35

Though Allan had had some idea of the vast interlocking management of a great railway company, he realized, as the years passed, that his original conception had been very restricted and narrow. Each railroad was an empire, complete in itself. There was the president, the treasurer, and the secretary (now himself, in 1895). Below these personages was the board of directors, elected by the stockholders at annual meetings. There were seemingly endless departments, interlocking yet independent, each under the charge of a vice-president. The operating department was headed by a vice-president and general manager, to whom were entrusted the maintenance of ways, structures, and equipment, the operation of yards, trains, and stations. The traffic department was directed by a vice-president and traffic manager, empowered to fix rates and solicit traffic. Allan remained the head of the legal department, which furnished advice to the officers of the board, the president, and all other officers of all other departments, dealt with the regulatory authority, instituted any legal proceedings, and handled claims against the company. A vicepresident headed the department of accounting and finance, assisted by one or two general auditors, and a treasurer. This department had full control of funds and made disbursements drawn by authorized officers and approved by comptrollers. Purchasing agents, storekeepers, general managers, comptrollers, chief engineers, assigned to construction and the formulation of standards and instructions governing maintenance of way and structures, were part of the beehive which created the golden combs of the company, not to mention vice-presidents in charge of personnel, an executive in charge of public relations and the study of the views of changing politicians.

These men were the hierarchy. But the Interstate Railroad Company, like its sister railroads, was divided into districts, for operating purposes, and each district was partitioned into divisions. So there were general superintendents and division superintendents, division engineers, division master mechanics, trainmasters, station agents, and yardmasters.

This tremendous structure was almost self-operating, and needed Rufus deWitt’s attention only occasionally, for authority was delegated and assigned only to the most competent men. However, as head of the constantly expanding legal staff, Allan, as secretary, was the keeper of the corporate records, and attended meetings of the board and the annual meetings of the company. Grimly conscientious as he was in matters of business, it was hard for him to delegate responsibility, and his natural mistrust of the intelligence and integrity of others prevented him from enjoying the lighter aspects of personal living. Though never underestimating the perspicacity and power of Rufus deWitt, it seemed to him that his father-in-law was sometimes unduly casual about the empire he controlled, and he often found it hard to arouse Rufus to any anxiety or alarm.

“But, my dear boy,” Rufus would sometimes say with indulgence, “we have a veritable kingdom here, run by princes and nobles and lesser men. I can’t keep my finger on every damned yardmaster and little lawyer or vice-president or chief engineer or general manager. When my father started out, with about two dozen men, and when I was a boy, things were simpler. You could be everywhere at once. Everything was under your eye and your hand. It is different now.” He would twinkle at Allan. “Suppose, for instance, I examined every little voucher for whistles or bells. Suppose, for instance, I scrutinized every small decision by our immense legal staff, and consulted with you on every item? You see how absure it all is! Important decisions? We have important men handling them. When it comes, however, to major matters, I am right there, as president of the board. Are you trying to kill yourself, by any chance?”

In 1894 Allan had a collapse, and was ill for three months. He was ordered to Europe for a long rest and “complete relaxation.” He went—for six weeks. When he returned, Rufus noted that he appeared to have gained “Some sense.” He drove himself, as always, but he had become more indifferent to details. This determined attitude was, in itself, a strain on his temperament. “You are only a man,” Rufus said affectionately. “You will notice that the railroad did not disintegrate during your absence, and that while some of the more important legal matters awaited your return, the country did not fall apart while they waited.”

“An organism without a head will sometimes decay,” Allan replied.

“But not a hydra-headed organism, each complete and self-operating. Remember that every man we have is working solely for his own advantage, and in doing so he is working expertly for the company. That is the unassailable structure of free enterprise, and that is why privately owned industries will always be run efficiently, and as economically as possible. Each man working as best he can for himself inadvertently works best for all other men. Self-interest leads to universal improvement. This is the most irrefutable argument against those idealists and irresponsibles who declare that men should be, and can be, induced to ignore their own immediate interests in favor of what they call ‘the welfare of everybody.’ The profit motive, the self-interest motive, has given us what civilization we possess. Man must always have inspiration to accomplish anything, and if he has no rewards he will have no inspiration. And that brings us, as usual, to Pat Peale. You will notice that though he is a member of the board he does not usually challenge anything which would challenge his own fortune.”

“At one time,” said Allan doubtfully, “he was a selfless reformer and a fighter for what he calls ‘human rights’ as opposed to what he calls ‘exploitation.’ I wonder what happened to him?”

“You did,” said Rufus, smiling. “You exposed to him his fundamental self-serving, which is natural to all men. And that is why he hates you.”

“I'm glad he is out of the Senate,” said Allan, nodding. “But he broods, now. He is becoming increasingly silent and sullen and arbitrary. His children detest him. And Laura. …”

“Ah, yes, Laura,” said Rufus, his ruddy face darkening. “she is not what I would call happy. I have asked her. She says Patrick has ‘changed.’ He is bad-tempered, at times, dogmatic and immovable, sometimes rigid with the children, sometimes maudlin.” Rufus began to laugh. “I remember the occasion when he was orating about ‘the people,’ and you brought his attention to the fact that he, too, is one of ‘the people.’ He was offended and outraged, and denied it. You never told me. …”

Allan only smiled. “By the way, sir, you know he is backing that radical newspaper in New York, called The Proletariat? Is that another example of his desperate attempts to evade reality, and evade acknowledging he is no better than other men? Or is it vindictiveness?”

“It is both of them. You will notice that though he heads charitable organizations, and works for them, he gives little of his own money. He hounds other rich men for contributions, however. I have noticed, too, that he has become much more frenetic since he withdrew that old amendment to the act regulating railroads. It was a long time ago. I suppose you won’t tell me. …”

Allan smiled again wryly. “Well,” said Rufus, “he never goes to see his father any more. The poor old man. I am glad you are kind to him, and visit him.”

“Pat,” said Allan, “is full of vengefulness. You may laugh at him, sir, but I think of him as a volcano. He might, sometime in the future, become desperately dangerous.”

Allan Marshall loved his children wisely as well as devotedly. If he had a favorite at all it was the girl, Dolores. Cornelia regarded her two sons and her daughter with mingled amusement, good-temper, impatience, and affectionate dislike. She found them, in her self-centered lust for life, boring and uninteresting. “I’m not fascinated by prattle,” she would say. “I have enough of it from Estelle, who grows more childish as she grows older, and then, of course, I had my brothers. Read the children fairy tales, if you want to, dear Allan, and talk to them, and drive them about the whole damned country. But don’t try to inspire devotion in me for them. Incidentally, though Dolores is only seven she has all the delicate, angular, and little gestures of a born old maid. She will probably cost us a couple of million dollars to marry her off. And Tony is almost as bad as she. I can stand DeWitt easier than I can stand the twins.

