"The good old days of the Watling campaign," as Colonel Paul Varney is
wont to call them, are gone forever. And the Colonel himself, who stuck
to his gods, has been through the burning, fiery furnace of
Investigation, and has come out unscathed and unrepentant. The flames of
investigation, as a matter of fact, passed over his head in their vain
attempt to reach the "man higher up," whose feet they licked; but him
they did not devour, either. A veteran in retirement, the Colonel is
living under his vine and fig tree on the lake at Rossiter; the vine
bears Catawba grapes, of which he is passionately fond; the fig tree, the
Bartlett pears he gives to his friends. He has saved something from the
spoils of war, but other veterans I could mention are not so fortunate.
The old warriors have retired, and many are dead; the good old methods
are becoming obsolete. We never bothered about those mischievous things
called primaries. Our county committees, our state committees chose the
candidates for the conventions, which turned around and chose the
committees. Both the committees and the conventions--under advice--chose
the candidates. Why, pray, should the people complain, when they had
everything done for them? The benevolent parties, both Democratic and
Republican, even undertook the expense of printing the ballots! And
generous ballots they were (twenty inches long and five wide!),
distributed before election, in order that the voters might have the
opportunity of studying and preparing them: in order that Democrats of
delicate feelings might take the pains to scratch out all the Democratic
candidates, and write in the names of the Republican candidates.
Patriotism could go no farther than this....
I spent the week before election in the city, where I had the opportunity
of observing what may be called the charitable side of politics. For a
whole month, or more, the burden of existence had been lifted from the
shoulders of the homeless. No church or organization, looked out for
these frowsy, blear-eyed and ragged wanderers who had failed to find a
place in the scale of efficiency. For a whole month, I say, Mr. Judd
Jason and his lieutenants made them their especial care; supported them
in lodging-houses, induced the night clerks to give them attention; took
the greatest pains to ensure them the birth-right which, as American
citizens, was theirs,--that of voting. They were not only given homes for
a period, but they were registered; and in the abundance of good feeling
that reigned during this time of cheer, even the foreigners were
registered! On election day they were driven, like visiting notables, in
carryalls and carriages to the polls! Some of them, as though in
compensation for ills endured between elections, voted not once, but many
times; exercising judicial functions for which they should be given
credit. For instance, they were convinced that the Hon. W. W. Trulease
had made a good governor; and they were Watling enthusiasts,--intent on
sending men to the legislature who would vote for him for senator; yet
there were cases in which, for the minor offices, the democrat was the
better man!
It was a memorable day. In spite of Mr. Lawler's Pilot, which was as a
voice crying in the wilderness, citizens who had wives and homes and
responsibilities, business men and clerks went to the voting booths and
recorded their choice for Trulease, Watling and Prosperity: and
working-men followed suit. Victory was in the air. Even the policemen
wore happy smiles, and in some instances the election officers themselves
in absent-minded exuberance thrust bunches of ballots into the boxes!
In response to an insistent demand from his fellow-citizens Mr. Watling,
the Saturday evening before, had made a speech in the Auditorium, decked
with bunting and filled with people. For once the Morning Era did not
exaggerate when it declared that the ovation had lasted fully ten
minutes. "A remarkable proof" it went on to say, "of the esteem and
confidence in which our fellow-citizen is held by those who know him
best, his neighbours in the city where he has given so many instances of
his public spirit, where he has achieved such distinction in the practice
of the law. He holds the sound American conviction that the office should
seek the man. His address is printed in another column, and we believe it
will appeal to the intelligence and sober judgment of the state. It is
replete with modesty and wisdom."
