Chapter VIII: Part THREE: I (2)

His thought reverted to Laurence and to the old gentleman whom he had left drinking whiskey. A queer fish, Laurence's father--he had never known Laurence _had_ a father. A black sheep probably. Laurence was plainly nervous about him. It was the tactful thing to leave them together--even if there hadn't been Mrs. Carlin alone in here, needing somebody to talk to. Laurence neglected her, that was quite evident, and she felt it bitterly.... He wondered, with narrowed gaze, how much she knew about Laurence's life. He could tell her a good deal more than she knew, probably--but, naturally, he wouldn't.

V

The constraint that Laurence had felt from the moment of meeting his long lost parent--for their parting rose up before him, the memory of a blow--had vanished. The old man had brushed it away, as soon as they were alone, by a quiet net statement.

"You mustn't think, Laurence, that I've come back to fasten myself on you. I shall stay here only a day or so. I have my own life, and I don't need anything from you."

"That isn't what I was thinking of--"

"I know, but this is what I want to say, it would be ridiculous for me to act as if I had any claim on you, after everything. I don't feel any, don't expect anything. Naturally you couldn't have any affection for me, I wouldn't have any place here, even if I wanted it. And I don't need any money. I just wanted you to understand it."

"Of course you have a claim--"

"No, no, I gave all that up a long time ago, cut off that sort of thing, by my own will, you know. I wasn't made for family life. Couldn't stand it.... Of course I know you have a grudge against me, and quite right. I didn't do my duty by my family, that's a fact. Should never have had a family."

They were sitting before a fire in the library. The old man had refused the cigar Laurence offered, and was smoking a short black pipe.

"I suppose we all feel that way at times," said Laurence moodily.

"Yes, but most struggle along with it. I did, for a good many years, not very well, though. It was against the grain. I got caught in the wheel of things, it was grinding me to pieces."

"The wheel of things," Laurence repeated absently.

"Yes, and of course through a woman. They get us into it. Your mother was a good woman, I've nothing to say against her. I fell in love with her, that wasn't her fault, nor mine either.... But 'twas she led me to the priest, and then over to this country. She was of better family than me, you see, her father was a squire; and she had a great ambition to get on in the world and be genteel. When she saw I couldn't do it, she got bitter to me. Oh, it was all natural, she wanted her children to be well off, educated. You can remember how we lived, nobody could blame your mother, I didn't myself, but she made it hell to me. I wanted to be my own master and have time to think.... So I cut loose from it."

Laurence nodded brusquely, but frowned, gazing at the neat, gentle-voiced old man.

"'Twas wrong, of course," old Timothy went on reflectively. "From the usual point of view. But I can't say I'm sorry I did it. I've had time to look about me and to learn some things. I always had a thirst for learning--books and ideas--"

"Yes, no doubt! But perhaps you don't know how my mother lived!" said Laurence bitingly.

"I couldn't have bettered it," the old man replied tranquilly. "I couldn't really, Laurence. The drink had got hold of me, I'd have gone from bad to worse. I couldn't help it ... 'twas because my life was miserable, I was only a dumb brute, like an ox, just living to work, feed and sleep. 'Twas no life for a man."

"It wasn't a life for my mother, either, was it?"

"No, but women can stand it better than we can, they don't like it but it doesn't kill their souls.... I'd have drunk myself to death in a few years. 'Tis they get us into it anyway--they're bound to the wheel, and they draw us in. They think of food and clothing and being respectable. A man has got other things to think of--he can't spend his life feeding a lot of hungry mouths.... Nine we had, but they mostly died when babies, the better for them."

The old man leaned forward to shake the ashes out of his pipe, and smiling, he added:

"Of course I don't expect you to think anything but ill of me. You always took your mother's part, and 'twas right.... And now you've got a family of your own and done well by them, and you've got up in the world--you'll feel accordingly and look down on me, naturally."

"I don't look down--!"

"Oh, maybe not because of the money and the fine house, I don't mean that. But you're in the big machine, I'm not. You're a success, I've been a failure, from a social point of view--"

"Success?" said Laurence.

Sunk deep in the big armchair, his head bent forward, he stared at the fire from under his bent brows.

"Surely. You're a big man here, Laurence, I found out--you've made a fine name for yourself. You've got wealth too, a real lady and a beautiful one for a wife, three fine boys--and this house you live in, why, it's a palace."

There was a faint veiled irony in the old man's voice.

"Your mother would have been proud to see you, Laurence."

"But you're not, eh?" Laurence smiled aggressively. "You've got something else in your mind."

"Well--yes ... I don't care much for all this. I find a man needs very little to live, and all the rest is waste, so I think."

"You've become a philosopher," growled Laurence.

"Yes," the old man chuckled. "Long ago I took to the road. Since then I've never owned anything nor had any care for the morrow. I travel like the birds and pick up my living as I go."

* * * * *

Laurence made no comment but continued to gaze into the fire, sunk deep in reverie. He looked very tired; his whole big frame relaxed, his eyelids drooped.

But he was thinking--or rather, whole scenes from the past were flashing by him, things long forgotten, it seemed.... After a rather long silence he said dreamily:

"You know Pat was killed at Shiloh, I suppose?"