DeWitt, five years old, sometimes made Allan uneasy. He was small, very dark, quiet and penetrating, and very cold and peremptory. There was a stiffness about him, a certain sharpness, which Cornelia would declare he had inherited from his father. Black-eyed, possessed of straight black hair and pointed features, skeptical even at his very young age, disdainful of his older brother and his sister, whom he called “softies,” he was hard, at times, to love.

Rufus Anthony, or Tony, was brilliant and discerning, and had a subtlety beyond his years. He might be a little too gentle, a little too devoted to his twin sister, a little too grave about his responsibilities to others, a little too prone to be hurt by a casually brutal word or act. But he was not effeminate; he was not too bookish, though at seven he read many adult books, and he was an excellent scholar. Too, he was tall, slender, strong, and healthy, and when his rights were challenged, he could fight, and win over, any of his playmates, of whom he had many in Portersville and New York and Newport. Other boys respected him and courted him, and admired his mastery over horses and boats and his skill at sports. His amazing good looks never inspired envy, which was a remarkable thing, for he had softly curling hair the color of old silver and beautiful eyes of so pale a blue that they looked crystalline in sunlight.

Dolores, his beloved twin sister, was so like her brother that only her long and flowing hair, only the slight dimple in her right cheek, only her feminine ways, distinguished her from him. Allan would hold her in his arms, fondle her almost fiercely, murmur incoherent words of adoration into her ears. Though he loved DeWitt (with conscious effort), he was frequently angered by the little boy’s contempt for Dolores, against which she had no defense.

As usual, Allan and Cornelia and the children always spent two or three weeks in the summer in the house at Portersville. Allan worked furiously during this time, but he gave many hours to his children while Cornelia visited, sat in the gardens, planned her wardrobe for the season in New York and on the Riviera, and wandered through the rooms of the great house with all her childhood affection. If she happened on her children accidentally, she would hurry away as fast as possible. She went often to the Portersville offices of the company, and sat in on the drowsy summer meetings of the board of directors, and in a common-sense and practical way, gave her opinion, which was invariably received with the deepest attention and respect. It seemed to Allan that she was treated even more deferentially than he, but he had to admit that she had an astuteness at times beyond his own. There she would sit in a tall chair, a little back from the long table, flamboyantly beautiful and stylish in her white linen suits and high lace shirtwaists, her red hair partially covered by wide flower-filled hats, her gloved hands tense on her purse, her hazel eyes quick and discerning and blazing with life and intelligence. There was nothing she did not know about the company. Her remarks and suggestions were incorporated into the minutes of the board, and usually acted upon. Her loud voice, when she spoke, dominated the men. If, at twenty-nine, her features had become harder and more predatory, and if there was a sharp line between her eyes, she was still striking and full of fascination and power.

She listened to Allan with thoughtfulness and attention, and if she disagreed, it was a disagreement between equals. He knew that sometimes she was secretly amused by him, as was her father, though he never knew why. He had also discovered that his wife and his father-in-law would sometimes glance at him warily, and again, he never knew why. These were his only complaints against his wife.

On Sunday afternoons in Portersville during the summer he would take his children for drives, while Cornelia napped at home or went over papers concerning company matters. A favorite place of call was the Purcells’, where Grandma Purcell would listen with loving concern to her grandchildren, and where Grandpa Purcell could always be relied upon for a joke, a surreptitious handful of chocolates and cakes, a game, or a rough story. To the twins, lame and gentle and lovely Ruth Purcell, now seventeen, was the most important member of the family. Between the girl and the children there was an unspoken understanding and sympathy.

For DeWitt, at least, the most interesting place to visit was the home of Patrick and Laura Peale. All the children called Patrick “uncle,” and Laura, “auntie.” DeWitt, who knew that Patrick and Laura found him incomprehensible, and who looked at him with some coolness, was great friends with the Peale children—Miles, seven; Fielding, six; and Mary, four. Here the pretty twins were held in some scorn by the younger Peales. Here DeWitt’s remarks and opinions were received with approval; here he was the leader, though younger than the two other boys. It did not annoy him that “Daddy” was not so welcome in this house as he was at the Purcells’.

On this hot Sunday in August, Allan was besieged by his children. It was almost two o’clock. When were they going for their drive? And what house first? Dolores saw that her father appeared to be unusually tired today, and she nestled against his arm, looking up at his face concernedly. “Do we have to go see old Ruth?” asked DeWitt. “I like Grandpa Purcell, but Grandma isn’t so nice, and I hate Ruth. I hate lame people. Let’s go see Miles and Fielding and Mary. They’ve got a new pony.”

“What does it matter if Ruth is lame?” asked Tony admonishingly. “She told me she’ll have some new books for us today.”

“Pish on your old books,” said DeWitt. “Besides, they’re not good stories she reads. Silly ones. And Dolores looks silly, too, sitting on Ruth’s knee like a baby. Daddy, let’s go to the Peales’. Besides, they won’t be here next week. They’re going to the seashore, they said last time. They don’t go to Newport like us.”

Allan reached out to rumple the black hair of his youngest child, but DeWitt pulled away. He loathed having anyone touch him without his consent, and his small dark face, so concentrated and alert, darkened still more with resentment. He smoothed down the hair, which Allan had not touched, and he threw up his little head angrily. All his slight body stiffened. He repeated, “Let’s go to the Peales’.”

“I think,” said Allan judiciously, “that DeWitt should have his choice this week.”

This seemed fair to the twins, who, however, found the Peale children wearing and unfriendly. So Allan and the three children rolled away in one of the victorias, open to the hot wind and the sun. Tony and Dolores laughed and chattered with their father. DeWitt, as usual, was almost completely silent, his eyes raking the countryside with their accustomed pouncing look. He thought the babble of his brother and sister about the grandeur of the mountains, the glimpses of wild creatures in the woods, and the view of the city falling away below them, eminently foolish and pretentious. He could not imagine himself becoming ecstatic over a field of buttercups, or the blue flash of a jay among the dim boughs of a tree. When the twins begged that the carriage be stopped so that they could look closer at the silent flitting of a doe and a fawn among the trees, he uttered a low rude sound. DeWitt nursed a small animosity against his father. There was something about Daddy which invariably aroused annoyance and impatience in the little boy, and something close to contempt.

Allan, though he smiled at his children, was abstracted. He leaned back in his carriage and acknowledged to some misery and more than a little weariness. He said, “I wish there was some other place to go, somewhere interesting, where we’ve never gone before.”

