"'Well, but what's it worth?'
"I thought for a moment, and then, knowing how he valued everything by his own standard, said:
"'I should think, perhaps, fifty dollars, when it's finished.'
"'That's at the rate of twenty-five dollars a week, isn't it? A little over three dollars a day. I earned more than that, young man, when I was younger than you, and I was making something that was sold before I turned a hand to it. You've got to shop your things around till you sell 'em. Come into the house, Nellie, I want to speak to you.'
"Brutal, wasn't it? I have hated his kind ever since. Money! Money! Money! You'd think the only thing in life was the accumulation of dollars. Flowers bloom, mists curl up mountain sides, brooks laugh in the sunlight, birds sing, and children romp and play. There is poverty and suffering and death; there are stricken hearts needing help; kind words to speak; famishing minds to educate; there is art, and science, and music—Nothing counts. Money! Money! Money! I'm sick of it!"
"And that ended it with the girl?" I asked, without moving my head from my hand.
"Yes, practically. She went to Paris and I went back to Munich. I felt as if my heart had been torn out of me; like a plant twisted up by the roots. The letters came—first every day, then once or twice a week, then at long intervals. You won't believe it, old man, but do you know that wound never healed for years; hasn't yet, parts of it. Shams, flaunted wealth, society—all irritate it, and me. It seemed so cruel, so damned stupid. What counts but love, I would say to myself over and over again. If I had a million dollars, what better off would I be? If we were both on a desert island without a cent we could be happy together, and if we had a million apiece and didn't love each other we would be miserable. Quixotic, I know, indefensible, out of date with modern methods, but I'd give my career if more of that sort of doctrine saturated the air we breathe."
"You saw her again?"
"Yes, once in Paris, driving with her husband. This was about five years ago. She didn't see me, although I stood within ten feet of her. He was much older, older than I am now, I should think. Commonplace sort of fellow—see a dozen like him any morning on the Avenue going down to Wall Street. Only her eyes were left, and the fluff of hair about her forehead. She made no impression on me; she wasn't the woman I loved. My memories were of a girl in the garden, all in white, her hair about her shoulders, the molten sunlight splashed here and there, the cool shadow tones between the drippings of gold. And the sound of her voice, and the way she raised her eyes to mine! No, it never comes but once. It is the bloom on the peach, the flush of dawn, never repeated in any other sky; the thrill of the first kiss at the altar, the cry of the first child. Yours! Yours! for ever and ever!
"Talking like a first-class idiot, am I not, old man? But I can't help it. And I get so lonely for it sometimes! Often when you fellows go home and I am left alone at night I draw up by this fire and build castles in the coals. And I see so many things: the figure of a woman, the uplifted hands of children, paths leading to low porticos, gardens with tall flowers along their paths, an arm about my neck and a warm cheek held close to mine. I know I am only half living tucked up here pegging away, and that I ought to shake myself loose and go out into the world more and see what it is made of. In a few years I'll be frozen fast into my habits like an old branch in a stream when the winter's cold strikes it. Only you and the other boys and the fire keep me young."