Chapter VII: Book II: The Hill-Cabin (3)

Less than five weeks had elapsed, and yet the worst seemed as far back, in some of Morning’s moments, as the deck-passage out of China. He had suffered abominably. Fallows stood by night and day at first. He brought back a certain quality from the Russian farm that was pure inspiration to the other. They spoke about the Play. Morning was more than ever glad that Markheim had refused it. They sat long by the fire. More happened than modern America would believe off-hand--for John Morning began to learn to listen. Fallows was happy. His presence in the room was like the fire-light. Twice more he went across to the Metal Workers’ Hall, and still the New York group would not let him go. The Socialists brought him their ideas. He was in the heart of threatening upheavals. He reiterated that they must be united in one thing first; they must have faith in one another. They must not answer greed with greed. They must be sure of themselves; they must have a pure voice; they must know first what was wanted, and follow the vision.... Duke Fallows knew that it was all the matter of a leader.... He told them of the men and women in Russia who have put off self. Finally Duke appeared to see that his work was done, and he retired from them.

“It is delicate business,” he said to Morning. “There’s fine stuff in the crowd--then there’s the rest. If I should show common just once--all my work would be spoiled, and even the blessed few would forget the punch of my little story. They think I’ve gone on west.”

Still he didn’t leave the cabin on the hill.

It was only when Morning undertook to touch upon the love story--that Fallows looked away.... Morning tried to comprehend this. Something had happened. The big man who had stared at so many ceilings of Asia, breaking out from time to time in strange utterances all colored with desire; the man who had met his Eve, and talked of being controlled by her even after death--shuddered now at the mention of Betty Berry.... Morning even had a suspicion at last that the other construed a relation between the woman’s influence and the excess of alcohol. These moments dismayed him.

There is a dark spot in every man’s radiance--and this was the Californian’s, Morning concluded. In the transformation which the journey to Russia had effected, his particular weakness seemed hardened into a crust of exceptional austerity. The only women he ever spoke of in the remotest personal fashion belonged to the peasant family of the Ploughman. His audiences were unmixed by his own arrangement. In tearing out his central weakness, a certain madness on the subject had rushed in, a hatred that knew no quarter, and a zeal in denial that only one who has touched the rim of ruin can know.

On the last night of February they talked and read late. The reading was from Saint Paul in the different letters. Fallows seemed impassioned with the figure.

“I understand him,” he said.

“He was afraid of women. Sometimes he seems to hate women,” Morning remarked. Certain lines of Paul’s on the subject had broken the perfection of the message for him.

A strange look came to Fallows. The finger that was turning a page drew in with the others, and the hand that rested upon the book was clenched.... “Paul knew women,” he muttered.

“You think before he took that road to Damascus--he knew women?”

“Yes----”

“Even the Paul who stood by holding the garments of the stoners of Stephen?”

“He was a boy then. He learned afterward, I think.”

“He couldn’t have known the saints among them,” said Morning, who was smiling in his heart.

“Perhaps some saint among them was the one who made him afraid. You know women won’t have men going alone--not even the saints among women.... There may have been one who refused to be dimmed altogether even by that great light.”

“But he went alone----”

“In that way she wouldn’t be the Thorn,” Fallows said slowly. “She would be greater power for him. Yes, Saint Paul went alone. We wouldn’t be reading him to-night--had he turned back to her.”

That hurt. Morning was no longer smiling within. “I didn’t learn women--even as a boy,” he said.

Fallows was unable to speak. He had never loved Morning as at this moment. He was tender enough to catch the strange pathos of it, which the younger man could not feel.

“You’re a natural drunkard, John,” he said presently. “You are by nature ambitious, as it is intimated Cæsar was; but you are naturally a monk, too. I say it with awe.”

“You are wrong,” Morning said with strength. “When this woman came into the room at the Armory that first day--it was as if she brought with her the better part of myself----”

“You said that same before. You were sick. You were torn by exhaustion and by that letter of mine about Reever Kennard. It was the peace and mystery a woman always brings to a sick man.... _Your_ woman is your genius, John. Any rival will stifle and defame it. It’s the woman in a man that makes him a prophet or a great artist. Your ego is masculine; your soul is feminine. When you learn to keep the ego out of the brain, and use the soul, you will become an instrument, more or less perfect, for eternal utterances. When you achieve the union of the man and woman in you--that will be your illumination. You will have emerged into the larger consciousness. You are not so far as you think from that high noon-light. If you should take a woman in the human way, you will not achieve in this life the higher marriage, of which the union of two is but a symbol. That would be turning back, with the spiritual glory in your eyes--back to the shadow of flesh.”

“How do you know that?” Morning asked coldly.

“Because of the invisible restraints that have kept you from women so far.... I believe you are prepared to tell men something about the devils of drink and ambition--having met them?”

“It is possible.”

“I speak with the same authority.”

