The Whirligig of Time Part 26

"With me, too. James"--he stood still and looked his brother full in the face--"do you know, such a relation as ours is one of the few positive good things that makes life worth while? If we were both struck dead as we stand here, life would have been well worth living--just for this!"

"Yes, that's true," said James slowly; "that's perfectly true."

"And one thing more--for Heaven's sake, James, don't let's either of us mess up this thing in the future, if we can help it! It may be broken up by outside causes--well and good; we can't prevent that; but can't we have the sense not to let silly, conventional things come between us?

Let's not be afraid, above all, of plain talk--at any rate, you need never be afraid to say anything to me. I may be narrow and obstinate to other people, but I don't think I could ever be so to you again. I'd take anything from you, James, anything!--" He smiled at the unintentional double meaning of his words, adding, "And there's nothing I wouldn't give you, either."

It would not be too much to say that James was literally inspired by Harry's words. They seemed to bring out every vestige of what was good and n.o.ble and unselfish in his nature, lifting him high above his everyday, weak, commonplace self--such as he had shown it in the cab, for instance--making life as clear, as sensible, as inspiring as it had seemed last night. His "sacrifice" now appeared nothing; he scarcely thought of it at all, but its nature, when it did appear in the back of his brain, was that of an obvious, pleasant, easy duty; a service that was a joy, a denial that was a self-gratification.

"All right, I'll remember. And if I telegraph you to dye your face pea-green, I shall expect you to do it!" He spoke with a lightness of spirit wholly unfeigned. Then he continued, somewhat more seriously: "I'll tell you what it is; each of us has got to behave so well that it'll be the fault of the other if we do fall out. There's a poem Father used to read that says something of the kind; something about there being none but you--'there is none, oh, none but you--'"

"'That from me estrange your sight,'" finished Harry. "I remember--Campion, I think."

"That's it--that from me estrange your sight. It's funny how those things come back sometimes...." The train pulled noisily in at that moment and made further discussion impossible, but enough had been said to start the same thoughts running in the minds of both and give them both the feeling, as they clasped hands in parting, that the future had the blessing of the past.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SADDEST TALE

With the beginning of the next term Harry embarked on the task of setting himself right with the world. He found it on the whole easier than he had expected. He had only to make a few formal apologies, as in the cases of Shep McGee and Junius LeGrand, and let it become generally known that he had definitely given up drinking, et cetera, to make the cohorts of the commonplace glad to receive him in their ranks once more.

Reinstatement in the social life of New Haven followed quite easily--almost as a matter of course, for he had not actively offended any members of what might be described as the entertaining cla.s.ses. The female element, practically all of whom knew him, or at least of him, through his family connection, had evolved a mythical but interesting conception of him as "rather a fast young man"; and that, alas! served to endear him to their hearts rather than otherwise.

So the last months of his college course pa.s.sed in a sort of sunset haze of enjoyment, marred only by one thing, indecision as to his subsequent career. His friends were inclined to look rather askance at this; one or two, in a tactful way, pointed out to him the danger of "drifting." In reality there was small danger of this; although his inherited income would make him independent of his own efforts for livelihood during the rest of his natural life, Harry would never "drift" very far. His brain was too active, his ambition too lively, his sense of the seriousness of life too deep to allow that. He could never be content doing nothing. He wanted, in turn, to do very nearly everything; the professions of lawyer, doctor, "business man," engineer, clergyman, soldier, sailor--tinker and tailor, even were considered and rejected in turn.

"It's not that I don't want to do all these things," he explained to Trotty, who sometimes showed impatience at his vagueness; "the trouble is that I can't do any of them. I'm not fitted for them--I'm not worthy of them, if you like to put it that way. If I were a conscienceless wretch, now, it would be different!"

One Sunday afternoon in June, rather saddened by the feeling of his apparent uselessness in the world, he went to call on Madge Elliston.

"Well, what are you going to do this summer?" she began. "That seems to be the one topic of conversation at this time of year."

