"Pendleton would not be left roaming about the world with endless possibility of still blackmailing me and his children. Should he not have ended his existence on the third rail as he ran, the night of his last appearance? And his son, Randolph—would he not have met with a heroic and glorious end in France or at sea, instead of living a highly contented and commonplace life with the pretty Irish peasant girl he has brought from Queenstown—a mere ordinary decent automobile salesman? Would those people go on living in the unremarkable flowing manner of life? No, my heart," I continue soberly, "a story must be tricked and padded with tracery and decoration. And where is the bevy of young adventuresses at play—without which no novel is worthy of the name?"
In justice to Alicia, however, I must recall that Gertrude, of all the others, has emerged true to her form. She carries, I believe, besides the military title of Major, a decoration from every Allied Nation in Europe and at least two bestowed by reigning sovereigns. She drove out here in her handsome car to see us the other day and was much amazed by the sight of my infant son.
"What, Ranny!" she exclaimed with her usual freedom of speech, now enhanced by life in camp as well as court. "You've just brought up one family and you're starting out to get another? You surely are the original of the old woman who lived in a shoe. What a reactionary you are!"
"Reactionary? Yes, Gertrude," I smiled in reply, "I suspect I am—in some things. I hate poverty. I hate to think of city or country slums, of oppression, of disorder and uncleanliness—of lawless, rich or unheeded poor. Possibly from among those I rear, some one will arise to fathom and solve these things. I am sure greater wisdom is slowly filtering into our lives. In many respects I am, as you charge, reactionary. I still have a feeling that every human being must be a center of creative life—and that he who rears children is multiplying creators in the world—against the resplendent future!"
Gertrude laughed, a shade bitterly I thought, and waved her hand in a gesture of despair at my ancient stupidity. Perhaps I should not have prattled in this strain to Gertrude—more particularly since her recent husband, Minot Blackden, has followed the desire of his eyes elsewhere in Gertrude's absence, is now happily divorced and married to some one who shares his apartment, and is himself shamelessly begetting offspring!
No, Gertrude aside, there is no contour to my story. Dibdin, indeed, still appears and disappears, ever the Flying Dutchman, as of old. He is at home now and often sits and smokes in my study and moralizes—may I whisper it?—perhaps a shade more prosily than of old.
"The only devil in the world," he puffed out last night in his gruff manner, as though, pronouncing somebody's doom, "the only devil is the darkness of chaos. Children are the gage the human race, wisely abetted by Nature, is throwing down to this devil."
"And supposing the children you rear should turn out to be 'nobodies'?" I mildly put in, as an obliging straw man.
"What does that matter?" he growled. "Most people are nobodies. It's the nobodies of the world that bring about its catastrophic changes. Mark Antony cunningly put a tongue in every wound of Cæsar's body in the Forum. Mark Antonys are rare, I grant you. But it's the First Citizen and Second Citizen who pulled down Republican Rome about the ears of Brutus. Shakespeare as well as Mark Antony knew that in the nobodies resides the real power for doing. The thinkers are the few; the doers are the many. We need 'em all, all—and that's what kids are for."
Perhaps I should own at this point that in my secret heart I agree with Dibdin, just as in reality I am certain that life has a contour and rhythm of its own. The world may appear harsh, may be truly ill-adapted for justice, culture, beauty. But whatever its shortcomings, the business of the human race in it seems to me clear: To extend and carry on the race of man—the measure of all things—to create a better life on earth. All the world is a man living in a shoe. But somehow, very slowly, it is acquiring knowledge, learning what to do. We may indeed be such stuff as dreams are made on, and our life rounded with a sleep is, in truth, pitifully little. But that little seems mysteriously, tremendously important.