nd a mind--well, not much of a mind, but
when you think what that Italian woman does with half-wit
children--surely the right educators could have made something quite
showy out of me. The energy I had put into acquiring skill at games
and in learning the short cuts to pleasure, might have been expended on
righteousness and the development of character. Most at ease with the
great, I might, during the dearth of great men, have aspired to be an
ambassador. I'd have married young, and have given all the tenderness
which various women have roused in me, to one woman. And there would
have been children, and stability, and a home constantly invaded by
proud and happy grandparents. Or if these fine things had not been in
my reach, at least I might have shaken the dust of futile places from
my feet, and closed my ears to the voices of futile people. Often I
have had the valorous adventurous impulse, and the curiosity to find
out what was "beyond the ranges"--merely to resist it. I am Tomlinson,
I thought. I might have been Childe Roland.

Was there not still time to turn a new leaf--to be somebody, to
accomplish something? Yes, I could make the woman who awaited me
beyond the puddle of scandal--happy. I could--I must be unselfish and
fine where she was concerned. The world might forgive me, it would
never quite forgive her. The world would never believe that we had
played the game as fairly as it can be played. There would be such
talk as, "Of course the moment Fulton found out what was going on, he
got rid of her." Other people would say, "Well, damaged goods is all
he ever deserved, anyway."

Lucy, damaged goods? I stole a look at her. Little and lovely and
happy and full of laughter at the head of her table, there was no
shadow upon that pansy face. She was, as always, living in the moment.
From all our troubles and complications, "a rose high up against the
thunder were not so white and far away." Remorse would never greatly
torment her. In time, too, Fulton's hungry stone-gray face of the last
weeks would fade from my memory.

XXIX

Beyond saying that he thought for various reasons we should see less of
each other, Fulton had made no effort to keep Lucy and me apart. If he
had an adviser in this, that adviser was Schuyler. The idea, I
suppose, was that Lucy, unopposed, would soon tire of the affair, as
she had tired of others in her extreme youth, and return to her duty,
if not to her affec