"Nellie," he said, "things are picking up."
Nellie laid her nose on his knee and looked up at him. It had been a long ride, and she was glad they were on the homeward stretch. But she wagged her tail. Nellie knew when things were going well with her master. And when his world went wrong, her sky darkened.
III
The sale of one car, however, does not make a fortune. Randy realized as the days went on that if he sold them and sold them and sold them, Dalton would still outdistance him financially.
There remained, therefore, fame, and the story in the back of his mind.
If he could lay a thing like that at Becky"s feet! He had the lover"s urge towards some heaven-kissing act which should exalt his mistress---- A book for all the world to read--a picture painted with a flaming brush, a statue carved with a magic instrument. It was for Becky that Randy would work and strive hoping that by some divine chance he might draw her to him.
He worked at night until the Major finally remonstrated.
"Do you ever go to bed?"
Randy laughed. "Sometimes."
"Are you writing?"
"Trying to."
"Hard work?"
"I like it,"--succinctly.
The Major smoked for a while in silence. Then he said, "I suppose you don"t want to talk about it."
It was a starry night and a still one. The younger boarders had gone for a ride. The older boarders were in bed. The Major was stretched in his long chair. Randy sat as usual on the steps.
"Yes," he said, "I"d like to talk about it. I have a big idea, and I can"t put it on paper."
He hugged his knees and talked. His young voice thrilled with the majesty of his conception. Here, he said, was the idea. Once upon a time there had been a race of wonderful swans, with plumage so white that when they rested in flocks on the river banks they made a blanket of snow. Their night was a marvellous thing--they flew so high that the eye of man could not see them--but the sound of their trumpets could be heard. The years pa.s.sed and the swans came no more to their old haunts. Men had hunted them and killed them--but there were those who held that on still nights they could be heard--sounding their trumpets----
"I want to link that up with the A. E. F. We were like the swans--a white company which flew to France---- Our idealism was the song which we sounded high up. And the world listened--and caught the sound---- And now, as a body we are extinct, but if men will listen, they may still hear our trumpets--sounding----!"
As he spoke the air seemed to throb with the pa.s.sion of his phrases.
His face was uplifted to the sky. The Major remembered a picture in the corridor of the Library of Congress--the Boy of Winander---- Oh, the boys of the world--those wonderful boys who had been drawn out from among the rest, set apart for a time, and in whose hands now rested the fate of nations!
"It is epic," he said, slowly. "Take your time for it."
"It"s too big," said Randy slowly, "and I am not a genius---- But it is my idea, all right, and some day, perhaps, I shall make it go."
"You must make it clear to yourself. Then you can make it clear to others."
"Yes," Randy agreed, "and now you can see why I am sitting up nights."
"Yes. How did you happen to think of it, Paine?"
"I"ve been turning a lot of things over in my mind----; what the other fellows are doing about their jobs. There"s that boy at the butcher"s, and a lot of us went over to do big things. And now we have come back to the little things. Why, there"s Dalton"s valet--Kemp--taking orders from that--cad."
His scorn seemed to cut into the night. "And I am selling cars---- I sold one to-day to an old darkey, and I felt my grandsires turn in their graves. But I like it."
The Major sat up. "Your liking it is the biggest thing about you, Paine."
"What do you mean?"
"A man who can do his day"s work and not whine about it, is the man that counts. That butcher"s boy may have a soul above weighing meat and wrapping sausages, but at the moment that"s his job, and he is doing it well. There may be a divine discontent, but I respect the man who keeps his mouth shut until he finds a remedy or a raise.
"I don"t often speak of myself," he went on, "but perhaps this is the moment. I am as thirsty for California, Paine, as a man for drink. It is the dry season out there, and the hills are brown, but I love the brown, and the purple shadows in the hollows. I have ridden over those hills for days at a time,--I shall never ride a horse over them again."
He stopped and went on. "Oh, I"ve wanted to whine. I have wanted to curse the fate that tied me to a chair like this. I have been an active man--out-of-doors, and oh, the out-of-doors in California.
There isn"t anything like it--it is the sense of s.p.a.ce, the clear-cut look of things. But I won"t go back. Not till I have learned to do my day"s work, and then I will let myself play a bit. I"d like to take you with me, Paine--you and a good car--and we"d go over the hills and far away----
"I haven"t told you much of my life. And there"s not a great deal to tell. Fifteen years ago I married a little girl and thought I loved her. But what I really loved was the thought of doing things for her.
I had money and she was poor. It was pleasant to see her eyes shine when I gave her things---- But money hasn"t anything to do with love, Paine, and that is where we American men fall down. When we love a woman we begin to tell her of our possessions and to tempt her by them.
And the thing that we should do is to show her ourselves. We should say, "If I were stripped of all my worldly goods what would there be in me for you to like?" My little wife and I had not one thing in common.
And one day she left me. She found a man who gave her love for love.
I had given her cars and flowers and boxes of candy and diamonds and furs. But she wanted more than that. She died--two years ago. I think she had been happy in those last years. I never really loved her, but she taught me what love is--and it is not a question of barter and sale----"
He seemed to be thinking aloud. Randy spoke after a silence. "But a man must have something to offer a woman."
"He must have himself. Oh, we are all crooked in our values, Paine.
The best that a man can give a woman is his courage, his hope, his aspiration. That"s enough. I learned it too late. I don"t know why I am saying all this to you, Paine."
But Randy knew. It was on such nights that men showed their souls to each other. It was on such nights that his comrades had talked to him in France. Under the moon they had seemed self-conscious. But beneath a sky of stars, the words had come to them.
As he sat at his desk later, he thought of all that the Major had said to him: that possessions had nothing to do with love; that the test must be, "What would there be in me to like if I were stripped of all my worldly goods?"
Well, he had nothing. There were only his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations--himself.
Would these weigh with any woman in the balance against George Dalton"s splendid trappings?
The dawn crept in and found him still sitting at his desk. He had not written a dozen lines. But his thoughts had been the long, long thoughts of youth.
CHAPTER VI
GEORGIE-PORGIE
I
It would never have happened if Aunt Claudia had been there. Aunt Claudia would have built hedges about Becky. She would have warned the Judge. She would, as a last resort, have challenged Dalton. But Fate, which had Becky"s future well in hand, had sent Aunt Claudia to meet Truxton in New York. And she was having the time of her life.
Her first letter was a revelation to her niece. "I didn"t know," she told the Judge at breakfast, "that Aunt Claudia could be like this----"
"Like what?"