“Where?” asked Tony eagerly. But Dolores pressed her face against her father’s arm with sympathy. Allan raised his hand, and the coachmen drew up the horses on the mountain road. “Let me think,” said Allan, frowning. He looked off into the radiant haze of the trees, and then far off into the mountains. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He started to speak, then stopped. No, it would not “do.” The whole idea was sentimental and ridiculous. Why should he have thought of it today, when he had not thought of it for years, and had not even cared? He had been working too hard this week. In fact, the past two years, which had included the Panic of 1893, had been almost too much for any man. His burdens and responsibilities had been increasing steadily. It was his exhaustion which had given him that absurd idea. …

“Where?” repeated Tony, and now even Dolores asked.

“Somewhere to play?” asked DeWitt, interested. “If it’s new, I don’t care.”

Allan looked at his children. The golden dust was slowly settling about the carriage, and the sleek black horses shrugged in it and tossed their heads. The hot and windy silence of the heights stirred the woods on either side of the road, and the mountains stood against the hot pale sky in vague green and purple. As Allan considered, and gazed at his children, the horses moved impatiently and their harness clattered in the quiet. The coachman sat like a statue with folded arms.

It was absurd, thought Allan, even to think of it. Cornelia would stare, round her eyes with amusement, and shrug. Allan could endure her rare but savage tempers with equanimity; he could quarrel with her, and even, on occasion, let her have her way without a loss in his own self-esteem. But her amusement, covert as it always was, and only revealed by a hazel twinkle, never failed to enrage him. He said aloud, “I don’t think we’ll go, after all. If we did, it would have to be a secret, and secrets. …”

“A secret!” cried the twins with delight.

“A secret,” repeated DeWitt with slow and sinister pleasure.

For the first time the difference in intonation between the twins and DeWitt came forcibly to Allan’s attention. Now he looked only at the youngest child, and he frowned. “Secrets aren’t always good,” he said somewhat pompously. DeWitt brightened. “This wouldn’t be, would it, Daddy?” he asked. His black eyes shone with anticipation.

“I didn’t say that, DeWitt.” Allan became irritable with himself and the little boy. Dolores said. “If it’s a nice secret, and it would be fun. …”

“There aren’t any ‘nice’ secrets,” said the precocious DeWitt scornfully. “Who would want them then, you silly old thing?”

“It’s not a secret,” said Allan, annoyed. “I didn’t mean it in your way, DeWitt. You’re too sharp for your own good, young man.”

The small eyes narrowed on Allan cunningly. “Oh, all right, then. We’ll go to the Peales. They’ve got a new pony. Who wants a secret anyway, except girls?” His little sallow hand played indifferently with the buttons of his jacket. “The last time, Miles kicked Dolores and made her cry, and Mary put pepper in old Tony’s lemonade. It was awfully funny. I have lots of fun at the Peales’.”

The twins were depressed at this recollection. Dolores hesitated, then said, “Daddy, we’d like to go to see the secret place.”

DeWitt laughed his quiet and derisive laughter. “Fielding hates old Tony, too. He puts burrs on his chair. Lots of fun at the Peales’. They like me and I like them.”

“I think they’re awful,” said Tony. His fair face was already flushed with sun and heat, and now it flushed deeper. “Sometimes they play all right, but most of the time they’re nasty. Daddy, let’s go to the secret place.”

DeWitt smiled and said nothing. Why, the little devil gets what he wants almost all the time! thought Allan wrathfully. He said, “We’ll go to this new place, but it isn’t a secret; at least it isn’t from your mama. Is that understood?”

“Do we have to tell her?” asked DeWitt, still smiling.

“Not if you don’t want to,” replied Allan. He leaned toward the coachman and gave him instructions. The carriage was driven to a wider place in the road, then carefully turned about. Allan continued: “I haven’t been there, myself, except to drive by it.”

The carriage rolled down the road in the warm and golden silence. Portersville rose slowly up to meet it, its river a sparkling flash dividing East Town from West, its houses and factories dun-colored in the sunlight. Now the carriage began to roll down a long and winding road away from the city, and green fields sloped into the valley. “Winston Road,” said Dolores wonderingly. “We don’t know anyone on Winston Road.” Allan did not answer. He was excited, dubious, and uneasy. It might all turn out very disagreeably for everybody, under all the circumstances. DeWitt, the little fiend, had goaded him into it. Allan glanced at the child, and was angered to see that his son was watching him with a speculative gleam in his eye.

Allan leaned back in the carriage and closed his aching eyes. Perhaps he hadn’t recovered completely from his “collapse” of a year ago; perhaps it was returning. With some fear, he recalled the weeks previous to his breakdown: the insomnia, the nightmares, the sense of smothering and choking even when working quietly at his desk, the cold trembling of his bones, the nausea, the increased necessity to drink if he was to meet people with any composure, the nebulous but awful forebodings which struck him without warning, the consciousness of some enormous loss which was without a name, the sedatives which finally could not calm the sick and unconscious dreads, the restlessness which tormented him and made him aware of every curling nerve in his body, and finally the total inability to think and concentrate.

He became aware, now, that he was sweating, and that his sweat was cold in spite of the heat. Good God, he thought, not again! His fear made his throat tighten. If only, his thoughts continued, I knew what the hell had caused that damned collapse, and why it is threatening again. I have everything I ever wanted; no man could want more. He felt a gentle touch on his arm and opened his eyes. Dolores was gazing at him with concern. “Don’t you feel well, Daddy?” she asked anxiously. He put his arm about the child and tried to smile. “Not very,” he admitted. And then, without thinking, he added, “Perhaps that is why I thought of going to—this place.”

His own words startled him. He pondered over them. I’m losing my mind, he said to himself. What have they got to do with it? I haven’t given them a passing thought for years, except, perhaps, at Christmas, when I’ve sent them gifts. And I wouldn’t have sent them at all, if it hadn’t been for my mother.

The carriage was bowling rapidly down the suburban road. Handsome houses gave way to those less pretentious, and finally the green spaces were wider and wider and cornfields appeared, clusters of straggling woods, meadows yellow with wheat and oats, gray farm houses, fences, and cattle. Bridges over summer-shrunken streams were crossed smartly; the mountains hovered in the sky like mauve clouds. Dogs ran out from lanes, barking at the carriage. The Sunday silence seemed to have absorbed all motion from the landscape.

“We’re coming to Laketon,” said Tony. “Are we going to a farm?”

“No,” said Allan. “We are going just two miles beyond Laketon. You’ve never been there.”

The carriage went through the small village, emerged onto a country road overhung with ancient elms tangled and cool against the sun. The children were sitting up straight, watching. “What little houses,” said DeWitt scornfully. “Poor people’s houses.”

