The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-06-14

| then OF their differences OF clothing
| and cleanliness, of education and re-
fncment. He was thinking of some
thing beyond these things. setting him
and his employer unalterably far apart
| something which he was trying to
identify. His mind. unadapted
for any consecutive reasoning. seized
clumsily on this new idea and began
| to grapple with It.
lie remembered his employer as he
| had seen him in his private office, still
at his post after every one else had
gone-surely a poor figure from which
to draw an example OF ideness re-
warded with criminal prodigality. His
was face fashioned in superior
mould. Power and ability and perfect
self-reliance were written on II too
clearly ever to have replaced other sorts
OF lineaments erased.
| Those qualities so expressed had
surely not grown up with that mans
good fortune. Surely he had been born
with them. Surely they had urged him
| to become what he was: they had been
responsible for that, had done that for
| him.
There at last through q rift in the
dark observation of unreasoning class
hatred shone the answer to everything
While some men came into the world
| with such spirit in eheir faces. there
could be nothing in common between
| them and such as this poor man. Their
sort must gain everything and his must
work in little, futile ways forever and
gain nothing. That innate difference
that tragedy Of fate's caprlcious handl-
cap OF brain and spirit-that was the
| answer.
an ell 4,
dismal confederation OF this how every
thing he had ever undertaken in all his
life had failed. He remembered how
everything with which he had ever had
personally to do had been infected by
his own perpetual failure. 1t had been
80 always with all his associations, with
the woman he had brought into his
| life
An! What was he seeing now? He
was seeing his wife in a form for a long
time strange to him and nearly forgot
ten. lie was seeing her as she had been
In that brief. almost unbelievable period
marked by their wedding day
He remembered she had been young
and fresh; her mind had then been
largely still INFORMED: her character
had been still unframed. She had been
the plastic material from which-how
| might have been fashioned.
And he, all their life together. had
been dragging her down with him
through the gloomy paths of his puerile,
profitless career. II she had begun then
with needless. youthful certainty OF the
| future. with vague but trustful young
| optimism. how long had Ii taken to
| show her the mistake of that. to wear
such tenuous things out, to give her In
place OF them all their antitheses? With
MN she had lost them so quickly, so
long ago. that only now with a quick
pang had he remembered them.
What was she now? She had grown
too early middle aged and ugly under
worry, slovenly and gross under hard
ship, querulous and bitter under mis-
fortune. She was what he had made
her.
He had made her so. He had made
| her what but little while ago he had
| loathed her for being
His wife! That long forgotten men
tai picture Of her stood out before him;
| the picture of her as she had been at
the beginning. when under the protec-
| ton OF such a man as his employer
| might she not have approached in large
| degree through ease and prosperity and
| cultivation the image OF such a woman
as his employers wife? If that was so.
ah, the mortal injury that all these
years he had been doing her!
| Finally. all his numbing thoughts ar
ranged. he came miserahly into that
familiar region. crowded. strident. dirty
and malodorous. where he lived. He
reached his tenement and climbed the
soiled, Uttered stairs. through air rank
with odors Of cooking food and OF I'M
g1.s 4. .Izz
and pushing II slowly open went In.
| But when he saw her. exactly as he
had pictured her in that contrast with
his employers wife. with every unlovely
detail Of her appearance cruelty evident,
| he stopped in the doorway. staring at
her wretchedly He was staring at all
| that he had done.
| She rose from the kitchen chair in
which she had been waiting for him.
glanced swiftly at the clock and then
| turned to him face full OF irritable.
indignant inquiry.
| But he stood still and mute, struck
so by the look that had preceded that
one-a look of real relief. for one in
slant Illuminating her face as he, ap-
pearing at last. had quoted her appre-
hension at his long lateness. The old,
familiar greeting he had expected-and
| ne had analyZed IL now ana knew Wnat
bitter. hopeless and just thoughts must
be behind II. But that first unconscious
look which he had found tonight in
place of it-that flash of unguessed So
licitude-melted all his numb apprehen-
| sion.
1t drove him stumblny forward to
her, with a face tremulous, chaotic;
with his fingers involuntarily reaching
out for her in n gesture which for
long time he had forgotten. He took
her in his arms, he smothered her
struggling amaZement with n sudden.
weak CONFUSION of dry sobs. In a
cracking voice, striving to express for
her his piercing realization, he cried:
my wife, MY poor wife,"
Could it have been merely contagion
of emotion which leaped from him to
ravage her susceptible feminine naturec
| Peculiarly her mouth in a swift SYM
pathethc response was suddenly con-
torted as though from pain. And then.
going all limp, she chung to him, her
coarse hands clutchlng his threadbare
l II.