Morning did not accept this authority, but was long disturbed after the light was out.... Her ship had been six days at sea.

They opened the door wide to the first morning of March. Snow was upon the hill, but there was a promise in the air, even in the sharpness of it. The wind came in, searched among the papers of the table, disordered the draughts of the chimney, filling the room with a faint flavor of wood-smoke, that perfect incense. They stood there, testing the day, and each was thinking of the things of the night before. Fallows said:

“John, you didn’t build this cabin with the idea of a woman coming?”

“No; it was built before I found her the second time. It was my escape from _Boabdil_.... But I thought of her coming, many times afterward--just as I thought of you coming back to stare at the rafters----”

Fallows looked down intently at him for a moment, and said:

“John, you’ve got about all your equipment now. You can’t stand much more tearing down. My road is not for you. You were given balance against that. Don’t venture into what is alien ground for you. You will get back your health. Even the wound will heal. Then will come to you those gracious ideals of singleness, plainness of house and fare, of purity and solitude and the integration of the greater dimension of force.... You are through looking--you must listen now. The blessedness you told me of this last summer was but a breath of what you will get....

“You are a natural monk. If you were in a monastery, the laws restraining you would be gross and material, compared with those bonds which nature has put upon you. The cowl, the cell, and the solitude are but symbols again of the inner monasticism a few rare souls have known. You need no exterior bonds, vows, nor threatenings--no walls, no brandishing threats of damnation. But, if you should betray the invisible restraints that have held you for so many years, the sin would be far deadlier than breaking any vows made to a church or to an order. Vows are for half-men, John; vows are but the crutches of an unfinished integrity.”

11

ON the morning of the Third, at ten, her call came to him. Shortly after twelve he was across the river and far uptown in the hallway of an apartment-house. Even as he spoke her name, his was called from the head of the stairs. He always remembered the intonation.... A fire was burning in the grate. The ’cello was there. She left the hall-door of the room open, but they heard voices, and it was draughty.... She went to close it and returned to Morning, who was still standing.

“What is the matter? You are not well,” she said.... It was hard for him to realize that this was only the third time he had seen her. He was trying to adjust her in the other meetings with this--the angel who had come helping to the Armory; the concert Betty Berry, her nature flung wide to expression, bringing her gift with love to her people. The Armory was one; but the Betty Berry of the concert-night was many: she who had come forth from the stage to his arms (and that was the kiss of all time); the listening Betty Berry in the dimness of the Pullman car; holding fast to his hand as a child might, while they watched the dawn of morning together; the Betty Berry who had led him to her berth on the ship--that kiss and this....

The room had disordered him at the first moment. It was so particularly a New York apartment room. But the ’cello helped it; the grate-fire was good, and after she had shut the door--there was something eternal about the sweetness of that--it was quite the place for them to be.

He was animate with emotions--and yet they were defined, sharp, of their own natures, no soft overflow of sentiment, each with a fineness of its own, like breaths of forest and sea and meadow lands. These were great things which came to him; but they were not passions.... He saw her with fear, too. Simply being here, had the impressiveness of a miracle. It was less that he did not deserve to be with her, than that the world he knew was hardly the place for such blessedness. He was listening to her, in gladness and humility:

“... I asked myself again and again after you were gone, ‘Is it a dream?’ ... I moved about the decks waiting for the night, as one in a deep dream.... You were gone so quickly after that voice. Oh, I was all right. I was full of you. It would have seemed sacrilege to ask for you again.... Yet I seemed to expect you with every knock or step or bell. They asked me to play on shipboard, and I could hardly believe you were not among those who listened.... That first night at sea, the moon was under a hazy mass. I don’t know why I speak of it, but I remember how I stood watching it--perhaps hours--and out of it all I only realized at last that my hands were so small for the things I wanted to do for you, and for everybody.”

That was the quality of her--as if between every sentence, hours of exterior influences had intervened.... He began to realize that Betty Berry never explained. All that afternoon, in different ways, his comprehension augmented on how fine a thing this is. She was glad always to abide by what she said or did. Even on that night, when she came from her playing to the wings where he stood, came to his arms, while the people praised her--she never made light of that acceptance. Many would have diminished it, by saying that they were not accountable in the excitement and enthusiasm of a sympathetic audience. It was so to-day when the door was closed. It seemed to Morning as if human adults should be as fine as this--above all guile and fear.

He was in a risen world that afternoon. Often he wished he could make the world see her as he did. But that was the literary habit, and a tribute to her. Certainly it was not for the writing. He was clay beside her, but happy to be clay.... She did not know it, he thought, but she was free.

That was his thought of the day. Betty Berry was free. The door of the cage was open for her. She did not have to stay, but she did stay for love of the weaker-winged.

“Will all our meetings be so different and lovely?” she asked in the early dusk. “Please tell me about yourself very long ago--the little boy, before he went away.”