Mr. Watling was introduced by Mr. Bering of the State Supreme Court (a
candidate for re-election), who spoke with deliberation, with owl-like
impressiveness. He didn't believe in judges meddling in politics, but
this was an unusual occasion. (Loud applause.) Most unusual. He had come
here as a man, as an American, to pay his tribute to another man, a
long-time friend, whom he thought to stand somewhat aside and above mere
party strife, to represent values not merely political.... So
accommodating and flexible is the human mind, so "practical" may it
become through dealing with men and affairs, that in listening to Judge
Bering I was able to ignore the little anomalies such a situation might
have suggested to the theorist, to the mere student of the institutions
of democracy. The friendly glasses of rye and water Mr. Bering had taken
in Monahan's saloon, the cases he had "arranged" for the firm of Watling,
Fowndes and Ripon were forgotten. Forgotten, too, when Theodore Watling
stood up and men began, to throw their hats in the air,--were the
cavilling charges of Mr. Lawler's Pilot that, far from the office seeking
the man, our candidate had spent over a hundred thousand dollars of his
own money, to say nothing of the contributions of Mr. Scherer, Mr.
Dickinson and the Railroad! If I had been troubled with any weak, ethical
doubts, Mr. Watling would have dispelled them; he had red blood in his
veins, a creed in which he believed, a rare power of expressing himself
in plain, everyday language that was often colloquial, but never--as the
saying goes--"cheap." The dinner-pail predicament was real to him. He
would present a policy of our opponents charmingly, even persuasively,
and then add, after a moment's pause: "There is only one objection to
this, my friends--that it doesn't work." It was all in the way he said
it, of course. The audience would go wild with approval, and shouts of
"that's right" could be heard here and there. Then he proceeded to show
why it didn't work. He had the faculty of bringing his lessons home, the
imagination to put himself into the daily life of those who listened to
him,--the life of the storekeeper, the clerk, of the labourer and of the
house-wife. The effect of this can scarcely be overestimated. For the
American hugs the delusion that there are no class distinctions, even
though his whole existence may be an effort to rise out of once class
into another. "Your wife," he told them once, "needs a dress. Let us
admit that the material for the dress is a little cheaper than it was
four years ago, but when she comes to look into the family stocking--"
(Laughter.) "I needn't go on. If we could have things cheaper, and more
money to buy them with, we should all be happy, and the Republican party
could retire from business."
He did not once refer to the United States Senatorship.
It was appropriate, perhaps, that many of us dined on the evening of
election day at the Boyne Club. There was early evidence of a Republican
land-slide. And when, at ten o'clock, it was announced that Mr. Trulease
was re-elected by a majority which exceeded Mr. Grunewald's most hopeful
estimate, that the legislature was "safe," that Theodore Watling would be
the next United States Senator, a scene of jubilation ensued within those
hallowed walls which was unprecedented. Chairs were pushed back, rugs
taken up, Gene Hollister played the piano and a Virginia reel started; in
a burst of enthusiasm Leonard Dickinson ordered champagne for every
member present. The country was returning to its senses. Theodore Watling
had preferred, on this eventful night, to remain quietly at home. But
presently carriages were ordered, and a "delegation" of enthusiastic
friends departed to congratulate him; Dickinson, of course, Grierson,
Fowndes, Ogilvy, and Grunewald. We found Judah B. Tallant there,--in
spite of the fact that it was a busy night for the Era; and Adolf Scherer
himself, in expansive mood, was filling the largest of the library
chairs. Mr. Watling was the least excited of them all; remarkably calm, I
thought, for a man on the verge of realizing his life's high ambition. He
had some old brandy, and a box of cigars he had been saving for an
occasion. He managed to convey to everyone his appreciation of the value
of their cooperation....
It was midnight before Mr. Scherer arose to take his departure. He seized
Mr. Watling's hand, warmly, in both of his own.
"I have never," he said, with a relapse into the German f's, "I have
never had a happier moment in my life, my friend, than when I
congratulate you on your success." His voice shook with emotion. "Alas,
we shall not see so much of you now."
"He'll be on guard, Scherer," said Leonard Dickinson, putting his arm
around my chief.
"Good night, Senator," said Tallant, and all echoed the word, which
struck me as peculiarly appropriate. Much as I had admired Mr. Watling
before, it seemed indeed as if he had undergone some subtle change in the
last few hours, gained in dignity and greatness by the action of the
people that day. When it came my turn to bid him good night, he retained
my hand in his.
"Don't go yet, Hugh," he said.
"But you must be tired," I objected.