"I heard he was killed, yes--that is, I didn't know it till I got back here."

"And you didn't know my mother was dead, either--or what had become of me?"

"No, Larry, no--how could I?"

The old man filled his pipe again from a bag of tobacco that he carried in his pocket.

"Well, you _are_ an old bird," said Laurence sardonically.

"Family isn't the only thing," was old Timothy's calm response. "'Tisn't even the main thing."

"Oh, what is, in your opinion?"

"Why, a man's work--his ideas."

"Work? I thought you didn't work."

"I don't work for a boss, or for a society that only wants to exploit me, and I haven't these many years. I've gone hungry rather, lived with the lowest and _off_ them too, rather than that. Once I got out of that hell, I wouldn't go back into it, sooner starve.... But I work for what I'm interested in."

"And what's that?"

"The big change that's coming, Larry. The day when there'll be real freedom for every man."

The old man paused, then said abruptly:

"You're your mother's son. It's her blood in you that's made you go the way you have.... On my side we go another way. Far back my people were all rebels. Hardly a man of 'em died in their beds.... There's a bigger war coming in this country, Laurence, than the one you fought in. There you were on the right side of the fence, but now you're not--you've gone over."

"Gone over? Gone over to what?"

"To the rich, to the capitalists, to the whole rotten system. You're a pillar of it now."

Laurence opened his eyes, looked interested.

"Do you think so, Dad?" he enquired, using for the first time the familiar address of long ago.

"Sure I think so!"

A pugnacious spark lit the old man's eye, his philosophic calm wavered.

"I'd been better pleased, Larry, if you'd stuck by your own class. It's men like you we need--you could have been a leader! But it's the old story, so soon as a man of ours shows the ability, the other side gets him--he goes after the fleshpots, and he's lost to us!"

"There are no classes in this country, you're thinking of the old world, Dad," said Laurence tolerantly.

"There's always two classes--them that have and them that want!" declared the old man curtly.

"You're for a class-war, then?"

"I'm for it!... Not for myself, thank God the day's long past, if it ever was, when I wanted anything for myself. But I belong to the Knights of Labour and I've travelled the country over, helping to organize here and there. I see the big fight coming. This country's changed. The rich get richer and the poor poorer. The big fortunes are piling up. You'll see ... you'll see."

"You're a true Irishman, Dad, always spoiling for a fight--always against the powers that be."

"And you come of the same stock, but you've gone back on it! Maybe you've sold yourself to the powers that be!"

"No," said Laurence coolly. "No man can say that of me. Look over my record, if you like to take the trouble. Ask what my reputation is.... You'll find I've stood for the poor and oppressed as much as you, or maybe more--I've fought many a poor man's case against a rich corporation, and won it too."

"Then how did you get all this?"

The old man waved his hand, clasping the stubby black pipe, and fixed a shrewd sparkling glance on his son.

Laurence laughed abruptly.

"Partly by inheritance, by investments, speculation sometimes, not by bribery or corruption!... But it seems rather funny to me that you should drop down on me this way, all of a sudden, and accuse me! Yes, by George, it's funny! Life is certainly amusing, at times."

"You mean I haven't any right to call you to account," said the old man placidly. "But I don't do it because you're my son--but because you're a strong man that was born of us and ought to have stayed with us."

"Us? You mean I ought to have been a day-labourer?... You're a fanatic, Dad.... If you were so anxious to have me go the right way, why didn't you stay and train me up?"

"It was weakness, I know, but, as I told you, I couldn't stand your mother, God rest her soul.... But of course I didn't see as much then as I do now. I've picked up some education, I've studied Marx and the Internationalists...."

"And you're for revolution. I see. But it won't come, not in this country, not anyway in your lifetime or mine, and then only slowly, by degrees.... Oh, I've looked into those things as well as you. Social questions interest me. I see the battle of opposing forces, and I'm on your side too, on the side of the advance, as I see it. _But_--it won't come by a sudden blow--not here. Little by little, as a man's frame changes. This country's built on the English model, little as you may like it, slow to change but yet changing.... And that's where I come in. Don't you see the cause needs a friend at court? You can batter away on the outside as much as you like, but you need somebody inside!"

"Maybe.... That wasn't what made you want to get inside, though, was it, Larry?" said the old man cynically.

"Oh, I don't know.... I don't know why I wanted to."

Laurence stood up, stretching his arms with a look of nervous fatigue.

"I promised the boys a game of billiards--come on up, will you?"

"All right, all right."

Laurence stood a moment with his back to the fire, looking about the room. Its length on two sides was filled nearly to the ceiling with books. There was Judge Baxter's private library in its stately bindings, and many of his law-books, huge bound volumes of reports, "commonplace" books filled with his neat crabbed writing, ponderous commentaries in calf. Laurence had done a good deal of work in this room....

"I wanted to count for something," he said absently. "Who doesn't?"

"Yes, but for what--that's the point! What's all this good for, that you've got? Loot!"