It was queer for her to ask that. He had expected her to inquire at once about the three months since their parting in Baltimore. He had determined to tell if she asked, but it was hard even to think of his descents, with her sitting by the fire so near. Such things seemed to have nothing to do with him now--especially when he was with her. They were like old and vile garments cast off; and without relation to him, unless he went back and put them on again. Little matters like Charley and his sister had a relation, for they were without taint. His thoughts to-day were thoughts of doing well for men, as in fine moments with Duke Fallows--of going out _with her_ into the world to help--of writing and giving, of laughing and lifting.... It was surprising how he remembered the very long ago days--the silent, solid, steadily-resisting little chap. Many things came back, and with a clearness that he had not known for years. The very palms of her hands were upturned in her listening; it seemed as if the valves of her heart must be open.

“I can see him--the dear little boy----”

He laughed at her tenderness.... They went out late to dinner; and by the time he had walked back to the house it was necessary for him to leave, if he caught the last car to Hackensack. Duke Fallows would be expecting him at the cabin....

It came to him suddenly, and with a new force, on the ferry, that he had once wished she were pretty. He suffered for it again. He could never recall her face exactly. She came to him in countless ways--with poise for his restlessness, with faith and stamina that made all his former endurings common--but never in fixed feature. It was the same with her sayings. He remembered the spirit and the lustre of them, but never the words.... She was a saint moving unobserved about the world, playing--adrift on the world, and so pure.

He realized also that he had spoken of Betty Berry for the last time to Duke Fallows. There was no doubt in his mind now that Fallows had replaced his old weakness with what might be called, in kindness--fanaticism.... The thought was unspeakable that Betty Berry could spoil his work in the world--he, John Morning, a living hatch of scars from his errors ... and so arrogant and imperious he had been in evil-doing! This trend made him think of her first words to-day: “You are not well.” It was true that he had been astonished often of late by a series of physical disturbances, so much so that he had begun to ask himself, in his detached fashion, what would come next. He could not accept Fallows’ promise that he would get altogether right in health again. He was certainly not so good as he had been. These things made him ashamed.

Now that he was away from her, the sense obtained that he had not been square in withholding the facts of the wastrel period. It didn’t seem quite the same now, as when she was sitting opposite. He would have to tell her some time, and of that certain mental treachery to her, and of the wound, too.... He saw the light of the hill cabin. A touch of the old irritation of Liaoyang had recurred of late. Morning could master it better now. Still so many things that Fallows had said in Asia had come true. Climbing up the hill, he laughed uneasily at the idea of his being temperamentally a monk.... He had not strayed much among women; he had been too busy. Now he had met his own. He would go to her to-morrow. His love for her was the one right thing in the world. Fallows nor the world could alter that....

The resistance which these thoughts had built in his mind was all smoothed away by the spontaneous affection of the greeting. They sat down together before the fire, but neither spoke of the woman who had come between.

12

ON the way to Betty Berry the second day, Morning could not quite hold the altitude of yesterday. There was much of the boy left in the manner of his love for her. The woman that the world saw, and which he saw with physical eyes, was only one of her mysteries. The important thing was that he saw her really, and as she was not seen by another.... They had been together an hour when this was said:

“There comes a time--a certain day--when a little girl realizes what beauty is, and something of what it means in the world. That day came to me and it was hard. I fought it out all at once. I was not exactly sure what I wanted, but I knew that beauty could never help me in any way. I learned to play better when I realized this fully. I have said to myself a million times, ‘Expect nothing. No one will love you. You must do without that,’ I believed it firmly.... So you see when I went back to the Armory that next morning I had something to fall back upon.... I would not have thought about it except you made me forget--that afternoon. Why, I forget it now when you come; but when you go, I force myself to remember----”

“Why do you do that?”

She was looking into the fire. The day was stormy, and they were glad to be kept in.

“Why do you do that?” he repeated.

“Because I can’t feel quite at rest about our being together always. It seems too wonderful. You must understand--it’s only because it is so dear a thing----”

She had spoken hastily, seeing the fear and rebellion in his eyes.

“Betty Berry.... We’re not afraid of being poor. Why not go out and get married to-day--now?”

Her hand went out to him.

“That wouldn’t be fine in us,” she said intensely. “I would feel that we couldn’t be trusted--if we did anything like that.... Oh, that would never keep us together--_that_ is not the great thing. And to-day--what a gray day and bleak. We shall know if that day comes. It will be one such as the butterfly chooses for her emerging. It must not be planned. Such a day comes of itself.... Why, it would be like seizing something precious from another’s hand--before it is offered----”

“And you think you are not beautiful?” he said.

“Yes.”

He tried to tell her how she seemed to him when they were apart--how differently and perfectly the phases of her came.

“It makes me silent,” he went on. “I try to tell just where it is. And sometimes when I am away--I wonder what is so changed and cleansed and buoyant in my heart--and then I know it is you--sustaining.”