"This sort of thing doesn't make a man tired," he laughed, leading me
back to the library, where he began to poke the fire into a blaze. "Sit
down awhile. You must be tired, I think,--you've worked hard in this
campaign, a good deal harder than I have. I haven't said much about it,
but I appreciate it, my boy." Mr. Watling had the gift of expressing his
feelings naturally, without sentimentality. I would have given much for
that gift.
"Oh, I liked it," I replied awkwardly.
I read a gentle amusement in his eyes, and also the expression of
something else, difficult to define. He had seated himself, and was
absently thrusting at the logs with the poker.
"You've never regretted going into law?" he asked suddenly, to my
surprise.
"Why, no, sir," I said.
"I'm glad to hear that. I feel, to a considerable extent, responsible for
your choice of a profession."
"My father intended me to be a lawyer," I told him. "But it's true that
you gave me my--my first enthusiasm."
He looked up at me at the word.
"I admired your father. He seemed to me to be everything that a lawyer
should be. And years ago, when I came to this city a raw country boy from
upstate, he represented and embodied for me all the fine traditions of
the profession. But the practice of law isn't what it was in his day,
Hugh."
"No," I agreed, "that could scarcely be expected."
"Yes, I believe you realize that," he said. "I've watched you, I've taken
a personal pride in you, and I have an idea that eventually you will
succeed me here--neither Fowndes nor Ripon have the peculiar ability you
have shown. You and I are alike in a great many respects, and I am
inclined to think we are rather rare, as men go. We are able to keep one
object vividly in view, so vividly as to be able to work for it day and
night. I could mention dozens who had and have more natural talent for
the law than I, more talent for politics than I. The same thing may be
said about you. I don't regard either of us as natural lawyers, such as
your father was. He couldn't help being a lawyer."
Here was new evidence of his perspicacity.
"But surely," I ventured, "you don't feel any regrets concerning your
career, Mr. Watling?"
"No," he said, "that's just the point. But no two of us are made wholly
alike. I hadn't practised law very long before I began to realize that
conditions were changing, that the new forces at work in our industrial
life made the older legal ideals impracticable. It was a case of choosing
between efficiency and inefficiency, and I chose efficiency. Well, that
was my own affair, but when it comes to influencing others--" He paused.
"I want you to see this as I do, not for the sake of justifying myself,
but because I honestly believe there is more to it than expediency,--a
good deal more. There's a weak way of looking at it, and a strong way.
And if I feel sure you understand it, I shall be satisfied.
"Because things are going to change in this country, Hugh. They are
changing, but they are going to change more. A man has got to make up his
mind what he believes in, and be ready to fight for it. We'll have to
fight for it, sooner perhaps than we realize. We are a nation divided
against ourselves; democracy--Jacksonian democracy, at all events, is a
flat failure, and we may as well acknowledge it. We have a political
system we have outgrown, and which, therefore, we have had to nullify.
There are certain needs, certain tendencies of development in nations as
well as in individuals,--needs stronger than the state, stronger than the
law or constitution. In order to make our resources effective,
combinations of capital are more and more necessary, and no more to be
denied than a chemical process, given the proper ingredients, can be
thwarted. The men who control capital must have a free hand, or the
structure will be destroyed. This compels us to do many things which we
would rather not do, which we might accomplish openly and unopposed if
conditions were frankly recognized, and met by wise statesmanship which
sought to bring about harmony by the reshaping of laws and policies. Do
you follow me?"
"Yes," I answered. "But I have never heard the situation stated so
clearly. Do you think the day will come when statesmanship will recognize
this need?"
"Ah," he said, "I'm afraid not--in my time, at least. But we shall have
to develop that kind of statesmen or go on the rocks. Public opinion in
the old democratic sense is a myth; it must be made by strong individuals
who recognize and represent evolutionary needs, otherwise it's at the
mercy of demagogues who play fast and loose with the prejudice and
ignorance of the mob. The people don't value the vote, they know nothing
about the real problems. So far as I can see, they are as easily swayed
to-day as the crowd that listened to Mark Antony's oration about Caesar.
