Читать книгу The Root of Evil - Jr. Thomas Dixon - Страница 12

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A VISION

When Stuart heard the door close and Bivens's step die away on the pavement below, he came down to see the doctor, haunted by a strange vision. Through every day of his subsequent life the most trivial details of that hour stood out in his memory with peculiar and terrible vividness. From every shadow he saw Nan's face looking into his. He was not superstitious; this impression he knew was simply a picture burned into his tired brain by days and nights of intense longing. But what increased the horror of the fancy was the fact that the picture changed in quick succession, from the face of the living to the face of the dead. He closed his eyes at last and in sheer desperation felt his way down the last flight of stairs. The fiercer the effort he made to shut out the picture, the more vivid it became until he found himself shivering over the last persistent outline which refused to vanish at any command of his will. It was the ghost of Nan's face—old, white, pulseless, terrible in its beauty, but dead.

"Of what curious stuff we're made!" he exclaimed, pressing his forehead as if to clear the brain of its horrible fancy. He paused in the lower hall and watched for a moment a scene between father and daughter through the open door of the library.

Harriet had just bounded into the room and stood beside the doctor's chair with an arm around his neck and the other hand gently smoothing his soft gray hair. She was crooning over his tired figure with the quaintest little mother touches.

"You look so worn out, Papa dear—what have you been doing?"

"Something very foolish, I'm afraid, Baby—I've just refused a fortune that might have been yours someday."

"Why did you refuse it?"

"Because I didn't believe it was clean and honest."

"Then I shouldn't want it. I'd rather be poor."

The doctor placed both hands on the fair young face, drew it very close and whispered:

"Had you, dearie?"

"Why, of course I had!"

The big hands drew the golden head closer still and pressed a kiss on the young forehead.

"My husband will love me, won't he? I shall not mind if I'm poor," she went on, laughing, as Stuart entered the room.

"See, boy, how's she's growing, this little baby of mine!" the doctor exclaimed, wheeling her about for Stuart's inspection. "It's a source of endless wonder to me, this miracle of growth—to watch this child—and see myself, a big brute of a man—growing, growing, slowly but surely into the tender glorious form of a living woman—that's God's greatest miracle! Run now, girlie, and go to bed. I want to talk to Jim."

She paused a moment, smiling into Stuart's face and softly said:

"Good-night, Jim—pleasant dreams!"

Through all the riot of emotions with which that night ended and through the years of bitter struggle which followed, that picture was the one ray of sunlight which never faded.

"Well, my boy, I've just done a thing which I know was inevitable, but now that it's done I'm afraid I may have made a tragic mistake. Tell me if it's so. There may be time to retract."

"Bivens has threatened to ruin your business?"

"On the other hand, he has just offered to buy it at my own price."

"And you refused?"

"To sell at any price—but it's not too late to change my mind. I can call him back now and apologize for my rudeness. Tell me, should I do it?"

"Do you doubt that you're right in the position you've taken?"

"Not for a moment. But the old question of expediency always bobs up. I'm getting older. I'm not as old as this white hair would make me, but I feel it. Perhaps I am out-of-date. Your eyes are young, boy; your soul fresh from God's heart. I'm just a little lonely and afraid to-night. See things for me—sit down a moment."

The doctor drew Stuart into a seat and rushed on impatiently.

"Listen, and then tell me if I should follow that little weasel and apologize. I'll do it if you say so—at least I think I would, for I'm afraid of myself." He paused, and a look of pain clouded his fine face as his eye rested on a portrait of Harriet on the table before him.

"There are several reasons why you couldn't have a more sympathetic listener to-night, Doctor—go on."

"Grant all their claims," he began impatiently, "for the Trust—its economy, its efficiency, its power, its success—this is a free country, isn't it?"

"Theoretically."

"Well, I wish to do business in my own way—not so big and successful a way perhaps as theirs, but my own. I express myself thus. When I hint at such a thing to your modern organizing friend, that these enormous profits for the few must be paid out of the poverty of the many—against whom the strong and cunning are thus combining—a simple answer is always ready, 'Business is business,' which translated is the old cry that the first murderer shrieked into the face of his questioner: 'Am I my brother's keeper?'

