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The summer burned itself out, and the autumn winds pierced the rotten staff
walls of the temple. They were no nearer to moving into better quarters
than they had been in the spring. The days had come when there was little
food, and the last precarious dollar had been spent. They lived on the edge
of defeat, and such an existence to earnest people is sombre.
Finally the tide turned. The manager of a large manufacturing plant in
Burnside, one of the little factory hamlets south of the city, asked
Sommers to take charge of an epidemic of typhoid that had broken out among
the operatives. The regular physician of the corporation had proved
incompetent, and the annual visitation of the disease threatened to be
unprecedented. Sommers spent his days and nights in Burnside for several
weeks. When he had time to think, he wondered why the manager employed him.
If the Hitchcocks had been in the city, he should have suspected that they
had a hand in the matter. But he remembered having seen in a newspaper some
months before that the Hitchcocks were leaving for Europe. He did not
trouble himself greatly, however, over the source of the gift, thankful
enough for the respite, and for the chance of renewed activity. When the
time for settlement came, the manager liberally increased the amount of the
doctor's modest bill. The check for three hundred dollars seemed a very
substantial bulwark against distress, and the promise of the company's
medical work after the new year was even more hopeful. Alves was eager to
move from the dilapidated temple to an apartment where Sommers could have a
suitable office. But Sommers objected, partly from prudential reasons,
partly from fear that unpleasant things might happen to Alves, should they
come again where people could talk. And then, to Alves's perplexity, he
developed strange ideas about money getting.
"The physician should receive the very minimum of pay possible for his
existence," he told her once, when she talked of the increase in his
income. "He works in the dark, and he is in luck if he happens to do any
good. In waging his battle with mysterious nature, he only unfits himself
by seeking gain. In the same way, to a lesser degree, the law and the
ministry should not be gainful professions. When the question of personal
gain and advancement comes in, the frail human being succumbs to
selfishness, and then to error. Like the artist, the doctor, the lawyer,
the clergyman, the teacher should be content to minister to human needs.
The professions should be great monastic orders, reserved for those who
have the strength to renounce ease and luxury and power."
The only tangible comfort that Alves derived from this unusually didactic
speech was the assurance that he would not be drawn away from her. She
bowed to his conception, and sought to help him. While he was attending the
cases in Burnside, she did some work as nurse. Beginning casually to help
on an urgent case, she went on to other cases, training herself, learning
to take his place wherever she could. She thought to come closer to him in
this way, but she suspected that he understood her motive, that her work
did not seem quite sincere to him. She was looking for payment in love.
When she was not engaged in nursing, she was more often alone than she had
been the year before. The Keystone people visited the temple rarely. Miss
M'Gann seemed always a little constrained, when Alves met her, and Dresser
was living on the North Side. One December morning, when Alves was alone,
she noticed a carriage coming slowly down the unfinished avenue. It stopped
a little distance from the temple, and a woman got out. After giving the
coachman an order, she took the foot-path that Alves and Sommers had worn.
Alves came out to the portico to meet the stranger, who hastened her
leisurely pace on catching sight of a person in the temple. At the foot of
the rickety steps the stranger stopped.
"You are Miss Hitchcock," Alves said quickly. "Won't you come in?"
"How did you know!" Miss Hitchcock exclaimed, and added without waiting for
a reply: "Let's sit here on the steps--the sun is so warm and nice. I've
been a long time in coming to see you," her voice rippled on cordially,
while Alves watched her. "But we've been out of the city so much of the
time,--California, North Carolina, and abroad."
Alves nodded. The young woman's ease of manner and luxurious dress
intimidated her. She sat down on the step above Miss Hitchcock, and she had
the air of examining the other woman without committing herself.
"But, how did you know me?" Miss Hitchcock exclaimed, with a little laugh
of satisfaction.
"Dr. Sommers has told me about you."
"Did he! He didn't tell any one of his marriage." The bluntness of the
speech was relieved by the confidential manner in which Miss Hitchcock
leaned forward to the other woman.
"It was sudden," Alves replied coolly.
"I know! But _we_, my father and I, had a right to feel hurt. We knew
him so well, and we should have liked to know you."
"Thank you."
"But we had no cards--you disappeared--hid yourselves--and you turn up in
this unique place! It's only by chance that I've found you now."
"We didn't send out cards. We are such simple people that we don't
expect--"
Miss Hitchcock blushed at the challenge, and interrupted to save the speech
from its final ungraciousness.
"Of course, but we are different. We have always been so interested in Dr.
Sommers. He was such a promising man."
Alves made no effort to reply. She resented Miss Hitchcock's efforts to
reach her, and withdrew into her shell. This young woman with her attendant
brougham belonged to the world that she liked to feel Sommers had renounced
for her sake. She disliked the world for that reason.
"Is he doing well?" Miss Hitchcock asked bluntly. "He was so brilliant in
his studies and at the hospital! I was sorry that he left, that he felt he
ought to start for himself. He had a good many theories and ideals. We
didn't agree,"--she smiled winningly at the grave woman, "but I have had
time to understand somewhat--only I couldn't, I can't believe that my
father and his friends are _all_ wrong." Miss Hitchcock rushed on
heedlessly, to Alves's perplexity; she seemed desperately eager to
establish some kind of possible understanding between them. But this cold,
mature woman, in her plain dress, repelled her. She could not prevent
herself from thinking thoughts that were unworthy of her.
Why had he done it! What had this woman to give that the women of her set
could not equal and more than equal? The atmosphere of her brougham, of her
costly gown and pretty hat contrasted harshly with the dingy temple and
dead weeds of the waste land. Dr. Lindsay had said much, and insinuated
more, about the entanglement that had ruined the promising young surgeon.
