Vaughan Kester

“ We must save him. He is your brother, and deep in your heart you love him. Say you do!”
Philip, looking at her, bowed, broken, crushed, scarcely daring to raise her eyes to his, answered that he loved his brother, but in his soul he cursed him for the suffering he had caused.
“Mr. Hale assures me that if the money is returned at once, it shall be kept a secret—not even the girls need know. You are the only one who can do this, Philip. It all rests with you. Will you save him?” ”

“ Shall we not begin again, Geoff? I am so sure we may be happy if we only will, and the life you lead, dear, is such an awful mistake—it can bring you nothing but pain, and to have you come to me worn and jaded, drags me down more than I can tell. I am constantly fearing that serious trouble may overtake you, I live in continual apprehension about you. Is it right that I, who have so much to make amends for, should support this load, too? Can I not grow back into some measure of innocence, without having sin and evil brought forever to me—Geoff—Geoff! ”

“ Philip added:
“I can't seem very generous to you when I flop into the dumps on no greater provocation than seeing those who are contented and at peace. My nature is not sweetened by adversity, it's being pickled in it.” He struck the floor savagely with the heel of his shoe. “I feel like running off from everything, and if I could include my miserable self among what I left behind, I'd not remain undecided.”
“I hope you won't go any place, Philip!” Perkins said in alarm. “What the dickens will become of me? It will be absolutely forsaken when Franz and Margaret go.” ”

“ Just ten minutes later young Gordon was galloping down the trail at breakneck speed, while Mr. Rathburn remained in attendance upon the sick boy.
As long as there was light in the sky he had turned frequently to the window and followed with his eyes the dusty streak of gray across the range that marked the windings of the trail, but from without the distance there came neither sound nor sight of life.
By turns, as the night wore on, Mr. Rathburn was nervous and reflective, now sitting in a chair beside the cot, now pacing the floor restlessly. The present experience was a new one for him. ”

“ At last Philip said:
“Why, I say, haven't you a sort of a half-uncle in the West who could help you if he would? Can't you bone him for a start?”
Franz's brow darkened instantly: “You mean my step-father's brother? Don't speak of him.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Philip made haste to say. “The fact is, I can stand almost anything in the shape of misfortune myself, except my relatives, but I thought it might be different with you.”
“You do not comprehend. This person I loathe. It is nothing to him, of course. He is a rich man. I wonder what good money can do a brute like that?” ”

“ The sound had an instantaneous effect on Philip.
“Here is your father, Barbara; we'll speak of the weather. It is a matter upon which I am disposed to agree with any one—always excepting the pious Anson.”
“Why do you pretend to dislike your brother? I think him very nice,—very fine-looking.”
“Hate is as essential to certain natures as love—and much more satisfying.”
“But you can't hate him. You are far from honest.”
“People form such queer notions of me. They are eternally thinking I am not sincere, and yet, Barbara, I mean all I say—while I am saying it. ”

“ Johnny was the regular, the star boarder, and frequently the only one, and at all times so much at home that he usually wiped the supper dishes. Mollie washed them. Johnny was the trusted man up at the Red Bird, the very right hand of a soulless corporation whose only symptoms of life were in its feet and even they were undeniably cold. He pulled down seventy dollars a month just as easy! With all this wealth pouring in upon him every thirty days, with money saved, too, and Mollie flitting in and out of those big bare rooms at the Mountain House, why, no wonder he was intent on matrimony! ”

“ XIV It was the second evening after Margaret's death, and the night of Barbara's marriage to Shelden.
To Philip the day had come, as all days must, where one exists for them alone, with no other interest in their passing than that they go swiftly. What was in store for him he wondered. Even supposing he eventually succeeded, it would be the bitter satire of success. What could fame or money give him!—he was robbed of every inspiration. At least he could turn to his work for forgetfulness. ”

“ I am wretched, Philip, wretched; and there is no help for it. I've brought it all on myself. Do you think it very hard to die?”
“Easy, but not agreeable. Why do you ask such infernally gruesome questions?”
“I've got to die.”
“I can't see where you are an exception to the rule. It's expected of everybody—the nasty act of termination. What a vulgar thing death is!”
Lester stood erect—the firelight flashing over his worn countenance. “It's different with me. I've got to die now—now!” With a groan of anguish he flung himself back into the chair while Philip looked at him in astonishment. ”

