Through the uncurtained windows the moonlight was streaming, making white splashes upon the floors. Across the plank pathways they wandered locating the halls, the great living-room, the spacious dining-room, the airy, comfortable bedrooms exposed to the south, the library, the kitchen, and the ballroom on the third floor. It was to be a grand house–this house of Van Dorn. And in their fancy the man and the woman called it the temple of love erected as an altar to the love god whom they worshiped. They peopled it with many a merry company. They saw the rich and the great in the dining-room. They pictured in this vision pleasure capering through the ball room. They enshrined wisdom and contentment in the library. In the great living-room they installed elegance and luxury, and hospitality beckoned with ostentatious pride for the coming of such of the nobility as Harvey and its environs and the 276surrounding state and Nation could produce. A grand, proud temple, a rich, beautiful temple, a strong, masterful temple would be this temple of love.
“And, dearest,” said he–the master of the house, as he held her in his arms at the foot of the stairway that swept down into the broad hall like the ghost of some baronial grandeur, “dearest, what do we care what they say! We have built it for ourselves–just for you, I want it–just for you; not friends, not children, not any one but you. This is to be our temple of love.”
She kissed him, and whined wordless assent. Then she whispered: “Just you–you, you, and if man, woman or child come to mar our joy or to lessen our love, God pity the intruder.” And like a flaming torch she fluttered in his arms.
The summer breeze came caressingly through an unclosed window into the temple. It seemed–the summer breeze which fell upon their cheeks–like the benediction of some pagan god; their god of love perhaps. For the grand house, the rich house, the beautiful, masterful temple of their mad love was made for summer breezes.
But when the rain came, and the storms fell and beat upon that house, they found that it was a house built upon sand. But while it stood and even when it fell there was a temple, a real temple, a temple made with hands–a temple that all Harvey and all the world could understand!
277CHAPTER XXVI
DR. NESBIT STARTS ON A LONG UPWARD BUT DEVIOUS JOURNEY
The Van Dorns opened their new house without ostentation the day after their marriage in October. There was no reception; the handsomest hack in town waited for them at the railway station, as they alighted from the Limited from Chicago. They rode down Market Street, up the Avenue to Elm Crest Place, drove to the new house, and that night it was lighted. That was all the ceremony of housewarming which the place had. The Van Dorns knew what the town thought of them. They made it plain what they thought of the town. They allowed no second rate people to crowd into the house as guests while the first rate people smiled, and the third rate people sniffed. The Judge had some difficulty keeping Mrs. Van Dorn to their purpose. She was impatient–having nothing in particular to think about, and being proud of her furniture. Naturally, there were calls–a few. And they were returned with some punctiliousness. But the people whom the Van Dorns were anxious to see did not call. In the winter, the Van Dorns went to Florida for a fortnight, and put up at a hotel where they could meet a number of persons of distinction whom they courted, and whom the Van Dorns pressed to visit them. When she came home from the winter’s social excursion, Mrs. Van Dorn went straight to the establishment of Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., and bought a hat; and bragged to Mrs. Herdicker of having met certain New York social dignitaries in Florida whose names were as familiar to the Harvey women as the names of their hired girl’s beaux! Then having started this tale of her social prowess on its career, Margaret was more easily restrained by her husband from offering the house to the Plymouth Daughters for an entertainment. It was in that spring that Margaret began–or 278perhaps they both began to put on what George Brotherton called the “Van Dorn remnant sale.” The parade passed down Market Street every morning at eight thirty. It consisted of one handsome rather overdressed man and one beautiful rather conspicuously dressed woman. On fair days they rode in a rakish-looking vehicle known as a trap, and in bad weather they walked through Market Street. At the foot of the stairs leading to the Judge’s office they parted with all the voltage of affection permitted by the canons of propriety and at five in the evening, Mrs. Van Dorn reappeared on Market Street, and at the foot of the stairs before the Judge’s office, the parade resumed its course.
“Well–say,” said George Brotherton, “right smart little line of staple and fancy love that firm is carrying this season. Rather nice titles too; good deal of full calf bindings–well, say–glancing at the illustrations, I should like to read the text. But man–say–hear your Uncle George! With me it’s always a sign of low stock when I put it all in the window and the show case! Well, say–” and he laughed like the ripping of an earthquake. “It certainly looks to me as if they were moving the line for a quick turnover at a small profit! Well say!”
But without the complicated ceremony required to show the town that he was pleased with his matrimonial bargain, the handsome Judge was a busy man. Every time he saw Dr. Nesbit toddling up or down Market Street, or through South Harvey, or in the remotenesses of Foley or Magnus, the Judge whipped up his energies. For he knew that the Doctor never lost a fight through overconfidence. So the Judge, alone for the first time in his career, set out to bring about his nomination, where a nomination meant an election. Now a judge who showed the courage of his convictions, as Judge Van Dorn had shown his courage in forcing settlements in the mine accident cases and in similar matters of occasional interest, was rather more immediately needed by the mine owners of Harvey than the political boss, who merely used the mine owner’s money to encompass his own ends, and incidentally work out the owner’s salvation. Daniel Sands played both sides, which was all that Van Dorn could ask. But when the Doctor saw that Sands 279was giving secret aid to Van Dorn, the Doctor’s heart was hot within him. And Van Dorn continued to rove the district day and night, like a dog, hunting for its buried bone.