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Glory Of The Conquered

<h2 id="id00987" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXIV</h2> <h4 id="id00988" style="margin-top: 2em">LOVE CHALLENGES FATE</h4> The doctor hung up the receiver slowly and with meditation. And when he turned from the telephone his thoughts did not leave the channel to which it had directed them. What was it Mrs. Hubers wanted? Why was she coming to the office at four that afternoon? Something in her voice made him wonder. He had offered to go out, but she preferred coming to the office. Evidently then she wished to see him alone; and she had specified that she come when he could give her the most time. Then there was something to talk over. He had asked for Karl, and she answered, cheerfully, that he was well. "And you?" he pursued, and she had laughed with that—an underlying significance in that laugh perplexed him as he recalled it, and had answered buoyantly: "I? Oh, splendid!" It did not leave his mind all day; he thought about it a great deal as he drove his car from place to place. It even came to him in the operating room, and it was not usual for anything to intrude there. He reached the office a few minutes ahead of the hour, but she was waiting for him. She rose as she saw him at the door and took an eager step forward. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes very bright, and her smile, as she held out her hand, had that same quality as her voice of the morning. She was so far removed from usual things that she resorted to no conventional pleasantries after they had entered the doctor's inner office, and she waited for him to attend to a few little things before giving her his attention. He knew by the way her eyes followed him about that she was eager to begin, and while there was a little timidity about her it seemed just a timidity of manner, of things exterior, while back of that he felt the force of her poise. He had never seen her so beautiful. She was wearing a brown velvet suit, a golden brown like some of the glints in her hair and some of the lights in her eyes. Her eyes, too, held that something which puzzled him. It was a windy day, and her hair was a little disarranged, which made her look very young, and her veil was thrown back from her face just right to make a frame for it. Why could not all women manage those big veils the way some women did, he wondered. He sat down in the chair before his desk, and swung it around facing her. Then he waited for her to speak. That little timidity was upon her for the second, but she broke through it, seeming to shake it off with a little shake of her head. "Dr. Parkman," she said—her voice was low and well controlled—"I have come to you because I want you to help me." He liked that. Very few people came out with the truth at the start that way. "I wonder if you know," she went on, looking at him with a very sweet seriousness, "that Karl is very unhappy?" His face showed that that was unexpected. "Why, yes," he assented, "I know that his heart has not been as philosophical as some of his words; but"—gently—"what can you expect?" She did not answer that, but pondered something a minute. "Dr. Parkman," she began abruptly, "just why do you think it is Karl cannot go on with his work? I do not mean his lectures, but his own work in the laboratory, the research?" Again he showed that she was surprising him. "Why surely you understand that. It is self-evident, is it not? He cannot do his laboratory work because he has lost his eyes." "Eyes—yes. But the eye is only an instrument; he has not lost his brain." The flush in her cheeks deepened. Her eyes met his in challenge. Her voice on that had been very firm. He was quick to read beyond the words. "You are asking, intending to ask, why he could not go on, working through some assistant?" "I want to know just what is your idea of why he cannot. All the things of mind and temperament—things which make him Karl—are there as before. Are we not letting a very little thing hold us back?"—there was much repression now, as though she must hold herself in check, and wait. "I've thought about it too!" he exclaimed. "Heaven knows I've tried to see it that way. But my conclusion has always been like Karl's: the handicap would be too great." "Why?" she asked calmly. "Why? Why—because," he replied, almost impatiently, and then laughed a little at his woman's reason. "I'll tell you why!"—her eyes deepening. "I'll tell you the secret of your conclusion. You concluded he could not go on with his work just because no assistant could be in close enough touch with Karl to make clear the things he saw." He thought a minute. Then, "That's about it," he answered briefly. "You concluded that two men's brains could not work together in close enough harmony for one man's eyes to fit the other man's brain." "You put it very clearly," he assented. She paused, as though to be very sure of herself here. "Then, doctor, looking a little farther into it, one sees something else. If there were some one close enough to Karl to bring to his brain, through some other medium than eyes, the things the eyes would naturally carry; if there were some one close enough to make things just as plain as though Karl were seeing them himself, then"—her voice gathered in intensity—"despite the loss of his eyes, he could go right on with his work." "Um—well, yes, if such an impossible thing were possible." "But it is possible! Oh if I can only make you see this now! Doctor, don't you see it? I am closer to him than any one in the world! I am the one to take up his work!" He pushed back his chair and sat staring at her speechlessly. "Dr. Parkman," she began—and it seemed now that he had never known her at all before—"most of the biggest things ever proposed in this world have sounded very ridiculous to the people who first heard of them. The unprecedented has usually been called the impossible. Now I ask you to do just one thing. Don't hold my idea at arm's length as an impossibility. Look it straight in the face without prejudice. Who would do more for Karl than any one else on earth? Who is closer to him than any one else in the world? Who can make him see without seeing?