“ With this influx of wealth he had proceeded to enjoy himself, which duty discharged, he did what his sister had feared he would do, he came and overran the Perkins' household. He brought with him a valet, an accomplished rascal meagerly patterned on his master's more splendid dimensions. This, coupled to the many airs he gave himself, sufficed for a local sensation and Geoff's vanity was pleased in the supremest degree. To be stared at and to excite wide-eyed admiration and envy was one of the pinnacles of bliss he liked to scale when luck was with him. ”

“ Philip ground out between his set teeth the one word, “Money,” and Barbara was silent.
“We are most unfortunate,” he continued. “We both belong to what are called prosperous and well-to-do families and yet beyond a well defined point there is not an extra penny, every cent being swallowed up in the wretched sham of appearances. I own frankly I am poor, and as if this were not misfortune enough in itself, my poverty is allied to a worthless sneaking respectability that is maintained at the cost of constant sacrifice. ”

“ How long they were together after that neither of them knew. The happy moments are those that are never counted. Only misery has time to note the flight of time and to curse its slowness, grumbling at the lagging seconds.
But she had space to tell him of the life she had lived, the life that took its place that night with the things to be forgotten.
Perkins, returning from seeing his friends started on their journey, chanced to open the library door quietly and saw something which he subsequently described to Philip as “paralyzing.” ”

“ How mistaken he was in every impulse and ideal.
“I have not tried to deceive you, Geoff. Why should I attempt to? But it is so sad that we should waste our lives, when there are such possibilities within us if we would only consent to make the most of them. We have both lived so untrue to what is best.”
This elicited only a contemptuous shrug from Geoff.
Margaret clasped her hands, while a spot of red burned in each cheek. “Why can't we go back?—back into the past so far we shall forget the wretched years we have wasted so wickedly?” ”

“ Lester waved his hand as he paused in the sudden burst of light from the opened door. Then the door closed, and Philip stood alone, staring thoughtfully at the darkness where but a moment before the streaming light had been: “I am sorry for him—but, suppose he avails himself of the proffer of companionship I was rash enough to make and eats up hours and hours of my precious time—what's going to become of my work? This won't do. A wretched creature who has squandered his fortune in riotous living comes along, makes a brutal assault on my feelings, and I weakly succumb—amiable ass that I am!” ”

“ Perkins, surveying the faces of his friends with an angelic smile upon his own freckled features, noted his abstraction.
“What's the matter, Philip?” he asked. “Nothing. I am simply in the depths to-night. I fear I am not very desirable to have about in my present mood.”
“Is it the work?” asked Margaret.
“It's everything!” He roused himself with an effort. “Utter and complete dissatisfaction with my surroundings for one thing—the feeling that I am dying with dry rot. I suppose to you it seems fresh and interesting. You can't fancy what it is to those who have to live here. ”

“ You must not, Philip!”
But he moved slowly to the door.
“I can't tell you how hard I shall work. Just be brave and good as you have been from the start and it will come out all right.”
“I can't wait forever—and I need you now.”
“You will have to, dearest.”
“Doesn't it make you furious?”
“What, Barbara?”
“Furious, that he can interfere with us. It's our life—our love. We only ask to be left alone. ”

“ For answer Lester cried hoarsely in a voice choked with emotion and grief, “I am done for, Philip—done for! I am dying by inches—I!—and a year ago I thought I should live forever.”
He buried his face in his hands, sobbing like a child.
The spectacle of a man in tears was not at all soothing to Philip. Perhaps there might have been times when he would have done the same thing, but that was no excuse for Lester.
He had done and probably would continue to do a great many things that he could not pardon in another.
“Come! come! this won't do. Be a man,” he said coldly. ”

“ Gordon, at his desk, was trying to add a long column of figures, while every now and then something fell upon the pages of the ledger before him that raised a round blister or blurred the ink.
That day marked the beginning of the change with John Norton. He felt that this new position of his was held at the expense of manhood and self-respect. This left its mark on his character. Alertness and energy seemed to leave him as the ambition faded out of his life. In his despair he became morbid. His was the uncertainty of a man who feels he has failed without knowing how or where. ”

“ Lester turned a pair of bloodshot eyes full on Philip and asked: “You think I have been a fool, don't you?”
Philip shifted his feet uneasily. He felt that truth played such an insignificant part in the exercise of civility.
“You think I have been a fool?” Lester repeated.
“Before I answer that I'd like to know why you ask. You see the reason that prompts an inquiry is more than apt to determine its answer with me. I always wish to give satisfaction.” ”

