Nathan stretched his legs and drew a long sigh. His lips were very firm. His self-control was admirable.
“And what’s the answer?” demanded Thorne.
“She’s gone with Plumb. I told her to go.”
“You told her to go! My God! I’d have got a gun and plugged that steam-fitter so full of holes——”
“The man who’ll so lower himself as to run amuck and shoot anybody up for the sake of a woman who doesn’t love him enough to be true to him deserves exactly what the jury hands him in case they fail to disagree!”
“But there’s such a thing as the Unwritten Law and——”
“Unwritten fiddlesticks! Let’s get down to business. What’s this important mission you want to send me on?”
“Suppose we smoke,” suggested Ted weakly. He was too upset at the moment to discuss business. When the cigars had been lighted he sat with his chin deep in his chest for a time and then said frankly, “You’ve had a sort of a rotten experience with women, haven’t you, Nat? Oh, I know all about it! Most of the town does. Your mother—that Gardner girl—now your wife—say, Nat, the marvel to me is, that regardless of it all, there doesn’t seem to be the least shred of cynicism in your whole make-up. I’ve got to hand it to you, Nat. I don’t understand it.”
“It’s nothing but common sense, Ted. What’s the use of showing yourself a mean, small-bored, surly little runt, rooting about the earth or frothing cheap spleen, just because you haven’t had the chance to know the right people? It’s this way, Ted: When I was a kid, and even later in my ‘teens, I felt that I’d been handed a raw deal. I got an awful dose of it, or thought I did—such a dose of it that, frankly, I began to get curious about it. I couldn’t place any other construction on it finally, Ted, but that somewhere, somehow, there was a purpose behind it. Unconsciously these last few years, I’ve been searching to determine just what that purpose could be. I’ve searched the Bible. I’ve read a lot of what all the big thinkers in other ages have left behind. I’ve watched people—other folks in trouble. Why should some fellows be born with silver spoons in their mouths and a whole regiment of solicitous relatives standing around at birth and afterward, to help them stir with it, and other fellows have to scratch for themselves, buy their own spoon and do most of their own stirring? Ted, there must be a reason behind all this hodgepodge of life. Ever stop to think about it? Human vicissitudes, Ted, seem to be the only things in the universe that aren’t subject to pretty well-defined laws for pretty sharply defined purposes. The seasons come and go—seed time and growing time and harvest—for a purpose. Showers follow muggy weather—to water the thirsty earth. Even the very nitrogen from our lungs in devitalized exhalation becomes food for the fairest flowers. It’s a pretty intricate universe, Ted, with precious little happening by chance. All but the ups and downs of human life. Do you mean to tell me that human life, the highest organism in all nature, runs hit-or-miss? I can’t believe it, Ted. The very fact that there’s no apparent reason for all our ups and downs convinces me there is a reason. And it’s simple as dirt. There’s some of us deficient in some attribute or other that only raw dealing and struggle make strong. Others have follies and weaknesses. Sorrow and hard luck burn the dross away or show the whole stuffing of us is dross and not worth the Almighty monkeying with at all. The whole trouble happens to be that we poor mortals don’t know what the assay of ourselves was—before we came into the darned world and started living in it in the first place. So we can’t know what we need and what we don’t need. And we kick and we caterwaul and we revile and we squirm. Or we show we’re only cheap stuff and ‘turn cynical’ as you call it. But I’m beginning to believe, Ted, that people who let themselves sink into self-pity and get cynical and rail against the ups and downs of life are only cheating themselves. They’re probably deliberately knuckling under on precisely the load of trial and tribulation they need to make them strong—in this world—or for some other race—on some distant planet—further on! Got it? ‘Them’s my sentiments’ on the woman mess. The class is dismissed. Now let’s get down to business!”
“You’re a philosopher!” gasped Ted Thorne weakly.