Surely it is useless to follow the sequel in detail, to tell how Hilda
persuaded Thorpe to take her money. She aroused skillfully his fighting
blood, induced him to use one fortune to rescue another. To a woman
such as she this was not a very difficult task in the long run. A few
scruples of pride; that was all.
“Do not consider its being mine,” she answered to his objections.
“Remember the lesson we learned so bitterly. Nothing can be greater than
love, not even our poor ideals. You have my love; do not disappoint me
by refusing so little a thing as my money.”
“I hate to do it,” he replied; “it doesn't look right.”
“You must,” she insisted. “I will not take the position of rich wife to
a poor man; it is humiliating to both. I will not marry you until you
have made your success.”
“That is right,” said Thorpe heartily.
“Well, then, are you going to be so selfish as to keep me waiting while
you make an entirely new start, when a little help on my part will bring
your plans to completion?”
She saw the shadow of assent in his eyes.
“How much do you need?” she asked swiftly.
“I must take up the notes,” he explained. “I must pay the men. I may
need something on the stock market. If I go in on this thing, I'm going
in for keeps. I'll get after those fellows who have been swindling
Wallace. Say a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Why, it's nothing,” she cried.
“I'm glad you think so,” he replied grimly.
She ran to her dainty escritoire, where she scribbled eagerly for a few
moments.
“There,” she cried, her eyes shining, “there is my check book all signed
in blank. I'll see that the money is there.”
Thorpe took the book, staring at it with sightless eyes. Hilda, perched
on the arm of his chair, watched his face closely, as later became her
habit of interpretation.
“What is it?” she asked.
Thorpe looked up with a pitiful little smile that seemed to beg
indulgence for what he was about to say.
“I was just thinking, dear. I used to imagine I was a strong man, yet
see how little my best efforts amount to. I have put myself into seven
years of the hardest labor, working like ten men in order to succeed. I
have foreseen all that mortal could foresee. I have always thought, and
think now, that a man is no man unless he works out the sort of success
for which he is fitted. I have done fairly well until the crises came.
Then I have been absolutely powerless, and if left to myself, I would
have failed. At the times when a really strong man would have used
effectively the strength he had been training, I have fallen back
miserably on outer aid. Three times my affairs have become critical.
In the crises I have been saved, first by a mere boy; then by an old
illiterate man; now by a weak woman!”
She heard him through in silence.
“Harry,” she said soberly when he had quite finished, “I agree with you
that God meant the strong man to succeed; that without success the man
hasn't fulfilled his reason for being. But, Harry, ARE YOU QUITE SURE
GOD MEANT HIM TO SUCCEED ALONE?”
The dusk fell through the little room. Out in the hallway a tall clock
ticked solemnly. A noiseless servant appeared in the doorway to light
the lamps, but was silently motioned away.
“I had not thought of that,” said Thorpe at last.
“You men are so selfish,” went on Hilda. “You would take everything from
us. Why can't you leave us the poor little privilege of the occasional
deciding touch, the privilege of succor. It is all that weakness can do
for strength.”
“And why,” she went on after a moment, “why is not that, too, a part
of a man's success--the gathering about him of people who can and will
supplement his efforts. Who was it inspired Wallace Carpenter with
confidence in an unknown man? You. What did it? Those very qualities by
which you were building your success. Why did John Radway join forces
with you? How does it happen that your men are of so high a standard of
efficiency? Why am I willing to give you everything, EVERYTHING, to my
heart and soul? Because it is you who ask it. Because you, Harry Thorpe,
have woven us into your fortune, so that we have no choice. Depend upon
us in the crises of your work! Why, so are you dependent on your ten
fingers, your eyes, the fiber of your brain! Do you think the less of
your fulfillment for that?”
So it was that Hilda Farrand gave her lover confidence, brought him out
from his fanaticism, launched him afresh into the current of events. He
remained in Chicago all that summer, giving orders that all work at the
village of Carpenter should cease. With his affairs that summer we have
little to do. His common-sense treatment of the stock market, by which a
policy of quiescence following an outright buying of the stock which he
had previously held on margins, retrieved the losses already sustained,
and finally put both partners on a firm financial footing. That is
another story. So too is his reconciliation with and understanding
of his sister. It came about through Hilda, of course. Perhaps in the
inscrutable way of Providence the estrangement was of benefit,--even
necessary, for it had thrown him entirely within himself during his
militant years.
Let us rather look to the end of the summer. It now became a question
of re-opening the camps. Thorpe wrote to Shearer and Radway, whom he had
retained, that he would arrive on Saturday noon, and suggested that the
two begin to look about for men. Friday, himself, Wallace Carpenter,
Elizabeth Carpenter, Morton, Helen Thorpe, and Hilda Farrand boarded the
north-bound train.