{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3738/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3738","id":"gutenberg_3738","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3738","summary":null,"tags":["Bestsellers, American, 1895-1923","Category: American Literature","Category: Historical Novels","Category: Novels","Ethics -- Fiction","Religion and sociology -- Fiction","Upper class families -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by Pat Castevans and David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nA FAR COUNTRY\n\nBy Winston Churchill\n\n\nBOOK 3.\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 the\nGreeks 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 occupied\nmore than four,--but in the books embodying their mature comments on the\nmanners, customs and crudities of American civilization no less than a\nchapter was usually devoted to us; and most of the adjectives in their\nvarious languages were exhausted in the attempt to prove how symptomatic\nwe were of the ambitions and ideals of the Republic. The fact that many\nof these gentlemen--literary and otherwise--returned to their own shores\nbetter fed and with larger balances in the banks than when they departed\nis neither here nor there. Egyptians are proverbially created to be\nspoiled.\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 her\nin the little salon overlooking the garden, to return to their hotels and\njot down paragraphs on the superiority of the American women over the\nmen. These particular foreigners did not lay eyes on Mr. Durrett, who was\nin Florida or in the East playing polo or engaged in some other pursuit.\nOne result of the lavishness and luxury that amazed them they wrote--had\nbeen to raise the standard of culture of the women, who were our leisure\nclass. But the travellers did not remain long enough to arrive at any\nconclusions of value on the effect of luxury and lavishness on the sacred\ninstitution 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 house.\nFor he would have beheld serenely established in that former abode of\nCalvinism one of the most reprehensible of exotic abominations, a\n'mariage de convenance;' nor could he have failed to observe, moreover,\nthe complacency with which the descendants of his friends, the pew\nholders in Dr. Pound's church, regarded the matter: and not only these,\nbut the city at large. The stronghold of Scotch Presbyterianism had\nbecome 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 in\na stately and triumphant manner. I read in the newspapers of her doings,\nher comings and goings; sometimes she was away for months together, often\nabroad; and when she was at home I saw her, but infrequently, under\nconditions more or less formal. Not that she was formal,--or I: our\nintercourse seemed eloquent of an intimacy in a tantalizing state of\nsuspense. Would that intimacy ever be renewed? This was a question on\nwhich I sometimes speculated. The situation that had suspended or put an\nend to it, as the case might be, was never referred to by either of us.\n\nOne afternoon in the late winter of the year following that in which we\nhad 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 to\nkeep vague, and yet I directed my steps westward along Boyne Street until\nI came to the Art Museum, where a loan exhibition was being held. I\nentered, bought a catalogue, and presently found myself standing before\nnumber 103, designated as a portrait of Mrs. Hambleton Durrett,--painted\nin Paris the autumn before by a Polish artist then much in vogue,\nStanislaus Czesky. Nancy--was it Nancy?--was standing facing me, tall,\nsuperb in the maturity of her beauty, with one hand resting on an antique\ntable, a smile upon her lips, a gentle mockery in her eyes as though\nlaughing at the world she adorned. With the smile and the\nmockery--somehow significant, too, of an achieved inaccessibility--went\nthe sheen of her clinging gown and the glint of the heavy pearls drooping\nfrom her high throat to her waist. These caught the eye, but failed at\nlength to hold it, for even as I looked the smile faded, the mockery\nturned to wistfulness. So I thought, and looked again--to see the\nwistfulness: the smile had gone, the pearls seemed heavier. Was it a\ntrick of the artist? had he seen what I saw, or thought I saw? or was it\nthat imagination which by now I might have learned to suspect and\ndistrust. Wild longings took possession of me, for the portrait had\nseemed to emphasize at once how distant now she was from me, and yet how\nnear! I wanted to put that nearness to the test. Had she really changed?\ndid anyone really change? and had I not been a fool to accept the\npresentment she had given me? I remembered those moments when our glances\nhad met as across barriers in flashes of understanding. After all, the\nbarriers were mere relics of the superstition of the past. What if I went\nto her now? I felt that I needed her as I never had needed anyone in all\nmy life.... I was aroused by 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 we\ntook what we wanted--why not this? And yet for an instant I stood on the\nsidewalk to discover that in new situations I was still subject to\nunaccountable qualms of that thing I had been taught to call\n\"conscience\"; whether it were conscience or not must be left to the\npsychologists. I was married--terrible word! the shadow of that\nInstitution fell athwart me as the sun went under a cloud; but the sun\ncame out again as I found myself walking toward the Durrett house\nreflecting that numbers of married men called on Nancy, and that what I\nhad in mind in regard to her was nothing that the court would have\npronounced an infringement upon the Institution.... I reached her steps,\nthe 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 of\na French novel.\n\n\"Hugh!\" she exclaimed. \"I'm out if anyone calls. Bring tea,\" she added to\nthe 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 time\nto call on an old friend. Why, I thought you never left your office until\nseven o'clock.\"\n\n\"I don't, as a rule, but to-day I wasn't particularly busy, and I thought\nI'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. He\nmade me quite cross,--the feminine presentation of America, the spoiled\nwoman 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, and\nthey would think they saw it anyway, even if he had painted me--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 was\nasking me if I knew Mr. Paret, and spoke of you as one of the coming men.\nI suppose you will be moving there, soon. A practical success! It always\nsurprises me when I think of it, I find it difficult to remember what a\ndreamer you were and here you turn out to be still a dreamer! Have you\ndiscovered, too, the emptiness of it all?\" she inquired provokingly. \"I\nmust say you don't look it\"--she gave me a critical, quizzical\nglance--\"you look quite prosperous and contented, as though you enjoyed\nyour 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 perceive\nany 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 voice,\nat which I exclaimed. \"No, I'm not being sentimental. But, to be serious,\nI really shouldn't care to think that of you. I'd like to think of you as\na friend--a good friend--although we don't see very much of one 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 great\ninterest 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 at\nall,--she always has the air of inquiring what he's doing in that galley.\nShe 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 all,\nwas a large view. The topics didn't matter--our conversation was fragrant\nwith intimacy; and we were so close to each other it seemed incredible\nthat we ever should be parted again. At last the little clock on the\nmantel 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 the\noccasion I have just related was not again struck, and when I went\neagerly 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 I\nthought 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 a\ncertain 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 fine\nacquired attribute. As she had truly observed, we were both conventional;\nconventionality was part of the price we had willingly paid for\nmembership in that rarer world we had both achieved. It was a world, to\nbe sure, in which we were rapidly learning to take the law into our own\nhands without seeming to defy it, in order that the fear of it might\nremain in those less fortunately placed and endowed: we had begun with\nthe appropriation of the material property of our fellow-citizens, which\nwe took legally; from this point it was, of course, merely a logical step\nto take--legally, too other gentlemen's human property--their wives, in\nshort: the more progressive East had set us our example, but as yet we\nhad been chary to follow it.\n\nAbout this time rebellious voices were beginning to make themselves heard\nin the literary wilderness proclaiming liberty--liberty of the sexes.\nThere were Russian novels and French novels, and pioneer English novels\npreaching liberty with Nietzschean stridency, or taking it for granted. I\npicked 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, that\nthey 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 of\nyour 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 have\nmissed 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. Give\nme 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,\" said\nNancy, 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 of\none--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? And\nthose people--the revolutionaries, I mean, the rebels--they live, they're\nthe only ones who do live. The rest of us degenerate in a painless\nparalysis we think of as pleasure. Look at me! I'm incapable of\ncommitting a single original act, even though I might conceive one. Well,\nthere was a time when I should have been equal to anything and wouldn't\nhave 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 my\nway from the office, and I met her occasionally at other houses. I did\nnot tell Maude of that first impulsive visit; but one evening a few weeks\nlater she asked me where I had been, and when I told her she made no\ncomment. I came presently to the conclusion that this renewed intimacy\ndid not trouble her--which was what I wished to believe. Of course I had\ngone to Nancy for a stimulation I failed to get at home, and it is the\nmore extraordinary, therefore, that I did not become more discontented\nand restless: I suppose this was because I had grown to regard marriage\nas most of the world regarded it, as something inevitable and humdrum, as\na kind of habit it is useless to try to shake off. But life is so full of\ncomplexities and anomalies that I still had a real affection for Maude,\nand I liked her the more because she didn't expect too much of me, and\nbecause she didn't complain of my friendship with Nancy although I should\nvehemently have denied there was anything to complain of. I respected\nMaude. If she was not a squaw, she performed religiously the traditional\nsquaw duties, and made me comfortable: and the fact that we lived\nseparate mental existences did not trouble me because I never thought of\nhers--or even that she had one. She had the children, and they seemed to\nsuffice. She never renewed her appeal for my confidence, and I forgot\nthat she had made it.\n\nNevertheless I always felt a tug at my heartstrings when June came around\nand it was time for her and the children to go to Mattapoisett for the\nsummer; when I accompanied them, on the evening of their departure, to\nthe smoky, noisy station and saw deposited in the sleeping-car their\nluggage and shawls and bundles. They always took the evening train to\nBoston; it was the best. Tom and Susan were invariably there with candy\nand toys to see them off--if Susan and her children had not already\ngone--and at such moments my heart warmed to Tom. And I was astonished as\nI clung to Matthew and Moreton and little Biddy at the affection that\nwelled up within me, saddened when I kissed Maude good-bye. She too was\nsad, and always seemed to feel compunctions for deserting 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 to\nlook in at the nursery door, at the little beds with covers flung over\nthem. 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 a\ndeparture, Tom blurted out:--\"Hugh, I believe I care for your family as\nmuch 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 an\nimagination. 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 and\nyearned for him as a child,--he was so human, so dependable. And why\ncouldn't this feeling last? He disapproved--foolishly, I thought--of my\nprofessional career, and this was only one of his limitations. But I knew\nthat he was loyal. Why hadn't I been able to breathe and be reasonably\nhappy in that atmosphere of friendship and love in which I had been\nplaced--or rather in which I had placed myself?.... Before the summer was\na day or two older I had grown accustomed to being alone, and enjoyed the\nliberty; and when Maude and the children returned in the autumn,\nsimilarly, it took me some days to get used to the restrictions imposed\nby a household. I run the risk of shocking those who read this by\ndeclaring that if my family had been taken permanently out of my life, I\nshould not long have missed them. But on the whole, in those years my\nmarriage relation might be called a negative one. There were moments, as\nI have described, when I warmed to Maude, moments when I felt something\nakin to a violent antagonism aroused by little mannerisms and tricks she\nhad. The fact that we got along as well as we did was probably due to the\northodox teaching with which we had been inoculated,--to the effect that\nmatrimony was a moral trial, a shaking-down process. But moral trials\nwere ceasing to appeal to people, and more and more of them were refusing\nto be shaken down. We didn't cut the Gordian knot, but we managed to\nloosen 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 deemed\nvery bad form for one of the groups of combatants to take the public into\ntheir confidence; cities were upset and stirred to the core by these\nconflicts, and the citizens never knew who was doing the fighting, but\nimagined that some burning issue was at stake that concerned them. As a\nmatter of fact the issue always did concern them, but not in the way they\nsupposed.\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 \"Eastern\ncapitalists\" were ready to rescue them from their thraldom if the city\nwould grant them a franchise. Mr. Lawler, the disinterestedness of whose\nnewspaper could not be doubted, fanned the flame day by day, sent his\nreporters about the city gathering instances of the haughty neglect of\nthe Ashuela, proclaiming its instruments antiquated compared with those\nused in more progressive cities, as compared with the very latest\ninventions which the Automatic Company was ready to install provided they\ncould get their franchise. And the prices! These, too, would fall--under\ncompetition. It was a clever campaign. If the city would give them a\nfranchise, that Automatic Company--so well named! would provide automatic\ninstruments. Each subscriber, by means of a numerical disk, could call up\nany other, subscriber; there would be no central operator, no listening,\nno tapping of wires; the number of calls would be unlimited. As a proof\nof the confidence of these Eastern gentlemen in our city, they were\nwilling to spend five millions, and present more than six hundred\ntelephones free to the city departments! What was fairer, more generous\nthan this! There could be no doubt that popular enthusiasm was enlisted\nin behalf of the \"Eastern Capitalists,\" who were made to appear in the\nlight of Crusaders ready to rescue a groaning people from the thrall of\nmonopoly. The excitement approached that of a presidential election, and\nbecame the dominant topic at quick-lunch counters and in street-cars.\nCheap and efficient service! Down with the Bastille of monopoly!\n\nAs counsel for the Ashuela, Mr. Ogilvy sent for me, and by certain secret\nconduits of information at my disposal I was not long in discovering the\ndisquieting fact that a Mr. Orthwein, who was described as a gentleman\nwith fat fingers and a plausible manner, had been in town for a week and\nhad been twice seen entering and emerging from Monahan's saloon. In\nshort, Mr. Jason had already been \"seen.\" Nevertheless I went to him\nmyself, to find him for the first time in my experience absolutely\nnon-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 Dickinson\nand 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 was\nto 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 Mr.\nGrannis and his buccaneers were behind the Automatic, but it was possible\nto 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 a\nseries of editorials and articles that duly appeared. They made a strong\nappeal to the loyalty of our citizens to stand by the home company and\nhome capital that had taken generous risks to give them service at a time\nwhen the future of the telephone business was by no means assured; they\nbelittled the charges made by irresponsible and interested \"parties,\" and\nfinally pointed out, not without effect, that one logical consequence of\nhaving two telephone companies would be to compel subscribers in\nself-defence to install two telephones instead of one. And where was the\nsaving 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 is\nfine, the way you put it. It'll do a lot of good, but how in hell are you\ngoing to handle Judd?....\"\n\nFor three days the inspiration was withheld. And then, as I was strolling\ndown Boyne Street after lunch gazing into the store windows it came\nsuddenly, without warning. Like most inspirations worth anything, it was\nvery simple. Within half an hour I had reached Monahan's saloon and found\nMr. Jason out of bed, but still in his bedroom, seated meditatively at\nthe window that looked over the alley.\n\n\"You know the crowd in New York behind this Automatic company as well as\nI 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 far.\nUnder that damned new charter the franchise has got to be bid for--hasn't\nit? And the people want this company. There'll be a howl from one end of\nthis 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 for\nthe 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 dark\ncorner, and after rummaging for a few moments in one of the pigeon-holes,\ndrew forth a glass cylinder, which he held out as he approached 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 say\nwho 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 heard\non the stairs and Mike Monahan, white aproned and scarlet faced, appeared\nat 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 of\nfigure in the chair facing me keeping with the thoughtful figure in the\nchair 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 they\nget a chance.\"\n\nHe had managed to bring before me vividly that terrible, volcanic flow on\nVersailles of the Paris mob. He put back the book and resumed his seat.\n\n\"And I know how these people fed down here, below the crust,\" he went on,\nwaving his cigar out of the window, as though to indicate the whole of\nthat mean district. \"They hate, and their hate is molten hell. I've been\nthrough 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 he\nfeels 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 a\nbum and a criminal out of me if I hadn't been too smart for 'em, and it's\na kind of satisfaction to have 'em coming down here to Monahan's for\nthings they can't have without my leave. I've got a half Nelson on 'em. I\nwouldn't live up on Grant Avenue if you gave me Scherer's new house.\"\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 it\nwas impossible to tell whether he meant their application to be personal,\nto me, or general, to my associates. \"I went to jail when I was fourteen\nbecause I wanted a knife to make kite sticks, and I stole a razor from a\nbarber. I was bitter when they steered me into a lockup in Hickory\nStreet. It was full of bugs and crooks, and they put me in the same cell\nwith an old-timer named 'Red' Waters; who was one of the slickest\nsafe-blowers around in those days. Red took a shine to me, found out I\nhad a head piece, and said their gang could use a clever boy. If I'd go\nin with him, I could make all kinds of money. I guess I might have joined\nthe gang if Red hadn't kept talking--about how the boss of his district\nnamed Gallagher would come down and get him out,--and sure enough\nGallagher did come down and get him out. I thought I'd rather be\nGallagher than Red--Red had to serve time once in a while. Soon as he got\nout I went down to Gallagher's saloon, and there was Red leaning over the\nbar. 'Here's a smart kid! he says, 'He and me were room-mates over in\nHickory Street.' He got to gassing me, and telling me I'd better come\nalong with him, when Gallagher came in. 'What is it ye'd like to be, my\nson?' says he. A politician, I told him. I was through going to jail.\nGallagher had a laugh you could hear all over the place. He took me on as\na kind of handy boy around the establishment, and by and by I began to\nrun errands and find out things for him. I was boss of that ward myself\nwhen 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 the\nartist in him, that he had hailed me as a breather. But for the grace of\nGod I might have been Mr. Jason and he Mr. Paret: undoubtedly that was\nwhat he had meant to imply... And I was forced to admit that he had\nsucceeded--deliberately or not--in making the respectable Mr. Paret just\na 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 the\npresident'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 hat\nto 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 here\nalways, did you? The house has been too small for us for years. I thought\nyou'd be delighted.\" (This was not strictly true, for I had rather\nexpected some such action on her part.) \"Most women would. Of course, if\nit's going to make such a difference to you as that, I'll sell the lot.\nThat 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 out\nof it. I'm afraid of your success, and of all the money you're making.\"\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 we'll\npay for it. Goodness knows, we have everything we want, and more too.\nThis house--this house is real, and I'm afraid that won't be a home,\nwon'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 build\na house, if you feel that you'd be happier, I have no right to object. Of\ncourse my sentiment for this house is natural, the children were born\nhere, 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 well\nnot to confess my ambitions, and I was greatly relieved that she did not\nreproach me for buying the lot without consulting her. Indeed, I was\ngrateful for this unanticipated acquiescence, I felt nearer to her, than\nI 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 on\nits 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 me\nto 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 by\na 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 to:\nhe knows what good plumbing is. I'm rather surprised you don't appreciate\nthat, Maude, you're so particular as to what kind of rooms the children\nshall have, and you want a schoolroom-nursery with all the latest\ndevices, with sun and ventilation. The Berringers wouldn't have had him,\nthe Hollisters and Dickinsons wouldn't have had him if his work lacked\ntaste.\"\n\n\"And Nancy wouldn't have had him,\" added Maude, and she smiled once more.