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to grow ... to die . . . together. To help. Service — there she had it. The greater thing than Beauty. The essence of all beauty. Service . . . oh, there was such need for it, such an aching, tremendous need. What if one made mistakes? What if one stumbled and fell down? What if one never succeeded? To try ... to feel ... to know ... to give . . .
She turned to John Sterling, and he saw the pale flame of her stunted, flaccid spirit lifting its head. When she spoke her voice was lovely because its was choked.
"I " she said, then she spread forth her hands, "let me
bring flowers," she said, "fresh fruits . . . books . . . games ... let me ..."
John Sterling smiled. It was on his mouth to say, "We do not need these things so much as we need the warming fire of your heart, your sympathy." But he was too wise. He knew not to disdain the gifts of the giver.
When he left her at her door that night, she gave him her hand. "God's man," she said, then with a catch in her deep, soft voice, "God's man ..."
Henry Rowland had married Helen Burton because his phenomenal success, his staggering wealth had taught him to expect, to demand and to get, the last word in everything. Helen Burton seemed to him the last word in everything feminine. The most flawlessly beautiful.
The most finished. The most exquisite. She ^ had the poise of a
calla-lily. The warmth of the
of the orchid. He married her perfection. After he married her he found her perfection not enough. Her arms not enough. Nor her mouth. He wanted the spirit he didn't have to warm these things to vitality. Only her vitality could slake him. He was parched for her— not for her presence, not for her immediacy — for the inner spirit denied to him. He believed in that inner self. He knew that he would rather have the width of the continent between them, the spaces of the world, and know her his in truth, than hold her against his heart and be chilled by a sense of distance.
Henry Rowland had fought a gruelling bout for his ranking as one of the foremost millionaires. Fighting scars. The heat and fervor of his youth were still with him, but they were shut up. They were congealed. One dare not meet the world with youth and fervor. The world tramples such growths under mailed feet. He did not know how to show his heart to Helen. He had bought her. The bargain was not enough.
The night on which John Sterling came to ask funds for his charities Henry Rowland was alone in his study, and he was lonely. Bitterly lonely. He had won the fights he had vowed to win — but they had pinned him to a cross and not a cross to him. They had made a cross of his deep desire and nailed him to it. John Sterling seemed to hold forth an assuaging sponge. He felt like talking to some one, telling some one "all about it." He had not broken thru reserve in many a year. "It is not good for man to live alone." He thought, wretchedly, that there was no man so alone as he. He had got by the joy of all bought things. Purchase sickened him. Purchased love . . . the taint of it! . . . the stench!
The man groped for the whiskey bottle that stood, half emptied, before him