"I wanted," said Laurence, deep in his own thoughts and oblivious of this condemnation, "I wanted--human happiness, more than anything. For myself, yes--and for other people.... I wanted life to be more interesting, richer than it was, with more pleasure in it.... Why not? Why can't it be?... I tried, here in this town--"

"Oh, I know!" broke in the old man impatiently. "Public improvements and all that. Suppose they _have_ got cement sidewalks and lots of trees? Suppose ye _did_ give 'em a library? I know they say you've done a lot for the town ... but you want to be a big man, the patron, the boss, and give it to 'em out of charity! That's the same old story, it doesn't interest me. Give the people justice, they won't want charity!"

"Justice!" murmured Laurence with an abstracted smile.

"Well, their rights, then, if you like it better. I don't mean the kind of justice that you deal them out, sitting up on your high seat!"

"I deal them out the best I can find," said Laurence gently. "The law gets re-made rather slowly, you know.... But I'll admit to you that I don't sleep well, the night after I've sentenced a man."

"I never thought to see that--you, Larry Carlin, sentencing people to prison!"

"No, I don't sleep well," said Laurence vaguely.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes and shrugged his shoulders with a look of weariness.

"Well, shall we go up?" he said shortly. "I'm mighty sorry, though, that you don't approve of me."

"Yes, yes, I understand!"

The old man laughed, and suddenly resumed his former manner, his placidity, with an ease that indicated long practice in adapting himself to shifting scenes and moods.

"You're not responsible to me, God knows.... To each his own life, and I'm not to be the judge of yours!... Anyhow, Larry," he added as they went toward the door, "you got what you wanted."

"Oh, yes--yes, I got it,--in many ways."

"And now you've got it--you wouldn't say now, as many do, that it's vanity and vexation of spirit?"

"Oh, of course!" Laurence laughed abruptly. "Still, when you go after a thing it's better to get it.... Then you can see what it's worth."

VI

The billiard-room, on a suggestion from the architect, taken up with amusement by Laurence, had been made to resemble a European café. It had a low ceiling, red-plush benches round the panelled walls, long mirrors, and small tables in the corners; there was even a miniature bar.

Laurence, with his coat off, moved quickly round the green table, leaning half-way across it sometimes to make a difficult shot, managing his cue deftly and surely. The two younger boys followed his motions eagerly. John, who was playing his first real game, had a flush of excitement in his cheeks; his big blue eyes shone, he bit his lips nervously and his hands trembled; he laughed gaily when he made an awkward play. Timothy hung at his elbow, jeering and waiting anxiously for his turn. In the doorway lounged Jim maintaining a slightly supercilious attitude. Mary and Lavery were sitting on one of the plush benches; and the senior Carlin, standing at a little distance, contemplated the group round the table with interest. The men were smoking, the air was a little hazy. With the bright lights reflected in the mirrors, the click of the balls, quick movements and laughing comments of the players, the others watching, all seemed drawn together for the moment in an atmosphere of pleasure.

Laurence's face had brightened, his eyes smiled. When John had made his last play, a terrible fumble, and thrown down his cue angrily, he put his arm round the boy's shoulders and shook him with tender roughness.

"Be a good sport! You've got to lose before you win, you young monkey!"

John frowned, stamped his feet, and wrenched away, yet his eyes too smiled, and he hurried to fetch the chalk demanded by Timothy. Then when Timothy blundered John murmured a consoling word, little attended to, and when Timothy made a good stroke he applauded vigorously. Now and then he glanced happily at his mother, watching for her smile, or spoke to Jim, who only dropped his eyelids in answer; or went and stood beside his grandfather for a moment. He showed a quick consciousness of every one in the room, as though with infinitely delicate feelers touching them all. His physical motions were awkward, with the rapid growth of adolescence his arms and legs were somewhat out of control. He jostled Timothy at a critical point and received an impatient rebuff. Dashed by this, he stood apart for a while; and his face had its wistful, listening look, as if he sought among them all the human echo of some harmony heard far off.

* * * * *

After Timothy, it was Jim's turn. Jim had some pretensions to skill, but bore a smashing defeat with good grace, and complimented his father in an off-hand manly fashion, on which they shook hands with a cordiality rare between them. Jim as a rule irritated Laurence, either by obvious faults, laziness or extravagance, or else by silence and lack of response, a standing difference of temperament. But tonight Laurence looked at him affectionately, noting with pleasure his dark good looks, his lithe youth. Jim was almost a man--next year he would be going to college, if he could manage to pass the examinations.... So time passes....

* * * * *

Laurence was aware of a dark whirl of thoughts, half-formed, somewhere at the back of his mind; and of a weight pressing on the nape of his neck. For some time he had slept little and had been conscious of an increasing fatigue, something that piled up day by day, and made increasing effort necessary to get through each day's activity. He would have to work tonight. Downstairs he had the papers of an important case in which he had reserved decision.... And then there were a lot of business matters to be gone over with Lavery....

But he was reluctant to leave this bright room, to break up the family gathering. It was rare that they were all together like this; Mary very seldom came up to the billiard-room. The occasion seemed to him significant, and searching for the reason, he wondered if his father's strange presence had anything to do with it, or with his own unusual mood. Perhaps so. Perhaps it was this that had, as it seemed, thrown him back into the past, had curiously removed him to a distance so that this present scene had a kind of unreality.... It was like a scene on the stage which he was watching as it were through a reversed glass, so that the figures of the actors, his own included, appeared very tiny and as if at an immense distance. He watched himself going through the motions of the game, talking, laughing, and the others moving about. It seemed that some drama was moving to an obscure but deeply significant climax, but what was it all about?