“It doesn’t seem to belong to me--what you say,” she answered. “I don’t dare to think of it as mine.... Please don’t think of me as above other women. I am not apart nor above. I am just Betty Berry, who comes and goes and plays--dull in so many ways--as yet, a little afraid to be happy. When you tempt me as now to be happy--it seems I must go and find someone very miserable and do something perfect for him.... But, it is true, I fear nothing so much as that you should believe me more than I am.”

A little afterward she was saying in her queer, unjointed way, as if she spoke only here and there a sentence from the thoughts running swiftly through her mind:

“... And once, (it was only a few weeks after the Armory, and I was playing eastward) I heard your name mentioned among some musicians. They had been talking about your war, and they had seen the great story.... I couldn’t tell them that I know you?... It was known you were in New York, and one of the musicians spoke of an early Broadway engagement--of starting for New York that very night. It was the most common thing to say--but I went to my room and cried. Going to New York--where you were. Can you understand--that it didn’t seem right for him, just to take a train like that? And I had to go eastward so slowly. For a while after that, traveling out there, I couldn’t hold you so clearly; but as we neared New York--whether I wished it or not--I began to feel you again, to expect you at every turning. Sometimes as I played--it was uncanny, the sense that came to me, that you were in the audience, and that we were working together.... And then you came.”

Her picture changed now. Morning grew restless. It was almost as if there were a suggestion from Duke Fallows in her sentences:

“I thought of you always as alone.... You have gone so many ways alone. Perhaps the thought came from your work. I never could read the places where you suffered so--but I mean from the tone and theme of it. You were down among the terrors and miseries--but always alone.... You will go back to them--alone, but carrying calmness and cheer. You will be different.... It’s hard for me to say, but if we should clutch at something for ourselves--greedily because we want something now--and you should not be able to do your work so well because of me--I think--I think I should never cease to suffer.”

A dozen things to say had risen with hostility in his mind to check this faltering expression, the purport of which he knew so well in its every aspect. He hated the thought of others seeing his future and not considering him. He hated the fear that came to him. There had been fruits to all that Fallows had said before. He had plucked them afterward. And now Betty Berry was one with Fallows in this hideous and solitary conception of him. And there she sat, lovely and actual--the very essence of all the good that he might do. He was so tired of what she meant; and it was all so huge and unbreakable, that he grew calm before he spoke, from the very inexorability of it.

“There is no place for me to go--that you could not go with me. Every one seems to see great service for me, but I see it with you. Surely we could go together to people who suffer.... I have been much alone, but I spent most of the time serving myself. I have slaved for myself. If Duke Fallows had left me alone, I should have been greedy and ambitious and common. I see you now identified with all the good of the future. You came bringing the good with you to the Armory that day, but I was so clouded with hatred and self-serving, that I really didn’t know it until afterward.... All the dreams of being real and fine, of doing good in work, and with hands and thoughts, of sometime really being a good man who knows no happiness but service for others--that means you--you! You must come with me. We will be good together. We will serve together. Everybody will be better for us. We will do it because we love so much--and can’t help it----”

“Oh, don’t say any more--please--please! It is too much for me. Go away--won’t you?”

She had risen and clung to him, her face imploring.

“Do you really want me to go away?” he said.

“Yes--I have prayed for one to come saying such things--of two going forth to help--prayed without faith.... I cannot bear another word to be said to-day.... I want to sit here and live with it----”

He was bewildered. He bent to kiss her brow--but refrained.... Her face shone; her eyes were filled with tears.... He was in the street trying to recall what he had said.

13

HE did not cross the river, but wandered about the city.... She had starved her heart always, put away the idea of a lover, and sought to carry out her dreams of service alone. Then he had come. In the midst of mental tossing and disorder to-day, he had stumbled upon an expression of her highest idea of earth-life: for man and woman to serve together--God loving the world through their everyday lives.... And she had been unable to bear him longer near her. It was the same with her heart, as with one who has starved the body, and must begin with morsels.

He was in the hotel writing-room--filling pages to her. He did not mean to send the pages. It was to pass the time until evening. He lacked even the beginnings of strength to stay away from her until to-morrow. He would have telephoned, but she had not given him the number, or the name of the woman who kept the house. The writing held his thoughts from the momentarily recurring impulse to go back. The city was just a vibration. Moments of the writing brought her magically near. In spite of her prayer for him not to, his whole nature idealized her now. His mind was swept again and again with gusts of her attraction. Thoughts of hers came to him almost stinging with reality ... and to see her again--to see her again. Once in the intensity of his outpouring, he halted as if she had called--as if she had called to him to come up to her out of the hollows and the vagueness of light.

It was nightfall. He gave way suddenly--to that double-crossing of temptation which forces upon the tempted one the conviction that what he desires is the right thing.... He would be a fool not to go. She would expect him.... He arose and set out for her house.

