It was all right. He wasn’t afraid. The devil, Ambition, was pretty well strangled. There must be something that lasts, in his late-found sense of the utter unimportance of anything the world can give—the world which appreciates only the boyish part of a real man’s work. So he would take out with him a reality of the emptiness of the voice of the crowd. Then the unclean desire for drink was finished—none of that would cling to him; moreover, no fighting passion to live on would hold him down to the body of things.... But he would pass the door with the love of Betty Berry—strong, young, imperious, almost untried.... Would that come back with him? Does a matter of such dimension die? Does one come back at all?...
Probably in this room....
Then he thought of the play that must be done in this room; and curiously with it, identifying itself with the play and the re-forming part of it, was the favorite word of Duke Fallows’—Compassion. What a title for the play! Duke’s word and Duke’s idea.... All this brought him to the thought of Service, as he had pictured it for Betty Berry—a life together doing things for men—loving each other so much that there were volumes to spare for the world—down among men—to the deepest down man.
His throat tightened suddenly. He arose. A sob came from him.... His control broke all at once.... How a little run of thoughts could tear down a man’s will! It wasn’t fear at all—but the same depiction running in his mind that had so affected Betty Berry when she begged to be alone....
“The deepest down man—the deepest down man.... It is I, Duke!... Surely you must have meant me all the time!”
But it passed quickly, properly whipped and put away with other matters—all but a certain relating together of the strange trinity, Death, Service, and Betty Berry—which he did not venture to play with, for fear of relapse.... He had been eating nothing. He must go to Hackensack. The little glass showed him a haggard and unshaven John Morning, but there was nothing of the uncleanness about the face in reflection.... He heard the “giddap” of Jethro far on the road. The old rig was coming.... It stopped at his box. He hurried down the hill.
18
Two letters; one from Duke Fallows. Morning opened this on the way up the slope. He was afraid of the other. He wanted to be in the cabin with the door shut—when that other was opened.... Fallows was joyous and tender—just a few lines written on the way west: “... I won’t be long in ’Frisco. I know that already. The Western States does very well without me.... Soon on the long road to Asia and Russia. I must look up Lowenkampf again before going home. He was good to us, wasn’t he, John?... And you, this old heart thrills for you. You are coming on. I don’t know anything more you need. I say you are coming on. You’ll do the Play and the Book.... John, you ought to write the book of the world’s heart.... And then you will get so full of the passion to serve men that writing won’t be enough. You will have to go down among them again—and labor and lift among men. Things have formed about you for this.... We are friends.... I am coming back for the harvest.”
The sun had come out. Morning was standing in the doorway as he finished. The lemon-colored light fell upon the paper.... It wasn’t like Duke to write in this vein—after running away. He repeated aloud a sentence to this effect. Then he went in, shut the door, and, almost suffocating from the tension, read the letter of Betty Berry.