e room which we shared together. For a
dozen years we shared that room and other things--ponies, trips abroad,
many luxuries. For the father and mother who worshipped and pampered
John, and who were casually kind to me, an uninteresting orphan--these
were rich, then, and free-handed. Too free-handed, it was seen later,
for when the two were killed at one moment in an accident, only debts
were left for John. I was suddenly important, I, the gray satellite of
the rainbow prince, for I had a moderate fortune. The two of us were
just graduated from Yale; John with honors and prizes and hosts of
friends, I with some prizes and honors. Yet I had not been "tapped" for
"Bones" or "Scroll and Key"[49-1] and I was a solitary pilgrim ever,
with no intimates. We stood so together, facing out towards life.

I split my unimpressive patrimony in two and John took his part and
wandered south on a mining adventure. For that, he was always keen
about the south and his plan from seventeen on was to live in Italy.
But it was I, after all, who went to Italy year after year, while John
led Lord knows what thriftless life in Florida. From the last morning
when he had wheeled, in our old big room, and dashed across it and
thrown his arms around me in his own impulsive, irresistible way--since
that morning I had never seen him. Letters, plenty. More money was
needed always. John always thought that the world owed him a living.

Then he did the thing which was incredible and I pulled him out and
hushed up the story and repaid the money, but it made me ill, and I
suppose I was a bit savage, for he barely answered my letters after,
and shortly stopped writing altogether. John could not endure
unpleasantness. I lost sight of him till years later when he--and
I--were near forty and I had a note signed Margaret Donaldson, John's
wife. John was dead. He had been on a shooting trip and a gun had gone
off. Though it was not in words, yet through them I got a vague
suggestion of suicide. Heavy-hearted, I wondered. The life so suddenly
ended had once been dear to me.

"They did not bring John home," the note said. "He was so badly
mutilated that they buried him near where he died. I believe he would
have wanted you to know, and for that reason I am writing. I am an
entirely capable bread-winner, so that John's boy and I will have no
troubles as to money."

There was a child two years old. I liked the chill and the independence
of the proud little note