“I think they’re pretty,” said his sister. Her pale hair, moistened by perspiration, curled about her beautiful young face, so classically perfect in all its features. Her white frock, billowing yards of voile with insertions of real lace, enhanced her delicacy. She had perfect legs; the sunlight glanced from her alabaster calves and patent-leather slippers. Allan sometimes found it incredible that Cornelia was her mother, Cornelia who sometimes appeared larger than life-size, all color, all blaze, all movement. Allan looked at her twin brother; her replica, he thought with tenderness. All at once these two children were dearer to him than all life, dearer than himself and Cornelia, dearer than anything he had gained in all his years.

“I never told you,” said Allan. “I have a father and mother, too. That is where we are going—to see them.”

Tony and Dolores stared at him with astonishment. He could not meet the crystal shine of their eyes. He tried to smile at DeWitt instead, who could be depended upon, Allan knew now with some bitterness, not to be surprised at anything. DeWitt was smirking. But Tony stammered, a little aloofly, “Daddy, you never told us you had a father and—and a mother.”

“You’re such a ninny,” said DeWitt, and pushed a sharp elbow into his brother’s ribs, not so much with malice as with disgust. “Why shouldn’t he have? Everybody has.”

Dolores saw the color creeping over her father’s thin face, and said quickly, “Maybe Daddy had a reason.”

“Oh, maybe he had,” DeWitt said. And he turned the narrow glitter of his eyes jeeringly on his father. “Everybody’s got a reason, don’t they, Daddy?”

Tony regarded his brother sternly. “Perhaps people have, DeWitt.” It was seldom that the kindly boy could bring himself to rebuke anyone, but when he did, he received respect, even from DeWitt. “And its nobody’s business but Daddy’s.”

“Look here,” remarked Allan uncomfortably. “There’s no mystery about it. I had a quarrel with them a long time ago.”

“What was it?” DeWitt, after a sullen glance at Tony, looked interested.

Allan did not answer. The carriage turned up a short country road, emerged on a broader stretch. It was windier and brighter here, and the two boys clutched at their stiff straw hats and brushed the dust from their blue serge jackets and short trousers. Tony’s broad white collar was somewhat crumpled, because heat affected him adversely, but little DeWitt looped all neat edges and unperturbed nattiness. Dolores, who was becoming excited, fluffed out her dress and rearranged her sash and shook back her flowing hair. “I hope they like us,” said Dolores.

“My darling, they could not help it,” said Allan gently. Tony was silent. His profile, so like his sister’s, was more than a trifle severe, but DeWitt had a gloating look about him.

Allan knew that the farm had only eighteen acres, but it was enough for a cow, a horse, a few pigs, and some chickens. The fields were rich and green; Timothy Marshall had a “hired man.” Here was a stretch of glittering ripe wheat, and another of oats, and a stand of yellow corn. Here was a good woods of first-growth timber, and ,a brook, from which a very fat cow was drinking contentedly. She raised her mild brown eyes as the carriage twinkled past. All was shining silence in the August sun; trees stood in utter quiet, crowned with light, under the pale hot sky. The carriage turned a slight bend in the road, and now the farmhouse came into view, white and snug and neat, with green shutters and a red-shingled roof. A garden of flowers sprawled before it, and a box hedge outlined the scattered flagstones leading to the green door, which stood open. Behind the house stood the redpainted bam, tidy and large. Beyond the buildings and the sweet-smelling acres the mountains rose in warm and deepening purple and green.

“Here?” cried Dolores eagerly, as the carriage stopped at the walk. “Here,” said Allan, and sat uncomfortably, watching the open door. He saw no one beyond it, though the small hallway glimmered with sunlight and the polished wooden floor was like a brown mirror. He did not know what to do now. He became aware, after a minute or so, that his children were watching him and waiting, Tony and Dolores with surprise at the delay, and DeWitt with knowing interest. Then, just as Allan was about to give the order to turn about and drive away, his father appeared in the doorway, smiling, with his wife behind him. For a moment Tim paused, beaming, unsurprised, his thick white curls bright in the sunlight, his square face contented and happy, his blue eyes sparkling. He wore a very respectable black Sunday suit. Mary, his wife, was dressed in thin black silk, with a golden cross hanging on her flat bosom. In that clear light Allan could see her distinctly, could see the slight flush of color on the cheekbones. She seemed younger and even more gentle, though time and illness and trouble had scribbled her calm face over with fine wrinkles.

Timothy, so amazingly unsurprised, burst from the doorway and came on a trot to the carriage. He shouted, “You’re latel Two hours late, and the tea waitin’! Aloysius, my boy, and these are the young ones, I’m thinkin’!”

Allan was stupefied. He could only sit among his silent children and stare at his father. “You were expecting us, Dad?” he finally asked, as Tim completed his joyous survey of his grandchildren. Tim did not answer at once. He was looking at Dolores, and the blue of his eyes was dimmed with tears. Then he took the little girl’s hand, and she bent over the side of the carriage and kissed him. He put his arms about her and lifted her down to the ground. Mary was at his side now, and she knelt down on the stones and embraced Dolores, murmuring into the silvery curls. Tim next turned his attention to Tony, who was smiling uncertainly. “Ah, a fine lad, and a twin it is,” said Tim. “Come to your granddad, my lad. Ah, the good face, the good eyes, the good mouth. Sure, and he and his sister look like the angels out of the holy pictures. Not a kiss for me, but the hand? No, a kiss it will be, from the little gentleman. And here’s the grandma, waiting.”

“You were expecting us?” asked Allan again, feebly.

But still Tim did not appear to have heard him. He had become silent, and the trembling smile was seeping out of the rugged folds of his face. He was looking at DeWitt, who returned his gaze in cool dark silence. Tim’s calloused hands suddenly gripped the side of the carriage, and old man and child studied each other. Then Tim said, as if to himself, “And this little one—it is the stranger.” He opened the carriage door and DeWitt, composed and fastidious as always, climbed out and set his small polished boots on the ground. It was then that Tim turned his attention to his son.

He saw everything, and what he saw evidently grieved him. He smiled again, a forced smile. “‘Expectin’ us,’ he says. Sure, and why not? Didn’t I have the letter from Mike, in North Dakota, among the wild Indians, only the other day, sayin’ ye would all come on Sunday? And is not Mike the saint, and does he not know?”

He extended his hand to Allan, and the smile became deep with pity. “And was it not Mike who wrote us ye had bought this fine place for us, Aloysius? We niver knew, till then, for even old Dan Boyle was not tellin’ us, even to the day he died, and left me the twenty-thousand dollars. But come in, come in. The tea is gettin’ cool, and your mother made the wonderful cakes for the children. Come in. My son.”

