised on steel rails; and Watling and other senators we send down there\nare raising it for us. We are building up monopolies! Well, suppose we\nare. We can't help it, even if we want to. Has he ever made a study\nof the other side of the question--the competition side? Of course he\nhasn't.\"\n\nHe brought down his beer mug heavily on the table. In times of\nexcitement his speech suggested the German idiom. Abruptly his air grew\nmysterious; he glanced around the room, now becoming empty, and lowered\nhis voice.\n\n\"I have been thinking a long time, I have a little scheme,\" he said,\n\"and I have been to Washington to see Watling, to talk over it. Well, he\nthinks much of you. Fowndes and Ripon are good lawyers, but they are not\nsmart like you. See Paret, he says, and he can come down and talk to me.\nSo I ask you to come here. That is why I say you are wise to get home.\nHoneymoons can wait--eh?\"\n\nI smiled appreciatively.\n\n\"They talk about monopoly, those Populist senators, but I ask you what\nis a man in my place to do? If you don't eat, somebody eats you--is it\nnot so? Like the boa-constrictors--that is modern business. Look at\nthe Keystone Plate people, over there at Morris. For years we sold them\nsteel billets from which to make their plates, and three months ago\nthey serve notice on us that they are getting ready to make their own\nbillets, they buy mines north of the lakes and are building their plant.\nHere is a big customer gone. Next year, maybe, the Empire Tube Company\ngoes into the business of making crude steel, and many more thousands of\ntons go from us. What is left for us, Paret?\"\n\n\"Obviously you've got to go into the tube and plate business\nyourselves,\" I said.\n\n\"So!\" cried Mr. Scherer, triumphantly, \"or it is close up. We are not\nfools, no, we will not lie down and be eaten like lambs for any law.\nDickinson can put his hand on the capital, and I--I have already bought\na tract on the lakes, at Bolivar, I have already got a plant designed\nwith the latest modern machinery. I can put the ore right there, I can\nsend the coke back from here in cars which would otherwise be empty, and\nmanufacture tubes at eight dollars a ton less than they are selling. If\nwe can make tubes we can make plates, and if we can make plates we can\nmake boilers, and beams and girders and bridges.... It is not like it\nwas but where is it all leading, my friend? The time will come--is right\non us now, in respect to many products--when the market will be flooded\nwith tubes and plates and girders, and then we'll have to find a way to\nlimit production. And the inefficient mills will all be forced to shut\ndown.\"\n\nThe logic seemed unanswerable, even had I cared to answer it.... He\nunfolded his campaign. The Boyne Iron Works was to become the Boyne Iron\nWorks, Ltd., owner of various subsidiary companies, some of which were\nas yet blissfully ignorant of their fate. All had been thought out as\ncalmly as the partition of Poland--only, lawyers were required; and\nultimately, after the process of acquisition should have been completed,\na delicate document was to be drawn up which would pass through the\nmeshes of that annoying statutory net, the Sherman Anti-trust Law. New\nmines were to be purchased, extending over a certain large area; wide\ncoal deposits; little strips of railroad to tap them. The competition of\nthe Keystone Plate people was to be met by acquiring and bringing up\nto date the plate mills of King and Son, over the borders of a sister\nstate; the Somersworth Bridge and Construction Company and the Gring\nSteel and Wire Company were to be absorbed. When all of this should\nhave been accomplished, there would be scarcely a process in the steel\nindustry, from the smelting of the ore to the completion of a bridge,\nwhich the Boyne Iron Works could not undertake. Such was the beginning\nof the \"lateral extension\" period.\n\n\"Two can play at that game,\" Mr. Scherer said. \"And if those fellows\ncould only be content to let well enough alone, to continue buying their\ncrude steel from us, there wouldn't be any trouble.\"...\n\nIt was evident, however, that he really welcomed the \"trouble,\" that\nhe was going into battle with enthusiasm. He had already picked out his\npoints of attack and was marching on them. Life, for him, would have\nbeen a poor thing without new conflicts to absorb his energy; and he had\nalready made of the Boyne Iron Works, with its open-hearth furnaces, a\nmarvel of modern efficiency that had opened the eyes of the Steel world,\nand had drawn the attention of a Personality in New York,--a Personality\nwho was one of the new and dominant type that had developed with such\namazing rapidity, the banker-dinosaur; preying upon and superseding the\nindustrial-dinosaur, conquering type of the preceding age, builder\nof the railroads, mills and manufactories. The banker-dinosaurs, the\ngigantic ones, were in Wall Street, and strove among themselves for\nthe industrial spoils accumulated by their predecessors. It was\ncharacteristic of these monsters that they never fought in the open\nunless they were forced to. Then the earth rocked, huge economic\nstructures tottered and fell, and much dust arose to obscure the\nvision of smaller creatures, who were bewildered and terrified. Such\ndisturbances were called \"panics,\" and were blamed by the newspapers\non the Democratic party, or on the reformers who had wantonly assailed\nestablished institutions. These dominant bankers had contrived to gain\ncontrol of the savings of thousands and thousands of fellow-citizens who\nhad deposited them in banks or paid them into insurance companies, and\nwith the power thus accumulated had sallied forth to capture railroads\nand industries. The railroads were the strategic links. With these in\nhand, certain favoured industrial concerns could be fed, and others\nstarved into submission.\n\nAdolf Scherer might be said to represent a transitional type. For he was\nnot only an iron-master who knew every detail of his business, who kept\nit ahead of the times; he was also a strategist, wise in his generation,\nmaking friends with the Railroad while there had yet been time, at\nlength securing rebates and favours. And when that Railroad (which\nhad been constructed through the enterprise and courage of such men\nas Nathaniel Durrett) had passed under the control of the\nbanker-personality to whom I have referred, and had become part of a\nsystem, Adolf Scherer remained in alliance, and continued to receive\nfavours.... I can well remember the time when the ultimate authority\nof our Railroad was transferred, quietly, to Wall Street. Alexander\nBarbour, its president, had been a great man, but after that he bowed,\nin certain matters, to a greater one.\n\nI have digressed.... Mr. Scherer unfolded his scheme, talking about\n\"units\" as calmly as though they were checkers on a board instead of\nhuge, fiery, reverberating mills where thousands and thousands of human\nbeings toiled day and night--beings with families, and hopes and fears,\nwhose destinies were to be dominated by the will of the man who sat\nopposite me. But--did not he in his own person represent the triumph of\nthat American creed of opportunity? He, too, had been through the fire,\nhad sweated beside the blasts, had handled the ingots of steel. He was\none of the \"fittest\" who had survived, and looked it. Had he no memories\nof the terrors of that struggle?... Adolf Scherer had grown to be a\ngiant. And yet without me, without my profession he was a helpless\ngiant, at the mercy of those alert and vindictive lawmakers who sought\nto restrain and hamper him, to check his growth with their webs. How\nstimulating the idea of his dependence! How exhilarating too,\nthe thought that that vision which had first possessed me as an\nundergraduate--on my visit to Jerry Kyme--was at last to be realized!\nI had now become the indispensable associate of the few who divided the\nspoils, I was to have a share in these myself.\n\n\"You're young, Paret,\" Mr. Scherer concluded. \"But Watling has\nconfidence in you, and you will consult him frequently. I believe in the\nyoung men, and I have already seen something of you--so?\"...\n\nWhen I returned to the office I wrote Theodore Watling a letter\nexpressing my gratitude for the position he had, so to speak, willed me,\nof confidential legal adviser to Adolf Scherer. Though the opportunity\nhad thrust itself upon me suddenly, and sooner than I expected it, I was\ndetermined to prove myself worthy of it. I worked as I had never worked\nbefore, making trips to New York to consult leading members of this\nnew branch of my profession there, trips to Washington to see my former\nchief. There were, too, numerous conferences with local personages, with\nMr. Dickinson and Mr. Grierson, and Judah B. Tallant,--whose newspaper\nwas most useful; there were consultations and negotiations of a delicate\nnature with the owners and lawyers of other companies to be \"taken in.\"\nNor was it all legal work, in the older and narrower sense. Men who are\nplaying for principalities are making war. Some of our operations had\nall the excitement of war. There was information to be got, and it was\ngot--somehow. Modern war involves a spy system, and a friendly telephone\ncompany is not to be despised. And all of this work from first to last\nhad to be done with extreme caution. Moribund distinctions of right and\nwrong did not trouble me, for the modern man labours religiously when he\nknows that Evolution is on his side.\n\nFor all of these operations a corps of counsel had been employed,\nincluding the firm of Harrington and Bowes next to Theodore Watling,\nJoel Harrington was deemed the ablest lawyer in the city. We organized\nin due time the corporation known as the Boyne Iron Works, Limited; a\ntrust agreement was drawn up that was a masterpiece of its kind, one\nthat caused, first and last, meddling officials in the Department of\nJustice at Washington no little trouble and perplexity. I was proud of\nthe fact that I had taken no small part in its composition.... In short,\nin addition to certain emoluments and opportunities for investment, I\nemerged from the affair firmly established in the good graces of Adolf\nScherer, and with a reputation practically made.\n\nA year or so after the Boyne Company, Ltd., came into existence I\nchanced one morning to go down to the new Ashuela Hotel to meet a New\nYorker of some prominence, and was awaiting him in the lobby, when I\noverheard a conversation between two commercial travellers who were\nsitting with their backs to me.\n\n\"Did you notice that fellow who went up to the desk a moment ago?\" asked\none.\n\n\"The young fellow in the grey suit? Sure. Who is he? He looks as if he\nwas pretty well fixed.\"\n\n\"I guess he is,\" replied the first. \"That's Paret. He's Scherer's\nconfidential counsel. He used to be Senator Watling's partner, but they\nsay he's even got something on the old man.\"\n\nIn spite of the feverish life I led, I was still undoubtedly\nyoung-looking, and in this I was true to the incoming type of successful\nman. Our fathers appeared staid at six and thirty. Clothes, of course,\nmade some difference, and my class and generation did not wear the\nsombre and cumbersome kind, with skirts and tails; I patronized a tailor\nin New York. My chestnut hair, a little darker than my father's had\nbeen, showed no signs of turning grey, although it was thinning a little\nat the crown of the forehead, and I wore a small moustache, clipped in\na straight line above the mouth. This made me look less like a college\nyouth. Thanks to a strong pigment in my skin, derived probably from\nScotch-Irish ancestors, my colour was fresh. I have spoken of my life as\nfeverish, and yet I am not so sure that this word completely describes\nit. It was full to overflowing--one side of it; and I did not miss (save\nvaguely, in rare moments of weariness) any other side that might have\nbeen developed. I was busy all day long, engaged in affairs I deemed to\nbe alone of vital importance in the universe. I was convinced that the\nwelfare of the city demanded that supreme financial power should remain\nin the hands of the group of men with whom I was associated, and whose\nbattles I fought in the courts, in the legislature, in the city council,\nand sometimes in Washington,--although they were well cared for there.\nBy every means ingenuity could devise, their enemies were to be driven\nfrom the field, and they were to be protected from blackmail.\n\nA sense of importance sustained me; and I remember in that first\nflush of a success for which I had not waited too long--what a secret\nsatisfaction it was to pick up the Era and see my name embedded in\ncertain dignified notices of board meetings, transactions of weight, or\ncases known to the initiated as significant. \"Mr. Scherer's interests\nwere taken care of by Mr. Hugh Paret.\" The fact that my triumphs were\nmodestly set forth gave me more pleasure than if they had been trumpeted\nin headlines. Although I might have started out in practice for myself,\nmy affection and regard for Mr. Watling kept me in the firm, which\nbecame Watling, Fowndes and Paret, and a new, arrangement was entered\ninto: Mr. Ripon retired on account of ill health.\n\nThere were instances, however, when a certain amount of annoying\npublicity was inevitable. Such was the famous Galligan case, which\noccurred some three or four years after my marriage. Aloysius Galligan\nwas a brakeman, and his legs had become paralyzed as the result of an\naccident that was the result of defective sills on a freight car. He\nhad sued, and been awarded damages of $15,000. To the amazement and\nindignation of Miller Gorse, the Supreme Court, to which the Railroad\nhad appealed, affirmed the decision. It wasn't the single payment of\n$15,000 that the Railroad cared about, of course; a precedent might be\nestablished for compensating maimed employees which would be expensive\nin the long run. Carelessness could not be proved in this instance.\nGorse sent for me. I had been away with Maude at the sea for two months,\nand had not followed the case.\n\n\"You've got to take charge, Paret, and get a rehearing. See Bering,\nand find out who in the deuce is to blame for this. Chesley's one, of\ncourse. We ought never to have permitted his nomination for the Supreme\nBench. It was against my judgment, but Varney and Gill assured me that\nhe was all right.\"\n\nI saw Judge Bering that evening. We sat on a plush sofa in the parlour\nof his house in Baker Street.\n\n\"I had a notion Gorse'd be mad,\" he said, \"but it looked to me as if\nthey had it on us, Paret. I didn't see how we could do anything else but\naffirm without being too rank. Of course, if he feels that way, and you\nwant to make a motion for a rehearing, I'll see what can be done.\"\n\n\"Something's got to be done,\" I replied. \"Can't you see what such a\ndecision lets them in for?\"\n\n\"All right,\" said the judge, who knew an order when he heard one, \"I\nguess we can find an error.\" He was not a little frightened by the\nreport of Mr. Gorse's wrath, for election-day was approaching. \"Say, you\nwouldn't take me for a sentimental man, now, would you?\"\n\nI smiled at the notion of it.\n\n\"Well, I'll own up to you this kind of got under my skin. That Galligan\nis a fine-looking fellow, if there ever was one, and he'll never be of\na bit of use any more. Of course the case was plain sailing, and they\nought to have had the verdict, but that lawyer of his handled it to the\nqueen's taste, if I do say so. He made me feel real bad, by God,--as if\nit was my own son Ed who'd been battered up. Lord, I can't forget the\nlook in that man Galligan's eyes. I hate to go through it again, and\nreverse it, but I guess I'll have to, now.\"\n\nThe Judge sat gazing at the flames playing over his gas log.\n\n\"Who was the lawyer?\" I asked.\n\n\"A man by the name of Krebs,\" he replied. \"Never heard of him before.\nHe's just moved to the city.\"\n\n\"This city?\" I ejaculated.\n\nThe Judge glanced at me interestedly.\n\n\"This city, of course. What do you know about him?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I answered, when I had recovered a little from the shock--for it\nwas a distinct shock--\"he lived in Elkington. He was the man who stirred\nup the trouble in the legislature about Bill 709.\"\n\nThe Judge slapped his knee.\n\n\"That fellow!\" he exclaimed, and ruminated. \"Why didn't somebody tell\nme?\" he added, complainingly. \"Why didn't Miller Gorse let me know about\nit, instead of licking up a fuss after it's all over?\"...\n\nOf all men of my acquaintance I had thought the Judge the last to grow\nmaudlin over the misfortunes of those who were weak or unfortunate\nenough to be defeated and crushed in the struggle for existence, and it\nwas not without food for reflection that I departed from his presence.\nTo make Mr. Bering \"feel bad\" was no small achievement, and Krebs had\nbeen responsible for it, of course,--not Galligan. Krebs had turned up\nonce more! It seemed as though he were destined to haunt me. Well, I\nmade up my mind that he should not disturb me again, at any rate: I, at\nleast, had learned to eliminate sentimentality from business, and it\nwas not without deprecation I remembered my experience with him at the\nCapital, when he had made me temporarily ashamed of my connection with\nBill 709. I had got over that. And when I entered the court room (the\ntribunal having graciously granted a rehearing on the ground that it had\ncommitted an error in the law!) my feelings were of lively curiosity\nand zest. I had no disposition to underrate his abilities, but I was\nfortified by the consciousness of a series of triumphs behind me, by\na sense of association with prevailing forces against which he was\nhelpless. I could afford to take a superior attitude in regard to one\nwho was destined always to be dramatic.\n\nAs the case proceeded I was rather disappointed on the whole that he\nwas not dramatic--not even as dramatic as he had been when he defied\nthe powers in the Legislature. He had changed but little, he still wore\nill-fitting clothes, but I was forced to acknowledge that he seemed to\nhave gained in self-control, in presence. He had nodded at me before the\ncase was called, as he sat beside his maimed client; and I had been on\nthe alert for a hint of reproach in his glance: there was none. I smiled\nback at him....\n\nHe did not rant. He seemed to have rather a remarkable knowledge of the\nlaw. In a conversational tone he described the sufferings of the man in\nthe flannel shirt beside him, but there could be no question of the fact\nthat he did produce an effect. The spectators were plainly moved, and\nit was undeniable that some of the judges wore rather a sheepish look as\nthey toyed with their watch chains or moved the stationery in front\nof them. They had seen maimed men before, they had heard impassioned,\nsentimental lawyers talk about wives and families and God and justice.\nKrebs did none of this. Just how he managed to bring the thing home\nto those judges, to make them ashamed of their role, just how he\nmanaged--in spite of my fortified attitude to revive something of that\nsense of discomfort I had experienced at the State House is difficult to\nsay. It was because, I think, he contrived through the intensity of his\nown sympathy to enter into the body of the man whose cause he pleaded,\nto feel the despair in Galligan's soul--an impression that was curiously\nconveyed despite the dignified limits to which he confined his speech.\nIt was strange that I began to be rather sorry for him, that I felt a\ncertain reluctant regret that he should thus squander his powers against\noverwhelming odds. What was the use of it all!\n\nAt the end his voice became more vibrant--though he did not raise it--as\nhe condemned the Railroad for its indifference to human life, for its\ncontention that men were cheaper than rolling-stock.\n\nI encountered him afterward in the corridor. I had made a point of\nseeking him out, perhaps from some vague determination to prove that our\nlast meeting in the little restaurant at the Capital had left no traces\nof embarrassment in me: I was, in fact, rather aggressively anxious to\nreveal myself to him as one who has thriven on the views he condemned,\nas one in whose unity of mind there is no rift. He was alone, apparently\nwaiting for someone, leaning against a steam radiator in one of his\nawkward, angular poses, looking out of the court-house window.\n\n\"How are you?\" I said blithely. \"So you've left Elkington for a wider\nfield.\" I wondered whether my alert cousin-in-law, George Hutchins, had\nmade it too hot for him.\n\nHe turned to me unexpectedly a face of profound melancholy; his\nexpression had in it, oddly, a trace of sternness; and I was somewhat\ntaken aback by this evidence that he was still bearing vicariously the\ntroubles of his client. So deep had been the thought I had apparently\ninterrupted that he did not realize my presence at first.\n\n\"Oh, it's you, Paret. Yes, I've left Elkington,\" he said.\n\n\"Something of a surprise to run up against you suddenly, like this.\"\n\n\"I expected to see you,\" he answered gravely, and the slight emphasis he\ngave the pronoun implied not only a complete knowledge of the situation\nand of the part I had taken in it, but also a greater rebuke than if his\naccusation had been direct. But I clung to my affability.\n\n\"If I can do anything for you, let me know,\" I told him. He said\nnothing, he did not even smile. At this moment he was opportunely joined\nby a man who had the appearance of a labour leader, and I walked away.\nI was resentful; my mood, in brief, was that of a man who has done\nsomething foolish and is inclined to talk to himself aloud: but the mood\nwas complicated, made the more irritating by the paradoxical fact\nthat that last look he had given me seemed to have borne the traces of\naffection....\n\nIt is perhaps needless to add that the court reversed its former\ndecision.\n\n\n\n\nXVI.\n\nThe Pilot published a series of sensational articles and editorials\nabout the Galligan matter, a picture of Galligan, an account of the\ndestitute state of his wife and family. The time had not yet arrived\nwhen such newspapers dared to attack the probity of our courts, but\na system of law that permitted such palpable injustice because of\ntechnicalities was bitterly denounced. What chance had a poor man\nagainst such a moloch as the railroad, even with a lawyer of such\nability as had been exhibited by Hermann Krebs? Krebs was praised, and\nthe attention of Mr. Lawler's readers was called to the fact that Krebs\nwas the man who, some years before, had opposed single-handed in the\nlegislature the notorious Bill No. 709. It was well known in certain\ncircles--the editorial went on to say--that this legislation had been\ndrawn by Theodore Watling in the interests of the Boyne Iron Works,\netc., etc. Hugh Paret had learned at the feet of an able master. This\nfirst sight of my name thus opprobriously flung to the multitude gave\nme an unpleasant shock. I had seen Mr. Scherer attacked, Mr. Gorse\nattacked, and Mr. Watling: I had all along realized, vaguely, that my\nturn would come, and I thought myself to have acquired a compensating\nphilosophy. I threw the sheet into the waste basket, presently picked it\nout again and reread the sentence containing my name. Well, there were\ncertain penalties that every career must pay. I had become, at last,\na marked man, and I recognized the fact that this assault would be the\nforerunner of many.\n\nI tried to derive some comfort and amusement from the thought of certain\noperations of mine that Mr. Lawler had not discovered, that would\nhave been matters of peculiar interest to his innocent public: certain\nextra-legal operations at the time when the Bovine corporation was being\nformed, for instance. And how they would have licked their chops had\nthey learned of that manoeuvre by which I had managed to have one of\nMr. Scherer's subsidiary companies in another state, with property and\nassets amounting to more than twenty millions, reorganized under the\nlaws of New Jersey, and the pending case thus transferred to the Federal\ncourt, where we won hands down! This Galligan affair was nothing to\nthat. Nevertheless, it was annoying. As I sat in the street car on\nmy way homeward, a man beside me was reading the Pilot. I had a queer\nsensation as he turned the page, and scanned the editorial; and I could\nnot help wondering what he and the thousands like him thought of me;\nwhat he would say if I introduced myself and asked his opinion. Perhaps\nhe did not think at all: undoubtedly he, and the public at large, were\nused to Mr. Lawler's daily display of \"injustices.\" Nevertheless, like\nslow acid, they must be eating into the public consciousness. It was an\noutrage--this freedom of the press.\n\nWith renewed exasperation I thought of Krebs, of his disturbing and\nalmost uncanny faculty of following me up. Why couldn't he have remained\nin Elkington? Why did he have to follow me here, to make capital out\nof a case that might never have been heard of except for him?... I was\nstill in this disagreeable frame of mind when I turned the corner by my\nhouse and caught sight of Maude, in the front yard, bending bareheaded\nover a bed of late flowers which the frost had spared. The evening was\nsharp, the dusk already gathering.\n\n\"You'll catch cold,\" I called to her.\n\nShe looked up at the sound of my voice.\n\n\"They'll soon be gone,\" she sighed, referring to the flowers. \"I hate\nwinter.\"\n\nShe put her hand through my arm, and we went into the house. The\ncurtains were drawn, a fire was crackling on the hearth, the lamps were\nlighted, and as I dropped into a chair this living-room of ours seemed\nto take on the air of a refuge from the vague, threatening sinister\nthings of the world without. I felt I had never valued it before. Maude\ntook up her sewing and sat down beside the table.\n\n\"Hugh,\" she said suddenly, \"I read something in the newspaper--\"\n\nMy exasperation flared up again.\n\n\"Where did you get that disreputable sheet?\" I demanded.\n\n\"At the dressmaker's!\" she answered. \"I--I just happened to see the\nname, Paret.\"\n\n\"It's just politics,\" I declared, \"stirring up discontent by\nmisrepresentation. Jealousy.\"\n\nShe leaned forward in her chair, gazing into the flames.\n\n\"Then it isn't true that this poor man, Galligan--isn't that his\nname?--was cheated out of the damages he ought to have to keep himself\nand his family alive?\"\n\n\"You must have been talking to Perry or Susan,\" I said. \"They seem to be\nconvinced that I am an oppressor of the poor.\n\n\"Hugh!\" The tone in which she spoke my name smote me. \"How can you say\nthat? How can you doubt their loyalty, and mine? Do you think they would\nundermine you, and to me, behind your back?\"\n\n\"I didn't mean that, of course, Maude. I was annoyed about something\nelse. And Tom and Perry have an air of deprecating most of the\nenterprises in which I am professionally engaged. It's very well for\nthem to talk. All Perry has to do is to sit back and take in receipts\nfrom the Boyne Street car line, and Tom is content if he gets a few\ncommissions every week. They're like militiamen criticizing soldiers\nunder fire. I know they're good friends of mine, but sometimes I lose\npatience with them.\"\n\nI got up and walked to the window, and came back again and stood before\nher.\n\n\"I'm sorry for this man, Galligan,\" I went on, \"I can't tell you how\nsorry. But few people who are not on the inside, so to speak, grasp the\nfact that big corporations, like the Railroad, are looked upon as fair\ngame for every kind of parasite. Not a day passes in which attempts are\nnot made to bleed them. Some of these cases are pathetic. It had cost\nthe Railroad many times fifteen thousand dollars to fight Galligan's\ncase. But if they had paid it, they would have laid themselves open to\nthousands of similar demands. Dividends would dwindle. The stockholders\nhave a right to a fair return on their money. Galligan claims that there\nwas a defective sill on the car which is said to have caused the wreck.\nIf damages are paid on that basis, it means the daily inspection of\nevery car which passes over their lines. And more than that: there are\ncertain defects, as in the present case, which an inspection would not\nreveal. When a man accepts employment on a railroad he assumes a certain\namount of personal risk,--it's not precisely a chambermaid's job. And\nthe lawyer who defends such cases, whatever his personal feelings may\nbe, cannot afford to be swayed by them. He must take the larger view.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me about it before?\" she asked.\n\n\"Well, I didn't think it of enough importance--these things are all in\nthe day's work.\"\n\n\"But Mr. Krebs? How strange that he should be here, connected with the\ncase!\"\n\nI made an effort to control myself.\n\n\"Your old friend,\" I said. \"I believe you have a sentiment about him.\"\n\nShe looked up at me.\n\n\"Scarcely that,\" she replied gravely, with the literalness that often\ncharacterized her, \"but he isn't a person easily forgotten. He may be\nqueer, one may not agree with his views, but after the experience I had\nwith him I've never been able to look at him in the way George does, for\ninstance, or even as father does.\"\n\n\"Or even as I do,\" I supplied.\n\n\"Well, perhaps not even as you do,\" she answered calmly. \"I believe you\nonce told me, however, that you thought him a fanatic, but sincere.\"\n\n\"He's certainly a fanatic!\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"But sincere, Hugh-you still think him sincere.\"\n\n\"You seem a good deal concerned about a man you've laid eyes on but\nonce.\"\n\nShe considered this.\n\n\"Yes, it is surprising,\" she admitted, \"but it's true. I was sorry\nfor him, but I admired him. I was not only impressed by his courage in\ntaking charge of me, but also by the trust and affection the work-people\nshowed. He must be a good man, however mistaken he may be in the methods\nhe employs. And life is cruel to those people.\"\n\n\"Life is-life,\" I observed. \"Neither you nor I nor Krebs is able to\nchange it.\"\n\n\"Has he come here to practice?\" she asked, after a moment.\n\n\"Yes. Do you want me to invite him to dinner?\" and seeing that she did\nnot reply I continued: \"In spite of my explanation I suppose you think,\nbecause Krebs defended the man Galligan, that a monstrous injustice has\nbeen done.\"\n\n\"That is unworthy of you,\" she said, bending over her stitch.\n\nI began to pace the room again, as was my habit when overwrought.\n\n\"Well, I was going to tell you about this affair if you had not\nforestalled me by mentioning it yourself. It isn't pleasant to be\nvilified by rascals who make capital out of vilification, and a man has\na right to expect some sympathy from his wife.\"\n\n\"Did I ever deny you that, Hugh?\" she asked. \"Only you don't ever seem\nto need it, to want it.\"\n\n\"And there are things,\" I pursued, \"things in a man's province that a\nwoman ought to accept from her husband, things which in the very nature\nof the case she can know nothing about.\"\n\n\"But a woman must think for herself,\" she declared. \"She shouldn't\nbecome a mere automaton,--and these questions involve so much! People\nare discussing them, the magazines and periodicals are beginning to take\nthem up.\"\n\nI stared at her, somewhat appalled by this point of view. There had,\nindeed, been signs of its development before now, but I had not heeded\nthem. And for the first time I beheld Maude in a new light.\n\n\"Oh, it's not that I don't trust you,\" she continued, \"I'm open to\nconviction, but I must be convinced. Your explanation of this Galligan\ncase seems a sensible one, although it's depressing. But life is hard\nand depressing sometimes I've come to realize that. I want to think over\nwhat you've said, I want to talk over it some more. Why won't you tell\nme more of what you are doing? If you only would confide in me--as you\nhave now! I can't help seeing that we are growing farther and farther\napart, that business, your career, is taking all of you and leaving me\nnothing.\" She faltered, and went on again. \"It's difficult to tell you\nthis--you never give me the chance. And it's not for my sake alone, but\nfor yours, too. You are growing more and more self-centred, surrounding\nyourself with a hard shell. You don't realize it, but Tom notices it,\nPerry notices it, it hurts them, it's that they complain of. Hugh!\"\nshe cried appealingly, sensing my resentment, forestalling the words\nof defence ready on my lips. \"I know that you are busy, that many men\ndepend on you, it isn't that I'm not proud of you and your success, but\nyou don't understand what a woman craves,--she doesn't want only to be a\ngood housekeeper, a good mother, but she wants to share a little, at\nany rate, in the life of her husband, in his troubles as well as in his\nsuccesses. She wants to be of some little use, of some little help to\nhim.\"\n\nMy feelings were reduced to a medley.\n\n\"But you are a help to me--a great help,\" I protested.\n\nShe shook her head. \"I wish I were,\" she said.\n\nIt suddenly occurred to me that she might be. I was softened, and\nalarmed by the spectacle she had revealed of the widening breach between\nus. I laid my hand on her shoulder.\n\n\"Well, I'll try to do better, Maude.\"\n\nShe looked up at me, questioningly yet gratefully, through a mist of\ntears. But her reply--whatever it might have been--was forestalled by\nthe sound of shouts and laughter in the hallway. She sprang up and ran\nto the door.\n\n\"It's the children,\" she exclaimed, \"they've come home from Susan's\nparty!\"\n\nIt begins indeed to look as if I were writing this narrative upside\ndown, for I have said nothing about children. Perhaps one reason for\nthis omission is that I did not really appreciate them, that I found\nit impossible to take the same minute interest in them as Tom, for\ninstance, who was, apparently, not content alone with the six which he\npossessed, but had adopted mine. One of them, little Sarah, said \"Uncle\nTom\" before \"Father.\" I do not mean to say that I had not occasional\nmoments of tenderness toward them, but they were out of my thoughts much\nof the time. I have often wondered, since, how they regarded me; how,\nin their little minds, they defined the relationship. Generally, when I\narrived home in the evening I liked to sit down before my study fire and\nread the afternoon newspapers or a magazine; but occasionally I went at\nonce to the nursery for a few moments, to survey with complacency the\nmedley of toys on the floor, and to kiss all three. They received my\ncaresses with a certain shyness--the two younger ones, at least, as\nthough they were at a loss to place me as a factor in the establishment.\nThey tumbled over each other to greet Maude, and even Tom. If I were an\nenigma to them, what must they have thought of him? Sometimes I would\ndiscover him on the nursery floor, with one or two of his own children,\nbuilding towers and castles and railroad stations, or forts to be\nattacked and demolished by regiments of lead soldiers. He was growing\ncomfortable-looking, if not exactly stout; prematurely paternal, oddly\nwilling to renounce the fiercer joys of life, the joys of acquisition,\nof conquest, of youth.\n\n\"You'd better come home with me, Chickabiddy,\" he would say, \"that\nfather of yours doesn't appreciate you. He's too busy getting rich.\"\n\n\"Chickabiddy,\" was his name for little Sarah. Half of the name stuck to\nher, and when she was older we called her Biddy.\n\nShe would gaze at him questioningly, her eyes like blue flower cups, a\nstrange little mixture of solemnity and bubbling mirth, of shyness\nand impulsiveness. She had fat legs that creased above the tops of the\nabsurd little boots that looked to be too tight; sometimes she\nrolled and tumbled in an ecstasy of abandon, and again she would sit\nmotionless, as though absorbed in dreams. Her hair was like corn silk in\nthe sun, twisting up into soft curls after her bath, when she sat rosily\npresiding over her supper table.\n\nAs I look back over her early infancy, I realize that I loved her,\nalthough it is impossible for me to say how much of this love is\nretrospective. Why I was not mad about her every hour of the day is a\npuzzle to me now. Why, indeed, was I not mad about all three of them?\nThere were moments when I held and kissed them, when something within\nme melted: moments when I was away from them, and thought of them. But\nthese moments did not last. The something within me hardened again,\nI became indifferent, my family was wiped out of my consciousness as\nthough it had never existed.\n\nThere was Matthew, for instance, the oldest. When he arrived, he was to\nMaude a never-ending miracle, she would have his crib brought into her\nroom, and I would find her leaning over the bedside, gazing at him with\na rapt expression beyond my comprehension. To me he was just a brick-red\nmorsel of humanity, all folds and wrinkles, and not at all remarkable in\nany way. Maude used to annoy me by getting out of bed in the middle of\nthe night when he cried, and at such times I was apt to wonder at the\nodd trick the life-force had played me, and ask myself why I got married\nat all. It was a queer method of carrying on the race. Later on, I began\nto take a cursory interest in him, to watch for signs in him of certain\ncharacteristics of my own youth which, in the philosophy of my manhood,\nI had come to regard as defects. And it disturbed me somewhat to see\nthese signs appear. I wished him to be what I had become by force of\nwill--a fighter. But he was a sensitive child, anxious for approval;\nnot robust, though spiritual rather than delicate; even in comparative\ninfancy he cared more for books than toys, and his greatest joy was in\nbeing read to. In spite of these traits--perhaps because of them--there\nwas a sympathy between us. From the time that he could talk the child\nseemed to understand me. Occasionally I surprised him gazing at me with\na certain wistful look that comes back to me as I write.\n\nMoreton, Tom used to call Alexander the Great because he was a fighter\nfrom the cradle, beating his elder brother, too considerate to\nstrike back, and likewise--when opportunity offered--his sister; and\nappropriating their toys. A self-sufficient, doughty young man, with the\nround head that withstands many blows, taking by nature to competition\nand buccaneering in general. I did not love him half so much as I did\nMatthew--if such intermittent emotions as mine may be called love. It\nwas a standing joke of mine--which Maude strongly resented--that Moreton\nresembled Cousin George of Elkington.\n\nImbued with the highest ambition of my time, I had set my barque on a\ngreat circle, and almost before I realized it the barque was burdened\nwith a wife and family and the steering had insensibly become more\ndifficult; for Maude cared nothing about the destination, and when I\ntook any hand off the wheel our ship showed a tendency to make for a\nquiet harbour. Thus the social initiative, which I believed should have\nbeen the woman's, was thrust back on me. It was almost incredible, yet\nindisputable, in a day when most American women were credited with a\ncraving for social ambition that I, of all men, should have married\na wife in whom the craving was wholly absent! She might have had what\nother women would have given their souls for. There were many reasons\nwhy I wished her to take what I deemed her proper place in the community\nas my wife--not that I cared for what is called society in the narrow\nsense; with me, it was a logical part of a broader scheme of life; an\nauxiliary rather than an essential, but a needful auxiliary; a means of\ndignifying and adorning the position I was taking. Not only that, but\nI felt the need of intercourse--of intercourse of a lighter and more\nconvivial nature with men and women who saw life as I saw it. In the\nevenings when we did not go out into that world our city afforded ennui\ntook possession of me: I had never learned to care for books, I had no\nresources outside of my profession, and when I was not working on some\nlegal problem I dawdled over the newspapers and went to bed. I don't\nmean to imply that our existence, outside of our continued intimacy with\nthe Peterses and the Blackwoods, was socially isolated. We gave little\ndinners that Maude carried out with skill and taste; but it was I\nwho suggested them; we went out to other dinners, sometimes to\nNancy's--though we saw less and less of her--sometimes to other houses.\nBut Maude had given evidence of domestic tastes and a disinclination for\ngaiety that those who entertained more were not slow to sense. I should\nhave liked to take a larger house, but I felt the futility of suggesting\nit; the children were still small, and she was occupied with them.\nMeanwhile I beheld, and at times with considerable irritation, the\nsocial world changing, growing larger and more significant, a more\nimportant function of that higher phase of American existence the new\ncentury seemed definitely to have initiated. A segregative process was\naway to which Maude was wholly indifferent. Our city was throwing off\nits social conservatism; wealth (which implied ability and superiority)\nwas playing a greater part, entertainments were more luxurious, lines\nmore strictly drawn. We had an elaborate country club for those who\ncould afford expensive amusements. Much of this transformation had been\ndue to the initiative and leadership of Nancy Durrett....\n\nGreat and sudden wealth, however, if combined with obscure antecedents\nand questionable qualifications, was still looked upon askance. In spite\nof the fact that Adolf Scherer had \"put us on the map,\" the family of\nthe great iron-master still remained outside of the social pale.\nHe himself might have entered had it not been for his wife, who was\nsupposed to be \"queer,\" who remained at home in her house opposite\nGallatin Park and made little German cakes,--a huge house which an\nunknown architect had taken unusual pains to make pretentious and\nhideous, for it was Rhenish, Moorish and Victorian by turns. Its\ngeometric grounds matched those of the park, itself a monument to\nbad taste in landscape. The neighbourhood was highly respectable, and\ninhabited by families of German extraction. There were two flaxen-haired\ndaughters who had just graduated from an expensive boarding-school in\nNew York, where they had received the polish needful for future careers.\nBut the careers were not forthcoming.\n\nI was thrown constantly with Adolf Scherer; I had earned his gratitude,\nI had become necessary to him. But after the great coup whereby he had\nfulfilled Mr. Watling's prophecy and become the chief factor in our\nbusiness world he began to show signs of discontent, of an irritability\nthat seemed foreign to his character, and that puzzled me. One day,\nhowever, I stumbled upon the cause of this fermentation, to wonder that\nI had not discovered it before. In many ways Adolf Scherer was a child.\nWe were sitting in the Boyne Club.\n\n\"Money--yes!\" he exclaimed, apropos of some demand made upon him by\na charitable society. \"They come to me for my money--there is always\nScherer, they say. He will make up the deficit in the hospitals. But\nwhat is it they do for me? Nothing. Do they invite me to their houses,\nto their parties?\"\n\nThis was what he wanted, then,--social recognition. I said nothing, but\nI saw my opportunity: I had the clew, now, to a certain attitude he had\nadopted of late toward me, an attitude of reproach; as though, in return\nfor his many favours to me, there were something I had left undone. And\nwhen I went home I asked Maude to call on Mrs. Scherer.\n\n\"On Mrs. Scherer!\" she repeated.\n\n\"Yes, I want you to invite them to dinner.\" The proposal seemed to take\naway her breath. \"I owe her husband a great deal, and I think he feels\nhurt that the wives of the men he knows down town haven't taken up his\nfamily.\" I felt that it would not be wise, with Maude, to announce my\nrather amazing discovery of the iron-master's social ambitions.\n\n\"But, Hugh, they must be very happy, they have their friends. And after\nall this time wouldn't it seem like an intrusion?\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" I said, \"I'm sure it would please him, and them. You\nknow how kind he's been to us, how he sent us East in his private car\nlast year.\"\n\n\"Of course I'll go if you wish it, if you're sure they feel that way.\"\nShe did make the call, that very week, and somewhat to my surprise\nreported that she liked Mrs. Scherer and the daughters: Maude's likes\nand dislikes, needless to say, were not governed by matters of policy.\n\n\"You were right, Hugh,\" she informed me, almost with enthusiasm,\n\"they did seem lonely. And they were so glad to see me, it was rather\npathetic. Mr. Scherer, it seems, had talked to them a great deal about\nyou. They wanted to know why I hadn't come before. That was rather\nembarrassing. Fortunately they didn't give me time to talk, I never\nheard people talk as they do. They all kissed me when I went away, and\ncame down the steps with me. And Mrs. Scherer went into the conservatory\nand picked a huge bouquet. There it is,\" she said, laughingly, pointing\nto several vases. \"I separated the colours as well as I could when I got\nhome. We had coffee, and the most delicious German cakes in the Turkish\nroom, or the Moorish room, whichever it is. I'm sure I shan't be able to\neat anything more for days. When do you wish to have them for dinner?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"we ought to have time to get the right people to meet\nthem. We'll ask Nancy and Ham.\"\n\nMaude opened her eyes.\n\n\"Nancy! Do you think Nancy would like them?\"\n\n\"I'm going to give her a chance, anyway,\" I replied....\n\nIt was, in some ways, a memorable dinner. I don't know what I expected\nin Mrs. Scherer--from Maude's description a benevolent and somewhat\nstupid, blue-eyed German woman, of peasant extraction. There could be no\ndoubt about the peasant extraction, but when she hobbled into our little\nparlour with the aid of a stout, gold-headed cane she dominated it.\nHer very lameness added to a distinction that evinced itself in a\ndozen ways. Her nose was hooked, her colour high,--despite the years\nin Steelville,--her peculiar costume heightened the effect of her\npersonality; her fire-lit black eyes bespoke a spirit accustomed to\nrule, and instead of being an aspirant for social honours, she seemed to\nconfer them. Conversation ceased at her entrance.\n\n\"I'm sorry we are late, my dear,\" she said, as she greeted Maude\naffectionately, \"but we have far to come. And this is your husband!\"\nshe exclaimed, as I was introduced. She scrutinized me. \"I have heard\nsomething of you, Mr. Paret. You are smart. Shall I tell you the\nsmartest thing you ever did?\" She patted Maude's shoulder. \"When you\nmarried your wife--that was it. I have fallen in love with her. If you\ndo not know it, I tell you.\"\n\nNext, Nancy was introduced.\n\n\"So you are Mrs. Hambleton Durrett?\"\n\nNancy acknowledged her identity with a smile, but the next remark was a\nbombshell.\n\n\"The leader of society.\"\n\n\"Alas!\" exclaimed Nancy, \"I have been accused of many terrible things.\"\n\nTheir glances met. Nancy's was amused, baffling, like a spark in amber.\nEach, in its way, was redoubtable. A greater contrast between two women\ncould scarcely have been imagined. It was well said (and not snobbishly)\nthat generations had been required to make Nancy's figure: she wore a\ndress of blue sheen, the light playing on its ripples; and as she stood,\napparently wholly at ease, looking down at the wife of Adolf Scherer,\nshe reminded me of an expert swordsman who, with remarkable skill, was\nkeeping a too pressing and determined aspirant at arm's length. I was\nkeenly aware that Maude did not possess this gift, and I realized for\nthe first time something of the similarity between Nancy's career and my\nown. She, too, in her feminine sphere, exercised, and subtly, a power in\nwhich human passions were deeply involved.\n\nIf Nancy Durrett symbolized aristocracy, established order and prestige,\nwhat did Mrs. Scherer represent? Not democracy, mob rule--certainly. The\nstocky German peasant woman with her tightly drawn hair and heavy jewels\nseemed grotesquely to embody something that ultimately would have\nits way, a lusty and terrible force in the interests of which my own\nservices were enlisted; to which the old American element in business\nand industry, the male counterpart of Nancy Willett, had already\nsuccumbed. And now it was about to storm the feminine fastnesses! I\nbeheld a woman who had come to this country with a shawl aver her head\ntransformed into a new species of duchess, sure of herself, scorning the\ndelicate euphemisms in which Fancy's kind were wont to refer to asocial\nrealm, that was no less real because its boundaries had not definitely\nbeen defined. She held her stick firmly, and gave Nancy an indomitable\nlook.\n\n\"I want you to meet my daughters. Gretchen, Anna, come here and be\nintroduced to Mrs. Durrett.\"\n\nIt was not without curiosity I watched these of the second generation as\nthey made their bows, noted the differentiation in the type for which\nan American environment and a \"finishing school\" had been responsible.\nGretchen and Anna had learned--in crises, such as the present--to\nrestrain the superabundant vitality they had inherited. If their\ncheekbones were a little too high, their Delft blue eyes a little too\nsmall, their colour was of the proverbial rose-leaves and cream. Gene\nHollister's difficulty was to know which to marry. They were nice\ngirls,--of that there could be no doubt; there was no false modesty in\ntheir attitude toward \"society\"; nor did they pretend--as so many silly\npeople did, that they were not attempting to get anywhere in particular,\nthat it was less desirable to be in the centre than on the dubious outer\nwalks. They, too, were so glad to meet Mrs. Durrett.\n\nNancy's eyes twinkled as they passed on.\n\n\"You see what I have let you in for?\" I said.\n\n\"My dear Hugh,\" she replied, \"sooner or later we should have had to face\nthem anyhow. I have recognized that for some time. With their money, and\nMr. Scherer's prestige, and the will of that lady with the stick, in\na few years we should have had nothing to say. Why, she's a female\nNapoleon. Hilda's the man of the family.\"\n\nAfter that, Nancy invariably referred to Mrs. Scherer as Hilda.\n\nIf Mrs. Scherer was a surprise to us, her husband was a still greater\none; and I had difficulty in recognizing the Adolf Scherer who came\nto our dinner party as the personage of the business world before whom\nlesser men were wont to cringe. He seemed rather mysteriously to have\nshed that personality; become an awkward, ingratiating, rather too\nexuberant, ordinary man with a marked German accent. From time to time\nI found myself speculating uneasily on this phenomenon as I glanced down\nthe table at his great torso, white waist-coated for the occasion. He\nwas plainly \"making up\" to Nancy, and to Mrs. Ogilvy, who sat opposite\nhim. On the whole, the atmosphere of our entertainment was rather\nelectric. \"Hilda\" was chiefly responsible for this; her frankness was\nof the breath-taking kind. Far from attempting to hide or ignore\nthe struggle by which she and her husband had attained their present\nposition, she referred with the utmost naivete to incidents in her\ncareer, while the whole table paused to listen.\n\n\"Before we had a carriage, yes, it was hard for me to get about. I had\nto be helped by the conductors into the streetcars. I broke my hip when\nwe lived in Steelville, and the doctor was a numbskull. He should be put\nin prison, is what I tell Adolf. I was standing on a clothes-horse, when\nit fell. I had much washing to do in those days.\"\n\n\"And--can nothing be done, Mrs. Scherer?\" asked Leonard Dickinson,\nsympathetically.\n\n\"For an old woman? I am fifty-five. I have had many doctors. I would put\nthem all in prison. How much was it you paid Dr. Stickney, in New York,\nAdolf? Five thousand dollars? And he did nothing--nothing. I'd rather be\npoor again, and work. But it is well to make the best of it.\"...\n\n\"Your grandfather was a fine man, Mr. Durrett,\" she informed Hambleton.\n\"It is a pity for you, I think, that you do not have to work.\"\n\nHam, who sat on her other side, was amused.\n\n\"My grandfather did enough work for both of us,\" he said.\n\n\"If I had been your grandfather, I would have started you in puddling,\"\nshe observed, as she eyed with disapproval the filling of his third\nglass of champagne. \"I think there is too much gay life, too much games\nfor rich young men nowadays. You will forgive me for saying what I think\nto young men?\"\n\n\"I'll forgive you for not being my grandfather, at any rate,\" replied\nHam, with unaccustomed wit.\n\nShe gazed at him with grim humour.\n\n\"It is bad for you I am not,\" she declared.\n\nThere was no gainsaying her. What can be done with a lady who will not\nrecognize that morality is not discussed, and that personalities are\ntabooed save between intimates. Hilda was a personage as well as a\nTartar. Laws, conventions, usages--to all these she would conform when\nit pleased her. She would have made an admirable inquisitorial judge,\nand quite as admirable a sick nurse. A rare criminal lawyer, likewise,\nwas wasted in her. She was one of those individuals, I perceived, whose\nloyalties dominate them; and who, in behalf of those loyalties, carry\nchips on their shoulders.\n\n\"It is a long time that I have been wanting to meet you,\" she informed\nme. \"You are smart.\"\n\nI smiled, yet I was inclined to resent her use of the word, though I\nwas by no means sure of the shade of meaning she meant to put into it.\nI had, indeed, an uneasy sense of the scantiness of my fund of humour to\nmeet and turn such a situation; for I was experiencing, now, with her,\nthe same queer feeling I had known in my youth in the presence of Cousin\nRobert Breck--the suspicion that this extraordinary person saw through\nme. It was as though she held up a mirror and compelled me to look at my\nsoul features. I tried to assure myself that the mirror was distorted. I\nlost, nevertheless, the sureness of touch that comes from the conviction\nof being all of a piece. She contrived to resolve me again\ninto conflicting elements. I was, for the moment, no longer the\nself-confident and triumphant young attorney accustomed to carry all\nbefore him, to command respect and admiration, but a complicated being\nwhose unity had suddenly been split. I glanced around the table at\nOgilvy, at Dickinson, at Ralph Hambleton. These men were functioning\ntruly. But was I? If I were not, might not this be the reason for the\nlack of synthesis--of which I was abruptly though vaguely aware between\nmy professional life, my domestic relationships, and my relationships\nwith friends. The loyalty of the woman beside me struck me forcibly as\na supreme trait. Where she had given, she did not withdraw. She had\nconferred it instantly on Maude. Did I feel that loyalty towards a\nsingle human being? towards Maude herself--my wife? or even towards\nNancy? I pulled myself together, and resolved to give her credit for\nusing the word \"smart\" in its unobjectionable sense. After all; Dickens\nhad so used it.\n\n\"A lawyer must needs know something of what he is about, Mrs. Scherer,\nif he is to be employed by such a man as your husband,\" I replied.\n\nHer black eyes snapped with pleasure.\n\n\"Ah, I suppose that is so,\" she agreed. \"I knew he was a great man when\nI married him, and that was before Mr. Nathaniel Durrett found it out.\"\n\n\"But surely you did not think, in those days, that he would be as big\nas he has become? That he would not only be president of the Boyne Iron\nWorks, but of a Boyne Iron Works that has exceeded Mr. Durrett's wildest\ndreams.\"\n\nShe shook her head complacently.\n\n\"Do you know what I told him when he married me? I said, 'Adolf, it is a\npity you are born in Germany.' And when he asked me why, I told him that\nsome day he might have been President of the United States.\"\n\n\"Well, that won't be a great deprivation to him,\" I remarked. \"Mr.\nScherer can do what he wants, and the President cannot.\"\n\n\"Adolf always does as he wants,\" she declared, gazing at him as he sat\nbeside the brilliant wife of the grandson of the man whose red-shirted\nforeman he had been. \"He does what he wants, and gets what he wants. He\nis getting what he wants now,\" she added, with such obvious meaning\nthat I found no words to reply. \"She is pretty, that Mrs. Durrett, and\nclever,--is it not so?\"\n\nI agreed. A new and indescribable note had come into Mrs. Scherer's\nvoice, and I realized that she, too, was aware of that flaw in the\nredoubtable Mr. Scherer which none of his associates had guessed. It\nwould have been strange if she had not discovered it. \"She is beautiful,\nyes,\" the lady continued critically, \"but she is not to compare with\nyour wife. She has not the heart,--it is so with all your people of\nsociety. For them it is not what you are, but what you have done, and\nwhat you have.\"\n\nThe banality of this observation was mitigated by the feeling she threw\ninto it.\n\n\"I think you misjudge Mrs. Durrett,\" I said, incautiously. \"She has\nnever before had the opportunity of meeting Mr. Scherer of appreciating\nhim.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Durrett is an old friend of yours?\" she asked.\n\n\"I was brought up with her.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" she exclaimed, and turned her penetrating glance upon me. I was\nstartled. Could it be that she had discerned and interpreted those\nrenascent feelings even then stirring within me, and of which I myself\nwas as yet scarcely conscious? At this moment, fortunately for me, the\nwomen rose; the men remained to smoke; and Scherer, as they discussed\nmatters of finance, became himself again. I joined in the conversation,\nbut I was thinking of those instants when in flashes of understanding my\neyes had met Nancy's; instants in which I was lifted out of my humdrum,\ndeadly serious self and was able to look down objectively upon the life\nI led, the life we all led--and Nancy herself; to see with her the comic\nirony of it all. Nancy had the power to give me this exquisite sense of\ndetachment that must sustain her. And was it not just this sustenance\nshe could give that I needed? For want of it I was hardening,\ncrystallizing, growing blind to the joy and variety of existence.\nNancy could have saved me; she brought it home to me that I needed\nsalvation.... I was struck by another thought; in spite of our\nseparation, in spite of her marriage and mine, she was still nearer to\nme--far nearer--than any other being.\n\nLater, I sought her out. She looked up at me amusedly from the\nwindow-seat in our living-room, where she had been talking to the\nScherer girls.\n\n\"Well, how did you get along with Hilda?