Emerson Hough

“ Rawn himself expanded in all this social success. He saw doors hitherto closed, opening before him, saw his future unrolling before him also like a scroll. A hundred times a week he walked to his young wife, caught her in his arms, uxoriously infatuated with her youth, her beauty, her aplomb, her fitness for this life which he had chosen. For once he almost forgot to regard himself as a collector of beautiful objects, although the truth was that his wife, Virginia, became more beautiful each day, more superb of line, more calmly easy in air, more nearly faultless of garb and demeanor. ”

“ At this time, had Virginia Rawn asked of him to recant, to relent, to change, there is likelihood he would have done so. John Rawn, cuckold, was right in his despicable reasoning. There are many prices which purchase principles. The weakness which had prompted Halsey to remain at Graystone Hall on such a tenure—which held him there now, waiting for a voice, listening for a footfall—was the ancient weakness of youth before youth, of strength before beauty, of the empty heart before one offering love, of the mind finding perfect echo in another mind. ”

“ It's always been so—progress sticks. The people have to adjust. But why should capital keep on fighting labor, or truckling to it, or treating with it, when we can take labor for nothing, as you just said, out of the power of gravitation—send it where we like, practically for nothing—labor that is power, labor that doesn't have to eat and doesn't have to be paid wages? I say if you had any imagination in your soul, my son, you'd rise to a thought like that."
"But that average man still must eat," said Halsey bitterly.
"Let him eat from our hands, then!" croaked John Rawn harshly. ”

“ Rawn," said he. "I feel it, too! Now maybe we can understand! How did I drive my car over here, charged from one of our overhead motors? Ah, that's my secret. But I took it out of the air! That motor of ours was in tune with it—the great power that's in the air, everywhere. Mrs. Rawn, it's getting in tune with the world that makes you happy. Nothing else is going to do it! Get in tune with the plan! All I've ever done in my receiving-motor has been to get in tune with the hills and the rivers and the forests—with life." ”

“ Charles Halsey, as well as Grace Rawn, in some sort seemed to set the laws of heredity and environment at defiance in favor of the lesser factors in evolution. He had originally no right to be anything but a farm lad, yet he had dreams, and so had fought his way through college. There, in the world of books, close to the world of thought, not far from the world of art, he had become what some of us might have called an idealist, what most of us would have called a fool, and now what all of us would have called a failure. ”

“ There's a union for you, son! It does not break, it does not snitch, it does not strike. It sticks, it hangs together—the union of big business men is the only one worth while. Come with me, and I'll show you some proof of that."
Halsey looked at him, his eyes glittering, words of scorn rising to his tongue; but he controlled himself. "All right, Mr. Rawn," said he, "I'll be ready to start to-morrow, and I'll count on getting back here by the last of the week, at least. ”

“ He flaunted his ownership of such a woman in their faces. What more can a rich man do than that same? Is that not the dream and test of power—to secure what others may not have, to secure special privileges in this life? And is not the quest of beauty the first business of him who has attained power? Of all these special privileges which had come to John Rawn so swiftly in these late rapid years, none so delicately and warmly filled his heart as that of being able to call Virginia Rawn his own. ”

“ I wanted to work it out, I say, so that every man could have the benefit—and free!"
"Every man is going to have it," remarked John Rawn grimly, "but not free. What did I tell you a while ago? Get an idea, cinch it—and then sell it! The people can have this benefit, yes; but they'll pay for it. That's the way success is made."
"Ah, is it so?" was Halsey's answer. He flung himself against the table, his pale face thrust forward over his outspread arms. "Success! You mean only that the corporation grip on this country will be stiffened more than any one ever dreamed. ”

“ Rawn stood studying the procession for a long time, eying group after group carefully. A conclusion was forming in his mind. He was learning that when a man has achieved power, success, wealth, notoriety even, he turns with his next thought to some woman; and finds some woman waiting.
Not, as he reflected, a woman grown old and gray. Not a woman with finger-tips blackened and roughened, of bowed figure and ill-fitting garb, of awkward and unaccustomed air—not to that sort of woman who would be noticed here for her lack of fitness in this place. ”

“ Halsey looked at him, frowning half sullenly, as he went on.
"Ah, Charles, there's nothing like money as an ambition for a man! When I hear you talking your folly, about this brotherhood of man—when I see you worrying your small head about the future of this republic, you make me smile! What difference about the rest of the world if you take care of yourself? There's one brotherhood that's worth while, and only one, and it isn't that of laboring men, of common men—it is the brotherhood of big men who have made big money. ”

“ Thus, over a revolution in politics we chatter excitedly; but the revolution in principles excites us not at all. The revolution in science, in thought, in life, is accepted, when it comes, with no concern, as though belonging to us from time immemorial; as indeed it did.
It was wholly within human practice that affairs should now go on at Kelly Row much as they had always gone, in spite of the fact that Kelly Row now harbored, in a certain woodshed back of the dingy Rawn abode, ideas and deeds that had not earlier been known in Kelly Row routine. ”