There were too many years between; too much had happened for conversation and reminiscences, except the most casual. So Allan’s parents accepted the situation as though they had never been parted from their son. They appeared, in their tranquillity, to have known all about him in these years, and Allan began to suspect that they did indeed know. He walked about the small house, genuinely admiring what his father had done to make it charming and beautiful. PridefuUy, Tim showed his son the fine furniture he had made himself, the simple polished pieces of black walnut and maple. It was he who had made the brick kitchen, with its rows of gleaming copper kettles hanging on the walls. He had added the two small bedrooms upstairs, with their bright floors, their four-poster beds, their solid walls clothed in paper roses and lilies. Almost singlehandedly, he had built the red barn and put up the few necessary fences. “You’ll be knowin’, I’m thinkin’, that I’ve not been the engineer for three long years,” he said. “I lost the heart in it. But the good acres fed us and comforted us.” He put his hand briefly on Allan’s arm. “It was hard, but it was good, with God’s grace. And now, look: we’re lace-curtain Irish!”

The children were with them in the tour of the house. Tony and Dolores listened in pleased and respectful silence, earnestly studying everything. DeWitt, so withdrawn, so dignified, made no remark, glanced at the things presented without interest.

Tony said, “Grandpa, what is ‘lace-curtain Irish’?” He stood beside Tim and looked at him with shy affection. Tim put his arm about the boy’s shoulder, and winked at Allan. “It is what we are, and what your Dad is. Irish with a little money.” He put his other arm about Dolores, for whom he seemed to have a special tenderness, and the two children regarded him with their beautiful Renaissance faces upturned trustfully.

DeWitt spoke for the first time, with cool hauteur, “We have more than just a little money, sir. And we’re not Irish—foreigners. We’re Americans.”

“So are we all,” said Allan with annoyance. “Your governess tells us you are a very sharp boy, DeWitt. But I think you are a little fool.”

DeWitt did not move; he only gave the impression that he had removed himself. He stood there, slight for his age, reserved and distant, and silent. Allan was immediately contrite. A peculiar little boy, but his child. He reached out his hand, but DeWitt automatically stepped back to preserve himself from any undesired caress or unsolicited touch.

DeWitt remarked, without impudence, “You talk funny—Grandpa. We don’t talk like that.”

Tim bent, his horny hands on his knees. He smiled at the boy. “You’ll learn, child. There’s more than one tongue in the world. But it’s the baby you are, and it’s not hurt by your words I am.”

Tony said severely, “Your manners, DeWitt.” But DeWitt ignored him.

“It’s not bad manners he has, Tony,” said Tim. “He’s not the lad to have bad manners, ever. A gentleman. Never the one to have tempers, without a purpose, and never will the purpose be a little one, but calculated. Our Lord makes many different kinds of people, and sometimes it is a wonder to us simple folk.”

Allan was disturbed. “They say DeWitt resembles me,” he remarked.

Tim shook his head. “It is the coloring. But not the soul. But we should not be talking about the child in his presence. Though I doubt it will ever hurt him. He is a law to himself.” He studied DeWitt somewhat sadly. “Does he ever smile?”

DeWitt answered composedly: “Yes. When there’s something to smile about. Should I smile now, sir?”

“You see,” said Tim, still smiling at the boy, but speaking to Allan. “There must always be a purpose in everything. Even for love.”

It had never occurred to Allan before, and now he thought: DeWitt loves nobody. And yet, and yet, Allan’s disturbed thoughts ran on, when Tony is stern with him, when Tony reveals something strange to him, something, perhaps, of integrity and inner power and character which can’t be shaken, then he regards Tony with respect and gravity. Perhaps it is the unconscious homage the unrighteous involuntarily tender the righteous.

The bedrooms blew with hot wind and sun. Tim was lifting a photograph from a tall chest of drawers, and Tony and Dolores were waiting courteously to be shown. DeWitt stood apart, his eyes on the floor, his small pale underlip thrust out, a mannerism he had when thinking secret thoughts which Allan doubted were childlike. Allan said in a low voice, “Don’t sulk, DeWitt.” There was a plea under his words.

“But I’m not sulking, Daddy,” replied DeWitt with genuine surprise. He suddenly smiled, and the sallow face became, for an instant, almost engaging.

“And this is your Uncle Mike, Brother Michael it is,” Tim was saying, showing the photograph to the twins. “See, among the Indian children, teaching them, caring for them, in their wild heathen country, where the government keeps them. See how they gather about his knee, the little ones, listening to his stories.”

“But why does he wear those clothes?” asked Tony. He held the photograph in his hands, and showed it first to Dolores and then to DeWitt, who had moved silently to his side. It never seemed to surprise Tony that DeWitt, in spite of his usual derision and his hostility toward his brother, should still manage to be with him, unsought and uncalled.

Tim did not glance at his son. He only said, “It’s the holy monk he is, a Franciscan brother. A man in the service of God. You’ll be knowing about God, I’m thinkin’?”

“Oh, yes,” replied Tony, puzzled, and examining the photograph closer while Dolores peered over his shoulder. “My tutor and Dolores’s taught us the Lord’s Prayer, and we say it every morning, and we have Bible stories and history. But how is—Uncle Mike—in the service of God?”

“He gave up his life to God. But that is a story your Dada must tell you. You see, my loves, there are men who would rather work for Our Lord, among His poor creatures, than work for themselves. You must ask your Dada.” Tim gazed down at his grandchildren with sorrow and anxiety. He took the photograph and extended it to Allan, who examined it without expression. Michael radiated peace and happiness upon the young Indians grouped about him; a small child sat upon his knee. He was the earth and holiness and all repose, and the bend of his stout body was implicit with protection and love. Now Allan saw why he had seemed ridiculous and plebeian in the clothing of ordinary men. The habit he wore gave him stature, was part of himself, and it had permitted that which was in him to emerge with grace.

He looked down and saw DeWitt scrutinizing him with an odd mixture of amusement and curiosity. He felt naked under that wise old regard on a very young child’s face. He turned away. He had imagined what he had seen; five-year-old boys were still hardly more than infants. They did not have Satanic eyes. There was something wrong with a father who believed they had.