\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 a\nbasis 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 better\nrun 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 Arts\nmoustache and letters of introduction to Mrs. Durrett and others. We\nfound him the most adaptable, the most accommodating of young men, always\nready to donate his talents and his services to private theatricals,\ntableaux, and fancy-dress balls, to take a place at a table at the last\nmoment. One of his most appealing attributes was his \"belief\" in our\ncity,--a form of patriotism that culminated, in later years, in \"million\npopulation\" clubs. I have often heard him declare, when the ladies had\nleft the dining-room, that there was positively no limit to our future\ngrowth; and, incidentally, to our future wealth. Such sentiments as these\ncould not fail to add to any man's popularity, and his success was a\nforegone conclusion. Almost before we knew it he was building the new\nUnion Station of which he had foreseen the need, to take care of the\nmillions to which our population was to be swelled; building the new Post\nOffice that the unceasing efforts of Theodore Watling finally procured\nfor us: building, indeed, Nancy's new house, the largest of our private\nmansions save Mr. Scherer's, a commission that had immediately brought\nabout others from the Dickinsons and the Berringers.... That very day I\ncalled on him in his offices at the top of one of our new buildings,\nwhere many young draftsmen were bending over their boards. I was ushered\ninto 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 get\nused 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. I\nhad seen, to that. The long facade was imposing, dignified, with a touch\nof conventionality and solidity in keeping with my standing in the city.\nIt was Georgian, of plum-coloured brick with marble trimmings and marble\nwedges over the ample windows, some years later I saw the house by\nFerguson, of New York, from which Archie had cribbed it. At one end, off\nthe dining-room, was a semicircular conservatory. There was a small\nportico, with marble pillars, and in the ample, swift sloping roof many\ndormers; servants' rooms, Archie explained. The look of anxiety on\nMaude's face deepened as he went over the floor plans, the\nreception-room; dining room to seat thirty, the servants' hall; and\nupstairs Maude's room, boudoir and bath and dress closet, my \"apartments\"\nadjoining on one side and the children's on the other, and the\nguest-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 on my\npart, a looking forward to a more decorous, a more luxurious existence; a\ncertain impatience at the delays inevitable in building. But a new legal\ncommercial enterprise of magnitude began to absorb me at his time, and\nsomehow the building of this home--the first that we possessed was not\nthe event it should have been; there were moments when I felt cheated,\nwhen I wondered what had become of that capacity for enjoyment which in\nmy youth had been so keen. I remember indeed, one grey evening when I\nwent there alone, after the workmen had departed, and stood in the litter\nof mortar and bricks and boards gazing at the completed front of the\nhouse. It was even larger than I had imagined it from the plans; in the\nSummer twilight there was an air about it,--if not precisely menacing, at\nleast portentous, with its gaping windows and towering roof. I was a\nlittle tired from a hard day; I had the odd feeding of having raised up\nsomething with which--momentarily at least--I doubted my ability to cope:\nsomething huge, impersonal; something that ought to have represented a\nfireside, a sanctuary, and yet was the embodiment of an element quite\nalien to the home; a restless element with which our American atmosphere\nhad, by invisible degrees, become charged. As I stared at it, the odd\nfancy seized me that the building somehow typified my own career.... I\nhad gained something, in truth, but had I not also missed something?\nsomething a different home would 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 them\ninto 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 to\nemphasize 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. An\nimpulse seized me, I put down my walkingstick and began picking up pieces\nof wood, flinging them into the wagon. I looked at her again, rather\nfurtively; she had not moved. Her attitude puzzled me, for it was one\nneither of surprise nor of protest. The spectacle of the \"millionaire\"\nowner of the house engaged in this menial occupation gave her no thrills.\nI 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 life\ncrushed out. I glanced up once more at the mansion I had built for myself\nlooming in the dusk, and walked hurriedly away....\n\nOne afternoon some three weeks after we had moved into the new house, I\ncame 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, the\nday was fading, the street lamps were beginning to cast sickly streaks of\njade-coloured light across the slush of the pavements. It was the sight\nof this slush (which for a brief half hour that morning had been pure\nsnow, and had sent Matthew and Moreton and Biddy into ecstasies at the\nnotion of a \"real Christmas\"), that brought to my mind the immanence of\nthe festival, and the fact that I had as yet bought no presents. Such was\nthe predicament in which I usually found myself on Christmas eve; and it\nwas not without a certain sense of annoyance at the task thus abruptly\nconfronting me that I got into my automobile and directed the chauffeur\nto the shopping district. The crowds surged along the wet sidewalks and\noverflowed into the street, and over the heads of the people I stared at\nthe blazing shop-windows decked out in Christmas greens. My chauffeur, a\nbristly-haired Parisian, blew his horn insolently, men and women jostled\neach other to get out of the way, their holiday mood giving place to\nresentment as they stared into the windows of the limousine. With the\nAmerican inability to sit still I shifted from one corner of the seat to\nanother, impatient at the slow progress of the machine: and I felt a\ncertain contempt for human beings, that they should make all this fuss,\nburden themselves with all these senseless purchases, for a tradition.\nThe automobile stopped, and I fought my way across the sidewalk into the\nstore of that time-honoured firm, Elgin, Yates and Garner, pausing\nuncertainly before the very counter where, some ten years before, I had\nbought an engagement ring. Young Mr. Garner himself spied me, and handing\nover a customer to a tired clerk, hurried forward to greet me, his manner\nimplying that my entrance was in some sort an event. I had become used to\nthis aroma of deference.\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 and\nmodernized now; recalling that I had had definite desires, desperate\nones; but my imagination failed me when I tried to summon up the emotions\nconnected with them. I had no desires now: I could buy anything in reason\nin the whole street. What did Matthew and Moreton want? and little Biddy?\nMaude had not \"spoiled\" them; but they didn't seem to have any definite\nwants. The children made me think, with a sudden softening, of Tom\nPeters, and I went into a tobacconist's and bought him a box of expensive\ncigars. Then I told the chauffeur to take me to a toy-shop, where I stood\nstaring through a plate-glass window at the elaborate playthings devised\nfor the modern children of luxury. In the centre was a toy man-of-war,\nthree feet in length, with turrets and guns, and propellers and a real\nsteam-engine. As a boy I should have dreamed about it, schemed for it,\nbartered my immortal soul for it. But--if I gave it to Matthew, what was\nthere for Moreton? A steam locomotive caught my eye, almost as elaborate.\nForcing my way through the doors, I captured a salesman, and from a state\nbordering on nervous collapse he became galvanized into an intense\nalertness and respect when he understood my desires. He didn't know the\nprice of the objects in question. He brought the proprietor, an\nobsequious little German who, on learning my name, repeated it in every\nsentence. For Biddy I chose a doll that was all but human; when held by a\nyoung woman for my inspection, it elicited murmurs of admiration from the\nwomen shoppers by whom we were surrounded. The proprietor promised to\nmake a special delivery of the three articles before 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 my\nkey in the door, the same feeling of the impersonality of the place which\nI had experienced before. Not that for one moment I would have exchanged\nit for the smaller house we had left. I opened the door. How often, in\nthat other house, I had come in the evening seeking quiet, my brain\noccupied 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 me,\ndeftly, 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 empty\npalace, its tables set with food in golden dishes. Before two days had\npassed he had fled from it in horror back to his crowded cottage and his\ndrudgery in the fields. Never once had the sense of possession of the\npalace been realized. Nor did I feel that I possessed this house, though\nI had the deeds of it in my safe and the receipted bills in my files. It\neluded me; seemed, in my, bizarre mood of that evening, almost to mock\nme. \"You have built me,\" it seemed to say, \"but I am stronger than you,\nbecause you have not earned me.\" Ridiculous, when the years of my labour\nand the size of my bank account were considered! Such, however, is the\nverbal expression of my feeling. Was the house empty, after all? Had\nsomething happened? With a slight panicky sensation I climbed the stairs,\nwith their endless shallow treads, to hurry through the silent hallway to\nthe schoolroom. Reassuring noises came faintly through the heavy door. I\nopened it. Little Biddy was careening round and round, crying\nout:--\"To-morrow's Chris'mas! Santa Claus is coming tonight.\"\n\nMatthew was regarding her indulgently, sympathetically, Moreton rather\nscornfully. The myth had been exploded for both, but Matthew still hugged\nit. That was the difference between them. Maude, seated on the floor,\nperceived 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, aggressively.\n\"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 Santa\nClaus,\" 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 why\nit was that I was unable to find the same joy as they. Thus it had been\nevery Christmas eve. I was always tired when I got home, and after dinner\nrelaxation 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, from\nmy own relatives, from the Blackwoods and the Peterses, from Nancy. In\nthe meantime I had had my own contributions brought up, the man of war,\nthe 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 a\nlast 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 my\ndreams of marriage, this preparing for the children's Christmas,\nremembering the fierce desires of my own childhood? It struck me, after I\nhad 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 closet\ncontaining 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 Italian\nwalnut which I had filled with the books I had bought while at Cambridge,\nand had never since opened. As I sank down in my chair that odd feeling\nof uneasiness, of transience and unreality, of unsatisfaction I had had\never since we had moved suddenly became intensified, and at the very\nmoment when I had gained everything I had once believed a man could\ndesire! I was successful, I was rich, my health had not failed, I had a\nwife who catered to my wishes, lovable children who gave no trouble and\nyet--there was still the void to be filled, the old void I had felt as a\nboy, the longing for something beyond me, I knew not what; there was the\nstrange inability to taste any of these things, the need at every turn\nfor excitement, for a stimulus. My marriage had been a disappointment,\nthough I strove to conceal this from myself; a disappointment because it\nhad not filled the requirements of my category--excitement and mystery: I\nhad provided the setting and lacked the happiness. Another woman\nNancy--might have given me the needed stimulation; and yet my thoughts\ndid not dwell on Nancy that night, my longings were not directed towards\nher, but towards the vision of a calm, contented married happiness I had\nlooked forward to in youth,--a vision suddenly presented once more by the\nsight of Maude's simple pleasure in dressing the Christmas tree. What\nrestless, fiendish element in me prevented my enjoying that? I had\nsomething of the fearful feeling of a ghost in my own house and among my\nown family, of a spirit doomed to wander, unable to share in what should\nhave been my own, in what would have saved me were I able to partake of\nit. Was it too late to make that effort?.... Presently the strains of\nmusic pervaded my consciousness, the chimes of Trinity ringing out in the\ndamp night the Christmas hymn, Adeste Fideles. It was midnight it was\nChristmas. How clear the notes rang through the wet air that came in at\nmy window! Back into the dim centuries that music led me, into candle-lit\nGothic chapels of monasteries on wind-swept heights above the firs, and\ncathedrals in mediaeval cities. Twilight ages of war and scourge and\nstress and storm--and faith. \"Oh, come, all ye Faithful!\" What a strange\nthing, that faith whose flame so marvellously persisted, piercing the\ngloom; the Christmas myth, as I had heard someone once call it. Did it\npossess the power to save me? Save me from what? Ah, in this hour I knew.\nIn the 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 yet\nthere clung to me, minus the sanction of fear or reward or revealed\ntruth, a certain determination to behave, on this day at least, more like\na father and a husband: to make an effort to enter into the spirit of the\nfestival, and see what happened. I dressed in cheerful haste, took the\nsapphire pendant from its velvet box, tiptoed into the still silent\nschoolroom and hung it on the tree, flooding on the electric light that\nset the tinsel and globes ablaze. No sooner had I done this than I heard\nthe patter of feet in the hallway, and a high-pitched voice--Biddy's\n--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 beautiful!\"\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 the\nchildren, 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 the\ngifts had worn the aura of the supernatural; but the arrival of these\ntoys was looked upon by my children as a part of the natural order of the\nuniverse. 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 a\nquery as to why it didn't fly the American flag. It's ensign was British.\nThen Moreton saw the locomotive, was told that it was his, and took\npossession of it violently. Why wasn't there more track? Wouldn't I get\nmore 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 that\nclosed 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 doll.\nAs she stood for a moment gazing at the lights, she seemed very girlish\nin her dressing-gown, with her hair in two long plaits down her back.\n\n\"Oh, Hugh!\" She lifted the pendant from the branch and held it up. Her\ngratitude, her joy at receiving a present was deeper than the children'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 recent\nyears, and though she cared as little for jewels as for dress she seemed\nto attach to it a peculiar value and significance that disturbed and\nsmote 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. I\nreflected that this would involve confessions and confidences on my part,\nsince there was a whole side of my life of which Maude knew nothing. I\nhad convinced myself long ago that a man's business career was no affair\nof his wife's: I had justified that career to myself: yet I had always\nhad a vague feeling that Maude, had she known the details, would not have\napproved of it. Impossible, indeed, for a woman to grasp these problems.\nThey 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 when\nat home, of the lassitude and ennui I was wont to feel creeping over me\non Sundays and holidays....\n\n\n\n\nXX.\n\nI find in relating those parts of my experience that seem to be of most\nsignificance I have neglected to tell of my mother's death, which\noccurred the year before we moved to Grant Avenue. She had clung the rest\nof her days to the house in which I had been born. Of late years she had\nlived in my children, and Maude's devotion to her had been unflagging.\nTruth compels me to say that she had long ceased to be a factor in my\nlife. I have thought of her in later years.\n\nCoincident with the unexpected feeling of fruitlessness that came to me\nwith 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 restless;\nand everybody knows how important it is for financial operations, for\nprosperity, that the people should mind their own business. In short, our\ncommercial-romantic pilgrimage began to meet with unexpected resistance.\nIt was as though the nation were entering into a senseless conspiracy to\nkill prosperity.\n\nIn the first place, in regard to the Presidency of the United States, a\ncog had unwittingly been slipped. It had always been recognized--as I\nhave said--by responsible financial personages that the impulses of the\nmajority of Americans could not be trusted, that these--who had inherited\nillusions of freedom--must be governed firmly yet with delicacy; unknown\nto them, their Presidents must be chosen for them, precisely as Mr.\nWatling had been chosen for the people of our state, and the popular\nenthusiasm manufactured later. There were informal meetings in New York,\nin Washington, where candidates were discussed; not that such and such a\nman was settled upon,--it was a process of elimination. Usually the\naffair had gone smoothly. For instance, a while before, a benevolent\ncapitalist of the middle west, an intimate of Adolf Scherer, had become\nobsessed with the idea that a friend of his was the safest and sanest man\nfor the head of the nation, had convinced his fellow-capitalists of this,\nwhereupon he had gone ahead to spend his energy and his money freely to\nsecure the nomination and election of this 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 if\nRobinson 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 pass\nmischievous and restrictive laws, and much of my time began to be\noccupied 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, the cry\nof \"corporation control\" resounded everywhere, and everywhere demagogues\narose to inaugurate \"reform campaigns,\" in an abortive attempt to \"clean\nup politics.\" Down with the bosses, who were the tools of the\ncorporations!\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. A\ncertain 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. But\none day on which I had occasion to interview Mr. Jason on a little matter\nof handing over to the Railroad a piece of land belonging to the city,\nwhich was known as Billings' Bowl, he inferred that Mr. Greenhaige might\nprove 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 he\nhad 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 up\nin a safe-deposit box that could not be \"located.\" He was very genial,\nand had a way of conveying disturbing facts--when he wished to convey\nthem--under cover of the most amusing stories. Mr. Jason was not a man to\nget panicky. Greenhalge could be handled all right, only--what was there\nin it for Greenhalge?--a nut difficult for Mr. Jason to crack. The two\nother members of the School Board were solid. Here again the wisest of\nmen was proved to err, for Mr. Greenhalge turned out to have powers of\npersuasion; he made what in religious terms would have been called a\nconversion in the case of another member of the board, an hitherto\nstaunch old reprobate by the name of Muller, an ex-saloon-keeper in\ncomfortable circumstances to whom the idea of public office 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 Mr.\nGreenhalge the ways of the world, and of the political world in\nparticular, 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; he\nappreciated 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 had\nbeen happy to make Mr. Gregory's acquaintance. On his departure the\ndistrict 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, sent\nfor Krebs. In the course of a month or two the investigation was\naccomplished, Greenhalge went back to Gregory; who repeated his homilies,\nwhereupon he was handed a hundred or so typewritten pages of evidence.\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 that\nthe district attorney prosecute. Mr. Gregory temporized, and presently\nleft the city on a vacation. A day or two after his second visit to the\ndistrict attorney's office Mr. Greenhalge had a call from the city\nauditor and the purchasing agent, who talked about their families,--which\nwas very painful. It was also intimated to Mr. Greenhalge by others who\naccosted him that he was just the man for mayor. He smiled, and modestly\nbelittled 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 and\n\"graft\" infesting our entire educational system, teachers and janitors\nlevied upon, prices that took the breath away paid to favoured firms for\nsupplies, specifications so worded that reasonable bids were barred. The\nrespectable firm of Ellery and Knowles was involved. In spite of our\nhorror, we were Americans and saw the humour of the situation, and\nlaughed at the caricature in the Mail and State representing a scholar\nholding up a pencil and a legend under it, \"No, it's not gold, but it\nought 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 best\nof counsel,\"--in this instance, Mr. Hugh Paret. It was also thought wise\nby Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Gorse, and Mr. Grierson, and by Mr. Paret himself\nthat he should not appear in the matter; an aspiring young attorney, Mr.\nArbuthnot, was retained to conduct the case in public. Thus capital came\nto the assistance of Mr. Jason, a fund was raised, and I was given carte\nblanche to defend the miserable city auditor and purchasing agent, both\nof whom elicited my sympathy; for they were stout men, and rapidly losing\nweight. Our first care was to create a delay in the trial of the case in\norder to give the public excitement a chance to die down. For the public\nis proverbially unable to fix its attention for long on one object,\ncontinually demanding the distraction that our newspapers make it their\nbusiness to supply. Fortunately, a murder was committed in one of our\nsuburbs, creating a mystery that filled the \"extras\" for some weeks, and\nthis was opportunely followed by the embezzlement of a considerable sum\nby the cashier of one of our state banks. Public interest was divided\nbetween baseball and the tracking of this 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 him\nwhen it was possible.... I had to admit that he had done a remarkably\ngood piece of work in collecting Greenhalge's evidence, and how the,\nerring city officials were to be rescued became a matter of serious\nconcern. Gregory, the district attorney, was in an abject funk; in any\ncase a mediocre lawyer, after the indictment he was no help at all. I had\nto do all the work, and after we had selected the particular \"Railroad\"\njudge before whom the case was to be tried, I talked it over with him.\nHis name was Notting, he understood perfectly what was required of him,\nand that he was for the moment the chief bulwark on which depended the\nlogical interests of capital and sane government for their defence; also,\nhis re-election was at stake. It was indicated to newspapers (such as the\nMail and State) showing a desire to keep up public interest in the affair\nthat their advertising matter might decrease; Mr. Sherrill's great\ndepartment store, for instance, did not approve of this sort of\nagitation. Certain stationers, booksellers and other business men had got\n\"cold feet,\" as Mr. Jason put it, the prospect of bankruptcy suddenly\nlooming ahead of them,--since the Corn National Bank held certain\npaper....\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, and\nassigned the prosecution to a mild assistant; while a sceptical\njury--composed largely of gentlemen who had the business interests of the\ncommunity, 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 think\ntwice 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 States\nwas \"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 away\nfor a time with veiled accusations. But our citizens had become weary....