CHAPTER II.WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES.
“O Urania! the earth and the air and the seaAnd the infinite spaces are vocal with thee,And the sunset and moonrise seraphic with thee.”—Ben S. Parker.
The tall young man alone on the porch walked slowly back and forth, looking off into the sweet spring sunshine, with troubled eyes.
He stopped and his face flushed with pleasure as a young girl dressed for the street came out of the door.
“You here,Mr.Kendall?” she said, interrogatively. “You toil not neither do you spin to-day? How’s that?”
“Because I am weary and fain would rest,” he answered. “Yes, and I fain would do several other things, too; but I dare say I shall not. But you have been idling lately, too. Why so?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Like yourself I am weary and fain would do—I scarcely know what, and go I scarcely know where.”
“Do you mind my asking whither you are bound just now?”
“Not at all,” she answered, pleasantly, “only I can’t say definitely, because I don’t know. Ishall probably fetch up at the nearest open square where there is some green grass on which I can rest my eyes a bit, and either lose myself or find myself for a little while.”
“May I go with you?” He made the request a little timidly, for she had a high-handed way with him that made him a little afraid of her, though she attracted him with resistless force.
“I shall be pleased.” Her voice had a sincere ring in it that flushed his face with pleasure. “You are always a good companion, because you don’t tire me talking too much.”
“A dubious compliment, but I am grateful for it, nevertheless. Though if it be intended as a hint for me to keep silent this morning it will not be taken, that’s all.”
They walked away together with the manner of persons accustomed to seeing much of each other.
The wide old streets had birds twittering in the trees, and sunshine warm upon them. The air was soft and mild, and brought with it the gentle melancholy peculiar to spring, a melancholy that creates or awakes a strange unrest, and makes us long to go journeying to far countries, we know not why.
Each of these two were touched by the spirit of this unrest. They spoke of the beauty of the day, of the joy of idling now and then, so sweet to busy people, but soon fell into silence, fortheir thoughts were not with their words. The young man’s eyes became misty from time to time, though his companion saw it not, for she did not look at his face. He was thinking that in after years he should often recall this walk. On his mind he was painting every object his eyes encountered, that he might treasure it as a comforting picture in the possible lonely future.
After wandering about awhile they sat down in a tiny park near a fountain, and idly watched the water spraying in the sunshine.
“How long have you been here, Miss Hill?” Kendall asked abruptly.
“Four years,” she answered, tossing a pebble into the fountain and showing little interest in anything but her own thoughts.
“And I five.”
As she said nothing, presently he went on: “Now, I want you to do me a service, a real service. I want you to decide a question, an important question for me, and I have determined to abide by your decision, whatever it may be. Yes, I will do exactly as you say.”
Expecting a word or look of interest from her, he paused; but she went on drawing lines on the gravel walk with her parasol, in silence. Being of the large, fair type of man, his face flushed with every emotion. Just now he colored deeply because of her apparent unconcern, but continued:
“There are times in each life when it is necessary to do one of two things. Until we reach this point we get on very well, and are untroubled by doubts. But when we have to decide whether to keep the right hand road or take the left, then we look about for something or somebody to cast the die for us. The doing is always comparatively easy; it’s the deciding that muddles and troubles us. Now I have come to the place where the road divides, and I want some help on the decision.”
She looked up at him now with unaffected interest.
“I am thinking that I ought to strike out and do something better than I am doing,—be something more than a cog in a great machine. I am tired of that. In the office over there”—making a motion with his hand in the direction of the commercial part of the city—“are men who would faint, I am sure, or weep like children, if they should lose their situations, such cowards have they become by long dependence on the weekly salary. Some have been there years, and have given their manhood as well as their time in exchange for the money they pocket every Saturday. They act like slaves in the presence of their employer. If he had bought them at the auction block they could not be more cringing to him. When he is in sight self-respect withers and they are mere worms, crawling inspirit at his feet. I don’t want to become like that, and yet I am sure to if I remain. That sort of thing is contagious. No man can stand forever against it. I know just enough of the degrading feeling to be willing to make a sacrifice to avoid familiarity with it. In reality the wage-earner and the man who hires him engage in a form of coöperation, each to be respected by the other; but the relation is universally misunderstood. The employer develops into an autocrat and the employee into a serf, and so both are injured. To be an employee too long is to become a dependent, helpless, pitiable being, a degenerate man. I am sure of it. Believing that, I feel I must escape from such direful consequences.