Tim led the way into his and his wife’s bedroom, and proudly exhibited the chests he had made. On one of them was an object which Allan recognized, for he had given it to his parents two Christmases before. It was an alabaster statue about sixteen inches high, made in Italy. The image stood in an arched grotto, the wall of which was carved with a minute rosebush. It was a lovely thing, and light poured through its luminosity. Before it burned a candle in a red glass. Tony and Dolores exclaimed with pleasure as they stood before it. “Our Lady of Lourdes,” said Tim. Again, he did not glance at Allan. “Your Dada gave it to us. You must ask him about it.” Tony looked over his shoulder at Allan. “But who is she, Daddy?” he asked. Allan hesitated. Tim said very gently, “She is the Mother of God. She is your mother, too. She loves you very much.”

Tony asked no more questions. I should never have brought them here, thought Allan. I was a fool.

They went downstairs to the brick kitchen with its cool floor of yellow stone, its wide windows, homely table, black stove, and rocking chairs. They could see the trunks and branches of old elms and oaks outside, dappled and streaked with sun, the pleasant dim lawns, the wide fields, wide sky, and far mountains. There is a difference between the mere absence of sound, and encompassing peace, thought Allan. His mother was pouring hot water from a copper kettle; it was like a small patch of sunlight in the kitchen. She had kept the teapot he had given her when he had been twenty years old, a dark brown thing with little clusters of white porcelain flowers scattered over it. She had set the table with a stiff white cloth, thick and unpretentious china, thin polished spoons which she had brought with her from Ireland, little sandwiches of watercress and ham, and the cakes which her family had loved, plain fat circles with a rich taste. She smiled timidly and shyly as the family came in, and with a gesture of her worn hand, she indicated places at the table.

His mother had never seemed full-bodied to Allan. He had thought of her as a shadow in the background of his life, always gentle and loving, but retreating. He could not recall that she had ever advanced an opinion; for the first time he wondered if she was able to read and write, for there was no memory in him of a book or a newspaper in her hands. Yet, thought Allan, I never knew it until now: she was all comfort and all serenity, all through the damnable years of poverty and hunger and pain and fear.

He was glad that his children had been trained not to chatter. Jon and Norman, Estelle’s boys, though seventeen and fifteen respectively, babbled like very young children when they were home from their school. They skylarked, pouted, had tantrums, shrilled, stamped, and ran like colts through the house—and competed for their mother. They appeared like giant but retarded infants, when with their nephews and niece, a ludicrous contrast painfully evident to Rufus. Yet, they were not really stupid young men; they led their classes at Groton in all their studies.

Tony, Dolores, and DeWitt sat sedately at the kitchen table in Tim’s house, and Mary Marshall smiled faintly at them, her brown eyes softly beaming. She did not speak; she only passed cups and plates; she seemed to notice nothing. She listened to her husband as he spoke to her son of crops, of old Dan Boyle, of Michael. His voice was hearty and warm; occasionally he would run his rough hand tenderly over Dolores’s long hair, smile at Tony, and glance with troubled question at DeWitt Speech was not an urgent matter to Mary; she rarely found it necessary to talk. A smile was a substitute for a laugh, and when she smiled her tired face became radiant and alive.

But Mary saw and understood everything. If there was pain in her as she gazed briefly and intermittently at her son, she revealed no sign of it. There Allan sat in his long, thin elegance, his striped white-and-blue blazer open over his lean body, listening with absent respect to his father. She refilled his half-empty teacup and appeared not to notice that he was eating nothing. But she thought to herself: He is not yet forty, my son, but there is a whiteness at his temples, and an agony in the lines of his face, and his shoulders are tired and his hands tremble. He is old with suffering.

Allan broke in on his father’s confident boasting about his land, unaware that Tim had been speaking. “What is this letter from Mike?” he asked. “It sounded very mysterious, his knowing we were coming.”

Tim’s broad red face lighted up. “Ah, it is the saint he is! He knows everythin’, our Mike.” He fished in a pocket of his black coat and proudly produced a crumpled letter and gave it, with a flourish, to Allan. “I could tell you many things he wrote to us; it is the second sight—a miracle, he has.”

Allan recognized the round neat writing of his brother on the cheap paper. The first page or two recounted his life in North Dakota among the Indian children, whom he taught and nursed and loved. Then there were family items, the thanking of his parents for the clothing for the parents of his charges, the food they had sent him, the prayers they had said for him, the money given to his Mission in his name. He promised to send them a “spiritual bouquet” from the children very soon, and he prayed for them constantly. He prayed for his brother, he wrote with simplicity. He charged his parents to do likewise.

Then the short and homely sentences ended. Michael wrote: “We were taught to love God and man, for if we love God and not man our prayers are unacceptable to Him. If we love only man, and not God, then we have fallen into the error of mere ‘humanism.’ However, I find it infinitely easier to love God than man, for one has only to look about him in the world of nature, the world of sunsets and sunrises, the cry of a bird in the forests at twilight, the springing of a flower in thick grass, the white winter hills under the moon, the glitter of a tree in the noonday sun, the scent of fields in midsummer, the blaze of lightning cracking asunder a black and stormy sky, to see and know God in all His majesty, to adore Him with humility, rapture, and awe. He is the Allperfect, and He less commands our love than inspires it. By His excellent works He is manifest. And that is the trouble.

“For it is by man’s works that we find it hard not to detest him. At the altar, love for God comes to me in a flood, effortless, without struggle, a grace given to me freely and by no special merit of my own. But observation of man can easily lead to impatience, weariness, anger, loathing, and despair. The visible and the invisible God is there for him to see and to know and to worship. Yet he is blind, not with a physical blindness, but with a spiritual one. Man, the conscious, the aware, cast in God’s image, has the darkness of hell in his soul, and almost everything he does is sinister. He is the relentless enemy of his brother, the tyrant of his brother, the oppressor of his brother. He is the sword lifted eternally against his fellow man. He is the hunter who craves blood; he is the creator of war, the burner of cities, the despoiler of the fields. He is forever in conflict with the world and the creatures of the world, and where he treads all things flee from him in terror. He, little lesser than the angels, is the only ugly thing in the spaces of Creation, for he shapes his spirit with his thoughts, and his flesh reflects the distortion.”

Allan held the letter in his hands and thought: Yes, yes. He no longer felt the sheets in his fingers; he felt the roundness of a precious ball leaving them, sailing through the sunlight into the hands of a gross-faced enemy who had been bribed not to inflict pain. Tim was watching him, forgetting the children and his wife, and he thought: There is something terrible in the heart of my son.

Allan continued to read.

“These are the thoughts which come to me, unbidden at my prayers, unsought at my studies, uncalled at my work. I had no power, at first, to resist them. I prayed feverishly for delusion, for a blindness that I might not see what man is, for an illusion which would reconcile me to my brother. At last, I spoke to my Superior of it, without hope. And he told me there was a key to the black door which I had shut, in my knowledge, against my brothers. But I must find the key myself, with the grace of God. ‘He who does not know that man is evil will never understand him, or love him,’ he told me, for he had traveled this wasteland of rejection himself.