\n\nAs a topic, however, this effective suppression of reform was referred to\nwith some delicacy by my friends and myself. Our interference had been\nnecessary and therefore justified, but we were not particularly proud of\nit, and our triumph had a temporarily sobering effect. It was about this\ntime, if I remember correctly, that Mr. Dickinson gave the beautiful\nstained-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 having\nfinished my business, I boarded a South Side electric car standing at the\nterminal. Just before it started Krebs came down the aisle of the car and\ntook the seat in front of me.\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"how are you?\" He turned in surprise, and thrust his big,\nbony hand across the back of the seat. \"Come and sit here.\" He came. \"Do\nyou ever get back to Cambridge in these days?\" I asked cordially.\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 her\nname, 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. I\nhad a letter from the daughter last week. She's done very well, and is an\ninstructor 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 him.\nThe 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 not\nstop 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 to\nthe 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 you\nfellows 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 socialism?\"\nhe 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 or\nless crude and utopian propaganda of an obscure political party. That\nisn'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 has\nbeen 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, and\nsome day it will be done away with. We are supposedly a democracy, and\nour superstructure is plutocratic. Our people feel the burden, but they\nhave 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 plutocrats\nhappy. Now plutocrats are discontented, and never satisfied; the more\nthey get, the more they want, the more they are troubled by what other\npeople 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 it\nwas 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 case.\nI 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 get\nthem out of that scrape. Jason didn't have influence enough with the\njudiciary, 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 you,\nor against any of the men with whom you're associated,\" he went on, after\na moment. \"I'm sorry you're on that side, that's all,--I told you so once\nbefore. I'm not calling you names, I'm not talking about morality and\nimmorality. Immorality, when you come down to it, is often just the\nopposition to progress that comes from blindness. I don't make the\nmistake of blaming a few individuals for the evils of modern industrial\nsociety, and on the other hand you mustn't blame individuals for the\ndiscomforts of what you call the reform movement, for that movement is\nmerely a symptom--a symptom of a disease due to a change in the structure\nof society. We'll never have any happiness or real prosperity until we\ncure that disease. I was inclined to blame you once, at the capital that\ntime, because it seemed to me that a man with all the advantages you have\nhad and a mind like yours didn't have much excuse. But I've thought about\nit since; I realize now that I've had a good many more 'advantages' than\nyou, and to tell you the truth, I don't see how you could have come out\nanywhere else than where you are,--all your surroundings and training\nwere against it. That doesn't mean that you won't grasp the situation\nsome day--I have an idea you will. It's just an idea. The man who ought\nto be condemned isn't the man that doesn't understand what's going on,\nbut the man who comes to understand and persists in opposing it.\" He rose\nand looked down at me with the queer, disturbing smile I remembered. \"I\nget off at this corner,\" he added, rather diffidently. \"I hope you'll\nforgive me for being personal. I didn't mean to be, but you rather forced\nit on me.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's all right,\" I replied. The car stopped, and he hurried off. I\nwatched 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 aroused\nby what Tom used to call Krebs's \"crust,\" and as I sat at my desk warm\nwaves of resentment went through me at the very notion of his telling me\nthat my view was limited and that therefore my professional conduct was\nto be forgiven! It was he, the fanatic, who saw things in the larger\nscale! an assumption the more exasperating because at the moment he made\nit he almost convinced me that he did, and I was unable to achieve for\nhim the measure of contempt I desired, for the incident, the measure of\nridicule it deserved. My real animus was due to the fact that he had\nmanaged to shake my self-confidence, to take the flavour out of my\nachievements,--a flavour that was in the course of an hour to be\ncompletely restored by one of those interesting coincidences occasionally\noccurring in life. A young member of my staff entered with a telegram; I\ntore it open, and sat staring at it a moment before I realized that it\nbrought to me the greatest honour of my career.\n\nThe Banker-Personality in New York had summoned me for consultation. To\nbe 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 bag in\norder to catch the seven o'clock train. I announced the news to Maude.\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 how\nfar we were apart; but now the resolutions I had made--and never carried\nout--on that first Christmas in the new home were lacking. Indeed, it was\nthe futility of such resolutions that struck me at this moment. If her\nmanner had been merely one of indifference, it would in a way have been\neasier to bear; she was simply incapable of grasping the significance of\nthe event, the meaning to me of the years of unceasing, ambitious effort\nit crowned.\n\n\"Yes, it is something of a recognition,\" I replied. \"Is there anything I\ncan get for you in New York? I don't know how long I shall have to\nstay--I'll telegraph you when I'm getting back.\" I kissed her and hurried\nout to the automobile. As I drove off I saw her still standing in the\ndoorway looking after me.... In the station I had a few minutes to\ntelephone 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 of\nthe window into the darkness, I reflected on the man I was going to see.\nBut at that time, although he represented to me the quintessence of\nachievement and power, I did not by any means grasp the many sided\nsignificance of the phenomenon he presented, though I was keenly aware of\nhis influence, and that men spoke of him with bated breath. Presidents\ncame and went, kings and emperors had responsibilities and were subject\ndaily to annoyances, but this man was a law unto himself. He did exactly\nwhat he chose, and compelled other men to do it. Wherever commerce\nreigned,--and where did it not?--he was king and head of its Holy Empire,\nPope and Emperor at once. For he had his code of ethics, his religion,\nand those who rebelled, who failed to conform, he excommunicated; a code\nsomething like the map of Europe,--apparently inconsistent in places.\nWhat I did not then comprehend was that he was the American Principle\npersonified, the supreme individual assertion of the conviction that\ngovernment should remain modestly in the background while the efficient\nacquired the supremacy that was theirs by natural right; nor had I\ngrasped at that time the crowning achievement of a unity that fused\nChristianity with those acquisitive dispositions said to be inherent in\nhumanity. In him the Lion and the Lamb, the Eagle and the Dove dwelt\ntogether in amity and power.\n\nNew York, always a congenial place to gentlemen of vitality and means and\ninfluential connections, had never appeared to me more sparkling, more\ninspiring. Winter had relented, spring had not as yet begun. And as I sat\nin a corner of the dining-room of my hotel looking out on the sunlit\navenue I was conscious of partaking of the vigour and confidence of the\nwell-dressed, clear-eyed people who walked or drove past my window with\nthe air of a conquering race. What else was there in the world more worth\nhaving than this conquering sense? Religion might offer charms to the\nweak. Yet here religion itself became sensible, and wore the garb of\nprosperity. The stonework of the tall church on the corner was all lace;\nand the very saints in their niches, who had known martyrdom and poverty,\nseemed to have renounced these as foolish, and to look down complacently\non the procession of wealth and power.. Across the street, behind a sheet\nof glass, was a carrosserie where were displayed the shining yellow and\nblack panels of a closed automobile, the cost of which would have built a\nfarm-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 a\ncigar, and listening in silence to the conversation I had interrupted. He\nrose 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 his\nsummons 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 it\nturned 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 he\nhad 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, affably.\n\nMr. Barbour, the president of our Railroad, was present, and nodded to me\nkindly; also a president of a smaller road. In addition, there were two\nNew York attorneys of great prominence, whom I had met. The banker's own\nspecial lieutenant of the law, Mr. Clement T. Grolier, for whom I looked,\nwas absent; but it was forthwith explained that he was offering, that\nmorning, a resolution of some importance in the Convention of his Church,\nbut 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 I\nhave 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 be\nof merely academic interest. Indeed, the very situation we discussed that\nday 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 that\npurpose; and very naturally we resented the fact that the meddling Person\nwho had got into the White House without asking anybody's leave,--who\napparently did not believe in the infallibility of our legal Bible, the\nConstitution,--should maintain that the anthracite roads had formed a\ncombination in restraint of trade, should lay down the preposterous\ndoctrine--so subversive of the Rights of Man--that railroads should not\nown coal mines. Congress had passed a law to meet this contention, suit\nhad been brought, and in the lower court the government had won.\n\nAs the day wore on our numbers increased, we were joined by other lawyers\nof renown, not the least of whom was Mr. Grolier himself, fresh from his\ntriumph over religious heresy in his Church Convention. The note of the\nconference became tinged with exasperation, and certain gentlemen seized\nthe opportunity to relieve their pent-up feelings on the subject of the\nPresident and his slavish advisers,--some of whom, before they came under\nthe spell of his sorcery, had once been sound lawyers and sensible men.\nWith the exception of the great Banker himself, who made few comments,\nTheodore Watling was accorded the most deference; as one of the leaders\nof that indomitable group of senators who had dared to stand up against\npopular clamour, his opinions were of great value, and his tactical\nadvice was listened to with respect. I felt more pride than ever in my\nformer chief, who had lost none of his charm. While in no way minimizing\nthe seriousness of the situation, his wisdom was tempered, as always,\nwith humour; he managed, as it were, to neutralize the acid injected into\nthe atmosphere by other gentlemen present; he alone seemed to bear no\nanimus against the Author of our troubles; suave and calm, good natured,\nhe sometimes brought the company into roars of laughter and even\nsucceeded in bringing occasional smiles to the face of the man who had\nsummoned us--when relating some characteristic story of the queer genius\nwhom the fates (undoubtedly as a practical joke) had made the chief\nmagistrate of the United States of America. All geniuses have weaknesses;\nMr. Wading had made a study of the President's, and more than once had\nlured him into an impasse. The case had been appealed to the Supreme\nCourt, and Mr. Wading, with remarkable conciseness and penetration,\nreviewed the characteristics of each and every member of that tribunal,\nall of whom he knew intimately. They were, of course, not subject to\n\"advice,\" as were some of the gentlemen who sat on our state courts; no\nsane and self-respecting American would presume to \"approach\" them.\nNevertheless they were human, and it were wise to take account, in the\nconduct of the case, of the probable 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. A\nMartian 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 him\nin the shadow of another individual; a man who, like a powerful magnet,\ncontinually drew our glances. When we spoke, we almost invariably\naddressed him, his rare words fell like bolts upon the consciousness.\nThere was no apparent rift in that personality.\n\nWhen, about five o'clock, the conference was ended and we were dismissed,\nUnited States Senator, railroad presidents, field-marshals of the law,\nthe great banker fell into an eager conversation with Grolier over the\nCanon on Divorce, the subject of warm debate in the convention that day.\nGrolier, it appeared, had led his party against the theological liberals.\nHe believed that law was static, but none knew better its plasticity;\nthat it was infallible, but none so well as he could find a text on\neither side. His reputation was not of the popular, newspaper sort, but\nwas known to connoisseurs, editors, financiers, statesmen and judges,--to\nthose, in short, whose business it is to make themselves familiar with\nthe instruments of power. He was the banker's chief legal adviser, the\nbanker's rapier of tempered steel, sheathed from the vulgar view save\nwhen it flashed forth on a swift errand.\n\n\"I'm glad to be associated with you in this case, Mr. Paret,\" Mr. Grolier\nsaid modestly, as we emerged into the maelstrom of Wall Street. \"If you\ncan make it convenient to call at my office in the morning, we'll go over\nit a little. And I'll see you in a day or two in Washington, Watling.\nKeep your eye on the bull,\" he added, with a twinkle, \"and don't let him\nbreak any more china than you can help. I don't know where we'd be if it\nweren'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 catered\nto came as near perfection as human things attain. From the great,\nheavily curtained dining-room the noises of the city had been carefully\nexcluded; the dust of the Avenue, the squalour and smells of the brown\nstone fronts and laddered tenements of those gloomy districts lying a\npistol-shot east and west. We had a vintage champagne, and afterwards a\ncigar of the club's special importation.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Watling, \"mow that you're a member of the royal council,\nwhat 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 his\nhand in parting. The manner in which he had looked at me then had puzzled\nme; it was as though he were seeking to divine something in me that had\nescaped him. \"Why doesn't the government take him over?\" I exclaimed.\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 the\nkind the night of the election, years ago? It occurred to me to-day, when\nI 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 of\nour 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 waste of\nthe nation's energy.\" Mr. Watling seldom swore. \"Look at the President!\nThere's a man of remarkable ability, too. And those two oughtn't to be\nfighting each other. The President's right, in a way. Yes, he is, though\nI've got to oppose him.\"\n\nI smiled at this from Theodore Watling, though I admired him the more for\nit. And suddenly, oddly, I happened to remember what Krebs had said, that\nour 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 not\npossible, too, that the idea of Mr. Watling and the vision of Krebs might\ncoincide? I was struck by a certain seeming similarity in their views;\nbut Mr. Watling interrupted this train of thought by continuing to\nexpress his own.\n\n\"Well,--they're running right into a gale when they might be sailing with\nit,\" 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 to\nme 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 had\ngiven real evidence of an inner anxiety and lack of confidence in the\nfuture.\n\n\n\n\nXXI.\n\nIn spite of that unwonted note of pessimism from Mr. Watling, I went home\nin a day or two flushed with my new honours, and it was impossible not to\nbe conscious of the fact that my aura of prestige was increased\n--tremendously increased--by the recognition I had received. A certain\nsubtle deference in the attitude of the small minority who owed\nallegiance to the personage by whom I had been summoned was more\nsatisfying than if I had been acclaimed at the station by thousands of my\nfellow-citizens who knew nothing of my journey and of its significance,\neven though it might have a concern for them. To men like Berringer,\nGrierson and Tallant and our lesser great lights the banker was a\nsemi-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 my\nimpressions. Had he, for instance, let fall any opinions,\nprognostications on the political and financial situation? Dickinson and\nScherer 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, and\nwhich he had already begun to build! With Dickinson I lunched in private,\nin order to give him a detailed account of the conference. By five\no'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 asked,\nas 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, if\nhe 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 years,\"\nI 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, with\nthe 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 lap.\"\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, or\nany 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 you\nto 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 such\na hurry--if you hadn't misjudged me so. It was the power in you, the\ncraving, the ideal in you that I cared for--not the fruits of it. The\nfruits would have come naturally. But you forced them, Hugh, for quicker\nresults.\"\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 you.\"\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 I\nhad waited a lifetime, I could have taken her in my arms--and yet I did\nnot. 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 of\nher, 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 getting\nbeyond that. But have you, in your secret soul, any religion at all? Do\nyou ever think about it? I'm not speaking about anything orthodox, but\nsome religion--even a tiny speck of it, a germ--harmonizing with life,\nwith that power we feel in us we seek to express and continually\nviolate.\"\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 and\nyet against the tumult and beating of this passion striving to throb down\nthought, thought strove. Though I saw her as a woman, my senses and my\nspirit 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 of\nmyself. Isn't life more than that? Isn't it in us, too,--in you? Think,\nHugh. Is there no god, anywhere, but this force we feel, restlessly\ncreating only to destroy? You must answer--you must find out.\"\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 can't\nexpress 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, and\nwhen 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 loved\nmost; 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 at\nme 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 exist!\nBecause I seem to feel it. But can we find it this way, my dear?\" Her\nhand tightened on mine.\n\n\"But if the force drawing us together, that has always drawn us together,\nis 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 is\nonly when a moment, a moment like this comes that the quality of what we\nhave 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 get\nthat part of you I love, and are you to get what you crave in me? Can we\njust seize happiness? Will it not elude us just as much as though we\nbelieved 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 of it\nis they've made me a coward, Hugh. It isn't that I couldn't do without\nthem, I've come to depend on them in another way. It's because they give\nme a certain protection,--do you see? they've come to stand in the place\nof the real convictions we've lost. And--well, we've taken the baubles,\ncan we reach out our hands and take--this? Won't we be punished for it,\nfrightfully 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 hands....\n\nAs may be imagined, the incident I have just related threw my life into a\ntangle that would have floored a less persistent optimist and romanticist\nthan myself, yet I became fairly accustomed to treading what the old\nmoralists called the devious paths of sin. In my passion I had not\nhesitated to lay down the doctrine that the courageous and the strong\ntook what they wanted,--a doctrine of which I had been a consistent\ndisciple in the professional and business realm. A logical buccaneer,\nsuperman, \"master of life\" would promptly have extended this doctrine to\nthe realm of sex. Nancy was the mate for me, and Nancy and I, our\ndevelopment, was all that mattered, especially my development. Let every\nman and woman look out for his or her development, and in the end the\nmajority of people would be happy. This was going Adam Smith one better.\nWhen it came to putting that theory into practice, however, one needed\nconvictions: Nancy had been right when she had implied that convictions\nwere precisely what we lacked; what our world in general lacked. We had\ndesires, yes convictions, no. What we wanted we got not by defying the\nworld, but by conforming to it: we were ready to defy only when our\ndesires overcame the resistance of our synapses, and even then not until\nwe should have exhausted every legal and conventional means.\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 be\none who has achieved such superhumanity as he possesses not by\nchallenging laws and conventions, but by getting around them. My wife and\nfamily loved me; and paradoxically I still had affection for them, or\nthought I had. But the superman creed is, \"be yourself, realize yourself,\nno matter how cruel you may have to be in order to do so.\" One trouble\nwith me was that remnants of the Christian element of pity still clung to\nme. I would be cruel if I had to, but I hoped I shouldn't have to:\nsomething 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 a\nsituation 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 had\nreached 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 lay\nwith me: if she had her weakness--which she acknowledged--I had mine--and\nkept it to myself. It was part of my romantic nature not to want to break\nher down. Perhaps I loved the ideal better than the woman herself, though\nthat scarcely seems possible.\n\nWe saw each other constantly. And though we had instinctively begun to be\ncareful, I imagine there was some talk among our acquaintances. It is to\nbe noted that the gossip never became riotous, for we had always been\nfriends, and Nancy had a saving reputation for coldness. It seemed\nincredible that Maude had not discovered my secret, but if she knew of\nit, 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 to\nher than the trite one that she pursued the even tenor of her way; and I\nfound the very perfection of her wifehood exasperating. Our relationship\nwould, I thought, have been more endurable if we had quarrelled. And yet\nwe had grown as far apart, in that big house, as though we had been\nseparated by a continent; I lived in my apartments, she in hers; she\nconsulted me about dinner parties and invitations; for, since we had\nmoved to Grant Avenue, we entertained and went out more than before. It\nseemed as though she were making every effort consistent with her\nintegrity and self-respect to please me. Outwardly she conformed to the\nmould; but I had long been aware that inwardly a person had developed. It\nhad not been a spontaneous development, but one in resistance to\npressure; and was probably all the stronger for that reason. At times her\nwill revealed itself in astonishing and unexpected flashes, as when once\nshe announced that she was going to change Matthew's school.