Her excessive feeling was unreasonable, she knew, yet this episode of the traction stocks had revealed to her all the ugliness of this game with money, which as a girl she had fancied to be fine and exciting. Others possibly might play it with ideal justice, but so few, so very few! And the worst of it was that your ideas of fair play became warped insensibly, that the best of men acquired a contempt for the “amateurishness” and “quixotry” of their youth. They became Jesuits with their souls. And the end of it all after you had got the success was one or all of three things: personal indulgence, charity, or a vague kind of comfort in the general development of mankind. Money made Chicago expand until men became dizzy contemplating where the end might be. But what use in all this multiplication, if it meant no gain in quality, no finer fibre, no higher life of the mind or of the soul? If the hard, honest Remsen were but to give place to the unctuous Wren? Why go on sowing a vast country, planting dollars and reaping millions; multiplying railroads and factories and mines,—when all that came of it was an immense commissariat business for the accumulating hordes of greedy, half-educated, wholly common people? One passionate, intolerant moment killed this woman’s love of business energy,—the mere exercise of getting wealth. It was a curious trade,—that was all.
Her imagination made her unfair, narrow. She could not see that in this wholesale indictment of an eager, fresh civilization, she was condemning the order of nature. She did not pause to consider the sturdy men who kept to their ideals, nor realize that the seething, hungry mass who fought for the only glory they knew were pitiable and blind. She would have none of it.
Six weeks later Mrs. Wilbur’s son came. When she had grown strong enough for her old life, she put all business aside methodically, turning away from the stock quotations in the newspapers in nervous dread, and skilfully avoiding any reference to their affairs whenever Wilbur showed himself inclined to talk business. There had been a time when she resented her child’s interference with her plans, his division between her and her husband. Now she welcomed it, trying to make up to the little Sebastian her disloyalty during the months before his birth. Even Molly Parker, who presided over a small kindergarten in the neighbourhood, found her a sufficiently solicitous mother.
When Thornton Jennings wondered why Mrs. Wilbur had lost her interest in the Legal Aid Society and in the committees of the Civic Association, Miss Parker explained blithely, “She has other things to think of.”
“I don’t believe it is that, altogether. She was not the kind to lose all interest in this fashion.”
“Perhaps she is passing through a crisis. She is always having a crisis on hand.”
And Wilbur—who found nothing to complain of in his handsome, composed wife—also wondered about the crisis. He found himself left completely to his own devices. He did not bother himself long, for the business world was beginning to shake off the lethargy of the past two years, and he was busy with success. At odd moments, the husband and wife talked of the new house. It was nearly ready now for occupancy, and there was an undiscussed plan to move late in the summer.
Mrs. Anthon, who had come from St. Louis to assist in this operation, was anxious that the house should be properly dedicated by some important social event. Wilbur agreed with her, and the two discussed the matter for weeks. At last Mrs. Wilbur showed enough interest to suggest, languidly, giving a musicale. “Then,” she added, “we might have a series of lectures on art subjects by Mr. Erard. The Woman’s Amalgamated Institute have asked me to get him for the club, and I might offer the house.”
Mrs. Anthon sniffed dubiously. “I thought you had dropped that fellow by this time. What’s he doing over here?”
“Visiting and lecturing, I believe. He will be in Chicago by the end of October. I had thought of asking him to stay with us while he is here. What do you say, John, to having him?”