CHAPTER XLVI

When Charles came over in the morning, Robert made a pretence of discussing the budget with his associates. It was hardly more than a pretence. Figures had palled upon him and he dragged himself each day to his work by force of will.

The city offices he ceased to visit. Every matter in which his judgment was asked or upon which his decision was needed was brought to The Towers. His horses were left to fret in the stables and he walked, usually alone, among the villa hills.

Hamilton, even when he felt he could not penetrate the loneliness of Kimberly's moods, came out regularly and Kimberly made him to know he was welcome. "It isn't that I want to be alone," he said one night in apology to the surgeon. "The only subjects that interest me condemn me to loneliness. Charles asked me to meet a Chicago friend of his last night--and he talked books to me and pictures! How can I talk pictures and books? McCrea brought out one of our Western directors the other day," as Kimberly continued his chin went down to where it sank when matters seemed hopeless, "and he talked railroads!"

"Go back to your books," urged Hamilton.

"Books are only the sham battles of life."

"Will you forego the recreation of the intellect?"

"Ah! The intellect. We train it to bring us everything the heart can wish. And when our fairy responds with its gifts the appetite to enjoy them is gone. Hamilton, I am facing an insupportable question--what shall I do with myself? Shall I stop or go on? And if I go on, how? This is why I am always alone."

"You overlook the simplest solution. Take up life again; your difficulties will disappear."

"What life? The one behind me? I have been over that ground. I should start out very well--with commendable resolutions to let a memory guide me. And I should end--in the old way. I tell you I will never do it. There is a short cut to the end of that road--one I would rather take at the beginning. I loathe the thought of what lies behind me; I know the bitterness of the flesh." His hands were stretched upon the table and he clenched them slowly as he drew them up with his words, "I never will embrace or endure it again."

"Yet, for the average man," he went on, "only two roads lie open--Christianity or sensuality--and I am just the average man. I cannot calmly turn back to what I was before I knew her. She changed me. I am different. Christians, you know," his voice dropped as if he were musing, "have a curious notion that baptism fixes an indelible mark on the soul. If that is so, Alice was my baptism."

"Then your choice is already made, Robert."

"Why do you say that? When I choose I shall no longer be here. What I resent is being forced to choose. I hate to bow to law. My life has been one long contempt for it. I have set myself outside every law that ever interfered with my desires or ambitions. I have scorned law and ignored it--and I am punished. What can a man do against death?"

"Even so, there is nothing appalling in Christianity. Merely choose the form best adapted to your individual needs."

"What would you have me do? Fill myself with sounding words and echoing phrases? I am doing better than that where I am. There is only one essential form of Christianity--you know what it is. I tell you I never will bow to a law that is not made for every man, rich or poor, cultured or crude, ignorant or learned. I never will take up the husks of a 'law adapted to individual needs.' That is merely making my own law over again, and I am leaving that. I am sick of exploiting myself. I despise a law that exploits the individual. I despise men in religious thought that exploit themselves and their own doctrines. I need wholly another discipline and I shall never bring myself to embrace it."

"You are closer to it than you think. Yet, for my part, I hate to see you lose your individuality--to let some one else do your thinking for you."

"A part of my individuality I should be gainer for losing. A part of it I wish to God some one had robbed me of long ago. But I hate to see you, Hamilton, deceive yourself with phrases. 'Let some one else do your thinking for you,'" Kimberly echoed, looking contemptuously away. "If empty words like that were all!"

"You are going a good way, Robert," said the surgeon, dryly.

"I wish I might go far."

"Parting company with a good many serious minds--not to say brilliant ones."

"What has their brilliancy ever done for me? I am tired of this rubbish of writing and words. Francis was worth libraries. I esteem what he did with his life more than I do the written words of ten thousand. He fought the real battle."

"Did he win?"

Kimberly's hand shot out. "If I knew! If I knew," he repeated doggedly. And then more slowly. "If I knew--I would follow him."