But as he neared the corner something within felt itself betrayed.

“And so I cannot be content with her happiness,” he thought. “I cannot be content with the little mysteries that make her the _one_ Betty Berry. I am not brave enough to be happy alone--as she is. I must have the woman....”

He was hot with the shame of it. He saw her bountifulness; her capacity to wait. Clearly he saw that all these complications and conflicts of his own mind were not indications of a large nature, but the failures of one unfinished. She did not torture herself with thoughts; she obeyed a heart unerringly true and real. She shone as never before; fearless, yet with splendid zeal for giving; free to the sky, yet eager to linger low and tenderly where her heart was in harmony; a stranger to all, save one or two in the world, pitilessly hungry to be known, and yet asking so little.... Compared with her, he saw himself as a littered house, wind blowing through broken windows.

... That night, sitting with Duke Fallows before the fire, brooding on his own furious desires, he thought of the other John Morning who had brooded over the story of Liaoyang in so many rooms with the same companion. All that former brooding had only forced the world to a show-down. He knew, forever, how pitifully little the world can give.... A cabin on the hill and a name that meant a call in the next war....

The face of the other cooled and stilled him. Duke was troubled; Duke, who wasn’t afraid of kings or armies or anything that the world might do; who didn’t seem even afraid now of the old Eve violence, whoever she was--was afraid to speak of Betty Berry to his best friend.... Morning wondered at this. Had Duke given up--or was he afraid of mixing things more if he expressed himself? The fire-lit face was tense. One after another of the man’s splendid moments and performances ran through Morning’s mind--the enveloping compassion--in Tokyo, Liaoyang, in the grain, in the ploughed lands--the Lowenkampf friend, the friend of the peasant house, the friend of men in Metal Workers’ Hall, his own friend in a score of places and ways--the man’s consummate art in friendliness....

“Duke, there’s a lot to think about in just plain living, isn’t there?”

The other started. “Hello,” he said. “I didn’t think you were in my world.”

* * * * *

Betty Berry was waiting at the stairs the next morning.

“Did you get my letter?” she whispered, when the door had swung to.

“No.... Mailed last night?”

“Yes.”

“I left the cabin two hours before the mail. It’s rural delivery, you know. Jethro reaches my box late in the forenoon----”

“I wrote it about dark, but didn’t mail it until later. I thought you would come----”

He told her how he had written, how he had come to her house, and turned away. They were very happy.

“To think that you came so far. I couldn’t sit still, I was so expectant at that very time.... But it was good for us----”

“I understood after a while.”

“Of course, you understood.... I was--oh, so happy yesterday. Yet, aren’t we strange? Before it was night, I wanted you to come back.... I didn’t go out last night. I couldn’t practice. To-night, there are some friends whom I must see----”

Morning, in a troubled way, reckoned the hours until evening.... She was here and there about the room. The place already reflected her. She had never been so blithe before.... It was an hour afterward that he picked up a little tuning-fork from the dresser, and twanged it with his nail. She started and turned to him, her thumb pressed against her lips--her whole attitude that of a frightened child.

“I wonder if I could tell you?” she said hesitatingly. “It would make many things clear. You told me about little boy--you. It was my father’s----”

He waited without speaking.

“... He used to lead the singing in a city church,” she said. “Always he carried the tuning-fork. He would twang it upon a cup or a piece of wood, and put it to his ear--taking the tone. He had a soft tenor voice. There was never another just like it, and always he was humming.... I remember his lips moving through the long sermons, as he conned the hymn-book, one song after another, tapping his fork upon a signet ring. How I remember the tiny twanging, the light hum of an insect that came from him, from song to song, his finger keeping time, his lips pursed over the words.

“He never heard the preacher. There was no organ allowed, but he led the hymns. He loved it. He held the time and tone for the people--but never sang a hymn twice the same, bringing in the strangest variations, but always true, his face flaming with pleasure.

“For years and years we lived alone. As a little girl, I was lifted to the stool to play his accompaniments. As a young woman, I supported him, giving music lessons. The neighbors thought him an invalid.... All his viciousness was secret from the world, but common property between us from my babyhood. I pitied him and covered him, fed him when he might have fed himself, waited upon him when he might have helped me. He would hold my mind with little devilish things and thoughts--as natural to him as the tuning-fork.... He would despoil the little stock of food while I was away, and nail the windows down. My whole life, I marveled at the ingenuity of his lies. He was so little and helpless. I never expected to be treated as a decent creature, from those who had heard his tales. They looked askance at me.

“For years, he told me that he was dying, and I sat with him in the nights, or played or read aloud. If any one came, he lay white and peaceful, with a look of martyrdom.... And then at the last, I fell asleep beside him. It was late, but the lamp was burning. I felt him touch me before morning--the little old white thing, his lips pursed. The tuning-fork dropped with a twang to the floor. I could not believe I was free--but cried and cried. At the funeral, when the church people spoke of ‘our pain-racked and martyred brother’----”

She did not finish.