“ Philip turned his back on the town. It was just the season for a tramp into the country, and since the greater part of the day had been wasted as far as writing was concerned he proposed to amuse himself.
As he strode along thoughts of Lester would come to him, and in the end pity had replaced his momentary bitterness toward him.
“Poor fellow!” he muttered. “Maybe he can't help it, after all. Unless one has ambition or hope there isn't much to keep one up. I wish I knew where he has hidden himself. ”

“ These, after the first flush of war had paled its glow for them, began to think sadly of consequences. The hard life, the thirst and starvation of the foray, grew stale and tedious; they longed for the ease and sloth of the reservation, where water was plenty and rations had the noble quality of regularity.
Two Indians in particular wished to be taken back into the fold; and as the days came full of effort and hunger, this wish thrived apace, and they agreed that the white father would doubtless pay well for a little information as to Le Boyen's whereabouts. ”

“ Philip said.
“So we must,” Perkins acquiesced cheerfully. “What a disgusting pig I am to think of myself when they are so happy.”
Later, on going down-stairs, they encountered
Franz and Margaret in the hall, and Philip, glancing at Margaret as she stood just beneath the tempered light falling from the chandelier, decided he had never seen any one so beautiful—except Barbara, who was incomparable. He divined that now to her, life seemed to hold much—to be so fine a gift. ”

“ And now if you'll help me into my overcoat, I'll start home.”
No sooner was Philip gone than Perkins took from his waistcoat pocket, where he had secreted them, the lilies-of-the-valley Margaret had given him. As he gazed at them a telltale moisture mounted to his eyes. He could only shake his head mournfully and deposit them again—not next his heart—but near an equally important organ and one he knew more of, even though he was in doubt as to its exact location.
Poor Perkins! He was learning that a disinterested love has its griefs. It's not unmitigated bliss to witness another's rapture. ”

“ My friends are willing to pay something for the opportunity to criticize the drivel—it's about the only opportunity they have had yet. It's a great thing to be a literary man in a small town, Barbara!”
“I hate to think I am to be bought,” Barbara said angrily. “That it all rests on money, as though love were valueless.”
“It's a commercial age.”
“You seem to believe in nothing.” There was marked disfavor in her glance.
Philip raised his eyes to hers. “I believe in your happiness and mine if I succeed. I have every confidence in myself.” ”

“ There were many reasons that might have induced the young girl to marry a man fifty years her senior—many reasons—and yet all of them were far removed from the realm of the affections. This Margaret Dennie knew well, and to her sorrow.
She would have liked to forget it all—indeed, the wish had extended over the last three years and resulted only in the positive knowledge that one can forget anything provided one wishes to remember it, or it is useful. Bitterness alone is defiant in the presence of forgetfulness. ”

“ The much spent on the worthless shams—the little on the solid comforts of a good living.
“As if any one is deceived or thinks us richer than we are,” Philip thought. “We are more or less like our neighbors and they estimate our income to the last penny, just as we do theirs.” There was something so hopeless about the aspect life took on, something so perilously near to the perpetual grind of downright poverty, that it made him revolt and he burst out angrily: “Why, in heaven's name, don't you find some more cheerful subject to discuss! ”

“ MacCandlish called the law of supply and demand—which he seemed to hold in the very tenderest regard—regulated things. He saw, too, that millionaires were only far-sighted individuals who had mastered the fact that what the world tossed aside to-day it would urgently need to-morrow, and garnered this waste, exacting a small margin of profit for the service.
“It's great!” Mr. Feeny told himself in a spent whisper. “I go somewhere as far as I can get, and raise things—no matter what—and then one of these here capitalists comes along and says: 'Feeny, me boy, how are your crops? ”

“ Becker voiced the thought that was uppermost in his mind: “My father and mother think I am as successful as any man need be. They do not comprehend that what I am doing now is drudgery, a present makeshift only—that my career is all before me. The only opportunity I have had, and I should scarcely call it that, was five years ago when I went to New York, thinking, for I knew no better, that I might accomplish something there. I tramped the streets for days in my effort to get a hearing. I offered my manuscripts to any one who would print them, as a gift. ”

“ Perkins, mindful of Russell's revelations, tried hard, but failed miserably, to be hospitable.
Nor did Philip and the prodigal prove congenial. They amused themselves by a frequent interchange of scantily veiled insults, staying perpetually and perilously near downright trouble of the head-breaking sort.
But the most pronounced ill will was felt by Franz.
No man fancies seeing the woman he loves controlled and commanded, with scant appreciation of her rights, by another, even when that other is her brother. ”