\" she asked. \"I thought I saw\nyou struggling.\"\n\n\"She's somewhat disconcerting,\" I said. \"I felt as if she were turning\nme inside out.\"\n\nNancy laughed.\n\n\"Hilda's a discovery--a genius. I'm going to have them to dinner\nmyself.\"\n\n\"And Adolf?\" I inquired. \"I believe she thought you were preparing to\nrun away with him. You seemed to have him hypnotized.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid your great man won't be able to stand--elevation,\" she\ndeclared. \"He'll have vertigo. He's even got it now, at this little\nheight, and when he builds his palace on Grant Avenue, and later moves\nto New York, I'm afraid he'll wobble even more.\"\n\n\"Is he thinking of doing all that?\" I asked.\n\n\"I merely predict New York--it's inevitable,\" she replied. \"Grant\nAvenue, yes; he wants me to help him choose a lot. He gave me ten\nthousand dollars for our Orphans' Home, but on the whole I think I\nprefer Hilda even if she doesn't approve of me.\"\n\nNancy rose. The Scherers were going. While Mr. Scherer pressed my hand\nin a manner that convinced me of his gratitude, Hilda was bidding an\naffectionate good night to Maude. A few moments later she bore her\nhusband and daughters away, and we heard the tap-tap of her cane on the\nwalk outside....\n\n\n\n\nXVII.\n\nThe remembrance of that dinner when with my connivance the Scherers\nmade their social debut is associated in my mind with the coming of the\nfulness of that era, mad and brief, when gold rained down like manna\nfrom our sooty skies. Even the church was prosperous; the Rev. Carey\nHeddon, our new minister, was well abreast of the times, typical of the\nnew and efficient Christianity that has finally buried the hatchet with\nenlightened self-interest. He looked like a young and prosperous man of\nbusiness, and indeed he was one.\n\nThe fame of our city spread even across the Atlantic, reaching obscure\nhamlets in Europe, where villagers gathered up their lares and\npenates, mortgaged their homes, and bought steamship tickets from\nphilanthropists,--philanthropists in diamonds. Our Huns began to arrive,\ntheir Attilas unrecognized among them: to drive our honest Americans and\nIrish and Germans out of the mills by \"lowering the standard of\nliving.\" Still--according to the learned economists in our universities,\nenlightened self-interest triumphed. Had not the honest Americans and\nGermans become foremen and even presidents of corporations? What greater\nvindication for their philosophy could be desired?\n\nThe very aspect of the city changed like magic. New buildings sprang\nhigh in the air; the Reliance Trust (Mr. Grierson's), the Scherer\nBuilding, the Hambleton Building; a stew hotel, the Ashuela, took\nproper care of our visitors from the East,--a massive, grey stone,\nthousand-awninged affair on Boyne Street, with a grill where it became\nthe fashion to go for supper after the play, and a head waiter who knew\nin a few weeks everyone worth knowing.\n\nTo return for a moment to the Huns. Maude had expressed a desire to\nsee a mill, and we went, one afternoon, in Mr. Scherer's carriage to\nSteelville, with Mr. Scherer himself,--a bewildering, educative, almost\nterrifying experience amidst fumes and flames, gigantic forces and\ntitanic weights. It seemed a marvel that we escaped being crushed or\nburned alive in those huge steel buildings reverberating with sound.\nThey appeared a very bedlam of chaos, instead of the triumph of order,\norganization and human skill. Mr. Scherer was very proud of it all, and\nours was a sort of triumphal procession, accompanied by superintendents,\nmanagers and other factotums. I thought of my childhood image of\nShadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and our progress through the flames\nseemed no less remarkable and miraculous.\n\nMaude, with alarm in her eyes, kept very close to me, as I supplemented\nthe explanations they gave her. I had been there many times before.\n\n\"Why, Hugh,\" she exclaimed, \"you seem to know a lot about it!\"\n\nMr. Scherer laughed.\n\n\"He's had to talk about it once or twice in court--eh, Hugh? You didn't\nrealize how clever your husband was did you, Mrs. Paret?\"\n\n\"But this is so--complicated,\" she replied. \"It is overwhelming.\"\n\n\"When I found out how much trouble he had taken to learn about my\nbusiness,\" added Mr. Scherer, \"there was only one thing to do. Make\nhim my lawyer. Hugh, you have the floor, and explain the open-hearth\nprocess.\"\n\nI had almost forgotten the Huns. I saw Maude gazing at them with a new\nkind of terror. And when we sat at home that evening they still haunted\nher.\n\n\"Somehow, I can't bear to think about them,\" she said. \"I'm sure we'll\nhave to pay for it, some day.\"\n\n\"Pay for what?\" I asked.\n\n\"For making them work that way. And twelve hours! It can't be right,\nwhile we have so much, and are so comfortable.\"\n\n\"Don't be foolish,\" I exclaimed. \"They're used to it. They think\nthemselves lucky to get the work--and they are. Besides, you give them\ncredit for a sensitiveness that they don't possess. They wouldn't know\nwhat to do with such a house as this if they had it.\"\n\n\"I never realized before that our happiness and comfort were built on\nsuch foundations;\" she said, ignoring my remark.\n\n\"You must have seen your father's operatives, in Elkington, many times a\nweek.\"\n\n\"I suppose I was too young to think about such things,\" she reflected.\n\"Besides, I used to be sorry for them, sometimes. But these men at the\nsteel mills--I can't tell you what I feel about them. The sight of their\ngreat bodies and their red, sullen faces brought home to me the cruelty\nof life. Did you notice how some of them stared at us, as though they\nwere but half awake in the heat, with that glow on their faces? It made\nme afraid--afraid that they'll wake up some day, and then they will be\nterrible. I thought of the children. It seems not only wicked, but mad\nto bring ignorant foreigners over here and make them slaves like that,\nand so many of them are hurt and maimed. I can't forget them.\"\n\n\"You're talking Socialism,\" I said crossly, wondering whether Lucia had\ntaken it up as her latest fad.\n\n\"Oh, no, I'm not,\" said Maude, \"I don't know what Socialism is. I'm\ntalking about something that anyone who is not dazzled by all this\nluxury we are living in might be able to see, about something which,\nwhen it comes, we shan't be able to help.\"\n\nI ridiculed this. The prophecy itself did not disturb me half as much\nas the fact that she had made it, as this new evidence that she was\nbeginning to think for herself, and along lines so different from my own\ndevelopment.\n\nWhile it lasted, before novelists, playwrights, professors and ministers\nof the Gospel abandoned their proper sphere to destroy it, that\nGolden Age was heaven; the New Jerusalem--in which we had ceased to\nbelieve--would have been in the nature of an anticlimax to any of our\narchangels of finance who might have attained it. The streets of our own\ncity turned out to be gold; gold likewise the acres of unused, scrubby\nland on our outskirts, as the incident of the Riverside Franchise--which\nI am about to relate--amply proved.\n\nThat scheme originated in the alert mind of Mr. Frederick Grierson, and\nin spite of the fact that it has since become notorious in the eyes of\na virtue-stricken public, it was entered into with all innocence at the\ntime: most of the men who were present at the \"magnate's\" table at the\nBoyne Club the day Mr. Grierson broached it will vouch for this. He\ncasually asked Mr. Dickinson if he had ever noticed a tract lying on the\nriver about two miles beyond the Heights, opposite what used to be in\nthe old days a road house.\n\n\"This city is growing so fast, Leonard,\" said Grierson, lighting a\nspecial cigar the Club kept for him, \"that it might pay a few of us to\nget together and buy that tract, have the city put in streets and sewers\nand sell it in building lots. I think I can get most of it at less than\nthree hundred dollars an acre.\"\n\nMr. Dickinson was interested. So were Mr. Ogilvy and Ralph Hambleton,\nand Mr. Scherer, who chanced to be there. Anything Fred Grierson had to\nsay on the question of real estate was always interesting. He went on to\ndescribe the tract, its size and location.\n\n\"That's all very well, Fred,\" Dickinson objected presently, \"but how are\nyour prospective householders going to get out there?\"\n\n\"Just what I was coming to,\" cried Grierson, triumphantly, \"we'll get\na franchise, and build a street-railroad out Maplewood Avenue, an\nextension of the Park Street line. We can get the franchise for next\nto nothing, if we work it right.\" (Mr. Grierson's eye fell on me), \"and\nsell it out to the public, if you underwrite it, for two million or so.\"\n\n\"Well, you've got your nerve with you, Fred, as usual,\" said Dickinson.\nBut he rolled his cigar in his mouth, an indication, to those who knew\nhim well, that he was considering the matter. When Leonard Dickinson\ndidn't say \"no\" at once, there was hope. \"What do you think the property\nholders on Maplewood Avenue would say? Wasn't it understood, when\nthat avenue was laid out, that it was to form part of the system of\nboulevards?\"\n\n\"What difference does it make what they say?\" Ralph interposed.\n\nDickinson smiled. He, too, had an exaggerated respect for Ralph. We all\nthought the proposal daring, but in no way amazing; the public existed\nto be sold things to, and what did it matter if the Maplewood residents,\nas Ralph said; and the City Improvement League protested?\n\nPerry Blackwood was the Secretary of the City Improvement League, the\nobject of which was to beautify the city by laying out a system of\nparkways.\n\nThe next day some of us gathered in Dickinson's office and decided that\nGrierson should go ahead and get the options. This was done; not, of\ncourse, in Grierson's name. The next move, before the formation of the\nRiverside Company, was to \"see\" Mr. Judd Jason. The success or failure\nof the enterprise was in his hands. Mahomet must go to the mountain, and\nI went to Monahan's saloon, first having made an appointment. It was not\nthe first time I had been there since I had made that first memorable\nvisit, but I never quite got over the feeling of a neophyte before\nBuddha, though I did not go so far as to analyze the reason,--that in\nMr. Jason I was brought face to face with the concrete embodiment of\nthe philosophy I had adopted, the logical consequence of enlightened\nself-interest. If he had ever heard of it, he would have made no\npretence of being anything else. Greatness, declares some modern\nphilosopher, has no connection with virtue; it is the continued, strong\nand logical expression of some instinct; in Mr. Jason's case, the\npredatory instinct. And like a true artist, he loved his career for\nitself--not for what its fruits could buy. He might have built a palace\non the Heights with the tolls he took from the disreputable houses of\nthe city; he was contented with Monahan's saloon: nor did he seek to\npropitiate a possible God by endowing churches and hospitals with a\nportion of his income. Try though I might, I never could achieve the\nperfection of this man's contempt for all other philosophies. The very\nfact of my going there in secret to that dark place of his from out\nof the bright, respectable region in which I lived was in itself an\nacknowledgment of this. I thought him a thief--a necessary thief--and\nhe knew it: he was indifferent to it; and it amused him, I think, to\nsee clinging to me, when I entered his presence, shreds of that morality\nwhich those of my world who dealt with him thought so needful for the\nsake of decency.\n\nHe was in bed, reading newspapers, as usual. An empty coffee-cup and a\nplate were on the littered table.\n\n\"Sit down, sit down, Paret,\" he said. \"What do you hear from the\nSenator?\"\n\nI sat down, and gave him the news of Mr. Watling. He seemed, as usual,\ndistrait, betraying no curiosity as to the object of my call, his lean,\nbrown fingers playing with the newspapers on his lap. Suddenly, he\nflashed out at me one of those remarks which produced the uncanny\nconviction that, so far as affairs in the city were concerned, he was\nomniscient.\n\n\"I hear somebody has been getting options on that tract of land beyond\nthe Heights, on the river.\"\n\nHe had \"focussed.\"\n\n\"How did you hear that?\" I asked.\n\nHe smiled.\n\n\"It's Grierson, ain't it?\"\n\n\"Yes, it's Grierson,\" I said.\n\n\"How are you going to get your folks out there?\" he demanded.\n\n\"That's what I've come to see you about. We want a franchise for\nMaplewood Avenue.\"\n\n\"Maplewood Avenue!\" He lay back with his eyes closed, as though trying\nto visualize such a colossal proposal....\n\nWhen I left him, two hours later, the details were all arranged, down to\nMr. Jason's consideration from Riverside Company and the \"fee\" which\nhis lawyer, Mr. Bitter, was to have for \"presenting the case\" before\nthe Board of Aldermen. I went back to lunch at the Boyne Club, and to\nreceive the congratulations of my friends. The next week the Riverside\nCompany was formed, and I made out a petition to the Board of Aldermen\nfor a franchise; Mr. Bitter appeared and argued: in short, the procedure\nso familiar to modern students of political affairs was gone through.\nThe Maplewood Avenue residents rose en masse, supported by the City\nImprovement League. Perry Blackwood, as soon as he heard of the\npetition, turned up at my office. By this time I was occupying Mr.\nWatling's room.\n\n\"Look here,\" he began, as soon as the office-boy had closed the door\nbehind him, \"this is going it a little too strong.\"\n\n\"What is?\" I asked, leaning back in my chair and surveying him.\n\n\"This proposed Maplewood Avenue Franchise. Hugh,\" he said, \"you and I\nhave been friends a good many years, Lucia and I are devoted to Maude.\"\n\nI did not reply.\n\n\"I've seen all along that we've been growing apart,\" he added sadly.\n\"You've got certain ideas about things which I can't share. I suppose\nI'm old fashioned. I can't trust myself to tell you what I think--what\nTom and I think about this deal.\"\n\n\"Go ahead, Perry,\" I said.\n\nHe got up, plainly agitated, and walked to the window. Then he turned to\nme appealingly.\n\n\"Get out of it, for God's sake get out of it, before it's too late. For\nyour own sake, for Maude's, for the children's. You don't realize what\nyou are doing. You may not believe me, but the time will come when these\nfellows you are in with will be repudiated by the community,--their\nmoney won't help them. Tom and I are the best friends you have,\" he\nadded, a little irrelevantly.\n\n\"And you think I'm going to the dogs.\"\n\n\"Now don't take it the wrong way,\" he urged.\n\n\"What is it you object to about the Maplewood franchise?\" I asked. \"If\nyou'll look at a map of the city, you'll see that development is bound\nto come on that side. Maplewood Avenue is the natural artery,\nsomebody will build a line out there, and if you'd rather have eastern\ncapitalists--\"\n\n\"Why are you going to get this franchise?\" he demanded. \"Because we\nhaven't a decent city charter, and a healthy public spirit, you fellows\nare buying it from a corrupt city boss, and bribing a corrupt board of\naldermen. That's the plain language of it. And it's only fair to warn\nyou that I'm going to say so, openly.\"\n\n\"Be sensible,\" I answered. \"We've got to have street railroads,--your\nfamily has one. We know what the aldermen are, what political conditions\nare. If you feel this way about it, the thing to do is to try to change\nthem. But why blame me for getting a franchise for a company in the only\nmanner in which, under present conditions, a franchise can be got? Do\nyou want the city to stand still? If not, we have to provide for the new\npopulation.\"\n\n\"Every time you bribe these rascals for a franchise you entrench them,\"\nhe cried. \"You make it more difficult to oust them. But you mark my\nwords, we shall get rid of them some day, and when that fight comes, I\nwant to be in it.\"\n\nHe had grown very much excited; and it was as though this excitement\nsuddenly revealed to me the full extent of the change that had taken\nplace in him since he had left college. As he stood facing me, almost\nglaring at me through his eye-glasses, I beheld a slim, nervous,\nfault-finding doctrinaire, incapable of understanding the world as it\nwas, lacking the force of his pioneer forefathers. I rather pitied him.\n\n\"I'm sorry we can't look at this thing alike, Perry,\" I told him.\n\"You've said solve pretty hard things, but I realize that you hold your\npoint of view in good faith, and that you have come to me as an old\nfriend. I hope it won't make any difference in our personal relations.\"\n\n\"I don't see how it can help making a difference,\" he answered slowly.\nHis excitement had cooled abruptly: he seemed dazed. At this moment my\nprivate stenographer entered to inform me that I was being called up on\nthe telephone from New York. \"Well, you have more important affairs to\nattend to, I won't bother you any more,\" he added.\n\n\"Hold on,\" I exclaimed, \"this call can wait. I'd like to talk it over\nwith you.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid it wouldn't be any use, Hugh,\" he said, and went out.\n\nAfter talking with the New York client whose local interests I\nrepresented I sat thinking over the conversation with Perry. Considering\nMaude's intimacy with and affection for the Blackwoods, the affair was\nawkward, opening up many uncomfortable possibilities; and it was the\nprospect of discomfort that bothered me rather than regret for the\nprobable loss of Perry's friendship. I still believed myself to have an\naffection for him: undoubtedly this was a sentimental remnant....\n\nThat evening after dinner Tom came in alone, and I suspected that Perry\nhad sent him. He was fidgety, ill at ease, and presently asked if I\ncould see him a moment in my study. Maude's glance followed us.\n\n\"Say, Hugh, this is pretty stiff,\" he blurted out characteristically,\nwhen the door was closed.\n\n\"I suppose you mean the Riverside Franchise,\" I said. He looked up at\nme, miserably, from the chair into which he had sunk, his hands in his\npockets.\n\n\"You'll forgive me for talking about it, won't you? You used to lecture\nme once in a while at Cambridge, you know.\"\n\n\"That's all right--go ahead,\" I replied, trying to speak amiably.\n\n\"You know I've always admired you, Hugh,--I never had your ability,\"\nhe began painfully, \"you've gone ahead pretty fast,--the truth is that\nPerry and I have been worried about you for some time. We've tried\nnot to be too serious in showing it, but we've felt that these modern\nbusiness methods were getting into your system without your realizing\nit. There are some things a man's friends can tell him, and it's their\nduty to tell him. Good God, haven't you got enough, Hugh,--enough\nsuccess and enough money, without going into a thing like this Riverside\nscheme?\"\n\nI was intensely annoyed, if not angry; and I hesitated a moment to calm\nmyself.\n\n\"Tom, you don't understand my position,\" I said. \"I'm willing to discuss\nit with you, now that you've opened up the subject. Perry's been talking\nto you, I can see that. I think Perry's got queer ideas,--to be plain\nwith you, and they're getting queerer.\"\n\nHe sat down again while, with what I deemed a rather exemplary patience,\nI went over the arguments in favour of my position; and as I talked,\nit clarified in my own mind. It was impossible to apply to business an\nindividual code of ethics,--even to Perry's business, to Tom's business:\nthe two were incompatible, and the sooner one recognized that the\nbetter: the whole structure of business was built up on natural, as\nopposed to ethical law. We had arrived at an era of frankness--that was\nthe truth--and the sooner we faced this truth the better for our peace\nof mind. Much as we might deplore the political system that had grown\nup, we had to acknowledge, if we were consistent, that it was the base\non which our prosperity was built. I was rather proud of having evolved\nthis argument; it fortified my own peace of mind, which had been\ndisturbed by Tom's attitude. I began to pity him. He had not been very\nsuccessful in life, and with the little he earned, added to Susan's\nincome, I knew that a certain ingenuity was required to make both ends\nmeet. He sat listening with a troubled look. A passing phase of feeling\nclouded for a brief moment my confidence when there arose in my mind an\nunbidden memory of my youth, of my father. He, too, had mistrusted my\ningenuity. I recalled how I had out-manoeuvred him and gone to college;\nI remembered the March day so long ago, when Tom and I had stood on the\ncorner debating how to deceive him, and it was I who had suggested the\nnice distinction between a boat and a raft. Well, my father's illogical\nattitude towards boyhood nature, towards human nature, had forced me\ninto that lie, just as the senseless attitude of the public to-day\nforced business into a position of hypocrisy.\n\n\"Well, that's clever,\" he said, slowly and perplexedly, when I had\nfinished. \"It's damned clever, but somehow it looks to me all wrong. I\ncan't pick it to pieces.\" He got up rather heavily. \"I--I guess I ought\nto be going. Susan doesn't know where I am.\"\n\nI was exasperated. It was clear, though he did not say so, that he\nthought me dishonest. The pain in his eyes had deepened.\n\n\"If you feel that way--\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, God, I don't know how I feel!\" he cried. \"You're the oldest friend\nI have, Hugh,--I can't forget that. We'll say nothing more about it.\" He\npicked up his hat and a moment later I heard the front door close\nbehind him. I stood for a while stock-still, and then went into the\nliving-room, where Maude was sewing.\n\n\"Why, where's Tom?\" she inquired, looking up.\n\n\"Oh, he went home. He said Susan didn't know where he was.\"\n\n\"How queer! Hugh, was there anything the matter? Is he in trouble?\" she\nasked anxiously.\n\nI stood toying with a book-mark, reflecting. She must inevitably come to\nsuspect that something had happened, and it would be as well to fortify\nher.\n\n\"The trouble is,\" I said after a moment, \"that Perry and Tom would like\nto run modern business on the principle of a charitable institution.\nUnfortunately, it is not practical. They're upset because I have been\nretained by a syndicate whose object is to develop some land out beyond\nMaplewood Avenue. They've bought the land, and we are asking the city\nto give us a right to build a line out Maplewood Avenue, which is the\nobvious way to go. Perry says it will spoil the avenue. That's nonsense,\nin the first place. The avenue is wide, and the tracks will be in a\ngrass plot in the centre. For the sake of keeping tracks off that avenue\nhe would deprive people of attractive homes at a small cost, of the\ngood air they can get beyond the heights; he would stunt the city's\ndevelopment.\"\n\n\"That does seem a little unreasonable,\" Maude admitted. \"Is that all he\nobjects to?\"\n\n\"No, he thinks it an outrage because, in order to get the franchise, we\nhave to deal with the city politicians. Well, it so happens, and always\nhas happened, that politics have been controlled by leaders, whom\nPerry calls 'bosses,' and they are not particularly attractive men. You\nwouldn't care to associate with them. My father once refused to be mayor\nof the city for this reason. But they are necessities. If the people\ndidn't want them, they'd take enough interest in elections to throw them\nout. But since the people do want them, and they are there, every time\na new street-car line or something of that sort needs to be built they\nhave to be consulted, because, without their influence nothing could be\ndone. On the other hand, these politicians cannot afford to ignore men\nof local importance like Leonard Dickinson and Adolf Scherer and Miller\nGorse who represent financial substance and' responsibility. If a new\nstreet-railroad is to be built, these are the logical ones to build it.\nYou have just the same situation in Elkington, on a smaller scale.\n\n\"Your family, the Hutchinses, own the mills and the street-railroads,\nand any new enterprise that presents itself is done with their money,\nbecause they are reliable and sound.\"\n\n\"It isn't pleasant to think that there are such people as the\npoliticians, is it?\" said Maude, slowly.\n\n\"Unquestionably not,\" I agreed. \"It isn't pleasant to think of some\nother crude forces in the world. But they exist, and they have to be\ndealt with. Suppose the United States should refuse to trade with Russia\nbecause, from our republican point of view, we regarded her government\nas tyrannical and oppressive? or to cooperate with England in some\nundertaking for the world's benefit because we contended that she ruled\nIndia with an iron hand? In such a case, our President and Senate would\nbe scoundrels for making and ratifying a treaty. Yet here are Perry and\nTom, and no doubt Susan and Lucia, accusing me, a lifetime friend, of\ndishonesty because I happen to be counsel for a syndicate that wishes to\nbuild a street-railroad for the convenience of the people of the city.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, not of dishonesty!\" she exclaimed. \"I can't--I won't believe\nthey would do that.\"\n\n\"Pretty near it,\" I said. \"If I listened to them, I should have to give\nup the law altogether.\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" she answered in a low voice, \"sometimes I wish you would.\"\n\n\"I might have expected that you would take their point of view.\"\n\nAs I was turning away she got up quickly and put her hand on my\nshoulder.\n\n\"Hugh, please don't say such things--you've no right to say them.\"\n\n\"And you?\" I asked.\n\n\"Don't you see,\" she continued pleadingly, \"don't you see that we are\ngrowing apart? That's the only reason I said what I did. It isn't that I\ndon't trust you, that I don't want you to have your work, that I demand\nall of you. I know a woman can't ask that,--can't have it. But if you\nwould only give me--give the children just a little, if I could feel\nthat we meant something to you and that this other wasn't gradually\nbecoming everything, wasn't absorbing you more and more, killing the\nbest part of you. It's poisoning our marriage, it's poisoning all your\nrelationships.\"\n\nIn that appeal the real Maude, the Maude of the early days of our\nmarriage flashed forth again so vividly that I was taken aback. I\nunderstood that she had had herself under control, had worn a mask--a\nmask I had forced on her; and the revelation of the continued existence\nof that other Maude was profoundly disturbing. Was it true, as she said,\nthat my absorption in the great game of modern business, in the modern\nAmerican philosophy it implied was poisoning my marriage? or was it\nthat my marriage had failed to satisfy and absorb me? I was touched--but\nsentimentally touched: I felt that this was a situation that ought to\ntouch me; I didn't wish to face it, as usual: I couldn't acknowledge to\nmyself that anything was really wrong... I patted her on the shoulder, I\nbent over and kissed her.\n\n\"A man in my position can't altogether choose just how busy he will be,\"\nI said smiling. \"Matters are thrust upon me which I have to accept, and\nI can't help thinking about some of them when I come home. But we'll go\noff for a real vacation soon, Maude, to Europe--and take the children.\"\n\n\"Oh, I hope so,\" she said.\n\nFrom this time on, as may be supposed, our intercourse with both the\nBlackwoods began to grow less frequent, although Maude continued to see\na great deal of Lucia; and when we did dine in their company, or\nthey with us, it was quite noticeable that their former raillery was\nsuppressed. Even Tom had ceased to refer to me as the young Napoleon\nof the Law: he clung to me, but he too kept silent on the subject of\nbusiness. Maude of course must have noticed this, must have sensed the\nchange of atmosphere, have known that the Blackwoods, at least, were\nmaintaining appearances for her sake. She did not speak to me of the\nchange, nor I to her; but when I thought of her silence, it was to\nsuspect that she was weighing the question which had led up to the\ndifference between Perry and me, and I had a suspicion that the fact\nthat I was her husband would not affect her ultimate decision. This\nfaculty of hers of thinking things out instead of accepting my views and\ndecisions was, as the saying goes, getting a little \"on my nerves\": that\nshe of all women should have developed it was a recurring and unpleasant\nsurprise. I began at times to pity myself a little, to feel the need of\nsympathetic companionship--feminine companionship....\n\nI shall not go into the details of the procurement of what became known\nas the Riverside Franchise. In spite of the Maplewood residents, of the\nCity Improvement League and individual protests, we obtained it with\nabsurd ease. Indeed Perry Blackwood himself appeared before the Public\nUtilities Committee of the Board of Aldermen, and was listened to\nwith deference and gravity while he discoursed on the defacement of a\nbeautiful boulevard to satisfy the greed of certain private individuals.\nMr. Otto Bitter and myself, who appeared for the petitioners, had\na similar reception. That struggle was a tempest in a tea-pot. The\nreformer raged, but he was feeble in those days, and the great public\nbelieved what it read in the respectable newspapers. In Mr. Judah\nB. Tallant's newspaper, for instance, the Morning Era, there were\nsemi-playful editorials about \"obstructionists.\" Mr. Perry Blackwood\nwas a well-meaning, able gentleman of an old family, etc., but with a\nsentiment for horse-cars. The Era published also the resolutions which\n(with interesting spontaneity!) had been passed by our Board of Trade\nand Chamber of Commerce and other influential bodies in favour of the\nfranchise; the idea--unknown to the public--of Mr. Hugh Paret, who\nwrote drafts of the resolutions and suggested privately to Mr. Leonard\nDickinson that a little enthusiasm from these organizations might be\nhelpful. Mr. Dickinson accepted the suggestion eagerly, wondering why he\nhadn't thought of it himself. The resolutions carried some weight with a\npublic that did not know its right hand from its left.\n\nAfter fitting deliberation, one evening in February the Board of\nAldermen met and granted the franchise. Not unanimously, oh, no! Mr.\nJason was not so simple as that! No further visits to Monahan's saloon\non my part, in this connection were necessary; but Mr. Otto Bitter met\nme one day in the hotel with a significant message from the boss.\n\n\"It's all fixed,\" he informed me. \"Murphy and Scott and Ottheimer and\nGrady and Loth are the decoys. You understand?\"\n\n\"I think I gather your meaning,\" I said.\n\nMr. Bitter smiled by pulling down one corner of a crooked mouth.\n\n\"They'll vote against it on principle, you know,\" he added. \"We get a\nlittle something from the Maple Avenue residents.\"\n\nI've forgotten what the Riverside Franchise cost. The sum was paid in a\nlump sum to Mr. Bitter as his \"fee,\"--so, to their chagrin, a grand jury\ndiscovered in later years, when they were barking around Mr. Jason's\nhole with an eager district attorney snapping his whip over them.\nI remember the cartoon. The municipal geese were gone, but it was\nimpossible to prove that this particular fox had used his enlightened\nreason in their procurement. Mr. Bitter was a legally authorized fox,\nand could take fees. How Mr. Jason was to be rewarded by the land\ncompany's left-hand, unknown, to the land company's right hand, became a\nproblem worthy of a genius. The genius was found, but modesty forbids\nme to mention his name, and the problem was solved, to wit: the land\ncompany bought a piece of downtown property from--Mr. Ryerson, who was\nMr. Grierson's real estate man and the agent for the land company, for\na consideration of thirty thousand dollars. An unconfirmed rumour had it\nthat Mr. Ryerson turned over the thirty thousand to Mr. Jason. Then the\nRiverside Company issued a secret deed of the same property back to Mr.\nRyerson, and this deed was not recorded until some years later.\n\nSuch are the elaborate transactions progress and prosperity demand.\nNature is the great teacher, and we know that her ways are at times\ncomplicated and clumsy. Likewise, under the \"natural\" laws of economics,\nnew enterprises are not born without travail, without the aid of legal\nphysicians well versed in financial obstetrics. One hundred and fifty\nto two hundred thousand, let us say, for the right to build tracks on\nMaplewood Avenue, and we sold nearly two million dollars worth of the\nsecurities back to the public whose aldermen had sold us the franchise.\nIs there a man so dead as not to feel a thrill at this achievement?\nAnd let no one who declares that literary talent and imagination are\nnonexistent in America pronounce final judgment until he reads that\nprospectus, in which was combined the best of realism and symbolism,\nfor the labours of Alonzo Cheyne were not to be wasted, after all. Mr.\nDickinson, who was a director in the Maplewood line, got a handsome\nunderwriting percentage, and Mr. Berringer, also a director, on the\nbonds and preferred stock he sold. Mr. Paret, who entered both companies\non the ground floor, likewise got fees. Everybody was satisfied except\nthe trouble makers, who were ignored. In short, the episode of the\nRiverside Franchise is a triumphant proof of the contention that\nbusiness men are the best fitted to conduct the politics of their\ncountry.\n\nWe had learned to pursue our happiness in packs, we knew that the\nHappy Hunting-Grounds are here and now, while the Reverend Carey Heddon\ncontinued to assure the maimed, the halt and the blind that their\nkingdom was not of this world, that their time was coming later. Could\nthere have been a more idyl arrangement! Everybody should have been\nsatisfied, but everybody was not. Otherwise these pages would never have\nbeen written.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK 3.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII.\n\nAs the name of our city grew to be more and more a byword for sudden and\nfabulous wealth, not only were the Huns and the Slavs, the Czechs and\nthe Greeks drawn to us, but it became the fashion for distinguished\nEnglishmen and Frenchmen and sometimes Germans and Italians to pay us a\nvisit when they made the grand tour of America. They had been told that\nthey must not miss us; scarcely a week went by in our community--so it\nwas said--in which a full-fledged millionaire was not turned out. Our\nvisitors did not always remain a week,--since their rapid journeyings\nfrom the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to the Gulf rarely\noccupied more than four,--but in the books embodying their mature\ncomments on the manners, customs and crudities of American civilization\nno less than a chapter was usually devoted to us; and most of the\nadjectives in their various languages were exhausted in the attempt\nto prove how symptomatic we were of the ambitions and ideals of\nthe Republic. The fact that many of these gentlemen--literary and\notherwise--returned to their own shores better fed and with larger\nbalances in the banks than when they departed is neither here nor there.\nEgyptians are proverbially created to be spoiled.\n\nThe wiser and more fortunate of these travellers and students of life\nbrought letters to Mr. and Mrs. Hambleton Durrett. That household was\nsymptomatic--if they liked--of the new order of things; and it was rare\nindeed when both members of it were at home to entertain them. If Mr.\nDurrett were in the city, and they did not happen to be Britons with\nsporting proclivities, they simply were not entertained: when Mrs.\nDurrett received them dinners were given in their honour on the Durrett\ngold plate, and they spent cosey and delightful hours conversing with\nher in the little salon overlooking the garden, to return to their\nhotels and jot down paragraphs on the superiority of the American\nwomen over the men. These particular foreigners did not lay eyes on Mr.\nDurrett, who was in Florida or in the East playing polo or engaged in\nsome other pursuit. One result of the lavishness and luxury that amazed\nthem they wrote--had been to raise the standard of culture of the women,\nwho were our leisure class. But the travellers did not remain long\nenough to arrive at any conclusions of value on the effect of luxury and\nlavishness on the sacred institution of marriage.\n\nIf Mr. Nathaniel Durrett could have returned to his native city after\nfifteen years or so in the grave, not the least of the phenomena to\nstartle him would have been that which was taking place in his own\nhouse. For he would have beheld serenely established in that former\nabode of Calvinism one of the most reprehensible of exotic abominations,\na 'mariage de convenance;' nor could he have failed to observe,\nmoreover, the complacency with which the descendants of his friends,\nthe pew holders in Dr. Pound's church, regarded the matter: and not only\nthese, but the city at large. The stronghold of Scotch Presbyterianism\nhad become a London or a Paris, a Gomorrah!\n\nMrs. Hambleton Durrett went her way, and Mr. Durrett his. The less said\nabout Mr. Durrett's way--even in this suddenly advanced age--the better.\nAs for Nancy, she seemed to the distant eye to be walking through life\nin a stately and triumphant manner. I read in the newspapers of her\ndoings, her comings and goings; sometimes she was away for months\ntogether, often abroad; and when she was at home I saw her, but\ninfrequently, under conditions more or less formal. Not that she was\nformal,--or I: our intercourse seemed eloquent of an intimacy in a\ntantalizing state of suspense. Would that intimacy ever be renewed? This\nwas a question on which I sometimes speculated. The situation that had\nsuspended or put an end to it, as the case might be, was never referred\nto by either of us.\n\nOne afternoon in the late winter of the year following that in which\nwe had given a dinner to the Scherers (where the Durretts had rather\nmarvellously appeared together) I left my office about three o'clock--a\nmost unusual occurrence. I was restless, unable to fix my mind on my\nwork, filled with unsatisfied yearnings the object of which I sought\nto keep vague, and yet I directed my steps westward along Boyne Street\nuntil I came to the Art Museum, where a loan exhibition was being held.\nI entered, bought a catalogue, and presently found myself standing\nbefore number 103, designated as a portrait of Mrs. Hambleton\nDurrett,--painted in Paris the autumn before by a Polish artist then\nmuch in vogue, Stanislaus Czesky. Nancy--was it Nancy?--was standing\nfacing me, tall, superb in the maturity of her beauty, with one hand\nresting on an antique table, a smile upon her lips, a gentle mockery in\nher eyes as though laughing at the world she adorned. With the smile\nand the mockery--somehow significant, too, of an achieved\ninaccessibility--went the sheen of her clinging gown and the glint\nof the heavy pearls drooping from her high throat to her waist. These\ncaught the eye, but failed at length to hold it, for even as I looked\nthe smile faded, the mockery turned to wistfulness. So I thought, and\nlooked again--to see the wistfulness: the smile had gone, the pearls\nseemed heavier. Was it a trick of the artist? had he seen what I saw,\nor thought I saw? or was it that imagination which by now I might have\nlearned to suspect and distrust. Wild longings took possession of me,\nfor the portrait had seemed to emphasize at once how distant now she was\nfrom me, and yet how near! I wanted to put that nearness to the test.\nHad she really changed? did anyone really change? and had I not been\na fool to accept the presentment she had given me? I remembered those\nmoments when our glances had met as across barriers in flashes\nof understanding. After all, the barriers were mere relics of the\nsuperstition of the past. What if I went to her now? I felt that I\nneeded her as I never had needed anyone in all my life.... I was aroused\nby the sound of lowered voices beside me.\n\n\"That's Mrs. Hambleton Durrett,\" I heard a woman say. \"Isn't she\nbeautiful?\"\n\nThe note of envy struck me sharply--horribly. Without waiting to listen\nto the comment of her companion I hurried out of the building into the\ncold, white sunlight that threw into bold relief the mediocre houses of\nthe street. Here was everyday life, but the portrait had suggested that\nwhich might have been--might be yet. What did I mean by this? I didn't\nknow, I didn't care to define it,--a renewal of her friendship, of our\nintimacy. My being cried out for it, and in the world in which I lived\nwe took what we wanted--why not this? And yet for an instant I stood on\nthe sidewalk to discover that in new situations I was still subject\nto unaccountable qualms of that thing I had been taught to call\n\"conscience\"; whether it were conscience or not must be left to\nthe psychologists. I was married--terrible word! the shadow of that\nInstitution fell athwart me as the sun went under a cloud; but the\nsun came out again as I found myself walking toward the Durrett house\nreflecting that numbers of married men called on Nancy, and that what\nI had in mind in regard to her was nothing that the court would have\npronounced an infringement upon the Institution.... I reached her\nsteps, the long steps still guarded by the curved wrought-iron railings\nreminiscent of Nathaniel's day, though the \"portals\" were gone, a modern\nvestibule having replaced them; I rang the bell; the butler, flung open\nthe doors. He, at any rate, did not seem surprised to see me here, he\ngreeted me with respectful cordiality and led me, as a favoured guest,\nthrough the big drawing-room into the salon.\n\n\"Mr. Paret, Madam!\"\n\nNancy, rose quickly from the low chair where she sat cutting the pages\nof a French novel.\n\n\"Hugh!\" she exclaimed. \"I'm out if anyone calls. Bring tea,\" she added\nto the man, who retired. For a moment we stood gazing at each other,\nquestioningly. \"Well, won't you sit down and stay awhile?\" she asked.\n\nI took a chair on the opposite side of the fire.\n\n\"I just thought I'd drop in,\" I said.\n\n\"I am flattered,\" said Nancy, \"that a person so affaire should find\ntime to call on an old friend. Why, I thought you never left your office\nuntil seven o'clock.\"\n\n\"I don't, as a rule, but to-day I wasn't particularly busy, and I\nthought I'd go round to the Art Museum and look at your portrait.\"\n\n\"More flattery! Hugh, you're getting quite human. What do you think of\nit?\"\n\n\"I like it. I think it quite remarkable.\"\n\n\"Have a cigarette!\"\n\nI took one.\n\n\"So you really like it,\" she said.\n\n\"Don't you?\"\n\n\"Oh, I think it's a trifle--romantic,\" she replied \"But that's Czesky.\nHe made me quite cross,--the feminine presentation of America, the\nspoiled woman who has shed responsibilities and is beginning to have a\nglimpse--just a little one--of the emptiness of it all.\"\n\nI was stirred.\n\n\"Then why do you accept it, if it isn't you?\" I demanded. \"One doesn't\nrefuse Czesky's canvases,\" she replied. \"And what difference does it\nmake? It amused him, and he was fairly subtle about it. Only those who\nare looking for romance, like you, are able to guess what he meant,\nand they would think they saw it anyway, even if he had painted\nme--extinct.\"\n\n\"Extinct!\" I repeated.\n\nShe laughed.\n\n\"Hugh, you're a silly old goose!\"\n\n\"That's why I came here, I think, to be told so,\" I said.\n\nTea was brought in. A sense of at-homeness stole over me,--I was more at\nhome here in this room with Nancy, than in any other place in the world;\nhere, where everything was at once soothing yet stimulating, expressive\nof her, even the smaller objects that caught my eye,--the crystal\ninkstand tipped with gold, the racks for the table books, her\npaper-cutter. Nancy's was a discriminating luxury. And her talk! The\nlightness with which she touched life, the unexplored depths of her,\nguessed at but never fathomed! Did she feel a little the need of me as I\nfelt the need of her?\n\n\"Why, I believe you're incurably romantic, Hugh,\" she said laughingly,\nwhen the men had left the room. \"Here you are, what they call a paragon\nof success, a future senator, Ambassador to England. I hear of those\nremarkable things you have done--even in New York the other day a man\nwas asking me if I knew Mr. Paret, and spoke of you as one of the coming\nmen. I suppose you will be moving there, soon. A practical success! It\nalways surprises me when I think of it, I find it difficult to remember\nwhat a dreamer you were and here you turn out to be still a dreamer!\nHave you discovered, too, the emptiness of it all?\" she inquired\nprovokingly. \"I must say you don't look it\"--she gave me a critical,\nquizzical glance--\"you look quite prosperous and contented, as though\nyou enjoyed your power.\"\n\nI laughed uneasily.\n\n\"And then,\" she continued, \"and then one day when your luncheon has\ndisagreed with you--you walk into a gallery and see a portrait of--of an\nold friend for whom in youth, when you were a dreamer, you professed a\nsentimental attachment, and you exclaim that the artist is a discerning\nman who has discovered the secret that she has guarded so closely. She's\nsorry that she ever tried to console herself with baubles it's what\nyou've suspected all along. But you'll just run around to see for\nyourself--to be sure of it.\" And she handed me my tea. \"Come now,\nconfess. Where are your wits--I hear you don't lack them in court.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"if that amuses you--\"\n\n\"It does amuse me,\" said Nancy, twining her fingers across her knee and\nregarding me smilingly, with parted lips, \"it amuses me a lot--it's so\ncharacteristic.\"\n\n\"But it's not true, it's unjust,\" I protested vigorously, smiling, too,\nbecause the attack was so characteristic of her.\n\n\"What then?\" she demanded.\n\n\"Well, in the first place, my luncheon didn't disagree with me. It never\ndoes.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"But the sentiment--come now--the sentiment? Do you\nperceive any hint of emptiness--despair?\"\n\nOur chairs were very close, and she leaned forward a little.\n\n\"Emptiness or no emptiness,\" I said a little tremulously, \"I know that I\nhaven't been so contented, so happy for a long time.\"\n\nShe sat very still, but turned her gaze on the fire.\n\n\"You really wouldn't want to find that, Hugh,\" she said in another\nvoice, at which I exclaimed. \"No, I'm not being sentimental. But, to be\nserious, I really shouldn't care to think that of you. I'd like to think\nof you as a friend--a good friend--although we don't see very much of\none another.\"\n\n\"But that's why I came, Nancy,\" I explained. \"It wasn't just an\nimpulse--that is, I've been thinking of you a great deal, all along. I\nmiss you, I miss the way you look at things--your point of view. I can't\nsee any reason why we shouldn't see something of each other--now--\"\n\nShe continued to stare into the fire.\n\n\"No,\" she said at length, \"I suppose there isn't any reason.\" Her mood\nseemed suddenly to change as she bent over and extinguished the flame\nunder the kettle. \"After all,\" she added gaily, \"we live in a tolerant\nage, we've reached the years of discretion, and we're both too\nconventional to do anything silly--even if we wanted to--which we don't.\nWe're neither of us likely to quarrel with the world as it is, I think,\nand we might as well make fun of it together. We'll begin with our\nfriends. What do you think of Mr. Scherer's palace?\"\n\n\"I hear you're building it for him.\"\n\n\"I told him to get Eyre,\" said Nancy, laughingly, \"I was afraid he'd\nrepeat the Gallatin Park monstrosity on a larger scale, and Eyre's the\nonly man in this country who understands the French. It's been rather\namusing,\" she went on, \"I've had to fight Hilda, and she's no mean\nantagonist. How she hates me! She wanted a monstrosity, of course, a\nmodernized German rock-grotto sort of an affair, I can imagine. She's\nbeen so funny when I've met her at dinner. 'I understand you take a\ngreat interest in the house, Mrs. Durrett.' Can't you hear her?\"\n\n\"Well, you did get ahead of her,\" I said.\n\n\"I had to. I couldn't let our first citizen build a modern Rhine castle,\ncould I? I have some public spirit left. And besides, I expect to build\non Grant Avenue myself.\"\n\n\"And leave here?\"\n\n\"Oh, it's too grubby, it's in the slums,\" said Nancy. \"But I really owe\nyou a debt of gratitude, Hugh, for the Scherers.\"\n\n\"I'm told Adolf's lost his head over you.\"\n\n\"It's not only over me, but over everything. He's so ridiculously proud\nof being on the board of the Children's Hospital.... You ought to hear\nhim talking to old Mrs. Ogilvy, who of course can't get used to him\nat all,--she always has the air of inquiring what he's doing in that\ngalley. She still thinks of him as Mr. Durrett's foreman.\"\n\nThe time flew. Her presence was like a bracing, tingling atmosphere in\nwhich I felt revived and exhilarated, self-restored. For Nancy did not\nquestion--she took me as I was. We looked out on the world, as it were,\nfrom the same window, and I could not help thinking that ours, after\nall, was a large view. The topics didn't matter--our conversation was\nfragrant with intimacy; and we were so close to each other it seemed\nincredible that we ever should be parted again. At last the little clock\non the mantel chimed an hour, she started and looked up.\n\n\"Why, it's seven, Hugh!\" she exclaimed, rising. \"I'd no idea it was so\nlate, and I'm dining with the Dickinsons. I've only just time to dress.\"\n\n\"It's been like a reunion, hasn't it?--a reunion after many years,\" I\nsaid. I held her hand unconsciously--she seemed to be drawing me to her,\nI thought she swayed, and a sudden dizziness seized me. Then she drew\naway abruptly, with a little cry. I couldn't be sure about the cry,\nwhether I heard it or not, a note was struck in the very depths of me.\n\n\"Come in again,\" she said, \"whenever you're not too busy.\" And a minute\nlater I found myself on the street.\n\nThis was the beginning of a new intimacy with Nancy, resembling the old\nintimacy yet differing from it. The emotional note of our parting on\nthe occasion I have just related was not again struck, and when I\nwent eagerly to see her again a few days later I was conscious of\nlimitations,--not too conscious: the freedom she offered and which I\ngladly accepted was a large freedom, nor am I quite sure that even I\nwould have wished it larger, though there were naturally moments when\nI thought so: when I asked myself what I did wish, I found no answer.\nThough I sometimes chafed, it would have been absurd of me to object to\na certain timidity or caution I began to perceive in her that had been\nabsent in the old Nancy; but the old Nancy had ceased to exist, and here\ninstead was a highly developed, highly specialized creature in whom I\ndelighted; and after taking thought I would not have robbed her of\nfine acquired attribute. As she had truly observed, we were both\nconventional; conventionality was part of the price we had willingly\npaid for membership in that rarer world we had both achieved. It was\na world, to be sure, in which we were rapidly learning to take the law\ninto our own hands without seeming to defy it, in order that the fear\nof it might remain in those less fortunately placed and endowed: we\nhad begun with the appropriation of the material property of our\nfellow-citizens, which we took legally; from this point it was, of\ncourse, merely a logical step to take--legally, too other gentlemen's\nhuman property--their wives, in short: the more progressive East had set\nus our example, but as yet we had been chary to follow it.\n\nAbout this time rebellious voices were beginning to make themselves\nheard in the literary wilderness proclaiming liberty--liberty of the\nsexes. There were Russian novels and French novels, and pioneer English\nnovels preaching liberty with Nietzschean stridency, or taking it for\ngranted. I picked these up on Nancy's table.\n\n\"Reading them?\" she said, in answer to my query. \"Of course I'm reading\nthem. I want to know what these clever people are thinking, even if I\ndon't always agree with them, and you ought to read them too. It's quite\ntrue what foreigners say about our men,--that they live in a groove,\nthat they haven't any range of conversation.\"\n\n\"I'm quite willing to be educated,\" I replied. \"I haven't a doubt that I\nneed it.\"\n\nShe was leaning back in her chair, her hands behind her head, a posture\nshe often assumed. She looked up at me amusedly.\n\n\"I'll acknowledge that you're more teachable than most of them,\" she\nsaid. \"Do you know, Hugh, sometimes you puzzle me greatly. When you are\nhere and we're talking together I can never think of you as you are out\nin the world, fighting for power--and getting it. I suppose it's part\nof your charm, that there is that side of you, but I never consciously\nrealize it. You're what they call a dual personality.\"\n\n\"That's a pretty hard name!\" I exclaimed.\n\nShe laughed.\n\n\"I can't help it--you are. Oh, not disagreeably so, quite\nnormally--that's the odd thing about you. Sometimes I believe that you\nwere made for something different, that in spite of your success you\nhave missed your 'metier.'\"\n\n\"What ought I to have been?\"\n\n\"How can I tell? A Goethe, perhaps--a Goethe smothered by a\ntwentieth-century environment. Your love of adventure isn't dead, it's\nbeen merely misdirected, real adventure, I mean, forth faring, straying\ninto unknown paths. Perhaps you haven't yet found yourself.\"\n\n\"How uncanny!\" I said, stirred and startled.\n\n\"You have a taste for literature, you know, though you've buried it.\nGive me Turgeniev. We'll begin with him....\"\n\nHer reading and the talks that followed it were exciting, amazingly\nstimulating.... Once Nancy gave me an amusing account of a debate which\nhad taken place in the newly organized woman's discussion club to which\nshe belonged over a rather daring book by an English novelist. Mrs.\nDickinson had revolted.\n\n\"No, she wasn't really shocked, not in the way she thought she was,\"\nsaid Nancy, in answer to a query of mine.\n\n\"How was she shocked, then?\"\n\n\"As you and I are shocked.\"\n\n\"But I'm not shocked,\" I protested.\n\n\"Oh, yes, you are, and so am I--not on the moral side, nor is it the\nmoral aspect that troubles Lula Dickinson. She thinks it's the moral\naspect, but it's really the revolutionary aspect, the menace to those\nprecious institutions from which we derive our privileges and comforts.\"\n\nI considered this, and laughed.\n\n\"What's the use of being a humbug about it,\" said Nancy.\n\n\"But you're talking like a revolutionary,\" I said.\n\n\"I may be talking like one, but I'm not one. I once had the makings\nof one--of a good one,--a 'proper' one, as the English would say.\" She\nsighed.\n\n\"You regret it?\" I asked curiously.\n\n\"Of course I regret it!\" she cried. \"What woman worth her salt doesn't\nregret it, doesn't want to live, even if she has to suffer for it?\nAnd those people--the revolutionaries, I mean, the rebels--they live,\nthey're the only ones who do live. The rest of us degenerate in a\npainless paralysis we think of as pleasure. Look at me! I'm incapable\nof committing a single original act, even though I might conceive one.\nWell, there was a time when I should have been equal to anything and\nwouldn't have cared a--a damn.\"\n\nI believed her....\n\nI fell into the habit of dropping in on Nancy at least twice a week on\nmy way from the office, and I met her occasionally at other houses. I\ndid not tell Maude of that first impulsive visit; but one evening a few\nweeks later she asked me where I had been, and when I told her she\nmade no comment. I came presently to the conclusion that this renewed\nintimacy did not trouble her--which was what I wished to believe. Of\ncourse I had gone to Nancy for a stimulation I failed to get at home,\nand it is the more extraordinary, therefore, that I did not become more\ndiscontented and restless: I suppose this was because I had grown\nto regard marriage as most of the world regarded it, as something\ninevitable and humdrum, as a kind of habit it is useless to try to shake\noff. But life is so full of complexities and anomalies that I still had\na real affection for Maude, and I liked her the more because she didn't\nexpect too much of me, and because she didn't complain of my friendship\nwith Nancy although I should vehemently have denied there was anything\nto complain of. I respected Maude. If she was not a squaw, she performed\nreligiously the traditional squaw duties, and made me comfortable: and\nthe fact that we lived separate mental existences did not trouble me\nbecause I never thought of hers--or even that she had one. She had the\nchildren, and they seemed to suffice. She never renewed her appeal for\nmy confidence, and I forgot that she had made it.\n\nNevertheless I always felt a tug at my heartstrings when June came\naround and it was time for her and the children to go to Mattapoisett\nfor the summer; when I accompanied them, on the evening of their\ndeparture, to the smoky, noisy station and saw deposited in the\nsleeping-car their luggage and shawls and bundles. They always took the\nevening train to Boston; it was the best. Tom and Susan were invariably\nthere with candy and toys to see them off--if Susan and her children had\nnot already gone--and at such moments my heart warmed to Tom. And I was\nastonished as I clung to Matthew and Moreton and little Biddy at\nthe affection that welled up within me, saddened when I kissed Maude\ngood-bye. She too was sad, and always seemed to feel compunctions for\ndeserting me.\n\n\"I feel so selfish in leaving you all alone!\" she would say. \"If it\nweren't for the children--they need the sea air. But I know you don't\nmiss me as I miss you. A man doesn't, I suppose.... Please don't work so\nhard, and promise me you'll come on and stay a long time. You can if you\nwant to. We shan't starve.\" She smiled. \"That nice room, which is yours,\nat the southeast corner, is always waiting for you. And you do like the\nsea, and seeing the sail-boats in the morning.\"\n\nI felt an emptiness when the train pulled out. I did love my family,\nafter all! I would go back to the deserted house, and I could not bear\nto look in at the nursery door, at the little beds with covers flung\nover them. Why couldn't I appreciate these joys when I had them?\n\nOne evening, as we went home in an open street-car together, after such\na departure, Tom blurted out:--\"Hugh, I believe I care for your family\nas much as for my own. I often wonder if you realize how wonderful these\nchildren are! My boys are just plain ruffians--although I think they're\npretty decent ruffians, but Matthew has a mind--he's thoughtful--and\nan imagination. He'll make a name for himself some day if he's steered\nproperly and allowed to develop naturally. Moreton's more like my boys.