Once back in the old environment, Northrup went, daily, through the
sensations of his haunting dream, without the relief of awakening. The
corridor of closed doors was an actuality to him now. Behind them lay
experiences, common enough to most men, undoubtedly, but, as yet,
unrevealed to him.
In one he had dwelt for a brief time--good Lord! had it only been for
weeks? Well, the memory, thank heaven, was secure; unblemished. He
vowed that he would reserve to himself the privilege of returning, in
thought, to that memory-haunted sanctuary as long as he might live,
for he knew, beyond any doubt, that it could not weaken his resolve to
take up every duty that he had for a time abandoned. It should be with
him as Manly had predicted.
This line of thought widened Northrup's vision and developed a new tie
between him and other men. He found himself looking at them in the
street with awakened interest. He wondered how many of them, stern,
often hard-featured men, had realized their souls in private or public
life, and how had they dealt with the revelation? He grew sensitive as
to expressions; he believed, after a time, that he could estimate, by
the look in the eyes of his fellowmen, by the set of their jaws,
whether they had faced the ordeal, as he was trying to do, or had
denied the soul acceptance. It was like looking at them through a
magnifying lens where once he had regarded them through smoked glass.
And the women? Well, Northrup was very humble about women in
those days. He grew restive when he contemplated results and
pondered upon the daring that had assumed responsibility where
complete understanding had never been attempted. It seemed, in his
introspective state, that God, even, had been cheated. Women were,
he justly concluded, pretty much a response to ideals created for
them, not by them.
Mary-Clare was having her way with Northrup!
Something of all this crept into his book for, after a fortnight at
home, he set his own jaw and lips rather grimly, went to his small
office room in the tower of a high building, and paid the elevator boy
a goodly sum for acting as buffer during five holy hours of each day.
It was like being above the world, sitting in that eyrie nook of his.
Northrup often recalled a day, years before, when he had stood on a
mountain-peak bathed in stillness and sunlight, watching the dramatic
play of the elements on the scene below. Off to the right a violent
shower spent itself mercilessly; to the left, rolling mists were
parting and revealing pleasant meadows and clustering hamlets. And
with this recollection, Northrup closed his eyes and, from his silent
watch tower, saw, as no earthly thing could make him see, the hideous
tragedy across the seas.
Since his return his old unrest claimed him. It was blotting out all
that he had believed was his--ideals; the meaning of life; love; duty;
even his city--_his_--was threatened. Nothing any longer seemed safe
unless it were battled for. There was something he owed--what was it?
Try as he valiantly did, Northrup could put little thought in his
work--it eluded him. He began, at first unconsciously, to plan for
going away, while, consciously, he deceived himself by thinking that
he was readjusting himself to his own widened niche in the wall!
When Northrup descended from his tower, he became as other men and the
grim lines of lips and jaws relaxed. He was with them who first caught
the wider vision of brotherhood.
At once, upon his return, he had taken Manly into his confidence about
his mother, and that simple soul brushed aside the sentimental rubbish
with which Kathryn had cluttered the situation.
"It's all damned rot, Brace," he snapped. "You had a grandmother who
did work that was never meant for women to do--laid a carpet or tore
one up, I forget which, I heard the story from my father--and she
developed cancer--more likely it wasn't cancer--I don't think my
father was ever sure. But, good Lord! why should her descendants
inherit an accident? I thought I'd talked your mother out of that
nonsense."
Thus reassured, Northrup told Kathryn that all the secret diplomacy
was to be abandoned and that his mother must work with them.
"But, Brace dear, you don't blame me for my fright? I was so
worried!"
"No, little girl, you were a trump. I'll never forget how you stood
by!"
So Helen Northrup put herself in Manly's hands--those strong, faithful
hands. She went to a hospital for various tests. She was calm but
often afraid. She sometimes looked at the pleasant, thronged streets
and felt a loneliness, as if she missed herself from among her kind.
Manly pooh-poohed and shrugged his broad shoulders.
