IV

Where Laurence sat was the head of the table; he dominated all by his

vivid colour, his intense physical vitality, and he kept the talk

going easily. He and Lavery were in evening dress, rather dandified,

with soft plaited shirt-bosoms and diamond studs. Old Mr. Carlin,

sitting between Timothy and John, appeared perfectly at ease in his

well-brushed suit. His bright grey eyes contemplated the scene and the

company with an aloof and philosophic interest.

Mary, in her usual dress for the evening, of plain black velvet, cut

square at the neck, and with long close-fitting sleeves, was beautiful,

as Laurence had said and Lavery's long gaze recognized. She wore no

ornaments except a pair of heavy earrings of dull gold filagree. The

light from the big cut-glass chandelier over the table fell unshaded

upon her, bringing out the pale copper colour of her rippling hair and

the whiteness of her skin. It emphasized too the hollows in her cheeks

and at her temples, the lines of the forehead and of the neck below the

ear. Her face, as in her youth, was like a mask; but now it was a mask

of sorrow. Calm and unmoved in expression, it was yet an abstract of

sad experience.

The years had left a more complex mark on Laurence. There were deeper

furrows in his brow and running down from the nostrils to bury

themselves in his black beard. A passionate expressiveness, a restless

irritability, spoke in his voice, his gestures, his constant flow of

talk. "Carlin's temper" was a proverb by now. A racial inheritance came

out strongly in him. He was "the black Irish"; dangerous at times.

But there was another side to this temperament. Often when he smiled,

and always when he looked at the boy who sat beside him, there was a

deep sweetness in his eyes, a deep tenderness. John's place was always

beside his father; he hung on Laurence's words and looks with hushed

eagerness. And Laurence, keenly conscious of the sensitive boy, was

careful what he said, instinctively suppressed anything that might

shock or hurt a young idealistic spirit; and never drank more than a

glass or two of wine, in his presence.

The wine was always on the dinner-table, however. It was Laurence's

idea that the boys had better get used to seeing it, and to taking a

little now and then. Mary never touched it, and hated the sight of it;

but she had long since ceased to oppose Laurence in any detail of life.

The house was managed as he wished, though he was away more than half

the time. Now there were three kinds of wine on the table--sherry,

claret and port. Laurence was proud of his wine-cellar, down in the

deep foundations of the house.

Lavery drank delicately. He had guided Laurence's choice of the

claret, and confined himself to that. He much preferred to remain

perfectly sober; especially when other people were drunk; but in any

case he disliked the least blurring of the fine edge of sensation

and perception. He liked to watch the play of human feeling, and to

guess what was going on below the surface; and for this one must

be alert and cool. He was immensely curious, for example, about the

human situation under his eyes. Old Mr. Carlin had suddenly come in

for a share of this interest. Lavery studied him across the table, and

addressed frequent remarks to him, with amenity. He discovered that the

old man, in point of quick wit, suavity and coolness, was by no means

his inferior, although the elder had, from the beginning of the dinner,

applied very steadily to each decanter in turn.

* * * * *

After the coffee Mary rose, as was her custom, leaving the men at the

table. The three boys followed her; Jim with evident reluctance. His

manly dignity was hurt at being classed with women and children; but

he was quite aware that his company would not be longer desired in the

room, where heavy drinking and free talk were apt to be the order of

the evening. Lavery sprang up to open the door for Mary, and she passed

out with a slight bow, the boys waiting till the edge of her long

velvet train had ebbed over the threshold.

Timothy and John went upstairs to the billiard-room on the top floor;

and Mary, slipping her hand through Jim's arm, led him into the parlour

where the piano stood. She wanted to ask him about his excursion of the

night before--he had been out till three o'clock--but more than that

she wanted him to stay with her a little while. But Jim was restive,

wouldn't sit down. He feared an inquisition, and also he wanted to get

away to the stable and smoke. Mary, both irritated and hurt by his

unwillingness, spoke more sharply than she had intended.

"Where were you all last night?"

"I went out for a long ride," said Jim sulkily.

"And were you riding from eight o'clock till three?"

"No--I stopped a while to see a friend."

"What friend?"

"Oh, somebody you don't know--a fellow."

Controlling himself, he answered more gently; his dark eyes met hers

imperturbably.

"Well, you oughtn't to stay out all night!"

"I didn't," said Jim reasonably. "And a fellow has to do something in

this dead place."

"You shouldn't have taken your father's horse either, without

permission."

"Why, Mother, he was simply spoiling for exercise--you know he doesn't

get ridden half enough."

"I don't like you to ride him, he's dangerous--"

"Oh, I can manage him, all right, don't you worry!" Jim smiled

cheerfully. "But I've got to run out now and see to the pony--he's a

bit lame still--"

She let him go, turning away from him and walking to the end of the

long room. Yes, he wanted to escape--he had his own life now, was

beginning to be a man and to take his secret way, like the rest of

them. Her mouth curved bitterly. She did not believe Jim, about the

friend--she suspected something else, and she recoiled jealously,

miserably.... Yes, her son too--he was like the rest....

