The Breaking Point - Page 259/275

But he found himself up against the stone wall of David's opposition. He

was too old to be uprooted. He liked to be able to find his way around

in the dark. He was almost childish about it, and perhaps a trifle

terrified. But it was his final argument that won Dick over.

"I thought you'd found out there's nothing in running away from

trouble."

Dick straightened.

"You're right," he said. "We'll stay here and fight it out together."

He helped David up the stairs to where the nurse stood waiting, and then

went on into his own bedroom. He surveyed it for the first time since

his return with a sense of permanency and intimacy. Here, from now on,

was to center his life. From this bed he would rise in the morning,

to go back to it at night. From this room he would go out to fight for

place again, and for the old faith in him, for confiding eyes and the

clasp of friendly hands.

He sat down by the window and with the feeling of dismissing them

forever retraced slowly and painfully the last few months; the night on

the mountains, and Bassett asleep by the fire; the man from the cabin

caught under the tree, with his face looking up, strangely twisted, from

among the branches; dawn in the alfalfa field, and the long night tramp;

the boy who had recognized him in Chicago; David in his old walnut bed,

shrivelled and dauntless; and his own going out into the night,

with Lucy in the kitchen doorway, Elizabeth and Wallace Sayre on the

verandah, and himself across the street under the trees; Beverly, and

the illumination of his freedom from the old bonds; Gregory, glib and

debonair, telling his lying story, and later on, flying to safety. His

half-brother!

All that, and now this quiet room, with David asleep beyond the wall and

Minnie moving heavily in the kitchen below, setting her bread to rise.

It was anti-climacteric, ridiculous, wonderful.

Then he thought of Elizabeth, and it became terrible.

After Reynolds came up he put on a dressing-gown and went down the

stairs. The office was changed and looked strange and unfamiliar. But

when he opened the door and went into the laboratory nothing had been

altered there. It was as though he had left it yesterday; the microscope

screwed to its stand, the sterilizer gleaming and ready. It was as

though it had waited for him.

He was content. He would fight and he would work. That was all a man

needed, a good fight, and work for his hands and brain. A man could live

without love if he had work.