CHAPTER XVII
POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE
The day after the wedding, as Arthur was going home from work, he saw Ross on the lofty seat of a dogcart, driving toward him along lower Monroe Street. His anger instantly flamed and flared; he crushed an oath between his teeth and glanced about for some way to avoid the humiliating meeting. But there was no cross street between him and the on-coming cart. Pride, or vanity, came to his support, as soon as he was convinced that escape was impossible. With an air that was too near to defiance to create the intended impression of indifference, he swung along and, just as the cart was passing, glanced at his high-enthroned former friend.
Ross had not seen him until their eyes met. He drew his horse in so sharply that it reared and pawed in amazement and indignation at the bit's coarse insult to thoroughbred instincts for courteous treatment. He knew Arthur was at work in the factory; but he did not expect to see him in workman's dress, with a dinner pail in his hand. And from his height, he, clad in the carefully careless, ostentatiously unostentatious garments of the "perfect gentleman," gazed speechless at the spectacle. Arthur reddened violently. Not all the daily contrasts thrust upon him in those months at the cooperage had so brought home to his soul the differences of caste. And there came to him for the first time that hatred of inequalities which, repulsive though it is in theory, is yet the true nerver of the strong right arm of progress. It is as characteristic of the homely, human countenance of Democracy as the supercilious smirk is of the homely, inhuman countenance of caste. Arthur did not want to get up where Ross was seated in such elegant state; he wanted to tear Ross, all the Rosses down. "The damn fool!" he fumed. "He goes lounging about, wasting the money we make. It's all wrong. And if we weren't a herd of tame asses, we wouldn't permit it."
And now he began to feel that he was the superior of this showy idler, that his own garments and dinner pail and used hands were the titles to a nobility which could justly look down upon those who filched from the treasury of the toiler the means to buzz and flit and glitter in dronelike ease. "As for these Whitneys," he thought, "mother's right about them." Then he called out in a tone of good-natured contempt, which his stature and his powerful frame and strong, handsome face made effective: "Hello, Ross! When did you come to town?"
"This morning," replied Ross. "I heard you were working, but I had no idea it was—I've just been to your house, looking for you, and was on the way to the factory. Father told me to see that you get a suitable position. I'm going to Howells and arrange it. You know, father's been in the East and very busy."
"Don't bother," said Arthur, and there was no pretense in his air of ease. "I've got just what I want. I am carrying out father's plan, and I'm far enough into it to see that he was right."
In unbelieving silence Ross looked down at his former equal with condescending sympathy; how well Arthur knew that look! And he remembered that he had once, so short a time before, regarded it as kindly, and the thoughts behind it as generous!
"I like my job," he continued. "It gives me a sense of doing something useful—of getting valuable education. Already I've had a thousand damn-fool ideas knocked out of my head."
"I suppose it is interesting," said Ross, with gracious encouragement.
"The associations must be rather trying."