You've seen how we have to handle them, in this election and--in other
matters. It isn't a pleasant practice, something we'd indulge in out of
choice, but the alternative is unthinkable. We'd have chaos in no time.
We've just got to keep hold, you understand--we can't leave it to the
irresponsible."
"Yes," I said. In this mood he was more impressive than I had ever known
him, and his confidence flattered and thrilled me.
"In the meantime, we're criminals," he continued. "From now on we'll have
to stand more and more denunciation from the visionaries, the
dissatisfied, the trouble makers. We may as well make up our minds to it.
But we've got something on our side worth fighting for, and the man who
is able to make that clear will be great."
"But you--you are going to the Senate," I reminded him.
He shook his head.
"The time has not yet come," he said. "Confusion and misunderstanding
must increase before they can diminish. But I have hopes of you, Hugh, or
I shouldn't have spoken. I shan't be here now--of course I'll keep in
touch with you. I wanted to be sure that you had the right view of this
thing."
"I see it now," I said. "I had thought of it, but never--never as a
whole--not in the large sense in which you have expressed it." To attempt
to acknowledge or deprecate the compliment he had paid me was impossible;
I felt that he must have read my gratitude and appreciation in my manner.
"I mustn't keep you up until morning." He glanced at the clock, and went
with me through the hall into the open air. A meteor darted through the
November night. "We're like that," he observed, staring after it, a
"flash across the darkness, and we're gone."
"Only--there are many who haven't the satisfaction of a flash," I was
moved to reply.
He laughed and put his hand on my shoulder as he bade me good night.
"Hugh, you ought to get married. I'll have to find a nice girl for you,"
he said. With an elation not unmingled with awe I made my way homeward.
Theodore Watling had given me a creed.
A week or so after the election I received a letter from George Hutchins
asking me to come to Elkington. I shall not enter into the details of the
legal matter involved. Many times that winter I was a guest at the
yellow-brick house, and I have to confess, as spring came on, that I made
several trips to Elkington which business necessity did not absolutely
demand.
I considered Maude Hutchins, and found the consideration rather a
delightful process. As became an eligible and successful young man, I was
careful not to betray too much interest; and I occupied myself at first
with a review of what I deemed her shortcomings. Not that I was thinking
of marriage--but I had imagined the future Mrs. Paret as tall; Maude was
up to my chin: again, the hair of the fortunate lady was to be dark, and
Maude's was golden red: my ideal had esprit, lightness of touch, the
faculty of seizing just the aspect of a subject that delighted me, and a
knowledge of the world; Maude was simple, direct, and in a word
provincial. Her provinciality, however, was negative rather than
positive, she had no disagreeable mannerisms, her voice was not nasal;
her plasticity appealed to me. I suppose I was lost without knowing it
when I began to think of moulding her.
All of this went on at frequent intervals during the winter, and while I
was organizing the Elkington Power and Traction Company for George I
found time to dine and sup at Maude's house, and to take walks with her.
I thought I detected an incense deliciously sweet; by no means
overpowering, like the lily's, but more like the shy fragrance of the
wood flower. I recall her kind welcomes, the faint deepening of colour in
her cheeks when she greeted me, and while I suspected that she looked up
to me she had a surprising and tantalizing self-command.
There came moments when I grew slightly alarmed, as, for instance, one
Sunday in the early spring when I was dining at the Ezra Hutchins's house
and surprised Mrs. Hutchins's glance on me, suspecting her of seeking to
divine what manner of man I was. I became self-conscious; I dared not
look at Maude, who sat across the table; thereafter I began to feel that
the Hutchins connection regarded me as a suitor. I had grown intimate
with George and his wife, who did not refrain from sly allusions; and
George himself once remarked, with characteristic tact, that I was most
conscientious in my attention to the traction affair; I have reason to
believe they were even less delicate with Maude. This was the logical
time to withdraw--but I dallied. The experience was becoming more
engrossing,--if I may so describe it,--and spring was approaching. The
stars in their courses were conspiring. I was by no means as yet a
self-acknowledged wooer, and we discussed love in its lighter phases
through the medium of literature. Heaven forgive me for calling it so!