\nAnd as for Chickabiddy!--\" words failed him.\n\nI put my hand on his knee. I actually loved him again as I had loved\nand yearned for him as a child,--he was so human, so dependable. And why\ncouldn't this feeling last? He disapproved--foolishly, I thought--of\nmy professional career, and this was only one of his limitations. But\nI knew that he was loyal. Why hadn't I been able to breathe and be\nreasonably happy in that atmosphere of friendship and love in which I\nhad been placed--or rather in which I had placed myself?... Before the\nsummer was a day or two older I had grown accustomed to being alone,\nand enjoyed the liberty; and when Maude and the children returned in the\nautumn, similarly, it took me some days to get used to the restrictions\nimposed by a household. I run the risk of shocking those who read this\nby declaring that if my family had been taken permanently out of my\nlife, I should not long have missed them. But on the whole, in those\nyears my marriage relation might be called a negative one. There were\nmoments, as I have described, when I warmed to Maude, moments when I\nfelt something akin to a violent antagonism aroused by little mannerisms\nand tricks she had. The fact that we got along as well as we did\nwas probably due to the orthodox teaching with which we had been\ninoculated,--to the effect that matrimony was a moral trial, a\nshaking-down process. But moral trials were ceasing to appeal to people,\nand more and more of them were refusing to be shaken down. We didn't cut\nthe Gordian knot, but we managed to loosen it considerably.\n\nI have spoken of a new species of titans who inhabited the giant\nbuildings in Wall Street, New York, and fought among themselves for\npossession of the United States of America. It is interesting to note\nthat in these struggles a certain chivalry was observed among the\ncombatants, no matter how bitter the rivalry: for instance, it was\ndeemed very bad form for one of the groups of combatants to take the\npublic into their confidence; cities were upset and stirred to the\ncore by these conflicts, and the citizens never knew who was doing\nthe fighting, but imagined that some burning issue was at stake that\nconcerned them. As a matter of fact the issue always did concern them,\nbut not in the way they supposed.\n\nGradually, out of the chaotic melee in which these titans were engaged\nhad emerged one group more powerful than the rest and more respectable,\nwhose leader was the Personality to whom I have before referred. He and\nhis group had managed to gain control of certain conservative fortresses\nin various cities such as the Corn National Bank and the Ashuela\nTelephone Company--to mention two of many: Adolf Scherer was his ally,\nand the Boyne Iron Works, Limited, was soon to be merged by him into a\ngreater corporation still. Leonard Dickinson might be called his local\ngovernor-general. We manned the parapets and kept our ears constantly to\nthe ground to listen for the rumble of attacks; but sometimes they burst\nupon us fiercely and suddenly, without warning. Such was the assault on\nthe Ashuela, which for years had exercised an apparently secure monopoly\nof the city's telephone service, which had been able to ignore with\ncomplacency the shrillest protests of unreasonable subscribers. Through\nthe Pilot it was announced to the public that certain benevolent\n\"Eastern capitalists\" were ready to rescue them from their thraldom if\nthe city would grant them a franchise. Mr. Lawler, the disinterestedness\nof whose newspaper could not be doubted, fanned the flame day by day,\nsent his reporters about the city gathering instances of the haughty\nneglect of the Ashuela, proclaiming its instruments antiquated compared\nwith those used in more progressive cities, as compared with the very\nlatest inventions which the Automatic Company was ready to install\nprovided they could get their franchise. And the prices! These, too,\nwould fall--under competition. It was a clever campaign. If the city\nwould give them a franchise, that Automatic Company--so well named!\nwould provide automatic instruments. Each subscriber, by means of a\nnumerical disk, could call up any other, subscriber; there would be no\ncentral operator, no listening, no tapping of wires; the number of\ncalls would be unlimited. As a proof of the confidence of these Eastern\ngentlemen in our city, they were willing to spend five millions, and\npresent more than six hundred telephones free to the city departments!\nWhat was fairer, more generous than this! There could be no doubt that\npopular enthusiasm was enlisted in behalf of the \"Eastern Capitalists,\"\nwho were made to appear in the light of Crusaders ready to rescue a\ngroaning people from the thrall of monopoly. The excitement approached\nthat of a presidential election, and became the dominant topic at\nquick-lunch counters and in street-cars. Cheap and efficient service!\nDown with the Bastille of monopoly!\n\nAs counsel for the Ashuela, Mr. Ogilvy sent for me, and by certain\nsecret conduits of information at my disposal I was not long in\ndiscovering the disquieting fact that a Mr. Orthwein, who was described\nas a gentleman with fat fingers and a plausible manner, had been in town\nfor a week and had been twice seen entering and emerging from Monahan's\nsaloon. In short, Mr. Jason had already been \"seen.\" Nevertheless I\nwent to him myself, to find him for the first time in my experience\nabsolutely non-committal.\n\n\"What's the Ashuela willing to do?\" he demanded.\n\nI mentioned a sum, and he shook his head. I mentioned another, and still\nhe shook his head.\n\n\"Come 'round again,\" he said...\n\nI was compelled to report this alarming situation to Ogilvy and\nDickinson and a few chosen members of a panicky board of directors.\n\n\"It's that damned Grannis crowd,\" said Dickinson, mentioning an\naggressive gentleman who had migrated from Chicago to Wall Street some\nfive years before in a pink collar.\n\n\"But what's to be done?\" demanded Ogilvy, playing nervously with a gold\npencil on the polished table. He was one of those Americans who in a\ncommercial atmosphere become prematurely white, and today his boyish,\nsmooth-shaven face was almost as devoid of colour as his hair. Even\nLeonard Dickinson showed anxiety, which was unusual for him.\n\n\"You've got to fix it, Hugh,\" he said.\n\nI did not see my way, but I had long ago learned to assume the unruffled\nair and judicial manner of speaking that inspires the layman with almost\nsuperstitious confidence in the lawyer....\n\n\"We'll find a way out,\" I said.\n\nMr. Jason, of course, held the key to the situation, and just how I\nwas to get around him was problematical. In the meantime there was the\npublic: to permit the other fellow to capture that was to be lacking in\nordinary prudence; if its votes counted for nothing, its savings were\ndesirable; and it was fast getting into a state of outrage against\nmonopoly. The chivalry of finance did not permit of a revelation that\nMr. Grannis and his buccaneers were behind the Automatic, but it was\npossible to direct and strengthen the backfire which the Era and other\nconservative newspapers had already begun. Mr. Tallant for delicate\nreasons being persona non grata at the Boyne Club, despite the fact that\nhe had so many friends there, we met for lunch in a private room at the\nnew hotel, and as we sipped our coffee and smoked our cigars we planned\na series of editorials and articles that duly appeared. They made\na strong appeal to the loyalty of our citizens to stand by the home\ncompany and home capital that had taken generous risks to give them\nservice at a time when the future of the telephone business was by no\nmeans assured; they belittled the charges made by irresponsible and\ninterested \"parties,\" and finally pointed out, not without effect, that\none logical consequence of having two telephone companies would be to\ncompel subscribers in self-defence to install two telephones instead of\none. And where was the saving in that?\n\n\"Say, Paret,\" said Judah B. when we had finished our labours; \"if you\never get sick of the law, I'll give you a job on the Era's staff. This\nis fine, the way you put it. It'll do a lot of good, but how in hell are\nyou going to handle Judd?...\"\n\nFor three days the inspiration was withheld. And then, as I was\nstrolling down Boyne Street after lunch gazing into the store windows it\ncame suddenly, without warning. Like most inspirations worth anything,\nit was very simple. Within half an hour I had reached Monahan's saloon\nand found Mr. Jason out of bed, but still in his bedroom, seated\nmeditatively at the window that looked over the alley.\n\n\"You know the crowd in New York behind this Automatic company as well\nas I do, Jason,\" I said. \"Why do you want to deal with them when we've\nalways been straight with you, when we're ready to meet them and go one\nbetter? Name your price.\"\n\n\"Suppose I do--what then,\" he replied. \"This thing's gone pretty\nfar. Under that damned new charter the franchise has got to be bid\nfor--hasn't it? And the people want this company. There'll be a howl\nfrom one end of this town to the other if we throw 'em down.\"\n\n\"We'll look out for the public,\" I assured him, smiling.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, with one of his glances that were like flashes, \"what\nyou got up your sleeve?\"\n\n\"Suppose another telephone company steps in, and bids a little higher\nfor the franchise. That relieves, your aldermen of all responsibility,\ndoesn't it?\"\n\n\"Another telephone company!\" he repeated.\n\nI had already named it on my walk.\n\n\"The Interurban,\" I said.\n\n\"A dummy company?\" said Mr. Jason.\n\n\"Lively enough to bid something over a hundred thousand to the city for\nits franchise,\" I replied.\n\nJudd Jason, with a queer look, got up and went to a desk in a\ndark corner, and after rummaging for a few moments in one of the\npigeon-holes, drew forth a glass cylinder, which he held out as he\napproached me.\n\n\"You get it, Mr. Paret,\" he said.\n\n\"What is it?\" I asked, \"a bomb!\"\n\n\"That,\" he announced, as he twisted the tube about in his long fingers,\nholding it up to the light, \"is the finest brand of cigars ever made in\nCuba. A gentleman who had every reason to be grateful to me--I won't\nsay who he was--gave me that once. Well, the Lord made me so's I can't\nappreciate any better tobacco than those five-cent 'Bobtails' Monahan's\ngot downstairs, and I saved it. I saved it for the man who would put\nsomething over me some day, and--you get it.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" I said, unconsciously falling in with the semi-ceremony of\nhis manner. \"I do not flatter myself that the solution I have suggested\ndid not also occur to you.\"\n\n\"You'll smoke it?\" he asked.\n\n\"Surely.\"\n\n\"Now? Here with me?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" I agreed, a little puzzled. As I broke the seal, pulled out\nthe cork and unwrapped the cigar from its gold foil he took a stick and\nrapped loudly on the floor. After a brief interval footsteps were\nheard on the stairs and Mike Monahan, white aproned and scarlet faced,\nappeared at the door.\n\n\"Bobtails,\" said Mr. Jason, laconically.\n\n\"It's them I thought ye'd be wanting,\" said the saloon-keeper, holding\nout a handful. Judd Jason lighted one, and began smoking reflectively.\n\nI gazed about the mean room, with its litter of newspapers and reports,\nits shabby furniture, and these seemed to have become incongruous, out\nof figure in the chair facing me keeping with the thoughtful figure in\nthe chair facing me.\n\n\"You had a college education, Mr. Paret,\" he remarked at length.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Life's a queer thing. Now if I'd had a college education, like you, and\nyou'd been thrown on the world, like me, maybe I'd be livin' up there on\nGrant Avenue and you'd be down here over the saloon.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" I said, wondering uneasily whether he meant to imply a\nsimilarity in our gifts. But his manner remained impassive, speculative.\n\n\"Ever read Carlyle's 'French Revolution'?\" he asked suddenly.\n\n\"Why, yes, part of it, a good while ago.\"\n\n\"When you was in college?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I've got a little library here,\" he said, getting up and raising the\nshades and opening the glass doors of a bookcase which had escaped my\nattention. He took down a volume of Carlyle, bound in half calf.\n\n\"Wouldn't think I cared for such things, would you?\" he demanded as he\nhanded it to me.\n\n\"Well, you never can tell what a man's real tastes are until you know\nhim,\" I observed, to conceal my surprise.\n\n\"That's so,\" he agreed. \"I like books--some books. If I'd had an\neducation, I'd have liked more of 'em, known more about 'em. Now I can\nread this one over and over. That feller Carlyle was a genius, he could\nlook right into the bowels of the volcano, and he was on to how men and\nwomen feet down there, how they hate, how they square 'emselves when\nthey get a chance.\"\n\nHe had managed to bring before me vividly that terrible, volcanic flow\non Versailles of the Paris mob. He put back the book and resumed his\nseat.\n\n\"And I know how these people fed down here, below the crust,\" he went\non, waving his cigar out of the window, as though to indicate the whole\nof that mean district. \"They hate, and their hate is molten hell. I've\nbeen through it.\"\n\n\"But you've got on top,\" I suggested.\n\n\"Sure, I've got on top. Do you know why? it's because I hated--that's\nwhy. A man's feelings, if they're strong enough, have a lot to do with\nwhat he becomes.\"\n\n\"But he has to have ability, too,\" I objected.\n\n\"Sure, he has to have ability, but his feeling is the driving power if\nhe feels strong enough, he can make a little ability go a long way.\"\n\nI was struck by the force of this remark. I scarcely recognized Judd\nJason. The man, as he revealed himself, had become at once more sinister\nand more fascinating.\n\n\"I can guess how some of those Jacobins felt when they had the\naristocrats in the dock. They'd got on top--the Jacobins, I mean. It's\nhuman nature to want to get on top--ain't it?\" He looked at me and\nsmiled, but he did not seem to expect a reply. \"Well, what you call\nsociety, rich, respectable society like you belong to would have made\na bum and a criminal out of me if I hadn't been too smart for 'em, and\nit's a kind of satisfaction to have 'em coming down here to Monahan's\nfor things they can't have without my leave. I've got a half Nelson on\n'em. I wouldn't live up on Grant Avenue if you gave me Scherer's new\nhouse.\"\n\nI was silent.\n\n\"Instead of starting my career in college, I started in jail,\" he went\non, apparently ignoring any effect he may have produced. So subtly, so\ndispassionately indeed was he delivering himself of these remarks that\nit was impossible to tell whether he meant their application to be\npersonal, to me, or general, to my associates. \"I went to jail when I\nwas fourteen because I wanted a knife to make kite sticks, and I stole a\nrazor from a barber. I was bitter when they steered me into a lockup in\nHickory Street. It was full of bugs and crooks, and they put me in\nthe same cell with an old-timer named 'Red' Waters; who was one of the\nslickest safe-blowers around in those days. Red took a shine to me,\nfound out I had a head piece, and said their gang could use a clever\nboy. If I'd go in with him, I could make all kinds of money. I guess\nI might have joined the gang if Red hadn't kept talking--about how\nthe boss of his district named Gallagher would come down and get him\nout,--and sure enough Gallagher did come down and get him out. I thought\nI'd rather be Gallagher than Red--Red had to serve time once in a while.\nSoon as he got out I went down to Gallagher's saloon, and there was\nRed leaning over the bar. 'Here's a smart kid! he says, 'He and me were\nroom-mates over in Hickory Street.' He got to gassing me, and telling me\nI'd better come along with him, when Gallagher came in. 'What is it ye'd\nlike to be, my son?' says he. A politician, I told him. I was through\ngoing to jail. Gallagher had a laugh you could hear all over the place.\nHe took me on as a kind of handy boy around the establishment, and by\nand by I began to run errands and find out things for him. I was boss of\nthat ward myself when I was twenty-six.... How'd you like that cigar?\"\n\nI praised it.\n\n\"It ought to have been a good one,\" he declared. \"Well, I don't want to\nkeep you here all afternoon telling you my life story.\"\n\nI assured him I had been deeply interested.\n\n\"Pretty slick idea of yours, that dummy company, Mr. Paret. Go ahead and\norganize it.\" He rose, which was contrary to his custom on the departure\nof a visitor. \"Drop in again. We'll talk about the books.\"...\n\nI walked slowly back reflecting on this conversation, upon the motives\nimpelling Mr. Jason to become thus confidential; nor was it the most\ncomforting thought in the world that the artist in me had appealed to\nthe artist in him, that he had hailed me as a breather. But for the\ngrace of God I might have been Mr. Jason and he Mr. Paret: undoubtedly\nthat was what he had meant to imply... And I was forced to admit that he\nhad succeeded--deliberately or not--in making the respectable Mr. Paret\njust a trifle uncomfortable.\n\nIn the marble vestibule of the Corn National Bank I ran into Tallant,\nholding his brown straw hat in his hand and looking a little more\nmoth-eaten than usual.\n\n\"Hello, Paret,\" he said \"how is that telephone business getting along?\"\n\n\"Is Dickinson in?\" I asked.\n\nTallant nodded.\n\nWe went through the cool bank, with its shining brass and red mahogany,\nits tiled floor, its busy tellers attending to files of clients, to\nthe president's sanctum in the rear. Leonard Dickinson, very spruce and\ndignified in a black cutaway coat, was dictating rapidly to a woman,\nstenographer, whom he dismissed when he saw us. The door was shut.\n\n\"I was just asking Paret about the telephone affair,\" said Mr. Tallant.\n\n\"Well, have you found a way out?\" Leonard Dickinson looked questioningly\nat me.\n\n\"It's all right,\" I answered. \"I've seen Jason.\"\n\n\"All right!\" they both ejaculated at once.\n\n\"We win,\" I said.\n\nThey stood gazing at me. Even Dickinson, who was rarely ruffled, seemed\nexcited.\n\n\"Do you mean to say you've fixed it?\" he demanded.\n\nI nodded. They stared at me in amazement.\n\n\"How the deuce did you manage it?\"\n\n\"We organize the Interurban Telephone Company, and bid for the\nfranchise--that's all.\"\n\n\"A dummy company!\" cried Tallant. \"Why, it's simple as ABC!\"\n\nDickinson smiled. He was tremendously relieved, and showed it.\n\n\"That's true about all great ideas, Tallant,\" he said. \"They're simple,\nonly it takes a clever man to think of them.\"\n\n\"And Jason agrees?\" Tallant demanded.\n\nI nodded again. \"We'll have to outbid the Automatic people. I haven't\nseen Bitter yet about the--about the fee.\"\n\n\"That's all right,\" said Leonard Dickinson, quickly. \"I take off my\nhat to you. You've saved us. You can ask any fee you like,\" he added\ngenially. \"Let's go over to--to the Ashuela and get some lunch.\" He had\nbeen about to say the Club, but he remembered Mr. Tallant's presence in\ntime. \"Nothing's worrying you, Hugh?\" he added, as we went out, followed\nby the glances of his employees.\n\n\"Nothing,\" I said....\n\n\n\n\nXVIX.\n\nMaking money in those days was so ridiculously easy! The trouble was to\nknow how to spend it. One evening when I got home I told Maude I had a\nsurprise for her.\n\n\"A surprise?\" she asked, looking up from a little pink smock she was\nmaking for Chickabiddy.\n\n\"I've bought that lot on Grant Avenue, next to the Ogilvys'.\"\n\nShe dropped her sewing, and stared at me.\n\n\"Aren't you pleased?\" I asked. \"At last we are going to have a house of\nour very own. What's the matter?\"\n\n\"I can't bear the thought of leaving here. I'm so used to it. I've grown\nto love it. It's part of me.\"\n\n\"But,\" I exclaimed, a little exasperated, \"you didn't expect to live\nhere always, did you? The house has been too small for us for years.\nI thought you'd be delighted.\" (This was not strictly true, for I had\nrather expected some such action on her part.) \"Most women would. Of\ncourse, if it's going to make such a difference to you as that, I'll\nsell the lot. That won't be difficult.\"\n\nI got up, and started to go into my study. She half rose, and her sewing\nfell to the floor.\n\n\"Oh, why are we always having misunderstandings? Do sit down a minute,\nHugh. Don't think I'm not appreciative,\" she pleaded. \"It was--such a\nshock.\"\n\nI sat down rather reluctantly.\n\n\"I can't express what I think,\" she continued, rather breathlessly, \"but\nsometimes I'm actually frightened, we're going through life so fast in\nthese days, and it doesn't seem as if we were getting the real things\nout of it. I'm afraid of your success, and of all the money you're\nmaking.\"\n\nI smiled.\n\n\"I'm not so rich yet, as riches go in these days, that you need be\nalarmed,\" I said.\n\nShe looked at me helplessly a moment.\n\n\"I feel that it isn't--right, somehow, that you'll pay for it, that\nwe'll pay for it. Goodness knows, we have everything we want, and more\ntoo. This house--this house is real, and I'm afraid that won't be a\nhome, won't be real. That we'll be overwhelmed with--with things!\"...\n\nShe was interrupted by the entrance of the children. But after dinner,\nwhen she had seen them to bed, as was her custom, she came downstairs\ninto my study and said quietly:--\"I was wrong, Hugh. If you want to\nbuild a house, if you feel that you'd be happier, I have no right to\nobject. Of course my sentiment for this house is natural, the children\nwere born here, but I've realized we couldn't live here always.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you look at it that way,\" I replied. \"Why, we're already\ngetting cramped, Maude, and now you're going to have a governess I don't\nknow where you'd put her.\"\n\n\"Not too large, a house,\" she pleaded. \"I know you think I'm silly, but\nthis extravagance we see everywhere does make me uneasy. Perhaps it's\nbecause I'm provincial, and always shall be.\"\n\n\"Well, we must have a house large enough to be comfortable in,\" I said.\n\"There's no reason why we shouldn't be comfortable.\" I thought it as\nwell not to confess my ambitions, and I was greatly relieved that she\ndid not reproach me for buying the lot without consulting her. Indeed, I\nwas grateful for this unanticipated acquiescence, I felt nearer to her,\nthan I had for a long time. I drew up another chair to my desk.\n\n\"Sit down and we'll make a few sketches, just for fun,\" I urged.\n\n\"Hugh,\" she said presently, as we were blacking out prospective rooms,\n\"do you remember all those drawings and plans we made in England, on our\nwedding trip, and how we knew just what we wanted, and changed our minds\nevery few days? And now we're ready to build, and haven't any ideas at\nall!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I answered--but I did not look at her.\n\n\"I have the book still--it's in the attic somewhere, packed away in a\nbox. I suppose those plans would seem ridiculous now.\"\n\nIt was quite true,--now that we were ready to build the home that had\nbeen deferred so long, now that I had the money to spend without stint\non its construction, the irony of life had deprived me of those strong\ndesires and predilections I had known on my wedding trip. What a joy it\nwould have been to build then! But now I found myself: wholly lacking in\ndefinite ideas as to style and construction. Secretly, I looked forward\nto certain luxuries, such as a bedroom and dressing-room and warm tiled\nbathroom all to myself bachelor privacies for which I had longed. Two\nmornings later at the breakfast table Maude asked me if I had thought of\nan architect.\n\n\"Why, Archie Lammerton, I suppose. Who else is there? Have you anyone\nelse in mind?\"\n\n\"N-no,\" said Maude. \"But I heard of such a clever man in Boston, who\ndoesn't charge Mr. Lammerton's prices; and who designs such beautiful\nprivate houses.\"\n\n\"But we can afford to pay Lammerton's prices,\" I replied, smiling. \"And\nwhy shouldn't we have the best?\"\n\n\"Are you sure--he is the best, Hugh?\"\n\n\"Everybody has him,\" I said.\n\nMaude smiled in return.\n\n\"I suppose that's a good reason,\" she answered.\n\n\"Of course it's a good reason,\" I assured her. \"These people--the people\nwe know--wouldn't have had Lammerton unless he was satisfactory. What's\nthe matter with his houses?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Maude, \"they're not very original. I don't say they're not\ngood, in away, but they lack a certain imagination. It's difficult for\nme to express what I mean, 'machine made' isn't precisely the idea, but\nthere should be a certain irregularity in art--shouldn't there? I saw a\nreproduction in one of the architectural journals of a house in Boston\nby a man named Frey, that seemed to me to have great charm.\"\n\nHere was Lucia, unmistakably.\n\n\"That's all very well,\" I said impatiently, \"but when one has to live in\na house, one wants something more than artistic irregularity. Lammerton\nknows how to build for everyday existence; he's a practical man, as well\nas a man of taste, he may not be a Christopher Wrenn, but he understands\nconveniences and comforts. His chimneys don't smoke, his windows are\ntight, he knows what systems of heating are the best, and whom to go\nto: he knows what good plumbing is. I'm rather surprised you don't\nappreciate that, Maude, you're so particular as to what kind of rooms\nthe children shall have, and you want a schoolroom-nursery with all the\nlatest devices, with sun and ventilation. The Berringers wouldn't have\nhad him, the Hollisters and Dickinsons wouldn't have had him if his work\nlacked taste.\"\n\n\"And Nancy wouldn't have had him,\" added Maude, and she smiled once\nmore.\n\n\"Well, I haven't consulted Nancy, or anyone else,\" I replied--a little\ntartly, perhaps. \"You don't seem to realize that some fashions may have\na basis of reason. They are not all silly, as Lucia seems to think. If\nLammerton builds satisfactory houses, he ought to be forgiven for being\nthe fashion, he ought to have a chance.\" I got up to leave. \"Let's see\nwhat kind of a plan he'll draw up, at any rate.\"\n\nHer glance was almost indulgent.\n\n\"Of course, Hugh. I want you to be satisfied, to be pleased,\" she said.\n\n\"And you?\" I questioned, \"you are to live in the house more than I.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm sure it will turn out all right,\" she replied. \"Now you'd\nbetter run along, I know you're late.\"\n\n\"I am late,\" I admitted, rather lamely. \"If you don't care for\nLammerton's drawings, we'll get another architect.\"\n\nSeveral years before Mr. Lammerton had arrived among us with a Beaux\nArts moustache and letters of introduction to Mrs. Durrett and others.\nWe found him the most adaptable, the most accommodating of young\nmen, always ready to donate his talents and his services to private\ntheatricals, tableaux, and fancy-dress balls, to take a place at a\ntable at the last moment. One of his most appealing attributes was his\n\"belief\" in our city,--a form of patriotism that culminated, in later\nyears, in \"million population\" clubs. I have often heard him declare,\nwhen the ladies had left the dining-room, that there was positively no\nlimit to our future growth; and, incidentally, to our future wealth.\nSuch sentiments as these could not fail to add to any man's popularity,\nand his success was a foregone conclusion. Almost before we knew it he\nwas building the new Union Station of which he had foreseen the need,\nto take care of the millions to which our population was to be swelled;\nbuilding the new Post Office that the unceasing efforts of Theodore\nWatling finally procured for us: building, indeed, Nancy's new house,\nthe largest of our private mansions save Mr. Scherer's, a commission\nthat had immediately brought about others from the Dickinsons and the\nBerringers.... That very day I called on him in his offices at the top\nof one of our new buildings, where many young draftsmen were bending\nover their boards. I was ushered into his private studio.\n\n\"I suppose you want something handsome, Hugh,\" he said, looking at me\nover his cigarette, \"something commensurate with these fees I hear you\nare getting.\"\n\n\"Well, I want to be comfortable,\" I admitted.\n\nWe lunched at the Club together, where we talked over the requirements.\n\nWhen he came to dinner the next week and spread out his sketch on the\nliving-room table Maude drew in her breath.\n\n\"Why, Hugh,\" she exclaimed in dismay, \"it's as big as--as big as the\nWhite House!\"\n\n\"Not quite,\" I answered, laughing with Archie. \"We may as well take our\nease in our old age.\"\n\n\"Take our ease!\" echoed Maude. \"We'll rattle 'round in it. I'll never\nget used to it.\"\n\n\"After a month, Mrs. Paret, I'll wager you'll be wondering how you ever\ngot along without it,\" said Archie.\n\nIt was not as big as the White House, yet it could not be called small.\nI had seen, to that. The long facade was imposing, dignified, with a\ntouch of conventionality and solidity in keeping with my standing in the\ncity. It was Georgian, of plum-coloured brick with marble trimmings and\nmarble wedges over the ample windows, some years later I saw the house\nby Ferguson, of New York, from which Archie had cribbed it. At one end,\noff the dining-room, was a semicircular conservatory. There was a small\nportico, with marble pillars, and in the ample, swift sloping roof\nmany dormers; servants' rooms, Archie explained. The look of anxiety\non Maude's face deepened as he went over the floor plans, the\nreception-room; dining room to seat thirty, the servants' hall;\nand upstairs Maude's room, boudoir and bath and dress closet, my\n\"apartments\" adjoining on one side and the children's on the other, and\nthe guest-rooms with baths....\n\nMaude surrendered, as one who gives way to the inevitable. When the\nactual building began we both of us experienced, I think; a certain mild\nexcitement; and walked out there, sometimes with the children, in the\nspring evenings, and on Sunday afternoons. \"Excitement\" is, perhaps, too\nstrong a word for my feelings: there was a pleasurable anticipation\non my part, a looking forward to a more decorous, a more luxurious\nexistence; a certain impatience at the delays inevitable in building.\nBut a new legal commercial enterprise of magnitude began to absorb me\nat his time, and somehow the building of this home--the first that we\npossessed was not the event it should have been; there were moments when\nI felt cheated, when I wondered what had become of that capacity for\nenjoyment which in my youth had been so keen. I remember indeed, one\ngrey evening when I went there alone, after the workmen had departed,\nand stood in the litter of mortar and bricks and boards gazing at the\ncompleted front of the house. It was even larger than I had imagined it\nfrom the plans; in the Summer twilight there was an air about it,--if\nnot precisely menacing, at least portentous, with its gaping windows\nand towering roof. I was a little tired from a hard day; I had the\nodd feeding of having raised up something with which--momentarily\nat least--I doubted my ability to cope: something huge, impersonal;\nsomething that ought to have represented a fireside, a sanctuary, and\nyet was the embodiment of an element quite alien to the home; a restless\nelement with which our American atmosphere had, by invisible degrees,\nbecome charged. As I stared at it, the odd fancy seized me that the\nbuilding somehow typified my own career.... I had gained something, in\ntruth, but had I not also missed something? something a different home\nwould have embodied?\n\nMaude and the children had gone, to the seaside.\n\nWith a vague uneasiness I turned away from the contemplation of those\nwalls. The companion mansions were closed, their blinds tightly drawn;\nthe neighbourhood was as quiet as the country, save for a slight but\npersistent noise that impressed itself on my consciousness. I walked\naround the house to spy in the back yard; a young girl rather stealthily\ngathering laths, and fragments of joists and flooring, and loading\nthem into a child's express-wagon. She started when she saw me. She was\nlittle, more than a child, and the loose calico dress she wore seemed\nto emphasize her thinness. She stood stock-still, staring at me with\nfrightened yet defiant eyes. I, too, felt a strange timidity in her\npresence.\n\n\"Why do you stop?\" I asked at length.\n\n\"Say, is this your heap?\" she demanded.\n\nI acknowledged it. A hint of awe widened her eyes. Then site glanced at\nthe half-filled wagon.\n\n\"This stuff ain't no use to you, is it?\"\n\n\"No, I'm glad to have you take it.\"\n\nShe shifted to the other foot, but did not continue her gathering.\nAn impulse seized me, I put down my walkingstick and began picking up\npieces of wood, flinging them into the wagon. I looked at her again,\nrather furtively; she had not moved. Her attitude puzzled me, for it\nwas one neither of surprise nor of protest. The spectacle of the\n\"millionaire\" owner of the house engaged in this menial occupation gave\nher no thrills. I finished the loading.\n\n\"There!\" I said, and drew a dollar bill out of my pocket and gave it to\nher. Even then she did not thank me, but took up the wagon tongue and\nwent off, leaving on me a disheartening impression of numbness, of\nlife crushed out. I glanced up once more at the mansion I had built for\nmyself looming in the dusk, and walked hurriedly away....\n\nOne afternoon some three weeks after we had moved into the new house,\nI came out of the Club, where I had been lunching in conference with\nScherer and two capitalists from New York. It was after four o'clock,\nthe day was fading, the street lamps were beginning to cast sickly\nstreaks of jade-coloured light across the slush of the pavements. It was\nthe sight of this slush (which for a brief half hour that morning\nhad been pure snow, and had sent Matthew and Moreton and Biddy into\necstasies at the notion of a \"real Christmas\"), that brought to my mind\nthe immanence of the festival, and the fact that I had as yet bought no\npresents. Such was the predicament in which I usually found myself on\nChristmas eve; and it was not without a certain sense of annoyance at\nthe task thus abruptly confronting me that I got into my automobile and\ndirected the chauffeur to the shopping district. The crowds surged along\nthe wet sidewalks and overflowed into the street, and over the heads of\nthe people I stared at the blazing shop-windows decked out in Christmas\ngreens. My chauffeur, a bristly-haired Parisian, blew his horn\ninsolently, men and women jostled each other to get out of the way,\ntheir holiday mood giving place to resentment as they stared into the\nwindows of the limousine. With the American inability to sit still I\nshifted from one corner of the seat to another, impatient at the slow\nprogress of the machine: and I felt a certain contempt for human beings,\nthat they should make all this fuss, burden themselves with all these\nsenseless purchases, for a tradition. The automobile stopped, and I\nfought my way across the sidewalk into the store of that time-honoured\nfirm, Elgin, Yates and Garner, pausing uncertainly before the very\ncounter where, some ten years before, I had bought an engagement ring.\nYoung Mr. Garner himself spied me, and handing over a customer to a\ntired clerk, hurried forward to greet me, his manner implying that my\nentrance was in some sort an event. I had become used to this aroma of\ndeference.\n\n\"What can I show you, Mr. Paret?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know--I'm looking around,\" I said, vaguely, bewildered by the\nglittering baubles by which I was confronted. What did Maude want? While\nI was gazing into the case, Mr. Garner opened a safe behind him, laying\nbefore me a large sapphire set with diamonds in a platinum brooch; a\nbeautiful stone, in the depths of it gleaming a fire like a star in an\narctic sky. I had not given Maude anything of value of late. Decidedly,\nthis was of value; Mr. Garner named the price glibly; if Mrs. Paret\ndidn't care for it, it might be brought back or exchanged. I took it,\nwith a sigh of relief. Leaving the store, I paused on the edge of the\nrushing stream of humanity, with the problem of the children's gifts\nstill to be solved. I thought of my own childhood, when at Christmastide\nI had walked with my mother up and down this very street, so changed\nand modernized now; recalling that I had had definite desires, desperate\nones; but my imagination failed me when I tried to summon up the\nemotions connected with them. I had no desires now: I could buy anything\nin reason in the whole street. What did Matthew and Moreton want? and\nlittle Biddy? Maude had not \"spoiled\" them; but they didn't seem to have\nany definite wants. The children made me think, with a sudden softening,\nof Tom Peters, and I went into a tobacconist's and bought him a box of\nexpensive cigars. Then I told the chauffeur to take me to a toy-shop,\nwhere I stood staring through a plate-glass window at the elaborate\nplaythings devised for the modern children of luxury. In the centre\nwas a toy man-of-war, three feet in length, with turrets and guns, and\npropellers and a real steam-engine. As a boy I should have dreamed about\nit, schemed for it, bartered my immortal soul for it. But--if I gave\nit to Matthew, what was there for Moreton? A steam locomotive caught my\neye, almost as elaborate. Forcing my way through the doors, I captured\na salesman, and from a state bordering on nervous collapse he became\ngalvanized into an intense alertness and respect when he understood my\ndesires. He didn't know the price of the objects in question. He brought\nthe proprietor, an obsequious little German who, on learning my name,\nrepeated it in every sentence. For Biddy I chose a doll that was all but\nhuman; when held by a young woman for my inspection, it elicited murmurs\nof admiration from the women shoppers by whom we were surrounded. The\nproprietor promised to make a special delivery of the three articles\nbefore seven o'clock....\n\nPresently the automobile, after speeding up the asphalt of Grant Avenue,\nstopped before the new house. In spite of the change that house had made\nin my life, in three weeks I had become amazingly used to it; yet I had\nan odd feeling that Christmas eve as I stood under the portico with\nmy key in the door, the same feeling of the impersonality of the place\nwhich I had experienced before. Not that for one moment I would have\nexchanged it for the smaller house we had left. I opened the door. How\noften, in that other house, I had come in the evening seeking quiet, my\nbrain occupied with a problem, only to be annoyed by the romping of the\nchildren on the landing above. A noise in one end of it echoed to the\nother. But here, as I entered the hall, all was quiet: a dignified,\ndeep-carpeted stairway swept upward before me, and on either side were\nwide, empty rooms; and in the subdued light of one of them I saw a dark\nfigure moving silently about--the butler. He came forward to relieve\nme, deftly, of my hat and overcoat. Well, I had it at last, this\nestablishment to which I had for so long looked forward. And yet that\nevening, as I hesitated in the hall, I somehow was unable to grasp that\nit was real and permanent, the very solidity of the walls and doors\nparadoxically suggested transientness, the butler a flitting ghost. How\nstill the place was! Almost oppressively still. I recalled oddly a story\nof a peasant who, yearning for the great life, had stumbled upon an\nempty palace, its tables set with food in golden dishes. Before two days\nhad passed he had fled from it in horror back to his crowded cottage and\nhis drudgery in the fields. Never once had the sense of possession of\nthe palace been realized. Nor did I feel that I possessed this house,\nthough I had the deeds of it in my safe and the receipted bills in my\nfiles. It eluded me; seemed, in my bizarre mood of that evening, almost\nto mock me. \"You have built me,\" it seemed to say, \"but I am stronger\nthan you, because you have not earned me.\" Ridiculous, when the years\nof my labour and the size of my bank account were considered! Such,\nhowever, is the verbal expression of my feeling. Was the house empty,\nafter all? Had something happened? With a slight panicky sensation I\nclimbed the stairs, with their endless shallow treads, to hurry through\nthe silent hallway to the schoolroom. Reassuring noises came faintly\nthrough the heavy door. I opened it. Little Biddy was careening round\nand round, crying out:--\"To-morrow's Chris'mas! Santa Claus is coming\ntonight.\"\n\nMatthew was regarding her indulgently, sympathetically, Moreton rather\nscornfully. The myth had been exploded for both, but Matthew still\nhugged it. That was the difference between them. Maude, seated on the\nfloor, perceived me first, and glanced up at me with a smile.\n\n\"It's father!\" she said.\n\nBiddy stopped in the midst of a pirouette. At the age of seven she was\nstill shy with me, and retreated towards Maude.\n\n\"Aren't we going to have a tree, father?\" demanded Moreton,\naggressively. \"Mother won't tell us--neither will Miss Allsop.\"\n\nMiss Allsop was their governess.\n\n\"Why do you want a tree?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, for Biddy,\" he said.\n\n\"It wouldn't be Christmas without a tree,\" Matthew declared, \"--and\nSanta Claus,\" he added, for his sister's benefit.\n\n\"Perhaps Santa Claus, when he sees we've got this big house, will think\nwe don't need anything, and go on to some poorer children,\" said Maude.\n\"You wouldn't blame him if he did that,--would you?\"\n\nThe response to this appeal cannot be said to have been enthusiastic....\n\nAfter dinner, when at last all of them were in bed, we dressed the tree;\nit might better be said that Maude and Miss Allsop dressed it, while I\ngave a perfunctory aid. Both the women took such a joy in the process,\nvying with each other in getting effects, and as I watched them eagerly\ndraping the tinsel and pinning on the glittering ornaments I wondered\nwhy it was that I was unable to find the same joy as they. Thus it had\nbeen every Christmas eve. I was always tired when I got home, and after\ndinner relaxation set in.\n\nAn electrician had come while we were at the table, and had fastened on\nthe little electric bulbs which did duty as candles.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Maude, as she stood off to survey the effect, \"isn't it\nbeautiful! Come, Miss Allsop, let's get the presents.\"\n\nThey flew out of the room, and presently hurried back with their arms\nfull of the usual parcels: parcels from Maude's family in Elkington,\nfrom my own relatives, from the Blackwoods and the Peterses, from Nancy.\nIn the meantime I had had my own contributions brought up, the man of\nwar, the locomotive, the big doll. Maude stood staring.\n\n\"Hugh, they'll be utterly ruined!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"The boys might as well have something instructive,\" I replied, \"and as\nfor Biddy--nothing's too good for her.\"\n\n\"I might have known you wouldn't forget them, although you are so\nbusy.\"....\n\nWe filled the three stockings hung by the great fireplace. Then, with\na last lingering look at the brightness of the tree, she stood in the\ndoorway and turned the electric switch.\n\n\"Not before seven to-morrow morning, Miss Allsop,\" she said. \"Hugh, you\nwill get up, won't you? You mustn't miss seeing them. You can go back to\nbed again.\"\n\nI promised.\n\nEvidently, this was Reality to Maude. And had it not been one of\nmy dreams of marriage, this preparing for the children's Christmas,\nremembering the fierce desires of my own childhood? It struck me, after\nI had kissed her good night and retired to my dressing-room, that fierce\ndesires burned within me still, but the objects towards which their\nflames leaped out differed. That was all. Had I remained a child, since\nmy idea of pleasure was still that of youth? The craving far excitement,\nadventure, was still unslaked; the craving far freedom as keen as ever.\nDuring the whole of my married life, I had been conscious of an inner\nprotest against \"settling down,\" as Tom Peters had settled down. The\nsmaller house from which we had moved, with its enforced propinquity,\nhard emphasized the bondage of marriage. Now I had two rooms to myself,\nin the undisputed possession of which I had taken a puerile delight. On\none side of my dressing-room Archie Lammerton had provided a huge\ncloset containing the latest devices for the keeping of a multitudinous\nwardrobe; there was a reading-lamp, and the easiest of easy-chairs,\nimported from England, while between the windows were shelves of\nItalian walnut which I had filled with the books I had bought while at\nCambridge, and had never since opened. As I sank down in my chair\nthat odd feeling of uneasiness, of transience and unreality, of\nunsatisfaction I had had ever since we had moved suddenly became\nintensified, and at the very moment when I had gained everything I\nhad once believed a man could desire! I was successful, I was rich, my\nhealth had not failed, I had a wife who catered to my wishes, lovable\nchildren who gave no trouble and yet--there was still the void to be\nfilled, the old void I had felt as a boy, the longing for something\nbeyond me, I knew not what; there was the strange inability to taste any\nof these things, the need at every turn for excitement, for a stimulus.\nMy marriage had been a disappointment, though I strove to conceal this\nfrom myself; a disappointment because it had not filled the requirements\nof my category--excitement and mystery: I had provided the setting\nand lacked the happiness. Another woman Nancy--might have given me the\nneeded stimulation; and yet my thoughts did not dwell on Nancy that\nnight, my longings were not directed towards her, but towards the\nvision of a calm, contented married happiness I had looked forward to\nin youth,--a vision suddenly presented once more by the sight of Maude's\nsimple pleasure in dressing the Christmas tree. What restless, fiendish\nelement in me prevented my enjoying that? I had something of the fearful\nfeeling of a ghost in my own house and among my own family, of a spirit\ndoomed to wander, unable to share in what should have been my own, in\nwhat would have saved me were I able to partake of it. Was it too late\nto make that effort?... Presently the strains of music pervaded my\nconsciousness, the chimes of Trinity ringing out in the damp night the\nChristmas hymn, Adeste Fideles. It was midnight it was Christmas. How\nclear the notes rang through the wet air that came in at my window! Back\ninto the dim centuries that music led me, into candle-lit Gothic chapels\nof monasteries on wind-swept heights above the firs, and cathedrals\nin mediaeval cities. Twilight ages of war and scourge and stress and\nstorm--and faith. \"Oh, come, all ye Faithful!\" What a strange thing,\nthat faith whose flame so marvellously persisted, piercing the gloom;\nthe Christmas myth, as I had heard someone once call it. Did it possess\nthe power to save me? Save me from what? Ah, in this hour I knew. In\nthe darkness the Danger loomed up before me, vague yet terrible, and I\ntrembled. Why was not this Thing ever present, to chasten and sober me?\nThe Thing was myself.\n\nInto my remembrance, by what suggestion I know not, came that March\nevening when I had gone to Holder Chapel at Harvard to listen to a\npreacher, a personality whose fame and influence had since spread\nthroughout the land. Some dim fear had possessed me then. I recalled\nvividly the man, and the face of Hermann Krebs as I drew back from the\ndoorway....\n\nWhen I awoke my disquieting, retrospective mood had disappeared, and\nyet there clung to me, minus the sanction of fear or reward or revealed\ntruth, a certain determination to behave, on this day at least, more\nlike a father and a husband: to make an effort to enter into the spirit\nof the festival, and see what happened. I dressed in cheerful haste,\ntook the sapphire pendant from its velvet box, tiptoed into the still\nsilent schoolroom and hung it on the tree, flooding on the electric\nlight that set the tinsel and globes ablaze. No sooner had I done this\nthan I heard the patter of feet in the hallway, and a high-pitched\nvoice--Biddy's--crying out:--\"It's Santa Claus!\"\n\nThree small, flannel-wrappered figures stood in the doorway.\n\n\"Why, it's father!\" exclaimed Moreton.\n\n\"And he's all dressed!\" said Matthew.\n\n\"Oh-h-h!\" cried Biddy, staring at the blazing tree, \"isn't it\nbeautiful!\"\n\nMaude was close behind them. She gave an exclamation of delighted\nsurprise when she saw me, and then stood gazing with shining eyes at\nthe children, especially at Biddy, who stood dazzled by the glory of the\nconstellation confronting her.... Matthew, too, wished to prolong the\nmoment of mystery. It was the practical Moreton who cried:--\"Let's see\nwhat we've got!\"\n\nThe assault and the sacking began. I couldn't help thinking as I watched\nthem of my own wildly riotous, Christmas-morning sensations, when all\nthe gifts had worn the aura of the supernatural; but the arrival of\nthese toys was looked upon by my children as a part of the natural order\nof the universe. At Maude's suggestion the night before we had placed my\npresents, pieces de resistance, at a distance from the tree, in the hope\nthat they would not be spied at once, that they would be in some sort a\nclimax. It was Matthew who first perceived the ship, and identified it,\nby the card, as his property. To him it was clearly wonderful, but no\nmiracle. He did not cry out, or call the attention of the others to it,\nbut stood with his feet apart, examining it, his first remark being\na query as to why it didn't fly the American flag. It's ensign was\nBritish. Then Moreton saw the locomotive, was told that it was his, and\ntook possession of it violently. Why wasn't there more track? Wouldn't\nI get more track? I explained that it would go by steam, and he began\nunscrewing the cap on the little boiler until he was distracted by the\nman-of-war, and with natural acquisitiveness started to take possession\nof that. Biddy was bewildered by the doll, which Maude had taken up and\nwas holding in her lap. She had had talking dolls before, and dolls\nthat closed their eyes; she recognized this one, indeed, as a sort of\nsuper-doll, but her little mind was modern, too, and set no limits on\nwhat might be accomplished. She patted it, but was more impressed by the\nraptures of Miss Allsop, who had come in and was admiring it with some\nextravagance. Suddenly the child caught sight of her stocking, until now\nforgotten, and darted for the fireplace.\n\nI turned to Maude, who stood beside me, watching them.\n\n\"But you haven't looked on the tree yourself,\" I reminded her.\n\nShe gave me an odd, questioning glance, and got up and set down the\ndoll. As she stood for a moment gazing at the lights, she seemed very\ngirlish in her dressing-gown, with her hair in two long plaits down her\nback.\n\n\"Oh, Hugh!\" She lifted the pendant from the branch and held it up.\nHer gratitude, her joy at receiving a present was deeper than the\nchildren's!\n\n\"You chose it for me?\"\n\nI felt something like a pang when I thought how little trouble it had\nbeen.\n\n\"If you don't like it,\" I said, \"or wish to have it changed--\"\n\n\"Changed!\" she exclaimed reproachfully. \"Do you think I'd change it?\nOnly--it's much too valuable--\"\n\nI smiled.... Miss Allsop deftly undid the clasp and hung it around\nMaude's neck.\n\n\"How it suits you, Mrs. Paret!\" she cried....\n\nThis pendant was by no means the only present I had given Maude in\nrecent years, and though she cared as little for jewels as for dress she\nseemed to attach to it a peculiar value and significance that disturbed\nand smote me, for the incident had revealed a love unchanged and\nunchangeable. Had she taken my gift as a sign that my indifference was\nmelting?\n\nAs I went downstairs and into the library to read the financial page of\nthe morning newspaper I asked myself, with a certain disquiet, whether,\nin the formal, complicated, and luxurious conditions in which we now\nlived it might be possible to build up new ties and common interests.\nI reflected that this would involve confessions and confidences on\nmy part, since there was a whole side of my life of which Maude knew\nnothing. I had convinced myself long ago that a man's business career\nwas no affair of his wife's: I had justified that career to myself: yet\nI had always had a vague feeling that Maude, had she known the details,\nwould not have approved of it. Impossible, indeed, for a woman to grasp\nthese problems. They were outside of her experience.\n\nNevertheless, something might be done to improve our relationship,\nsomething which would relieve me of that uneasy lack of unity I felt\nwhen at home, of the lassitude and ennui I was wont to feel creeping\nover me on Sundays and holidays....\n\n\n\n\nXX.\n\nI find in relating those parts of my experience that seem to be of\nmost significance I have neglected to tell of my mother's death, which\noccurred the year before we moved to Grant Avenue. She had clung the\nrest of her days to the house in which I had been born. Of late years\nshe had lived in my children, and Maude's devotion to her had been\nunflagging. Truth compels me to say that she had long ceased to be a\nfactor in my life. I have thought of her in later years.\n\nCoincident with the unexpected feeling of fruitlessness that came to\nme with the Grant Avenue house, of things achieved but not realized or\nappreciated, was the appearance of a cloud on the business horizon; or\nrather on the political horizon, since it is hard to separate the two\nrealms. There were signs, for those who could read, of a rising popular\nstorm. During the earliest years of the new century the political\natmosphere had changed, the public had shown a tendency to grow\nrestless; and everybody knows how important it is for financial\noperations, for prosperity, that the people should mind their own\nbusiness. In short, our commercial-romantic pilgrimage began to meet\nwith unexpected resistance. It was as though the nation were entering\ninto a senseless conspiracy to kill prosperity.\n\nIn the first place, in regard to the Presidency of the United States,\na cog had unwittingly been slipped. It had always been recognized--as I\nhave said--by responsible financial personages that the impulses of\nthe majority of Americans could not be trusted, that these--who had\ninherited illusions of freedom--must be governed firmly yet with\ndelicacy; unknown to them, their Presidents must be chosen for them,\nprecisely as Mr. Watling had been chosen for the people of our state,\nand the popular enthusiasm manufactured later. There were informal\nmeetings in New York, in Washington, where candidates were discussed;\nnot that such and such a man was settled upon,--it was a process of\nelimination. Usually the affair had gone smoothly. For instance, a while\nbefore, a benevolent capitalist of the middle west, an intimate of Adolf\nScherer, had become obsessed with the idea that a friend of his was\nthe safest and sanest man for the head of the nation, had convinced his\nfellow-capitalists of this, whereupon he had gone ahead to spend his\nenergy and his money freely to secure the nomination and election of\nthis gentleman.\n\nThe Republican National Committee, the Republican National Convention\nwere allowed to squabble to their hearts' content as to whether Smith,\nJones or Brown should be nominated, but it was clearly understood that\nif Robinson or White were chosen there would be no corporation campaign\nfunds. This applied also to the Democratic party, on the rare occasions\nwhen it seemed to have an opportunity of winning. Now, however, through\nan unpardonable blunder, there had got into the White House a President\nwho was inclined to ignore advice, who appealed over the heads of the\n\"advisers\" to the populace; who went about tilting at the industrial\nstructures we had so painfully wrought, and in frequent blasts of\npresidential messages enunciated new and heretical doctrines; who\nattacked the railroads, encouraged the brazen treason of labour unions,\ninspired an army of \"muck-rakers\" to fill the magazines with the wildest\nand most violent of language. State legislatures were emboldened to\npass mischievous and restrictive laws, and much of my time began to\nbe occupied in inducing, by various means, our courts to declare these\nunconstitutional. How we sighed for a business man or a lawyer in the\nWhite House! The country had gone mad, the stock-market trembled,\nthe cry of \"corporation control\" resounded everywhere, and everywhere\ndemagogues arose to inaugurate \"reform campaigns,\" in an abortive\nattempt to \"clean up politics.\" Down with the bosses, who were the tools\nof the corporations!\n\nIn our own city, which we fondly believed to be proof against the\nprevailing madness, a slight epidemic occurred; slight, yet momentarily\nalarming. Accidents will happen, even in the best regulated political\norganizations,--and accidents in these days appeared to be the rule.\nA certain Mr. Edgar Greenhalge, a middle-aged, mild-mannered and\ninoffensive man who had made a moderate fortune in wholesale drugs, was\nelected to the School Board. Later on some of us had reason to suspect\nthat Perry Blackwood--with more astuteness than he had been given credit\nfor--was responsible for Mr. Greenhalge's candidacy. At any rate, he was\nnot a man to oppose, and in his previous life had given no hint that he\nmight become a trouble maker. Nothing happened for several months.\nBut one day on which I had occasion to interview Mr. Jason on a little\nmatter of handing over to the Railroad a piece of land belonging to the\ncity, which was known as Billings' Bowl, he inferred that Mr. Greenhaige\nmight prove a disturber of that profound peace with which the city\nadministration had for many years been blessed.\n\n\"Who the hell is he?\" was Mr. Jason's question.\n\nIt appeared that Mr. G.'s private life had been investigated, with\ndisappointingly barren results; he was, seemingly, an anomalistic being\nin our Nietzschean age, an unaggressive man; he had never sold any drugs\nto the city; he was not a church member; nor could it be learned that\nhe had ever wandered into those byways of the town where Mr. Jason might\neasily have got trace of him: if he had any vices, he kept them locked\nup in a safe-deposit box that could not be \"located.\" He was very\ngenial, and had a way of conveying disturbing facts--when he wished to\nconvey them--under cover of the most amusing stories. Mr. Jason was not\na man to get panicky. Greenhalge could be handled all right, only--what\nwas there in it for Greenhalge?