CHAPTER XXI.
“If we go, Richard, we burn our bridges behind us.”
So said John Fenton, as he walked restlessly up and down the room, puffing a pipe nervously, his face paler than usual, and a gleam in his eyes that indicated a mind disturbed.
Stoughton was lounging in one of Fenton’s easy-chairs and gazing at his friend questioningly. It was the evening of the day on which Fenton had listened to Mr. Robinson’s proposition, and he had summoned Richard to his rooms for a council of war.
“I am fully convinced,” continued Fenton, “that the best thing that could happen to you at present, Richard, would be a long absence from New York. As for myself, I am not sure that this London scheme would not save me from making a fool of myself. But”—
“But,” put in Richard solemnly, “you love Gertrude Van Vleck. The ‘but’ is a very important one. Why should you give her up? Of course, John, there are several reasons why I can see an advantage for myself in going to London as your assistant. But I am perfectly willing to waive all that, if you’ll throw away your unreasonable scruples, and take the good the gods provide.”
Fenton seated himself and puffed at his pipe musingly.
“There’s a vulgar assertion,” he remarked at length, “that informs us how hard it is to teach an old dog new tricks. Admitting, Richard, that what you say is true,—granting your premises, I mean,—I cannot accept your conclusion. Listen to me a moment, and don’t interrupt. I will acknowledge that I should like to make Gertrude Van Vleck my wife, but let us look at the matter from all points of view. In the first place, I have no means of knowing that she esteems me more than other men. I have grown distrustful, Richard, of my own impressions in a matter of this kind. Her cordiality toward me may mean anything or nothing. But, after all, that is not the important point. The fact is, my boy, that I have no right to woo her. I have made a failure of life, for one thing. Furthermore, I have been for some years a determined foe to the institutions that have surrounded her with wealth and luxury. I am willing to acknowledge that I am not as aggressive a radical as I was some time ago, but that does not alter the fact that I have long been an outspoken opponent of timocracy.”
“Timocracy?” exclaimed Richard. “The word sounds familiar, but my Greek is rusty. What does it mean, John?”
Fenton looked at his friend suspiciously. For an instant he had a feeling that Richard was ridiculing him. But the earnest expression in the youth’s face reassured him.
“Timocracy, you remember, Richard, established a man’s social and political status according to the amount of grain he owned. We have a timocracy in this country, in fact, if not in theory. A man is known by the companies he is in. But this is wandering a long way from the point. The fact is, Richard, that I have been under a tremendous temptation for the last few weeks, a temptation against which my better nature has been at war. What if I had given in to it, and had, let us say, won the hand of Gertrude Van Vleck? I could never make her happy. Ten years ago, perhaps, such a woman might have moulded me into something approaching an ideal husband. But time is tyrannical, Richard. It is too late now for me to ask of life the greatest blessing that it holds for man, a companionable wife. I cannot accept the sacrifice of youth, beauty, intellect, and affection on the altar of my selfishness. It wouldn’t do, Richard. It wouldn’t do at all. Let the dream pass! Come, boy, help me to be a man. Let us try London, Richard, and see if its fogs can’t hide the foolish mirage our fevered brains have raised. You need heroic treatment as much as I do. From one standpoint, in fact, your case, Richard, is worse than mine. If you stay here you may bring misery to at least three people. If I remain, the worst I could do would be to make myself and one other unhappy. Mathematically you are more deserving of exile than I am.”
“I tell you, John,” exclaimed Richard, his eyes resting on his friend’s face affectionately, “I tell you I don’t want you to bring me in as an important factor in this matter. You are treating a great crisis in your life with more cold-blooded cynicism than I thought you retained. Don’t you see that you may be doing Gertrude Van Vleck a great wrong? Don’t you understand that you may be recklessly throwing away your chance of lifelong happiness? What have your years, or your past, or your theories got to do with the matter? The only question at issue in the whole affair is this: Does Gertrude Van Vleck love you? If she does, your sacrifice would be simply a cruelty. If she doesn’t, your sacrifice wouldn’t be a sacrifice. That sounds Irish, but it expresses my meaning.