About that period, it will be remembered, a mushroom growth of volumes of
a certain kind sprang into existence; little books with "artistic"
bindings and wide margins, sweetened essays, some of them written in
beautiful English by dilettante authors for drawing-room consumption; and
collections of short stories, no doubt chiefly bought by philanderers
like myself, who were thus enabled to skate on thin ice over deep water.
It was a most delightful relationship that these helped to support, and I
fondly believed I could reach shore again whenever I chose.
There came a Sunday in early May, one of those days when the feminine
assumes a large importance. I had been to the Hutchinses' church; and
Maude, as she sat and prayed decorously in the pew beside me, suddenly
increased in attractiveness and desirability. Her voice was very sweet,
and I felt a delicious and languorous thrill which I identified not only
with love, but also with a reviving spirituality. How often the two seem
to go hand in hand!
She wore a dress of a filmy material, mauve, with a design in gold thread
running through it. Of late, it seemed, she had had more new dresses: and
their modes seemed more cosmopolitan; at least to the masculine eye. How
delicately her hair grew, in little, shining wisps, around her white
neck! I could have reached out my hand and touched her. And it was this
desire,--although by no means overwhelming,--that startled me. Did I
really want her? The consideration of this vital question occupied the
whole time of the sermon; made me distrait at dinner,--a large family
gathering. Later I found myself alone with heron a bench in the
Hutchinses' garden where we had walked the day of my arrival, during the
campaign.
The gardens were very different, now. The trees had burst forth again
into leaf, the spiraea bushes seemed weighted down with snow, and with a
note like that of the quivering bass string of a 'cello the bees hummed
among the fruit blossoms. And there beside me in her filmy dress was
Maude, a part of it all--the meaning of all that set my being clamouring.
She was like some ripened, delicious flower ready to be picked.... One of
those pernicious, make-believe volumes had fallen on the bench between
us, for I could not read any more; I could not think; I touched her hand,
and when she drew it gently away I glanced at her. Reason made a valiant
but hopeless effort to assert itself. Was I sure that I wanted her--for
life? No use! I wanted her now, no matter what price that future might
demand. An awkward silence fell between us--awkward to me, at least--and
I, her guide and mentor, became banal, apologetic, confused. I made some
idiotic remark about being together in the Garden of Eden.
"I remember Mr. Doddridge saying in Bible class that it was supposed to
be on the Euphrates," she replied. "But it's been destroyed by the
flood."
"Let's make another--one of our own," I suggested.
"Why, how silly you are this afternoon."
"What's to prevent us--Maude?" I demanded, with a dry throat.
"Nonsense!" she laughed. In proportion as I lost poise she seemed to gain
it.
"It's not nonsense," I faltered. "If we were married."
At last the fateful words were pronounced--irrevocably. And, instead of
qualms, I felt nothing but relief, joy that I had been swept along by the
flood of feeling. She did not look at me, but gazed straight ahead of
her.
"If I love you, Maude?" I stammered, after a moment.
"But I don't love you," she replied, steadily.
Never in my life had I been so utterly taken aback.
"Do you mean," I managed to say, "that after all these months you don't
like me a little?"
"'Liking' isn't loving." She looked me full in the face. "I like you very
much."
"But--" there I stopped, paralyzed by what appeared to me the
quintessence of feminine inconsistency and caprice. Yet, as I stared at
her, she certainly did not appear capricious. It is not too much to say
that I was fairly astounded at this evidence of self-command and
decision, of the strength of mind to refuse me. Was it possible that she
had felt nothing and I all? I got to my feet.
"I hate to hurt your feelings," I heard her say. "I'm very sorry."... She
looked up at me. Afterwards, when reflecting on the scene, I seemed to
remember that there were tears in her eyes. I was not in a condition to
appreciate her splendid sincerity. I was overwhelmed and inarticulate. I
left her there, on the bench, and went back to George's, announcing my
intention of taking the five o'clock train....
