In a moment the crisis had passed. After a while he closed the window, came back into the room and sank into his chair, utterly exhausted. His mind comprehended dully that he had fought and won, not for Jane, nor for his future, but for that small fire that was still glowing in his breast. He closed his eyes and relaxed his clenched fingers. His nerves still tingled but only slightly like the tremor of harpstrings in a passing storm. He was very tired and in a moment he fell asleep.
When he awoke, the light of dawn was filtering in at the windows. The lamp had gone out. He struck a match and made a light. It was six o’clock. He had slept seven hours. He yawned, stretched himself and looked at his disordered reflection in the mirror, suddenly awake to the beginning of a new day. The aches in his body had gone and his mind was clear again. He leaned forward upon the mantel and silently apostrophized his image.
“You’re going to win, Phil Gallatin. Do you hear? You’re not afraid. You don’t care what the world says. You’re not fighting for the world’s opinion. It’s only your own opinion of yourself that matters a d——n. If you win that, you’ve won everything in the world worth winning.”
He laughed pleasantly and his image smiled back at him.
“Salut! Monsieur! You’re a good sort after all! You’ve got more sand than I thought you had. I’m beginning to like you a great deal. You can look me in the eye now, straight in the eye. That’s right. We understand each other.”
He faced around into the room which had been the scene of so many of his failures, and of his last and greatest success. The light from the windows was growing brighter. It was painting familiar objects with pale violet patches, glinting on glassware and porcelain like the cold light of intellect, which now dominated the merely physical. He swept the room with a glance. Before the light the shadows were fading. The Enemy——
There was no Enemy!
Gallatin poked down the embers of the fire and heaped on wood and coal. He stripped to his underclothes, did twenty minutes with dumb-bells and chest weights, and then went in to draw his bath, singing. He soused himself in the cold water and came out with chattering teeth, but in a moment his body was all aglow.
“It’s a good body,” he mused as he rubbed it, “a perfectly good body, too good to abuse. There’s a soul inside there, too. Where, nobody seems to know, but it’s there and it isn’t in the stomach, and that’s a sure thing, though that’s where the stomach thinks it is. We’ll give this body a chance, if you please, a square deal all around.”