--a nut difficult for Mr. Jason to crack.\nThe two other members of the School Board were solid. Here again the\nwisest of men was proved to err, for Mr. Greenhalge turned out to have\npowers of persuasion; he made what in religious terms would have been\ncalled a conversion in the case of another member of the board,\nan hitherto staunch old reprobate by the name of Muller, an\nex-saloon-keeper in comfortable circumstances to whom the idea of public\noffice had appealed.\n\nMr. Greenhalge, having got wind of certain transactions that interested\nhim extremely, brought them in his good-natured way to the knowledge of\nMr. Gregory, the district attorney, suggesting that he investigate. Mr.\nGregory smiled; undertook, as delicately as possible, to convey to\nMr. Greenhalge the ways of the world, and of the political world\nin particular, wherein, it seemed, everyone was a good fellow. Mr.\nGreenhalge was evidently a good fellow, and didn't want to make trouble\nover little things. No, Mr. Greenhalge didn't want to make trouble;\nhe appreciated a comfortable life as much as Mr. Gregory; he told the\ndistrict attorney a funny story which might or might not have had an\napplication to the affair, and took his leave with the remark that he\nhad been happy to make Mr. Gregory's acquaintance. On his departure\nthe district attorney's countenance changed. He severely rebuked a\nsubordinate for some trivial mistake, and walked as rapidly as he could\ncarry his considerable weight to Monahan's saloon.... One of the things\nMr. Gregory had pointed out incidentally was that Mr. Greenhalge's\nevidence was vague, and that a grand jury wanted facts, which might be\ndifficult to obtain. Mr. Greenhalge, thinking over the suggestion,\nsent for Krebs. In the course of a month or two the investigation\nwas accomplished, Greenhalge went back to Gregory; who repeated his\nhomilies, whereupon he was handed a hundred or so typewritten pages of\nevidence.\n\nIt was a dramatic moment.\n\nMr. Gregory resorted to pleading. He was sure that Mr. Greenhalge didn't\nwant to be disagreeable, it was true and unfortunate that such things\nwere so, but they would be amended: he promised all his influence to\namend them. The public conscience, said Mr. Gregory, was being aroused.\nNow how much better for the party, for the reputation, the fair name of\nthe city if these things could be corrected quietly, and nobody indicted\nor tried! Between sensible and humane men, wasn't that the obvious way?\nAfter the election, suit could be brought to recover the money. But Mr.\nGreenhalge appeared to be one of those hopeless individuals without a\nspark of party loyalty; he merely continued to smile, and to suggest\nthat the district attorney prosecute. Mr. Gregory temporized, and\npresently left the city on a vacation. A day or two after his second\nvisit to the district attorney's office Mr. Greenhalge had a call\nfrom the city auditor and the purchasing agent, who talked about\ntheir families,--which was very painful. It was also intimated to Mr.\nGreenhalge by others who accosted him that he was just the man for\nmayor. He smiled, and modestly belittled his qualifications....\n\nSuddenly, one fine morning, a part of the evidence Krebs had gathered\nappeared in the columns of the Mail and State, a new and enterprising\nnewspaper for which the growth and prosperity of our city were\nresponsible; the sort of \"revelations\" that stirred to amazement and\nwrath innocent citizens of nearly every city in our country: politics\nand \"graft\" infesting our entire educational system, teachers and\njanitors levied upon, prices that took the breath away paid to favoured\nfirms for supplies, specifications so worded that reasonable bids were\nbarred. The respectable firm of Ellery and Knowles was involved.\nIn spite of our horror, we were Americans and saw the humour of\nthe situation, and laughed at the caricature in the Mail and State\nrepresenting a scholar holding up a pencil and a legend under it, \"No,\nit's not gold, but it ought to be.\"\n\nHere I must enter into a little secret history. Any affair that\nthreatened the integrity of Mr. Jason's organization was of serious\nmoment to the gentlemen of the financial world who found that\norganization invaluable and who were also concerned about the fair name\nof their community; a conference in the Boyne Club decided that the city\nofficials were being persecuted, and entitled therefore to \"the very\nbest of counsel,\"--in this instance, Mr. Hugh Paret. It was also thought\nwise by Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Gorse, and Mr. Grierson, and by Mr. Paret\nhimself that he should not appear in the matter; an aspiring young\nattorney, Mr. Arbuthnot, was retained to conduct the case in public.\nThus capital came to the assistance of Mr. Jason, a fund was raised,\nand I was given carte blanche to defend the miserable city auditor and\npurchasing agent, both of whom elicited my sympathy; for they were stout\nmen, and rapidly losing weight. Our first care was to create a delay in\nthe trial of the case in order to give the public excitement a chance to\ndie down. For the public is proverbially unable to fix its attention\nfor long on one object, continually demanding the distraction that our\nnewspapers make it their business to supply. Fortunately, a murder was\ncommitted in one of our suburbs, creating a mystery that filled the\n\"extras\" for some weeks, and this was opportunely followed by the\nembezzlement of a considerable sum by the cashier of one of our state\nbanks. Public interest was divided between baseball and the tracking of\nthis criminal to New Zealand.\n\nOur resentment was directed, not so much against Commissioner Greenhalge\nas against Krebs. It is curious how keen is the instinct of men like\nGrierson, Dickinson, Tallant and Scherer for the really dangerous\nopponent. Who the deuce was this man Krebs? Well, I could supply them\nwith some information: they doubtless recalled the Galligan, case; and\nMiller Gorse, who forgot nothing, also remembered his opposition in the\nlegislature to House Bill 709. He had continued to be the obscure legal\nchampion of \"oppressed\" labour, but how he had managed to keep body and\nsoul together I knew not. I had encountered him occasionally in court\ncorridors or on the street; he did not seem to change much; nor did he\nappear in our brief and perfunctory conversations to bear any resentment\nagainst me for the part I had taken in the Galligan affair. I avoided\nhim when it was possible.... I had to admit that he had done a\nremarkably good piece of work in collecting Greenhalge's evidence, and\nhow the erring city officials were to be rescued became a matter of\nserious concern. Gregory, the district attorney, was in an abject funk;\nin any case a mediocre lawyer, after the indictment he was no help at\nall. I had to do all the work, and after we had selected the particular\n\"Railroad\" judge before whom the case was to be tried, I talked it\nover with him. His name was Notting, he understood perfectly what was\nrequired of him, and that he was for the moment the chief bulwark on\nwhich depended the logical interests of capital and sane government for\ntheir defence; also, his re-election was at stake. It was indicated\nto newspapers (such as the Mail and State) showing a desire to keep\nup public interest in the affair that their advertising matter might\ndecrease; Mr. Sherrill's great department store, for instance, did not\napprove of this sort of agitation. Certain stationers, booksellers\nand other business men had got \"cold feet,\" as Mr. Jason put it, the\nprospect of bankruptcy suddenly looming ahead of them,--since the Corn\nNational Bank held certain paper....\n\nIn short, when the case did come to trial, it \"blew up,\" as one of our\nward leaders dynamically expressed it. Several important witnesses were\nmysteriously lacking, and two or three school-teachers had suddenly\ndecided--to take a trip to Europe. The district attorney was ill,\nand assigned the prosecution to a mild assistant; while a sceptical\njury--composed largely of gentlemen who had the business interests of\nthe community, and of themselves, at heart returned a verdict of \"not\nguilty.\" This was the signal for severely dignified editorials in Mr.\nTallant's and other conservative newspapers, hinting that it might be\nwell in the future for all well-meaning but misguided reformers to\nthink twice before subjecting the city to the cost of such trials, and\nuselessly attempting to inflame public opinion and upset legitimate\nbusiness. The Era expressed the opinion that no city in the United\nStates was \"more efficiently and economically governed than our own.\"\n\"Irregularities\" might well occur in every large organization; and it\nwould better have become Mr. Greenhalge if, instead of hiring an unknown\nlawyer thirsting for notoriety to cook up charges, he had called the\nattention of the proper officials to the matter, etc., etc. The Pilot\nalone, which relied on sensation for its circulation, kept hammering\naway for a time with veiled accusations. But our citizens had become\nweary....\n\nAs a topic, however, this effective suppression of reform was referred\nto with some delicacy by my friends and myself. Our interference had\nbeen necessary and therefore justified, but we were not particularly\nproud of it, and our triumph had a temporarily sobering effect. It was\nabout this time, if I remember correctly, that Mr. Dickinson gave the\nbeautiful stained-glass window to the church....\n\nMonths passed. One day, having occasion to go over to the Boyne Iron\nWorks to get information at first hand from certain officials, and\nhaving finished my business, I boarded a South Side electric car\nstanding at the terminal. Just before it started Krebs came down the\naisle of the car and took the seat in front of me.\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"how are you?\" He turned in surprise, and thrust his\nbig, bony hand across the back of the seat. \"Come and sit here.\"\nHe came. \"Do you ever get back to Cambridge in these days?\" I asked\ncordially.\n\n\"Not since I graduated from newspaper work in Boston. That's a good many\nyears ago. By the way, our old landlady died this year.\"\n\n\"Do you mean--?\" \"Granite Face,\" I was about to say. I had forgotten\nher name, but that homesick scene when Tom and I stood before our open\ntrunks, when Krebs had paid us a visit, came back to me. \"You've kept in\ntouch with her?\" I asked, in surprise.\n\n\"Well,\" said Krebs, \"she was one of the few friends I had at Cambridge.\nI had a letter from the daughter last week. She's done very well, and is\nan instructor in biology in one of the western universities.\"\n\nI was silent a moment.\n\n\"And you,--you never married, did you?\" I inquired, somewhat\nirrelevantly.\n\nHis semi-humorous gesture seemed to deny that such a luxury was for\nhim. The conversation dragged a little; I began to feel the curiosity he\ninvariably inspired. What was his life? What were his beliefs? And I was\npossessed by a certain militancy, a desire to \"smoke him out.\" I did\nnot stop to reflect that mine was in reality a defensive rather than an\naggressive attitude.\n\n\"Do you live down here, in this part of the city?\" I asked.\n\nNo, he boarded in Fowler Street. I knew it as in a district given over\nto the small houses of working-men.\n\n\"I suppose you are still a socialist.\"\n\n\"I suppose I am,\" he admitted, and added, \"at any rate, that is as near\nas you can get to it.\"\n\n\"Isn't it fairly definite?\"\n\n\"Fairly, if my notions are taken in general as the antithesis of what\nyou fellows believe.\"\n\n\"The abolition of property, for instance.\"\n\n\"The abolition of too much property.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by 'too much'?\"\n\n\"When it ceases to be real to a man, when it represents more than his\nneed, when it drives him and he becomes a slave to it.\"\n\nInvoluntarily I thought of my new house,--not a soothing reflection.\n\n\"But who is going to decree how much property, a man should have?\"\n\n\"Nobody--everybody. That will gradually tend to work itself out as we\nbecome more sensible and better educated, and understand more clearly\nwhat is good for us.\"\n\nI retorted with the stock, common-sense phrase.\n\n\"If we had a division to-morrow, within a few years or so the most\nefficient would contrive to get the bulk of it back in their hands.\"\n\n\"That's so,\" he admitted. \"But we're not going to have a division\nto-morrow.\"\n\n\"Thank God!\" I exclaimed.\n\nHe regarded me.\n\n\"The 'efficient' will have to die or be educated first. That will take\ntime.\"\n\n\"Educated!\"\n\n\"Paret, have you ever read any serious books on what you call\nsocialism?\" he asked.\n\nI threw out an impatient negative. I was going on to protest that I was\nnot ignorant of the doctrine.\n\n\"Oh, what you call socialism is merely what you believe to be the more\nor less crude and utopian propaganda of an obscure political party.\nThat isn't socialism. Nor is the anomalistic attempt that the Christian\nSocialists make to unite modern socialistic philosophy with Christian\northodoxy, socialism.\"\n\n\"What is socialism, then?\" I demanded, somewhat defiantly.\n\n\"Let's call it education, science,\" he said smilingly, \"economics and\ngovernment based on human needs and a rational view of religion. It\nhas been taught in German universities, and it will be taught in ours\nwhenever we shall succeed in inducing your friends, by one means or\nanother, not to continue endowing them. Socialism, in the proper sense,\nis merely the application of modern science to government.\"\n\nI was puzzled and angry. What he said made sense somehow, but it sounded\nto me like so much gibberish.\n\n\"But Germany is a monarchy,\" I objected.\n\n\"It is a modern, scientific system with monarchy as its superstructure.\nIt is anomalous, but frank. The monarchy is there for all men to see,\nand some day it will be done away with. We are supposedly a democracy,\nand our superstructure is plutocratic. Our people feel the burden, but\nthey have not yet discovered what the burden is.\"\n\n\"And when they do?\" I asked, a little defiantly.\n\n\"When they do,\" replied Krebs, \"they will set about making the\nplutocrats happy. Now plutocrats are discontented, and never satisfied;\nthe more they get, the more they want, the more they are troubled by\nwhat other people have.\"\n\nI smiled in spite of myself.\n\n\"Your interest in--in plutocrats is charitable, then?\"\n\n\"Why, yes,\" he said, \"my interest in all kinds of people is charitable.\nHowever improbable it may seem, I have no reason to dislike or envy\npeople who have more than they know what to do with.\" And the worst of\nit was he looked it. He managed somehow simply by sitting there with his\nstrange eyes fixed upon me--in spite of his ridiculous philosophy--to\nbelittle my ambitions, to make of small worth my achievements, to bring\nhome to me the fact that in spite of these I was neither contented nor\nhappy though he kept his humour and his poise, he implied an experience\nthat was far deeper, more tragic and more significant than mine. I was\ngoaded into making an injudicious remark.\n\n\"Well, your campaign against Ennerly and Jackson fell through, didn't\nit?\" Ennerly and Jackson were the city officials who had been tried.\n\n\"It wasn't a campaign against them,\" he answered. \"And considering the\nsubordinate part I took in it, it could scarcely be called mine.\"\n\n\"Greenhalge turned to you to get the evidence.\"\n\n\"Well, I got it,\" he said.\n\n\"What became of it?\"\n\n\"You ought to know.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Just what I say, Paret,\" he answered slowly. \"You ought to know, if\nanyone knows.\"\n\nI considered this a moment, more soberly. I thought I might have counted\non my fingers the number of men cognizant of my connection with the\ncase. I decided that he was guessing.\n\n\"I think you should explain that,\" I told him.\n\n\"The time may come, when you'll have to explain it.\"\n\n\"Is that a threat?\" I demanded.\n\n\"A threat?\" he repeated. \"Not at all.\"\n\n\"But you are accusing me--\"\n\n\"Of what?\" he interrupted suddenly.\n\nHe had made it necessary for me to define the nature of his charges.\n\n\"Of having had some connection with the affair in question.\"\n\n\"Whatever else I may be, I'm not a fool,\" he said quietly. \"Neither the\ndistrict attorney's office, nor young Arbuthnot had brains enough to\nget them out of that scrape. Jason didn't have influence enough with\nthe judiciary, and, as I happen to know, there was a good deal of money\nspent.\"\n\n\"You may be called upon to prove it,\" I retorted, rather hotly.\n\n\"So I may.\"\n\nHis tone, far from being defiant, had in it a note of sadness. I looked\nat him. What were his potentialities? Was it not just possible that I\nshould have to revise my idea of him, acknowledge that he might become\nmore formidable than I had thought?\n\nThere was an awkward silence.\n\n\"You mustn't imagine, Paret, that I have any personal animus against\nyou, or against any of the men with whom you're associated,\" he went on,\nafter a moment. \"I'm sorry you're on that side, that's all,--I told\nyou so once before. I'm not calling you names, I'm not talking about\nmorality and immorality. Immorality, when you come down to it, is often\njust the opposition to progress that comes from blindness. I don't\nmake the mistake of blaming a few individuals for the evils of modern\nindustrial society, and on the other hand you mustn't blame individuals\nfor the discomforts of what you call the reform movement, for that\nmovement is merely a symptom--a symptom of a disease due to a change\nin the structure of society. We'll never have any happiness or real\nprosperity until we cure that disease. I was inclined to blame you once,\nat the capital that time, because it seemed to me that a man with all\nthe advantages you have had and a mind like yours didn't have much\nexcuse. But I've thought about it since; I realize now that I've had a\ngood many more 'advantages' than you, and to tell you the truth, I don't\nsee how you could have come out anywhere else than where you are,--all\nyour surroundings and training were against it. That doesn't mean that\nyou won't grasp the situation some day--I have an idea you will. It's\njust an idea. The man who ought to be condemned isn't the man that\ndoesn't understand what's going on, but the man who comes to understand\nand persists in opposing it.\" He rose and looked down at me with the\nqueer, disturbing smile I remembered. \"I get off at this corner,\" he\nadded, rather diffidently. \"I hope you'll forgive me for being personal.\nI didn't mean to be, but you rather forced it on me.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's all right,\" I replied. The car stopped, and he hurried\noff. I watched his tall figure as it disappeared among the crowd on the\nsidewalk....\n\nI returned to my office in one of those moods that are the more\ndisagreeable because conflicting. To-day in particular I had been\naroused by what Tom used to call Krebs's \"crust,\" and as I sat at my\ndesk warm waves of resentment went through me at the very notion of his\ntelling me that my view was limited and that therefore my professional\nconduct was to be forgiven! It was he, the fanatic, who saw things in\nthe larger scale! an assumption the more exasperating because at the\nmoment he made it he almost convinced me that he did, and I was unable\nto achieve for him the measure of contempt I desired, for the incident,\nthe measure of ridicule it deserved. My real animus was due to the fact\nthat he had managed to shake my self-confidence, to take the flavour out\nof my achievements,--a flavour that was in the course of an hour to\nbe completely restored by one of those interesting coincidences\noccasionally occurring in life. A young member of my staff entered with\na telegram; I tore it open, and sat staring at it a moment before I\nrealized that it brought to me the greatest honour of my career.\n\nThe Banker-Personality in New York had summoned me for consultation.\nTo be recognized by him conferred indeed an ennoblement, the Star and\nGarter, so to speak, of the only great realm in America, that of high\nfinance; and the yellow piece of paper I held in my hand instantly\nre-magnetized me, renewed my energy, and I hurried home to pack my\nbag in order to catch the seven o'clock train. I announced the news to\nMaude.\n\n\"I imagine it's because he knows I have made something of a study of the\ncoal roads situation,\" I added.\n\n\"I'm glad, Hugh,\" she said. \"I suppose it's a great compliment.\"\n\nNever had her inadequacy to appreciate my career been more apparent! I\nlooked at her curiously, to realize once more with peculiar sharpness\nhow far we were apart; but now the resolutions I had made--and never\ncarried out--on that first Christmas in the new home were lacking.\nIndeed, it was the futility of such resolutions that struck me at this\nmoment. If her manner had been merely one of indifference, it would in\na way have been easier to bear; she was simply incapable of grasping the\nsignificance of the event, the meaning to me of the years of unceasing,\nambitious effort it crowned.\n\n\"Yes, it is something of a recognition,\" I replied. \"Is there anything\nI can get for you in New York? I don't know how long I shall have\nto stay--I'll telegraph you when I'm getting back.\" I kissed her and\nhurried out to the automobile. As I drove off I saw her still standing\nin the doorway looking after me.... In the station I had a few minutes\nto telephone Nancy.\n\n\"If you don't see me for a few days it's because I've gone to New York,\"\nI informed her.\n\n\"Something important, I'm sure.\"\n\n\"How did you guess?\" I demanded, and heard her laugh.\n\n\"Come back soon and tell me about it,\" she said, and I walked,\nexhilarated, to the train.... As I sped through the night, staring out\nof the window into the darkness, I reflected on the man I was going to\nsee. But at that time, although he represented to me the quintessence\nof achievement and power, I did not by any means grasp the many sided\nsignificance of the phenomenon he presented, though I was keenly\naware of his influence, and that men spoke of him with bated breath.\nPresidents came and went, kings and emperors had responsibilities and\nwere subject daily to annoyances, but this man was a law unto himself.\nHe did exactly what he chose, and compelled other men to do it. Wherever\ncommerce reigned,--and where did it not?--he was king and head of its\nHoly Empire, Pope and Emperor at once. For he had his code of ethics,\nhis religion, and those who rebelled, who failed to conform, he\nexcommunicated; a code something like the map of Europe,--apparently\ninconsistent in places. What I did not then comprehend was that he was\nthe American Principle personified, the supreme individual assertion of\nthe conviction that government should remain modestly in the background\nwhile the efficient acquired the supremacy that was theirs by natural\nright; nor had I grasped at that time the crowning achievement of a\nunity that fused Christianity with those acquisitive dispositions said\nto be inherent in humanity. In him the Lion and the Lamb, the Eagle and\nthe Dove dwelt together in amity and power.\n\nNew York, always a congenial place to gentlemen of vitality and means\nand influential connections, had never appeared to me more sparkling,\nmore inspiring. Winter had relented, spring had not as yet begun. And\nas I sat in a corner of the dining-room of my hotel looking out on the\nsunlit avenue I was conscious of partaking of the vigour and confidence\nof the well-dressed, clear-eyed people who walked or drove past my\nwindow with the air of a conquering race. What else was there in the\nworld more worth having than this conquering sense? Religion might offer\ncharms to the weak. Yet here religion itself became sensible, and wore\nthe garb of prosperity. The stonework of the tall church on the corner\nwas all lace; and the very saints in their niches, who had known\nmartyrdom and poverty, seemed to have renounced these as foolish, and\nto look down complacently on the procession of wealth and power..\nAcross the street, behind a sheet of glass, was a carrosserie where were\ndisplayed the shining yellow and black panels of a closed automobile,\nthe cost of which would have built a farm-house and stocked a barn.\n\nAt eleven o'clock, the appointed hour, I was in Wall Street. Sending in\nmy name, I was speedily ushered into a room containing a table, around\nwhich were several men; but my eyes were drawn at once to the figure of\nthe great banker who sat, massive and preponderant, at one end, smoking\na cigar, and listening in silence to the conversation I had interrupted.\nHe rose courteously and gave me his hand, and a glance that is\nunforgettable.\n\n\"It is good of you to come, Mr. Paret,\" he said simply, as though\nhis summons had not been a command. \"Perhaps you know some of these\ngentlemen.\"\n\nOne of them was our United States Senator, Theodore Watling. He, as\nit turned out, had been summoned from Washington. Of course I saw him\nfrequently, having from time to time to go to Washington on various\nerrands connected with legislation. Though spruce and debonnair as ever,\nin the black morning coat he invariably wore, he appeared older than he\nhad on the day when I had entered his office. He greeted me warmly, as\nalways.\n\n\"Hugh, I'm glad to see you here,\" he said, with a slight emphasis on the\nlast word. My legal career was reaching its logical climax, the climax\nhe had foreseen. And he added, to the banker, that he had brought me up.\n\n\"Then he was trained in a good school,\" remarked that personage,\naffably.\n\nMr. Barbour, the president of our Railroad, was present, and nodded to\nme kindly; also a president of a smaller road. In addition, there were\ntwo New York attorneys of great prominence, whom I had met. The banker's\nown special lieutenant of the law, Mr. Clement T. Grolier, for whom I\nlooked, was absent; but it was forthwith explained that he was offering,\nthat morning, a resolution of some importance in the Convention of his\nChurch, but that he would be present after lunch.\n\n\"I have asked you to come here, Mr. Paret,\" said the banker, \"not only\nbecause I know something personally of your legal ability, but because\nI have been told by Mr. Scherer and Mr. Barbour that you happen to have\nconsiderable knowledge of the situation we are discussing, as well as\nsome experience with cases involving that statute somewhat hazy to lay\nminds, the Sherman anti-trust law.\"\n\nA smile went around the table. Mr. Watling winked at me; I nodded, but\nsaid nothing. The banker was not a man to listen to superfluous words.\nThe keynote of his character was despatch....\n\nThe subject of the conference, like many questions bitterly debated and\nfought over in their time, has in the year I write these words come to\nbe of merely academic interest. Indeed, the very situation we discussed\nthat day has been cited in some of our modern text-books as a classic\nconsequence of that archaic school of economics to which the name of\nManchester is attached. Some half dozen or so of the railroads running\nthrough the anthracite coal region had pooled their interests,--an\nextremely profitable proceeding. The public paid. We deemed it quite\nlogical that the public should pay--having been created largely for\nthat purpose; and very naturally we resented the fact that the meddling\nPerson who had got into the White House without asking anybody's\nleave,--who apparently did not believe in the infallibility of our legal\nBible, the Constitution,--should maintain that the anthracite roads\nhad formed a combination in restraint of trade, should lay down\nthe preposterous doctrine--so subversive of the Rights of Man--that\nrailroads should not own coal mines. Congress had passed a law to meet\nthis contention, suit had been brought, and in the lower court the\ngovernment had won.\n\nAs the day wore on our numbers increased, we were joined by other\nlawyers of renown, not the least of whom was Mr. Grolier himself, fresh\nfrom his triumph over religious heresy in his Church Convention. The\nnote of the conference became tinged with exasperation, and certain\ngentlemen seized the opportunity to relieve their pent-up feelings on\nthe subject of the President and his slavish advisers,--some of whom,\nbefore they came under the spell of his sorcery, had once been sound\nlawyers and sensible men. With the exception of the great Banker\nhimself, who made few comments, Theodore Watling was accorded the most\ndeference; as one of the leaders of that indomitable group of senators\nwho had dared to stand up against popular clamour, his opinions were\nof great value, and his tactical advice was listened to with respect. I\nfelt more pride than ever in my former chief, who had lost none of his\ncharm. While in no way minimizing the seriousness of the situation, his\nwisdom was tempered, as always, with humour; he managed, as it were,\nto neutralize the acid injected into the atmosphere by other gentlemen\npresent; he alone seemed to bear no animus against the Author of our\ntroubles; suave and calm, good natured, he sometimes brought the company\ninto roars of laughter and even succeeded in bringing occasional\nsmiles to the face of the man who had summoned us--when relating some\ncharacteristic story of the queer genius whom the fates (undoubtedly as\na practical joke) had made the chief magistrate of the United States of\nAmerica. All geniuses have weaknesses; Mr. Wading had made a study of\nthe President's, and more than once had lured him into an impasse.\nThe case had been appealed to the Supreme Court, and Mr. Wading, with\nremarkable conciseness and penetration, reviewed the characteristics of\neach and every member of that tribunal, all of whom he knew intimately.\nThey were, of course, not subject to \"advice,\" as were some of the\ngentlemen who sat on our state courts; no sane and self-respecting\nAmerican would presume to \"approach\" them. Nevertheless they were human,\nand it were wise to take account, in the conduct of the case, of the\nprobable bias of each individual.\n\nThe President, overstepping his constitutional, Newtonian limits, might\npropose laws, Congress might acquiesce in them, but the Supreme Court,\nafter listening to lawyers like Grolier (and he bowed to the attorney),\nmade them: made them, he might have added, without responsibility to any\nman in our unique Republic that scorned kings and apotheosized lawyers.\nA Martian with a sense of humour witnessing a stormy session of Congress\nwould have giggled at the thought of a few tranquil gentlemen in another\nroom of the Capitol waiting to decide what the people's representatives\nmeant--or whether they meant anything....\n\nFor the first time since I had known Theodore Watling, however, I saw\nhim in the shadow of another individual; a man who, like a powerful\nmagnet, continually drew our glances. When we spoke, we almost\ninvariably addressed him, his rare words fell like bolts upon the\nconsciousness. There was no apparent rift in that personality.\n\nWhen, about five o'clock, the conference was ended and we were\ndismissed, United States Senator, railroad presidents, field-marshals of\nthe law, the great banker fell into an eager conversation with Grolier\nover the Canon on Divorce, the subject of warm debate in the convention\nthat day. Grolier, it appeared, had led his party against the\ntheological liberals. He believed that law was static, but none knew\nbetter its plasticity; that it was infallible, but none so well as he\ncould find a text on either side. His reputation was not of the popular,\nnewspaper sort, but was known to connoisseurs, editors, financiers,\nstatesmen and judges,--to those, in short, whose business it is to make\nthemselves familiar with the instruments of power. He was the banker's\nchief legal adviser, the banker's rapier of tempered steel, sheathed\nfrom the vulgar view save when it flashed forth on a swift errand.\n\n\"I'm glad to be associated with you in this case, Mr. Paret,\" Mr.\nGrolier said modestly, as we emerged into the maelstrom of Wall Street.\n\"If you can make it convenient to call at my office in the morning,\nwe'll go over it a little. And I'll see you in a day or two in\nWashington, Watling. Keep your eye on the bull,\" he added, with a\ntwinkle, \"and don't let him break any more china than you can help. I\ndon't know where we'd be if it weren't for you fellows.\"\n\nBy \"you fellows,\" he meant Mr. Watling's distinguished associates in the\nSenate....\n\nMr. Watling and I dined together at a New York club. It was not a dinner\nof herbs. There was something exceedingly comfortable about that club,\nwhere the art of catering to those who had earned the right to be\ncatered to came as near perfection as human things attain. From the\ngreat, heavily curtained dining-room the noises of the city had been\ncarefully excluded; the dust of the Avenue, the squalour and smells of\nthe brown stone fronts and laddered tenements of those gloomy districts\nlying a pistol-shot east and west. We had a vintage champagne, and\nafterwards a cigar of the club's special importation.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Watling, \"mow that you're a member of the royal\ncouncil, what do you think of the King?\"\n\n\"I've been thinking a great deal about him,\" I said, and indeed it was\ntrue. He had made, perhaps, his greatest impression when I had shaken\nhis hand in parting. The manner in which he had looked at me then had\npuzzled me; it was as though he were seeking to divine something in\nme that had escaped him. \"Why doesn't the government take him over?\" I\nexclaimed.\n\nMr. Watling smiled.\n\n\"You mean, instead of his mines and railroads and other properties?\"\n\n\"Yes. But that's your idea. Don't you remember you said something of\nthe kind the night of the election, years ago? It occurred to me to-day,\nwhen I was looking at him.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he agreed thoughtfully, \"if some American genius could find a way\nto legalize that power and utilize the men who created it the worst\nof our problems would be solved. A man with his ability has a right to\npower, and none would respond more quickly or more splendidly to a call\nof the government than he. All this fight is waste, Hugh, damned\nwaste of the nation's energy.\" Mr. Watling seldom swore. \"Look at the\nPresident! There's a man of remarkable ability, too. And those two\noughtn't to be fighting each other. The President's right, in a way.\nYes, he is, though I've got to oppose him.\"\n\nI smiled at this from Theodore Watling, though I admired him the more\nfor it. And suddenly, oddly, I happened to remember what Krebs had said,\nthat our troubles were not due to individuals, but to a disease that had\ndeveloped in industrial society. If the day should come when such men as\nthe President and the great banker would be working together, was it\nnot possible, too, that the idea of Mr. Watling and the vision of Krebs\nmight coincide? I was struck by a certain seeming similarity in their\nviews; but Mr. Watling interrupted this train of thought by continuing\nto express his own.\n\n\"Well,--they're running right into a gale when they might be sailing\nwith it,\" he said.\n\n\"You think we'll have more trouble?\" I asked.\n\n\"More and more,\" he replied. \"It'll be worse before it's better I'm\nafraid.\" At this moment a club servant announced his cab, and he rose.\n\"Well, good-bye, my son,\" he said. \"I'll hope to see you in Washington\nsoon. And remember there's no one thinks any more of you than I do.\"\n\nI escorted him to the door, and it was with a real pang I saw him wave\nto me from his cab as he drove away. My affection for him was never more\nalive than in this hour when, for the first time in my experience, he\nhad given real evidence of an inner anxiety and lack of confidence in\nthe future.\n\n\n\n\nXXI.\n\nIn spite of that unwonted note of pessimism from Mr. Watling, I went\nhome in a day or two flushed with my new honours, and it was\nimpossible not to be conscious of the fact that my aura of prestige was\nincreased--tremendously increased--by the recognition I had received. A\ncertain subtle deference in the attitude of the small minority who\nowed allegiance to the personage by whom I had been summoned was more\nsatisfying than if I had been acclaimed at the station by thousands\nof my fellow-citizens who knew nothing of my journey and of its\nsignificance, even though it might have a concern for them. To men like\nBerringer, Grierson and Tallant and our lesser great lights the banker\nwas a semi-mythical figure, and many times on the day of my return I was\nstopped on the street to satisfy the curiosity of my friends as to\nmy impressions. Had he, for instance, let fall any opinions,\nprognostications on the political and financial situation? Dickinson\nand Scherer were the only other men in the city who had the honour of a\npersonal acquaintance with him, and Scherer was away, abroad, gathering\nfurniture and pictures for the house in New York Nancy had predicted,\nand which he had already begun to build! With Dickinson I lunched in\nprivate, in order to give him a detailed account of the conference. By\nfive o'clock I was ringing the door-bell of Nancy's new mansion on Grant\nAvenue. It was several blocks below my own.\n\n\"Well, how does it feel to be sent for by the great sultan?\" she\nasked, as I stood before her fire. \"Of course, I have always known that\nultimately he couldn't get along without you.\"\n\n\"Even if he has been a little late in realizing it,\" I retorted.\n\n\"Sit down and tell me all about him,\" she commanded.\n\n\"I met him once, when Ham had the yacht at Bar Harbor.\"\n\n\"And how did he strike you?\"\n\n\"As somewhat wrapped up in himself,\" said Nancy.\n\nWe laughed together.\n\n\"Oh, I fell a victim,\" she went on. \"I might have sailed off with him,\nif he had asked me.\"\n\n\"I'm surprised he didn't ask you.\"\n\n\"I suspect that it was not quite convenient,\" she said. \"Women are\nsecondary considerations to sultans, we're all very well when they\nhaven't anything more serious to occupy them. Of course that's why they\nfascinate us. What did he want with you, Hugh?\"\n\n\"He was evidently afraid that the government would win the coal roads\nsuit unless I was retained.\"\n\n\"More laurels!\" she sighed. \"I suppose I ought to be proud to know you.\"\n\n\"That's exactly what I've been trying to impress on you all these\nyears,\" I declared. \"I've laid the laurels at your feet, in vain.\"\n\nShe sat with her head back on the cushions, surveying me.\n\n\"Your dress is very becoming,\" I said irrelevantly.\n\n\"I hoped it would meet your approval,\" she mocked.\n\n\"I've been trying to identify the shade. It's elusive--like you.\"\n\n\"Don't be banal.... What is the colour?\"\n\n\"Poinsetta!\"\n\n\"Pretty nearly,\" she agreed, critically.\n\nI took the soft crepe between my fingers.\n\n\"Poet!\" she smiled. \"No, it isn't quite poinsetta. It's nearer the\nred-orange of a tree I remember one autumn, in the White Mountains,\nwith the setting sun on it. But that wasn't what we were talking about.\nLaurels! Your laurels.\"\n\n\"My laurels,\" I repeated. \"Such as they are, I fling them into your\nlap.\"\n\n\"Do you think they increase your value to me, Hugh?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said thickly.\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"No, it's you I like--not the laurels.\"\n\n\"But if you care for me--?\" I began.\n\nShe lifted up her hands and folded them behind the knot of her hair.\n\n\"It's extraordinary how little you have changed since we were children,\nHugh. You are still sixteen years old, that's why I like you. If you got\nto be the sultan of sultans yourself, I shouldn't like you any better,\nor any worse.\"\n\n\"And yet you have just declared that power appeals to you!\"\n\n\"Power--yes. But a woman--a woman like me--wants to be first, or\nnothing.\"\n\n\"You are first,\" I asserted. \"You always have been, if you had only\nrealized it.\"\n\nShe gazed up at me dreamily.\n\n\"If you had only realized it! If you had only realized that all I wanted\nof you was to be yourself. It wasn't what you achieved. I didn't want\nyou to be like Ralph or the others.\"\n\n\"Myself? What are you trying to say?\"\n\n\"Yourself. Yes, that is what I like about you. If you hadn't been in\nsuch a hurry--if you hadn't misjudged me so. It was the power in you,\nthe craving, the ideal in you that I cared for--not the fruits of it.\nThe fruits would have come naturally. But you forced them, Hugh, for\nquicker results.\"\n\n\"What kind of fruits?\" I asked.\n\n\"Ah,\" she exclaimed, \"how can I tell what they might have been! You have\nstriven and striven, you have done extraordinary things, but have they\nmade you any happier? have you got what you want?\"\n\nI stooped down and seized her wrists from behind her head.\n\n\"I want you, Nancy,\" I said. \"I have always wanted you. You're more\nwonderful to-day than you have ever been. I could find myself--with\nyou.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes. A dreamy smile was on her face, and she lay\nunresisting, very still. In that tremendous moment, for which it seemed\nI had waited a lifetime, I could have taken her in my arms--and yet I\ndid not. I could not tell why: perhaps it was because she seemed to have\npassed beyond me--far beyond--in realization. And she was so still!\n\n\"We have missed the way, Hugh,\" she whispered, at last.\n\n\"But we can find it again, if we seek it together,\" I urged.\n\n\"Ah, if I only could!\" she said. \"I could have once. But now I'm\nafraid--afraid of getting lost.\" Slowly she straightened up, her hands\nfalling into her lap. I seized them again, I was on my knees in front\nof her, before the fire, and she, intent, looking down at me, into me,\nthrough me it seemed--at something beyond which yet was me.\n\n\"Hugh,\" she asked, \"what do you believe? Anything?\"\n\n\"What do I believe?\"\n\n\"Yes. I don't mean any cant, cut-and-dried morality. The world is\ngetting beyond that. But have you, in your secret soul, any religion\nat all? Do you ever think about it? I'm not speaking about\nanything orthodox, but some religion--even a tiny speck of it, a\ngerm--harmonizing with life, with that power we feel in us we seek to\nexpress and continually violate.\"\n\n\"Nancy!\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"Answer me--answer me truthfully,\" she said....\n\nI was silent, my thoughts whirling like dust atoms in a storm.\n\n\"You have always taken things--taken what you wanted. But they haven't\nsatisfied you, convinced you that that is all of life.\"\n\n\"Do you mean--that we should renounce?\" I faltered.\n\n\"I don't know what I mean. I am asking, Hugh, asking. Haven't you any\nclew? Isn't there any voice in you, anywhere, deep down, that can tell\nme? give me a hint? just a little one?\"\n\nI was wracked. My passion had not left me, it seemed to be heightened,\nand I pressed her hands against her knees. It was incredible that my\nhands should be there, in hers, feeling her. Her beauty seemed as fresh,\nas un-wasted as the day, long since, when I despaired of her. And yet\nand yet against the tumult and beating of this passion striving to throb\ndown thought, thought strove. Though I saw her as a woman, my senses and\nmy spirit commingled and swooned together.\n\n\"This is life,\" I murmured, scarcely knowing what I said.\n\n\"Oh, my dear!\" she cried, and her voice pierced me with pain, \"are we to\nbe lost, overpowered, engulfed, swept down its stream, to come up below\ndrifting--wreckage? Where, then, would be your power? I'm not speaking\nof myself. Isn't life more than that? Isn't it in us, too,--in you?\nThink, Hugh. Is there no god, anywhere, but this force we feel,\nrestlessly creating only to destroy? You must answer--you must find\nout.\"\n\nI cannot describe the pleading passion in her voice, as though hell and\nheaven were wrestling in it. The woman I saw, tortured yet uplifted, did\nnot seem to be Nancy, yet it was the woman I loved more than life itself\nand always had loved.\n\n\"I can't think,\" I answered desperately, \"I can only feel--and I\ncan't express what I feel. It's mixed, it's dim, and yet bright and\nshining--it's you.\"\n\n\"No, it's you,\" she said vehemently. \"You must interpret it.\" Her voice\nsank: \"Could it be God?\" she asked.\n\n\"God!\" I exclaimed sharply.\n\nHer hands fell away from mine.... The silence was broken only by the\ncrackling of the wood fire as a log turned over and fell. Never before,\nin all our intercourse that I could remember, had she spoken to me about\nreligion.... With that apparent snap in continuity incomprehensible to\nthe masculine mind-her feminine mood had changed. Elements I had never\nsuspected, in Nancy, awe, even a hint of despair, entered into it,\nand when my hand found hers again, the very quality of its convulsive\npressure seemed to have changed. I knew then that it was her soul I\nloved most; I had been swept all unwittingly to its very altar.\n\n\"I believe it is God,\" I said. But she continued to gaze at me, her lips\nparted, her eyes questioning.\n\n\"Why is it,\" she demanded, \"that after all these centuries of certainty\nwe should have to start out to find him again? Why is it when something\nhappens like--like this, that we should suddenly be torn with doubts\nabout him, when we have lived the best part of our lives without so much\nas thinking of him?\"\n\n\"Why should you have qualms?\" I said. \"Isn't this enough? and doesn't it\npromise--all?\"\n\n\"I don't know. They're not qualms--in the old sense.\" She smiled down\nat me a little tearfully. \"Hugh, do you remember when we used to go to\nSunday-school at Dr. Pound's church, and Mrs. Ewan taught us? I really\nbelieved something then--that Moses brought down the ten commandments of\nGod from the mountain, all written out definitely for ever and ever. And\nI used to think of marriage\" (I felt a sharp twinge), \"of marriage as\nsomething sacred and inviolable,--something ordained by God himself. It\nought to be so--oughtn't it? That is the ideal.\"\n\n\"Yes--but aren't you confusing--?\" I began.\n\n\"I am confusing and confused. I shouldn't be--I shouldn't care if there\nweren't something in you, in me, in our--friendship, something I can't\nexplain, something that shines still through the fog and the smoke in\nwhich we have lived our lives--something which, I think, we saw clearer\nas children. We have lost it in our hasty groping. Oh, Hugh, I couldn't\nbear to think that we should never find it! that it doesn't really\nexist! Because I seem to feel it. But can we find it this way, my dear?\"\nHer hand tightened on mine.\n\n\"But if the force drawing us together, that has always drawn us\ntogether, is God?\" I objected.\n\n\"I asked you,\" she said. \"The time must come when you must answer, Hugh.\nIt may be too late, but you must answer.\"\n\n\"I believe in taking life in my own hands,\" I said.\n\n\"It ought to be life,\" said Nancy. \"It--it might have been life.... It\nis only when a moment, a moment like this comes that the quality of what\nwe have lived seems so tarnished, that the atmosphere which we ourselves\nhave helped to make is so sordid. When I think of the intrigues, and\ndivorces, the self-indulgences,--when I think of my own marriage--\" her\nvoice caught. \"How are we going to better it, Hugh, this way? Am I to\nget that part of you I love, and are you to get what you crave in me?\nCan we just seize happiness? Will it not elude us just as much as though\nwe believed firmly in the ten commandments?\"\n\n\"No,\" I declared obstinately.\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"What I'm afraid of is that the world isn't made that way--for you--for\nme. We're permitted to seize those other things because they're just\nbaubles, we've both found out how worthless they are. And the worst\nof it is they've made me a coward, Hugh. It isn't that I couldn't do\nwithout them, I've come to depend on them in another way. It's because\nthey give me a certain protection,--do you see? they've come to stand in\nthe place of the real convictions we've lost. And--well, we've taken the\nbaubles, can we reach out our hands and take--this? Won't we be punished\nfor it, frightfully punished?\"\n\n\"I don't care if we are,\" I said, and surprised myself.\n\n\"But I care. It's weak, it's cowardly, but it's so. And yet I want to\nface the situation--I'm trying to get you to face it, to realize how\nterrible it is.\"\n\n\"I only know that I want you above everything else in the world--I'll\ntake care of you--\"\n\nI seized her arms, I drew her down to me.\n\n\"Don't!\" she cried. \"Oh, don't!\" and struggled to her feet and stood\nbefore me panting. \"You must go away now--please, Hugh. I can't bear any\nmore--I want to think.\"\n\nI released her. She sank into the chair and hid her face in her\nhands....\n\nAs may be imagined, the incident I have just related threw my life\ninto a tangle that would have floored a less persistent optimist and\nromanticist than myself, yet I became fairly accustomed to treading what\nthe old moralists called the devious paths of sin. In my passion I\nhad not hesitated to lay down the doctrine that the courageous and\nthe strong took what they wanted,--a doctrine of which I had been a\nconsistent disciple in the professional and business realm. A logical\nbuccaneer, superman, \"master of life\" would promptly have extended this\ndoctrine to the realm of sex. Nancy was the mate for me, and Nancy and\nI, our development, was all that mattered, especially my development.\nLet every man and woman look out for his or her development, and in the\nend the majority of people would be happy. This was going Adam Smith one\nbetter. When it came to putting that theory into practice, however,\none needed convictions: Nancy had been right when she had implied that\nconvictions were precisely what we lacked; what our world in general\nlacked. We had desires, yes convictions, no. What we wanted we got not\nby defying the world, but by conforming to it: we were ready to defy\nonly when our desires overcame the resistance of our synapses, and even\nthen not until we should have exhausted every legal and conventional\nmeans.\n\nA superman with a wife and family he had acquired before a great passion\nhas made him a superman is in rather a predicament, especially if he\nbe one who has achieved such superhumanity as he possesses not by\nchallenging laws and conventions, but by getting around them. My wife\nand family loved me; and paradoxically I still had affection for them,\nor thought I had. But the superman creed is, \"be yourself, realize\nyourself, no matter how cruel you may have to be in order to do so.\" One\ntrouble with me was that remnants of the Christian element of pity still\nclung to me. I would be cruel if I had to, but I hoped I shouldn't have\nto: something would turn up, something in the nature of an intervening\nmiracle that would make it easy for me. Perhaps Maude would take the\ninitiative and relieve me.... Nancy had appealed for a justifying\ndoctrine, and it was just what I didn't have and couldn't evolve. In the\nmeanwhile it was quite in character that I should accommodate myself to\na situation that might well be called anomalous.\n\nThis \"accommodation\" was not unaccompanied by fever. My longing to\nrealize my love for Nancy kept me in a constant state of tension--of\n\"nerves\"; for our relationship had merely gone one step farther, we\nhad reached a point where we acknowledged that we loved each other, and\nparadoxically halted there; Nancy clung to her demand for new sanctions\nwith a tenacity that amazed and puzzled and often irritated me. And yet,\nwhen I look back upon it all, I can see that some of the difficulty\nlay with me: if she had her weakness--which she acknowledged--I had\nmine--and kept it to myself. It was part of my romantic nature not to\nwant to break her down. Perhaps I loved the ideal better than the woman\nherself, though that scarcely seems possible.\n\nWe saw each other constantly. And though we had instinctively begun to\nbe careful, I imagine there was some talk among our acquaintances. It is\nto be noted that the gossip never became riotous, for we had always\nbeen friends, and Nancy had a saving reputation for coldness. It seemed\nincredible that Maude had not discovered my secret, but if she knew\nof it, she gave no sign of her knowledge. Often, as I looked at her, I\nwished she would. I can think of no more expressive sentence in regard\nto her than the trite one that she pursued the even tenor of her way;\nand I found the very perfection of her wifehood exasperating. Our\nrelationship would, I thought, have been more endurable if we had\nquarrelled. And yet we had grown as far apart, in that big house, as\nthough we had been separated by a continent; I lived in my apartments,\nshe in hers; she consulted me about dinner parties and invitations; for,\nsince we had moved to Grant Avenue, we entertained and went out more\nthan before. It seemed as though she were making every effort consistent\nwith her integrity and self-respect to please me. Outwardly she\nconformed to the mould; but I had long been aware that inwardly a person\nhad developed. It had not been a spontaneous development, but one in\nresistance to pressure; and was probably all the stronger for that\nreason. At times her will revealed itself in astonishing and unexpected\nflashes, as when once she announced that she was going to change\nMatthew's school.\n\n\"He's old enough to go to boarding-school,\" I said. \"I'll look up a\nplace for him.\"\n\n\"I don't wish him to go to boarding-school yet, Hugh,\" she said quietly.\n\n\"But that's just what he needs,\" I objected. \"He ought to have the\nrubbing-up against other boys that boarding-school will give him.\nMatthew is timid, he should have learned to take care of himself. And he\nwill make friendships that will help him in a larger school.\"\n\n\"I don't intend to send him,\" Maude said.\n\n\"But if I think it wise?\"\n\n\"You ought to have begun to consider such things many years ago. You\nhave always been too--busy to think of the children. You have left them\nto me. I am doing the best I can with them.\"\n\n\"But a man should have something to say about boys. He understands\nthem.\"\n\n\"You should have thought of that before.\"\n\n\"They haven't been old enough.\"\n\n\"If you had taken your share of responsibility for them, I would listen\nto you.\"\n\n\"Maude!\" I exclaimed reproachfully.\n\n\"No, Hugh,\" she went on, \"you have been too busy making money. You have\nleft them to me. It is my task to see that the money they are to inherit\ndoesn't ruin them.\"\n\n\"You talk as though it were a great fortune,\" I said.\n\nBut I did not press the matter. I had a presentiment that to press it\nmight lead to unpleasant results.\n\nIt was this sense of not being free, of having gained everything but\nfreedom that was at times galling in the extreme: this sense of living\nwith a woman for whom I had long ceased to care, a woman with a baffling\nwill concealed beneath an unruffled and serene exterior. At moments I\nlooked at her across the table; she did not seem to have aged much: her\ncomplexion was as fresh, apparently, as the day when I had first walked\nwith her in the garden at Elkington; her hair the same wonderful colour;\nperhaps she had grown a little stouter. There could be no doubt about\nthe fact that her chin was firmer, that certain lines had come into her\nface indicative of what is called character. Beneath her pliability she\nwas now all firmness; the pliability had become a mockery. It cannot\nbe said that I went so far as to hate her for this,--when it was in my\nmind,--but my feelings were of a strong antipathy. And then again there\nwere rare moments when I was inexplicably drawn to her, not by love and\npassion; I melted a little in pity, perhaps, when my eyes were opened\nand I saw the tragedy, yet I am not referring now to such feelings as\nthese. I am speaking of the times when I beheld her as the blameless\ncompanion of the years, the mother of my children, the woman I was used\nto and should--by all canons I had known--have loved....\n\nAnd there were the children. Days and weeks passed when I scarcely\nsaw them, and then some little incident would happen to give me an\nunexpected wrench and plunge me into unhappiness. One evening I came\nhome from a long talk with Nancy that had left us both wrought up, and\nI had entered the library before I heard voices. Maude was seated under\nthe lamp at the end of the big room reading from \"Don Quixote\"; Matthew\nand Biddy were at her feet, and Moreton, less attentive, at a little\ndistance was taking apart a mechanical toy. I would have tiptoed out,\nbut Biddy caught sight of me.\n\n\"It's father!\" she cried, getting up and flying to me.\n\n\"Oh, father, do come and listen! The story's so exciting, isn't it,\nMatthew?\"\n\nI looked down into the boy's eyes shining with an expression that\nsuddenly pierced my heart with a poignant memory of myself. Matthew was\nfar away among the mountains and castles of Spain.\n\n\"Matthew,\" demanded his sister, \"why did he want to go fighting with all\nthose people?\"\n\n\"Because he was dotty,\" supplied Moreton, who had an interesting habit\nof picking up slang.\n\n\"It wasn't at all,\" cried Matthew, indignantly, interrupting Maude's\nrebuke of his brother.\n\n\"What was it, then?\" Moreton demanded.\n\n\"You wouldn't understand if I told you,\" Matthew was retorting, when\nMaude put her hand on his lips.\n\n\"I think that's enough for to-night,\" she said, as she closed the book.\n\"There are lessons to do--and father wants to read his newspaper in\nquiet.\"\n\nThis brought a protest from Biddy.\n\n\"Just a little more, mother! Can't we go into the schoolroom? We shan't\ndisturb father there.\"\n\n\"I'll read to them--a few minutes,\" I said.\n\nAs I took the volume from her and sat down Maude shot at me a swift look\nof surprise. Even Matthew glanced at me curiously; and in his glance I\nhad, as it were, a sudden revelation of the boy's perplexity concerning\nme. He was twelve, rather tall for his age, and the delicate modelling\nof his face resembled my father's. He had begun to think.. What did he\nthink of me?\n\nBiddy clapped her hands, and began to dance across the carpet.\n\n\"Father's going to read to us, father's going to read to us,\" she cried,\nfinally clambering up on my knee and snuggling against me.\n\n\"Where is the place?\" I asked.\n\nBut Maude had left the room. She had gone swiftly and silently.\n\n\"I'll find it,\" said Moreton.\n\nI began to read, but I scarcely knew what I was reading, my fingers\ntightening over Biddy's little knee....\n\nPresently Miss Allsop, the governess, came in. She had been sent by\nMaude. There was wistfulness in Biddy's voice as I kissed her good\nnight.\n\n\"Father, if you would only read oftener!