\n\n\"He's old enough to go to boarding-school,\" I said. \"I'll look up a place\nfor 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. Matthew\nis timid, he should have learned to take care of himself. And he will\nmake 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 have\nalways been too--busy to think of the children. You have left them to me.\nI am doing the best I can with them.\"\n\n\"But a man should have something to say about boys. He understands them.\"\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 the\nfact that her chin was firmer, that certain lines had come into her face\nindicative of what is called character. Beneath her pliability she was\nnow all firmness; the pliability had become a mockery. It cannot be said\nthat I went so far as to hate her for this,--when it was in my mind,--but\nmy feelings were of a strong antipathy. And then again there were rare\nmoments when I was inexplicably drawn to her, not by love and passion; I\nmelted a little in pity, perhaps, when my eyes were opened and I saw the\ntragedy, yet I am not referring now to such feelings as these. I am\nspeaking of the times when I beheld her as the blameless companion of the\nyears, the mother of my children, the woman I was used to and should--by\nall canons I had known--have loved....\n\nAnd there were the children. Days and weeks passed when I scarcely saw\nthem, and then some little incident would happen to give me an unexpected\nwrench and plunge me into unhappiness. One evening I came home from a\nlong talk with Nancy that had left us both wrought up, and I had entered\nthe library before I heard voices. Maude was seated under the lamp at the\nend of the big room reading from \"Don Quixote\"; Matthew and Biddy were at\nher feet, and Moreton, less attentive, at a little distance was taking\napart a mechanical toy. I would have tiptoed out, but Biddy caught sight\nof 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 of\npicking 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 of\nhis face resembled my father's. He had begun to think.. What did he think\nof 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 night.\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 and\nthe remaining Blackwoods had been \"relieved\" of the Boyne Street line.\nThe process need not be gone into in detail, being the time-honoured one\nemployed in the Ribblevale affair of \"running down\" the line, or perhaps\nit would be better to say \"showing it up.\" It had not justified its\nsurvival in our efficient days, it had held out--thanks to Perry--with\nabsurd and anachronous persistence against the inevitable consolidation.\nMr. Tallant's newspaper had published many complaints of the age and\nscarcity of the cars, etc.; and alarmed holders of securities, in whose\nvaults they had lain since time immemorial, began to sell.... I saw\nlittle of Perry in those days, as I have explained, but one day I met him\nin the Hambleton Building, and he was 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, a\ncompany 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 distinctly\nunpleasant. I don't remember what I said sething to the effect that he\nwas excited, that his language was extravagant. But after he had walked\noff and left me I told Dickinson that he ought to be given a chance, and\none of our younger financiers, Murphree, went to Perry and pointed out\nthat he had nothing to gain by obstruction; if he were only reasonable,\nhe might come into the new corporation on the same terms with 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 the\nBoyne Club. I was rather sorry for him. Tom naturally took the matter to\nheart, but he never spoke of it; I found that I was seeing less of him,\nthough we continued to dine there at intervals, and he still came to my\nhouse to see the children. Maude continued to see Lucia. For me, the\nsituation would have been more awkward had I been less occupied, had my\nrelationship with Maude been a closer one. Neither did she mention Perry\nin those days. The income that remained to him being sufficient for him\nand his family to live on comfortably, he began to devote most of his\ntime to various societies of a semipublic nature until--in the spring of\nwhich I write his activities suddenly became concentrated in the\norganization of a \"Citizens Union,\" whose avowed object was to make a\ncampaign against \"graft\" and political corruption the following autumn.\nThis announcement and the call for a mass-meeting in Kingdon Hall was\nreceived by the newspapers with a good-natured ridicule, and in\ninfluential quarters it was generally hinted that this was Mr.\nBlackwood's method of \"getting square\" for having been deprived of the\nBoyne Street line. It was quite characteristic of Ralph Hambleton that he\nshould go, out of curiosity, to the gathering at Kingdon Hall, and drop\ninto 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 said he\ncouldn'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 are\ngoing 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 make\nthis city sadder than heaven. When they get through, it'll all be over\nbut 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 lawyers\nin the city hadn't been hired by the respectable crowd and a lot of other\nqueer work done, the treasurer and purchasing agent would be doing time.\nThey 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 his--what's\nhis name? And some other representatives of our oldest families,--Alec\nPound. He's a reformer now, you know. They put him on the resolutions\ncommittee. Sam Ogilvy was there, he'd be classed as respectably\nconservative. And one of the Ewanses. I could name a few others, if you\npressed me. That brother of Fowndes who looks like an up-state minister.\nA lot of women--Miller Gorse's sister, Mrs. Datchet, who never approved\nof Miller. Quite a genteel gathering, I give you my word, and all\nastonished and mad as hell when the speaking was over. Mrs. Datchet said\nshe had been living in a den of iniquity and vice, and didn'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 was\nanother fellow who spoke I forgot to mention--that queer Dick who was in\nyour class, Krebs, got the school board evidence, looked as if he'd come\nin by freight. He wasn't as popular as the rest, but he's got more sense\nthan 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 as\nthey envied them they hadn't any right to complain of them. He was going\ninto this campaign to tell the truth, but to tell all sides of it, and if\nthey wanted reform, they'd have to reform themselves first. I admired his\nnerve, 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 knowing\nwhat he's talking about, and apparently he doesn't give a continental\nwhether he's popular or not. Besides, Greenhalge had cracked him up to\nthe 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 were\nstarting to ebb: I scented vague calamities ahead, calamities I\nassociated with Krebs; and when I went out to the Club for lunch this\nsense 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 eye\nnewly critical I detected in him a certain disintegration, deterioration.\nHaving dismissed the reformers, he began to tell of his experiences\nabroad, referring in one way or another to the people of consequence who\nhad 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 spells\nof hot wind and dust. I no longer seemed to find refuge in my work. I was\nunhappy at home. After walking for many years in confidence and security\nalong what appeared to be a certain path, I had suddenly come out into a\nvague country in which it was becoming more and more difficult to\nrecognize landmarks. I did not like to confess this; and yet I heard\nwithin me occasional whispers. Could it be that I, Hugh Paret, who had\nalways been so positive, had made a mess of my life? There were moments\nwhen the pattern of it appeared to have fallen apart, resolved itself\ninto 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 French\nand 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 was\nthe slightest unsteadiness in her voice as she replied:--\"Is it necessary\nto go into that, Hugh? Wouldn't it be useless as well as a little\npainful? Surely, going to Europe without one's husband is not an unusual\nthing in these days. Let it just be understood that I want to go, that\nthe 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 a\nfull 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 a\nterrible mistake. I began to realize that after we had been married a few\nmonths--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 get\na divorce? I dared not ask her. The word rang horribly in my ears, though\nunpronounced; 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 forced\nto confess that she looked it. That new Maude I had seen emerging of late\nyears seemed now to have found herself; she was no longer the woman I had\nmarried,--yielding, willing to overlook, anxious to please, living 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 true\nthat you have always supported me in luxury,--that might have been enough\nfor another woman. It isn't enough for me--I, too, have a life to live, a\nsoul to be responsible for. It's not for my sake so much as for the\nchildren'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 wished\nto delude myself now into believing that what she suggested was in\nreality 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 her;\nand at that moment there crowded into my mind, melting me, incident after\nincident 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 away\nfrom 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 I\nam a failure so far as you are concerned. Your ideas of life and mine are\nfar 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 was\nnear the end of her strength.\n\n\"No, I don't think it's that,\" she said dispassionately. \"I prefer to put\nit down, that part of it, to a fundamental difference of ideas. I do not\nfeel qualified to sit in judgment on that part of your life, although\nI'll admit that many of the things you have done, in common with the men\nwith whom you are associated, have seemed to me unjust and inconsiderate\nof the rights and feelings of others. You have alienated some of your\nbest friends. If I were to arraign you at all, it would be on the score\nof heartlessness. But I suppose it isn't your fault, that you haven't any\nheart.\"\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 have\nto tell you that that is the way it seems to me. I don't want to\nintroduce 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. I\nput my hand to my forehead.\n\n\"Don't make it hard, Hugh,\" I heard her say, gently. \"Believe me, it is\nbest. I know. There won't be any talk about it,--right away, at any rate.\nPeople will think it natural that I should wish to go abroad for the\nsummer. 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 of\nthe 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, a\nsudden 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, that\nMaude with her traditional, Christian view of marriage should have come\nto such a decision. I went to my room, undressed mechanically and got\ninto 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 the\nnews, reproved the children for being noisy; and when the children had\nleft the table there were no tears, reminiscences, recriminations. In\nspite of the slight antagonism and envy of which I was conscious,--that\nshe was thus superbly in command of the situation, that she had developed\nher pinions and was thus splendidly able to use them,--my admiration for\nher had never been greater. I made an effort to achieve the frame of mind\nshe suggested: since she took it so calmly, why should I be tortured by\nthe tragedy of it? Perhaps she had ceased to love me, after all! Perhaps\nshe felt nothing but relief. At any rate, I was grateful to her, and I\nfound a certain consolation, a sop to my pride in the reflection that the\ninitiative must have been hers to take. I 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; yet\nonce 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 the\ncountry in one of her motors, a sort of landaulet, I believe, in which we\nwere separated from the chauffeur by a glass screen. She was waiting for\nme when I arrived, at four; and as soon as we had shot clear of the city,\n\"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 I\nrepeated 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 sure\nthat 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 said\nto 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 has\ncome 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.... But\nI 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, the\nmost 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 are\ncoming to look upon it more sensibly. In order to perpetuate the\ninstitution, as it was, segregation, insulation, was the only course. Men\nsegregated their wives, women their husbands,--the only logical method of\nprocedure, but it limited the individual. Our mothers and fathers thought\nit scandalous if husband or wife paid visits alone. It wasn't done. But\nour modern life has changed all that. A marriage, to be a marriage,\nshould be proof against disturbing influences, should leave the\nindividuals free; the binding element should be love, not the force of an\nimposed authority. You seemed to agree to all this.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" she admitted. \"But I cannot think that happiness will ever\ngrow 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 with\nthem?\"\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 in,\nbut 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 up\nat my house, to realize suddenly that it would be impossible for me to\nlive there, in those great, empty rooms, alone; and I told Maude that I\nwould go to the Club--during her absence. I preferred to keep up the\nfiction that her trip would only be temporary. She forbore from\ncontradicting me, devoting herself efficiently to the task of closing the\nhouse, making it seem, somehow, a rite,--the final rite in her capacity\nas housewife. The drawing-room was shrouded, and the library; the books\nwrapped neatly in paper; a smell of camphor pervaded the place; the\ncheerful schoolroom was dismantled; trunks and travelling bags appeared.\nThe solemn butler packed my clothes, and I arranged for a room at the\nClub in the wing that recently had been added for the accommodation of\nbachelors and deserted husbands. One of the ironies of those days was\nthat the children began to suggest again possibilities of happiness I had\nmissed--especially Matthew. With all his gentleness, the boy seemed to\nhave a precocious understanding of the verities, and the capacity for\nsuffering which as a child I had possessed. But he had more self-control.\nThough he looked forward to the prospect of new scenes and experiences\nwith the anticipation natural to his temperament, I thought he betrayed\nat 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 and\nimaginative; 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 of\ncredit. \"I--I intend to live quite simply, and my chief expenses will be\nthe children's education. I am going to give them the best, of course.\"\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 why\nI 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 to\nthe train, was full of un-probed wounds. I had had roses put in her\ncompartments in the car; Tom and Susan Peters were there with more roses,\nand little presents for the children. Their cheerfulness seemed forced,\nand I wondered whether they suspected that Maude's absence would be\nprolonged.\n\n\"Write us often, and tell us all about it, dear,\" said Susan, as she sat\nbeside 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 a\nnative,\" 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 to\nthe 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 go\nalmost 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 borne\nhome to me, and I grasped the value of such rugged friendship as hers--as\nTom's.\n\n\"We shouldn't know how to behave in an automobile,\" he said, as though to\nsoften her refusal. And I stood watching their receding figures as they\nwalked out into the street and hailed the huge electric car that came to\na stop beyond them. Above its windows was painted \"The Ashuela Traction\nCompany,\" a label reminiscent of my professional activities. Then I heard\nthe 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 even\nas 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; but\nher manner implied the pressure of control, and her voice was not quite\nsteady 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?\" I\nasked, taking a chair beside her, and laying my hand on hers. She drew it\ngently 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 right,\nit 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; we\nmade 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,\" she went\non, a little breathlessly, \"what I mean by punishment is deterioration.\nDo you remember once, long ago, when you came to me before I was married,\nI said we'd both run after false gods, and that we couldn't do without\nthem? Well, and now this has come; it seems so wonderful to me, coming\nagain like that after we had passed it by, after we thought it had gone\nforever; it's opened up visions for me that I never hoped to see again.\nIt ought to restore us, dear--that's what I'm trying to say--to redeem\nus, to make us capable of being what we were meant to be. If it doesn't\ndo that, if it isn't doing so, it's the most horrible of travesties, of\nmockeries. If we gain life only to have it turn into death--slow death;\nif we go to pieces again, utterly. For now there's hope. The more I\nthink, the more clearly I see that we can't take any step without\nresponsibilities. If we take this, you'll have me, and I'll have you. And\nif 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. He\nhasn't interfered with my freedom. That isn't putting it on a high plane,\nbut there is an obligation involved. You yourself, in your law practice,\nare always insisting upon the sacredness of contract as the very basis of\nour civilization.\"\n\nHere indeed would have been a home thrust, had I been vulnerable at the\ntime. So intent was I on overcoming her objections, that I resorted\nunwittingly to the modern argument I had more than once declared in court\nto be anathema-the argument of the new reform in reference to the common\nlaw 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 too\nterrible a price to pay for your happiness. And Ham hasn't ever pretended\nto consider you in any way. It's certain you didn't agree that he should\ndo--what he is doing.\"\n\n\"Suppose I admitted it,\" she said, \"there remain Maude and your children.\nTheir happiness, their future becomes my responsibility as well as\nyours.\"\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 of\nlife 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 we\nhave discarded. But what are they? And is there no such thing as\nconscience--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 the\nwide valley in which was situated the Cloverdale Country Club, with its\npolo field, golf course and tennis courts; and in this same valley some\nof our wealthy citizens, such as Howard Ogilvy and Leonard Dickinson, had\nbought \"farms,\" week-end playthings for spring and autumn. Hambleton\nDurrett had started the fashion. Capriciously, as he did everything else,\nhe had become the owner of several hundred acres of pasture, woodland and\norchard, acquired some seventy-five head of blooded stock, and proceeded\nto house them in model barns and milk by machinery; for several months he\nhad bored everyone in the Boyne Club whom he could entice into\nconversation on the subject of the records of pedigreed cows, and spent\nmany bibulous nights on the farm in company with those parasites who\nsurrounded him when he was in town. Then another interest had intervened;\na feminine one, of course, and his energies were transferred (so we\nunderstood) to the reconstruction and furnishing of a little residence in\nNew York, not far from Fifth Avenue. The farm continued under the expert\ndirection of a superintendent who was a graduate of the State\nAgricultural College, and a select clientele, which could afford to pay\nthe prices, consumed the milk and cream and butter. Quite consistent with\ntheir marital relations was the fact that Nancy should have taken a fancy\nto the place after Ham's interest had waned. Not that she cared for the\nGuernseys, or Jerseys, or whatever they may have been; she evinced a\nsudden passion for simplicity,--occasional simplicity, at least,--for a\ncontrast to and escape from a complicated life of luxury. She built\nanother house for the superintendent banished him from the little\nfarmhouse (where Ham had kept two rooms); banished along with the\nsuperintendent the stiff plush furniture, the yellow-red carpets, the\neasels and the melodeon, and decked it out in bright chintzes, with\nwall-papers to match, dainty muslin curtains, and rag-carpet rugs on the\nhardwood floors. The pseudo-classic porch over the doorway, which had\nsuggested a cemetery, was removed, and a wide piazza added, furnished\nwith wicker lounging chairs and tables, and shaded with gay awnings.\n\nHere, to the farm, accompanied by a maid, she had been in the habit of\nretiring 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 we\nfound 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 on\nthe porch, sometimes under the great butternut tree spreading its shade\nover what in a more elaborate country-place, would have been called a\nlawn,--an uneven plot of grass of ridges and hollows that ran down to the\norchard. Nancy's eyes would meet mine across the little table, and often\nour gaze would wander over the pastures below, lucent green in the level\nevening light, to the darkening woods beyond, gilt-tipped in the setting\nsun. There were fields of ripening yellow grain, of lusty young corn that\ngrew almost as we watched it: the warm winds of evening were heavy with\nthe acrid odours of fecundity. Fecundity! In that lay the elusive yet\ninsistent charm of that country; and Nancy's, of course, was the\ntransforming touch that made it paradise. It was thus, in the country, I\nsuggested that we should spend the rest of our existence. What was the\nuse of amassing money, when happiness was to be had so simply?\n\n\"How long do you think you could stand it?\" she asked, as she handed me a\nplate 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 from\nher conversation and conduct a body of consistent law. The effort was\nuseless. Here was a realm, that of Nancy's soul, in which there was\napparently no such thing as relevancy. In the twilight, after dinner, we\noften 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 of\nthe 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 draw\nthe 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 in\nme? 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 cut\noff 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 with\nimpunity all the laws of traditional morality? They ground the faces of\nthe poor, played golf and went to church with serene minds, untroubled by\ncriticism; they appropriated, quite freely, other men's money, and some\nof them other men's wives, and yet they were not haggard with remorse.\nThe gods remained silent. Christian ministers regarded these modern\ntransgressors of ancient laws benignly and accepted their contributions.