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A Stop-Over At Tyre
by
It would not be true to say that love had come to Albert Lohr as a relaxing influence, but it had changed the direction of his energies so radically as to make his whole life seem weaker and lower. As long as his love-dreams went out toward a vague and ideal woman, supposedly higher and grander than himself, he was spurred on to face the terrible sheer escarpment of social eminence; but when he met, by accident, the actual woman who was to inspire his future efforts, the difficulties he faced took on solid reality. His aspirations fell to the earth, their wings clipped, and became, perforce, submissive beasts at the plough. The force that moved so much of his thought was transformed into other energy.
The table was very gay at dinner next day. Maud was standing at the highest point of her girlhood dreams. Her flushed cheeks and shining eyes made her seem almost a child, and Hartley wondered at her, and relented a little in the face of such happiness.
“They’re gay as larks now,” thought Hartley to himself, as he joined in the laughter; “but that won’t help ’em any ten years from now.”
He could hardly speak next day as he shook hands at the station with his friend.
“Good-by, ol’ man; I hope it’ll come out all right, but I’m afraid–But there! I promised not to say anything about it. Good-by till we meet in Congress,” he ended, in a resolute attempt to conceal his dismay.
“Can’t you come to the wedding, Jim? We’ve decided on June. You see, they need a man around the house, so we–You’ll come, won’t you, old fellow? And don’t mind my being a little crusty last night.”
“Oh yes; I’ll come,” Jim said, in a tone which concealed a desire to utter one more protest, but to himself he said:
“That ends him! He’s jumped into a hole and pulled the hole in after him. A man can’t marry a family like that at his age, and pull out of it. He may, but I doubt it. Well, as I remarked before, it’s none o’ my funeral so long as he’s satisfied.”
But he said it with a painful lump in his throat, and he could not bring himself to feel that Albert’s course was right, and felt himself to be somehow culpable in the case.