‘He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all.’”
An amused smile played over Fenton’s pale face.
“And what course of action do you advise, young hot-head?”
“There is only one thing for you to do, John. Go to Gertrude Van Vleck, and tell her that you love her. If she accepts you, that settles the problem before us. If she rejects you, we will go to London.”
Fenton arose, and resumed his impatient march up and down the room.
“How impetuous youth is!” he remarked after a time. Then he halted; and, standing in front of Richard, looked down at the young man solemnly. “You know little of true love, Richard. It is based on unselfishness and is only true to itself when it remains worthy of its foundation. Listen, boy, and learn. If I propose to Gertrude Van Vleck, and she rejects me, I have subjected to a painful experience the woman I love. If she accepts me, the same result, emphasized, is reached; for I am not worthy of her, Richard. I could not make her happy. No, no; do not answer me. No man can tell another what is the right course in such an affair as this. I have confessed to you more than I ever expected to reveal to any one. I have fought my fight and won my victory.”
Fenton turned, and seated himself wearily. “It has not been easy for me, Richard,” he continued after a long silence. “But let that pass. If you really care for me,—and I feel that you do,—you will never refer to the matter again. I have dreamed my dream, and the awakening has come. I see clearly that there is only one way for me to be true to myself and just to others. I shall take that way. And now, Richard, let us talk of our plans. You have never been in London?”
Richard Stoughton’s heart was heavy as he talked with Fenton about their future. He could not but admire the strength and nobility of his friend’s character; but there seemed to be something left unsaid, some argument not yet advanced, that might throw a different light on the problem Fenton had weighed and solved for himself. But Richard had learned in the last few months that there was a stubbornness and pride in his companion’s nature that rendered opposition impossible after a certain point had been reached.
Furthermore, he could not disguise from himself that he was pleased at Fenton’s decision in so far as it affected himself. Stoughton was a thorough modern in his ways of looking at most subjects, and a few years of experience and travel might easily make his impressionable nature very broad in its tendencies. But there was an ancestral strain of Puritanism in his make-up that still had a strong influence on his ideas of life. Just what his feelings toward Mrs. Percy-Bartlett were he hardly knew; but he realized that if he continued to meet her on the footing that had existed between them of late, he would in the end lose sight of certain principles to which he still fondly clung. He was old-fashioned enough, as yet, to respect, in his cooler moments, the musty teachings that still prevail in certain parts of New England regarding the sacredness of another man’s wife. He had not yet grasped the comparatively modern discovery that to a bachelor all things are pure.
Then, again, with his fondness for Mrs. Percy-Bartlett was mingled an admiration for a vein of self-restraint that he felt certain existed in the foundation of her character. He knew intuitively that if, by word or action, he overstepped certain well-defined boundaries, his intercourse with her would come to an abrupt and unpleasant end.
That Mrs. Percy-Bartlett was not especially fond of her husband he felt convinced, not by any word of hers, but from the indefinable but overwhelming testimony of airy nothings. That she had grown to care for him, Richard Stoughton, a youth who had brought something into her life the lack of which she had long felt, he could well imagine—without, perhaps, a too excessive egotism. But from whatever point of view he considered the matter, the more it seemed to him best that the ocean should roll between them for a time. Richard Stoughton, as the reader has long since observed, was a youth extremely sensitive to his surroundings. The decision he had come to might never have been reached in the Percy-Bartletts’ music-room. In Fenton’s parlor, and in the presence of a man who had made, in Richard’s sight, a great renunciation, it was not so hard to live up to his highest ideals.
“And so,” said Fenton as he arose to bid his guest good-night, “and so, Richard, our problems are solved at last. Come to my room at three o’clock on Monday and we will go up and have a talk with Mr. Robinson. Good-night, my boy, and good luck. I have much to thank you for, Richard—but never mind about it now. Good-night.”