“Yet it takes courage to voluntarily give up what they call a good salary, and go into the wilderness, so to speak, and take the risks that all that implies. A ship sails from New York for San Francisco day after to-morrow. I have been thinking I would resign my situation and take passage on her. The territories are big and full of opportunities. I thought to go to one of them and carve out life for myself on broader lines, if possible. I have a little money, and I can still put forth effort. As I have no family to consult—not a relative in the world—and being on the fence, as it were, in the matter of deciding, I have a fancy for leaving it to you andwill do what you say. Tell me, shall I go or stay?”
She looked at him with something like admiration shining in her eyes.
“Go,” she said, unhesitatingly. “Go, and be an individual, a fully developed unit, a man, not a mere cog in somebody else’s wheel. Cogs have their uses, but they have also their limitations, and they are so plentiful. You can be a whole machine, if you try. Yes, go and be a figure in the world, on your own account, not simply a cipher, useful only as auxiliary to the figures.”
“Good!” he said, with forced emphasis, making a brave effort to appear delighted, but in his heart wishing he could hide somewhere and take it out in a hearty schoolboy blubber. “Day after to-morrow at this time I shall be aboard my ship.”
He knew that her decision was wise, but it pained him that she was so ready to send him. And then, there was the ordeal of parting from her, a tug of war he could not calmly face.
“You should go for the sake of preserving your self-respect,” she continued, “lest in time you become like the slavish wretches by whom you are surrounded, and also to preserve your life if you care for it. Two years more here bent over your desk in dingy, close rooms, and you will be hopelessly ill of consumption.”
“I have thought of that,” he said, “and it has something to do with my wish to get away.”
“Well, when you go elsewhere, don’t make the mistake of beginning the same kind of life over again. Don’t imprison yourself, and don’t hire yourself out to any man. The air of the West will not save you unless you breathe it fresh and pure. Live outdoors as much as possible. How hideous is this habit of herding in cities—hideous and hurtful! How sensible of you to think of going where there is breadth, freedom and outlook in all senses of the words; but I am surprised, because I never heard you express any discontent.”
“To be honest, I had very little—too little for my own good,” he said, coloring deeply. “It has cost me a struggle to force myself to think of going. Don’t forget that it is you who are sending me after all; but for you I swear I should not go.”
“I am sure I am doing you a service,” she answered, “though I shall miss you, as a matter of course.”
“And you, what of your future? You advise me to leave this plodding existence, where there is neither growth nor freedom, and go where I can be more than I ever can be here; but you are passing your life in exactly the same jog-along way.”
“I—oh! I, too, shall be gone some day.” As she spoke she smiled, looking afar off.
“If I make a place for you will you come?” he asked.
There was nothing lover-like in his voice or attitude, yet he loved the girl beside him with a faithful, dog-like, worshipful affection. Not loving him, and not having a grain of coquetry or even vanity in her, she had never been aware of it. Even now, when his meaning became plain to her, she did not make a situation of it, or give it the slightest shading of the sentimental. Entirely unmoved herself, she knew not what the avowal cost him, made in the face of defeat, as he well knew beforehand.
“Oh, dear, no,” she said, simply, without a shade more or less of feeling in face or voice. “If I were a man, yes, I would go; but as it is, no. Be grateful that you are a man and have no hampering, cramping sex limitations to work against in the public mind if not in your own. You are free to go where you will and to do what you wish, and if it be but half-way well done, both fools and wise will chirrup your praises. One thing I ask of you. Throughout your life, never lose an opportunity of helping womankind to a freer, better, broader life. Do this in memory of me, and if I meet you in the future, either here or on the other side of life—should there be another side—I shall not fail to thank you.”