\nHere, indeed, were the supermen of the mad German prophet and philosopher\ncome to life, refuting all classic tragedy. It is true that some of these\nsupermen were occasionally swept away by disease, which in ancient days\nwould have been regarded as a retributive scourge, but was in fact\nnothing but the logical working of the laws of hygiene, the result of\noverwork. Such, though stated more crudely, were my contentions when\ndesire did not cloud my brain and make me incoherent. And I did not fail\nto remind Nancy, constantly, that this was the path on which her feet had\nbeen set; that to waver now was to perish. She smiled, yet she showed\nconcern.\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 you\ndon't get me, that my will intervenes, granting it to be conceivable that\nyour 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 your\ngods then? The trouble with you, my dear Hugh, is that you have never\nfailed,\" she went on, \"you've never had a good, hard fall, you've always\nbeen on the winning side, and you've never had the world against you. No\nwonder 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 only\nmyself were concerned, but you are the uncertain quantity--more uncertain\nthan you have any idea; you think you know yourself, you think you have\nanalyzed yourself, but the truth is, Hugh, you don't know the meaning of\nstruggle 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 I\nmean. 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 to-day\nthat I think we are in danger of losing sight of the simpler verities,\nand that we must suffer for it. Your super-animal, your supreme-stag\nsubdues the other stags, but he never conquers himself, he never feels\nthe need of it, and therefore he never comprehends what we call 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 have\nraised up a class in America, but we have lost sight, a\nlittle--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 lordly\nstag 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 asked.\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 read\nsome of the moderns, you know. Do you remember my telling you I didn't\nagree with them? and now this thing has come on me like a judgment. I've\ncaught their mania for liberty, for self-realization--whatever they call\nit--but their remedies are vague, they fail to convince me that\nindividuals achieve any quality by just taking what they want, regardless\nof 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. Thus we\nfly to literature in crises of the heart! There was no lack of writers\nwho sought to deal--and deal triumphantly with the very situation in\nwhich I was immersed. I marked many passages, to read them over to Nancy,\nwho was interested, but who accused me of being willing to embrace any\nphilosophy, ancient or modern, that ran with the stream of my desires. It\nis worth recording that the truth of this struck home. On my way back to\nthe city I reflected that, in spite of my protests against Maude's\ngoing--protests wholly sentimental and impelled by the desire to avoid\ngiving pain on the spot--I had approved of her departure because I didn't\nwant her. On the other hand I had to acknowledge if I hadn't wanted\nNancy, or rather, if I had become tired of her, I should have been\nwilling to endorse her scruples.... It was not a comforting thought.\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. He\ndid not name the trouble his physician had discovered, but he had been\nwarned that he must retire from active life. \"The specialist whom I saw\nin 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 of\nmy term. I have felt it my duty to write to Barbour and Dickinson and one\nor two others in order that they might be prepared and that no time may\nbe lost in choosing my successor. It is true that the revolt within the\nparty has never gained much headway in our state, but in these days it is\ndifficult to tell when and where a conflagration may break out, or how\nfar it will go. I have ventured to recommend to them the man who seems to\nme the best equipped to carry on the work I have been trying to do\nhere--in short, my dear Hugh, yourself. The Senate, as you know, is not a\nbed of roses just now for those who think as we do; but I have the less\nhesitancy in making the recommendation because I believe you are not one\nto shun a fight for the convictions we hold in common, and because you\nwould regard, with me, the election of a senator with the new views as a\nvery real calamity. If sound business men and lawyers should be\neliminated from the Senate, I could not contemplate with any peace of\nmind what might happen to the country. In thus urging you, I know you\nwill believe me when I say that my affection and judgment are equally\ninvolved, for it would be a matter of greater pride than I can express to\nhave you follow me here as you have followed me at home. And I beg of you\nseriously to consider it.... I understand that Maude and the children are\nabroad. Remember me to them affectionately when you write. If you can\nfind it convenient to come here, to Maine, to discuss the matter, you may\nbe sure of a welcome. In any case, I expect to be in Washington in\nSeptember for a meeting of our special committee. Sincerely and\naffectionately 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 this\nmust 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 at the\nthought of the disappointment my refusal would give him. Complications I\ndid not wish to examine were then in the back of my mind; and while I\nstill sat holding the letter in my hand the telephone rang, and a message\ncame from Leonard Dickinson begging me to call at the 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 by\nthe 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 we\ntrust you. I had a wire from Mr. Barbour this morning--he agrees. We'll\nmiss you here, but now that Watling will be gone we'll need you there.\nAnd he's right--it's something we've got to decide on right away, and get\nstarted on soon, we can't afford to wobble and run any chances of a\nrevolt.\"\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 news\nof Mr. Watling.\"\n\n\"Naturally you would be,\" said the banker, sympathetically, \"and we share\nyour 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 it\nnow, 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 being\nsurrounded 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 Mr.\nWatling was genuine, but nevertheless I found myself compelled to\nconsider an honour no man lightly refuses. Had it presented itself at any\nother 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 luck.\nBut now--now I was in an emotional state that distorted the factors of\nlife, all those things I hitherto had valued; even such a prize as this I\nweighed in terms of one supreme desire: how would the acceptance of the\nsenatorship affect the accomplishment of this desire? That was the\nquestion. I began making rapid calculations: the actual election would\ntake place in the legislature a year from the following January; provided\nI were able to overcome Nancy's resistance--which I was determined to\ndo--nothing in the way of divorce proceedings could be thought of for\nmore than a year; and I feared delay. On the other hand, if we waited\nuntil after I had been duly elected to get my divorce and marry Nancy my\nchances of reelection would be small. What did I care for the senatorship\nanyway--if I had her? and I wanted her now, as soon as I could get her.\nShe--a life with her represented new values, new values I did not define,\nthat made all I had striven for in the past of little worth. This was a\nbauble compared with the companionship of the woman I loved, the woman\nintended for me, who would give me peace of mind and soul and develop\nthose truer aspirations that had long been thwarted and starved for lack\nof her. Gradually, as she regained the ascendency over my mind she\nordinarily held--and from which she had been temporarily displaced by the\narrival of Mr. Watling's letter and the talk in the bank--I became\nimpatient and irritated by the intrusion. But what answer should I give\nto Dickinson and Gorse? what excuse for declining such an offer? I\ndecided, 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 custom\nto arrive at the farm every evening about five o'clock. But as I look\nback 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. And\neven if I could summon back something of the sequence of our intercourse,\nit would be a mere repetition--growing on my part more irrational and\ninsistent--of what I have already related. There were long, troubled, and\nfutile silences when we sat together on the porch or in the woods and\nfields; when I wondered whether it were weakness or strength that caused\nNancy to hold out against my importunities: the fears she professed of\nretribution, the benumbing effects of the conventional years, or the\ndeep-rooted remnants of a Calvinism which--as she proclaimed--had lost\ndefinite expression to persist as an intuition. I recall something she\nsaid when she turned to me after one of these silences.\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 to\nlife, this existence we're leading. I believe it would be better if it\nwere a mere case of physical passion. I can't help it,\" she went on, when\nI had exclaimed against this, \"we are too--too complicated, you are too\ncomplicated. It's because we want the morning stars, don't you see?\" She\nwound her fingers tightly around mine. \"We not only want this, but all of\nlife besides--you wouldn't be satisfied with anything less. Oh, I know\nit. That's your temperament, you were made that way, and I shouldn't be\nsatisfied if you weren't. The time would come when you would blame me I\ndon't mean vulgarly--and I couldn't stand that. If you weren't that way,\nif that weren't your nature, I mean, I should have given 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 of\nNancy 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 to\nspeak 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 was\nlate. 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 it\nout 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 turns\nin the road, barely missing a man in a buggy at a four-corners. He\nshouted after me, but the world to which he belonged didn't exist. I\nlived again those moments that had followed Nancy's surrender, seeking to\nrecall and fix in my mind every word that had escaped from her lips--the\ntrivial things that to lovers are so fraught with meaning. I lived it all\nover again, as I say, but the reflection of it, though intensely\nemotional, differed from the reality in that now I was somewhat able to\nregard the thing, to regard myself, objectively; to define certain\nfeelings that had flitted in filmy fashion through my consciousness,\ndelicate shadows I recognized at the time as related to sadness. When she\nhad so amazingly yielded, the thought for which my mind had been vaguely\ngroping was that the woman who lay there in my arms, obscured by the\ndarkness, was not Nancy at all! It was as if this one precious woman I\nhad so desperately pursued had, in the capture, lost her identity, had\nmysteriously become just woman, in all her significance, yes, and\nhelplessness. The particular had merged (inevitably, I might have known)\ninto the general: the temporary had become the lasting, with a chain of\nconsequences vaguely implied that even in my joy gave me pause. For the\nfirst time in my life I had a glimpse of what marriage might\nmean,--marriage in a greater sense than I had ever conceived it, a sort\nof cosmic sense, implying obligations transcending promises and\ncontracts, calling for greatness of soul of a kind I had not hitherto\nimagined. Was there in me a grain of doubt of my ability to respond to\nsuch a high call? I began to perceive that such a union as we\ncontemplated involved more obligations than one not opposed to\ntraditional views of morality. I fortified myself, however,--if indeed I\nreally needed fortification in a mood prevailingly triumphant and\nexalted,--with the thought that this love was different, the real thing,\nthe love of maturity steeped in the ideals of youth. Here was a love for\nwhich I must be prepared to renounce other things on which I set a high\nvalue; prepared, in case the world, for some reason, should not look upon\nus with kindliness. It was curious that such reflections as these should\nhave been delayed until after the achievement of my absorbing desire,\nmore curious that they should have followed so closely on the heels of\nit. The affair had shifted suddenly from a basis of adventure, of\nuncertainty; to one of fact, of commitment; I am exaggerating my concern\nin order to define it; I was able to persuade myself without much\ndifficulty that these little, cloudy currents in the stream of my joy\nwere due to a natural reaction from the tremendous strain of the past\nweeks, 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 still ran\nthrough my body, a saner joy of anticipation was succeeding emotional\ntumult, and I reflected that Nancy had been right in insisting that we\nwalk circumspectly in spite of passion. After all, I had outwitted\ncircumstance, I had gained the prize, I could afford to wait a little. We\nshould talk it over to-morrow,--no, to-day. The luminous face of the city\nhall clock reminded me that midnight was long past....\n\nI awoke with the consciousness of a new joy, suddenly to identify it with\nNancy. She was mine! I kept repeating it as I dressed; summoning her, not\nas she had lain in my arms in the darkness--though the intoxicating\nsweetness of that pervaded me--but as she had been before the\ncompleteness of her surrender, dainty, surrounded by things expressing an\nelusive, uniquely feminine personality. I could afford to smile at the\nweather, at the obsidian sky, at the rain still falling persistently; and\nyet, as I ate my breakfast, I felt a certain impatience to verify what I\nknew was a certainty, and hurried to the telephone booth. I resented the\ninstrument, its possibilities of betrayal, her voice sounded so\nmatter-of-fact as she bade me good morning 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 the\nweek 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 ultimate\nunion 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. A\ngrassy wood road, at the inviting entrance to which we left the\nautomobile, led down through an undergrowth of laurel to a pebbly shore,\nand there we lunched; there we lingered through the long summer\nafternoon, Nancy with her back against a tree, I with my head in her lap\ngazing up at filmy clouds drifting imperceptibly across the sky,\nlistening to the droning notes of the bees, notes that sometimes rose in\na 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 them,\nmoved me,--they were filled with a new faith to which my being responded,\nthe faith of the forth-farer; not the faith of the anchor, but of the\nsail. I repeated some of the lines as indications of a creed to which I\nhad long been trying to convert her, though lacking the expression. She\nhad let the book fall on the grass. I remember how she smiled down at me\nwith the wisdom of the ages in her eyes, seeking my hand with a gesture\nthat 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 to\nmake 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 can't\nyet perceive, and yet shall perceive some day. It isn't that I'm clinging\nto the hard and fast rules because I fail to see any others, it isn't\nthat I believe that all people should stick together whether they are\nhappily married or not, but--I must say it even now--I have a feeling I\ncan't define that divorce isn't for us. I'm not talking about right and\nwrong in the ordinary sense--it's just what I feel. I've ceased to\nthink.\"\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 a\nfreshly cut silver shaving, that presently turned to gold, the white star\nabove 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. In\none 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 up\nthe little driveway to the farmhouse. I bade her good night on the steps\nof the porch.\n\n\"You do love me, don't you?\" she whispered, clinging to me with a sudden,\nstraining passion. \"You will love me, always no matter what happens?\"\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 sad\nto-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 light\nwas 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 I\nwas 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; and\nyet I tried to think it was natural, that it was fine of her to respond\nto such a call. And she couldn't very well refuse his summons. But it was\nnot the news of her husband's accident that inspired the greater fear,\nwhich was quelled and soothed only to rise again when I recalled the note\nI had heard in her voice, a note eloquent of tragedy--of tragedy she had\nforeseen. At length, unable to remain where I was any longer, I descended\nto the street and walked uptown in the rain. The Durrett house was\nclosed, the blinds of its many windows drawn, but Nancy was watching for\nme and opened the door. So used had I grown to seeing her in the simple\nlinen dresses she had worn in the country, a costume associated with\nexclusive possession, that the sight of her travelling suit and hat\nrenewed in me an agony of apprehension. The unforeseen event seemed to\nhave transformed her once more. Her veil was drawn up, her face was pale,\nin 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 the\nlast sentence. \"The situation is serious, but by no means hopeless.\"\nNancy had not spoken of that. The ignorant cruelty of its convention! The\nman must have known what Hambleton Durrett was! Nancy read my thoughts,\nand 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 not comfort\nmyself; I don't remember my inadequate words. We were overwhelmed,\nobliterated by the sense of calamity.... It was she who checked herself\nat 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 goes\nat six. No, you mustn't come to the station, Hugh--I don't think I could\nstand it. I'll send you a telegram.\" She rose. \"You must go now--you\nmust.\"\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 myself\na 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 in\nthe city, had gone to her husband's bedside. The morning papers contained\nmore of biography and ancestry, but had little to add to the bulletin;\nand there was no lack of speculation at the Club and elsewhere as to\nHam's ability to rally from such a shock. I could not bear to listen to\nthese comments: they were violently distasteful to me. The unforeseen\naccident and Nancy's sudden departure had thrown my life completely out\nof gear: I could not attend to business, I dared not go away lest the\nnews from Nancy be delayed. I spent the hours in an exhausting mental\nstate that alternated between hope and fear, a state of unmitigated,\nintense desire, of balked realization, sometimes heightening into that\nsheer terror I had felt when I had detected over the telephone that note\nin her voice that seemed of despair. Had she had a presentiment, all\nalong, that something would occur to separate us? As I went back over the\nhours we had passed together since she had acknowledged her love, in\nspite of myself the conviction grew on me that she had never believed in\nthe reality of our future. Indeed, she had expressed her disbelief in\nwords. Had she been looking all along for a sign--a sign of wrath? And\nwould she accept this accident of Ham's as such?\n\nRetrospection left me trembling and almost sick.\n\nIt was not until the second morning after her departure that I received a\ntelegram giving the name of her Boston hotel, and saying that there was\nto 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 for\nher 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 to\nthe 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 in\ncontrast 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 in\nchoosing 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. The\nshock--as might have been surmised--had affected the brain.... The\nletters that followed contained no additional news; she did not dwell on\nthe depressing reactions inevitable from the situation in which she found\nherself--one so much worse than mine; she expressed a continual longing\nfor me; and yet I had trouble to convince myself that they did not lack\nthe note of reassurance for which I strained as I eagerly scanned\nthem--of reassurance that she had no intention of permitting her\nhusband's condition to interfere with that ultimate happiness on which it\nseemed my existence depended. I tried to account for the absence of this\nnote by reflecting that the letters were of necessity brief, hurriedly\nscratched off at odd moments; and a natural delicacy would prevent her\nfrom referring to our future at such a time. They recorded no change in\nHam's condition save that the periods of coma had ceased. The doctors\nwere silent, awaiting the arrival in this country of a certain New York\nspecialist who was abroad. She spent most of her days at the hospital,\nreturning to the hotel at night exhausted: the people she knew in the\nvarious resorts around Boston had been most kind, sending her flowers,\nand calling when in town to inquire. At length came the news that the New\nYork doctor was home again; and coming to Boston. In that letter was a\nsentence which rang like a cry in my ears: \"Oh, Hugh, I think these\ndoctors know now what the trouble is, I think I know. They are only\nwaiting 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, and\nI 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 some\nweeks, 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 to\nthem 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 not\nwith us. His attitude towards me is just about what it has always been. I\ntry to amuse him by reading the newspapers and with games; we have a\nchess-board. At times he seems grateful, and then he will suddenly grow\ntired and hard to control. Once or twice I have had to call in Dr.\nMagruder, 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, I\nsimply can't leave him. This has been becoming clearer and clearer to me\nall these weeks, but it breaks my heart to have to write it. I have\nstruggled against it, I have lain awake nights trying to find\njustification for going to you, but it is stronger than I. I am afraid of\nit--I suppose that's the truth. Even in those unforgettable days at the\nfarm I was afraid of it, although I did not know what it was to be. Call\nit what you like, say that I am weak. I am willing to acknowledge that it\nis weakness. I wish no credit for it, it gives me no glow, the thought of\nit makes my heart sick. I'm not big enough I suppose that's the real\ntruth. I once might have been; but I'm not now,--the years of the life I\nchose have made a coward of me. It's not a question of morals or duty\nit's simply that I can't take the thing for which my soul craves. It's\ntoo late. If I believed in prayer I'd pray that you might pity and\nforgive me. I really can't expect you to understand what I can't myself\nexplain. Oh, I need pity--and I pity you, my dear. I can only hope that\nyou will not suffer as I shall, that you will find relief away to work\nout your life. But I will not change my decision, I cannot change it.\nDon't come on, don't attempt to see me now. I can't stand any more than I\nam 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 is\npossible, 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, and\nI know I shall always feel it.--Nancy.