“Fess,” said Jeremiah Keene, on the night of Commencement Day, “what
are you going to do with yourself? You are the most expansive--nay,
sentimental and emotional creature on one side of you, and on the other
the most secretive! I’ve turned myself inside out to you over and
over again. You know all my hopes, aspirations, plans--who doesn’t?
What have I been digging away at this school of mines for? But you’ve
gone in for everything, distinguished yourself in pretty nearly
everything--and we are none the wiser. In these days you’ve got to be
one thing--one thing--there’s no chance for any but the specialist, and
you are as well aware of that as any one else. So I know, we all know,
that you must have made up your mind--that you know what you are about.
It isn’t only curiosity that prompts me to ask for your secret--there
is no necessity for maunderings on my part. I’d like to know; we may
not meet again for years--you go East, I go West--I’ve never taken a
liberty with you before; forgive me this.”
Fessenden made no reply for a moment. He was spending his last night
in Turbine in the rooms of his chum. The day had been crowded with
triumphs. He was dazzled, elated, a trifle bewildered. Compliments
and flattering predictions had fallen thick upon him. The president
had congratulated him publicly, invited him to dinner to meet the
distinguished guests, and he had been the only student so honored.
Among the guests were several of the eminent men who had condescended
to illuminate the university during the past year, and they had
singled out Fessenden and paid him such marked attentions, besides
interrogating him so closely as to his interest in his more important
studies, that both faculty and students, highly as they thought of
their star, were astonished: the successful self-made American takes
very little interest in unmade futures. It was a great and notable
tribute to personality, and Fessenden’s chest had risen and his
head bulged more than once. He was feeling his strength at every
nerve-point, he knew himself to be ready to go out and conquer the
world at once; his mind had flashed back during the exciting day to the
long course of training, from his babyhood until this last week of his
twenty-first year, which had modelled his inherited forces in brain
and character, slowly and safely, given him the physical endurance to
keep pace with the restless energies of his mind. He was filled with
gratitude for his father, but he also thought very well of himself. The
self-made American was his type, the ideal he had set on high; whether
born in a log-cabin, on a Virginia plantation, or a romantic British
isle, was immaterial. All the great men of his country had started with
a reasonable amount of poverty, and certainly the youthful record of
none was more brilliant than his. He had had his disappointments, his
disillusionments, even in Turbine; he had been deceived and tricked and
tripped and hurt like all men; but he lived too much in imagination,
in the future, and his application to study had been too severe for
brooding on the shortcomings of the world. He still thought well of
it, and his consistent admiration for his friend Keene had gone far
to nurse his optimism. Life never did a kinder thing for him than in
bestowing so abundant a measure of contentment in these last hours of
his boyhood.
He stood up in a moment, turning over his chair. Keene was lying on a
divan, smoking. The lamp was low. The windows were open, but to silence
only. It was very late.
“Well--well--well--” said Fessenden. “I don’t know. I should have to
tell you so much--and my ambitions are defined and at the same time
rather nebulous. You see, I have to find out just what my father wants
of me first--what he is--”
“What he is? There is a mystery, then? You’ve bluffed us pretty well.”
“I’m no maker of mysteries. I don’t know, myself--but--and you’re the
only person living I’d say this to, and I’d break even your head if you
gave a hint before he was ready--I think he is a great inventor and
wanted me to have this training that I might help him.”
It was on the tip of Keene’s tongue to remark upon the uselessness of
Mr. Abbott’s secrecy so far as his son was concerned, but congratulated
himself a few moments later that Fessenden had given him no time for
comment.
“I have not seen him for years, but not through lack of affection--he
asked me to trust him and I have done so. I had a curious letter from
him on Tuesday--I have thought a good deal about it since--and now that
I am to see him and know all so soon, I may permit myself to indulge in
curiosity. I’ll read it to you if you like.”
He held Mr. Abbott’s last letter to the lamp and read it aloud; then
plunged his hands into his pockets, planted himself squarely on his
feet, and told Keene of his peculiar relations with his father since
his mother’s death. He made it all very vivid; the brief visits of Mr.
Abbott, the concise pregnant conversations, the firm careful finger
always modelling at the foundations of his character, the cleverness
and foresight with which his father had secured the services of
Stanley Morris, who through seven monotonous years had pined for
California. Much of this was revealed unconsciously in the narrative of
his mountain-life. While he was in the midst of his story Keene sat up
suddenly; a moment later interrupted him to ask for a description of
Mr. Abbott. Fessenden had answered: “Small, thin, but with an immense
lot of presence--even up there where one man is exactly the same as
another, where there is real equality and no bluff about it--they all
bowed down to him instinctively--even Morris, who is a deep scholar
and thinker and belongs to one of the best families in the country--if
you care for that sort of American rot. Even when I was a little chap
and he used to pet and fondle me, I could feel the power come out of
him, and I told Morris once that if he wasn’t a rich man it must be his
own fault--he made you feel he could be anything he chose. His face is
beautiful to me, perhaps because I love him, for Morris remarked rather
nastily once that he was not generally considered a beauty; but he has
eyes that can light up, and his face always changed for me anyhow, if
it did look rather cold--perhaps hard--at other times. Nettlebeck swore
once that it was hard, but I never could see it. His features are well
cut, too, his nose looks as if it could go through a stone wall, and
there is not an indefinite curve in his mouth--there you have him, as
well as I can describe anybody.”
But Keene, long since, had rolled over and buried his face in the sofa
cushions.
The next day, as the two men parted at Chicago, Keene, who was far
more mature than Fessenden, having less of the eternal boy in him,
put his arm about his friend’s shoulder and said hesitatingly:
“Remember--there are terrible disappointments awaiting you out here in
the great world--as for all of us. Take everything that comes along
as philosophically as you can--everything is for the best, I suppose.
Above all, don’t let any shock embitter you. I am sure, I am sure that
your father is all that you imagine him to be--that whatever he does
in regard to you--has done--is right.... I wish he were not so poor,
however; I wish he were _the_ Abbott.”
“Who is _the_ Abbott?”
“Of course you never read the newspapers, and it is odd how he manages
to keep out of the illustrated magazines--I should think he must pay
them. The Abbott, my dear boy, is richer than the whole Rothschild
outfit condensed into the singular.”
“Well, I’m glad he’s not that sort of Abbott,” said Fessenden
indifferently. “Thank God I can show my mettle and start from the
ground up.”
The words left no trail in Fessenden’s mind; the parting which followed
affected him deeply, and he was too excited at the prospect of seeing
his father again to recall what had impressed him as a mere chance
remark.