"Women! women!" he ejaculated, but there were hours when he, too, had
his fears.
But in the end, black doubt was driven away.
"Of course, my dear lady," Manly said relievedly, patting her hand,
"we cannot sprint at fifty-odd as we did at twenty. But a more
leisurely gait is enjoyable and we can take time to look around at the
pleasant things; do the things we've always wanted to do--but didn't
have time to do. Brace must get married--he'll have children and
you'll begin all over with them. Then I'd like to take in some music
with you this winter. I've rather let my pet fads drop from sheer
loneliness. Let's go to light opera--we're all getting edgy over here.
I tell you, Helen, it's up to us older fry to steer the youngsters
away from what does not concern them."
Poor Manly! He could not deafen his conscience to the growing call
from afar and already he saw the trend. So he talked the more as one
does to keep his courage up in grave danger.
With his anxiety about Helen Northrup removed, Manly gave attention to
Brace. Brace puzzled him. He acknowledged that Northrup had never
looked better; the trip had done wonders for him. Yes; that was
it--something rather wonderful had been done.
He attacked Northrup one day in his sledge-hammer style.
"What in thunder has got mixed up in your personality?" he asked.
"Oh! I suppose anxiety about Mother, Manly. And the thought that I had
slipped from under my responsibilities. Had she died--well! it's all
right now."
But this did not satisfy Manly.
"Hang it all, I don't mean anxiety," he blurted out. "The natural
stuff I can estimate and label. But you look somehow as if you had
been switched off the side track to the main line."
"Or the other way about, old man?" Northrup broke in and laughed.
"No, sir; you're on the main line, all right; but you don't look as if
you knew where you were going. Keep the headlight on, Brace."
"Thanks, Manly; I do not fully understand just where I may land, but
I'm going slow. Now this--this horror across seas----" Always it was
creeping in, these days.
"Oh! that's their business, Northrup. They're always scrapping--this
isn't our war, old man," Manly broke in roughly, but Northrup shook
his head.
"Manly, I cannot look at it as a war--just a plain war, you know. I've
had a queer experience that I will tell you about some day, but it
convinced me that above all, and through all, there is a Power that
forces us, often against our best-laid plans, and I believe that Power
can force the world as well. Manly, take it from me, this is no scrap
over there, it's a soul-finder; a soul-creator, more like. Before we
get through, a good many nations and men will be compelled to look, as
you once did, at bare, gaunt souls or"--a pause--"set to work and make
souls."
Manly twisted in his seat uneasily. Northrup went on.
"Manly"--he spoke quietly, evenly--"do you remember our last talk in
this office before I left?"
"Well, some of it. Yes."
"Jogs, you know. Mountain peaks, baby hands, women faces, and souls?"
"Oh! yes. Sick talk to a sick man." Manly snapped his fingers.
"Manly, what did you mean by saying that you had once seen your soul?"
Northrup was in dead earnest. Manly swung around in his swivel chair.
"I meant that I saw mine once," he said sharply, definitely.
"How did it look?"
"As if I had neglected it. A shrunken, shivering thing." Manly stopped
suddenly, then added briefly: "You cannot starve that part of you,
Northrup, without a get-back some day."
"No. And that's exactly what I am up against--the get-back!"
After that talk with Manly, Northrup, singularly enough, felt as if he
had arrived at some definite conclusion; had received instructions as
to his direction. He was quietly elated and, sitting in his office,
experienced the peace and satisfaction of one who spiritually submits
to a higher Power.
The globe of light on the peak of his tower seemed, humorously, to
have become his headlight--Manly's figures of speech clung--its white
and red flashes, its moments of darkness, were like the workings of
his mind, but he knew no longer the old depression. He was on the main
line, and he had his orders--secret ones, so far, but safe ones.
Kathryn grew more charming as time passed. She did not seem to resent
Northrup's detachment, though the tower room lured him dangerously.
Once she had hinted that she'd love to see his workshop; hear some of
his work. But Northrup had put her off.
