It was a mighty hour. Justin, sitting by the open window with his head
upon his hand, looking out into the night, saw but dimly the pale
shining of the familiar stars, in the search for the rising star of his
own future. It was far on in the small hours, and he had not yet slept,
although he had come up-stairs at twelve oclock with the firm intention
of undressing and going to bed at once. He had, instead, dropped down
into the wicker chair in the unlighted sitting-room to think for a few
momentsand a few momentsand a few moments more.
The dining-table which he had left was filled with sheets of paper
covered with fine figures, and his mind at first continually reverted to
them, multiplying, subtracting, and correcting with keen facility, and
with infinitesimal changes in the final result, which he knew,
notwithstanding, could be only approximate, no matter how painstakingly
his fancy strove to render it exact.
After a while, however, other thoughts asserted themselves. The vast
influences of the night were around him as from the deep places of the
universethe depth of dusky gloom, the depth of silence. The window
looked out over a garden, but in this dusky gloom it had lost the
semblance of earth and seemed, instead, but the under part of an
enveloping cloud in which he was the only breathing human life. The
vague dark branches of the trees waving across the lesser darkness spoke
of even deeper mystery in their mute witness to that breath from the
unseen which moved them.
It was not the problem of the universe of which all this spoke to Justin
Alexander, though as such it had been part and parcel of his questioning
youth. The days when he might have sung with Omar were gone with those
speculative midnight hours, the foregathering with death, the conscious
search for higher meanings, the effort to solve the unknowable; whatever
philosophy was evolved from those journeys into the dark was labeled and
put away on a remote shelf, where the mind occasionally reverted to it
with a sigh of thoughtful possession, but for which there was no longer
any daily use. There was even a chance that on bringing the precious
package out into the modern daylight it might be found to have changed
its color entirely.
The problem of his own life was what this hour held in its shifting hold
for Justin, the wavering veiled outlines on which he gazed seemed to
prefigure the uncertain boundaries of his own future. To a man who has a
family, the leaving of a certain occupation for an uncertain one, even
though it promise much, is like taking a leap off into space.
The opportunity for which he had been longing indefinitely any time for
six years back had come at last, but it had brought with it at this
moment a strange and unanticipated sadness, after the absorbing
calculations of the evening; the natural buoyancy of a mind pleased with
a new undertaking and eager for power had given place to a weight of
responsibility and foreboding. How much, and how much, and yet how much,
depended on his efforts! He must not, could not, fail; and yet, when he
had succeeded, what would success bring him individually that he had not
now? Where would be his real and vital compensation? The toil of years
piled up before him, with the pain of satisfied ambition at the end of
it.
In the loneliness of the hour the loneliness of his soul stood confessed
before him. He yearned at the moment unutterably, and with a mighty
longing, for another to be as one with that soul in the comprehension of
mood and aim and means and accomplishment which is in itself the deepest
sympathy. His wifeshe was very sweet, she was very beloved, but her
utmost understanding of this life of his was the conscious effort of one
who lived in an alien sphere. His childrenhe loved them fondly, but
the responsibility of their future years weighed upon him; as long as he
could foresee, the eyes of all would still wait upon him in his rôle of
providerneither in body nor in spirit could he ever again have the
rest of freedom.
Then there came to him, swiftly and inexplicably, and in spite of the
inner knowledge of true love for the bonds that held him, a wild desire
for the untrammeled liberty of his boyish days. If he could take his
fishing-rod and tramp off through the woods by himself, or lie on a bank
under the green trees and dabble his bare feet in the brown pools of the
brook that flowed beneath the bank, with none to look for him or
question why, and have neither yesterday nor to-morrow to hamper him,
but only the joy of living! To saunter back to the house late in the
warm afternoon with a string of fish over his shoulder and a book under
his arm! He knew how the cold draught of buttermilk tasted after the
long and dusty walk, when he dipped it up with a china cup out of the
stone crock on the wooden bench in the cool cellar. Oh, the happy,
careless day!
The primeval, savage spirit of man awoke now and grew uppermost in him
to escape from civilization and wander as he would upon the brown earth,
without let or hindrance! In those far-off wilds where men tracked
beasts to their lair he might leave his footsteps in the hot sands also,
and joy in the fierce delight of killing. He had lost all connection now
with his environment. The air that blew down from the hills and touched
his cheek might have come over the burning desert, or have been
freighted with the warm salt spray from wide tropical seas on which he
sailed, never to return. Dark and darker thoughts possessed him now. His
roaming fancy
Are you up still?
Justin startedit was the voice of his wife. He came back to the
familiar region of warm human love with a glad bound of relief so
instantaneous that he had not even shame for his abnormal wanderings;
they became already as though they had never been as he answered:
Yes; I couldnt have slept if I had gone to bed.
But youre all cold sitting by that window, with the night air blowing
in on you!
Her hands had found out that fact in the darkness as they closed around
his neck.
Shut the window at once! Youre so imprudent. You must remember that it
isnt summer now.
She lent herself to his embrace for a moment.
Do you know how late it is?
No, and I dont want to. Lets sit here together for a little while,
Im unspeakably wide awake! Ill make up a little fire for a few minutes
and well have a midnight talk.