“The trouble with the country just now,” said Matthew, making a farewell
talk to the Chamber of Commerce, “is that it’s absolutely unfitted
nervously to stand any strain or excitement. So long as things go well
with us we are full of enthusiasm, but the suggestion of trouble upsets
everything--frightens every one. We are unconsciously proceeding on the
basis that there is no need of including trouble in our national
philosophy. It is unnecessary to point out the fallacies in such
thinking--nor the sad deviation from the spirit of the men who pioneered
in this country, who expected difficulties, hardships, deprivations, and
plowed their way through them. The modern assumption is that the normal
state of things means ease and smoothness. The assumption is making us
soft, making us unwilling to cope with trouble, instead of taking
trouble and constant adjustment as part of the day’s work. Life has been
made too easy for us as a nation--for us as individuals. We are all too
ready to lie down if things do not go our way and blame it on the times.
We are the strongest nation in the world and in imminent danger of a
lazy and fun-loving philosophy making us the most corrupt. Sturdiness in
the face of difficulty and even of defeat, unwillingness to lie down on
the job--those are the things we need to cultivate and in the face of
such qualities the bogies of social unrest and financial panics will
lose their power to frighten us.”
It was not new talk, but it was a determined angle and he looked very
fine and ready for trouble as he spoke. Even his political opponents
apparently were glad to wish him luck. He was appealing to the sense of
fight which in all men is stronger than the tendency to complain, and
they responded.
“Good stuff,” said Dick.
“Old stuff, but it gets them because they’ve forgotten it in all the
talk about the new stuff. There’s a shoddy kind of fatalism settling
down over too many people. If we’re going to the dogs, let’s go--let’s
have a good time while we’re going. Let each one of us get all the
pleasure we can out of things with the least work and above all let’s
have no sacrifices. It’s shoddy--more so than the old type of greed when
men piled up fortunes for the sake of excitement and spent their money
in gorgeous ways. Fortunes now go for gasoline and head waiters and
jazz.”
Dick looked at him a bit oddly.
“Is this a national or a personal indictment?”
“National absolutely, except in so far as every individual contributes
to the composite temper of the nation. And anyway it’s not an
indictment. It’s an attempt at analysis. The condition may not be our
fault at all and if it is our fault it’s hard to find the initial sin.
It’s probably an inevitable condition. Blame it on the war if you like.
Its shoulders are broad.”
“They need to be. When are you getting off? Saturday or Monday?”
“Monday, if you’ll come out into the woods with me over Saturday and
Sunday. Otherwise Saturday.”
“Where to?”
“Anywhere. I’d like to cool my brain before I go away and I’d like a
couple of days with you. We could go to Lake Carmine and spend the night
at my cabin.”
“Sure, I’ll go.”
The still woods charmed them both. They drew off a thousand worries. The
fishing was poor and the lake too cold for more than a quick swim, but
there were the woods and the quiet and the long walks that were so
peacefully reflective and talks about everything that mattered. Out in
the midst of the forest it did not embarrass either of them to unload
their deepest and most philosophic meditations. Yet it was not until the
afternoon of the second day had waned that either of them mentioned
Cecily. They were smoking on the little wharf which edged the lake
watching the sun fall behind the hills.
“Cecily would like this,” said Matthew quietly.
“Um----” said Dick.
“By the way, I went to see her the other night. I wanted to tell you
that I did.”
“She well?”
“Seems to be. Pretty lonely, I guess. I wish I could do something for
you two.”
“That’s all right. We’ve closed that chapter, Mat.”
“I suggested to Cecily that she open a new one with me. She declined
very promptly and fittingly. I was too excited for a moment to see
straight.”
Dick, who had turned angrily at the first words, grinned suddenly.
“Well, you are a cool old duck. What was the idea? What was going to
happen to Fliss and the Senatorial career?”
“Temporarily I forgot even Fliss, to say nothing of the latter factor.
I’m awfully fond of Cecily, you know.”
“So she turned you down, did she?”
“It’s not funny to me, particularly. Amazing as it is, I was in earnest.
What I bring the thing up for is to say simply that you can’t get away
with this separation stuff, Dick. Cecily is a young, beautiful woman and
I’m not going to be the only person to make that proposition to her.
And she is a very lonely woman and her judgments may falter.”
“You mean we should be divorced?”
“I don’t suggest any solutions, Dick. I only want you to realize the
situation to the fullest extent. And of course you realize that my
rather caddish treatment of Fliss will not be repeated. Fliss gets me
and everything I’ve got from now on, just as she always has. Fliss plays
awfully fair, you know.”
“Yes, that’s what I like about her. Now Cecily can’t see it. She used to
like Fliss, but she turned completely--for no reason.”
“Good reason. Fliss became Anti-Christ to Cecily’s philosophy.”
“Cecily’s philosophy became very narrow in the past year.”
“Narrow, but deep. If it ever broadens now she will be a wonderful
person.”
Dick smoked thoughtfully. “Queer how hard I am about that mess. I feel
as if I’d been let in for something and then let down. I wanted to do my
best for the family, but I had to have a little mental relaxation. I
couldn’t merge with Cecily absolutely and she wouldn’t take anything
else. She wouldn’t expand at all. She’s right in her point of view, of
course, but that very rightness gradually killed all tenderness in me.
It was so exclusive. It seemed to me sometimes as if I was shut up in a
room which was too orderly for comfort.”
He stopped from sheer embarrassment and added one sentence that meant
more than all the rest.
“I got so I couldn’t laugh naturally.”
“Neither of you can laugh much just now. But you’ll get over that.”
“The hell of it is,” said Dick, “in feeling that you’ve married a girl
and she’s got a bunch of babies and then you can’t put it across. I
wrecked her chances of getting you for a husband for example, and now
she’s stranded.”
“She’s got the children.”
“I know. I know.”
“Well, don’t get hard, old man, and you’ll be able to see it through,
I’m sure. Think straight on it if you can. I tell you, if you’d seen
Cecily the other night mention your name----”
Dick sprang up. “Let’s cut it out, Mat. There are some things I don’t
think about these days. If I did I’d run back to Cecily to-morrow. And
I’m telling you that that wouldn’t help. We’d have a wonderful time--for
a little while--but after that it would be the same old story over again
with the same old conclusion, if not a more tragic one.”
They got their supper in the little cabin and drove back to town in the
moonlight, each drawing into his own thoughts. At Matthew’s house Fliss
hailed them with delight, but Dick stopped only for a few minutes and
then went back to the club.
There were a few men in the lounge, hidden behind papers; a few men in
the card-room, which was blue with smoke and close and distasteful after
the open air of the country. He found his room gloomy and himself
restless. His loneliness was turning to bitterness to-night. Changing
his rough clothes for others he went out again.
Dick had lived in Carrington too long not to know where every sort of
person sought his diversions. In twenty minutes he had found the group
whose usual form of amusement he felt might fill the night for him. They
were gathered, as he had guessed they would be, in the room of one of
the men, with plenty of liquor and plenty of cards and a welcome for
him. It was some years since he had joined this crowd, but once in it he
felt natural enough, and the depression which had been bothering him was
gone before long.