Part 29 (1/2)
”If you're asking me personally, I'll say that there are lumps on my brow where I have b.u.mped hard, in spite of my A.B. degree. I'm disposed to think that college only postpones the day of our awakening; we've got to shoot the chutes anyhow. It is so written.”
She laughed at his way of putting it.
”Oh, you're not so much older that you can frighten me. People on the toboggan always seem to be having a good time; the percentage of those whose car jumps the track isn't formidable.”
”Just enough fatalities to flavor the statistics. The seniors over there have stopped singing; I dare say they're talking about life in large capital letters.”
”Well, there are plenty of chances. I'm rather of the opinion that we're all here to do something for somebody. n.o.body's life is just his own.
Whether we want it that way or not, we are all links in the chain, and it's our business not to be the weakest.”
”I'm an individualist,” he said, ”and I'm very largely concerned in seeing what Daniel Harwood, a poor young lawyer of mediocre abilities, can do with this thing we hear mentioned as life.”
”Oh, but there's no such thing as an individualist; the idea is purely academic!” and she laughed again, but less lightly. ”We're all debtors to somebody or something--to the world itself, for example.”
”For the stars up there, for gra.s.s and trees, for the moon by night and the sun by day--for the gracious gift of friends?”
”A little, yes; but they don't count so much. I owe my debt to people--real human beings, who may not be as lucky as I. For a good many thousand years people have been at work trying to cheer up the world--brighten it and make it a better place to live in. I owe all those people something; it's not merely a little something; it's a tremendous lot, and I must pay these other human beings who don't know what they're ent.i.tled to. You have felt that; you have felt it just as I have, I'm sure.”
”You are still in college, and that is what undergraduates are taught to call ideals, Miss Garrison. I hope you will hold on to them: I had mine, but I'm conscious of late that I'm losing my grip on them. It's inevitable, in a man's life. It's a good thing that women hold on to them longer; without woman's faith in such things the world would be a sad old cinder, tumbling aimlessly around in the void.”
She stopped abruptly in the path, very tall and slim in the dusk of starlight and moonlight. He had been carrying his hat in his hand and he leaned on his stick wondering whether she were really in earnest, whether he had displeased her by the half-mocking tone in which he had spoken.
”Please don't talk this old, romantic, mediaeval nonsense about women!
This is the twentieth century, and I don't believe for a minute that a woman, just by being a woman, can keep the world sweet and beautiful.
Once, maybe; but not any more! A woman's ideals aren't a bit better than a man's unless she stands up for them and works for them. You don't have to take that from a college senior; you can ask dear Mrs. Owen. I suppose she knows life from experience if any woman ever did, and she has held to her ideals and kept working away at them. But just being a woman, and being good, and nice, and going to church, and belonging to a missionary society--well, Mr. Harwood?”
She had changed from earnestness to a note of raillery.
”Yes, Miss Garrison,” he replied in her own key; ”if you expect me to take issue with you or Mrs. Owen on any point, you're much mistaken. You and she are rather fortunate over many of the rest of us in having both brains and gentle hearts--the combination is irresistible! When you come home to throw in your lot with that of about a quarter of a million of us in our Hoosier capital, I'll put myself at your disposal. I've been trying to figure some way of saving the American Republic for the plain people, and I expect to go out in the campaign this fall and make some speeches warning all good citizens to be on guard against corporate greed, invasions of sacred rights, and so on. My way is plain, the duty clear,” he concluded, with a wave of his stick.
”Well,” said Sylvia, ”if you care enough about it to do that you must still have a few ideals lying around somewhere.”
”I don't know, to be honest about it, that it's so much my ideals as a wish to help my friend Mr. Ba.s.sett win a fight.”
”I didn't know that he ever needed help in winning what he really wanted to win. I have heard of him only as the indomitable leader who wins whenever it's worth while.”
”Well,” Dan answered, ”he's got a fight on hand that he can't afford to lose if he means to stay in politics.”
”I must learn all about that when I come home. I never saw Mr. Ba.s.sett but once; that was at Waupegan when I was up there with Mrs. Owen nearly five years ago. He had just come back from the West and spent only a day at the lake.”
”Then you don't really know him?”
”No; they had counted on having him there for the rest of the summer, but he came one day and left the next. He didn't even see Mrs. Owen; I remember that she expressed surprise that he had come to the lake and gone without seeing her.”
”He's a busy man and works hard. You were getting acquainted with Marian about that time?”
”Yes; she was awfully good to me that summer. I liked Mr. Ba.s.sett, the glimpse I had of him; he seemed very interesting--a solid American character, quiet and forceful.”
”Yes, he is that; he's a strong character. He's shown me every kindness--given me my chance. I should be ashamed of myself if I didn't feel grateful to him.”