Morning left her side. “I never thought of a little girl that way,” he said, standing apart. “Why, you have given me the spirit of her, Betty. It is what you have passed through that has made you perfect.... And I was fighting for myself, and for silly things all the time----”

But he had not expressed what was really in his mind--of the beauty and tenderness of unknown women everywhere, in whose hearts the sufferings of others find arable ground. Surely, these women are the grace of the world. His mother must have been weathered by such perfect refinements, otherwise he would not have been able to appreciate it in Betty Berry. It was all too dreamy to put into words yet, but he felt it very important in his life--this that had come to him from Betty’s story, and from Betty standing there--woman’s power, her bounty, her mystic valor, all from the unconscious high behavior of a child.

She had given him something that the _Ploughman_ gave Duke Fallows. He wanted to make the child live in the world’s thoughts, as Duke was making the _Ploughman_ live.

It was these things--common, beautiful, passed-by things, that revealed to Morning, as he began to be ready--the white flood of spirit that drives the world, that is pressing always against hearts that are pure.

He went nearer to her.

“Everything I think is love for you, Betty,” he said.

The air was light about her, and delicate as from woodlands.

14

THE horse and phaeton--both very old--of the rural-carrier could be seen from the hill-cabin. Duke Fallows walked down to the fence to say “Hello” to Jethro whom he admired. He returned bearing very thoughtfully a letter addressed to John Morning. It was from across the river; the name, street, and number of the sender were written upon the envelope.... Fallows sat down before the fire again, staring at the letter. He thought of the woman who had written this, (just the few little things that Morning had said) and then he thought of the gaunt peasant woman in Russia, the mate of the _Ploughman_, and of the mother of the _Ploughman_. He thought of the little boy, Jan--the one little boy of the six, that had his heart, and whom he longed for.

He thought of this little boy on one hand--and the world on the other.

Then he thought of Morning again, and of the woman.

He loved the world; he loved the little boy. Sometimes it seemed to him when he was very happy--that he loved the world and the little boy with almost the same compassion--the weakness, fineness, and innocence of the races of men seeming almost like the child’s.

He thought of John Morning differently. He had loved him at first, because he was down and fighting grimly. He thought of him of late as an instrument, upon which might be played a message of mercy and power to all who suffered--to the world and to the little boy alike.

And now Fallows was afraid for the instrument. Many things had maimed it, but this is the way of men; and these maimings had left their revelations from the depths. Such may measure into the equipment of a big man, destined to meet the many face to face. Fallows saw this instrument in danger of being taken over by a woman--to be played upon by colorful and earthly seductions. No man could grant more readily than he, that such interpretations are good for most men; that the highest harmony of the average man is the expression of love for his one woman and his children. But to John Morning, Fallows believed such felicity would close for life the great work which he had visioned from the beginning.

He did not want lyrical singing from John Morning, he wanted prophetic thunderings.

He wanted this maimed young man to rise up from the dregs and tell his story and the large meaning of it. He wanted him to burn with a white light before the world. He wanted the Koupangtse courage to drive into the hearts of men; a pure reformative spirit to leap forth from the capaciousness where ambition had been; he wanted John Morning to ignite alone. He believed the cabin in which he now sat was built blindly from the boy’s standpoint, but intelligently from the spirit of the boy, to become the place of ignition. He believed this of Morning’s to be a celibate spirit that could be finally maimed only by a woman. He believed that Morning was perfecting a marvelous instrument, one that would alter all society for the better, if he gave his heart to the world.

Fallows even asked himself if he did not have his own desperate pursuits among women in too close consideration.... It would be easy to withdraw. So often he had faltered before the harder way, and found afterward that the easy one was evil.... He left it this way: If he could gain audience with Betty Berry alone this evening he would speak; if Morning were with her, he would find an excuse for joining them and quickly depart. Last night Morning had returned to the cabin early; the night before by the last car. It was less than an even chance.... Fallows crossed the river, thinking, if the woman were common it would be easy. The way it turned out left no doubt as to what he must do. Approaching the number, on the street named on the corner of the envelope, he passed John Morning, head down in contemplation. He was admitted to the house. Betty Berry appeared, led him to a small upper parlor, and excused herself for a moment.

Fallows sat back and closed his eyes. He was suffering. All his fancied hostility was gone. He saw a woman very real, and to him magical; he saw that this was bloody business.... She came back, the full terror of him in her eyes. She did not need to be so sensitive to know that he had not come as a cup-bearer.... He was saying to himself, “I will not struggle with her....”

“Have I time to tell my story?”

“I was going out.... John Morning just went away because I was to meet old friends. But, if this is so very important, of course----”

“It is about him.”

“I think you must tell your story.”

Fallows talked of Morning’s work, of what he had first seen from Luzon, and of the man he found in Tokyo. He spoke of the days and nights in Liaoyang, as he had watched Morning at his work.

