Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-04-13

AT any OLuer IuoueHt ne uiSnI Ause
pondered over her manner OF accept
Ing them-the easy indifference with
which she let him go. But vastly
keener issues were claiming his atten.
ton. Issues whose results were wide
and black
He left the theater and, refusing the
overtures of cabmen, set himself to
walk to Chilcote's house. His face
was hard and emotionless as he hur
ried forward, but the chaos in his mind
found expression in the unevenness OF
his pace To Il strong man the con-
fronting Of difficulties Is never alarm
Ing and Is often fraught with inspira.
ton, but this applies essentially to the
difficulties evolved through the weak
ness, the folly or the force of anotheri
when they arise from within the mat
ter is Of another character. 1t Is In
presence Of his own soul, and in that
presence alone, that man may truly
measure himself, =
AS Loder walked onward, treading
the whole familiar length of traffic
filled street, he realized for the first
time that he was standing before that
solemn tribunal-that the hour had
come when he must answer to himself
for himself. The longer and deeper an
oblivion the more painful the awaken.
Ing. For months the song of self had
beaten about his ears, deadening all
other sounds; now abruptly that song
had ceased. not considerably, not lin
geringIy, but with suddenness that
made the succeeding silence very ter.
rible.
He walked onward, keeping his d.
rection unseeingly. He was passing
through the fire as surely as though
actual flames rose about his feet, and
whatever the result, whatever the fiber
of the man who emerged from the Or
deal, the John Loder who had hewn
his way through the past weeks would
exist no more The triumphant egotist,
the strong man who by his own
strength had kept his eyes upon one
point, refusing to see IN other direc.
tons, had ceased to be.
Keen. though it was. his realization
| of this crisis in his life had come with
| characteristic slowness. When Lillian
| Astrupp had given her dictum, when
the music of ihe orchestra had ceased
| and the curtain risen on the second act
Of the play, nothing but sense OF
stupefaction had filled his mind. In
| that moment the great song was. ST.
fenced, not By any portentous episode,
not by any incident that could have
lent dignity to its end but, with the
full measure of life's irony, by trivial
social commonplace. In the first SEN
sation of blank loss his faculties had
been numbed. In the quarter of an
hour that followed the rise of the cur
tain he had sat staring at the stage,
seeing nothing, hearing nothing, filled
with the enormity Of the void that sud
denly surrounded him. Then, from
habit, from constitutional tendency, he
had begun slowly and perseveringly
to draw first one thread and then an
other from the tangle of his thoughts,
to forge with doubt and difficulty the
chain that was to draw him toward the
future.
1t was upon this same incomplete
and yet tenacious chain that his mind
worked as he traversed the familiar
streets and at last gained the house he
had so easily learned to call home.
AS he inserted the latchkey and felt
IL move smoothly in the lock momen.
tary revolt against his own judgment,
his own censorship, swung him sharply
toward reaction. But 1t is only the
blind who can walk without tremor
on the edge Of an abyss, and there was
no longer a bandage across his eyes.
The reaction fared up like strip Of
lighted paper; then, like a strip of
lighted paper, it dropped back to ashes.
He pushed the door open and slowly
crossed the hall.
The mounting Of staircase Is often
the index to mans state of mind. AS
Loder assembled the stairs Of Chilcote's
house his shoulders lacked their stiff
ness, his head was no longer erect. He
moved as though his feet were weight
ed. He had ceased to, be the man OF
achievement whose smallest opinion
compels consideration. In the privacy
of solitude he was the mere human flot.
sam to which he had once compared
himself-the fotsam that, dreaming 1T
has found harbor, wakes to find itself
the prey of the incoming tide.
He paused at the head of the stairs to
rally his resolutions. Then, still walk
Ing heavily, he passed down the corri-
dor to Ewes room. 1t was suggestive
of his character that, having made his
decision, he did not daily OYER it's per-
Torrance. Without waiting to knock,
he turned the handle and walked into
the room.
1t looked precisely as 1t always look
ed. but to Loder the rich, subdued col
oring of books and fowers-the whole
air of culture and repose that the place
conyeyed-seemed to hold deeper
meaning than before, and it was on the
instant that his eyes, crossing the in
animate objects, rested on their owner
that the true force of his position, the
enormity Of the task before him, made
itself plain. Realization came to him
with vivid, overwhelming force. and 1t
must be accounted to his credit in the
summing of isiquallties that then, in
that moment Of trial, the thought OF re-
treat the thought of yielding. did not
present itself.
Eve was standing by the mantel-