At times he came to the surface of consciousness with what seemed like a crash, the lights and sounds smote his senses as if magnified, the actors became life-size or even bigger, and he waited for them or for himself to say or do some unheard-of thing.... All through he was conscious of an effort in himself to appear as usual, not to do anything extraordinary, not to lose touch with these human beings round him, all of whom seemed invested with some strange charm, newly felt, as though a hidden beauty in them had suddenly come into view....

At one moment he wondered if he were ill, or going to be; and put his hand on the back of his neck, where the dull pain pressed heavily. From across the room he saw John's eyes fixed on him earnestly; and smiled at him. The shadow of trouble in another person would trouble John. Strange boy! He was like a harp so delicately strung that a breath of air would stir it. What would happen to him in this world of harsh and jarring contacts?... The other two, he thought, would shoulder their way through well enough. They were strong normal boys with a good supply of egotism. The stock was sound....

He realized that he was looking at them all as though on the eve of departure, a farewell before a long journey.... The room swam in a dazzle of light. With an immense effort he pulled himself together, vanquished the momentary faintness, gave no other sign than a pallor, a rapid blinking of his eyes....

He found himself standing beside his father, before one of the long mirrors, and replying to some remark half-heard. His vision cleared, he looked at the two figures in the glass, curiously. Would any one have taken those two for father and son?

No. In the first place, the elder looked absurdly young, with his smooth-shaven unwrinkled face and wiry figure. And then, he looked like a foreigner; the Irish was unmistakable. Old Timothy had never taken root in American soil, but floated like thistledown above it, for forty years.... And the other one there, the black-bearded one--with age the Irish came out in him too, unmistakably.... But he was an American, born here, with no dim shadow of allegiance elsewhere. A son of the soil, he had fought for its nationality--there was the sign, the old sabre-cut, a faint white line across his cheek. And those old American ideals, of liberty, equality--he had believed in them passionately, felt them a living current in his blood, would have given his life for them. He still believed in them--and surely nothing in his life had given the lie to that belief?

The old man there had questioned, doubted him, on the score of this material luxury, this big house he had built--which, for that matter, was as unsubstantial as a soap-bubble, he could almost feel it dissolving under him.... Why, that only proved the equality of opportunity here for every man, he had started empty-handed. Here in this country the stream of fortune ran swift, capricious.... Men were all like gold-washers on the banks of a river, today the current would wash the golden grains one way, tomorrow another.... Why, tomorrow this bubble of a house that he had amused himself blowing into shape, might vanish, and he be left empty-handed.... What matter? It was all unreal, anyway, all a dream, what he had tried to build....

It seemed to him that he had been saying some of these things to his father, but he was not sure, there was a humming sound in his ears.... Again there was a flash of clear sight. John was there beside him, now there were three figures reflected in the mirror.

"Three generations!" said Laurence.

He spoke in his natural tone, the haggard pallor of his face changed suddenly; he felt that John had noticed it, was watching him.

"Look, Father, can you see any likeness among us three?" he asked.

The boy stood between them, straight as a young sapling, the radiance of his blond head like a beam of sunlight, a bow of promise across a cloud.

"No--no," said the old man thoughtfully. "I see it now in you and me, Larry--there's the same blood. But I don't see it in the boy."

"John isn't like any of us, anyhow," said Laurence, with the tender tones that he always had for this child. "He makes us look like a couple of scarred old logs, doesn't he?"

"Ah, youth--that's the pure gold," said the old man softly.

The boy smiled, deprecating, shrinking a little from their gentle scrutiny.

"It isn't that alone, there's something else, that's unaccountable," Laurence pondered, as if speaking to himself.

"It's the mother, perhaps--he's more like her. That's a different strain," said the old man.

Laurence turned and looked across the room. Mary had risen, was still talking to Lavery, but she was looking straight at them, at the group before the mirror.

"Mary, come here a minute," called Laurence.

She came, with her slow stately step, and Laurence put out his hand and drew her to his side.

"What is it?" she asked, with a faint tremulousness in her voice.

The old man, standing a step apart, and looking at the other three, replied.

"We were thinking of the likeness.... Yes, it's more on your side--yet I don't know--"

"Mary and I are different enough, eh?" said Laurence with a slight laugh. "That might account for almost anything. She's pure English, you see--English Puritan.... It was two enemy races mating when we married, eh, Father?"

"That makes the American, maybe," said the old man, still curiously intent on the boy.

But John, embarrassed by this prolonged attention, now broke away and left them.

"He's not like either of us," said Laurence abruptly, watching the boy's retreating figure. "That is, only a little. He's like a flower, sprung from heaven knows where."

Glancing again at the mirror he saw the quick response in Mary's face. In the mirror their eyes met with a deep flash of sympathy. Yes, this was something they both felt deeply and in common--the strange beauty of this child who had, nevertheless, sprung from _them_, from their two lives, however marred and futile.... Their union had at least produced this thing of beauty....