\" The first effect of this letter\nwas a paralyzing one. I was unable to realize or believe the thing that\nhad happened to me, and I sat stupidly holding the sheet in my hand until\nI heard voices along the path, and then I fled instinctively, like an\nanimal, to hide my injury from any persons I might meet. I wandered down\nthe shore of the lake, striking at length into the woods, seeking some\ninviolable shelter; nor was I conscious of physical effort until I found\nmyself panting near the crest of the ridge where there was a pasture,\nwhich some ancient glacier had strewn with great boulders. Beside one of\nthese I sank. Heralded by the deep tones of bells, two steers appeared\nabove the shoulder of a hill and stood staring at me with bovine\ncuriosity, and fell to grazing again. A fleet of white clouds, like ships\npressed with sail, hurried across the sky as though racing for some\ndetermined port; and the shadows they cast along the hillsides\naccentuated the high brightness of the day, emphasized the vivid and\nhateful beauty of the landscape. My numbness began to be penetrated by\nshooting pains, and I grasped little by little the fulness of my\ncalamity, until I was in the state of wild rebellion of one whom life for\nthe first time has foiled in a supreme desire. There was no fate about\nthis thing, it was just an absurd accident. The operation of the laws of\nnature had sent a man to the ground: another combination of circumstances\nwould have killed him, still another, and he would have arisen unhurt.\nBut because of this particular combination my happiness was ruined, and\nNancy's! She had not expected me to understand. Well, I didn't\nunderstand, I had no pity, in that hour I felt a resentment almost\namounting to hate; I could see only unreasoning superstition in the woman\nI wanted above everything in the world. Women of other days had indeed\nrenounced great loves: the thing was not unheard of. But that this should\nhappen in these times--and to me! It was unthinkable that Nancy of all\nwomen shouldn't be emancipated from the thralls of religious inhibition!\nAnd if it wasn't \"conscience,\" what was it?\n\nWas it, as she said, weakness, lack of courage to take life when it was\noffered her?.... I was suddenly filled with the fever of composing\narguments to change a decision that appeared to me to be the result of a\nmonstrous caprice and delusion; writing them out, as they occurred to me,\nin snatches on the backs of envelopes--her envelopes. Then I proceeded to\nmake the draft of a letter, the effort required for composition easing me\nuntil the draft was finished; when I started for the hotel, climbing\nfences, leaping streams, making my way across rock faces and through\nwoods; halting now and then as some reenforcing argument occurred to me\nto write it into my draft at the proper place until the sheets were\ninterlined and blurred and almost illegible. It was already three o'clock\nwhen I reached my room, and the mail left at four. I began to copy and\nrevise my scrawl, glancing from time to time at my watch, which I had\nlaid on the table. Hurriedly washing my face and brushing my hair, I\narrived downstairs just as the stage was leaving....\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 had\ndegenerated into abject entreaty. Never had my desire been so importunate\nas now, when I was in continual terror of losing her. Nor could I see how\nI was to live without her, life lacking a motive being incomprehensible:\nyet the fire of optimism in me, though died down to ashes, would not be\nextinguished. At moments it flared up into what almost amounted to a\nconviction that she could not resist my appeal. I had threatened to go to\nher, 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 it,\nto dwell upon it to-day.... And yet, amazing as it may seem, there came a\ntime when hope began to dawn again out of my despair. Perhaps my life had\nnot been utterly shattered, after all: perhaps Ham Durrett would get\nwell: such things happened, and Nancy would no longer have an excuse for\ncontinuing to refuse me. Little by little my anger at what I had now\nbecome convinced was her weakness cooled, and--though paradoxically I had\ncontinued to love her in spite of the torture for which she was\nresponsible, in spite of the resentment I felt, I melted toward her. True\nto my habit of reliance on miracles, I tried to reconcile myself to a\nperiod 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 goal\nshowed signs of breaking up:--the goal had lost its desirability. I\nseemed 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 least\nmust have guessed its cause. Dickinson, on his return from Maine, at once\nbegged me to go away. I rather congratulated myself that Tom had chosen\nthese months for a long-delayed vacation in Canada. His passion for\nfishing 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 an\notherwise 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 I\nhad grown able to consider the matter with a degree of calmness. What\nstruck me first, when I began to debate upon it, was that the senatorship\noffered a new and possibly higher field for my energies, while at the\nsame time the office would be a logical continuation of a signal legal\ncareer. I was now unable to deny that I no longer felt any exhilaration\nat the prospect of future legal conquests similar to those of the past;\nbut once in the Senate, I might regain something of that intense\nconviction of fighting for a just and sound cause with which Theodore\nWading 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 that\nsomething, 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 if\nNancy relented it would not be possible for us to be divorced and married\nfor some time. I still clung tenaciously to the belief that there were no\nrelationships wholly unaffected by worldly triumphs, and as Senator I\nshould have strengthened my position. It did not strike me--even after\nall my experience--that such a course as I now contemplated had a\nparallel in the one that I had pursued in regard to her when I was young.\n\nIt seemed fitting that Theodore Watling should be the first to know of my\ndecision. 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. I\ndid 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 to\nappoint a safe man. How little we suspected when we elected him that he'd\nbecome 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 felt\nit 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 we\ncan handle this new movement not by crushing it, but by guiding it. I've\ncome to the conclusion that there is a true instinct in it, that there\nare certain things we have done which have been mistakes, and which we\ncan't do any more. But as for this theory that all wisdom resides in the\npeople, it's buncombe. What we have to do is to work out a practical\nprogramme.\"\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 surmise\nthat they would be returning in a few months. I interpreted this, indeed,\nas in rather the nature of a kindly hint that such a procedure would be\nwise in view of the larger life now dawning for me, but I made no\ncomment.... 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 more\nthan 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 Etretat,\nwhich she found much to her taste, she was living quietly, but making\nfriends with some American and English, and one French family of the same\nname, Buffon, as the great naturalist. The father was a retired silk\nmanufacturer; they now resided in Paris, and had been very kind in\nhelping her to get an apartment in that city for the winter. She had\nchosen one on the Avenue Kleber, not far from the Arc. It is interesting,\nafter her arraignment of me, that she should have taken such pains to\nrecord their daily life for my benefit in her clear, conscientious\nhandwriting. I beheld Biddy, her dresses tucked above slim little knees,\nplaying in the sand on the beach, her hair flying in the wind and lighted\nby the sun which gave sparkle to the sea. I saw Maude herself in her\nbeach chair, a book lying in her lap, its pages whipped by the breeze.\nAnd there was Moreton, who must be proving something of a handful, since\nhe had fought with the French boys on the beach and thrown a \"rock\"\nthrough the windows of the Buffon family. I remember one of his\nletters--made perfect after much correcting and scratching,--in which he\ndenounced both France and the French, and appealed to me to come over at\nonce to take him home. Maude had enclosed it without comment. This letter\nhad not been written under duress, as most of his were.\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 were\nbecause 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 in\na hurry; they gave evidence in every line of the delicacy of feeling that\nwas, I think, his most appealing quality, and I put them down with the\nimpression strong on me that he, too, longed to return home, but would\nnot say so. There was a certain pathos in this youthful restraint that\nnever 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 of\nour 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 in\nthe children. It puzzled and troubled me.\n\nThe Citizens Union began its campaign early that autumn, long before the\nHons. 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 an\nenterprising representative of a New York periodical of the new type that\ndeveloped with the opening years of the century--one making a specialty\nof passionate \"muck-raking.\" And since the people of America love nothing\nbetter than being startled, Yardley's Weekly had acquired a circulation\ntruly fabulous. The emissary of the paper had attended several of the\nCitizens meetings; interviewed, it seemed, many persons: the result was a\nrevelation to make the blood of politicians, capitalists and corporation\nlawyers run cold. I remember very well the day it appeared on our news\nstands, and the heated denunciations it evoked at the Boyne Club. Ralph\nHambleton was the only one who took it calmly, who seemed to derive a\ncertain enjoyment from the affair. Had he been a less privileged person,\nthey would have put him in chancery. Leonard Dickinson asserted that\nYardley'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! There\nisn't a city or village in the country that hasn't exactly the same\nconditions. 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. For\nI, too, had come in for a share of the comment. Portions of the matter\nreferring to me stuck in my brain like tar, such as the reference to my\nfather, to the honoured traditions of the Parets and the Brecks which I\nhad deliberately repudiated. I had less excuse than many others. The part\nI had played in various reprehensible transactions such as the Riverside\nFranchise and the dummy telephone company affair was dwelt upon, and I\nwas dismissed with the laconic comment that I was a graduate of\nHarvard....\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 the\ngangs of other cities--the terminology used to describe us being that of\nthe police reporter. We \"operated,\" like burglars; we \"looted\": only, it\nwas intimated in one place, \"second-story men\" were angels compared to\nus, who had never seen the inside of a penitentiary. Here we were, all\narraigned before the bar of public opinion, the relentless Dickinson, the\nsurfeited Scherer, the rapacious Grierson, the salacious Tallant. I have\nforgotten what Miller Gorse was called; nothing so classic as a Minotaur;\nJudd Jason was a hairy spider who spread his net and lurked in darkness\nfor his victims. Every adjective was called upon to do its duty.... Even\nTheodore Watling did not escape, but it was intimated that he would be\ndealt with in another connection in a future number.\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 read\nthat 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 and\npower, of devotion to a cause I had carried away from Washington after my\ntalk with Theodore Watling. He, though stricken, had not wavered in his\nfaith. 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 halls\nwere hired. Dickinson and Gorse became alarmed, and one morning the\nbanker 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 have\nforeseen 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 was\nimpossible to live in the atmosphere created by the men with whom I\nassociated--especially at such a time--without imbibing something of the\nemotions animating them,--even though I had been free from these emotions\nmyself. I, too, had begun to be filled with a desire for revenge; and\nwhen this desire was upon me I did not have in my mind a pack of\nreformers, or even the writer of the article in Yardley's. I thought of\nHermann Krebs. He was my persecutor; it seemed to me that he always had\nbeen....\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, that\nyou ought to. We've got to get some ginger into this fight, and a good\ndeal more money, I'm afraid. Jason sends word we'll need more. By the\nway, Hugh, I wish you'd drop around and talk to Jason and get his idea of\nhow the land lies.\"\n\nI went, this time in the company of Judah B. Tallant. Naturally we didn't\nexpect to see Mr. Jason perturbed, nor was he. He seemed to be in an odd,\nrather exultant mood--if he can be imagined as exultant. We were not long\nin finding out what pleased him--nothing less than the fact that Mr.\nKrebs 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 up?\"\nhe 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 Tallant,\n\"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 gave us\nlikewise a very accurate idea of the state of the campaign, mentioning\ncertain things that ought to be done. \"You ought to print some of Krebs's\nspeeches, Judah, like what he said about me. They're talking it all\naround 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 in\nto assist at a council of war in the directors' room of the Corn National\nBank. I was flattered by the confidence these men seemed to have in my\nability. All were in a state of anger against the reformers; none of them\nseriously alarmed as to the actual outcome of the campaign,--especially\nwhen I had given them the opinion of Mr. Jason. What disturbed them was\nthe possible effect upon the future of the spread of heretical,\nsocialistic doctrines, and it was decided to organize a publicity bureau,\nindependently of the two dominant political parties, to be in charge of a\ncertain New York journalist who made a business of such affairs, who was\nto be paid a sum commensurate with the emergency. He was to have carte\nblanche, even in the editorial columns of our newspapers. He was also to\nflood the city with \"literature.\" We had fought many wars before this,\nand we planned our campaign precisely as though we were dealing with one\nof those rebellions in the realm of finance of which I have given an\ninstance. But now the war chest of our opponents was negligible; and we\nwere comforted by the thought that, however disagreeable the affair might\nbe while it lasted, in the long run capital was invincible.\n\nBefore setting to work to prepare my speeches it was necessary to make an\nattempt to familiarize myself with the seemingly unprecedented line of\nargument Krebs had evolved--apparently as disconcerting to his friends as\nto his opponents. It occurred to me, since I did not care to attend\nKrebs's meetings, to ask my confidential stenographer, Miss McCoy, to go\nto Turner's Hall and take down one of his speeches verbatim. Miss McCoy\nhad never intruded on me her own views, and I took for granted that they\ncoincided 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. \"I've\nknown him for a good many years. He's clever. He's sowing seeds of\ndiscontent, 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 tried\nnot 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 desire\nto spare my feelings. She hesitated a moment more, and then left the\nroom, 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, or\nthe uncomfortable result of memories of conversations I had had with him.\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 out\nof 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 of\nstate or city or government, from sheriff to Ambassador to Great Britain.\nKrebs substituted for this fallacy what may be called the doctrine of\npotentiality. If we inaugurated and developed a system of democratic\neducation, based on scientific principles, and caught the dog-catcher,\nyoung enough, he might become a statesman or thinker or scientist and\nmake his contribution to the welfare and progress of the nation: again,\nhe might not; but he would have had his chance, he would not be in a\nposition 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 to\nflatter a populace that Krebs, paradoxically, belaboured. Never in the\nhistory of American \"uplift\" had an electorate been in this manner wooed!\nupbraided for expediency, a proneness to demand immediate results, an\nunwillingness to think, yes, and an inability to think straight. Such an\nelectorate deserved to be led around by the nose by the Jasons and\nDickinsons, the Gorses and the Griersons and the Parets.\n\nYes, he had mentioned me. That gave me a queer sensation. How is one to\nhandle 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. We\nhad 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 on\nlines of Sunday-school morality; the people worked themselves up into a\nsort 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 over.\nMoreover, the American people had shown that they were unwilling to make\nany sacrifices for the permanent betterment of conditions, and as soon as\ntheir incomes began to fall off they turned again to the bosses and\ncapitalists 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 their\nhands in mills, factories, etc. They had their faults, yet they possessed\nat least the virtue of solidarity, a willingness to undergo sacrifices in\norder to advance the standard of conditions; they too had a tenacity of\npurpose and a plan, such as it was, which the small business men, the\nclerks 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 all, but\nan undertaking, a state of mind, the continued overcoming of resistance\nby a progressive education and effort. And all this talk of political and\nfinancial \"wickedness\" was rubbish; the wickedness they complained of did\nnot reside merely in individuals it was a social disorder, or rather an\norder that no longer suited social conditions. If the so-called good\ncitizens would take the trouble to educate themselves, to think instead\nof allowing their thinking to be done for them they would see that the\n\"evils\" which had been published broadcast were merely the symptoms of\nthat disease which had come upon the social body through their collective\nneglect and indifference. They held up their hands in horror at the\nspectacle of a commercial, licensed prostitution, they shunned the\nprostitute and the criminal; but there was none of us, if honest, who\nwould not exclaim when he saw them, \"there, but for the Grace of God, go\nI!\" What we still called \"sin\" was largely the result of lack of\nopportunity, and the active principle of society as at present organized\ntended more and more to restrict opportunity. Lack of opportunity, lack\nof proper nutrition,--these made sinners by the wholesale; made, too,\nnine-tenths of the inefficient of whom we self-righteously complained. We\nhad a national philosophy that measured prosperity in dollars and cents,\nincluded in this measurement the profits of liquor dealers who were\nresponsible for most of our idiots. So long as we set our hearts on that\nkind of prosperity, so long as we failed to grasp the simple and\npractical fact that the greatest assets of a nation are healthy and sane\nand educated, clear-thinking human beings, just so long was prostitution\nlogical, Riverside Franchises, traction deals, Judd Jasons, and the\nrespectable gentlemen who continued to fill their coffers out of the\npublic 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; he\nwas 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 the\nprizes. 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. We\nmight be made to serve the city and the state with the same effectiveness\nthat 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 of\nhumanity, 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 in\ninfancy 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. He\nsuggested, 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 of\nthese 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 making\na truer analysis of human motives, impulses, of human possibilities; an\neconomics and a theory of government that took account of this\npsychology, and of the vast changes applied science had made in\nproduction and distribution. We lived in a new world, which we sought to\nignore; and the new education, the new viewpoint was in truth nothing but\nreligion made practical. It had never been thought practical before. The\nmotive that compelled men to work for humanity in science, in medicine,\nin art--yes, and in business, if we took the right view of it, was the\nreligious motive. The application of religion was to-day extending from\nthe individual to society. No religion that did not fill the needs of\nboth 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 a weed\nthat grew overnight; it was a leaven that spread slowly and painfully,\nfirst inoculating a few who suffered and often died for it, that it might\ngradually affect the many. The spread of culture implied the recognition\nof leadership: democratic leadership, but still leadership. Leadership,\nand the wisdom it implied, did not reside in the people, but in the\nleaders who sprang from the people and interpreted their needs and\nlongings.... He went on to discuss a part of the programme of the\nCitizens Union....\n\nWhat struck me, as I laid down the typewritten sheets, was the\nextraordinary resemblance between the philosophies of Hermann Krebs and\nTheodore Watling. Only--Krebs's philosophy was the bigger, held the\ngreater vision of the two; I had reluctantly and rather bitterly to admit\nit. The appeal of it had even reached and stirred me, whose task was to\nrefute it! Here indeed was something to fight for--perhaps to die for, as\nhe had said: and as I sat there in my office gazing out of the window I\nfound myself repeating certain phrases he had used--the phrase about\nleadership, for instance. It was a tremendous conception of Democracy,\nthat of acquiescence to developed leadership made responsible; a\nconception I was compelled to confess transcended Mr. Watling's, loyal as\nI was to him.... I began to reflect how novel all this was in a political\nspeech--although what I have quoted was in the nature of a preamble. It\nwas a sermon, an educational sermon. Well, that is what sermons always\nhad been,--and even now pretended to be,--educational and stirring,\nappealing to the emotions through the intellect. It didn't read like the\nSocialism he used to preach, it had the ring of religion. He had called\nit 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 by\nthe 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 I\nhad never remarked it before. For he had the hooked vulture nose, while\nthe pink baldness of his head was relieved by a few scanty tufts of 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 guess.\nYou 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 to\nsend 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. I\nread 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 in\nthe hands of one man, an expert employed by a commission; an expert whose\nduty it would be to conduct the affairs of the city on a business basis,\nprecisely as those of any efficient corporation were conducted. This plan\nhad already been adopted, with encouraging results, in several smaller\ncities of the country. He explained in some detail, with statistics, the\nwaste and inefficiency and dishonesty in various departments under the\npresent system, dwelling particularly upon the deplorable state of\naffairs 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 hand, the\nmagic of advertising cannot be underestimated; nor must the existence be\nignored of an organized corps of shepherds under the vigilant direction\nof Mr. Judd Jason, whose duty it was to see that none of our meetings was\nlacking in numbers and enthusiasm. There was always a demonstrative\ngathering overflowing the sidewalk in front of the entrance, swaying and\ncheering in the light of the street lamps, and on the floor within an\nample scattering of suspiciously bleary-eyed voters to start the stamping\nand applauding. In spite of these known facts, the impression of\npopularity, of repudiation of reform by a large majority of level-headed\ninhabitants 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. Mr.