"This summer? Oh, I'm going to walk, with the rest of my cla.s.s, in the more mountainous portions of Europe. At present I am under engagement to walk through the hilly parts of England, Scotland and Wales, the Black Forest, the Alps, the Tyrol, the Dolomites and some of the cooler portions of the Apennines; but the Cevennes and the Caucasus are still open, if you care to engage them.... In between times I expect to roister, shamelessly, in some of the livelier resorts of the Continent.

That's all quite simple; what I'm worrying about is what I'm going to do next winter."

"Why don't you write, if I may be pardoned for asking so obvious a question?" asked Madge.

"One simple but sufficient reason--I haven't got anything to write about," answered Harry, smiling. "That's what everybody asks, and the answer is always the same. This prevalent belief in my literary ability is flattering, but unfortunately it's wholly unfounded."

"I shouldn't say so. I've read most of what you've written in college, and it seems to me extremely clever."

"Clever--that's just it! Nothing more! The awful truth is, there's nothing more in me. I have rather a high regard for literature, you see, and on that very account I'm less willing to inflict myself on it. I wouldn't care, though, if there was anything else I appeared to be cut out for. If I felt that I could sweep crossings better than other people, I a.s.sure you I would go into the profession with the greatest cheerfulness!"

Madge laughed. "I know very much how you feel--I've been going through much the same thing myself, though you might not have guessed it. Only as it happens I have received a call for something very like the profession you speak of."

"Crossing-sweeping?"

"The next thing to it--teaching in a dame's school in town--Miss Snellgrove's. I think it's rather a pretty idea, don't you? Society flower, withered and faint with gaiety, seeking refreshment in the cloistral, the academic!--You don't approve?"

"Woman's sphere is the home," said Harry doubtfully.

"Not when the home is a two-by-four box; you couldn't call that a sphere, could you? Of course," she went on, more seriously, "of course the real, immediate reason why I'm doing it is financial. These are times of--well, stringency.... Not but what we could sc.r.a.pe along; but it seems rather absurd to be earning nothing when one could just as well be earning something, doesn't it? And the only alternative is playing about eternally with college boys younger than myself."

"Yes, I think you're very sensible, if that's the case. Not that it is, of course; you'll find plenty of people coming back to the graduate and professional schools to console you. Also my brother James at week-ends, if that's any comfort to you!"

"James? Is he in this part of the country?"

"Yes, in New York. He's going to be in McClellan's branch there next winter--a.s.sistant manager, or something of the sort--something important and successful sounding. We are all very much set up over it. And it's so near that he can come up for Sunday quite regularly, if he wants.--It does give me quite a solemn and humble feeling, though, to think that you have found a profession before me."

"Oh, yes; teaching at Miss Snellgrove's is more than a profession--it's a career!--I refuse to believe, though," she continued with a change of manner, "that you have not found your profession already, even though you may not care to adopt it yet. For after all, you know, you have the creative ability. Every one says that. All that's wanting in you, as you say, is having something to write about, and nothing but time and development will bring that. Meanwhile I think it's very nice and high-minded of you not to go ahead and write nothing, with great ease and fluency! That's what most people in your position do."

"Thank you; that's very encouraging," said Harry. He looked thoughtfully at her for a moment and continued: "Has it ever occurred to you, Madge, that you are quite a remarkable young woman?"

"Heavens yes, hundreds of times!"

"That's a denial, I suppose. However, it's true. Look at the way you've just been talking to me!... You have what I've come to admire very much during the past few months--perfect balance of viewpoint. You have what one might call a sense of ultimacy--is there such a word? It's like a number of children, each playing about in his own little backyard, surrounded by a high fence that he can't see over, suspecting the existence of a lot of other backyards, with children in them wondering what lay beyond in just the same way. Then occasionally there is born a happy being to whom is given the privilege of looking down on the whole lot of them from the church steeple, and being able to see each backyard in its exact relation to all the other backyards. That's you.... It's a rare gift!"

Madge was at first amused by this elaborate compliment, but she ended by being rather touched by it.

"It's very nice of you to say that," she replied after a moment, "no matter how little foundation there may be for it. It proves one thing, at any rate--I have no monopoly of the quality of ultimacy! You wouldn't be able to think I was ultimate, would you, unless you were a wee bit ultimate yourself? And that goes to prove what I said about your att.i.tude toward your profession."