“I promise, and doubtless shall do more than that, in memory of you.” The last words had a quaver of agony in them, which she did not sense.
“I have been growing restless of late, too. Some day I shall be gone—perhaps before long.” She looked afar off with dreamy eyes as she spoke, and Kendall’s heart ached as he realized at last, that in the future of her dreams he had no part or place.
“Do not forget, wherever you may be, that I am always your loyal, humble servant,” he said, gently.
“I am sure of that, and I thank you,” she answered, with kindness in her voice.
It was like the man that he did not try to relieve his almost bursting heart by talking of his love for her, even though it was without hope, but he understood none of the arts of Eros, and was disciplined in repression.
In truth, it was preposterous that he should dream of winning this woman, and in a vague way he always knew it; yet he had dreamed. From the day he first saw her she had enthralled him, an achievement of which she seemed altogether unconscious, though everybody else read it clearly enough.
They had met daily in their common home, a boarding-house, for four years. They had enjoyed concerts, plays and lectures together; had walked and talked together and been good comrades and yet had never agreed. Nothing under the sun did they see from the same point of view, and the topic upon which they thought alike hadnever been found. In spite of this, Kendall patiently worshipped at her shrine. Had he not been of the steady, hopeful, never-give-up brand of lover, he would have lost heart long before. But he had the confidence of the self-satisfied and shortsighted, and a heart that held on to its fancies with the desperate clutch that wins sometimes when finer methods fail.
To his credit be it said that while his devotion was open and above-board, for all the world to see, he was never obtrusive. Early in his acquaintance with his torturer he had learned to take a third or fourth place about her candle and make no fuss. He was at her service whenever she needed him, and always out of the way when she didn’t need him.
Many a night he had climbed to his fourth-story room, humming a cheery song, while his heart was being gnawed in holes by the monster Jealousy, all because Miss Hill was chatting and laughing in the parlor with some of the other moths who circled about her. When chaffed about his ill-requited devotion, he laughed it off, and said he was happy to be tolerated at all. To himself, as a matter of graveyard whistling, he said: “It is a question of waiting. She cares for none of them. When she tires of them she may think of me. Meanwhile I think of her because I can’t help it.”
He kept this up for four years. Then a restlessnessof spirit came upon him; the unseen forces of destiny began to work upon his mind and urge him to go forth, he knew not where. Yet how could he go out of the sight of her, voluntarily? There was but one thing that would give him the required courage, and that was to make her bid him go. Then he could feel that, at least, he was obeying her, hence his little plan of having her cast the die. It might comfort him in the future.
The four years of their life together under the same roof rolled through Kendall’s mind in panorama, and filled his heart to bursting. The daily sight of the girl beside him had sweetened the days—had been life itself to him, for she radiated light and life, like a sun. That she did not love him, mattered little in that moment. The years in which he had lived in her presence could not be taken from him. Remembering this his spirit was lifted up, and the poor, common, selfish ambition to possess her vanished, and the joy of having known and loved her took its place.
He looked at her long, earnestly, adoringly, photographing her on the fadeless walls of memory that he might carry the picture with him through all the years to come.
“I want to make a confession to you, Miss Hill,” said Kendall, when he thought the mental photograph of her was complete. “You haveconverted me to broader views, not by words, but by your daily life. I see you filling a useful place, unaided, in a profession that only men, heretofore, to my knowledge, have attempted. You not only succeed, but you excel most of your male co-workers. You make as much money as any of them, and you have more brains, and you command everybody’s respect. Thinking over these things, I am ashamed to remember that I thought I ought to vote, but women must be kept from it at all hazards. Your example has enlightened me by taking some of the masculine conceit out of me. I feel small and mean that I in my insignificance should have thrown a straw in the path of women like you.”
“I am glad your mental horizon has widened,” she said. “It will be a pleasure to think of you as one of my converts. I may never make another, unless, as in this case, it be done by example and not argument. I begin to believe that discussion availeth little. When I hear poor, undeveloped beings fighting the ideas that would make them free, I do nothing to convert them to my way of thinking, I just silently say, ‘May God enlighten them,’ for that’s all that can be done, and the enlightening process is usually slow.”
