It was a bright moonlight night as John Fenton strode hurriedly
away from the Van Vleck mansion, and bent his steps toward Richard
Stoughton’s apartments. Just why, at such an hour, he had determined to
call on his youthful friend, he could hardly say. He was discontented
with himself and the world. He had had, in a certain sense, an
enjoyable evening; but a man of Fenton’s age and mental tendencies does
not make a radical change in his habits without a protest that finds
expression in his actions. A broken piston-rod may not ruin an Atlantic
liner, but it causes many eccentric variations in the vessel’s course.
For ten years past John Fenton had been a man of somewhat questionable
habits, and of distinctly iconoclastic convictions. He had discovered,
of a sudden, that a change had crept over the details of his daily
life, and that his iconoclasm was no longer followed by an exclamation
point, but by an interrogation mark. What influence had been brought
to bear to beget these changes, he was not sure. He realized that his
intercourse with Richard Stoughton had had some effect upon his mode
of life and cast of thought, but he had never acknowledged to himself
that he had taken the young man _au sérieux_. That a rather superficial
boy, not long out of college, could throw a man of Fenton’s age and
character entirely out of time-worn grooves seemed to be an absurdity.
But as Fenton strode down the avenue, so deep in self-communion that
he noted not the beauty of the night, he realized that influences he
could not trace, and whose force he could not measure, had been at work
to disturb the even tenor of his life, and to throw him back into that
state of unrest and questioning that had agitated his existence before
he had abandoned, as he fondly thought forever, the ambitions that the
average man cherishes.
Modern life has one characteristic that must be taken into
consideration as we follow the outward manifestations in our
fellow-men of the inward impetus that dominates them; namely, its
complexity. An individual, in this age of the world, is powerless
in any effort to shape his life in opposition to the currents that
influence the world at large. Isolation is practically impossible. Our
butler remarks that coffee and tea have become expensive luxuries. We
realize that a revolution in Brazil, or a war in the far East, has had
its effect in swelling the expenses of our cuisine.
Society is closely knit together. Jenkins, the millionnaire, gets drunk
at dinner. The butler tells the cook, the cook tells his sweetheart,
his sweetheart tells her brother, her brother tells a bartender, the
bartender tells a loafer, the loafer tells a tramp. Does not all this
illustrate the perfect brotherhood of man?
John Fenton had made a close study of modern social problems; and he
was thoroughly conversant with the fact that the interdependence of
individuals has been vastly increased by the characteristic features
of contemporary life. Nevertheless, there was a certain stubbornness
in his make-up that made him revolt against the very tendencies that
had seemed to him, in his more optimistic moods, to insure the final
salvation of society. He was a man who objected to the idea that he had
yielded to an influence that he could not follow to its source, and
had drifted away from his former moorings. Accepting the complexity of
society as a stimulating, and perhaps encouraging, fact, he objected to
its personal application. He had tried hard to be a rebel in manner as
well as in theory. That he had sent up a flag of truce was a conviction
that filled him with both self-distrust and discontent.
As he turned into the side street leading to Stoughton’s lodgings,
he stopped before a brilliantly lighted saloon. For fully a month
Fenton had abstained almost entirely from alcoholic stimulants; but
at this moment he craved the revivifying influence of a cocktail. He
turned back into the avenue, and retraced his steps for half a block.
He was astonished at his hesitation,--his seemingly childish lack of
determination. He tried to analyze his mood. He realized that he had
no objections to offer to one harmless little cocktail at ten o’clock
at night. What, then, was it that caused him to repass the saloon
without entering it? “Perhaps,” he said to himself, “perhaps I am
growing snobbish again since I returned to the inner circle. If I want
a cocktail hereafter I shall be obliged to rejoin one or more of my old
clubs.”
Fenton found Richard Stoughton still seated before the dying embers
of the fire, and thoughtfully puffing cigar-smoke into the heavy
atmosphere.
“Come, come, Richard,” cried Fenton, throwing up one of the windows.