She stood by the open window, looking out blindly on the garden. The

night was mild, it was moonlight, greenish, like a glowworm's light.

The long lace curtains waved inward in the soft breeze. There were

sounds of life astir all about. She heard a burst of laughter from the

dining-room; then the faint click of the billiard-balls and a shout

from Timothy. Then, on the lake, some one began to sing Schubert's

boat-song. A clear soprano trilled out joyously the song of love and

youth....

A piercing sense of loneliness, of life passing by her, leaving her,

stabbed to her very heart. She gave a long, shuddering sigh.... Youth,

love--they had passed by. Like the song growing fainter, receding into

distance. And the bitter thing was, one did not realize them till they

were gone. The sweetness of life--all it was, might have been--one

did not feel it till it had slipped away.... Gone, lost--then, in

loneliness you felt it....

Some one came into the room. She turned, and at sight of her face,

Lavery's gay apology dropped half-spoken. He came and stood beside her

at the window.

"I hate music," she said abruptly. "Some one was singing out there. It

makes one sad.... It makes one remember all the things--"

"I don't like it myself," said Lavery, when she stopped as abruptly.

"Unless it's an opera--with gay dresses, lights, all that--then it

distracts you."

"That's trying to shut it out, the sadness of life. Like making merry

in a room, shut in, with a storm outside."

"Well, you know, that's the sensible thing to do. You _have_ to shut it

out."

"But supposing you _can't_?"

He met the misery of her eyes, her voice, with a gravity that he seldom

showed to any one.

"We all have to go through that phase," he said curtly. "A kind of

despair. It comes--and passes, generally."

"Does it? Does it pass?"

"I think it does.... You see, it's natural. It comes to us at the end

of youth--it's the end of some things--then we have to take stock, see

what we've spent, what we've got left to go on with--"

"And supposing we've spent everything?"

"Well, that isn't likely--though it may look so. Most of us go through

a kind of bankruptcy. The hopes and ambitions of youth are gone--our

dreams are gone, as a rule. We face what we've actually done, what

we're really capable of--it doesn't correspond to what we believed

we could do, what we thought we were. The reality is hard, and we

despair.... But then, we get our second wind, so to speak, and go on,

somehow."

"Do we? But why? Why go on--"

"Well, most of us by that time have certain ties, responsibilities,

we're necessary, or think we are--"

"But if we _don't_ think we are? If we're not needed?"

Her lips quivered, her tone was hard and desperate.

"Well, then--there may be some work we're interested in. Or if not

that, there's a good deal of pleasure to be got out of life, you know,

if one understands how to do it."

"Pleasure?"

"Yes, surely.... Youth doesn't appreciate the good things of life, it's

too eager, too intent on its own purposes.... The real pleasures of the

mind and the senses come later--they're the consolation for what we

were speaking of."

"No, no! That's no consolation! It's impossible to live that way!"

"You want to keep your youth," he said. "I think you're suffering from

youth unlived."

"Youth unlived!" she repeated, in a low voice. "I didn't have it ... it

went by me somehow--"

"Yes, and now you want it."

"I don't want anything!"

"That's what we say when we can't get what we want," observed Lavery.

"But then, we take what we can get."

"No, I hate that!" she burst out. "That resignation, creeping into old

age! No, I can't live that way. That's being beaten!"

"Well, most of us _are_ beaten," Lavery said philosophically, showing

his brilliant teeth in a smile. "But then, as I said, there are

consolations--"

"No, there's no consolation for that."

She moved, sat down on one of the long sofas, looking straight before

her with a fixed absent gaze. Lavery dropped into a chair beside her,

contemplative, admiring.

Emotion was becoming to her. It called a faint colour to her cheeks

and lips, gave light to her still grey eyes. In some ways she looked

strangely young. The lines of her figure were wonderfully girlish....

But also she looked as though she had lived ... not happily, though.

He judged a sympathetic silence best at the moment, though there were

a lot of things he wanted to say. He would have liked to preach his

own gospel of enjoyment, he thought he could be rather eloquent on

that theme. But still more he wanted _her_ to talk, so he was quiet,

glancing now and then about the big room, whose furniture had too much

gilt to suit him. His own taste ran to very quiet though rich effects,

and he thought the house "rococo" and out of date. Still, in a way, the

gilding and light stuffs and long mirrors made a good setting for her

tall figure in its sombre dress and her tragic face.... She sat there,

looking into space, apparently forgetting that a pleasant confidant was

at her elbow. She hadn't a touch of the ordinary agreeable coquetry, he

reflected--didn't seem to realize that people of their age could still

be agreeable to one another. Rather barbarous ... yes, both Carlin

and his wife were a little uncivilized. They would fit better into a

former, doubtless more heroic age, than into the present time. There

was a slightly rough-hewn pioneer quality about them. But, perhaps from

that very thing, they were both interesting, decidedly so. And he could

wait indefinitely for the interest to develop. His calm pulses never

hurried now for anything.

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."