"But you've made up your mind to devote yourself to plays--to stand or fall by that."He remembered how he had thrilled her and himself with brave talk about the necessity of concentrating, of selecting a goal and moving relentlessly for it, letting nothing halt him or turn him aside.For his years Rod Spenser was as wise in the philosophy of success as Burlingham or Tom Brashear.But he had done that brave and wise talking before he loved her as he now did--before he realized how love can be in itself an achievement and a possession so great that other ambitions dwarf beside it.
True, away back in his facile, fickle mind, behind the region where self-excuse and somebody-else-always-to-blame reigned supreme, a something--the something that had set the marks of success so strongly upon his face--was whispering to him the real reason for his now revolving a New York newspaper job.Real reasons as distinguished from alleged reasons and imagined reasons, from the reasons self-deception invents and vanity gives out--real reasons are always interesting and worth noting.
What was Rod's? Not his love for her; nothing so superior, so superhuman as that.No, it was weak and wobbly misgivings as to his own ability to get on independently, the misgivings that menace every man who has never worked for himself but has always drawn pay--the misgivings that paralyze most men and keep them wage or salary slaves all their lives.Rod was no better pleased at this sly, unwelcome revelation of his real self to himself than the next human being is in similar circumstances.The whispering was hastily suppressed; love for her, desire that she should be comfortable--those must be the real reasons.But he must be careful lest she, the sensitive, should begin to brood over a fear that she was already weakening him and would become a drag upon him--the fear that, he knew, would take shape in his own mind if things began to go badly."You may be sure, dearest," he said, "I'll do nothing that won't help me on." He tapped his forehead with his finger."This is a machine for making plays.Everything that's put into it will be grist for it."She was impressed but not convinced.He had made his point about concentration too clear to her intelligence.She persisted:
"But you said if you took a place on a newspaper it would make you fight less hard.""I say a lot of things," he interrupted laughingly."Don't be frightened about me.What I'm most afraid of is that you'll desert me._That_ would be a real knock-out blow."He said this smilingly; but she could not bear jokes on that one subject.
"What do you mean, Rod?"
"Now, don't look so funereal, Susie.I simply meant that I hate to think of your going on the stage--or at anything else.I want you to help _me_.Selfish, isn't it? But, dear heart, if I could feel that the plays were _ours_, that we were both concentrated on the one career--darling.To love each other, to work together--not separately but together--don't you understand?"Her expression showed that she understood, but was not at all in sympathy."I've got to earn my living, Rod," she objected."Ishan't care anything about what I'll be doing.I'll do it simply to keep from being a burden to you----""A burden, Susie! You! Why, you're my wings that enable me to fly.It's selfish, but I want all of you.Don't you think, dear, that if it were possible, it would be better for you to make us a home and hold the fort while I go out to give battle to managers--and bind up my wounds when I come back--and send me out the next day well again? Don't you think we ought to concentrate?"The picture appealed to her.All she wanted in life now was his success."But," she objected, "it's useless to talk of that until we get on our feet--perfectly useless.""It's true," he admitted with a sigh.
"And until we do, we must be economical."
"What a persistent lady it is," laughed he."I wish I were like that."In the evening's gathering dusk the train steamed into Jersey City; and Spenser and Susan Lenox, with the adventurer's mingling hope and dread, confidence and doubt, courage and fear, followed the crowd down the long platform under the vast train shed, went through the huge thronged waiting-room and aboard the giant ferryboat which filled both with astonishment because of its size and luxuriousness.
"I am a jay!" said she."I can hardly keep my mouth from dropping open.""You haven't any the advantage of me," he assured her."Are you trembling all over?""Yes," she admitted."And my heart's like lead.I suppose there are thousands on thousands like us, from all over the country--who come here every day--feeling as we do.""Let's go out on the front deck--where we can see it."They went out on the upper front deck and, leaning against the forward gates, with their traveling bags at their feet, they stood dumb before the most astounding and most splendid scene in the civilized world.It was not quite dark yet; the air was almost July hot, as one of those prematurely warm days New York so often has in March.The sky, a soft and delicate blue shading into opal and crimson behind them, displayed a bright crescent moon as it arched over the fairyland in the dusk before them.
Straight ahead, across the broad, swift, sparkling river--the broadest water Susan had ever seen--rose the mighty, the majestic city.It rose direct from the water.Endless stretches of ethereal-looking structure, reaching higher and higher, in masses like mountain ranges, in peaks, in towers and domes.And millions of lights, like fairy lamps, like resplendent jewels, gave the city a glory beyond that of the stars thronging the heavens on a clear summer night.
They looked toward the north; on and on, to the far horizon's edge stretched the broad river and the lovely city that seemed the newborn offspring of the waves; on and on, the myriad lights, in masses, in festoons, in great gleaming globes of fire from towers rising higher than Susan's and Rod's native hills.