“He’s at his best at the type-writer. When the work is really coming right for him, he seems to be used by a larger, finer force than he shows at other times.... It is good to talk to you, Miss Berry. You are a real listener. You seem to know what I am to say next----”

“Go on,” she said.

“When a man with a developed power of expression stops writing what the world is saying, and learns to listen to that larger, finer force within him--indeed, when he has a natural genius for such listening, and cultivates a better receptivity, always a finer and more sensitive surface for its messages--such a man becomes in time the medium between man and the energy that drives the world----”

“Yes----”

“Some call this energy that drives the world the Holy Spirit, and some call it the Absolute. I call it love of God. A few powerful men of every race are prepared to express it. These individuals come up like the others through the dark, often through viler darkness. They suffer as others cannot dream of suffering. They are put in terrible places--each of which leaves its impress upon the instrument--the mind. You have read part of John Morning’s story. Perhaps he has told you other parts. His mind is furrowed and transcribed with terrible miseries.

“Until recently his capacity was stretched by the furious passion of ambition. It seemed in Asia as if he couldn’t die, unexpressed; as if the world couldn’t kill him. You saw him at the Armory just after he had passed through thirty days hard enough to slay six men. Ambition held him up--and hate and all the powers of the ego.

“This is what I want to tell you: ‘When the love of God fills that furious capacity which ambition has made ready; when the love of God floods over the broadened surfaces of his mind, furrowed and sensitized by suffering, filling the matrix which the dreadful experiences have marked so deeply--John Morning will be a wonderful instrument of interpretation between God and his race.’

“I can make my story very short for you, Miss Berry. Your listening makes it clearer than ever to me. I see what men mean when they say they can write to women. Yes, I see it.... John Morning has made ready his cup. It will be filled with the water of life--to be carried to men. But John Morning must feel first the torture of the thirst of men.

“Every misery he has known has brought him nearer to this realization; days here among the dregs of the city; days of hideous light and shadow; days on the China Sea, sitting with coolies crowded so they could not move; days afield, and the perils; days alone in his little cabin on the hill; sickness, failures, hatreds from men, the answering hatred of his fleshly heart--all these have knit him with men and brought him understanding.

“He has been down among men. Suffering has graven his mind with the mysteries of the fallen. You must have understanding to have compassion. In John Morning, the love of God will pass through human deeps to men. Deep calls to deep. He will meet the lowest face to face. He will bring to the deepest down man the only authority such a man can recognize--that of having been there in the body. And the thrill of rising will be told. Those who listen and read will know that he has been there, and see that he is risen. He will tell how the water of life came to him--and flooded over him, and healed his miseries and his pains. The splendid shining authority of it will rise from his face and from his book.

“And men won’t be the same after reading and listening; (nor women who receive more quickly and passionately)--women won’t be the same. Women will see that those who suffer most are the real elect of this world. It’s wonderful to make women listen, Miss Berry, for their children bring back the story.

“It isn’t that John Morning must turn to love God. I don’t mean that. He must love men. He must receive the love of God--and give it to men. To be able to listen and to receive with a trained instrument of expression, and then to turn the message to the service of men--that’s a World-Man’s work. John Morning will do it--if he loves humanity enough. He’s the only living man I know who has a chance. He will achieve almost perfect instrumentation. He will express what men need most to know in terms of art and action. The love of God must have man to manifest it, and that’s John Morning’s work--if he loves humanity enough to make her his bride.”

Fallows was conscious now of really seeing her. She had not risen, but seemed nearer--as if the chair, in which she slowly rocked, had crept nearer as he talked. Her palms resting upon her knees were turned upward toward him:

“And you think John Morning is nearly ready for that crown of Compassion?”

“Yes----”

“You think he will receive the Compassion--and give it to men in terms of art and action?”

“Yes----”

“You think if he loves me--if he turns his love to me, as he is doing--he cannot receive that greater love which he must give men?”

“Yes----”

“And you think it would be a good woman’s part to turn him from her?”

“Yes----”

“And you came to tell me this?”

“Yes.”

“I think it is true----”

“Oh, listen--listen----” he cried, rising and bending over her--“a good woman’s part--it would be that! It would be something more--something greater than even he could ever do.... What a vision you have given me!”

She stood before him, her face half-turned to the window. Yet she seemed everywhere in the room--her presence filling it. He could not speak again. He turned to go. Her words reached him as he neared the door.

“Oh, if I only had my little baby--to take away!”

15

FALLOWS stood forward on the ferry that night and considered the whole New York episode. He had done his work. He had told the _Ploughman_ story five times. It was just the sowing. He might possibly come back for the harvest.... He had another story to tell now. Could he ever tell it without breaking?... He had tortured his brain to make things clear for Morning and for men. He realized that a man who implants a complete concept in another intelligence and prevents it from withering until roots are formed and fruitage is assured, performs a miracle, no less; because, if the soil were ready, the concept would come of itself. He had driven his brain by every torment to make words perform this miracle on a large scale.