They looked at one another with a deep sad gaze. Laurence, with a sharpened vision, saw something in Mary's face new to him. The physical change must have come slowly--Mary had not been ill for a long time, that sharpening of the contours that gave her beauty its new delicacy was perhaps only age. But what he saw was not physical. He saw suddenly that she was grieving, suffering, he did not know why; it gave him a quick throb of pain. He would have put his arm around her, but that she moved away sharply. At the same moment he felt again the clouding of his sight, the dizziness.... But, abruptly alleging that he must get to work, he was able to leave the room with only a slight unsteadiness of gait, which, he knew, might easily be attributed to another cause.

VII

Mary watched him go; and thought exactly what he had guessed she would. She said it was time for the boys to go to bed. They all went downstairs. In her own room she lit her reading-lamp, but instead of undressing she stood for a time looking out the window on the lake. Then, when the house was quiet, she turned slowly, reluctantly, to her door, and stopping more than once she descended to the ground floor. The hall was dimly lit. The library door was shut; she heard the rustle of papers and the thud of a book falling. She opened the door noiselessly. There was Laurence, with a wet towel round his head, working at his desk.... And there was Lavery, in a deep chair beside him, looking over some papers. She retreated without a word, but the closing of the door betrayed her.

It was Lavery who came out and found her, wrapped in her long coat, undoing the chain of the front door. He picked up a coat and joined her, not doubting that she wished him to do so.

"Laurence oughtn't to work tonight," she said sharply. "He isn't fit to work."

"Well, I guess he has to--some papers he has to go over.... And he always says he works best at night," drawled Lavery. "Fact is, though, he's not looking well--complains of headache the last few days. Perhaps he ought to ease off a little--rest, if possible."

"Rest!" Mary said with a short laugh. "I never knew him to rest."

"No, that's so--he seems geared up to a certain speed.... But after all we have to relax a bit as we get older. The machine won't stand the speed. And Laurence burns the candle at both ends."

They were walking down a path toward the lake. Mary did not ask what he meant. But he insisted.

"I don't mind a man drinking anything in reason. But I think Laurence is getting to depend too much on it--he has to key himself up to his work. That wonderful natural energy seems to be failing him."

Still she was silent, and Lavery turned to her.

"Why don't you do something about it?" he asked abruptly.

"Nothing that any one could say would make any difference to Laurence," said Mary coldly. "He has always done exactly as he chose, and he always will."

"Oh, has he?" murmured Lavery. "It strikes me he would be more apt to do what you wanted him to."

Mary laughed. "What I wanted!" She turned angrily on Lavery. "You know that isn't true!"

At the same time she was amazed at herself--speaking like this, of Laurence and herself, to a stranger. And the reckless other self over-ruled this protest--it could speak to this man and it would.

"You know I never interfere in Laurence's life. He lives as he chooses."

"He lives the way he has to, I guess," said Lavery meditatively, "I don't know that there's much choice about it."

"Has to!" ejaculated Mary with contempt. "I should think you would be ashamed to say that."

They had approached the border of the lake, the breeze blew sweet and chill. Mary sat down on a bench, and Lavery, buttoning his coat, sat beside her. He knew he should catch cold, perhaps have an attack of lumbago, but no matter!

"Now why should I be ashamed?" he asked, puzzled.

"Why, because--that's no way for a man to talk.... We don't have to do what we don't choose to."

"Oh, don't we?" he murmured again. And after a moment, "Suppose there's a clash between two wills, two people--one has to go down, doesn't he, one has to submit, can't get what he wants, has to take what he doesn't want? How about that?"

"I'm not talking about what we want, of course we don't always get what we want. I'm talking about the way we live, whether we do what we know we ought to do or not--and I say we don't have to live and do what we know is wrong. I say a man ought to die rather than do that!"

"Well, what _is_ wrong?" enquired Lavery mildly. "Now I'll tell you what I think.... I think the most important thing for a man is his work, his output. If he's got work that he believes in and loves, he's got the best thing on earth. And anything's right for him that helps him to do that work. And anything's wrong, for him, that prevents him from doing it. For that's what he's _for_, that's his reason for living, what he creates, that's why he's different from every other human being, so he can do just that thing.... As for any other right and wrong, I don't believe in 'em. We don't get right and wrong handed to us, we have to make them as we go along."

"Well, I am surprised, to hear you feel that way about work," said Mary, showing her claws.

"You think I don't work?... Well, perhaps you wouldn't recognize it.... I admit the law isn't my work, as it's Laurence's, in the creative sense. He's been able to stick to that and do what he was meant to do--but he's had to pay for it. That's what the drink means, and--other things that you don't like, perhaps."

He paused a moment, he didn't want to seem malicious, but he went on: "Laurence is a strong man. He's taken what he could get, to help him do his work, and I say he was right. But it wasn't what he wanted. He didn't want drink and other women, not seriously. It was trouble with you that made him turn to them."

She sat marble-still, not an eyelash moving. Lavery added:

"I ought to say, he never said a word about that. It's my own observation, that's all."

Again he was silent, watching her still profile, barely visible; guessing at the tumult within her, the rage of offended pride. (If she was determined to dislike him, he would give her something to dislike him for.) He decided that it was time for her to speak now.

But Mary was struck dumb. Her outleap of rage against Lavery recoiled upon herself.... She deserved it, for talking to him in any sort of confidence, for breaking her reserve, compromising her personal dignity--of course he had taken advantage of this. She strove to re-establish her contempt of him. He should not see that she had felt his treacherous attack.

