CHAPTER X

With the coming of morning, Lancaster shook himself out of his painful rêveries, and decided that he must escape from this metropolitan prison, if for ever so short a time. He would go out into the country, home. He would go where the air was pure, and all life was not tainted. He walked to a telegraph office and sent a dispatch to his mother, telling of his coming.

Then he went for a walk in the park. Now that he had made up his mind to get out of this choking dungeon for a while he felt suddenly buoyant, refreshed. He tried to forget Stanley and the Imperial Theatre, and all other unpleasant memories of that sort. Some of the park policemen concluded that this was a young man who was feeling very cheerful indeed--else, why such fervid whistling?

When he got to his studio he found some people waiting for him. They had some commercial work for him to do. He shook his head at all of them.

"I'm going out of town for a week," he said, "and I can do nothing until I return. If this is a case of 'rush' you'll have to take it somewhere else."

He turned the key in the door with a wonderful feeling of elation, and the pinning of the small explanatory notice on his door almost made him laugh aloud. He thought of the joy that a jail bird must feel when he sees the gates opening to let him into the free world. No more elevated roads, no more cable cars, no more clanging of wheels over granite, no more deafening shouts of newsboys; no more tortuous windings through streets crowded with hurrying barbarians; no more passing the bewildering glances of countless handsome women; no more--town!

There was a train in half an hour. He bought his ticket and strolled up and down the platform. He wondered how the dear old village would look. He had been away only a little over a year, and yet, how much had happened in that short time! Then he smiled, thinking of the intangible nature of those happenings. There was nothing,--nothing that would make as much as a paragraph in the daily paper. Yet how it had changed him, this subtle flow of soul-searing circumstances! It was of such curious woof that modern life was made; so rich in things that in themselves were dismally commonplace and matters of course, and yet in total exerted such strong influences; so rich, too, in crime and casuality, that, though served up as daily dishes, yet seemed always far and outside of ourselves!

The novel he purchased to while away the hours between the town and Lincolnville confirmed his thoughts in this direction. It was one of the modern pictures of "life as it is." There was nothing of romance, hardly any action; it was nearly all introspection and contemplations of the complexity of modern existence. The story bored him I immensely, and yet he felt that it was a voice of the time. It was hard to invest today with romance.

Was it, he wondered, a real difference, or was it merely the difference in the point of view? Perhaps there was still romance abroad, but our minds had become too analytical to see the picture of it?--too much engaged in observing the quality of the paint?

His mother was waiting for him at the station. It was pleasant to see how proud she was of this tall young son of hers, and how wistfully she looked deep into his eyes. "You're looking pale, Dick," she said, holding him at the stretch of her arms. "And your eyes look like they needed sleep."

Dick gave a little forced laugh and patted his mother's hand.

"Yes, I guess you're right mother. I need a little fresh air and a rest."

"Ah, you shall have both, my boy. And now tell me all you've been doing up there in that big place."

They walked down to the little house wherein Dick had first seen the light of this world. He looked taller than ever beside the little woman who kept looking him over so wistfully. He told her many things, but he felt that he was talking to her in a language that was rusty on his lips, the language of the country, of simplicity and truth. The language of the world, in which his tongue was now glib, would be so full of mysteries to this sweet mother of his that he must needs eschew it for the nonce. It was a small thing, but he felt it as an evidence of the changes that had been wrought in him.

He told her of his work, of his career. Of the _Torch_, of his subsequent renting of a studio, and free-lance life. Yes, he was making money. He was independent; he had his own hours; work came to him so readily that he was in a position to refuse such as pleased him least. But, he sighed, it was all in black-and-white, so far. Paint loomed up, as before, merely as a golden dream. In illustrating and decorating, using black-and-white mediums, that _was_ where the money lay, and he supposed he would have to stick to that for a time. But he was saving money for a trip abroad.

They talked on and on until nearly midnight. He asked after some of his old acquaintances; he listened patiently to his mother's gentle gossip and tried to feel interested.

"The Wares are back," explained Mrs. Lancaster.

"Ah," Dick looked up quickly. "Does Dorothy look well?"

"I don't think so, though I'm bound I hadn't the courage to tell her so to her face. She looks just like you do, Dick,--kinder fagged out."

"Yes. They say traveling is hard work. And her mother?"

"Oh, she's about the same as usual. Looks stouter, maybe."

"I must get over and call there, before I get back to town," he said, reflectively. "Well, mother, I suppose I'm keeping you up beyond your regular time. I'm a trifle tired, too. So goodnight."

He kissed her and passed up stairs to his old room. There were the same pictures that he had decorated the walls with a few years ago. He smiled; they were, fortunately, very crude compared to the work he was doing now. When all was dark, he lay awake for a long time, drinking in the deep silence of the place. He could hear the chirrup of the crickets over in the meadows, and from far over the western hills came the deep boom of a locomotive's whistle. The incessant roar of the town, in which even the shrillest of individual noises are swallowed into one huge conglomerate, was utterly gone. He could hear the wind slightly swaying the branches; the deep blue of the star-spotted sky was full of a caressing silence. The peace of it all soothed him, and ushered him into deep, refreshing sleep.