"That's why I'm afraid of these fellows. The unrestrained lust for money is always the essence of murder, and the man or woman who surrenders to its spell will kill when put to the test. The law which holds burglary constructive murder is founded on an elemental truth. The man who puts on a mask, arms himself with revolver, knife, and dark lantern and enters my house to rob me of my goods will not hesitate to kill if a human life stands in the way of his success."

"I should not put it quite so strongly of these men——"

"I do. And I know I'm right. I saw murder in those black bead eyes of Bivens's to-night. Do you think he would hesitate to close a factory to increase a dividend if he knew that act would result in the death of its employees from weakness and hunger? Not for a minute. He hesitates only at a violation of the letter of the criminal code. What, then, is the difference between a burglar and a modern organizer of industry? Absolutely none."

Stuart laughed.

"Understand me, boy, I'm not preaching any patent remedy for social ills. I'm not in a hurry. I can wait as God waits. But this question is with me a personal one. I simply hold the biggest thing on earth is not a pile of gold, stolen or honestly earned. The biggest thing on this earth is a man. Our nation is not rich by reason of its houses and lands, its gold or silver or copper or iron—but because of its men. I believe in improving this breed of men, not trying to destroy them. For that reason I refuse success that is not built on the success and happiness of others. I refuse to share in prosperity that is not the growth of prosperity."

"But if you sell your business to these men and retire, will you necessarily share in their wrong-doing?"

"In a very real and tragic sense, yes. I'm a coward. I give up the fight. I've been both a soldier and a merchant. Why does the world honour a soldier and despise a merchant? Because a soldier's business is to die for his country, and a merchant's habit is to lie for profit. Isn't old Ruskin right? Why should not trade have its heroes as well as war? Why shouldn't I be just as ready to die as a merchant for my people as I was on the field of battle?"

The doctor paused, and his eyes grew dim while Stuart bent closer and watched and listened as if in a spell. He realized that his old friend was not really asking advice, but that a great soul in a moment of utter loneliness was laid bare and crying for sympathy.

The doctor's voice took a tone of dreamy tenderness.

"I am just passing through this world once. I can't live a single day of it over again. There are some things I simply must do as I pass. They can't wait, and the thing that has begun to strangle me is this modern craze for money, money, money, at all hazards, by fair or foul means! In every walk of life I find this cancer eating the heart out of men. I must fight it! I must! Good food, decent clothes, a home, pure air, a great love—these are all any human being needs! No human being should have less. I will not strike down my fellow man to get more for myself while one human being on this earth wants as much."

Unconsciously the young man's hand was extended and grasped the doctor's.

"You'll never know," Stuart said with deep emotion, "how much I owe to you in my own life. You have always been an inspiration to me."

The patient gray eyes smiled.

"I'm glad to hear that to-night, my boy. For strange as it may seem to you, I've been whistling to keep up my courage. I'm going to make this fight for principle because I know I'm right, and yet somehow when I look into the face of my baby I'm a coward. I'm going to make this fight and I've a sickening foreboding of failure. But after all, can a man fail who is right?"

"I don't believe it!" was the ringing answer which leaped to Stuart's lips. "I've had to face a crisis like this recently. I was beginning to hesitate and think of a compromise. You've helped me."

"Good luck, my boy," was the cheery answer. "I was a poor soldier to-night myself until the little weasel told me an obvious lie and I took courage."

"Funny if Bivens should do anything obvious."

"Wasn't it? He pretended to have come in a mood of generosity—his offer of settlement inspired by love."

"The devil must have laughed."

"So did I—especially when he told me that he was engaged to be married."

"Engaged—to—be—married?" Stuart made a supreme effort to appear indifferent—"to whom?"

"To Miss Nan Primrose, a young lady I haven't the honour of knowing, and he had the lying audacity to say that he came at her suggestion."

Stuart tried to speak and his tongue refused to move.

"I was frank enough to inform him that he was a liar. For which, of course, I had to apologize. Well, you've helped me to-night, boy, more than I can tell you. It helps an old man to look into the eyes of youth and renew his faith. Good-night!"

The doctor began to lower the lights, and Stuart said mechanically:

"Good-night!"

In a stupor of blind despair he slowly fumbled his way up to his room, entered, and threw himself across the bed without undressing. It was one thing to preach, another to face the thing itself alone in the darkness.

Through the shadows of the long night he lay with wide staring eyes, gazing at the vision which would not vanish—the face of the woman he loved—cold, white, pulseless, terrible in its beauty, dead.