Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1946-04-05
CHAPTER XII

forgivable iniquity of having been
born a Jew, and of being so rock
bound in his own goodness that he
was incapable of accepting the evil
OF mankind until it had crushed him
beyond escape. There had been
little he could do in his love for
Jacoby's memory, nothing but get
to the United States while there was
still time to save Jacoby's child.
His grief and rage at what had
happened to his friend, and his ter
Tor lest he not be able to bring ia
coby's little girl to safety, had been
SO great that not until he was on
the westbound steamer did he real
lie that when he got to America he
was probably going to see Elizabeth.
He knew her husbands name was
Spratt Herlong and that he was en-
ployed by Vertex Studio, and in his
own luggage was a contract signed
in the Paris office of Vertex. He
would be virtually sure to meet Her.
long some day, and it might follow
as matter of course that he would
meet Elizabeth. He went into his
cabin and looked at himself long
time In the glass, as he was doing
now. II there was a chance Of her
knowing him he would break his
contract and make a living as a
translator, clerk, anything that
would provide little Margaret with
three meals a day without destroy
ing Elizabeth's peace of mind.
But a long scrutiny satisfied him
that there was no chance Of it. In
no sense, except the memory Of her
behind all that had happened since
that explosion at Chateau-Thierry,
could he believe he had any trace of
the Arthur Kittredge she had known.
He was Erich Kessler, dear friend of
the late DR.. Gustav Jacoby, author
of books based on case histories of
DR.. Jacoby's patients, and the
change in his personality was as
thorough as the change in his name.
No man who had endured what he
had endured in body and spirit could
have much left in common with a
happy, arrogant youth who did not
know what it was to want anything
he could not get.
He looked thoughtfully at his i'm
age in the glass. Crippled as he was,
his appearance was not repulsive.
One could see that in spite of his
uncertain legs he had been meant
for a tall man, and since his torso
had to carry his weight the muscles
there were powerfully developed.
The effect was inevitably one-sided,
since his left sleeve had been empty
so long, but his right arm was like
that of an athlete, and the hand
which for twenty years had support
ed him upon a cane, was strong
enough to break a china cup be-
tween the thumb and fingers. His
face had no visible trace Of the
wound there except scar that went
upward from beneath his beard in a
thin curving line. His hair was still
thick, gray like steel; his beard was
heavy too, and darker. He had let it
grow with no thought of disguise,
but to cover the scars that all ia
coby's careful skin-grafting had not
been able to eliminate. Now he was
glad he had it and was so used to
it, for in spite of having seen thou
sands of Hitler's pictures most
Americans still thought of Germans
as being professors in dark boards.
She would not know him, but he
would know her, as readily as he
had known the picture standing on
Spratt Herlong's desk. To be sure,
he had been looking for it, but he
would have recognized it anyway as
Elizabeth. She had changed in those
years, of course, but her alteration
had been nothing more than the we'll
ordered development from youth
into the maturity that could have
been foreseen by anyone who had
been as intimately acquainted with
her as he had. Elizabeth had al
ways known what she wanted out of
life, because she was so eminently
fit to have it. Physically and spirit
ually, she had wanted love, mar
riage, children, a home in which she
would be no petted darling, but a
versatile and devoted creator. From
the beginning she had instinctively
known herself capable of bringing
all this into being, and so she had
looked forward to it with the eager
ness of those who have no doubt
of their destiny. When he met
Spratt, and saw the pictures of Eliz-
abeth in Spratt's Office, he felt that
the change time had made in her
appearance had been no more than
achievement of something of which
one has seen the beginning. Now
that he could think of her without the
pain of the earlier years, he was
glad he had been wise enough to
step aside SO that she could have it.
He saw the pictures last week, on
the first day he went into Spratt's
office Snratf had heen talking for