The sun touched him early in the morning, and seeing the beauty of the dawning day, he dressed quickly and went quietly down stairs and out, for a stroll about the dear old village. He passed the familiar houses, smiling to himself. He thought of all the quaint and queer characters in a little place of this sort. Presently he left the region of houses and passed into the woods that were beginning to blush at the approach of their snow-clad bridegroom. The picture of the sun rising over the fringe of trees, gilding the browned leaves with a burnish that blazed and sparkled, filled him with artistic delight. He said to himself that after he had been abroad, and after his hand was grown cunning in colors, he would ask for no better subject than these October woods of the West. He sat down on the log of a tree and watched the golden, crescent lamp of day. He had forgotten the town utterly, for the moment, and for the moment he was happy.

But the sun's progress warned him that it was time to start back to the house. With swinging stride he passed over the highway, over the slopes that led to the village. Suddenly he heard his named called, and turning, saw a tall figure hastening toward him.

It was Mr. Fairly, the minister.

"My dear Dick," he said, shaking the young man's hand, "I am rejoiced to see you. We have heard of you, of course; we have heard of you. But that is not seeing you. Let me look at you!"

Dick smiled. "I've grown, I believe."

"Yes. In stature and wisdom, I dare say. But--" He slipped his arm within Dick's, and walked with him silently for a few minutes. "The town," he went on, "has a brand of its own, and all that live there, wear it." They passed a boy going to school. "Look at that youngster. Isn't he bright-eyed!" A farm wagon drove by, the farmer and his wife sitting side by side on the springless seat. "Did you get the sparkle of their faces?" said the minister. "Their skins were tanned and rough, no doubt, but their eyes were clear. Now, Dick, your eyes have been reading many pages of the Book of Knowledge and they are tired. I know, my boy, I know. We buzz about the electric arc-light till we singe our wings, and then, perhaps, we are wiser. Have you been singeing your's?"

"Not enough, I'm afraid. The fascination is still there. Sometimes it is the fascination of danger, sometimes of repulsion; but it is always fascination."

"Ah, so you have got to the repulsion!"

The minister spoke softly, almost as if to himself. "And you no longer think the world is all beautiful, and sometimes you wonder whether virtue is a dream or a reality? I know, I know! And sometimes you wish you were blind again, as once you were; and you want to wipe away the taste of the fruit of knowledge?"

Dick said nothing.

"Those who chose the world as their arena," the minister went on, "must suffer the world's jars and jeers. The world is a magnet that draws all the men of courage; it sucks their talents and their virtues and spews them forth, as often as not into the waters of oblivion. To swim ashore needs wonderful strength! Here in the calmer waters we are but tame fellows; we miss most of the prizes, but, we also miss the dangers. Perhaps, some day, Dick, you'll come back to us again?"

"I don't know. Perhaps. But I don't think so. That other taste is bitter, perhaps, but it holds one captive. And I'm changed, you see; the old things that delighted me once are stale, and I need the perpetual excitation of the town's unceasing changes. The town is a juggernaut with prismatic wheels."

They had nearly reached the minister's house.

"I haven't preached to you, have I Dick?"

Dick looked at the minister quickly. There was a sort of wistfulness behind the eye-glasses, and a half smile beneath the waving mustache.

"No. I wish you would!"

"Ah, Dick, I can't! I'm not competent. You're in one world, and I'm in another. Too many make the mistake that they can live in the valleys and yet tell the mountaineers how to climb. But, Dick, whatever you do, keep your self-respect! In this complex time of ours, circumstances and comparisons alter nearly everything, and one sometimes wonders whether b-a-d does not, after all, spell good; but self-respect should stand against all confusions! Goodbye, Dick. Remember we're all fond of you! I go to a convention in one of the neighboring towns tonight, and I won't see you again before you go back. Goodbye!"

Dick carried the picture of the kindly, military-looking old face with him for many minutes. If there were more such ministers! He recalled some of the pale, cold clergymen he had met at various houses in town, and remembered how repellant their naughty assumption of superiority has been to him. He was still musing over his dear old friend's counsel, when he noticed that he was approaching the house where the Wares lived. There was the veranda, blood red with it's creeper-clothing, and full of memories for him.

He began to walk slowly as he drew nearer. He was thinking of the last time that he had seen Dorothy Ware. He recalled, with a queer smile, her parting words: 'Goodbye, Dick, be good!' He realized that the Dick of that day and the Dick of today were two very differing persons. And she, too, doubtless, would no longer be the Dorothy Ware he once had known. Something of fierce hate toward the world and fate came to him as he thought of the way of human plans and planning were truthlessly canceled by the decrees of change. Had he been good? Bah, the thought of it made him sneer. If these memories were not to be driven away he would presently settle down into determined, desperate melancolia.

The conflict, in this man, was always between the intrinsic good and the veneer of vice that the world puts on. In most men the veneer chokes everything else. When those men read this, if they ever do, they will wonder why in the world this young man was torturing himself with fancies? But the men whose outer veneer has not yet choked the soul will remember and understand.

Dorothy Ware was on the veranda, gathering some of the vine's dead leaves when Dick's step sounded on the wooden sidewalk. As he saw her, his face lit up. He never noticed that the flush on her face was of another sort.

She smiled at him.

"How do you do, Dick? Come up and shake hands."

Then they stood and looked at each other silently for an instant. "We're both a little older," said Dick. "But I suppose we have so much to talk about that we'll have to make this a very passing meeting. Besides, mother's waiting for me; I've been for a morning walk, you see. You'll be at the great and only Fair, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes; I've almost forgotten how it looks. I do hope they will have a fine day for it."

Miss Ware looked after him wistfully. She thought of the thunderstorm in the forest at Schandau, and sighed.