Love stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Speculation -- Fiction; Wall Street (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction
As the _Albatross_ steamed into the little harbor, I saw Mowbray
Langdon's _Indolence_ at anchor. I glanced toward Steuben Point--where
his cousins, the Vivians, lived--and thought I recognized his launch at
their pier. We saluted the _Indolence_; the _Indolence_ saluted
us. My launch was piped away and took me ashore. I strolled along the path
that wound round the base of the hill toward the kennels. At the crossing
of the path down from the house, I paused and lingered on the glimpse
of one of the corner towers of the great showy palace. I was muttering
something--I listened to myself. It was: “Mulholland, Mrs. Mulholland and
the four little Mulhollands.” And I felt like laughing aloud, such a joke
was it that I should be envying a policeman his potato patch and his fat
wife and his four brats, and that he should be in a position to pity me.
You may be imagining that, through all, Anita had been dominating my mind.
That is the way it is in the romances; but not in life. No doubt there are
men who brood upon the impossible, and moon and maunder away their lives
over the grave of a dead love; no doubt there are people who will say that,
because I did not shoot Langdon or her, or myself, or fly to a desert or
pose in the crowded places of the world as the last scene of a tragedy,
I therefore cared little about her. I offer them this suggestion: A man
strong enough to give a love worth a woman's while is strong enough to live
on without her when he finds he may not live with her.
As I stood there that summer day, looking toward the crest of the hill,
at the mocking mausoleum of my dead dream, I realized what the incessant
battle of the Street had meant to me. “There is peace for me only in the
storm,” said I. “But, thank God, there is peace for me somewhere.”
Through the foliage I had glimpses of some one coming slowly down the
zigzag path. Presently, at one of the turnings half-way up the hill,
appeared Mowbray Langdon. “What is he doing here,” thought I, scarcely able
to believe my eyes. “Here of all places!” And then I forgot the strangeness
of his being at Dawn Hill in the strangeness of his expression. For it was
apparent, even at the distance which separated us, that he was suffering
from some great and recent blow. He looked old and haggard; he walked like
a man who neither knows nor cares where he is going.
He had not seen me, and my impulse was to avoid him by continuing on toward
the kennels. I had no especial feeling against him; I had not lost Anita
because she cared for him or he for her, but because she did not care for
me--simply that to meet would be awkward, disagreeable for us both. At the
slight noise of my movement to go on, he halted, glanced round eagerly,
as if he hoped the sound had been made by some one he wished to see. His
glance fell on me. He stopped short, was for an instant disconcerted; then
his face lighted up with devilish joy. “You!” he cried. “Just the man!” And
he descended more rapidly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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