"Yes! at least, perhaps--I have never put it to myself exactly--indeed
why do you ask?"
"May I ask how far that interest has gone?"
The younger man half rose from his chair.
"If it had _gone_ at all," he said, hotly, "you would have known it."
"Yes," the doctor knitted his eyebrows, "that's all right. Don't feel
disturbed. If I didn't consider you to be a gentleman in a more
intensive sense of the word than is usual, I shouldn't be talking to
you like this. Have a cigar." There was another long pause. The doctor
debated quickly with himself what course to take. When he resumed, he
used his rough weapon.
"You ought to know that my daughter will have very little in case of
my death."--This time the young man rose entirely from his seat. The
doctor smiled and waved him back. "And nothing until my death, which
won't come while you are a young man. The world reports me well to do,
and I am, but I am taxed by society heavily. I mean I have large
demands on my income, and aside from certain properties that must be
left in trust for other people and a modest provision for my wife and
child, there isn't likely to be much. I tell you all this, partly
because I like you, and partly because I think it is only fair. I
don't think you are after money. But you must realize now that money
will make a great difference in your career."
When Long moved hastily, the doctor smiled.
"I don't say that you should hunt a fortune, but you should keep out
of the way of attractive women without fortune."
This time he gave Long an opportunity to vent his feelings. When he
had finished, he began again quietly.
"What you say is singularly like what I said myself about nineteen
years ago. I think I will tell you the story," and he proceeded coldly
to give him an outline of his life. Long listened respectfully. At the
close he said, "But the cases are not similar, exactly."
"No two human cases ever are, but the theme is the same. You might
arrange a different compromise; it would be a compromise."
"Your difficulties were enormous! Why need I plan for such
misfortunes?"
"You mean the outside affairs, the money? That might be arranged of
course. There would remain my daughter, a subject which I can discuss
with precision. She is in fair health, and while I live to look after
her she will probably continue so. Her nerves are morbid, her egotism
is excessive, her restlessness is abnormal. She is rather a brilliant
girl, I think, and to me a very dear one. But her career needs to be
guided, or some decided smash will come."
"You have no confidence in me?"
"The greatest. It is not her welfare only which I am considering, but
yours. Besides, if she were normal or dull, not an exacting young
American, yet she would be a woman. And as such her interests must be
opposed to yours forever. Should you marry her, I would be forced to
agree with her and oppose you wherever you stepped beyond
conventionality."
Suddenly Long turned on his tormentor with a bold question.
"Your marriage you would not consider a failure, even under worse
conditions?"
The doctor winced at this thrust, which he considered legitimate.
He had had his moments of doubt even in the thick of his loyalty to
his wife and child when this question had tormented him. Miasmatic
moments that come to firm men also, and make them dizzy with the
thought of the mere waywardness of life. Had he been any better or
wiser than Roper Ellwell? When the test of a vital passion had come he
had acted like any other inconsiderate, purposeless young man, like
any one with a chaotic will-less past!
But this temptation he had mastered, as he had mastered almost all
the elements of his fate.
"That kind of a question can never be answered fairly. No one has the
complete data. No! I can honestly say _no_. Yet it has altered my life
profoundly, that I can say."
"Then why are you so pessimistic for me?"
"Because," the doctor replied, slowly, "such a marriage as mine has
been, such a marriage as yours would be, is a career in itself. Beyond
that _nothing_--understand, _nothing_."
"Love is a great career!"
"It is; but there is hardly a man I have ever known who could embrace
it, and that only, for a lifetime. You could not, I think, and you
would be miserable. It is a humble career though it is rich. The man
who wins does not devote his life to an exacting passion for a
neurotic woman. You are the man to win: go in."
The doctor rose.
"Now I must leave you to see a patient who has been waiting.
Think--you don't love her, poor child; what do you know of love? You
are putting your mind in order for love, and it will come quickly
enough."
Long stared irresponsibly at the floor. "I am glad we have been able
to talk this over without passion. You have not obliged me to use any
coarse authority, or any influence except your own sane judgment. We
have been unsentimental men. You have confessed to nothing more than a
liking for a pretty girl. You have committed yourself to nothing."
The doctor paused, resting his hands firmly on the table between them.
He read the young man's face eagerly, and he felt sure that he had
gained his point.
"Now, go," he continued kindly, "and God-speed to you! Go in to win!"
He turned. Long rose mechanically as if ordered by a superior, opened
the door, and disappeared into the dark hall. The doctor listened for
the sound of his footsteps. When he heard the tread on the ground
beneath the office window, he sighed and stepped out into the hall.
His daughter was standing in the doorway at the farther end, as if
looking for some one.
"Where is Mr. Long, papa?"
"He has gone."
The doctor's voice dwelt slightly on the last word. The girl glanced
at him sharply, and then turned back into the lighted drawing-room.
"Dinner is waiting, Jarvis," Mrs. Thornton spoke from a lounge within
the room. "Why didn't you keep Mr. Long?"
The doctor walked over to his wife and stood for a moment by her side.
She smiled in further interrogation; the doctor bent and kissed her.
"Long didn't care to stay," he replied. Then he went back to his
patient.