\" she said, \"I like it when you\nread--better than anyone else.\"....\n\nMaude and I were alone that night. As we sat in the library after our\nsomewhat formal, perfunctory dinner, I ventured to ask her why she had\ngone away when I had offered to read.\n\n\"I couldn't bear it, Hugh,\" she answered.\n\n\"Why?\" I asked, intending to justify myself.\n\nShe got up abruptly, and left me. I did not follow her. In my heart I\nunderstood why....\n\nSome years had passed since Ralph's prophecy had come true, and Perry\nand the remaining Blackwoods had been \"relieved\" of the Boyne\nStreet line. The process need not be gone into in detail, being the\ntime-honoured one employed in the Ribblevale affair of \"running down\"\nthe line, or perhaps it would be better to say \"showing it up.\" It\nhad not justified its survival in our efficient days, it had held\nout--thanks to Perry--with absurd and anachronous persistence against\nthe inevitable consolidation. Mr. Tallant's newspaper had published\nmany complaints of the age and scarcity of the cars, etc.; and alarmed\nholders of securities, in whose vaults they had lain since time\nimmemorial, began to sell.... I saw little of Perry in those days, as I\nhave explained, but one day I met him in the Hambleton Building, and he\nwas white.\n\n\"Your friends are doing thus, Hugh,\" he said.\n\n\"Doing what?\"\n\n\"Undermining the reputation of a company as sound as any in this city,\na company that's not overcapitalized, either. And we're giving better\nservice right now than any of your consolidated lines.\"...\n\nHe was in no frame of mind to argue with; the conversation was\ndistinctly unpleasant. I don't remember what I said something to the\neffect that he was excited, that his language was extravagant. But after\nhe had walked off and left me I told Dickinson that he ought to be given\na chance, and one of our younger financiers, Murphree, went to Perry and\npointed out that he had nothing to gain by obstruction; if he were only\nreasonable, he might come into the new corporation on the same terms\nwith the others.\n\nAll that Murphree got for his pains was to be ordered out of the office\nby Perry, who declared that he was being bribed to desert the other\nstockholders.\n\n\"He utterly failed to see the point of view,\" Murphree reported in some\nastonishment to Dickinson.\n\n\"What else did he say?\" Mr. Dickinson asked.\n\nMurphree hesitated.\n\n\"Well--what?\" the banker insisted.\n\n\"He wasn't quite himself,\" said Murphree, who was a comparative newcomer\nin the city and had a respect for the Blackwood name. \"He said that that\nwas the custom of thieves: when they were discovered, they offered to\ndivide. He swore that he would get justice in the courts.\"\n\nMr. Dickinson smiled....\n\nThus Perry, through his obstinacy and inability to adapt himself to new\nconditions, had gradually lost both caste and money. He resigned from\nthe Boyne Club. I was rather sorry for him. Tom naturally took the\nmatter to heart, but he never spoke of it; I found that I was seeing\nless of him, though we continued to dine there at intervals, and he\nstill came to my house to see the children. Maude continued to see\nLucia. For me, the situation would have been more awkward had I been\nless occupied, had my relationship with Maude been a closer one. Neither\ndid she mention Perry in those days. The income that remained to him\nbeing sufficient for him and his family to live on comfortably, he began\nto devote most of his time to various societies of a semipublic nature\nuntil--in the spring of which I write his activities suddenly became\nconcentrated in the organization of a \"Citizens Union,\" whose avowed\nobject was to make a campaign against \"graft\" and political corruption\nthe following autumn. This announcement and the call for a mass-meeting\nin Kingdon Hall was received by the newspapers with a good-natured\nridicule, and in influential quarters it was generally hinted that this\nwas Mr. Blackwood's method of \"getting square\" for having been deprived\nof the Boyne Street line. It was quite characteristic of Ralph Hambleton\nthat he should go, out of curiosity, to the gathering at Kingdon Hall,\nand drop into my office the next morning.\n\n\"Well, Hughie, they're after you,\" he said with a grin.\n\n\"After me? Why not include yourself?\"\n\nHe sat down and stretched his long legs and his long arms, and smiled as\nhe gaped.\n\n\"Oh, they'll never get me,\" he said. And I knew, as I gazed at him, that\nthey never would.\n\n\"What sort of things did they say?\" I asked.\n\n\"Haven't you read the Pilot and the Mail and State?\"\n\n\"I just glanced over them. Did they call names?\"\n\n\"Call names! I should say they did. They got drunk on it, worked\nthemselves up like dervishes. They didn't cuss you personally,--that'll\ncome later, of course. Judd Jason got the heaviest shot, but they\nsaid he couldn't exist a minute if it wasn't for the 'respectable'\ncrowd--capitalists, financiers, millionaires and their legal tools. Fact\nis, they spoke a good deal of truth, first and last, in a fool kind of\nway.\"\n\n\"Truth!\" I exclaimed irritatedly.\n\nRalph laughed. He was evidently enjoying himself.\n\n\"Is any of it news to you, Hughie, old boy?\"\n\n\"It's an outrage.\"\n\n\"I think it's funny,\" said Ralph. \"We haven't had such a circus for\nyears. Never had. Of course I shouldn't like to see you go behind the\nbars,--not that. But you fellows can't expect to go on forever skimming\noff the cream without having somebody squeal sometime. You ought to be\nreasonable.\"\n\n\"You've skimmed as much cream as anybody else.\"\n\n\"You've skimmed the cream, Hughie,--you and Dickinson and Scherer and\nGrierson and the rest,--I've only filled my jug. Well, these fellows\nare going to have a regular roof-raising campaign, take the lid off of\neverything, dump out the red-light district some of our friends are so\nfond of.\"\n\n\"Dump it where?\" I asked curiously.\n\n\"Oh,\" answered Ralph, \"they didn't say. Out into the country, anywhere.\"\n\n\"But that's damned foolishness,\" I declared.\n\n\"Didn't say it wasn't,\" Ralph admitted. \"They talked a lot of that, too,\nincidentally. They're going to close the saloons and dance halls and\nmake this city sadder than heaven. When they get through, it'll all be\nover but the inquest.\"\n\n\"What did Perry do?\" I asked.\n\n\"Well, he opened the meeting,--made a nice, precise, gentlemanly speech.\nGreenhalge and a few young highbrows and a reformed crook named Harrod\ndid most of the hair-raising. They're going to nominate Greenhalge for\nmayor; and he told 'em something about that little matter of the school\nboard, and said he would talk more later on. If one of the ablest\nlawyers in the city hadn't been hired by the respectable crowd and a lot\nof other queer work done, the treasurer and purchasing agent would be\ndoing time. They seemed to be interested, all right.\"\n\nI turned over some papers on my desk, just to show Ralph that he hadn't\nsucceeded in disturbing me.\n\n\"Who was in the audience? anyone you ever heard of?\" I asked.\n\n\"Sure thing. Your cousin Robert Breck; and that son-in-law of\nhis--what's his name? And some other representatives of our oldest\nfamilies,--Alec Pound. He's a reformer now, you know. They put him on\nthe resolutions committee. Sam Ogilvy was there, he'd be classed as\nrespectably conservative. And one of the Ewanses. I could name a few\nothers, if you pressed me. That brother of Fowndes who looks like an\nup-state minister. A lot of women--Miller Gorse's sister, Mrs. Datchet,\nwho never approved of Miller. Quite a genteel gathering, I give you my\nword, and all astonished and mad as hell when the speaking was over.\nMrs. Datchet said she had been living in a den of iniquity and vice, and\ndidn't know it.\"\n\n\"It must have been amusing,\" I said.\n\n\"It was,\" said Ralph. \"It'll be more amusing later on. Oh, yes, there\nwas another fellow who spoke I forgot to mention--that queer Dick who\nwas in your class, Krebs, got the school board evidence, looked as if\nhe'd come in by freight. He wasn't as popular as the rest, but he's got\nmore sense than all of them put together.\"\n\n\"Why wasn't he popular?\"\n\n\"Well, he didn't crack up the American people,--said they deserved all\nthey got, that they'd have to learn to think straight and be straight\nbefore they could expect a square deal. The truth was, they secretly\nenvied these rich men who were exploiting their city, and just as long\nas they envied them they hadn't any right to complain of them. He was\ngoing into this campaign to tell the truth, but to tell all sides of\nit, and if they wanted reform, they'd have to reform themselves first. I\nadmired his nerve, I must say.\"\n\n\"He always had that,\" I remarked. \"How did they take it?\"\n\n\"Well, they didn't like it much, but I think most of them had a respect\nfor him. I know I did. He has a whole lot of assurance, an air of\nknowing what he's talking about, and apparently he doesn't give a\ncontinental whether he's popular or not. Besides, Greenhalge had cracked\nhim up to the skies for the work he'd done for the school board.\"\n\n\"You talk as if he'd converted you,\" I said.\n\nRalph laughed as he rose and stretched himself.\n\n\"Oh, I'm only the intelligent spectator, you ought to know that by this\ntime, Hughie. But I thought it might interest you, since you'll have to\ngo on the stump and refute it all. That'll be a nice job. So long.\"\n\nAnd he departed. Of course I knew that he had been baiting me, his scent\nfor the weaknesses of his friends being absolutely fiendish. I was angry\nbecause he had succeeded,--because he knew he had succeeded. All the\nmorning uneasiness possessed me, and I found it difficult to concentrate\non the affairs I had in hand. I felt premonitions, which I tried in vain\nto suppress, that the tide of the philosophy of power and might\nwere starting to ebb: I scented vague calamities ahead, calamities I\nassociated with Krebs; and when I went out to the Club for lunch\nthis sense of uneasiness, instead of being dissipated, was increased.\nDickinson was there, and Scherer, who had just got back from Europe; the\ntalk fell on the Citizens Union, which Scherer belittled with an air of\nconsequence and pompousness that struck me disagreeably, and with an\neye newly critical I detected in him a certain disintegration,\ndeterioration. Having dismissed the reformers, he began to tell of his\nexperiences abroad, referring in one way or another to the people of\nconsequence who had entertained him.\n\n\"Hugh,\" said Leonard Dickinson to me as we walked to the bank together,\n\"Scherer will never be any good any more. Too much prosperity. And he's\nbegun to have his nails manicured.\"\n\nAfter I had left the bank president an uncanny fancy struck me that in\nAdolf Scherer I had before me a concrete example of the effect of my\nphilosophy on the individual....\n\nNothing seemed to go right that spring, and yet nothing was absolutely\nwrong. At times I became irritated, bewildered, out of tune, and unable\nto understand why. The weather itself was uneasy, tepid, with long\nspells of hot wind and dust. I no longer seemed to find refuge in my\nwork. I was unhappy at home. After walking for many years in confidence\nand security along what appeared to be a certain path, I had suddenly\ncome out into a vague country in which it was becoming more and more\ndifficult to recognize landmarks. I did not like to confess this; and\nyet I heard within me occasional whispers. Could it be that I, Hugh\nParet, who had always been so positive, had made a mess of my life?\nThere were moments when the pattern of it appeared to have fallen apart,\nresolved itself into pieces that refused to fit into each other.\n\nOf course my relationship with Nancy had something to do with this....\n\nOne evening late in the spring, after dinner, Maude came into the\nlibrary.\n\n\"Are you busy, Hugh?\" she asked.\n\nI put down my newspapers.\n\n\"Because,\" she went on, as she took a chair near the table where I was\nwriting, \"I wanted to tell you that I have decided to go to Europe, and\ntake the children.\"\n\n\"To Europe!\" I exclaimed. The significance of the announcement failed at\nonce to register in my brain, but I was aware of a shock.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"When?\" I asked.\n\n\"Right away. The end of this month.\"\n\n\"For the summer?\"\n\n\"I haven't decided how long I shall stay.\"\n\nI stared at her in bewilderment. In contrast to the agitation I felt\nrising within me, she was extraordinarily calm, unbelievably so.\n\n\"But where do you intend to go in Europe?\"\n\n\"I shall go to London for a month or so, and after that to some quiet\nplace in France, probably at the sea, where the children can learn\nFrench and German. After that, I have no plans.\"\n\n\"But--you talk as if you might stay indefinitely.\"\n\n\"I haven't decided,\" she repeated.\n\n\"But why--why are you doing this?\"\n\nI would have recalled the words as soon as I had spoken them. There\nwas the slightest unsteadiness in her voice as she replied:--\"Is it\nnecessary to go into that, Hugh? Wouldn't it be useless as well as a\nlittle painful? Surely, going to Europe without one's husband is not an\nunusual thing in these days. Let it just be understood that I want to\ngo, that the children have arrived at an age when it will do them good.\"\n\nI got up and began to walk up and down the room, while she watched me\nwith a silent calm which was incomprehensible. In vain I summoned my\nfaculties to meet it.\n\nI had not thought her capable of such initiative.\n\n\"I can't see why you want to leave me,\" I said at last, though with\na full sense of the inadequacy of the remark, and a suspicion of its\nhypocrisy.\n\n\"That isn't quite true,\" she answered. \"In the first place, you don't\nneed me. I am not of the slightest use in your life, I haven't been a\nfactor in it for years. You ought never to have married me,--it was all\na terrible mistake. I began to realize that after we had been married\na few months--even when we were on our wedding trip. But I was too\ninexperienced--perhaps too weak to acknowledge it to myself. In the last\nfew years I have come to see it plainly. I should have been a fool if I\nhadn't. I am not your wife in any real sense of the word, I cannot hold\nyou, I cannot even interest you. It's a situation that no woman with\nself-respect can endure.\"\n\n\"Aren't those rather modern sentiments, for you, Maude?\" I said.\n\nShe flushed a little, but otherwise retained her remarkable composure.\n\n\"I don't care whether they are 'modern' or not, I only know that my\nposition has become impossible.\"\n\nI walked to the other end of the room, and stood facing the carefully\ndrawn curtains of the windows; fantastically, they seemed to represent\nthe impasse to which my mind had come. Did she intend, ultimately, to\nget a divorce? I dared not ask her. The word rang horribly in my ears,\nthough unpronounced; and I knew then that I lacked her courage, and the\nknowledge was part of my agony.\n\nI turned.\n\n\"Don't you think you've overdrawn things, Maude exaggerated them? No\nmarriages are perfect. You've let your mind dwell until it has become\ninflamed on matters which really don't amount to much.\"\n\n\"I was never saner, Hugh,\" she replied instantly. And indeed I was\nforced to confess that she looked it. That new Maude I had seen emerging\nof late years seemed now to have found herself; she was no longer the\nwoman I had married,--yielding, willing to overlook, anxious to please,\nliving in me.\n\n\"I don't influence you, or help you in any way. I never have.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's not true,\" I protested.\n\nBut she cut me short, going on inexorably:--\"I am merely your\nhousekeeper, and rather a poor one at that, from your point of view. You\nignore me. I am not blaming you for it--you are made that way. It's\ntrue that you have always supported me in luxury,--that might have been\nenough for another woman. It isn't enough for me--I, too, have a life to\nlive, a soul to be responsible for. It's not for my sake so much as for\nthe children's that I don't want it to be crushed.\"\n\n\"Crushed!\" I repeated.\n\n\"Yes. You are stifling it. I say again that I'm not blaming you, Hugh.\nYou are made differently from me. All you care for, really, is your\ncareer. You may think that you care, at times, for--other things, but it\nisn't so.\"\n\nI took, involuntarily, a deep breath. Would she mention Nancy? Was it in\nreality Nancy who had brought about this crisis? And did Maude suspect\nthe closeness of that relationship?\n\nSuddenly I found myself begging her not to go; the more astonishing\nsince, if at any time during the past winter this solution had presented\nitself to me as a possibility, I should eagerly have welcomed it! But\nshould I ever have had the courage to propose a separation? I even\nwished to delude myself now into believing that what she suggested was\nin reality not a separation. I preferred to think of it as a trip.... A\nvision of freedom thrilled me, and yet I was wracked and torn. I had an\nidea that she was suffering, that the ordeal was a terrible one for\nher; and at that moment there crowded into my mind, melting me, incident\nafter incident of our past.\n\n\"It seems to me that we have got along pretty well together, Maude. I\nhave been negligent--I'll admit it. But I'll try to do better in the\nfuture. And--if you'll wait a month or so, I'll go to Europe with you,\nand we'll have a good time.\"\n\nShe looked at me sadly,--pityingly, I thought.\n\n\"No, Hugh, I've thought it all out. You really don't want me. You only\nsay this because you are sorry for me, because you dislike to have your\nfeelings wrung. You needn't be sorry for me, I shall be much happier\naway from you.\"\n\n\"Think it over, Maude,\" I pleaded. \"I shall miss you and the children. I\nhaven't paid much attention to them, either, but I am fond of them, and\ndepend upon them, too.\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"It's no use, Hugh. I tell you I've thought it all out. You don't care\nfor the children, you were never meant to have any.\"\n\n\"Aren't you rather severe in your judgments?\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" she answered. \"I'm willing to admit my faults, that\nI am a failure so far as you are concerned. Your ideas of life and mine\nare far apart.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" I exclaimed bitterly, \"that you are referring to my\nprofessional practices.\"\n\nA note of weariness crept into her voice. I might have known that she\nwas near the end of her strength.\n\n\"No, I don't think it's that,\" she said dispassionately. \"I prefer to\nput it down, that part of it, to a fundamental difference of ideas. I\ndo not feel qualified to sit in judgment on that part of your life,\nalthough I'll admit that many of the things you have done, in common\nwith the men with whom you are associated, have seemed to me unjust and\ninconsiderate of the rights and feelings of others. You have alienated\nsome of your best friends. If I were to arraign you at all, it would be\non the score of heartlessness. But I suppose it isn't your fault, that\nyou haven't any heart.\"\n\n\"That's unfair,\" I put in.\n\n\"I don't wish to be unfair,\" she replied. \"Only, since you ask me, I\nhave to tell you that that is the way it seems to me. I don't want\nto introduce the question of right and wrong into this, Hugh, I'm not\ncapable of unravelling it; I can't put myself into your life, and see\nthings from your point of view, weigh your problems and difficulties. In\nthe first place, you won't let me. I think I understand you, partly--but\nonly partly. You have kept yourself shut up. But why discuss it? I have\nmade up my mind.\"\n\nThe legal aspect of the matter occurred to me. What right had she to\nleave me? I might refuse to support her. Yet even as these thoughts came\nI rejected them; I knew that it was not in me to press this point. And\nshe could always take refuge with her father; without the children, of\ncourse. But the very notion sickened me. I could not bear to think of\nMaude deprived of the children. I had seated myself again at the table.\nI put my hand to my forehead.\n\n\"Don't make it hard, Hugh,\" I heard her say, gently. \"Believe me, it\nis best. I know. There won't be any talk about it,--right away, at any\nrate. People will think it natural that I should wish to go abroad for\nthe summer. And later--well, the point of view about such affairs has\nchanged. They are better understood.\"\n\nShe had risen. She was pale, still outwardly composed,--but I had a\nstrange, hideous feeling that she was weeping inwardly.\n\n\"Aren't you coming back--ever?\" I cried.\n\nShe did not answer at once.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said, \"I don't know,\" and left the room abruptly....\n\nI wanted to follow her, but something withheld me. I got up and walked\naround the room in a state of mind that was near to agony, taking one\nof the neglected books out of the shelves, glancing at its meaningless\nprint, and replacing it; I stirred the fire, opened the curtains and\ngazed out into the street and closed them again. I looked around me,\na sudden intensity of hatred seized me for this big, silent, luxurious\nhouse; I recalled Maude's presentiment about it. Then, thinking I might\nstill dissuade her, I went slowly up the padded stairway--to find her\ndoor locked; and a sense of the finality of her decision came over me. I\nknew then that I could not alter it even were I to go all the lengths of\nabjectness. Nor could I, I knew, have brought myself to have feigned a\nlove I did not feel.\n\nWhat was it I felt? I could not define it. Amazement, for one thing,\nthat Maude with her traditional, Christian view of marriage should have\ncome to such a decision. I went to my room, undressed mechanically and\ngot into bed....\n\nShe gave no sign at the breakfast table of having made the decision of\nthe greatest moment in our lives; she conversed as usual, asked about\nthe news, reproved the children for being noisy; and when the children\nhad left the table there were no tears, reminiscences, recriminations.\nIn spite of the slight antagonism and envy of which I was\nconscious,--that she was thus superbly in command of the situation,\nthat she had developed her pinions and was thus splendidly able to use\nthem,--my admiration for her had never been greater. I made an effort\nto achieve the frame of mind she suggested: since she took it so calmly,\nwhy should I be tortured by the tragedy of it? Perhaps she had ceased to\nlove me, after all! Perhaps she felt nothing but relief. At any rate,\nI was grateful to her, and I found a certain consolation, a sop to my\npride in the reflection that the initiative must have been hers to take.\nI could not have deserted her.\n\n\"When do you think of leaving?\" I asked.\n\n\"Two weeks from Saturday on the Olympic, if that is convenient for you.\"\nHer manner seemed one of friendly solicitude. \"You will remain in the\nhouse this summer, as usual, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said.\n\nIt was a sunny, warm morning, and I went downtown in the motor almost\nblithely. It was the best solution after all, and I had been a fool to\noppose it.... At the office, there was much business awaiting me;\nyet once in a while, during the day, when the tension relaxed, the\nrecollection of what had happened flowed back into my consciousness.\nMaude was going!\n\nI had telephoned Nancy, making an appointment for the afternoon.\nSometimes--not too frequently--we were in the habit of going out into\nthe country in one of her motors, a sort of landaulet, I believe, in\nwhich we were separated from the chauffeur by a glass screen. She was\nwaiting for me when I arrived, at four; and as soon as we had shot clear\nof the city, \"Maude is going away,\" I told her.\n\n\"Going away?\" she repeated, struck more by the tone of my voice than by\nwhat I had said.\n\n\"She announced last night that she was going abroad indefinitely.\"\n\nI had been more than anxious to see how Nancy would take the news. A\nflush gradually deepened in her cheeks.\n\n\"You mean that she is going to leave you?\"\n\n\"It looks that way. In fact, she as much as said so.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said Nancy.\n\n\"Well, she explained it pretty thoroughly. Apparently, it isn't a sudden\ndecision,\" I replied, trying to choose my words, to speak composedly as\nI repeated the gist of our conversation. Nancy, with her face averted,\nlistened in silence--a silence that continued some time after I had\nceased to speak.\n\n\"She didn't--she didn't mention--?\" the sentence remained unfinished.\n\n\"No,\" I said quickly, \"she didn't. She must know, of course, but I'm\nsure that didn't enter into it.\"\n\nNancy's eyes as they returned to me were wet, and in them was an\nexpression I had never seen before,--of pain, reproach, of questioning.\nIt frightened me.\n\n\"Oh, Hugh, how little you know!\" she cried.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" I demanded.\n\n\"That is what has brought her to this decision--you and I.\"\n\n\"You mean that--that Maude loves me? That she is jealous?\" I don't know\nhow I managed to say it.\n\n\"No woman likes to think that she is a failure,\" murmured Nancy.\n\n\"Well, but she isn't really,\" I insisted. \"She could have made another\nman happy--a better man. It was all one of those terrible mistakes our\nmodern life seems to emphasize so.\"\n\n\"She is a woman,\" Nancy said, with what seemed a touch of vehemence.\n\"It's useless to expect you to understand.... Do you remember what I\nsaid to you about her? How I appealed to you when you married to try to\nappreciate her?\"\n\n\"It wasn't that I didn't appreciate her,\" I interrupted, surprised that\nNancy should have recalled this, \"she isn't the woman for me, we aren't\nmade for each other. It was my mistake, my fault, I admit, but I don't\nagree with you at all, that we had anything to do with her decision. It\nis just the--the culmination of a long period of incompatibility. She\nhas come to realize that she has only one life to live, and she seems\nhappier, more composed, more herself than she has ever been since our\nmarriage. Of course I don't mean to say it isn't painful for her....\nBut I am sure she isn't well, that it isn't because of our seeing one\nanother,\" I concluded haltingly.\n\n\"She is finer than either of us, Hugh,--far finer.\"\n\nI did not relish this statement.\n\n\"She's fine, I admit. But I can't see how under the circumstances any of\nus could have acted differently.\" And Nancy not replying, I continued:\n\"She has made up her mind to go,--I suppose I could prevent it by taking\nextreme measures,--but what good would it do? Isn't it, after all,\nthe most sensible, the only way out of a situation that has become\nimpossible? Times have changed, Nancy, and you yourself have been the\nfirst to admit it. Marriage is no longer what it was, and people\nare coming to look upon it more sensibly. In order to perpetuate the\ninstitution, as it was, segregation, insulation, was the only course.\nMen segregated their wives, women their husbands,--the only logical\nmethod of procedure, but it limited the individual. Our mothers and\nfathers thought it scandalous if husband or wife paid visits alone. It\nwasn't done. But our modern life has changed all that. A marriage, to be\na marriage, should be proof against disturbing influences, should leave\nthe individuals free; the binding element should be love, not the force\nof an imposed authority. You seemed to agree to all this.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" she admitted. \"But I cannot think that happiness will\never grow out of unhappiness.\"\n\n\"But Maude will not be unhappy,\" I insisted. \"She will be happier, far\nhappier, now that she has taken the step.\"\n\n\"Oh, I wish I thought so,\" Nancy exclaimed. \"Hugh, you always believe\nwhat you want to believe. And the children. How can you bear to part\nwith them?\"\n\nI was torn, I had a miserable sense of inadequacy.\n\n\"I shall miss them,\" I said. \"I have never really appreciated them. I\nadmit I don't deserve to have them, and I am willing to give them up for\nyou, for Maude...\"\n\nWe had made one of our favourite drives among the hills on the far side\nof the Ashuela, and at six were back at Nancy's house. I did not go\nin, but walked slowly homeward up Grant Avenue. It had been a trying\nafternoon. I had not expected, indeed, that Nancy would have rejoiced,\nbut her attitude, her silences, betraying, as they did, compunctions,\nseemed to threaten our future happiness.\n\n\n\n\nXXII.\n\nOne evening two or three days later I returned from the office to gaze\nup at my house, to realize suddenly that it would be impossible for me\nto live there, in those great, empty rooms, alone; and I told Maude that\nI would go to the Club--during her absence. I preferred to keep up\nthe fiction that her trip would only be temporary. She forbore from\ncontradicting me, devoting herself efficiently to the task of closing\nthe house, making it seem, somehow, a rite,--the final rite in her\ncapacity as housewife. The drawing-room was shrouded, and the library;\nthe books wrapped neatly in paper; a smell of camphor pervaded the\nplace; the cheerful schoolroom was dismantled; trunks and travelling\nbags appeared. The solemn butler packed my clothes, and I arranged for\na room at the Club in the wing that recently had been added for the\naccommodation of bachelors and deserted husbands. One of the ironies of\nthose days was that the children began to suggest again possibilities of\nhappiness I had missed--especially Matthew. With all his gentleness, the\nboy seemed to have a precocious understanding of the verities, and the\ncapacity for suffering which as a child I had possessed. But he had more\nself-control. Though he looked forward to the prospect of new scenes and\nexperiences with the anticipation natural to his temperament, I thought\nhe betrayed at moments a certain intuition as to what was going on.\n\n\"When are you coming over, father?\" he asked once. \"How soon will your\nbusiness let you?\"\n\nHe had been brought up in the belief that my business was a tyrant.\n\n\"Oh, soon, Matthew,--sometime soon,\" I said.\n\nI had a feeling that he understood me, not intellectually, but\nemotionally. What a companion he might have been!... Moreton and Biddy\nmoved me less. They were more robust, more normal, less introspective\nand imaginative; Europe meant nothing to them, but they were frankly\ndelighted and excited at the prospect of going on the ocean, asking\ndozens of questions about the great ship, impatient to embark.....\n\n\"I shan't need all that, Hugh,\" Maude said, when I handed her a letter\nof credit. \"I--I intend to live quite simply, and my chief expenses\nwill be the children's education. I am going to give them the best, of\ncourse.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" I replied. \"But I want you to live over there as you have\nbeen accustomed to live here. It's not exactly generosity on my part,--I\nhave enough, and more than enough.\"\n\nShe took the letter.\n\n\"Another thing--I'd rather you didn't go to New York with us, Hugh. I\nknow you are busy--\"\n\n\"Of course I'm going,\" I started to protest.\n\n\"No,\" she went on, firmly. \"I'd rather you didn't. The hotel people will\nput me on the steamer very comfortably,--and there are other reasons\nwhy I do not wish it.\" I did not insist.... On the afternoon of her\ndeparture, when I came uptown, I found her pinning some roses on her\njacket.\n\n\"Perry and Lucia sent them,\" she informed me. She maintained the\nfriendly, impersonal manner to the very end; but my soul, as we drove\nto the train, was full of un-probed wounds. I had had roses put in\nher compartments in the car; Tom and Susan Peters were there with more\nroses, and little presents for the children. Their cheerfulness seemed\nforced, and I wondered whether they suspected that Maude's absence would\nbe prolonged.\n\n\"Write us often, and tell us all about it, dear,\" said Susan, as she\nsat beside Maude and held her hand; Tom had Biddy on his knee. Maude was\npale, but smiling and composed.\n\n\"I hope to get a little villa in France, near the sea,\" she said. \"I'll\nsend you a photograph of it, Susan.\"\n\n\"And Chickabiddy, when she comes back, will be rattling off French like\na native,\" exclaimed Tom, giving her a hug.\n\n\"I hate French,\" said Biddy, and she looked at him solemnly. \"I wish you\nwere coming along, Uncle Tom.\"\n\nBells resounded through the great station. The porter warned us off. I\nkissed the children one by one, scarcely realizing what I was doing. I\nkissed Maude. She received my embrace passively.\n\n\"Good-bye, Hugh,\" she said.\n\nI alighted, and stood on the platform as the train pulled out. The\nchildren crowded to the windows, but Maude did not appear.... I found\nmyself walking with Tom and Susan past hurrying travellers and porters\nto the Decatur Street entrance, where my automobile stood waiting.\n\n\"I'll take you home, Susan,\" I said.\n\n\"We're ever so much obliged, Hugh,\" she answered, \"but the street-cars\ngo almost to ferry's door. We're dining there.\"\n\nHer eyes were filled with tears, and she seemed taller, more ungainly\nthan ever--older. A sudden impression of her greatness of heart was\nborne home to me, and I grasped the value of such rugged friendship as\nhers--as Tom's.\n\n\"We shouldn't know how to behave in an automobile,\" he said, as though\nto soften her refusal. And I stood watching their receding figures as\nthey walked out into the street and hailed the huge electric car that\ncame to a stop beyond them. Above its windows was painted \"The Ashuela\nTraction Company,\" a label reminiscent of my professional activities.\nThen I heard the chauffeur ask:--\"Where do you wish to go, sir?\"\n\n\"To the Club,\" I said.\n\nMy room was ready, my personal belongings, my clothes had been laid out,\nmy photographs were on the dressing-table. I took up, mechanically, the\nevening newspaper, but I could not read it; I thought of Maude, of the\nchildren, memories flowed in upon me,--a flood not to be dammed....\nPresently the club valet knocked at my door. He had a dinner card.\n\n\"Will you be dining here, sir?\" he inquired.\n\nI went downstairs. Fred Grierson was the only man in the dining-room.\n\n\"Hello, Hugh,\" he said, \"come and sit down. I hear your wife's gone\nabroad.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I answered, \"she thought she'd try it instead of the South Shore\nthis summer.\"\n\nPerhaps I imagined that he looked at me queerly. I had made a great deal\nof money out of my association with Grierson, I had valued very highly\nbeing an important member of the group to which he belonged; but\nto-night, as I watched him eating and drinking greedily, I hated him\neven as I hated myself. And after dinner, when he started talking with a\nridicule that was a thinly disguised bitterness about the Citizens Union\nand their preparations for a campaign I left him and went to bed.\n\nBefore a week had passed my painful emotions had largely subsided, and\nwith my accustomed resiliency I had regained the feeling of self-respect\nso essential to my happiness. I was free. My only anxiety was for Nancy,\nwho had gone to New York the day after my last talk with her; and it was\nonly by telephoning to her house that I discovered when she was expected\nto return.... I found her sitting beside one of the open French windows\nof her salon, gazing across at the wooded hills beyond the Ashuela. She\nwas serious, a little pale; more exquisite, more desirable than ever;\nbut her manner implied the pressure of control, and her voice was not\nquite steady as she greeted me.\n\n\"You've been away a long time,\" I said.\n\n\"The dressmakers,\" she answered. Her colour rose a little. \"I thought\nthey'd never get through.\"\n\n\"But why didn't you drop me a line, let me know when you were coming?\"\nI asked, taking a chair beside her, and laying my hand on hers. She drew\nit gently away.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" I asked.\n\n\"I've been thinking it all over--what we're doing. It doesn't seem\nright, it seems terribly wrong.\"\n\n\"But I thought we'd gone over all that,\" I replied, as patiently as I\ncould. \"You're putting it on an old-fashioned, moral basis.\"\n\n\"But there must be same basis,\" she urged. \"There are responsibilities,\nobligations--there must be!--that we can't get away from. I can't help\nfeeling that we ought to stand by our mistakes, and by our bargains;\nwe made a choice--it's cheating, somehow, and if we take this--what we\nwant--we shall be punished for it.\"\n\n\"But I'm willing to be punished, to suffer, as I told you. If you loved\nme--\"\n\n\"Hugh!\" she exclaimed, and I was silent. \"You don't understand,\"\nshe went on, a little breathlessly, \"what I mean by punishment is\ndeterioration. Do you remember once, long ago, when you came to me\nbefore I was married, I said we'd both run after false gods, and that\nwe couldn't do without them? Well, and now this has come; it seems so\nwonderful to me, coming again like that after we had passed it by, after\nwe thought it had gone forever; it's opened up visions for me that I\nnever hoped to see again. It ought to restore us, dear--that's what I'm\ntrying to say--to redeem us, to make us capable of being what we were\nmeant to be. If it doesn't do that, if it isn't doing so, it's the most\nhorrible of travesties, of mockeries. If we gain life only to have it\nturn into death--slow death; if we go to pieces again, utterly. For now\nthere's hope. The more I think, the more clearly I see that we can't\ntake any step without responsibilities. If we take this, you'll have me,\nand I'll have you. And if we don't save each other--\"\n\n\"But we will,\" I said.\n\n\"Ah,\" she exclaimed, \"if we could start new, without any past. I married\nHam with my eyes open.\"\n\n\"You couldn't know that he would become--well, as flagrant as he is. You\ndidn't really know what he was then.\"\n\n\"There's no reason why I shouldn't have anticipated it. I can't claim\nthat I was deceived, that I thought my marriage was made in heaven. I\nentered into a contract, and Ham has kept his part of it fairly well.\nHe hasn't interfered with my freedom. That isn't putting it on a high\nplane, but there is an obligation involved. You yourself, in your law\npractice, are always insisting upon the sacredness of contract as the\nvery basis of our civilization.\"\n\nHere indeed would have been a home thrust, had I been vulnerable at\nthe time. So intent was I on overcoming her objections, that I resorted\nunwittingly to the modern argument I had more than once declared in\ncourt to be anathema-the argument of the new reform in reference to the\ncommon law and the constitution.\n\n\"A contract, no matter how seriously entered into at the time it was\nmade, that later is seen to violate the principles of humanity should be\nvoid. And not only this, but you didn't consent that he should disgrace\nyou.\"\n\nNancy winced.\n\n\"I never told you that he paid my father's debts, I never told anyone,\"\nshe said, in a low voice.\n\n\"Even then,\" I answered after a moment, \"you ought to see that it's\ntoo terrible a price to pay for your happiness. And Ham hasn't ever\npretended to consider you in any way. It's certain you didn't agree that\nhe should do--what he is doing.\"\n\n\"Suppose I admitted it,\" she said, \"there remain Maude and your\nchildren. Their happiness, their future becomes my responsibility as\nwell as yours.\"\n\n\"But I don't love Maude, and Maude doesn't love me. I grant it's my\nfault, that I did her a wrong in marrying her, but she is right in\nleaving me. I should be doing her a double wrong. And the children will\nbe happy with her, they will be well brought up. I, too, have thought\nthis out, Nancy,\" I insisted, \"and the fact is that in our respective\nmarriages we have been, each of us, victims of our time, of our\neducation. We were born in a period of transition, we inherited views\nof life that do not fit conditions to-day. It takes courage to achieve\nhappiness, initiative to emancipate one's self from a morality that\nbegins to hamper and bind. To stay as we are, to refuse to take what is\noffered us, is to remain between wind and water. I don't mean that we\nshould do anything--hastily. We can afford to take a reasonable time, to\nbe dignified about it. But I have come to the conclusion that the only\nthing that matters in the world is a love like ours, and its fulfilment.\nAchievement, success, are empty and meaningless without it. And you do\nlove me--you've admitted it.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't want to talk about it,\" she exclaimed, desperately.\n\n\"But we have to talk about it,\" I persisted. \"We have to thrash it out,\nto see it straight, as you yourself have said.\"\n\n\"You speak of convictions, Hugh,--new convictions, in place of the old\nwe have discarded. But what are they? And is there no such thing\nas conscience--even though it be only an intuition of happiness or\nunhappiness? I do care for you, I do love you--\"\n\n\"Then why not let that suffice?\" I exclaimed, leaning towards her.\n\nShe drew back.\n\n\"But I want to respect you, too,\" she said.\n\nI was shocked, too shocked to answer.\n\n\"I want to respect you,\" she repeated, more gently. \"I don't want to\nthink that--that what we feel for each other is--unconsecrated.\"\n\n\"It consecrates itself,\" I declared.\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"Surely it has its roots in everything that is fine in both of us.\"\n\n\"We both went wrong,\" said Nancy. \"We both sought to wrest power and\nhappiness from the world, to make our own laws. How can we assert\nthat--this is not merely a continuation of it?\"\n\n\"But can't we work out our beliefs together?\" I demanded. \"Won't you\ntrust me, trust our love for one another?\"\n\nHer breath came and went quickly.\n\n\"Oh, you know that I want you, Hugh, as much as you want me, and more.\nThe time may come when I can't resist you.\"\n\n\"Why do you resist me?\" I cried, seizing her hands convulsively, and\nswept by a gust of passion at her confession.\n\n\"Try to understand that I am fighting for both of us!\" she pleaded--an\nappeal that wrung me in spite of the pitch to which my feelings had been\nraised. \"Hugh, dear, we must think it out. Don't now.\"\n\nI let her hands drop....\n\nBeyond the range of hills rising from the far side of the Ashuela was\nthe wide valley in which was situated the Cloverdale Country Club, with\nits polo field, golf course and tennis courts; and in this same\nvalley some of our wealthy citizens, such as Howard Ogilvy and Leonard\nDickinson, had bought \"farms,\" week-end playthings for spring and\nautumn. Hambleton Durrett had started the fashion. Capriciously, as he\ndid everything else, he had become the owner of several hundred acres\nof pasture, woodland and orchard, acquired some seventy-five head of\nblooded stock, and proceeded to house them in model barns and milk by\nmachinery; for several months he had bored everyone in the Boyne Club\nwhom he could entice into conversation on the subject of the records of\npedigreed cows, and spent many bibulous nights on the farm in company\nwith those parasites who surrounded him when he was in town. Then\nanother interest had intervened; a feminine one, of course, and his\nenergies were transferred (so we understood) to the reconstruction and\nfurnishing of a little residence in New York, not far from Fifth Avenue.\nThe farm continued under the expert direction of a superintendent\nwho was a graduate of the State Agricultural College, and a select\nclientele, which could afford to pay the prices, consumed the milk and\ncream and butter. Quite consistent with their marital relations was\nthe fact that Nancy should have taken a fancy to the place after Ham's\ninterest had waned. Not that she cared for the Guernseys, or Jerseys,\nor whatever they may have been; she evinced a sudden passion for\nsimplicity,--occasional simplicity, at least,--for a contrast to and\nescape from a complicated life of luxury. She built another house for\nthe superintendent banished him from the little farmhouse (where Ham had\nkept two rooms); banished along with the superintendent the stiff plush\nfurniture, the yellow-red carpets, the easels and the melodeon, and\ndecked it out in bright chintzes, with wall-papers to match, dainty\nmuslin curtains, and rag-carpet rugs on the hardwood floors. The\npseudo-classic porch over the doorway, which had suggested a cemetery,\nwas removed, and a wide piazza added, furnished with wicker lounging\nchairs and tables, and shaded with gay awnings.\n\nHere, to the farm, accompanied by a maid, she had been in the habit\nof retiring from time to time, and here she came in early July. Here,\ndressed in the simplest linen gowns of pink or blue or white, I found a\nNancy magically restored to girlhood,--anew Nancy, betraying only traces\nof the old, a new Nancy in a new Eden. We had all the setting, all the\nillusion of that perfect ideal of domesticity, love in a cottage. Nancy\nand I, who all our lives had spurned simplicity, laughed over the joy\nwe found in it: she made a high art of it, of course; we had our simple\ndinners, which Mrs. Olsen cooked and served in the open air; sometimes\non the porch, sometimes under the great butternut tree spreading its\nshade over what in a more elaborate country-place, would have been\ncalled a lawn,--an uneven plot of grass of ridges and hollows that ran\ndown to the orchard. Nancy's eyes would meet mine across the little\ntable, and often our gaze would wander over the pastures below, lucent\ngreen in the level evening light, to the darkening woods beyond,\ngilt-tipped in the setting sun. There were fields of ripening yellow\ngrain, of lusty young corn that grew almost as we watched it: the\nwarm winds of evening were heavy with the acrid odours of fecundity.\nFecundity! In that lay the elusive yet insistent charm of that country;\nand Nancy's, of course, was the transforming touch that made it\nparadise. It was thus, in the country, I suggested that we should spend\nthe rest of our existence. What was the use of amassing money, when\nhappiness was to be had so simply?\n\n\"How long do you think you could stand it?\" she asked, as she handed me\na plate of blackberries.\n\n\"Forever, with the right woman,\" I announced.\n\n\"How long could the woman stand it?\".... She humoured, smilingly, my\ncrystal-gazing into our future, as though she had not the heart to\ndeprive me of the pleasure.\n\n\"I simply can't believe in it, Hugh,\" she said when I pressed her for an\nanswer.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"I suppose it's because I believe in continuity, I haven't the romantic\ntemperament,--I always see the angel with the flaming sword. It isn't\nthat I want to see him.\"\n\n\"But we shall redeem ourselves,\" I said. \"It won't be curiosity and\nidleness. We are not just taking this thing, and expecting to give\nnothing for it in return.\"\n\n\"What can we give that is worth it?\" she exclaimed, with one of her\nrevealing flashes.\n\n\"We won't take it lightly, but seriously,\" I told her. \"We shall find\nsomething to give, and that something will spring naturally out of our\nlove. We'll read together, and think and plan together.\"\n\n\"Oh, Hugh, you are incorrigible,\" was all she said.\n\nThe male tendency in me was forever strained to solve her, to deduce\nfrom her conversation and conduct a body of consistent law. The effort\nwas useless. Here was a realm, that of Nancy's soul, in which there was\napparently no such thing as relevancy. In the twilight, after dinner,\nwe often walked through the orchard to a grassy bank beside the little\nstream, where we would sit and watch the dying glow in the sky. After a\nrain its swollen waters were turbid, opaque yellow-red with the clay\nof the hills; at other times it ran smoothly, temperately, almost clear\nbetween the pasture grasses and wild flowers. Nancy declared that it\nreminded her of me. We sat there, into the lush, warm nights, and the\nmoon shone down on us, or again through long silences we searched the\nbewildering, starry chart of the heavens, with the undertones of the\nnight-chorus of the fields in our ears. Sometimes she let my head rest\nupon her knee; but when, throbbing at her touch, with the life-force\npulsing around us, I tried to take her in my arms, to bring her lips to\nmine, she resisted me with an energy of will and body that I could not\novercome, I dared not overcome. She acknowledged her love for me, she\npermitted me to come to her, she had the air of yielding but never\nyielded. Why, then, did she allow the words of love to pass? and how\ndraw the line between caresses? I was maddened and disheartened by that\nelusive resistance in her--apparently so frail a thing!--that neither\nargument nor importunity could break down. Was there something lacking\nin me? or was it that I feared to mar or destroy the love she had. This,\nsurely, had not been the fashion of other loves, called unlawful, the\nclassic instances celebrated by the poets of all ages rose to mock me.\n\n\"Incurably romantic,\" she had called me, in calmer moments, when I was\nable to discuss our affair objectively. And once she declared that I had\nno sense of tragedy. We read \"Macbeth\" together, I remember, one rainy\nSunday. The modern world, which was our generation, would seem to be\ncut off from all that preceded it as with a descending knife. It was\nprecisely from \"the sense of tragedy\" that we had been emancipated: from\nthe \"agonized conscience,\" I should undoubtedly have said, had I been\nacquainted then with Mr. Santayana's later phrase. Conscience--the old\nkind of conscience,--and nothing inherent in the deeds themselves, made\nthe tragedy; conscience was superstition, the fear of the wrath of the\ngods: conscience was the wrath of the gods. Eliminate it, and behold!\nthere were no consequences. The gods themselves, that kind of gods,\nbecame as extinct as the deities of the Druids, the Greek fates, the\nterrible figures of German mythology. Yes, and as the God of Christian\northodoxy.\n\nHad any dire calamities overtaken the modern Macbeths, of whose personal\nlives we happened to know something? Had not these great ones broken\nwith impunity all the laws of traditional morality? They ground the\nfaces of the poor, played golf and went to church with serene minds,\nuntroubled by criticism; they appropriated, quite freely, other men's\nmoney, and some of them other men's wives, and yet they were not haggard\nwith remorse. The gods remained silent. Christian ministers regarded\nthese modern transgressors of ancient laws benignly and accepted their\ncontributions. Here, indeed, were the supermen of the mad German prophet\nand philosopher come to life, refuting all classic tragedy. It is true\nthat some of these supermen were occasionally swept away by disease,\nwhich in ancient days would have been regarded as a retributive scourge,\nbut was in fact nothing but the logical working of the laws of hygiene,\nthe result of overwork. Such, though stated more crudely, were my\ncontentions when desire did not cloud my brain and make me incoherent.\nAnd I did not fail to remind Nancy, constantly, that this was the path\non which her feet had been set; that to waver now was to perish. She\nsmiled, yet she showed concern.\n\n\"But suppose you don't get what you want?\" she objected. \"What then?\nSuppose one doesn't become a superman? or a superwoman? What's to happen\nto one? Is there no god but the superman's god, which is himself? Are\nthere no gods for those who can't be supermen? or for those who may\nrefuse to be supermen?\"\n\nTo refuse, I maintained, were a weakness of the will.\n\n\"But there are other wills,\" she persisted, \"wills over which the\nsuperman may conceivably have no control. Suppose, for example, that\nyou don't get me, that my will intervenes, granting it to be conceivable\nthat your future happiness and welfare, as you insist, depend upon your\ngetting me--which I doubt.\"\n\n\"You've no reason to doubt it.\"\n\n\"Well, granting it, then. Suppose the orthodoxies and superstitions\nsucceed in inhibiting me. I may not be a superwoman, but my will, or my\nconscience, if you choose, may be stronger than yours. If you don't get\nwhat you want, you aren't happy. In other words, you fail. Where are\nyour gods then? The trouble with you, my dear Hugh, is that you have\nnever failed,\" she went on, \"you've never had a good, hard fall, you've\nalways been on the winning side, and you've never had the world against\nyou. No wonder you don't understand the meaning and value of tragedy.\"\n\n\"And you?\" I asked.\n\n\"No,\" she agreed, \"nor I. Yet I have come to feel, instinctively, that\nsomehow concealed in tragedy is the central fact of life, the true\nreality, that nothing is to be got by dodging it, as we have dodged it.\nYour superman, at least the kind of superman you portray, is petrified.\nSomething vital in him, that should be plastic and sensitive, has turned\nto stone.\"\n\n\"Since when did you begin to feel this?\" I inquired uneasily.\n\n\"Since--well, since we have been together again, in the last month or\ntwo. Something seems to warn me that if we take--what we want, we shan't\nget it. That's an Irish saying, I know, but it expresses my meaning. I\nmay be little, I may be superstitious, unlike the great women of history\nwho have dared. But it's more than mere playing safe--my instinct, I\nmean. You see, you are involved. I believe I shouldn't hesitate if\nonly myself were concerned, but you are the uncertain quantity--more\nuncertain than you have any idea; you think you know yourself, you think\nyou have analyzed yourself, but the truth is, Hugh, you don't know the\nmeaning of struggle against real resistance.\"\n\nI was about to protest.\n\n\"I know that you have conquered in the world of men and affairs,\" she\nhurried on, \"against resistance, but it isn't the kind of resistance\nI mean. It doesn't differ essentially from the struggle in the animal\nkingdom.\"\n\nI bowed. \"Thank you,\" I said.\n\nShe laughed a little.\n\n\"Oh, I have worshipped success, too. Perhaps I still do--that isn't the\npoint. An animal conquers his prey, he is in competition, in constant\ncombat with others of his own kind, and perhaps he brings to bear a\ncertain amount of intelligence in the process. Intelligence isn't the\npoint, either. I know what I'm saying is trite, it's banal, it sounds\nlike moralizing, and perhaps it is, but there is so much confusion\nto-day that I think we are in danger of losing sight of the simpler\nverities, and that we must suffer for it. Your super-animal, your\nsupreme-stag subdues the other stags, but he never conquers himself, he\nnever feels the need of it, and therefore he never comprehends what we\ncall tragedy.\"\n\n\"I gather your inference,\" I said, smiling.\n\n\"Well,\" she admitted, \"I haven't stated the case with the shade of\ndelicacy it deserves, but I wanted to make my meaning clear. We\nhave raised up a class in America, but we have lost sight,\na little--considerably, I think--of the distinguishing human\ncharacteristics. The men you were eulogizing are lords of the forest,\nmore or less, and we women, who are of their own kind, what they have\nmade us, surrender ourselves in submission and adoration to the\nlordly stag in the face of all the sacraments that have been painfully\ninaugurated by the race for the very purpose of distinguishing us from\nanimals. It is equivalent to saying that there is no moral law; or, if\nthere is, nobody can define it. We deny, inferentially, a human realm as\ndistinguished from the animal, and in the denial it seems to me we are\ncutting ourselves off from what is essential human development. We are\nreverting to the animal. I have lost and you have lost--not entirely,\nperhaps, but still to a considerable extent--the bloom of that fervour,\nof that idealism, we may call it, that both of us possessed when we were\nin our teens. We had occasional visions. We didn't know what they meant,\nor how to set about their accomplishment, but they were not, at least,\nmere selfish aspirations; they implied, unconsciously no doubt, an\nelement of service, and certainly our ideal of marriage had something\nfine in it.\"\n\n\"Isn't it for a higher ideal of marriage that we are searching?\" I\nasked.\n\n\"If that is so,\" Nancy objected, \"then all the other elements of our\nlives are sadly out of tune with it. Even the most felicitous union of\nthe sexes demands sacrifice, an adjustment of wills, and these are the\nvery things we balk at; and the trouble with our entire class in this\ncountry is that we won't acknowledge any responsibility, there's no\nsacrifice in our eminence, we have no sense of the whole.\"\n\n\"Where did you get all these ideas?\" I demanded.\n\nShe laughed.\n\n\"Well,\" she admitted, \"I've been thrashing around a little; and I've\nread some of the moderns, you know. Do you remember my telling you\nI didn't agree with them? and now this thing has come on me\nlike a judgment. I've caught their mania for liberty, for\nself-realization--whatever they call it--but their remedies are vague,\nthey fail to convince me that individuals achieve any quality by just\ntaking what they want, regardless of others.\"....\n\nI was unable to meet this argument, and the result was that when I was\naway from her I too began to \"thrash around\" among the books in a vain\nsearch for a radical with a convincing and satisfying philosophy.\nThus we fly to literature in crises of the heart! There was no lack\nof writers who sought to deal--and deal triumphantly with the very\nsituation in which I was immersed. I marked many passages, to read them\nover to Nancy, who was interested, but who accused me of being willing\nto embrace any philosophy, ancient or modern, that ran with the stream\nof my desires. It is worth recording that the truth of this struck home.\nOn my way back to the city I reflected that, in spite of my protests\nagainst Maude's going--protests wholly sentimental and impelled by the\ndesire to avoid giving pain on the spot--I had approved of her departure\nbecause I didn't want her. On the other hand I had to acknowledge if I\nhadn't wanted Nancy, or rather, if I had become tired of her, I should\nhave been willing to endorse her scruples.... It was not a comforting\nthought.\n\nOne morning when I was absently opening the mail I found at my office I\npicked up a letter from Theodore Watling, written from a seaside resort\nin Maine, the contents of which surprised and touched me, troubled me,\nand compelled me to face a situation with which I was wholly unprepared\nto cope. He announced that this was to be his last term in the Senate.