\nParks, 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 he\nwas visionary, that the changes he proposed in government would, if\nadopted, have grave and far-reaching results: we could not, for instance,\nsupport in idleness those who refused to do their share of the work of\nthe world. Mr. Krebs was well-meaning. I refrained from dwelling too long\nupon him, passing to Mr. Greenhalge, also well-meaning, but a man of\nmediocre ability who would make a mess of the government of a city which\nwould one day rival New York and Chicago. (Loud cheers.) And I pointed\nout that Mr. Perry Blackwood had been unable to manage the affairs of the\nBoyne Street road. Such men, well-intentioned though they might be, were\nhindrances to progress. This led me naturally to a discussion of the\nRiverside Franchise and the Traction Consolidation. I was one of those\nwhose honesty and good faith had been arraigned, but I would not stoop to\nrefute the accusations. I dwelt upon the benefits to the city, uniform\nservice, electricity and large comfortable cars instead of rattletrap\nconveyances, and the development of a large and growing population in the\nRiverside neighbourhood: the continual extension of lines to suburban\ndistricts that enabled hard-worked men to live out of the smoke: I called\nattention to the system of transfers, the distance a passenger might be\nconveyed, and conveyed quickly, for the sum of five cents. I spoke of our\ncapitalists as men more sinned against than sinning. Their money was\nalways at the service of enterprises tending to the development of our\nmetropolis.\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 I\nfeared 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 had\na glimpse just a pathetic glimpse--of what the Church might be of human\nsolidarity, comfort and support, of human tolerance, if stripped of the\nsuperstition of an ancient science. My tortures weren't of the flesh, but\nof the mind. My mind was the sheep which had gone astray. Was there no\nsuch thing, could there be no such thing as a human association that\nmight at the same time be a divine organism, a fold and a refuge for the\nlost and divided minds? The source of all this trouble was social....\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 my\nexperience: an educated man in the ultra-radical sense, yet lacking poise\nand 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 least\ndispensable 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 knew\nsomething of the modern theory of the law that legal radicals had begun\nto proclaim, and even to teach in some tolerant universities.\n\nThe next night, in the middle of a prepared speech I was delivering to a\nlarge crowd in Kingdom Hall there had been jeers from a group in a corner\nat some assertion I made. Guptill's accusations had been festering in my\nmind. The faces of the people grew blurred as I felt anger boiling,\nrising within me; suddenly my control gave way, and I launched forth into\na denunciation of Greenhalge, Krebs, Guptill and even of Perry Blackwood\nthat must have been without license or bounds. I can recall only\nfragments of my remarks: Greenhalge wanted to be mayor, and was willing\nto put the stigma of slander on his native city in order to gain his\nambition; Krebs had made a failure of his profession, of everything save\nin bringing shame on the place of his adoption; and on the single\noccasion heretofore when he had been before the public, in the School\nBoard fiasco, the officials indicted on his supposed evidence had\ntriumphantly been vindicated--, Guptill was gaining money and notoriety\nout of his spleen; Perry Blackwood was acting out of spite.... I returned\nto Krebs, declaring that he would be the boss of the city if that ticket\nwere elected, demanding whether they wished for a boss an agitator\nitching 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 the\nconviction that the common sense of the community would repudiate the\nCitizens Union and all it stood for....\n\nBut that night, as I lay awake listening to the street noises and staring\nat the glint from a street lamp on the brass knob of my bedstead, I knew\nthat I had failed. I had committed the supreme violation of the self that\nleads inevitably to its final dissolution.... Even the exuberant\nheadlines of the newspapers handed me by the club servant in the morning\nbrought 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 to\ndispel 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. They\nhad 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 with\nall 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 regret\nthat 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 give\nmuch now for your chances of getting to the Senate. We can't afford to\nfly 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 from\nme until after election. I was besmirched, for the present at least.\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 the\nSenate was yours, not mine. You begged me to take the appointment against\nmy wishes and my judgment. I had no desire to go to Washington then, I\nhave less to-day. I have come to the conclusion that my usefulness to you\nis at an end.\"\n\nI got to my feet. I beheld Miller Gorse sitting impassive, with his\nencompassing stare, the strongest man of them all. A change of firmaments\nwould not move him. But Dickinson had risen and put his hand on my\nshoulder. 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 at\nthis time. We've got to face that fact, and I know you have the sense to\nsee it, too. I, for one, won't be satisfied until I see you in the\nSenate. 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 was\ntired, 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, and\nleft them grouped together like crestfallen conspirators--all save Miller\nGorse, whose pervasive gaze seemed to follow me after I had closed the\ndoor.\n\nAn elevator took me down to the lobby of the Corn Bank Building. I paused\nfor a moment, aimlessly regarding the streams of humanity hurrying in and\nout, streaking the white marble floor with the wet filth of the streets.\nSomeone spoke my name. It was Bitter, Judd Jason's \"legal\" tool, and I\npermitted myself to be dragged out of the eddies into a quiet corner by\nthe 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 go,\nall right. We'll have some fun, we'll be ready for him. Do you get me? So\nlong. 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 I\nhad, indeed, a nauseated feeling; Jason's \"lawyer\" was a dirty little\nman, smelling of stale cigars, with a blue-black, unshaven face. In spite\nof the shocking nature of his confidence, he had actually not succeeded\nin deflecting the current of my thoughts; these were still running over\nthe scene in the directors' room. I had listened to him passively while\nhe had held my buttonhole, and he had detained me but an instant.\n\nWhen I reached the street I was wondering whether Gorse and Dickinson and\nthe 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? revenge?\nThe nauseated feeling grew more acute.... Reaching my office, I shut the\ndoor, sat down at my desk, summoned my will, and began to jot down random\nnotes for the part of my speech I was to give the newspapers, notes that\nwere mere silly fragments of arguments I had once thought effective. I\ncould no more concentrate on them than I could have written a poem.\nGradually, like the smoke that settled down on our city until we lived in\ndarkness at midday, the horror of what Bitter had told me began to\npervade 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 an\nact which was worse than assassination? Was any cause worth it? Could any\ncause survive it? But my attempts at reasoning might be likened to the\nstrainings of a wayfarer lost on a mountain side to pick his way in the\ngathering dusk. I had just that desperate feeling of being lost, and with\nit went an acute sense of an imminent danger; the ground, no longer firm\nunder 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 an\ninfamy pressed upon me, yet in conflict with the pressure of this\nnecessity there persisted that old rebellion, that bitterness which had\nbeen 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 Judd\nJason. But I delayed until after the luncheon hour, when I called up the\nbank on the telephone, to discover that it was closed. I had forgotten\nthat the day was Saturday. I was prepared to say that I would withdraw\nfrom the campaign, warn Krebs myself if this kind of tactics were not\nsuppressed. But I could not get the banker. Then I began to have doubts\nof Dickinson's power in the matter. Judd Jason had never been tractable,\nby any means; he had always maintained a considerable independence of the\nfinancial powers, and to-day not only financial control, but the\ndominance of Jason himself was at stake. He would fight for it to the\nlast ditch, and make use of any means. No, it was of no use to appeal to\nhim. What then? Well, there was a reaction, or an attempt at one. Krebs\nhad not been born yesterday, he had avoided the wiles of the politicians\nheretofore, he wouldn't be fool enough to be taken in now. I told myself\nthat if I were not in a state bordering on a nervous breakdown, I should\nlaugh at such morbid fears, I steadied myself sufficiently to dictate the\nextract from my speech that was to be published. I was to make addresses\nat two halls, alternating with Parks, the mayoralty candidate. At four\no'clock I went back to my room in the Club 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 I had\nlost 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 once--a\nfleeting surge of contempt for the mob below me with their silly faces\nupturned to mine. There may have been intelligent expressions among them,\nbut 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 pretty\ntired.\"\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 stood\nbeside a lamp post, pretending to be waiting for a car. The street lights\nwere reflected in perpendicular, wavy-yellow ribbons on the wet asphalt,\nand I stood staring with foolish intentness at this phenomenon, wondering\nhow a painter would get the effect in oils. Again I was walking back\ntowards the hall, combating the acknowledgment to myself that I had a\nplan, a plan that I did not for a moment believe I would carry out. I was\nshivering.\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 him\na note when he should have finished speaking--but I couldn't make up my\nmind whether to put my name to the note or not. Of course I needn't have\nentered the hall at all: I might have sent in my note at the side door.\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 he\nwas saying, I was able to regard him objectively,--objectively, in a\nrestricted sense. I noticed that he had grown even thinner; the flesh had\nfallen away from under his cheek-bones, and there were sharp, deep,\nalmost perpendicular lines on either side of his mouth. He was emaciated,\nthat was the word. Once in a while he thrust his hand through his dry,\nashy hair which was of a tone with the paleness of his face. Such was his\nonly 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 fall\nfrom 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 a tragic\nspell not attributable to the words I heard, existing independently of\nthem, pervading the spacious hall, weaving into unity dissentient minds.\nAnd then, with what seemed a retarded rather than sudden awareness, I\nknew that he had stopped speaking. Once more he ran his hand through his\nhair, he was seemingly groping for words that would not come. I was\npierced by a strange agony--the amazing source of which, seemed to be a\nsmile on the face of Hermann Krebs, an ineffable smile illuminating the\nplace like a flash of light, in which suffering and tragedy, comradeship\nand loving kindness--all were mingled. He stood for a moment with that\nsmile on his face--swayed, and would have fallen had it not been for the\nquickness of a man on the platform behind him, and into whose arms he\nsank.\n\nIn an instant people had risen in their seats, men were hurrying down the\naisles, while a peculiar human murmur or wail persisted like an undertone\nbeneath the confusion of noises, striking the very note of my own\nfeelings. Above the heads of those about me I saw Krebs being carried off\nthe platform.... The chairman motioned for silence and inquired if there\nwere a physician in the audience, and then all began to talk at once. The\nman 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 sorrow\nand dismay, of a loyalty I had not imagined. Mingled with these were\noccasional 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 in\nwhat 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 the\nfear that I should never see him again, and at the same moment I realized\nsharply that this was the one thing I wanted--to see him. I pushed\nthrough the people, gained the street, and fairly ran down the alley that\nled to the side entrance of the hall, where a small group was gathered\nunder the light that hung above the doorway. There stood on the step, a\nlittle above the others, a young man in a grey flannel shirt, evidently a\nmechanic. 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 man,\nplainly 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 arrived\nand were holding the people back, I saw the hood of the conveyance as it\ncame to a halt, and immediately a hospital doctor and two assistants\ncarrying a stretcher hurried towards us, and we made way for them to\nenter. After a brief interval, they were heard coming slowly down the\nsteps inside. By the white, cruel light of the arc I saw Krebs lying\nmotionless.... I laid hold of one of the men who had been on the\nplatform. He did not resent the act, he seemed to anticipate my question.\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 part\nof editors and reporters. News, however sensational, had severely to be\ncondensed in the interest of a cause, and at this critical stage of the\ncampaign to make a tragic hero of Hermann Krebs would have been the\nheight of folly. There were a couple of paragraphs giving the gist of his\nspeech, 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 of\nthat 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 night,\nI 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 to\nhave gone into this campaign, he knew he had this trouble. Hepburn warned\nhim three months ago, and there's no man who knows more about the heart\nthan 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 it\nstifled 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 making\na semblance of play. Monotonous rows of red houses succeeded one another,\nsome pushed forward, others thrust back behind little plots of stamped\nearth. Into one of these I turned. It seemed a little cleaner, better\nkept, less sordid than the others. I pulled the bell, and presently the\ndoor was opened by a woman whose arms were bare to the elbow. She wore a\nblue-checked calico apron that came to her throat, but the apron was\nclean, and her firm though furrowed face gave evidences of recent\nhousewifely exertions. Her eyes had the strange look of the cheerfulness\nthat is intimately acquainted with sorrow. She did not seem surprised at\nseeing 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 room,\nI 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 see\nsome, and he wants to see his friends. That's not strange--he always did.\nI'll ask. Will you tell me your name?\"\n\nI took out a card. She held it without glancing at it, and invited me in.\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 ago\nwith 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 he\nwas alone. I hesitated just a second, swept by the heat wave that follows\nsudden shyness, embarrassment, a sense of folly it is too late to avert.\n\nKrebs was propped up with pillows.\n\n\"Well, this is good of you,\" he said, and reached out his hand across the\nspread. I took it, and sat down beside the shiny oak bedstead, in a chair\ncovered 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 have\nbeen able to read more of them. Your argument interested me. It's new,\nunlike 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 who\nappears to suggest the foundations of a constructive programme and who\nisn't afraid to criticise the man with a vote as well as the capitalist\nis 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 attempts,\nworthy attempts, to coordinate and synthesize the sciences. What I have\nbeen saying is not strictly original. I took it on the stump, that's all.\nI didn't expect it to have much effect in this campaign, but it was an\nopportunity to sow a few seeds, to start a sense of personal\ndissatisfaction in the minds of a few voters. What is it Browning says?\nIt's in Bishop Blougram, I believe. 'When the fight begins within\nhimself, a man's worth something.' It's an intellectual fight, of\ncourse.\"\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 an\nintellectual 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 as\nI 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 for\ngoing out and taking what you wanted, and I had to live a good many years\nbefore I began to see that it's better for a man to take what he wants\nthan to take nothing at all. I took what I wanted, every man worth his\nsalt does. There's your great banker friend in New York whom I used to\nthink was the arch-fiend. He took what he wanted, and he took a good\ndeal, 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 economic\nevolution. How can a man in our time find out what he does want unless he\ntakes something and gives it a trial?\"\n\n\"Until he begins to feel that it disagrees with him,\" I said. \"But then,\"\nI added involuntarily, \"then it may be too late to try something else,\nand 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 me.\n\"What seems so strange,\" I said, as I looked at him lying back on his\npillows, \"is your faith that we shall be able to bring order out of all\nthis 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 to try\nto make it as safe as possible. But no adventure is safe--life itself is\nan adventure, and neither is that safe. It's a hazard, as you and I have\nfound out. The moment we try to make life safe we lose all there is in it\nworth 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 and suffer\nin order to realize that the only true safety lies in development. We\nhave first to cast off the leading strings of authority. It's a delusion\nthat we can insure ourselves by remaining within its walls--we have to\nrisk our lives and our souls. It is discouraging when we look around us\nto-day, and in a way the pessimists are right when they say we don't see\ndemocracy. We see only what may be called the first stage of it; for\ndemocracy is still in a far country eating the husks of individualism,\nmaterialism. What we see is not true freedom, but freedom run to riot,\nmen struggling for themselves, spending on themselves the fruits of their\ninheritance; we see a government intent on one object alone--exploitation\nof this inheritance in order to achieve what it calls prosperity. And God\nis 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 of\nall. Because, when we go back we shall not find the same God--or rather\nwe shall recognize him in ourselves. Autonomy is godliness, knowledge is\ngodliness. We went away cringing, superstitious, we saw everywhere omens\nand evidences of his wrath in the earth and sea and sky, we burned\ncandles and sacrificed animals in the vain hope of averting scourges and\nother calamities. But when we come back it will be with a knowledge of\nhis ways, gained at a price,--the price he, too, must have paid--and we\nshall be able to stand up and look him in the face, and all our childish\nsuperstitions and optimisms shall have been burned away.\"\n\nSome faith indeed had given him strength to renounce those things in life\nI had held dear, driven him on to fight until his exhausted body failed\nhim, and even now that he was physically helpless sustained him. I did\nnot ask myself, then, the nature of this faith. In its presence it could\nno more be questioned than the light. It was light; I felt bathed in it.\nNow it was soft, suffused: but I remembered how the night before in the\nhall, just before he had fallen, it had flashed forth in a smile and\nillumined 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 more.\nThat desire, strangely enough, hasn't lost its strength. We don't know\nwhether there is a future life, but if there is, I think it must be a\ncontinuation 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 of\nwrong 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 is,\nbut not many. The hope lies in those who are coming after us--we must do\nfor them what wasn't done for us. We really didn't have much of a chance,\nParet. What did our instructors at Harvard know about the age that was\ndawning? what did anybody know? You can educate yourself--or rather\nreeducate 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 point\nof view from which it's written, there's little hope for us. Go away from\nall this and get straightened out, make yourself acquainted with the\nmodern trend in literature and criticism, with modern history, find out\nwhat's being done in the field of education, read the modern sciences,\nespecially biology, and psychology and sociology, and try to get a\nglimpse of the fundamental human needs underlying such phenomena as the\nlabour and woman's movements. God knows I've just begun to get my\nglimpse, and I've floundered around ever since I left college.... I don't\nmean to say we can ever see the whole, but we can get a clew, an idea,\nand 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 be\nidentified with 'over-beliefs' but when it comes to confusing our\ntheories with facts, instead of recognizing them as theories, when it\ncomes 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 our\nelectorate 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 from\nwhat 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 for\nthe world's progress. We'd come to rely on it rather than on ourselves\nthe trouble with the world is that it has been relying on it. Reason is\nthe mind--it leaps to the stars without realizing always how it gets\nthere. It is through reason we get the self-reliance that redeems 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 it\nwere 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. We\ndo 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 the\nhouse entered to say that Dr. Hepburn had arrived. I rose and shook\nKrebs'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 big\nman 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 began\nto realize what a shock my presence there must have been to him, with his\nhead full of the contrast between this visit and my former attitude.\nCould it be that it was only the night before I had made a speech against\nhim and his associates? It is interesting that my mind rejected all sense\nof anomaly and inconsistency. Krebs possessed me; I must have been in\nreality extremely agitated, but this sense of being possessed seemed a\nquiet one. An amazing thing had happened--and yet I was not amazed. The\nKrebs I had seen was the man I had known for many years, the man I had\nridiculed, despised and oppressed, but it seemed to me then that he had\nbeen my friend and intimate all my life: more than that, I had an odd\nfeeling he had always been a part of me, and that now had begun to take\nplace a merging of personality. Nor could I feel that he was a dying man.