"It"s been the joy of these terrible years, knowing that you were here in the world accomplishing what you were born to do! And that I had a little--oh, such a little!--share in helping you do it. Poor I, who have never done anything worth while!"
"It seems queer that a woman should set so much store on what a man does."
"It"s beyond a man"s power to know that! But try to think what you would be if you were a helpless cripple, tied to your chair. Don"t you suppose that when some strong, handsome athlete came your way with all his health, you would admire him, get interested in him, and like to watch those muscles at work, just the muscles you couldn"t use? I think so.
And if a good fate put it in your power to help him--you, the poor cripple in your chair--help him to win his race, wouldn"t you be thankful? I can tell you that one cripple blesses you because you are you--a man!"
The excitement of her feelings brought back the dark glow to her face, and made her beautiful once more. Ideas seemed to burn away the faded look and gave her the power that pa.s.sion gives ordinary women.
"You and I think alike, I love to believe. Start us from the two Poles, and we would meet midway. We are not little people, thank G.o.d, you and I. We did not make a mess of our lives! My friend, it is good to know that," she ended softly.
"Yes," I admitted, understanding what she meant. "We parted."
"We parted! We lived a thousand miles from one another. What matters it?
I said to myself each day: "Out there, in the world, lives a man who thinks and acts and feels as I would have a man think and act and feel.
He is not far away.""
She laid a hand lightly on my arm and smiled. And we were silent until the voices of the others in the hall above reminded us of the present.
Jane rose, and her face had faded once more into its usual calm.
"You are thinking of moving to New York? What for?"
I spoke of my new work--the checker-board that had been under discussion all day at the bankers".
"You are rich enough," she remarked. "That means so many millions more to your account."
"No, not just that," I protested. "It"s the solution to the little puzzle you and I were working at over the atlas in your library that day years ago. It is like a problem in human physics: there were obstacles in the way, but the result was sure from the start."
"But you are near the end of it--and then what?"
"I suppose there will be others!" After a time I added, half to myself: "But there"s no happiness in it. There is no happiness."
"Do you look for happiness? That is for children!"
"Then what is the end of it?"
For of a sudden the spring of my energies was slackened within me, and the work that I was doing seemed senseless. Somehow a man"s happiness had slipped past me on the road, and now I missed it. There was the joy we might have had, she and I, and we had not taken it. Had we been fools to put it aside? She answered my thoughts.
"We did not want it! Remember we did not want that! Don"t let me think that, after all, you regret! I could not stand that--no woman could bear it."
Her voice was like a cry to my soul. On the stairs above Mr. Dround was saying to Sarah:--
"No, I much prefer our Chicago style of building, with large lots, where you can get sunshine on all four sides. It is more healthy, don"t you think, Mrs. Harrington?"
And Sarah answered:--
"Yes, I quite agree with you, Mr. Dround. I don"t like this house at all--it"s too dark. We shall have to look farther, I guess."
Jane turned her face to mine. Her eyes were filled with tears, and her mouth trembled. "Don"t regret--anything," she whispered. "We have had so much!"
"Van," Sarah called from the stairs, "you haven"t seen the house! But it isn"t worth while. I am sure we shouldn"t like it."
"You mustn"t look for your Chicago garden on Fifth Avenue," Mrs. Dround laughed.
As we left the house, Sarah turned to Jane and asked her to come back with us to the hotel for dinner. But the Drounds had an engagement for the evening, and so an appointment was made for the day following to dine together. When we had said good-by and were in the carriage, Sarah remarked reflectively:--
"Jane looks like an old woman--don"t you think so, Van?"
CHAPTER XXVIII
A NEW AMBITION
_Jane Dround points the way again--The shoes of Parkinson and the senatorial toga--Strauss is dead--Business or politics?--A dream of wealth--The family sail for Europe_
"I am writing Sarah that after all we cannot dine with you. My husband is restless and feels that we must leave for the West to-night. It was very sweet of Sarah to want us, but after all perhaps it is just as well. We shall see you both soon, I am sure....
"But there is something I want to say to you--something that has been on my mind all the long hours since our meeting. Those brief moments yesterday I felt that all was not well with you, my friend. Your eyes had a restless demand that I never saw in them before. I suspect that you are beginning to know that Success is nothing but a mirage, fading before our eyes from stage to stage. You have accomplished all and more than you planned that afternoon when we hung over the atlas together.
You are rich now, very rich. You are a Power in the world,--yes, you are,--not yet a very great planet, but one that is rapidly swinging higher into the zenith. You must be reckoned with! My good Jules keeps me informed, you see. If you keep your hold in these new enterprises, you will double your fortune many times, and before long you will be one of the masters--one of the little group who really control our times, our country. Yet--I wonder--yes, my doubt has grown so large since I saw you that it moves me to write all this.... Will _that_ be enough? Mere wealth, mere power of that kind, will it satisfy?... It is hard enough to tell what _will satisfy_; but there are other things--other worlds than your world of money power. But I take your time with my woman"s nonsense--forgive me!
"I hear from a good authority in Washington that our old Senator Parkinson is really on his last legs. That illness of his this spring, which they tried to keep quiet, was really a stroke, and it will be a miracle if he lasts another winter. Did you know him? He was a queer old farmer sort of politician. His successor, I fancy, will be some one quite different. That type of statesman has had its day! _There_ is a career, now, if a man wanted it!... Why not think of it?
"Good-by, my friend. I had almost forgotten, as I forgot yesterday, to thank you for making me so rich! Mr. Carb.o.n.e.r cabled me the terms of your settlement with Strauss. They were wicked!
"JANE DROUND.
"It would not be the most difficult thing in the world to capture Parkinson"s seat--if one were willing to pay the price!"
The idea of slipping into old Parkinson"s shoes made me laugh. It was a bit of feminine extravagance. Nevertheless this letter gave me food for thought. Jane was right enough in saying that my wonderful success had not brought me all the satisfaction that it should. Now that the problems I had labored over were working themselves out to the plain solution of dollars and cents, the zest of the matter was oozing away.
To be sure, there was prospect of some excitement to be had in the railroad enterprises of the Morris Brothers, although it was merest flattery to say that my position counted for much as yet in that mighty game. Did I want to make it count?
I sipped my morning coffee and listened to Sarah"s talk. Beyond business, what was there for me? There was our place down in Vermilion County, Illinois. But stock-farming was an old man"s recreation. I might become a collector like Mr. Dround, roaming about Europe, buying old stuff to put in a house or give to a museum. But I was too ignorant for that kind of play. And philanthropy? Well, in time, perhaps when I knew what was best to give folks, which isn"t as simple as it might seem.
"I am sorry the Drounds couldn"t come," Sarah was saying, glancing at Jane"s note to her. "I liked Jane better yesterday than ever before--she looked so worn and kind of miserable. I don"t believe she can be happy, Van."
"Well, she didn"t say so!" I replied....
Yes, I knew Senator Parkinson--a sly, tricky politician, for all his simple farmer ways. He was not what is called a railroad Senator, but the railroads never had much trouble with him....
Before we had finished our breakfast Carmichael sent up word that he must see me, and I hurried down to the lobby of the hotel. He met me at the elevator and drew me aside, saying abruptly:--
"The old man is dead! Just got a wire from Chicago--apoplexy. I must get back there at once."
Strauss dead! The news did not come home to me all at once. His was not just like any other death. From the day when the old packer had first come within my sight he had loomed big and savage on my horizon, and around him, somehow, my life had revolved for years. I hated him. I hated his tricky, wolfish ways, his hog-it-all policy; I despised his mean, unpatriotic character. Yet his going was like the breaking of some great wheel at the centre of industry.