It was some moments before she could say, coolly:

"If you think Laurence has done right, why did you ask me to 'do something about it'?"

He lost the thread of the discourse for a moment, in irritation.

"Why, I meant--I meant--that he had done the best he could, in the circumstances.... But it seems to me he's under a heavy strain--in fact, perhaps in danger of breaking down under it. I wonder if you couldn't ease it, somehow."

It was only partly a game. There was a sincere feeling in Lavery too. He admired--even though unwillingly--the more gifted man. Yes, and he had reluctant admiration for Mary too.

"You don't know anything about it," she said.

"No, perhaps I don't," he admitted.

"I can't see that it's your business, at all."

"Well, I suppose it isn't--unless on account of friendship."

"I don't believe in friendship."

"What do you believe in?" he asked.

"I don't believe in anything."

The words came out with violence. She was resisting the impulse to speak out, and yet she was speaking.

"I used to have faith--but now I haven't anything."

"Oh, yes, you have," he said. "You have faith--everything shows it."

"How? What?"

"Well, what you just said, that a man ought to die rather than do what is wrong--there's faith, in the ideal of what a man is, what he ought to be.... And then you live without compromise, you don't forgive--that's faith."

"How do you know that--that I don't forgive?"

"Well, I can guess that you didn't."

"And you think that's good--not to forgive?"

"I didn't say it was good. It depends on how it works out. I said it showed faith. It means you have a standard and you can't condone an offence against it--at any cost."

"Yes, but it might be only--that I couldn't forgive an offence against _me_.... It might be only--pride. You see how I mean, that I've lost faith. I don't feel sure of anything."

"You've lost faith in yourself, you mean, but--"

"Oh, not only in myself--in everything else!"

"And you used to feel sure?"

"Oh, yes--I _knew_!"

"And how was it, that you ceased to be sure?"

"I think--people disappointed me--people I believed in--"

"But you believe in something that isn't people, don't you--some rule of right and wrong that is above human life--"

"I did--yes, I was very religious--I believed in a rule and measured people by it--"

"And when they didn't measure up to it, you--"

"Yes, I--didn't forgive. Even now I despise people, for all sorts of reasons--can't help it.... But now I think I was wrong. I don't think I was religious at all--because, you see, it didn't stand the test--I lost it--"

"And when was that--that you lost it?"

"I don't know. It seems as if it had been going on for a long time, dying.... I used to think that happiness didn't count, that we ought not to think of it. But now I think that was when I was really happy. It isn't so easy to live without it, really, for many years--it isn't so easy!"

She had lost all feeling of the personality of Lavery. It was like speaking out to the night-wind and the starlight. She had spoken the last sentences in a rush, passionately, and in her voice was the tremor of a sob. But she compressed her lips sharply, and sat silent. Lavery took her hand, and her fingers closed on his desperately.... All she cared for just then was not to cry.

"Well, it's true, we can't live without it," muttered Lavery. "You see, we lose faith in ourselves, without it--we feel we've been wrong, and we _have_ been wrong--that's the sign.... Then if we can't get it back we take to dope--like me."

She heard what he said, but she did not answer. She was absorbed in the relief of her emotion, her confession, and the strange feeling of kinship with him, with this person she--didn't like. For she did not like him any better than before, only it didn't seem to matter now. What mattered was not to be entirely alone.

She was comforted, and keeping hold of his hand, she grew calmer, and breathed a deep sigh. Then she noticed that Lavery was shivering.

"Why, you'll catch your death of cold," she said, and got up.

They walked back silently to the house. In the hall he put out his hand to her again and said anxiously:

"Look here now, you won't hate me more for this, will you? That wouldn't be fair."

"No!" she said with energy, smiling. "Not now.... I would, not long ago--but now I wouldn't be so mean as that."

"Well, that's good," he said wanly.

VIII

The next day, toward sunset, Mary was walking in to see her father. She went often at the time when he would be home for his solitary supper.

The Carlin place was no longer out of town. Past it stretched the paved street, with wide sidewalks and gas-lamps at frequent intervals. The maple trees now overarched it, a thinning cloud of pale yellow or red, and the leaves lay in thick drifts in the gutters and along the walks. They rustled under Mary's feet as she went holding up her long violet-coloured dress. She wore a mantle to match the dress, and a small bonnet made of violets and lace, tied under her chin with black velvet ribbons.

She walked at a good pace; there was a spring in her step, and unusual colour in her cheeks. She breathed in deeply the cool crisp air, she saw with pleasure the vivid colours of the leaves, the bright western sky: it was long since she had felt this pleasure in the world. It had zest to her; and she could not imagine why. All that had happened to her consciousness was that she had transgressed her own code; had forgotten her dignity and actually discussed her own most private affairs and feelings, with a stranger. But now she had a strange sense of freedom, of companionship in some impersonal way. She did not think more of Lavery because of it. He had gone to the city with Laurence that morning, and she did not seem to care whether she ever saw him again or not. But if she saw him certainly she would talk to him again. She was less a prisoner now; some barrier had been pierced, and she looked out on the world.