"Wait, dear, until I've finished the thing, and then you and I will
have a regular gorge of it, up in my tower."
Kathryn at this put up her mouth to be kissed while behind her
innocent smile she was picturing the girl of King's Forest in those
awful muddy trousers! _She_ had heard the book in the making; she had
not been pushed aside.
More and more Mary-Clare became a stumbling block to Kathryn. She felt
she was a dangerous type; the kind men never could understand, until
it was too late, and never forgot. And Brace _was_ changed. The subtle
unrest did not escape Kathryn.
"I wonder----" And Kathryn did wonder. Wondered most at the
possibility of Mary-Clare ever appearing on the surface again.
For--and this was a humiliating thought to Kathryn--she realized she
was no match for that girl of the Forest!
However, Kathryn, as was her wont when things went wrong, pulled down
the shade mentally, as once she had done physically, against the
distasteful conditions Brace had evolved.
And there was much to be attended to--so Kathryn, with great
efficiency, set to work. She must make provision for her aunt's
future. This was not difficult, for poor Anna was so relieved that any
provision was to be considered, that she accepted Kathryn's lowest
figure.
Then there was Arnold. Sandy, at the moment, was disgusted at
Northrup's return. It interfered with his plans. Sandy had a long and
keen scent. The trouble overseas had awakened a response in him, he
meant to serve the cause--but in his own way. Secretly he was
preparing. He was buying up old vessels, but old vessels were
expensive and the secrecy prevented his borrowing money. He wanted to
get married, too. Kathryn, with only his protection and he with
Kathryn's little fortune, would create, at the moment, a situation
devoutly to be desired.
Kathryn had to deal with this predicament cautiously. Sandy was so
horribly matter-of-fact--not a grain of Northrup's idealism about him!
But for that very reason, in the abominably upset state of the world,
he was not lightly to be cast on the scrap-heap. One never could tell!
Brace might act up sentimentally, but Sandy could be depended upon
always--he was a rock!
So Kathryn, embroidering her wedding linen--for she meant to be
married soon--prayed for guidance.
On the whole, the situation was most gratifying. No wonder Kathryn
felt well pleased with herself and more fully convinced that, with
such wits as hers, life was reduced to a common factor. Once married
she would be able to draw a long breath. Marriage was such a divine
institution for women. It gave them such a stranglehold--with the
right sort of men--and Brace _was_ the right sort.
To be sure he was not entirely satisfying at the present moment. His
attentions smacked too much of duty. He could not deceive Kathryn. He
sent flowers and gifts in such profusion that they took on the aspect
of blood money. Well, marriage would adjust all that.
Helen urged an early date for the wedding and even Manly, who did not
like Kathryn, gripped her as the saviour of a critical situation.
King's Forest had had a sinister effect upon Manly; it made him doubt
himself.
And so life, apparently, ran along smoothly on the surface. It was the
undercurrents that were really carrying things along at a terrific
rate.
It was in his tower room that most of Northrup's struggle went on.
Daily he confronted that which Was and Had To Be! With all his old
outposts being taken day by day, he was left bare and unprotected for
the last assault. And it came!
It came as death does, quite naturally for the most part, and found
him--ready. Like the dying--or the reborn--Northrup put his loved ones
to the acid test. His mother would understand. Kathryn? It was
staggering, at this heart-breaking moment, to discover, after all the
recent proving of herself, that Kathryn resolved into an Unknown
Quantity.
This discovery filled Northrup with a sense of disloyalty and
unreality. What right had he to permit the girl who was to be his
wife, the mother of his children, to be relegated to so ignominious a
position? Had she not proved herself to him in faithfulness and
understanding? Had she not, setting aside her own rights, looked well
to his?
The days dragged along and each one took its toll of Northrup's
vitality while it intensified that crusading emotion in his soul.
He did not mention all this to those nearest him until the time for
departure came, and he tried, God knew, to work while he performed the
small, devotional acts to his mother and Kathryn that would soon stand
forth, to one of them at least, as the most courageous acts of his
life.
