第166章

I have still strangely to record moments when,in spite of the aspirations I had achieved,of the redeeming vision I had gained,at the thought of returning to her I revolted.At such times recollections came into my mind of those characteristics in her that had seemed most responsible for my alienation....That demon I had fed so mightily still lived.By what right--he seemed to ask--had I nourished him all these years if now I meant to starve him?Thus sometimes he defied me,took on Protean guises,blustered,insinuated,cajoled,managed to make me believe that to starve him would be to starve myself,to sap all there was of power in me.Let me try and see if I could do it!Again he whispered,to what purpose had I gained my liberty,if now I renounced it?I could not live in fetters,even though the fetters should be self-imposed.I was lonely now,but I would get over that,and life lay before me still.

Fierce and tenacious,steel in the cruelty of his desires,fearful in the havoc he had wrought,could he be subdued?Foiled,he tore and rent me....

One morning I rode up through the shady canon,fragrant with bay,to the open slopes stained smoky-blue by the wild lilac,where the twisted madrona grows.As I sat gazing down on tiny headlands jutting out into a vast ocean my paralyzing indecision came to an end.I turned my horse down the trail again.I had seen at last that life was bigger than I,bigger than Maude,bigger than our individual wishes and desires.I felt as though heavy shackles had been struck from me.As I neared the house I spied my young doctor in the garden path,his hands in his pockets watching a humming-bird poised over the poppies.He greeted me with a look that was not wholly surprise at my early return,that seemed to have in it something of gladness.

"Strafford,"I said,"I've made up my mind to go to Europe.""I have been thinking for some time,Mr.Paret,"he replied,"that a sea-voyage is just what you need to set you on your feet."I started eastward the next morning,arriving in New York in time to catch one of the big liners sailing for Havre.On my way across the continent I decided to send a cable to Maude at Paris,since it were only fair to give her an opportunity to reflect upon the manner in which she would meet the situation.Save for an impatience which at moments Irestrained with difficulty,the moods that succeeded one another as Ijourneyed did not differ greatly from those I had experienced in the past month.I was alternately exalted and depressed;I hoped and doubted and feared;my courage,my confidence rose and fell.And yet I was aware of the nascence within me of an element that gave me a stability I had hitherto lacked:I had made my decision,and I felt the stronger for it.

It was early in March.The annual rush of my countrymen and women for foreign shores had not as yet begun,the huge steamer was far from crowded.The faint throbbing of her engines as she glided out on the North River tide found its echo within me as I leaned on the heavy rail and watched the towers of the city receding in the mist;they became blurred and ghostlike,fantastic in the grey distance,sad,appealing with a strange beauty and power.Once the sight of them,sunlit,standing forth sharply against the high blue of American skies,had stirred in me that passion for wealth and power of which they were so marvellously and uniquely the embodiment.I recalled the bright day of my home-coming with Maude,when she too had felt that passion drawing me away from her,after the briefest of possessions....Well,I had had it,the power.I had stormed and gained entrance to the citadel itself.Imight have lived here in New York,secure,defiant of a veering public opinion that envied while it strove to sting.Why was I flinging it all away?Was this a sudden resolution of mine,forced by events,precipitated by a failure to achieve what of all things on earth I had most desired?or was it the inevitable result of the development of the Hugh Paret of earlier days,who was not meant for that kind of power?

The vibration of the monster ship increased to a strong,electric pulsation,the water hummed along her sides,she felt the swell of the open sea.A fine rain began to fall that hid the land--yes,and the life I was leaving.I made my way across the glistening deck to the saloon where,my newspapers and periodicals neglected,I sat all the morning beside a window gazing out at the limited,vignetted zone of waters around the ship.We were headed for the Old World.The wind rose,the rain became pelting,mingling with the spume of the whitecaps racing madly past:within were warmth and luxury,electric lights,open fires,easy chairs,and men and women reading,conversing as unconcernedly as though the perils of the deep had ceased to be.In all this I found an impelling interest;the naive capacity in me for wonder,so long dormant,had been marvellously opened up once more.I no longer thought of myself as the important man of affairs;and when in the progress of the voyage I was accosted by two or three men Ihad met and by others who had heard of me it was only to feel amazement at the remoteness I now felt from a world whose realities were stocks and bonds,railroads and corporations and the detested new politics so inimical to the smooth conduct of "business."It all sounded like a language I had forgotten.