XVI
“Fess,” said Jeremiah Keene, on the night of Commencement Day, “what are you going to do with yourself? You are the most expansive—nay, sentimental and emotional creature on one side of you, and on the other the most secretive! I’ve turned myself inside out to you over and over again. You know all my hopes, aspirations, plans—who doesn’t? What have I been digging away at this school of mines for? But you’ve gone in for everything, distinguished yourself in pretty nearly everything—and we are none the wiser. In these days you’ve got to be one thing—one thing—there’s no chance for any but the specialist, and you are as well aware of that as any one else. So I know, we all know, that you must have made up your mind—that you know what you are about. It isn’t only curiosity that prompts me to ask for your secret—there is no necessity for maunderings on my part. I’d like to know; we may not meet again for years—you go East, I go West—I’ve never taken a liberty with you before; forgive me this.”
Fessenden made no reply for a moment. He was spending his last night in Turbine in the rooms of his chum. The day had been crowded with triumphs. He was dazzled, elated, a trifle bewildered. Compliments and flattering predictions had fallen thick upon him. The president had congratulated him publicly, invited him to dinner to meet the distinguished guests, and he had been the only student so honored. Among the guests were several of the eminent men who had condescendedto illuminate the university during the past year, and they had singled out Fessenden and paid him such marked attentions, besides interrogating him so closely as to his interest in his more important studies, that both faculty and students, highly as they thought of their star, were astonished: the successful self-made American takes very little interest in unmade futures. It was a great and notable tribute to personality, and Fessenden’s chest had risen and his head bulged more than once. He was feeling his strength at every nerve-point, he knew himself to be ready to go out and conquer the world at once; his mind had flashed back during the exciting day to the long course of training, from his babyhood until this last week of his twenty-first year, which had modelled his inherited forces in brain and character, slowly and safely, given him the physical endurance to keep pace with the restless energies of his mind. He was filled with gratitude for his father, but he also thought very well of himself. The self-made American was his type, the ideal he had set on high; whether born in a log-cabin, on a Virginia plantation, or a romantic British isle, was immaterial. All the great men of his country had started with a reasonable amount of poverty, and certainly the youthful record of none was more brilliant than his. He had had his disappointments, his disillusionments, even in Turbine; he had been deceived and tricked and tripped and hurt like all men; but he lived too much in imagination, in the future, and his application to study had been too severe for brooding on the shortcomings of the world. He still thought well of it, and his consistent admiration for his friend Keene had gone far to nurse his optimism. Life never did a kinder thing for him than in bestowing so abundant a measure of contentment in these last hours of his boyhood.
He stood up in a moment, turning over his chair. Keene was lying on a divan, smoking. The lamp was low. The windows were open, but to silence only. It was very late.
“Well—well—well—” said Fessenden. “I don’t know. I should have to tell you so much—and my ambitions are defined and at the same time rather nebulous. You see, I have to find out just what my father wants of me first—what he is—”
“What he is? There is a mystery, then? You’ve bluffed us pretty well.”
“I’m no maker of mysteries. I don’t know, myself—but—and you’re the only person living I’d say this to, and I’d break even your head if you gave a hint before he was ready—I think he is a great inventor and wanted me to have this training that I might help him.”
It was on the tip of Keene’s tongue to remark upon the uselessness of Mr. Abbott’s secrecy so far as his son was concerned, but congratulated himself a few moments later that Fessenden had given him no time for comment.
“I have not seen him for years, but not through lack of affection—he asked me to trust him and I have done so. I had a curious letter from him on Tuesday—I have thought a good deal about it since—and now that I am to see him and know all so soon, I may permit myself to indulge in curiosity. I’ll read it to you if you like.”
He held Mr. Abbott’s last letter to the lamp and read it aloud; then plunged his hands into his pockets, planted himself squarely on his feet, and told Keene of his peculiar relations with his father since his mother’s death. He made it all very vivid; the brief visits of Mr. Abbott, the concise pregnant conversations, the firm careful finger always modelling at the foundations of his character, the cleverness and foresight with whichhis father had secured the services of Stanley Morris, who through seven monotonous years had pined for California. Much of this was revealed unconsciously in the narrative of his mountain-life. While he was in the midst of his story Keene sat up suddenly; a moment later interrupted him to ask for a description of Mr. Abbott. Fessenden had answered: “Small, thin, but with an immense lot of presence—even up there where one man is exactly the same as another, where there is real equality and no bluff about it—they all bowed down to him instinctively—even Morris, who is a deep scholar and thinker and belongs to one of the best families in the country—if you care for that sort of American rot. Even when I was a little chap and he used to pet and fondle me, I could feel the power come out of him, and I told Morris once that if he wasn’t a rich man it must be his own fault—he made you feel he could be anything he chose. His face is beautiful to me, perhaps because I love him, for Morris remarked rather nastily once that he was not generally considered a beauty; but he has eyes that can light up, and his face always changed for me anyhow, if it did look rather cold—perhaps hard—at other times. Nettlebeck swore once that it was hard, but I never could see it. His features are well cut, too, his nose looks as if it could go through a stone wall, and there is not an indefinite curve in his mouth—there you have him, as well as I can describe anybody.”
But Keene, long since, had rolled over and buried his face in the sofa cushions.
The next day, as the two men parted at Chicago, Keene, who was far more mature than Fessenden, having less of the eternal boy in him, put his arm about his friend’s shoulder and said hesitatingly: “Remember—there are terrible disappointments awaiting you out here in the great world—as for all of us. Take everythingthat comes along as philosophically as you can—everything is for the best, I suppose. Above all, don’t let any shock embitter you. I am sure, I am sure that your father is all that you imagine him to be—that whatever he does in regard to you—has done—is right.... I wish he were not so poor, however; I wish he weretheAbbott.”
“Who istheAbbott?”
“Of course you never read the newspapers, and it is odd how he manages to keep out of the illustrated magazines—I should think he must pay them. The Abbott, my dear boy, is richer than the whole Rothschild outfit condensed into the singular.”
“Well, I’m glad he’s not that sort of Abbott,” said Fessenden indifferently. “Thank God I can show my mettle and start from the ground up.”
The words left no trail in Fessenden’s mind; the parting which followed affected him deeply, and he was too excited at the prospect of seeing his father again to recall what had impressed him as a mere chance remark.