He had come to that part of his book where his woman must take her
final stand--the stand that Mary-Clare had so undermined. If he
finished the book before he went--and he decided that it might be
possible--his woman must rise supreme over the doubts with which she
had been invested. But when he came to the point, the decision, if he
followed his purpose, looked cheap and commonplace--above everything,
obvious. In his present mood his book would be just--a book; not the
Big Experience.
This struggle to finish his work in the face of the stubborn facts at
moments obliterated the crusading spirit; the doubts of Kathryn and
even Mary-Clare's pervading insistence. He hated to be beaten at his
own job.
Love's supreme sacrifice and glory, as portrayed in woman--_must_ be
man's ideal, of course!
The ugly business of the world had to be got through, and man often
had to set love aside--for honour. "But, good Lord!" Northrup argued,
apparently to his useless right hand, what would become of the
spiritual, if woman got to setting up little gods and bowing down
before them? Why, she would forego her God-given heritage. To her,
love must be all. Above all else. Why, the very foundations of life
were founded upon that. What could be higher to a woman? Man could
look out for the rest, but he must be sure of his woman's love! The
rest would be in their own hands--that was their individual affair.
And then, at this crucial moment, Mary-Clare _would_ always intrude.
"It's what one does to love!" That was her stern ultimatum. "Love's
best proof might be renunciation, not surrender!"
"Nonsense!" Northrup flung back. "How then could a man be sure? No
book with such an ending would stand a chance."
"You must not harm your book by such a doubt. That book must be
_true_, and you know the truth. Women must be made glad by it, men
stronger because someone understands and is brave enough to say it."
But Northrup steeled his heart against this command. He meant to
finish his book; finish it with a flaming proof that, while men
offered their lives for duty, women offered theirs for love and did
not count the cost, like misers or--lenders.
One afternoon Northrup, the ink still wet upon the last sheet of his
manuscript, leaned back wearily in his chair. He could not conquer
Mary-Clare. He let his eyes rest upon his awakening city. For him it
rose at night. In the day it belonged to others--the men and women,
passing to and fro with those strange eyes and jaws. But when they all
passed to their homes, then the lone city that was his started like a
thing being born upon a hill.
It may have been at one of these strained moments that Northrup slept;
he was never able to decide. He seemed to hold to the twinkling
lights; he thought he heard sounds--the elevator just outside his
door; the rising wind.
However that may be, as clearly as any impression ever fixed itself
upon his consciousness, he saw Mary-Clare beside him in her stained
and ugly garb, her lovely hair ruffled as if she had been travelling
fast, and her great eyes turned upon him gladly. She was panting a
bit; smiling and thankful that she had found him, at last in his
city!
It was like being with her on that day when they stood on the mountain
near her cabin and talked.
Northrup was spellbound. He understood, though no word passed between
him and the girl so close to him. She did not try to touch him, but
she did, presently, move a step nearer and lay her little work-worn
hand upon the pile of manuscript in that quaint way of hers that had
so often made Northrup smile. It was a reverent touch.
Standing so, she sealed from him those last chapters! She would not
argue or be set aside--she claimed her woman-right; the right to the
truth as some women saw it, as more would see it; as, God willing,
Northrup himself would see it some day! He would know that it was
because of love that she had turned him and herself to duty.
Northrup suddenly found himself on his feet.
The little room was dark; the city was blazing about him--under him.
His city! His hand lay upon his manuscript.
Quietly he took it up and locked it in his safe. Slowly, reverently,
he set the bare room in order without turning on the electricity. He
worked in the dark but his vision was never clearer. He went out,
locked the door, as one does upon a chamber, sacred and secret.
He did not think of Mary-Clare, his mother, or Kathryn--he was setting
forth to do that which had to be done; he was going to give what was
his to give to that struggle across the ocean for right; the proving
of right.
All along, his unrest had been caused by the warring elements in
himself--there was only one way out--he must take it and be proved as
the world was being proved.