“You might as well go the pace in gay company as to ruin your
constitution in solitude in a room actually choking with nicotine. I
was not sure that I should find you; but I took the chance.”
Richard gazed at his friend searchingly as he handed him a cigar.
“Well, John, I’m glad to see you, of course, although I had not looked
forward to your reappearance to-night. And now tell me, old man, are
you with us or against us?”
“I don’t quite understand your question, Richard,” exclaimed Fenton,
regretting for a moment that he had not taken a cocktail to restore his
nervous energy.
“Well, John, forgive me then, if I take a liberty and put my question
in different words. Did you enjoy your call on Miss Van Vleck?”
“Those are, indeed, very different words, Richard. The two questions
seem to have no very close relationship.”
“Perhaps not, John. That’s for me to judge. But answer one or the other
of them; whichever one you choose.”
“Well, my boy, I can say honestly,” remarked Fenton guardedly, “that I
have had a very pleasant evening.”
“But it was not wholly satisfactory, or you wouldn’t be here,”
commented Richard in a tone of conviction. “Come, old man, free your
mind. You need a father-confessor. I’ll try to fill the _rôle_ if you
will bear with my youth and inexperience.”
Fenton puffed at his cigar in silence for a time, and gazed moodily
into the gleaming coals in the grate.
“I acknowledge, Richard,” he said at length, “that I am in a disturbed
state of mind. But if I can’t help myself, nobody else can give me the
aid I need.”
“Proud and stubborn heart,” cried Richard. “Let me diagnose your case.
You believe in certain novel theories, and have become a convert to
various economic teachings that embrace more in their ultimate effects
than a mere question of taxation. You are suddenly confronted by the
fact that it is possible for even political economy to demand martyrs
on the altars it has raised. Naturally, you object to being a martyr.”
“Your way of putting it, Richard,” said Fenton slowly, “may have a
basis of truth. I admit that I seem to have come to a turning-point
imperatively demanding a decision on my part that will have a radical
effect on my life.”
“It is,” suggested Richard, “a question of hearts _versus_ theories.”
“Not yet, perhaps,” answered Fenton; “but it may become so if I don’t
call a halt at once in my present methods.”
“No man can serve two masters to-day, John, any more than our remote
ancestors could when the proposition was first put into words. Of
course you know, without any explanation on my part, how my sympathy
lies in the struggle that is worrying you. In the first place, although
I may be forced to admit the strength of the premises upon which the
writer you call master bases his conclusions, I refuse to accept the
conclusions. Chasing a rainbow seems to me to be a useless occupation,
no matter how much we admire the rainbow. Furthermore, the personal
element enters largely into my way of looking at this matter. I
have grown very fond of you, John,” and Richard’s voice grew almost
caressing in its tone, “and I should like to see you take the path to
happiness that chance has thrown open to you.”
“We are talking in the air, my boy,” said Fenton earnestly, with a note
of sadness in his intonation. “It is only excessive egotism on my part
that could lead me to believe that the path to happiness of which you
speak has really opened up before me.”
“But if,” persisted Richard, “you felt sure that by sacrificing what I
take the liberty of calling your chimerical efforts to put salt on the
tail of the millennium, you could win the joy that has suddenly met
your gaze, would you not abandon your philanthropic but hopeless dreams
for the alluring reality within your grasp?”
“Frankly, Richard,” answered Fenton, after a moment’s silence, “I
cannot answer the question to-night. It takes a man in middle life a
long time to overturn the results of ten years of reading and thinking
and endeavor. But I am glad that you have put the problem in concrete
form. I can look at it more calmly now that I have heard you put it
into words. But it is late and I must go. I have been very selfish,
Richard, I fear. Tell me, my boy, why have you wasted an entire evening
looking at a bed of coals, and blowing smoke into the air?”
Richard smiled as he took Fenton’s outstretched hand.
“I have been trying to come to a decision, John.”
“And have you reached it?”
“I fear not, old man. Decisions are hard to arrive at, John, are they
not?”
“They are, indeed,” assented Fenton sadly, as he said good-night.