Meanwhile Morgan had settled down "at case" and was patiently learning
to pick up the "stamps." He was initiated into the mysteries of ems
and ens, of leading and spacing and making-up. Racks and galleys and
wooden and metal "furniture" played a large part in his dreams;
turpentine, paraffin and machine-oil, roller composition and inks
became the breath of his nostrils. By an effort of concentration he
would never before have been capable of, he made rapid advance,
Kettering generously letting him do such work as he could do most
effectively, so that his wages' account mounted week by week. The
close attention his work demanded made mind-wandering and aimless
thinking impossible; but as time went by and he found himself
acquiring skill, his enthusiasm grew, and he threw himself into his
new occupation almost with frenzy, taking a sort of savage
satisfaction in the grey grime of the workshop with its soiled wooden
fittings, and in the silent companionship of his aproned co-workers.
He filled up his time at every department of the trade,
learning--besides type-setting and proof-correcting--to take the
gas-engine to pieces and to clean it, to help to make ready "formes"
on the machine, to mix inks, to clean rollers and to work at press,
either as inker or puller. But the grime had no power to enter into
his spirit, though some slight suggestion of his occupation began
eventually to show itself in his face. His hands, too, suffered
severely, for soft white hands get quickly ill-used in a printer's
workshop.
Still smarting under a long lecture from their father, Alice and Mary
had at first taken care to confine conversation with him to trade
exigencies; but after a few days they had grown to accept him as part
of the household, and were civil to him again. Mrs. Kettering liked to
get him to herself of an evening and talk to him for two hours at a
time. Kettering himself would fidget a good deal at such times, but
scarcely ventured to intrude, though apparently his greatest delight
was also to converse with Morgan. But Mrs. Kettering showed no such
scruples about entering into the conversation and eventually taking
Morgan captive, being entirely without respect for the fact that her
husband was in legal possession. In either case Morgan's contribution
to the conversation rarely exceeded one-fourth of the whole.
Mark continued taciturn as ever, though his enormous mustachios seemed
to grow constantly, as if benefitting by the energy that should have
gone into speech. Sometimes he would accompany Morgan on a long walk,
and on such occasions Morgan would try to discover the secret of his
personality. He learnt after some difficulty that Mark regarded women
pretty well as so many demons put on this earth to entrap men's souls.
He however had to confess he hadn't formed this opinion from outside
experience, but then, he added, he had taken good care to steer free
of the sex. He was satisfied to do his work and smoke his pipe--a
veritable pipe of peace.
This philosophy, however, only represented one-half of him, though its
few simple facts had had to be elicited in little bits, buried in
irrelevances, and as there were apparently numbers of such little
bits, the process of extrication had been a somewhat painful one. Nor
did the other half come as a single revelation. It was also conveyed
in little bits, which Morgan had to dig out and piece together and
these bits were more difficult to find than the others, for they were
infinitely tinier. Mark had once been in love, but had been too shy to
let the object of it suspect it, or, rather, he had not known which
way to set to work, and the prize had been snapped up by another.
Of course, Morgan's thought sometimes indulged in flights that had
little relation to the workshop or to the processes of printing, but
only within strict and narrow limits. These he further narrowed by
giving up a great part of his leisure to the perusal of such technical
books as Kettering possessed. Cleo still figured largely for him. She
had been too big and important a fact in his life to lose her place as
yet in the centre of his consciousness. But even had he the power, he
would not have attempted to gather any intelligence as to her
movements, though he could not help speculating somewhat on the very
point. Should she ever return into his life again--and he could not
make up his mind as to the probability of her doing so--then would be
time enough for him to concern himself with her practically.
And amid all his toil, he had ever a sense of something light and
dainty, something he was aware of as a haunting, unseen presence. And
then at moments there gleamed upon him the wistful fancy that, beneath
all the phrases and arguments with which he had equipped himself for
the battle, it was really his love for Margaret was helping him to be
strong, that it was the hope of his one day attaining to be worthy of
her friendship was aiding his self-purification, that it was the flame
she had lit in him had now sprung up again, defying all the mean
elements by which he was surrounded to eat into his spirit.
And once the fancy had come to him, he nurtured it, so that it grew
and grew and became part of his very self. If, indeed, it had not been
truth when it had first come to him, it was truth now.