\nHe did not name the trouble his physician had discovered, but he had\nbeen warned that he must retire from active life. \"The specialist whom\nI saw in New York,\" he went on, \"wished me to resign at once, but when I\npointed out to him how unfair this would be to my friends in the state,\nto my party as a whole--especially in these serious and unsettled\ntimes--he agreed that I might with proper care serve out the remainder\nof my term. I have felt it my duty to write to Barbour and Dickinson and\none or two others in order that they might be prepared and that no time\nmay be lost in choosing my successor. It is true that the revolt within\nthe party has never gained much headway in our state, but in these days\nit is difficult to tell when and where a conflagration may break out,\nor how far it will go. I have ventured to recommend to them the man who\nseems to me the best equipped to carry on the work I have been trying to\ndo here--in short, my dear Hugh, yourself. The Senate, as you know, is\nnot a bed of roses just now for those who think as we do; but I have the\nless hesitancy in making the recommendation because I believe you are\nnot one to shun a fight for the convictions we hold in common, and\nbecause you would regard, with me, the election of a senator with the\nnew views as a very real calamity. If sound business men and lawyers\nshould be eliminated from the Senate, I could not contemplate with any\npeace of mind what might happen to the country. In thus urging you, I\nknow you will believe me when I say that my affection and judgment are\nequally involved, for it would be a matter of greater pride than I can\nexpress to have you follow me here as you have followed me at home. And\nI beg of you seriously to consider it.... I understand that Maude and\nthe children are abroad. Remember me to them affectionately when you\nwrite. If you can find it convenient to come here, to Maine, to discuss\nthe matter, you may be sure of a welcome. In any case, I expect to be\nin Washington in September for a meeting of our special committee.\nSincerely and affectionately yours, Theodore Watling.\"\n\nIt was characteristic of him that the tone of the letter should be\nuniformly cheerful, that he should say nothing whatever of the blow\nthis must be to his ambitions and hopes; and my agitation at the new and\ndisturbing prospect thus opened up for me was momentarily swept away by\nfeelings of affection and sorrow. A sharp realization came to me of how\nmuch I admired and loved this man, and this was followed by a pang\nat the thought of the disappointment my refusal would give him.\nComplications I did not wish to examine were then in the back of my\nmind; and while I still sat holding the letter in my hand the telephone\nrang, and a message came from Leonard Dickinson begging me to call at\nthe bank at once.\n\nMiller Gorse was there, and Tallant, waving a palm-leaf while sitting\nunder the electric fan. They were all very grave, and they began to talk\nabout the suddenness of Mr. Watling's illness and to speculate upon its\nnature. Leonard Dickinson was the most moved of the three; but they were\nall distressed, and showed it--even Tallant, whom I had never credited\nwith any feelings; they spoke about the loss to the state. At length\nGorse took a cigar from his pocket and lighted it; the smoke, impelled\nby the fan, drifted over the panelled partition into the bank.\n\n\"I suppose Mr. Watling mentioned to you what he wrote to us,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" I admitted.\n\n\"Well,\" he asked, \"what do you think of it?\"\n\n\"I attribute it to Mr. Watling's friendship,\" I replied.\n\n\"No,\" said Gorse, in his businesslike manner, \"Watling's right, there's\nno one else.\" Considering the number of inhabitants of our state, this\nremark had its humorous aspect.\n\n\"That's true,\" Dickinson put in, \"there's no one else available who\nunderstands the situation as you do, Hugh, no one else we can trust as\nwe trust you. I had a wire from Mr. Barbour this morning--he agrees.\nWe'll miss you here, but now that Watling will be gone we'll need you\nthere. And he's right--it's something we've got to decide on right away,\nand get started on soon, we can't afford to wobble and run any chances\nof a revolt.\"\n\n\"It isn't everybody the senatorship comes to on a platter--especially at\nyour age,\" said Tallant.\n\n\"To tell you the truth,\" I answered, addressing Dickinson, \"I'm not\nprepared to talk about it now. I appreciate the honour, but I'm not at\nall sure I'm the right man. And I've been considerably upset by this\nnews of Mr. Watling.\"\n\n\"Naturally you would be,\" said the banker, sympathetically, \"and we\nshare your feelings. I don't know of any man for whom I have a greater\naffection than I have for Theodore Wading. We shouldn't have mentioned\nit now, Hugh, if Watling hadn't started the thing himself, if it weren't\nimportant to know where we stand right away. We can't afford to lose the\nseat. Take your time, but remember you're the man we depend upon.\"\n\nGorse nodded. I was aware, all the time Dickinson was speaking, of\nbeing surrounded by the strange, disquieting gaze of the counsel for the\nRailroad....\n\nI went back to my office to spend an uneasy morning. My sorrow for\nMr. Watling was genuine, but nevertheless I found myself compelled to\nconsider an honour no man lightly refuses. Had it presented itself at\nany other time, had it been due to a happier situation than that brought\nabout by the illness of a man whom I loved and admired, I should have\nthought the prospect dazzling indeed, part and parcel of my amazing\nluck. But now--now I was in an emotional state that distorted the\nfactors of life, all those things I hitherto had valued; even such a\nprize as this I weighed in terms of one supreme desire: how would the\nacceptance of the senatorship affect the accomplishment of this desire?\nThat was the question. I began making rapid calculations: the actual\nelection would take place in the legislature a year from the following\nJanuary; provided I were able to overcome Nancy's resistance--which I\nwas determined to do--nothing in the way of divorce proceedings could be\nthought of for more than a year; and I feared delay. On the other hand,\nif we waited until after I had been duly elected to get my divorce and\nmarry Nancy my chances of reelection would be small. What did I care for\nthe senatorship anyway--if I had her? and I wanted her now, as soon as I\ncould get her. She--a life with her represented new values, new values\nI did not define, that made all I had striven for in the past of little\nworth. This was a bauble compared with the companionship of the woman\nI loved, the woman intended for me, who would give me peace of mind and\nsoul and develop those truer aspirations that had long been thwarted and\nstarved for lack of her. Gradually, as she regained the ascendency over\nmy mind she ordinarily held--and from which she had been temporarily\ndisplaced by the arrival of Mr. Watling's letter and the talk in the\nbank--I became impatient and irritated by the intrusion. But what answer\nshould I give to Dickinson and Gorse? what excuse for declining such an\noffer? I decided, as may be imagined, to wait, to temporize.\n\nThe irony of circumstances--of what might have been--prevented now my\nlaying this trophy at Nancy's feet, for I knew I had only to mention the\nmatter to be certain of losing her.\n\n\n\n\nXXIII.\n\nI had bought a small automobile, which I ran myself, and it was my\ncustom to arrive at the farm every evening about five o'clock. But as I\nlook back upon those days they seem to have lost succession, to be fused\ntogether, as it were, into one indeterminable period by the intense\npressure of emotion; unsatisfied emotion,--and the state of physical and\nmental disorganization set up by it is in the retrospect not a little\nterrifying. The world grew more and more distorted, its affairs were\nneglected, things upon which I had set high values became as nothing.\nAnd even if I could summon back something of the sequence of our\nintercourse, it would be a mere repetition--growing on my part more\nirrational and insistent--of what I have already related. There were\nlong, troubled, and futile silences when we sat together on the porch\nor in the woods and fields; when I wondered whether it were weakness\nor strength that caused Nancy to hold out against my importunities:\nthe fears she professed of retribution, the benumbing effects of the\nconventional years, or the deep-rooted remnants of a Calvinism which--as\nshe proclaimed--had lost definite expression to persist as an intuition.\nI recall something she said when she turned to me after one of these\nsilences.\n\n\"Do you know how I feel sometimes? as though you and I had wandered\ntogether into a strange country, and lost our way. We have lost our way,\nHugh--it's all so clandestine, so feverish, so unnatural, so unrelated\nto life, this existence we're leading. I believe it would be better if\nit were a mere case of physical passion. I can't help it,\" she went on,\nwhen I had exclaimed against this, \"we are too--too complicated, you are\ntoo complicated. It's because we want the morning stars, don't you see?\"\nShe wound her fingers tightly around mine. \"We not only want this, but\nall of life besides--you wouldn't be satisfied with anything less. Oh,\nI know it. That's your temperament, you were made that way, and I\nshouldn't be satisfied if you weren't. The time would come when you\nwould blame me I don't mean vulgarly--and I couldn't stand that. If you\nweren't that way, if that weren't your nature, I mean, I should have\ngiven way long ago.\"\n\nI made some sort of desperate protest.\n\n\"No, if I didn't know you so well I believe I should have given in long\nago. I'm not thinking of you alone, but of myself, too. I'm afraid I\nshouldn't be happy, that I should begin to think--and then I couldn't\nstop. The plain truth, as I've told you over and over again, is that I'm\nnot big enough.\" She continued smiling at me, a smile on which I could\nnot bear to look. \"I was wrong not to have gone away,\" I heard her say.\n\"I will go away.\"\n\nI was, at the time, too profoundly discouraged to answer....\n\nOne evening after an exhausting talk we sat, inert, on the grass hummock\nbeside the stream. Heavy clouds had gathered in the sky, the light had\ndeepened to amethyst, the valley was still, swooning with expectancy,\nlouder and louder the thunder rolled from behind the distant hills, and\npresently a veil descended to hide them from our view. Great drops began\nto fall, unheeded.\n\n\"We must go in,\" said Nancy, at length.\n\nI followed her across the field and through the orchard. From the porch\nwe stood gazing out at the whitening rain that blotted all save the\nnearer landscape, and the smell of wet, midsummer grasses will always be\nassociated with the poignancy of that moment.... At dinner, between the\nintervals of silence, our talk was of trivial things. We made a mere\npretence of eating, and I remember having my attention arrested by the\nsight of a strange, pitying expression on the face of Mrs. Olsen, who\nwaited on us. Before that the woman had been to me a mere ministering\nautomaton. But she must have had ideas and opinions, this transported\nSwedish peasant.... Presently, having cleared the table, she retired....\nThe twilight deepened to dusk, to darkness. The storm, having spent the\nintensity of its passion in those first moments of heavy downpour and\nwind, had relaxed to a gentle rain that pattered on the roof, and from\nthe stream came recurringly the dirge of the frogs. All I could see\nof Nancy was the dim outline of her head and shoulders: she seemed\nfantastically to be escaping me, to be fading, to be going; in sudden\ndesperation I dropped on my knees beside her, and I felt her hands\nstraying with a light yet agonized touch, over my head.\n\n\"Do you think I haven't suffered, too? that I don't suffer?\" I heard her\nask.\n\nSome betraying note for which I had hitherto waited in vain must have\npierced to my consciousness, yet the quiver of joy and the swift,\nconvulsive movement that followed it seemed one. Her strong, lithe body\nwas straining in my arms, her lips returning my kisses.... Clinging to\nher hands, I strove to summon my faculties of realization; and I began\nto speak in broken, endearing sentences.\n\n\"It's stronger than we are--stronger than anything else in the world,\"\nshe said.\n\n\"But you're not sorry?\" I asked.\n\n\"I don't want to think--I don't care,\" she replied. \"I only know that I\nlove you. I wonder if you will ever know how much!\"\n\nThe moments lengthened into hours, and she gently reminded me that it\nwas late. The lights in the little farmhouses near by had long been\nextinguished. I pleaded to linger; I wanted her, more of her, all of her\nwith a fierce desire that drowned rational thought, and I feared that\nsomething might still come between us, and cheat me of her.\n\n\"No, no,\" she cried, with fear in her voice. \"We shall have to think\nit out very carefully--what we must do. We can't afford to make any\nmistakes.\"\n\n\"We'll talk it all over to-morrow,\" I said.\n\nWith a last, reluctant embrace I finally left her, walked blindly to\nwhere the motor car was standing, and started the engine. I looked back.\nOutlined in the light of the doorway I saw her figure in what seemed an\nattitude of supplication....\n\nI drove cityward through the rain, mechanically taking the familiar\nturns in the road, barely missing a man in a buggy at a four-corners.\nHe shouted after me, but the world to which he belonged didn't exist. I\nlived again those moments that had followed Nancy's surrender, seeking\nto recall and fix in my mind every word that had escaped from her\nlips--the trivial things that to lovers are so fraught with meaning.\nI lived it all over again, as I say, but the reflection of it, though\nintensely emotional, differed from the reality in that now I was\nsomewhat able to regard the thing, to regard myself, objectively; to\ndefine certain feelings that had flitted in filmy fashion through my\nconsciousness, delicate shadows I recognized at the time as related to\nsadness. When she had so amazingly yielded, the thought for which my\nmind had been vaguely groping was that the woman who lay there in my\narms, obscured by the darkness, was not Nancy at all! It was as if this\none precious woman I had so desperately pursued had, in the capture,\nlost her identity, had mysteriously become just woman, in all her\nsignificance, yes, and helplessness. The particular had merged\n(inevitably, I might have known) into the general: the temporary had\nbecome the lasting, with a chain of consequences vaguely implied that\neven in my joy gave me pause. For the first time in my life I had a\nglimpse of what marriage might mean,--marriage in a greater sense than\nI had ever conceived it, a sort of cosmic sense, implying obligations\ntranscending promises and contracts, calling for greatness of soul of a\nkind I had not hitherto imagined. Was there in me a grain of doubt of my\nability to respond to such a high call? I began to perceive that such a\nunion as we contemplated involved more obligations than one not opposed\nto traditional views of morality. I fortified myself, however,--if\nindeed I really needed fortification in a mood prevailingly triumphant\nand exalted,--with the thought that this love was different, the real\nthing, the love of maturity steeped in the ideals of youth. Here was a\nlove for which I must be prepared to renounce other things on which I\nset a high value; prepared, in case the world, for some reason, should\nnot look upon us with kindliness. It was curious that such reflections\nas these should have been delayed until after the achievement of my\nabsorbing desire, more curious that they should have followed so closely\non the heels of it. The affair had shifted suddenly from a basis\nof adventure, of uncertainty; to one of fact, of commitment; I am\nexaggerating my concern in order to define it; I was able to persuade\nmyself without much difficulty that these little, cloudy currents in\nthe stream of my joy were due to a natural reaction from the tremendous\nstrain of the past weeks, mere morbid fancies.\n\nWhen at length I reached my room at the Club I sat looking out at the\nrain falling on the shining pavements under the arc-lights. Though waves\nof heat caused by some sudden recollection or impatient longing\nstill ran through my body, a saner joy of anticipation was succeeding\nemotional tumult, and I reflected that Nancy had been right in insisting\nthat we walk circumspectly in spite of passion. After all, I had\noutwitted circumstance, I had gained the prize, I could afford to wait a\nlittle. We should talk it over to-morrow,--no, to-day. The luminous face\nof the city hall clock reminded me that midnight was long past....\n\nI awoke with the consciousness of a new joy, suddenly to identify it\nwith Nancy. She was mine! I kept repeating it as I dressed; summoning\nher, not as she had lain in my arms in the darkness--though the\nintoxicating sweetness of that pervaded me--but as she had been\nbefore the completeness of her surrender, dainty, surrounded by things\nexpressing an elusive, uniquely feminine personality. I could afford\nto smile at the weather, at the obsidian sky, at the rain still\nfalling persistently; and yet, as I ate my breakfast, I felt a certain\nimpatience to verify what I knew was a certainty, and hurried to\nthe telephone booth. I resented the instrument, its possibilities\nof betrayal, her voice sounded so matter-of-fact as she bade me good\nmorning and deplored the rain.\n\n\"I'll be out as soon as I can get away,\" I said. \"I have a meeting at\nthree, but it should be over at four.\" And then I added irresistibly:\n\"Nancy, you're not sorry? You--you still--?\"\n\n\"Yes, don't be foolish,\" I heard her reply, and this time the telephone\ndid not completely disguise the note for which I strained. I said\nsomething more, but the circuit was closed....\n\nI shall not attempt to recount the details of our intercourse during\nthe week that followed. There were moments of stress and strain when it\nseemed to me that we could not wait, moments that strengthened Nancy's\nresolution to leave immediately for the East: there were other, calmer\nperiods when the wisdom of her going appealed to me, since our\nultimate union would be hastened thereby. We overcame by degrees the\ndistastefulness of the discussion of ways and means.... We spent an\nunforgettable Sunday among the distant high hills, beside a little lake\nof our own discovery, its glinting waters sapphire and chrysoprase.\nA grassy wood road, at the inviting entrance to which we left the\nautomobile, led down through an undergrowth of laurel to a pebbly\nshore, and there we lunched; there we lingered through the long summer\nafternoon, Nancy with her back against a tree, I with my head in her\nlap gazing up at filmy clouds drifting imperceptibly across the sky,\nlistening to the droning notes of the bees, notes that sometimes rose\nin a sharp crescendo, and again were suddenly hushed. The smell of the\nwood-mould mingled with the fainter scents of wild flowers. She had\nbrought along a volume by a modern poet: the verses, as Nancy read\nthem, moved me,--they were filled with a new faith to which my being\nresponded, the faith of the forth-farer; not the faith of the anchor,\nbut of the sail. I repeated some of the lines as indications of a creed\nto which I had long been trying to convert her, though lacking the\nexpression. She had let the book fall on the grass. I remember how she\nsmiled down at me with the wisdom of the ages in her eyes, seeking my\nhand with a gesture that was almost maternal.\n\n\"You and the poets,\" she said, \"you never grow up. I suppose that's the\nreason why we love you--and these wonderful visions of freedom you have.\nAnyway, it's nice to dream, to recreate the world as one would like to\nhave it.\"\n\n\"But that's what you and I are doing,\" I insisted.\n\n\"We think we're doing it--or rather you think so,\" she replied. \"And\nsometimes, I admit that you almost persuade me to think so. Never quite.\nWhat disturbs me,\" she continued, \"is to find you and the poets founding\nyour new freedom on new justifications, discarding the old law only\nto make a new one,--as though we could ever get away from necessities,\nescape from disagreeable things, except in dreams. And then, this\ndelusion of believing that we are masters of our own destiny--\" She\npaused and pressed my fingers.\n\n\"There you go-back to predestination!\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"I don't go back to anything, or forward to anything,\" she exclaimed.\n\"Women are elemental, but I don't expect you to understand it. Laws and\ncodes are foreign to us, philosophies and dreams may dazzle us for the\nmoment, but what we feel underneath and what we yield to are the primal\nforces, the great necessities; when we refuse joys it's because we know\nthese forces by a sort of instinct, when we're overcome it's with a full\nknowledge that there's a price. You've talked a great deal, Hugh, about\ncarving out our future. I listened to you, but I resisted you. It wasn't\nthe morality that was taught me as a child that made me resist, it was\nsomething deeper than that, more fundamental, something I feel but\ncan't yet perceive, and yet shall perceive some day. It isn't that I'm\nclinging to the hard and fast rules because I fail to see any others, it\nisn't that I believe that all people should stick together whether\nthey are happily married or not, but--I must say it even now--I have a\nfeeling I can't define that divorce isn't for us. I'm not talking about\nright and wrong in the ordinary sense--it's just what I feel. I've\nceased to think.\"\n\n\"Nancy!\" I reproached her.\n\n\"I can't help it--I don't want to be morbid. Do you remember my asking\nyou about God?--the first day this began? and whether you had a god?\nWell, that's the trouble with us all to-day, we haven't any God, we're\nwanderers, drifters. And now it's just life that's got hold of us, my\ndear, and swept us away together. That's our justification--if we needed\none--it's been too strong for us.\" She leaned back against the tree and\nclosed her eyes. \"We're like chips in the torrent of it, Hugh.\"....\n\nIt was not until the shadow of the forest had crept far across the lake\nand the darkening waters were still that we rose reluctantly to put the\ndishes in the tea basket and start on our homeward journey. The tawny\nfires of the sunset were dying down behind us, the mist stealing,\nghostlike, into the valleys below; in the sky a little moon curled like\na freshly cut silver shaving, that presently turned to gold, the white\nstar above it to fire.\n\nWhere the valleys widened we came to silent, decorous little towns and\nvillages where yellow-lit windows gleaming through the trees suggested\nrefuge and peace, while we were wanderers in the night. It was Nancy's\nmood; and now, in the evening's chill, it recurred to me poignantly.\nIn one of these villages we passed a church, its doors flung open; the\ncongregation was singing a familiar hymn. I slowed down the car; I felt\nher shoulder pressing against my own, and reached out my hand and found\nhers.\n\n\"Are you warm enough?\" I asked....\n\nWe spoke but little on that drive, we had learned the futility of words\nto express the greater joys and sorrows, the love that is compounded of\nthese.\n\nIt was late when we turned in between the white dates and made our way\nup the little driveway to the farmhouse. I bade her good night on the\nsteps of the porch.\n\n\"You do love me, don't you?\" she whispered, clinging to me with a\nsudden, straining passion. \"You will love me, always no matter what\nhappens?\"\n\n\"Why, of course, Nancy,\" I answered.\n\n\"I want to hear you say it, 'I love you, I shall love you always.'\"\n\nI repeated it fervently....\n\n\"No matter what happens?\"\n\n\"No matter what happens. As if I could help it, Nancy! Why are you so\nsad to-night?\"\n\n\"Ah, Hugh, it makes me sad--I can't tell why. It is so great, it is so\nterrible, and yet it's so sweet and beautiful.\"\n\nShe took my face in her hands and pressed a kiss against my forehead....\n\nThe next day was dark. At two o'clock in the afternoon the electric\nlight was still burning over my desk when the telephone rang and I heard\nNancy's voice.\n\n\"Is that you, Hugh?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I have to go East this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Why?\" I asked. Her agitation had communicated itself to me. \"I thought\nyou weren't going until Thursday. What's the matter?\"\n\n\"I've just had a telegram,\" she said. \"Ham's been hurt--I don't know how\nbadly--he was thrown from a polo pony this morning at Narragansett, in\npractice, and they're taking him to Boston to a private hospital. The\ntelegram's from Johnny Shephard. I'll be at the house in town at four.\"\n\nFilled with forebodings I tried in vain to suppress I dropped the work\nI was doing and got up and paced the room, pausing now and again to gaze\nout of the window at the wet roofs and the grey skies. I was aghast at\nthe idea of her going to Ham now even though he were hurt badly hurt;\nand yet I tried to think it was natural, that it was fine of her to\nrespond to such a call. And she couldn't very well refuse his summons.\nBut it was not the news of her husband's accident that inspired the\ngreater fear, which was quelled and soothed only to rise again when\nI recalled the note I had heard in her voice, a note eloquent of\ntragedy--of tragedy she had foreseen. At length, unable to remain where\nI was any longer, I descended to the street and walked uptown in the\nrain. The Durrett house was closed, the blinds of its many windows\ndrawn, but Nancy was watching for me and opened the door. So used had\nI grown to seeing her in the simple linen dresses she had worn in the\ncountry, a costume associated with exclusive possession, that the sight\nof her travelling suit and hat renewed in me an agony of apprehension.\nThe unforeseen event seemed to have transformed her once more. Her veil\nwas drawn up, her face was pale, in her eyes were traces of tears.\n\n\"You're going?\" I asked, as I took her hands.\n\n\"Hugh, I have to go.\"\n\nShe led me through the dark, shrouded drawing room into the little salon\nwhere the windows were open on the silent city-garden. I took her in my\narms; she did not resist, as I half expected, but clung to me with what\nseemed desperation.\n\n\"I have to go, dear--you won't make it too hard for me! It's\nonly--ordinary decency, and there's no one else to go to him.\"\n\nShe drew me to the sofa, her eyes beseeching me.\n\n\"Listen, dear, I want you to see it as I see it. I know that you will,\nthat you do. I should never be able to forgive myself if I stayed away\nnow, I--neither of us could ever be happy about it. You do see, don't\nyou?\" she implored.\n\n\"Yes,\" I admitted agitatedly.\n\nHer grasp on my hand tightened.\n\n\"I knew you would. But it makes me happier to hear you say it.\"\n\nWe sat for a moment in helpless silence, gazing at one another. Slowly\nher eyes had filled.\n\n\"Have you heard anything more?\" I managed to ask.\n\nShe drew a telegram from her bag, as though the movement were a relief.\n\n\"This is from the doctor in Boston--his name is Magruder. They have got\nHam there, it seems. A horse kicked him in the head, after he fell,--he\nhad just recovered consciousness.\"\n\nI took the telegram. The wordy seemed meaningless, all save those of\nthe last sentence. \"The situation is serious, but by no means hopeless.\"\nNancy had not spoken of that. The ignorant cruelty of its convention!\nThe man must have known what Hambleton Durrett was! Nancy read my\nthoughts, and took the paper from my hand.\n\n\"Hugh, dear, if it's hard for you, try to understand that it's terrible\nfor me to think that he has any claim at all. I realize now, as I never\ndid before, how wicked it was in me to marry him. I hate him, I can't\nbear the thought of going near him.\"\n\nShe fell into wild weeping. I tried to comfort her, who could\nnot comfort myself; I don't remember my inadequate words. We were\noverwhelmed, obliterated by the sense of calamity.... It was she who\nchecked herself at last by an effort that was almost hysterical.\n\n\"I mustn't yield to it!\" she said. \"It's time to leave and the train\ngoes at six. No, you mustn't come to the station, Hugh--I don't think\nI could stand it. I'll send you a telegram.\" She rose. \"You must go\nnow--you must.\"\n\n\"You'll come back to me?\" I demanded thickly, as I held her.\n\n\"Hugh, I am yours, now and always. How can you doubt it?\"\n\nAt last I released her, when she had begged me again. And I found\nmyself a little later walking past the familiar, empty houses of those\nstreets....\n\nThe front pages of the evening newspapers announced the accident to\nHambleton Durrett, and added that Mrs. Durrett, who had been lingering\nin the city, had gone to her husband's bedside. The morning papers\ncontained more of biography and ancestry, but had little to add to the\nbulletin; and there was no lack of speculation at the Club and elsewhere\nas to Ham's ability to rally from such a shock. I could not bear to\nlisten to these comments: they were violently distasteful to me. The\nunforeseen accident and Nancy's sudden departure had thrown my life\ncompletely out of gear: I could not attend to business, I dared not\ngo away lest the news from Nancy be delayed. I spent the hours in an\nexhausting mental state that alternated between hope and fear, a\nstate of unmitigated, intense desire, of balked realization, sometimes\nheightening into that sheer terror I had felt when I had detected over\nthe telephone that note in her voice that seemed of despair. Had she had\na presentiment, all along, that something would occur to separate us?\nAs I went back over the hours we had passed together since she had\nacknowledged her love, in spite of myself the conviction grew on me that\nshe had never believed in the reality of our future. Indeed, she had\nexpressed her disbelief in words. Had she been looking all along for a\nsign--a sign of wrath? And would she accept this accident of Ham's as\nsuch?\n\nRetrospection left me trembling and almost sick.\n\nIt was not until the second morning after her departure that I received\na telegram giving the name of her Boston hotel, and saying that there\nwas to be a consultation that day, and as soon as it had taken place she\nwould write. Such consolation as I could gather from it was derived from\nfour words at the end,--she missed me dreadfully. Some tremor of pity\nfor her entered into my consciousness, without mitigating greatly the\nwildness of my resentment, of my forebodings.\n\nI could bear no longer the city, the Club, the office, the daily contact\nwith my associates and clients. Six hours distant, near Rossiter, was a\nsmall resort in the mountains of which I had heard. I telegraphed Nancy\nto address me there, notified the office, packed my bag, and waited\nimpatiently for midday, when I boarded the train. At seven I reached a\nlittle station where a stage was waiting to take me to Callender's Mill.\n\nIt was not until morning that I beheld my retreat, when little wisps of\nvapour were straying over the surface of the lake, and the steep green\nslopes that rose out of the water on the western side were still in\nshadow. The hotel, a much overgrown and altered farm-house, stood,\nsurrounded by great trees, in an ancient clearing that sloped gently\nto the water's edge, where an old-fashioned, octagonal summerhouse\noverlooked a landing for rowboats. The resort, indeed, was a survival of\nsimpler times....\n\nIn spite of the thirty-odd guests, people of very moderate incomes who\nknew the place and had come here year after year, I was as much alone as\nif I had been the only sojourner. The place was so remote, so peaceful\nin contrast to the city I had left, which had become intolerable. And at\nnight, during hours of wakefulness, the music of the waters falling over\nthe dam was soothing. I used to walk down there and sit on the stones of\nthe ruined mill; or climb to the crests on the far side of the pond to\ngaze for hours westward where the green billows of the Alleghenies lost\nthemselves in the haze. I had discovered a new country; here, when our\ntrials should be over, I would bring Nancy, and I found distraction\nin choosing sites for a bungalow. In my soul hope flowered with little\nwatering. Uncertain news was good news. After two days of an impatience\nall but intolerable, her first letter arrived, I learned that the\nspecialists had not been able to make a diagnosis, and I began to take\nheart again. At times, she said, Ham was delirious and difficult to\nmanage; at other times he sank into a condition of coma; and again he\nseemed to know her and Ralph, who had come up from Southampton, where he\nhad been spending the summer. One doctor thought that Ham's remarkable\nvitality would pull him through, in spite of what his life had been.\nThe shock--as might have been surmised--had affected the brain.... The\nletters that followed contained no additional news; she did not dwell\non the depressing reactions inevitable from the situation in which she\nfound herself--one so much worse than mine; she expressed a continual\nlonging for me; and yet I had trouble to convince myself that they\ndid not lack the note of reassurance for which I strained as I eagerly\nscanned them--of reassurance that she had no intention of permitting her\nhusband's condition to interfere with that ultimate happiness on which\nit seemed my existence depended. I tried to account for the absence\nof this note by reflecting that the letters were of necessity brief,\nhurriedly scratched off at odd moments; and a natural delicacy would\nprevent her from referring to our future at such a time. They recorded\nno change in Ham's condition save that the periods of coma had ceased.\nThe doctors were silent, awaiting the arrival in this country of a\ncertain New York specialist who was abroad. She spent most of her days\nat the hospital, returning to the hotel at night exhausted: the people\nshe knew in the various resorts around Boston had been most kind,\nsending her flowers, and calling when in town to inquire. At length came\nthe news that the New York doctor was home again; and coming to Boston.\nIn that letter was a sentence which rang like a cry in my ears: \"Oh,\nHugh, I think these doctors know now what the trouble is, I think I\nknow. They are only waiting for Dr. Jameson to confirm it.\"\n\nIt was always an effort for me to control my impatience after the first\nrattling was heard in the morning of the stage that brought the mail,\nand I avoided the waiting group in front of the honeycombed partition of\nboxes beside the \"office.\" On the particular morning of which I am now\nwriting the proprietor himself handed me a letter of ominous thickness\nwhich I took with me down to the borders of the lake before tearing open\nthe flap. In spite of the calmness and restraint of the first lines,\nbecause of them, I felt creeping over me an unnerving sensation I knew\nfor dread....\n\n\"Hugh, the New York doctor has been here. It is as I have feared for\nsome weeks, but I couldn't tell you until I was sure. Ham is not exactly\ninsane, but he is childish. Sometimes I think that is even worse. I have\nhad a talk with Dr. Jameson, who has simply confirmed the opinion which\nthe other physicians have gradually been forming. The accident has\nprecipitated a kind of mental degeneration, but his health, otherwise,\nwill not be greatly affected.\n\n\"Jameson was kind, but very frank, for which I was grateful. He did not\nhesitate to say that it would have been better if the accident had been\nfatal. Ham won't be helpless, physically. Of course he won't be able to\nplay polo, or take much active exercise. If he were to be helpless, I\ncould feel that I might be of some use, at least of more use. He knows\nhis friends. Some of them have been here to see him, and he talks quite\nrationally with them, with Ralph, with me, only once in a while he says\nsomething silly. It seems odd to write that he is not responsible, since\nhe never has been,--his condition is so queer that I am at a loss to\ndescribe it. The other morning, before I arrived from the hotel and when\nthe nurse was downstairs, he left the hospital, and we found him several\nblocks along Commonwealth Avenue, seated on a bench, without a hat--he\nwas annoyed that he had forgotten it, and quite sensible otherwise. We\nbegan by taking him out every morning in an automobile. To-day he had a\nwalk with Ralph, and insisted on going into a club here, to which they\nboth belong. Two or three men were there whom they knew, and he talked\nto them about his fall from the pony and told them just how it happened.\n\n\"At such times only a close observer can tell from his manner that\neverything is not right.\n\n\"Ralph, who always could manage him, prevented his taking anything to\ndrink. He depends upon Ralph, and it will be harder for me when he is\nnot with us. His attitude towards me is just about what it has always\nbeen. I try to amuse him by reading the newspapers and with games;\nwe have a chess-board. At times he seems grateful, and then he will\nsuddenly grow tired and hard to control. Once or twice I have had to\ncall in Dr. Magruder, who owns the hospital.\n\n\"It has been terribly hard for me to write all this, but I had to do it,\nin order that you might understand the situation completely. Hugh dear,\nI simply can't leave him. This has been becoming clearer and clearer to\nme all these weeks, but it breaks my heart to have to write it. I\nhave struggled against it, I have lain awake nights trying to find\njustification for going to you, but it is stronger than I. I am afraid\nof it--I suppose that's the truth. Even in those unforgettable days at\nthe farm I was afraid of it, although I did not know what it was to be.\nCall it what you like, say that I am weak. I am willing to acknowledge\nthat it is weakness. I wish no credit for it, it gives me no glow, the\nthought of it makes my heart sick. I'm not big enough I suppose that's\nthe real truth. I once might have been; but I'm not now,--the years of\nthe life I chose have made a coward of me. It's not a question of\nmorals or duty it's simply that I can't take the thing for which my soul\ncraves. It's too late. If I believed in prayer I'd pray that you might\npity and forgive me. I really can't expect you to understand what I\ncan't myself explain. Oh, I need pity--and I pity you, my dear. I can\nonly hope that you will not suffer as I shall, that you will find relief\naway to work out your life. But I will not change my decision, I cannot\nchange it. Don't come on, don't attempt to see me now. I can't stand any\nmore than I am standing, I should lose my mind.\"\n\nHere the letter was blotted, and some words scratched out. I was unable\nto reconstruct them.\n\n\"Ralph and I,\" she proceeded irrelevantly, \"have got Ham to agree to go\nto Buzzard's Bay, and we have taken a house near Wareham. Write and tell\nme that you forgive and pity me. I love you even more, if such a thing\nis possible, than I have ever loved you. This is my only comfort and\ncompensation, that I have had and have been able to feel such a love,\nand I know I shall always feel it.--Nancy.\" The first effect of this\nletter was a paralyzing one. I was unable to realize or believe the\nthing that had happened to me, and I sat stupidly holding the sheet\nin my hand until I heard voices along the path, and then I fled\ninstinctively, like an animal, to hide my injury from any persons I\nmight meet. I wandered down the shore of the lake, striking at length\ninto the woods, seeking some inviolable shelter; nor was I conscious of\nphysical effort until I found myself panting near the crest of the ridge\nwhere there was a pasture, which some ancient glacier had strewn with\ngreat boulders. Beside one of these I sank. Heralded by the deep tones\nof bells, two steers appeared above the shoulder of a hill and stood\nstaring at me with bovine curiosity, and fell to grazing again. A fleet\nof white clouds, like ships pressed with sail, hurried across the sky as\nthough racing for some determined port; and the shadows they cast along\nthe hillsides accentuated the high brightness of the day, emphasized\nthe vivid and hateful beauty of the landscape. My numbness began to be\npenetrated by shooting pains, and I grasped little by little the fulness\nof my calamity, until I was in the state of wild rebellion of one whom\nlife for the first time has foiled in a supreme desire. There was no\nfate about this thing, it was just an absurd accident. The operation of\nthe laws of nature had sent a man to the ground: another combination of\ncircumstances would have killed him, still another, and he would have\narisen unhurt. But because of this particular combination my happiness\nwas ruined, and Nancy's! She had not expected me to understand. Well,\nI didn't understand, I had no pity, in that hour I felt a resentment\nalmost amounting to hate; I could see only unreasoning superstition in\nthe woman I wanted above everything in the world. Women of other days\nhad indeed renounced great loves: the thing was not unheard of. But that\nthis should happen in these times--and to me! It was unthinkable\nthat Nancy of all women shouldn't be emancipated from the thralls of\nreligious inhibition! And if it wasn't \"conscience,\" what was it?\n\nWas it, as she said, weakness, lack of courage to take life when it\nwas offered her?... I was suddenly filled with the fever of composing\narguments to change a decision that appeared to me to be the result of\na monstrous caprice and delusion; writing them out, as they occurred\nto me, in snatches on the backs of envelopes--her envelopes. Then\nI proceeded to make the draft of a letter, the effort required for\ncomposition easing me until the draft was finished; when I started for\nthe hotel, climbing fences, leaping streams, making my way across\nrock faces and through woods; halting now and then as some reenforcing\nargument occurred to me to write it into my draft at the proper place\nuntil the sheets were interlined and blurred and almost illegible. It\nwas already three o'clock when I reached my room, and the mail left at\nfour. I began to copy and revise my scrawl, glancing from time to time\nat my watch, which I had laid on the table. Hurriedly washing my\nface and brushing my hair, I arrived downstairs just as the stage was\nleaving....\n\nAfter the letter had gone still other arguments I might have added began\nto occur to me, and I regretted that I had not softened some of the\nthings I wrote and made others more emphatic. In places argument\nhad degenerated into abject entreaty. Never had my desire been so\nimportunate as now, when I was in continual terror of losing her. Nor\ncould I see how I was to live without her, life lacking a motive being\nincomprehensible: yet the fire of optimism in me, though died down to\nashes, would not be extinguished. At moments it flared up into what\nalmost amounted to a conviction that she could not resist my appeal. I\nhad threatened to go to her, and more than once I started packing....\n\nThree days later I received a brief note in which she managed to convey\nto me, though tenderly and compassionately, that her decision was\nunalterable. If I came on, she would refuse to see me. I took the\nafternoon stage and went back to the city, to plunge into affairs again;\nbut for weeks my torture was so acute that it gives me pain to recall\nit, to dwell upon it to-day.... And yet, amazing as it may seem, there\ncame a time when hope began to dawn again out of my despair. Perhaps\nmy life had not been utterly shattered, after all: perhaps Ham Durrett\nwould get well: such things happened, and Nancy would no longer have an\nexcuse for continuing to refuse me. Little by little my anger at what\nI had now become convinced was her weakness cooled, and--though\nparadoxically I had continued to love her in spite of the torture for\nwhich she was responsible, in spite of the resentment I felt, I melted\ntoward her. True to my habit of reliance on miracles, I tried to\nreconcile myself to a period of waiting.\n\nNevertheless I was faintly aware--consequent upon if not as a result of\nthis tremendous experience--of some change within me. It was not only\nthat I felt at times a novel sense of uneasiness at being a prey to\naccidents, subject to ravages of feeling; the unity of mind that had\nhitherto enabled me to press forward continuously toward a concrete\ngoal showed signs of breaking up:--the goal had lost its desirability.\nI seemed oddly to be relapsing into the states of questioning that had\ncharacterized my earlier years. Perhaps it would be an exaggeration to\nsay that I actually began to speculate on the possible existence of a\nrealm where the soul might find a refuge from the buffetings of life,\nfrom which the philosophy of prosperity was powerless to save it....\n\n\n\n\nXXIV.\n\nIt was impossible, of course, that my friends should have failed to\nperceive the state of disorganization I was in, and some of them at\nleast must have guessed its cause. Dickinson, on his return from Maine,\nat once begged me to go away. I rather congratulated myself that Tom had\nchosen these months for a long-delayed vacation in Canada. His passion\nfor fishing still persisted.\n\nIn spite of the fact I have noted, that I had lost a certain zest for\nresults, to keep busy seemed to be the only way to relieve my mind of\nan otherwise intolerable pressure: and I worked sometimes far into the\nevening. In the background of my thoughts lay the necessity of coming to\na decision on the question of the senatorship; several times Dickinson\nand Gorse had spoken of it, and I was beginning to get letters from\ninfluential men in other parts of the state. They seemed to take it for\ngranted that there was no question of my refusing. The time came when\nI had grown able to consider the matter with a degree of calmness.\nWhat struck me first, when I began to debate upon it, was that the\nsenatorship offered a new and possibly higher field for my energies,\nwhile at the same time the office would be a logical continuation of a\nsignal legal career. I was now unable to deny that I no longer felt any\nexhilaration at the prospect of future legal conquests similar to those\nof the past; but once in the Senate, I might regain something of that\nintense conviction of fighting for a just and sound cause with which\nTheodore Wading had once animated me: fighting there, in the Capitol at\nWashington, would be different; no stigma of personal gain attached to\nit; it offered a nearer approach to the ideal I had once more begun to\nseek, held out hopes of a renewal of my unity of mind. Mr. Watling had\ndeclared that there was something to fight for; I had even glimpsed\nthat something, but I had to confess that for some years I had not been\nconsciously fighting for it. I needed something to fight for.\n\nThere was the necessity, however, of renewing my calculations. If\nHambleton Durrett should recover, even during the ensuing year, and\nif Nancy relented it would not be possible for us to be divorced and\nmarried for some time. I still clung tenaciously to the belief that\nthere were no relationships wholly unaffected by worldly triumphs, and\nas Senator I should have strengthened my position. It did not\nstrike me--even after all my experience--that such a course as I now\ncontemplated had a parallel in the one that I had pursued in regard to\nher when I was young.\n\nIt seemed fitting that Theodore Watling should be the first to know of\nmy decision. I went to Washington to meet him. It pained me to see him\nlooking more worn, but he was still as cheerful, as mentally vigorous as\never, and I perceived that he did not wish to dwell upon his illness.\nI did venture to expostulate with him on the risk he must be running in\nserving out his term. We were sitting in the dining room of his house.\n\n\"We've only one life to live, Hugh,\" he answered, smiling at me, \"and we\nmight as well get all out of it we can. A few years more or less doesn't\nmake much difference--and I ought to be satisfied. I'd resign now, to\nplease my wife, to please my friends, but we can't trust this governor\nto appoint a safe man. How little we suspected when we elected him that\nhe'd become infected. You never can tell, in these days, can you?\"\n\nIt was the note of devotion to his cause that I had come to hear: I\nfelt it renewing me, as I had hoped. The threat of disease, the louder\nclamourings of the leaders of the mob had not sufficed to dismay\nhim--though he admitted more concern over these. My sympathy and\naffection were mingled with the admiration he never failed to inspire.\n\n\"But you, Hugh,\" he said concernedly, \"you're not looking very well, my\nson. You must manage to take a good rest before coming here--before the\ncampaign you'll have to go through. We can't afford to have anything\nhappen to you--you're too young.\"\n\nI wondered whether he had heard anything.... He spoke to me again about\nthe work to be done, the work he looked to me to carry on.\n\n\"We'll have to watch for our opportunity,\" he said, \"and when it comes\nwe can handle this new movement not by crushing it, but by guiding it.\nI've come to the conclusion that there is a true instinct in it, that\nthere are certain things we have done which have been mistakes, and\nwhich we can't do any more. But as for this theory that all wisdom\nresides in the people, it's buncombe. What we have to do is to work out\na practical programme.\"\n\nHis confidence in me had not diminished. It helped to restore confidence\nin myself.\n\nThe weather was cool and bracing for September, and as we drove in a\nmotor through the beautiful avenues of the city he pointed out a house\nfor me on one of the circles, one of those distinguished residences,\ninstances of a nascent good taste, that are helping to redeem the\npolyglot aspect of our national capital. Mr. Watling spoke--rather\ntactfully, I thought--of Maude and the children, and ventured the\nsurmise that they would be returning in a few months. I interpreted\nthis, indeed, as in rather the nature of a kindly hint that such a\nprocedure would be wise in view of the larger life now dawning for me,\nbut I made no comment.... He even sympathized with Nancy Durrett.\n\n\"She did the right thing, Hugh,\" he said, with the admirable casual\nmanner he possessed of treating subjects which he knew to be delicate.\n\"Nancy's a fine woman. Poor devil!\" This in reference to Ham....\n\nMr. Watling reassured me on the subject of his own trouble, maintaining\nthat he had many years left if he took care. He drove me to the station.\nI travelled homeward somewhat lifted out of myself by this visit to him;\nwith some feeling of spaciousness derived from Washington itself, with\nits dignified Presidential Mansion among the trees, its granite shaft\ndrawing the eye upward, with its winged Capitol serene upon the hill.\nShould we deliver these heirlooms to the mob? Surely Democracy meant\nmore than that!\n\nAll this time I had been receiving, at intervals, letters from Maude and\nthe children. Maude's were the letters of a friend, and I found it easy\nto convince myself that their tone was genuine, that the separation had\nbrought contentment to her; and those independent and self-sufficient\nelements in her character I admired now rather than deplored. At\nEtretat, which she found much to her taste, she was living quietly, but\nmaking friends with some American and English, and one French family of\nthe same name, Buffon, as the great naturalist. The father was a retired\nsilk manufacturer; they now resided in Paris, and had been very kind\nin helping her to get an apartment in that city for the winter. She\nhad chosen one on the Avenue Kleber, not far from the Arc. It is\ninteresting, after her arraignment of me, that she should have taken\nsuch pains to record their daily life for my benefit in her clear,\nconscientious handwriting. I beheld Biddy, her dresses tucked above slim\nlittle knees, playing in the sand on the beach, her hair flying in the\nwind and lighted by the sun which gave sparkle to the sea. I saw Maude\nherself in her beach chair, a book lying in her lap, its pages whipped\nby the breeze. And there was Moreton, who must be proving something of\na handful, since he had fought with the French boys on the beach and\nthrown a \"rock\" through the windows of the Buffon family. I remember one\nof his letters--made perfect after much correcting and scratching,--in\nwhich he denounced both France and the French, and appealed to me\nto come over at once to take him home. Maude had enclosed it without\ncomment. This letter had not been written under duress, as most of his\nwere.\n\nMatthew's letters--he wrote faithfully once a week--I kept in a little\npile by themselves and sometimes reread them. I wondered whether it\nwere because of the fact that I was his father--though a most inadequate\none--that I thought them somewhat unusual. He had learned French--Maude\nwrote--with remarkable ease. I was particularly struck in these letters\nwith the boy's power of observation, with his facile use of language,\nwith the vivid simplicity of his descriptions of the life around him, of\nhis experiences at school. The letters were thoughtful--not dashed off\nin a hurry; they gave evidence in every line of the delicacy of feeling\nthat was, I think, his most appealing quality, and I put them down with\nthe impression strong on me that he, too, longed to return home, but\nwould not say so. There was a certain pathos in this youthful restraint\nthat never failed to touch me, even in those times when I had been most\nobsessed with love and passion.... The curious effect of these letters\nwas that of knowing more than they expressed. He missed me, he wished to\nknow when I was coming over. And I was sometimes at a loss whether to be\ngrateful to Maude or troubled because she had as yet given him no hint\nof our separation. What effect would it have on him when it should be\nrevealed to him?... It was through Matthew I began to apprehend certain\nelements in Maude I had both failed to note and appreciate; her little\nmannerisms that jarred, her habits of thought that exasperated, were\nforgotten, and I was forced to confess that there was something fine in\nthe achievement of this attitude of hers that was without ill will or\nresentment, that tacitly acknowledged my continued rights and interest\nin the children. It puzzled and troubled me.\n\nThe Citizens Union began its campaign early that autumn, long before\nthe Hons. Jonathan Parks and Timothy MacGuire--Republican and Democratic\ncandidates for Mayor--thought of going on the stump. For several weeks\nthe meetings were held in the small halls and club rooms of various\nsocieties and orders in obscure portions of the city.\n\nThe forces of \"privilege and corruption\" were not much alarmed. Perry\nBlackwood accused the newspapers of having agreed to a \"conspiracy of\nsilence\"; but, as Judah B. Tallant remarked, it was the business of the\npress to give the public what it wanted, and the public as yet hadn't\nshown much interest in the struggle being waged in its behalf. When the\nmeetings began to fill up it would be time to report them in the columns\nof the Era. Meanwhile, however, the city had been quietly visited by\nan enterprising representative of a New York periodical of the new\ntype that developed with the opening years of the century--one making a\nspecialty of passionate \"muck-raking.\" And since the people of America\nlove nothing better than being startled, Yardley's Weekly had acquired\na circulation truly fabulous. The emissary of the paper had attended\nseveral of the Citizens meetings; interviewed, it seemed, many\npersons: the result was a revelation to make the blood of politicians,\ncapitalists and corporation lawyers run cold. I remember very well the\nday it appeared on our news stands, and the heated denunciations it\nevoked at the Boyne Club. Ralph Hambleton was the only one who took it\ncalmly, who seemed to derive a certain enjoyment from the affair. Had\nhe been a less privileged person, they would have put him in chancery.\nLeonard Dickinson asserted that Yardley's should be sued for libel.\n\n\"There's just one objection to that,\" said Ralph.\n\n\"What?\" asked the banker.\n\n\"It isn't libel.\"\n\n\"I defy them to prove it,\" Dickinson snapped. \"It's a d--d outrage!\nThere isn't a city or village in the country that hasn't exactly the\nsame conditions. There isn't any other way to run a city--\"\n\n\"That's what Mr. Krebs says,\" Ralph replied, \"that the people ought to\nput Judd Jason officially in charge. He tells 'em that Jason is probably\na more efficient man than Democracy will be able to evolve in a coon's\nage, that we ought to take him over, instead of letting the capitalists\nhave him.\"\n\n\"Did Krebs say that?\" Dickinson demanded.\n\n\"You can't have read the article very thoroughly, Leonard,\" Ralph\ncommented. \"I'm afraid you only picked out the part of it that\ncompliments you. This fellow seems to have been struck by Krebs, says\nhe's a coming man, that he's making original contributions to the\npeople's cause. Quite a tribute. You ought to read it.\"\n\nDickinson, who had finished his lunch, got up and left the table after\nlighting his cigar. Ralph's look followed him amusedly.\n\n\"I'm afraid it's time to cash in and be good,\" he observed.\n\n\"We'll get that fellow Krebs yet,\" said Grierson, wrathfully. Miller\nGorse alone made no remarks, but in spite of his silence he emanated an\nanimosity against reform and reformers that seemed to charge the very\natmosphere, and would have repressed any man but Ralph....\n\nI sat in my room at the Club that night and reread the article, and if\nits author could have looked into my soul and observed the emotions he\nhad set up, he would, no doubt, have experienced a grim satisfaction.\nFor I, too, had come in for a share of the comment. Portions of the\nmatter referring to me stuck in my brain like tar, such as the reference\nto my father, to the honoured traditions of the Parets and the Brecks\nwhich I had deliberately repudiated. I had less excuse than many others.\nThe part I had played in various reprehensible transactions such as the\nRiverside Franchise and the dummy telephone company affair was dwelt\nupon, and I was dismissed with the laconic comment that I was a graduate\nof Harvard....\n\nMy associates and myself were referred to collectively as a \"gang,\" with\nthe name of our city prefixed; we were linked up with and compared to\nthe gangs of other cities--the terminology used to describe us being\nthat of the police reporter. We \"operated,\" like burglars; we \"looted\":\nonly, it was intimated in one place, \"second-story men\" were angels\ncompared to us, who had never seen the inside of a penitentiary. Here\nwe were, all arraigned before the bar of public opinion, the relentless\nDickinson, the surfeited Scherer, the rapacious Grierson, the salacious\nTallant. I have forgotten what Miller Gorse was called; nothing so\nclassic as a Minotaur; Judd Jason was a hairy spider who spread his net\nand lurked in darkness for his victims. Every adjective was called upon\nto do its duty.... Even Theodore Watling did not escape, but it was\nintimated that he would be dealt with in another connection in a future\nnumber.