\nHe 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 and\nordered an absolute rest, after dwelling at some length on the vicious\npace set by modern business and the lack of consideration and knowledge\nshown by men of affairs for their bodies. There was a limit to the wrack\nand strain which the human organism could stand. He must of course have\nsuspected the presence of disturbing and disintegrating factors, but he\nconfined himself to telling me that only an exceptional constitution had\nsaved me from a serious illness; he must in a way have comprehended why I\ndid not wish to go abroad, and have my family join me on the Riviera, as\nTom Peters proposed. California had been my choice, and Dr. Brooke\nrecommended 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 I lay\nin a chair on the sunny terrace, with a continually recurring amazement\nat the brilliancy of my surroundings. In the early morning I looked down\non a feathery mist hiding the world, a mist presently to be shot with\nsilver and sapphire-blue, dissolved by slow enchantment until there lay\nrevealed the plain and the shimmering ocean with its distant islands\ntrembling in the haze. At sunset my eyes sought the mountains, mountains\nunreal, like glorified scenery of grand opera, with violet shadows in the\nwooded canon clefts, and crags of pink tourmaline and ruby against the\nskies. All day long in the tempered heat flowers blazed around me,\ninsects hummed, lizards darted in and out of the terrace wall, birds\nflashed among the checkered shadows of the live oaks. That grove of\ngnarled oaks summoned up before me visions of some classic villa poised\nabove Grecian seas, shining amidst dark foliage, the refuge of forgotten\nkings. Below me, on the slope, the spaced orange trees were heavy with\ngolden 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 I\nsat with my back against the dunes watching the drag of the outgoing\nwater rolling the pebbles after it, making a gleaming floor for the light\nto 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 that\nnight; on the Monday Tom Peters had come to the Club and insisted upon my\nbeing taken to his house.... When I had recovered sufficiently there had\nbeen rather a pathetic renewal of our friendship. Perry came to see me.\nTheir attitude was one of apprehension not unmixed with wonder; and\nthough they, knew of the existence of a mental crisis, suspected, in all\nprobability, some of the causes of it, they refrained carefully from all\ncomments, contenting themselves with telling me when I was well enough\nthat Krebs had died quite suddenly that Sunday afternoon; that his\ndeath--occurring at such a crucial moment--had been sufficient to turn\nthe tide of the election and make Edgar Greenhalge mayor. Thousands who\nhad failed to understand Hermann Krebs, but whom he had nevertheless\nstirred and troubled, suddenly awoke to the fact that he had had elements\nof 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 by\ndegrees became a throbbing pain as life flowed back into me, re-inflaming\nonce more my being with protest and passion, arousing me to revolt\nagainst the fate that had overtaken me. I even began at moments to feel a\nfierce desire to go back and take up again the fight from which I had\nbeen so strangely removed--removed by the agency of things still obscure.\nI might get Nancy yet, beat down her resistance, overcome her, if only I\ncould be near her and see her. But even in the midst of these surges of\npassion I was conscious of the birth of a new force I did not understand,\nand which I resented, that had arisen to give battle to my passions and\ndesires. This struggle was not mentally reflected as a debate between\nright and wrong, as to whether I should or should not be justified in\ntaking Nancy if I could get her: it seemed as though some new and small\nyet dogged intruder had forced an entrance into me, an insignificant\npigmy who did not hesitate to bar the pathway of the reviving giant of my\ndesires. These contests sapped my strength. It seemed as though in my\nisolation I loved Nancy, I missed her more than ever, and the flavour she\ngave 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 then\nas the personification of an hostile element in the universe that had\nbrought about my miseries and accomplished my downfall; I attributed the\ndisagreeable thwarting of my impulses to his agency; I did not wish to\nthink 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 moments\nhe seemed to bring me peace. One day I recalled as vividly as though it\nwere taking place again that last time I had been with him; I seemed once\nmore to be listening to the calm yet earnest talk ranging over so many\ntopics, politics and government, economics and science and religion. I\ndid not yet grasp the synthesis he had made of them all, but I saw them\nnow all focussed in him elements he had drawn from human lives and human\nexperiences. I think it was then I first felt the quickenings of a new\nlife to be born in travail and pain.... Wearied, yet exalted, I sank down\non a stone bench and gazed out at the little island of Santa Cruz afloat\non 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 of\nphilosophers to the romantic mind!--should express it for me. \"The genius\nof the heart, from contact with which every man goes away richer, not\n'blessed' and overcome,....but richer himself, fresher to himself than\nbefore, opened up, breathed upon and sounded by a thawing wind; more\nuncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more bruised; but full of hopes which\nas 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 new\nunwillingness 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 at\nsuch cost of labour and life and love by my fellow-men of so little worth\nto me that I could ignore it? declare that it had no significance for me?\nno bearing on my life and conduct? If I were to rise and go forward--and\nI now felt something like a continued impulse, in spite of relaxations\nand revolts--I must master this knowledge, it must be my guide, form the\nbasis of my creed. I--who never had had a creed, never felt the need of\none! For lack of one I had been rudely jolted out of the frail shell I\nhad thought so secure, and stood, as it were, naked and shivering to the\nstorms, staring at a world that was no function of me, after all. My\nproblem, indeed, was how to become a function of it....\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 of\nwriting 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 on.\nHe was a big and wholesome young man, companionable, yet quiet and\nunobtrusive, watchful without appearing to be so, with the innate as well\nas the cultivated knowledge of psychology characteristic of the best\nmodern physicians. When I grew better I came to feel that he had given\nhis whole mind to the study of my case, though he never betrayed it in\nhis conversation.\n\n\"Strafford,\" I said to him one morning with such an air of unconcern as I\ncould muster, \"I've an idea I'd like to read a little science. Could you\nrecommend 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 my\nmind, 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 the\nwork of a German scientist who stands rather high. I read it last winter,\nand it interested me. I got it from a clergyman I know who is spending\nthe winter in Santa Barbara.\"\n\n\"A clergyman!\"\n\nStrafford laughed. \"An 'advanced' clergyman,\" he explained. \"Oh, a lot of\nthem 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 struck\nme that he might be one of the forerunners of a type our universities\nwere about to turn out. I wondered what he believed. Of one thing I was\nsure, that he was not in the medical profession to make money. That was a\nfaith 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 any\nmention of its application), will be learning to think straight,\nacquiring easily in early youth what I failed to learn until after forty.\nAnd think of all the trouble and tragedy that will have been averted. It\nis true that I had read some biology at Cambridge, which I had promptly\nforgotten; it had not been especially emphasized by my instructors as\nrelated to life--certainly not as related to religion: such incidents as\nthat of Adam and Eve occupied the religious field exclusively. I had been\ncompelled to commit to memory, temporarily, the matter in those books;\nbut what I now began to perceive was that the matter was secondary\ncompared to the view point of science--and this had been utterly\nneglected. As I read, I experienced all the excitement of an\nold-fashioned romance, but of a romance of such significance as to touch\nthe very springs of existence; and above all I was impressed with the\nintegrity of the scientific method--an integrity commensurate with the\ndignity of man--that scorned to quibble to make out a case, to affirm\nsomething 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 I\nhad developed and descended. I, this marvellously complicated being, torn\nby desires and despairs, was the result of the union of two microscopic\ncells. \"All living things come from the egg,\" such had been Harvey's\ndictum. The result was like the tonic of a cold douche. I began to feel\ncleansed and purified, as though something sticky-sweet which all my life\nhad clung to me had been washed away. Yet a question arose, an insistent\nquestion that forever presses itself on the mind of man; how could these\napparently chemical and mechanical processes, which the author of the\nbook contented himself with recording, account for me? The spermia darts\nfor the egg, and pierces it; personal history begins. But what mysterious\nshaping force is it that repeats in the individual the history of the\nrace, supervises the orderly division of the cells, by degrees directs\nthe symmetry, sets aside the skeleton and digestive tract and supervises\nthe 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 had\nestablished a foundation of lectures in a Scotch University for\nforwarding the study of a Natural Theology. The term possessed me. Unlike\nthe old theology woven of myths and a fanciful philosophy of the decadent\nperiod of Greece, natural theology was founded on science itself, and\nscientists were among those who sought to develop it. Here was a\nsynthesis that made a powerful appeal, one of the many signs and portents\nof a new era of which I was dimly becoming cognizant; and now that I\nlooked for signs, I found them everywhere, in my young Doctor, in Krebs,\nin references in the texts; indications of a new order beginning to make\nitself felt in a muddled, chaotic human world, which might--which must\nhave a parallel with the order that revealed itself in the egg! Might not\nboth, physical and social, be due to the influence of the same invisible,\nexperimenting, 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, on\nits lack of dogmatic dictums and infallible revelations; yet it gave me\nthe vision of a new sanction whereby man might order his life, a sanction\nfrom which was eliminated fear and superstition and romantic hope, a\nsanction whose doctrines--unlike those of the sentimental theology--did\nnot fly in the face of human instincts and needs. Nor was it a theology\ndevoid of inspiration and poetry, though poetry might be called its\ncomplement. With all that was beautiful and true in the myths dear to\nmankind it did not conflict, annulling only the vicious dogmatism of\nliteral interpretation. In this connection I remembered something that\nKrebs had said--in our talk about poetry and art,--that these were\nemotion, religion expressed by the tools reason had evolved. Music, he\nhad 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 of\nthe 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 of an\nAmerican scientist, taken from his book on Heredity, \"The evolutionary\nidea has forced man to consider the probable future of his own race on\nearth and to take measures to control that future, a matter he had\npreviously 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 these\nworks, I found them suffused with religion, religion of a kind and\nquality I had not imagined. The birthright of the spirit of man was\nfreedom, 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 to\nmake 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. I\nhad simply written her that after the campaign I had gone for a rest to\nCalifornia; yet in her letters to me, after this information had reached\nher, I detected a restrained anxiety and affection that troubled me.\nSequences 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 I\nloved 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 had\ntaken a vacation, I had not come over to them. He represented the medium,\nthe link between Maude and me that no estrangement, no separation could\nbreak.\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 his\ncompanion and friend, but to spare him, if possible, some of my own\nmistakes 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 which\nin the hour of self-sufficiency I had cast off? I had believed in divorce\nthen--why not now? Well, I still believed in it. I had thought of a union\nwith Nancy as something that would bring about the \"self-realization that\nsprings from the gratification of a great passion,\"--an appealing phrase\nI had read somewhere. But, it was at least a favourable symptom that I\nwas willing now to confess that the \"self-realization\" had been a\nsecondary and sentimental consideration, a rosy, self-created halo to\ngive a moral and religious sanction to my desire. Was I not trying to do\nthat very thing now? It tortured me to think so; I strove to achieve a\ndetached consideration of the problem,--to arrive at length at a thought\nthat seemed illuminating: that the it \"wrongness\" or \"rightness,\" utility\nand happiness of all such unions depend upon whether or not they become a\npart of the woof and warp of the social fabric; in other words, whether\nthe gratification of any particular love by divorce and remarriage does\nor does not tend to destroy a portion of that fabric. Nancy certainly\nwould have been justified in divorce. It did not seem in the retrospect\nthat I would have been: surely not if, after I had married Nancy, I had\ndeveloped this view of life that seemed to me to be the true view. I\nshould have been powerless to act upon it. But the chances were I should\nnot have developed it, since it would seem that any salvation for me at\nleast must 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 largely\ndue to my saturation with a false idea of life. Would not the attempt to\ncut loose from the consequences of that mistake in my individual case\nhave been futile? But there was a remedy for it--the remedy Krebs had\nsuggested: I might still prevent my children from making such a mistake,\nI might help to create in them what I might have been, and thus find a\nsolution for myself. My errors would then assume a value.\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? I\nhad less concern on this score, a feeling that that development of hers,\nwhich once had irritated me, was in the same direction as my own....\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 came\ninto 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 on\nProtean 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 the\nhavoc 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 the\nopen slopes stained smoky-blue by the wild lilac, where the twisted\nmadrona grows. As I sat gazing down on tiny headlands jutting out into a\nvast 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 I\nspied 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 have\nin 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 only\nfair to give her an opportunity to reflect upon the manner in which she\nwould meet the situation. Save for an impatience which at moments I\nrestrained with difficulty, the moods that succeeded one another as I\njourneyed did not differ greatly from those I had experienced in the past\nmonth. I was alternately exalted and depressed; I hoped and doubted and\nfeared; my courage, my confidence rose and fell. And yet I was aware of\nthe 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, standing\nforth sharply against the high blue of American skies, had stirred in me\nthat passion for wealth and power of which they were so marvellously and\nuniquely the embodiment. I recalled the bright day of my home-coming with\nMaude, when she too had felt that passion drawing me away from her, after\nthe briefest of possessions.... Well, I had had it, the power. I had\nstormed and gained entrance to the citadel itself. I might have lived\nhere in New York, secure, defiant of a veering public opinion that envied\nwhile it strove to sting. Why was I flinging it all away? Was this a\nsudden resolution of mine, forced by events, precipitated by a failure to\nachieve what of all things on earth I had most desired? or was it the\ninevitable result of the development of the Hugh Paret of earlier days,\nwho 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 an\nimpelling interest; the naive capacity in me for wonder, so long dormant,\nhad been marvellously opened up once more. I no longer thought of myself\nas the important man of affairs; and when in the progress of the voyage I\nwas accosted by two or three men I had met and by others who had heard of\nme it was only to feel amazement at the remoteness I now felt from a\nworld whose realities were stocks and bonds, railroads and corporations\nand the detested new politics so inimical to the smooth conduct of\n\"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 and\nwhite sea swept by the white March sunlight; to discern at length against\nthe horizon toward which we sped a cloud of the filmiest and most\ndelicate 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 I\nshould be in Paris with Maude. My bag was packed, my steamer trunk\nclosed. I strayed about the decks, in and out of the saloons, wondering\nat the indifference of other passengers who sat reading in steamer-chairs\nor wrote last letters to be posted at Havre. I was filled with\nimpatience, anticipation, yes, with anxiety concerning the adventure that\nwas now so imminent; with wavering doubts. Had I done the wisest thing\nafter all? I had the familiar experience that often comes just before\nreunion after absence of recalling intimate and forgotten impressions of\nthose whom I was about to see again the tones of their voices, little\ngestures....\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 city\nbathed in sunlight.... I had reached the dock and was making my way\nthrough the hurrying and shifting groups toward the steamer train when I\nsaw 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 was\nconscious of resenting it a little. I was impressed and puzzled. As I\nwalked along the platform beside her she seemed almost a stranger: I had\ndifficulty in realizing that she was my wife, the mother of my children.\nHer eyes were clear, more serious than I recalled them, and her physical\nas well as her moral tone seemed to have improved. Her cheeks glowed with\nhealth, 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 this\ncomposure a controlled one or had she indeed attained to the\nself-sufficiency her manner and presence implied? Such were the questions\nrunning 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 like\nAmerica 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 good\ndiscipline. We have little excursions in an automobile on fine days to\nVersailles and other places of interest around Paris, and Matthew and I\nhave learned a lot of history. I have a professor of literature from the\nSorbonne 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 in\nthe afternoon sun. I took it all in distractedly. Here was Maude beside\nme, 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 not\ntell 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 to\nher, things that every moment of this sort of intercourse was making more\ndifficult. And I felt, if I did not say them now, that perhaps I never\nshould: that now or never was the appropriate time, and to delay would be\nto 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 take\nto 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 I\nhave 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 I've\nbeen to blame for it. There is more to be said about the chances for a\nsuccessful marriage in these days, but I'm not going to dwell on that\nnow, or attempt to shoulder off my shortcomings on my bringing up, on the\ncivilization in which we have lived. You've tried to do your share, and\nthe failure hasn't been your fault. I want to tell you first of all that\nI recognize your right to live your life from now on, independently of\nme, if you so desire. You ought to have the children--\" I hesitated a\nmoment. It was the hardest thing I had to say. \"I've never troubled\nmyself about them, I've never taken on any responsibility in regard to\ntheir 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 be\nhere to-day if Nancy Durrett had consented to--to get a divorce and marry\nme. We had agreed to that when this accident happened to Ham, and she\nwent back to him. I have to tell you that I still love her--I can't say\nhow much, or define my feelings toward her now. I've given up all idea of\nher. I don't think I'd marry her now, even if I had the chance, and you\nshould decide to live away from me. I don't know. I'm not so sure of\nmyself as I once was. The fact is, Maude, circumstances have been too\nmuch for me. I've been beaten. And I'm not at all certain that it wasn't\na 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 as\nyou 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 that\nI 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 a\ngood 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 from\nthe 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 you.\nThat gave me an excuse--an excuse for myself. Long before that I realized\nmy helplessness, I knew that whatever I might have done was past doing.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" I assented.\n\nWe sat in silence for a while. The train was skirting an ancient town set\non a hill, crowned with a castle and a Gothic church whose windows were\nafire 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 no\ndoubt that there are some fortunate people who achieve the kind of mutual\nlove for which it is human to yearn, whose passion is naturally\ntransmuted into a feeling that may be even finer, but I am inclined to\nthink, 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 know\nit 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 it,\nI have neglected him, neglected them, failed to appreciate them all. I\ndid not deserve them. I have reproached myself, I have suffered for it,\nnot as much as I deserved. I came to realize that the children were a\nbond between us, that their existence meant something greater than either\nof us. But at the same time I recognized that I had lost my right over\nthem, that it was you who had proved yourself worthy.... It was through\nthe children that I came to think differently, to feel differently toward\nyou. 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 again\nthat I should not be here if I had obtained my desires. Yet there is more\nto it than that. I think I have reached a stage where I am able to say\nthat I am glad I didn't obtain them. I see now that this coming to you\nwas something I have wanted to do all along, but it was the cowardly\nthing to do, after I had failed, for it was not as though I had conquered\nthe desires, the desires conquered me. At any rate, I couldn't come to\nyou to encumber you, to be a drag upon you. I felt that I must have\nsomething to offer you. I've got a plan, Maude, for my life, for our\nlives. 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 will be\nall plain sailing, that there won't be difficulties and discouragements.\nBut 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 we\ntry 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, for\nall 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, they\nhad 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.\"....","title":"A Far Country \u2014 Volume 3","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":66378}