“I remember now,” he said, “that I haven’t been able to draw you into a discussion in many a day. I suppose you saw it was a hopeless case and just simply prayed for my enlightenment.”
“Yes; and it has come sooner than I expected. So now I am more than ever persuaded that argument is useless. None can be taught until ready to learn. ‘Except ye become as little children’—receptive, teachable, ready for light—applies to entering all kingdoms as well as the heavenly one.”
“While I am confessing,” said Kendall, “I will tell you that I used sometimes to take sides against you for the pleasure of hearing you express yourself—you do it so well.”
She looked at him and her eyes made him ashamed, as she said: “That was not kind. I was always in earnest. However, I am learning a little more about human nature every day. I shall soon cease to be a Galatea, I think.”
“No; it was not kind nor honest, but I did not realize it until this moment, and now I ask your pardon. Many of the offences of us men are the outcome of ignorance rather than meanness. We know no better. Our conceit has stood in the way of our enlightenment. Forgive all my shortcomings, and remember my defects no more. Be a little kinder still and do one other service for me. Read me my future.”
“I am no occultist,” she answered, laughing.
“No matter. I have a fancy for believing you are for the time being. Tell me what lies ahead. It may keep up my courage. Since you are my confessor, I don’t mind telling you that there aremoments when I feel a childish cowardice about what I may have to meet, and wish I could run away from it all and hide forevermore.”
“That recalls a bit of rhyme I read years ago which has always stuck in my memory,” she said:
“‘What is Life, Father? A battle, my child,Where the strongest arm may fail;Where the wariest eye may be beguil’d,And the stoutest heart may quail.’
“’Tis no shame to admit that one’s courage is not always high. No one lives always on the heights. I know something about those moments of childish cowardice you speak of; but there, I belong to the sex that is supposed to have the right to be cowardly—we are even driven to it. Courage brings reproach upon us, while the more we shrink and cower and quail and complain the more ‘womanly’ we are said to be. What a fine outlook for the human race! But as to your future. Now I am an astrologer and must draw your horoscope.” (This was accomplished by scratching several circles on the walk with the end of her parasol.) “There, the rings and dots and figures all mean tremendous things. I shall not weary you, however, by telling you the why and wherefore of everything. I shall stick to facts. Here goes: I see a journey by water which ends where the sun sets. You will meet disappointments and difficulties; will know privationsand dangers, and also that most dreadful form of homesickness—the homesickness of one who has no home. But you will overcome all obstacles and be what is called successful; you will find your place and hold it. You will become bigger and stronger in body and in character, and you willnever come back here.”
“And the indescribable thing called Happiness; has it no place in my horoscope?” he asked, after a pause.
“Is it not included in the thing called Success?” she answered. “Can the defeated be happy?”
“On the whole your reading is not half bad, as the English say, when they want to compliment a thing, and I believe in it.” Yet he sighed as he spoke. The promised success was not alluring, meaning as it did, lifelong separation from the sun that warmed his life.
Still he was in dead earnest when he said he believed in her prophecies. Long ago he had made up his mind that this girl was his fate—not in the sense that she was likely to unite her life to his. He had never been honestly hopeful of that in spite of his steady perseverance; but it seemed to him that in some way she was to direct his life, to be the star of his destiny, as it were. And never was that belief stronger upon him than now when he knew that the end of their daily association had come.
Rising, she said, “Let us each cast a pebble in the pool of this fountain and see whose circles will last longer.”
As they watched the rings widen, multiply and vanish until those made by her pebble had obliterated his, he said,
“There! Your spirit will trouble the waters of life to greater purpose than mine and longer. It needs no divination to tell that.”
When they went back to the house they met Westfield coming out. “Will she eventually throw herself away on him?” was the query Kendall put to himself.
At the breakfast table next morning Kendall’s chair was vacant, and the place was to know him no more under the sun.