"I'm afraid you can't make me believe in my own ultimacy, no matter how hard you try," said Harry. "In fact I pursue the rival study of propinquity--the art of never seeing beyond one's own nose!"

"Well, you must at least let me believe in the ultimacy of your finding your profession," insisted Madge. But Harry only shook his head.

Commencement arrived at last, and Aunt Cecilia, attended by a representative delegation of her progeny, flopped down upon Aunt Selina, prepared to do as much by Harry as she had by his brother two years earlier. Aunt Cecilia belonged to the important cla.s.s of American women who regard a graduation as a family event second in importance only to a wedding or a funeral, ranking slightly higher than a "coming out." The occasion was a particularly joyous one to her because of Harry's being able to celebrate it in a full blaze of righteousness and truth, and because of the consequent opportunities for motherly fluttering.

"Dear Harry," she said, as she kissed, him on his arrival; "I am so glad to be here to see you graduate, and so glad that--that everything has gone so splendidly. It is so much, much nicer--that is, it is _so_ nice to think that--"

"Yes, dear; you mean, isn't it nice that I'm respectable again," said Harry, with a flippancy made gentle by the sight of her kind blue eyes.

"I am respectable now, you know, so you needn't be afraid to talk about it. We can all be respectable together; you're respectable, and I'm respectable, and Ruth is respectable and Lucy is respectable, and Aunt Selina is respectable--we hope; how about that, Aunt Selina?--and altogether we're an eminently respectable family. All except Beatrice, that is, who is far, far too n.o.bly born, being related, in fact, to a marquis. No one in the peerage, Aunt C. dear, likes to be called respectable--it's considered insulting. No one, that is, above the rank of baron; the barons are now all reformed brewers, who get their peerages by being so respectable that people forget all about the brewing, and that is English democracy, and isn't it a splendid thing, dear? When you marry Ruth to an English peer, you must be sure to have him a baron, because none of the others are respectable."

"Harry, what nonsense you do talk!" said his aunt. "Before these girls--!"

"I imagine these girls know Harry by this time," remarked Aunt Selina.

"If they don't, it's time they did. You're a hundred times more innocent than they, Cecilia, and always will be."

"Exactly always what I tell Mama," put in Ruth, the eldest of Aunt Cecilia's brood. "Besides, what Harry said is all quite true, I'm sure.

Except about me; I shan't marry a foreigner at all, but if I do, I certainly shan't marry a brewer. Mama is far too rich for me to take anything less than a duke."

This was literally, almost painfully true. A succession of deaths in Aunt Cecilia's family, accompanied by a scarcity of male heirs, had placed her in possession of almost untold wealth--"more than I bargained for when I took you," as Uncle James jocularly put it, for the pleasure of seeing her bridle and blush. Aunt C. was one of the richest women in the country, but it never changed her a particle. Not all her wealth, not all her social prominence, not all the refining influences that several generations' enjoyment of these brings, could ever make her even appear to be anything but the simple, warm-hearted, motherly creature she was.

Harry, realizing all this as well as any one, exerted himself to make Aunt C. glad she had made the effort to come to see him graduate, and he manfully escorted her and the girls to the play, the baccalaureate service, his cla.s.s-day exercises, the baseball game and various other entertainments, where, as Ruth rather aptly put it, "we can sit around and watch somebody else do something." He also did his full duty by his cousin, and danced away a long and perspiring evening with her at the senior promenade. He found Ruth very good company, in spite of her active tongue, or rather, perhaps, because of it.

The final Wednesday, pregnant with fate, arrived at length, and after an immense deal of watching other people receive degrees, some earned and some accorded by the pure generosity of the University, Harry became ent.i.tled to write the magic initials "B.A." after his name. Being one of the leaders of his cla.s.s in point of scholars.h.i.+p, he was one of the twenty or so who mounted the platform and received the diplomas for the rest. This was too much for Aunt Cecilia, who occupied a prominent place in the front row of the balcony.

"Oh, dear," she sighed, wiping away a furtive tear, "there he goes, and no mother to see him do it! No one to be proud of him! And the brightest of all the family--I shall never live to see a son of mine do as well, never, never!"