“So I prayed without rest, without sleep. I fasted; I prostrated myself. I wept to the silences. For I knew that without enlightenment I could not rid myself of my bitterness and grief. Once it came to me confusedly that I had once possessed the key, and had lost it. In a simpler day, when I did simpler work and had less contact with men, I had had the key and had not known that it was valuable beyond everything else to me. I had heard it a thousand times, turning in its lock; I had seen it imprinted on the pages the saints had written; I had seen it shining on the altar at Mass. Without knowing, I had watched its bright flicker in the eyes of tired Sisters, and priests, and unlettered men, in the eyes of my mother.

“It’s name is compassion. A simple key, it is said. But it is the heaviest of all objects, the hardest to hold, the most painful to use. It can move a world; it can slip through the fingers like a straw in an angry moment. It has the power of an army, the fragility of a butterfly’s wing. It is the way to all knowledge; the way of the saints. It is the imprimatur of God, set on the book of life. Without it, man is a devil; with it, he is an angel.

“I have found the key. But I must pray constantly, in dark moments, that I may not lose it again. For to lose it is to lose faith, to be shut out from the presence of God, to be an exile forever at war with all things.”

Allan thought: To whom was this written? To me?

There was only a short ending to the letter, but it came vividly to Allan’s eyes.

“On the next Sunday Allan will come to you, with his children, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, I think. Expect him, Dad, and be kind, as if he were a frequent visitor. He has not forgotten you, just as you have never forgotten him. There is a furious river between you, which began to flow when he was a child. You never understood, and neither did he, but I am beginning to know.”

Very slowly, Allan refolded the sheets and laid them on the table. He stared at the floor, controlling himself, for the cold sweat was on him again, the trembling of his bones, the sense of weakness all through his body, the horrible depression and hopelessness. He had a sudden and awful craving for alcohol. He passed his damp hand slowly over his face. Tony and Dolores were watching him with anxious foreboding, but DeWitt was eating a cake. Allan had the conviction that his younger son had been regarding him closely for a long time, and that he was derisive.

“A very good letter,” said Allan dully. He must have a drink; he must have it at once. He never drank in the presence of his children; he believed Tony and Dolores were unaware of his driving addiction, but he was convinced now, that no matter how careful he was, that DeWitt knew. “A very good letter,” he repeated. He stood up, and Tim, greatly alarmed, saw the sweat on his son’s forehead. “May I see you alone a moment, Dad?” asked Allan, and without waiting for a reply he walked from the kitchen into the small parlor, where early twilight, luminous and blue, was already filling the corners. He looked about him, alone for a few moments, at the round table his father had made, at the horsehair furniture, burnished into a soft glow, at the little fireplace ready with logs of apple wood, at the crude holy pictures on the violently flowered walls, at the oil lamps. Through the windows, carefully draped with his mother’s lace curtains, he could see the mellowing fields, the first stain of scarlet in the sky over the darkening mountains. Now the silence was sweetly disturbed by the voices of birds, the movement of a cool breeze against the shutters, the cluck of fowl, the lowing of the cow coming home to her barn.

Tim entered the room, and he was carrying a bottle in a napkin, and a glass. He stood a moment, and he and his son regarded each other without speaking. Then Tim put the glass on a table and opened the bottle. The tawny whisky splashed noisily into the glass, and Tim did not control his hand. Still not speaking, he extended the liquor to his son. Allan took it, and his fingers were so eager that he almost dropped it; he put it to his lips and drank it all, without once pausing to breathe. Tim watched him, his face heavy with sorrow and understanding.

Tim lifted the bottle questioningly as Allan looked into the empty glass. “Another?” he murmured. Allan hesitated. A deep color came into his face, settling into the emaciated hollows of his cheeks. But finally he extended the glass speechlessly, and Tim refilled it. This time, standing in the center of the parlor, Allan drank more slowly and gratefully, keeping his eyes averted from his father.

“I always have a drink or two at this time of day,” said Allan. “It—it gives me a lift when I am tired.” He paused. Tim said nothing. “You don’t know how damn tired I get,” Allan went on. “So much responsibility. …” He glanced furtively at the older man. “Aren’t you having a drink with me?”

“Sure, and I am,” said Tim. His voice was slow and old with grief. He went back into the kitchen and returned with another glass. “A man should never drink alone. It is a sign of despair, and despair is one of the mortal sins.” He set his short bulk on a stiff chair, and his belly rolled out. His blue eyes were strong and bright in the shadows. “And won’t you be sittin’ and joinin’ me?”

Allan sat down on the small horsehair love seat, and it pricked him through his clothing. But the trembling had stopped; the spasms had left his stomach; his brain was no longer fiery; the depression had begun to warm away. He sipped at his drink now, in order to prolong his sensation; he drank it as one drinks an anodyne. Slowly, one by one, his taut-strung muscles relaxed, and the aching in his neck and shoulders soothed itself into nothingness.

Embarrassed now, Allan said with an attempt at lightness, “You never kept whisky in the house, Dad, except at Christmas. Are you taking to the bottle?”

Tim swirled the liquor in the glass and answered in a low voice, “No, my son. But I knew you were comin’ and I knew you’d want it.”

Allan began to laugh a little. But Tim did not look at him. Silence came again to the room, like an observing presence. They could hear the children talking with Mary in the kitchen. Even DeWitt was speaking, and asking a question, and Mary’s voice, tenuous and gentle, answered. Allan’s laughter stopped abruptly. He put his empty glass on the table.

Then he said very softly, over and over, “Oh, my God; oh, my God, my God, my God.”

The children talked little on the way home through the purple and crimson twilight. The twins seemed unusually thoughtful and perceptive in their attitude toward their father as the victoria rolled through the dimming landscape. Dolores held Allan’s hand. When DeWitt said, “I don’t think I like that place,” Allan did not hear him, and only Tony’s stern look quieted the little fellow.

They were almost to Portersville when Tony said, “Grandpa told me you had a fine voice, Daddy. He said you could sing like the angels, and when you talked everyone had to listen. I never heard you sing. He said you knew old Irish songs that told stories.”

“Eh?” said Allan, turning his dulled eyes on his son. “Oh. Yes, I used to sing, when I was young. As you grow older you find less and less to sing about, and then you stop altogether. Long before you’re dead, you are mute.”

