One by one and two by two our faithful friends called, Burroughs, Gilder, Howells, Marion and Edward MacDowell, the Pages, Juliet Tompkins—no one appeared to think ill of us because we returned to our shabby little suite. We dined at Katherine Herne's, finding James A., "away," and with Frank Norris and his wife who were (like ourselves), just beginning to feel a little more secure of a living, while from Seton and Bacheller who were passing from glory to glory, we had kindly invitations to visit their new houses, for both of them were building, Bacheller at Sound Beach and Seton at Coscob.
Seton admitted to me that he had already acquired five times the amount he had once named as the summit of his hopes, and Bacheller awed me by the quiet ease of his way of life. In the opulent presence of these men, I sang a very meek and slender song. I hated to admit my poverty, but what was the use of making any concealment?
It remains to say that neither Bacheller nor Seton expressed in the slightest degree the sense of superiority which their larger royalties might have warranted. I am quite sure they never went so far as to feel sorry for me although they very naturally rejoiced in their own triumphant progress. In some ways I envied them, but I begrudged them nothing.
It chanced that the Setons were far enough along with their building to announce a House Warming, and on New Year's Day, Zulime and I were fortunate enough to be included in the list of their guests. On the Saturday train we found Lloyd Osbourne, Richard Le Gallienne and several others whom we knew and on arrival at the new house on its rocky ledge above the lake, we found that the party also included Mary Fanton, Carl Lumholz, Emery Pottle and Gertrude Lynch.
Seton and I spent part of the afternoon fixing up a teepee which we constructed out of an old Sibley tent, while the other guests skated on the pond. What a dinner we enjoyed that night! What youthful spirits we brought to it! Afterward we sang and danced—we all danced, even Zulime danced for the first time in her life—so she said.
No one had gray hair, no one doubted the future, no one acknowledged impending cloud. We toasted the longevity of "Wyndygoul" and the continued success of its builder. We pledged eternal allegiance to our hostess, and so without a care of the future, watched the New Year dawn.
At two in the morning when I crept away to my bed, the tom-tom and the piano were both sounding out with almost undiminished vigor. It was a night to remember and I do remember it with the pleasure an old man has in the days of his early manhood—not so very early either for I was on the hither side of forty!
Upon our return to the city I found a letter from Bok with a check for eight hundred dollars in it. This was in response to a note of mine respecting an offer of seven hundred and fifty. "Better make it eight hundred," I wrote, and so, in my triumph, I led Zulime to Vantine's and there purchased for her a carved gold ring set with three rose diamonds, the handsomest present I had ever dared to buy for her. "This is to make amends for the measly little engagement ring you were forced to accept," I remarked by way of explanation.
She protested at my reckless waste of money (as she had done with regard to the brown cloak), but to no avail, and thereafter if she occasionally brought the conversation round to Oriental jewelry, I am sure she is not to be blamed. She is still wearing that ring, though she no longer finds the same girlish pleasure in displaying it.
The actual making of my serial into book form began soon after New Years, for I find records of my contract with Harper and Bros., and the arrival of bundles of proof. By the end of February the book was substantially made and ready for distribution, and a handsome book it was—to me. Whatever it had started out to be, it had ended as a fictional study of the red man in his attempt to walk the white man's road, and as a concept of his tragic outlook I still think it worth while.