"I'm told he makes money."
"A good deal more than he spends on himself. I keep his personal accounts and I know. Several of his specialties are very valuable, inventions of his father's that are still in demand. He'd make more money if he had a better system. Hegner says he can't accept all his orders. Maybe," she suggested, "you could help him there?"
He shook his head. "I'm afraid, Miss Summers," his laugh was not pleasant this time, "I don't know much of anything useful."
"You could learn, couldn't you?" she asked quietly.
He flushed, because he had let himself whimper. "Why—I suppose I could try."
She left him then. And strangely—how, he could not have told—soothing oil had been poured into his wounds.
By most rules set by most men he should have been happy enough. He had work, clean and honest, that he was learning to do well. He had paid a first installment on his debts. Dick Holden had been as good as his word, the evening hours were busy ones and Dick would soon cease to be a creditor. Shirley wrote daily. She was well, the good times had materialized, Davy Junior was learning a new word every day and they both were so homesick for him.
He was learning a new thing—to work, not with the natural easy absorption in a well-loved calling, but with faculties through sheer force of will concentrated on tasks set by others, in which he had no heart; to shut out of mind and heart, while he was working, all other facts of his life. It is a good thing for a man to know.
But, let his will relax its grip, and instantly his hurts began to throb. His pride had suffered; he had proclaimed himself to his little world a failure in his chosen calling. The new work was not his work. Desire for that would not die, despite failure. His mind, once freed from his will's leash, would leap, unwontedly active, into the old groove, setting before him creations that tantalized him with their beauty and vigor and made him yearn to be at work upon them. And that was a bad habit, he thought; if he was to learn content in the new work, he must first put off love for the old. When the debts were paid, the work for the successful uninspired Dick should cease.
And in idle moments, though they were few, and in sleepless hours, not so few, the incredible loneliness would rush upon him, not lessened by custom; and a more poignant sense of loss. To that vague sense he carefully denied words, lest definition add to the hurt.