It was late when they reached home, and Allan climbed heavily up the stairs to his wife’s rooms. Cornelia was sitting before her crystal, gilt, and silver dressing table, which was softly lighted. Lamps bloomed on French tables and glimmered on the pale gold rug and white walls and carved white ceiling. Her chaise longue, heaped with coral pillows, showed where she had rested in the afternoon; beside it was a heap of papers, and her own special brief case. Windows opened on the darkening chaos of mountains and river. She turned her head and smiled affably at Allan when he entered. “Late, aren’t you, darling? Did you have tea at the Peales’ or at the Purcells’?”

“No,” he replied. “We didn’t go to either place.” He sat down on one of the gold-velvet chairs, and his body sagged. Cornelia inspected him more closely. She said quickly, for something had both startled and disturbed her, “Allan. Where did you take the children?”

He told her, speaking as if to himself. She listened, without interruption, to the lifeless recital, which was brief. Slowly, toward the end, she began to smile, her eyes round and mirthful, her mouth opening over her glistening teeth as though what she was hearing was both childish and ridiculous.

He lifted his head when he had finished, and when she saw his face, she became grave. There she sat on her rose satin stool, her mauve dressing gown falling away from her heroic white neck and shoulders and arms. Her breast, halfrevealed, had a pearly sheen in the lamplight, and her flowing red hair, cascading to her hips, gave her a gaudy appearance that was yet striking and magnetic.

She said, and her voice was light and bantering, “Well, it was a change, wasn’t it, for the children?”

He was vaguely surprised. “You don’t mind?”

“Good heavens, Allan, why should I?”

He knew, by now, all about her mendacious democracy, and so he was more surprised to see that she was absolutely sincere in her exclamation. “Am I a snob like Pat Peale, or a pale aristocrat like my mother, or a carrier of Christmas baskets and clothing to the poor like Laura? Or a hard, simpering fool like Estelle?” Her voice was genuinely impatient. “I know all about my ancestors, the deWitts. I think they were a sturdier race than the Fieldings, my mother’s. They lived. I suppose your parents do, too. It’s time the children learned there was something else in the world besides ‘blood,’ as Estelle calls it. Blood!”

He stood up and went to her, and put his hand on her shoulder; she gazed up at him with her usual expression of mockery and deep love. Then, after a moment, she turned her head and kissed the back of his hand lightly. After this, she pushed him away with good humor. “What an idiot you are, my pet. I believe, in your own way, that you are a snob, too, like that awful Pat. I, personally, wouldn’t give a cent to charity, nor does my heart bleed over the blessed poor, nor am I horrified at the thought of slums or unemployment, nor would I ever visit an orphanage or a poor farm or give a rag to cover any beggar’s nakedness. Every man for himself. That’s a law older than milk-sop charity. But, good God, what is wrong with your children seeing their grandparents, who are doubtless self-respecting and decent? Your father was an engineer; he might inspire Tony with some interest in what will be his holdings one of these days.”

He put his arms about her big shoulders and pulled her head to his chest. He stroked the coarse and vital hair. “You make me ashamed,” he said. “I think you are a more worthwhile person than I.”

Again, she pushed him away and laughed in his face. “Oh, no I’m not! I’m not a sentimentalist.”

Her face glowed and shimmered with her mockery, and he caught, again, that puzzling wariness gleaming in her eyes, that derisive flash. But she only remarked, “I can smell that your father gave you something to drink. I suppose the children didn’t guess; they missed the lovely odor of your peppermints. Change to another flavor, one of these days, my child.”

He moved away from her, humiliated and sickened, and she watched him in the glass. He began to wander about the room, in his speechless and helpless shame. He paused by the chaise longue and picked up a few of the neatly piled papers. Stock reports, quarterly reports, dividend reports, policy—he dropped them and they fluttered from his hands like old dried leaves. Dry and dusty, he thought, all at once. I am filled to the lips with dust; every crevice of my life sifts gray powder. I sleep with silt on my pillow; the air I breathe is gray. My footsteps crackle on old mortar fallen from the bricks of my hopes. He said unsteadily, “I am ashamed, but I must have another drink. No, I can’t leave it alone. It helps me to. …”

“What?” asked Cornelia softly, as he hesitated. She rose and went to him and pulled him to her with strength, but his arms hung by his sides. “Allan,” she said urgently. “I love you. You, and Papa, are all I have. Isn’t my love enough? Isn’t your work enough? Isn’t your position, and all that you have done, and all that you do, enough?”

He felt the warmth of her large arms, but they brought him no comfort. He looked into her eyes and he was too beset to be moved because they were full of tears. “I know you love me, my dearest,” he said. “But it isn’t enough, Allan?” She dropped her arms and regarded him with deep consternation. “What is it you want?”

He appeared very ill, with the livid shadows under his high cheekbones, with the heaviness of his eyelids and the anguish of his mouth. He thought over her question, shook his head slowly, over and over. “I don’t know, Cornelia. I want some meaning in my life, perhaps. You see, when I joined your father’s company, the empire was already made, consolidated. All that can be done now is some more monotonous expansion, more improvements, more piling up of money. Your father—he has a sort of splendor about him, for he was an entrepreneur when he was younger. He built the road which I can only help him conserve. He has memories full of excitement; he battled on equal ground with giants. I am not the kind of man he is. I don’t have the love for living he has. Once, I thought power was enough. I didn’t know, then, that it would never be enough for me, even if, and when, I become president of the company.”

She was frightened as she was rarely frightened. She repeated, with an edge of fear in her loud voice, “What is it you want?”

He turned away from her and whispered, “I don’t know. God help me, I don’t know.”

He became aware that she was silent, not with her usual vibrating silence, but with a sort of stillness. The dinner bell rang with muted music through the house, and they did not move. He went to the window and leaned against it and saw the great white crescent of the moon standing like an uplifted sword on the black mountain below it. “Forgive me,” he muttered wretchedly. He looked at his wife and saw that the high color had left her face and that her features had a pinched look. “Cornelia, what is it you want? Tell me; perhaps it might help.”

“I want what I have.” She paused a moment. “I find almost every hour wonderful and exhilarating; I never let myself become bored. Life itself is enough for me.”

He listened with wonder as if to an astounding philosophy which he would never understand, which astonished him. He pondered on what his wife had said, then shook his head in bafflement. “I hear you, but I don’t feel a single response to it, Cornelia. I never enjoyed living, I am afraid. Nothing excites me; nothing is. an adventure.” He did not speak for several long moments, then answered in a low tone, “Life is not enough for me.”

“I was afraid of that,” she said, and now her voice was full and hard in the room. “I suspected it, these last few years. And so did my father. You see, in a way, we are simple people, not complex, like you.”

Cornelia was laughing now, and the laughter was not sympathetic. “Damn it, Allan, take off that infernal blazer and dress for dinner. You see, after all, one has to eat.”