And this little listening creature he had just left--she had taken his idea, finished it for him, and involved it in action. To her it was the Cross. She had carried it to Golgotha, and sunk upon it with outstretched palms.... There was an excellence about Betty Berry that amazed him, in that it was in the world.... He had not called such women to him, because such women were not the answer to his desires. He realized with shame that a man only knows the women who answer in part the desires of his life. Those who had come to him were fitted to the plane of sensation upon which he had lived so many years. He had condemned all women because, in the weariness of the flesh, he had suddenly risen to perceive the falsity of his affinities of the flesh. “What boys we are!” he whispered, “in war and women and work--what boys!”

Betty Berry had taught him a lesson, quite as enormous to his nature as the _Ploughman’s_. A man who thinks of women only in sensuousness encounters but half-women. He had learned it late, but well, that a man in this world may rise to heights far above his fellows in understanding, but that groups of women are waiting on all the higher slopes of consciousness for their sons and brothers and lovers to come up. They pass their time weaving laurel-leaves for the brows of delayed valiants....

Duke thought of the men he had seen afield, the gravity with which these men did their great fighting business, the world talking about them. Then he thought of the little visionary in her room accepting her tragedy....

Even now, in the hush and back-swing of the pendulum, it seemed very true what he had said. She had seen it. It is dangerous business to venture to change the current of other lives; no one knew it better than Fallows. But he considered Morning. Morning, as it were, had been left on his door-step. Morning would be alone now--alone to listen and receive his powers.... Fallows looked up from the black water to the far-apart pickets of the wintry night. He was going home.

* * * * *

The cabin was lit. Fallows climbed the hill wearily. There was a certain sharpness as of treachery from his night’s work, but to that larger region of mind, open to selfishness and the passion to serve men, peace had come. He was going home, first to San Francisco--then to the Bosks and the little boy.

Morning arose quickly at the sound of the step on the hard ground, and opened the door wide. He had been reading her letter, which Fallows had left upon the table. The letter had been like an added hour with her. It was full of shy joy, full of their perfect accord, remote from the world--its road and stone-piles and evasions.... Fallows saw that he looked white and wasted. The red of the firelight did not mislead his eye. Its glow was not Morning’s and did not blend with the pallor.

“I’m going on to-morrow, John,” he said.

“’Frisco?”

“Yes--and then----”

“You’ll come back here?”

“No, I’ll keep on into the west to _my_ cabin----”

“It would be nearer this way. I planned to see you after ’Frisco.”

“I’ll come back,” Fallows’ thought repeated, “for the harvest.”

“And so you are going to make the big circle again?”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t finished this first one, until you reach Noyes and your desk in the _Western States_.”

“The next journey won’t take so long.”

“You’ve been the good angel to me again, Duke. It’s quite a wonder, how you turn up in disaster of mine.... I wonder if I shall ever come to you--but you won’t get down. You wouldn’t even stay ill.”

“You won’t get down again, John, at least, in none of the ways you know about----”

Both men seemed spent beyond words.... Morning saw in the other’s departure the last bit of resistance lifted from his heart’s quest. Betty Berry had come between them. Morning’s conviction had never faltered on the point that Fallows was structurally weak on this one matter.... And so he was going. All that was illustrious in their friendship returned. They needed few words, but sat late before turning in. The cabin cooled and freshened. Each had the thought, before finally falling asleep, that they were at sea again.... And in the morning the thing that lived from their parting was this, from Duke Fallows:

“Whatever you do, John--don’t forget your own--the deepest down man. He is yours--go after him--get him!”

* * * * *

... She was at the top of the stairs when he called the next morning; and he was only half-way up when he saw that she had on her hat and coat and gloves. The day was bitter like the others. He had thought of her fire, and the quiet of her presence. He meant to tell her all about Duke Fallows and the going. It was his thought--that she might find in this (not through words, but through his sense of release from Duke’s antagonism) a certain quickening toward their actual life together. He wanted to talk of bringing her to the cabin--at least, for her to come for a day.

“You will go with me to get the tickets and things. I must start west at once.”

It was quite dark in the upper hallway. Morning reached out and turned her by the elbow, back toward the door of her room. There in the light, he looked into her face. She was calm, her eyes bright. Whatever the night had brought--if weakness it was mastered, if exaltation it was controlled. But she was holding very hard. There was a tightness about her mouth that terrified him. It was not as it had been with them; he was not one with her.

“You mean that you are going away--for some time?”

“Yes.... Oh, you must not mind. We are road people. We have been wonderfully happy. You must not look so tragic----”

It wasn’t like her at all. “We are not road people,” he thought.... “You must not look so tragic,”--that was just like a thing road people might say.