As she drew near the house, she saw a once familiar figure, a slim black-coated figure, pushing a small baby-carriage. It was Hilary. He had married a buxom efficient widow, three years before; and in the carriage was his eighteen-months' old daughter, a small, very lively baby, with bright blue eyes. Mary stopped and held out her hand to Hilary, with a friendly warmth that she had not shown him for many years. She asked after his wife, bent to speak to the baby, who bounced up and down and fixed upon her eyes sparkling with energy. Hilary's eyes too were upon her, in surprise.

He had changed very little in ten years. His face was quieter, perhaps, less drawn. The wife took care of him, fed and clothed him properly. No one now thought that he would go into a decline. But his eyes showed the same ardour and intensity of life. He worked harder than ever, for his church had grown, and incidentally had become factious. Hilary had to meet opposition within the fold to his idea of the preaching of the gospel; the time would come when he would be forced to leave this church too, and go forth. Mary knew this, though she rarely went to church now. She smiled inwardly as she recalled how she had felt about his marriage; disenchantment, almost disgust, though she had long before that ceased her intimacy with him. Her idea of him, as celibate, she now felt to have been merely romantic. Hilary was a man like other men. No, after all, he was better than most, he was more of a man. She smiled at him quite radiantly and said she was coming soon to see his wife.

"How well you are looking," he said as she started on, still with that surprised gaze at her.

"It must be this wonderful weather--it makes one feel so alive!" she called back, laughing at the white lie. In this mood she could tell all kinds of lies, without conscience! It was like a renewal of youth, no, it was a youth she had never had, rather mischievous, irresponsible. In this mood she wouldn't care what she did. Now why? She shook her head and gave it up--couldn't say why.

She opened the gate of the old place, and noticed that a hinge was loose; and that the pickets needed painting. The grass was long too in the front yard. She stopped a moment looking at it and at the low frame house. That too needed a coat of paint--why, it was shabby, it was all going to seed. Her brow wrinkled as she wondered why she hadn't noticed this before--how long had it been this way? Her father had been used always to keep the place trim and neat. Was he getting too old to look after it, or to care? She felt a pang.... She must send down a gardener to fix up the yard.

She opened the creaking front door and entered the narrow hall. The familiar odour met her--old wallpaper, old furniture, a slight closeness, a faint smell of cooking. But she liked it--it was home. She went into the sitting-room, where the housekeeper was setting the table for Dr. Lowell's supper.

"Oh, Mrs. Hansen, isn't Father home yet?" she asked.

"Yes, Mrs. Carlin, he has just come. Out to the stable yet."

The rosy-faced Swedish woman, in crisp calico dress and white apron, went out into the kitchen. She came by the day to "do for" Dr. Lowell, and he lived alone in the old house. Mary glanced critically at the table, wrinkled her nose, and sat down in the rocker by the window, where streaks of gold and red glimmered, making a rosy light within. Nothing had been changed in this room, or for that matter in the house since her mother's death. In fact, she couldn't remember when it had not looked just this way.

The brown carpet was a little more worn, perhaps, the brown and gilt wallpaper a little more faded. There was dust on the furniture that would not have been there in her mother's time. But the old clock ticked to the same dreamy tune on the shelf, coals glowed in the open stove, the cat stretched itself and yawned in the armchair, the glass of cream stood as always by her father's plate. In this house it always seemed afternoon, verging on evening.... Yes, and there, in the grass under the window, the sound always associated with home--the faint wiry chirping of the crickets.... Short bright autumn days--long cold nights drawing on--was that why they were so plaintive?

She heard her father come into the kitchen, and then the splashing of water. Washing up in the kitchen--lazy father! Probably he even kept a comb out there, behind the looking-glass! Men get shiftless, living by themselves. Or perhaps he was just too tired to go upstairs. Yes, when he came in, she saw his thin hair had been freshly combed--and he did look very tired. And alas, how old he looked! Why hadn't she noticed that he was getting old?

He was delighted to see her, still more when she got up and kissed him with uncommon warmth.

"Well, now, this is nice! Can't you have supper with me?" he asked happily, lifting the cat out of his chair and sitting down. Mary drew up a chair opposite him and put her elbows on the table.

"I can't eat, because there's the family dinner, you know, but I'll sit with you anyway. What have you got?"

Mrs. Hansen put the supper on the table and retired behind a closed door.

"Cream-toast--dried beef--soda-biscuits--well, I don't call that a solid meal after a good day's work! That's an old lady's supper. Why don't you have a steak, Father, something substantial?"

"Can't, my dear," he said smiling. "Too heavy for me--can't eat much meat. This is just what I like."

He tucked the napkin under his thin beard, still auburn more than grey, and began to eat. Mary took a biscuit and broke it open.

"It's light," she conceded. "I guess she's a good enough cook."

"Oh, she's first-rate--I live in clover," smiled Dr. Lowell.

"Well, hardly that--"

"Oh, yes.... But say, how splendid you look, Mary! Been to some grand blowout?"

"No, I made some calls. Do you like this bonnet?"

"It's fine--what there is of it. Dress too--there's plenty of that. Why have that long tail on it?"

"Well, it's the fashion," said Mary indulgently.

"You look very nice indeed. Better than you have all summer."

"Well, Father, I can't say as much for you. You look tired out."

