He pulls the bed down. He cannot lie on it now. He takes a chair and greedily reads the apotheosis of David Lockwin.
As he reads he is seized with a surprising feeling. In all this eulogium he sees the hand of Esther Lockwin. Without her aid this great biography could not have been collated.
The sweat stands on his brow. He studies the type, to learn those confessions that the publishers make, one to another, but not to the world.
"It is paid for," he groans. He is wounded and unhappy.
"It is her cursed pride," he says. "I'm glad I'm out of it all."
He sits, week after week, hands deep in pockets, his legs stretched out, one ankle over the other, his chin far down on his chest.
"Funny man in the east parlor!" says the chambermaid.
"Isn't he ugly!" says her fellow-chambermaid.
But after this long discontent, Robert Chalmers finds that Chicago mourns for him. He is flattered. "I earned it!" he cries, and goes in search of the books that once eased him--the identical copies.
The movement for a cenotaph makes him smile. On the whole, he is glad men are so sentimental about monuments. He is glad, however, that no monument will be erected.