Maude Hutchins had become, at a stroke, the most desirable of women. I
have often wondered how I should have felt on that five-hour journey back
to the city if she had fallen into my arms! I should have persuaded
myself, no doubt, that I had not done a foolish thing in yielding to an
impulse and proposing to an inexperienced and provincial young woman, yet
there would have been regrets in the background. Too deeply chagrined to
see any humour in the situation, I settled down in a Pullman seat and
went over and over again the event of that afternoon until the train
reached the city.
As the days wore on, and I attended to my cases, I thought of Maude a
great deal, and in those moments when the pressure of business was
relaxed, she obsessed me. She must love me,--only she did not realize it.
That was the secret! Her value had risen amazingly, become supreme; the
very act of refusing me had emphasized her qualifications as a wife, and
I now desired her with all the intensity of a nature which had been
permitted always to achieve its objects. The inevitable process of
idealization began. In dusty offices I recalled her freshness as she had
sat beside me in the garden,--the freshness of a flower; with Berkeleyan
subjectivism I clothed the flower with colour, bestowed it with
fragrance. I conferred on Maude all the gifts and graces that woman had
possessed since the creation. And I recalled, with mingled bitterness and
tenderness, the turn of her head, the down on her neck, the half-revealed
curve of her arm.... In spite of the growing sordidness of Lyme Street,
my mother and I still lived in the old house, for which she very
naturally had a sentiment. In vain I had urged her from time to time to
move out into a brighter and fresher neighbourhood. It would be time
enough, she said, when I was married.
"If you wait for that, mother," I answered, "we shall spend the rest of
our lives here."
"I shall spend the rest of my life here," she would declare. "But
you--you have your life before you, my dear. You would be so much more
contented if--if you could find some nice girl. I think you live--too
feverishly."
I do not know whether or not she suspected me of being in love, nor
indeed how much she read of me in other ways. I did not confide in her,
nor did it strike me that she might have yearned for confidences; though
sometimes, when I dined at home, I surprised her gentle face--framed now
with white hair--lifted wistfully toward me across the table. Our
relationship, indeed, was a pathetic projection of that which had existed
in my childhood; we had never been confidants then. The world in which I
lived and fought, of great transactions and merciless consequences
frightened her; her own world was more limited than ever. She heard
disquieting things, I am sure, from Cousin Robert Breck, who had become
more and more querulous since the time-honoured firm of Breck and Company
had been forced to close its doors and the home at Claremore had been
sold. My mother often spent the day in the scrolled suburban cottage with
the coloured glass front door where he lived with the Kinleys and
Helen....
If my mother suspected that I was anticipating marriage, and said
nothing, Nancy Durrett suspected and spoke out.
Life is such a curious succession of contradictions and surprises that I
record here without comment the fact that I was seeing much more of Nancy
since her marriage than I had in the years preceding it. A comradeship
existed between us. I often dined at her house and had fallen into the
habit of stopping there frequently on my way home in the evening. Ham did
not seem to mind. What was clear, at any rate, was that Nancy, before
marriage, had exacted some sort of an understanding by which her
"freedom" was not to be interfered with. She was the first among us of
the "modern wives."
Ham, whose heartstrings and purse-strings were oddly intertwined, had
stipulated that they were to occupy the old Durrett mansion; but when
Nancy had made it "livable," as she expressed it, he is said to have
remarked that he might as well have built a new house and been done with
it. Not even old Nathaniel himself would have recognized his home when
Nancy finished what she termed furnishing: out went the horsehair, the
hideous chandeliers, the stuffy books, the Recamier statuary, and an army
of upholsterers, wood-workers, etc., from Boston and New York invaded the
place. The old mahogany doors were spared, but matched now by Chippendale
and Sheraton; the new, polished floors were covered with Oriental rugs,
the dreary Durrett pictures replaced by good canvases and tapestries.
Nancy had what amounted to a genius for interior effects, and she was the
first to introduce among us the luxury that was to grow more and more
prevalent as our wealth increased by leaps and bounds. Only Nancy's
luxury, though lavish, was never vulgar, and her house when completed had
rather marvellously the fine distinction of some old London mansion
filled with the best that generations could contribute. It left Mrs.