—yet, know without knowing? Dr. Parkman,"—voice eager, eyes very tender—"is there any question in your mind as to who can come closest to Karl?" "But—but—" he gasped. "I know," she hastened—"much to talk over; so many things to overcome. But won't you be very fair to me and look at it first as a whole? The men in Karl's laboratory know more about science than I do. But they do not know as much about Karl. They have the science and I have the spirit. I can get the science but they could never get the spirit. After all, isn't there some meaning in that old phrase 'a labour of love'? Doctor"—her smile made it so much clearer than her words—"did you ever hear of knowledge and skill working a miracle? Do you know anything save love which can do the impossible?" He did not speak at once. He did not find it easy to answer words like that. "But, my dear Mrs. Hubers," he finally began—"you are simply assuming—" "Yes,"—and the tenderness leaped suddenly to passion and the passion intensified to sternness—"I am simply assuming that it can be done, and through obstacle and argument, from now until the end of my life, I am going on assuming that very thing, and furthermore, Dr. Parkman,"—relaxing a little and smiling at him under standingly—"just as soon as the light has fully dawned upon you, you are going to begin assuming that, and you are the very man—oh, I know—to keep on assuming it in the face of all the obstacles which the University of Chicago—yes, and all creation—may succeed in piling up. There is one thing on which you and I are going to stand very firmly together. That thing,"—with the deep quiet of finality—"is that Karl shall go on with his work." Dr. Parkman had never been handled that way before; perhaps it was its newness which fascinated him; at any rate he seemed unable to say the things he felt he should be saying. "Dr. Parkman, the only weak people in this world are the people who sit down and say that things are impossible. The only big people are the people who stand up and declare in the face of whatsoever comes that nothing is impossible. For Karl there is some excuse; the shock has been too great—his blindness has shut him in. But you and I are out in the light of day, doctor, and I say that you and I have been weaklings long enough." He had never been called a weakling before—he had never thought to be called a weakling, but the strangeness of that was less strange than something in her eyes, her voice, her spirit, which seemed drawing him on. "Karl has lost his eyes. Has he lost his brain—any of those things which make him Karl? All that has been taken away is the channel of communication. I am not presuming to be his brain. All I ask is to carry things to the brain. Why, doctor,—I'm ashamed, mortified—that we hadn't thought of it before!" "But—how?" he finally asked, weakly enough. "I will go into Karl's laboratory and learn how to work—all that part of it I want you to arrange for me. After all, I have a good foundation. I think I told you about my father, and how hard he tried to make a scientist of me? And it was queer about my laboratory work. It was always easy for me. I could see it, all right—enough my father's child for that, but you see my working enthusiasm and ambition were given to other things. Now I'll make things within me join forces, for I will love the work now, because of what it can do for Karl. I need to be trained how to work, how to observe, and above all else learn to tell exactly what I see. I shall strive to become a perfectly constructed instrument—that's all. And I will be better than the usual laboratory assistant, for not having any ideas of my own I will not intrude my individuality upon Karl—to blur his vision. I shall not try to deduce—and mislead him with my wrong conclusions. I shall simply see. A man who knew more about it might not be able to separate what he saw from what he thought—and that would be standing between Karl and the facts." He was looking at her strangely. "And your own work—what would be happening to it, if you were to do—this?" "I have given my own work up," she said, and she said it so simply that it might have seemed a very simply matter. "You can't do that," he met her, sharply. "Yes,"—slowly—"I can. I love it, but I love Karl more. If I have my work he cannot have his, and Karl has been deprived of his eyes—he is giving up the sunlight—the stars—the face he loves—many things. I thought it all out last night, and the very simple justice of it is that Karl is the one to have his work." She was dwelling upon it,—a wonderful tenderness lighting her face; for the minute she had forgotten him. Then suddenly she came sharply back to the practical, brought herself ruthlessly back to it, as if fearing it was her practicality he would question. "Besides, Karl's work is the more important. Nobody is going to die for a water colour or an oil painting; people are dying every day for the things Karl can give. But, doctor,"—far too feminine not to press the advantage—"if I can do that, don't you think you can afford to break through your conservatism and—you will, doctor, won't you?" But Dr. Parkman had wheeled his chair about so that she could not see his face. His eyes had grown a little dim. "You see, doctor,"—gently,—"what I am going to give to it? Not only the things any one else could give, but all my love for Karl, and added to that all those things within myself which have heretofore been poured into my own work. I can paint, doctor, you and I know that, and I think you know something of how I love it. Something inside of me has always been given to it—a great big something for which there is no name. Now I am going to just force all that into a new channel, and don't you see how much there will be to give? And in practical ways too I can make my own work count. I know how to use my hands—and there isn't a laboratory assistant in the whole University of Chicago knows as much about colour as I do!"