“ They could occur only in America; but this is America. They could occur only at the summons of a megalomaniac selfishness, an inordinate lust of power; but here were these, biding their time, in the seriously assured mind of an American man; a man after all born of his age and of his country, and representative of that country's typical ambition—the ambition for a material success.
The lust of power—that was it! The promise of power—that was what the small bird had sung in John Rawn's ear! ”

“ A great soul, this of Laura Rawn; but no greater than that of many another woman who does these things day after day until the time comes for the grave, wherein she lies down at last with equanimity and calm. Without unduly flattering the vanity, without overfeeding the egotism of her lord and master, at least Laura Rawn was wise enough to see he could not be much changed. ”

“ Listen, Charles. I love my girl, Grace. She has always been a good child. I'm putting you in a place where you can take good care of her. I want you to stick to her for ever, through thick and thin. Remember, my son, that your wife is your wife, and that nothing must separate you from her."
"Maybe it'll work out something after my idea, after all." Halsey spoke pleasantly as he could at this mention of Grace.
"We'll take our chances but what it will work out our way!" said John Rawn, grinning in return. "You want to work for man, do you? Well, I want men to work for me!" ”

“ Halsey hardly heard him. "So then I began to wonder what we'd find yet, when we had that vast, universal power all for our own—all for man, you know, Mr. Rawn. Living's hard to-day, Mr. Rawn. There's a lot of injustice in the world nowadays. So—well, I wondered if it weren't nearly time that things should change. We've always moved on up—or thought we did, anyhow—so why shouldn't we keep on moving, keep on making discoveries?" ”

“ The best aid in any ambition lies in the intensity of that ambition. We all are what we really desire to be, each can have what he really covets, if he will pay the price for it. In her gentleness with her associates, in her dignity and composure with her employer, in her conduct upon the street and in the crowded car, in all situations and conditions arising in her life, Virginia Delaware diligently played the part of lady as best she comprehended that; because she had the intense ambition to be a lady. ”

“ Rawn," said Halsey cheerfully. "Take it along. I'll draw the balance out for you. I reckon Grace and I won't have to wait any longer this way than we would the other."
"Well, be mighty careful to keep things to yourself, that's all!" was Rawn's answer. "If you're going to be my son-in-law, you're going to be loyal to my ideas. One of my ideas is that a man has a right to what he can take."
"Mr. Rawn, do you know anything about socialism?" asked Halsey suddenly.
"Not very much. Why should I?"
"There's sort of a brotherhood, or chapter, or society, or what you'd call it here, you know." ”

“ A pleasant, gentle, generous smile spread over his countenance, a smile which showed his content with himself, his future prospects, his past performances.
"You ought to have been there with me, Charles, when I talked to old Standley and his side partner, Ackerman. That was the big scene of my whole life!"
"The big scene?" said Halsey, half musingly. "No! Maybe not. We don't know what there may be on ahead."
"Isn't that the truth!" assented John Rawn graciously. "When a man of brains and energy gets his start, there's no telling where he won't go, or what he won't do. ”

“ Indeed, the only reservation in his mind in regard to this latter matter was one of censure for a woman who, having entered into the holy state of matrimony with a gentleman of his parts, had had the temerity to create in his soul an addiction for shoulder of pork and cabbage; who had left her tatting upon the table; and who, departing, had given no future address whither her tatting might be sent! Yes, Laura Rawn had been, without doubt or question, an unreasonable and unkind wife.
Above all it was wrong for a woman to go away and leave her late husband feeling so much alone. ”

“ We all just get on just the best we can. I can take my joy in making other women envy me. Isn't that about what all women want? Isn't that the height and limit of their ambition? Isn't that success, so far as a woman is concerned? Don't they cling to it, all of them—till they get old? I suppose so, but I know it isn't happiness. Yes, I'll admit to you I do miss something." His eyes rested upon her, searching.
Unconsciously she looked down at her wrists. The red mark of his fingers still lingered there. "I'll have to ask Ann Sullivan some time," she laughed.
"One thing," answered Halsey. ”

“ At times it seemed to him he could see opening out before him a new world of wide and inviting expanses, a world of warmth and light and luxury and color; in short, a world as unlike Kelly Row as you may well imagine, inhabited by beings wholly different from those obtaining in Kelly Row. And there, among all these, one.... It is to be seen, in fact, that the life of the city began to open before John Rawn. The soul of the city is woman, as it was the soul of Rome. Rawn was learning what hitherto he had small opportunity to learn. ”

“ There is much to be said in favor of the marriage institution. It holds property safe under its contract. Property—that's the sign of power! Property is the only reason for marriage; or for government, when it comes to that. Property is the token of power. I've got that! But something else goes with it! Why, Laura, when I look at us both I wonder that I've been patient so long, held back as I have been by your own narrow ideas. If you'd had your way, you'd have set up Kelly Row right where we are now! ”