"I am, at night. But I get up like a lark in the morning."

"You work too hard. You ought to have a man to drive you now, and an assistant--and only go out on great occasions, when you get a big fee, you know!"

A faint uneasiness showed in Dr. Lowell's face.

"Now don't you go trying to take away my work. That's the quick way to break a man up.... I'm going to die in harness," he declared.

"Well, I'm afraid you will," and Mary's lips quivered. He was quick to notice and to soothe her.

"Don't you worry. There's a lot of work in the old man yet. I'm not seventy. And I don't go out much at night any more, you know, or in very bad weather--unless it's life or death.... Oh, they have to consider me now!"

"Well, it's time they did. You never considered yourself."

There was unwonted emotion in her face and voice. He was touched, and surprised.

"I should think you'd be proud of me," he said lightly. "All these smart young doctors in town--but they don't get _my_ practice unless I want to give it to 'em.... People sending for me from all over the county--pay my expenses and anything I want to ask. _They_ don't think I'm too old to work."

"I _am_ proud of you. I never said you were too old. I think you're a great man."

He laughed. "I wasn't fishing to that extent."

"Well, I want you to know that I admire you. I think you've had the most successful life I know about."

"Sounds like my obituary," he commented.

But Mary was groping for something she wanted to say, something newly felt. Looking at his small bent figure, his face, so gentle yet with something hard and firm in its calmness, suddenly she seemed to see him, his long laborious life, in a flash of light.

"I think you're beautiful," she said solemnly.

It was a strange word, and Dr. Lowell was visibly abashed. He fidgeted, made a feeble joke, and then looked sharply at Mary's unwonted colour and bright eyes.

"What's the matter? You're not going to--sure you feel perfectly well, Mary?"

"Why, yes.... But Laurence isn't. I wish you'd drop in and see him. He'll be home tomorrow night. Suppose you come to dinner and take a look at him."

"What ails him?"

"He complains of headaches lately and he looks--well, you'll see. Keeps right on working, though. You'll come? The boys always want to see you too, you know."

"Well, they do. They drop in here quite often--especially Jim. I think maybe we might make a doctor of Jim."

"You do?" Mary's eyes opened wide. "Has he shown any interest that way? He never said a word to me about it."

"Yes, we've talked it over. He _is_ interested. He takes to science. Has a good mind, that boy--kind of slow, but thorough. Likes to get to the bottom of things. He could work hard if he was interested."

"Well!" Mary pondered this. Then she said, "I've been worried about him--he runs around at night and won't tell me where he goes."

"I know where he goes," said Dr. Lowell placidly.

"You do? He tells you?"

"Oh, Jim and I are great friends. He's all right, Mary.... But you must realize--Jim's almost a man, and he's a strapping healthy fellow--you can't hold too tight a rein on him, if you do he'll kick over the traces."

Mary frowned, looked sullen. "I think I ought to know what he's doing."

"Well, I'd just as soon tell you, but you'd very likely make a row and it would be bad for Jim.... Use your imagination, Mary."

She pushed back her chair, rose and walked to the window. Dr. Lowell cast a shrewd glance at her and took a piece of custard pie.

"I think you ought to be proud of your output, Mary--you ought to be a proud and happy woman."

"What, Father?"

"Those three boys--fine fellows, all of them. What more d'ye want? And you haven't spoiled them by petting. They think a lot of you. And you haven't nagged them--not very much."

Mary turned around. "Then you think--really--?"

"Oh, yes, you've done well.... One thing more you might do--but I doubt if you could--let them feel that they could tell you anything, whatever they do. They might not tell you, wouldn't probably, but if they felt they could, without you being horrified, it would be better for them.... But of course you can only do that if you feel that what they want or need is a lot more important than what they do.... Sometimes I think, Mary, that you care more for what people do than for what they are.... Think it over."

Dr. Lowell folded his napkin and put it in its ring, got up and took out his pipe, filled it from a leather bag and lit it. An acrid smoke issued from the old meerschaum as he sank into an easy-chair by the fire. Mary hated that pipe, but now though she coughed in the smoke she didn't notice it. She had stood absorbed in some difficult and displeasing thought--but turning and looking at her father she saw how bent and shrivelled he looked in the big chair.

"Father, aren't you awfully lonely here in the evenings?" she asked suddenly.

"No, no--I've got lots of reading to do, journals and new books--I try to keep up with my profession, you know. No, I'm never lonely."

"I should think you'd miss Mother a lot."

"I do--yes, I miss her.... But it's quieter this way."

"Father! The things you say!"

"Why shouldn't I say them.... Your mother and I got on very well indeed, and if I ever see her again I guess we'll get on just as well."

"If you do! Why, don't you think you will?"

"I don't know, my dear, I couldn't tell you." He puffed meditatively at his pipe. "And I don't think anybody else can tell you either."

"I don't see how you can bear to see so many people die if that's the way you feel, if you think there's nothing more!" cried Mary.

"I keep them from dying, if I can--that's my job.... I don't say there's nothing more. But I say we haven't begun to learn about this world--there's enough here to keep us busy for all the time we've got--we're just ignorant. Life ... it's mystery on mystery.... We can settle what death is when we get to it."

"You're not afraid of death?" she asked absently.