These twain, about to be one flesh, as witness their sober speech, both ate supper, and not dinner, and had done so most of their lives. They came out of middle class circumstances, very similar in each case. Their lives had been much similar. They both had come to the city to seek their fortunes. She had found hers behind a dry-goods counter, he his—temporarily and in sufferance, of course—as an ill-paid clerk in a railway office. They met now and then as they passed out for luncheon, met betimes at evening as they started home. For a time they met also in the same boarding place, where they had rooms not far apart. It was perhaps propinquity that did it. When this thought came to Laura Johnson, with her first realization that perhaps this young man was making love to her, or was apt to do so, she changed her boarding place at once, actuated by some indefinable feeling of delicacy. She wanted to see if there were no better reason for love-making than that of mere propinquity. But he had followed; and she was pleased at that, almost to the point of ascribing to herself some charm which she herself had not suspected. He came again and again, daily, each night after supper, as he had said, in fact. She did not deny that she had made all pleasant for him to the best of her ability. And now he was going to come again, after the next supper; only in a different rôle, that of her accepted suitor.
III
That was almost all there was about it. What would you expect of two ill-paid clerks, twenty-nine and twenty-five years of age? What might they have to hope for, more than for each other? Why should the ambition of either leap beyond what was there present, in its own comprehensible world? Why should they not keep on meeting day after day, after supper?
Romance is by no means a necessary thing. The truly necessary thing is supper. John Rawn knew this.
CHAPTER V
IN ADVERSITY TRIUMPHANT
I
It might with some justice be urged that, thus far in his life, Mr. Rawn has shown little to distinguish him from his fellow-men; that indeed his career has been commonplace almost to the point of lack of interest to others. There are many of us who have been born in this or that small community, who have lived somewhat humdrum lives, have married in a somewhat humdrum way, and who have, in like unspectacular fashion, failed to achieve any distinguished success in affairs. Yet, did we restrict ourselves to this point of view, we must fail of our purpose herein, just as Mr. Rawn himself would have failed had he allowed himself no imagination in his view of himself. For the man who is commonplace and who is aware of the fact, the future is apt to have but little hope, nor is his story apt to hold any interest. In the case of Mr. Rawn the reverse of this was true. He did not rate himself as commonplace. Always he pictured himself as central figure in some large scene presently to be staged. His life was much like ours, and ours are for the most part of small concern to others. But John Rawn heard Voices. They spoke of himself. He saw a Vision. It was of himself. The trouble with us others is that we bashfully still the voices and timidly wipe the image from our mirrors. Let us pass all these matters with reference to them as small as was Rawn's own.
John Rawn, then, married Laura Johnson, and they lived unhappily ever after. That is to say, she did. As for her lord, he did not notice his wife to any great extent after once they had settled down together, but came to regard her as one of those incidents of life which classify with food, clothing, the need of sleep. He looked upon his wife much as he did upon the weather. Both happened, and both for the most part were to be condemned. Still, he took no active measures for the abolishment of either.
He was a solemn man in his home, or at least for the most part a silent. Yet at times he became almost cheerful—when the talk fell upon himself; indeed, he would explain to his wife, with much care and elaboration, himself, his character, his virtues and his plans. In his household life he kept up the traditions in which he had been reared. He ate all the beefsteak there was on the table when there was but enough for one, which latter often was the case, for his wife had need to be frugal. At times he would purchase a solitary ticket to the theater and go alone. Yet he was generous, and always after his return home he would with fine feeling tell his wife what he had seen. Sometimes he spent a Sunday in the country, but, as he himself had been first to state, he was never selfish about this. He always would tell his wife how green the grass had been, how sweet the songs of the birds, how bright the sky. Most of all he would tell of the song of one small bird which sang continually in his ear, telling him of a success which before long, in some way, was to be their own. The passing years left his wife a trifle thinner, a trifle more gray. He himself continued fresh, stalwart, strong. Sometimes, coming back from the theater or the country, after listening to the voice of this small bird at his ear, he would smite with a heavy fist upon the family table and say, "Why, Laura, look at me—look at me!" After which a heavy frown would come upon his face as of one conscious of tardiness in the fashion of fate. But he knew that he was a great man.