\n\nThe article had a crude and terrifying power, and the pain it aroused,\nfollowing almost immediately upon the suffering caused by my separation\nfrom Nancy, was cumulative in character and effect, seeming actively to\nreenforce the unwelcome conviction I had been striving to suppress, that\nthe world, which had long seemed so acquiescent in conforming itself to\nmy desires, was turning against me.\n\nThough my hunger for Nancy was still gnawing, I had begun to fear that I\nshould never get her now; and the fact that she would not even write to\nme seemed to confirm this.\n\nThen there was Matthew--I could not bear to think that he would ever\nread that article.\n\nIn vain I tried that night to belittle to myself its contentions and\nprobable results, to summon up the heart to fight; in vain I sought to\nreconstruct the point of view, to gain something of that renewed hope\nand power, of devotion to a cause I had carried away from Washington\nafter my talk with Theodore Watling. He, though stricken, had not\nwavered in his faith. Why should I?\n\nWhether or not as the result of the article in Yardley's, which had been\nread more or less widely in the city, the campaign of the Citizens Union\ngained ground, and people began to fill the little halls to hear Krebs,\nwho was a candidate for district attorney. Evidently he was entertaining\nand rousing them, for his reputation spread, and some of the larger\nhalls were hired. Dickinson and Gorse became alarmed, and one morning\nthe banker turned up at the Club while I was eating my breakfast.\n\n\"Look here, Hugh,\" he said, \"we may as well face the fact that we've got\na fight ahead of us,--we'll have to start some sort of a back-fire right\naway.\"\n\n\"You think Greenhalge has a chance of being elected?\" I asked.\n\n\"I'm not afraid of Greenhalge, but of this fellow Krebs. We can't afford\nto have him district attorney, to let a demagogue like him get a start.\nThe men the Republicans and Democrats have nominated are worse than\nuseless. Parks is no good, and neither is MacGuire. If only we could\nhave foreseen this thing we might have had better candidates put up--but\nthere's no use crying over spilt milk. You'll have to go on the stump,\nHugh--that's all there is to it. You can answer him, and the newspapers\nwill print your speeches in full. Besides it will help you when it comes\nto the senatorship.\"\n\nThe mood of extreme dejection that had followed the appearance of the\narticle in Yardley's did not last. I had acquired aggressiveness: an\naggressiveness, however, differing in quality from the feeling I once\nwould have had,--for this arose from resentment, not from belief. It\nwas impossible to live in the atmosphere created by the men with whom I\nassociated--especially at such a time--without imbibing something of\nthe emotions animating them,--even though I had been free from these\nemotions myself. I, too, had begun to be filled with a desire for\nrevenge; and when this desire was upon me I did not have in my mind a\npack of reformers, or even the writer of the article in Yardley's. I\nthought of Hermann Krebs. He was my persecutor; it seemed to me that he\nalways had been....\n\n\"Well, I'll make speeches if you like,\" I said to Dickinson.\n\n\"I'm glad,\" he replied. \"We're all agreed, Gorse and the rest of us,\nthat you ought to. We've got to get some ginger into this fight, and a\ngood deal more money, I'm afraid. Jason sends word we'll need more. By\nthe way, Hugh, I wish you'd drop around and talk to Jason and get his\nidea of how the land lies.\"\n\nI went, this time in the company of Judah B. Tallant. Naturally we\ndidn't expect to see Mr. Jason perturbed, nor was he. He seemed to be in\nan odd, rather exultant mood--if he can be imagined as exultant. We were\nnot long in finding out what pleased him--nothing less than the fact\nthat Mr. Krebs had proposed him for mayor!\n\n\"D--d if I wouldn't make a good one, too,\" he said. \"D--d if I wouldn't\nshow 'em what a real mayor is!\"\n\n\"I guess there's no danger of your ever being mayor, Judd,\" Tallant\nobserved, with a somewhat uneasy jocularity.\n\n\"I guess there isn't, Judah,\" replied the boss, quickly, but with a\npeculiar violet flash in his eyes. \"They won't ever make you mayor,\neither, if I can help it. And I've a notion I can. I'd rather see Krebs\nmayor.\"\n\n\"You don't think he meant to propose you seriously,\" Tallant exclaimed.\n\n\"I'm not a d--d fool,\" said the boss. \"But I'll say this, that he half\nmeant it. Krebs has a head-piece on him, and I tell you if any of this\nreform dope is worth anything his is. There's some sense in what he's\ntalking, and if all the voters was like him you might get a man like me\nfor mayor. But they're not, and I guess they never will be.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Mr. Jason. \"The people are dotty--there ain't one in ten\nthousand understands what he's driving at when he gets off things like\nthat. They take it on the level.\"\n\nTallant reflected.\n\n\"By gum, I believe you're right,\" he said. \"You think they will blow\nup?\" he added.\n\n\"Krebs is the whole show, I tell you. They wouldn't be anywhere without\nhim. The yaps that listen to him don't understand him, but somehow he\ngets under their skins. Have you seen him lately?\"\n\n\"Never saw him,\" replied Tallant.\n\n\"Well, if you had, you'd know he was a sick man.\"\n\n\"Sick!\" I exclaimed. \"How do you know?\"\n\n\"It's my business to know things,\" said Judd Jason, and added to\nTallant, \"that your reporters don't find out.\"\n\n\"What's the matter with him?\" Tallant demanded. A slight exultation in\nhis tone did not escape me.\n\n\"You've got me there,\" said Jason, \"but I have it pretty straight. Any\none of your reporters will tell you that he looks sick.\"....\n\nThe Era took Mr. Jason's advice and began to publish those portions of\nKrebs's speeches that were seemingly detrimental to his own cause. Other\nconservative newspapers followed suit....\n\nBoth Tallant and I were surprised to hear these sentiments out of the\nmouth of Mr. Jason.\n\n\"You don't think that crowd's going to win, do you?\" asked the owner of\nthe Era, a trifle uneasily.\n\n\"Win!\" exclaimed the boss contemptuously. \"They'll blow up, and you'll\nnever hear of 'em. I'm not saying we won't need a little--powder,\" he\nadded--which was one of the matters we had come to talk about. He\ngave us likewise a very accurate idea of the state of the campaign,\nmentioning certain things that ought to be done. \"You ought to print\nsome of Krebs's speeches, Judah, like what he said about me. They're\ntalking it all around that you're afraid to.\"\n\n\"Print things like his proposal to make you mayor!\"\n\nThe information that I was to enter the lists against Krebs was received\nwith satisfaction and approval by those of our friends who were called\nin to assist at a council of war in the directors' room of the Corn\nNational Bank. I was flattered by the confidence these men seemed to\nhave in my ability. All were in a state of anger against the reformers;\nnone of them seriously alarmed as to the actual outcome of the\ncampaign,--especially when I had given them the opinion of Mr. Jason.\nWhat disturbed them was the possible effect upon the future of the\nspread of heretical, socialistic doctrines, and it was decided to\norganize a publicity bureau, independently of the two dominant political\nparties, to be in charge of a certain New York journalist who made a\nbusiness of such affairs, who was to be paid a sum commensurate with the\nemergency. He was to have carte blanche, even in the editorial columns\nof our newspapers. He was also to flood the city with \"literature.\" We\nhad fought many wars before this, and we planned our campaign precisely\nas though we were dealing with one of those rebellions in the realm of\nfinance of which I have given an instance. But now the war chest of our\nopponents was negligible; and we were comforted by the thought that,\nhowever disagreeable the affair might be while it lasted, in the long\nrun capital was invincible.\n\nBefore setting to work to prepare my speeches it was necessary to make\nan attempt to familiarize myself with the seemingly unprecedented\nline of argument Krebs had evolved--apparently as disconcerting to his\nfriends as to his opponents. It occurred to me, since I did not care\nto attend Krebs's meetings, to ask my confidential stenographer,\nMiss McCoy, to go to Turner's Hall and take down one of his speeches\nverbatim. Miss McCoy had never intruded on me her own views, and I took\nfor granted that they coincided with my own.\n\n\"I'd like to get an accurate record of what he is saying,\" I told her.\n\"Do you mind going?\"\n\n\"No, I'll be glad to go, Mr. Paret,\" she said quietly.\n\n\"He's doing more harm than we thought,\" I remarked, after a moment.\n\"I've known him for a good many years. He's clever. He's sowing seeds\nof discontent, starting trouble that will be very serious unless it is\nheaded off.\"\n\nMiss McCoy made no comment....\n\nBefore noon the next day she brought in the speech, neatly typewritten,\nand laid it on my desk. Looking up and catching her eye just as she was\nabout to withdraw, I was suddenly impelled to ask:--\"Well, what did you\nthink of it?\"\n\nShe actually flushed, for the first time in my dealings with her\nbetraying a feeling which I am sure she deemed most unprofessional.\n\n\"I liked it, Mr. Paret,\" she replied simply, and I knew that she had\nunderstated. It was quite apparent that Krebs had captivated her. I\ntried not to betray my annoyance.\n\n\"Was there a good audience?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said.\n\n\"How many do you think?\"\n\nShe hesitated.\n\n\"It isn't a very large hall, you know. I should say it would hold about\neight hundred people.\"\n\n\"And--it was full?\"--I persisted.\n\n\"Oh, yes, there were numbers of people standing.\"\n\nI thought I detected in her tone-although it was not apologetic--a\ndesire to spare my feelings. She hesitated a moment more, and then left\nthe room, closing the door softly behind her...\n\nPresently I took up the pages and began to read. The language was simple\nand direct, an appeal to common sense, yet the words strangely seemed\ncharged with an emotional power that I found myself resisting. When at\nlength I laid down the sheets I wondered whether it were imagination,\nor the uncomfortable result of memories of conversations I had had with\nhim.\n\nI was, however, confronted with the task of refuting his arguments: but\nwith exasperating ingenuity, he seemed to have taken the wind out of our\nsails. It is difficult to answer a man who denies the cardinal principle\nof American democracy,--that a good mayor or a governor may be made\nout of a dog-catcher. He called this the Cincinnatus theory: that any\nAmerican, because he was an American, was fit for any job in the gift\nof state or city or government, from sheriff to Ambassador to Great\nBritain. Krebs substituted for this fallacy what may be called the\ndoctrine of potentiality. If we inaugurated and developed a system of\ndemocratic education, based on scientific principles, and caught the\ndog-catcher, young enough, he might become a statesman or thinker or\nscientist and make his contribution to the welfare and progress of the\nnation: again, he might not; but he would have had his chance, he would\nnot be in a position to complain.\n\nHere was a doctrine, I immediately perceived, which it would be suicidal\nto attempt to refute. It ought, indeed, to have been my line. With a\ngrowing distaste I began to realize that all there was left for me was\nto flatter a populace that Krebs, paradoxically, belaboured. Never in\nthe history of American \"uplift\" had an electorate been in this manner\nwooed! upbraided for expediency, a proneness to demand immediate\nresults, an unwillingness to think, yes, and an inability to think\nstraight. Such an electorate deserved to be led around by the nose by\nthe Jasons and Dickinsons, the Gorses and the Griersons and the Parets.\n\nYes, he had mentioned me. That gave me a queer sensation. How is one\nto handle an opponent who praises one with a delightful irony? We, the\nDickinsons, Griersons, Parets, Jasons, etc., had this virtue at least,\nand it was by no means the least of the virtues,--that we did think.\nWe had a plan, a theory of government, and we carried it out. He was\ninclined to believe that morality consisted largely, if not wholly, in\nclear thinking, and not in the precepts of the Sunday-school. That was\nthe trouble with the so-called \"reform\" campaigns, they were conducted\non lines of Sunday-school morality; the people worked themselves up into\na sort of revivalist frenzy, an emotional state which, if the truth were\ntold, was thoroughly immoral, unreasonable and hypocritical: like all\nfrenzies, as a matter of course it died down after the campaign was\nover. Moreover, the American people had shown that they were unwilling\nto make any sacrifices for the permanent betterment of conditions, and\nas soon as their incomes began to fall off they turned again to the\nbosses and capitalists like an abject flock of sheep.\n\nHe went on to explain that he wasn't referring now to that part of the\nelectorate known as the labour element, the men who worked with\ntheir hands in mills, factories, etc. They had their faults, yet they\npossessed at least the virtue of solidarity, a willingness to undergo\nsacrifices in order to advance the standard of conditions; they too\nhad a tenacity of purpose and a plan, such as it was, which the small\nbusiness men, the clerks lacked....\n\nWe must wake up to the fact that we shouldn't get Utopia by turning out\nMr. Jason and the highly efficient gentlemen who hired and financed him.\nIt wasn't so simple as that. Utopia was not an achievement after\nall, but an undertaking, a state of mind, the continued overcoming of\nresistance by a progressive education and effort. And all this talk of\npolitical and financial \"wickedness\" was rubbish; the wickedness they\ncomplained of did not reside merely in individuals it was a social\ndisorder, or rather an order that no longer suited social conditions.\nIf the so-called good citizens would take the trouble to educate\nthemselves, to think instead of allowing their thinking to be done for\nthem they would see that the \"evils\" which had been published broadcast\nwere merely the symptoms of that disease which had come upon the social\nbody through their collective neglect and indifference. They held\nup their hands in horror at the spectacle of a commercial, licensed\nprostitution, they shunned the prostitute and the criminal; but there\nwas none of us, if honest, who would not exclaim when he saw them,\n\"there, but for the Grace of God, go I!\" What we still called \"sin\" was\nlargely the result of lack of opportunity, and the active principle\nof society as at present organized tended more and more to restrict\nopportunity. Lack of opportunity, lack of proper nutrition,--these made\nsinners by the wholesale; made, too, nine-tenths of the inefficient of\nwhom we self-righteously complained. We had a national philosophy that\nmeasured prosperity in dollars and cents, included in this measurement\nthe profits of liquor dealers who were responsible for most of our\nidiots. So long as we set our hearts on that kind of prosperity, so long\nas we failed to grasp the simple and practical fact that the greatest\nassets of a nation are healthy and sane and educated, clear-thinking\nhuman beings, just so long was prostitution logical, Riverside\nFranchises, traction deals, Judd Jasons, and the respectable gentlemen\nwho continued to fill their coffers out of the public purse inevitable.\n\nThe speaker turned his attention to the \"respectable gentlemen\" with the\nfull coffers, amongst whom I was by implication included. We had simply\nsucceeded under the rules to which society tacitly agreed. That was our\nsin. He ventured to say that there were few men in the hall who at the\nbottom of their hearts did not envy and even honour our success. He, for\none, did not deem these \"respectable gentlemen\" utterly reprehensible;\nhe was sufficiently emancipated to be sorry for us. He suspected that we\nwere not wholly happy in being winners in such a game,--he even believed\nthat we could wish as much as any others to change the game and\nthe prizes. What we represented was valuable energy misdirected and\nmisplaced, and in a reorganized community he would not abolish us, but\ntransform us: transform, at least, the individuals of our type, who were\nthe builders gone wrong under the influence of an outworn philosophy.\nWe might be made to serve the city and the state with the same\neffectiveness that we had served ourselves.\n\nIf the best among the scientists, among the university professors and\nphysicians were willing to labour--and they were--for the advancement\nof humanity, for the very love of the work and service without\ndisproportionate emoluments, without the accumulation of a wealth\ndifficult to spend, why surely these big business men had been moulded\nin infancy from no different clay! All were Americans. Instance after\ninstance might be cited of business men and lawyers of ability making\nsacrifices, giving up their personal affairs in order to take places of\nhonour in the government in which the salary was comparatively small,\nproving that even these were open to inducements other than merely\nmercenary ones.\n\nIt was unfortunate, he went on, but true, that the vast majority of\npeople of voting age in the United States to-day who thought they had\nbeen educated were under the obligation to reeducate themselves.\nHe suggested, whimsically, a vacation school for Congress and all\nlegislative bodies as a starter. Until the fact of the utter inadequacy\nof the old education were faced, there was little or no hope of solving\nthe problems that harassed us. One thing was certain--that they couldn't\nbe solved by a rule-of-thumb morality. Coincident with the appearance\nof these new and mighty problems, perhaps in response to them, a new and\nsaner view of life itself was being developed by the world's thinkers,\nnew sciences were being evolved, correlated sciences; a psychology\nmaking a truer analysis of human motives, impulses, of human\npossibilities; an economics and a theory of government that took account\nof this psychology, and of the vast changes applied science had made in\nproduction and distribution. We lived in a new world, which we sought\nto ignore; and the new education, the new viewpoint was in truth nothing\nbut religion made practical. It had never been thought practical before.\nThe motive that compelled men to work for humanity in science, in\nmedicine, in art--yes, and in business, if we took the right view of\nit, was the religious motive. The application of religion was to-day\nextending from the individual to society. No religion that did not fill\nthe needs of both was a true religion.\n\nThis meant the development of a new culture, one to be founded on the\nAmerican tradition of equality of opportunity. But culture was not\na weed that grew overnight; it was a leaven that spread slowly and\npainfully, first inoculating a few who suffered and often died for it,\nthat it might gradually affect the many. The spread of culture implied\nthe recognition of leadership: democratic leadership, but still\nleadership. Leadership, and the wisdom it implied, did not reside in the\npeople, but in the leaders who sprang from the people and interpreted\ntheir needs and longings.... He went on to discuss a part of the\nprogramme of the Citizens Union....\n\nWhat struck me, as I laid down the typewritten sheets, was the\nextraordinary resemblance between the philosophies of Hermann Krebs\nand Theodore Watling. Only--Krebs's philosophy was the bigger, held\nthe greater vision of the two; I had reluctantly and rather bitterly to\nadmit it. The appeal of it had even reached and stirred me, whose task\nwas to refute it! Here indeed was something to fight for--perhaps to die\nfor, as he had said: and as I sat there in my office gazing out of the\nwindow I found myself repeating certain phrases he had used--the phrase\nabout leadership, for instance. It was a tremendous conception\nof Democracy, that of acquiescence to developed leadership made\nresponsible; a conception I was compelled to confess transcended Mr.\nWatling's, loyal as I was to him.... I began to reflect how novel all\nthis was in a political speech--although what I have quoted was in the\nnature of a preamble. It was a sermon, an educational sermon. Well,\nthat is what sermons always had been,--and even now pretended to\nbe,--educational and stirring, appealing to the emotions through the\nintellect. It didn't read like the Socialism he used to preach, it had\nthe ring of religion. He had called it religion.\n\nWith an effort of the will I turned from this ironical and dangerous\nvision of a Hugh Paret who might have been enlisted in an inspiring\nstruggle, of a modern yet unregenerate Saul kicking against the pricks,\ncondemned to go forth breathing fire against a doctrine that made a true\nappeal; against the man I believed I hated just because he had made this\nappeal. In the act of summoning my counter-arguments I was interrupted\nby the entrance of Grierson. He was calling on a matter of business, but\nbegan to talk about the extracts from Krebs's speech he had read in the\nMail and State.\n\n\"What in hell is this fellow driving at, Paret?\" he demanded. \"It sounds\nto me like the ranting of a lunatic dervish. If he thinks so much of us,\nand the way we run the town, what's he squawking about?\"\n\nI looked at Grierson, and conceived an intense aversion for him. I\nwondered how I had ever been able to stand him, to work with him. I saw\nhim in a sudden flash as a cunning, cruel bird of prey, a gorged, drab\nvulture with beady eyes, a resemblance so extraordinary that I wondered\nI had never remarked it before. For he had the hooked vulture nose,\nwhile the pink baldness of his head was relieved by a few scanty tufts\nof hair.\n\n\"The people seem to like what he's got to say,\" I observed.\n\n\"It beats me,\" said Grierson. \"They don't understand a quarter of\nit--I've been talking to some of 'em. It's their d--d curiosity, I\nguess. You know how they'll stand for hours around a street fakir.\"\n\n\"It's more than that,\" I retorted.\n\nGrierson regarded me piercingly.\n\n\"Well, we'll put a crimp in him, all right,\" he said, with a laugh.\n\nI was in an unenviable state of mind when he left me. I had an impulse\nto send for Miss McCoy and ask her if she had understood what Krebs was\n\"driving at,\" but for reasons that must be fairly obvious I refrained.\nI read over again that part of Krebs's speech which dealt with the\nimmediate programme of the Citizens Union. After paying a tribute to\nGreenhalge as a man of common sense and dependability who would make a\ngood mayor, he went on to explain the principle of the new charter they\nhoped ultimately to get, which should put the management of the city\nin the hands of one man, an expert employed by a commission; an expert\nwhose duty it would be to conduct the affairs of the city on a business\nbasis, precisely as those of any efficient corporation were conducted.\nThis plan had already been adopted, with encouraging results, in\nseveral smaller cities of the country. He explained in some detail,\nwith statistics, the waste and inefficiency and dishonesty in various\ndepartments under the present system, dwelling particularly upon the\ndeplorable state of affairs in the city hospital.\n\nI need not dwell upon this portion of his remarks. Since then text-books\nand serious periodicals have dealt with these matters thoroughly. They\nare now familiar to all thinking Americans.\n\n\n\n\nXXV.\n\nMy entrance into the campaign was accompanied by a blare of publicity,\nand during that fortnight I never picked up a morning or evening\nnewspaper without reading, on the first page, some such headline as\n\"Crowds flock to hear Paret.\" As a matter of fact, the crowds did flock;\nbut I never quite knew as I looked down from platforms on seas of faces\nhow much of the flocking was spontaneous. Much of it was so, since the\nstruggle had then become sufficiently dramatic to appeal to the larger\npublic imagination that is but occasionally waked; on the other\nhand, the magic of advertising cannot be underestimated; nor must\nthe existence be ignored of an organized corps of shepherds under the\nvigilant direction of Mr. Judd Jason, whose duty it was to see that none\nof our meetings was lacking in numbers and enthusiasm. There was always\na demonstrative gathering overflowing the sidewalk in front of the\nentrance, swaying and cheering in the light of the street lamps, and on\nthe floor within an ample scattering of suspiciously bleary-eyed voters\nto start the stamping and applauding. In spite of these known facts, the\nimpression of popularity, of repudiation of reform by a large majority\nof level-headed inhabitants had reassuring and reenforcing effects.\n\nAstute citizens, spectators of the fray--if indeed there were any--might\nhave remarked an unique and significant feature of that campaign: that\nthe usual recriminations between the two great parties were lacking.\nMr. Parks, the Republican candidate, did not denounce Mr. MacGuire, the\nDemocratic candidate. Republican and Democratic speakers alike expended\ntheir breath in lashing Mr. Krebs and the Citizens Union.\n\nIt is difficult to record the fluctuations of my spirit. When I was in\nthe halls, speaking or waiting to speak, I reacted to that phenomenon\nknown as mob psychology, I became self-confident, even exhilarated; and\nin those earlier speeches I managed, I think, to strike the note for\nwhich I strove--the judicial note, suitable to a lawyer of weight and\nprominence, of deprecation rather than denunciation. I sought to embody\nand voice a fine and calm sanity at a time when everyone else seemed in\ndanger of losing their heads, and to a large extent achieved it. I had\nknown Mr. Krebs for more than twenty years, and while I did not care to\ncriticise a fellow-member of the bar, I would go so far as to say that\nhe was visionary, that the changes he proposed in government would,\nif adopted, have grave and far-reaching results: we could not, for\ninstance, support in idleness those who refused to do their share of the\nwork of the world. Mr. Krebs was well-meaning. I refrained from dwelling\ntoo long upon him, passing to Mr. Greenhalge, also well-meaning, but\na man of mediocre ability who would make a mess of the government of a\ncity which would one day rival New York and Chicago. (Loud cheers.) And\nI pointed out that Mr. Perry Blackwood had been unable to manage the\naffairs of the Boyne Street road. Such men, well-intentioned though\nthey might be, were hindrances to progress. This led me naturally to a\ndiscussion of the Riverside Franchise and the Traction Consolidation. I\nwas one of those whose honesty and good faith had been arraigned, but I\nwould not stoop to refute the accusations. I dwelt upon the benefits\nto the city, uniform service, electricity and large comfortable cars\ninstead of rattletrap conveyances, and the development of a large\nand growing population in the Riverside neighbourhood: the continual\nextension of lines to suburban districts that enabled hard-worked men\nto live out of the smoke: I called attention to the system of transfers,\nthe distance a passenger might be conveyed, and conveyed quickly, for\nthe sum of five cents. I spoke of our capitalists as men more sinned\nagainst than sinning. Their money was always at the service of\nenterprises tending to the development of our metropolis.\n\nWhen I was not in the meetings, however, and especially when in my room\nat night, I was continually trying to fight off a sense of loneliness\nthat seemed to threaten to overwhelm me. I wanted to be alone, and yet\nI feared to be. I was aware, in spite of their congratulations on my\nefforts, of a growing dislike for my associates; and in the appalling\nemptiness of the moments when my depression was greatest I was forced to\nthe realization that I had no disinterested friend--not one--in whom I\ncould confide. Nancy had failed me; I had scarcely seen Tom Peters that\nwinter, and it was out of the question to go to him. For the third time\nin my life, and in the greatest crisis of all, I was feeling the need of\nSomething, of some sustaining and impelling Power that must be presented\nhumanly, possessing sympathy and understanding and love.... I think I\nhad a glimpse just a pathetic glimpse--of what the Church might be of\nhuman solidarity, comfort and support, of human tolerance, if stripped\nof the superstition of an ancient science. My tortures weren't of the\nflesh, but of the mind. My mind was the sheep which had gone astray. Was\nthere no such thing, could there be no such thing as a human association\nthat might at the same time be a divine organism, a fold and a refuge\nfor the lost and divided minds? The source of all this trouble was\nsocial....\n\nThen toward the end of that last campaign week, madness suddenly came\nupon me. I know now how near the breaking point I was, but the immediate\ncause of my \"flying to pieces\"--to use a vivid expression--was a speech\nmade by Guptill, one of the Citizens Union candidates for alderman, a\nyoung man of a radical type not uncommon in these days, though new to\nmy experience: an educated man in the ultra-radical sense, yet lacking\npoise and perspective, with a certain brilliance and assurance. He was a\njournalist, a correspondent of some Eastern newspapers and periodicals.\nIn this speech, which was reported to me--for it did not get into the\nnewspapers--I was the particular object of his attack. Men of my kind,\nand not the Judd Jasons (for whom there was some excuse) were the\nleast dispensable tools of the capitalists, the greatest menace to\ncivilization. We were absolutely lacking in principle, we were ready at\nany time to besmirch our profession by legalizing steals; we fouled our\nnests with dirty fees. Not all that he said was vituperation, for he\nknew something of the modern theory of the law that legal radicals had\nbegun to proclaim, and even to teach in some tolerant universities.\n\nThe next night, in the middle of a prepared speech I was delivering to\na large crowd in Kingdom Hall there had been jeers from a group in\na corner at some assertion I made. Guptill's accusations had been\nfestering in my mind. The faces of the people grew blurred as I felt\nanger boiling, rising within me; suddenly my control gave way, and I\nlaunched forth into a denunciation of Greenhalge, Krebs, Guptill and\neven of Perry Blackwood that must have been without license or bounds. I\ncan recall only fragments of my remarks: Greenhalge wanted to be mayor,\nand was willing to put the stigma of slander on his native city in order\nto gain his ambition; Krebs had made a failure of his profession, of\neverything save in bringing shame on the place of his adoption; and on\nthe single occasion heretofore when he had been before the public, in\nthe School Board fiasco, the officials indicted on his supposed evidence\nhad triumphantly been vindicated--, Guptill was gaining money and\nnotoriety out of his spleen; Perry Blackwood was acting out of spite....\nI returned to Krebs, declaring that he would be the boss of the city if\nthat ticket were elected, demanding whether they wished for a boss an\nagitator itching for power and recognition....\n\nI was conscious at the moment only of a wild relief and joy in letting\nmyself go, feelings heightened by the clapping and cheers with which my\ncharacterizations were received. The fact that the cheers were mingled\nwith hisses merely served to drive me on. At length, when I had returned\nto Krebs, the hisses were redoubled, angering me the more because of the\nevidence they gave of friends of his in my audiences. Perhaps I had made\nsome of these friends for him! A voice shouted out above the uproar:--\"I\nknow about Krebs. He's a d--d sight better man than you.\" And this\nstarted a struggle in a corner of the hall.... I managed, somehow, when\nthe commotion had subsided, to regain my poise, and ended by uttering\nthe conviction that the common sense of the community would repudiate\nthe Citizens Union and all it stood for....\n\nBut that night, as I lay awake listening to the street noises and\nstaring at the glint from a street lamp on the brass knob of my\nbedstead, I knew that I had failed. I had committed the supreme\nviolation of the self that leads inevitably to its final dissolution....\nEven the exuberant headlines of the newspapers handed me by the club\nservant in the morning brought but little relief.\n\nOn the Saturday morning before the Tuesday of election there was a\nconference in the directors' room of the Corn National. The city reeked\nwith smoke and acrid, stale gas, the electric lights were turned on\nto dispel the November gloom. It was not a cheerful conference, nor a\nconfident one. For the first time in a collective experience the men\ngathered there were confronted with a situation which they doubted their\nability to control, a situation for which there was no precedent.\nThey had to reckon with a new and unsolvable equation in politics and\nfinance,--the independent voter. There was an element of desperation in\nthe discussion. Recriminations passed. Dickinson implied that Gorse\nwith all his knowledge of political affairs ought to have foreseen that\nsomething like this was sure to happen, should have managed better the\nconventions of both great parties. The railroad counsel retorted that it\nhad been as much Dickinson's fault as his. Grierson expressed a\nregret that I had broken out against the reformers; it had reacted, he\nsaid,--and this was just enough to sting me to retaliate that things had\nbeen done in the campaign, chiefly through his initiative, that were not\nonly unwise, but might land some of us in the penitentiary if Krebs were\nelected.\n\n\"Well,\" Grierson exclaimed, \"whether he's elected or not, I wouldn't\ngive much now for your chances of getting to the Senate. We can't afford\nto fly in the face of the dear public.\"\n\nA tense silence followed this remark. In the street below the rumble of\nthe traffic came to us muffled by the heavy plate-glass windows. I saw\nTallant glance at Gorse and Dickinson, and I knew the matter had been\ndecided between themselves, that they had been merely withholding it\nfrom me until after election. I was besmirched, for the present at\nleast.\n\n\"I think you will do me the justice, gentlemen,\" I remember saying\nslowly, with the excessive and rather ridiculous formality of a man who\nis near the end of his tether, \"that the idea of representing you in\nthe Senate was yours, not mine. You begged me to take the appointment\nagainst my wishes and my judgment. I had no desire to go to Washington\nthen, I have less to-day. I have come to the conclusion that my\nusefulness to you is at an end.\"\n\nI got to my feet. I beheld Miller Gorse sitting impassive, with\nhis encompassing stare, the strongest man of them all. A change of\nfirmaments would not move him. But Dickinson had risen and put his hand\non my shoulder. It was the first time I had ever seen him white.\n\n\"Hold on, Hugh,\" he exclaimed, \"I guess we're all a little cantankerous\ntoday. This confounded campaign has got on our nerves, and we say things\nwe don't mean. You mustn't think we're not grateful for the services\nyou've rendered us. We're all in the same boat, and there isn't a man\nwho's been on our side of this fight who could take a political office\nat this time. We've got to face that fact, and I know you have the sense\nto see it, too. I, for one, won't be satisfied until I see you in\nthe Senate. It's where you belong, and you deserve to be there. You\nunderstand what the public is, how it blows hot and cold, and in a few\nyears they'll be howling to get us back, if these demagogues win.\n\n\"Sure,\" chimed in Grierson, who was frightened, \"that's right, Hugh. I\ndidn't mean anything. Nobody appreciates you more than I do, old man.\"\n\nTallant, too, added something, and Berringer,--I've forgotten what. I\nwas tired, too tired to meet their advances halfway. I said that I had a\nspeech to get ready for that night, and other affairs to attend to,\nand left them grouped together like crestfallen conspirators--all save\nMiller Gorse, whose pervasive gaze seemed to follow me after I had\nclosed the door.\n\nAn elevator took me down to the lobby of the Corn Bank Building.\nI paused for a moment, aimlessly regarding the streams of humanity\nhurrying in and out, streaking the white marble floor with the wet\nfilth of the streets. Someone spoke my name. It was Bitter, Judd Jason's\n\"legal\" tool, and I permitted myself to be dragged out of the eddies\ninto a quiet corner by the cigar stand.\n\n\"Say, I guess we've got Krebs's goat all right, this time,\" he told me\nconfidentially, in a voice a little above a whisper; \"he was busy with\nthe shirt-waist girls last year, you remember, when they were striking.\nWell, one of 'em, one of the strike leaders, has taken to easy street;\nshe's agreed to send him a letter to-night to come 'round to her room\nafter his meeting, to say that she's sick and wants to see him. He'll\ngo, all right. We'll have some fun, we'll be ready for him. Do you get\nme? So long. The old man's waiting for me.\"\n\nIt may seem odd that this piece of information did not produce an\nimmediately revolting effect. I knew that similar practices had been\ntried on Krebs, but this was the first time I had heard of a definite\nplan, and from a man like Bitter. As I made my way out of the building\nI had, indeed, a nauseated feeling; Jason's \"lawyer\" was a dirty little\nman, smelling of stale cigars, with a blue-black, unshaven face. In\nspite of the shocking nature of his confidence, he had actually not\nsucceeded in deflecting the current of my thoughts; these were still\nrunning over the scene in the directors' room. I had listened to him\npassively while he had held my buttonhole, and he had detained me but an\ninstant.\n\nWhen I reached the street I was wondering whether Gorse and Dickinson\nand the others, Grierson especially, could possibly have entertained the\nbelief that I would turn traitor? I told myself that I had no intention\nof this. How could I turn traitor? and what would be the object?\nrevenge? The nauseated feeling grew more acute.... Reaching my office,\nI shut the door, sat down at my desk, summoned my will, and began to\njot down random notes for the part of my speech I was to give the\nnewspapers, notes that were mere silly fragments of arguments I had once\nthought effective. I could no more concentrate on them than I could have\nwritten a poem. Gradually, like the smoke that settled down on our city\nuntil we lived in darkness at midday, the horror of what Bitter had told\nme began to pervade my mind, until I was in a state of terror.\n\nHad I, Hugh Paret, fallen to this, that I could stand by consenting to\nan act which was worse than assassination? Was any cause worth it? Could\nany cause survive it? But my attempts at reasoning might be likened to\nthe strainings of a wayfarer lost on a mountain side to pick his way in\nthe gathering dusk. I had just that desperate feeling of being lost, and\nwith it went an acute sense of an imminent danger; the ground, no longer\nfirm under my feet, had become a sliding shale sloping toward an unseen\nprecipice. Perhaps, like the wayfarer, my fears were the sharper for the\nmemory of the beauty of the morning on that same mountain, when, filled\nwith vigour, I had gazed on it from the plain below and beheld the sun\nbreaking through the mists....\n\nThe necessity of taking some action to avert what I now realized as\nan infamy pressed upon me, yet in conflict with the pressure of this\nnecessity there persisted that old rebellion, that bitterness which\nhad been growing all these years against the man who, above all others,\nseemed to me to represent the forces setting at nought my achievements,\nbringing me to this pass....\n\nI thought of appealing to Leonard Dickinson, who surely, if he knew of\nit, would not permit this thing to be done; and he was the only man with\nthe possible exception of Miller Gorse who might be able to restrain\nJudd Jason. But I delayed until after the luncheon hour, when I called\nup the bank on the telephone, to discover that it was closed. I had\nforgotten that the day was Saturday. I was prepared to say that I would\nwithdraw from the campaign, warn Krebs myself if this kind of tactics\nwere not suppressed. But I could not get the banker. Then I began to\nhave doubts of Dickinson's power in the matter. Judd Jason had never\nbeen tractable, by any means; he had always maintained a considerable\nindependence of the financial powers, and to-day not only financial\ncontrol, but the dominance of Jason himself was at stake. He would fight\nfor it to the last ditch, and make use of any means. No, it was of\nno use to appeal to him. What then? Well, there was a reaction, or an\nattempt at one. Krebs had not been born yesterday, he had avoided the\nwiles of the politicians heretofore, he wouldn't be fool enough to be\ntaken in now. I told myself that if I were not in a state bordering on\na nervous breakdown, I should laugh at such morbid fears, I steadied\nmyself sufficiently to dictate the extract from my speech that was to be\npublished. I was to make addresses at two halls, alternating with Parks,\nthe mayoralty candidate. At four o'clock I went back to my room in the\nClub to try to get some rest....\n\nSeddon's Hall, the place of my first meeting, was jammed that Saturday\nnight. I went through my speech automatically, as in a dream, the habit\nof long years asserting itself. And yet--so I was told afterwards--my\ndelivery was not mechanical, and I actually achieved more emphasis, gave\na greater impression of conviction than at any time since the night\nI had lost my control and violently denounced the reformers. By some\nastonishing subconscious process I had regained my manner, but the\napplause came to me as from a distance. Not only was my mind not there;\nit did not seem to be anywhere. I was dazed, nor did I feel--save\nonce--a fleeting surge of contempt for the mob below me with their silly\nfaces upturned to mine. There may have been intelligent expressions\namong them, but they failed to catch my eye.\n\nI remember being stopped by Grierson as I was going out of the side\nentrance. He took my hand and squeezed it, and there was on his face an\nodd, surprised look.\n\n\"That was the best yet, Hugh,\" he said.\n\nI went on past him. Looking back on that evening now, it would almost\nseem as though the volition of another possessed me, not my own:\nseemingly, I had every intention of going on to the National Theatre, in\nwhich Parks had just spoken, and as I descended the narrow stairway and\nemerged on the side street I caught sight of my chauffeur awaiting me by\nthe curb.\n\n\"I'm not going to that other meeting,\" I found myself saying. \"I'm\npretty tired.\"\n\n\"Shall I drive you back to the Club, sir?\" he inquired.\n\n\"No--I'll walk back. Wait a moment.\" I entered the ear, turned on the\nlight and scribbled a hasty note to Andrews, the chairman of the meeting\nat the National, telling him that I was too tired to speak again that\nnight, and to ask one of the younger men there to take my place. Then I\ngot out of the car and gave the note to the chauffeur.\n\n\"You're all right, sir?\" he asked, with a note of anxiety in his voice.\nHe had been with me a long time.\n\nI reassured him. He started the car, and I watched it absently as it\ngathered speed and turned the corner. I began to walk, slowly at first,\nthen more and more rapidly until I had gained a breathless pace; in ten\nminutes I was in West Street, standing in front of the Templar's Hall\nwhere the meeting of the Citizens Union west in progress. Now that I had\narrived there, doubt and uncertainty assailed me. I had come as it were\nin spite of myself, thrust onward by an impulse I did not understand,\nwhich did not seem to be mine. What was I going to do? The proceeding\nsuddenly appeared to me as ridiculous, tinged with the weirdness of\nsomnambulism. I revolted, walked away, got as far as the corner and\nstood beside a lamp post, pretending to be waiting for a car. The street\nlights were reflected in perpendicular, wavy-yellow ribbons on the wet\nasphalt, and I stood staring with foolish intentness at this phenomenon,\nwondering how a painter would get the effect in oils. Again I was\nwalking back towards the hall, combating the acknowledgment to myself\nthat I had a plan, a plan that I did not for a moment believe I would\ncarry out. I was shivering.\n\nI climbed the steps. The wide vestibule was empty except for two men who\nstopped a low-toned conversation to look at me. I wondered whether they\nrecognized me; that I might be recognized was an alarming possibility\nwhich had not occurred to me.\n\n\"Who is speaking?\" I asked.\n\n\"Mr. Krebs,\" answered the taller man of the two.\n\nThe hum of applause came from behind the swinging doors. I pushed them\nopen cautiously, passing suddenly out of the cold into the reeking,\nheated atmosphere of a building packed with human beings. The space\nbehind the rear seats was filled with men standing, and those nearest\nglanced around with annoyance at the interruption of my entrance. I made\nmy way along the wall, finally reaching a side aisle, whence I could get\nsight of the platform and the speaker.\n\nI heard his words distinctly, but at first lacked the faculty of\nstringing them together, or rather of extracting their collective sense.\nThe phrases indeed were set ringing through my mind, I found myself\nrepeating them without any reference to their meaning; I had reached the\npeculiar pitch of excitement that counterfeits abnormal calm, and all\nsense of strangeness at being there in that meeting had passed away. I\nbegan to wonder how I might warn Krebs, and presently decided to send\nhim a note when he should have finished speaking--but I couldn't make up\nmy mind whether to put my name to the note or not. Of course I needn't\nhave entered the hall at all: I might have sent in my note at the side\ndoor.\n\nI must have wished to see Krebs, to hear him speak; to observe, perhaps,\nthe effect on the audience. In spite of my inability to take in what\nhe was saying, I was able to regard him objectively,--objectively, in\na restricted sense. I noticed that he had grown even thinner; the flesh\nhad fallen away from under his cheek-bones, and there were sharp,\ndeep, almost perpendicular lines on either side of his mouth. He was\nemaciated, that was the word. Once in a while he thrust his hand through\nhis dry, ashy hair which was of a tone with the paleness of his face.\nSuch was his only gesture.\n\nHe spoke quietly, leaning with one elbow against the side of his reading\nstand. The occasional pulsations of applause were almost immediately\nhushed, as though the people feared to lose even a word that should\nfall from his dry lips. What was it he was talking about? I tried to\nconcentrate my attention, with only partial success. He was explaining\nthe new theory of city government that did not attempt to evade, but\ndealt frankly with the human needs of to-day, and sought to meet those\nneeds in a positive way... What had happened to me, though I did not\nrealize it, was that I had gradually come under the influence of\na tragic spell not attributable to the words I heard, existing\nindependently of them, pervading the spacious hall, weaving into unity\ndissentient minds. And then, with what seemed a retarded rather than\nsudden awareness, I knew that he had stopped speaking. Once more he ran\nhis hand through his hair, he was seemingly groping for words that would\nnot come. I was pierced by a strange agony--the amazing source of which,\nseemed to be a smile on the face of Hermann Krebs, an ineffable smile\nilluminating the place like a flash of light, in which suffering and\ntragedy, comradeship and loving kindness--all were mingled. He stood for\na moment with that smile on his face--swayed, and would have fallen had\nit not been for the quickness of a man on the platform behind him, and\ninto whose arms he sank.\n\nIn an instant people had risen in their seats, men were hurrying down\nthe aisles, while a peculiar human murmur or wail persisted like an\nundertone beneath the confusion of noises, striking the very note of\nmy own feelings. Above the heads of those about me I saw Krebs being\ncarried off the platform.... The chairman motioned for silence and\ninquired if there were a physician in the audience, and then all began\nto talk at once. The man who stood beside me clutched my arm.\n\n\"I hope he isn't dead! Say, did you see that smile? My God, I'll never\nforget it!\"\n\nThe exclamation poignantly voiced the esteem in which Krebs was held. As\nI was thrust along out of the hall by the ebb of the crowd still other\nexpressions of this esteem came to me in fragments, expressions of\nsorrow and dismay, of a loyalty I had not imagined. Mingled with these\nwere occasional remarks of skeptics shaken, in human fashion, by the\nsuggestion of the inevitable end that never fails to sober and terrify\nhumanity.\n\n\"I guess he was a bigger man than we thought. There was a lot of sense\nin what he had to say.\"\n\n\"There sure was,\" the companion of this speaker answered.\n\nThey spoke of him in the past tense. I was seized and obsessed by\nthe fear that I should never see him again, and at the same moment I\nrealized sharply that this was the one thing I wanted--to see him. I\npushed through the people, gained the street, and fairly ran down the\nalley that led to the side entrance of the hall, where a small group was\ngathered under the light that hung above the doorway. There stood on the\nstep, a little above the others, a young man in a grey flannel shirt,\nevidently a mechanic. I addressed him.\n\n\"What does the doctor say?\"\n\nBefore replying he surveyed me with surprise and, I think, with\ninstinctive suspicion of my clothes and bearing.\n\n\"What can he say?\" he retorted.\n\n\"You mean--?\" I began.\n\n\"I mean Mr. Krebs oughtn't never to have gone into this campaign,\" he\nanswered, relenting a trifle, perhaps at the tone of my voice. \"He knew\nit, too, and some of us fellows tried to stop him. But we couldn't do\nnothing with him,\" he added dejectedly.\n\n\"What is--the trouble?\" I asked.\n\n\"They tell me it's his heart. He wouldn't talk about it.\"\n\n\"When I think of what he done for our union!\" exclaimed a thick-set\nman, plainly a steel worker. \"He's just wore himself out, fighting that\ncrooked gang.\" He stared with sudden aggressiveness at me. \"Haven't I\nseen you some-wheres?\" he demanded.\n\nA denial was on my lips when the sharp, sinister strokes of a bell were\nheard coming nearer.\n\n\"It's the ambulance,\" said the man on the step.\n\nGlancing up the alley beyond the figures of two policemen who had\narrived and were holding the people back, I saw the hood of the\nconveyance as it came to a halt, and immediately a hospital doctor and\ntwo assistants carrying a stretcher hurried towards us, and we made way\nfor them to enter. After a brief interval, they were heard coming slowly\ndown the steps inside. By the white, cruel light of the arc I saw Krebs\nlying motionless.... I laid hold of one of the men who had been on\nthe platform. He did not resent the act, he seemed to anticipate my\nquestion.\n\n\"He's conscious. The doctors expect him to rally when he gets to the\nhospital.\"\n\nI walked back to the Club to discover that several inquiries had been\nmade about me. Reporters had been there, Republican Headquarters had\ntelephoned to know if I were ill. Leaving word that I was not to be\ndisturbed under any circumstances, I went to my room, and spent most of\nthe night in distracted thought. When at last morning came I breakfasted\nearly, searching the newspapers for accounts of the occurrence at\nTemplar's Hall; and the fact that these were neither conspicuous nor\ncircumstantial was in the nature of a triumph of self-control on the\npart of editors and reporters. News, however sensational, had severely\nto be condensed in the interest of a cause, and at this critical stage\nof the campaign to make a tragic hero of Hermann Krebs would have been\nthe height of folly. There were a couple of paragraphs giving the gist\nof his speech, and a statement at the end that he had been taken ill and\nconveyed to the Presbyterian Hospital....\n\nThe hospital itself loomed up before me that Sunday morning as I\napproached it along Ballantyne Street, a diluted sunshine washing the\nextended, businesslike facade of grimy, yellow brick. We were proud\nof that hospital in the city, and many of our foremost citizens had\ncontributed large sums of money to the building, scarcely ten years old.\nIt had been one of Maude's interests. I was ushered into the reception\nroom, where presently came the physician in charge, a Dr. Castle, one of\nthose quiet-mannered, modern young medical men who bear on their persons\nthe very stamp of efficiency, of the dignity of a scientific profession.\nHis greeting implied that he knew all about me, his presence seemed to\nincrease the agitation I tried not to betray, and must have betrayed.\n\n\"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Paret?\" he asked.\n\n\"I have come to inquire about Mr. Krebs, who was brought here last\nnight, I believe.\"\n\nI was aware for an instant of his penetrating, professional glance, the\nonly indication of the surprise he must have felt that Hermann Krebs, of\nall men, should be the object of my solicitude.\n\n\"Why, we sent him home this morning. Nineteen twenty six Fowler Street.\nHe wanted to go, and there was no use in his staying.\"\n\n\"He will recover?\" I asked.\n\nThe physician shook his head, gazing at me through his glasses.\n\n\"He may live a month, Mr. Paret, he may die to-morrow. He ought never\nto have gone into this campaign, he knew he had this trouble. Hepburn\nwarned him three months ago, and there's no man who knows more about the\nheart than Hepburn.\"\n\n\"Then there's no hope?\" I asked.\n\n\"Absolutely none. It's a great pity.\" He added, after a moment, \"Mr.\nKrebs was a remarkable man.\"\n\n\"Nineteen twenty-six Fowler Street?\" I repeated.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nI held out my hand mechanically, and he pressed it, and went with me to\nthe door.\n\n\"Nineteen twenty-six Fowler Street,\" he repeated...\n\nThe mean and sordid aspect of Fowler Street emphasized and seemed to\ntypify my despair, the pungent coal smoke stifled my lungs even as\nit stifled my spirit. Ugly factories, which were little more than\nsweatshops, wore an empty, menacing, \"Sunday\" look, and the faint\nNovember sunlight glistened on dirty pavements where children were\nmaking a semblance of play. Monotonous rows of red houses succeeded one\nanother, some pushed forward, others thrust back behind little plots of\nstamped earth. Into one of these I turned. It seemed a little cleaner,\nbetter kept, less sordid than the others. I pulled the bell, and\npresently the door was opened by a woman whose arms were bare to the\nelbow. She wore a blue-checked calico apron that came to her throat, but\nthe apron was clean, and her firm though furrowed face gave evidences\nof recent housewifely exertions. Her eyes had the strange look of the\ncheerfulness that is intimately acquainted with sorrow. She did not seem\nsurprised at seeing me.\n\n\"I have come to ask about Mr. Krebs,\" I told her.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" she said, \"there's been so many here this morning already.\nIt's wonderful how people love him, all kinds of people. No, sir, he\ndon't seem to be in any pain. Two gentlemen are up there now in his\nroom, I mean.\"\n\nShe wiped her arms, which still bore traces of soap-suds, and then, with\na gesture natural and unashamed, lifted the corner of her apron to her\neyes.\n\n\"Do you think I could see him--for a moment?\" I asked. \"I've known him\nfor a long time.\"\n\n\"Why, I don't know,\" she said, \"I guess so. The doctor said he could\nsee some, and he wants to see his friends. That's not strange--he always\ndid. I'll ask. Will you tell me your name?\"\n\nI took out a card. She held it without glancing at it, and invited me\nin.\n\nI waited, unnerved and feverish, pulsing, in the dark and narrow hall\nbeside the flimsy rack where several coats and hats were hung. Once\nbefore I had visited Krebs in that lodging-house in Cambridge long\nago with something of the same feelings. But now they were greatly\nintensified. Now he was dying....\n\nThe woman was descending.\n\n\"He says he wants to see you, sir,\" she said rather breathlessly, and I\nfollowed her. In the semi-darkness of the stairs I passed the three men\nwho had been with Krebs, and when I reached the open door of his room\nhe was alone. I hesitated just a second, swept by the heat wave that\nfollows sudden shyness, embarrassment, a sense of folly it is too late\nto avert.\n\nKrebs was propped up with pillows.\n\n\"Well, this is good of you,\" he said, and reached out his hand across\nthe spread. I took it, and sat down beside the shiny oak bedstead, in a\nchair covered with tobacco-colored plush.\n\n\"You feel better?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, I feel all right,\" he answered, with a smile. \"It's queer, but I\ndo.\"\n\nMy eye fell upon the long line of sectional book-cases that lined one\nside of the room. \"Why, you've got quite a library here,\" I observed.\n\n\"Yes, I've managed to get together some good books. But there is so much\nto read nowadays, so much that is really good and new, a man has the\nhopeless feeling he can never catch up with it all. A thousand writers\nand students are making contributions today where fifty years ago there\nwas one.\"\n\n\"I've been following your speeches, after a fashion,--I wish I might\nhave been able to read more of them. Your argument interested me. It's\nnew, unlike the ordinary propaganda of--\"\n\n\"Of agitators,\" he supplied, with a smile.\n\n\"Of agitators,\" I agreed, and tried to return his smile. \"An agitator\nwho appears to suggest the foundations of a constructive programme\nand who isn't afraid to criticise the man with a vote as well as the\ncapitalist is an unusual phenomenon.\"\n\n\"Oh, when we realize that we've only got a little time left in which to\ntell what we think to be the truth, it doesn't require a great deal of\ncourage, Paret. I didn't begin to see this thing until a little while\nago. I was only a crude, hot-headed revolutionist. God knows I'm crude\nenough still. But I began to have a glimmering of what all these new\nfellows in the universities are driving at.\" He waved his hand towards\nthe book-cases. \"Driving at collectively, I mean. And there are\nattempts, worthy attempts, to coordinate and synthesize the sciences.