Frederick Grierson--whose residence on the Heights had hitherto been our
"grandest"--breathless with despair.
With characteristic audacity Nancy had chosen old Nathaniel's sanctum for
her particular salon, into which Ham himself did not dare to venture
without invitation. It was hung in Pompeiian red and had a little
wrought-iron balcony projecting over the yard, now transformed by an
expert into a garden. When I had first entered this room after the
metamorphosis had taken place I inquired after the tombstone mantel.
"Oh, I've pulled it up by the roots," she said.
"Aren't you afraid of ghosts?" I inquired.
"Do I look it?" she asked. And I confessed that she didn't. Indeed, all
ghosts were laid, nor was there about her the slightest evidence of
mourning or regret. One was forced to acknowledge her perfection in the
part she had chosen as the arbitress of social honours. The candidates
were rapidly increasing; almost every month, it seemed, someone turned up
with a fortune and the aspirations that go with it, and it was Mrs.
Durrett who decided the delicate question of fitness. With these, and
with the world at large, her manner might best be described as difficult;
and I was often amused at the way in which she contrived to keep them at
arm's length and make them uncomfortable. With her intimates--of whom
there were few--she was frank.
"I suppose you enjoy it," I said to her once.
"Of course I enjoy it, or I shouldn't do it," she retorted. "It isn't the
real thing, as I told you once. But none of us gets the real thing. It's
power.... Just as you enjoy what you're doing--sorting out the unfit.
It's a game, it keeps us from brooding over things we can't help. And
after all, when we have good appetites and are fairly happy, why should
we complain?"
"I'm not complaining," I said, taking up a cigarette, "since I still
enjoy your favour."
She regarded me curiously.
"And when you get married, Hugh?"
"Sufficient unto the day," I replied.
"How shall I get along, I wonder, with that simple and unsophisticated
lady when she appears?"
"Well," I said, "you wouldn't marry me."
She shook her head at me, and smiled....
"No," she corrected me, "you like me better as Hams' wife than you would
have as your own."
I merely laughed at this remark.... It would indeed have been difficult
to analyze the new relationship that had sprung up between us, to say
what elements composed it. The roots of it went back to the beginning of
our lives; and there was much of sentiment in it, no doubt. She
understood me as no one else in the world understood me, and she was fond
of me in spite of it.
Hence, when I became infatuated with Maude Hutchins, after that Sunday
when she so unexpectedly had refused me, I might have known that Nancy's
suspicions would be aroused. She startled me by accusing me, out of a
clear sky, of being in love. I denied it a little too emphatically.
"Why shouldn't you tell me, Hugh, if it's so?" she asked. "I didn't
hesitate to tell you."
It was just before her departure for the East to spend the summer. We
were on the balcony, shaded by the big maple that grew at the end of the
garden.
"But there's nothing to tell," I insisted.
She lay back in her chair, regarding me.
"Did you think that I'd be jealous?"
"There's nothing to be jealous about."
"I've always expected you to get married, Hugh. I've even predicted the
type."
She had, in truth, with an accuracy almost uncanny.
"The only thing I'm afraid of is that she won't like me. She lives in
that place you've been going to so much, lately,--doesn't she?"
Of course she had put two and two together, my visits to Elkington and my
manner, which I had flattered myself had not been distrait. On the chance
that she knew more, from some source, I changed my tactics.
"I suppose you mean Maude Hutchins," I said.
Nancy laughed.
"So that's her name!"
"It's the name of a girl in Elkington. I've been doing legal work for the
Hutchinses, and I imagine some idiot has been gossiping. She's just a
young girl--much too young for me."
"Men are queer creatures," she declared. "Did you think I should be
jealous?"
It was exactly what I had thought, but I denied it.
"Why should you be--even if there were anything to be jealous about? You
didn't consult me when you got married. You merely announced an
irrevocable decision."
Nancy leaned forward and laid her hand on my arm.
"My dear," she said, "strange as it may seem, I want you to be happy. I
don't want you to make a mistake, Hugh, too great a mistake."
I was surprised and moved. Once more I had a momentary glimpse of the
real Nancy....
Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Ralph Hambleton....