Was it this woman's sensual power--she rejected the idea on the instant.
Dr. Sommers was not that kind, in spite of anything that Lindsay might say.
She could not understand it--his devotion to this woman, his giving up his
chances. It was all a part of some scheme beyond her power to grasp fully.
"I want to know you," she said at last, after an awkward silence. "Won't
you let me?"
Alves leaned slightly forward, and spoke slowly.
"You are very kind, but I don't see any good in it. We don't belong to your
world, and you would show him all the time what he has to get along
without. Not that he wouldn't do it again," she added proudly, noticing the
girl's lowered gaze. "I don't think that he would like to have me say that
he had given up anything. But he's got his way to make, _here_, and it
is harder work than you imagine."
"I don't see, then, why you refuse to let me--his old friends--help him."
Miss Hitchcock spoke impatiently. She was beginning to feel angry with this
impassive woman, who was probably ignorant of the havoc she had done.
"He doesn't want any help!" Alves retorted. "We are not starving now.
_I_ can help him. I will help him and be enough for him. He gave it up
for me."
"Can you get him friends and practice?" Miss Hitchcock asked sharply. "Can
you make it possible for him to do the best work, and stand high in his
profession? Will you help him to the place where he can make the most of
himself, and not sell his soul for bread?"
These questions fell like taunts upon the silent woman. She seemed to feel
beneath them the boast, 'I could have done all that, and much more!' These
words were like the rest of this fashionable young woman--her carriage, her
clothes, her big house, her freshness of person--all that she did not have.
Alves retorted:
"He won't let any one push him, I know. What he wants, he will be glad to
get by himself. And," she added passionately, "I will help him. If I stand
in his way,--and he can't do what he wants to do,--I will take myself out
of his life."
Boast for boast, and the older woman's passionate words seemed to ring the
stronger. They looked at each other defiantly. At last Miss Hitchcock
pulled her wrap about her, and rose to go. A final wave of regret, of
yearning not to be thrust out in this way from these lives made her say:
"I am sorry you couldn't have let me be a little friendly. I wanted to have
you to dinner,"--she smiled at the dull practicality of her idea; "but I
suppose you won't come."
"He may do as he likes," Alves said, in a more conciliatory manner.
"But he can't!" the girl smiled back good-humoredly. "One doesn't go to
dinner without one's wife, especially when one's wife doesn't like the
hostess."
Alves laughed at the frank speech. She might have liked this eager, fresh
young woman, who took things with such dash and buoyancy, if she could have
known her on even terms. As they stood facing each other, a challenge on
Miss Hitchcock's face, Alves noticed the doctor's figure in the road
beyond.
"I think that is Dr. Sommers coming. He can answer your question for
himself."
Sommers was approaching from Blue Grass Avenue; his eyes were turned in the
direction of the lake, so that he did not see the women on the steps of the
temple until Miss Hitchcock turned and held out her hand. Then he started,
perceptibly enough to make Alves's lips tighten once more.
"I have been calling on your wife," Miss Hitchcock explained, talking fast.
"But she doesn't like me, won't ask me to come again."
"We shall be very glad to see you," Alves interposed quickly. "But I make
no calls."
Miss Hitchcock declined to sit down, and Sommers accompanied her to the
waiting carriage. Alves watched them. Miss Hitchcock seemed to be talking
very fast, and her head was turned toward his face.
Miss Hitchcock was answering Sommers's inquiries about Colonel and Mrs.
Hitchcock. The latter had died over a year ago, and Colonel Hitchcock had
been in poor health.
"He has some bitter disappointments," Miss Hitchcock said gravely. "His
useful, honorable, unselfish life is closing sadly. We have travelled a
good deal; we have just come back from Algiers. It is good to be back in
Chicago!"
"I have noticed that the Chicagoan repeats that formula, no matter how much
he roams. He seems to travel merely to experience the bliss of returning to
the human factory."
"It isn't a factory to me. It is home," she replied simply.
"So it is to us, now. We are earning our right to stay within its gates."
"Are things--going better?" Miss Hitchcock asked hesitatingly. She scanned
the doctor's face, as if to read in the grave lines the record of the year.
"We are alive and clothed," he replied tranquilly.
"What a frightful way to put it!"
"The lowest terms--and not very different from others." His eye rested upon
the glossy horses and the spotless victoria.
"No!" Miss Hitchcock answered dispiritedly. "But I _won't_ think of it
that way. I am coming to see you again, if I may?"
"You were very good to look us up," he answered evasively.
They lingered, speaking slowly, as if loath to part in this superficial
manner. He told her of his employment in Burnside, and remarked slowly,
"I wonder who could have put the manager on my track."
"I wonder," she repeated, looking past him.
"You see I didn't start quite at the scratch," he added, his face relaxing
into a smile.
"I shouldn't quarrel about _that_ handicap."
"No, I am not as ready to quarrel as I once was."
Her face had the eager expression of interest and vitality that he
remembered. She seemed to have something more that she wanted to say, but
she simply held out her hand, with a warm "good-by," and stepped into the
carriage.
When he returned to the temple, Alves was busy getting their dinner. She
paused, and glancing at Sommers remarked, "How beautiful she is!"
"She is a good woman. She ought to marry," he responded.
"Why?"
"Because she is so sound and fine at bottom."
"You were glad to see her again."
"Did I show it unduly?"
"I knew you were, and she knows it."
When he looked at her a few moments later, her eyes were moist.
Read next: PART II#CHAPTER VII
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