—she smiled like a pleased child. He looked at her then—a long look. He had forgotten the moisture in his eyes,—he did not mind. And it was many years since any one had seen upon Dr. Parkman's face the look which Ernestine saw there now. "Isn't it strange, doctor," she went on, after a pause, "how we think we understand, and then suddenly awake to find we have not been understanding at all? Karl and I had a long talk yesterday, and in that talk he seemed able to let me right into it all. All summer long I did my best, but I see now I had not been understanding. And understanding as I do now—caring as I care—do you think I can sit quietly by and see Karl make himself over to fit this miserable situation? Do you think I am going to help him adjust himself to giving up the great thing in him? No—he is not going to accept it! I tell you Karl is to be Karl—he is to do Karl's work—and find Karl's place. Why I tell you, Dr. Parkman, I will not have it any other way!" It was a passionate tyranny of the spirit over which caution of mind seemed unable to prevail. His reason warned him—I cannot see how this and this and that are to be done, but the soul in her voice seemed drawing him to a light out beyond the darkness. "Doctor,"—her eyes glowing with a tender pride—"think of it! Think of Karl doing his work in spite of his blindness! Won't it stand as one of the greatest things in the whole history of science?" He nodded, the light of enthusiasm growing more steady in his own eye. "But I have not finished telling you. After our talk yesterday it seemed to me I could not go on at all. I didn't know what to do. In the evening I was up in my studio—"—she paused, striving to formulate it,—"No, I see I can't tell it, but suddenly things came to me, and, doctor, I understand it now better than Karl understands it himself." He felt the things which she did not say; indeed through it all it was the unspoken drew him most irresistibly. "I'll not try to tell you how it all worked itself out, but I saw things very clearly then, and all the facts and all the reason and all the logic in the world could not make me believe I did not see the truth. My idea of taking it up myself, of my being the one to bring Karl back to his work, seemed to come to me like some great divine light. I suppose," she concluded, simply, "that it was what you would call a moment of inspiration." She leaned her head back as though very tired, but smiling a little. He did not speak; he had too much the understanding heart to intrude upon the things shining from her face. "I could do good work, doctor. I've always felt it, and I have done just enough to justify me in knowing it. I don't believe any one ever loved his work more than I love mine, and last night when I saw things so clearly I saw how the longing for it would come to me—oh, I know. Don't think I do not know. But something will sustain me; something will keep my courage high, and that something is the look there will be on Karl's face when I tell him what I have done. You see we will not tell Karl at first; we will keep it a great secret. He will know I am working hard, but will think it is my own work. If we told him now he would say it was impossible. His blindness, the helplessness that goes with it, has taken away some of his confidence, and he would say it could not be done. But what will he say,"—she laughed, almost gleefully—"when he finds I have gone ahead and made myself ready for him? When you tell him I can do it—and the laboratory men tell him so? He will try it then, just out of gratitude to me. Oh, it will not go very well at first. It is going to take practice—days and weeks and months of it—to learn how to work together. But, little by little, he will gain confidence in himself and in me, he will begin getting back his grip—enthusiasm—all the things of the old-time Karl, and then some day when we have had a little success about something he will burst forth—'By Jove—Ernestine—I believe we can make it go!'—and that," she concluded, softly, "will be worth it all to me." Again a silence which sank deeper than words—a silence which sealed their compact. She came from it with the vigorously practical, "Now, Dr. Parkman,"—sitting up very straight, with an assertive little gesture—"you go out to that university and fire their souls! Wake them up! Make them see it! And when do you think I can begin?" That turned them to actual issues; he spoke freely of difficulties, and they discussed them together calmly. Her enthusiasm was not builded on dreams alone; it was not of that volatile stuff which must perish in detail and difficulty. She was ready to meet it all, to ponder and plan. And where he had been carried by her enthusiasm he was held by her resourcefulness. "Are august dignitaries of reason and judgment likely to rise up and make it very unpleasant for you after I've gone?" she asked him, laughingly, when she had risen to go. "Very likely to," he laughed. "Tell them it's not their affair! Tell them to do what they're told and not ask too many questions!" "I'll try to put them in their proper place," he assured her. He watched her as she stood there buttoning her glove—slight, almost frail, scarcely one's idea of a "masterful woman." It struck him then as strange that she had not so much as asked for pledge of his allegiance. What was it about her—? She was holding out her hand. Something in her eyes lighted and glorified her whole face. "Thank you, doctor," she said, very low. For a long time he sat motionless before his desk. He was thinking of many things. "Nothing in which to believe," he murmured at last, looking about the room still warm with the spirit she had left—"nothing in which to believe—when there is love such as this in the world?" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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