\nWhat I have been saying is not strictly original. I took it on the\nstump, that's all. I didn't expect it to have much effect in this\ncampaign, but it was an opportunity to sow a few seeds, to start a sense\nof personal dissatisfaction in the minds of a few voters. What is it\nBrowning says? It's in Bishop Blougram, I believe. 'When the fight\nbegins within himself, a man's worth something.' It's an intellectual\nfight, of course.\"\n\nHis words were spoken quietly, but I realized suddenly that the\nmysterious force which had drawn me to him now, against my will, was\nan intellectual rather than apparently sentimental one, an intellectual\nforce seeming to comprise within it all other human attractions. And yet\nI felt a sudden contrition.\n\n\"See here, Krebs,\" I said, \"I didn't come here to bother you about these\nmatters, to tire you. I mustn't stay. I'll call in again to see how you\nare--from time to time.\"\n\n\"But you're not tiring me,\" he protested, stretching forth a thin,\ndetaining hand. \"I don't want to rot, I want to live and think as long\nas I can. To tell you the truth, Paret, I've been wishing to talk to\nyou--I'm glad you came in.\"\n\n\"You've been wishing to talk to me?\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, but I didn't expect you'd come in. I hope you won't mind my saying\nso, under the circumstances, but I've always rather liked you, admired\nyou, even back in the Cambridge days. After that I used to blame you\nfor going out and taking what you wanted, and I had to live a good many\nyears before I began to see that it's better for a man to take what he\nwants than to take nothing at all. I took what I wanted, every man worth\nhis salt does. There's your great banker friend in New York whom I used\nto think was the arch-fiend. He took what he wanted, and he took a\ngood deal, but it happened to be good for him. And by piling up his\ncorporations, Ossa on Pelion, he is paving the way for a logical\neconomic evolution. How can a man in our time find out what he does want\nunless he takes something and gives it a trial?\"\n\n\"Until he begins to feel that it disagrees with him,\" I said. \"But\nthen,\" I added involuntarily, \"then it may be too late to try something\nelse, and he may not know what to try.\" This remark of mine might have\nsurprised me had it not been for the feeling--now grown definite--that\nKrebs had something to give me, something to pass on to me, of all men.\nIndeed, he had hinted as much, when he acknowledged a wish to talk to\nme. \"What seems so strange,\" I said, as I looked at him lying back on\nhis pillows, \"is your faith that we shall be able to bring order out of\nall this chaos--your belief in Democracy.\"\n\n\"Democracy's an adventure,\" he replied, \"the great adventure of mankind.\nI think the trouble in many minds lies in the fact that they persist in\nregarding it as something to be made safe. All that can be done is\nto try to make it as safe as possible. But no adventure is safe--life\nitself is an adventure, and neither is that safe. It's a hazard, as you\nand I have found out. The moment we try to make life safe we lose all\nthere is in it worth while.\"\n\nI thought a moment.\n\n\"Yes, that's so,\" I agreed. On the table beside the bed in company with\ntwo or three other volumes, lay a Bible. He seemed to notice that my eye\nfell upon it.\n\n\"Do you remember the story of the Prodigal Son?\" he asked. \"Well, that's\nthe parable of democracy, of self-government in the individual and in\nsociety. In order to arrive at salvation, Paret, most of us have to take\nour journey into a far country.\"\n\n\"A far country!\" I exclaimed. The words struck a reminiscent chord.\n\n\"We have to leave what seem the safe things, we have to wander\nand suffer in order to realize that the only true safety lies in\ndevelopment. We have first to cast off the leading strings of authority.\nIt's a delusion that we can insure ourselves by remaining within its\nwalls--we have to risk our lives and our souls. It is discouraging when\nwe look around us to-day, and in a way the pessimists are right when\nthey say we don't see democracy. We see only what may be called the\nfirst stage of it; for democracy is still in a far country eating the\nhusks of individualism, materialism. What we see is not true freedom,\nbut freedom run to riot, men struggling for themselves, spending on\nthemselves the fruits of their inheritance; we see a government intent\non one object alone--exploitation of this inheritance in order to\nachieve what it calls prosperity. And God is far away.\"\n\n\"And--we shall turn?\" I asked.\n\n\"We shall turn or perish. I believe that we shall turn.\" He fixed his\neyes on my face. \"What is it,\" he asked, \"that brought you here to me,\nto-day?\"\n\nI was silent.\n\n\"The motive, Paret--the motive that sends us all wandering into is\ndivine, is inherited from God himself. And the same motive, after our\neyes shall have been opened, after we shall have seen and known the\ntragedy and misery of life, after we shall have made the mistakes and\ncommitted the sins and experienced the emptiness--the same motive will\nlead us back again. That, too, is an adventure, the greatest adventure\nof all. Because, when we go back we shall not find the same God--or\nrather we shall recognize him in ourselves. Autonomy is godliness,\nknowledge is godliness. We went away cringing, superstitious, we saw\neverywhere omens and evidences of his wrath in the earth and sea and\nsky, we burned candles and sacrificed animals in the vain hope of\naverting scourges and other calamities. But when we come back it will\nbe with a knowledge of his ways, gained at a price,--the price he, too,\nmust have paid--and we shall be able to stand up and look him in the\nface, and all our childish superstitions and optimisms shall have been\nburned away.\"\n\nSome faith indeed had given him strength to renounce those things in\nlife I had held dear, driven him on to fight until his exhausted body\nfailed him, and even now that he was physically helpless sustained him.\nI did not ask myself, then, the nature of this faith. In its presence it\ncould no more be questioned than the light. It was light; I felt bathed\nin it. Now it was soft, suffused: but I remembered how the night before\nin the hall, just before he had fallen, it had flashed forth in a smile\nand illumined my soul with an ecstasy that yet was anguish....\n\n\"We shall get back,\" I said at length. My remark was not a question--it\nhad escaped from me almost unawares.\n\n\"The joy is in the journey,\" he answered. \"The secret is in the search.\"\n\n\"But for me?\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"We've all been lost, Paret. It would seem as though we have to be.\"\n\n\"And yet you are--saved,\" I said, hesitating over the word.\n\n\"It is true that I am content, even happy,\" he asserted, \"in spite of my\nwish to live. If there is any secret, it lies, I think, in the struggle\nfor an open mind, in the keeping alive of a desire to know more and\nmore. That desire, strangely enough, hasn't lost its strength. We don't\nknow whether there is a future life, but if there is, I think it must\nbe a continuation of this.\" He paused. \"I told you I was glad you came\nin--I've been thinking of you, and I saw you in the hall last night. You\nask what there is for you--I'll tell you,--the new generation.\"\n\n\"The new generation.\"\n\n\"That's the task of every man and woman who wakes up. I've come to see\nhow little can be done for the great majority of those who have reached\nour age. It's hard--but it's true. Superstition, sentiment, the habit\nof wrong thinking or of not thinking at all have struck in too deep, the\nhabit of unreasoning acceptance of authority is too paralyzing. Some may\nbe stung back into life, spurred on to find out what the world really\nis, but not many. The hope lies in those who are coming after us--we\nmust do for them what wasn't done for us. We really didn't have much of\na chance, Paret. What did our instructors at Harvard know about the age\nthat was dawning? what did anybody know? You can educate yourself--or\nrather reeducate yourself. All this\"--and he waved his hand towards his\nbookshelves--\"all this has sprung up since you and I were at Cambridge;\nif we don't try to become familiar with it, if we fail to grasp the\npoint of view from which it's written, there's little hope for us. Go\naway from all this and get straightened out, make yourself acquainted\nwith the modern trend in literature and criticism, with modern history,\nfind out what's being done in the field of education, read the modern\nsciences, especially biology, and psychology and sociology, and try to\nget a glimpse of the fundamental human needs underlying such phenomena\nas the labour and woman's movements. God knows I've just begun to get\nmy glimpse, and I've floundered around ever since I left college.... I\ndon't mean to say we can ever see the whole, but we can get a clew, an\nidea, and pass it on to our children. You have children, haven't you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said....\n\nHe said nothing--he seemed to be looking out of the window.\n\n\"Then the scientific point of view in your opinion hasn't done away with\nreligion?\" I asked presently.\n\n\"The scientific point of view is the religious point of view,\" he said\nearnestly, \"because it's the only self-respecting point of view. I can't\nbelieve that God intended to make a creature who would not ultimately\nweigh his beliefs with his reason instead of accepting them blindly.\nThat's immoral, if you like--especially in these days.\"\n\n\"And are there, then, no 'over-beliefs'?\" I said, remembering the\nexpression in something I had read.\n\n\"That seems to me a relic of the method of ancient science, which was\nupside down,--a mere confusion with faith. Faith and belief are two\ndifferent things; faith is the emotion, the steam, if you like, that\ndrives us on in our search for truth. Theories, at a stretch, might\nbe identified with 'over-beliefs' but when it comes to confusing our\ntheories with facts, instead of recognizing them as theories, when\nit comes to living by 'over-beliefs' that have no basis in reason and\nobserved facts,--that is fatal. It's just the trouble with so much of\nour electorate to-day--unreasoning acceptance without thought.\"\n\n\"Then,\" I said, \"you admit of no other faculty than reason?\"\n\n\"I confess that I don't. A great many insights that we seem to get\nfrom what we call intuition I think are due to the reason, which is\nunconsciously at work. If there were another faculty that equalled or\ntranscended reason, it seems to me it would be a very dangerous thing\nfor the world's progress. We'd come to rely on it rather than on\nourselves the trouble with the world is that it has been relying on it.\nReason is the mind--it leaps to the stars without realizing always\nhow it gets there. It is through reason we get the self-reliance that\nredeems us.\"\n\n\"But you!\" I exclaimed. \"You rely on something else besides reason?\"\n\n\"Yes, it is true,\" he explained gently, \"but that Thing\nOther-than-Ourselves we feel stirring in us is power, and that power, or\nthe Source of it, seems to have given us our reason for guidance--if\nit were not so we shouldn't have a semblance of freedom. For there is\nneither virtue nor development in finding the path if we are guided.\nWe do rely on that power for movement--and in the moments when it is\nwithdrawn we are helpless. Both the power and the reason are God's.\"\n\n\"But the Church,\" I was moved by some untraced thought to ask, \"you\nbelieve there is a future for the Church?\"\n\n\"A church of all those who disseminate truth, foster open-mindedness,\nserve humanity and radiate faith,\" he replied--but as though he were\nspeaking to himself, not to me....\n\nA few moments later there was a knock at the door, and the woman of\nthe house entered to say that Dr. Hepburn had arrived. I rose and\nshook Krebs's hand: sheer inability to express my emotion drove me to\ncommonplaces.\n\n\"I'll come in soon again, if I may,\" I told him.\n\n\"Do, Paret,\" he said, \"it's done me good to talk to you--more good than\nyou imagine.\"\n\nI was unable to answer him, but I glanced back from the doorway to see\nhim smiling after me. On my way down the stairs I bumped into the doctor\nas he ascended. The dingy brown parlour was filled with men, standing in\ngroups and talking in subdued voices. I hurried into the street, and on\nthe sidewalk stopped face to face with Perry Blackwood.\n\n\"Hugh!\" he exclaimed. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"I came to inquire for Krebs,\" I answered. \"I've seen him.\"\n\n\"You--you've been talking to him?\" Perry demanded.\n\nI nodded. He stared at me for a moment with an astonishment to which I\nwas wholly indifferent. He did not seem to know just how to act.\n\n\"Well, it was decent of you, Hugh, I must say. How does he seem?\"\n\n\"Not at all like--like what you'd expect, in his manner.\"\n\n\"No,\" agreed Perry agitatedly, \"no, he wouldn't. My God, we've lost a\nbig man in him.\"\n\n\"I think we have,\" I said.\n\nHe stared at me again, gave me his hand awkwardly, and went into the\nhouse. It was not until I had walked the length of the block that I\nbegan to realize what a shock my presence there must have been to him,\nwith his head full of the contrast between this visit and my former\nattitude. Could it be that it was only the night before I had made a\nspeech against him and his associates? It is interesting that my mind\nrejected all sense of anomaly and inconsistency. Krebs possessed me; I\nmust have been in reality extremely agitated, but this sense of being\npossessed seemed a quiet one. An amazing thing had happened--and yet I\nwas not amazed. The Krebs I had seen was the man I had known for many\nyears, the man I had ridiculed, despised and oppressed, but it seemed to\nme then that he had been my friend and intimate all my life: more than\nthat, I had an odd feeling he had always been a part of me, and that now\nhad begun to take place a merging of personality. Nor could I feel that\nhe was a dying man. He would live on....\n\nI could not as yet sort and appraise, reduce to order the possessions he\nhad wished to turn over to me.\n\nIt was noon, and people were walking past me in the watery, diluted\nsunlight, men in black coats and top hats and women in bizarre,\ncomplicated costumes bright with colour. I had reached the more\nrespectable portion of the city, where the churches were emptying. These\nvery people, whom not long ago I would have acknowledged as my own kind,\nnow seemed mildly animated automatons, wax figures. The day was like\nhundreds of Sundays I had known, the city familiar, yet passing strange.\nI walked like a ghost through it....\n\n\n\n\nXXVI.\n\nAccompanied by young Dr. Strafford, I went to California. My physical\nillness had been brief. Dr. Brooke had taken matters in his own hands\nand ordered an absolute rest, after dwelling at some length on the\nvicious pace set by modern business and the lack of consideration and\nknowledge shown by men of affairs for their bodies. There was a limit\nto the wrack and strain which the human organism could stand. He must\nof course have suspected the presence of disturbing and disintegrating\nfactors, but he confined himself to telling me that only an exceptional\nconstitution had saved me from a serious illness; he must in a way have\ncomprehended why I did not wish to go abroad, and have my family join me\non the Riviera, as Tom Peters proposed. California had been my choice,\nand Dr. Brooke recommended the climate of Santa Barbara.\n\nHigh up on the Montecito hills I found a villa beside the gateway of one\nof the deep canons that furrow the mountain side, and day after day\nI lay in a chair on the sunny terrace, with a continually recurring\namazement at the brilliancy of my surroundings. In the early morning I\nlooked down on a feathery mist hiding the world, a mist presently to be\nshot with silver and sapphire-blue, dissolved by slow enchantment until\nthere lay revealed the plain and the shimmering ocean with its distant\nislands trembling in the haze. At sunset my eyes sought the mountains,\nmountains unreal, like glorified scenery of grand opera, with violet\nshadows in the wooded canon clefts, and crags of pink tourmaline and\nruby against the skies. All day long in the tempered heat flowers blazed\naround me, insects hummed, lizards darted in and out of the terrace\nwall, birds flashed among the checkered shadows of the live oaks. That\ngrove of gnarled oaks summoned up before me visions of some classic\nvilla poised above Grecian seas, shining amidst dark foliage, the refuge\nof forgotten kings. Below me, on the slope, the spaced orange trees were\nheavy with golden fruit.\n\nAfter a while, as I grew stronger, I was driven down and allowed to walk\non the wide beach that stretched in front of the gay houses facing the\nsea. Cormorants dived under the long rollers that came crashing in from\nthe Pacific; gulls wheeled and screamed in the soft wind; alert little\nbirds darted here and there with incredible swiftness, leaving tiny\nfootprints across the ribs and furrows of the wet sand. Far to the\nsouthward a dark barrier of mountains rose out of the sea. Sometimes\nI sat with my back against the dunes watching the drag of the outgoing\nwater rolling the pebbles after it, making a gleaming floor for the\nlight to dance.\n\nAt first I could not bear to recall the events that had preceded and\nfollowed my visit to Krebs that Sunday morning. My illness had begun\nthat night; on the Monday Tom Peters had come to the Club and insisted\nupon my being taken to his house.... When I had recovered sufficiently\nthere had been rather a pathetic renewal of our friendship. Perry came\nto see me. Their attitude was one of apprehension not unmixed with\nwonder; and though they, knew of the existence of a mental crisis,\nsuspected, in all probability, some of the causes of it, they refrained\ncarefully from all comments, contenting themselves with telling me\nwhen I was well enough that Krebs had died quite suddenly that Sunday\nafternoon; that his death--occurring at such a crucial moment--had been\nsufficient to turn the tide of the election and make Edgar Greenhalge\nmayor. Thousands who had failed to understand Hermann Krebs, but whom he\nhad nevertheless stirred and troubled, suddenly awoke to the fact that\nhe had had elements of greatness....\n\nMy feelings in those first days at Santa Barbara may be likened, indeed,\nto those of a man who has passed through a terrible accident that has\ndeprived him of sight or hearing, and which he wishes to forget. What I\nwas most conscious of then was an aching sense of loss--an ache that\nby degrees became a throbbing pain as life flowed back into me,\nre-inflaming once more my being with protest and passion, arousing me to\nrevolt against the fate that had overtaken me. I even began at moments\nto feel a fierce desire to go back and take up again the fight from\nwhich I had been so strangely removed--removed by the agency of things\nstill obscure. I might get Nancy yet, beat down her resistance, overcome\nher, if only I could be near her and see her. But even in the midst of\nthese surges of passion I was conscious of the birth of a new force I\ndid not understand, and which I resented, that had arisen to give battle\nto my passions and desires. This struggle was not mentally reflected as\na debate between right and wrong, as to whether I should or should not\nbe justified in taking Nancy if I could get her: it seemed as though\nsome new and small yet dogged intruder had forced an entrance into me,\nan insignificant pigmy who did not hesitate to bar the pathway of the\nreviving giant of my desires. These contests sapped my strength. It\nseemed as though in my isolation I loved Nancy, I missed her more than\never, and the flavour she gave to life.\n\nThen Hermann Krebs began to press himself on me. I use the word as\nexpressive of those early resentful feelings,--I rather pictured him\nthen as the personification of an hostile element in the universe that\nhad brought about my miseries and accomplished my downfall; I attributed\nthe disagreeable thwarting of my impulses to his agency; I did not wish\nto think of him, for he stood somehow for a vague future I feared to\ncontemplate. Yet the illusion of his presence, once begun, continued to\ngrow upon me, and I find myself utterly unable to describe that struggle\nin which he seemed to be fighting as against myself for my confidence;\nthat process whereby he gradually grew as real to me as though he still\nlived--until I could almost hear his voice and see his smile. At moments\nI resisted wildly, as though my survival depended on it; at other\nmoments he seemed to bring me peace. One day I recalled as vividly as\nthough it were taking place again that last time I had been with him;\nI seemed once more to be listening to the calm yet earnest talk ranging\nover so many topics, politics and government, economics and science and\nreligion. I did not yet grasp the synthesis he had made of them all,\nbut I saw them now all focussed in him elements he had drawn from\nhuman lives and human experiences. I think it was then I first felt the\nquickenings of a new life to be born in travail and pain.... Wearied,\nyet exalted, I sank down on a stone bench and gazed out at the little\nisland of Santa Cruz afloat on the shimmering sea.\n\nI have mentioned my inability to depict the terrible struggle that went\non in my soul. It seems strange that Nietzsche--that most ruthless\nof philosophers to the romantic mind!--should express it for me. \"The\ngenius of the heart, from contact with which every man goes away richer,\nnot 'blessed' and overcome,... but richer himself, fresher to himself\nthan before, opened up, breathed upon and sounded by a thawing wind;\nmore uncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more bruised; but full of hopes\nwhich as yet lack names, full of a new will and striving, full of a new\nunwillingness and counterstriving.\"...\n\nSuch was my experience with Hermann Krebs. How keenly I remember that\nnew unwillingness and counter-striving! In spite of the years it has not\nwholly died down, even to-day....\n\nAlmost coincident with these quickenings of which I have spoken was the\nconsciousness of a hunger stronger than the craving for bread and meat,\nand I began to meditate on my ignorance, on the utter inadequacy and\ninsufficiency of my early education, on my neglect of the new learning\nduring the years that had passed since I left Harvard. And I remembered\nKrebs's words--that we must \"reeducate ourselves.\" What did I know? A\nsystem of law, inherited from another social order, that was utterly\nunable to cope with the complexities and miseries and injustices of a\nmodern industrial world. I had spent my days in mastering an inadequate\nand archaic code--why? in order that I might learn how to evade it? This\nin itself condemned it. What did I know of life? of the shining universe\nthat surrounded me? What did I know of the insect and the flower, of the\nlaws that moved the planets and made incandescent the suns? of the human\nbody, of the human soul and its instincts? Was this knowledge acquired\nat such cost of labour and life and love by my fellow-men of so little\nworth to me that I could ignore it? declare that it had no significance\nfor me? no bearing on my life and conduct? If I were to rise and go\nforward--and I now felt something like a continued impulse, in spite\nof relaxations and revolts--I must master this knowledge, it must be my\nguide, form the basis of my creed. I--who never had had a creed, never\nfelt the need of one! For lack of one I had been rudely jolted out of\nthe frail shell I had thought so secure, and stood, as it were, naked\nand shivering to the storms, staring at a world that was no function\nof me, after all. My problem, indeed, was how to become a function of\nit....\n\nI resolved upon a course of reading, but it was a question what books to\nget. Krebs could have told me, if he had lived. I even thought once\nof writing Perry Blackwood to ask him to make a list of the volumes in\nKrebs's little library; but I was ashamed to do this.\n\nDr. Strafford still remained with me. Not many years out of the medical\nschool, he had inspired me with a liking for him and a respect for his\nprofession, and when he informed me one day that he could no longer\nconscientiously accept the sum I was paying him, I begged him to stay\non. He was a big and wholesome young man, companionable, yet quiet and\nunobtrusive, watchful without appearing to be so, with the innate as\nwell as the cultivated knowledge of psychology characteristic of the\nbest modern physicians. When I grew better I came to feel that he had\ngiven his whole mind to the study of my case, though he never betrayed\nit in his conversation.\n\n\"Strafford,\" I said to him one morning with such an air of unconcern as\nI could muster, \"I've an idea I'd like to read a little science. Could\nyou recommend a work on biology?\"\n\nI chose biology because I thought he would know something about it.\n\n\"Popular biology, Mr. Paret?\"\n\n\"Well, not too popular,\" I smiled. \"I think it would do me good to use\nmy mind, to chew on something. Besides, you can help me over the tough\nplaces.\"\n\nHe returned that afternoon with two books.\n\n\"I've been rather fortunate in getting these,\" he said. \"One is fairly\nelementary. They had it at the library. And the other--\" he paused\ndelicately, \"I didn't know whether you might be interested in the latest\nspeculations on the subject.\"\n\n\"Speculations?\" I repeated.\n\n\"Well, the philosophy of it.\" He almost achieved a blush under his tan.\nHe held out the second book on the philosophy of the organism. \"It's\nthe work of a German scientist who stands rather high. I read it last\nwinter, and it interested me. I got it from a clergyman I know who is\nspending the winter in Santa Barbara.\"\n\n\"A clergyman!\"\n\nStrafford laughed. \"An 'advanced' clergyman,\" he explained. \"Oh, a lot\nof them are reading science now. I think it's pretty decent of them.\"\n\nI looked at Strafford, who towered six feet three, and it suddenly\nstruck me that he might be one of the forerunners of a type our\nuniversities were about to turn out. I wondered what he believed. Of\none thing I was sure, that he was not in the medical profession to make\nmoney. That was a faith in itself.\n\nI began with the elementary work.\n\n\"You'd better borrow a Century Dictionary,\" I said.\n\n\"That's easy,\" he said, and actually achieved it, with the clergyman's\naid.\n\nThe absorption in which I fought my way through those books may prove\ninteresting to future generations, who, at Sunday-school age, when the\nfable of Adam and Eve was painfully being drummed into me (without\nany mention of its application), will be learning to think straight,\nacquiring easily in early youth what I failed to learn until after\nforty. And think of all the trouble and tragedy that will have been\naverted. It is true that I had read some biology at Cambridge, which\nI had promptly forgotten; it had not been especially emphasized by my\ninstructors as related to life--certainly not as related to religion:\nsuch incidents as that of Adam and Eve occupied the religious field\nexclusively. I had been compelled to commit to memory, temporarily, the\nmatter in those books; but what I now began to perceive was that the\nmatter was secondary compared to the view point of science--and this had\nbeen utterly neglected. As I read, I experienced all the excitement of\nan old-fashioned romance, but of a romance of such significance as to\ntouch the very springs of existence; and above all I was impressed with\nthe integrity of the scientific method--an integrity commensurate with\nthe dignity of man--that scorned to quibble to make out a case, to\naffirm something that could not be proved.\n\nLittle by little I became familiar with the principles of embryonic\nevolution, ontogeny, and of biological evolution, phylogeny; realized,\nfor the first time, my own history and that of the ancestors from whom\nI had developed and descended. I, this marvellously complicated being,\ntorn by desires and despairs, was the result of the union of two\nmicroscopic cells. \"All living things come from the egg,\" such had been\nHarvey's dictum. The result was like the tonic of a cold douche. I began\nto feel cleansed and purified, as though something sticky-sweet which\nall my life had clung to me had been washed away. Yet a question arose,\nan insistent question that forever presses itself on the mind of man;\nhow could these apparently chemical and mechanical processes, which the\nauthor of the book contented himself with recording, account for me? The\nspermia darts for the egg, and pierces it; personal history begins. But\nwhat mysterious shaping force is it that repeats in the individual the\nhistory of the race, supervises the orderly division of the cells, by\ndegrees directs the symmetry, sets aside the skeleton and digestive\ntract and supervises the structure?\n\nI took up the second book, that on the philosophy of the organism, to\nread in its preface that a much-to-be-honoured British nobleman\nhad established a foundation of lectures in a Scotch University for\nforwarding the study of a Natural Theology. The term possessed me.\nUnlike the old theology woven of myths and a fanciful philosophy of\nthe decadent period of Greece, natural theology was founded on science\nitself, and scientists were among those who sought to develop it. Here\nwas a synthesis that made a powerful appeal, one of the many signs and\nportents of a new era of which I was dimly becoming cognizant; and now\nthat I looked for signs, I found them everywhere, in my young Doctor, in\nKrebs, in references in the texts; indications of a new order\nbeginning to make itself felt in a muddled, chaotic human world, which\nmight--which must have a parallel with the order that revealed itself in\nthe egg! Might not both, physical and social, be due to the influence of\nthe same invisible, experimenting, creating Hand?\n\nMy thoughts lingered lovingly on this theology so well named \"natural,\"\non its conscientiousness, its refusal to affirm what it did not prove,\non its lack of dogmatic dictums and infallible revelations; yet it gave\nme the vision of a new sanction whereby man might order his life, a\nsanction from which was eliminated fear and superstition and romantic\nhope, a sanction whose doctrines--unlike those of the sentimental\ntheology--did not fly in the face of human instincts and needs. Nor was\nit a theology devoid of inspiration and poetry, though poetry might be\ncalled its complement. With all that was beautiful and true in the\nmyths dear to mankind it did not conflict, annulling only the vicious\ndogmatism of literal interpretation. In this connection I remembered\nsomething that Krebs had said--in our talk about poetry and art,--that\nthese were emotion, religion expressed by the tools reason had evolved.\nMusic, he had declared, came nearest to the cry of the human soul....\n\nThat theology cleared for faith an open road, made of faith a reasonable\nthing, yet did not rob it of a sense of high adventure; cleansed it\nof the taints of thrift and selfish concern. In this reaffirmation of\nvitalism there might be a future, yes, an individual future, yet it was\nfar from the smug conception of salvation. Here was a faith conferred by\nthe freedom of truth; a faith that lost and regained itself in life; it\nwas dynamic in its operation; for, as Lessing said, the searching after\ntruth, and not its possession, gives happiness to man. In the words\nof an American scientist, taken from his book on Heredity, \"The\nevolutionary idea has forced man to consider the probable future of his\nown race on earth and to take measures to control that future, a matter\nhe had previously left largely to fate.\"\n\nHere indeed was another sign of the times, to find in a strictly\nscientific work a sentence truly religious! As I continued to read\nthese works, I found them suffused with religion, religion of a kind\nand quality I had not imagined. The birthright of the spirit of man\nwas freedom, freedom to experiment, to determine, to create--to create\nhimself, to create society in the image of God! Spiritual creation the\nfunction of cooperative man through the coming ages, the task that was\nto make him divine. Here indeed was the germ of a new sanction, of a new\nmotive, of a new religion that strangely harmonized with the concepts of\nthe old--once the dynamic power of these was revealed.\n\nI had been thinking of my family--of my family in terms of Matthew--and\nyet with a growing yearning that embraced them all. I had not informed\nMaude of my illness, and I had managed to warn Tom Peters not to do so.\nI had simply written her that after the campaign I had gone for a rest\nto California; yet in her letters to me, after this information had\nreached her, I detected a restrained anxiety and affection that troubled\nme. Sequences of words curiously convey meanings and implications that\ntranscend their literal sense, true thoughts and feelings are difficult\nto disguise even in written speech. Could it be possible after all that\nhad happened that Maude still loved me? I continually put the thought\naway from me, but continually it returned to haunt me. Suppose Maude\ncould not help loving me, in spite of my weaknesses and faults, even as\nI loved Nancy in spite of hers? Love is no logical thing.\n\nIt was Matthew I wanted, Matthew of whom I thought, and trivial,\nlong-forgotten incidents of the past kept recurring to me constantly. I\nstill received his weekly letters; but he did not ask why, since I\nhad taken a vacation, I had not come over to them. He represented\nthe medium, the link between Maude and me that no estrangement, no\nseparation could break.\n\nAll this new vision of mine was for him, for the coming generation, the\nsoil in which it must be sown, the Americans of the future. And who so\nwell as Matthew, sensitive yet brave, would respond to it? I wished not\nonly to give him what I had begun to grasp, to study with him, to be\nhis companion and friend, but to spare him, if possible, some of my\nown mistakes and sufferings and punishments. But could I go back? Happy\ncoincidences of desires and convictions had been so characteristic of\nthat other self I had been struggling to cast off: I had so easily been\npersuaded, when I had had a chance of getting Nancy, that it was the\nright thing to do! And now, in my loneliness, was I not growing just as\neager to be convinced that it was my duty to go back to the family\nwhich in the hour of self-sufficiency I had cast off? I had believed in\ndivorce then--why not now? Well, I still believed in it. I had\nthought of a union with Nancy as something that would bring about\nthe \"self-realization that springs from the gratification of a great\npassion,\"--an appealing phrase I had read somewhere. But, it was at\nleast a favourable symptom that I was willing now to confess that the\n\"self-realization\" had been a secondary and sentimental consideration,\na rosy, self-created halo to give a moral and religious sanction to my\ndesire. Was I not trying to do that very thing now? It tortured me\nto think so; I strove to achieve a detached consideration of the\nproblem,--to arrive at length at a thought that seemed illuminating:\nthat the it \"wrongness\" or \"rightness,\" utility and happiness of all\nsuch unions depend upon whether or not they become a part of the woof\nand warp of the social fabric; in other words, whether the gratification\nof any particular love by divorce and remarriage does or does not tend\nto destroy a portion of that fabric. Nancy certainly would have been\njustified in divorce. It did not seem in the retrospect that I would\nhave been: surely not if, after I had married Nancy, I had developed\nthis view of life that seemed to me to be the true view. I should have\nbeen powerless to act upon it. But the chances were I should not have\ndeveloped it, since it would seem that any salvation for me at least\nmust come precisely through suffering, through not getting what I\nwanted. Was this equivocating?\n\nMy mistake had been in marrying Maude instead of Nancy--a mistake\nlargely due to my saturation with a false idea of life. Would not\nthe attempt to cut loose from the consequences of that mistake in my\nindividual case have been futile? But there was a remedy for it--the\nremedy Krebs had suggested: I might still prevent my children from\nmaking such a mistake, I might help to create in them what I might have\nbeen, and thus find a solution for myself. My errors would then assume a\nvalue.\n\nBut the question tortured me: would Maude wish it? Would it be fair to\nher if she did not? By my long neglect I had forfeited the right to go.\nAnd would she agree with my point of view if she did permit me to stay?\nI had less concern on this score, a feeling that that development of\nhers, which once had irritated me, was in the same direction as my\nown....\n\nI have still strangely to record moments when, in spite of the\naspirations I had achieved, of the redeeming vision I had gained, at the\nthought of returning to her I revolted. At such times recollections\ncame into my mind of those characteristics in her that had seemed most\nresponsible for my alienation.... That demon I had fed so mightily still\nlived. By what right--he seemed to ask--had I nourished him all these\nyears if now I meant to starve him? Thus sometimes he defied me, took\non Protean guises, blustered, insinuated, cajoled, managed to make me\nbelieve that to starve him would be to starve myself, to sap all there\nwas of power in me. Let me try and see if I could do it! Again he\nwhispered, to what purpose had I gained my liberty, if now I renounced\nit? I could not live in fetters, even though the fetters should be\nself-imposed. I was lonely now, but I would get over that, and life lay\nbefore me still.\n\nFierce and tenacious, steel in the cruelty of his desires, fearful in\nthe havoc he had wrought, could he be subdued? Foiled, he tore and rent\nme....\n\nOne morning I rode up through the shady canon, fragrant with bay, to\nthe open slopes stained smoky-blue by the wild lilac, where the twisted\nmadrona grows. As I sat gazing down on tiny headlands jutting out into\na vast ocean my paralyzing indecision came to an end. I turned my horse\ndown the trail again. I had seen at last that life was bigger than I,\nbigger than Maude, bigger than our individual wishes and desires. I felt\nas though heavy shackles had been struck from me. As I neared the house\nI spied my young doctor in the garden path, his hands in his pockets\nwatching a humming-bird poised over the poppies. He greeted me with a\nlook that was not wholly surprise at my early return, that seemed to\nhave in it something of gladness.\n\n\"Strafford,\" I said, \"I've made up my mind to go to Europe.\"\n\n\"I have been thinking for some time, Mr. Paret,\" he replied, \"that a\nsea-voyage is just what you need to set you on your feet.\"\n\nI started eastward the next morning, arriving in New York in time to\ncatch one of the big liners sailing for Havre. On my way across the\ncontinent I decided to send a cable to Maude at Paris, since it were\nonly fair to give her an opportunity to reflect upon the manner in which\nshe would meet the situation. Save for an impatience which at moments\nI restrained with difficulty, the moods that succeeded one another as\nI journeyed did not differ greatly from those I had experienced in the\npast month. I was alternately exalted and depressed; I hoped and doubted\nand feared; my courage, my confidence rose and fell. And yet I was aware\nof the nascence within me of an element that gave me a stability I had\nhitherto lacked: I had made my decision, and I felt the stronger for it.\n\nIt was early in March. The annual rush of my countrymen and women for\nforeign shores had not as yet begun, the huge steamer was far from\ncrowded. The faint throbbing of her engines as she glided out on the\nNorth River tide found its echo within me as I leaned on the heavy rail\nand watched the towers of the city receding in the mist; they became\nblurred and ghostlike, fantastic in the grey distance, sad, appealing\nwith a strange beauty and power. Once the sight of them, sunlit,\nstanding forth sharply against the high blue of American skies, had\nstirred in me that passion for wealth and power of which they were so\nmarvellously and uniquely the embodiment. I recalled the bright day of\nmy home-coming with Maude, when she too had felt that passion drawing me\naway from her, after the briefest of possessions.... Well, I had had it,\nthe power. I had stormed and gained entrance to the citadel itself. I\nmight have lived here in New York, secure, defiant of a veering public\nopinion that envied while it strove to sting. Why was I flinging it\nall away? Was this a sudden resolution of mine, forced by events,\nprecipitated by a failure to achieve what of all things on earth I had\nmost desired? or was it the inevitable result of the development of the\nHugh Paret of earlier days, who was not meant for that kind of power?\n\nThe vibration of the monster ship increased to a strong, electric\npulsation, the water hummed along her sides, she felt the swell of the\nopen sea. A fine rain began to fall that hid the land--yes, and the life\nI was leaving. I made my way across the glistening deck to the saloon\nwhere, my newspapers and periodicals neglected, I sat all the morning\nbeside a window gazing out at the limited, vignetted zone of waters\naround the ship. We were headed for the Old World. The wind rose, the\nrain became pelting, mingling with the spume of the whitecaps racing\nmadly past: within were warmth and luxury, electric lights, open fires,\neasy chairs, and men and women reading, conversing as unconcernedly as\nthough the perils of the deep had ceased to be. In all this I found\nan impelling interest; the naive capacity in me for wonder, so long\ndormant, had been marvellously opened up once more. I no longer thought\nof myself as the important man of affairs; and when in the progress of\nthe voyage I was accosted by two or three men I had met and by others\nwho had heard of me it was only to feel amazement at the remoteness I\nnow felt from a world whose realities were stocks and bonds, railroads\nand corporations and the detested new politics so inimical to the smooth\nconduct of \"business.\"\n\nIt all sounded like a language I had forgotten.\n\nIt was not until near the end of the passage that we ran out of the\nstorm. A morning came when I went on deck to survey spaces of a blue\nand white sea swept by the white March sunlight; to discern at length\nagainst the horizon toward which we sped a cloud of the filmiest and\nmost delicate texture and design. Suddenly I divined that the cloud was\nFrance! Little by little, as I watched, it took on substance. I made out\nheadlands and cliffs, and then we were coasting beside them. That night\nI should be in Paris with Maude. My bag was packed, my steamer trunk\nclosed. I strayed about the decks, in and out of the saloons,\nwondering at the indifference of other passengers who sat reading in\nsteamer-chairs or wrote last letters to be posted at Havre. I was\nfilled with impatience, anticipation, yes, with anxiety concerning the\nadventure that was now so imminent; with wavering doubts. Had I done the\nwisest thing after all? I had the familiar experience that often comes\njust before reunion after absence of recalling intimate and forgotten\nimpressions of those whom I was about to see again the tones of their\nvoices, little gestures....\n\nHow would they receive me?\n\nThe great ship had slowed down and was entering the harbour, carefully\nthreading her way amongst smaller craft, the passengers lining the rails\nand gazing at the animated scene, at the quaint and cheerful French\ncity bathed in sunlight.... I had reached the dock and was making my way\nthrough the hurrying and shifting groups toward the steamer train when\nI saw Maude. She was standing a little aside, scanning the faces that\npassed her.\n\nI remember how she looked at me, expectantly, yet timidly, almost\nfearfully. I kissed her.\n\n\"You've come to meet me!\" I exclaimed stupidly. \"How are the children?\"\n\n\"They're very well, Hugh. They wanted to come, too, but I thought it\nbetter not.\"\n\nHer restraint struck me as extraordinary; and while I was thankful for\nthe relief it brought to a situation which might have been awkward, I\nwas conscious of resenting it a little. I was impressed and puzzled. As\nI walked along the platform beside her she seemed almost a stranger:\nI had difficulty in realizing that she was my wife, the mother of my\nchildren. Her eyes were clear, more serious than I recalled them, and\nher physical as well as her moral tone seemed to have improved. Her\ncheeks glowed with health, and she wore a becoming suit of dark blue.\n\n\"Did you have a good trip, Hugh?\" she asked.\n\n\"Splendid,\" I said, forgetting the storm. We took our seats in an empty\ncompartment. Was she glad to see me? She had come all the way from Paris\nto meet me! All the embarrassment seemed to be on my side. Was\nthis composure a controlled one or had she indeed attained to the\nself-sufficiency her manner and presence implied? Such were the\nquestions running through my head.\n\n\"You've really liked Paris?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, Hugh, and it's been very good for us all. Of course the boys\nlike America better, but they've learned many things they wouldn't have\nlearned at home; they both speak French, and Biddy too. Even I have\nimproved.\"\n\n\"I'm sure of it,\" I said.\n\nShe flushed.\n\n\"And what else have you been doing?\"\n\n\"Oh, going to galleries. Matthew often goes with me. I think he quite\nappreciates the pictures. Sometimes I take him to the theatre, too, the\nFrancais. Both boys ride in the Bois with a riding master. It's been\nrather a restricted life for them, but it won't have hurt them. It's\ngood discipline. We have little excursions in an automobile on fine days\nto Versailles and other places of interest around Paris, and Matthew and\nI have learned a lot of history. I have a professor of literature from\nthe Sorbonne come in three times a week to give me lessons.\"\n\n\"I didn't know you cared for literature.\"\n\n\"I didn't know it either.\" She smiled. \"Matthew loves it. Monsieur\nDespard declares he has quite a gift for language.\"\n\nMaude had already begun Matthew's education!\n\n\"You see a few people?\" I inquired.\n\n\"A few. And they have been very kind to us. The Buffons, whom I met at\nEtretat, and some of their friends, mostly educated French people.\"\n\nThe little railway carriage in which we sat rocked with speed as we flew\nthrough the French landscape. I caught glimpses of solid, Norman farm\nbuildings, of towers and keeps and delicate steeples, and quaint towns;\nof bare poplars swaying before the March gusts, of green fields ablaze\nin the afternoon sun. I took it all in distractedly. Here was Maude\nbeside me, but a Maude I had difficulty in recognizing, whom I did not\nunderstand: who talked of a life she had built up for herself and that\nseemed to satisfy her; one with which I had nothing to do. I could\nnot tell how she regarded my re-intrusion. As she continued to talk, a\nfeeling that was almost desperation grew upon me. I had things to say\nto her, things that every moment of this sort of intercourse was making\nmore difficult. And I felt, if I did not say them now, that perhaps I\nnever should: that now or never was the appropriate time, and to delay\nwould be to drift into an impossible situation wherein the chance of an\nunderstanding would be remote.\n\nThere was a pause. How little I had anticipated the courage it would\ntake to do this thing! My blood was hammering.\n\n\"Maude,\" I said abruptly, \"I suppose you're wondering why I came over\nhere.\"\n\nShe sat gazing at me, very still, but there came into her eyes a\nfrightened look that almost unnerved me. She seemed to wish to speak, to\nbe unable to. Passively, she let my hand rest on hers.\n\n\"I've been thinking a great deal during the last few months,\" I went on\nunsteadily. \"And I've changed a good many of my ideas--that is, I've got\nnew ones, about things I never thought of before. I want to say, first,\nthat I do not put forth any claim to come back into your life. I know\nI have forfeited any claim. I've neglected you, and I've neglected the\nchildren. Our marriage has been on a false basis from the start, and\nI've been to blame for it. There is more to be said about the chances\nfor a successful marriage in these days, but I'm not going to dwell on\nthat now, or attempt to shoulder off my shortcomings on my bringing\nup, on the civilization in which we have lived. You've tried to do your\nshare, and the failure hasn't been your fault. I want to tell you\nfirst of all that I recognize your right to live your life from now on,\nindependently of me, if you so desire. You ought to have the children--\"\nI hesitated a moment. It was the hardest thing I had to say. \"I've never\ntroubled myself about them, I've never taken on any responsibility in\nregard to their bringing up.\"\n\n\"Hugh!\" she cried.\n\n\"Wait--I've got more to tell you, that you ought to know. I shouldn't\nbe here to-day if Nancy Durrett had consented to--to get a divorce and\nmarry me. We had agreed to that when this accident happened to Ham, and\nshe went back to him. I have to tell you that I still love her--I can't\nsay how much, or define my feelings toward her now. I've given up all\nidea of her. I don't think I'd marry her now, even if I had the chance,\nand you should decide to live away from me. I don't know. I'm not so\nsure of myself as I once was. The fact is, Maude, circumstances have\nbeen too much for me. I've been beaten. And I'm not at all certain that\nit wasn't a cowardly thing for me to come back to you at all.\"\n\nI felt her hand trembling under mine, but I had not the courage to look\nat her. I heard her call my name again a little cry, the very poignancy\nof pity and distress. It almost unnerved me.\n\n\"I knew that you loved her, Hugh,\" she said. \"It was only--only a little\nwhile after you married me that I found it out. I guessed it--women do\nguess such things--long before you realized it yourself. You ought to\nhave married her instead of me. You would have been happier with her.\"\n\nI did not answer.\n\n\"I, too, have thought a great deal,\" she went on, after a moment. \"I\nbegan earlier than you, I had to.\" I looked up suddenly and saw her\nsmiling at me, faintly, through her tears. \"But I've been thinking more,\nand learning more since I've been over here. I've come to see that that\nour failure hasn't been as much your fault as I once thought, as much\nas you yourself declare. You have done me a wrong, and you've done the\nchildren a wrong. Oh, it is frightful to think how little I knew when I\nmarried you, but even then I felt instinctively that you didn't love me\nas I deserved to be loved. And when we came back from Europe I knew\nthat I couldn't satisfy you, I couldn't look upon life as you saw it, no\nmatter how hard I tried. I did try, but it wasn't any use. You'll never\nknow how much I've suffered all these years.\n\n\"I have been happier here, away from you, with the children; I've had a\nchance to be myself. It isn't that I'm--much. It isn't that I don't need\nguidance and counsel and--sympathy. I've missed those, but you've never\ngiven them to me, and I've been learning more and more to do without\nthem. I don't know why marriage should suddenly have become such a\nmockery and failure in our time, but I know that it is, that ours hasn't\nbeen such an exception as I once thought. I've come to believe that\ndivorce is often justified.\"\n\n\"It is justified so far as you are concerned, Maude,\" I replied. \"It is\nnot justified for me. I have forfeited, as I say, any rights over you. I\nhave been the aggressor and transgressor from the start. You have been\na good wife and a good mother, you have been faithful, I have had\nabsolutely nothing to complain of.\"\n\n\"Sometimes I think I might have tried harder,\" she said. \"At least I\nmight have understood better. I was stupid. But everything went wrong.\nAnd I saw you growing away from me all the time, Hugh, growing away\nfrom the friends who were fond of you, as though you were fading in the\ndistance. It wasn't wholly because--because of Nancy that I left\nyou. That gave me an excuse--an excuse for myself. Long before that I\nrealized my helplessness, I knew that whatever I might have done was\npast doing.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" I assented.\n\nWe sat in silence for a while. The train was skirting an ancient town\nset on a hill, crowned with a castle and a Gothic church whose windows\nwere afire in the setting sun.\n\n\"Maude,\" I said, \"I have not come to plead, to appeal to your pity as\nagainst your judgment and reason. I can say this much, that if I do not\nlove you, as the word is generally understood, I have a new respect for\nyou, and a new affection, and I think that these will grow. I have\nno doubt that there are some fortunate people who achieve the kind of\nmutual love for which it is human to yearn, whose passion is naturally\ntransmuted into a feeling that may be even finer, but I am inclined\nto think, even in such a case, that some effort and unselfishness are\nnecessary. At any rate, that has been denied to us, and we can never\nknow it from our own experience. We can only hope that there is such a\nthing,--yes, and believe in it and work for it.\"\n\n\"Work for it, Hugh?\" she repeated.\n\n\"For others--for our children. I have been thinking about the children a\ngreat deal in the last few months especially about Matthew.\"\n\n\"You always loved him best,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes,\" I admitted. \"I don't know why it should be so. And in spite of\nit, I have neglected him, neglected them, failed to appreciate them all.\nI did not deserve them. I have reproached myself, I have suffered for\nit, not as much as I deserved. I came to realize that the children were\na bond between us, that their existence meant something greater than\neither of us. But at the same time I recognized that I had lost my right\nover them, that it was you who had proved yourself worthy.... It\nwas through the children that I came to think differently, to feel\ndifferently toward you. I have come to you to ask your forgiveness.\"\n\n\"Oh, Hugh!\" she cried.\n\n\"Wait,\" I said.... \"I have come to you, through them. I want to say\nagain that I should not be here if I had obtained my desires. Yet there\nis more to it than that. I think I have reached a stage where I am able\nto say that I am glad I didn't obtain them. I see now that this coming\nto you was something I have wanted to do all along, but it was the\ncowardly thing to do, after I had failed, for it was not as though I had\nconquered the desires, the desires conquered me. At any rate, I couldn't\ncome to you to encumber you, to be a drag upon you. I felt that I must\nhave something to offer you. I've got a plan, Maude, for my life, for\nour lives. I don't know whether I can make a success of it, and you are\nentitled to decline to take the risk. I don't fool myself that it\nwill be all plain sailing, that there won't be difficulties and\ndiscouragements. But I'll promise to try.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" she asked, in a low voice. \"I--I think I know.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you have guessed it. I am willing to try to devote what is left\nof my life to you and to them. And I need your help. I acknowledge it.\nLet us try to make more possible for them the life we have missed.\"\n\n\"The life we have missed!\" she said.\n\n\"Yes. My mistakes, my failures, have brought us to the edge of a\nprecipice. We must prevent, if we can, those mistakes and failures for\nthem. The remedy for unhappy marriages, for all mistaken, selfish and\nartificial relationships in life is a preventive one. My plan is that\nwe try to educate ourselves together, take advantage of the accruing\nknowledge that is helping men and women to cope with the problems, to\nthink straight. We can then teach our children to think straight, to\navoid the pitfalls into which we have fallen.\"\n\nI paused. Maude did not reply. Her face was turned away from me, towards\nthe red glow of the setting sun above the hills.\n\n\"You have been doing this all along, you have had the vision, the true\nvision, while I lacked it, Maude. I offer to help you. But if you think\nit is impossible for us to live together, if you believe my feeling\ntoward you is not enough, if you don't think I can do what I propose, or\nif you have ceased to care for me--\"\n\nShe turned to me with a swift movement, her eyes filled with tears.\n\n\"Oh, Hugh, don't say any more. I can't stand it. How little you know,\nfor all your thinking. I love you, I always have loved you. I grew to be\nashamed of it, but I'm not any longer. I haven't any pride any more, and\nI never want to have it again.\"\n\n\"You're willing to take me as I am,--to try?\" I said.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered, \"I'm willing to try.\" She smiled at me. \"And I have\nmore faith than you, Hugh. I think we'll succeed.\"....\n\nAt nine o'clock that night, when we came out through the gates of the\nbig, noisy station, the children were awaiting us. They had changed,\nthey had grown. Biddy kissed me shyly, and stood staring up at me.\n\n\"We'll take you out to-morrow and show you how we can ride,\" said\nMoreton.\n\nMatthew smiled. He stood very close to me, with his hand through my arm.\n\n\"You're going to stay, father?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm going to stay, Matthew,\" I answered, \"until we all go back to\nAmerica.\"....\n\n\n\n      PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n      Barriers were mere relics of the superstition of the past\n      Benumbing and desiccating effect of that old system of education\n      Conscience was superstition, the fear of the wrath of the gods\n      Conventionality was part of the price we had willingly paid\n      Conviction that government should remain modestly in the background\n      Everybody should have been satisfied, but everybody was not\n      I hated to lie to her,--yet I did so\n      I'm incapable of committing a single original act\n      It was not money we coveted, we Americans, but power\n      Knowledge was presented to us as a corpse\n      Marriage! What other career is open to a woman?\n      Meaningless lessons which had to be learned\n      Opponent who praises one with a delightful irony\n      Righteousness a stern and terrible thing implying not joy\n      Staunch advocate on the doctrine of infant damnation\n      That's the great thing, to keep 'em ignorant as long as possible\n      The saloon represented Democracy, so dear to the American public\n      They deplored while they coveted\n      We lived separate mental existences\n      We had learned to pursue our happiness in packs\n      What you wants, you gets\n      Your American romanticist is a sentimental spoiled child"